Nov 07 2009
Fort Hood – How Could This Happen
Picture courtesy of AP
Thirteen people dead, 38 injured on Fort Hood Army Base and the question arises “how could this happen?” The obvious answer is that with the ease and availability of the purchase of firearms in America, anyone with the right credentials can walk into a store, buy a gun and Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, a psychiatrist, had the right credentials and his gun of choice is called a “cop killer” because of the ease in which the bullets penetrates body armor.
In the midst of attempting to find a psychological answer to the question of “how could this happen” a Florida man walks into an office where he had been fired two years ago and opens fire, killing one person and wounding five others while others attempt to imply that the Fort Hood tragedy may have been a result of repeated deployments to war zones.
While you can attach as much psycho babble to the cause of both of these deadly incidents, in an effort to explain why this happened, the real culprit is the fact that Americans feel strongly about their “fundamental right” to bear arms not caring that this fundamental right leads to mass homicide whenever someone gets angry enough to seek revenge, real or imagined, walk into a place where people are plentiful and simply open fire, killing indiscriminately.
Another question that has been posed is “were there signs that the Fort Hood Major was capable of this violent act?” The real truth of the matter is that you will never know exactly what is churning in someone else’s mind unless you are a proven mind reader and how many people carry this distinction of being a mind reader? Hindsight does not count and that’s the only thing you are left with after a tragedy like this happens.
Now that Maj. Hasan has committed this heinous crime, the look back has provided some indications that he may have had serious issues with being in the military, his first time deployment to Iraq/Afghanistan and based on the things being said, in his face, about his heritage, being of Jordanian descent, which I believe he did experience. The reality is that even if he were sent to Iraq/Afghanistan, he would not have been in battle but instead been part of the support services for combat soldiers.
The ugly thing about the negative things said about his heritage is that if someone talks about your weight, you can lose weight, if someone talks about how ugly you are, you can get plastic surgery, get a hair weave, wear some makeup and change your look. However, your religion and your race are “fundamental” parts of who you are.
While you may be able to change your religion, although your religious beliefs are the beliefs that guide you in life, you can never change your race, your heritage, the skin you were born in and if you are proud of the race you are and your religious beliefs the anger that builds when those things are criticized, cuts deep.
Now in no way am I condoning Hasan’s actions; he had options. He could have just as easily gone AWOL, fled to his Jordan or any other foreign country that he, as a Muslim, felt comfortable in. He could have sought psychological help since obviously he believed in the method of psycho analysis since that is the career field of his choice. He could have killed himself rather than killing others but instead he chose to take the lives of innocents.
Only in hindsight, which does not prevent an act, can you look upon the causes that may have lead to this incident because even though he showed signs of discontent, it was never so clear that he would actually go to the extremes that he went to in an attempt to be “heard.” Even as the video images of him in the neighborhood Convenience Store, chatting and smiling as he made his purchase did not allude to what was actually churning in his mind – several hours later he was shooting and killing those around him.
The bottom line is that you can label him crazy, punish him for his crimes but if he had not had easy access to the firepower, the guns that he carried, there is a bigger possibility that he would not have been able to commit this act of terrorism on the men and women of the United States Army regardless of what type of inner turmoil he was going through and even though he was on a military base where guns are plentiful.
The irrational saying that “guns don’t kill, people kill” used to justify this fundamental right to bear arms, has been proven time and time again to be an idiotic play on words that covers the real dangers of the “right to bear arms” being exercised here in America. Until you get to the core of the problem, these acts of violence will continue and increase and no amount of psycho babble will change this fact.
And that’s the way I see it!!!!
A gun is a tool. Alone, it can’t kill anyone without an operator. Maybe we should ban rail-road ties, since the young man in Chicago was killed by a group of thugs using rail-road ties. While we are at it, since this happened on a military base filled with thousands of guns, we should ban those evil guns who walk around killing people. (thousands of law abiding soldiers carrying guns and one Islamic nut job commits the crime of murder so people blame the gun and not the nut)
You wrote: “Until you get to the core of the problem, these acts of violence will continue and increase and no amount of psycho babble will change this fact.”
Guess we need to sit the guns down on the couch and ask them why they are so angry? I wonder if they will sit there or possibly get mad and start shooting themselves?
Just saying….
scotty in your sarcasm you failed to recognize that a rail road tie does not have the capacity to kill multiple people at any given time. You also failed to recognize that a day after Ft. Hood, a crime of workplace violence took place with the aid of the “tool” called a gun.
I have mixed emotions about gun ownership but the more I see this kind of violence the more I lean towards gun control however, as I watch Muslims on a New York City Street on the news yesterday, bad mouthing the U.S. with such hate, I lean back towards the right to bear arms.
My core believes violence begets violence and with the availabilty of guns in America and the rage that is building amongst foreigners as well as Americans, violence will only increase. Pycho babble is hindsight and hindsight is not prevention.
I saw that same video on YouTube and it pissed me off as well. I believe every person has a right to defend themselves, their loved ones and their property from the thugs in our society. Criminial do not care about gun control laws. That’s why they are called criminals.
Terrorists killed over 3,000 with 3 airplanes. Drunk drivers every year kill thousands with cars. Pools kill thousands of people each year as well. Do we blame these items or the people in control of them?
A law-abiding citizen does not commit crimes with their legal firearms. Its usually the criminals who obtain guns via theft, robbery or from other criminals.
