Gun Nuts and Death Nuts

Let me explain the line of reasoning that led me to formulate my Blood Sacrifice Theory. I have known a few gun nuts in my life, but none of them ended up becoming mass murderers. It takes something more than a fascination with firearms to do that. In addition to being gun nuts, these guys are also death nuts. They are obsessed with death the way some people are obsessed with religion. This led me to consider some of the goofy things people have done in the name of religion throughout history, and the first thing that came to mind was the blood sacrifice because it was ritual killing with no hard feelings against the victims. While the original intent might have been to placate the angry gods, it eventually evolved into the concept that shedding innocent blood somehow sanctified a person.

When Cain slew Able, it was because Cain was jealous that God rejected Cain's sacrifice of vegetables while accepting Able's animal sacrifice. Although the God we know today would never do something like that, this story probably originated in ancient Mesopotamia, so it was likely not the same god. The point is that the shedding of blood was an essential component of the blood sacrifice. Later, Moses told his people not to consume blood in any form, and to pour the blood of sacrificial animals and slaughtered livestock on the ground like it was sacred or something. Early Christian authors made frequent reference to "the sacred blood of the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world". Modern Christians say prayers and sing hymns containing words to that effect without batting an eye, probably because repetition has rendered the words harmless to their sensibilities.

When our proto human ancestors graduated from being scavengers to being predators they picked up a killer instinct, or maybe they already had the killer instinct, which was why they became predators. As the killer instinct became less advantageous for survival, most of them learned to suppress it or found harmless outlets for it, like watching gory movies. Females probably had less of it to start with, which is why they became the primary nurturers of the species. Maybe it isn't genetic, maybe it's cultural but, either way, I think the mass murderers of today represent some kind of throwback. Maybe we all have a little switch or filter in our brains that hold the killer instinct at bay until it's really needed, and these guys' filter or switch is defective. Somebody should do a study about that.