Possibly, but I don't think that this type of massacre should be used to justify or excuse any husband or wife who have been abused to cause such pain and suffering to innocent family members.
Yes, there are a lot more women who want to wear the pants in the family today. No matter what NOW or other modern women believe, women trying to control the family can make most men insecure and confused about whether or not they are real men. It also makes some men not care anymore about being good providers, husbands and fathers because they have been brainwashed to believe that they should feel guilty for taking the reigns (male subjugators!) and not letting the women do it all!
Yes, there are some truly heinous governmental cases involving divorce and personal values that have unfairly caused havoc for some families. (I'm fighting for a San Juan Homeschool family who is being harassed by their son's former public school!)
But using these sorts of incidents as an excuse for the sort of behavior that happened in Merced is stretching it, IMHO.
I am not, repeat, am NOT, condoning this man's actions. But we have to understand that until we get to the root cause, and fix it, we will have more sad stories like this. It is HORRIBLE what this man did. Now let's get to the why, and prevent it in the future.
We can, many of us, stand here and say that we believe men are the heads of the household and that no "real" man would ever do such a terrible thing. We can make the assumption that he must be a brute and a control freak. We can make all kinds of claims that "our" men would never do such a thing. But we've never pushed them to that limit. We don't know, really, what they are capable of.
It is not an excuse to say that women can push men into doing terrible things. It is a fact that, when women, with the courts approval, strip men of so many rights and dignities, giving them no recourse, they may go over the edge. There are so many cases out there of where the man is desperately trying to do the right thing, but is beaten down and not allowed to. He may be choosing to do good over evil, but is prevented from it, and so chooses to us what appears to be evil, but in his desperate mind may be the only, or best, alternative. Again, it's not right. But it is becoming prevelant in this country, and women, along with the courts, have the power to stop it.
My point exactly. At no time did Pillars attempt to excuse the action. He/she was attempting to explain why one might do it. Explain and excuse are two completely different words with completely different meanings.
They are close together in a dictionary - maybe that's what confuses some people...