#mass shooters database

[calsappstore]

Dylann Roof’s mental health assessment.

This post is for educational purposes only.

[chintzwife]

the fact that the official security alert texts to students during the michigan state university shooting included "run, hide, fight" like. the fact that widespread training and awareness of shooting survival methods is so extensive that it can be referenced by law enforcement who are incapable of doing anything else to prevent it and now just have to tell a bunch of college students "run for your life and if you can't escape be ready to fight an armed shooter who is invested in dying in this situation"

[nothorses]

About that "a trans man committing a mass shooting proves trans people really are the gender they identify as" post: women have committed mass shootings too? Okay it's a lot less statistically frequent, but it happens (as the song "I Don't Like Mondays" demonstrates). It reminds me of the time TERFs on Reddit assumed the woman who shot up the YouTube HQ in 2018 was trans, and then when she turned out to be cis, someone immediately speculated she was getting justified revenge on an abusive BF who worked there (though that comment got downvoted and may have been a troll)

I took this opportunity to look more into statistics around mass shooter demographics, and interestingly, there are a lot of myths tied up in this issue.

This article looks into a few studies and databases to investigate the "90% of all mass shooters are white men" myth, and finds that in actuality, "It really depends on what type of mass shooting you’re talking about. Several of the highest-profile mass shootings in recent memory [...] were committed by white males, such as the 2017 Las Vegas attack by Stephen Paddock. But much beyond that, the stereotype breaks down; Muslim man Omar Mateen killed forty-nine people at a Florida nightclub in 2016 on behalf of a terrorism group; white male Adam Lanza killed twenty-seven people in 2012 at an elementary school, though Asian student Seung-Hui Cho killed thirty-two people on the Virginia Tech campus in 2007. And so on."

This article fact-checks the gender-specific claims as well, in the context of trans people, and finds that there have been more claims that shooters are trans than can be reasonably substantiated, and that even this number is overshadowed by the number of cis women who have committed mass shootings.

I bring this up because I think the first article in particular brings a lot of much-needed nuance into the issue:

"The whites-are-overrepresented-among-mass-shooters meme does serve a useful purpose in that it helps displace another myth about mass shootings: that they’re most often perpetrated by angry immigrants from travel-banned countries, and that nothing is more dangerous to America that the scourge of Islamic terrorism. … These are worthy ends, but we shouldn’t have to build another myth to reach them.”

What are we saying when we talk about these kinds of incidents this way?

What I find interesting is that in a lot of these conversations around crime, we recognize that crime is often the result of poverty. Indeed, this study finds that the number of mass shootings increases in countries that experience an increase of income inequality.

We can also often recognize that these numbers are skewed because they rely on media coverage, arrests, and criminal charges; all of which are influenced by societal bias. The first article on mass shootings notes that, "mass shootings with white victims tend to get more attention, both from journalists and those on social media, than those with victims who are people of color. This is a well-known pattern and explains why the public is quicker to react to a missing young blonde girl than a missing young black girl."

Are white mass shooters covered more because their targets- being overwhelmingly people and institutions they have ties to- are also usually white?

If "white men are overrepresented as mass shooters" means white men are particularly dangerous and must be feared, what does this imply about other demographics overrepresented in certain crime statistics? What does it mean when we find this isn't true- is there suddenly just is not an issue of white cis male violence? I would certainly disagree.

And I think this gleeful claim that "trans men are proving their gender" by committing acts of violence- again, far more rare than cis women doing the same- only plays into these issues.

Is crime the result of entitlement and privileged anger, or is it the result of a broken system failing its citizens? Are cis men committing acts of extreme violence because they are all- regardless of race- whiny pissbabies who take joy in hurting others, or is this the result of a system that teaches men they can only express emotion through anger and violence? That human connection is not for them, and that needing things makes them unworthy of manhood, love, or even life?

I'm not saying we need to coddle and woobify mass shooters. I'm asking: is this an issue we fix by fearing and hating and wishing death on whole demographics of people based on how represented they are in criminal statistics, or can we make systemic and cultural changes that meaningfully prevent this from happening in the first place?

Do we condemn groups as Bad because some of them have done violence, or do we examine the causes and work toward meaningful solutions?

