Whether our nation is mourning the victims of yet another
mass
murderer, or
murderers,
the liberal
politicians
and
pundits,
like a toddler in charge of the TV remote, continue to play the same sorry
episode from their progressive programming: guns are to blame and the
government needs to do something about it.
However, when it comes to the worst mass murderers in the United States, there
are several very inconvenient truths for those of the liberal persuasion, and
none of them involves guns. First of all, of the ten worst mass murderers in
American history, only 3 of them—Seung-Hui Cho, Adam Lanza, and George
Hennard—used guns as their primary means of killing.
Of the four worst American murderers, Gary Ridgway (71+
victims), Andrew Philip Kehoe (44 victims), Ted Bundy (36+ victims), and John
Wayne Gacy (34+ victims), none of them used guns to kill. Ridgway and Gacy
strangled their victims. Bundy strangled, bludgeoned, and drowned his victims.
Kehoe used bombs to kill his victims—mostly school children ages 7-12.
As one looks beyond the means of killing and examines the
lives of these men, other troubling patterns emerge. Virtually all were from
broken, or at least troubled, homes. Ridgway’s parents remained married, but
his mother, Mary Ridgway,
was a
domineering woman who was prone to terrible treatment of her son.
Early in his childhood Ridgway was a chronic bed-wetter.
After he wet his bed, his mother would berate him in front of his siblings and
then give him cold baths “while paying special attention to his ‘dirtiest’
parts, that is, his genitals.” She would often perform the baths barely
clothed herself. In his teenage years, Ridgway fantasized about having violent
sex with his mother. No doubt that this is often what he acted out as he raped
and strangled (not always in that order) dozens of prostitutes over a 22-year
period.
Ted Bundy was born to Louise Cowell at the “Elizabeth Lund
Home for Unwed Mothers.” Initially Bundy was raised by his maternal grandparents
Samuel and Eleanor Cowell. They presented him as their son and Louise as his
older sister in order to avoid the social stigma of an illegitimate birth.
Bundy would eventually discover the truth and expressed lifelong resentment
towards his mother for the deceit.
Bundy was especially fond of his grandfather. However,
Samuel Cowell has been described as a “tyrannical bully and a bigot who hated
blacks, Italians, Catholics, and Jews, beat his wife and the family dog, and
swung neighborhood cats by their tails. He once threw Louise's younger sister
Julia down a flight of stairs for oversleeping.”
Ted’s mother would eventually head west to Washington State.
There she would meet and marry Johnny Bundy who would later adopt Ted. The
Bundy’s would have four additional children and Ted would describe this home as
a “wonderful…solid Christian home” with “two dedicated and loving parents.”
Outside the home, young Ted encountered printed pornography
which he described as sparking and fueling his perverse and violent attitudes
towards women. Just prior to being executed, Bundy would note that “The most
damaging kind of pornography - and I'm talking from hard, real, personal
experience—is that that involves violence and sexual violence. The wedding of
those two forces—as I know only too well—brings about behavior that is too
terrible to describe.”
John Wayne Gacy grew up with a violent, abusive, and
alcoholic father who often belittled and beat him. Gacy also was regularly
molested at a young age by a family friend. Married in his early 20s to
Marilynn Myers, Gacy and his wife moved to Waterloo, Illinois
in the fall of 1966. Not long after relocating, Gacy became involved in wife
swapping, prostitution, pornography, and illegal drug use. At this time, Gacy was
also having homosexual encounters.
In the late 1960s Gacy was having sexual encounters with
boys as young as 15. In 1968 Gacy was indicted on an oral sodomy charge—a
charge he would not face in these “enlightened” times. Gacy plead guilty and
served only 18 months of a 10-year sentence. By the 1970s he was again sexually
assaulting teenage boys. Gacy also indulged in gay pornography. In 1972 he
committed his first of dozens of murders.
From 1970 to 1973,
Dean Corll of
Houston, Texas
kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered at least 28 boys ages 13 to 20.
Corll’s parents divorced when he was six. As a young adult, Corll frequently
enjoyed the company of teenage boys. Corll was shot and killed in August of
1973 by one of his teenage accomplices, 17-year-old Elmer Henley.
After the shooting, police were skeptical of Henley’s description of Corll’s crimes. Henley
was proven correct after the police searched Corll’s home. There they found a
sexual torture chamber. “There was a board with handcuffs attached, ropes, a
large dildo and plastic covering the carpeted floor. There was also an odd
wooden crate with what appeared to be airholes cut into it.”
Over a six-week period in 1971, to satisfy his sadistic
sexual desires,
Juan
Corona raped and murdered over two dozen men.
Corona would sodomize and then stab his
victims.
Adam
Lanza’s parents were divorced.
Aaron Alexis’ parents
were divorced.
Elliot
Rodger’s parents were divorced and his father took pornographic photos that
he sold online.
Instead of guns, the most common elements of the worst among
us are broken homes and sexual deviancy. One reason liberals can’t stand to hear
such information is that it defies a government solution. The left would much
rather rant against firearms and seek legislation to restrict them.
Additionally, liberals in the United States have been complicit
in the breakdown of the family and the spread of sexual immorality. Whether
divorce, fornication, marriage, prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, and
so on, for decades now, in the name of “sexual freedom,” liberals have called
what is evil good, and what is good evil. They have preached, promoted, and even
passed legislation in defense of these “values.”
Thus, to hear that such things are a significant part of the
lives of those who commit mass murder is a terribly inconvenient truth for
leftists. In our culture, we usually debate only the legitimacy of killing our
fellow human beings when it occurs in the womb. (Of course, along with robbing
us of tens-of-millions of lives, abortion devalues human life in general and
breeds
violence.)
When the fruit of liberalism is revealed in mass murder,
then liberalism becomes more difficult to defend. This is why when mass
murderers act, liberals would much rather focus on an instrument than the
character
of the killers.
Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com
.jpg)
