After each AR-15 slaughter, to respond to calls for banning assault rifles we hear the gun fetish crowd repeating one of their favorite bullshit lines: "Guns don't kill, people do." It's a tactic to cast the culprit as a "killer," rather than a "shooter." It sells the convenient notion that the evil-doing perpetrator just wanted to make his victims dead. 

The method, itself, wasn't all that important. Well, I don't buy it. 

From what I've seen, most of America’s mass-murdering Shooters haven't appeared to have been crazy killers who would simply have switched over to bombs or poison, if they couldn't have gotten a hold of their favorite tools. I believe those massacre-makers craved the raw thrill of shooting rapid-fire weapons at living people so much the urge finally became irresistible.

Killers they were, but they weren't bombers or poisoners. They weren't knife-wielders or stranglers. They were shooters. Shooters shoot.

Shooters project their will over a distance with instant results they can see. While the NRA's Wayne LaPierre and the rest of the shills for the firearms industry talk about protecting constitutional rights, the angle they don't want to discuss is protecting thrills. 

Here's what I see: Possessors of assault rifles adore the thrill of shooting those weapons of war. It's fun for them to experience it -- in the moment.

As we've all seen too often, for the most evil of rapid-fire-rifle lovers -- America's creators of bullet-riddled massacres -- lusting for the experience of shooting at living human targets, even terrified children, finally becomes irresistible. 

My take is these shooters don't care so much about the results. The pure thrill of doing it is the lure.