Obviously, trans men and trans people in general are not in any way "overrepresented" as perpetrators in mass shooting statistics. But I think the people reveling in any new trans male shooter are making it very clear that they don't care about solving problems; they're just interested in looking for reasons to hate, fear, and condemn this specific group of people they already dislike.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

1. Who exactly said mass shooters choose it to look "cool", Twitter OP theJackHopkins? 2. What about people like you who keep insisting it's especially good for mass murder, and give shootings with it extra attention? 3. So, by analogy, you want gun makers to tell people to stop using guns, recall guns, and stop selling 30 round magazines? What is your specific proposal? 4. Do you think there's a slight difference between a plastic consumable holding medical consumables, and durable machines designed to last for decades? 5. Why exactly is Tylenol morally responsible for things malicious parties do with their products to harm others? 6. Why are you equating a private company to the government? 7. Stopping the sale of new Assault Rifles (which is not what Ar stands for, and new assault rifle sales have been banned for decades, drink two shots) is not equivalent to a recall, which you specifically pointed to as a good thing.

Some more idiots;

"If you don't like this measure I came up with because it sounds good, that's a bad sign."

Or maybe they don't want their fingerpint in some government database.

And yet you're more likely to die in a car accident, and most gun murders are with illegal guns. Legal owners are most likely to commit suicide, not murder.

"Often". As if we didn't know this lady was a gullible idiot just from the display name. Rifles are less common murder weapons than bare hands.

[gatheringbones]

[“Pressurized focus on forgiveness can be a very convenient way to reinscribe existing power structures. The employee should forgive the donor who sexually harassed her because that would be convenient for the people whose job it is to raise money. The adult child should forgive the sibling who abused them for the sake of keeping the peace over the holidays. The Latino scholar should forgive the white university trustees who publicly dragged out his tenure process because they didn’t like his research on for-profit immigration detention centers.

And this demand often comes in the form of a guilt trip—as though the perpetrator can’t possibly get free until the victim offers them blanket absolution. But we already know that this isn’t the case—the penitent must cross that bridge, must do the humbling, hard work of trying to make things right, and if they are willing to approach the victim enough times in a sincere enough way, they can be discharged of their obligation to continue doing so. None of this depends on the victim—that is to say, the penitent can free themselves of their obligations even if they are never forgiven.

And the withholding of forgiveness truly does have the potential to upend a status quo or two, especially in situations where there is reluctance to hold the perpetrator fully accountable for their actions. Over the course of 2014 and 2015, as the news media began to devote more coverage to the police killings of unarmed Black people, the white historian Sharrona Pearl was struck by how often, immediately following the death of a sibling, a spouse, a parent, or a child, reporters asked family members of the victim if they forgave their loved one’s killer. The question struck her as “grotesque,” so she decided to do some tracking. She created a database of 106 of the higher-profile police shootings that occurred from 2013 to 2016, and she found interviews of family members in 74 of those cases. In a whopping 25 percent of them, family members were asked if they forgave their beloved’s killer. And these questions were usually asked either immediately after the shooting, on the day that a grand jury chose not to indict the police officer responsible for the death, or immediately following another event that might prove very emotional for the family—times when they were in shock, grieving, taking in loss. And at that moment, the media put them on the spot.

In none of the cases that Pearl tracked did the killer apologize in direct and clear language to the family of the person whose life they took. The Black writer Chauncey DeVega, looking at this phenomenon, observed that questions like these were not asked of the families of those killed in mass shootings, like those at the Sandy Hook Elementary School and the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and they weren’t asked of the families of those killed in the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. When the victims are primarily white, the question simply doesn’t come up. As DeVega put it, “Forgiveness for racist violence is a given, an unearned expectation of White America.”

Our white supremacist society has conditioned itself to demand this forgiveness because it depends on it in order to proceed as it always has. According to Pearl, the families of those killed by police are “asked to grant forgiveness to someone who has not asked for it but [are] really being asked to absolve the system—the institution of the police, and maybe the state as a whole—that produced the individual shooter.”

The request for forgiveness is, functionally, a request to not name an injustice as an injustice; it is a request that the families of victims not demand amends, recourse, or the kind of systemic change that might prevent the same kind of harm in the future.”]

rabbi danya ruttenberg, from on repentance and repair: making amends in an unapologetic world, 2022

[ms-cellanies]

Bringing back those “Good Old Days” of the WILD, WILD WEST.  Too many Americans are OBSESSED with guns.  

