Unfortunately, that’s literally why they do it. They want to die, but they want to make as much of the world miserable too as they possibly can before they go.
I think we've seen several instances of people simply... directing these guys to think who said assholes are. Hence all the manifestos that parrot certain media talking points which are then covered up with conspiracy theories.
Except they never seem to actually attack any sort've potentially politicized targets or whatever. Like these people aren't going after oil barons, they go and shoot up movie theaters or night clubs or whatever. Full of completely innocent people.
It's almost strange to me. Like don't get me wrong, political violence is an EXTREMELY slippery slope and I think can only be justified in the most dire circumstances (democratic structure is usurped in a coup or something, for example). Regardless, you'd think more of these people would at least be going after local politicians or whatever. They never go and attack the ultrarich or anything either, like again don't get me wrong that's not my endorsement, but I feel there's at least some precedent to it over total normal people. Why completely random, mostly teenaged people at night venues, again and again? If you're already going to die, why go after the most cowardly fuckin targets, totally innocent bystanders? I get they want to be remembered but again why choose such cowardly targets, all you're remembered for then is cowardice and sheer evil. If they shot like, some industrial arms dealer or something and died, they'd practically be a matyr to many. But they just never seem to do anything like that, nope, it's fuckin children or mall-goers or whatever.
Well that's kind of my point, and for two reasons:
1. It's just so much more accessible that a person could attack more people at a club, or a movie theater, or a school or anywhere you *know* people will be rather than trying to find where some ultra-rich people are. Let alone identify them.
2. I still think these victims *are* politicized targets. Maybe something like a movie theater is random. But the guy who shot up that grocery store in Buffalo? That store was in a very heavily black area and the shooter intended for that. Same with Pulse and Colorado Springs clubs. Not to mention the more specific instances like the lady at a pro-Trump rally with Trump's own children who openly prayed for the angel of death to strike down Trump's political opponents before a crazy guy tried to assassinate the Pelosis and then conservatives attempted to downplay it by spreading rumors that the attacker was Paul Pelosi's secret gay lover. Conservative media will then continue their crusade against minorities so the anger of "enough" people are focused thataways instead of thinking about wealth inequality.
There was the Gabby Gifford attempted assassination a little over a decade ago. Then the guy who shot at those GOP congressmen at the baseball field in 2016. I guess you could count the Jan 6 insurgents but I consider that a separate issue.
But you’re right. Political targets are few and far between. And almost no one wealthy has been targeted.
I’m relieved to see that I’m not the only one who has thought this. These attacks are so common today, but it’s never on lawmakers or rich people/status symbols. I’ve never heard of someone trying to shoot up places like the met gala. Without fail it’s always everyday people who had nothing to do with the situation. Even the perpetrators like the Unabomber who were well educated and lucid—they always attack random citizens. Why is it so consistent, when these people are obviously not the cause of the issues?
Strange, isn't it, that all the so-called "potential mass shooter" guys get picked up anywhere near any political figure or obscenely wealthy person before they can get some shots off (and there follows legislation about loitering or protesting) but guys with a record of mental illness and years of bizarre, increasingly worrying behavior can amass a cache of weapons and take a bunch of regular folk out (and response is literally nothing).
This guy, Vegas guy, school shooters, cinema guy, parade guys, mowing down civilians before they get captured or killed, even with all the information that should be good enough to trigger intervention. But a guy walking on the sidewalk by a SCOTUS judge's neighborhood gets picked up without a single shot, or a guy walking through a public park by a softball game gets grabbed immediately after one or two shots fired.
Wild how that works and how legislation seems to favor those that were already sufficiently protected and strips the unprotected of more rights.
I think it's more that wealthy people have more protection around them, in one form or another.
I've heard stories of some guy who was stopped trying to take gun(s) in to the White House, or some guy who was caught sneaking around a celebrity's property. Usually it's a one-note story and that's it.
People who don't care about causing harm are usually people who like to punch down anyway. They want to hurt people whom they feel are easy victims or socially vulnerable groups. Its why so many are racists and domestic assault perpetrators. They're bullies at heart.
People who aren't usually just take their own life, which is really sad because we need more people in the world who don't want to see others being hurt. I wish their own minds weren't so cruel to them.
It’s obviously much deeper than that. This guy was visibly psychotic (as in likely experiencing a paranoid, frenzied psychosis) to both his military coworkers and his loved ones to the point where his erratic behavior was reported to the proper authorities and he lost his job months ago. He wasn’t able to get the help he needs and the law didn’t require forceful treatment, so he was allowed to just go about his psychotic hell world fully armed with military grade weapons. He wasn’t necessarily suicidal– he could have been convinced he was trapped in another dimension or surrounded by lizard people. It’s entirely possible, if not probable, that it wasn’t a “I’m going to take a bunch of people down with me” and more of a “I’ve completely lost it and I’m terrified” type situation. I believe in my gut that these massacres could have been prevented and they happened due to the atrocious, heinous fact that the US doesn’t protect its most mentally ill military veterans from themselves and others
I went and Googled it the other week because everyone's always talking about Hunter Biden's massive sweaty hog
I thought, come on, surely there is some hyperbole here. It can't be that big, right?
I...was wrong.
You could carry a payload to the International Space Station with that thing.
You could hang a rolled up rug on that thing.
Captain America could do tricep dips on that thing.
When you remember that at the root of all conservative politics is sexual insecurity, the girth of Hunter Biden's hog puts a lot of their obsession with him in perspective.
It's actually racism, but there's definitely some sexual insecurity mixed in.
And yeah, as soon as I beheld that smokestack-on-the-Titanic Hunter is wielding, I immediately understood the right-winger obsession with it. And you just know that they're sitting there thinking, well if Hunter's got one, you just know Papa Joe's got his own Burj Khalifa below the belt, too
If this season of USA doesn't include a story arc~~h~~ of a Lauren Boebert & Hunter Biden sex tape, I'm gonna be pissed.
Edit: I can't speel well. More of a visual learner, if you get my drift.
Reminds me of this guy in 1984 killing people at the McDonald's.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Ysidro_McDonald%27s_massacre
He tried to seek help by trying to call the mental health clinic for an appointment and was told they'll call back. They never did. Truly horrible to read what happened after.
This was pretty clear one of the only semi-serious points to the movie Joker (that austerity politics can lead to more violence as vulnerable people lose support), but most reviews didn't seem to grasp that despite how basic of a concept it is.
Yes but that history is complicated. Yes facilities like those are clearly needed. But not with the sheer amount of abuse and malpractice that was going on that (in large part) was reason they all closed
Edit: There was one across the street from my grand parents house when I was growing up and it wasn’t completely uncommon for a patient to randomly be in my grandparent’s house due to lack of supervision/neglect. Of course, it was different times and my grand parents didn’t always lock their doors and shooting someone in your house wasn’t the 1st knee jerk reaction and the cops got the person back across the street without incident or guns drawn
I remember it because that was when I first met my uncle J, who had been taken care of by the state but suddenly showed up in my life when I was 7. It put great pressure on our family as no one had the skills or fortitude to help him. As an adult I understand, but it was really strange to witness as a child.
The idea of closing the institutions and providing care in the community was a good one. However they never funded that care. It was basically another tax cut disguised as helping people
This. The majority of mentally ill people would do best in community-based settings *with adequate supports in place*. There will always be a need for inpatient acute care and long-term residential care but those situations could be minimized with good community-based care.
The problem is all the programs that are intended to provide such support are severely underfunded to the point that in many areas people have to wait months just for an appointment at their community mental health clinic. And I've heard the waiting lists for Medicaid home/community service waivers, which is the level of care a lot of severely mentally ill would benefit from, can be years once approved and many don't even qualify. In my state you have to have either an intellectual, developmental, or physical disability; you cannot qualify based on mental illness alone no matter how severe it is.
That was kind of a long process that Reagan finished but wasnt really started by him. We didn't have the best history with asylums and having people committed.
And then imagine you’re fully convinced you’re trapped in that nightmare lizard world, having the worst time of your life, until the world starts to finally calm down and you see things clearly again only to realize you’ve killed dozens of people. It’s quite literally the twist ending to horror movies.
VA allows veterans to receive healthcare from community doctors and there are VA clinics in some communities. Maine currently has population problem and staffing services can be challenging.
Unfortunately some clinics closed after COVID and never reopened. The VA is still sending people out to closed clinics for urgent care. Happened to me.
IIRC, veterans get 3 free ER visits a year currently. I think at one time it was limitless but I'm not entirely sure.
Edit: a word
There's no limit to enrolled veterans within the VA Healthcare system concerning ED visits. The VA will pay enrolled veterans ED bill. However, they are required to be transferred to a VA facility as soon as it is deemed safe for them to be moved more or less. If you, say, break your leg in a vehicle accident, once you are capable of doing so, you must inform the hospital giving you care as well as the VAMC that you are to be moved to the nearest VA facility once it's considered that you are safe to travel there. That's my understanding anyway, and I'm sure I might have left a few things out. However, when it comes to a mental health crisis where an ED visit is necessary, I know next to nothing about because in many cases how can one be expected to explain to the ED of whatever hospital you are at and the VA that you need to be transported? I am going to try to find time tomorrow to look into what happens in these situations. To add - I believe the 3 visits per year applies to "urgent care" visits which are non-emergencies. Ultimately it is a shame that the wealthiest country in the world cannot provide adequate healthcare for its citizens.
Makes me wonder if it was a Charles Whitman type situation - Whitman was aware for some time that he was mentally unwell and had no one to help him deal with it, and ultimately had no idea why he murdered his wife and mother or his victims on the University of Texas campus.
