Tag: mass shootings

Horrifying School Shootings Should Not Be Surprising in a Nation That Celebrates Mass Murder

An utterly horrifying tragedy unfolded this week in Uvalde, Texas as yet another deranged psychopath entered a school full of children and began indiscriminately killing. This 18-year-old monster barricaded himself in a single classroom where he had his way with two teachers and 19 students, executing all of them in cold blood. The security force paid for by taxpayer dollars did nothing to stop him and only after he murdered the entire classroom was a SWAT team sent in to take him out.

Predictably, political blowhards didn’t even wait for the bodies to cool before they began exploiting the deaths of innocent children to score political points. Rabid partisan hacks have been frothing at the mouths for 48 hours now as they put forth their “solutions” to the problem of mass shootings that involve about as much depth and nuance as a kiddie pool full of piss.

“Guns are the problem!” screams the rabid anti-gun left. “We need more teachers with guns!” screams the pro-gun right. Yet neither of the two sides have been able to do a damn thing to stop or prevent these horrific events.

If it is a gun problem, why is it that other countries with well armed citizens don’t see the same frequency of mass shootings? If it’s solely a mental health issue, why don’t other countries with higher rates of mental disorders see the same mass murders?

The United States spends roughly a quarter of a trillion dollars every year on mental health care but none of that money goes to psychological research. Instead, psychological research is funded by the nation’s $66 billion annual research fund and and a portion, 1.5 percent, goes to actual psychological research.

Nevertheless, billions of taxpayer dollars flow into the mental health industry’s coffers and most mental health issues go untreated as the country’s mental health problem gets worse. Hundreds of billions of tax dollars are making lots of industry insiders and big pharma players rich yet we’re nowhere close to figuring out what triggers these lunatics to carry out such horrors.

Perhaps we need to look deeper than the two talking points offered up by politicians every time this happens. Perhaps we need to look at the ones offering up the solutions in the first place.

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Don’t Surrender To Do-Somethingism On Guns

Before we even knew how the killer of 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, had obtained his guns, Chris Murphy was engaging in his customary performative emotionalism on the Senate floor, literally begging Republicans to “compromise.”

Compromise on what exactly? Murphy has never once offered a single proposal that would have deterred any of these mass shooters. Literally minutes after his routine, Murphy was asked about the obvious mental illness prevalent among most of these shooters. “Spare me the bullsh-t about mental illness,” the Connecticut senator responded, “ripping” the GOP. “We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world.” That’s how serious he is about compromise.

Whether America is more prone to mental illness or not, these incidents are almost exclusively perpetrated by young men who have exhibited serious anti-social behavior. All of them break a slew of existing laws. All of them have either obtained guns illegally, or legally before having any criminal record. In many, if not most, cases, the shooter is already on the cops’ radar because he has threatened others or written insane, violent manifestos. In a study of mass shootings from 2008 to 2017, the Secret Service found that “100 percent of perpetrators showed concerning behaviors, and in 77 percent of shootings, at least one person – most often a peer – knew about their plan.”

Rather than focusing on these tangible entry points for potentially useful legislation, instead of proposing ideas on better identifying shooters before they act, instead of thinking about how schools could be structurally safer, instead of debating the efficacy of putting more cops in schools — and none of these are panaceas, mind you — Senate Democrats were busy dunking on Republicans for failing to support bills that have absolutely zero to do with mass shootings.

Chuck Schumer planned to introduce H.R. 8, an expanded background check bill, and H.R. 1446, a bill that would close the alleged “Charleston Loophole” (before he realized it wouldn’t be politically expedient.) “Alleged” because Dylann Roof, who murdered nine black churchgoers in Charleston in 2015, got a clean background check, not because of any “loophole,” but because local prosecutors had failed to respond to the FBI’s request for information. It was a case of human error, or negligence. So maybe Democrats should be promoting a “law-enforcement-should-do-its-job” bill. Because all “universal” background checks do is stop friends and families from gifting guns. Straw purchases are already illegal, as Schumer, Pelosi, and Murphy already know. And passing expanded background checks after a school shooting is tantamount to demanding stricter drivers tests after a hit and run.

