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American Carnage - 31 Killed Between Mass Shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio
enlightenedbum
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I figure this is a big enough deal to get its own thread.
What we know so far:
Late in the morning yesterday in El Paso, a 21 year old white male motivated by white supremacy, fueled by the hate site 8chan, and echoing the view points of Fox News and Donald Trump, opened fire at a Wal-Mart in El Paso, explicitly aiming to kill Hispanic Americans. 20 people have died as a result with dozens more wounded. Some of those injuries were lift threatening as of yesterday evening but it seems that number has not increased. Weapon was an AK-47, he drove 9 hours to get to El Paso because it's a border town with more Hispanics. This suspect has been arrested (without incident). Texas DA will unsurprisingly seek the death penalty.
Early this morning in Dayton, Ohio, a 24 year old white male with currently unknown motivations (but...guess) entered a bar and opened fire. Police responded within a minute and the shooter was killed, but 9 people had been killed and 27 injured in the minute he was firing. He was wearing body armor and the weapon was a .223 caliber high capacity rifle, which suggests an AR-15 but police haven't confirmed that yet.
There were also 7 wounded in a park in Chicago in a drive by around the same time as the Dayton shooting. Obvious guess is a gang thing, but no idea and it won't get nearly as much coverage.
Most of your presidential candidates have condemned the El Paso shooting for what it is, white nationalism, and some of them linked it directly to the president's rhetoric. Most passionately, Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso resident:
Several Democratic Senators, such as Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders are demanding McConnell end the August recess to pass the criminal background check bill the House passed five months ago.
The GOP, as usual, is offering thoughts and prayers and maybe, if we're lucky, using the mental health dodge. If we're less lucky, they're mostly blaming video games. Some non-elected conservative figures have finally decided white supremacist terrorism is a problem, but they're mostly in the non-influential Never Trump group. Jeb Bush's son is the closest thing to an actual Republican figure I've seen express this sentiment.
The president is still golfing and excited about MMA fights.
What we know so far:
Late in the morning yesterday in El Paso, a 21 year old white male motivated by white supremacy, fueled by the hate site 8chan, and echoing the view points of Fox News and Donald Trump, opened fire at a Wal-Mart in El Paso, explicitly aiming to kill Hispanic Americans. 20 people have died as a result with dozens more wounded. Some of those injuries were lift threatening as of yesterday evening but it seems that number has not increased. Weapon was an AK-47, he drove 9 hours to get to El Paso because it's a border town with more Hispanics. This suspect has been arrested (without incident). Texas DA will unsurprisingly seek the death penalty.
Early this morning in Dayton, Ohio, a 24 year old white male with currently unknown motivations (but...guess) entered a bar and opened fire. Police responded within a minute and the shooter was killed, but 9 people had been killed and 27 injured in the minute he was firing. He was wearing body armor and the weapon was a .223 caliber high capacity rifle, which suggests an AR-15 but police haven't confirmed that yet.
There were also 7 wounded in a park in Chicago in a drive by around the same time as the Dayton shooting. Obvious guess is a gang thing, but no idea and it won't get nearly as much coverage.
Most of your presidential candidates have condemned the El Paso shooting for what it is, white nationalism, and some of them linked it directly to the president's rhetoric. Most passionately, Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso resident:
Several Democratic Senators, such as Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders are demanding McConnell end the August recess to pass the criminal background check bill the House passed five months ago.
The GOP, as usual, is offering thoughts and prayers and maybe, if we're lucky, using the mental health dodge. If we're less lucky, they're mostly blaming video games. Some non-elected conservative figures have finally decided white supremacist terrorism is a problem, but they're mostly in the non-influential Never Trump group. Jeb Bush's son is the closest thing to an actual Republican figure I've seen express this sentiment.
The president is still golfing and excited about MMA fights.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
enlightenedbum on
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Dan Patrick immediately addressing this by going "has it been long enough to bring back video games as a scapegoat" made me want to turn around and go right back to bed (or scream)
CBP has said they won't be enforcing things in El Paso hospitals, but nobody believes them.
This is horrifying, and that's before I found out about the Dayton incident. Anecdotally, my mom was tying this straight to Trump and to that hatred, to the point where she cannot call herself a Republican anymore (and dad refused to call himself a Republican). For context, my mom is nearing 70, is the sister of one of the largest gun dealers in the county, grew up selling guns, and was a championship-winning trap shooter when she was a kid. She was calling for a magazine/clip limit of 5 bullets (which is like.. holy shit coming from someone as staunchly pro-gun as her). She was begging for someone to do something, while recognizing that taking away people's guns would be impossible.
