Stochastic Terrorism

First the news story:



Three Hispanic youths (two teens and one adult) are out for a night of skating, but on trying to find their friend's place, they happen on 69-year old Phillip Sailors' place by accident. That's when Sailors comes out of the house, thinking it's a home invasion. He takes one shot in the air to warn off the youths.

Just as the driver, 22-year-old Rodrigo Abad Diaz apologizes to the homeowner while driving away, he is killed with one shot. Later, after police have sorted everything out, they charged Phillip Sailors with "murder with malice."

Here's the CNET new story: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57566488-71/man-allegedly-follows-gps-directions-to-wrong-house-shot-dead/

After reading this story, I needed to know more, and found this commentary from KOS:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/29/1183203/-Rodrigo-Abad-Diaz-22-Killed-by-NRA-Fox-GOP-Stochastic-Terrorism

With the recent mass school killing in Sandy Hook still fresh on our mind and the posturing by the NRA, perhaps Rodrigo Abad Diaz was killed by NRA-Fox-GOP Stochastic Terrorism.

According to the KOS, the stochastic terrorist is the person who uses mass media to broadcast memes that incite unstable people to commit violent acts. One or more unstable people responds to the incitement by becoming a lone wolf and committing a violent act.

The stochastic terrorist then has plausible deniability: "Oh, it was just a lone nut, nobody could have predicted he would do that, and I'm not responsible for what people in my audience do."

The lone wolf who was the "missile" gets captured and sentenced to life in prison, while the stochastic terrorist keeps his prime time slot and goes on to incite more lone wolves.

Finally, there is no conspiracy here: merely the twisted acts of individuals who are promoting extremism, who get access to national media in which to do it, and the rest follows naturally...

There has to be a way to make something good out of this tragedy, and that would be to expose how the talking heads from FOX News, the GOP and the NRA are perpetuating such violence.

In the future, watch as each of them grooms their next "lone wolf" via mass media news bytes.