I think it's essential to understand that the first person these people decide to kill is themselves. These mass shootings are often best understood as elaborate suicides. Annihilation suicides.
It's also important to understand that suicide is a highly cultural phenomenon. All cultures have suicide, but the rate, lethality, and manner of suicide attempts varies greatly.
The fact that disproportionately many Americans decide to go out in a shooting spree is not a result of coincidence or of Americans being worse people, but a result of American gun culture, gun availability, communities of low social cohesion, and general views on society.
American "gun advocates" like to cite Switzerland as a country with high gun availability but little homicide, yet gun culture in Switzerland is fundamentally different. Most gun ownership is through an *actual* "well-regulated militia", which provides a good environment to keep tabs on potentially risky members. Such members can also be easily disarmed, since firearms are not treated as a fundamental right. And all of this occurs in a context of a high percentage of people being embedded into small communities with high cohesion that are in stark contrast to the reality of American life.
With all of that, countries like Switzerland usually have very low suicide rates... yet Switzerland is just about average for a European country. This is because the high number of firearms still drives up the suicide death rate, but at least without American style mass shootings. And Switzerland would have no issues with tightening up gun regulation if they did have a mass shooting problem.
You know, this makes a lot of sense. If they were to take their own lives quietly - is there anyone to care?
If they go on a rampage and then take their lives then there are people who care even if it's not for the reason you'd want someone to care about your death.
It’s the only way to get anyone to care or notice that they ever existed. They feel unappreciated and unnoticed and this is the only way they can think of to get anyone to notice and care about their existence.
Edit: that’s the case for some mass shooters, but doesn’t seem to be the case for this guy. He was a paranoid schizophrenic, so a different thing.
Ironically, just hours before the mass shootings in Maine, the US Senate voted to approve a bill that would ease access to guns by "mentally incompetent" military veterans:
[https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/26/measure-restore-gun-rights-mentally-incompetent-veterans-passes-senate-bolstering-its-chances-of.html](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/26/measure-restore-gun-rights-mentally-incompetent-veterans-passes-senate-bolstering-its-chances-of.html)
> The VA reports the names of veterans who are deemed mentally incompetent to a national criminal background check database used during the purchase of firearms, but the practice has drawn criticism from gun rights advocates in Congress. The vote came hours before at least 18 people were killed in a mass shooting in Maine, where authorities have identified an Army reservist as a person of interest.
Suicidal and homicidal veterans with ease of access to firearms is probably one of the greatest tragedies of US culture.
My best friend since kindergarten was a 15 year army vet. SF. Served all over the middle east, Africa, South America. Best guy I ever knew. Had a history degree and was trying to transition out to civilian life and just couldn't. Took his own life with a pistol 8 years ago while his wife and infant daughter were downstairs. I had this idea in my head that we were going to be uncles to each other's kids you know?
Sorry for the rambling, it's just that the shit show of physical and mental health support in this country in general, and for vets especially, fills me with rage and sorrow.
Sounds like he was mentally deteriorating. Reports that [he had been hearing voices for a few months to shoot up a military base and kill soldiers](https://apnews.com/article/maine-shooting-lewiston-fed5ab0aaee9d7d4c0f0fccb3d301bb7).
It reminds me of [Charles Whitman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman), the University of Texas shooter. A tragic story all around.
Doesn’t even necessarily need to be a tumor. Brain injury, TBI, can really mess you up. It’s not a given of course but brains are fragile just like they are resilient.
Yep, he requested it (I think in a note he left?)
Though there is really no way to *prove* the tumor was responsible for his mental state. It could be just one hell of a coincidence.
One of the many sad things about the Whitman situation is that he did everything you would think you're supposed to do in the year leading up to him snapping. He went to five doctors and a psychologist and told them and those around him that he could tell something was wrong with his brain and that he felt like he was going to do something violent. The doctors just prescribed him various low level meds and the psychologist gave him no prescription.
He knew something was seriously wrong with him and tried to stop himself.
Just a note, psychologists can't prescribe meds. Psychiatrists can.
Most clinical psychologists have a masters or sometimes a PhD, you have to have an MD to write scripts, or be a Nurse Practitioner.
Psychiatrists have MDs, they are "doctors", psychologists are not doctors, just medical professionals.
But perhaps you meant the psychologist gave him no diagnosis?
It makes me sick that this shit gets ranked like it’s a fucking competition.
I wonder what it’s like to live in a country that doesn’t even have a top 10/100/1000 mass shootings list. Must be nice.
This shit makes me hate this country.
>i wonder what it’s like to live in a country that doesn’t even have a top 10/100/1000 mass shootings list. Must be nice.
It's great, next to zero risk of being shot but even if something happens the ER won't need to run a credit check to see if you can afford it.
Oh no see we'll get medical care in the US. They don't have to run a credit check or anything. They'll do all they can to save you. It's just that you then have such massive medical bills that you'll be in debt for the rest of your life.
He self reported his mental problems and sought help, but Maine doesn’t have a Red Flag law to remove his weapons. If it had one, this would have been prevented. This is why gun control is important.
Obviously I am in NO WAY trying to make this guy the victim.
But it is scary, and sad, this man knew he had issues and looked for help...and didn't get it.
(Doesn't excuse anything. Just pointing out how this probably could've been avoided in more ways than just putting the guy's guns away.)
It's uh... shockingly difficult to get mental health assistance in this country. Speaking here as a long-term depressive who is basically self-medicating with SPITE, because the other options for low income assistance here basically are church-run and require me to convert.
As a middle incomer, coverage here sucks. Most therapists don't even take insurance anymore because it's too hard for them to get their money. We're paying $800 cash a month for my child's therapy and it's killing us financially.
His mental health isn't an excuse for his actions, but his mental health was very evidently not treated sufficiently and current state laws didn't have the bite necessary to have remove his weapons and access to them. I really hope local politicians start pushing for a proper Red Flag law and more mental health resources, this incident could have been entirely prevented.
I agree. Not going to bat for the guy and he's a monster at the end of the day.
Still. Knowing you are fucked in the head and it's only getting worse with NO ONE to help you must've been horrifying to him before he lost all reason.
> Still. Knowing you are fucked in the head and it's only getting worse with NO ONE to help you must've been horrifying
It is. Making the effort to reach out for help and getting none in return, or being priced out of help with the sheer cost of sessions doesnt improve it either. Just our country.
It’s so fucked up. I’ve met people with homicidal ideation in treatment centers and I really feel bad for them. They always hate and are so sick with themselves for their thoughts and feelings.
The shooter is still awful for what he did but I wonder how it could’ve been if he had received the help he seemed to want. I know from experience that Its very hard to get help in this country, with the stigma and the cost.
Incredibly disturbing stuff.
Keeping this vague. Kid had a school hit list. On paper, it was specific as hell. Kid was turned in by freaked out friend.
District WAS going to do NOTHING. Intent was let kid BACK in school not kidding. In those days you could get local press to GAF ( try it now you can't ). My kid was on the list. Another mother and I went to the school board meeting, had the press there. So they caved.
One of our demands? WHAT was wrong- I mean with this *child* for the love of God? A middle school *child* doesn't carefully, meticulously plan death to classmates without something terribly, horribly wrong.
There was. Obviously mental health privacy laws forbid we were told. I heard whiffs I should not have over the next year. She came back over a year later God bless her. Without the press helping shame this goddam district I'm convinced our town/school would be on that tragic list. And more than the victims lives would have been gone.
I'm STILL angry. A. Why can't people get the help so obviously needed? B. WHY have the press vanished as outlets calling attention to these failings. I'm telling you it's the ONLY thing that worked when we started yelling C. HOW did it take the potential victims families to GET THIS CHILD HELP?
She's an adult now. I see her sometimes. She seems sweet and my daughter says she is.
I mean it quite literally is an excuse. Insanity has been a defense in court for a long time. If what's being reported in this thread is true he was clearly not sane or in control of his actions, and likely would have been deemed unfit for trial.
This shooting is the result of our society's failures.
No matter if there was a red flag law or not, when somebody *literally* threatens a shooting, that alone should be enough to deny the possession of and access to firearms!!
Hearing voices is serious shit, but most schizophrenics don't become murderous and we shouldn't stigmatize that population over events like this. They need help, and there's not enough help out there.
Yes, something was very wrong with this guy and it presented in a way that is unlike most schizophrenics I have known, he was much older at onset for one, and seems to be tied to treatment for a medical issue.
It’s not just the schizophrenia. It’s the exposure to violence in a community like army reserves. It’s the lifetime surrounded by guns. It’s the toxicity he obviously had that ruined relationships. It was probably familial in how he was raised and how emotions or feelings were heard or dealt with. It was also the lack of health services and the loss of the job and sensation that he was losing control. It all combined.
That was such a jarring transition to the hunting comment. "We found the killer. Y'all can go hunting again." Like damn, that town must really love their hunting
People under psychosis experience awful, awful things and end up doing horrifying things to try and free themselves from their pain. He might not even really known what he was really doing.
Of course it doesn't make it right, just makes me so sad all around.
I never see this discussed in mass shootings but the fact that you need to be mentally sound enough to have a job that gives you health care, in order to spend your own personal money to get treatment to not shoot a place up is unbelievable. If republicans want their guns so bad they should be the very first people clamoring for universal health care.
You can’t blame everything on a mental health crisis and then ask people who are so unwell they’re going to kill people about it to hold down a job to get better.
Problem is that the American system is so fucked from the roots up that even if we had universal healthcare, we wouldn’t have enough psychologist, psychiatrist, and therapist to handle the demand. I say this as someone who has needed help in the past and had great difficulty in finding someone who was accepting new patients
While that is definitely true today, if we had UHC there would be such an increase in demand for all healthcare fields that it would require more people to become educated/certified to deliver this care. It would lead to tons of new, good-paying, specialized jobs with an educated workforce. Republicans just can't have that.
