Another Psychologically Troubled Individual with a Gun, another Military Contractor with Security Clearance

What does it add up to? –another mass shooting, another crime at a federal facility, this time the U.S. Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.

Alexis

No need for lengthy soul-searching. The shooter had already been identified as psychologically troubled, before Monday’s mass killing. Aaron Alexis was displaying symptoms often associated with schizophrenia and had sought help. Several police stations were already acquainted with him.

A former Navy Petty Officer, he had been disciplined repeatedly for misconduct, leaving the Navy though remaining on the list as a reservist–honorably discharged under early-release, the service unable to general-discharge.

He had had several scrapes with the law, including at least two incidents involving guns–using firearms without need, shooting out the cars of a tire in Washington state and shooting into an upstairs neighbor’s apartment in Fort Worth, Texas.

As often happens, Alexis purchased his most recent guns in Virginia, hub of weapons commerce on the East Coast.

Thirteen people dead, including the shooter. Mental disease or defect, a pattern of erratic behavior, violent incidents including altercations involving shooting guns, military experience and clearance giving him access to a U.S. armed forces facility.

A danger to self and others.

And what do we do, presented with an individual like this? –Why, under the guidance of the cartel-supporting National Rifle Association, we do the obvious: we let him buy all the weapons he wants. Then the led-by-the-nose-by-the-NRA GOP screams ‘Obama’, or ‘government’, or ‘bureaucracy’, or whatever feeble CouldaShouldaWoulda it will use this time, conveyed by the silk-stocking law-lobbying firms its sponsors fund, to the ever-accepting dues-paying ignorant and resentful. The party line is getting thinner by the month, thinner with wear from every drearily predictable incident–but not necessarily thin enough to defeat every well-funded and highly hyped recall effort in every remote area in the U.S.

The only mystery about this mass shooting is why any respectable media outlet in America would pretend that the NRA has any credibility.