If Only Stephen Paddock Had Shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’

I am surprised that Friedman’s discussion of this incident were so poorly informed and considered. I have found some of his writings much more informed. I do agree with his assessment of unconscionable politicization of this tragedy, but I think he fails to acknowledge the commercialization of it – like to augment his own book sales. His discussion seemed to conveniently forget the recent past mass violence incidents where airplanes, cars and or trucks were used for mass murder – and those in several countries where public firearms ownership is highly restricted or illegal all together. Most of all he fails to acknowledge that mass violence is a far more complex, broader and growing problem than is represented by firearm crime and abuses.

Where we fail in stopping violence – is failing to focus on the actual causes of violence and not getting caught up emotionally in trying to just control it’s symptoms. Guns are not causes of violence. The cause of the violence is independent guns or other tools of violence. Guns are certainly violence enablers – but so are many other mechanical things. If we stopped politicizing violence, marketing sensationalism of violence, and worked harder on understanding the types of mental conditions and circumstances that produce violence – we would be far more successful in limiting violence in general. Focusing on the symptoms and artifacts of violence, rather than its causes is actually contributing to more mass violence. Not understanding the complexity of mass violence before attempting solutions – can only produce more of the same ineffectiveness.

There are more than 10,000 laws regulating the sale and use of firearms in municipal, state and federal registers. They did not prevent Paddock from committing mass violence with his legally purchased guns and it’s hard to imagine that a few more gun laws are going affect the causes of gun violence. Let alone affect criminals that acquire and illegally own guns. Given the number of firearms registered, and particularly unregistered – in the US (perhaps orders of magnitudes above its population), it is far too late too effectively make firearm ownership illegal. Legally restricting the purchase of additional new firearms won’t stop firearm violent crimes, but it will produce another black market – one for firearms equal to the illegal drug black market. How’s that War on Drugs working out? I recently was correct in calling it a war – because all wars eventually end. If you think firearm restrictions in the US are an effective solution to mass violence you are grossly misinformed about the problem and your ability understand it – proportionately diminished.

Paddock did not fit any of the 56 profiling classifications that the FBI uses to flag potential violent people. Being white, a multi-millionaire, in his 60s – Paddock didn’t even fit the broadest violent criminal demographics. Paddock’s higher age than most violent offenders is of note – in that several recent violence incidents have been committed by older white males. What kind of trend is this? Are older white males now more subject to mental illness than before, or are they just so damned frustrated with failures – incompetence, corruption and irresponsibility of American governance to effectively resolve its citizens’ many problems – and that the resulting rage in rare cases overwhelms intellect?

It may be determined that Paddock was under treatment for mental illness, but this is unlikely considering that we have yet to modify the laws effectively that cover Doctor/Client privilege with a clause that negates those privileges when public safety is at stake nor do they require mental health experts to report patients that might represent a violent threat. Perhaps a flaw in our legal system of more significance than how we govern firearms. It’s just another complex privacy and freedom issue that relates to the broader issues in our on-going healthcare problem solving incompetencies – of both R’s and D’s – a widely acknowledged and general CF – which is certainly a contributor to that anguish, frustration, rage and potential sources of mass violence.

An autopsy may determine that Paddock was the victim of a causative brain abnormality or pathology that was not identifiable prior to this tragedy. It may not. What if investigative authorities identify no cause for Paddock’s mass violence? (Likely some cause will be assigned – as it often has in the past and – one that will relieve pressure on law enforcement and politicians to solve our mass violence problem.).

At some point don’t we also have to consider that no matter the cause of Paddock’s actions, as the planet continues to be overpopulated by humans, mass violence is going to be (I would say that it already is) a growing fact of life. That as growth/opportunity and economies necessarily decline with physical critical resource depletion continues – there will actually be less resources to prevent violence than there is now. Resource competition and resulting violence logically will continue to increase. (It’s hard to logically deny that resource/economic competition is at least a component of most, if not all the current global conflicts – i.e. oil in the ME.) Mass violence is probable to increase until we solve our unsustainable global overpopulation, critical resource sustainability problems – or that human overpopulation biologically solves itself – as it does in lower species under a resource depletion based population collapse. Clearly, Paddock did not seem to be resource depletion stressed living a wealthy life style. That doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t and especially if we consider him a stress sensitivity outlier of the norm in the human population. We do know that apparent non-causative mass violence is on the increase. We know very little about how modern humans behave under repeated or constant crowding, and or other modern negative stimulation stresses.

