Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on April 07, 2013, 11:05:52 AM
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Woof All:
What to do when the excrement hits the fan?
CD
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/us/in-a-shift-police-advise-taking-an-active-role-to-counter-mass-attacks.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130407
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Woof All:
What to do when the excrement hits the fan?
CD
==============================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/us/in-a-shift-police-advise-taking-an-active-role-to-counter-mass-attacks.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130407
1. If possible, shoot the threat to the ground.
2. Try to avoid being shot by responding officers.
3. Render aid to the injured, using triage to select the most viable victims.
4. Be a good witness, even if you can't do any of the above.
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Any tips on effectuating #2?
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Any tips on effectuating #2?
If something bad is going down, use your cell to dial 911, and start feeding intel to dispatch in real time as you move to act. You should be sure to ID yourself and give your physical description so hopefully it gets passed on to the responding officers. If the bad guy(s) whack you, at least the inital responder have some idea what's going on.
Don't be visibly armed when responding officers get there. Meaning reholster, if possible.
If you are confronted by officers, comply. This is not the time to debate while being taken down at gunpoint. Drop your gun. I don't care if it's a $5,000 Nighthawk Custom. You can buy a new gun, you can't buy a new head.
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Good points GM. True, make sure yiu I'D yourself when calling 911 that way the incoming officer know what that officer (undercover, uniformed or off duty) is wearing. And about the threat, be she needs to be put down first.
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Good point Jesus about asking if the responding officers will be uniformed or not-- I had not thought of that.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/us/las-vegas-shooting-live-updates.html?emc=edit_na_20171003&nl=breaking-news&nlid=49641193&ref=cta&_r=0
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Somewhere in this discussion of the mass murder where people are still dying it should be noted that, like during 9/11, while people were frantically racing for any possible exit, law enforcement and first responders were entering the area under fire. Words can't describe that level of courage and valor nor express our thankfulness for it.
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AMEN!!!
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AMEN!!!
Famous people reading the forum(?), I was pleased to see the President include this in his remarks yesterday.
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http://thefederalist.com/2017/10/03/democrats-have-no-idea-how-to-prevent-mass-shootings/
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https://worldtruth.tv/five-more-things-that-dont-add-up-about-the-las-vegas-massacre/
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As the closing act of the three-day, open-air Route 91 Harvest Music Festival took the stage the evening of Oct. 1 on the Las Vegas Strip, a 64-year-old man used a sledgehammer to smash out two windows in his suite at the adjacent Mandalay Bay hotel. His perch on the 32nd floor gave him a clear field of fire on the 22,000 or so concertgoers below. He took aim with one in the arsenal of guns in his room and opened fire. The shooter's intent was clear – he wanted to create as much carnage as possible. The crowd below remained oblivious to the threat 100 meters (328 feet) above and 400 meters away until bullets began raining down.
The attack, which left 59 people dead and more than 500 hurt, was certainly well-planned. The shooter, who had occupied the suite on Sept. 28, had methodically ferried in weapons concealed in luggage until he had amassed 23 guns, including several rifles with high-capacity magazines, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Photographs from the scene indicate that at least two of the rifles were semi-automatic AR-platform guns that had been equipped with legal "bump fire" stocks that allowed them to operate at a rate mimicking automatic gunfire.
The massed crowd offered an easy target. Indeed, recruits in the armed forces are trained to shoot at human-size targets at 400 meters using iron sights, so targeting the throng below at that distance did not require advanced marksmanship. Given his elevated position, unobstructed view of the crowd and large arsenal, it is not surprising that the attacker was able to inflict such mayhem, whatever his motive for doing so might have been. Moreover, the bloodbath that followed provided a blueprint for other killers to follow, providing many important lessons for security professionals and ordinary citizens alike to heed.
Expect Copycat Attacks to Follow
Given the high death toll in Las Vegas, copycat attacks are bound to follow. One of the factors that drives terrorism, after all, is the success of past attacks.
Early anarchist ideologues saw terrorism as a form of propaganda. In 1885, Johann Most famously declared, "we preach not only action in and for itself, but also action as propaganda." Indeed, in many ways, it seems as if successful attacks are able to influence future attacks more than simple propaganda does. For instance, even though al Qaeda began calling for grassroots jihadists to conduct vehicular assaults in the second edition of its Inspire magazine, published in 2010, and despite the ease of conducting such attacks, only six were recorded outside Israel between 2010 and 2016. However, since the deadly and well-publicized Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, in 2016, at least 10 vehicular assaults have been committed by jihadists in North America and Europe (as well as two others not connected with jihadists). Success, and the heavy media coverage that accompanies it, clearly breeds imitation.
Because of this, we can expect to see more attempts to shoot at crowds from elevated positions. The tactic does not pose a threat just to music festivals like the one in Las Vegas, but rather to any large crowd, whether gathered for parades, sporting events, rallies, protests or celebrations — or even at a tourist site. Indeed in many cities, even everyday commutes create a large, vulnerable crowd at major intersections and travel hubs.
Can the Threat be Mitigated?
Security planners for large events, especially official high-profile ones designated national security events because they are at high risk of being targeted by terrorists or criminals, may have the resources to conduct extensive pre-event preparations, including sweeping for potential threats and positioning countersniper teams. However, even the federal agencies in charge of securing such events will have to rethink some of their standard assumptions to now account for snipers inside buildings with windows not designed to open. Furthermore, the concert attack presented a wrinkle that even one standard protective method probably would have missed. A review of the Mandalay Bay's guest registry in a search for potential threats likely would not have flagged the shooter, as there was little in his history to indicate he might take such an action.
But outside major events, most security managers simply do not have the resources to devote to those kinds of arrangements. In the Las Vegas case, the crowd, and not the concert itself, was the target. In similar situations, there may be absolutely no link, such as a previous threat, between an attacker and an event, increasing the difficulty of anticipating that kind of trouble. In a typical city, there are simply too many events during an average week for law enforcement at the local, or even state, level to cover with enhanced security. Even if tight security can be provided at some events, a determined attacker could simply shift to a softer target.
This reality puts even more emphasis on the need for the authorities to focus on the terrorist attack cycle, giving them the opportunity to detect when a would-be attacker is conducting surveillance on a target, acquiring weapons or getting ready to act, all points at which a plot is vulnerable to disruption before an attack proceeds. Further, the Las Vegas shooter, a white, 64-year-old millionaire, does not fit the profile most people picture when thinking about a terrorist or mass murderer. Therefore, this case presents a prime example of why counterterrorism efforts should focus on the "how" rather than the "who."
What Can Ordinary People Do?
Two weeks ago, I discussed how people can help protect themselves when they are in a crowd that is targeted for an attack. If you are in a vulnerable location, to increase your odds of escaping if an attack erupts, it is critical to remain aware of your surroundings, stay alert for trouble and quickly recognize if an assault is unfolding. But most important, you should already have mentally prepared yourself to take immediate action to get out of the kill zone once you are aware of the danger. Reviewing some of the videos of the Las Vegas attack, it was easy to see the difference between people who took immediate action after they recognized the threat and those who simply froze. Indeed, instead of running for cover, some people just stood there, shooting video with their cell phones. One person was shown actually jumping up and waving his arms as if to taunt the shooter. In another widely circulated video, a man made an obscene gesture at the attacker. Don't be these people: Get out of the kill zone immediately and find cover.
Even in media interviews of the survivors, there is a marked difference between the accounts of those who simply dropped to the ground immobile and those who ran to find cover — and those who repeatedly ran back into danger to grab the immobile or wounded and move them to cover.
Besides shock, first responders and others who came to the aid of the wounded had to deal with extensive bleeding. In fact, bleeding is the primary cause of death when people are hurt by gunshots or shrapnel in bombings. Beyond knowing how to administer basic first aid, it is important to have materials with which to effectively do so. I carry a tourniquet, hemostatic bandage and chest seal in a small bag in my briefcase every day. I also carry kits equipped with those items in each of my vehicles. While it is certainly possible to create an improvised tourniquet using shoelaces or a belt, why rely on makeshift methods when genuine emergency supplies are so inexpensive and light to carry? Being prepared will not only allow you to treat yourself or a member of your family if needed, but it will also perhaps save a life in the aftermath of an attack.
We do live in a dangerous world, but honestly, at no time in history has civilization been free of those who would hurt or kill others. It's a fact of life today that just as automobile accidents and disease pose a threat to life, terrorists and mass murderers will target innocents. Recognizing that these attacks are possible, however, does not mean that you must live in fear. In fact, paranoia is counterproductive to a healthy and sustainable level of personal security. However, by understanding the threats and developing the proper mindset, people can remain resilient in the face of them.
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From Broken Home to Real-Estate Riches: The Life of the Las Vegas Shooter
Stephen Paddock did not fit the profile of a typical mass killer, a problem confounding authorities seeking a motive
Stephen Paddock, top center, in a Francis Polytechnic High School Varsity Tennis Team photo in the 1970 yearbook. Francis Polytechnic High School
Link copied…
By Valerie Bauerlein,
Ian Lovett and
Cameron McWhirter
Oct. 5, 2017 5:29 p.m. ET
646 COMMENTS
LAS VEGAS—More than a half century ago, a bank robber held authorities in an armed stand-off in downtown Las Vegas until federal agents shot out the windows of his car.
Benjamin Paddock, who was later described on his FBI “Most Wanted” flier as a psychopath with suicidal tendencies, surrendered a few miles from the high-rise hotel where last weekend his oldest son became one of America’s deadliest killers.
Stephen Paddock was 7 years old at the time of his father’s capture in 1960. It was unclear whether he ever saw him again.
Paddock’s mother moved her four boys to Southern California and, like many before them, began a new life. Stephen played on his high school tennis team in the San Fernando Valley and graduated from a Cal State campus with a business degree. He had steady jobs and later made his fortune in real estate—he was a multimillionaire, one of his brothers said—which afforded him a comfortable retirement as a high-stakes gambler.
His life after that traumatic start was by most appearances a Golden State success, leaving authorities to untangle the confounding profile of a killer responsible for the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. in at least 50 years.
At 64 years old, Paddock didn’t have the usual profile of a mass shooter. He left virtually no footprint on social media, had no criminal record and, his youngest brother Eric Paddock said, revealed no particular ideology. Interviews with law-enforcement officials, casino employees he encountered and two of his brothers, reveal an intensely private, self-contained man.
After his father’s arrest, he grew up in Sun Valley, a largely working-class Los Angeles suburb. He was married as a young man and twice divorced. He began buying rental properties around Los Angeles in the 1990s, records show, a decade that sent prices soaring.
Though Paddock had few social ties, he maintained relationships with a small set of people, who described him as loyal and generous. He sent cookies to his 89-year-old mother in Florida, and he treated his youngest brother and nephew to $1,000 dinners in Las Vegas, the brother said.
Yet he moved often, to look-alike houses, one after another, in a string of retirement communities in sunny places. He wore gloves when he drove and kept his window shades drawn.
Nearly 60 years after his father’s arrest, Paddock wired tens of thousands of dollars to his long-term girlfriend, authorities said, and checked into one of his regular haunts, the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, with $20,000 worth of weapons.
