In the United States we've entered a cycle with mass shootings. I don't know when we entered this cycle but I know what it looks like and it seems to feed itself. Here it is, to the best of my understanding.
1. A mass shooting occurs.
2. Immediately, on Facebook and Twitter, you have Right Wingers and Truthers (conspiracy theorists) saying that the shooting will be used to push gun confiscation, not just control, but confiscation.
- Don't believe me? Just watch social media during or immediately after any active shooter situation. Here's just one example. Claiming, falsely, that CA banned guns.
3. The Conspiracy theories come. Alex Jones and the rest of the tinfoil hat brigade start saying that it's a government plot to, you guessed it, take the guns and of course they blame psych meds, just like Scientology would. But that's a whole other matter.
4. The shooter(s), if white, they are called everything but terrorists. Disturbed individuals, violent criminals... anything... but not terrorists.
5. Gun lobbies ramp up their fund raising based upon the fear caused by 2 and 3. Maybe they even have an event in the city where the recent mass shooting happened.
6. Someone on Fox News suggests that this could all be Obama's fault for "being divisive".
7. Many white shit kickers are further radicalized leading to a return to step 1.
This is entirely predictable. This happens literally every time. And recently, with the guy who shot up the Planned Parenthood, the political right attacked Planned Parenthood and in many cases cheered the shooter for "saving babies". The story today in San Bernadino is still unfolding but it is just a part of this cycle. It's the next logical thing for the cycle to do after it goes through steps 1 through 7. The problem is, this cycle is essentially at every step of the cycle simultaneously, constantly.
This is not a call for gun control. There are already 300 million guns in this country. Even if gun control happened and was effective, it would take a generation for anything to change. I don't have the answer, but I think I have found the problem. The panic attack is real. And that's the problem. And there's no way to stop it.
