Another Shooting - Why Cinemas?

Cinemas, churches, and schools seem to be the favored venues for random shootings by crazed people intent on killing fellow humans and themselves.

Is this the answer for cinemas?

My heart sank yesterday when I heard that a disturbed individual (later identified as 58 yr. old John Russel Houser) had shot innocent moviegoers at the Grand Theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. The gunman killed two young women and wounded, at least, nine others before taking his own life. The shootings took place within an auditorium that was screening 'Trainwreck' to an audience of over 100.

Houser had some criminal history but it was old and he left no messages, notes, or manifesto behind to explain his motives.  The tragedy was simply someone who wanted to take his own life but through some pretzel-twisted, demented logic decided to take others' lives as well.

Lafayette is a quite town of about 120,000 and depicts the places where similar shootings have occurred in recent history. Small towns in out-of-the-way places which do not see a lot of violence, but which have become the scenes of mass killings since the 1999 saga at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, when two teenagers killed 12 classmates before killing themselves.

June 1999 - Atlanta, GA, 12 killed by gunman (including his family) before committing suicide
September 1999 - Fort Worth, TX, lone gunman killed six before taking his own life at Church
October 2002 - Washington, DC sniper attacks and kills 10
March 2005 - church in Brookfield, Wisconsin the scene of a shooting where seven where murdered
October 2006 - shooter kills five school-girls and wounds six others at school in Nickel Mines, PA                              before killing himself
April 2007 - irate student killed 32 and wounded 15 at Virginia Tech University before shooting
                     himself
December 2007 - 20 yr. old shots and kills nine at shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska
November 2009 - U.S. Army Major shots dead 13 and wounds 42 others during a speech at Ft. Hood,                              Texas
July 2012 - a masked gunman kills 12 and wounds 58 others at a cinema screening of Batman movie

Why all the violence? And why take innocent lives if your intent is to commit suicide?

The U.S. is a violent nation.  Since its inception 239 years ago, the U.S. has been at war - many times in more than one conflict at the same time. It's our way - but why?  Because the U.S. unlike all other nations is not a country but a company, and it is run (managed) like a company.  To me, whether or not there should be or not be stricter gun controls isn't the answer to the problem of mass murders - it is our way of life, our history, our heritage, and there is no changing that.

The U.S. is the third most populace nation on earth, so just based upon simple math we have more crazies than other nations - this, couple with our proclivity for individual freedoms and rights and you have the perfect storm for people who want to harm others and commit heinous acts of violence.

Cinemas, churches, and schools - innocent places where people congregate to exercise their freedom of choice and worship but no better places to commit murderous acts. This is not the last we will see of these types of offences against humanity.

Should the notice before a movie starts be, "Turn off your cellphone and make sure your concealed weapon is loaded and ready for use. This may sound trite but it may be what we are moving toward.

Condolences,
Jim Lavorato