i'm really in no way interested in what the shooter thought, and what he thought really has nothing to do with anything i've said about it, or will say about it. it's just not an important part of the story.

think of it like this: if a group of klansmen opened fire on a nazi rally, would it be that different to you than if a crazy loner did it? would you have more or less compassion for the nazis if it was a crazy loner? would you condemn the tactics more or less depending on who carried them out?

now, you might be aghast that i'm comparing "peaceful worshippers" to nazis, but you can make all of the same arguments. as i pointed out the other day, nazis and muslims are actually astonishingly similar in their belief systems. the comparison is not ghastly; it is in fact both apt and quite astute. arguments have in fact been made for years that nazi marches should be permitted because they aren't actually harming anyone, and if you look at these arguments from nazi apologists and muslim apologists you see the same basic components - it's free speech, it's diversity of thought, etc.

but, we have this kind of mental block around it. for some reason, we very clearly understand the threat that nazis pose to us and immediately react, but we don't seem to understand the threat that muslims pose to us - despite the belief systems sharing the same basic oppressive foundations.

i take things a step further, as i so often do, and i recognize that it may be as a consequence of experience. as i was largely raised as an atheist, and have almost no experience with personal religion, i fundamentally don't understand this argument for personal worship. muslims famously don't accept a separation of church and state, and i actually agree with them on this point; i've never swallowed this line of personal faith, but have always seen religion as a political activity. it follows that attending a mosque is fundamentally the same thing as attending a political rally and the attempt to categorize them as different types of activities should be discarded entirely.

and, if you consequently view a muslim religious gathering as a political rally where hateful statements are being read from the mic, minorities are being targeted, etc - as is the norm - then the difference becomes almost solely linguistic. it follows that i have a hard time victimizing muslims for the same reason that i have a hard time victimizing nazis.

i'm not justifying the shooting; as mentioned, i reject the tactic as counter-productive. further, circumstance can be cruel - there may have been atheists or children caught up in the massacre, who may have been more legitimate innocents. i don't know these things.

but, my initial reaction was something like "let the fuckers kill each other off", and the motives and factors for the shooting aren't a meaningful factor in revising that.