when no sense makes lots of sense

I hate it when important details news in events go unreported, especially when it seems that they are being deliberately unreported. Last night when I read about a gunman at Sunset and Vine shooting people at random, I figured he was either a nut or a Jihadist (which is a distinction, even though there is considerable overlap in the categories). Shootings like this don’t make sense, so naturally we want to make sense out of them. Whether it makes sense to want to make sense out of random shootings is a topic beyond the scope of this post, probably involving complex issues of human psychology, and even the survival instinct.

But either way, fool that I may be, I Just. Wanted. To. Understand.

In order to understand an incident, it is first necessary to know the facts. That is where my irritation began, and grew. As usual, the bastards we rely on to report the news in all of its detail, however disturbing, seemed to be going out of their way not to do so. They did not report the dead shooter’s name, nor did they report an important eyewitnesses statement that the gunman was screaming “Allahu Akbar” as he was firing. The Internet being what it is, a formerly ignored detail cannot remain ignored for long.

The Atlas Shrugs Blog reports the disturbing development that few news outlets are reporting one witness’s claim that the shooter was screaming “Allahu Akbar.” This KTLA 5 report has the witness making the claim at (2:37):

Atlas Shrugs notes that  Reuters, CBS news, The Hollywood Reporter, and KFAI reports all missed the “Allahu Akbar” detail.

However, it is important to note that while this is all over the “general” Internet, the actual news stories that mention “Allahu Akbar” are scarce.  One is a Weekly Standard piece written by Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft,  and another is a Technorati piece.

But almost all of the news articles — even those going into depth about his motives and relationships — say nothing whatsoever about “Allahu Akbar.” This Hollywood Reporter piece links to his Facebook page (the man has six more friends than yours truly), and in what is becoming a pattern, a long British piece has more information on the man than almost any American report; this is just the “headline”:

Hollywood gunman launched his deadly rampage ‘because he was heartbroken after girlfriend of four years dumped him’
Shooter identified as 26-year-old Tyler Brehm
Broke up with girlfriend Alicia Alligood two weeks ago
Had called her hours before the shooting to tell her he loved her
One victim ‘critical’ after being shot in the jaw identified as top music executive John Atterberry

Yikes. So, I am left with two questions. What would make this seemingly ordinary man from Carlisle, Pennsylvania — boringly ordinary if I may be so judgmental — go on a shooting spree and yell “Allahu Akbar”? A number of commenters at YouTube and elsewhere insist that he was not a Muslim, but was he or was he not? How would anyone know? It would certainly seem to be relevant, because if he was not a Muslim, it seems tough to call this Jihad.

Does anyone know? I think it is highly relevant. Does screaming “Allahu Akbar” make someone a Muslim? Or is it theoretically possible that a deranged non-Muslim just might scream that phrase? As to what might motivate a non-Muslim to behave that way, I am reminded of Patrick Purdy, whose shooting of innocent school children led to a major push to ban so-called “assault weapons”:

Patrick Purdy, a disturbed drifter and former Stockton resident, began his attack by setting his Chevrolet van alight after parking it behind the school. He then moved to the school playground and began firing with an AK-47 from behind a portable building. Purdy fired more than 100 rounds in three minutes killing five children and wounding thirty others including one teacher.^[2]
All of the fatally shot victims and many of the wounded were Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants.^[3] Purdy then took his own life by shooting himself in the head with a pistol.^[1] Purdy had carved the words “freedom”, “victory”, “Earthman”, and “Hezbollah” on his rifle, and his flak jacket read “PLO”, “Libya”, and “death to the Great Satin” [sic].

At the time, the “Allahu Akbar” phrase was not widely known to millions of middle class households. But I could certainly see him using it if it was.

California is now protected from such people by some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.  The latest shooting is proof that gun control works! As to why isn’t that being more widely reported, who knows?