Everyone Should Read This Thread About Mass Shootings and Motivation

In the last 24 hours, there have been two mass shootings: one in El Paso, Texas, and one in Dayton, Ohio.

Almost 30 people are dead.

And in the immediate aftermath, everyone is quick to point fingers, assign motivation, and blame guns and politicians.  Apparently, the shooter in El Paso had a manifesto, making it that much easier to assign motivation and blame.

But what if it’s not about politics?  We want to ascribe motivation to each event, putting them into neat little boxes to help ourselves make sense of the senseless tragedies.  But not everything is about politics; some things are about simple hatred, mental instability, nihilism.

That’s why this thread by Brian Cates, a journalist based in South Texas, is a must read.

(Stick with me, it’s long.)

I think Brian’s point here is really good.  There’s nothing about these attacks that is inherently political – so what if the perpetrators are just hateful people who leave manifestos for “fun,” because they know the media will look for political motivation whether it’s there or not?

Which is exactly what happens after each mass shooting or similar event: Is he a Republican?  Is he a Democrat?  Is he with Antifa?  Is he a white supremacist?

That’s actually pretty terrifying.

Right.  The media is quick to scream “terrorism” when a white guy shoots up a crowd of random people, but is much more hesitant to use the label when the attacks are actually, clearly, politically motivated.

I think this thread is so important.  All of these shootings are tragedies – but there’s not a one-size-fits-all explanation for why they keep happening.  All of the perpetrators are monsters – but they aren’t all the same kind of monster.  Certainly some of the events are political terrorism, but trying to ascribe a political motive to each of them is misguided and even dangerous.

In a world where we’ve decided to make EVERYTHING political, we should keep in mind that there are still some things that simply aren’t.