[leehallfae]

https://www.tumblr.com/leehallfae/713992010181312512/i-dont-transition-to-escape-social-expectations A trans person killed three inocent people last week, one being a little girl. Who's dying again?

“extremist politicians and pundits are focusing on speculations about the shooter and fear-mongering about transgender people because they have no interest or willpower to offer real commonsense solutions to america’s gun problem.”

— jay brown, human rights campaign (x)

“there were 1,529 total mass shootings in 2018, 2018, 2022, and so far in 2023. a mass shooting is defined as four or more people shot or killed, not including the shooter. based on that total, four transgender shooters would be 0.3 percent of the mass shooters, compared to 99.7 percent who are cisgender.”

— lisa chiu, “what mass shooters have in common, and what they don’t” (x)

“a spokesperson for the violence project, which records data on mass shootings in the u.s. since 1966 with ‘four or more’ people killed in public [said] that ‘nashville is the first case of a trans’ perpetrator in their database and per their methodology. …the gun violence archive, which began collecting data on gun violence in the u.s. in 2013 […] recorded more than 4,400 mass shootings in the last decade…. of those, ‘the number of known suspects in mass shootings which are trans is under 10 for the last decade,’ which translated to ‘1:880 [or 0.11%] of the 4,400 shootings’ they recorded…. further, the u.s. secret service national threat assessment center (ntac), which studies all forms of targeted violence including mass casualty attacks, published a report with data from 2016 to 2020 [examining] 173 attacks in the u.s. that ‘that resulted in harm to three or more individuals in public locations,’ […] and ‘three attackers (2%) were transgender’…. most mass shootings or violent gun attacks in the u.s. carried are out by cisgender men.”

— “fact check—majority of u.s. mass shooters are cis men, not transgender or non-binary people” (x)

“because ‘the base rate of incidents in general is so small, any increase looks astronomical […] so going from 1 shooting perpetrated by a transgender individual to 2 is a 100 percent increase... it is important to remember that correlation (which this is not even large enough to be that) does not equal causation.’ …mass shooters are ‘overwhelmingly cisgender heterosexual white men, so any deviation from that will certainly be seen as out of the norm.’”

— kahleda rahman, “are transgender mass shootings on the rise? what we know, what we don’t” (x)

“lgbtq+ people are more than twice as likely to be a victim of gun violence than their cisgender and straight peers. …additionally, nearly 20% of all hate crimes are motivated by sexual orientation and/or gender identity bias. …lgbtq+ youth disproportionately face violence at school: notably, 29% of transgender youth have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property, compared to 7% of cisgender youth.”

— “facts & statistics about the impact of gun violence on lgbtq+ people” (x)

“at least five people were killed and dozens were injured in a late night shooting on nov. 19 [2022], the eve of transgender day of remembrance, which honors the memory of the lives of transgender people who were victims of discriminatory violence. the targeted bar, club q, was hosting its weekly drag show…. acts or threats of violence against the lgbtq have been seen across the country in recent months—including bomb threats toward boston children’s hospital, which offers gender-affirming care, an alleged riot plot from white nationalists at a pride parade in cœur d’alene, idaho, and more. ‘there’s actually a term for this. it’s called stochastic terrorism. and this is a documented phenomenon where when levels of hateful rhetoric towards a community rises, that it’s followed inevitably by levels of hateful actions.’”

— kiara alfonseca, “lgbtq community ‘in deep mourning’ after colorado springs shooting” (x)

[iwantjobs]

