I know someone is gonna pipe up about the mean girl from their highschool that's a nurse now. It cones up constantly in these conversations. But what I wanna put here is this comment by u/nursemattycakes (it's also the highlighted comment in the link):
"Probably the first major wake up call I had as a new grad in 2006 was taking care of a guy just a couple of years older than me. He was a frequent flyer in our hospital… a super nice kid with cystic fibrosis. His mother was the sweetest person I have probably ever met, and was diligently by his side at every admission. She was honestly the best caregiver I have personally ever met and was always very kind to the staff. I had gotten to take care of him several times over the years, even prior to graduating nursing school when I was a tech. I had never personally met the dad, although a few of my coworkers had, but I knew he worked a shit ton of OT to pay for all the care for his son that he could.
One night I came to work and he was my patient, and the dad was in the room. The mood in the room was absolutely tense, and the vibe at the nurses station was especially tense. During report the day shift nurse told me that the patient had hit his lifetime maximum benefit. Worse yet, his pulmonologist who had been his doctor since birth told the patient “You can’t just come to the ER every time you’re short of breath. You’re going to have to learn to be short of breath at home” and essentially fired him. Fortunately, the hospital’s other pulmonologist was more than happy to assume care. Unfortunately, about six months later the patient died. His demographics sheet listed him as self pay.
I will never ever forgive his doctor for abandoning him once that sweet, sweet insurance money ran out, and the experience made me realize how unnecessary and evil for-profit health insurance providers are.
So no, I do not care one bit about some multi-multi-multi millionaire getting gunned down because the luxurious and worry-free lifestyle he led was made possible by the suffering and preventable deaths of thousands upon thousands of people every year. His family can dry their tears with their stock options. Because fuck ‘em.
I, on the other hand, will enjoy my Christmas season as per usual, with the understanding that with just a little bit of bad luck I could lose everything I own at any point because in this country healthcare is not a right, but a privilege extended to me as long as I work hard to make the unimaginably rich, richer."
USA: "Each of us needs at least one gun to fight tyrants!"
Also USA: "You're not allowed to cheer the death of a tyrant. You need to pretend like they were a good person and never say anything bad about them."
There has been an intentional amplification of "only peaceful protest is effective" when teaching about civil rights, ignoring Malcolm X in favor of MLK. When the reality is that society was presented a choice - taking the proffered open hand and building something better together, or the closed fist of armed paramilitants reciprocating the violence shown to them. We did the former (but also assassinated MLK to prevent it from going further).
Since then, our government has taken every opportunity to chill any discussion of violence in the open, and to intentionally publicize the infiltration of private organizations or gatherings in which individuals might discuss or plan violence and/or direct action. They make corporations hosting modern public forums (like reddit, twitter) liable for pro-violence content to encourage them to ban participants who express notions in favor of or encouraging violence. Corporate entities band together to refuse to advertise in places which do so, depriving those places the funding needed to operate.
Our national security state captures all digital traffic and automatically processes and filters it, flagging key words and the individuals associated with it. We all know, and have incorporated that fact into our behaviors at an unconscious level.
The state and corporate entities are more well equipped than ever to prevent people from taking action to re-level the playing field. We're all taught that the "ammo box" is the lsst line of defense against tyranny, but every unspoken message given to us is meant to convey that you'll be infiltrated before you start, or arrested and painted as a radical for even participating in the conversation.
Everything you said is true.
But the catch is, there is a limit to how much can be extracted from laborers and the earth before the system breaks under it's own weight. Infinite growth on a finite planet with a finite work force is not possible. It might break next week, it might break a decade from now, it might be a century, there is no way to know for sure.
All of the national security and shut down of pro-violence content can only do so much. The country has been flooded with arms such that anyone can easily and legally get one, and effectively everyone has a motive, and the security these CEOs/shareholders/billionaires have is limited. And so lone wolf attacks like this last one will always be possible.