The Wounded Knee Massacre

[stopbush]

17. Because in the broader context, both incidents are examples

of the sanctioned bigotry that has disgraced our country throughout its history.

At the core of both incidents is the belief of the perpetrators that the people they are killing are lesser people than themselves. One could make the argument that those beliefs are inspired by religious beliefs: in the case of Wounded Knee, the belief that a god-directed manifest destiny allowed for the white man to achieve his god-directed destiny no matter who got in the way. If that meant visiting genocide upon indigenous people, well, we were only doing the Lord's work.

In the case of today's shooting, it appears that the shooter had it in for gays based on his embrace of a radicalized form of religion (how radicalized is a matter of opinion).

And of course, coupled to that is the gun culture, be it that of the wild west era, or our current basterdized interpretation of the Second Amendment.