4/4/2024: While I , Trang, as the female Buddha, am trying to collect solid evidence of the existence of God via God's database setting our lives out already if we follow our hearts to get to our God's destination or else we'll fall into Satan's destination (which I went towards that direction many times for I nearly got killed and became mental and disabled and lost my condo and most of 401k to bemco a semi-homeless. Solid evidences are weird coincidences that hard to man-made. Here's another weird coincidence for earthlings especially America: that bridge coincidence that involved a cargo that killed those poor bridge workers of laying American immigrants. Well, America is fighting the Houthies over their section of ocean water because they are fighting to support their Hamas friends and Muslim people in Gaza with the Houthies attacking cargo ships. Well this cargo ship that hit American bridge is a Muslim Singaporean ship. Ever since the Gaza war started,most of the shooting involved poor little children especially white children (9 children got shot in that white NFL parade). Most of shooting since that war has been non-muslims: white, light skin blacks, and some light skinned American Latinos. There was a small shooting at a dental office in CA that involved a Muslim against a Jewish. I think the big current mass shooters aren't Muslims for they learned to refrained themselves because they know the world favors them over Israel and America for the world learned Israel stole their land of the last 400 years even though the Israeli jews' ancestors lived there 3,000 years ago before they were driven out by Muslims and Muslims even fought with the Roman on that land too because there are Christian churches in that Gazan land (top 10 oldest churches are found in Gaza). I said ancient Jews probably got kicked out out of their land by Muslims and Roman because they were blamed for nailing Jesus,; however, the current Jews said they were wrongly blamed for the nailing of Jesus. Since the war, a Muslim did do a mass shooting in Canada but he didn't kill anyone. He just shot into building. However, that big mass shooting in Maine after the war involved a white man and it happened right after the war. See folks, religious war in today's time is the destruction of humanity. Better pull back America and western countries if you don't want to lost too much of your colonized land because your approval of helping Israelis win back their ancestors's land will be your loss of losing your colonized land to the indigenous people in years after we die when our children correct our mistakes. Poor white people who still want to colonize colored people's land or take back colonized land from 3,000 years ago of the Jews by the Muslims. Your new rule of the game for humanity (Jews must get their ancestors's land from 3,000 year go back)will back fire for karma will use their new rule to force your children and grandchildren to return the land you stole from the ancestors of the Indians. Karma will also use the same rule for England and Europe for they will be forced to take back their white people in old colonized land from the indigenous people when your children and grandchildren take over humanity after we all die.

[mightyflamethrower]

Mr. Lott said his findings challenge other common narratives surrounding mass shootings, including who is shooting and who is getting shot. His database shows that non-Hispanic Whites accounted for 55% of the shooters and 55% of victims, or about equal to their share of the total U.S. population in 2022. Hispanics represented just 11% of shooters, a bit less than their share of the 2022 population, but accounted for 17% of victims. Black Americans were the opposite: 17% of shooters but just 10% of victims of mass public shootings. Mr. Lott separated those of Middle Eastern origin — usually included as part of the White population — and said they constituted nearly 7% of shooters but less than 1% of victims. Asian Americans accounted for about 8% of shooters and about 10% of victims. Mr. Lott said those findings undercut the sense that mass shootings are frequently White supremacists shooting up minority-heavy locations.

[graymanbriefing]

2nd Amendment Brief: Oregon A U.S. District federal judge has upheld Oregon’s Ballot Measure 114, ruling it constitutional. The measure requires a permit to purchase a firearm, requires live-fire training, creates a public registry with PII of firearm owners (searchable permit database), and limits magazines to 10 rounds or less. Debrief: The judge specifically rendered decisions on magazines (referred to as large capacity or LCMs by opponents of gun rights) saying it is "uncommon for an individual to fire more than ten shots in self-defense, it is common for mass shooters to fire more than ten shots" and "LCMs are not commonly used for self-defense, and are therefore not protected by the Second Amendment [2A]". The judge further said that gun permits have the criteria that protects them from scrutiny of 2A rights violations are are lawful further saying that the measures (BM-114) rightfully allows for the government’s exercising police powers to protect the public" from LCM possesion. The me...(CLASSIFIED, see full brief and analysis by joining on Telegram or Signal at www.graymanbriefing.com)

[eelhound]

"It’s easy to focus on the hateful ideology underpinning these shootings. But our research has shown that hate and 'terrorism,' as they are commonly understood, are not what drive most mass shooters.

These perpetrators aren’t subject-matter experts in politics, ideology or religion. Their understanding of the 'cause' said to motivate their actions is typically shallow and contradictory, is simply convenient.

Our dozens of interviews with perpetrators and the people who knew them do reveal, however, that shooters often have the same motivation: to cause as much death and destruction as possible so that a world that had otherwise ignored them would be forced to notice them and feel their anguish. Thus, the Buffalo shooter live-streamed his actions.

Our research shows that mass shooters walk a common route to violence through early childhood trauma. If they fail to achieve what they’ve been socialized to believe is their destiny — material wealth, success, power, happiness — as they age, they reach an existential crisis point.

