Do shooting victims even exist? Is anyone ever responsible?
by digby
Sheesh, what a story:
Former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and his neighbor Chad Littlefield took former Marine Eddie Ray Routh to a Texas gun range to help him, but for some reason Routh allegedly turned his gun on his two mentors, killing them both, police said today.
ABC News affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas reported that investigators said Routh, 25, was recovering from post traumatic stress disorder, but police today said they could not confirm that.
Routh, a corporal in the Marines from June 2006 to January 2010, was deployed to Iraq in 2007 and Haiti in 2010, according to the Pentagon. His current duty status is listed as reserve.
"Apparently Mr. Kyle works with people that are suffering from some issues that have been in the military and this shooter is possibly one of those people, that he had taken out to the range to mentor, to visit with, to help him, you know, that's all I can tell you," said Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant.
"Kind of have an idea that maybe that's why they were at the range, for some type of therapy that Mr. Kyle assists people with, and I don't know if it's called shooting therapy," Bryant said. "I don't have any idea but that's what little bit of information that we can gather so far."
Ron Paul is on the right wing hit list for his reaction to this:
Ron Paul Smears Murdered US Sniper
“Chris Kyle’s death seems to confirm that ‘he who lives by the sword dies by the sword,’” Paul tweeted. “Treating PTSD at a firing range doesn’t make sense.”
Mother Jones Editor Clara Jeffrey made the mistake of making the obvious observation on twitter and got hammered by psychopaths for even thinking it.
I have no idea whether this is usually considered a good treatment for PTSD. It seems to defy common sense, but I could see how it might considered some form of exposure therapy.
What is clear is that the people who deeply admire the Navy SEAL and sniper Kyle are treating this as if it were some kind of unpreventable tragedy, as if he had been caught in a tornado or died of leukemia. They are in deep mourning but don't seem to see any human agency in any of it, from the victim's use of guns for psychological therapy to the act of the shooter who was, after all, a veteran and victim of PTSD. Every element of this event is wrapped in right wing orthodoxy to such an extent that they cannot find any way to level responsibility or even explain the brutal double murder of two innocent people by another human being.
A gun proliferation activist and PTSD counsellor put a lethal weapon in the hands of a mentally ill person and had it turned on him. Surely somewhere along that line of events, there must be somethingthat a decent society could have done to prevent that from happening.
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