There's No 'Motive' For Shooting 9 Year Olds

We have entered the "police are searching for a motive" stage of the cycle. That usually arrives the morning after. There was another American mass murder on Monday, this time at an elementary school in Nashville, and because this is one of those spasms of American bloodletting that we've decided we care about, we'll spend a day or two having a pantomime debate about what to do in response while examining, with varying levels of interest, the background of the shooter. In this case, the identity of the murderer did appear to break the usual mold, and it will get plenty of attention. But there is no "motive" for killing nine-year-old children, not if "motive" means "a reason for doing something." There is no "reason," no explanation or justification grounded in any kind of logic, to shoot kids in math class with high-velocity bullets from an AR-15 that will destroy their bodies for life even if they survive. We are searching for order, for some cause-and-effect, where there is none. [View in Browser]( [Esquire]( [SHOP]( EXCLUSIVE [SUBSCRIBE]( [There Is No 'Motive' for Shooting 9-Year-Old Kids]( [There Is No 'Motive' for Shooting 9-Year-Old Kids]( We have entered the "police are searching for a motive" stage of the cycle. That usually arrives the morning after. There was another American mass murder on Monday, this time at an elementary school in Nashville, and because this is one of those spasms of American bloodletting that we've decided we care about, we'll spend a day or two having a pantomime debate about what to do in response while examining, with varying levels of interest, the background of the shooter. In this case, the identity of the murderer did appear to break the usual mold, and it will get plenty of attention. But there is no "motive" for killing nine-year-old children, not if "motive" means "a reason for doing something." 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