A lot has been going around the internet about the events that unfolded at and after the Boston Marathon. Much like the Oklahoma City bombing, Columbine and 9/11, this bombing will change how we think and act forever. We will each remember how and when we learned of the events and will take extra precautions around crowds. This will be the catalyst for a change in our thinking as a society, however subtle the change, we will change.
TERROR
Our idea of what terrorism looks like will forever be different. Before when the word terrorism was thrown around we thought of muslim extremists blowing up cars and planes; suicide bombers on missions from the middle east. Now, we can fully grasp what it feels like when it comes from inside. This is something that other countries deal with every single day, and we can now have some small idea of what that feels like.
Terrorists are not just Muslim men, and they can not always be easily detected before an attack. However tragic this event was, we can be sure the FBI, DOJ and homeland security teams have all learned a lot about what it means to track a potential terrorist, what new red flags and protocols can be put in place. This guy and his brother were both interviewed and tracked before the attack, back in 2011 but lived such normal lives the FBI saw no reason to be especially worried about what they might do.
It's important to not assume the FBI failed, or was in some kind of conspiracy. I'm not saying they are perfect, or that they don't make mistakes, I'm saying they can't tell the future, they don't have a crystal ball. If they interviewed these guys and found just two normal young men, no web posts, journal entries or anything like that to cause them to suspect terrorist activity, they would have no reason to arrest or follow these men closely. Just as if they tried to track me for terrorism, they would learn quickly I'm not a likely terrorist and move on, rather than spend resources tracking someone who has been checked out. Sometimes people will surprise you, in good ways and in bad ways, and do things nobody would ever suspect they do. It certainly tracks with what his friends and family are saying, that he was a nice kid with no serious red flags.
BOMBS AND GUNS
With the senate vote on background checks happening right in the middle of all the commotion, I realized that there are no gun control measures we can put in place that would have prevented this from happening. The devices were crude, and with enough time anybody can buy the stuff to make a bomb like that without setting off any red flags. The things that could have been done to prevent this are only things we think to do in hindsight. In the moment, in reality, checking every abandoned backpack at a marathon is not really a reasonable thing to do, unless you know what is about to happen. The officials there to keep everyone safe were more focused on typical marathon safety: making sure everyone stayed hydrated, being close in case someone didn't make it, or it got too hot, those types of things. Not so much keeping an eye out for bombs.
Whenever there is loss of life it is sad, and it should be prevented. But when you think about the number of lives lost in Boston vs the number of lives lost every single day by gun violence, or the number of lives lost in any of the school shooting that have occurred in the last 15 years, it's more proof that we need to put some laws in place to keep guns out of the hands of people that are using them to hurt other people. If this means making it hard for good people to get guns, I'm OK with that because the 2nd amendment gives you the right to have a gun, not the right to do it without regulation.
RIGHTS
I absolutely 100% think this guy needs to face the justice system. We need to find out why he did it, if there are others ready to carry out similar attacks or if he and his brother were alone. We need to know what happened if this kid was no nice and sweet, to make him do something so terrible. Was he the follower while his brother was the initiator? Is there an international group we need to know about? All these questions need to be answered, and the faster the better.
This does not mean we get to take away the rights of an American citizen. The Justice Department has decided they don't need to read this guy his Miranda Rights, invoking the "public safety exception" which is used when police and others need to protect the public from immediate danger. I get that we want information fast, and we want the truth, but that doesn't mean we get to take away somebody's rights. The thing about rights is that just because you don't tell somebody they have them, doesn't make them go away. Just because you don't like somebody doesn't mean you get to take away their rights (a concept seemingly lost on America right now).
Yes this guy is more than just some punk kid we don't like. Yes it is easier to think that he acted with an international terrorist group that to think that an American could do something like this. (And yes he was a real American, being an immigrant does not make you less of a citizen). But he has rights, and we have a justice system with rules for a reason. You can't just go around trying to take away rights because he committed a crime. That's not how our justice system is set up, and there is a reason for that. I just hope this kid payed enough attention to know his rights, but that doesn't make me any less hopeful he gives us some insight.
IMMIGRATION REFORM
"We need to do something about not letting potential terrorists become citizens." I think the only positive thing that comes from that type of thinking is realizing immigrant is not just someone from Mexico. But I think we need to be careful not to make the word immigrant a bad or derogatory word. We were all once immigrants, remember how the Europeans came over and committed mass genocide to give us this country? I don't know for sure, but I would bet that "potential terrorist" is already an immediate disqualification for citizenship. And if it isn't I'm down with making it one. But people who are NOT potential terrorists shouldn't be made into bad people just because they come from a country that might have some bad people in it. If that were the case Americans couldn't be citizens.
If we want to talk about immigration it has to start from a place of compassion. We have to realize that so many of the people we want to send back to their country are not here to be drug lords or terrorists or whatever other sort of criminal, they are here to have jobs and provide for their children.
I know what this guy did was bad, and he was an immigrant but we have got to stop doing that thing were we make a whole group into something that only one member of that group is. Not all muslims are terrorists, not all immigrants are criminals, not all black people are thugs, not all italians are in the mob, not all white people commit tax fraud, not all christians are hateful, not all football players are rapists. Judging good people based on what one person with a similar characteristic did is pretty ridiculous, and it has to stop, like yesterday.
I hope this guy tells us everything, and I hope we don't end up going to war with Chechnya (where he never lived).
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