Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

Chekohov's NRA

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/23172564_1569369099809766_9200286685181902630_n.jpg?oh=00f46d8cfd5aee6ef0b84635f7c6281d&oe=5A6ECAFE

wow

note the date. that cartoon gets to be evergreen now, as they say.

If you feel like things are getting worse, you aren't imagining it. Things are getting worse. pic.twitter.com/nHpFoJtzxG

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) November 6, 2017

Jailed by the Air Force for assaulting his wife and child and then dishonorably discharged.

one disturbing thing to me is that they're occurring so frequently that you end up subconsciously developing a system to filter your attention to it. e.g., if the number of deaths is particularly high, or if it targeted a location or community that you can imagine yourself in (church, school, a concert, a dance club, etc), or if the backstory behind the shooter(s) is unusually compelling. it's just so fucked up to have a model for how to deal with a mass shooting, and you can't help it because it happens so frequently and there's not enough time to devote full attention and energy to thinking about all of them, every time.

― Karl Malone, Sunday, November 5, 2017 4:10 PM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Exactly, this one happened while I was working & busy but I saw the alert on my phone & death toll. Less than Vegas, not a new scenario or twist- so it went to the back of my mind. Haven't even read about it yet, as if I need to subject myself to that. The answer has been obvious for years now and nothing ever changes.

To be honest, as horrifying as it seems it's gotten to the point where people in this country should probably familiarize themselves with the sounds of guns, semi-auto or not. We are on a local Facebook group, and every weekend there is inevitably a thread where someone asks "is that fireworks or are those gun shots?" I want to say witnesses in Las Vegas thought the gunfire was fireworks at first, too.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, November 5, 2017 9:36 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Commend you for finding a silver lining in all this (if I understand you correctly?) but it should not be normal for people to familiarize themselves with (the sound or sight of) guns.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Sunday, November 5, 2017 5:36 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as sad as Josh's advice is, it's necessary at this moment in time in the USA. I think about it a lot more when I'm out and have over the last year and a half. things have obviously escalated since 2012, even 2015. it's becoming a fact of life and people are so desensitized to it happening on a weekly basis. Again there are obvious steps the government can take to immediately mitigate the frequency of mass shootings but their cause is so much deeper more multi-faceted than the abundance of guns. but hey let's START WITH THAT

my grim sense is that a lot of these guys are trying to top each other, cf the obsession a lot of these guys seem to have w/previous shooters. i remember, perhaps incorrectly, that the perpetrator of the Port Arthur massacre in Australia (the one that set into motion their current gun regulations) continually asked authorities when he was visited how many people he killed. i might be misremembering this part, but my understanding is that no one tells him and he still asks.

> regular attacks with double-digit numbers of ppl dead is pretty new

Deaths in parentheses not including perpetrators (attacks with assault rifles in bold)

1949 Camden, NJ (13)
1966 U Texas tower (17)
1984 San Ysidro McDonald's (21)
1986 Edmond post office (14)
1991 Kileen Luby's (23)
2007 Virginia Tech (32)
2009 Binghamton immigration center (13)
2012 Aurora theater (12), Sandy Hook elementary (27)
2013 Washington Navy Yard (11)
2015 Umpqua Community College (10), San Bernardino (14)
2016 Orlando (49)
2017 Las Vegas (58), Sutherland Springs (26)

regular attacks with double-digit numbers of ppl dead

I think the key word there is regular.

Wiki says of Martin Bryant: "Bryant's motivation for the massacre remains a closely guarded secret,[26][27] known only to his lawyer, who is bound not to reveal confidences without his client's consent. The lawyer later released a book outlining that Bryant was motivated largely by the media reports of the then-recent Dunblane school massacre. From the moment he was captured, he continually wanted to know how many people he had killed and seemed impressed by the number. "

my grim sense is that a lot of these guys are trying to top each other, cf the obsession a lot of these guys seem to have w/previous shooters.

this is otm and obvious, i mean if you're gonna do it you're probably gonna wanna be the very best like no one ever was

putting their photo on the front page and writing about the details of the shooting like it's a sporting event or an oral history of the seinfeld finale seems unhelpful https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/02/us/mandalay-bay-vegas-shooting.html?_r=0

I'm okay with listing the deadliest earthquakes or volcanos but these kinds of mass shooting charts, I don't know. Not saying they directly say "can you do better/worse?" to the wrong kind of individual, but it all fits into the "we sure seem to get a lot of eyeballs when something like this happens, let's focus on it 24/7 for a week - again" modus operandi.

i was in high school when columbine happened and remember being struck by how strange it was that the killers were almost my exact age. someone born that day would be their age today, and nothing has changed. it's ancient history.

i couldn't be happier that the stupidest president in history has come out four-square with the preferred NRA narrative again and again. it's a clear indication of exactly how much respect those arguments deserve

wharton school

like a very smart guy

cool that the right is focusing more on the "good guy with a gun" who pursued him and (apparently) killed him and will inevitably point to that as Reason No. 1 why the solution is to just arm everyone

yes it worked so well this time

That's the part that gets me. It's almost as though the underlying argument were something like 'as long as the lex talionis is enforced by a heroic gunslinger, the death toll is negligible, as the victims did not die in vain.' Fitting for a state that will never abolish the death penalty.

youngest victim now reported as 18 months old

if you're about to blow away a bunch of people, plz just kill yourself, if you must.

