Guns are easy. It’s reasonably simple to figure out how one works (although YouTube videos are avaliable) - although I am surprised that these idiots were actually capable of using the correct ammo.
Homemade napalm… well, let’s say the process is unforgiving of stupidity, even if they got the recipe right.
Oh, wait, Instructables has videos telling people how to make napalm. “because it makes a great fire starter”. Yeah. Right.
It’s disgusting how many people think that “I didn’t think that would happen” is a valid fncking excuse. No, dipstick, it’s still your fault. You did A, X happened. X would not have happened if you did not do A. It’s your fncking fault.
When I flew back from Dallas recently (after having flown through SeaTac to get to Dallas), my purse was searched, and they unearthed and confiscated my ancient Leatherman multitool, with a teeny, dull knife and sticky scissors, which I hadn’t even realized was in there. But they left me my pens, pencils, nail clippers, and charging cables.
I’m a writer, too, and am constantly thinking of worst-case scenarios. (Really, it was hard not to think of scenarios in which certain TSA agents might be stabbed by a cranky airline traveler with a fine-tipped pen, but that would just be excessive, right?) I don’t know that I would survive a shooting or a crazy person on an airline, because I have no real training in anything but beginning martial arts (with little to no sparring practice, and not in the last six years), but I have an imagination. And I’m usually pretty ticked off by the time I board an airplane. I sometimes wonder if I could go John McClane on someone’s ass if they tried to start something on a plane.
“&$%@!! I did NOT just get felt up by a government agent and have to stand like a prisoner in a &#@$%# X-ray machine and then have my shiny metal objects confiscated for YOU to come along and make some religious point with my airplane so HERE’S A PEN IN YOUR EYE, JACKASS.”
They’d probably arrest me after they justify his misunderstood behavior (“But he’s a GOOD BOY!”), but at least I would DESERVE that pat-down.
(EDIT: That was actually the second knife I’d lost that day – the first one was stolen out of my jacket when I left my jacket in the convention center – so I was already pretty ticked off that I’d lost two sentimental shinies in one day. That might make me look a little violent, always having two or more knives on my person most of the time, but I assure you the only blood those have drawn has been my own… Next time, I’m definitely bringing my knitting.)
I’m seeing something out there on Twitter though. People are complaining that White shooters are deemed insane loners, while minorities are Thugs/Terrorists/Whatever.
In this particular case, I don’t have any issue at all calling this a hate crime. I don’t get behind the legislation, but I think it’s pretty obvious he killed these people because of their color or religion.
But looking at Lanza or that fool in the movie theater, what exactly would you call them other than crazy? The guy who shot up the Naval building, crazy. The guy who shot up Ft. Hood, religious terrorist. Can people not see there is a difference there. Most of the white people who shoot people don’t appear to have a reason. If someone gives a reason, then we can use that to identify the crime. If some white dude just loses it and pops 10 people then himself, what else would it be besides crazy if he didn’t leave a note?
I would just like to interject here, now, that we don’t know ANYTHING about the shooter, so calling it a hate crime is cart-before-the-horse.
Might be, sure, but for all we know he was gunning for the pastor for some legislation he helped pass, and the rest were unfortunate wrong place, wrong time victims.
IMO, they’re all crazy regardless. If there are other “reasons” left in a note (race, religion, hair length, shoe colour, etc.), then we can start talking about whether it’s a hate crime or something else.
I don’t know, the fact that he sat there for an hour with no problem and then stood up and started shooting tells me there was some planning there.
And if there is planning, the “insanity” thing gets flimsy. Planning implies a recognition of consequences. And every one of the shooters @Woodman mentions demonstrated that they knew what they were doing was wrong. That’s not insanity.
Insanity is doing the deed and walking away casually as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, or inviting the responding officers to the bar for a drink. Insanity is waiting for the press, expecting an award for what they did.
