Down in Alabama on Saturday there was a memorial service for Charles Poland. Mr. Poland drove a bus for the Midland City school district. He was murdered when a guy named Jimmy Lee Dykes jumped on board his loaded vehicle brandishing a weapon. By all reports Charles Poland did what he could to protect his riders, yet another bunch of grade school kids. Dykes shot him four times and then abducted one of the children.
Brother Dykes then retreated to an underground bunker he'd dug and filled with supplies. He is still holed up there with his hostage as I write. It is now day seven of the nightmare. Jimmy, as he is known to relatives, is reportedly a Vietnam veteran and has been described by neighbors as, you guessed it, a loner. People who know him have also said he harbors both a deep distrust and loathing of the government. One would assume that means the Feds, although I suppose any level of government, right down to the local variety is a bit iffy for him by now. How killing a school bus driver and kidnapping a five year old solves any of the problems he might have with the authorities remains unclear to just about everyone, but him at this time.
Also on Saturday outside of Stephenville, Texas, Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield were shot to death at a local gun range. Kyle was a former Navy SEAL who did four tours in Iraq. He and Scott McEwen co-wrote his biography titled, "American Sniper." He was so efficient at his job that Iraqi insurgents reportedly nicknamed him The Devil of Ramadi. According to the book he had 160 confirmed kills.
Kyle had founded a non-profit called FITCO to aid fellow veterans. It provides them with home physical training equipment. He believed that both physical and mental wounds could be helped with workout regimens and the focused discipline and ethic they require.
The accused shooter is Eddie Ray Routh, a marine veteran who had been deployed to places like Iraq and Haiti. Sheriff Tommy Bryant said it was possible that Routh might have been suffering from a mental disorder as a result of his own service. Whatever the case, Kyle and his friend Littlefield took Routh to the Rough Creek Lodge shooting range. The prevailing theory at this point is that both men were trying to help a fellow veteran work through some mental issues. Why that would include putting a loaded weapon in the man's hand is a tad beyond comprehension, but it must have seemed like a good idea at the time to someone. Routh gunned them both down with a semi automatic hand gun, reportedly shooting The Devil of Ramadi in the back.
Slate Magazine and @GunDeaths are reporting that as of January 31, 2013, in other words, within 48 days of the Newtown, Connecticut horror, 1,508 Americans have been shot and killed. The Guardian reports that in 2012, 41 people were killed by firearms in England and Wales, 35 in France, 6 in Israel, 14 in South Korea, 55 in the Netherlands, 7 in New Zealand, 30 in Australia, 2 in Norway, and 57 in Switzerland. That would be 247 total for all of 2012 in those nine countries. Think about that. It took us only 48 days to shoot and kill over six times the number of people who were similarly murdered in all those other places added together over the period of an entire year.
But we're free, thank God Almighty, we're free.
Chris Kyle was married with two children. Chad Littlefield was described as his workout buddy. Charles Albert Poland Jr. was a grandfather several times over. The kid still stuck in that Alabama hole with the lunatic is named Ethan.
res ipsa loquitur
2-4-13
I agree with the pro gun people that it is the person behind the gun who is dangerous -- to a point. Guns in our society seem to harbor a climate of unhealthy violence and they are easy to obtain, legally or not. Prohibition - no. Registration and tracking -- certainly.
ReplyDeleteI suppose a disturbed person could commit mass murder with a knife, hand grenade or whatever. It would be a lot harder to do so though and the false courage level needed to commit such an act would be far less.