Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Is Aurora Really the Worst Mass Shooting In U.S. History? Not By A Long.....Er, Shot

TODAY'S MSM IS MORE THAN GIVEN TO HYPERBOLE when it comes to recording, quoting and interpreting events completely out of historical context.

To wit, the recent history in Aurora has already been written---the worst mass killing in U.S. history---to conform to the latest narrative, perhaps it's important to take a walk back down memory lane and remember other mass shootings in this country. This incident may indeed end up being the worst, it's not taken that record or worst shooting by a long shot.

Let's start here in 1949 with a man named Howard Barton Unrah:

At 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 6, 1949, a reclusive World War II combat veteran named Howard Barton Unruh ate a breakfast of Post Toasties and fried eggs, left his mother’s apartment wearing slacks and a bow tie, picked up his 9 mm Luger, and walked from shop to shop on River Road in East Camden, N.J., where he started shooting people.

Some victims were on a list Unruh had been preparing for months. Others were bystanders he’d never met, including three small boys under the ages of 10 -- one of whom was shot point-blank while sitting in a barber shop getting a haircut. By the time Unruh was apprehended, he’d murdered 13 people.

That's 13 people killed by this sick mass killer. But then the article goes on to list other such mass killings:

-- On Aug. 13, 1903, a 30-year-old veteran of the Spanish-American War named Gilbert Twigg opened fire with a .12-gauge shotgun on a crowd at an outdoor concern in the county of his birth. Twigg killed nine people in Winfield, Kan., and wounded many more before turning a revolver on himself. This bloodbath earned only five paragraphs in the New York Times.

-- In 1948, 10 months before Howard Unruh lost it, an ex-con named Melvin Collins got in a squabble with bookmaker in front of a Chester, Pa. boardinghouse, shot the man dead and then barricaded himself in his second-floor room, shooting people at random with hollow-point bullets fired from a .22 rifle. He wounded four people, and killed eight, including himself.

-- On Aug. 1, 1966, only two weeks after Richard Speck raped, tortured and murdered eight student nurses in Chicago, University of Texas student Charles Joseph Whitman killed his wife and mother, then carted a footlocker full of weapons and ammo to the university tower in Austin and began shooting. By the time the former Eagle Scout and U.S. Marine was killed by policemen, 15 other people were dead and another 30 wounded.


On Aug. 13, 1903, a 30-year-old veteran of the Spanish-American War named Gilbert Twigg opened fire with a .12-gauge shotgun on a crowd at an outdoor concern in the county of his birth. Twigg killed nine people in Winfield, Kan., and wounded many more before turning a revolver on himself. This bloodbath earned only five paragraphs in the New York Times."

There's more and it gets worse.


What conclusions might we make from this history lesson? I can only surmise we live in a fallen world where these kinds of awful tragedies happen every now and then. Barry Rubin at PajamasMedia agrees having a realistic view: There is No Solution to Human Frailty.

Whether the Aurora tragedy is the worst in U.S. history remains to be seen. Mass communication 24/7 amplifies awareness and sense of tragedy. Still the jury is out and it seems nothing---not all the security, gun laws or surveillance in the world----will ever guarantee that this kind of terrible thing will never happen again.

Meanwhile, may God help and heal all the victims of this tragic shooting, including the perpetrator and his family.

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