The Ubiquitous Lone Gunman vs. The Mentally Deficient Terrorist

by Guy Somerset

Living in America as a sane person is becoming an increasingly difficult proposition. Every day seems to progressively become a stroll within the confines of controlled chaos which could erupt at any moment.

With increasing frequency incidents occur whose official versions bear little resemblance to objective reality. Nowhere is this dichotomy brought into more stark relief than when comparing the extremes of mass shootings against police as juxtaposed with the perpetual war on terror and its occasional arrests.

In the case of the first, initial accounts and eyewitness testimony (sometimes from police themselves) frequently undergo numerous revisions for public consumption such that the ultimate narratives bear almost no resemblance to original reportage; especially in the number of shooters and their motivations.

As regards the second, preliminary accounts of a homicidal terrorist maniac thwarted in some nefarious plot at the last moment by our heroic alphabet agencies often fall apart upon even cursory examination. To a man these hazardous foes reveal themselves as mentally deficient and barely functioning human beings coerced into making statements they usually lack the faculty to understand.

However don't take my word for any of it (as long as you promise not to take the government's word either) and leave us have a look at some curious episodes from both categories occurring only this year...

The Ubiquitous Lone Gunman

If there are two things we know from high school history books and made for television movies it is that assassins always act alone and initial eyewitness accounts are always wrong. Of course, academic texts and documentary films tell a different story, but who has the time for those these days?

Thus on July 7, 2016, unknowns ambushed a group of policemen in Dallas. They injured nine officers and killed five others. During the combat it was stated by witnesses as well as authority figures the shooting had been perpetrated from an elevated position with triangulated targeting in order that at least two gunmen could concentrate fire upon the victims. It was an account which lasted approximately one day.

By next morning there was a total revision of the story and now but a single (amazingly accurate) shooter who used his lightning-quick speed to run up and down the various levels of a parking garage to give the impression there was more than one perpetrator. Most gallingly, mainstream media railed against "rumors" of multiple gunmen even though the Police Chief himself asserted these details a day prior.

All previous references to "shooters" in the plural was eradicated from the timeline, nothing more was mentioned about various suspects also arrested that day and if you think any of this is bizarre you are clearly delusional and likely paranoid.

Barely one week later, on July 17, 2016, there was another massacre of police in Baton Rouge. As the event unfolded live on-air it was described by the first witness on the scene that more than one shooter was involved. Indeed, a primary account specified two men and possibly more began shooting at one another well before any police arrived at all. Some were described as wearing dark clothing with assault weapons. After officers arrived one gunman then allegedly turned his aim on police themselves which began a bloodbath in which six law enforcement personnel were shot; three of whom perished.

A manhunt commenced for an additional two assailants which spread throughout the city. At one point an emergency telephone call was received stating two men wearing all black attire entered a Walmart store and exited in a complete change of clothes. Some reports stated both carried rifles. Police apprehended the duo but later claimed they had nothing to do with the crime.

Not long afterward all those wild misimpressions of a raging firefight prior to police presence were dispelled and confirmation received the official tale would be there was one shooter and he was killed almost immediately. Anyone who saw, or thought they saw, anything different was at best misguided and at worst needed to get his mind right.

As mentioned, during such events the most repetitive sentence on television is not to believe initial witness statements because they are inherently unreliable. Alternatively, perhaps the reason for this admonition is people are generally honest and relate exactly what they initially witness.

Only when they receive helpful reminders from authority it would not be in their best interest, or that of the country, for certain facts to become too well known do onlookers revise their accounts. Either way, citizens should question far more than they do whether institutionalized media is the best arbiter either of witness veracity or reliability.

The Mentally-Deficient Terrorist

Moving to the other side of this spectrum we arrive at the mentally-deficient terrorists, of whom there seem to be an abundance. Approximately once every three months is a news item concerning a plot "linked to al-Qaeda" which has been foiled in the nick of time. It all sounds very frightening to people who have lives to lead and no time to review the particulars of the incidents. If they did, citizens would see most of these arrests are laughable on their face if not chilling by their implications for civil liberties.

Take, for example, Emanuel Lutchman. (Even the name sounds scary, does it not?) On December 31, 2015, an announcement was made he was arrested for plotting a machete attack in a Rochester, New York restaurant during the winter holiday season. So far, so terrifying.

However, in the weeks after nabbing their man it turned out Lutchman was less Bin Laden and more Willy Loman. The plotter was a street pan-handler with a criminal record who had been hit by a truck as a child and was "never right" afterward. While in prison for his Robbery conviction, as a 16-year-old, Lutchman received a full complement of medications for his mental issues and repeatedly attempted to kill himself. Relatives noted after leaving prison he sometimes neglected to take his pills.