I’m not sure if we will ever know how much of Paddock’s behavior was based on response to stresses – overcrowding or otherwise. He did have multiple homes and could have chosen to live in almost anywhere – crowed cities or the less crowed country side. Numerous experiments on animals over many years – have shown that under the stresses of overpopulation crowding and critical resource restriction/depletion (not necessarily just food) that animals instinctively resort to atypical behavioral violence. This would be unprovoked violence, including infanticide and cannibalism to stabilize their population at sustainable levels. Should we consider if this is what we are seeing in mass violence in general? Is the Paddock mass violence tragedy representative of some kind of subtle and unknown overpopulation stresses – a contributing factor, if not direct or indirect – perhaps cumulative, as well including other recent mass violence. Could we define the economic shrinkage of the US middle class as a form of fiscal cannibalism related to resource competition and or opportunity limitations? Perhaps there is a genetic safety valve programmed to effect behavior that automatically attempts to limit overpopulation behaviorally – before population critical resource depletions limit the respective overpopulation through near irreversible species collapses from starvation and or disease.

The bottom line here is the complexity of the mass violence problem, and the proven ineffectiveness of gun “control” or even the entire elimination of guns – in preventing mass violence in humans. Second Amendment preservation proponents accurately point to the repeated historic precedent of national civilian firearms disarming prior to and the subsequent enabling the greatest mass violence events in those nations and to humans the planet has ever experienced.

The election of Donald Trump – a demonstrable racist with fascist admiration, alliances and an enabler of his KKK, neo-nazis portion of his social conservative base – only reinforces the reality of the risks and validity of concerns that a growing fascist culture now has great influence, if not control of the government of the US and at its highest executive point of authority. It is simple minded, uninformed and generally ill-considered to think that we can solve our mass violence problem – by focusing on the removal of just an artifact of those symptoms and not effectively address the actual causes.

2 thoughts on “If Only Stephen Paddock Had Shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’”

Curt A Tyner

October 4, 2017 at 11:55 ams Log in to Reply

Well thank you Thomas, there are times you “really” have something important to say, this was one and you did it well.
Durwood M. Dugger

October 4, 2017 at 3:22 pms Log in to Reply

I am surprised that Friedman’s discussion of this incident were so poorly informed and considered. I have found some of his writings much more informed. I do agree with his assessment of unconscionable politicization of this tragedy, but I think he fails to acknowledge the commercialization of it – like to augment his own book sales. His discussion seemed to conveniently forget the recent past mass violence incidents where airplanes, cars and or trucks were used for mass murder – and those in several countries where public firearms ownership is highly restricted or illegal all together. Most of all he fails to acknowledge that mass violence is a far more complex, broader and growing problem than is represented by firearm crime and abuses.

Where we fail in stopping violence – is failing to focus on the actual causes of violence and not getting caught up emotionally in trying to just control it’s symptoms. Guns are not causes of violence. The cause of the violence is independent guns or other tools of violence. Guns are certainly violence enablers – but so are many other mechanical things. If we stopped politicizing violence, marketing sensationalism of violence, and worked harder on understanding the types of mental conditions and circumstances that produce violence – we would be far more successful in limiting violence in general. Focusing on the symptoms and artifacts of violence, rather than its causes is actually contributing to more mass violence. Not understanding the complexity of mass violence before attempting solutions – can only produce more of the same ineffectiveness.

There are more than 10,000 laws regulating the sale and use of firearms in municipal, state and federal registers. They did not prevent Paddock from committing mass violence with his legally purchased guns and it’s hard to imagine that a few more gun laws are going affect the causes of gun violence. Let alone affect criminals that acquire and illegally own guns. Given the number of firearms registered, and particularly unregistered – in the US (perhaps orders of magnitudes above its population), it is far too late too effectively make firearm ownership illegal. Legally restricting the purchase of additional new firearms won’t stop firearm violent crimes, but it will produce another black market – one for firearms equal to the illegal drug black market. How’s that War on Drugs working out? I recently was correct in calling it a war – because all wars eventually end. If you think firearm restrictions in the US are an effective solution to mass violence you are grossly misinformed about the problem and your ability understand it – proportionately diminished.

