Shootings in USA

Police surround the shrouded body of the shooter

So we have another news flashing on worldwide news outlets of a US man indiscriminately shooting in the heart of New York City, near Empire State Building killing two people and wounding eight.

Police took control of the situation and opened fire on the shooter, killing him on the spot. However the twist in the incident makes it even more bizarre. The 53-year old shooter was said to be “disgruntled” after having been fired an year ago, killing his former co-worker and another person with .45 calibre handgun. Easy to say and put it on mental illness or personal grievances of a person to do this in US, and more so if he/she is a non-Muslim US national.

As the title suggest, this has been a tough summer for the US first to cope with domestic violence and second to cover it up every time to the world so as to not lose that, rather ridiculous badge of the “most civilised nation on earth”.

This NYC shooting isn't the first in the last month, but in fact the third of its kind.



James Eagan Holmes



On 20^th July, James Eagan Holmes opened fire when he entered the theatre on the screening of the The Dark Knight Rises killing as many as twelve and wounding fifty eight people, making it the deadliest shooting in American history. The shooter was apprehended by the police and there are already talks about Holmes being mentally ill to have carried out such an audacious act.

Wade Michael Page

But that wasn't it to be because a white supremacist, Wade Michael Page, shot several people at a Sikh Temple on 5^th August. As much as it was shocking for the Sikh community in US, it also terrified them, prompting to question security and tolerance level in the US. The gunman killed six people while wounding four others and later shot himself in the head after being shot in the stomach by a police officer. Page's shooting was more of a hate crime towards a particular segment of the society, and it is only now that it was, rather reluctantly, classified as an act of terrorism.

And this latest shooting in one of the most cosmopolitan cities clearly throws away all the notions of United States of America being the most civilised nation on earth for a country that has the highest per capita of prisoners in the world.

However, what has been even more disturbing is the height of hypocrisy of the world media to brush aside any act of violence in their own country as mere incidental while blame others for their own failures.

It would take less of an effort for the US to admit that there is a problem in their society in general, rather than run around to cover up stories. Or probably, it's a case of what goes round comes around.