The Fury of fantasies popped

Explain to me how a kid in an affluent suburb in Michigan shooting classmates is somehow more heinous than the same number of kids getting mowed down in South Chicago?

Source of Image

Uncanny similarities, no? If true, then his mother will NOT win mother-of-the-year award.

Explain why the January 6th trespassing is more heinous than the months-long riots in Seattle, Portland and a half-dozen other cities?

Five Whys

If you ask "Why?" enough times and dig deeply enough, it becomes clear that the high emotion over the Oxford shooting and the January 6th trespassing is due to the fact that those events puncture the fantasy of "safe-spaces".

People invest a great deal of money and emotion in creating the myth of safe-spaces. They create elaborate incantations and rain-dances to create the illusion that some places are sacred, that some places are safe from violence.

Incandescent rage results when bubble-meets-pin.

• "But it is such a nice suburb filled with 'our kind' of people!"
• "But all of the Section 8 housing is in Lake Orion!"
• "But the average cost of a house is $600k!"
• "But the police station is only a block away!"
• "But there are signs telling students and visitors that guns are NOT ALLOWED!!!"
• "But we hired the best teachers and pay them the most money!"
• "But we don't have a drug problem here!"

None of which is rational.

The belief that magical incantations and rain-dances will render a warrior invulnerable to harm on the battlefield exists in the emotional plane.

The belief that it is somehow possible to "buy" safety and freedom from life's most unpleasant realities exists in that same plane.

I do not condone the violence that occurred in Oxford, Michigan just as I do not condone the violence that occurs in large cities daily. But that violence will happen whether I condone it or not.

More laws is not going to fix the problem

Look at how many felonies probably occurred in Oxford:

• Minor in unsupervised possession of a handgun
• Transporting a loaded, unsecured handgun in a motor vehicle by a non-CWL holder
• Transporting a weapon onto school property
• Four Homicides
• Multiple attempted homicide

While responsible parents will "control" access* to weapons there are many, many parents who are not responsible.

Furthermore, virtually any item can be used as a weapon, even a #2 pencil.

Bernard's Law, "The net effect of combining half-wits is multiplicative"

This case will unwind with a multitude of twists-and-turns.

It will be circus for the masses and prepare the ground for more government control.

Sit down with your kids** and tell them that they have your permission to go "walk-about" any time they are uncomfortable. 

It can be if somebody lights some fire-crackers at school. 

It could be after a fire-drill and the teachers start packing the kids in lines at the school entrances. It is only a matter of time before this becomes SOP for school shooters: Pull the alarm or call in a bomb threat. Better to have your kid know you have their back should they choose to swim against the tide. Just be sure that you and your kids have a viable rally-point.

Or maybe this is the clarion call to home-school your kids.

Ol' Remus's advice still holds "Stay away from crowds".

*There were two times before the canoeing accident when ERJ's firearms were stored off-property. In both cases it was when one of my kids was going through a rough patch and did not demonstrate the ability to modulate their emotions. Rather, their emotions ruled them. Yes, the firearms were locked in safes or behind locked doors. But locks merely inconvenience motivated people.

**I had this take with my kids at age 9. I also advised them to figure out where the shooting was coming from and to not run straight way but to put distance between them and the threat by angling away. It helped that the kids were in sports and it was very matter-of-fact to talk about a shooter as if he was player attempting to throw a ball into play.