When we have one of these shootings the media does two things, it will headline the story...which follows the old chestnut "If it bleeds it leads!" and the second thing that happens is a rush to say "Well, the shooter was crazy." and the person's entire past is sifted through and every little event that can be used to say "See this guy was nuts!" is paraded out and repeated over and over and over again.

This particular shooter lived a good portion of his life on camera so you can go to youtube or your online video warehouse of choice and see him living his life before he became the guy that shot people on live television.

He does not look like, sound like, or act like Charles Manson and is not sporting a swastika or anything else carved into his forehead. He looks and sounds like the guy that might be sitting next to you at the bar or standing behind you in line at the grocery store. He's not wearing a t-shirt that says "Future Killer" as he goes about his business.

At the moment that these shooters commit to actually picking up the gun or posting their "manifesto" somewhere...yeah...they have snapped and it is really convenient after the fact to pick through their lives and say "See, he yelled at a coworker in 2004, he was angry!"

And this is what the media is good at. Turning it into a story. A nice clean narrative that makes people believe we could have/should have seen it all coming. All these little incidents that were building to the day where he goes out and starts blowing people away.

The problem is it really is not all that neat and tidy and while we like stories and we like to assemble the clues after the fact...the truth is these people were/are right there next to us all the time. We smile and chat with them at the store, in the bar, at work.

Had it really been that easy to see "This guy is nuts and is going to kill somebody!" and he walked around frothing at the mouth all the time then perhaps he would have had an issue buying a gun.

Look at the man though and watch the videos of moments from his life and you don't say "What a wacko!"

This whole media game of assembling a series of moments from a shooter's life to get the audience to brand them a nut after they have finally snapped and gone on their shooting rampage...well...it's a fucking joke.

We don't see it coming. The victims don't see it coming. The people that know the shooters say "Well, I knew he was quiet." or "I knew he was angry." but they don't expect that will play out in a bloody rampage.

The media takes the easy route to a story because people like stories but the truth is we can't take the easy route if we really want to deal with this.