The Seal Beach Massacre

By Semperpapa

It was and is a tragedy, and it will remain a tragedy for ever more: a deranged man walks into a hair salon in the coastal small town of Seal Beach, California, and shoots up the place. The final count is eight dead and one critically wounded.

The POS is apprehended by the cops few minutes after the shooting not too far from the crime scene.

He promptly surrendered to the Seal Beach Police officers without any incident, after all the cops can shoot back, as opposed as people going about their lives at a hair salon.

I am very familiar with Seal Beach, California, in fact I work not too far from it.
It is a small community, with a fairly high income per capita, as every beach community in California.

But what is disturbing is the attitude of the people that are being sought by the local media for their dramatic coverage.

The local media, in its never ending uselessness, is placing person after person in front of their camera telling how unusual such a crime is in their community, how their sacurity has been shaken, how their sense of community has been so painfully shattered.

Really, folks, a senseless massacre like the one in Seal Beach would be just as senseless and disgusting if it had taken place in Compton or San Bernardino or South Central LA.

The fact that it took place in the "close knit" social environment of the beach town makes absolutely no difference in the gravity and shock value of the action.

But that was my initial reaction: shock! Terrible shock and anger that someone could do such a thing to other human beings. Then some details became known and the shock started to dissipate and the anger got even more pronounced.

It appears that one of the victims of the massacre was the ex wife of the bastard that did the shooting. In what appears to be a motive for the evil actions of the man, it looks like a bitter dispute over the custody of the couple's young son, finally pushed the scum bag to do what he did. The worst part, though, is that the woman had expressed her fear about the mental stability of her ex husband and his repeated threats of violence.

To make things even more disturbing, the man had already once stepped into the hair salon, where his ex wife worked, and threatened to kill her and her co-workers.
So my anger now is fueled by the knowledge that the danger for the POS to go off and hurt innocent people and nobody did anything about it.
Starting with the ex wife. He had threatened her and threatened to do exactly what he did and she was obviously aware he was capable to as she had lamented to others. And yet, she took no precaution. What compels a woman who has been threatened with death not to be armed?

Next is the owner of the salon, who was also killed in the shooting. Considering the man had already once showed up foretelling his intentions, should it not be a normal reaction that the owner would be ready to defend his business and his employees and his customers?
Again, this is not a matter of the criminal element in the surrounding neighborhood, or a matter of feeling "safe" in a specific setting, but a matter of self-preservation and the willingness to protect innocent people.

So no precautions were ever taken by these people even as the threat was there and was real. The gunman, according to the preliminary investigation, just walked in the salon and killed his wife, then proceeded to execute anyone that was within sight, even stopping to reload.
If any person working there or any customer would have been armed, maybe some of the people who died would still be alive today.

And I know some of you will make the statement that we cannot have shootings going on everywhere. To you I say this: if you can find morally superior to take away the possibility for a law abiding citizen to protect itself and other innocent people than to have a dead mass murderer by the hands of a civilian, than I have no use for you.

What if one of the customers had been a police officer and he or she would have used his or her off duty weapon to kill the bastard before he had the chance to kill so many, than it would have been a "good" thing. What would be the difference if it had been me with my legal firearm to take the garbage out?
I am sure that the families of those who were killed would agreed that it would have made absolutely no difference if their loved one was still alive.

Just my thoughts!