Fierce Patriots

Conservative Political News

  • Subscribe

<![CDATA[Mass shootings]]>

One thing that ties recent mass shootings? Harassment

by Leave a Comment

One thing I think we do a terrible job of when it comes to preventing mass shootings is trying to get a peek inside the minds of the killers.

People don’t just wake up one day and suddenly decide to slaughter people by the gross. That kind of pathology likely develops over time, which means it can be prevented from ever happening, preferably without a single restriction on any civil liberty.

In fairness, there have been looks at what mass shooters have in common. They found things like treatment for mental illness and broken homes as common themes.

Yet in looking at recent shootings, I found something else. A history of harassment.

I’m not talking about them necessarily harassing others, but instead being the victims of harassment.

Let’s start with the University of Virginia shooter. He allegedly killed three of the school’s football players after a field trip.

However, it also appears that he reported to his father that he was the victim of bullying.

The alleged killer at Club Q in Colorado Springs also dealt with harassment, and on a much larger scale. In fact, entire legions on the internet enjoyed harassing him.

In Chesapeake, the killer there left a note outlining his grievances, which included claims of being harassed by others.

That’s three recent killers who were either being harassed or felt as if they were, but they’re not the only ones.

In Uvalde, for example, the killer there had a history of being harassed, with some actually calling him a school shooter.

Now, understand that nothing about this is an attempt to excuse these killings. It’s not. There’s literally no valid reason to respond to harassment like this with homicidal action.

But if we’re ever going to uncover the roots of these horrific crimes, we simply have to discuss some uncomfortable things. That includes any potential role that harassment of these individuals might play in this.

It’s not an excuse and I’m not necessarily saying the harassers are responsible for these crimes. No, that responsibility rests on those who pull the trigger, as it always has.

Yet on the same token, if this is a unifying thread, then it’s a thread we as a society can work together to severe.

It’s one thing to be in the public sphere and receive harsh reactions to what you’ve offered up. I’ve been there myself and while it sucks, it’s the price you pay for playing in that sandbox.

But these cases appear to be different. These are people who were reportedly being harassed without that kind of action.

Now, I also have to admit that harassment may not be the issue, but a persecution complex. Maybe many of these people who reported being harassed really weren’t. It’s possible that they just thought the criticism they received was harassment when it was really nothing of the sort.

Sure, we know at least some were actually harassed and bullied, but it’s possible this isn’t a unifying thread among mass killers. I don’t think it is, necessarily, but I wouldn’t be intellectually honest if I didn’t concede the possibility.

Either way, this is something that the supposed experts should be looking at.

Too bad they can’t look beyond pushing for gun control.

Dems, GOP divided on how to address mass shootings

by Leave a Comment

The state of Virginia isn’t as gun friendly as it once was. Despite all the gun control measures in place, some of which were meant to prevent mass shootings, the state played host to two such incidents within days of one another.

To say lawmakers are going to react is an understatement.

Where things break down, though, is in just what the two sides have in mind.

After two mass shootings at the University of Virginia and at a Walmart store in Chesapeake in November that left a total of 10 people dead, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced last week that his administration would push legislation to increase the state’s mental health resources. But some Democratic lawmakers warn that linking these two issues re-stigmatizes people suffering from mental illness.

“Every time there is a shooting the response is that we have to do something about mental health,” state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Charlottesville, told Cardinal News in an interview earlier this week. “But the reality is that the data shows that people with mental illness are much more likely to be victims of crime than they are to be perpetrators.”

At a Thanksgiving event a week ago, Youngkin sidestepped a question from a reporter asking whether he would consider supporting legislation that would be aimed at restricting access to dangerous weapons and firearms.

“When the facts come in at the end of all the investigations, then we’ll have time to come together and talk about what actions we can take,” Youngkin said. Instead, he vowed to take further action to address the understaffing and underfunding of state agencies providing mental health services, and to begin offering patients treatment on the same day they experience a mental health crisis.

Now, I’m going to actually agree with a Democrat. The data does indeed show that those who suffer from mental illness are more likely to be the victims of a crime, rather than the perpetrator.

I’m just curious if Deeds will remember that data the next time someone wants to pass a law targeting gun owners with mental health issues.

I’m also curious if Deeds is aware of just how irrelevant that factor is when it comes to the subject of mass shootings.

When it comes to mental illness, there’s a huge gulf between “depressed because I lost a loved one” and “my sofa cushion is telling me to kill 15 prostitutes in a back alley somewhere.” While both fall under the mental health umbrella, there are huge differences.

