Robert Crimo III Killed Six People and Escaped in a 2010 Honda Fit: Are We Teaching Our Children Well?

 We all know the drill. An alienated young white guy commits mass murder with a semiautomatic rifle. Almost instantly, the shooter is captured or gunned down or commits suicide.

Political leaders, flanked by their lackeys, hold a press conference where they heap lavish praise on the police even if the police did a lousy job (like at Columbine and Uvalde). The liberal media cries out for gun control. Pundits describe the shooter as a cowardly scumbag.

Our political, media and cultural elites never blame themselves for these mass shootings. No one blames the public schools, where all these young shooters spent their childhood and youth. No one laments our waning religious beliefs or the disintegration of our nation's civic life.

No one ponders why so many of these shooters were addicted to video games. No one asks why these shooters express their anguish in graphic detail on social media--anguish that is wholly ignored.

Crimo shot up a Fourth of July parade and escaped in a 2010 Honda Fit. Perhaps he knew that this pathetic little car symbolized his pathetic little life.

Crimo probably sensed that taking out student loans for college would not help him build a decent future for himself. He probably didn't have a girlfriend or any vocational goals. He was perhaps searching for meaning without having been issued a moral compass.

Whose fault is that?

James Howard Kunstler recently observed that "[t]he chief duty of men and women in [the] future will be doing everything possible to ensure that their children do not become hot messes." 

Who disagrees? 

But Americans are not striving to prevent their children from becoming hot messes. They're not doing everything they can to nurture and encourage young people to become functioning, self-reliant, and moral adults. 

Instead, our government shovels money into our corrupt universities to pay professorial nihilists to teach that America's heritage is nothing more than the story of white oppression. 

Our mainstream media has nothing good to say about patriotism or traditional civic values. Instead, op-ed writers label religious, patriotic Americans as "Christian nationalists," which is a racist code phrase.

No wonder guys like Robert Crimo III are becoming increasingly common. Indeed, the United States can hardly go a week without a mass shooting.

Ironically, the elites trying to destroy American civilization are never the victims of these young men's rage. They live in gated communities or highrise condos, surrounded by bodyguards and safely protected behind bullet-proof glass.

No, the people killed or maimed by the Robert Crimos of the world are school children, mall shoppers, and folks who only want to enjoy a Fourth of July parade.

Making his getaway in a 2010 Honda Fit

Nihilistic old white guys who commit murder: We will see more Stephen Paddocks

Old and in the way, that's what I heard them say

They used to heed the words he said, but that was yesterday

Gold will turn to gray and youth will fade away

They'll never care about you, call you old and in the way.

Old and In the Way

lyrics by David Grisman

Sung by the Grateful Dead

Americans are accustomed to serial killers. According to the New York Times, mass shootings have occurred in the United States at the rate of more than one a day over the last 477 days.

We can sort these killers into discrete categories. Some are religious extremists--the Boston Marathon bombers, the Orlando shooter, the San Bernardino murderers. Some are disaffected young men: the killers at Columbine, Sandy Hook, and the Charleston, SC church.

And there is at least one more category: disaffected, older white men. Stephen Paddock,an affluent  64-year-old man, who killed or wounded more than 500 people in Las Vegas a few days ago, is the latest old white guy to commit (or at least attempt to commit) mass murder. Before Paddock, there was James Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old geezer from Illinois who shot a group of Republican congressmen while they were practicing for a charity baseball game. And don't forget John Russell Houser.  Houser, a 59-year-old loner, opened fire in a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, killing two people and injuring nine others before shooting himself.

What did these men have in common? All were older white men, all attacked complete strangers, and all committed suicide (or allowed themselves to be killed by the police). And I think it is fair to say that these three men had lost all sense of purpose as they entered old age.

Let's face it. Growing old is no fun.  As we grow older, we realize we did not achieve all our dreams and that our time on earth is drawing to a close. We feel our strength and vigor ebb away as we hunker down for the last stage of life.  Our regrets and mistakes loom larger and larger in our minds while our meager triumphs and happy times grow dim in our memories.

And as death approaches, we find we are not afraid. At times we almost long for death. This movie lasted too long; we want to see "The End" appear on our movie screens. And we don't give a damn who shows up at our funerals.

In a healthy culture, old people derive meaning and purpose from their families--especially their grandchildren. If they are fortunate, they are respected for their wisdom and are sought out for wise counsel.  Some of us belong to civic organizations or take comfort from religious faith.

But in postmodern America, a lot of old white guys don't have any of that. They lost the families they started when they were young. Their jobs, which were obsessions when they were in their twenties and thirties, now seem tedious. They've lost all interest in religion and find religious people excruciatinglyboring.

And some of these old guys become nihilists; and some of them have guns.

I wish I believed the Stephen Paddocks of this world are the rarest of aberrations, that we will not see the likes of him again in our lifetime.

But I know differently. Our culture does not honor the old; it offers no solace to the elderly. The indignity of our approaching death reveals itself, the meaninglessness of existence becomes apparent; and some old men express their disappointment through murder.

Stephen Paddock, mass murderer

References

477 Days. 521 Mass Shootings. Zero Action From Congress. New York Times, October 3, 2017.