A few minutes after 10 p.m. Sunday, he broke through the window of his room and began firing at concertgoers below, killing 58 people and wounding nearly 500 others. Paddock killed himself before police could arrest him, officials say. Leaked crime-scene photos show him laid out with a blast to the forehead.
Law-enforcement officials, family members and his girlfriend have said they are struggling to figure out what drove Paddock to kill, including what, if any role, his father’s life played. Investigators are examining his mental-health history, finances and whether he had any help in the massacre.
Authorities have seized computers from his home in Mesquite, Nev., 90 miles from Las Vegas, and are combing through his communications and travel history. A federal official said Thursday that Paddock’s girlfriend expressed concerns about his mental health, especially in recent months.
“This is a horror story in every possible way,” said Eric Paddock, of Orlando, Fla. “How the hell does this happen?”
A new start
When Stephen Paddock’s father was arrested in 1960, federal agents raided the family’s new one-story home in a middle-class Tucson, Ariz., neighborhood. Two of his brothers were toddlers; Eric was an infant. Neighbors worried Stephen was old enough to understand, so they took him swimming as a distraction, according to newspaper stories at the time.
Their mother, Irene Hudson, soon moved the family to Southern California, telling her sons their dad died in a car accident. It was a story that two of the brothers said they believed for decades.
By the early 1960s, the family had settled in the east San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, and Ms. Paddock worked as a secretary.
“We were never close as a family,” said Patrick Paddock, the second oldest son. “I wasn’t close to any of my brothers, even growing up.”
While their mother was at work, the boys fended for themselves. They all grew big, said Patrick Paddock, who is 6’5” and 250 pounds. Their mother gave them chores around the house, including some cooking and cleaning. For fun, he said, the brothers would slide their dogs down a well-waxed hall.
Eric Paddock said his older brother Stephen was “like a dad surrogate,” who sometimes took him camping.
In school, Stephen Paddock showed an aptitude for math and “engineering-type things,” said Richard Alarcon, a classmate at Francis Polytechnic High School in the 1970s, who became a Los Angeles city councilman.
As a high school junior, Paddock played on the varsity tennis team and appears, straight-faced and shaggy-haired, in “The Student,” the school yearbook.
Stewart Kops, 65, who appeared next to Paddock in the yearbook’s team photo, said he didn’t remember him: “He was either not a good tennis player, or very quiet.”
The Paddock brothers for years accepted that their father was dead, said Patrick Paddock. But Benjamin Paddock was alive, all 6’4” of him, escaping from prison before he was recaptured in 1978. Their mother finally told them the truth about him when they were in their 20s, Patrick Paddock said.
It was a jarring revelation. Their father died years later, in 1998, after eventually serving his time and starting a new life in Texas. His sons still fume at the mention of his name.
“I hate my dad,” Eric Paddock said. Patrick Paddock said he never spoke with his father: “I was angry. I wanted nothing to do with him.” Bruce Paddock, the third-oldest brother, couldn’t be reached for comment. Patrick and Eric Paddock said they haven’t heard from Bruce in years.
Patrick said he hadn’t spoken to Stephen Paddock for about 20 years: “I had no reason to keep in touch. I’m not particularly social.”
Of all the brothers, Stephen Paddock seemed to get off to a fast start. He graduated from high school in 1971 and then from California State University, Northridge. He worked at the U.S. Postal Service, and in the 1980s, he worked as an agent for the Internal Revenue Service. He later audited defense contracts for Lockheed Corp. , which became Lockheed Martin Corp.
Paddock married twice, first in 1977, the year he graduated from college, and a second time in 1985, when he wed Peggy Okamoto, a high-school classmate. Neither one lasted.
In the early 1990s, Paddock began investing in California real estate, according to property records and his brothers. Paddock purchased rental properties and arranged some purchases through a trust set up in his mother’s name, including a Temecula, Calif., ranch house where she lived from the early 1990s to mid-2000s.
Stephen Paddock's houses in Mesquite, Nev., Reno, Nev., and Melbourne, Fla. Photos: REUTERS; Associated Press; Zuma Press
It wasn’t clear how much money Paddock netted from real estate, or how much accrued to his partners, which included his youngest brother. Eric Paddock said his brother moved their mother into a comfortable Florida home.
“Steve took care of the people he loved,” Eric Paddock said, sobbing outside his home this week. “The people he loved, he took care of.”
In 2014, Paddock and his partners sold a Dallas apartment complex for more than $8 million, according to the buyer, in what appeared his largest real-estate deal.
Poker play
Paddock began gambling at the Wynn casino not long after it opened in 2005, according to a person familiar with his gambling. He also frequented The Cosmopolitan, as well as casinos owned by Caesars Entertainment Corp. , the Atlantis in Reno, Nev., and others, according to people familiar with the matter.
He mostly played video poker. “It was like a job for him,” said his brother Eric. “He did it mathematically.”
Paddock gambled enough that casinos provided him complimentary suites, sushi and poolside services. At least one casino later cut back on the perks after his playing skills seemed to protect him from losing enough money to compensate for the freebies, several people familiar with the matter said.
He met Marilou Danley, a Filipina immigrant with Australian citizenship, around five years ago, and they soon became a couple. She was working as a hostess in the high-limit gambling room at the Atlantis in Reno.
Ms. Danley and Paddock moved from Reno to Florida, near his brother Eric and his mother in Orlando, then to a retirement community in Mesquite, Nev. “It was fun to hang out with Steve because he was a rich guy,” Eric Paddock said. “I’d get to partake of a bunch of thousands of dollars of comps on the hotel, but Steve would say, ‘Could you go get me a sandwich?’”
In Reno, Paddock liked to gamble late at night and off to the side, so as to avoid smokers. His hotel room at the casino would sometimes be outfitted with special air purifiers, a former casino employee says. He told people he moved to Mesquite because the dry weather was good for his health; he told his brother Eric he was leaving Florida in 2015 because of the humidity.
How Las Vegas Police Scrambled to Find the Gunman
In June, a doctor prescribed Paddock the antianxiety medication diazepam—better known by the brand name Valium—according to a report published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which cited records obtained from Nevada’s prescription monitoring program. The state pharmaceutical board said it couldn’t confirm the news report.
For the past several years, Paddock split time between a home on a quiet cul-de-sac in Mesquite and hotels in Las Vegas, about a 90-minute drive. He went to karaoke night some Tuesdays at Peggy Sue’s diner. His neighbors say they hardly knew him. His home backed up to a golf course, but he wasn’t known there, either.
In late 2016, Paddock began buying dozens of weapons that were later found in his homes and at the shooting scene, law-enforcement officials said. He never used them at the only shooting range within 20 miles of his home.
“It’s almost like he was trying to avoid people,” said Jason Shaw, part-owner of the nearby Smokin Gun Club shooting range.
Ms. Danley said in a statement through her lawyer that Paddock never “took any action that I was aware of, that I understood in any way to be a warning that something horrible like this was going to happen.”
Eric Paddock said he was in regular touch with Paddock, who had sent a text asking about his mother after Hurricane Irma hit Florida last month. The brothers, though, hadn’t spoken in about six months, he said.
“If I’d just called him back instead of texting, would I have heard something in his voice?” he said. “Would he have given up something?”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/10/03/what-a-macho-gun-packing-instagram-star-did-when-he-was-caught-in-the-las-vegas-shooting/?utm_term=.b794d34323f0
OTOH former SEAL and Iraq War badass Ben "Mookie" Thomas speaks well of him and his actions in LV.
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https://nypost.com/2018/02/16/deputies-called-to-suspected-shooters-home-39-times-over-seven-years/
https://www.dailywire.com/news/27207/here-are-seven-things-you-need-know-about-florida-hank-berrien?utm_medium=email&utm_content=021618-news&utm_campaign=position1
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/us/nikolas-cruz-florida-shooting.html?emc=edit_th_180216&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=49641193
after a bunch of POTH snideness, we get to this:
Mr. Cruz had no criminal history before the shootings, according to state law enforcement records. But his childhood was certainly troubled.
He spent much of it in a subdivision called Pine Tree Estates, on a lush, narrow street dotted with tropical plants and the occasional driveway basketball hoop. Mr. Cruz and his brother, Zachary, had been adopted, and were raised largely by their mother, Lynda Cruz, especially after their father, Roger P. Cruz, died suddenly in 2004 at the age of 67. Ms. Cruz died in November, and people who knew Nikolas said he had taken the loss hard.
Paul Gold, 45, said he lived next door to the Cruzes in 2009 and 2010 and stayed in touch with Lynda Cruz over the years.
“He had emotional problems and I believe he was diagnosed with autism,” Mr. Gold said of Nikolas Cruz. “He had trouble controlling his temper. He broke things. He would do that sometimes at our house when he lost his temper. But he was always very apologetic afterwards.”
He added: “He would sometimes be hitting his head and covering his ears. One time, I sent him home because he was misbehaving at our house and he took a golf club and smashed one of my trailers.”
He said that Mr. Cruz at one point had gone to a school for students with special needs. “Kids were really picking on him and would gang up on him and beat him up a little,” Mr. Gold said. “They ostracized him. He didn’t have many friends.”
He said that Mr. Cruz’s mother had done what she could to take care of him, and that the two had an extremely strong bond.
“His mother was his entire life and when he lost her, I believe that was it for the boy’s peace of mind,” he said.
Other neighbors said Mr. Cruz was a regular source of agitation. Helen Pasciolla said Lynda Cruz had called sheriff’s deputies to the house numerous times in an effort to keep Mr. Cruz in line. Craig Koblitz, 62, a yacht repairman who lives across the street, said some neighbors had suspected him of burglarizing a nearby house a few years ago.
About six years ago, Mr. Koblitz returned to his home to find Mr. Cruz scooping the fish from the pond in his palm-shaded front yard. He found it odd that the boy did not seem to express much surprise or guilt over being caught stealing.
Sarah Edelsberg, 16, remembered being frightened by Mr. Cruz when they were in middle school together. Mr. Cruz would walk by her and her friends and shout at them — randomly and menacingly, she said, with wild gestures of his arms.
She said he was small of build, wore a constant smirk and seemed eager to provoke confrontations. Teachers, she said, sometimes dealt with his behavior problems by forcing him to sit outside their portable classrooms.
The authorities said Mr. Cruz was expelled from Stoneman Douglas last year. Victoria Olvera, a 17-year-old junior, told The Associated Press that Mr. Cruz had gotten into a fight with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.
But Michael Goldfarb, whose 17-year-old son Bradley knew Mr. Cruz, said his son had told him Mr. Cruz was expelled for having a knife at school.
Last year, Mr. Goldfarb said, his son went on a three-day trip to a cabin in the Everglades with other young men, including Mr. Cruz. They were accompanied by a parent who owned the cabin.
Shooting weapons was a big part of the trip’s allure. There were two AR-15s on the trip, and Mr. Cruz brought one of them.
He bragged about how he had bought it from a pawnshop, Mr. Goldfarb said, speaking for his son. (The authorities said the gun had been legally purchased from a gun shop.)
