Excusing Major Hasan: The New Case For "Pre-Post Traumatic Stress For No Reason Whatsoever in the Un-Traumatized"

The AtheoLeftists started immediately to excuse Major Hasan on the basis of insanity: it had nothing to do with the vulnerability of his victims who were obeying the gun control laws and were unarmed – on a military installation.

“Major Hasan is a Virginia-born army psychiatrist and a recipient of the Pentagon’s Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, which seems fair enough, since he certainly served in it, albeit for the other side. Most Americans think he’s nuts. He thinks Americans are nuts. It’s a closer call than you’d think. In the immediate aftermath of his attack, the U.S. media, following their iron-clad rule that “Allahu akbar” is Arabic for “Nothing to see here,” did their best to pass off Major Hasan as the first known victim of pre-Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. “It comes at a time when the stress of combat has affected so many soldiers,” fretted Andrew Bast in a report the now defunct Newsweek headlined, “A Symptom of a Military on the Brink.”

“Major Hasan has never been in combat. He is not, in fact, a soldier. He is a shrink. The soldiers in this story are the victims, some 45 of them. And the only reason a doctor can gun down nearly four dozen trained warriors (he was eventually interrupted by a civilian police officer, Sergeant Kimberly Munley, with a 9mm Beretta) is that soldiers on base are forbidden from carrying weapons. That’s to say, under a 1993 directive a U.S. military base is effectively a gun-free zone, just like a Connecticut grade school. That’s a useful tip: If you’re mentally ill and looking to shoot up a movie theater at the next Batman premiere, try the local barracks — there’s less chance of anyone firing back.

“Maybe this Clinton-era directive merits reconsideration in the wake of Fort Hood? Don’t be ridiculous. Instead, nine months after Major Hasan’s killing spree, the Department of Defense put into place “a series of procedural and policy changes that focus on identifying, responding to, and preventing potential workplace violence.”

Hasan shot the first MP to confront him and was about to administer the death shot when he was shot and stopped by the second. But only after a deadly rampage on the legally disarmed. Why would the selected, trained defenders of the USA be forbidden from carrying their issued weapons? Would it be the creeping Leftism which infests every facet of American life?

The Left works on fear: we fear these things: something BAD might happen so these things must be legislated against. The list of "these things to be feared" includes nearly everything, but especially guns and carbon and corporations and the herd. The herd is too stupid; they are dangerous to themselves. Only the AtheoLeft can save them from themselves (especially the trial lawyers, who need laws to support their lawsuits). Unintended consequences be damned.

In fact, unintended consequences are useful in escalating the Leftist rhetoric. Never waste a crisis; use it for its emotional content and irrational thinking. In Hasan's case, the rhetoric is "workplace violence and how it must be stopped", as irrational a use of a crisis as it gets.

The Hasan terror attack (his own admission) is as foreseeable as are future attacks on any disarmed group of people. What the AtheoLeft actually fears is the herd itself, which at some point will actually turn on them. As Obama fears, with “pitchforks and torches” if that is all they are allowed. It’s no wonder the Left rationalizes so stupidly against weapons in the hands of their enemies – not Hasan, of course, he has PrePost Traumatic Stress For No Reason Whatsoever Syndrome – but the herd itself.

Therefore, weapons must be demonized with cloaks of moral selfrighteusness. Alinsky would be proud: even America's defensive warriors are disarmed and vulnerable. Clinton's administration noticed the obvious: the folks in the armed services do not vote Democrat. Just coincidentally, they disarmed them.

The AtheoLeft wants everyone to merely be TARGETS.