Paddock did not fit any of the 56 profiling classifications that the FBI uses to flag potential violent people. Being white, a multi-millionaire, in his 60s – Paddock didn’t even fit the broadest violent criminal demographics. Paddock’s higher age than most violent offenders is of note – in that several recent violence incidents have been committed by older white males. What kind of trend is this? Are older white males now more subject to mental illness than before, or are they just so damned frustrated with failures – incompetence, corruption and irresponsibility of American governance to effectively resolve its citizens’ many problems – and that the resulting rage in rare cases overwhelms intellect?

It may be determined that Paddock was under treatment for mental illness, but this is unlikely considering that we have yet to modify the laws effectively that cover Doctor/Client privilege with a clause that negates those privileges when public safety is at stake nor do they require mental health experts to report patients that might represent a violent threat. Perhaps a flaw in our legal system of more significance than how we govern firearms. It’s just another complex privacy and freedom issue that relates to the broader issues in our on-going healthcare problem solving incompetencies – of both R’s and D’s – a widely acknowledged and general CF – which is certainly a contributor to that anguish, frustration, rage and potential sources of mass violence.

An autopsy may determine that Paddock was the victim of a causative brain abnormality or pathology that was not identifiable prior to this tragedy. It may not. What if investigative authorities identify no cause for Paddock’s mass violence? (Likely some cause will be assigned – as it often has in the past and – one that will relieve pressure on law enforcement and politicians to solve our mass violence problem.).

At some point don’t we also have to consider that no matter the cause of Paddock’s actions, as the planet continues to be overpopulated by humans, mass violence is going to be (I would say that it already is) a growing fact of life. That as growth/opportunity and economies necessarily decline with physical critical resource depletion continues – there will actually be less resources to prevent violence than there is now. Resource competition and resulting violence logically will continue to increase. (It’s hard to logically deny that resource/economic competition is at least a component of most, if not all the current global conflicts – i.e. oil in the ME.) Mass violence is probable to increase until we solve our unsustainable global overpopulation, critical resource sustainability problems – or that human overpopulation biologically solves itself – as it does in lower species under a resource depletion based population collapse. Clearly, Paddock did not seem to be resource depletion stressed living a wealthy life style. That doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t and especially if we consider him a stress sensitivity outlier of the norm in the human population. We do know that apparent non-causative mass violence is on the increase. We know very little about how modern humans behave under repeated or constant crowding, and or other modern negative stimulation stresses.

I’m not sure if we will ever know how much of Paddock’s behavior was based on response to stresses – overcrowding or otherwise. He did have multiple homes and could have chosen to live in almost anywhere – crowed cities or the less crowed country side. Numerous experiments on animals over many years – have shown that under the stresses of overpopulation crowding and critical resource restriction/depletion (not necessarily just food) that animals instinctively resort to atypical behavioral violence. This would be unprovoked violence, including infanticide and cannibalism to stabilize their population at sustainable levels. Should we consider if this is what we are seeing in mass violence in general? Is the Paddock mass violence tragedy representative of some kind of subtle and unknown overpopulation stresses – a contributing factor, if not direct or indirect – perhaps cumulative, as well including other recent mass violence. Could we define the economic shrinkage of the US middle class as a form of fiscal cannibalism related to resource competition and or opportunity limitations? Perhaps there is a genetic safety valve programmed to effect behavior that automatically attempts to limit overpopulation behaviorally – before population critical resource depletions limit the respective overpopulation through near irreversible species collapses from starvation and or disease.

The bottom line here is the complexity of the mass violence problem, and the proven ineffectiveness of gun “control” or even the entire elimination of guns – in preventing mass violence in humans. Second Amendment preservation proponents accurately point to the repeated historic precedent of national civilian firearms disarming prior to and the subsequent enabling the greatest mass violence events in those nations and to humans the planet has ever experienced.

The election of Donald Trump – a demonstrable racist with fascist admiration, alliances and an enabler of his KKK, neo-nazis portion of his social conservative base – only reinforces the reality of the risks and validity of concerns that a growing fascist culture now has great influence, if not control of the government of the US and at its highest executive point of authority. It is simple minded, uninformed and generally ill-considered to think that we can solve our mass violence problem – by focusing on the removal of just an artifact of those symptoms and not effectively address the actual causes.