Our Madmen Assassins: Their Political Ideologies May Not Matter

Over the course of a few weeks, assassins with murky motives have murdered strangers with guns.  Robin Westman, an 18-year-old, shot up a Catholic mass in Minneapolis, killing two children and wounding 18 more. Tyler Robinson, age 22, allegedly assassinated Charlie Kirk, a young, conservative Christian spokesperson, while he was speaking on a Utah college campus. Then, more recently. Joshua Jahn, twenty-nine years old, shot into a Dallas ICE facility, killing a Hispanic detainee and wounding two others.

Two of the assassins--Robinson and Jahn-- shot themselves at their killing sites. Tyler Robinson, the man who reportedly killed Kirk, was captured alive.

Politicians and the legacy media have attempted to identify the political ideologies of these murderers. Some commentators blame right-wing politics for the violence, while others argue that political violence is most often associated with leftist ideologies.

I don't think the political leanings of these madmen explain their violent actions or are even relevant. They're all nuts. 

Without exception, the killers are young men suffering from mental illness, although a few identify as women. They are isolated, lonely guys who spend too much time playing video games, and most of them probably smoke too much marijuana. They don't have a girlfriend or romantic partner. None of these killers has a clear vocational identity or any hope of joining the workforce. None of them dream of owning a home, marrying, or raising a family.

 In short, all these sadsacks are losers, not in the perjorative sense but in the existential sense. These guys were never going anywhere in life, and they all know it. 

So, why not get a gun, preferably a semi-automatic assault rifle, and start killing people? By committing murder, at least they'll get their 15 minutes of fame, a brief burst of online notoriety.

Every time a school shooting or mass killing occurs, left-wingers call for gun control. But that horse has already left the barn. The United States has almost 400 million guns in circulation, more than one gun for every man, woman, and child. We will never get those firearms out of circulation, even if we had the political will to try.

And rifles and pistols are cheap. Even a guy working at McDonald's can afford an off-brand assault rifle. 

Our society is to blame for all this carnage. What kind of world have we created that has caused some men to invest in killing tools rather than marriage, a family, and a vocation?

All School Shooters are Deranged Males, Including Robin Westman

 Robin Westman, a 23-year-old male who identified as transgender, killed two children at Assumption  Catholic School in Minneapolis earlier this week. Armed with an assault rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol, he wounded fifteen other children and three adults while the victims were celebrating Mass. 

With his mother's support, Robert Westman changed his name to Robin when he was 17 and declared he identified as female. Later, he regretted that decision.

The New York Times deferentially referred to Westman as "Ms. Westman," and darkly observed that "some conservative activists [had] seized on the shooter's gender identity to broadly portray transgender people as violent or mentally ill . . ."

Two observations about the Times's characterization of Robin Westman. First, all American school shooters are young men. There is not a single school shooting perpetrated by a female. 

Second, all schoolground assassins suffer from severe mental illness and a psychopathic disregard for human life--including their own lives. 

Westman's writings suggest he was antisemitic and anti-Catholic, but basically, he was just nuts. For the legacy media to insinuate that his transgender ideation had nothing to do with his homicidal rage is disingenuous. 

How would I feel if I were a 23-year-old man who'd changed my sexual identity as a teenager and realized I'd made a mistake? The prom I missed, the girl in my algebra class I didn't date, the varsity track team I didn't try out for.

I would be furious at anyone who encouraged me to identify as a woman and at the school that tolerated this charade. Indeed, I might be angry enough to start shooting people--although not so angry that I would shoot a child.