If you don’t like guns, great…don’t purchase one. However, I’m not going to let anyone tell me that I don’t have a right to protect my family from harm. I choose not to be a victim.
Just remember, you can’t blame a gun. Without an operator, a gun cannot load itself or pull its own trigger. Blame the individual criminal, not a tool.
I respect your feelings about guns. To each their own, as the saying goes. But I will take my chances with protecting myself and my family instead of waiting on the police to show up.
The whole thing with the logic you cited is that at the time of his rampage on the innocent soldiers, Hasan had not been identified as a “criminal” nor had the Florida shooter - they were “law-abiding citizens nor had the children at Columbine nor had some drive by shooters.
These are the things that need to be looked at “in the real” when discussing gun control.
I am not attempting to change your mind though because like I said, I have mixed emotions about gun control and depends on where you live a gun is more present than a police officer, but I do believe that like everything else that can be debated - all issues need to be viewed in the light of reality.
While you say vehemently that a gun is a tool, that tool has been killing people since its invention - in fact it was probably invented with killing people in mind and it happens at a far more alarming rate than anything else you mentioned or at least it seems like it does.
Gotta side with Scotty on this one. I’ll add another little two cents. Hasan was a member of our military. While technology is making many strides in the way we fight combat, we still need to be able to arm our soldiers.
I would love it if we lived in a world where that wasn’t necessary, but we most certainly don’t.
Past that, there is even an argument to be made that if soldiers at Fort Hood were allowed to be armed this act of violence would have been contained. Soldiers at Fort Hood can’t carry weapons unless they are doing training exercises.
It’s not that I am in agreement or disagreement with scotty on this(like I said I have mixed emotions) I am just looking at his justifications. A perfect world will never happen and so what we are left with is the day to day madness that takes place.
I was reading a blog the other day that cited the fact that things like this do not happen, on the scale that it happens in America, in countries where people are not authorized to carry weapons - a point well taken.
It just bothers me that because you never know what is in someone else’s mind it is hard to discern who is capable of the madness and it is virtually impossible to prevent this type of violence based on this unknown element.
It can happen at anytime and anyplace and all you end up with is dead bodies, grief and a look back in an effort to see how this could have been prevented. That look back is never enough to prevent however so the madness springs forth with a regularity that is frightening - which is my main concern.
Oh believe me I know what you mean, Truth. All too often in politics we’re forced to pick an option when really both solutions are wrong or right.
But the regular issue of gun control is separate from our military anyways. As I had pointed out, the soldiers at Fort Hood did not have access to weapons, perhaps if they had then this all could have been stopped a little bit earlier.
Yep and as we were having this conversation some fool walked into a high school outside of New York City and held a principal hostage. I did not get the details because I had to go to work but one thing for sure, I bet he was not holding the principal hostage with a rail road tie - lol sorry I just had to go there.
I appreciate the input from both of you. I guess I will always be middle of the road on this one because even though guns don’t kill, people kill, there are some crazy people in the world who own guns and some are not criminals until they commit the crime like the one at Ft. Hood.
But if and when things get ugly, I would appreciate owning a gun - I guess I can not have it both ways!!!
Yeah I used to be a strong supporter of gun control until I was involved in a situation that almost cost me my life
coming out of it I realized that if I had a gun my life would not have been threatened at all. Made me think differently about the issue. Although I still don’t have a gun I definitely see why someone might feel the need to own one.
I don’t know about you, but I get sick of being patronized by some “Independent” guy who talks, walks and writes like a right winged republican who knows it all and believes he needs to educate you. Believe me, anyone who thinks they know it all will jump on a title that asks a question of any kind. That’s why you’ve received so many comments by those bitter old souls who think they need to own three machine gus per person just to stay safe from all those radical religious types…while at the same time, they rant and rave all day about their OWN government and president. Who knows why some guy lost his mind and decided to shoot his own brothers? That’s just what fear based hate does to otherwise intelligent human beings, no matter what religious faith they may practice, we should all practice what we preach…so if I were you, I’d delete all know it all comments intended to patronize you and put you in your place. Then again, maybe we should allow allow them to talk, blog, rant and rave all day so they can dig their own political grave for our nation’s sake.
@vphipps - you know when people open their mouths you begin to see who they are. intelligent human beings are those that listen to news reporting but are able to form their own opinions based on a reality that they have experienced or have knowledge of based on what they see in the world. the averager person obviously does not have that ability because you have seen, over the last year, how easily they can be manipulated.
while I will take the time to respond to some right winged republicans who claim to be independents, for the most part I only post comments by those people when there is truly something worth debating - just to get their view and sometimes to show how ignorant they can be.
Most of the time if a comment is typical of the irrational thought patterns that I am used to hearing I will not even post their comments nor respond to what I consider to be ignorant, hate based fear because all I really feel towards those people is sympathy and sometimes a little fear that there are too many people in the world like that.
Stay strong and thoughtful - I read your blogs when I have time.
@ skwguitar - I see why but that fightens me more - just the thought of who owns a gun (not all “criminals” some just mental) I feel I need a gun for my own protection - it’s a slippery slope but underneath the slide is the realization that my need for protection is directly linked to those types who own guns otherwise I would not feel the need.
Yeah guns scare the crap out of me still. That’s a lot more power to hold in my hand than I’m really comfortable with. You make a great point with the connection between who has guns and how that ties into your own protection, too. Good read, good discussion.
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