20 thoughts on “The Virginia Shootings”

1. Mass shootings account for roughly 100 to 150 deaths/yr. There are roughly 400 children drowned each year mainly in back yard pools. Which one gets the most press?

2. Apparently Obama didn’t do so much to quell the racist hatred and prevent a backlash after Charleston. It is a shame the media spent more time covering Obama and the shooter, and less on the members of the Church and victims. Perhaps the media should follow their style guide for handling Muslim shooters that target recruitment centers.

3. The other day I looked at De Blasio’s mayors against guns research, which analyzed mass shooting from 2009 to 2013. During that period there were an average of 103 victims per year, of which only 44 were not the result of a family murder/suicide event.

   In contrast, in 2012 Brazil had over 50,000 homicides.

4. Very sad that that woman’s last moments on earth are now part of the public record.

   Can we say that pretending mental illness doesn’t exist killed these two? Because that gun didn’t do it by itself.

5. Wait, the shooter was black and the shootees white? No, he must have been a white African-American, shooting “white” people who are really passing…

6. Funny how every story like this in America “reopens the debate” about your gun laws, but when a shooter walks on to a train… or into a supermarket… or into a magazine office in France, the obvious failure of its near-total prohibition of firearms to stop him is never mentioned. The doublethink required to be a gun grabber must be exhausting.

   1. I don’t believe it’s double-think.

      I believe it’s opportunism, and an appeal to the emotionals and the low info voters.

      Never let a crisis (or disaster or tragedy) go to waste. Keep pushing the narrative.

7. As some of us surely guessed, the shooter was a lefty loon.

   1. No, the shooter was a mentally disturbed individual who should have been in counseling since 1999 or earlier. His history of firings for his behavior at previous jobs indicates a deep-seated mental illness that should have been dealt with long, long ago.

      I haven’t the stomach to research him or find out if he was actually in counseling at any point, but all of his former employers seemed more interested in making sure that they settled discrimination suits rather than ensuring he got the other attention he needed from mental health professionals. I would say that whoever his lawyer was in those cases would also be partially to blame, for enabling his behavior.

      1. I see just a few issues with this comment:

         all of his former employers seemed more interested in making sure that they settled discrimination suits rather than ensuring he got the other attention he needed from mental health professionals.

         Let’s start off with: Why would you think it is the employer’s responsibility to ensure an employee is attended to by mental health professionals? Further, how would you go about giving employer’s the authority to act on that responsibility?

         1. I’d start with, “As a condition of this settlement and NDA, plaintiff will seek mental health counseling, cost of which to be paid for by the defendant.”

            If someone files what appears to all parties to be a frivolous and mental-illness-motivated wrongful termination suit, and I’m the defendant who just wants to see the suit (and the plaintiff) go away, why not make the plaintiff agree to counseling as a part of the settlement? If he wants the cash, he’ll take the conditions.

            I’m not saying that everyone needs to be babysat throughout their lives, but this is a rather clear case of mental illness, and multiple people failed to step in along the way.

            Also, I bring it up as a counter to the whole “lefty loon” comment. This shooting was only nominally motivated by race or politics, and ignoring the clear signs of mental illness does a disservice to all those who suffer from such debilitations and might otherwise follow this same path in the future.

            1. Certainly, an employer can file such a motion, but I don’t see how it serves them, unless through the course of employment they had a psychiatrist analyze the employee. Lacking such evaluation, it would be conjecture by the employer regarding the plantiff’s mental capacity. It could be easily dismissed. And considering how easily it would be to dismiss, do you have any evidence to suggests no employer ever attempted to file such a motion, or do you base your argument entirely on the employers eventually settling the claims rather than risking a trial?

            2. In other words, blame the victim…

            3. Err, I used motion, when a settlement hearing doesn’t work that way. Still, not seeing how the employer would benefit for trying to insert such a cause (unless they knew for sure by some other means) or why the plantiff’s lawyer would encourage the guy to take the settlement. After all, this guy is complaining about a hostile workplace because of being black and gay, and the employer should suggest he is “mentally unstable?” Doesn’t sound like a winner.

               On another note, here is another person that thinks the shooter is a victim of the employer. To be fair, this person thinks the grievance is justified, which is not what I take as Johnny’s argument.

      2. “No, the shooter was a mentally disturbed individual who should have been in counseling since 1999 or earlier.”

         The two are not mutually exclusive. Dylan Roof was motivated in part by his ideology and so was Flanagan. Did Flanagan have a host of other issues too? Sure.

         Absent the racialist rhetoric of the Democrat party would Flanagan still have snapped? I don’t know. It is incredible hard to tell as his views are so wrapped up in Democrat party dogma.

         We shouldn’t blanket every crime like this as being the work of the insane. Dylan Roof was motivated by his racism and so was Flanagan. The two people came to their racism through different routes.

         Time and time again we can tie the actions of these shooters to their ideologies and to the Democrat party which preaches a racialist rhetoric with the explicit purpose of creating action. Sometimes that leads to assassinated cops, burned down cities, flying planes into IRS buildings, shooting up the Discovery channel offices, trying to shoot their way into the Pentagon, shooting up the FRC, and dead reporters.

         Not every act of violence springs forth from politics but when it does, we shouldn’t be afraid to say so. Democrat activists commonly engage in violence. This act wasn’t sanctioned by the party. It wasn’t part of a political campaign. But the ideology that motivated this man did not spontaneously rise up out of the ether.

         1. Think of Jared Loughner. The guy is bats**t crazy. He likely would have erupted regardless of the ideological environment he was in but the ideology her parroted in his videos and manifesto was the exact same type of stuff you would hear at OWS or some other gathering of extremist Democrats. Just google Zeitgeist.

            Loughner thought he was taking action to promote his ideology. He shot a fellow Democrat. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a leftist. A socialist killed Kennedy. Hitler attacked unions that were against him. Leftists often attack each other.

            I wouldn’t say the Democrat party is responsible for Loughner but that doesn’t mean an examination of his politics is off the table.

            As space cadets, there is a tie in. These Zeitgeist people co-opt science, technology, and the desire for space settlement with their kooky brand of socialism. Every ill society faces can be solved if you follow this one simple trick.

            1. Loughner wasn’t even functional. He was probably the craziest of all of them.

         2. Apparently he was reprimanded for wearing an Obama button at work. Can you imagine the screams from the media if it had been a Palin button?

            1. Between the Obama button, and Johnny B agreeing that the guy seemed mentally unbalanced, I’m failing to see how Peter’s lefty loon statement doesn’t stand.

         3. Since to my knowledge he was never diagnosed or treated for mental illness, I think we are just assuming that he was mentally ill.

            What if he did not have a clinical mental illness, but his head was filled with toxic sludge from the Left? We know that bad ideas can cause people to kill without remorse, and believe that they are doing what is right and necessary. Look at the 20th century for about 100 million examples.

            The frightening thought for me is that there are far, far more people in America who have been thoroughly brainwashed by the Left than there are schizophrenics.

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