THE CASE OF THE MASS SHOOTER AT ORLANDO
Psychologically Warped
ON June 12, 2016, a mass shooting terrorist attack and hate crime took place inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the United States. It resulted in 53 wounded and 50 dead, including the gunman, who was killed by the Orlando police after a three-hour standoff. The shooter was identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American, born to parents of Afghan origin.
How did Mateen develop this extreme hate and anger? A close look at his life shows that he had come to look upon himself as a socially rejected person. He also felt that the social system had not supported him and he had not therefore, been able to fulfill his ambitions. This sentiment made him rage against the whole system and destroy those who represented that system. After a lot of thought, he narrowed his target down to Pulse, a gay night club which was a soft target. Here he poured out his anger on all those who were in the club that night. The result was one of the worst mass shootings in the history of the United States.
Omar Mateen wanted to become a full-fledged police officer. Last summer he applied for an intensive six-month law enforcement training course at the academy in his home town, Fort Pierce. The Daily Mail Online reported that officials at the Indian River State College’s Criminal Justice Institute were so concerned about his ‘deceptive’ behavior that they rejected him. This rejection was not due to disfavour or discrimination but rather due to his own inability to measure up to their criterion. It was not a case of injustice. In fact, if we see it from the right angle, it was a case of true justice.
Address the mind of an angry man by reasoning with him and you will find that very soon he will of his own, reappraise his behaviour.
Study of such cases show that such offenders are generally obsessed with their own selfrighteousness which leads them into blaming others. Consciously or unconsciously, they believe they are always right and others are always wrong. It is this mindset, rooted in self-rejection, which leads to hate and culminates finally in violence.
Analysis of such cases show that such people are obsessed with a one sided story of the case. When rejected, they tend to believe that others must be wrong in doing so. Sticking to a one sided story, they ignore others’ points of view. For example, the gunman was rejected due to his own deceptive behaviour but he considered the rejection as discriminatory behaviour of others who had a negative perception of him.
They develop a strong belief that the other person is the oppressor and that they are the oppressed. This kind of thinking is unquestionably one sided, but they cannot see this. They are obsessed with unilateralism. Consequently, they get filled with anger which increases day by day until their whole personality is engulfed in it. At this point, they know nothing except hate, anger and revenge, and the final result is breakdown. It has rightly been said: ‘When one’s ego is touched it turns into super ego and the result is breakdown.’
The solution is that, those who are free of such negative sentiments as they are personally detached from the situation, should play an objective role. These ‘outsiders’ are generally teachers and counsellors. In that capacity, they must try to re-engineer the minds of people who have become psychologically warped and help them come to terms with reality.
Every angry man is angry because of his reaction to something. But reactionary thinking stems purely from an unrealistic approach. Address the mind of an angry man by reasoning with him and very soon he will of his own, reappraise his behavior. Everyone has an area of the mind which is amenable to reasoning, and by addressing this soft corner, you will surely conquer him without having recourse to the use of guns or bombs.
Forgiving is Divine
To err is human; everyone is bound to do
something wrong at one time or another. But,
in such a situation, revenge means committing
not just one mistake, but making mistake
after mistake. On the contrary, forgiveness
means undoing wrongs with rights. Perhaps
this concept is expressed in the saying: ‘To err
is human, but to forgive is divine’