When they no longer feel connected to the people and places around them, this becomes a suicidal crisis — except the thought of merely taking their own lives leaves them unfulfilled. As the sister of one perpetrator told us, her brother went from asking, 'What’s wrong with me?' to asking, 'What’s wrong with them?'

Hate comes late along this pathway. Searching for answers, angry men comb through the words and deeds of other angry men who came before, including past mass shooters. In the darkest corners of the Internet, they eventually find someone or something else to blame for their despair.

Perpetrators often choose scapegoats who represent their grievance with the world — people at their school, their workplace, a place of worship. In the case of Buffalo, it was a grocery store frequented by Black people.

Unfortunately, motives often become labels used to explain away the problem of mass shootings. Mental illness, for example, is not a motive. If a mass shooter has a mental health diagnosis, this doesn’t mean that their every action is related to that diagnosis or that their symptoms caused them to pull the trigger. In our research, only about 10 percent of mass shootings were directly motivated by psychotic hallucinations and delusions.

The hunt for motive is ultimately fruitless. In our comprehensive database of mass shooters of the past 50 years, one of the most common motives is 'unknown.' All we can say with some degree of certainty is that no one living a fulfilled life perpetrates a mass shooting. These shootings are designed to be the perpetrator’s final act, and this is perhaps the most important point when it comes to preventing them.

Most mass shooters are actively suicidal. Whether they kill themselves, are killed by police, face the death penalty or spend the rest of their lives in prison, they have no plan for what comes next.

This is what makes mass shootings different from other gun crimes, such as robberies gone bad or domestic homicides. This is also why traditional deterrence measures, such as armed security or harsh criminal sanctions, do little to avert them.

This doesn’t mean mass shootings can’t be avoided. Rather, we need a different approach. There are many strategies to preempt mass shootings, none perfect on their own. These include improving access to mental health care and crisis support at schools and workplaces, expanding suicide prevention programs, holding media and social media companies accountable for hateful rhetoric on their platforms, and limiting access to firearms for high-risk individuals.

We are capable of action. Rather than hunting for motive, let’s stop the next tragedy by investing in solutions that will reach the next would-be shooter before he decides his only option is to pick up a gun." - James Densley and Jillian Peterson, from "Hate is not at the root of most mass shootings." Washington Post, 15 May 2022.

[evidence-based-activism]

Okay, so, a while ago I made this post, which describes the link between mass shootings and domestic violence. Here is an update and an expansion on this topic.

First of all, data about “mass shootings” is ridiculously inconsistent, mainly because there is no official definition of a mass shooting. Therefore, these statistics will describe overall trends, but you should keep the limitations of such data in mind.

Mass shootings and domestic violence

According to Everytown Research, the majority (53%) of mass shootings were domestic violence-related.

According to Geller et al., in 68% of mass shootings the perpetrator either killed at least one partner or family member or had a history of domestic violence

Nearly 3 in 4 (72%) children and teens killed in mass shootings died in an incident connected to domestic violence.

79% of domestic violence-related shootings occurred entirely in the home. This is a particularly important statistic, as many analyses of mass shootings only include incidents that occurred at least partially outside of the home.

While research examining the connections between IPV, misogyny, and mass shootings is severely limited, analysis of recent mass shootings indicates shooters often had histories of IPV, stalking, or harassment.

Guns and domestic violence

92 percent of all women killed with guns in high-income countries were from the US

Access to a gun makes it five times more likely that the abusive partner will kill his female victim.

Two thirds of child fatalities involving domestic violence were caused by guns

Other

Almost all mass shooters (98%) are male. Even in cases where a female mass shooter was involved, they are usually working with a male shooter.  

It is frustratingly hard to find data on the sex of mass shooting victims, but I did an independent analysis of data from the GunViolenceArchive (methodology below cut). Using this I found that, of all the cases where the perpetrator sex was known, 3.5% of all mass shooters since 2013 were female. In addition, I found that, of all the cases where the victim (injured or killed) sex was known, 27.5% of all mass shooting victims since 2013 were female. Importantly, these figures do not take the context of the shooting (i.e. domestic, drug-releated, gang-releated, etc.) into consideration. I will try and refine my methodology using this database and make further posts in the future.