Democrats, obsessed with largely irrelevant issues like AR-15s and “universal background checks,” are largely living in the early 1990s. Joe Biden’s address to the nation consisted of a litany of hackneyed talking points he’s been regurgitating for decades now — including that transcendently stupid joke about deer in Kevlar. “As a nation, we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?” Biden said — again.

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Data Shows White Supremacists Are Not The Most Likely Mass Murderers

In his Buffalo, New York speech last week following a mass shooting, President Biden showed he still has only two things on his mind regarding crime: guns and white supremacists.

No one can defend white supremacists. But with violent crime soaring and this latest attack in Buffalo, people want something done. Yet Biden’s agenda won’t make people safer. 

“Look, we’ve seen the mass shootings in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; in Pittsburgh. Last year in Atlanta. This week in Dallas, Texas, and now in Buffalo. In Buffalo, New York,” Biden said. “White supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison. It really is. Running through our body politic. And it’s been allowed to fester and grow right in front of our eyes. No more. I mean, no more.”

Of the 82 mass public shootings from January 1998 to May 2021, 9 percent have known or alleged ties to white supremacists, neo-Nazis, or anti-immigrant views. Many of the anti-immigrant attackers, such as the Buffalo murderer, hold decidedly environmentalist views that are more in line with the Democrat agenda.

Other groups commit mass public shootings disproportionately more than whites do. While non-Middle Eastern whites make up about 64 percent of the population, they make up 58 percent of the mass public shooters. Another 9 percent are carried out by people of Middle Eastern origin, who make up only 0.4 percent of the country’s population. That makes Middle Easterners the most likely ethnic or racial group to carry out mass public shootings.

Blacks, Asians, and American Indians also commit these attacks at a slightly higher rate than their share of the population. Hispanics commit them at much lower rates (11 percent lower) than their share of the population.

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Democrat blames ‘white supremacy’ for shooting by black man

US Representative Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is pointing to a recent shooting at a Korean-owned hair salon in Dallas as the latest example of terrorism motivated by “white supremacy replacement theory.” Her assertion might be problematic, inasmuch as the alleged shooter is a black man.

Beatty rolled out her theory about racially motivated violence on Thursday in a speech on Capitol Hill, suggesting that Republicans are inspiring mass shootings of non-whites and Jews with their racist rhetoric. She cited the so-called Great Replacement theory – the notion that non-white people are being brought into the US and other Western countries to disenfranchise white voters.

Democrats have pointed to a shooting last week that killed 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket as proof of how dangerous replacement theory is. The 18-year-old suspect ranted about the Great Replacement ​​– among other beliefs similar to those of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi militias – before allegedly shooting 13 people, including 11 blacks.

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“They Fall Silent”: Media Criticized For Not Caring About Church Mass Shooting Carried Out by Chinese Gunman

The legacy media and NGOs are facing criticism for largely ignoring another mass shooting over the weekend at a church in Laguna Woods which was carried out by a Chinese-born gunman who targeted Taiwanese people.

68-year-old David Chou drove to Orange County to attend a a lunch held by Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church at the Geneva Presbyterian Church in the community of Laguna Woods.

After chaining shut the doors of the church and placing numerous firebombs, Chou opened fire on a gathering of mainly of elderly Taiwanese parishioners.

It was only due to the heroism of one man who tackled Chou, 52-year-old Dr. John Cheng, that more people weren’t killed. Only Cheng lost his life during the attack in the process of saving the lives of dozens of others.

It was later confirmed that the gunman had deliberately targeted Taiwanese people in a “politically motivated hate incident” because he was upset over Taiwan’s stance towards China.

You’d think the story would have garnered more media attention, but it has received barely a blip of coverage.

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Congrats To The Media For Finally Finding A White Supremacist

Assuming the gunman who shot up the Buffalo, New York, grocery store really was motivated by anti-black racism, let’s do what the media do when faced with an Islamic terrorist who goes on a killing spree in America and just refer to him as a “lone wolf,” a mentally unstable individual who in no way reflects any broader phenomenon or trend.

Except, unlike with violent Muslim extremism, that characterization in this case would be true.

