A Response of Shaun King and Others on the Las Vegas Massacre

Despite killing 59 people and wounding 527 in a fusillade of gunfire that lasted nearly ten minutes, Stephen Paddock was not a terrorist.  At least as far as we know at this time.  He sowed terror, no doubt, as did the Son of Sam, but neither of the two left any sort of manifesto or even single statement detailing political motives, or motives of any kind, for that matter.  A political motive is what separates a terrorist from a generic mass murderer.  Sorry about that, Mr. King.

About two weeks before the Las Vegas massacre, Emanuel Kidega Samson, a Sudan-born legal resident and apparently practising Christian, walked into Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tennessee, to which he had once belonged, and sprayed it with gunfire after shooting down one of the parishioners in the parking lot.  No reputable news source referred to Samson as a terrorist, despite the fact that he is non-native and non-white.  Sorry about that, Mr. King.

A little over two years ago, a Palestinian-American named Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez attacked two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and was at first branded as a “terrorist”.  However, investigation quickly showed that Mohammad, a graduate of a local high school and of the city’s university, had been suffering from severe depression and bipolar disorder accompanied with abuse of several different substances, and by the end of the week, local authorities and media were talking about him more as a long wolf who had a mental breakdown.  Sorry about that, Mr. King.

About a year later, Omar Mateen, an Afghani-American U.S. citizen, walked into The Pulse nighclub in Orlando, Florida, an establishment catering primarily to the gay community, and killed 49 people and wounded 58 with gunfire.  Though at the time he swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, spiritual leader of Daesh or ISIS, and claimed to be part of the mujahadeen, investigation turned up no prior connection between Mateen and al-Baghdadi or any other part of Daesh, so the claims were dismissed and this brown-skinned immigrant citizen of Middle Eastern origin was labelled a “lone wolf” by both law enforcement and reputable media sources.  Sorry about that, Mr. King.

Each of these shooters was a “lone wolf”, and has been described as such by both law enforcement and media sources.  A “lone wolf” is someone acting outside of an organization on their own.  Many of the recent terror attacks in Europe have been carried out by just such “lone wolves” and have been referred to as such by law enforcement and media at the time.  Sorry about that, Mr. King.

Andreas Breivek, who killed 77 and wounded 319 people in Norway, targeting the Norwegian Labour Party, was another such “lone wolf”.  However, since he most definitely carried out his atrocity for definite political reasons, he without a doubt fits the definition of a “terrorist” and was called such by law enforcement and media sources at the time.  Sorry about that, Mr. King.

The Wounded Knee Massacre carried out by troopers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry was a mass murder inflicted almost entirely with gunfire but is different than what is now called a “mass shooting” on several accounts.  First, it was carried out by agents of the state, not a single private individual; second, there were many more shooters than a single individual or couple of individuals; third, it counts more as a genocide.  Sorry about that, Mr. King.

While the mass killings of African Americans such as those in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Rosewood, Florida, and Philips County, Arkansas, involved a lot of gunfire, those were perpetrated by mobs, sometimes with their intended victims returning fire in self-defense and often lasted more than a whole day.  Hate crimes?  Yes.  Genocide?  Yes.  Mass shootings, in the modern sense of the word?  Nope, not unless you’re an ally of the NRA trying to draw attention from the catastrophes caused by their change in direction with the beginning of their acceptance of money from the arms industry’s merchants of death.  Sorry about that, Mr. King.

The reason white people, or really any other variety of human native to or legally resident in the United States is not charged as “terrorists” is because the federal government has no statute that covers such incidents.  That is an omission that should be corrected, along with establishing Australian levels of gun control to stop our ongoing Holocaust of each other.  One Nation Under Fire, from each other and from the police.