So it’s not necessarily wrong to look at mass shootings as a mental health issue.

Part of the problem, though, that both sides are missing is that we know so little about mass shootings and mass shooters. We know that the vast majority of mass shooters come from broken homes, but so do a lot of other people who don’t shoot people in job lots.

Before we can find a real solution, we have to actually understand the problem.

Gun control won’t cut it. Virginia already has plenty and we see where that got them.

Mental health efforts may not cut it either, though. Not unless they’re focused in the right places.

However, I will say that, unlike gun control, increased mental health resources could yield significant benefits beyond any impact on mass shootings. After all, a lot of people suffer from mental illness. They could use the help, even if they’re not a danger to anyone else.

As a result, it may reduce suicides, if nothing else. Since roughly two-thirds of all “gun deaths” are suicides, it’ll drop those numbers.

But somehow, I don’t think Virginia Democrats are interested in that.

Mass shooting hoaxes appear at multiple Georgia high schools

by Leave a Comment

I love a good joke. I’d ask about who doesn’t, but then I remember cancel culture is a thing and remember that some don’t.

But there’s a difference between jokes and hoaxes.

Even there, there are hoaxes and there are hoaxes. The War of the Worlds broadcast wasn’t intended to deceive anyone, but some only heard part of the broadcast and thought we were being invaded.

Yet at some Georgia high schools, there was a hoax that was most definitely meant to deceive and wasn’t remotely funny.

A reported active shooter at Savannah High School on Wednesday was a hoax, according to school officials.

Law enforcement first received the call close to 9 a.m. that several people were injured in a school shooting. Multiple agencies responded to the school and began evacuating the building and investigating the scene.

An official with the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System said this call end up being a hoax and no one was injured.

Now, just one instance could be any number of things. It could be anything from a jumpy parent who heard a car backfire while talking to their kid or it could be an intentional act meant to delay that math test.

But it wasn’t just one high school in the state, either.

Not by a long shot.

An elaborate hoax of an active shooter was reported at Valdosta High School on Wednesday, leaving the Valdosta community shaken up.

The hoax was reported early Wednesday morning.

Lowndes County Sheriff Ashley Paulk said the hoax was “well coordinated.”

Valdosta City Schools said in a Facebook post that the high school “was one of several statewide schools that went into lockdown today after the threat of an active shooter on campus.”

So why did this happen? What was the goal?

Right now, we don’t know anything except that this was common enough across multiple high schools throughout the state.

And it seems the authorities aren’t interested in playing around on this, either.

“Rest assured, for the criminals who orchestrated these hoaxes, we will go after them with every single resource available,” [Georgia Gov. Brian] Kemp said in a statement on social media. “The FBI is actively investigating these acts of domestic terrorism, and we will continue to diligently work with them to see these culprits are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

That report notes that the hoax was called into at least five different schools scattered across the state.

And, frankly, whoever did this deserves whatever happens afterward.

We live in a period where active shooters in schools are a threat that has to be taken seriously. As a result, a large police response swoops in, directing resources away from real situations.

If this were one place, it might be easy to dismiss this as the act of a dumb kid who doesn’t understand the potential repercussions of such an act. But this is all over the state. This was coordinated and I’m completely baffled as to why people would do such a thing.

My hope is that they find whoever did this and make an example of them.

In the process, maybe we could get some answers as to why they did it.

Buffalo mass shooter pleads guilty

by Leave a Comment

The mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store was a horrific event. It was bad for folks like you and me and we weren’t even there, so I can only imagine what it was like for those caught inside.

And then there was the possibility of having to relive all of that through a trial, which wouldn’t be pleasant at all.

However, I suspect most survivors would have gladly done it just the same in order to make sure justice was served.

Well, now they won’t have to.

The man responsible for killing 10 people and wounding three others at a predominantly black neighborhood’s grocery store has pleaded guilty in court today.

[The killer], a 19-year-old white male whose online footprint revealed deeply troubling views on race, pleaded guilty Monday morning to one count of a domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, as well as 10 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder, and a weapons possession charge.

Those charges come with an automatic mandatory sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole.

There will be no trial and, because it’s a plea deal, there will be no appeal.

This twit will spend the rest of his life in prison. Yeah, maybe that’s too good for him, but he’ll be locked away where he’ll never breathe free air again.

Further, let’s be honest here, prison isn’t likely to be a cakewalk for him. He targeted a grocery store for its mostly black clientele. Do you honestly think someone in that prison isn’t going to take that personally?

