There was another shooting in Maryland yesterday. A twenty six year old woman took a 9mm Glock pistol to work and shot seven people including herself. The police have not determined a motive. That is the headlines this morning as well as the coverage most of the day yesterday. It is that I am thinking about. The question is, and remains why? In all these instances the motive always remains the primary focus. But can we ever know the why? For me, the question is always, how could we prevent this from happening again? Sadly, I have to admit the answer is, we can't. I don't see any possible way to prevent people from doing terrible things. It is not so much the instrument used but the persons' willingness to do it. That is why the focus on motive. Man has always wondered why.
There will some murmurings about gun control once again. It wasn't one of those scary assault rifles this time and she had purchased the gun legally. In fact, she was hired as a security guard, so she must have passed certain background checks. The fact that a 9mm Glock is a semi-automatic pistol will be lost on a lot of people. They will not equate that with a assault rifle. Fact is, they are pretty much the same thing. Still the cries will go up from a few that no one should have the ability to own a weapon. That will be their answer, their solution. I offer no answer, no solution, because I have none. Like the news reporters, the FBI and everyone else, I wonder why. Why do people decide to do these things? What do they hope to accomplish? And my answer is always the same. I don't know. I do know there isn't a "one size fits all" answer. And that leads me to ask, does it matter at all? I mean does the motive matter ? It does only if known beforehand, in which case the action may be prevented from taking place. Knowing the motive after the fact does little besides satisfying a curiosity. The thing is, that's all that is left isn't it? Questions ? Why?
We all know that motive is what drives us to do something. Whether it is hunger, thirst, anger, greed or whatever we respond to those stimuli with an action. That is motive. What would motivate a person to kill another person, or a number of other persons? That is the question we face. When the motive is known, we seem to accept that as a reasonable response, to a degree. We even have " justifiable homicide " as a defense and everyone agrees that is reasonable enough. Yup, there are instances where a person needs killing, or at least where it is justified. When the motive isn't known however, there are no such assumptions. If multiple persons are killed it magnifies the tragedy. We want to know why, even though if it isn't war and they aren't enemy combatants, there will never be a justifiable reason. And isn't that the reason we seek motive? To understand why? If we know why, we can accept it. We can't understand insanity and that is the bottom line. For that reason I say we can't know the motive, not really. Just saying, that person was nuts, isn't enough. We want to know why the person was nuts. We want to know how could we have prevented that. We want to know! We want to know because we all feel vulnerable. It's a self preservation thing. It's instinct. I want to know why.
If I know why I can rationalize a scenario where it won't happen to me. It could be as simple as, take away all the guns, and no one gets shot. That appears to be a popular scenario these days. The rationale being, if there aren't any guns I can't get shot. In that case we are blaming the instrument, not the person. But what is the motive? We don't know and don't care as long the shooting stops. What about mental illness though? How do we determine that? Just how do we determine that mental illness is the motive behind these actions? Well, because its' just crazy isn't it? Of course it is! And what is the remedy? Just who decides upon that? We need to know why? Why did this happen? What can be done to prevent this in the future? Why?
There will some murmurings about gun control once again. It wasn't one of those scary assault rifles this time and she had purchased the gun legally. In fact, she was hired as a security guard, so she must have passed certain background checks. The fact that a 9mm Glock is a semi-automatic pistol will be lost on a lot of people. They will not equate that with a assault rifle. Fact is, they are pretty much the same thing. Still the cries will go up from a few that no one should have the ability to own a weapon. That will be their answer, their solution. I offer no answer, no solution, because I have none. Like the news reporters, the FBI and everyone else, I wonder why. Why do people decide to do these things? What do they hope to accomplish? And my answer is always the same. I don't know. I do know there isn't a "one size fits all" answer. And that leads me to ask, does it matter at all? I mean does the motive matter ? It does only if known beforehand, in which case the action may be prevented from taking place. Knowing the motive after the fact does little besides satisfying a curiosity. The thing is, that's all that is left isn't it? Questions ? Why?
We all know that motive is what drives us to do something. Whether it is hunger, thirst, anger, greed or whatever we respond to those stimuli with an action. That is motive. What would motivate a person to kill another person, or a number of other persons? That is the question we face. When the motive is known, we seem to accept that as a reasonable response, to a degree. We even have " justifiable homicide " as a defense and everyone agrees that is reasonable enough. Yup, there are instances where a person needs killing, or at least where it is justified. When the motive isn't known however, there are no such assumptions. If multiple persons are killed it magnifies the tragedy. We want to know why, even though if it isn't war and they aren't enemy combatants, there will never be a justifiable reason. And isn't that the reason we seek motive? To understand why? If we know why, we can accept it. We can't understand insanity and that is the bottom line. For that reason I say we can't know the motive, not really. Just saying, that person was nuts, isn't enough. We want to know why the person was nuts. We want to know how could we have prevented that. We want to know! We want to know because we all feel vulnerable. It's a self preservation thing. It's instinct. I want to know why.
If I know why I can rationalize a scenario where it won't happen to me. It could be as simple as, take away all the guns, and no one gets shot. That appears to be a popular scenario these days. The rationale being, if there aren't any guns I can't get shot. In that case we are blaming the instrument, not the person. But what is the motive? We don't know and don't care as long the shooting stops. What about mental illness though? How do we determine that? Just how do we determine that mental illness is the motive behind these actions? Well, because its' just crazy isn't it? Of course it is! And what is the remedy? Just who decides upon that? We need to know why? Why did this happen? What can be done to prevent this in the future? Why?
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