[Discussion] Mass Shootings - Yeah, we need a thread just for this...

This year is the deadliest year ever in terms of mass shootings. In a political climate of polarization, it becomes harder to suss out legitimate information from the misinformation propagated by those with political agendas. Complicating this more is the continual resistance of 2nd amendment advocates to allow for political talk surrounding these massacres. This will involve political discussion to see if there are ways we can all agree might be good ways to prevent mass shootings.

This discussion should involve the details of any current, or future mass shooting, and how they compare to past mass shootings. How are they the same? How are they different? Do gun laws have an impact? Does the race of the shooter affect how we treat them? What makes one a hate crime and one an act or terrorism? Are these shootings the price of freedom?

Perhaps those children should have thought twice before violating the non-aggression principle.

Stand your ground!

That defense depends highly on the skin color of the throwers and the shooters.

I almost included that as a second sentence...

OG_slinger wrote:
The Southern region has the highest percentage of households with firearms and the least safe storage practices (Okoro et al. 2005). Not surprisingly, most Southern states are “exporters” of guns traced in crime (Mayors Against Illegal Guns 2010).

So... Red states?

Sounds like they are in the Red...

It's looking like a teenager in Grantsville, Utah shot their entire family. Four are dead, including three under the age of 18, and an adult male was wounded.

In Thailand a soldier killed 20 people and wounded 21 more.

Oh the guy hasn't been arrested or taken down yet. He is hold up in a mall.

Not America this time.

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/mil...

This is now at least the second mass shooting that I have personally known someone who had to shelter for safety on the site.

It is so messed up this continues to occur.

It’s sad that my first thought when I heard about the MillerCoors shooting is that Milwaukee must be run as horribly as the Irwindale one, which I had worked at as a outside contractor for three years. It was the most hostile work environment I’ve ever been in.

You wouldn't think there's be much call for this thread, particularly from Canada, but...

18 dead (so far) in Canada's deadliest ever mass shooting

https://apnews.com/52e7e00fdf738a653...

The details of this case are certain to get stranger than they already are.

Wow, that is crazy. I feel terrible for everyone.

It’s odd how the article reports Trudeau asked the media not to mention his name, eight paragraphs after naming the suspect.

Current thought is that he had a connection to the first few victims and then it just snowballed from there, but obviously the facts aren’t all in and won’t be for a while, and we may never know what his actual motives were.

Feds: Midlands Tech student who researched mass killings arrested with 90 firearms

The State wrote:

A Midlands Tech student who federal prosecutors say used the internet to research deadly mass shootings in Charleston and elsewhere and illegally acquired 90 weapons including numerous assault rifles and 23,763 bullets has been arrested, according to allegations in a federal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Columbia.

Edward Daniel Kimpton Jr. , 25, appeared in a Columbia federal courtroom Tuesday via remote video conferencing and was formally notified by Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett of the charges against him — wire fraud, mail fraud and illegal possession of machine guns. He is being held without bond at the Barnwell County jail.

Some 90 weapons, the 23,763 bullets and other gear including gas masks and body armor worth an estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars are now in the possession of federal authorities, according to court records.

Kimpton’s arrest Friday came after an 18-month investigation by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Secret Service into an alleged “sophisticated fraud scheme in which he has fraudulently obtained a high quantity of high value firearms, ammunition, firearm accessories and tactical equipment,” according to a complaint in the case.

...

During the investigation, authorities learned that Kimpton “appears to have visited web pages” with content regarding South Carolina mass shooters in Charleston in 2015 and Florence in 2018, the complaint said. He also searched the internet to learn about the guns used in the Santa Fe, Texas, high school shooting in 2018 in which eight students and two teachers were killed and 13 were wounded, according to a complaint in the case.

Kimpton also made online searches “on numerous occasions” for instructions on how to use bump stocks to convert regular single shot assault rifles into fully automatic firearms, the complaint said. He also searched online for information on “gas mask shootings,” the complaint said.

Kimpton’s alleged gun-buying scheme worked this way: Using online gun marketplace sites such as ArmsList.com, Kimpton first purchased firearms, bullets, firearm scopes, tactical gear and related goods from individual and retail sellers all over the country, often using fictitious names, according to the complaint.

Kimpton paid for the items using electronic payment platforms like PayPal and had them shipped by mail to federal firearms license-holders in the South Carolina counties of Richland, Lexington, York, Saluda and Kershaw, as well as in the Charlotte area, the complaint said.

After picking up the guns and other gear, Kimpton would contest the sale, alleging that he never received the items.

“The sellers are then left without their property or payment, and Kimpton retains both the property and the fraudulently reverted funds,” the complaint said.

So if I’m reading this right, another horrific mass shooting was likely avoided only because the guy was too cheap to pay for all the guns and gear he was buying (stealing really). Otherwise he’s not even on anyone’s radar.

gewy wrote:

So if I’m reading this right, another horrific mass shooting was likely avoided only because the guy was too cheap to pay for all the guns and gear he was buying (stealing really). Otherwise he’s not even on anyone’s radar.

Yeah I’m wondering how closely the government is monitoring people’s searches versus doing that research after the fact. I’m hoping it’s the later cause I’m working on a horror story and have been searching for some rather macabre true crime topics.

Gotta say, I’m glad I’m not teaching there right now!

Also of note, it says he was able to make many purchases using “fictitious names?” That’s comforting.

