Reply #15: No, they would look for some other authority figure... [View All]

[Imajika]

...one that was highly recognized. The key is that these shooters understand politicians are authority figures, almost celebrities in certain ways, that do, through the laws they pass, have a certain measure of control over us. But that doesn't mean the shooter ascribes to any coherent political philosophy themselves. Then in their mentally deranged state they blame said authority figure/celebrity for all sorts of irrational things that very often simply don't have anything to do with left wing or right wing thinking.

Almost all of these threads have one thing in common just below the surface, and that is people are still determined to find ways to make Laughner a right winger even though no serious evidence exists to link him to the right. Sometimes people are just mentally ill and do things like this for reasons that we will never understand. It is absolutely possible for a mentally unstable person to be influenced by violent right wing rhetoric, and it is certainly worth looking into, but in this particular case the evidence from the very beginning does not seem to show that Laughner was any more interested in right wing talk than John Hinckley was interested in left wing talk. This has almost certainly been a mental health issue all along, not some conspiracy that will show itself if only we keep on trying to piece one together.