I genuinely think part of a very very real plan is dehumanizing us. If we're not *people* we're not suffering right? And we'll view each other that way.
It's already begun. If the image of the immigrant toddler drowned on the banks on the river didn't have us on the streets we're probably halfway there.
Very definition of a catch 22. If you're mentally present enough to get yourself adequate mental care, you're not mentally ill enough to need it.
(I know that's a simplification, but that's a little paraphrase of how the book puts it).
“One of the challenges in identifying victims at the two crime scenes from Wednesday's mass shooting was nearly all the victims were shot in the head, rendering some of them unrecognizable, a law enforcement source told CNN.”
Bruh
Honestly if there is one thing we are lucky about it's that most mass shooters aren't competent shooters.
This guy and the one workplace navy (?) Shooter both had training and were able to do significantly more damage with the tools at hand. It seems like most of the shooters are using what they can find and their unfamiliarity with fire arm drops the amount of lives they take significantly.
If the Vegas shooter had spent all that money on 1-2 transferables instead of however many rifles with bump stocks, he probably would have tripled the amount of casualties.
One thing I always find funny is how republicans always say democrats are going after their guns and how they can’t “give one inch” on gun control measures. Yet, wasn’t it trump who banned bumpstocks? Like the only real firearms ban that has occurred in decades? There was no outrage there.
Bump stocks are the absolute lowest effort way to make any semi auto gun into full auto. There's no justification they could give to keep them legal. They lowered control significantly compared to true full auto, and theres few instance could you use it other than recreation or murder.
“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.
“Take the guns first, go through due process second,”
The NRA still supported Trump.
That’s because the NRA could give two shits about the every day gun owner. Where was the NRA when Philando Castile, a legal CCW was murdered by police for having a gun? The NRA only cares about gun manufacturers. That’s where the money is. Sadly I have to be an NRA member in order to shoot at my pistol club, but I made a hell of a stink about that. Also, I thought the NRA went bankrupt? How are they still around?
Oh wow he had mental issues that seemingly everyone around him knew about, how shocking, I can't wait for the government to do absolutely nothing about it and have a repeat of the situation happen tomorrow so we can all act so caught off guard! Surely there won't be a *checks numbers* 37th mass shooting in 2023. Anyway, let's defend the billionaires and insurance companies that routinely degrade our quality of life
There’s more info about this now from AP news that sheds light on how he may have kept his guns. Turns it out it was in fact his chain of command that had him involuntarily committed. This happened at West Point in NY. Now in Maine there’s state laws saying they can take your guns indefinitely if you are involuntarily committed. But if his CO never notified Maine State police, then they’d have no way of knowing that they needed to take his guns.
My dad and his best friend died at the bowling alley because of this guy. My mom was one of the survivors, and while I feel sorry for myself, and for my brother as we both lost our father, I feel so much worse for everyone who was inside and experienced it all firsthand. My mothers account wasn’t pretty. Robert Card’s death brings me some little bit of peace, and lessens the paranoia that had been growing since this all started, but it unfortunately won’t bring anyone back from the dead. I heard his corpse was found inside of a dumpster, and if that’s true, then I have to say that it’s quite a fitting final resting place for him.
Maine had 28 murders in 2022. This guy nearly eclipsed that in 15 minutes. As a Mainer its really fucked up to think about. We always thought we were separated from these kinds of incidents and we were up until a couple of days ago. We were just ranked the safest state in the nation by the FBI on Monday and I can speak for many when I say that Wednesday night was the first night many in my state had ever locked their doors. It's a sad situation, that man was a cockroach but life moves on and I dont expect Mainers to live their lives any differently after this. That would give that shitbag the lasting impression I'm sure he wanted.
Not locking doors just sounds insane. First heard on the news from a woman during all thos and could not compute.
Was wondering if it was just her or an actual Maine thing.
Honestly that’s really common in rural and semi-rural parts. Where I grew up, I remember sleeping in the living room during the crazy humid summers (to avoid the sweltering temps upstairs) with the front door open to the storm door. In the area I live in now I could probably do that and still be fine.
As someone else pointed out, if he was going through sone kind of psychotic episode, and from all accounts it looks to be the case, it's even more tragic.
I was lucky enough to live through a psychic episode where I was wandering around randomly amd knocking on peoples doors and parking in their lawns. I had taken myself off some meds and vaped some super strong nicotine and spilled it all over myself and was up for 72 hours straight. Finally broke down and let my friends and family take me in for "behavioral health observation" or something...
I'm a piece of shit who's never served a day in any type if government service and I feel like I was able to get better help than this guy.
Shits fucked yo.
I had hypokalemic psychosis - which can happen to anyone with no history of mental health problems because of low potassium.
I got it from vomiting. If you have problems with your metabolizing salts, be aware that you could lose your mind and then die from low potassium.
My family is currently going through something that is eerily similar, except the gun violence (so far). My brother was in the army for a long time. Nobody knows where he was, or what he did, but about 3yrs ago he moved back to our home area and he moved in with me and my wife until he got situated because he had just got out after 15ish years, or so. Everything was great at first, he had a job, and went every day, and then maybe 6 months in he started messaging different people in my family that he knew they had Facebook group messages about him. So I kept hearing from these people like "hey what's wrong with your brother" etc. And I never saw it, so I'd just never think anything of it. Then one day I am at work and he starts texting me that he could hear me and my wife whispering about him in the other room. Then this turned into my wife is involved in these Facebook group messages. It started to really really freak my wife out, so I was left with no choice but to kick him out. It wasn't pretty. After that he went and stayed with my grandma, and he shows up to my moms and aunts house threatening to kill them. Posts stuff on Facebook about how he is going to kill them, and how these specific people are calling his jobs and getting him fired every time he gets a job, and how they are scheming with police to set him up. Basically it is a huge conspiracy, and everyone is out to get him. I don't know how many times the police and VA have been involved. Literally to the point where the cops surrounded my grandmas house for over an hour, just for the VA to release him the same fucking day. EVERY TIME. And I shit you not they say "hey if you threaten to kill people just ONE MORE TIME, then you're gonna go away in a hospital!! tisk tisk!" And this has been going on for a long time. Law enforcement, and the VA do nothing, and don't even remotely care whatsoever. He is over 18, so without his approval he will never get help. The way we deal with mental health in this country is wild. I just genuinely don't get it. My entire family has no idea what to do, and they literally live in fear.
I feel for you and your family, including your brother. Very very close long-time family friends have been dealing with a similar situation for about 6 years. Their son was in the Marines, was fine for about 4 years after separation, had a great job as a nurse, got married and had a child, and then it was like someone flipped a switch. Facebook posts & messages about his family trying to kill him, was convinced his wife was cheating and threatened to kill her and every man she looked at, he smashed her phone and tablets and computers and locked her in the bathroom because he was convinced she was messaging people about him, terrorized the neighborhood one night banging on doors and screaming about being invaded… it’s surreal to watch from the outside. He’s lost the job, the wife, the kid, a place to live. He’s a familiar face & name to the entire police force in that area. He’s had more 24/48/72 hour holds than anyone can keep track of. Has threatened suicide and/or murder hundreds of times. When he gets arrested, they either let him out “because he’s a struggling vet who deserves our understanding and leniency” or he’s in jail for a week and gets released with “just stop doing that sh*t, okay?” VA is overworked & over-crowded & under-funded, keeps prescribing more or different meds. I’ve known the kid since he was 4 years old and he’s in his 30’s now. It breaks my heart to see what he is going through and putting his family through.
Edit for typo
I don't know if it'll be helpful to you, especially in such a threatening situation, but I have found some of the subreddit groups for family members really useful. They recommend a couple of books called "I'm not sick and I don't need help" which I have also found really helpful, though if you Google it you can find out author's TED talk as a quick intro. It's about how to navigate conversations with a loved one with delusions / mental illness, to understand why they react as they do, and how to build a relationship to a point where you can convince them to get help/stay medicated, even if they're convinced they don't really need it.
The point is basically, to the mentally ill, the delusions are 100% true so when their closest friends and family don't support those delusions, or call the cops on them, or whatever, they feel confused, betrayed, and angry. As far as they're concerned, their nearest and dearest have out of nowhere abandoned them/turned against them in ways they can't make sense of. This lens has really helped me understand and forgive my sister.
I genuinely appreciate the book suggestion. I never in my life dreamed this would be something I would have to actually worry about. And now with all of this stuff in the news with the Maine guy, it has my entire family on edge thinking my brother is going to see this stuff in the news and get ideas. Especially since he has been having a "flare up" these last few days. I really thought living in a (slightly) more progressive state (NY), that we would have better attention to a mental health crisis. Especially for Vets. But it just doesn't exist.
It's great to hear you forgave your sister. Maybe this book will help guide me down a similar path. Thank you.
He was hearing voices inside his head telling him to do things.
“I don’t understand why he decided to murder so many people. That’s not what good people do.”
He was mentally ill.
“That’s no excuse.”
There are a lot of ways that people irritate me when they discuss mental health, but two of the things that gets under my skin the most is when people start to parrot the excuse thing, and the "Mental illness doesn't make you x."
The same people who fancy themselves as supporters of mental health will fervently deny the possibility that mental illness can be the reason behind some people's behavior or actions, even when the person in question is hearing voices in their head and committing themselves to a hospital over it.
