At Least 19 Killed, 40 Wounded In Killing Today...El Paso

[AGBF]

The latest mass killing claimed a lot of people today. I had not planned to post about it. I knew it was going on this morning. The television news interrupted programming with a "live shooter" report. I guess people only tune in for "live shootings", finding the reports made after shootings to be too mundane for them to stop what they are doing to turn on the television. After all, the reports will repeat for hours and hours, then days and days until the next shooting.

But here is a link to a report on the shooting. Sorry I cannot bring it to you live.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/el-pas...elo-vista-mall-today-2019-08-03-live-updates/

 

[AGBF]

One more thing that makes this particularly cruel: people were there (at the Walmart) to buy school supplies at a discount because Texas is having a tax free week in anticipation of schools opening. Poor people go to Walmart to buy school supplies when they are discounted because of a tax-free week. But when you read more about the shooter, you can guess who he wanted to shoot.

 

[Ally T]

This is awful. I'm just seeing it here in the UK on the evening news. It's so, so horrific. My heart aches for those lost & those suffering loss.

Just, well... just no words, really. Yet again............

 

[partgypsy]

looking at the comments on fox news, it's, take my guns over my dead body, this just shows there should be NO gun free zones in the US, and this was a George Soros/Democrat/FBI plot to smear Trump. Nothing on the victims, not one word of horror or empathy. There is something seriously wrong with the US. Prayers for the families, but I wish we can give them something more, like us having 100% intolerance to hate speech in the US.

Hate crimes are up 220% every place that Trump held a rally. Hate speech works.

 

[tkyasx78]

I am sorry for all those innocent people who died needlessly.

 

[Calliecake]

The shooters manifesto is fueled by hate, racism, bigotry and division.

How many more people will die as the president flashes his white supremacy power signs at his rallies, as he spews his hateful rhetoric, as he tweets his racist tweets?

 

[missy]

Truth


Instead we have this

 

[Asscherhalo_lover]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/04/dayton-ohio-mass-shooting

 

[Calliecake]

Another terribly depressing day in America.

 

[Octo2005]

 

[OboeGal]

And now a mass shooting in my city. In a historic district on a street where my husband and dear friends and I just had dinner a couple weeks ago. Where the community blood bank hasn't recovered from an outbreak of F3 and F4 tornados that ripped the community and peoples' lives apart on Memorial Day. By a person that killed his own sister and her boyfriend among his other victims.

 

[Octo2005]

And now a mass shooting in my city. In a historic district on a street where my husband and dear friends and I just had dinner a couple weeks ago. Where the community blood bank hasn't recovered from an outbreak of F3 and F4 tornados that ripped the community and peoples' lives apart on Memorial Day. By a person that killed his own sister and her boyfriend among his other victims.

I am so sorry

 

[Octo2005]

Just reading an article on CNN about the shooting in Dayton. The Article stated that this is the 250th mass shooting in America THIS YEAR. That can not possibly be correct, can it? It is August 4th, that means that over the last 7 months there has been an average of 35.7 mass shootings every month this year! OMG, I can not even. Have we become so immune to hearing about this that it no longer registers how frequently this is happening?

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/04/us/dayton-ohio-active-shooter/index.html

 

[Maria D]

I am so very sorry @OboeGal.

And yes, @Octo2005, we have become immune. A mass shooting is defined by three or more killings in a single episode. We don't even hear about most of them because three dead people in one incident is so commonplace it isn't newsworthy.

The media is reporting that the Dayton shooter was killed by police less than a minute after he opened fire. His assault rifle worked exactly as the killing machine it is designed to be.

 

[AGBF]

And now a mass shooting in my city. In a historic district on a street where my husband and dear friends and I just had dinner a couple weeks ago. Where the community blood bank hasn't recovered from an outbreak of F3 and F4 tornados that ripped the community and peoples' lives apart on Memorial Day. By a person that killed his own sister and her boyfriend among his other victims.

I am so sorry this new evil hit your home, OboeGal. Many years ago when I was a teenager my religious youth group had a week long conference at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. When these twin tragedies struck I told my daughter that I had been in both Dayton and El Paso. I do not travel at all now and I never travelled for business, so it seemed very strange. Having been to a place that is hit, let alone loving it, makes it more personal when violence strikes. (I knew Newtown, Connecticut. Our state psychiatric hospital used to be located there. That is the town where the Sandy Hook killings took place.)

