Sad part is everyone is going to use this incident to their own ends. The right will definitely hang their hats on this not realizing their own policies and rhetoric compounded an already precarious personality.
Absolutely.
Everyone keeps trying to “explain” why a person did such a thing. So they glue some theory together, never really addressing the individual as a singular entity. An edgy personality can be provoked, but the fuse was already there internally. It doesn’t matter which party, view point, or philosophy did it. Would we explain Charlie Manson today as pro one side or another today, or would we just explain Charlie Manson? ( Might be a stretch on making my point, but it gets the point done)
Ya’ll realize they’re gonna come after liberals’ now right? Some members of the GOP even before this have already been saying they want protection by ‘militias’ when in public and their Teavangecals supporters have a victim complex the size of all the flyover states. They already have a narrative in alt-right media that liberals are the true ‘thugs’ and this will give them all the narrative they need to push the nutters into open conflict with liberals anywhere. They will want to ‘strike back’.
“Mentally ill” “lone wolfs” are only for conservatives who shoot up black churches, abortion clinics or liberal politicians like Gaby Gifford. The right WILL assign group blame for this. It’s already happen on other sites (sadly with the help of ‘admitted’ DEMS who want to blame ‘Bernie bros’ or “progressives”, really hope those are just trolls but you never know with todays Dem supporters). GOP politicians WILL blame “The left”, the rank and file conservative WILL scream about ‘defending themselves’ and liberals WILL get shot somewhere after this.
There are a lot of people who are angry and feel powerless. But that’s not an excuse to shoot people. How many innocent people are going to suffer from this? This was a selfish act. If it was a political act, it was foolish and self defeating.
Yep. this will be the “excuse” to form their official “Brown Shirts” to “protect them in public”.
This is the EXACT SAME EXCUSE that was used to justify the creation of the “SA” in Germany in the late 1920’s “self-protection from the Violent Communists”.
Why not say, “The mental health problems of the gun buyers”? One or two I can understand (with my Kentucky past I can also understand a handful of historic legacy guns/rifles in a family’s display case) but a walk-in wardrobe of military-grade weapons?
Whatever his own internal “justifications,” this was a profoundly senseless act—it will cause a great many people to leave their own sense behind as they spin this in a way that reinforces their own political views.
Up on charges for assaulting more than one girlfriend and violating multiple laws. He seemed just not to like being law abiding. What attracted him to Sanders campaign I ask?
The nice thing is that in the U.S., whether you are a right-wing lunatic, left-wing lunatic, or somewhere in-between, you too can get a firearm and commit mass mayhem!
Mentally impaired people who embrace killing as a solution to a problem are not on the “progressive” side of anything.As with millions of Americans walking around with severe psychological issues, things are going to get more dire until we address this scourge which , curiously, few are willing to talk about.
Because it’s not really about mentally impaired people in the population. It’s about mentally impaired people in the population having clear access to weapons of mass destruction.
It’s not about mental health because you cannot predict who is going to snap and do this. YOu can only attack the problem from the other direction - don’t let people have guns. It isn’t necessary unless we are all going to live by Rand Paul’s philosophy - don’t like the government, that’s what the 2d Amendment is for.