He Who Pulls the Trigger

When a socially isolated young man falls down an online white male nationalist ideology rabbit hole I doubt it takes very long to radicalize him.

So it's probably a minor miracle given the ease with which young American men can get mass shooting weaponry that there aren't even more deaths caused by white nationalism inspired mass shootings.

In the US it's the insane availability of guns, for sure, but the NRA (which we should all by know now has been laundering Russian mob money into the Republican Party for years) owns a lot of politicians - mostly Republicans, but Democrats, too, so effective gun control is a no go zone.

Heck, the NRA even owns the odd Social Democrat, I suspect.

Cripes, and never mind just American politicians, the NRA probably owns more than a few Conservative Party of Canada leaders. But without knowing who funded Stephen Harper's leadership campaign, that'll just have to be an educated guess.

They sure were keen to destroy our gun registry, though, weren't they, those Alberta Reform turned Conservative Party of Canada governing politicians.

But Toronto just experienced a terrible weekend of black gang violence, too, didn't it. Young black men shooting each other with illegally obtained hand guns. And bystanders have been killed in their supposedly targeted shootings, including toddlers and children on school buses, and are no less dead than the dead in the mass murders committed by young white male nationalists.

They seem to be acting out gangster life as depicted in some popular culture - The Wire? - but that's just what it looks like to me, maybe.

And then there are the men in their andropause years, so late 30s/early 40s, who use guns to murder women in or out of their lives, sometimes their children, too, before turning the gun on themselves.

Young men in Asian gangs, too, lest I forget - they've managed to kill a couple of children in their supposedly targeted shootings of each other, too, haven't they. That's up here in good old Canada, too, with our public healthcare and public education, although sure, gaps galore to fall through that our governments seem reluctant to fill by doing their jobs on behalf of everybody and not just wealthy corporate donors to political campaigns.

It's all terrorism, really, men using easily obtained guns - whether legal or not - to assume life and/or death power over the rest of us. I suppose when we aren't gunned down because of their misogyny or racism or just plain shitty aim/bad eyesight we should count ourselves graced by the universe.

Right, governing politicians?