I was reading the story today about the guy who went into a gym in Pittsburgh and started shooting at women this morning and a thought sprang into my head. Why doesn't stuff like this happen in say...  Canada? or the UK? I know Michael Moore already asked this question in his movie Bowling for Columbine... but here we are a few years later and there's no sign of "random shootings" slowing down in America.

This kind of things happens all the time here. In fact just a couple days ago I was reading about how in several states there is no limit to how old you have to be to hunt unsupervised. As a result of this recently 16 year old Tyler Kales shot 54 year old Pamela Almli in the head because well, it was foggy and he thought she was a bear!

We are the only country where this kind of stuff happens...  every fucking day. I'm not gonna rule out the occasional school shooting in Russia, or Germany. But you don't see someone in London England walking into a builiding and shooting motherfuckers once a week. This is another made in America export that we have delivered via the media to the rest of the world.

But let's also not totally crucify our violent American society for what individual responsibility and common decency should impart on any rational person. The rest of us live it every day and we don't think it's cool to just walk into a building and start offing people because we can't get laid...  This Pennsylvania guy was a douchebag plain and simple. The guy even had a diary where he whined consistently about how women:

"don't even give me a second look ANYWHERE" even though he was tan and fit and claimed to dress well and smell nice. He listed his status as "Never married." In a chilling addition, he recorded the date of his death as Aug. 4, 2009."

Maybe it's because you're a whiny douchebag? I mean seriously...  it doesn't sound like the guy was trying too hard at all and just needed a good excuse to run into a room full of people with guns blazing and fulfill some sick gory Japanese film fantasy. But why is that? And why is this type of behavior so common in America and not anywhere else? Ok Ok... I just brought up Japanese movies...  I'll give the Japanese credit for being pretty sick and twisted as well. They may even be close to us statistically in random mall violence...  but goddamn it, we exported it there!

Is it because we are a violent culture who's society has been structured to teach us that violence is an acceptable answer to our problems? Is it because the NRA has systematically watered down any kind of valid gun control law on the books because gun manufacturers along with the NRA have a huge financial network of weapons dealers backing them? ... or is it just because America has always been about valuing money and the power it can buy over anything and everything... including human life?

That last question was probably the answer to the rest of them.