Nothing. Except, perhaps, that the al Qaida terrorist has access to better technology for even more efficient slaughter than can come from the barrel of an old Russian assault rifle.
Perhaps the difference is that -- unlike the al Qaida bigs who direct the foot soldiers of international terror -- Bellevue, Nebraska's high-school dropout and homegrown suicide shooter just was too damned stupid to graduate to suicide bomber. After all, you have to know how to wire up a bomb vest and have the scratch to buy the TNT or plastique.
And it's hard to come up with that kind of money when you can't even hold down a job at McDonald's. So stealing Daddy's rifle it was.
But why does a mass murderer -- an all-American Terrorist Without a Cause -- do it?
Michael Kelly looks for an answer in this morning's Omaha World-Herald:
But why at all? Why do some become mass killers?AND MAYBE an explosive suicide vest was just too icky for a depressed, demented American youth who wanted to "go out in style."
"More often than not," [James Alan Fox, criminal justice professor at Boston's Northeastern University] said, "they see themselves as victims of injustice. They seek vengeance against people they blame.
"They tend to be loners and losers, people who failed at work or at home. They externalize blame. A lot of us, when things go wrong, blame ourselves - whereas these individuals always blame someone else."
Sometimes, he said, it starts with a specific grudge - a job or relationship gone bad, and a desire to get even. Along the way, the shooter may kill others.
They tend to use guns because guns create distance. "It's a lot easier to stand back, pull a trigger and shoot people without having any contact with them."
Robert A. Hawkins was a terrorist just as much as is Osama bin Laden. Osama's a big leaguer; Robbie Hawkins was a rookie-league screwball pitcher. How do you like your newfound fame, kid?
I can appreciate that Hawkins was a sad, tormented and pathological young adult. I can. So were Hank Williams and Janis Joplin, but they still managed to leave behind much beauty in this world and killed no one but, ultimately, themselves.
And let's not forget Vincent van Gogh.
Robbie Hawkins' legacy is death, panic, mayhem, gore and heartbreak. Thousands of years of human tradition and theology tell us mayhem and death are the province of the Evil One, and modern psychology can offer no treatment -- no effective prophylactic -- for the demonic.
Robert A. Hawkins, age 20, was a sick young man. A sick young man who listened to the devil inside. A sick young man for whom self-murder just wasn't good enough.
No, he had to take eight others with him on his way out.
I grieve for the hell Robbie Hawkins' life became, just as I weep over the hell on earth he brought to innocent Christmas shoppers and salespeople. I will not, however, make excuses for what he did -- what he did to eight fellow humans, what he did to their families and friends, what he did to this city.
This city . . . Omaha. My home.
With great difficulty, I pray that God has more mercy on Robbie Hawkins' tormented soul than Robbie Hawkins had on a bunch of innocent people he knew not from Adam. But that doesn't change what Hawkins decided to become Wednesday afternoon -- a terrorist. Albeit one without a clue.
WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY that has fetishized sex, violence, death and materialism. None of the above can fill the void that haunts our being. None of the above can give adequate meaning to young lives like the one Robert A. Hawkins threw away in that Omaha shopping mall.
Americans are quick to mock those young, Islamic terrorists who embrace suicide, murder and carnage for the greater glory of Allah -- and the chance to screw themselves silly in Paradise with 72 hot virgins.
But at least they kill -- and die -- for something, no matter how warped.
For what did Robbie Hawkins -- and all his youthful predecessors like Harris, Klebold and Cho -- kill . . . and die?
For what?