Another week, another mass shooting.
Today, or certainly by tomorrow, at least one of the candidates running for president is going to suggest that if only some of those county employees in San Bernardino had come to a gathering with a Glock, or a Smith & Wesson, then things might have been different.
Surely the good people with guns would have shot the bad people with guns. Simple as that. After all, why wouldn’t good and decent people come to their annual Christmas party packing a gun?
This will be the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre’s response to the latest slaughter by gun. Don’t blame the assault weapons San Bernardino police found in the black SUV after they were forced to shoot and kill a man and woman who were outfitted in tactical gear, like commandos.
Or perhaps terrorists.
FBI Special Agent-in-Charge David Bowdich floated the possibility of terrorism during a press conference last night. He made it clear he had no proof that yesterday’s massacre at the Inland Regional Center was a terrorist act, but he ominously noted that he couldn’t rule it out either.
As disturbing as it is to contemplate, terrorism would explain the awful logic behind an otherwise completely illogical act.
Why would county workers become targets of indiscriminate killing? Perhaps for the same reason that men, women and children standing on Boylston Street near the finish line of the Boston Marathon would be the targets of two terrorist bombs the Tsarnaev brothers left behind.
As the police investigation stretched into the night, word came back that the alleged killers left devices in that SUV. Cops used robots to gingerly pick their way through a suspicious house.
One social worker recalled the nightmarish scene of two people walking into the gathering without saying word and opening fire on the crowd.
That is the definition of terrorism.
And should the motive for yesterday’s horror in California turn out be labeled a terrorist act, the sad result is certain to be a panicked drumbeat for even more guns.
The sad and twisted logic to seek shelter in a gun is bound to reverberate across the country should this be judged as an act of terrorism. And it is sure to lead to more shootings.
But then, what Robert L. Dear did in Colorado was, in its own twisted way, an act of terrorism.
The inevitable truth is that terrorism will beget more terrorism. Mass shootings shouldn’t become a way of life in a civilized society. But here we are.
Peter Gelzinis
Organization
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