what a waste. what a mess. what insanity and stupidity. and all foolishness.

a gunman, supposedly armed with explosive devices, held hostage 3 people in the discovery channel building in my neighbourhood today. his supposed agenda was to have discovery channel air more environmentalist programs and to broadcast shows that promote human sterilisation because humans are the ones killing the planet.

i think this encapsulates the negativity that i sometimes possess towards this country. so many crazies here and the worst part: lots of guns available to them. this is a constitutional right that i just can't bring myself to agree with.

to me its like we ended up in the bad equilibrium. because a large critical mass have access to guns, people feel unsafe and therefore themselves desire to own guns. its like a coordination problem. if we all agree to not have guns, then we don't need to own a gun to defend ourselves against another's firepower. but if there are 10 people in a society and say 6 own guns, you create enough danger and impetus for the rest to go find guns too.

and even if i understand the historical roots of this constitutional right , the right to bear arms to repel repressive government, surely times and governments have changed enough in this country that this prevention is no longer required

at the end, the gunman, James J. Lee, was shot dead by the police. while I think his actions and goal were utterly stupid -- so much chaos for such a badly articulated and radical goal-- i am chilled by this loss of life. its different from in china where men were really driven to desperation and took the lives of school children. i mean, you have a sense that the situation and possible life that those men in China had were probably very dire and that such actions must hint at greater issues that cannot be publicly discussed or criticised at length. (as far as i know, madness as an ailment is also not publicly recognised in China)

but here, where living standards are higher and you have so much more of a security blanket, it just seems like such a waste that someone decided to use such means to demonstrate a point and could endanger the lives of others just to get his agenda on the table.

its just disappointing, tragic and unfortunate to see this in us, in our human race.