Loneliness, the weapon for mass destruction / rerun 2

How many weeks will this same posting feel like the only one to publish? To express my thoughts about the tragic event in Munich I would need to use the exact same words as a week ago. And the week before. So here is something so exceptional as a rerun of the rerun, what else is there to do? With only a few words added.

The lone wolf. The hermit.

Have you ever heard reports about the super social woman with tons of friends, going berserk, shooting people in public places? Didn’t think so.

It’s happened again. And again and again. This week in Munich. A lonely and mentally troubled 18-year old fascinated by mass shootings had planned it for a year. On the 5 year anniversary of Utöya Norway he killed 9 people, most of them children and teenagers and 27 more are injured. No political motive is known.

I am not forgetting the attack in Kabul yesterday towards a peaceful demonstration where more than 80 people were killed, but I don’t have information about the ISIS suicide bombers’ state of mind.

Last week a truck attack in Nice, 84 people dead and more still in critical condition, many children. Two weeks ago police shootings in Dallas. Orlando, a gay night club just about a month ago. And every school shooting I can remember, not only in the U.S.: the perpetuator is described in the same terms: he was a lone wolf.

The terror attacks in Brussels in March. Utöya, Norway 2011.

Anders Behring Breivik executed the execution of 69 young Norwegians by himself out from his own plans constructed in his sick hermit brain. Other terror attacks are mostly conducted within some evil organization, but the executors oftentimes young men recruited among lonely lost souls. Some women, I know, but extremely rarely.

Since 9/11 the world has turned a restricted place strictly regulated to prevent mass death. We are encouraged, and in some cases imposed, to spy on each other and report any kind of deviation from what’s considered the norm. We are not allowed to bring more than 100 ml of liquid on an air plane. European borders are closed.

For every terror act, we come up with some new ridiculous rule to avoid it happening again. Ridiculous, because the brains behind the acts will always be one step ahead. There is no way we can ensure us from evil acts of this kind. Plastic cutlery on board and taking our shoes off at the security won’t do it. Forbid trucks?

When it comes to mass shootings though, there are real actions to take. Shootings are executed with guns of some kind. Take them away. Just take them away. And it will make a difference. 

But, the common denominator among the executors, when it comes to terror attacks as well as mass shootings, seems to be loneliness. The motives varies, but loneliness, exclusion, isolation, hopelessness, lack of purpose and meaning as well as sense of being violated and betrayed, seem to be the breeding ground for execution of mass death.

So. Register every lonely person. Don’t let violated people on board a plane. Close the boarders for everyone feeling betrayed. Expel each one sensing excluded out of the country.

You see? No. The only way to prevent executed mass death is a sense of community and context, the inclusion, respect, warmth, friendship and love. Let’s legislate on that.