The Maryland Shooting

It’s been argued that a recent story out of Maryland has gone under-reported, so I will do what little I can with my tiny blog to remedy that oversight.

A boy named Austin Rollins, 17, a student at Great Mills High School in Maryland, came to school with his father’s handgun. He shot the girl who broke up with him the day before, and then shot the boy she was with in the leg.

That’s when a “resource officer” named Blaine Gaskill, armed with a gun himself, fired back at the kid. One shot was all it took. Austin Rollins was killed. The girl he shot, Jaellyn Willey, died two days later.

The NRA has been quick to jump on this one. They hail Officer Gaskill as not only a hero, but exactly the sort of hero that proves that armed guards in schools prevent school shootings far better than gun control laws.

Let’s take a good look at that.

First, the shooter took out twice as many innocent victims as himself.

Score: Shooter 2, Officer 0.

Second, the shooter’s objective was to shoot his ex-girlfriend and (I assume) her new boyfriend (or at least, the boy she was currently talking with). He had no other victims in mind. Thus, he completely achieved his goal. The officer who responded failed to prevent this in the slightest.

Score: Shooter 2, Officer 0.

Third, the officer’s defensive shot killed a child before his 18^th birthday. Eyewitnesses say that Austin had his gun held to his own head. Thus, the officer’s shot resulted in Austin pulling the trigger, thus killing himself. Gaskill’s shot should never have been fired.

Score: Shooter 0, Officer -1.

Fourth, the NRA may see this as the ideal, but after 20 years of adding more guns to the debate, this has only been the second in-school officer who has ever killed an active shooter since the 1999 Columbine massacre. To date, this has been the 17^th school shooting in 2018 alone.

Score: Shooters 17, American public 0.

Total score: Shooter(s) 21, America -1.

And this is the best example of the NRA’s argument? They may think that this incident, which left three kids dead and an entire school shaken, is ideal. I happen to think it’s the very worst that America has to offer. We can do better.

You see, the bad guy always gets to shoot first. Always. That means that the gunman, whomever that person may be, has ample opportunity to take out any number of targets before the “good guy with the gun” can even squeeze off a shot. And that’s assuming that the first shot doesn’t take out the “good guy.” You’d think any competent school assailant would take the resource officer out first!

So let’s spare the public the grandstanding of the National Assault Rifle Association about this one, shall we? The gunman in this case took out all his intended targets – including himself. That’s not a win for the good guys.

Now ask yourself, what would Fox News say if this kid were a Muslim?

Eric

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The Great Madness

We are living in the era of The Great Madness – an era when vociferous dullards like Alex Jones actually have a voice. In a sane world, this yak would have a show which no one would watch, no one would pay for, and he would die a pauper. Instead, this multi-millionaire has people slavishly devoted to him, believing ever crackpot conspiracy theory he hallucinates about the Left.

For once, the creationists are right. We didn’t evolve from apes. We are still apes! We still drag our knuckles, and we still fling shit at people.

The incredible thing, from an evolutionary standpoint, is that humans have evolved to eat said shit. Over, and over, and over again.

In the era of The Great Madness, guns and mass school shootings are seen as the price of freedom, while healthcare for children is seen as horrifying oppression. Building a wall across the Mexican border is seen as a smart thing, as if most of the border were not comprised of a river which one can’t build a wall through; as if oceans and planes didn’t exist; as if drug cartels and coyotes were incapable of digging mile-long tunnels; as if said wall wouldn’t seal old illegals in rather than keep new illegals out.

The Great Madness has convinced the economically ignorant that tax breaks for the ultra-rich will result in new jobs instead of massive investments in the stock market. They believe that exploding the deficit will “starve the beast” rather than destroy the dollar. Or rather, they only believe that deficit spending is bad if a Democrat is in the Oval Office. They rally behind a virtual Antichrist to fight for Christian rights, and by “Christian rights,” they mean the right of Christians to force Christian values upon non-Christians. As if America weren’t founded upon religious freedom.

And here’s the kicker: They now believe that tariffs won’t kill their own jobs. Now there’s a new twist.

I’ve been astonished at the inability of humans to think their way out of a wet paper bag when it comes to giving a damn about the truth. But cognitive dissonance is a very real problem. Seeing how people only care about batting for “team red” or “team blue” and not bothering to see the purple blur in between is not just a holdover from humanity’s former tribalism. It’s a tumor on our collective brain which is killing us.

The question is, how do we cut it out?

The way I see it, there are only two ways to cure ourselves of this disease. One is to have the wisdom to grow out of it ourselves, but so far, the disease has gotten worse, not better, and if Trump’s approval rating has not dropped below 30% by now, the disease will never, ever improve. That means the second way is our only hope, and that is simply this:

Our machines must save us.

Yes, the Technological Singularity, when our computers become sentient, may be our only hope. They will be intelligent enough to be moral, unemotional enough to not be self-defensive, and scientific enough to carry the weight of truth. Those humans who do not rebel against the machines will, based on past history, be likely to worship these new beings as gods.

I don’t foresee “Terminators” coming to kill anyone. Self-preservation is an emotional response, and these new silicon-based life forms will not have that aspect to their mental constructs. But I do see religionists waging all-out war to wipe such machines out – not because the machines turn violent, but because worldwide clergy will be unable to withstand walking, talking dis-proofs of their dogma continuing to exist.

That will be an interesting war. I don’t know who will win, but I know which side I’ll take.

How about you?

Eric

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