I know there's a lot of potential tangents in that paragraph that could lead this thread to bad places. I'd ask you don't. I'm just... horrified. My mom is terrified any time she goes out into public spaces or we go to meet-ups. Hell, I'm more and more fearful each day as I work at a university. People are dying, indiscriminately, and yet things like YouTube are promoting videos of the carnage.
We're a profoundly fucked up country, and I fear that cutting off the head will just cause the body to slink into the shadows again. I don't want us going all ultra-conservative, stripping away our rights.. but... argh. I don't want to feel helpless, protected only by the color of my skin and the fact that I don't socialize much.
If nothing else, I really hope someone revokes 8chan's domain.
*sigh* Sorry... I know this is rambling.
It's almost like law enforcement agencies establishing trust with their local communities is important.
I am torn on that - I am glad they are not reading his screed / essay on the air or allowing his message to be tied to his actions. Fuck him getting a second of fame and a platform in exchange for what he did.
But at the same time, people need to understand what these slogans and words and votes lead to. There are more and more people who feel legitimized because we have accepted this level of bigotry at the very top.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
And of course that could feed directly into EITHER likely cause.... depending on the race of the boyfriend.
And Fuck trump for fostering an environment where this shit is happening multiple times a week.
El Paso was a fucking pogrom.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Not to be that guy, but what does stochastic mean? Sorry.
(and sorry to That_Guy).
Stochastic Terrorism was defined as "the use of mass communications to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable."
In this context, we're talking about terrorism that is "random" in that any one incident cannot be predicted, but can be seen as a clear trend when analyzed in the context of the growth of hate speech and bigotry.
This guy was stopped by a 'good guy with a gun' pretty much as quickly as you could reasonably expect, and he still managed to shoot 36 people before they could stop him.
I want these people to be asked if this was their 'ideal' mass-shooting, because it's not going to get much better.
Talia Lavin is an independent journalist.
It's an incestuous confluence of hate.
Domestic Violence is one of the primary indicators that someone will use violence later in other ways.
It reminds me of the guy who had the cops stop him, and refused to do anything but put his hands out the window, despite orders to turn the car off. People know what they need to do to survive, even if it shouldn't be the consideration
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
There's a pro forma session on Tuesday they could grandstand during if Moscow Mitch McConnell refuses I think.
@moniker is the only one of us who I think actually understands Senate rules though.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Does the House bill mention DV at all?
1) That violent/racist/etc rhetoric and ideas has actual tangible real results and that allowing a platform for the spread of that rhetoric and those ideas creates more of those results.
2) The having a lot of guns around leads to people using those guns to kill other people.
I think it needs to be publicized what is really going on here, and “I dunno must be video games or mental illness or something” isn’t cutting it.
Does anyone think if two people of middle eastern descent (ignoring the Dayton shooting because that’s not really clear at this point) had shot up some places in a week, they were both known to frequent the same online chat rooms/forums where people posted al-queda/isis/salafist content, and both had posted jihadist slogans an manifestos on facebook we would be hearing a lot of handwringing and whargleblargle about video games and violent culture and untreated mental illness and the like?
These are terrorist attacks that are being facilitated and encouraged by organized sympathizers.
We've shut down a lot of that rhetoric online. Twitter did it. They refuse to do it with white supremacy because any such effort would take out a ton of elected Republicans.
That's literally the reason.
Shut up and dribble?
Those listed are accidents or mental health issues on an individual level, or are actively fought by legions of medical professionals and data.
One of these things is perpetrated deliberately human on human, happens all the time, and we don't do ANYTHING to prevent it. That's a big difference, Neil. But more importantly, IT'S NOT A FUCKING COMPETITION, NEIL.
APPEARING TO DISMISS THE SUFFERING OF THESE PEOPLE AS SPECTACLE IS BAD, NEIL. STOP THAT.
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
Why White Supremacist Attacks Are on the Rise, Even in Surprising Places
As I made this post, I kept second guessing myself. I have a strong instinct not to politicize tragedy, something I condemn the right for all too often doing. But the facts along with my own eyes and ears cannot be ignored. It is no longer conjecture or opinion that the words and actions of Trump and the elected officials that support him directly lead to murder and terrorism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/04/three-mass-shootings-this-year-began-with-hateful-screed-chan-its-founder-calls-it-terrorist-refuge-plain-sight/ It is probably not helpful how many white supremacist law enforcement officials there are.