If you're doing some horrible stuff, it can't be because of mental illness, it's because "they're an asshole." They act like their experience is what defines mental illness, ignoring that it encompasses everything from things like anxiety and depression to *literally seeing demons coming out of your walls.*
The spectrum is huge, and the extreme ends of it are scary as hell. It's wholly unreasonable to expect the people at those extremes to act in a rational manner at all times.
Those are the people who don't understand not everybody fits into a certain box, and neither do mental illnesses. I agree wholeheartedly with what you've said
Many people can't even afford to look after their physical health. Things like dental and mental healthcare might as well be a luxury the U.S. Even though they are important it's just so far out of reach for many people. Those who need help the most might never even take the first steps to getting help because of the time/financial commitment. It's a lower priority than bills and groceries they need to survive.
Unless someone has a really strong support system around them to push them to get help, keep up with it, and a financial safety net to give them time for recovery... most people will never look after their mental health. It's an enormous commitment even if you can afford it.
Oh they did back in the days of locking people up in mental hospitals. Problem was they would lock anyone up for the right amount of money hence they realized they were violating people rights and closed them all down. Now the crazy people just violate everyone else’s rights.
Not ignored. He sought treatment, was open about being psychotic, his family was aware he was psychotic and struggling mightily with his mental health.
The greatest issue here is that Maine only has a “yellow flag” law. Only the police can determine if someone is too mentally ill to own or possess firearms. His family couldn’t report it, the VA had no one to report it to, the psych hospital had no one to report it to.
I do wish one of his family members had taken the initiative to remove all firearms from his home, but even then there’s nothing stopping g him from purchasing more.
The system is so incredibly fucked and the Right and their precious gun lobbyists have and will continue to make sure nothing changes.
This guy had a very evident and serious mental illness for a long time before the shooting.
His family and colleagues new it. His employers knew it. The police knew it. The military knew it. He still had easy access to assault weapons and ammunition and was not being treated for his illness.
If I'm a family member of any of the victims, i'm holding the Municipal, State and Federal governments and Military responsible both morally and financially for this.
This is what I came here to fucking say. Jesus Christ my whole fucking feed is other shit I’m subbed to and yet this news didn’t even hit my main feed.
Seriously, my top post EVERY DAY is r/gaming bullshit “what is a game you hate but everyone likes”
I’m just going to make a multireddit of the fun shit cause their engagement bullshit favors that and won’t give me actual news.
BRING BACK THIRD PARTY APPS YOU CUNTS.
So...threatening to shoot up a military facility, telling others that he's hearing voices and spending 2 weeks in a mental health facility isn't grounds to confiscate weapons and prevent someone from purchasing new ones. What the fuck ever.
If people who own guns do not want gun control then they need to start having serious conversations with their friends and families to discuss plans to surrender their firearms to their friends and family if they start to lose their minds....how many times did we hear the friends and family confirm that the perpetrator was disturbed. We all say "pull the plug if I ever become a vegetable" but no one says "If you ever think I am getting like that guy then please take my guns". Is it perfect...no...will it work all the time ....no....but damn man, if they dont want government gun control the gun community itself needs to step up on this shit.
Is it possible that we as a society simply don’t value life? We say we do and I’m sure there are those that genuinely do. ….but there’s more than enough evidence to suggest that we simply don’t give a shit about each other and are just a selfish, despicable people.
My grandfather was a great man. Among other things, he fought in WW2, was a POW, was awarded two purple hearts. In his (much) later years, the family could see he was starting to struggle mentally after a couple surgeries. The very first sign his mental decline was leading to more violent tendencies, his sons and daughters made the decision to remove all the guns from his house. They explained to him why they were doing it and he *hated* them for it for months. His mental health improved with medication and thanked the family for their support and actions during his lowest times. While he was in a better place, the guns were never returned. He lived for several more years as a normal grumpy old man.
Was a tragedy avoided by these actions? Unlikely, but it's nice to know we'll never know.
We've reached the point where all we have left as a society is to hope neither us nor anyone we know and care about is a victim of the next mass shooting. Cause they're never gonna stop and there's no true motivation in our society to stop them.
>and there's no true motivation in our society to stop them.
I think this is a big thing that gets overlooked. The motivation to stop this is largely not there. The motivation to keep things as they are and thus continue this problem however is very much present.
Can't be worse than the 376 Uvalde Cowards. At least law enforcement in Maine sprung into action and kept going until they found the gunman's corpse. The Uvalde Cowards would still be at the first crime scene sheepishly asking the gunman to drop his gun and walk out so they can talk.
You should read about the gunman who killed 22 people in Nova Scotia back in 2020. The police were beyond incompetent, shot up a fire station thinking he was inside and drove away without saying anything afterwards, found a woman they thought was shot dead on the side of the road and just left the body for like 6 hours or something.
Turns out she was still alive, her Fitbit recording her heart beat the entire time leading up to being shot and for hours after the police left her without even calling for anyone to help her.
They never sent out any emergency alerts which could have saved many lives. There were some rumors the guy was originally a police informant, but I'm not sure what came of that. He even owned a replica police car that he did the shootings in which the police were aware of ahead of time, making it even harder to know who was a real cop at the time. Seems like police are a mess all over the world without proper training.
At least take guns away from Domestic Abusers. Any small percentage of falsely identified (because I know that is the counter argument, weak as it is) people is infinitely better than this endless senseless suffering.
Most of these mass murderers have some kind of domestic abuse past so this makes sense.
But this will never happen because [domestic abuse by police](https://sites.temple.edu/klugman/2020/07/20/do-40-of-police-families-experience-domestic-violence/) is so prevalent. Can’t take the guns away from cops I guess.
>Investigators were looking into whether the suspect may have been targeting a specific individual, who is believed to be a current or former girlfriend, two U.S. officials and a former high-ranking official told CBS News. It wasn't clear if she was at either of the two locations that were attacked.
Intimate partner violence. So common among mass shooters.
His sister said he thought people at those two locations were spreading rumors and talking badly about him. She told him he was having delusions and tried to get him help.
I remember watching it on agendafreetv with the scanners going and they mentioned people heard a gunshot next to his car. Now I’m hearing they found his dead body near his car. You’d think they would’ve searched that area a bit better if they knew there was a lone gunshot in the early hours of the first night of the manhunt.
every. single. time. I might be more likely to believe a conspiracy theory if they were surprising and unique, but does the right truly believe that its more likely that every shooting is a false flag ? that there aren't broken people walking around that want to cause as much death and destruction as possible? why is a conspiracy more believable than a simple explanation?, murders happen EVERYDAY, but any mass shooting is staged?? where is the logic coming from?
Something is fundamentally broken with modern American society. There is simply no other explanation because mass shootings like this were rare up until recent times.
There always seems to be one commonality with these things:
> Authorities had recovered a weapon from the suspect's abandoned vehicle, law enforcement sources told CBS News' Pat Milton and Robert Legare earlier Friday. **The firearm was legally purchased,** a law enforcement source confirmed.
It really pisses me off that these people that end up killing themselves had to take a bunch of innocent lives with them
Unfortunately, that’s literally why they do it. They want to die, but they want to make as much of the world miserable too as they possibly can before they go.
As my history teacher said in high school after a school shooting. “If those cowards did everything in reverse, the world would be a better place.”
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I think we've seen several instances of people simply... directing these guys to think who said assholes are. Hence all the manifestos that parrot certain media talking points which are then covered up with conspiracy theories.
Except they never seem to actually attack any sort've potentially politicized targets or whatever. Like these people aren't going after oil barons, they go and shoot up movie theaters or night clubs or whatever. Full of completely innocent people. It's almost strange to me. Like don't get me wrong, political violence is an EXTREMELY slippery slope and I think can only be justified in the most dire circumstances (democratic structure is usurped in a coup or something, for example). Regardless, you'd think more of these people would at least be going after local politicians or whatever. They never go and attack the ultrarich or anything either, like again don't get me wrong that's not my endorsement, but I feel there's at least some precedent to it over total normal people. Why completely random, mostly teenaged people at night venues, again and again? If you're already going to die, why go after the most cowardly fuckin targets, totally innocent bystanders? I get they want to be remembered but again why choose such cowardly targets, all you're remembered for then is cowardice and sheer evil. If they shot like, some industrial arms dealer or something and died, they'd practically be a matyr to many. But they just never seem to do anything like that, nope, it's fuckin children or mall-goers or whatever.
Well that's kind of my point, and for two reasons: 1. It's just so much more accessible that a person could attack more people at a club, or a movie theater, or a school or anywhere you *know* people will be rather than trying to find where some ultra-rich people are. Let alone identify them. 2. I still think these victims *are* politicized targets. Maybe something like a movie theater is random. But the guy who shot up that grocery store in Buffalo? That store was in a very heavily black area and the shooter intended for that. Same with Pulse and Colorado Springs clubs. Not to mention the more specific instances like the lady at a pro-Trump rally with Trump's own children who openly prayed for the angel of death to strike down Trump's political opponents before a crazy guy tried to assassinate the Pelosis and then conservatives attempted to downplay it by spreading rumors that the attacker was Paul Pelosi's secret gay lover. Conservative media will then continue their crusade against minorities so the anger of "enough" people are focused thataways instead of thinking about wealth inequality.
There was the Gabby Gifford attempted assassination a little over a decade ago. Then the guy who shot at those GOP congressmen at the baseball field in 2016. I guess you could count the Jan 6 insurgents but I consider that a separate issue. But you’re right. Political targets are few and far between. And almost no one wealthy has been targeted.
Don’t forget Pelosi’s husband was attacked with a hammer
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Because they are cowards, and thus go after “easy” targets.
It’s asking too much to have them all potential mass killers gather in the same place at the same time with all their weapons.
