More reason that I’m a pacifist. And the fighting on the various websites around the net are even more saddening. From accounts that I’ve seen, the alleged gunman was a strange person, obsessed with individualism and apparently the idea of the 2012 apocalypse. Sad no matter how you look at it, but maybe this will make people calm down and act with civility towards each other.
Sullivan has been live blogging and I’ve been kind of transfixed. Here’s the link, and here’s a quote I’d like to highlight:
I have no expertise in this at all, but my impression of his writings and web presence does indeed suggest to me that some mental illness is probably a key part of this. But this does not exonerate violent or excessive rhetoric from the far right or far left: it’s precisely the disturbed who can seize on those kinds of statements and act on them. The danger of violent rhetoric, especially involving gun violence, is its interaction with the disturbed.