The YouTube comment appeared last fall on the channel of Ben Bennight, a bail bondsman in Mississippi.
“I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” the Sept. 24 comment said, under the user name “nikolas cruz.”
Mr. Bennight took a screenshot and flagged it to YouTube, which removed the post. Then, Mr. Bennight said, he left a voice mail message at his local F.B.I. office alerting them about the comment.
Mr. Bennight, 36, said on Thursday that a pair of agents interviewed him the next morning. But the F.B.I. never learned who posted the comment.
“No other information was included in the comment which would indicate a particular time, location, or the true identity of the person who posted the comment,” the F.B.I. said in a statement on Thursday. The F.B.I. said it had conducted database reviews and other checks.
After his expulsion, Mr. Cruz took a job at a dollar store near his old school. Ms. Edelsberg said she had seen him there a number of times. Now, she said, he seemed less scary than friendly. He asked her for news from Stoneman Douglas.
On Thursday, Jordan Jereb, a leader of a white supremacist group based in North Florida, told The Associated Press that Mr. Cruz had joined the group, but later Mr. Jereb said that he did not know whether that was true.
The family of another schoolmate, the Snead family, took in Mr. Cruz because his friend felt badly that Mr. Cruz was now alone in the world, said Jim Lewis, a lawyer for the family. The Sneads had allowed Mr. Cruz to bring his gun with him to their house, insisting that he keep it in a lockbox.
On weekday mornings, Mr. Cruz usually got up to catch a ride to adult education courses that the Sneads had encouraged him to attend. But on Wednesday, he refused to get up, Mr. Lewis said.
Mr. Lewis said Mr. Cruz had said something to the effect of: “I don’t go to school on Valentine’s Day.”
Howard Finkelstein, the chief public defender in Broward County, said in an interview that Mr. Cruz’s legal team had not yet decided whether to mount an insanity defense. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty, but Mr. Finkelstein argued that Mr. Cruz should not be a candidate for execution, given his mental health history.
“Every red flag was there and nobody did anything,” Mr. Finkelstein said. “When we let one of our children fall off grid, when they are screaming for help in every way, do we have the right to kill them when we could have stopped it?”
On Wednesday, Mr. Cruz and the Sneads’ son were texting until 2:18 p.m., Mr. Lewis said — about five minutes before the first 911 calls about the shooting.
“But there was nothing crazy in the texts,” Mr. Lewis said.
Mr. Cruz arrived at the school in a small, gold-colored Uber, according to the booking report from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. He was wearing a black hat, with a black duffel and a black backpack.
Within a minute there were gunshots.
Later, in custody, Mr. Cruz told investigators that “he was the gunman who entered the school campus armed with an AR-15 and began shooting students that he saw in the hallways and on the school grounds,” the report said.
The police would find him an hour later in the nearby city of Coral Springs. In the report, Mr. Cruz said he had slipped away from the campus by ditching the gun and the extra magazines he brought along, joining the crowd of worried students fleeing the school.
Unarmed and anonymous, Mr. Cruz, finally, had blended in among them.
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http://kellybroganmd.com/mass-shootings-the-new-manifestation-of-an-ancient-phenomenon-and-their-link-to-psychiatric-drugs/
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Leftists are saying Trump blamed this on mental illness and maybe that is right.
https://theslot.jezebel.com/trump-blames-school-shooting-on-mental-illness-while-pr-1823076101
I have a close relative with schizophrenia who wouldn't hurt anyone but perhaps shouldn't own guns and a close friend dealing with horrible bouts of panic and anxiety attacks apparently caused by prescriptions with lousy followup from psych-medical industry. What to do with his guns, I don't know. He would not harm others, but others who are going through mental disturbance might. I wonder what we really have learned about the people who commit these crimes. In addition to the obvious need to track radical Islamic terrorists better, maybe we need to put some kind of attention on people who have destructive urges for other reasons.
Shooter of current news reportedly had psych prescriptions 12 months ago without medical followup. I don't want to follow the ever-changing details of these events, but the larger principles are important. Can we restrict rights without a conviction? Without due process? Can we give people of known risk due process and make reasonable restrictions?
Innocent until proven guilty - after the crime is completed - is not the way to stop mass killings. You don't get to threaten the President; we have special laws for that. How about the safety of the rest of us?
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YES.
Let's use this thread for discussion of these issues.
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Leftists are saying Trump blamed this on mental illness and maybe that is right.
https://theslot.jezebel.com/trump-blames-school-shooting-on-mental-illness-while-pr-1823076101
I have a close relative with schizophrenia who wouldn't hurt anyone but perhaps shouldn't own guns and a close friend dealing with horrible bouts of panic and anxiety attacks apparently caused by prescriptions with lousy followup from psych-medical industry. What to do with his guns, I don't know. He would not harm others, but others who are going through mental disturbance might. I wonder what we really have learned about the people who commit these crimes. In addition to the obvious need to track radical Islamic terrorists better, maybe we need to put some kind of attention on people who have destructive urges for other reasons.
Shooter of current news reportedly had psych prescriptions 12 months ago without medical followup. I don't want to follow the ever-changing details of these events, but the larger principles are important. Can we restrict rights without a conviction? Without due process? Can we give people of known risk due process and make reasonable restrictions?
Innocent until proven guilty - after the crime is completed - is not the way to stop mass killings. You don't get to threaten the President; we have special laws for that. How about the safety of the rest of us?
If someone is a danger to self or others, there is usually a legal process in every state allowing for involuntary commitment for a short term psych eval.
If there is a legit basis for commitment beyond that point, after due process, any such person is restricted by federal law from firearm possession. 18 USC 922 (g)
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"If someone is a danger to self or others, there is usually a legal process in every state allowing for involuntary commitment for a short term psych eval.
If there is a legit basis for commitment beyond that point, after due process, any such person is restricted by federal law from firearm possession. 18 USC 922 (g)"
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From my observation, the process or criteria needs to be tougher, much tougher.
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And it must be said and not without reason, that we also worry about empowering the nanny state to use this sort of stuff as part of their mission to disarm the American people. Remember the campaign to draw equivalence in extremism between Islamo-fascism and the Tea Party?
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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/33-dead-130-injured-china-knife-wielding-spree-n41966
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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/33-dead-130-injured-china-knife-wielding-spree-n41966
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fifth post
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1927-bombing-remains-americas-deadliest-school-massacre-180963355/
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China has had mass shootings as well, despite being a police state. Although the biggest mass murders in history have been done by governments.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/lawrencemeyers/2018/02/15/president-trump-have-education-department-mandate-active-shooter-protocols-n2449726
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https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/
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https://steemit.com/anarchy/@thepholosopher/3-common-gun-control-myths-debunked
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https://www.mercatornet.com/features/view/is-father-loss-part-of-nikolas-cruzs-story?utm_source=MercatorNet&utm_campaign=60937b13a5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e581d204e2-60937b13a5-124674163
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Excellent analysis from Anthony Sell in his comment previewing the Times article. Also check out the links in his original post:
"I think the saddest thing about recent events in Florida is how preventable this one was. It was not just the FBI who dropped the ball. There were no less than 5 different people in positions of authority who saw the signs, who were notified that this kid was a threat, and yet did nothing about it:
1. The Mother, who when alive, downplayed his behavior to keep him out of trouble, lying to investigators from the Department of Children and Families.
2. The Police who were called to the residence to respond to violent behavior no less than 39 times. If they felt that he was a threat they could at any time have filed a temporary restraining order on Cruz, removing all weapons from the residence, and taking him into custody if he refused to comply with that order. They also could have involuntarily committed him for a psychiatric evaluation.
3. The Investigator from the Department of Children and Families who were notified of his online posts and threats to commit violence. These investigators had under their authority the ability to commit him for several days to determine whether he was a threat to himself or others.
4. The school counselors and administrative staff who knew that he was a threat to students at the school, having already banned him from being in the school with a backpack, prior to his expulsion. These counselors expressed doubt at the finding of the Investigator from the Department of Children and Families, yet took no action to file for a restraining order.
5. The FBI, who were given a credible tip from a concerned citizen, yet failed to follow up and identify the individual who made the threat as being Cruz. Had they made the connection and seen the history of trouble, there would have been clear indication that any threats made by this individual were credible and imminent.
Now a lot has been said about the fact that there is sometimes no way to know if someone is mentally ill, if they have not already been hospitalized or diagnosed prior to their violent act, but unfortunately for the students and staff shot at the school, this was not one of those cases.
There is also a study circulating and often quoted in the media, that states statistics which claim that people with serious mental illness only account for 3% of violent crimes. The problem is that this report cherry picks which conditions "count" as "serious mental illness" by looking only at crimes attributable to offenders who were previously hospitalized and diagnosed with a "serious psychiatric illness" -- in Sweden. ...yes, Sweden....
The term "serious mental illness" won't include a host of psychological factors or social pressures that would easily identify anyone as being disturbed and not thinking clearly, and likely a threat. Factors and pressures which can alter a person's sense of right and wrong, their ability to have compassion for others, or even maintain a value of human life. These factors and pressures can lead to a tendency to dehumanize others and see them collectively as a source of persecution or a problem that has to be dealt with using extreme measures. Yet these same psychological factors and social pressures won't be considered a "serious mental illness" if they don't meet the standard for certain pathologies, or if there has been no diagnosis.
The problem I believe, is that within the mental healthcare system there is a movement to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness, and as such, they are very narrow in their definitions, and as such, conditions which can alter the behavior and thinking of otherwise healthy individuals are not being considered as a risk to the public. Further complicating matters is the difference between the legal definition of sanity and the medical definition. We are speaking at cross terms, and we need to get on the same page if this discussion is going to have any meaningful impact.
Further, the study mentioned above fails to take into consideration the relationship between many of these mass shooting events and the fact that many of the shooters were on prescribed antidepressants, which are known to have a high risk of both suicidal and violent behavior as a side effect. (See reference in the comments below).
I believe we now live in a day and age where credible threats cannot be ignored. It is up to those who have witnessed threats or threatening behavior to step up and take action by calling the authorities and making them understand what you experienced, and it is up to authorities to work together to identify patterns of behavior sooner."
================
Also see:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/us/nikolas-cruz-florida-shooting.html
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As much as I enjoyed being bullied politically by a few of the classmates of the shooter and be called a killer for supporting the constitution and an organization of law abiding citizens, NRA, it turns out the shooter was bullied by his classmates.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article200754714.html
Classmate: ‘This kid gets bullied a lot, someone should do something,’
Someone should have done something.