According to one paper, mass homicides had the highest proportion of female victims (52%), and also the highest proportion of child victims compared to multi and single homicides

Methodology for the final bullet point:

Using GunViolenceArchive’s database search feature, I selected:

Incident Characteristic = Mass Shooting (4+ victims injured or killed excluding the subject/suspect/perpetrator, one location)

Participant’s Type = Subject-Suspect for the first analysis and Victim for the second analysis

Created an Any group where Participant’s Gender = Male or Female

Filtered the results by year (each export was limited to 2000 entries, so I divided it into years to ensure I didn’t miss any data points; years 2020 and 2021 had to be split into two groups for the victim category)

Results display = participants

References:

Fowler, K. A., Leavitt, R. A., Betz, C. J., Yuan, K., & Dahlberg, L. L. (2021). Examining differences between mass, multiple, and single-victim homicides to inform prevention: Findings from the National Violent Death Reporting System. Injury Epidemiology, 8(1), 49. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-021-00345-7

Geller, L. B., Booty, M., & Crifasi, C. K. (2021). The role of domestic violence in fatal mass shootings in the United States, 2014–2019. Injury Epidemiology, 8(1), 38. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-021-00330-0

GUN VIOLENCE ARCHIVE. (2022). www.gunviolencearchive.org/

Guns and violence against women: America’s uniquely lethal intimate partner violence problem. (n.d.). Everytown Research & Policy. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://everytownresearch.org/report/guns-and-violence-against-women-americas-uniquely-lethal-intimate-partner-violence-problem/

Mass shootings in america. (n.d.). Everytown Research & Policy. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://everytownresearch.org/maps/mass-shootings-in-america/

Most comprehensive mass shooter database. (n.d.). The Violence Project. Retrieved May 28, 2022, from https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/

[96thdayofrage]

Authorities investigating if retired federal agent knew of Buffalo mass shooting plans in advance

Law enforcement officers are investigating whether a retired federal agent had about 30 minutes advance notice of a white supremacist's plans to murder Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, two law enforcement officials told The Buffalo News.

Authorities believe the former agent – believed to be from Texas – was one of at least six individuals who regularly communicated with accused gunman Payton Gendron in an online chat room where racist hatred was discussed, the two officials said.

The two law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the investigation stated these individuals were invited by Gendron to read about his mass shooting plans and the target location about 30 minutes before Gendron killed 10 people at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue on May 14.

The News could not determine if the retired agent accepted the invitation.

“These were like-minded people who used this chat group to talk about their shared interests in racial hatred, replacement theory and hatred of anyone who is Jewish, a person of color or not of European ancestry,” said one of the two law enforcement officials with close knowledge of the investigation. “What is especially upsetting is that these six people received advanced notice of the Buffalo shooting, about 30 minutes before it happened.

“The FBI has verified that none of these people called law enforcement to warn them about the shooting. The FBI database shows no advance tips from anyone that this shooting was about to happen.”

Agents from the FBI are in the process of tracking down and interviewing the six people, including the retired agent, and attempting to determine if any of them should be charged as accomplices, the two sources with close knowledge of the probe told The Buffalo News.

The two sources did not identify the agent by name and could not confirm what federal agency he worked for.

The Buffalo FBI Office declined to comment on the investigation. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Buffalo declined through a spokeswoman to comment.

Buffalo civil rights attorney John V. Elmore said it will be outrageous if it turns out that a former law enforcement officer had advance notice of the shooting and did nothing to prevent it.

“If he had advance notice, he had a moral obligation to get on the phone and try to notify someone about it,” said Elmore, who represents the family of Andre Mackniel, who was shot dead when he went to Tops to buy a birthday cake for his 3-year-old son.

Attorney Terrence M. Connors, who is representing several families who lost loved ones in the shooting, said: “As outrageous as this may sound, based upon what we are finding in our investigation, it is not surprising.” He declined to reveal the evidence his law firm has collected.

The New York Times reported May 17 that Gendron invited a small group of people into a private chat room on the messaging platform Discord to review his plan about 30 minutes before the massacre at Tops. The Washington Post reported two days later that 15 people accepted Gendron's invitation into the Discord chat room and were able to review his plan and watch his live stream video as he committed the killings.

