The subtle message is that having surveillance cameras bristling across our daily lives and online tracking of everything we do is a good thing, since it helped catch this nutjob. Hard to argue against that, except that violating the rights and privacy of billions of people worldwide hardly seems a fair trade for the ability to catch one lunatic. But that's a different rant.
What I really want to draw your attention to is the complete and utter silence from the halls of power and the nattering nabobs of the corporate Geezer Media.
No slavering calls for "common sense bomb-control".
No rush to draft bans on "assault bombs".
No impassioned calls for "bomb-free zones".
No grand-standing political ninnies hollering to ban "high-capacity bomb parts".
No emotional pleas for "bomb registration".
No whining over "access to bombs".
No hand-wringing over "bomb shows".
No wild-eyed demands to end "private sale of bombs".
No "town hall meetings" with scripted questions.
No student demonstrations against "bomb violence".
No wailing and gnashing of teeth over "our bomb culture".
Not a word. Nothing. Not even the standard focus on the means of killing rather than the killer. The media is quiet. The politicians are quiet. The SJWs are silent. Progressives are silent. Hell, even Hillary Clinton has said nothing about this matter, and she can usually be found at the center of any convenient tragedy.
This may seem like argumentum ad absurdum, but it's not. Rather this incident shines a very bright spotlight on the hypocrisy and opportunism routinely practiced by Geezer Media and the Plutocrats (which would be a fantastic name for a band, by the way).
The only mass killings ever hammered on in the public sphere are with guns. Guns are also the only objects vilified for these killings. No one ever blames knives, cars, bombs, garrotes, ice picks, or other weapons for the killings, only guns have the apparent ability to kill by themselves.
In the current scandal over the poisoning of a spy in the UK, no one is blaming the poison. All the focus is on blaming Russia, even Vladimir Putin himself. Everyone knows poison doesn't kill unless someone administers it to the victim.
So why are guns always blamed for killings? Why do the Gatekeepers always focus on these particular tools, rather than the perpetrators? Why so much animosity towards guns, when nearly every object can be weaponized?
The answer is quite simple: guns equalize the power equation between government and the masses. Bombs have to be delivered. Knives are for close combat. Bows and arrows have a fair range, but they are bulky and require a great amount of skill. Guns, however, can be used at great distances, and even cheap ones have as much potential as the outrageously expensive military versions.
It's very hard to control large groups of people who have the power to shoot back.
Larry McDonald famously noted that there were four boxes of liberty: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box, to be used in that order. This insightful phase posits that guns underpin the defense of individual liberty.
Indeed, it is often said that the First Amendment to the US Constitution (rights of speech, religion, press, assembly) are backed up by the Second Amendment (right to keep and bear arms).
It would seem that the constant harping on guns by the Controllerati backs up the assertion that totalitarian governments fear armed masses more than anything else. That no other weapon used in mass killings receives even a fraction of the attention given to guns would also seem to support this conclusion.
Whatever the motivations behind the shrieking outcries over guns, it is quite clear that bombs are not on the same list.
The young man accused of the Austin bombings clearly had access to the materials, the knowledge and the opportunity to build and deliver deadly devices. As far as we've been told, the victims were randomly selected. He had the ability to take his devices to other cities for delivery, and even died in his car, reportedly from self-inflicted detonation.
The point is that for those motivated to kill, there is always a way and it is impossible to regulate or limit all of them. Banning or controlling guns will achieve nothing. No one will ever be safe from individuals determined to cause havoc. It is a fact of life embedded in civilization itself.
When it comes to murder, there are a thousand motives and even more means. The maniacal and hysterical focus on just one tool reveals an agenda, which is further reinforced by the silence surrounding other tools. It's high time we publicly acknowledge that the problem is people, not tools, and more importantly that the concept of "safety" is a dangerous illusion used to manipulate public opinion.