 

[Octo2005]

I am so very sorry @OboeGal.

And yes, @Octo2005, we have become immune. A mass shooting is defined by three or more killings in a single episode. We don't even hear about most of them because three dead people in one incident is so commonplace it isn't newsworthy.

The media is reporting that the Dayton shooter was killed by police less than a minute after he opened fire. His assault rifle worked exactly as the killing machine it is designed to be.

I absolutely agree with you , but clicking like for issues like this doesn't feel right

 

[JPie]

None of this is going to stop until we stop being controlled by the minority of gun nuts who refuse to let any meaningful gun legislation be passed. At the same time, we have Trump, Republicans, and right wing media stoking racial tensions and empowering white domestic terrorists. America is seriously sick.

If you have any doubt that Republican leaders and media are empowering and inspiring white terrorists, here’s the El Paso shooter’s manifesto and how it ties back to Republican propaganda.

Source

 

[AGBF]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/04/dayton-ohio-mass-shooting

Everyone seems to have at least some information on the El Paso murders. We think we know that the gunman had a white supremacist, racist agenda. The Dayton, Ohio murders seem to be more confusing. No one appears to know, yet, when the gunman killed his sister. Police are currently saying it was not prior to the massacre. If anger at her did not cause him to launch the attack, what did? Why did he drive her with him to the bar? Did he do that? Why choose the bar as a target? So much is still unknown.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/04/...k&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=US News

 

[madelise]

None of this is going to end until we address the white supremacy.

 

[OboeGal]

@Octo2005, @Maria D, and @AGBF, thank you.

So it appears, at this point, that the Dayton shooter was a young white man from a fairly affluent suburb of Dayton. Based on his Twitter postings, he was left-wing, spouting all kinds of extreme left-wing garbage propaganda talking points (such as "everybody in the criminal justice system is bad and evil" kind of stuff) and chock full of anger, rage, and the tendency to want to use aggression and violence to solve problems. People who knew him in high school said he was a bit of an outcast and at one point had been suspended for making violent threats. Bizarrely enough, he was outspoken on social media about frustration with society not solving the problems that led to the Parkland shootings as well as others. I have no idea what he thought he was accomplishing doing what he did.

First of all, I want to say as a liberal myself - I'm horrified by what he did, by his views.....he did not represent what the overwhelming majority of the left-leaning people I know believe in or represent.

My personal opinion is that what we're seeing is a result of America's harshness as a society. Of course, in every society there are disaffected, angry, selfish, and/or disturbed people who act out and try to or succeed in harming others. But there's no question that it's epidemic in American culture.

There's too much economic inequality.

There's too much power in the hands of too few who game the system to their own advantage to the detriment of everyone else.

Our elected officials are either not acting in the best interests of the voting public, or try to but can accomplish nothing because of the efforts of those operating in their own self-interest.

There's little to no protection for workers anymore, leaving whole families at the mercy of employers not only for their wages but their health care as well.

There are too many families where both parents are stressed out of their minds and HAVE to work to survive, and have no option to actually have one or the other raise their own children - are forced a few weeks after birth to place tiny infants in the care of essentially strangers who have no vested interest much of the time in the nurturing and bonding that those babies need then to form the basis of empathy and compassion. Or go back to work because they're terrified that if they take any longer than minimal maternity/paternity leave, they will be punished forever financially and career-wise for it, because the US is obsessed with this idea that our "worth as individuals = how many hours we work/how successful our career is/how much money we make" rather than how compassionate we are, how ethical we are, how we treat others, how unselfish we are, how much we value others' well-being as well as our own.

Overwhelmed young families are forced for career/money reasons to move far away from supportive extended family or friend networks that could actually help them with the ever-critical task of parenting children, so forced to do it all on their own - something that humans are not evolved to do, as for the overwhelming majority of human history, child-rearing took place with the support of a whole tribe.

Everyone but the most wealthy are terrified that they and their children are just one medical event away from their lives being destroyed.

Mass media are manipulating us all over the place for their own financial/ideological gain.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. In this uber-capitalist society, we've created a system where nearly everyone feels forced into a primal "dog-eat-dog", "kill-or-be-killed", "don't touch my pile" mode just to survive. It's wrong. You can't have a civilized society this way. The only way out, I believe, is to find a balance between capitalism/market forces, reasonable regulation, and social support - like Canada, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, etc. It won't be perfect and it won't solve all the problems, but if we don't, well.....let's just say I think the future of America is pretty bleak.

