Why Terrorists Kill

The latest target? A shopping mall in Burlington, WA.

You know the drill. At first, reports of a horrifying shooting in a public location. This time it’s a shopping mall. First report: Not a Muslim…a Hispanic! Then it comes out the shooter is of Turkish descent, meaning he’s very likely a Muslim.

No worries. It’s the gun’s fault, not the Muslim’s fault.

Now if the shooter had not been a probable Muslim — and if he had, in fact, been a white man — would the gun get blamed? No way. His racial status would get blamed. “We live in a racist society and the privileged white males are killing us all.” Blah, blah, blah. Donald Trump would be blamed, for sure. Of course, Donald Trump gets blamed even when it’s a Muslim shooting, which these shootings and killings almost always are. (So would any other Republican candidate for president, by the way.) Right-wing media (translation: freedom of speech) would be blamed, too.

But when the shooter turns out to possibly or actually be Muslim, everything instantly changes. Hillary Clinton will not get the blame. Left-wing media like CNN and Huffington Post will not get the blame. The crime will, all of a sudden, become completely detached from the criminal. It will only be about guns. Suddenly it will be people who don’t want guns banned who are now the killers, rather than the killer himself. Support the NRA? Own a gun yourself? Voting for Donald Trump? Read or watch right-wing media? Well then, you’re part of the problem. Someone like Joe Biden or the Pope, both of whom have labeled peaceful people as terrorists for disagreeing with them in the past, will come out and call the real killers the people who don’t wish to outlaw guns. The media and academia will applaud.

Just watch over the next 24 hours, as more facts emerge about this case, and you’ll see what I mean.

Rational or irrational, criminal or legal, people do the things they do because of their emotions and ideas. Irrational or mentally insane people generally act impulsively, on emotion, often in the context of delusions or hallucinations. These terrorist events, on the other hand, are generally planned out. They’re rationally planned, targeted slaughters based on irrational ideas and assumptions. What are those irrational ideas? If we’re not permitted to even mention Islam as a factor, then let’s look at the facts we know so far about this latest shooting.

The shooter targeted a shopping mall. He knew he’d find many victims. As columnist Daniel Greenfield points out, he clearly targeted women. He went into the store’s makeup area where he shot four women and a man, Lt. Chris Cammock of the Mount Vernon Police Department said at a news conference.

Why women? Why a makeup counter? Clearly he’s not after justice. You don’t attack innocent people when you’re upset with a government’s policies. You go after the people or things you consider the enemies. If you hate the American government for waging war in your countries of origin, then you blow up government buildings; you attack American soldiers or military installations. You don’t attack women putting on makeup at a Macy’s counter. Unless you’re after something else…something deeper than politics or armies, even. Something like: happiness, pleasure, freedom, and secularism.

Since 9/11, I have been writing that the real war against America is a psychological and metaphysical one. It’s between those who wish to live in peace, earthly happiness and freedom and those who subscribe to an ideology stridently favoring the opposite. Don’t Americans get this yet? Greenfield also points out that just like the Minnesota Muslim mall stabber, this terrorist targeted a Macy’s. It’s fun, pleasure, beauty, and happiness on earth that all these terrorists are after. If this shooter turns out not to be Muslim — and our media will bend over backwards to try and make this the truth — he sure has a lot in common with that ideology.

Muslim or not, that’s what these killing madmen cannot stand: The fact that someone, somewhere, at some point in time is enjoying life. There will always be lone, psychotic killers. But we also have a worldwide, highly active ideology dedicated to the destruction of human happiness — and human life, even at its most relaxed and pleasurable. When will we finally take our heads out of the sand and start facing it?

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