Americas
Eye on the United States
Wounded Society
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| John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo (Photo: AFP). |
Going by ballistic evidence, the arrests of John Allen Muhammad and his stepson, John Lee Malvo, have ended the search for the sniper who has been terrorizing Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia in the United States since Oct. 2.
The next step will be to find out whether the two had links with Al-Qaeda or any other fundamentalist Islamic terrorist organization. The report that they harbored bitterly anti-American sentiments, and had spoken sympathetically about the Sept. 11 hijackers warrants such an investigation, as does the demand for $10 million to be deposited in a bank account, with the accompanying threat that failure would mean more killings, including those of schoolchildren. The question arises: Was Muhammad trying to raise money for a cause and terrorize the entire area to create a fear psychosis among the public to generate pressure for the acceptance of his demand? If there is indeed a terrorist angle, the entire episode adds a new dimension to the terrorist threat the United States faces.
It is, of course, entirely possible that Muhammad and his stepson, even if one or both of them were involved in the sniping, had nothing to do with any terrorist organization but belong to the category of psychopathic killers who have struck repeatedly in the United States in its recent history. In the present instance, the sniper has not only called himself God in one of his communications to the police but has been manipulating police and media response through his killings. His behavior clearly reflects a desire to dominate and manipulate, one of the recognized character traits of a psychopath.
The causes of the bitter alienation that leads to psychopathic behavior in the United States have been widely analyzed. Loneliness, feelings of insecurity and insignificance, and a sense of failure in an intensely competitive environment in which success commands a high premium, are all factors. While every country has its own psychopathic killers, the stress and strain of life in the United States tends to produce more of them. Also, it is easier for such killers to play havoc because of lax gun-control laws, which enable anyone to buy the most lethal firearms, including state-of-the-art sniper rifles, off the shelf. Unfortunately, despite the fact that three U.S. presidents and several leading politicians have been assassinated, efforts to make gun-control laws more effective have been stalled by organizations like the National Rifle Association. Post-9/11, their argument is that citizens need guns to defend themselves against terrorists. But would the victims of the recent sniper attacks or of 9/11 have survived had they carried guns? If anything, ineffective gun-control laws help terrorists and criminals, not the peaceful citizen.