If you got this far, thank you for reading.

 

[Karl_K]

@Octo2005, @Maria D, and @AGBF, thank you.

So it appears, at this point, that the Dayton shooter was a young white man from a fairly affluent suburb of Dayton. Based on his Twitter postings, he was left-wing, spouting all kinds of extreme left-wing garbage propaganda talking points (such as "everybody in the criminal justice system is bad and evil" kind of stuff) and chock full of anger, rage, and the tendency to want to use aggression and violence to solve problems. People who knew him in high school said he was a bit of an outcast and at one point had been suspended for making violent threats. Bizarrely enough, he was outspoken on social media about frustration with society not solving the problems that led to the Parkland shootings as well as others. I have no idea what he thought he was accomplishing doing what he did.

First of all, I want to say as a liberal myself - I'm horrified by what he did, by his views.....he did not represent what the overwhelming majority of the left-leaning people I know believe in or represent.

My personal opinion is that what we're seeing is a result of America's harshness as a society. Of course, in every society there are disaffected, angry, selfish, and/or disturbed people who act out and try to or succeed in harming others. But there's no question that it's epidemic in American culture.

There's too much economic inequality.

There's too much power in the hands of too few who game the system to their own advantage to the detriment of everyone else.

Our elected officials are either not acting in the best interests of the voting public, or try to but can accomplish nothing because of the efforts of those operating in their own self-interest.

There's little to no protection for workers anymore, leaving whole families at the mercy of employers not only for their wages but their health care as well.

There are too many families where both parents are stressed out of their minds and HAVE to work to survive, and have no option to actually have one or the other raise their own children - are forced a few weeks after birth to place tiny infants in the care of essentially strangers who have no vested interest much of the time in the nurturing and bonding that those babies need then to form the basis of empathy and compassion. Or go back to work because they're terrified that if they take any longer than minimal maternity/paternity leave, they will be punished forever financially and career-wise for it, because the US is obsessed with this idea that our "worth as individuals = how many hours we work/how successful our career is/how much money we make" rather than how compassionate we are, how ethical we are, how we treat others, how unselfish we are, how much we value others' well-being as well as our own.

Overwhelmed young families are forced for career/money reasons to move far away from supportive extended family or friend networks that could actually help them with the ever-critical task of parenting children, so forced to do it all on their own - something that humans are not evolved to do, as for the overwhelming majority of human history, child-rearing took place with the support of a whole tribe.

Everyone but the most wealthy are terrified that they and their children are just one medical event away from their lives being destroyed.

Mass media are manipulating us all over the place for their own financial/ideological gain.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. In this uber-capitalist society, we've created a system where nearly everyone feels forced into a primal "dog-eat-dog", "kill-or-be-killed", "don't touch my pile" mode just to survive. It's wrong. You can't have a civilized society this way. The only way out, I believe, is to find a balance between capitalism/market forces, reasonable regulation, and social support - like Canada, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, etc. It won't be perfect and it won't solve all the problems, but if we don't, well.....let's just say I think the future of America is pretty bleak.

If you got this far, thank you for reading.

Now this is an interesting post that I agree with much of but maybe not some of the solutions.

 

[stracci2000]

@Octo2005, @Maria D, and @AGBF, thank you.

So it appears, at this point, that the Dayton shooter was a young white man from a fairly affluent suburb of Dayton. Based on his Twitter postings, he was left-wing, spouting all kinds of extreme left-wing garbage propaganda talking points (such as "everybody in the criminal justice system is bad and evil" kind of stuff) and chock full of anger, rage, and the tendency to want to use aggression and violence to solve problems. People who knew him in high school said he was a bit of an outcast and at one point had been suspended for making violent threats. Bizarrely enough, he was outspoken on social media about frustration with society not solving the problems that led to the Parkland shootings as well as others. I have no idea what he thought he was accomplishing doing what he did.

First of all, I want to say as a liberal myself - I'm horrified by what he did, by his views.....he did not represent what the overwhelming majority of the left-leaning people I know believe in or represent.

My personal opinion is that what we're seeing is a result of America's harshness as a society. Of course, in every society there are disaffected, angry, selfish, and/or disturbed people who act out and try to or succeed in harming others. But there's no question that it's epidemic in American culture.

There's too much economic inequality.