But I will put this out there: gun-free zones are established so that there are increased penalties for bringing a gun into the zone. The increased penalties are meant to be a stronger deterrent. But a lot of criminals believe that A) they don’t have to follow the law or that the law doesn’t apply to them because insert-excuse-here; B) they won’t get caught; and/or C) the authorities don’t mean it.
Yes, gun control is not stopping criminals. But gun control does impose harsher penalties on the criminals who get caught (if they don’t get killed in the process).
What kills me about the South Carolina shooting is that right now there is at least one person who knows who it is and is not speaking up. Whether it is a parent, a significant other (or ex), etc., somebody does know.
I won’t go as far as @dakboy and say that they are all crazy. It does take a special kind of sickness to plan and carry out the murder of a bunch of strangers. But that isn’t the legal definition of insane.
True, and I think he might be younger than the 21-25 they are posting. I think it’s also interesting despite there being multiple survivors there aren’t any details on what happened yet. Usually something comes out by now. I wonder if something else is going on.
I don’t think the ability to plan, and to try to get away with it, or at least end it yourself, means they aren’t bonkers. They just aren’t totally nucking futs. The fact that he sat there for an hour is part of why I think he’s nuts. Maybe not clinically insane, but there is something wrong in the boy’s head.
Yeah, I just don’t agree here. I see your reasoning, but we both know our opinions aren’t really going to change on this. I look at it the same as hate crime laws. Murder is murder, rape is rape. Doesn’t matter if I did it because you are pink, or I did it with a gun instead of a knife. Punish the crime. You aren’t worth more as a human life lost because you are gay, and I’m not worth more because someone shot me in a gun free zone.
Depression isn’t insanity. The legal definition of insanity revolves around whether they could understand the difference between right and wrong and whether they are capable of assisting with their own defense.
Note that I said capable. People who refuse to assist in their own defense aren’t covered; they’re not insane, they’re stupid.
Bought the gun and passed a background check in April. Three months after his arrest but before his trial. What the hell happened to the right to a speedy trial? Don’t even talk to me about Rikers Island.
Background checks under the current system are pretty worthless. 97% or thereabouts of the flags are false positives, but lots of people who shouldn’t slide through. There has been a lot of discussion about really beefing the system up and modernizing it, but there is more political hay to be made insisting on universal checks than on making them meaningful.
And his manifesto has been found online. Too toxic for me to read much more of, but there’s this:
“But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?”
The CoCC’s website, which reads (according to Google cache) like Westboro Baptist complain about “those uppity n***rs”, seems to be down. Lots of 404s.
He apparently complained that he couldn’t find any KKK or white supremacists so he had to do this himself.
Anyone surprised about the number of whites killed by blacks doesn’t pay attention. Don’t need a racist site to show that. FBI tracks it pretty cleanly.
Statistically, poor urban minorities are the most likely to be killed by gunfire–most likely courtesy of other poor urban minorities. This really sucks.
This is the primary reason I am strongly opposed to mandating training for weapons carry permits. It’s a really good idea to be trained, but the people who most need a personal defensive arm are the ones least likely to be able to afford a class, which could easily cost more than the firearm itself. In areas hostile to private gun ownership, it is a non-trivial exercise to find a place to practice, let alone a qualified and affordable safety class. Promotion of firearms safety classes (including stop-don’t-touch-tell-an-adult classes for children) are one of the things the NRA doesn’t get adequate credit for.
The statistical odds of me ever needing a firearm are pretty slim; I’m white, middle-class (technically, barely), rural, and educated. I expect if I ever have to use one, it will be to put down a deer or something that I’ve hit with my car. (Or more likely yet, to put down my car.) But like the fire extinguisher, I think it’s better to have and not need than need and not have. Your risk assessment may vary.
NYC doubles down on this sort of discrimination by requiring a $400 non-refundable “processing” fee.
The anti gun politicians would rather push for universal background checks than A) Prosecute the people who fill out a background check with intent to purchase that fail the check or B) improve the system to make it more accurate and useful.
And hey, remember that story about the Uber driver who stopped someone shooting into a crowd… Uber’s fixed that problem, no carry allowed at all in an Uber ride.
