Discussion for article #239804
As a professional working in media for the past 26 years, I’ve seen behavior like the kind Vester Flanagan exhibited on the job. It’s always unprofessional and always troubling personally. To get so angry that you have to escorted from a job by police tells me more than I need to know. That is a nail in the coffin of a career in the small world of broadcasting.
I have no doubt that we’ll learn a lot when his “manifesto” is finally made public. He’ll be your garden variety narcissist who thought that his talents were far greater than they were. Who was angry because everyone didn’t immediately acknowledge his every word and action as golden.
He screwed himself and took it out on other people.
2 Likes
There’s another aspect deserving attention: the ease with which one can acquire guns and ammunition. Virginia is not alone among states as having rolled over quite easily to the NRA and related groups. As a result, anyone can buy a gun, without a background check, without a psychological evaluation, without a training course. We won’t see less of this kind of maniacal behavior, we will see more. We will see more because the instruments used in most homicides in the United States are lethal, cheap, and easy to acquire. It should be harder to own a gun than it is to get a driver’s license, and that’s a reasonable expectation. After all, the purpose of driving is to get from one place to another. If there is a death as a result of driving, it’s just that— an accident. The purpose of a gun is to kill something. Not to protect, or threaten, or make safe, but to kill. Any other purported reason for easy access to guns simply enables whack jobs like this guy, the Aurora theatre shooter, and the Sandy Hook shooter. The NRA has emerged as the Chief Enabler of murder and mayhem in this country. This causes me to ask, just who elected them?
10 Likes
Yes, and race baiting is one of the techniques these useless assholes use. Color is not relevant, you have loser white guys who blame blacks because they can’t get a job, etc. In this case, all this guys problems are obviously due to white people… but like some do, he then took it to another level. Sick.
I agree with every word you said, Tomcruzian. Well-stated.
I predict the GOP presidential candidates and right wing media, bloggers and social media users will, as always,handle these disclosures in a mature, thoughtful manner as they comment upon them. Oh, yes. I am certain of it. So much so, that I do not even need to go find out. One might even say I will do all I can to avoid finding out what they say for as long as I possibly can.
2 Likes
the only thing right-wingers will learn from this is that they can use it as justification to ignore any and all instances of racial discrimination, law enforcement profiling, and racism. “See, black people are always making that shit up, just like Vester Flanagan did!”
They are very happy that this happened.
I can just imagine the reaction of the NRA types if told that a person needed to get a psychological evaluation before being allowed to purchase a gun.
There’s a wonderful irony there, however. Anyone who thinks he actually needs a gun is delusional (or downright dangerous), and shouldn’t be allowed to buy one. The rest of us know that we don’t need any guns, and therefore should be allowed to buy them. In short, there should be no market for most guns.
2 Likes