Remember Minority Report with Tom Cruise? The precogs could predict who was going to commit murder and the cops would swoop in before it happened. Crime nearly vanished because they followed the pattern.
We don’t even need precogs. We already know the pattern. The majority of mass shooters in America look the same. White. Male. Angry. The suburbs. The dog in the yard. The June and Ward Cleaver family portrait. The so-called “normal.” The stereotype of violent criminals has been shattered — but we continue to pretend, WE DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER!
And yet every time another massacre happens, the media and politicians trip over themselves pretending they don’t see it. Pretending that if we just chant “Second Amendment” and send thoughts and prayers, the bodies will stop piling up. But the truth is statistical, not speculative. The profile isn’t a mystery. It’s a mirror America refuses to look into. (And if you want the receipts, I already laid out the numbers in Shooters.)
And here’s the part nobody in power will say out loud: the Republican talking point has always been, “It’s not the guns, it’s the people.” But notice how the white is always silent in that sentence. They’ll rail about mental health, video games, single mothers, the internet — anything but the obvious. Anything but the statistical fact staring them dead in the face. Because if they ever said it plain — the people are overwhelmingly white men — the whole lie of who’s dangerous in America would collapse overnight. Bet the Supreme Court won’t rule
If the country really wanted to eliminate violent crime, it wouldn’t be staging militarized theater downtown for cameras. We watched footage of troops in full riot gear detaining a Latino family in Chicago for walking. That’s the show. That’s the optics. That’s the devil’s trick. Meanwhile, in Grand Blanc Township — 76% white — the carnage played out right on cue, exactly the way the profile predicts. If the energy put into downtown spectacle was directed where the shooters are actually produced, lives could have been saved.
I also believe no child is born with hatred in their hearts, hate is taught. Forget that bullshit about these poor white boys being “radicalized” if there was love in their homes, love for EVERYBODY they couldn’t be turned into a killing machine by the internet. Their white daddies could be the ones indoctrinating the sons to hate – telling them the “others” are taking your jobs, taking your rightful place in America, your privilege, they’re eating the dogs, they are raping your future wife. Now let’s go to the gun range (for sport). Your 2nd amendment right must be protected.
The problem isn’t just guns. Guns exist everywhere. The problem is white men with guns, protected by the shield of innocence America drapes over them. Protected by a system that refuses to apply its own profile where it fits best.
It turns out that one of the most dangerous places to gather is church; whose god is winning? Evidently, it’s not the god of the white man.
