It happened again

It has happened again, not just one but two incidents of mass shootings in the US within two days.

The first was in Buffalo, New York, last Saturday where a white supremacist killed 10 people at a grocery store in an attack that he even live-streamed. He allegedly planned to kill himself after carrying out the shooting but was talked down into surrendering. He is now facing 10 counts of first-degree murder.

The second shooting was in California the following day where a gunman shot dead one person and wounded five others at a church near Los Angeles. Luckily, some churchgoers disarmed and subdued him before he could fire more shots. Police are not yet sure about the motive of the shooter, who was described as an Asian male in his sixties.

As usual, the calls for stricter gun control laws follow such incidents. And because such incidents continue to happen, we can conclude there has been little action on this on the part of US lawmakers.

But there is something else aside from easy access to guns that triggers these mass killings. Again we point it out; radicalization. This is a term no longer just applicable to terrorists who want to push specific religious or political agendas, but to anyone who has assumed an extreme position about any topic.

Extreme to the extent that he or she is willing to use violence to gain some perceived form of satisfaction or justice, especially if he or she feels unfairly treated or disadvantaged.

Again, because incidents like these continue to happen, it seems there is little being done to combat radicalization.

To be fair, while authorities can easily trace who wants to buy a gun, it isn’t so easy to trace who is watching messages of hate on the internet, or who is feeling left behind by the system, or who is feeling disadvantaged one way or another and feels that a certain person, race, or group is responsible for it.

But until and unless US authorities address this issue then these mass shootings will just continue, as we said the last time we wrote about a mass shooting that also happened in New York.