Maybe we can talk about the victims instead.
[...]
I'm putting their image of the victims behind a spoiler...
Rightly or wrongly, although I'm really not in a mood to read up on the victims right now[1] I
did open the image[2], it being a so much more fluid thing to do. And my first thoughts were[3] that I hope the Staff Sergeant represented there died while actively trying to confront the perpetrator, and not just in his seat or from random fire while escaping.
There's almost certainly something wrong about those first thoughts... I'm looking to make it a dramatically-valid story, I know. Not every military-type is going to be able to go all Die Hard on the next unexpected encounter outside of a premeditated military deployment area. Not everyone (military or not) who
can live up to the Hollywood heroic ideal is lucky enough to make it count. It obviously never resulted in any "John McClane: one; Herr Gruber: nil" situation... I'm sort of aiming at a "he shielded someone else's escape", by either physical presence or some presence of mind to create a suitable distraction.
Is it Hollywood? Or is it just a general narrative sense, that grabbed me by the goolies, there? One that Hollywood taps into, of course.[4]
Probably those are (or
should be!) rhetorical questions, I just asked. And what came before it being a 'rhetorical statement' that shouldn't be considered either. But the initial flash of the initial speculation and the almost instantaneously-resulting self-analysis just seemed so vivid that I thought I'd air it. Ponder it and ignore it, if you will...
Here's something else perhaps less controversial, although again you should probably ignore it as a discussion point: As someone without any particular belief in the whole concept of an afterlife, I just find death so upsetting. The end of a personality. The extinction of a character. There are no doubt some (such as the one who set about this act?) have stopped being a positive influence to society, but it's really upsetting to even ponder the question of the ending of anyone's life. (I'm welling up, somewhat, just while trying to work out how to word what I'm just saying, and hence doubtless making it complete hash of it.) I don't exclude from my distaste of the process those deaths that come from old age (although I
know that physical immortality isn't an option), and there's also accidents and unforeseen consequences... but what (loosely and randomly, in this case, but
especially where someone is made a particular target, not just a wrong-place/wrong-time victim) is an individual's premeditated effort to wipe out another's life... no, that's beyond comprehension, save for
perhaps direct self-preservation reasons (kill or be...). But that's a cold-blooded act, we see in the thread-title. And, darnit, I can see
another controversial subject coming to play if we extend this thought further[5].
Look, I'm just... trying to articulate some thoughts, and I've a feeling they're coming out wrong, or provocative rather than being evocative, or something. So I'm bolding this to hopefully draw your attention to the fact that I'm expressing inner turmoil, rather than have you read half-way down and reply in hot-blood while you still think I'm attempting to make a coherent claim that needs to be challenged. (Though, as long as you realise how incoherent this post is, I'm not saying
don't challenge me at all.)
And, yes, I'm probably going to regret typing all of that.
[1] Although I dare say I really need to do so, to honour their memory suitably, it does seem to me to be rather grizzly to go cyber-stalking the dead.
[2] With all due note of the caveat given, even though in some ways this might be considered an even grizzlier type of cyber-stalking, acquiring knowledge of the victims only insofar as them being mere pixels...
[3] And without knowing if they're backed up by the read-through I have so far avoided...
[4] Also, later posts are right about the "even women and children" bias, and by rights I should be equally 'happy' for one of the women/children to have taken on a similar self-sacrificing roll to save an adult male, perhaps also in the military. IYSWIM.
[5] No, not religion. Hopefully we've skipped that. The whole "capital punishment" issue, with the possible (officially-sanctioned) cold-blooded retaliation, in kind. Can we skip this too? Or is it too late?
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Topic: Gunman Opens Fire at Midnight Batman Release - 14 Dead, more Critically-Wounded (Read 52380 times)