General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I'm so sick of these moral panics every time a tragedy happens. [View all]REP
(21,691 posts)Andrei Chikatilo killed at least 53 people, mostly children, using a knife ... but mostly one at a time over the course of 12 years. Gary Ridgway killed between 71 and 90 women, one at a time using his hands or a piece of rope, that most people didn't care that much about.
I could go on; I could cite spree killers like Charles Starkweather and Charles Whitman, who committed their atrocities in what most people think of as the innocent "good old days" (if segregation, McCarthyism, duck-and-cover Cold War scare drills etc are conveniently forgotten in the mist of nostalgia), but by god, Lucy and Ricky slept in separate beds and Joe Friday patrolled the streets.
Some seriously disturbed fucks want to die and take a bunch of people with them. Guns do make it easier for them to do that, no doubt about it. Some sick fucks want to kill a lot of people, one at a time. Culture isn't to blame. It'd be so nice if there were one thing that was easy to spot and fix and say "done!" so neither type of sick fuck can kill huge numbers of people.
Life ain't ever that easy.