The Santa Massacre.

Santa went on a killing rampage in California over the christmas holidays.

A distraught man dressed as Santa Claus opened fire at a Christmas Eve party and then set the house ablaze, killing at least eight people, authorities said. Several hours later, the shooter killed himself.

Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, who had recently been divorced and is believed to have lost his job, knocked on the front door of a home owned by the parents of his ex-wife in Covina around 11:30 Wednesday night, said Police Chief Kim Raney.

An 8-year-old girl ran to the door to answer Pardo’s knock, police said. He shot her in the face, stepped into the house and began to fire indiscriminately with a semiautomatic handgun.

Pardo was carrying what appeared to be a large present but was what police described as a home-made pressurized device used to spray some kind of flammable substance. Pardo is thought to have worked in the aerospace industry as an engineer, police and acquaintances said.

I got to wondering why it is that men with grievances pick up guns and go on a killing spree in the United States and then I read this comment posted on a Los Angeles blog

We shut people down and they fester. When they act out, we call them animals and scum. I understand the anger and lack of pity. But until we can let people, and I really mean men, open up truly about their inner feelings in domestic relationships, without fear of labels, we will have these atrocities again and again. It is not right, it is downright evil, and wrong, and, yes, inexcusable, but society is not letting men vent in these domestic cases. They immediatey side with women. This has proven over and over to be a recipe for disaster.

Is this the reason mainly white men go on the rampage especially over the holidays, or is it simply the easy availability of guns in the United States?

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