And 18 month investigation? I wonder how closely they were keeping tabs on him during that time. I can’t imagine it was anywhere near sufficient. Seems like they dodged a bullet (to use an unfortunate phrase) that he didn’t carry out his plan sometime during the last year and a half they were investigating him.

gewy wrote:

Also of note, it says he was able to make many purchases using “fictitious names?” That’s comforting.

And 18 month investigation? I wonder how closely they were keeping tabs on him during that time. I can’t imagine it was anywhere near sufficient. Seems like they dodged a bullet (to use an unfortunate phrase) that he didn’t carry out his plan sometime during the last year and a half they were investigating him.

Nowadays you pretty much have to let him kill a busful of kids before you arrest him to avoid "violating his 2nd amendment rights".

Paleocon wrote:

Nowadays you pretty much have to let him kill a busful of kids before you arrest him to avoid "violating his 2nd amendment rights".

You aren't far from the truth...

Case in point, one Bradley Bunn of Loveland, CO. He was arrested last Friday morning after making threats on Facebook that he was going to show up to Colorado's "reopen now" rally last week with some firearms and cause trouble. When the FBI raided his home they found illegal weapons and multiple pipe bombs, according the affidavit.

FBI Affidavit wrote:

When asked what he planned to do with the [pipe bombs], Bunn replied, “If I experienced a hard entry, at 3 am, having been an infantry commander, it’s really tough to get guys spread out no matter how hard you try. They still want to clump up 'cause of fear, and I know their, their, anyway, blah, blah, blah.”

[FBI Special Agent] asked, “So a hard entry in the morning, you were going to use them on a bunch of clumped up guys out front?” Bunn answered, “f*ck yes."

At his hearing today, prosecutors argued that Bunn shouldn't be released because he doesn't believe law enforcement officials have the right to take away firearms, including military-grade equipment such as land mines.

Loveland Reporter-Herald wrote:

[US prosecutor] said that in conversations with law enforcement officials, Bunn said he respected law enforcement but did not believe they had the right to confiscate firearms, and that if they did so they would be violating the Constitution. He allegedly said he would “fight to the death” to keep his firearms and is stockpiling weapons for a coming war.

In a conversation with an officer, he allegedly said he would be willing to “take out a few law enforcement officers in order to wake people up to what’s going on.”

Bunn's defense attorney is claiming that Bunn's statements to the FBI and his social media ramblings are common--“I’ve seen these kinds of writings many times before, and most of it’s free speech"--and that he's no threat to society because he didn't actually ambush the FBI with pipe bombs when they raided his house.

The judge seems to be leaning towards releasing Bunn, saying "Without the pipe bombs, lots of people believe what he believes," and "Unlike most people, instead of sticking to guns and lots of ammunition, he's gone to a lot of effort to remodel his home." The latter referred to Bunn's efforts to fortify the windows and external doors of his house against entry by law enforcement.

The prosecutor's trying to get Bunn inpatient treatment at the VA. The judge didn't order a psych evaluation of Bunn because even though he threatened to kill law enforcement, he still cooperate with them (as is didn't blow them up).

The day after Bunn's arrest the DHS issued an alert based on intelligence gathered from a white supremacist instant messaging group that the racist f*cks were forming a "quick reaction team" because of Bunn's arrest and that they were planning on shooting any law enforcement that might try to serve search or arrest warrants on them.

Also, a few weeks prior Bunn had testified before Colorado House Judiciary Committee. He said he was against Colorado's Red Flag law that allows for guns to be temporarily removed from mentally and emotionally disturbed individual if approved by judges. In his testimony Bunn said “I was going to end my life with a Glock 40 caliber to the heart. You only get to experience death once so I wanted to experience all of it to take it to the heart.”

So we can't even get guns out of the hands of people who are clearly f*cked up and who have repeatedly showed they want to harm others (and themselves).

I've long thought that the 2A extremists will be proven right: We are out to take their guns away... because they are proving they can't be trusted with them in a civilized society.

Hey yeah let's get the schools open so kids can get shot again.

12 year old shot this morning in Hendersonville, NC.

Looks like just one victim, so not a mass shooting. But f*ck it it's still a kid shot at school and I'm so sick of this.

arrrrrgh!

Well, NC Republicans got their 'normal' back. That's nice.

Another white male shooting 5 people in Minnesota today.

And had bombs apparently. But apprehended alive of course.

Criminal record dating back to the 1970s, so why did he have guns?

Stele wrote:

Criminal record dating back to the 1970s, so why did he have guns?

Freedom ain't free.

Stele wrote:

Another white male shooting 5 people in Minnesota today.

And had bombs apparently. But apprehended alive of course.

Criminal record dating back to the 1970s, so why did he have guns?

Got it illegally, like most criminals.

I lived in the community when the machete maniac attacked an elementary school in 2001. He tried to buy a gun but was denied, so he got a machete instead.

Stele wrote:

Criminal record dating back to the 1970s, so why did he have guns?

At least three DUIs and multiple possession of marijuana charges since the early 2000s. And he was likely hooked on opioids.

If he was Black he would have been shot on site by police and every media report would have emphasized his drug use and criminal history.

But since he's White all we're going to hear is how he was a sick and troubled old man who slipped through the cracks of the system and that he should be pitied for feeling so mistreated by doctors that he thought the only solution was to shoot five people and bomb a clinic.

Three DUIs and pot possession makes you likely to shoot up a clinic?

I know you vehemently hate guns and anyone who gets anywhere within five feet of them, but this is a little over the top.