Federal authorities are investigating if the retired agent provided information to Gendron before he went on his shooting spree, the two law enforcement officials told The News.

In addition to law enforcement sources, two other individuals with knowledge of the mass shooting investigation have also confirmed that federal authorities are looking into the former agent’s relationship to the shooter.

The Sandman

FBI agents are also trying to determine the identity of an individual Gendron calls “Sandman,” and “Saint Sandman” in his lengthy social media diary that appeared on Discord 30 minutes before the attack, the sources said.

In the diary, Gendron indicates Sandman counseled him on manufacturers of AR-15 semi-automatic rifles and their quality. The shooter purchased and allegedly used that type of assault rifle in the rampage, which local authorities have said was fueled by his racial hatred.

In the document Gendron posted on Discord just prior to the shooting, he references Sandman three times.

In a passage dated May 2, he quoted Saint Sandman as saying: "When the time finally comes to deal decisively with a whole host of society's problems, and not go to prison for it, you'll know. Just be ready. You have spent your entire life, from the day you were born, right up to this very moment, reading this sentence, coming to where you are right now. Look around you. Are you content with where you are right now? Are you where you want to be? If so, continue to march. If not, what are you going to do? What's your plan? Get and keep your mind, body, and spirit right. Pray. Lift. Run. Read. Shoot. And teach your kids to do those things.”

A third law enforcement source told The News they are aware of Gendron’s writings involving the quality of different rifles. The shooter ended up using a Bushmaster X-15, a version of the AR-15 rifle, police have reported.

[wack-ashimself]

You can NOT look at the shooting in texas, logically AND ethically, and say 'gun control'.

1-the fbi, more than once, has been proven to instigate shooters, and sometimes even AID them in their endeavors. You do not question how a guy part time at wendys had a brand new truck and TWO brand new fully loaded guns? I ain't saying fbi, but I am saying as a poor person, I couldn't get that out of the fucking blue. ALSO, a logical point someone said to me: he was mad at society/his neighborhood....he was in (or just graduated) high school. Why didn't he go to his high school? Or job? Or the places that directly recently effected him? Why the elementary school? His motivations do not make sense!

2-the cops LET the murderer go in the school. After he crashed his truck and had a shootout with them. He walked past them basically.

3-the cops did NOTHING for almost an hour after he was in the school.

4-the cops (again, the ones with the guns in your gun control world) tazed and arrested ANYONE trying to go in for their kids*.

5-this was only recently proven, but some of the cops even went in and got their kids, leaving OTHER people's kids to BE FUCKING MURDERED.

6-Black market, 3d printing, and the dark web (omfg. It's 1000% more evil than you could EVER imagine, and impossible to stop) make gun laws impossible to matter. Criminals do not follow laws dumbasses!

7-why would you let the government, which started with genocide and slavery, and worked it's way up to nukes and the largest military IN THE WORLD, killing more innocents than you could ever even count, be the only ones with guns? You want gun control? So do I. NOTHING law wise can the government ignore. Aka, they write a gun law, it IMMEDIATELY goes into effect against them. Logically-the government is supposed THE people for the PEOPLE, so why do they get their own separate special laws? Especially, again, when they kill more than all civilians.

8-Cops murder all the fucking time with guns, and again, you want them to be the only ones with them? I mean, we have NO (absolutely no) real data base of how many bullets they use, let alone how many people they kill. NO database of that. Not even our military. It's all guessing and I PROMISE they always guess low.

9-The cops (again, the ones you want to be the only ones with guns) were COWARDS. When shit hits the fan, i do not want to HOPE those with all the power and authority do the right thing cuz clearly it's optional.

10-largest prison population in the WORLD. Many for victimless crimes. So we would rather punish people than punish the right people (child sex murder island existS, and no one was punished). How would more gun control laws fix that? Cuz Jessica bought more than 3 guns in short period of time, she should go to jail cuz that's now against the law? You act like gun laws stop the people who would do the worst with them. I'll let you on a little secret. I am a good guy, but I KNOW FOR A FACT with a quick few searches, I could easily figure out how to make a gun. A bomb. Etc. You can not stop bad people from doing bad things. You need to create a society that doesn't mass produce bad people.

11-it's been proven, 100%, that lack of necessities creates violence. If you give people the basics to live, the capabilities to be self sustaining, and do not rob them/pollute all over their neighborhoods...they are usually content and do not want to fuck around with anyone. All of us just want to survive, and that in itself is a daily battle in america.

