Mass murder at a sunny college campus in a beach town would normally be considered “newsy,” but Elliot Rodger’s massacre at the University of California-Santa Barbara last Friday is getting surprisingly little press.
This is not a good case for liberals: The killer was an immigrant, a person of color, and the majority of his casualties resulted from attacks with a car or knife. It makes as much sense to rant about the NRA as to blame the Auto Club of America or the National Knife Collectors Association.
Rather, what we have is yet another mass murder committed by a schizophrenic — just like those of Seung-Hui Cho, Jared Loughner, James Holmes and Adam Lanza.
Yes, they all used guns. Also, they were all males. They were all college-aged. They all had hair. Those are not distinctive characteristics.
When the last five mass murderers share something that only 1 percent of the population has, I think we’ve found the relevant common denominator.