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/27523/breaking-cnn-reports-four-broward-county-deputies-ben-shapiro?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=dwbrand
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/23/broward-county-sheriffs-office-did-not-miss-warning-signs-or-make-mistakes/#more-146176
http://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2018/02/23/fbi-transcripts/assets/fbi-transcript.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/red-flags-warnings-cries-for-help-how-a-system-built-to-stop-the-parkland-school-shooter-broke-down/2018/02/23/3ccff52c-18d9-11e8-b681-2d4d462a1921_story.html?utm_term=.19ff7e7369b1
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWojVJKdh1M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZnKKNdYr60
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMQ6M7GekMc
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nra-to-broward-county-sheriff-scott-israel-you-were-the-one-that-didnt-protect-these-children/article/2649926
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/27523/breaking-cnn-reports-four-broward-county-deputies-ben-shapiro?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=dwbrand
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/23/broward-county-sheriffs-office-did-not-miss-warning-signs-or-make-mistakes/#more-146176
http://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2018/02/23/fbi-transcripts/assets/fbi-transcript.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/red-flags-warnings-cries-for-help-how-a-system-built-to-stop-the-parkland-school-shooter-broke-down/2018/02/23/3ccff52c-18d9-11e8-b681-2d4d462a1921_story.html?utm_term=.19ff7e7369b1
These four deputies need to be named and forever remembered for their cowardice when children were being murdered.
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https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/23/politics/parkland-school-shooting-broward-deputies/index.html
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http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/02/23/air-marshal-on-arming-teachers-will-work/
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One of my favorite pundits kicks behind again :
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/malkin-release-florida-school-shooting-surveillance-video/
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http://www.dickmorris.com/parents-strongly-approve-arming-teachers-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYua-3JmnT4
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http://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/05/broward-sheriffs-captain-who-gave-initial-order-to-stage-not-enter-stoneman-douglas-is-idd.html
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https://www.themaven.net/bluelivesmatter/news/2-swat-officers-suspended-for-running-in-to-help-at-parkland-massacre-luoyc9Rc-k6vUKPdBbSGKA?full=1
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https://www.themaven.net/bluelivesmatter/news/2-swat-officers-suspended-for-running-in-to-help-at-parkland-massacre-luoyc9Rc-k6vUKPdBbSGKA?full=1
There are still some real cops working. I'd send that supervisor the SWAT pin covered in KY jelly.
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https://ijr.com/ijr-red/2018/02/1070727-florida-police-chief-response/
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https://ijr.com/ijr-red/2018/02/1070727-florida-police-chief-response/
Yes.
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http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/disgraced-parkland-deputy-heard-shots-inside-school-building-told-cops-to-stay-away/ar-BBK2rkJ?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=DELLDHP
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So many think that just because they had won a badge, think they're capable of actually going into armed combat.
The majority of them aren't.
No more gun laws. People just ignore them and rightfully so. There's no such thing as a sheep dog. Just sheep and wolves. Been saying that a long time.
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So many think that just because they had won a badge, think they're capable of actually going into armed combat.
The majority of them aren't.
No more gun laws. People just ignore them and rightfully so. There's no such thing as a sheep dog. Just sheep and wolves. Been saying that a long time.
US cops confront and arrest armed criminals on a constant basis and usually win most every gunfight.
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So many think that just because they had won a badge, think they're capable of actually going into armed combat.
The majority of them aren't.
No more gun laws. People just ignore them and rightfully so. There's no such thing as a sheep dog. Just sheep and wolves. Been saying that a long time.
US cops confront and arrest armed criminals on a constant basis and usually win most every gunfight.
No disrespect. It's still true what I have stated. Confronting armed people and engaging in combat with them are two different things.
Also... The US and other countries are apples and oranges. US criminals are soft. They don't target families or use other tactics, like beheading police and politicians, that tend to make most people's balls shrivel up... I know...because the first time my brothers' heads were cut off.... I almost quit...or bitched out... Truth. How many people are going to continue when they start losing family members?
No disrespect.... But US police know almost nothing about this, because the US is rich and has been stable for a long time.
Also.... There are tons of people that have deployed...come back and join the force... But often times, weren't doing anything other than guarding fuel convoys, standing on a tarmac 6000 miles away or swabbing deck.... Not being disrespectful... It's just the truth...and many of them not once engaged in combat.
The more active shooter situations happen, think the cartel Hitman that took out two or three officers in one sitting not long ago California (and some of them were vets)... Dallas....etc.... I'm not reveling in anything.... My point is only that gun laws are garbage.... They'll certainly never affect t me, even though you and others think they should. My concern is that you law abiders take away your own weapons, little by little, as you're currently doing on Cali....and I've seen DB member officers support it here.... Buying kits for their AR's....what a f ing joke...
The world isn't safe. Nothing anyone can do can make it that way.
I care more about protecting me than anyone else.... Same goes for you.
Employing subpar people and giving them a badge, making them think they know something about something they've never been in, and then asking others to depend on that for their own survival, isn't a smart move.
Police have been heralded as heroes for the mere act of putting on a badge, when in fact,almost none are. So many join for the benefits or to maintain a sense of personal power that gives meaning to their own lives.
It's an important discussion to have, because the future isn't clear in the States due to the massive schism that has occurred. We should do away with most of the laws.ots a corrupt temple that doesn't work. I don't respect it...and unlike the me of a decade ago... I now have the room to speak to both sides of the argument. The laws are ineffective, which even you have to admit....and there is nothing you can do to enforce them, nor can anyone save the life of even a single person, of a person is willing to go far enough to kill them.... In fact.... You couldn't even save your own life, nor could I even save mine if someone were committed enough, but we're going to legislate and depend on other humans? We're kind of experts on that subject in Mexico.
The funny thing about really confronting killers.... you have to be one too...or willing to die.... goes back to the same percentage reasons that we use human silhouettes in training.... most people just arent capable of protecting people when it comes down to it.... Have fun. Let me know how that works.
Peace on Earth, good will towards men . I mean it.
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well if police with training are not prepared for arm combat then does any really think a school teacher is ready to kill or be prepared to use a gun in the face of danger with little to no notice
unless your this fantasy from hollywood:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Substitute
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Why don't the cartels own large swaths of the US, like they do in Mexico?
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well if police with training are not prepared for arm combat then does any really think a school teacher is ready to kill or be prepared to use a gun in the face of danger with little to no notice
unless your this fantasy from hollywood:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Substitute
No fantasies. You make a damn good point. My primary point is against legislation.
Why don't the cartels own large swaths of the US, like they do in Mexico?
In short? Capitalism. PRD and PRI are both socialist organizations. That's why.
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PS... I actually do hold police in very high regard. I should be clear about that. At least they go out and put their asses on the line to make the world a better place. Most people can't say that. Just to be clear.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-south-carolina-school-shooter-20180303-story.html
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The Parkland police (or Broward County sherriffs) seem to have reacted in a way that makes sense in a hostage situation but not a situation where children are already being murdered for 6 minutes.
There may have been cold and plain cowardice involved, but it sounds like at least some officers were trained to cordon off an area where there is shooting and wait for plenty of backup or a swat team.
We saw the reports of a police chief giving orders to "set perimeter". And this Israel guy is obnoxious only concerned for himself. He absolutely should be taking some responsibility since so many officers seemed to just wait outside and not enter the building . Hard to say that is just one officer's not stepping up to the life threatening challenge. It sounds like they are trained to set a perimeter and wait for swat to come in, but ,
no matter how fast swat is in arriving on the scene it will still to be too late to save lives.
(Even in the Hollywood movies once the hostage taker starts shooting the officers go in.... )
I also don't understand this thing about officers doing loads of overtime for the last year or two before they retire, and suddenly they qualify for higher pension.
The officer (Scot Peterson) who for whatever reason did not go into the school during his career "moment of truth", and then was forced to resign with a higher pension for doing 50% more overtime is taking advantage of an absurd situation that allows that.
And off topic, but mentioned as I bring up the pensions being based on very end of career overtime I ask the following:
And how many officers claim disability for typical break down from aging. It is one thing if they are shot or seriously injured in the line of duty but most of the claims are not that.
Of course your Goddamn back is not the same at 50 or older as it was when you were 20. So freakin what.
(OTOH a good portion of citizen disability claims are exaggerations or even outright fraud too. It ain't just police by any means)
Why are not police offered *private disability insurance* that they pay for out of their wages like in private sector for a nominal and reasonable fee?
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Ever since Columbine, nationwide the response to an active shooter is to rapidly move to the gunfire and engage the shooter, not to set up a perimeter and wait for SWAT.
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" Ever since Columbine, nationwide the response to an active shooter is to rapidly move to the gunfire and engage the shooter, not to set up a perimeter and wait for SWAT. "
Thank you GM
What is your professional opinion based on the news reports.
Was it cowardice?
Was it confusion on what to do, do to the suddenness of it all?
Was it poor leadership and or guidelines?
Or combinations ?
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A mix of cowardice and ineptitude as far as Broward County S.O. Is concerned. Their Sheriff is the embodiment of the progressive lefty dem law enforcement executive. A growing plague in this country.
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Any comments on the article I posted a few entries above about the South Carolina shooter?
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Any comments on the article I posted a few entries above about the South Carolina shooter?
1. The MSM helps fuel the pathology by making the killers famous.
2. Per the media, the real villain is of course, guns.
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Apart from encouraging a media cultural standard of not giving fame, what to do, and who should do it, to prevent this sort of thing?
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Apart from encouraging a media cultural standard of not giving fame, what to do, and who should do it, to prevent this sort of thing?
Local law enforcement can intervene if notified by those who know the potential violent actors.
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1) Agreed-- tragic they fuct up badly in Parkland.
2) https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/80-percent-of-mass-shooters-showed-no-interest-in-video-games-researcher-says/?__twitter_impression=true
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In case you missed it
https://www.dailywire.com/news/28297/breaking-broward-county-sheriffs-office-training-hank-berrien?utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email&utm_content=031618-news&utm_campaign=position4
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yet he retires with pension
someone on Ingram was explaining how FBI agents retire with the highest benefits of anyone . McCabe if proven he lied might be a candidate to be fired
But for other FBI violations it is about impossible to prevent them from pension and benefits.
Something just is not right about this.
I understand if some one makes a mistake in judgement etc but simply not going in to protect children who are being murdered?
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yet he retires with pension
someone on Ingram was explaining how FBI agents retire with the highest benefits of anyone . McCabe if proven he lied might be a candidate to be fired
But for other FBI violations it is about impossible to prevent them from pension and benefits.
Something just is not right about this.
I understand if some one makes a mistake in judgement etc but simply not going in to protect children who are being murdered?
The deep state protects it’s own.
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https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/01/us/parkland-florida-students-return-school/index.html
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https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/01/us/parkland-florida-students-return-school/index.html
"It feels like being punished," Robinson told CNN. "It feels like jail, being checked every time we go to school."
*Yes, it sucks when you lose your freedoms even though you did nothing wrong.
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"So many think that just because they had won a badge, think they're capable of actually going into armed combat."
To expand on that comment: The disposition to act to counter violence is independent of military service or service with a police force. Generally the military in particular and police forces as well should select for this trait, but many times a person won't really know how they will react until they have been through a violent encounter. Beyond the disposition to act to counter violence, there is the matter of training. All to often people in law enforcement receive only limited active firearms training (something other than shooting a paper target a few times a year on a square range). When selecting school resource officers, it is imperative that people with the demonstrated independence, gumption, and training to engage to prevent violence are given priority over people who've otherwise had limited experience with violence/counter violence. I include independence here because in an active shooting situation, the response must be immediate and direct, and calls on a radio to form a perimeter must be disregarded or the cost is sure to be higher.
