If American dentist and big game hunter, Walter Palmer, didn’t know what it is like to be hunted, he does now. Through Facebook, Twitter and all other forms of social media, this guy is getting chased from all corners of the globe, in which, it has to be said, is a dubious way of him getting five minutes, or indeed, five days of fame.

Of course, if you Google ‘Cecil the Lion’ or ‘Walter Palmer’ you will get all sorts of psychologists explaining why a man would want to kill and then be photographed with a beautiful and endangered creature.

The answer, in my opinion, is quite simple; it is because he is a dentist. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have had, as a dentist, a man who murdered his wife’s lover, one who had a tantrum when he couldn’t shift my wisdom tooth, another who got struck-off for fitting unneeded fillings to get NHS kick-backs and finally, a South African guy who hurled a chair and then his tools through a window before exiting the United Kingdom never to be seen again.

I have not met a sane dentist yet and it appears I am not just a bit unlucky. Dentists regularly assault people and are also quite adept at killing themselves; suicide is all the rage in this profession. I am guessing that being universally hated and inflicting misery on people day in day out, has a detrimental effect on the mental health of dentists, so the thrill of killing a lion surprises me little.

It seems unfortunate that a lion should pay the price of Walter Palmer’s frustration, anger, and lust for blood; although it could be argued that it is marginally more acceptable than some poor bugger staggering out of his dental surgery with an arrow through his head. However, we are talking about America, so maybe not if he was black, which would just be one of those things.

The campaign to chase Palmer down has been huge, with Rick Gervais leading the way with thousands of re-posts that are getting ‘likes’ aplenty on Facebook. Us Facebook narcissists like to get a ‘Like’ and I have to say, I try to work quite hard for mine, so it is something of a disappointment to see that you can get 50 ‘Likes’ just for re-posting someone else’s thoughts; proof that trying to be original does not pay.

Walter Palmer celebrates killing Cecil the Lion

Last week, I posted a video of a black American woman getting her faced punched in on a highway, particularly noting that someone had said, “Before everyone condemns this officer, what was this lady doing walking on a highway?” That’s right buddy, it is illegal to walk on a highway so she deserved to get beaten to a pulp, especially as she was black.

I was quite surprised to see that my narcissism was starved to death that day, with not one person ‘Liking’ the video or my sarcastic comment, “God bless America”. Just to point out to you social misfits who do not use Facebook, you might think it was correct that no-one liked my comment, but it doesn’t work that way with Facebook because there is no ‘dislike’ button.

This can leave you in a bit of a quandary sometimes, because if someone shares a link on Facebook saying something like “RADIO 1 DJ TRAUMATISED THE ANUSES OF YOUNG BOYS” you may well want people to know you have read it and you had been shocked by it but not that you ‘Liked’ it…that would be terrible and to new user of social media, you could appear to be condoning such behaviour.

However, I am inclined to believe that if I had shown a picture of Cecil the Lion, with Walter Palmer celebrating next him and then written “God Bless America” underneath it, I would have been collecting ‘likes’ ravenously. So it is reasonably safe to concur that the public are, as whole, more upset about Cecil the Lion, than police brutality on black people. Or is it that police brutality is so common these days we just shrug our shoulders?

This is not of course, to give credit to Walter Palmer, who like many big game hunters would, given the chance, go and hunt African tribesman if he could get away with it. However, the eye for an eye witch hunts that take place when these people are exposed may well, ultimately, end in some head case taking revenge in a bid for a glimpse of fame; Palmer has already been bombarded with death threats.

If someone armed with a Walmart assault rifle walked in to Palmer’s surgery and wiped out not only him but his secretary and half of his patients, what happens then? Does it serve them right or is it another all-American tragedy that is commonplace on days that end with a Y? Could Rick Gervais, an undisputed and often verbally aggressive campaigner for animal rights, get charged with inciting hatred?

Ricky Gervais doesn’t hold back his feelings towards animal cruelty

Of course, the common denominators here are guns and violence. Whether it is wiping out a gospel church in the deep south of America, killing a lion or a bull elephant, then sitting on it posing for photographs to show off to their weird friends, or a police officer simply sticking a bullet into a black man’s back because of an argument over a parking violation, it seems that a certain section of Americans just love guns, becoming incandescent with rage at anyone who questions them.

“BACK OFF MUFFA FUCKER….GUNS ARE IN OUR CONSTITUTION MAN.”

Of course, it is not just America, Britain has its problems as well but people tend to be more mild mannered with domestic animal cruelty. Only a couple of weeks ago our newly elected government tried to pass a self-serving law to re-introduce the tearing to shreds of foxes and I knew of one guy who was virtually celebrating when he was given a license to put bullets in to the head of badgers as part of some misguided culling, courtesy of bovine TB.

Fortunately, despite being a sister company of Walmart, ASDA is not allowed to sell assault rifles and it is, thankfully, illegal to open up a business in the Hampshire countryside called ‘Burgers and Bullets’. This means that British maniacs don’t have the same opportunities to wreak revenge on society as they would in have in America and we should be thankful to our law makers for not being bullied by those who claim UK gun laws to be over-zealous.

If I have learnt anything from the sorry tale of Cecil the Lion, it is that the public have become so used to seeing unwarranted police brutality (often with racist undertones) and gun violence, that they have almost become immune to the shock of seeing it sprayed all over Facebook and Twitter. As a consequence, they have to be shocked by something else, in this case, Cecil the Lion is taking all the headlines.

There is a silver lining as Cecil’s ugly and unsavoury passing will undoubtedly heighten the awareness of the cruelty of big game hunting, not least because Ricky Gervais has about a gazillion Facebook followers who champion his noble cause.

However, lets not forget those who get away with cruelty to humans.