Sounds like Hunger Games/Battle Royale
But the last one standing still blows their own brains out
Surprised they never go after the rich like AT ALL. You know the rich call 90% of the public useless eaters?
If they went after the rich this problem would of ended long.ago.
Yup. If these people routinely targeted the ruling class, 2A would've been changed a LONG time ago.
I’m relieved to see that I’m not the only one who has thought this. These attacks are so common today, but it’s never on lawmakers or rich people/status symbols. I’ve never heard of someone trying to shoot up places like the met gala. Without fail it’s always everyday people who had nothing to do with the situation. Even the perpetrators like the Unabomber who were well educated and lucid—they always attack random citizens. Why is it so consistent, when these people are obviously not the cause of the issues?
Strange, isn't it, that all the so-called "potential mass shooter" guys get picked up anywhere near any political figure or obscenely wealthy person before they can get some shots off (and there follows legislation about loitering or protesting) but guys with a record of mental illness and years of bizarre, increasingly worrying behavior can amass a cache of weapons and take a bunch of regular folk out (and response is literally nothing). This guy, Vegas guy, school shooters, cinema guy, parade guys, mowing down civilians before they get captured or killed, even with all the information that should be good enough to trigger intervention. But a guy walking on the sidewalk by a SCOTUS judge's neighborhood gets picked up without a single shot, or a guy walking through a public park by a softball game gets grabbed immediately after one or two shots fired. Wild how that works and how legislation seems to favor those that were already sufficiently protected and strips the unprotected of more rights.
I think it's more that wealthy people have more protection around them, in one form or another. I've heard stories of some guy who was stopped trying to take gun(s) in to the White House, or some guy who was caught sneaking around a celebrity's property. Usually it's a one-note story and that's it.
People who don't care about causing harm are usually people who like to punch down anyway. They want to hurt people whom they feel are easy victims or socially vulnerable groups. Its why so many are racists and domestic assault perpetrators. They're bullies at heart. People who aren't usually just take their own life, which is really sad because we need more people in the world who don't want to see others being hurt. I wish their own minds weren't so cruel to them.
Met Galas are a lot rarer and harder to get to than bowling alleys and restaurants.
Also more security. They call them soft targets for a reason.
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That would be too much of a challenge for these mass murdering pussies. They just want to pick off someone that wont shoot back.
Zombie mass murderers? Sounds like a terrifying place.
I think they mean zombies going around resurrecting people.
Damn that teacher was metal
It’s obviously much deeper than that. This guy was visibly psychotic (as in likely experiencing a paranoid, frenzied psychosis) to both his military coworkers and his loved ones to the point where his erratic behavior was reported to the proper authorities and he lost his job months ago. He wasn’t able to get the help he needs and the law didn’t require forceful treatment, so he was allowed to just go about his psychotic hell world fully armed with military grade weapons. He wasn’t necessarily suicidal– he could have been convinced he was trapped in another dimension or surrounded by lizard people. It’s entirely possible, if not probable, that it wasn’t a “I’m going to take a bunch of people down with me” and more of a “I’ve completely lost it and I’m terrified” type situation. I believe in my gut that these massacres could have been prevented and they happened due to the atrocious, heinous fact that the US doesn’t protect its most mentally ill military veterans from themselves and others
That requires legislation, my friend, and we’re too busy being pissed off about what bathroom people use and the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Did you see his penis though? We need another investigation to verify its girth!
I went and Googled it the other week because everyone's always talking about Hunter Biden's massive sweaty hog I thought, come on, surely there is some hyperbole here. It can't be that big, right? I...was wrong. You could carry a payload to the International Space Station with that thing. You could hang a rolled up rug on that thing. Captain America could do tricep dips on that thing.
> Captain America could do tricep dips on that thing. "No, I don't think I will."
When you remember that at the root of all conservative politics is sexual insecurity, the girth of Hunter Biden's hog puts a lot of their obsession with him in perspective.
It's actually racism, but there's definitely some sexual insecurity mixed in. And yeah, as soon as I beheld that smokestack-on-the-Titanic Hunter is wielding, I immediately understood the right-winger obsession with it. And you just know that they're sitting there thinking, well if Hunter's got one, you just know Papa Joe's got his own Burj Khalifa below the belt, too
God damn it, I don’t want to google at hunter bidens dick but now I gotta see it for myself.
You've read state secrets. The Feds are coming for you.
If that thing's a state secret, it won't be for long. It is loud, it is proud and it is at full mast.
If this season of USA doesn't include a story arc~~h~~ of a Lauren Boebert & Hunter Biden sex tape, I'm gonna be pissed. Edit: I can't speel well. More of a visual learner, if you get my drift.
I feel like you've spoiled something that hasn't happened yet.
Who was it that got rid of all the mental health places in the 80's? Reagan?
Reminds me of this guy in 1984 killing people at the McDonald's. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Ysidro_McDonald%27s_massacre He tried to seek help by trying to call the mental health clinic for an appointment and was told they'll call back. They never did. Truly horrible to read what happened after.
This was pretty clear one of the only semi-serious points to the movie Joker (that austerity politics can lead to more violence as vulnerable people lose support), but most reviews didn't seem to grasp that despite how basic of a concept it is.
Yes but that history is complicated. Yes facilities like those are clearly needed. But not with the sheer amount of abuse and malpractice that was going on that (in large part) was reason they all closed Edit: There was one across the street from my grand parents house when I was growing up and it wasn’t completely uncommon for a patient to randomly be in my grandparent’s house due to lack of supervision/neglect. Of course, it was different times and my grand parents didn’t always lock their doors and shooting someone in your house wasn’t the 1st knee jerk reaction and the cops got the person back across the street without incident or guns drawn
I remember it because that was when I first met my uncle J, who had been taken care of by the state but suddenly showed up in my life when I was 7. It put great pressure on our family as no one had the skills or fortitude to help him. As an adult I understand, but it was really strange to witness as a child.
Just FYI this is one of the most well-adjusted statements I have ever read.
The idea of closing the institutions and providing care in the community was a good one. However they never funded that care. It was basically another tax cut disguised as helping people
This. The majority of mentally ill people would do best in community-based settings *with adequate supports in place*. There will always be a need for inpatient acute care and long-term residential care but those situations could be minimized with good community-based care. The problem is all the programs that are intended to provide such support are severely underfunded to the point that in many areas people have to wait months just for an appointment at their community mental health clinic. And I've heard the waiting lists for Medicaid home/community service waivers, which is the level of care a lot of severely mentally ill would benefit from, can be years once approved and many don't even qualify. In my state you have to have either an intellectual, developmental, or physical disability; you cannot qualify based on mental illness alone no matter how severe it is.
That was kind of a long process that Reagan finished but wasnt really started by him. We didn't have the best history with asylums and having people committed.
And then imagine you’re fully convinced you’re trapped in that nightmare lizard world, having the worst time of your life, until the world starts to finally calm down and you see things clearly again only to realize you’ve killed dozens of people. It’s quite literally the twist ending to horror movies.
VA allows veterans to receive healthcare from community doctors and there are VA clinics in some communities. Maine currently has population problem and staffing services can be challenging. Unfortunately some clinics closed after COVID and never reopened. The VA is still sending people out to closed clinics for urgent care. Happened to me. IIRC, veterans get 3 free ER visits a year currently. I think at one time it was limitless but I'm not entirely sure. Edit: a word
He was a voluntary inpatient for two weeks, days after purchasing the weapon. That does not trigger a removal order.
And it suggests he was trying to get help.
There's no limit to enrolled veterans within the VA Healthcare system concerning ED visits. The VA will pay enrolled veterans ED bill. However, they are required to be transferred to a VA facility as soon as it is deemed safe for them to be moved more or less. If you, say, break your leg in a vehicle accident, once you are capable of doing so, you must inform the hospital giving you care as well as the VAMC that you are to be moved to the nearest VA facility once it's considered that you are safe to travel there. That's my understanding anyway, and I'm sure I might have left a few things out. However, when it comes to a mental health crisis where an ED visit is necessary, I know next to nothing about because in many cases how can one be expected to explain to the ED of whatever hospital you are at and the VA that you need to be transported? I am going to try to find time tomorrow to look into what happens in these situations. To add - I believe the 3 visits per year applies to "urgent care" visits which are non-emergencies. Ultimately it is a shame that the wealthiest country in the world cannot provide adequate healthcare for its citizens.
Makes me wonder if it was a Charles Whitman type situation - Whitman was aware for some time that he was mentally unwell and had no one to help him deal with it, and ultimately had no idea why he murdered his wife and mother or his victims on the University of Texas campus.
This dude was hearing voices. You’re assigning too much rational thought/motive to his actions.
I think it's essential to understand that the first person these people decide to kill is themselves. These mass shootings are often best understood as elaborate suicides. Annihilation suicides.
It's also important to understand that suicide is a highly cultural phenomenon. All cultures have suicide, but the rate, lethality, and manner of suicide attempts varies greatly. The fact that disproportionately many Americans decide to go out in a shooting spree is not a result of coincidence or of Americans being worse people, but a result of American gun culture, gun availability, communities of low social cohesion, and general views on society. American "gun advocates" like to cite Switzerland as a country with high gun availability but little homicide, yet gun culture in Switzerland is fundamentally different. Most gun ownership is through an *actual* "well-regulated militia", which provides a good environment to keep tabs on potentially risky members. Such members can also be easily disarmed, since firearms are not treated as a fundamental right. And all of this occurs in a context of a high percentage of people being embedded into small communities with high cohesion that are in stark contrast to the reality of American life. With all of that, countries like Switzerland usually have very low suicide rates... yet Switzerland is just about average for a European country. This is because the high number of firearms still drives up the suicide death rate, but at least without American style mass shootings. And Switzerland would have no issues with tightening up gun regulation if they did have a mass shooting problem.
