Five Belated Observations About El Paso & Dayton

Aside from engagements on Twitter, this is the first time I will be writing at length about the mass shootings that took place last Saturday in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio. I have the following five observations to offer:


1. White Supremacy is Resurgent


White supremacy, like all other evils, has and will always be amongst us. But it is now resurgent. El Paso is but the latest in a long line of mass shooting motivated by racism. The perpetrators in both  El Paso and the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in northern California late last month targeted Hispanics, Jews were the target at synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, California while African-Americans were targeted in a church in Charleston, South Carolina back in 2015. There's a very good chance this is only the beginning. Needless to say the national mood is tense.


2. President Trump Isn't Helping


President Trump not only isn't helping that tension he is aggravating and an argument could be made that he bears some responsibility for the resurgence in white supremacy. While the synagogue shooters in Pittsburgh and Poway believe Trump is part of a vast Jewish conspiracy, the El Paso shooter was clearly inspired by Trump's invasion rhetoric where it concerns the Southern Border. Yes, Trump condemned white supremacy, but he did so with the same conviction with which President Obama condemned radical Islam. It also doesn't help that Trump can't tell the difference between Dayton and Toledo. Yes, Joe Biden got the locations wrong too, but there's no guarantee Democrats are going to nominate him. For Republicans, Trump is their man and, like it or not, he is our President. We look to the President to inspire confidence in times of trouble. Trump not only isn't inspiring confidence he is making things worse with every tweet and utterance.


3. Beto O'Rourke Isn't Helping Either


I don't have a problem with O'Rourke calling Trump a racist and Trump is wrong to tell him to be quiet. El Paso is O'Rourke's back yard and has every right to speak out. But righteous indignation must be balanced with common sense. O'Rourke is warm to the notion of a mandatory buy back program. This amounts to nothing more than collective punishment upon law abiding citizens who wish ill will to no one. There are no easy answers when it comes to guns in America and as long as O'Rourke insists on offering them then he isn't helping in the long run either.


4. The Dayton Shooting Remains a Mystery


The shooting which claimed nine lives in Dayton, Ohio on Saturday night might have been quickly forgotten in our collective memory if not for the fact that it occurred only hours after El Paso. Some of the initial reports indicated the shooter had white supremacist views and had killed his sister for dating an African-American male. However, the shooter's political inclinations were a lot closer to Elizabeth Warren than Donald Trump something Trump is all too eager to point out.


But if this had anything to do with politics why did the shooter kill his own sister after being in her company a short time earlier? What specifically triggered (for lack of a better word) the shooter might never be known, but he had expressed the desire to kill and rape while in high school and showed a woman he dated earlier this year footage of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. Whatever his reasons were on Satruday, the shooter had obviously sick in the head for years.


5. We're Scared Shitless


The most crowded place in New York City is Times Square. I generally avoid the area, but of late I've been in the neighborhood because I have taken up bowling (another subject for another day) and was there last night. A couple of hours after I was in the area this happened:

It turned out to be a motorcycle, but when you operate on fear instead of fact and don't have time to process what is going on around you chaos ensues and we become scared shitless. Fortunately, no one died in the stampede. We might not be so lucky next time. At around the same time it was believed there was a shooting at a Walmart in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There wasn't but with what happened at the Walmart in El Paso still fresh in our minds it's not surprising. I suspect there will be more false alarms to come. I suppose false alarms are better than having fatalities, but they too take a toll on our national psyche with no relief in sight.


I wish I could offer a silver lining with the preceding observations but absent the desire to find common ground much less agree on basic facts to do so would be to engage in wishful thinking. Sigh.