The Paddock Terrorism Debate
As the days have passed from the mass shooting on October 1st 2017, the attention of the public has shifted to the ongoing debate about whether the gunman, Stephen Paddock, is a terrorist or not. Many articles were published on the subject within three days of the shooting. The argument goes that Stephen Paddock is not being labeled a terrorist because he is white, and that a darker skinned person would be labeled a terrorist immediately. I think that this discussion all together is offensive.
The event that took place killed at least 58 people and injured more than 500 others. The fact that people are thinking about this on a grander scale three days after the event is abhorrent. 58 people died. 500 people were injured. It is disgraceful to the families who are mourning to take this and morph it into an opportunity to fight even more. People died, people were injured, and no one knows how many more people were affected by this event. It destroys me to think that this is the world we live in. National tragedies are happening left and right, and all we can think of is proving what we think is absolutely and unequivocally correct. From the debates over shootings, floods, and earthquakes, it seems no one is thinking of the people actually grieving. The media is only showing those who are a secondary or tertiary source fighting about it.
We should be coming together and showing we care about the people who are affected by what has happened. Talking about race is important, donāt get me wrong. The problem with this situation is the timing. There has been no time to gain perspective. When the articles were published about the āterrorism debateā, there wasnāt even a solid timeline about the events that There needs to be room to think before people start shouting at one another. There should be discussion about if Paddock is a terrorism, but not then, and maybe even not now. Thereās not even a clear motive as of when I am writing this. Until this is, this topic should be tabled.
What is currently happening is not what should be happening. People should be showing their anger that this event even took place, not on what history will remember about it. History will happen later. It will come. What matters now is what we are showing, and what we are showing is just hate. Hate and anger and fighting. Itās awful, Iām disappointed.