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A scene from the Colorado shooting (July 20, 2012) |
[The following is a chapter from my book, The Meaning of Life (and AIDS Jokes), which was released in September of 2011. I'm posting it today because of the terrible shooting in Colorado.]
As you know, there has been a rash of workplace shootings lately. American employees, fed up with their stressful jobs and insufficient wages, are going into work armed to the teeth and causing massive chaos. Each workplace gunman blames a new enemy — the government, taxes, racism, a jerk boss — but the results are always the same. Innocent people dead or wounded, and a shooter who kills himself before the police even arrive. It’s a terrible tragedy every time something like this happens.
Luckily, I have a solution.
I think we can decrease the number of workplace shootings with one simple step.
How you ask? It’s easy.
First we have to ask ourselves this question: Why do people shoot up a public place? I believe they do it for attention. If they were tired of life, they would just kill themselves. Take some pills, jump off a bridge, lock yourself in a closet with a Taylor Swift CD on loop until you gouge your own heart out… whatever floats your boat. Kurt Cobain was sick of life. He didn’t storm into a Gold’s Gym and light the place up. When you’re taking out innocent lives before turning the gun on yourself, you’re trying to make people notice you. These gunmen are trying to enact revenge against their bosses, ex-lovers, the popular clique, and anyone else they despise. That revenge fantasy goes hand-in-hand with the attention seeking. A sane person who hates their boss looks for another job. They realize it’s a bad situation and they get out. Someone who’s fed up with a spouse gets a divorce. A child who hates their school focuses on achieving good grades and then goes to college somewhere far, far away. Anyone who believes it is their responsibility to enact a God-like revenge is clearly starved for attention. When you read about any of these incidents, you can see the clues all over the place.
“I was a victim…”
“I gave them the justice they deserved…”
“He shot at the popular kids…”
Workplace (and schoolplace) shooters feel that they’ve been dealt a bad hand in life. They could overcome this by having a personality or by accomplishing something, but since they’re all crazy losers with no redeeming qualities, they get the attention they’ve been seeking the only way they know how… by going into a crowded building with a gun. Of course the media plays right into their plan by covering the shootings ad nauseum.
Assuming my theory is correct and gunmen are doing it for the publicity, there’s an easy way to stop them. We make sure that the publicity people get for shooting up a business is the kind of publicity that no one would ever want to have.
That’s right… we call them a pedophile.
Yes, from now on, whenever someone shoots up a crowded place, every news story should be required to include at least one line saying that the gunman was an alleged child molester. The stories would read something like this...
Charles Stevenson, 28, of Pittsburgh, PA, stormed into a Bally’s Fitness Center on Main Street at 9:00 this morning and began shooting an AK-47 at gym members. Nine people were killed, including Stevenson, who eventually turned the gun on himself. Seven others were wounded. Stevenson, a former employee of the gym, is believed to have had a major argument with the owner of the club two days prior. Friends say Stevenson had been acting erratically for weeks.
Stevenson is also allegedly a pedophile.
Or how about this…
John Montgomery, 37, of Utica, NY, walked into a Wegman’s grocery store at 4:00PM yesterday with two pistols. Montgomery opened fire in the direction of the customer service counter, then turned his aim towards cashiers and finally toward store customers. The ordeal lasted 32 minutes and ended when Montgomery took his own life during a stand-off with police. Fourteen people are dead, and 3 others are wounded.
Montgomery was allegedly upset after a cashier refused to accept an expired coupon for Campbell’s Soup. Also, Montgomery is allegedly a toucher. Several unidentified sources confirmed that he enjoyed touching little boys.
Or this…
Jake Williams, 42, of Alexandria, VA, shot 37 people inside a Sonic this morning. Also, I heard the dude loves molesting children. I mean, allegedly, this guy is an unchecked sexual deviant satiated only by the supple feel of a child’s genitals. Tons of people said so. Trust us. Everyone in Alexandria knows Jake Williams LOVES fucking kids.
You might be questioning the legality of my method, but trust me, it’s fine. I’ve worked in journalism. As long as you put words like “allegedly” or “reportedly” at the beginning of the sentence, you can say anything. You want to say some dude likes grabbing kids’ behinds? No problem. Just say he “allegedly loves grabbing child ass.” Legally you’re off the hook and everyone who reads it will believe that your accusation is true. Plus, even if it’s ethically wrong, it doesn’t matter, because who’s going to come to the defense of a child-molesting mass murderer? No one. Would you defend a murdering pedophile? Of course not. That’s worse than defending a terrorist. At least with the terrorists you can make up some weak argument about America’s immoral smut peddling or the Kardashians. With kiddie-rapist gunmen, you got nothing.
Do this for one year, and I promise you will never see a massive workplace shooting again. Gunmen want the media to talk about the injustices they faced, not the crotches they touched. They want to be a martyr, not a baby rapist. Copycat killings and attention-seekers would disappear forever, and only the craziest 0.00000000000000000001% would ever even consider shooting up a public place again. This type of crime would be virtually erased from our society. Plus it would raise a lot of awareness about pedophilia. It’s really a win-win.