There's too much power in the hands of too few who game the system to their own advantage to the detriment of everyone else.

Our elected officials are either not acting in the best interests of the voting public, or try to but can accomplish nothing because of the efforts of those operating in their own self-interest.

There's little to no protection for workers anymore, leaving whole families at the mercy of employers not only for their wages but their health care as well.

There are too many families where both parents are stressed out of their minds and HAVE to work to survive, and have no option to actually have one or the other raise their own children - are forced a few weeks after birth to place tiny infants in the care of essentially strangers who have no vested interest much of the time in the nurturing and bonding that those babies need then to form the basis of empathy and compassion. Or go back to work because they're terrified that if they take any longer than minimal maternity/paternity leave, they will be punished forever financially and career-wise for it, because the US is obsessed with this idea that our "worth as individuals = how many hours we work/how successful our career is/how much money we make" rather than how compassionate we are, how ethical we are, how we treat others, how unselfish we are, how much we value others' well-being as well as our own.

Overwhelmed young families are forced for career/money reasons to move far away from supportive extended family or friend networks that could actually help them with the ever-critical task of parenting children, so forced to do it all on their own - something that humans are not evolved to do, as for the overwhelming majority of human history, child-rearing took place with the support of a whole tribe.

Everyone but the most wealthy are terrified that they and their children are just one medical event away from their lives being destroyed.

Mass media are manipulating us all over the place for their own financial/ideological gain.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. In this uber-capitalist society, we've created a system where nearly everyone feels forced into a primal "dog-eat-dog", "kill-or-be-killed", "don't touch my pile" mode just to survive. It's wrong. You can't have a civilized society this way. The only way out, I believe, is to find a balance between capitalism/market forces, reasonable regulation, and social support - like Canada, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, etc. It won't be perfect and it won't solve all the problems, but if we don't, well.....let's just say I think the future of America is pretty bleak.

If you got this far, thank you for reading.

I agree with every single point. Thank you for being so eloquent.

 

[redwood66]

@Octo2005, @Maria D, and @AGBF, thank you.

So it appears, at this point, that the Dayton shooter was a young white man from a fairly affluent suburb of Dayton. Based on his Twitter postings, he was left-wing, spouting all kinds of extreme left-wing garbage propaganda talking points (such as "everybody in the criminal justice system is bad and evil" kind of stuff) and chock full of anger, rage, and the tendency to want to use aggression and violence to solve problems. People who knew him in high school said he was a bit of an outcast and at one point had been suspended for making violent threats. Bizarrely enough, he was outspoken on social media about frustration with society not solving the problems that led to the Parkland shootings as well as others. I have no idea what he thought he was accomplishing doing what he did.

First of all, I want to say as a liberal myself - I'm horrified by what he did, by his views.....he did not represent what the overwhelming majority of the left-leaning people I know believe in or represent.

My personal opinion is that what we're seeing is a result of America's harshness as a society. Of course, in every society there are disaffected, angry, selfish, and/or disturbed people who act out and try to or succeed in harming others. But there's no question that it's epidemic in American culture.

There's too much economic inequality.

There's too much power in the hands of too few who game the system to their own advantage to the detriment of everyone else.

Our elected officials are either not acting in the best interests of the voting public, or try to but can accomplish nothing because of the efforts of those operating in their own self-interest.

There's little to no protection for workers anymore, leaving whole families at the mercy of employers not only for their wages but their health care as well.

There are too many families where both parents are stressed out of their minds and HAVE to work to survive, and have no option to actually have one or the other raise their own children - are forced a few weeks after birth to place tiny infants in the care of essentially strangers who have no vested interest much of the time in the nurturing and bonding that those babies need then to form the basis of empathy and compassion. Or go back to work because they're terrified that if they take any longer than minimal maternity/paternity leave, they will be punished forever financially and career-wise for it, because the US is obsessed with this idea that our "worth as individuals = how many hours we work/how successful our career is/how much money we make" rather than how compassionate we are, how ethical we are, how we treat others, how unselfish we are, how much we value others' well-being as well as our own.

Overwhelmed young families are forced for career/money reasons to move far away from supportive extended family or friend networks that could actually help them with the ever-critical task of parenting children, so forced to do it all on their own - something that humans are not evolved to do, as for the overwhelming majority of human history, child-rearing took place with the support of a whole tribe.

Everyone but the most wealthy are terrified that they and their children are just one medical event away from their lives being destroyed.

