The conservative blogosphere (see Powerline) is paying a lot of attention to this story, from Fox:
SEATTLE — A man walked into a Jewish organization Friday afternoon and opened fire, killing one person and injuring at least five others before he was arrested, officials said.
The gunman, who employees said claimed to be a Muslim angry at Israel, forced his way through the security door at the Jewish Federation after an employee had punched in her security code, said Marla Meislin-Dietrich, a co-worker who was not at the building at the time.
Staff members said they overheard him saying "'I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,' before opening fire on everyone," Meislin-Dietrich said. "He was randomly shooting at everyone."
Police would not confirm the account.
David Gomez, an FBI assistant special agent in charge of counterterrorism, said investigators believe the gunman targeted the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.
That last remark looks pretty safe, as the gunman seems to have done his shooting there. All the victims, apparently, were women.
It's early, but this doesn't seem to be connected to any organized terrorist activity. The United States has rarely proved fertile ground for organized political violence. The Ku Klux Klan standing, of course, as a conspicuous exception, most assassinations, bombings, sniper attacks, etc., tend to be one or a few misfits whose personal pathologies latched onto some political issue. Timothy McVeigh is a good example. John Wilkes Booth is another. I expect that this incident will fit the profile.
For that reason it doesn't mean anything, in any important sense, except of course that human beings can be very dangerous animals. To the extent that there is a larger issue than one crazy individual, it is that Jews are more frequently cast as the villains in such paranoid fantasies than members of any other ethnic group.
Recent Comments