PrintJune 11, 2009
Holocaust Museum shooter no 'right wing Christian'
James von Brunn, an 88 year old Holocaust denying, Jew baiting, racist crazy shot and killed a security guard yesterday at the Holocaust Museum in Washington while wounding another.
Debbie Wilgoren of the Washington Post has the details:
The suspect, identified by law enforcement sources as James W. von Brunn, 88, of Annapolis, was said to be a longtime, "hard-core" supremacist whose Internet writings contain extensive, poisonous ravings against Jews and African Americans. The slain guard, Stephen T. Johns, 39, of Temple Hills, worked for the Wackenhut security company and had been employed at the museum for six years, the museum said.
Officials at George Washington University Hospital, where von Brunn, Johns and an unidentified victim with less serious injuries were taken, said Johns suffered a gunshot wound to the chest and died there. Von Brunn was shot in the face, and the bullet exited his neck, according to a high-ranking police source. He underwent surgery and was in critical condition last night.
Police recovered a notebook in the suspect's possession that apparently contained a list of District locations, including Washington National Cathedral. Police bomb squads were sent to at least 10 sites.
Evidently, even though von Brunn is identified as a "right wing Christian," he didn't have much use for them either. Or Neocons. Or Bush.
Some "right wing" Christian.
According to the left, it's the right's fault - specifically, the tea party movement. Or "hate speech." Or Christian fundamentalism. Or simply because conservatives enjoy killing people.
I don't know about you but I am getting good and gol' durned sick and tired of the left playing armchair psychiatrist after every political-type shooting. They way they tell it, von Brunn had a vision of the tea parties in his mind when he pulled the trigger.
They come to the dubious conclusion that it is the fault of conservatives by reading a story in a newspaper. They then diagnose the crazy's actions as being influenced or even encouraged by conservative "hate speech." That's right, they come to a psychological conclusion of what was going on in this lunatic's mind by reading about the killer in a newspaper story or two.
Reality based community? Give me a break.
They come to this brilliant psychological conclusion by "connecting the dots." Shooter is "obviously" a conservative. Conservatives are "anti-govrenment." Hence, the reason the shooter opened fire was because he was influenced by conservative harangues against government.
This kind of dot connecting is simple minded idiocy. If life was about connecting dots, we'd be born with pencils for fingers and a child's puzzle book for brains. It is an abducto ad absurdum argument where the conclusion is pre-determined - conservatives are at fault - and "logic" is churned and churned, reducing an enormously complex thing like the motivations of a killer to a much too simple, biased, equation that any professional psychologist would dismiss as nonsense.
What was happening in this guy's life that finally set him off? Was he clinically insane? Did he hear voices? Was he clinically depressed? What was the basis for his unreasoning hatred of Jews and blacks? How was his overall health? Did he recently lose someone close to him? (At age 88, the chances of that happening are pretty good.)
We must remember that when the left goes off on this track, it is not to illuminate reasons for the crime but rather it is done for the political purpose of trashing the opposition. That kind of biased thinking alone should discredit any attempt they make to seriously analyze the motivations of the killer.
Here's the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center on the possible motivations of von Brunn:
"This is a longtime white supremacist and anti-Semite approaching the end of his life who may have decided to go out shooting," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group in Alabama that tracks right-wing extremists.
No mention of conservative hate speech or the tea party, or any anti-government rhetoric by the right. Why? Because it may very well be - and this is at least equally as plausible a reason von Brunn opened fire - that the killer wanted to kill himself by forcing the guards to defend themselves.
"Suicide by cop" is actually much more common than many people think. Unable to pull the trigger themselves, the unbalanced killer actively seeks out a confrontation with the police in order to have them help him commit suicide. This study (10 years old) discovered that as many as 1 in 10 shootings by LA county sheriffs alone were the result of suspects wanting the police to end his life.
In the absence of any evidence or psychological profile that could guide a rational analysis of this tragedy, it makes sense that the above motivation has equal - perhaps superior merit to the nonsense spouted by the left. But rational analysis does not take into account the political motivations of those who would stand on the backs of tragedy for the mundane purpose of scoring points against their political enemies.
Of course, rationality makes little difference to the left. Everything they can use as a tool to bash the opposition - even scurrilous, nonsensical memes like this - are fair game. So let them make idiots of themselves by playing armchair psychiatrist. Serious people don't pay any attention anyway.