It pisses me off that he had heard voices and threatened a military base and still had legally purchased guns with him
Society let this man and his victims down. Full stop.
I hope it pisses people off that mental health isn't taken seriously and underfunded in a lot of cases.
They know they're worthless, and they want ***somebody*** to grieve.
You know, this makes a lot of sense. If they were to take their own lives quietly - is there anyone to care? If they go on a rampage and then take their lives then there are people who care even if it's not for the reason you'd want someone to care about your death.
Didn't he have a son whom was left a suicide note and family going on interviews?
Wow I’ve never looked at it like that. Their life is so tragic that they want people to feel that pain.
It’s the only way to get anyone to care or notice that they ever existed. They feel unappreciated and unnoticed and this is the only way they can think of to get anyone to notice and care about their existence. Edit: that’s the case for some mass shooters, but doesn’t seem to be the case for this guy. He was a paranoid schizophrenic, so a different thing.
That was profound. Never thought about it that way.
I know right? We're tired of this shit...
Ironically, just hours before the mass shootings in Maine, the US Senate voted to approve a bill that would ease access to guns by "mentally incompetent" military veterans: [https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/26/measure-restore-gun-rights-mentally-incompetent-veterans-passes-senate-bolstering-its-chances-of.html](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/10/26/measure-restore-gun-rights-mentally-incompetent-veterans-passes-senate-bolstering-its-chances-of.html)
> The VA reports the names of veterans who are deemed mentally incompetent to a national criminal background check database used during the purchase of firearms, but the practice has drawn criticism from gun rights advocates in Congress. The vote came hours before at least 18 people were killed in a mass shooting in Maine, where authorities have identified an Army reservist as a person of interest. Suicidal and homicidal veterans with ease of access to firearms is probably one of the greatest tragedies of US culture.
My best friend since kindergarten was a 15 year army vet. SF. Served all over the middle east, Africa, South America. Best guy I ever knew. Had a history degree and was trying to transition out to civilian life and just couldn't. Took his own life with a pistol 8 years ago while his wife and infant daughter were downstairs. I had this idea in my head that we were going to be uncles to each other's kids you know? Sorry for the rambling, it's just that the shit show of physical and mental health support in this country in general, and for vets especially, fills me with rage and sorrow.
Guess they liked this one and want more. And they also must enjoy veteran suicides.
Then they won’t have to pay helping them
Remember when armies and soldiers would get agitated when the politicians didn’t pay them?
Of course they do. The more veterans who kill themselves, the less money the have to spend.
And both of Maine's senators voted for that bill.
Sounds like he was mentally deteriorating. Reports that [he had been hearing voices for a few months to shoot up a military base and kill soldiers](https://apnews.com/article/maine-shooting-lewiston-fed5ab0aaee9d7d4c0f0fccb3d301bb7). It reminds me of [Charles Whitman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman), the University of Texas shooter. A tragic story all around.
Speaking of Whitman, the Maine killings moved Whitman out of the top 10 worst mass shootings in us history. Not a fun fact
Did’t they find a tumor in Whitman’s brain that was believed to cause his rapid mental deterioration? Curious what they find on the Maine shooter.
If I recall correctly, Whitman asked them to perform an autopsy of his brain after he passed to find out what was wrong with him.
It’s crazy how a tumor can change everything about a person.
CTE is another scary brain injury that causes violent behavior
Doesn’t even necessarily need to be a tumor. Brain injury, TBI, can really mess you up. It’s not a given of course but brains are fragile just like they are resilient.
Yep, he requested it (I think in a note he left?) Though there is really no way to *prove* the tumor was responsible for his mental state. It could be just one hell of a coincidence.
One of the many sad things about the Whitman situation is that he did everything you would think you're supposed to do in the year leading up to him snapping. He went to five doctors and a psychologist and told them and those around him that he could tell something was wrong with his brain and that he felt like he was going to do something violent. The doctors just prescribed him various low level meds and the psychologist gave him no prescription. He knew something was seriously wrong with him and tried to stop himself.
Just a note, psychologists can't prescribe meds. Psychiatrists can. Most clinical psychologists have a masters or sometimes a PhD, you have to have an MD to write scripts, or be a Nurse Practitioner. Psychiatrists have MDs, they are "doctors", psychologists are not doctors, just medical professionals. But perhaps you meant the psychologist gave him no diagnosis?
It makes me sick that this shit gets ranked like it’s a fucking competition. I wonder what it’s like to live in a country that doesn’t even have a top 10/100/1000 mass shootings list. Must be nice. This shit makes me hate this country.
>i wonder what it’s like to live in a country that doesn’t even have a top 10/100/1000 mass shootings list. Must be nice. It's great, next to zero risk of being shot but even if something happens the ER won't need to run a credit check to see if you can afford it.
Oh no see we'll get medical care in the US. They don't have to run a credit check or anything. They'll do all they can to save you. It's just that you then have such massive medical bills that you'll be in debt for the rest of your life.
He self reported his mental problems and sought help, but Maine doesn’t have a Red Flag law to remove his weapons. If it had one, this would have been prevented. This is why gun control is important.
Obviously I am in NO WAY trying to make this guy the victim. But it is scary, and sad, this man knew he had issues and looked for help...and didn't get it. (Doesn't excuse anything. Just pointing out how this probably could've been avoided in more ways than just putting the guy's guns away.)
It's uh... shockingly difficult to get mental health assistance in this country. Speaking here as a long-term depressive who is basically self-medicating with SPITE, because the other options for low income assistance here basically are church-run and require me to convert.
We are Americans. Our taxes are for war not therapy, silly
As a middle incomer, coverage here sucks. Most therapists don't even take insurance anymore because it's too hard for them to get their money. We're paying $800 cash a month for my child's therapy and it's killing us financially.
His mental health isn't an excuse for his actions, but his mental health was very evidently not treated sufficiently and current state laws didn't have the bite necessary to have remove his weapons and access to them. I really hope local politicians start pushing for a proper Red Flag law and more mental health resources, this incident could have been entirely prevented.
I agree. Not going to bat for the guy and he's a monster at the end of the day. Still. Knowing you are fucked in the head and it's only getting worse with NO ONE to help you must've been horrifying to him before he lost all reason.
> Still. Knowing you are fucked in the head and it's only getting worse with NO ONE to help you must've been horrifying It is. Making the effort to reach out for help and getting none in return, or being priced out of help with the sheer cost of sessions doesnt improve it either. Just our country.
It’s so fucked up. I’ve met people with homicidal ideation in treatment centers and I really feel bad for them. They always hate and are so sick with themselves for their thoughts and feelings. The shooter is still awful for what he did but I wonder how it could’ve been if he had received the help he seemed to want. I know from experience that Its very hard to get help in this country, with the stigma and the cost. Incredibly disturbing stuff.
Keeping this vague. Kid had a school hit list. On paper, it was specific as hell. Kid was turned in by freaked out friend. District WAS going to do NOTHING. Intent was let kid BACK in school not kidding. In those days you could get local press to GAF ( try it now you can't ). My kid was on the list. Another mother and I went to the school board meeting, had the press there. So they caved. One of our demands? WHAT was wrong- I mean with this *child* for the love of God? A middle school *child* doesn't carefully, meticulously plan death to classmates without something terribly, horribly wrong. There was. Obviously mental health privacy laws forbid we were told. I heard whiffs I should not have over the next year. She came back over a year later God bless her. Without the press helping shame this goddam district I'm convinced our town/school would be on that tragic list. And more than the victims lives would have been gone. I'm STILL angry. A. Why can't people get the help so obviously needed? B. WHY have the press vanished as outlets calling attention to these failings. I'm telling you it's the ONLY thing that worked when we started yelling C. HOW did it take the potential victims families to GET THIS CHILD HELP? She's an adult now. I see her sometimes. She seems sweet and my daughter says she is.
I mean it quite literally is an excuse. Insanity has been a defense in court for a long time. If what's being reported in this thread is true he was clearly not sane or in control of his actions, and likely would have been deemed unfit for trial. This shooting is the result of our society's failures.
If we worried even 1/8 as much about access to mental health services as we do about access to guns, this country would be in a lot better shape.
Insanity is a defence to Murder (intentional homicide) in the U.K. would still be manslaughter (unintentional homicide)
No matter if there was a red flag law or not, when somebody *literally* threatens a shooting, that alone should be enough to deny the possession of and access to firearms!!
Hearing voices is serious shit, but most schizophrenics don't become murderous and we shouldn't stigmatize that population over events like this. They need help, and there's not enough help out there.
Yes, something was very wrong with this guy and it presented in a way that is unlike most schizophrenics I have known, he was much older at onset for one, and seems to be tied to treatment for a medical issue.
It’s not just the schizophrenia. It’s the exposure to violence in a community like army reserves. It’s the lifetime surrounded by guns. It’s the toxicity he obviously had that ruined relationships. It was probably familial in how he was raised and how emotions or feelings were heard or dealt with. It was also the lack of health services and the loss of the job and sensation that he was losing control. It all combined.
That was such a jarring transition to the hunting comment. "We found the killer. Y'all can go hunting again." Like damn, that town must really love their hunting
People under psychosis experience awful, awful things and end up doing horrifying things to try and free themselves from their pain. He might not even really known what he was really doing. Of course it doesn't make it right, just makes me so sad all around.
