Gather around boys and girls, it’s time for serious Internet business. With everybody clamoring over themselves to blame the shooting in California on their personal pet peeve somebody has to say those four words that aren’t said enough. Shut the fuck up. Seriously. Everybody who is blaming the gun culture, mental illness, white privilege, misogyny, masculinity, and any other pet peeve for the shooting needs to knock it off.
I have firsthand experience of the aftermath of these accusations. Back in my day it was the shooting at Columbine and the blame was placed on guns, violent video games, quiet kids, and social misfits. That was basically the checklist of my life in high school at the time. And because that was the checklist of my life I went through a week of hell as the administrators of my school demonstrated that such a heinous act wouldn’t happen under their watch. And they demonstrated this by performing a witch hunt. Because of the finger pointing being during the aftermath of Columbine I was the witch.
After every shooting there are witch hunts. Usually they’re performed by community members and school administrators who want to bask in the spotlight as they demonstrate that they will go to any lengths to prevent such an incident from happening in their community. And witch hunts needs witches. Based on all of the pop sociology and psychology going around this time the witches will be anybody who happens to be a white male suffering from a mental illness that has been rejected by the women he’s asked out. If he has made an off color joke that could be construed as misogynistic that will just be further evidence that he’s a witch. After the witches have been identified their lives will be made a living hell for at least a week. They will be interrogated by school administrators and police officers. They will be accused of a crime they weren’t even planning to commit. In short their life will needlessly be turned into nightmare for no reason whatsoever.
Everybody who is pointing fingers is making the life of some unknown person hell. If you really feel as though you have to blame all of the world’s ills on your pet peeve at least wait until the event falls off of the media’s radar because then the threat of the witch hunts will have passed. But this finger pointing accomplishes nothing constructive and is plenty destructive. So knock it the fuck off.