New South Wales police just confirmed that the gunman/hostage taker is dead.
WTF does that mean?
No hostages needed in the US
Gunmen just shoot to kill.
Thatās certainly a huge factor but Iām struck by how the Pennsylvania situation, which is happening one county over from me, feels far more remote than the Sydney one half a world away. Itās a domestic, a private thing, where the Sydney one is about being a Westerner in a public place. Weāve trained ourselves to imagine terrorist attacks happening to us, and simultaneously to accept as unremarkable an incident where a guy kills five people and is now in a standoff with police. Two people 12,000 miles away outweigh five in the next county. Strange.
I know this sounds a wee bit insensitive to the ongoing situation right now, but why donāt we have Lindt Chocolate Cafes here in the US? Those things are pure melt-in-your-mouth delicious!
Just a thought.
From what I can tell, the guy was Shiāite, originally from Iran but had criminal charges against him for killing his ex-wife, and also being a sexual perp. But because he put up an ISIL flag, with its Sunni terrorist implications, heās a booga-booga terrorist wannabeā¦and thatās all weāre gonna hear from here on out about the guy. That he was a lone wolf terrorist, even though none of that makes particular sense. In my opinion, he was a desperate crazed criminal that got more attention from the Aussie authorities, than he had standing on a street corner in protest of his pending charges. In other words, he went postal.
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FREE MUMIA!
btw this would never happen in Australia! They banned guns like America should! Sydney is in Hawaii right?
And simultaneously to accept as unremarkable an incident where a guy kills 4 people and is now on bail for a DUI. Strange.
10k DUI deaths in 2012. 11k gun related homicides in 2010. (not exhaustive with the search but most recent data I found from NHTSA & factcheck.org -my bad if factchk sucks)
Lets bring back prohibition.
421,000 āDestractionā based crash casualties - thatās a lot of people and money
Or the carcinogens being peddled to us while the FDA review panels are manipulated by corporations. There are many more lethal everyday occurrences to name that donāt seem worthy for many to acknowledge.
Now that Sydney is over, the PA story is front and center, very big.
And yes, the PA guy is a targeted situation, a nasty domestic dispute that ended in several deaths. And it was not in public. If he had gone to a Mall and shot those people up, that would have easily been the big story of the day.
The Sidney situation is a guy who was not targeting specific people, he just walked into a public place and decided whoever was in there becomes a hostage. Plus he had a political motive, which also makes it a much bigger story. They guy in PA probably canāt even spell politics.