Mass media are manipulating us all over the place for their own financial/ideological gain.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. In this uber-capitalist society, we've created a system where nearly everyone feels forced into a primal "dog-eat-dog", "kill-or-be-killed", "don't touch my pile" mode just to survive. It's wrong. You can't have a civilized society this way. The only way out, I believe, is to find a balance between capitalism/market forces, reasonable regulation, and social support - like Canada, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, etc. It won't be perfect and it won't solve all the problems, but if we don't, well.....let's just say I think the future of America is pretty bleak.

If you got this far, thank you for reading.

Thank you for this thoughtful post.

 

[arkieb1]

My thoughts and prayers are with every single American too stupid to want better gun control, because until they come to terms with the fact something has to change, the carnage will continue.

 

[House Cat]

My thoughts and prayers are with every single American too stupid to want better gun control, because until they come to terms with the fact something has to change, the carnage will continue.

Oh, it will be fixed by controlling the internet, video games, and the mentally ill!!! We don’t need to control guns!

What this means for the mentally ill...we won’t communicate honestly with our doctors for fear of being involuntarily committed! The consequence will be more suicides and more very sick people on the streets!

 

[arkieb1]

Oh, it will be fixed by controlling the internet, video games, and the mentally ill!!! We don’t need to control guns!

What this means for the mentally ill...we won’t communicate honestly with our doctors for fear of being involuntarily committed! The consequence will be more suicides and more very sick people on the streets!

I read a fascinating article that said a much, ie substantially higher number of women statistically than men are on medication in the US and are considered "mentally ill" in your health system yet 98% of all mass shootings are perpetrated by men. So as it turns out the mentally ill are not on a spree - it is far more likely to be disenfranchised young men.

The point being, the media, and the NRA and people that are pro guns like to blame "the mentally ill" because blaming groups of people and behaviour turns the spotlight away from the types of guns that should be restricted and actually doing something about better gun control laws.

 

[AGBF]

My thoughts and prayers are with every single American too stupid to want better gun control, because until they come to terms with the fact something has to change, the carnage will continue.

But I thought guns weren't the problem, people were the problem....

 

[redwood66]

I don't always agree with David French but this article today was good. There are things that can be done by LE to quell organized groups. It requires monitoring which I am fundamentally against, but what can you do otherwise? Red flag laws can work if they are written in such a way that protects the subject and requires proof of intent. We can't just go locking people up because a family member says they are a danger.

Edit - though people have to be willing to say something about concerning behavior of loved ones who they observe behaving erratically.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/declare-war-on-white-nationalist-terrorism/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR Daily Monday through Friday 2019-08-05&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart

 

[House Cat]

I don't always agree with David French but this article today was good. There are things that can be done by LE to quell organized groups. It requires monitoring which I am fundamentally against, but what can you do otherwise? Red flag laws can work if they are written in such a way that protects the subject and requires proof of intent. We can't just go locking people up because a family member says they are a danger.

Edit - though people have to be willing to say something about concerning behavior of loved ones who they observe behaving erratically.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/declare-war-on-white-nationalist-terrorism/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR Daily Monday through Friday 2019-08-05&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart

I think the problem with behaving erratically is that it is like the frog in the boiling pot of water. Most of the time, it isn’t sudden. The slow ramp up started ten years prior when the person was a child. If the person went this long without any psychiatric help, it is safe to say the family has a pretty good denial mechanism at work. So when they see erratic behavior, their denial kicks in somehow to makes it so they don’t believe what they see because they want so desperately to believe their child, husband, friend, is normal.

It would take an outsider to see the behavior.

This is in the case of mental illness, which I think they said were 1 in 4 shootings.

 

[cmd2014]

Let’s be honest. These things can only happen with motive, means, and opportunity. It doesn’t matter if someone has motive if there is no means or opportunity. You simply can’t kill multiple people in 30 seconds unless you have access to the type of weapon that can accomplish this. And if only 1 in 4 shootings involve someone struggling with mental illness, that means 3 in 4 do not. My read of what we know about mass shooters is that they are overwhelmingly men who are angry, lonely, and disenfranchised rather than those with a psychiatric diagnosis. Trying to screen everyone to predict who will lash out is insane. Making it so no one can even if they wanted to is probably the much wiser course of action. Like they did with access to large amounts of fertilizer after the Oklahoma City bombing. But the US is either disinclined or unable to make this happen.