The Sunday night massacre in Las Vegas that left 59 dead and 527 people injured has sparked a very interesting debate: was this a mass shooting or an act of terrorism?
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Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old white male, opened fire on an outdoor country music festival just outside of the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas strip. Paddock reportedly checked into the hotel on Thursday with 16 guns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and the explosive ammonium nitrate, then randomly opened fire on the “sitting duck” crowd of concert attendees after breaking out the windows of his corner hotel suite.
Immediately following the killings, the media and others were quick to brand it a “mass shooting.” In fact, they called it “the worst mass shooting in US history.” Is their depiction accurate??
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In 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof shot and killed 9 people at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina. The murder was deemed a “mass shooting” and was not prosecuted as a terrorism case.
In 2015, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot and killed 14 people at a San Bernardino, CA office Christmas party. The murder was called a “terrorist attack.”
In 2012, James Eagan Holmes killed 12 and injured 70 in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater melee that was called a “mass shooting.
In 2012, 29-year-old security guard Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people and wounded 58 others at an Orlando, Florida gay nightclub. The murder was called a “terrorist attack.”
Hmmm…. What’s wrong with this picture??
In each of the above examples, the murders by while males were branded as “mass shootings,” while the murders by brown and/or Muslim people were branded as “terrorist attacks.”
HUH???
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The lone wolf. The local shooter. The gunman. Any and everything, but terrorist. Wonder why.
— Ava DuVernay (@ava) October 2, 2017
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Only in America can whiteness prevent the man who conducted the deadliest mass shooting in American history from being called a terrorist.
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) October 2, 2017
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Interestingly, America has a long history of writing off murders committed by white men as a “mass shooting” at the hands of a good ol’ boy who was probably just disgruntled with society. However, America is also quick to label murders committed by brown people as a “terrorist attack” conducted by a likely radicalized Muslim. How is this possible??
Does race or religious creed actually define what is considered a “mass shooting” versus a “terrorist attack?” Or is America showing its fear of brown and Muslim people by creating labels that are not only unfair and nonsensical, but prejudicial and rooted deeply along the lines of ethnicity?
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Thank you for writing about this DJ. They had this story on the news all day yesterday and all everybody kept talking about was mass shooting. So when does it become terror? You laid out all the facts perfectly. They only call it terror when a brown person is involved. Every other time it is a crazed gunman or something like that. And we all know the reason why. They need to stop the bs and call it what it is, terrorism.
Though my heart aches for such loss of life, I’ve reached the point where saying “My thoughts and prayers are with those etc…” isn’t enough for me anymore. In face of, yet again, the shedding of MORE innocent blood, those words seem so empty and meaningless to me now.
People are being SLAUGHTERED….not just grown folks but even CHILDREN….more and more frequently at the hands of madmen who have “the right” to own as many weapons of MASS destruction as their little dark hearts desire. And WHY?! Well because “that’s the price of freedom” says Bill O’Reilly, the NRA and every d*mn politician in the NRA’s back-pocket. It’s pure Evil.
America has become a nation that will accept the most depraved and vile and vulgar and Violent acts of Inhumanity. Such acts, it seems, have become the norm in America. WE are being destroyed from within.
The creatures who OWN the GUN industry and other destructive American industries RULE this country. And everyday, WE are witnessing the catastrophic results of such madness. As a nation, WE are IMO, bent AND broken. Twisted AND Tortured. But most of all, WE are lost because those creatures are driven first and foremost by “the LOVE of money” which, as they say “is the root of ALL evil.”
And WE (the American people) have allowed those creatures to lead Us down the path to destruction.
Now as to DJ questions:
Does race or religious creed actually define what is considered a “mass shooting” versus a “terrorist attack?” Or is America showing its fear of brown and Muslim people by creating labels that are not only unfair and nonsensical, but prejudicial and rooted deeply along the lines of ethnicity? […]
Since both questions pertain to life in America, my answer to both questions is….Yes.
MSN: “Something Has Changed in This Country”
Jason Aldean has released a new statement on the massacre at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, where he was performing when a gunman opened fire, killing 59 people and injuring more than 500.
Posting on social media, Aldean expressed his grief and confusion over the tragedy, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
“Over the last 24 hrs I have gone through lots of emotions. Scared, Anger, Heartache, Compassion and many others. I truly don’t understand why a person would want to take the life of another. Something has changed in this country and in this world lately that is scary to see. This world is becoming the kind of place I am afraid to raise my children in,” he wrote.
“At the end of the day we aren’t Democrats or Republicans, Whites or Blacks, Men or Women. We are all humans and we are all Americans and it’s time to start acting like it and stand together as ONE! That is the only way we will ever get this Country to be better than it has ever been, but we have a long way to go and we have to start now,” he continued. “My heart aches for the Victims and their families of this Senseless act. I am so sorry for the hurt and pain everyone is feeling right now and there are no words I can say to take that pain away. Just know u all are in my heart and my prayers as we all go through this together. Time to come together and stop the hate!”