Picking up again on the first point, that the disposition to act to counter violence is independent of military service or police services, there is a prevailing narrative in civic discourse that private citizens including teachers couldn't possibly rise to the needs of countering an active shooter, or that if they were to act, they would make things worse. This is a terribly mistaken notion, and to the degree it is given place it serves to make us less safe. There are private citizens who through personal experience, martial arts, or other training have become well acquainted with the physical and mental demands of applying force to counter violence. Some know how to identify the proper moment to act, how they react physically to the adrenaline and stress, how to meaningfully apply force to curtail violence. To leave such persons disarmed out of prejudice or ignorance is to leave untapped a vast resource for public security that can not be purchased at any level of law enforcement funding. Further, even without this level of personal training, a good hearted person with a the means to counter violence vis-a-vis a gun still has the potential when faced with immediate violence to provide a better outcome with minimal training than if they were unarmed and violence were unchecked. A lot of media and politicians like to caution about collateral damage without having meaningful study or data to corroborate their concerns, while we do have considerable data to show that without an immediate means of self defense, the worst possible outcomes are generally guaranteed.
The bottom line is that no provision for defense against violence can be more relevant than self defense provided at the point of impact. Everything else tends to take too long in the case of mass shootings. Prejudices about who should and should not be able to provide this point defense, laws predicated upon these prejudices, and cultural mores aligned with these prejudices are a major factor limited our society's ability to effectively address these rapid and dynamic sprees of violence.
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Very good post Cruces.
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https://imgur.com/gallery/UCwkp
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(https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2018/04/Clint-Eastwood-teacher.jpeg?w=954)
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/04/18/how-better-treatment-of-the-mentally-ill-could-reduce-mass-shootings/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell%22&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTmpVMU1qWmpaREEzTnpabSIsInQiOiI5YjAwM3pmN0Q2bHFmQllGU1l6cnllMlVQZ21MNmpwMmw1V0tiRGpaZjB6bDArMURNYkRIXC9cL2V1NDRNTzZKcHBBQm5FR0JcLzVcL1E3MGRVbTdGdlVtM2NmSXc5T0pZaWtYTllEQXZRMFFlcXRmNmhMT1wvNU9FaVBnUXk4cUJJdEdiIn0%3D
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https://easyreadernews.com/city-council-mbusd-discuss-campus-safety/?utm_source=Daily+News&utm_campaign=8bd2fce821-Daily_EMAIL_NEWSLETTER&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b41a925468-8bd2fce821-286697493
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/29978/breaking-7-students-killed-12-injured-knife-attack-ryan-saavedra
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/29978/breaking-7-students-killed-12-injured-knife-attack-ryan-saavedra
Note that China already has strict knife control laws.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-do-mass-shootings-happen-best-explanation/
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/05/23/ted-cruz-says-media-avoids-texas-school-shooting-because-students-dont-want-gun-control/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTVRneE5qY3lNMlkyTURFeSIsInQiOiJvVHdycE1TWHpJK05ZU0tYaFBMWjdMb3MyMUtjR1ZnSXIxMEhEeFBnVVpJMnE5YWp5elZxcFNVY3Y3akw5WUMraTRDNU5TQkVkTnNwTDZxZ1wvZXZOVzJyRnMrZkRnMVwveDdsUllOTm9DR1pkS080MGd6U3NUMWV4ZnB0Z1hyb0JkIn0%3D
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0UnlQVENZg
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https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/26/parkland-security-guard-andrew-medina
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https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/pre-attack-behaviors-of-active-shooters-in-us-2000-2013.pdf/view
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<Why did you choose to use firearms?
I could have chosen any weapons or means.A TATP filled rental van. Household flour, a method of dispersion and an ignition source.A ballpeen hammer and a wooden shield.Gas,fire,vehicular attacks,plane attacks, any means were available. I had the will and I had the resources.
I chose firearms for the affect it would have on social discourse, the extra media coverage they would provide and the affect it could have on the politics of United states and thereby the political situation of the world.
The US is torn into many factions by its second amendment, along state, social, cultural and, most importantly, racial lines.
With enough pressure the left wing within the United states will seek to abolish the second amendment, and the right wing within the US will see this as an attack on their very freedom and liberty.
This attempted abolishment of rights by the left will result in a dramatic polarization of the people in the United States and eventually a fracturing of the US along cultural and racial lines. >
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/44695/shooters-fled-second-mosque-attack-good-guy-gun-ryan-saavedra?fbclid=IwAR3J6nhNipoCxYKJLtnLLmlYNNrTAIFzBjhDSZpIwsVSb_2BKLlOl_h-LdI
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Third post
https://medium.com/the-radical-center/the-demented-politics-of-the-new-zealand-terrorist-b513fe610b2f?fbclid=IwAR0mUw2_r9xIIbvR_koOPqvAQYkdx2br9DRj_u6p1iUxOydu5TwgItgxH9I
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fourth post
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/03/15/new-zealand-shooter-hopes-for-u-s-civil-war-conservatism-is-dead-thank-god/?fbclid=IwAR27uk9_kdg1eLzMpA4dipEj0LL8waRiPO66zpb7tIsuVFjLhkIaBFtcslQ
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fourth post
https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/03/15/new-zealand-shooter-hopes-for-u-s-civil-war-conservatism-is-dead-thank-god/?fbclid=IwAR27uk9_kdg1eLzMpA4dipEj0LL8waRiPO66zpb7tIsuVFjLhkIaBFtcslQ
The left is determined to prove him correct.
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/did-the-new-zealand-shooter-change-the-cultural-script/?fbclid=IwAR2isBTUMnBZjaomas4YSFm7q9Xz_xbezl6TdmczFzaIbSO9zyltC3ly0H8
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https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/did-the-new-zealand-shooter-change-the-cultural-script/?fbclid=IwAR2isBTUMnBZjaomas4YSFm7q9Xz_xbezl6TdmczFzaIbSO9zyltC3ly0H8
Christians are frequently massacred in churches throughout the Middle East, yet that is studiously ignored by the media.
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As was noted on this forum in no little depth, including:
A) A contraction of Christians in Iraq from (working from memory here) 1.5 million to under 200,000(?), and
B) The Kerry State Dept reluctantly had to officially declare what happened in Syria to be a genocide.
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Trapping Feral Pigs and Other Parables of Modern Life
by Matt Bracken
Professional trappers don't catch fast-breeding and destructive feral pigs using hunting dogs and guns, or in little traps one or two at a time. The wily pigs quickly learn to evade humans after such fleeting contacts. So how do the pros trap entire feral pig herds, eliminating them all, from granddads to piglets, in one go? They feed them, most generously. They kill them with kindness.
First, in a clearing in the woods, the trappers build an enclosure about twenty feet on a side and four feet high, made of stout wire mesh. There is an opening on each of the four sides of the pen. The pen is loaded with corn and other pig favorites. At first, the suspicious hog honchos will send in a few of the little ones as scouts. The scouts come and go at will, eating to their piggy satisfaction, until eventually suspicions die and they are joined by every other member of the herd right up the chain of command. The pigs soon come to believe that if nothing bad has happened to them after entering the strange wire enclosure full of corn, then nothing bad will ever happen. Their "normalcy bias" kicks in very quickly.
Soon, the pigs can't imagine any other life. Rooting for tubers? An unpleasant task of the forgotten past. Nightly the herd eagerly trots to the free corn in the pen, and they fail to notice when one of the openings has been closed off with another panel of wire fencing during the day. Pigs are said to be as smart as dogs, but neither can count to four. Nor are the closings of the second or third openings much noticed. Finally, all that remains for the trapper to do is to install a powerful spring-driven trap door above the last opening. The entire tribe of formerly wary feral hogs once again enters the pen, and with a metallic clang their miraculous corn nirvana turns into a death trap.
The moral of the story: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Don't go inside the "free corn" pen, not even when all the doors are open. Free food is as dangerous as the sirens' song to ancient mariners. It is all too easy to get used to being fed, and then to miss the exits closing one at a time.
2. The Turkeys and Farmer Brown
Pigs are Einsteins compared to turkeys. Turkeys are so stupid that care must be taken to prevent them from killing themselves by accident. For example, if incorrectly stimulated, they might stampede into a corner of a feeding lot and trample many of their brethren to death in their urgency to follow the herd.
If turkeys think at all, they think of Farmer Brown as "the food man" or "the food god." So you can imagine their simple and unreserved joy at seeing the food man arriving to dispense the daily manna. For 364 straight days they believe they are living in turkey heaven, and they worship the food man, until on day 365 he unexpectedly takes an ax to their necks. (Hat tip to Nassim Nicholas Taleb and his seminal book, "The Black Swan" If you have not yet read it, you are way behind the learning curve. It's waiting for you at your local library.)
The moral of the story: If somebody is feeding you every day and asking for nothing in return, give an occasional thought to his motives and his possible end plans. Not everybody that feeds you loves you. The normalcy bias can kill you.
3. The Buffalo Jump
Native American Indians hunted on foot before the arrival of Spanish horses in North America. Bows and arrows and spears were not showstoppers against stampeding herds of bison, each weighing up to a ton. The Indians understood bison much better than the bison understood the Indians, however, and so the bison repeatedly failed to discern that all the pesky humans waving flags and setting grass fires were funneling them into a narrow draw and then to a yawning cliff, with squaws and children waiting below to commence the butchery.
The moral of the story: If you are being stampeded and funneled, it might be toward disaster, not away from it. Take any exit and go another direction. Read about the then-Greek city of Smyrna in 1922 to see a human Buffalo Jump in action. Wiki link to the "Catstrophe of Smyrna"
4. The Lemmings
The lemmings we are interested in are the small furry rodents that live on islands around Norway. For most of history, their mass charges into the frigid waters were seen as some kind of group suicide. Today, they’re understood to be the result of the little rodent's rapid gestation period kicking into high gear during rare periods of abundance of seed grasses sprouting madly during particularly mild arctic summers. In a matter of months the lemming population explodes, but eventually every last seed is eaten, and not another seed will appear until after the passage of the long arctic winter. The starving rodents packing the small islands can either die in place or undertake a desperate swim to greener pastures on other islands beckoning in the distance.
The moral of the story: There doesn't need to be a pig trapper or a turkey farmer in the equation to cause a mass die-off event; nature can do it all on her own. And nature doesn't care about your schedule, or your personal problems.
5. The Land Crab Massacre
One day in Puerto Rico a platoon of Navy SEALs had to drive in a few trucks and vans to an isolated rifle range way out in some swampy corner of the Roosevelt Roads Naval Base, now sadly closed. A few miles of gravel road paralleled the Caribbean shore, with mangrove trees close on both sides of the narrow track. You had to access this rifle range at certain times during the daily tidal cycle, or the road might be under water. The frogmen spent the day shooting guns and blowing things up, then at sunset packed up the trucks for the quick run back to their beloved NavSpecWar Det Caribbean.