Sure, the Aryan Nation will probably embrace him, but there are still a number of folks who are in for life already who won’t blink about putting an end to this guy.

I’m not advocating for that, mind you, just voicing it as a possibility.

As for the sentence itself, we need to remember there are two reasons for a given sentence. One is to remove the offender from the public for a period of time, in many cases in order to rehabilitate them but not always so. Another is to serve as a deterrent to others.

However, that last one doesn’t apply to mass shooters. Many are willing/hoping to die in a hail of gunfire after killing scores of people. I’m pretty sure the fear of going to prison doesn’t factor into the equation.

That leaves removing these folks from society on a permanent basis, and life without parole will do that quite nicely.

So on that score, it will accomplish its job.

But it will not stop future attacks, nor should anyone think it will.

It will keep the Buffalo killer out of circulation and such sentences will keep other such killers out of society as well.  It’s only too bad that this isn’t a deterrent against future attacks. However, I doubt the death penalty would do anything either. After all, if they’re willing to die, threatening them with death just doesn’t seem like much of a threat.

So let’s be glad this guy will never walk the streets again, but let’s also not get our hopes up that this will stop the next Buffalo attack.

Chesapeake Walmart shooting survivor: He was hunting

by Leave a Comment

We, unfortunately, have a lot of mass shootings that come up in discussions these days. After all, we’ve seen three such shootings in just the last couple of weeks, with two this week alone. The latest was a shooting at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia.

In that shooting, it seems the killer was an employee–a manager–who decided to kill a number of his coworkers before taking his own life.

According to one survivor, this wasn’t someone just trying to kill as many people as possible, either. He apparently was looking to shoot specific people.

The shooter who killed six people at a Walmart in Virginia late Tuesday was targeting co-workers, “going hunting” and making sure they were dead, according to a witness.

Jessica Wilczewski said overnight team leader [killer’s name redacted] came into the break room before the late shift started and opened fire with a purpose, contradicting the account of another witness who said the gunman shot wildly.

“The way he was acting – he was going hunting,” Wilczewski told The Associated Press on Thursday. “The way he was looking at people’s faces and the way he did what he did, he was picking people out.”

Wilczewski, who had worked at the store only a few days, said the gunman let her go when he recognized her, but fired again at other employees he had already hit and were down.

“What I do know is that he made sure who he wanted dead, was dead,” she said. “He went back and shot dead bodies that were already dead. To make sure.”

On Wednesday, fellow Walmart worker Briana Tyler had said [the killer] “was just shooting all throughout the room. It didn’t matter who he hit.”

However, if Wilczewski is being honest–and we can’t discount the possibility she is saying stuff for attention or something, though I don’t think it’s particularly likely–then it was clear the killer was targeting specific individuals.

Why the discrepancy if both parties are being honest, though?

Perception, most likely.

Witnesses often see the same event from wildly different perspectives, which shades how they actually interpret what they’ve seen.

The killer may have appeared to Tyler to not care who he hit, while he let Wilczewski go because he didn’t want to kill her specifically.

And, unfortunately, since the killer is dead, we can’t ask him unless someone busts out the Ouija board.

Now, I’m all for sparing the criminal justice system the effort of putting this twit on trial, but unfortunately, it robs us of an opportunity to learn just what happened and why. Sure, investigators can talk to everyone at the Walmart and others in Chesapeake, and maybe come up with a plausible motive.

But we won’t ever know just why this person opted for this degree of horror. We can’t ask him, and that’s the downside.

So, we have to go with eye-witness reports and hope that we can untangle the reality and maybe learn something so we can stop these in the future.

In the meantime, though, the AP reports that the killer had just purchased the firearm he used shortly before the attack and that he left a note outlining grievances.

Authorities investigating the fatal shootings of six people at a Walmart said that the shooter bought the gun just hours before and left a note with grievances against coworkers on his phone.

Police in Chesapeake, Virginia, issued a news release on Friday that says they conducted a forensic analysis of Walmart supervisor Andre Bing’s phone and discovered what was labeled a “Death Note.” Police say he was the shooter and was found dead at the scene of the shooting late Tuesday of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

In the note released by police, Bing said coworkers harassed him and mocked him.

Police said he used a 9mm handgun legally purchased on Tuesday morning, hours before the shooting. The release said he had no criminal history.

Of course, I can’t help but wonder how, as a manager at the store, he didn’t do something about any alleged harassment.

This report surfaced a short while ago, which just raises a few more questions.