So the guy was pissed at his mother-in-law, and it was her church.

From the NYT "Readers React" section:

“The right to own guns is part of the Constitution and these much publicized but rare shootings ought to be tolerated as the price of freedom.”
— LR, Texas

“I am so fortunate that at my synagogue many of the congregants legally wear weapons to services. They are very well trained as well.”
— Jack M, New York

Would be interesting to know how often, and how high a casualty count, ought to be tolerated. Just as, y'know, a benchmark.

Some original intent/strict construction motherfuckers should start pointing out that the Constitution says NOTHING about "owning guns," it says something about "bearing arms." Pass a new amendment that states that, in the Second Amendment, "arms" shall be understood to refer only to halberds, morningstars and nunchucks, and see how things change.

"Why, at the last big shootout at my synagogue, the assailant only killed one and wounded four before he got plugged by two of the menschs who sit behind me. Yes, living in a fully-armed society has added so much security to my life, it's hard to describe the depth of my gratitude for the second amendment."

Anyone who says that mass shootings should be tolerated as the price of freedom should be shot in the face with a gun. IMO. Hey, it's just the price of freedom, guy.

Fucking monster. Say that shit to the families of the victims.

never read the comments

absolutely goddamn right

Too true. It just becomes more of a challenge as America slowly morphs into an internet comments section.

Neighbors said they heard rapid gunfire coming from around Kelley's home in the days leading up to the shooting rampage.

"It's really loud. At first I thought someone was blasting," Ryan Albers, 16, told The Associated Press. "It had to be coming from somewhere pretty close. It was definitely not just a shotgun or someone hunting. It was someone using automatic weapon fire."

Another neighbor, Mark Moravitz, told KSAT that he didn't notice anything unusual about Kelley but also mentioned hearing gunfire.

"Shocking. [You] never think your neighbor is capable of something like that," he said. "I mean, the only thing unusual across the street is we hear a lot of gunfire, a lot of times at night. We hear gunfire a lot, but we're out in the country."

We hear gunfire a lot, but we're out in the country.

Well, yeah, of course, duh.

i can't stand the rain, upon my window, bringing back sweet memories

darn wrong thread

this is heartwrenching. Details of the 8 members of the Holcombe family that died in the church

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/us/shooting-victims-texas.html

“There wasn’t anyone left to console”

~unproven~ allegations linking texas shooter to far-right atomwaffen group and other fishy, upsetting shit-
https://medium.com/@EugeneVDebian/sutherland-springs-shooter-member-of-far-right-neo-nazi-group-atomwaffen-a358b920fc86

Really not sure why a right wing agitator would mow down men, women and children at a tiny Texas church.

Which just happened to be frequented by his in-laws, who he detested.

xp to blame "antifa"

my answer to that would be : you can be a far right agitator but also have other motivations for comitting violence.
like i said, ~unproven~ but uhh.. upsetting.

"kill my inlaws, start the race war" two birds/one stone..

ppl who belong to far-right neo-nazi groups may be predisposed to general un-ideologically motivated violence based on their receptiveness to hate affect

^ just a theory

Really not sure why a right wing agitator would mow down men, women and children at a tiny Texas church.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 7, 2017 1:46 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xp to blame "antifa"

― sleeve, Tuesday, November 7, 2017 1:48 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a "false flag" if you will

seeing the likes of Cernovich and Prison Paul immediately declare this an antifa led "anti-white" hate crime kinda led me to suspect something strange was going on, though tbf they'd probably do that no matter what

yes they would do that no matter what

The gunman who killed 26 people in a rural Texas church on Sunday escaped from a psychiatric hospital while he was in the Air Force, after making death threats against his superiors and trying to smuggle weapons onto the base where he was stationed, a 2012 police report shows.

Police took the man, Devin P. Kelley, into custody at a bus station in downtown El Paso, where he apparently planned to flee on a bus after escaping from Peak Behavioral Health Services, a hospital a few miles away in Santa Teresa, N.M. He was sent there after being charged in a military court with assaulting his wife and baby stepson, charges he later pleaded guilty to.

The report filed by the El Paso officers says that the person who reported Mr. Kelley missing from the hospital advised them that he “suffered from mental disorders,” and that he “was attempting to carry out death threats” against “his military chain of command.” The man “was a danger to himself and others as he had already been caught sneaking firearms onto Holloman Air Force Base,” it added. The police report was published on Tuesday by KPRC, a Houston television station.

Later that year, Mr. Kelley pleaded guilty in a military court to repeated assaults on his wife and her son, a toddler, including one that left the boy with a fractured skull. He was sentenced to a year in a Navy prison.