Truck headlights illuminated a moving sheet of land crabs, migrating from the ocean toward the land for the night. Land crabs have a body about the size of a fist, and one claw as big as a Maine lobster's. They were so tightly packed that you could not toss a hat into their midst without hitting two or three: a near solid mass of them covering a mile of gravel road and the mangrove swamps on both sides. All the SEALs could do was drive over them in their government trucks, pulverizing thousands of them, maybe millions, leaving two wide swaths of crushed crab, crackling and squishing beneath our tires for a mile.
On the return trip to the range the next day, not a sign remained of the land crab holocaust. The smashed crustaceans had been immediately devoured by their erstwhile kin, who were probably happy that the hard work of shell-cracking had already been done by Goodyear tires. A mile-long crab massacre was followed by a cannibal feast that left no trace, overnight.
The moral of the story: Don't be caught in the middle of a mass migration where you have no room to maneuver independently. Any outside force, or your neighbors, can smite you at will. Like Desert Storm's "Highway of Death," refugee columns attract warbird attention the way that honey attracts flies. History is full of refugee columns being strafed, on purpose or through mis-identification. Or like the bison, refugee columns can be herded into traps, and the individual refugee can do nothing to prevent it. This is a paradoxical case where the normally presumed “safety in numbers” is a deadly betrayer instead of a savior. Given a choice, going it alone beats The Buffalo Jump every time, but it’s very hard to bolt from the herd.
6. The Rat Flood
This occurs in northeastern India and parts of Burma. Only in the last century was this bizarre cycle of human famine following unexplained super plagues of rats finally understood. It turns out that forests of a certain bamboo species go into a wild explosion of fruiting, producing seed nuts on a 48-year cycle, a trick of nature that had been missed until the middle of the 20th century. Intrigued by the half-century cycle of human famines reported in 1862, 1911, and 1959, modern scientists finally noticed the link between the famines and the bamboo tree cycle. By 2006, the next time the bamboo began to fruit, they were on hand to observe the complete phenomenon.
The superabundance of nuts every 48 years leads to an explosion in the population of Asian black rats, which live in the bamboo forests. Because of their rapid breeding cycle, the number of rats per acre shoots up to astronomical levels, eventually the entire mega-crop of nuts is consumed, and a lemming-like mass starvation follows.
Millions of starving rats break out from the forests in what the local people call the Rat Flood. The onrushing solid tide of scurrying rats destroys entire crops in the ground and attack unprotected granaries, leading to an immediate human famine. Millions of dying, dead and decaying rats add to the misery by polluting streams and causing other intensely nasty sanitary problems. A once-every-48-years bamboo nut super-fruiting leads to millions of rats and then to human famine.
The moral of the story: If subtle connections are missed, a radical new situation may at first wrongly be considered a Black Swan Event. But sometimes the Black Swans can be seen in advance, if seemingly unconnected links and mechanisms are properly understood in advance. And if you’re not sure what a Black Swan Event is, you definitely need to read the book.
7. Hippos and Crocodiles
Certain stretches of African rivers dry up from time to time, stranding all the water-dependent creatures in a new desert-scape dotted with evaporating ox-bow lakes. During the normal times of plentiful water, hippos and crocs are the masters of the riverine environment. Lions and elephants interface with them at the edges, but pose no challenge to the undisputed lords of the river.
That is, until the water level drops during a severe drought cycle, and the last stagnant ponds dry to cracked mud. Then the crocs and hippos, already starving and dehydrated, must bolt overland to discover another pond or river extension. Few of them moving cross-country in the desert heat live to see another waterhole. Their overland fatality rate is lemming-like, as lions, hyenas and vultures swarm in when they finally drop to the earth.
The moral of the story: Don't be a hippo if your stretch of river might dry up. Be adaptable to many environments, not just the master of one that might prove to be impermanent. Better yet, be a bird, able to fly away to a safe location as conditions on the ground change for the worse. Have an agile mobility plan—or two or three.
8. Hungry Horses
If you read a lot, you will run across these stories a few times a year. As a recurring phenomenon it's not as well known as some of the others, but it happens often enough to merit attention. Do an internet search on starving horses, and you will find many such sad stories. Typically, a utility company repairman, meter reader, contractor or salesman will visit a remote ranch or farm and be horrified at the sight of dozens or more starving horses or cows. There may even be dead livestock on the ground. The witness informs the sheriff, who comes out and arrests the land owner for animal cruelty and other charges.
The land owner will usually end up doing prison time, often for what he believes was no crime. He was merely doing the best he could, but times were hard. He had lost his job or been injured, but bottom line, he couldn't afford trips to the feed store. They were just plain hungry times, they were all hungry, but the livestock would fatten up again just as soon as he got enough money for the feed, or the drought ended and greened up the fields. And it’s going to rain any day now.
This dynamic recalls Confederate Major Henry Wirz, the commander of the open-air POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia. Everybody was hungry, civilian, military and prisoner. They were hungry times. There was no food to give the detainees. Nobody had a plan for the Union POWs, except to corral them in a given location. In the year before April 1865, nearly one-third of the 45,000 Union prisoners died. Wirz was hanged in Washington late in 1865, after one of the first American war-crime trials, yet to this day many believe he got a raw deal. After all, his apologists say, he was doing the best he could under the terrible circumstances.
The moral of the story: The guy who is starving you may sincerely be trying to feed you, but his best efforts might not be enough. In the end, if you are penned in, you can be killed by simple starvation and neglect, requiring no directly malign intention by your captors. Starvation just happens naturally when insufficient food is coming into the enclosure.
9. The Crazy Cat Lady When the stink of the crazy cat lady's house sufficiently annoys the neighborhood, she is either found inside dead, or if she is still alive she must be taken away to the crazy old people's home. After the surviving starved cats are taken away by folks in hazmat suits, her house will often be burned down to prevent the spread of disease. Most of the rescued cats are too far gone and must be euthanized at the animal shelter.
Yet her motives were perfectly pure! The crazy old lady truly loved her pets. She could not bear to imagine them out in the cold rain, hungry and alone, so she invited them inside. Imagine that you are the fifth or sixth cat adopted into her warm and dry house. An old stray would consider himself to have landed in cat paradise. Soft rugs, plentiful food, and a kind human hand await inside. Purrr-fect.
It's a great deal even if you are the tenth cat invited inside, but not so great when you are the two hundredth and the inside population is breeding unchecked. The crazy old cat lady, in spite of her very good intentions, ends up presiding over the feline version of Auschwitz, a true death machine, killing her beloved cats slowly by starvation, dehydration, and disease.
The moral of the story: Good intentions don't mean squat if you trap other living beings inside an enclosure and then you can't feed them in perpetuity. The holocaust that results is still on you. Expressed good intentions about your trapped population will not be accepted. "I was doing my best to help them" will ring as hollow a defense as "I was just following orders." North Korea comes to mind as a very large enclosure.
10. The Grasshopper and the Locust
Grasshoppers are the same creature as locusts, but as population density and crowding increase, the small green insects undergo a morphological change caused by increasing tactile stimulation that leads to new hormonal releases. Little Jiminy Cricket will more than double in size, take on a darkened and armored appearance, and develop effective flying wings. The morphing locusts will breed even more often, in preparation for their famous swarming behavior.
The tiny grasshoppers, instead of accepting the fate of other overpopulated, starving species, turn into warrior invaders and take wing to go in search of greener pastures, leaving famine and death in their wake. An emergency breakout plan is part of their DNA.
The moral of the story: Soft and timid little creatures can turn fearsome and go on the warpath if their very survival is at stake. Even a weak and normally helpless neighbor can become a danger if his survival is at stake, especially if he joins a gang where he benefits from strength in numbers.
Larger Lessons
If somebody else is feeding you—even if you entered the community or the building of your own free will, even if all the doors and gates are currently open or unlocked—you may already be living in your future prison. All it takes is a change in management to turn your Holiday Inn into San Quentin. Like the feral pigs, you might find that the exits are all sealed off, and the free food was meant only to lure you in and fatten you for slaughter.
If you are kept in an enclosure, even if you are currently being fed with food brought in from outside, you are living at the mercy of the status quo. The benevolent dictator who satisfies your needs may be replaced overnight by Caligula or Stalin. Your Holiday Inn might be sold to or taken over by the next Nazi SS.
Or authority might be abdicated entirely, leaving prisoners starving in their pens and cells; think Baghdad Zoo after the 2003 American invasion. A power vacuum, such as occurs when the crazy cat lady becomes infirm, can be as deadly to a trapped population as the turkey farmer and the pig hunter are to their own deliberate target populations.
Creatures that are able to flee starvation will do so.
If presented with an impossible barrier, they might attempt a lemming-like swim, or head across desert terrain like hippos fleeing the last dried-up pond. But they will try. They will not starve in place.
Or starving millions may break out and appear like a sudden refugee tidal wave, as is the case with the Rat Flood in India. Or the millions might turn warlike and break out violently like locusts, bent on temporary conquest and laying waste to the land in their search for sustenance. But few creatures will starve to death quietly in their dens. Social ecologists will ignore this lesson at their peril.
Most of these parables involve a densely packed population that undergoes a cutoff in their food supply that is too rapid to permit them an adjustment period. The more densely packed the population, the more likely that when their food is abruptly cut off, they will attempt to break out in search of new food sources.
Urban areas in the United States and other countries present many risks similar to some of the parables cited above. America has somehow evolved a system for artificially maintaining the lives of millions inside open-air prisons, with free food dispensed to the voluntarily semi-incarcerated. It is all too easy to grow dependent on free food, as the feral pigs might attest. Turkeys don't know any better, being born in captivity, but the same fate awaits them at the end of the free-food line.
Today we have become a nation of slaves.
One group is made up of the wage-slaves, working for the government so that politicians can dispense largesse to their pet interest groups in return for their votes. Fifty million Americans are currently enslaved on the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) food-stamp plantation. The masters of both the producers and the moochers are the looters “employed” in the government sector, robbing Peter to buy Paul's vote in order to raise taxes on Peter yet again. Combined, the looters and the moochers will always outnumber the producers, until some population-altering event disrupts the status quo. (Hat tip to Neil Boortz for his looters, producers, and moochers trichotomy.)
The urban population density is obviously high, with no possibility of providing its own food through local agriculture. In the event of a food supply disruption, such as a breakdown of the EBT system, it is very likely that a large part of the urban population will break out in search of food rather than quietly starving in place after all the supermarkets and other nearby food sources are looted. FR thread: "When the music stops: how America's cities may explode in violence."
Like restarting a diesel engine with an air-locked fuel line, getting the food supply system of a city running again cannot be done by turning a key and stomping on the accelerator. The diesel engine air-lock must be tediously purged and the injectors bled. This takes time, and there is no shortcut method, no matter your state of desperation to get the engine running. The "just in time" food supply system and our lack of old-fashioned food warehouses will worsen the air-lock in the broken food supply. It will be extremely tricky to restart the food supply conveyor into an out-of-control city in the thrall of deadly food riots. The hungry population may break out in anger before the authorities are able to introduce some type of emergency feeding plans. In fact, the desperate rioting mobs, paradoxically, will be the main impediment to delivering the food. FEMA might rescue one or a few cities, but will be impotent if the food supply crisis is widespread and many cities are affected.