His own father stated the son was "easily manipulated" and had been convinced to become a member of the Crips street gang...and then the Bloods street gang....and then into becoming Muslim. In other words, Lutchman was the sort of failed drifter one often encounters in cities of any appreciable size.

Even so confidential informants for law enforcement, including a drug dealer, said Lutchman intended to attack the eatery outside of which he frequently begged for spare change. The suspect was to accomplish this using a knife he did not even have the money to purchase. Helpfully, law enforcement's drug dealer CI took Lutchman to a Walmart and bought the knife and other items himself before he gave them to his idiot companion.

According to the legal complaint, the total bill for supplies was around $40 while CI #1 was paid approximately $19,000 and CI #2 received approximately $7,000 which was clearly no motivation for anyone involved to give anything less than a true account of what the moron Lutchman said or did.

Had not bureaucrats closed several of its mental facilities in the 1980s to save money for their budgets, many of the homeless one sees in America such as Lutchman would otherwise be receiving care. Instead, broken men beg for dollars and are led as lambs to slaughter by the more venal of their fellows.

While it is possible, and indeed probable, Lutchman made inflammatory comments it is nonetheless inferred reading the government's own affidavit that others in his proximity were essentially paid to elicit such statements and provide the very implements used in any potential terrorism. Without such intervention Lutchman could very well still be begging on the sidewalk rather than sitting in a jail cell.

Another salient case occurred on July 1, 2016, when Mahin Khan (with a similarly terrorist-y name) was arrested for support of the Taliban and intent to commit terrorist acts. As a law and order sort normally this would pose no qualm for my conscience. Lock him up and throw away the key, etc., etc. However also being a social libertarian it is obvious from even a cursory review this was a dubious arrest.

For one thing, Khan had a lengthy history of being mentally disturbed. He was first brought to the attention of federal authorities when he sent a teacher a threatening letter at the ripe old age of 15. That (probably deservedly) got him 45 days in a psychiatric facility, itself connected with law enforcement. Agents continued to meet with Khan regularly after his discharge supposedly to mentor him as an asset.

However Khan would seem less than an ideal choice in the global struggle. People in his neighborhood say he was so mentally challenged he was literally unable to tie his shoelaces; his mother did it for him each day. While it is true he sometimes ranted extremist views he would then begin spontaneously weeping accompanied with profuse apologies. A former tutor in his school claims Khan had the intellect of "a 6-year-old." In fact, the tutor informed Khan's mother not to bother continuing because it would do the boy no good.

News source The Intercept reviewed Khan's medical records which indicated the young man had severe cognitive impairments. Paperwork illustrated this terror mastermind "requires considerable support from parents to complete day-to-day skills." Moreover, Khan had been taking anti-psychotic medication for years. Even so, the federal agents apparently met with him every few months from when he was 15 until just after his 18^th birthday...when they arrested him.

No one is denying Khan has some serious issues. There is even a good case he needs to be locked up. However there is a far better argument he needs to be in a mental asylum for generalized instability rather than in prison for supporting a terrorist organization it is doubtful he could adequately form the intent to join. Alas, putting people in the looney-bin isn't nearly as lucrative for crime fighting budgets as taking down a dangerous al-Qaeda operative working in the homeland. So a clearly crazy Khan pays the price for somebody's new squad car and overtime. Television news conference justice has been served.

Which is it?

What then do we make of these dueling pronouncements from the combined might of American media and government? Are we being stalked by an endless series of demoniacal gunmen who can at will appear to be small armies though are in fact merely humble loners with grudges? Fair enough; anything is possible.

Yet, if it is indeed the case our multiple mass shootings are just the work of single individuals, how do we explain the contradictory announcements that Al-Qaeda, ISIS (or ISUL or IS or whatever), and their amorphously ever-present "terrorist networks" are constantly at work across the nation with a well-placed cadre of interlocking operatives waiting for the word to wreak havoc upon our soil?

Seemingly both cannot be true. Either we are at the mercy of a series of isolated recluses or we are under threat from an expansive Lernaean Hydra whose tentacles reach every aspect of American life.

For the sake of argument, let us presume both could be true. Except that presupposes only loners commit domestic terror and only groups commit international terror; a premise which, frankly, is even more ludicrously implausible than the prevarications already peddled to us from Washington and its associated satraps.

Rather it seems the truth of the matter is proportionally converse to whatever we are told. There is at least some evidence to suggest recent mass shootings were done by more than one shooter and there is satisfactory indication many recent terrorist arrests were blatant entrapments of functionally diminished reprobates.

In this it seems the Big Lie is all about keeping the sheep frightened enough to remain in their pen for safety while not allowing them to become sufficiently hysterical to make a desperate run for the hills. There is a precise level of fear necessary for the proper functioning of quasi-democratic governance and leaders in the United States are nothing if not masters of calibrating the chaos.

Guy Somerset

Guy Somerset writes from somewhere in America