The World We Live In

Eight year old Miriam.

The search for the Toulouse murderer has arrived at its conclusion. After much speculation that the murderer might be a crazed serial killer, or perhaps one of a group of French soldiers who had been dismissed from the service for neo-Nazi membership, it was today revealed the shooter was motivated by different reasons:

The 24 year-old, known as Mohammed, told police he was a jihadist for al Qaeda seeking revenge...

You and I may not be surprised to learn this, but of course the possibility that the attack was motivated by Islamic ideology was never mentioned in the papers until Mohammed was cornered and in a shoot out with the police.

Earlier reports described the man as athletic and purposeful. Dressed in black, he pulled up on his scooter and shot dead a visiting young rabbi and his 6 and 3 year old sons. He then walked into the school courtyard while all the children tried to run away. He shot a 17 year old boy, then chased little Miriam into a corner, put his gun to her head and fired. Review of surveillance footage showed the man had a camera attached to his chest to record and disseminate video of the carnage he wrought. A school administrator who watched it described the man as calm and determined. All three of the young children were shot at such close range that powder burns marked their skin.

April Gavaza has written a biting piece on the matter:

...the children murdered were very close to my child’s age, an occurrence which fills the hearts of most mothers with an icy terror. You see your child’s face instead of the victim’s. Your rational brain stands by helplessly while the animal fear of losing your child pummels you with the imagery the actual mother of the deceased must have witnessed. You find yourself praying for a woman you will never meet, and for the first time in at least a week, hope that Hell is real and that bastard murderer will suffer tremendously for all eternity. The picture accompanying this article in the Telegraph is devastating. I look at it, I read the details of the murders, and I wonder, who has it in them to kill children in cold blood?

Another Steyn-worthy piece by the capable young mother of two. Read the whole thing here.

Little Miriam was guilty of nothing. Her killing was the act of an abominable person, and any religious teacher or political activist that seeks to excuse his actions is utterly contemptible. Likewise, the young rabbi was innocent, as were his two sons. So was the 17 year old. For that matter, the French paratrooper who thought he was selling a scooter was innocent as well, as were the three other paratroopers shot four days later.

The world we live in is a dangerous place. Timidity in responding to it, whether in avoiding the mention of Islam for fear the Western audience 'cannot handle' the truth, or making empty arguments of moral equivalence for the violent perpetrators only invites more violence against innocents.