In normal times our urban inhabitants are free to come and go at will. But cities are usually divided into manageable sections by highways, railroad trunk lines, rivers, ravines, steep mountainsides and other manmade or geographical features. The authorities, or those living in areas adjoining the boroughs experiencing starvation, may or may not permit free entry or passage of hungry refugees. If the authorities or suburban vigilantes wish to stop the breakout of the starving masses, it will have to be done with extreme force, if it can be done at all.
Roughly, these are the three alternatives facing those who find themselves in an urban area when the outside supply of food stops:
1. Die in place like the neglected horses or the felines trapped in the crazy old cat lady's house of horrors. This only happens to captive populations, but it happens. Some armed force might be guarding the bridges and highways around your 'hood, with strict orders to "contain the problem." The Warsaw Ghetto could become the model for ultimate urban renewal and a radical rebalancing of the moocher-to-producer population ratio. As with the crazy old cat lady's putrid house, fire may be the cleanser of choice. Again, read about The Great Fire of Smyrna in 1922.
2. Attempt relocation too late, like the lemmings and the hippos. This was the fate of many of the Jews in Germany, the Armenians and Greeks in Turkey, and the Christians in the Middle East today. The human normalcy bias is so strong that it's difficult for most people to understand, after a few peaceful generations, that bad can go to worse and then to fatal in a few unexpected jumps. Jews, Armenians and Greeks all clung to the belief that things could only get better—until it was too late to flee successfully. The Copts in Egypt may be the next population of Christians marched into a desert to die, while the world watches.
3. Break out, like the bamboo forest rats and the locusts in search of more nutrition in the next valley. But don't expect to be welcomed in the next county if you are forced into a mass refugee exodus. Instead, you will be considered a plague of hungry locusts, and locusts are exterminated whenever possible. When you move into the hinterland you may find crude signs posted stating that Trespassers Will Be Shot On Sight. Signs put up by very serious hard-eyed people with more scoped deer rifles than EBT cards among them.
It will now be pointed out that there are more rural than urban users of the EBT system. This may be true in absolute numbers, but it is not important. There is a reason why the parables in this essay focus on situations where population densities are high when the food-rug is pulled out from under. Out in the wider country, there is a likelihood of the former EBT user moving in with other rural kin. Truck gardens and farmer's markets are not such a distant memory, and arable land is plentiful. A deer or a pig might wind up over a fire. "A country boy can survive," to quote one modern philosopher.
But there will be no surviving within the urban death traps when the seemingly perpetual food conveyor grinds to a halt for any of a number of causes. The only question is, will the EBT urban plantation slaves die in place, penned in by suburban rifle fire or other means, or will they break out in a starving flood? Possibly even with government help, on government buses? To be taken to whatever wire-fenced FEMA camp enclosure awaits them—or perhaps to your local high schools as a "temporary" measure?
Either way, what an unholy mess we find ourselves in. Our urban plantation population of EBT slaves has become a Damocles Sword hanging above the greater society. That perpetual food conveyor had better not experience a hiccup—for any reason—or in an eye blink there will be unholy hell to pay. Wise citizens will carefully consider the meta-terrain around them for future Black Swans, Black Swans that in reality might be located at the intersections of already understood natural phenomena and the unintended consequences of social experimentation gone disastrously wrong.
The final moral of the story: Don't live in—or near—a densely populated enclosure where all the food is brought in from outside, even if today the exit doors are all open.
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Great essay. I'm guessing this was written before the full implosion of Venezuela with 30 million trapped in and starving with free food. We wouldn't need animal parables if we had an honest media or a curious electorate. Besides the author's take I would challenge every reader to follow each parable with the question, what does this mean for us - today?
With humans, it gets at the core difference between liberal and conservative vision being first and second level thinking. On the first level, qualifying for food stamps means you get free food, welfare is free money, minimum wage is a pay increase, taxing the rich means someone else pays, open borders means we get more voters for our side. Second level thinking begins to ask what else happens and what happens after that.
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Great essay. I'm guessing this was written before the full implosion of Venezuela with 30 million trapped in and starving with free food. We wouldn't need animal parables if we had an honest media or a curious electorate. Besides the author's take I would challenge every reader to follow each parable with the question, what does this mean for us - today?
With humans, it gets at the core difference between liberal and conservative vision being first and second level thinking. On the first level, qualifying for food stamps means you get free food, welfare is free money, minimum wage is a pay increase, taxing the rich means someone else pays, open borders means we get more voters for our side. Second level thinking begins to ask what else happens and what happens after that.
Public schools try really hard not to develop second level thinking in their detainee populations. Most of the indoctrination staff aren't capable of it themselves.
Bottom line, for one reason or another, we are on the cusp of a breakdown in the system. Failing to plan for that is planning to fail.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=RAU8yWO6isM
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https://bigleaguepolitics.com/terror-stem-school-shooter-was-pro-lgbt-leftist-who-hated-christians/
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https://bigleaguepolitics.com/terror-stem-school-shooter-was-pro-lgbt-leftist-who-hated-christians/
Well, given that Trump was blamed for New Zealand, I guess Pete Buttplug is guilty of this one.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7012485/Father-Colorado-school-shooter-Alec-McKinney-serial-felon-illegal-immigrant.html?fbclid=IwAR0NqQu6NZNad60AIrX0ZOko0gjgh14-SXYLgNnHHvVDw_F63Ey1L0U12-g
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saw CNN have the parents of the boy who saved lives on last night. Mario's kid, Andy's bro did the show.
Actually was quite moving about the boy who helped others while risking his own life
I did not watch the whole broadcast
but doubt anything was said about the killers being LBGTIGAFEMONPWZXQYA>.
if there was it would only be they were "white men"
without the rest of it.
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https://nypost.com/2018/08/30/america-doesnt-actually-lead-the-world-in-mass-shootings/?utm_source=facebook_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site+buttons&utm_campaign=site+buttons&fbclid=IwAR3_3BURHt9yLiBY4Apvbed-X_HZt2Oo0MLQ4COf-WMK0it29gIx4QIa-UU
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https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.apa.org%2Fnews%2Fpress%2Freleases%2F2016%2F08%2Fmedia-contagion-effect.pdf&fbclid=IwAR17kHwl-_KPeFPtiMGeGjN-JmQQCfrGWDT99hYRLa_517LT3P1WbCEMqm4
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https://crimeresearch.org/2018/11/new-cprc-research-mass-public-shootings-are-much-higher-in-the-rest-of-the-world-and-increasing-much-more-quickly/?fbclid=IwAR2nMJ4B11FzG5Axx1T4MwcnqJTU4_VmXE3whKbBNxBq5TWhGfy_FXIWj_s&utm_campaign=meetedgar&utm_medium=social&utm_source=meetedgar.com
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ccp:
Frankly *some* of the stuff in the murderer's written piece IS EXACTLY RIGHT but by making it famous through cold blooded murder ... "
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LA Times had a piece called 4 things mass shooters have in common. What they mostly missed and downplayed are: 1. Shooters go to gun free zones for their own protection, and 2. The copycat and notoriety aspect of a suicidal person going out this way. Obviously, shooters want the attention or they would just go away quietly. Deny them that.
The media attention and the craving for information about them by the media consumers contributes to the problem.
In terms of wrongful deaths, more people die from _______ than from mass shootings, fill in the blank.
Murders in a few neighborhoods in Chicago. Car crashes. Abortions. Work related accidents. Bicycle crashes. Medical malpractice. Smoking/lung cancer. Etc.
Except to disprove leftist false accusations that it's all one side, I do not want to know the names, views, lives or struggles of these people. If you want my attention, get it some other way. We can't have a conversation or even a vicious argument if you shoot everyone in the room.
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https://www.thediplomad.com/2019/08/toxic-culture-and-red-flags.html
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Toxic Culture and Red Flags
The latest murderous outrages in El Paso and Dayton didn't take long to produce a "blame on" torrent from the usual and even some unusual suspects. We had the usual suspects blaming President Trump for his "divisive" rhetoric and supposed adherence to "white supremacy." Not a sparrow falls but that President Trump doesn't get blamed. A deranged Aussie environmentalist, who hates Trump, goes off the rails and murders 51 people in a couple of mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and it's Trump's fault. A lunatic environmentalist supporter of Senators Warren and Sanders goes nuts in Dayton, Ohio, kills nine people, and it's Trump's fault. A bizarre and cowardly (he wore ear protectors; not the sign of an intending kamikaze) environmentalist racist who hates Trump goes ape in El Paso, murders 21 people, and, of course, it's Trump's fault. As I write this, I hear the mayor of Dayton essentially blaming the killings in her city on Trump; she's the mayor, she runs the police in Dayton, she has the power to control the streets, but it's the President's fault that there are killings on those streets of Dayton. Right. OK. Gotcha.
I also hear some weird stuff from people who should know better.
Lots of talk from otherwise sane people about "red flags." Even the President's speechwriters had him support that stupid idea du jour. Oh, yes, we will design a process to "red flag" certain people for certain non-violent behavior, aka speech, and then use it in some as yet unspecified way to prevent them from exercising their second amendment rights. We see floating about various ideas and even pieces of proposed legislation to create some sort of list drawing data from somewhere or other to use to "intervene" in some way (dispatch of Sheriff's Deputies is my guess) to prevent guns from falling into the "wrong hands." Sure thing, buddy. Sing it out John Paul, George, and Ringo, "Back in the USSR, boys . . . "
I have written before about progressive infatuation with "gun control" lists and "mental health" (December 9, 2015). What do you think will happen with such a process? Whom do you think will control it? How long before conservatives, and others out of political favor get a "red flag"? Shall we have the same kind of people who run Google, YouTube, and Twitter control it? How about the sort who run progressive-controlled city councils? What possibly could go wrong? How long before we have the sort of fraud we see in the MeToo movement and the racial hate hoax plague spread to "gun control"? Due process, anybody? Who, by the way, are these "mental health experts" who will determine whether somebody deserves his second amendment rights? Should we have them for our other rights? Are these the same experts, for example, who for centuries told us that homosexuality is a "personality disorder" or the ones who now insist we must not only accept it but praise it, embrace it, promote it? Mental health, of course, is settled science of the highest and most reliable order . . . right up there with the Piltdown Man and man-made global cooling, warming, change, or whatever.
Oh, yes, folks, but lest you think otherwise, there is something out there worthy of a "red flag"--but it's not being discussed at all.
All over the West, not just in the USA, we have created in the past three or four decades a vile, toxic culture that leads to the sorts of murderous sprees we have seen, for example, in Norway, New Zealand, and, of course, the USA. Radicalization via Internet? Sure, but it goes much deeper than that. It goes deeper than porno and vile video games.
There is a pervasive rot spread by Hollywood, the universities, and the media, both new and legacy. It tells us we must welcome endless waves of dirt-poor aliens, who enter our country illegally, and ply them with free health care, voting rights, housing, and free schooling. We must sing the praises of single mothers; promote abortion up to the moment of birth and even beyond. Judeo-Christian values, institutions, and traditions are ripe for ridicule and destruction, and, of course, deservedly so! Western history, after all, is just an endless catalog of racism, imperialism, genocide, patriarchy, and assault on the very earth. Gaia weeps because of the white man!