Despite what the media, Democrats, leftists, and, of course, the permanent Washington bureaucracy say (over, and over, and over again), there is no imminent, large-scale threat from white nationalists. It doesn’t exist outside of Joe Biden’s TelePrompter.

To that claim, leftists would surely point to news reports and declarations by the U.S. Justice Department and Homeland Security. The New York Times has been all over it.

“Top law enforcement officials say the biggest domestic terror threat comes from white supremacists.”— New York Times, June 15, 2021

“Homeland Security Dept. Affirms Threat of White Supremacy After Years of Prodding.”—New York Times, Oct. 1, 2019

“The Grave Threats of White Supremacy and Far-Right Extremism.”—New York Times, Feb. 22, 2019

Even under Donald Trump—especially under Donald Trump—the permanent bureaucracy had been hyperventilating about “white supremacy” and the existential threat it supposedly represented to every American, and even democracy itself.

Strangely enough, though, there isn’t a ton of publicly available government data on the topic. More often than not, a government agency or official makes an assertion about white supremacists on a rampage and we’re just supposed to take it as fact without hearing any specifics.

For a threat so pervasive, prolific, and prominent, wouldn’t you expect there to be a nearly unlimited body of work readily available for the public to consume and understand just how grave it is?

It’s not there. You’re supposed to believe it anyway.

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Fake News: Rolling Stone Labels ‘Leftist Authoritarian Eco-Fascist’ Buffalo Shooter A ‘Mainstream Republican’

In Rolling Stone‘s article “The Buffalo Shooter Isn’t a ‘Lone Wolf.’ He’s a Mainstream Republican“, the magazine attempts to frame the 18-year old Buffalo shooter as a right-wing white supremacist influenced by Fox News host Tucker Carlson and former President Donald Trump.

“The gnawing fear of a minority-white America has utterly consumed conservative politics for the past half-decade, creating a Republican party whose dual obsessions with nativism and white fertility have engendered a suite of policies engineered to change the nature of the body politic. What unites murderers like Gendron, and the long list of white supremacist attackers he cited with admiration, with the mainstream of the Republican party is the dream of a white nation,” wrote Talia Lavin.

Lavin goes on to argue that Trump’s populist politics and Fox News‘ coverage of white replacement in America set the stage for racist violence perpetrated by the likes of the Buffalo shooter.

“Donald Trump’s ascendance was a key marker of the force of white racial panic; from the moment he launched his candidacy, his overt racism set the party’s agenda, and from the very first, his rhetoric directly provoked racist violence,” Lavin wrote.

“The Republican Party’s embrace of nativism has been more of a full-on dash than a slow slide, and it has been catalyzed by the vast constellation of right-wing media. Chief among these is the juggernaut that is Fox News. As a New York Times analysis revealed, the network’s flagship prime-time show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, has an obsession with replacement theory: In more than 400 shows the newspaper analyzed, Carlson evoked the idea of forced demographic change through immigration and other methods.”

But Rolling Stone glosses over two very important facts.

First, the Buffalo shooter not only rejected conservative politics and media like Fox News, but described himself in a 180-page manifesto censored online as a “leftist authoritarian” and a “green nationalist” who subscribed to communism.

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It Only Took About 180 Minutes For Democrats To Try To Capitalize On The Buffalo Shooting

Shortly over three hours after police were alerted to a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday, Democratic politicians took to Twitter to call for gun control legislation.

“Two mass shootings in 24 hours, in Milwaukee and Buffalo — the latter killing ten people. I’m heartbroken. And I’m angry. Angry that the GOP continues to block even the most basic gun safety measures. We can stop this. We can save lives. Republicans just refuse to. Cowards.” said Democratic Representative Adam Schiff of California in a Twitter post.

The alleged shooter, later identified in court as 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, reportedly traveled several hours from Conklin, New York to Buffalo where authorities said the gunman exited his vehicle with a firearm and shot four people in the parking lot, three of them were fatally wounded, the New York Times reported. A retired Buffalo police officer who was working as a security guard at the store was fatally shot by Gendron who continued firing upon customers and employees inside the store, the outlet noted.

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