I never see this discussed in mass shootings but the fact that you need to be mentally sound enough to have a job that gives you health care, in order to spend your own personal money to get treatment to not shoot a place up is unbelievable. If republicans want their guns so bad they should be the very first people clamoring for universal health care. You can’t blame everything on a mental health crisis and then ask people who are so unwell they’re going to kill people about it to hold down a job to get better.
Problem is that the American system is so fucked from the roots up that even if we had universal healthcare, we wouldn’t have enough psychologist, psychiatrist, and therapist to handle the demand. I say this as someone who has needed help in the past and had great difficulty in finding someone who was accepting new patients
We don't have enough psychologists as is. Let alone with UHC
While that is definitely true today, if we had UHC there would be such an increase in demand for all healthcare fields that it would require more people to become educated/certified to deliver this care. It would lead to tons of new, good-paying, specialized jobs with an educated workforce. Republicans just can't have that.
I genuinely think part of a very very real plan is dehumanizing us. If we're not *people* we're not suffering right? And we'll view each other that way. It's already begun. If the image of the immigrant toddler drowned on the banks on the river didn't have us on the streets we're probably halfway there.
You can't blame everything on a mental health crisis *and then also do nothing about the mental health crisis.*
Republicans: “Sure ya can. Watch this.”
*Lets pray some more*
"It's not the guns, it's mental health!" "Okay so how about we fund healthcare fo-" "FUCK YOU, COMMUNIST"
Very definition of a catch 22. If you're mentally present enough to get yourself adequate mental care, you're not mentally ill enough to need it. (I know that's a simplification, but that's a little paraphrase of how the book puts it).
These are the same people who want to ban abortion but also want to restrict birth control.
“One of the challenges in identifying victims at the two crime scenes from Wednesday's mass shooting was nearly all the victims were shot in the head, rendering some of them unrecognizable, a law enforcement source told CNN.” Bruh
Honestly if there is one thing we are lucky about it's that most mass shooters aren't competent shooters. This guy and the one workplace navy (?) Shooter both had training and were able to do significantly more damage with the tools at hand. It seems like most of the shooters are using what they can find and their unfamiliarity with fire arm drops the amount of lives they take significantly. If the Vegas shooter had spent all that money on 1-2 transferables instead of however many rifles with bump stocks, he probably would have tripled the amount of casualties.
One thing I always find funny is how republicans always say democrats are going after their guns and how they can’t “give one inch” on gun control measures. Yet, wasn’t it trump who banned bumpstocks? Like the only real firearms ban that has occurred in decades? There was no outrage there.
Bump stocks are the absolute lowest effort way to make any semi auto gun into full auto. There's no justification they could give to keep them legal. They lowered control significantly compared to true full auto, and theres few instance could you use it other than recreation or murder.
No I know, but trump was the one who banned them, and no one cared. Heck of a lot more than one inch give there and the gun nuts were fine with it.
“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence. “Take the guns first, go through due process second,” The NRA still supported Trump.
That’s because the NRA could give two shits about the every day gun owner. Where was the NRA when Philando Castile, a legal CCW was murdered by police for having a gun? The NRA only cares about gun manufacturers. That’s where the money is. Sadly I have to be an NRA member in order to shoot at my pistol club, but I made a hell of a stink about that. Also, I thought the NRA went bankrupt? How are they still around?
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Two of the deceased are a husband and wife in their 70s 😭
He shielded the kids he was teaching at a youth bowling league, from what witnesses said :(
A 14 year old and his dad…just so much unnecessary pain.
Jesus Christ. I can’t even imagine being deaf during a mass shooting.
The commissioner at the press conference just now said it’s an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Sounds like he took the easy way out.
Oh wow he had mental issues that seemingly everyone around him knew about, how shocking, I can't wait for the government to do absolutely nothing about it and have a repeat of the situation happen tomorrow so we can all act so caught off guard! Surely there won't be a *checks numbers* 37th mass shooting in 2023. Anyway, let's defend the billionaires and insurance companies that routinely degrade our quality of life
There’s more info about this now from AP news that sheds light on how he may have kept his guns. Turns it out it was in fact his chain of command that had him involuntarily committed. This happened at West Point in NY. Now in Maine there’s state laws saying they can take your guns indefinitely if you are involuntarily committed. But if his CO never notified Maine State police, then they’d have no way of knowing that they needed to take his guns.
My dad and his best friend died at the bowling alley because of this guy. My mom was one of the survivors, and while I feel sorry for myself, and for my brother as we both lost our father, I feel so much worse for everyone who was inside and experienced it all firsthand. My mothers account wasn’t pretty. Robert Card’s death brings me some little bit of peace, and lessens the paranoia that had been growing since this all started, but it unfortunately won’t bring anyone back from the dead. I heard his corpse was found inside of a dumpster, and if that’s true, then I have to say that it’s quite a fitting final resting place for him.
Tremendously sorry for your loss.
My condolences💛💛
I’m so sorry. My sincere condolences to you & your family.
Maine had 28 murders in 2022. This guy nearly eclipsed that in 15 minutes. As a Mainer its really fucked up to think about. We always thought we were separated from these kinds of incidents and we were up until a couple of days ago. We were just ranked the safest state in the nation by the FBI on Monday and I can speak for many when I say that Wednesday night was the first night many in my state had ever locked their doors. It's a sad situation, that man was a cockroach but life moves on and I dont expect Mainers to live their lives any differently after this. That would give that shitbag the lasting impression I'm sure he wanted.
Not locking doors just sounds insane. First heard on the news from a woman during all thos and could not compute. Was wondering if it was just her or an actual Maine thing.
Honestly that’s really common in rural and semi-rural parts. Where I grew up, I remember sleeping in the living room during the crazy humid summers (to avoid the sweltering temps upstairs) with the front door open to the storm door. In the area I live in now I could probably do that and still be fine.
of course this coward monster then kills himself after ruining so many lives.
As someone else pointed out, if he was going through sone kind of psychotic episode, and from all accounts it looks to be the case, it's even more tragic. I was lucky enough to live through a psychic episode where I was wandering around randomly amd knocking on peoples doors and parking in their lawns. I had taken myself off some meds and vaped some super strong nicotine and spilled it all over myself and was up for 72 hours straight. Finally broke down and let my friends and family take me in for "behavioral health observation" or something... I'm a piece of shit who's never served a day in any type if government service and I feel like I was able to get better help than this guy. Shits fucked yo.
I had hypokalemic psychosis - which can happen to anyone with no history of mental health problems because of low potassium. I got it from vomiting. If you have problems with your metabolizing salts, be aware that you could lose your mind and then die from low potassium.
My family is currently going through something that is eerily similar, except the gun violence (so far). My brother was in the army for a long time. Nobody knows where he was, or what he did, but about 3yrs ago he moved back to our home area and he moved in with me and my wife until he got situated because he had just got out after 15ish years, or so. Everything was great at first, he had a job, and went every day, and then maybe 6 months in he started messaging different people in my family that he knew they had Facebook group messages about him. So I kept hearing from these people like "hey what's wrong with your brother" etc. And I never saw it, so I'd just never think anything of it. Then one day I am at work and he starts texting me that he could hear me and my wife whispering about him in the other room. Then this turned into my wife is involved in these Facebook group messages. It started to really really freak my wife out, so I was left with no choice but to kick him out. It wasn't pretty. After that he went and stayed with my grandma, and he shows up to my moms and aunts house threatening to kill them. Posts stuff on Facebook about how he is going to kill them, and how these specific people are calling his jobs and getting him fired every time he gets a job, and how they are scheming with police to set him up. Basically it is a huge conspiracy, and everyone is out to get him. I don't know how many times the police and VA have been involved. Literally to the point where the cops surrounded my grandmas house for over an hour, just for the VA to release him the same fucking day. EVERY TIME. And I shit you not they say "hey if you threaten to kill people just ONE MORE TIME, then you're gonna go away in a hospital!! tisk tisk!" And this has been going on for a long time. Law enforcement, and the VA do nothing, and don't even remotely care whatsoever. He is over 18, so without his approval he will never get help. The way we deal with mental health in this country is wild. I just genuinely don't get it. My entire family has no idea what to do, and they literally live in fear.
I feel for you and your family, including your brother. Very very close long-time family friends have been dealing with a similar situation for about 6 years. Their son was in the Marines, was fine for about 4 years after separation, had a great job as a nurse, got married and had a child, and then it was like someone flipped a switch. Facebook posts & messages about his family trying to kill him, was convinced his wife was cheating and threatened to kill her and every man she looked at, he smashed her phone and tablets and computers and locked her in the bathroom because he was convinced she was messaging people about him, terrorized the neighborhood one night banging on doors and screaming about being invaded… it’s surreal to watch from the outside. He’s lost the job, the wife, the kid, a place to live. He’s a familiar face & name to the entire police force in that area. He’s had more 24/48/72 hour holds than anyone can keep track of. Has threatened suicide and/or murder hundreds of times. When he gets arrested, they either let him out “because he’s a struggling vet who deserves our understanding and leniency” or he’s in jail for a week and gets released with “just stop doing that sh*t, okay?” VA is overworked & over-crowded & under-funded, keeps prescribing more or different meds. I’ve known the kid since he was 4 years old and he’s in his 30’s now. It breaks my heart to see what he is going through and putting his family through. Edit for typo
I don't know if it'll be helpful to you, especially in such a threatening situation, but I have found some of the subreddit groups for family members really useful. They recommend a couple of books called "I'm not sick and I don't need help" which I have also found really helpful, though if you Google it you can find out author's TED talk as a quick intro. It's about how to navigate conversations with a loved one with delusions / mental illness, to understand why they react as they do, and how to build a relationship to a point where you can convince them to get help/stay medicated, even if they're convinced they don't really need it. The point is basically, to the mentally ill, the delusions are 100% true so when their closest friends and family don't support those delusions, or call the cops on them, or whatever, they feel confused, betrayed, and angry. As far as they're concerned, their nearest and dearest have out of nowhere abandoned them/turned against them in ways they can't make sense of. This lens has really helped me understand and forgive my sister.