Man. Men. Male. These are now foul words and concepts. There is an ongoing war, yes, war, against men and what it means to be male, in our decrepit universities, in the decaying industry known as Hollywood (notice that white men have virtually disappeared from TV commercials?) and in the media. Instead, for example, of celebrating the amazing accomplishment of American men landing on the moon, the WaPo harangues us with nonsense that the Soviet moon program was much more diverse and, of course, it sent the first woman into space and the first non-white into space. Don't you dare think, much less say, "Yes, but the object was to get to the moon first."
We see, as I have written before, young men alienated from their culture, told by their intellectual betters than they are all rapists and murderers and racists and just plain "TOXIC!" University orientation programs seek to deprogram the male out of young men students. Hollywood tells them they are murderers and clowns, that the future is female, and, besides, women can kick your ass, buddy! These men find the universities, the entertainment industry, the media, and the work environment hostile. Many retreat into delusional and dangerous corners of the Internet, and link up with others like them. They have no historical context for what is happening as the schools are garbage and no longer teach history, or Western philosophy, or the great accomplishments of the West; they pick up scattered and often insane ideas from weird web sites that promote dark conspiracy theories. Yes, they are radicalized by the Internet but the roots go deeper.
We are destroying Western Civilization and the result is bloody massacre.
That's your "red flag."
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https://nypost.com/2019/08/06/dayton-shooter-may-be-antifas-first-mass-killer/?fbclid=IwAR2rbcD-TrBbys1zscVgWa3RjsL0I4INyNeSpewLR2lFZsN82hbr2lm_U3k
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second post
https://fee.org/articles/mass-shootings-arent-becoming-more-common-and-evidence-contradicts-stereotypes-about-the-shooters/?utm_source=zapier&fbclid=IwAR1D8xgU1MNa3-ekoEGx21HCwXU_paZLGJd5bNOgpPiLfFKv5D0TMnnesfE
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Third post
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/fbi-active-shooter-data-shows-importance-of-armed-citizens/?utm_campaign=meetedgar&utm_medium=social&utm_source=meetedgar.com&fbclid=IwAR0yyQbPvQmFVfVSahXqUHZ4fwTYEVM-e5yluiA9LUVaQJfBoAWYD11377g
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American Tragedy
By Tucker Carlson & Neil Patel
August 16, 2019
One thing about tragedies: They reveal people for who they really are. In the past two weeks, we've learned a lot about our media and political class. Our country endured two separate and horrifying mass shootings, one in El Paso, Texas, and the other in Dayton, Ohio. Between them, at least 31 people were murdered. Two massacres, back to back. It's tempting to look for themes that connect them, but if there are any, they're not political. One gunman appeared to be a Trump voter. The other supported Sen. Elizabeth Warren. There's no obvious ideological lesson here. But that hasn't stopped the usual power-hungry politicians from trying to leverage human pain for political advantage. Here's just a sampling of the commentary from the Democratic presidential field:
Rep. Beto O'Rourke: "You don't get mass shootings like these, you don't torch mosques, you don't put kids in cages until you have a president who has given people permission to do that. And that is exactly what is happening in the United States of America today."
Mayor Pete Buttigieg: "It is very clear that this kind of hate is being legitimized from on high."
Warren: "White supremacy is a domestic terrorism threat in the same way that foreign terrorism threatens our people. And it is the responsibility of the president of the United States to help fight back against that, not to wink and nod and smile at it and let it get stronger in this country."
Mayor Julian Castro: "This echoes the kind of language that our president encourages."
Sen. Cory Booker: "I want to say with more moral clarity that Donald Trump is responsible for this."
Thirty-one dead, and the only thing these politicians can think about is how to terrify Americans into voting for them. These are our political leaders. Their comments are disgusting. They're also totally unimpressive, unequal to the task of fixing a society that on some days seems on the verge of collapse. Maybe that's why they spend so much time trying to divert our attention from America's actual problems.
Nobody really believes this is about Trump or about assault weapons. If only it were that simple. Our problems go far deeper. What's the real diagnosis? Author James Howard Kunstler, one of our wisest cultural observers, summed it up this way: "This is exactly what you get in a culture where anything goes and nothing matters. Extract all the meaning and purpose from being here on earth, and erase as many boundaries as you can from custom and behavior, and watch what happens, especially among young men trained on video slaughter games."
He's right. Young men are the problem. Many of our boys are living in what Kunstler describes as an "abyss of missing social relations" with "no communities, no fathers, no mentors, no initiations into personal responsibility, no daily organizing principles, no instruction in useful trades, no productive activities, no opportunities for love and affection, and no way out."
Our leaders are too cowardly to say so, but the signs are everywhere. Mass shootings are just the final manifestation. Suicide rates for young Americans are the highest ever measured. So are drug-related deaths. Fifteen percent of millennials still live with their parents. Fifty years ago, more than 80% of American adults ages 25 to 34 were already married and living with a spouse. Today, less than half of adults in that age range are married. A huge portion of American young people aren't in any kind of relationship at all. It's no wonder millions of young people feel helpless, miserable and alone. They lack friends or parents or religious organizations to give their lives purpose and moral coherence. They live in a suffocating culture they feel no control over: Local identity and local institutions are the weakest they've ever been in this country.
Most people think our democracy is fake. The policies they live under, the jobs they hold and even their personal opinions are controlled by tech monopolists, media scolds and Washington bureaucrats. America is supposed to be a free country, but millions of young people look around and feel like they're trapped in a stagnant dystopia. In such an environment, a few people will lash out in violence. Millions of others will simply fade away, from suicide or overdose or diabetes. This is the real crisis, the one that produced those horrifying scenes on TV over the weekend. Washington is happy to pretend it isn't happening. But it is. You can't ignore it forever.
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https://reason.com/podcast/james-alan-fox-there-is-no-evidence-of-an-epidemic-of-mass-shootings/?fbclid=IwAR155Nb3BXngrI3G-Yi-BEYYwfaRO1BtzSWsI9OR9MyCfhF3AeBdZUoRjTk
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ah but there is evidence :
the msm tells us there is an explosion of white racism , supremacy, and mass killings
so it MUST BE SO.
we are told this 24 /7/365
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ah but there is evidence :
the msm tells us there is an explosion of white racism , supremacy, and mass killings
so it MUST BE SO.
we are told this 24 /7/365
As they celebrate the legal ability to execute third trimester babies and sell their organs.
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Quoting some interesting observations from John Hinderaker:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/09/some-comments-on-guns.php
"...the last couple of mass shooters likely are copycats. More than anything else, giving less press coverage to mass shootings, and especially refusing to publish “manifestoes,” would reduce the number of these events. One might say that mass shootings are a price we pay for freedom of the presss.
Moreover, somewhere around 7,500 people die every day in the US, with about 100 per day dying in car accidents and 46 per day murdered, mostly in “blue” cities. Mass shootings are a vanishingly small cause of death. Whether deaths, violent or otherwise, make the news is a matter of editorial judgment. For whatever reason, our editors and reporters have chosen to magnify the significance of mass shooters.
Second, the U.S. homicide rate has been cut in half since the Clinton administration, coinciding with a boom in handgun ownership and an unprecedented issuance of carry permits. These latest mass shootings don’t change that.
There was an uptick in homicides during the last two years of the Obama administration, apparently because of the Black Lives Matter movement and the Obama administration’s embrace of that movement. But, as I wrote here, the downward homicide trend has resumed under President Trump. We are talking about thousands of lives being saved because of Trump’s pro-law enforcement position. I calculated that the spike under Obama represented more than 5,000 homicides. Somehow our press has little interest in these numbers.
(https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2019/09/Screen-Shot-2019-03-17-at-6.23.02-PM.png?w=570&ssl=1)
Third, contrary to popular belief, the U.S. is not home to an unusual number of mass shootings. Rather, we are a very large country. On a per capita basis, as of a few months ago the U.S. ranked 56th in the world in mass shootings (as defined by the FBI) and 61st in per capita deaths in mass shootings. Gun laws have nothing to do with these numbers. In the US, some of the states with the highest rates of gun ownership, like Idaho, also have the lowest homicide rates. Cabot Phillips makes the point well on Twitter:
"We own half the world's private guns but account for less than half of one percent of the world's murders."
Fourth, liberals are, as usual, advocating policies that will do no good. Mostly, they want to ban certain categories of semiautomatic rifles, based on random, largely-aesthetic criteria that supposedly make them “assault weapons.” Such a ban was tried during the 1990s. It did no good and was abandoned. Rifles–not just AR15s, but all rifles–are among the least popular of murder weapons. Four times as many Americans are murdered with knives as with all rifles combined (not just “assault weapons”). More Americans are murdered with both blunt objects and bare hands than with rifles. Nor are “assault weapons” uniquely valuable to would-be mass shooters. Semiautomatic pistols and other semiautomatic rifles (like my Marlin 60, a rifle that, here in the Midwest, fathers often give to their sons as a 16th birthday present) can fire just as fast and are just as deadly. My guess is that today’s Supreme Court would reject an “assault weapons” ban as an irrational infringement of a fundamental constitutional right."
(More at the link above.)
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https://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2019/09/04/criminologists-mislead-us-n2552448
suddenly statistics and science don't count.
professors who 'profess" political agendas NOT science .
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https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019/09/03/new-information-on-the-odessa-gunman-raises-questions-about-the-fbi-and-local-polices-handling-of-the-case/
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A gun control activist looking at mass shooting reminds me of a hammer that sees every problem as a nail. One climate observer wondered what we are missing in climate when we study only CO2. That made me think, I wonder what we are missing studying mass shooters when all we discuss is gun control.
Two things I see:
First, these are copycat crimes. Our obsession of media attention on these shootings is most certainly making it worse. The shooters are basically committing suicide in the most public, largest carnage possible sort of way making themselves famous and important on their way out. How exactly to address that, I don't know. We just don't need more fanfare for this than all the other heinous or tragic deaths we want to know about.
Secondly, I just read that 26 of the 27 worst mass murders were committed by a shooter who grew up without his biological father. Interesting.
Looking for the link I instead quote the conclusion of Snopes in saying this claim is "False" which is often their name for mostly true:
In short, the claim that “26 out of the 27 deadliest mass shooters came from fatherless homes” is based on a misreading of outdated statistics. Furthermore, this claim was based on a list of the “worst mass shooting” incidents (what appears to be eight or more deaths), and so did not include all of the mass shootings in the U.S. As this list only represented a small portion of the total number of mass shootings as of the time it was compiled, it simply does not provide enough data to come to any conclusions about how a mass shooter is impacted by a fatherless home.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mass-shooters-fatherless-us/ "False"
Partly true or perhaps true and worthy of further study might be better characterizations for an honest fact check conclusion. No one is saying 'fatherless' is sole cause or that we should pre-arrest all who grew up that way. OTOH, everyone interested in common elements of the background failings of these suicidal, homicidal maniacs should be interested in every pertinent factor we can learn.