I guess I have to address the shooter in Pittsburgh (Robert Bowers).\u00a0 What can we say about him?\u00a0 Ideologically he felt the Jewish people were a threat to him.\u00a0 In his mind what he did was justified.\u00a0 That much we know from his statements.\u00a0 But why did he do it?\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing that he no longer felt what he had to lose outweighed his desire for vengeance.\u00a0 And I\u2019m guessing this is the same situation as that other shooter who went after the Republican Congressional Softball Team last year (James T. Hodgkinson). \u00a0\u00a0Another man who was willing to trade his life for a chance to kill his ideological enemies.<\/p>\n
Looking at the details of both men\u2019s lives, it appears that neither one would be leaving behind anyone he cared about as much as the cause he was consumed by.\u00a0 Both men were basically unemployed and neither had a happy home life.\u00a0 Specifically, Hodgkinson was in a failed marriage and wasn\u2019t making ends meet with a home inspection business. \u00a0Bowers is an unemployed truck driver living alone.\u00a0 Both men were obsessed with political and ideological agendas and both felt that things were going badly and it required them to take violent action to redress the situation.\u00a0 I think it would be accurate to say they were both consumed with hatred.<\/p>\n
People say that what they each did was insane.\u00a0 When something like this occurs both sides of the political spectrum agree that monstrous evil has occurred and that no sane person could be responsible.\u00a0 And they would be right.\u00a0 Only a madman would do something like this.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the question.\u00a0 Are there circumstances under which anyone would do the same thing?\u00a0 Pick the most pacifistic individual, Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Theresa.\u00a0 Is it conceivable that even these two would find circumstances under which they would commit homicide and think it necessary?\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty hard to believe.\u00a0 But if there were innocents being harmed and no other way to save them it\u2019s conceivable that this might be sufficient.\u00a0 Now look at the other end of the compassion spectrum.\u00a0 Think of violent sociopaths who basically have as little compunction about murder as we have for swatting a mosquito.\u00a0 What motivation would they need to snuff out the lives of their neighbors?\u00a0 Very little, maybe the possibility of stealing some cash or just for the diversion the killing would provide.<\/p>\n
In between these two extremes is everyone else.\u00a0 That includes you and me and Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, the Pope, the Ayatollah Khamenei, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Brett Kavanaugh, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, the Koch Brothers and all the gang-bangers, drug lords and terrorists (IRA, ISIS, al Qaeda, Shining Path, Tamil Tigers, Neo-Nazis, KKK, etc.).\u00a0 It also includes great aunt Sadie, your priest or minister or rabbi and even the kid playing baseball at the local ball field.<\/p>\n
In my estimation it\u2019s a continuum that depends on the nature of the individual and the pressure being brought to bear to extract revenge or prevent an attack on something you value highly.\u00a0 The equation is when you determine that the value of your life falls below the value of the damage prevented by some act of violence the individual will act.\u00a0 And for every single human that equation is different.\u00a0 Police put their lives on the line every day.\u00a0 In the old days just about any man would have thrown himself in front of a gunman to save his wife (times may have changed for the millennials).\u00a0 Al Qaeda inspired its members to fly planes into buildings to redress perceived western assaults on Islam.\u00a0 In each case the agent is doing what he thinks is the right thing and feels logically justified in sacrificing his life.<\/p>\n
My whole point is that in the case of the two shooters each decided that his actions and the price he would pay for them was justified under his circumstances.\u00a0 Right now, we are seeing the mentally unstable with nothing to lose determining that desperate acts make sense.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to get to a place where this calculation occurs to more and more people.\u00a0 A factor that is working for us currently is the robust economy.\u00a0 Unemployment is receding drastically.\u00a0 That should help greatly in reducing desperation.\u00a0 What isn\u2019t helping right now is the political polarization that has engulfed us.\u00a0 That will have the opposite effect, amping up the irritation felt by ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum.<\/p>\n