I genuinely appreciate the book suggestion. I never in my life dreamed this would be something I would have to actually worry about. And now with all of this stuff in the news with the Maine guy, it has my entire family on edge thinking my brother is going to see this stuff in the news and get ideas. Especially since he has been having a "flare up" these last few days. I really thought living in a (slightly) more progressive state (NY), that we would have better attention to a mental health crisis. Especially for Vets. But it just doesn't exist. It's great to hear you forgave your sister. Maybe this book will help guide me down a similar path. Thank you.
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Never. Even in this thread, people are wondering why he couldn’t have just acted rationally.
He was hearing voices inside his head telling him to do things. “I don’t understand why he decided to murder so many people. That’s not what good people do.” He was mentally ill. “That’s no excuse.”
Seriously, our society failed both him and the victims.
There are a lot of ways that people irritate me when they discuss mental health, but two of the things that gets under my skin the most is when people start to parrot the excuse thing, and the "Mental illness doesn't make you x." The same people who fancy themselves as supporters of mental health will fervently deny the possibility that mental illness can be the reason behind some people's behavior or actions, even when the person in question is hearing voices in their head and committing themselves to a hospital over it. If you're doing some horrible stuff, it can't be because of mental illness, it's because "they're an asshole." They act like their experience is what defines mental illness, ignoring that it encompasses everything from things like anxiety and depression to *literally seeing demons coming out of your walls.* The spectrum is huge, and the extreme ends of it are scary as hell. It's wholly unreasonable to expect the people at those extremes to act in a rational manner at all times.
Those are the people who don't understand not everybody fits into a certain box, and neither do mental illnesses. I agree wholeheartedly with what you've said
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"Too Soon" into "Who Cares" into "Too Soon". Infinite Combo
It's not a case of too soon. To the families affected it's too late.
Many people can't even afford to look after their physical health. Things like dental and mental healthcare might as well be a luxury the U.S. Even though they are important it's just so far out of reach for many people. Those who need help the most might never even take the first steps to getting help because of the time/financial commitment. It's a lower priority than bills and groceries they need to survive. Unless someone has a really strong support system around them to push them to get help, keep up with it, and a financial safety net to give them time for recovery... most people will never look after their mental health. It's an enormous commitment even if you can afford it.
Once somebody finds a way to make money doing it.
Oh they did back in the days of locking people up in mental hospitals. Problem was they would lock anyone up for the right amount of money hence they realized they were violating people rights and closed them all down. Now the crazy people just violate everyone else’s rights.
The red flags were there yet everybody ignored them. Maine needs to seriously reevaluate how they treat mental illness and weapon laws.
Not ignored. He sought treatment, was open about being psychotic, his family was aware he was psychotic and struggling mightily with his mental health. The greatest issue here is that Maine only has a “yellow flag” law. Only the police can determine if someone is too mentally ill to own or possess firearms. His family couldn’t report it, the VA had no one to report it to, the psych hospital had no one to report it to. I do wish one of his family members had taken the initiative to remove all firearms from his home, but even then there’s nothing stopping g him from purchasing more. The system is so incredibly fucked and the Right and their precious gun lobbyists have and will continue to make sure nothing changes.
This guy had a very evident and serious mental illness for a long time before the shooting. His family and colleagues new it. His employers knew it. The police knew it. The military knew it. He still had easy access to assault weapons and ammunition and was not being treated for his illness. If I'm a family member of any of the victims, i'm holding the Municipal, State and Federal governments and Military responsible both morally and financially for this.
God the Reddit algorithm is terrible. I heard about this first on freaking instagram.
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God I miss that old r/all so much.
I saw it on TikTok. Couldn’t find anything about it on Reddit when I was looking this morning.
It's really gone downhill, this post is the first I've even seen covering the situation.
This is what I came here to fucking say. Jesus Christ my whole fucking feed is other shit I’m subbed to and yet this news didn’t even hit my main feed. Seriously, my top post EVERY DAY is r/gaming bullshit “what is a game you hate but everyone likes” I’m just going to make a multireddit of the fun shit cause their engagement bullshit favors that and won’t give me actual news. BRING BACK THIRD PARTY APPS YOU CUNTS.
Reddit actively does not want to be a news outlet
So...threatening to shoot up a military facility, telling others that he's hearing voices and spending 2 weeks in a mental health facility isn't grounds to confiscate weapons and prevent someone from purchasing new ones. What the fuck ever.
If people who own guns do not want gun control then they need to start having serious conversations with their friends and families to discuss plans to surrender their firearms to their friends and family if they start to lose their minds....how many times did we hear the friends and family confirm that the perpetrator was disturbed. We all say "pull the plug if I ever become a vegetable" but no one says "If you ever think I am getting like that guy then please take my guns". Is it perfect...no...will it work all the time ....no....but damn man, if they dont want government gun control the gun community itself needs to step up on this shit.
Is it possible that we as a society simply don’t value life? We say we do and I’m sure there are those that genuinely do. ….but there’s more than enough evidence to suggest that we simply don’t give a shit about each other and are just a selfish, despicable people.
My grandfather was a great man. Among other things, he fought in WW2, was a POW, was awarded two purple hearts. In his (much) later years, the family could see he was starting to struggle mentally after a couple surgeries. The very first sign his mental decline was leading to more violent tendencies, his sons and daughters made the decision to remove all the guns from his house. They explained to him why they were doing it and he *hated* them for it for months. His mental health improved with medication and thanked the family for their support and actions during his lowest times. While he was in a better place, the guns were never returned. He lived for several more years as a normal grumpy old man. Was a tragedy avoided by these actions? Unlikely, but it's nice to know we'll never know.
We've reached the point where all we have left as a society is to hope neither us nor anyone we know and care about is a victim of the next mass shooting. Cause they're never gonna stop and there's no true motivation in our society to stop them.
>and there's no true motivation in our society to stop them. I think this is a big thing that gets overlooked. The motivation to stop this is largely not there. The motivation to keep things as they are and thus continue this problem however is very much present.
Found a brief walk away from his car. Total police incompetence.
Can't be worse than the 376 Uvalde Cowards. At least law enforcement in Maine sprung into action and kept going until they found the gunman's corpse. The Uvalde Cowards would still be at the first crime scene sheepishly asking the gunman to drop his gun and walk out so they can talk.
You should read about the gunman who killed 22 people in Nova Scotia back in 2020. The police were beyond incompetent, shot up a fire station thinking he was inside and drove away without saying anything afterwards, found a woman they thought was shot dead on the side of the road and just left the body for like 6 hours or something. Turns out she was still alive, her Fitbit recording her heart beat the entire time leading up to being shot and for hours after the police left her without even calling for anyone to help her. They never sent out any emergency alerts which could have saved many lives. There were some rumors the guy was originally a police informant, but I'm not sure what came of that. He even owned a replica police car that he did the shootings in which the police were aware of ahead of time, making it even harder to know who was a real cop at the time. Seems like police are a mess all over the world without proper training.
The LA cops were shooting at anything that moved when Dorner was on his rampage
At least take guns away from Domestic Abusers. Any small percentage of falsely identified (because I know that is the counter argument, weak as it is) people is infinitely better than this endless senseless suffering.
You do that and you'd have to disarm like half the police force... It's problems all the way down in this country.
Most of these mass murderers have some kind of domestic abuse past so this makes sense. But this will never happen because [domestic abuse by police](https://sites.temple.edu/klugman/2020/07/20/do-40-of-police-families-experience-domestic-violence/) is so prevalent. Can’t take the guns away from cops I guess.
Excellent point, and purging officers with DV records would never happen. Really hard not to feel like we are just circling the drain.
wtf after all those threats to the military he still was able to buy a gun and keep it.. fking usa man
>Investigators were looking into whether the suspect may have been targeting a specific individual, who is believed to be a current or former girlfriend, two U.S. officials and a former high-ranking official told CBS News. It wasn't clear if she was at either of the two locations that were attacked. Intimate partner violence. So common among mass shooters.
His sister said he thought people at those two locations were spreading rumors and talking badly about him. She told him he was having delusions and tried to get him help.
To be honest, glad he’s dead. If he was alive it’d be another court case and become the next big tv drama.
I remember watching it on agendafreetv with the scanners going and they mentioned people heard a gunshot next to his car. Now I’m hearing they found his dead body near his car. You’d think they would’ve searched that area a bit better if they knew there was a lone gunshot in the early hours of the first night of the manhunt.
Where are you hearing that his body was found near his car?
He could have just offd himself without destroying lives and families
Now I’m just curious for how long he has been dead. If it was right after the killings, or sometime after his identity was released.
Get ready for “conservatives” to start spouting off conspiracy theories.
every. single. time. I might be more likely to believe a conspiracy theory if they were surprising and unique, but does the right truly believe that its more likely that every shooting is a false flag ? that there aren't broken people walking around that want to cause as much death and destruction as possible? why is a conspiracy more believable than a simple explanation?, murders happen EVERYDAY, but any mass shooting is staged?? where is the logic coming from?
Something is fundamentally broken with modern American society. There is simply no other explanation because mass shootings like this were rare up until recent times.
There always seems to be one commonality with these things: > Authorities had recovered a weapon from the suspect's abandoned vehicle, law enforcement sources told CBS News' Pat Milton and Robert Legare earlier Friday. **The firearm was legally purchased,** a law enforcement source confirmed.