To start this off I want to say with complete sincerity that I don't want to downplay any of the killings. Every death is a tragedy no matter who caused it and why.
After the shock and horror after the Boston bombings has died down a little, I feel it's safe to ask a question that has bothered me since it became clear that the bombs were placed by extremist Muslims.
People seemed to react with far more fear and rage after the bombings. The call for more surveillance and more regulation was also much more prevalent after those bombings than the shootings in the Sandy Hook Elementary and Aurora.
Why is that?
For me all of those killings were done by madmen. The two shootings were done by two men who had various psychological problems and somehow came to the conclusion that committing the horrible act of killing people was the way to get justice/vent/whatever their exact reasons may have been. Those two shootings killed 12 and 26 men, women and especially children and injured dozens more. The only thing you really heard after that was the call for more gun regulation (which has failed) in the case of the left wing, or less gun regulation from the right side (ie guns at schools) from the right side.
Now compare that to the reactions to the Boston bombings. 3 people were killed (and more than 250 injured) and at least one of the murderers was motivated by his extremist Islamic philosophy. At this point only peripheral connection to terrorist groups has been found the killer after all accounts was self radicalized.
But the mere fact that the bombings were religiously motivated, by an extremist variant of Islam to be exact, seems to trigger a primal fear in a lot of people. I suddenly read calls for more surveillance cameras, more controls everywhere and more regulation on legal components required to build bombs. Not to mention the newly triggered lash-outs against various Muslim groups.
So I wonder: Why is that? Why are killings caused by extremists that acted on their own agenda labeled acts of terrorism, while people running amok with guns in schools and cinemas are just the singular deed of madmen, despite the latter being considerably more frequent (in domestic regions) and causing more deaths).
Why are acts by people who do those things because "God told them to" more scary than acts by people who just heir their own voices in their heads?
I've got several explanations for myself. And the truth might lie somewhere between all of them.
The shootings in Aurora and Sandy Hook were far more targeted. They couldn't have been committed at any other place because the shooters had emotional ties to the places they went to, which is less scary to people than an act motivated by calculation. The Boston Bombers just wanted to hit a large event and it didn't matter where that event took place, so in the head of some people that triggers more of an "that might have been me!" reaction.
It might also be that it's politically motivated. It's easier to sell policies if you have a common "enemy" to unite against and people doing stuff because they had psychological problems and did it for their own reasons aren't as "marketable" as people that have psychological problems and are motivated by a radicalised version of their religion.
Or it's just pragmatism with a good dose of latent racism that thinks it's easier to lock out all of the evil Muslims, while it's near impossible to sort out people that have massive psychological problems.
What do you think? I can't have been the only one to see the difference in reaction and came up with his own explanations on why that is. Or am I just overthinking this and see patterns where there are none?
After the shock and horror after the Boston bombings has died down a little, I feel it's safe to ask a question that has bothered me since it became clear that the bombs were placed by extremist Muslims.
People seemed to react with far more fear and rage after the bombings. The call for more surveillance and more regulation was also much more prevalent after those bombings than the shootings in the Sandy Hook Elementary and Aurora.
Why is that?
For me all of those killings were done by madmen. The two shootings were done by two men who had various psychological problems and somehow came to the conclusion that committing the horrible act of killing people was the way to get justice/vent/whatever their exact reasons may have been. Those two shootings killed 12 and 26 men, women and especially children and injured dozens more. The only thing you really heard after that was the call for more gun regulation (which has failed) in the case of the left wing, or less gun regulation from the right side (ie guns at schools) from the right side.
Now compare that to the reactions to the Boston bombings. 3 people were killed (and more than 250 injured) and at least one of the murderers was motivated by his extremist Islamic philosophy. At this point only peripheral connection to terrorist groups has been found the killer after all accounts was self radicalized.
But the mere fact that the bombings were religiously motivated, by an extremist variant of Islam to be exact, seems to trigger a primal fear in a lot of people. I suddenly read calls for more surveillance cameras, more controls everywhere and more regulation on legal components required to build bombs. Not to mention the newly triggered lash-outs against various Muslim groups.
So I wonder: Why is that? Why are killings caused by extremists that acted on their own agenda labeled acts of terrorism, while people running amok with guns in schools and cinemas are just the singular deed of madmen, despite the latter being considerably more frequent (in domestic regions) and causing more deaths).
Why are acts by people who do those things because "God told them to" more scary than acts by people who just heir their own voices in their heads?
I've got several explanations for myself. And the truth might lie somewhere between all of them.
The shootings in Aurora and Sandy Hook were far more targeted. They couldn't have been committed at any other place because the shooters had emotional ties to the places they went to, which is less scary to people than an act motivated by calculation. The Boston Bombers just wanted to hit a large event and it didn't matter where that event took place, so in the head of some people that triggers more of an "that might have been me!" reaction.
It might also be that it's politically motivated. It's easier to sell policies if you have a common "enemy" to unite against and people doing stuff because they had psychological problems and did it for their own reasons aren't as "marketable" as people that have psychological problems and are motivated by a radicalised version of their religion.
Or it's just pragmatism with a good dose of latent racism that thinks it's easier to lock out all of the evil Muslims, while it's near impossible to sort out people that have massive psychological problems.
What do you think? I can't have been the only one to see the difference in reaction and came up with his own explanations on why that is. Or am I just overthinking this and see patterns where there are none?