backyard

I suspect that the most horrifying part of the Amish murders is that the murderer is really a pretty ordinary guy. He was basically fully functional, able to lead a normal life with a job and a family. A lot of people have done things at age 12 or older that they since regretted deeply. This is not to trivialize the deaths of this young girls at all, but to recognize instead that crazy Americans aren't so hard to find.

The main thing standing in the way between people, their bad thoughts and action is bravery, if you can call it that. Maybe conviction is a better word. The ability to follow through on their desires. "Cowardice" is what keeps the numbers of homegrown terrorists (of the shoe bomber persuasion) and wild shooters down in the single digits.

School shootings are shockingly common, and, as David pointed out the other day, Michael Moore looked like an idiot when he tried to claim in Bowling For Columbine that events like that never happen in Canada. Montreal has had more than its fair share of shootings. The most horrifying and scarring, of course, was the shooting at Ecole Polytechnique in 1989, when 14 women were killed by a man who went through the school, yelling, "I hate feminists." Then there was the incident just recently in September (2006), when at least one woman died as a result of a shooting spree.

Good timing for Bloomberg to be on his national anti-gun campaign this fall.