Here, I'll make you a deal. If we can get clean drinking water, healthy food, shelter, healthcare, electricity, education, PARKS (we really do not value nature enough), and public transportation to every american, if these shootings still happen, you can write every fucking gun law ever. But I swear to you with the core of who I am: you won't need to. People won't have a reason to mass harm strangers. I mean, we can't even get clean drinking water to every american, but they can fix these gun issues? HAHAHA. You're fucking naive.

*This is one point in our sue happy country I understand. Not like or accept, but understand. Cuz if a parent went in there and, for one reason or another, another person or kid got shot, THEY could be blamed even if they didn't do the shooting. Still, if I was a parent, I'd risk my life, let alone jail, for my kid.

(just remember-our cops and military are some of the largest terrorist organizations in the world. They get away with murder HOURLY. The idea of them being the only ones with guns should TERRIFY you.)

ps-cherry on top? All of this was written by someone who never fired a gun, let alone, owned one. I just study history and...you do not let the biggest bad guys be the only ones with guns. Period. No exceptions.

[nancypullen]

I Can’t

I try to keep this space light and silly, I try to steer clear of sensitive issues, but today - I just can’t.  I wrote this yesterday in response to a friend’s email.  I can't seem to stop weeping. I try to go about my day but it bubbles up again. Those sweet children, those faces so bright and full of promise - what have we done? Over and over again, just waiting for the next time. This morning I read that one little girl survived by smearing herself with her dead classmate’s blood and playing dead. That is the childhood that the GOP has given her. I've never understood the fascination with guns. I grew up in Alaska, every home had one or two because most freezers were filled with game. They weren't toys or hobbies, they weren't for show. I'm now 58 and in my adult life I've never had a gun in my home. My husband was a state trooper for many years, never felt the need to have a gun in our home. Who are these people who think their fun is more important than a child's life? My granddaughter is just 4 years old and right now she lives in a world of fairytales and carefree security. In a year she'll go to kindergarten and learn about active shooter drills and the possibility that someone might come to her school and try to kill her. She'll wonder why her parents send her there. That's the burden we've put on her tiny shoulders. What kind of society does that? Forgive my rambling, I'm trying to make any of it make sense. I just can't. When will it be enough? How many of our babies have to die in terror because some guy who didn’t even have a driver’s license was able to walk in and purchase military grade weapons and all the ammo he wanted?  I can’t buy two boxes of Sudafed in a week, every purchase goes into a national database. But anyone with a pulse can buy an assault rifle.   The same party that boasts that they’re “pro-life” is the same party screeching that guns are sacred.  Guns are the number one cause of death of children and teens in America.  Gun lovers blame everything but the fact that this country has too many guns and too easy access to them.  There are more guns than people in America, according to a Washington Post article, “ There are more than 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the United States, or enough for every man, woman and child to own one and still have 67 million guns left over. “  Add to that the fact that only about 33% of Americans own guns - that’s a small percentage of people hoarding those 393 million firearms.  Just 3% of American adults own nearly one quarter of the WORLD’S civilian firearms stockpile. Wrap your head around that - just THREE percent of Americans own a quarter of the world’s guns. So, if we ask ourselves how a minority, a mere 33% of our citizens, call the shots as far as gun regulations, the simple answer is...they don’t. The NRA and the gun lobby pour millions of dollars into the pockets of politicians to keep our laws lax.  It certainly benefits their industry every time another state gets rid of yet another regulation - how many states have recently moved to permitless carry?  The gun lobby is also behind social media plants convincing the weak-minded that the boogeyman is always just around the corner.  He’s at the border, he’s in your neighborhood, he’s coming for you!  Turns out that when it comes to gun violence the boogeyman is right there in your own home. But they don’t want you to know that, the politicians who are swimming in blood money need a new yacht.  The latest defense is that it’s not guns, it’s a mental health problem.  Hmmm.  Every country on Earth has mentally ill citizens (and jilted lovers, disgruntled employees, angry loners, etc) and we’re the only country with weekly massacres.  Mental illness (I’m guessing) is equally divided between men and women, where are all of the female mass shooters?  Not to mention that if they’re going to blame mental illness rather than the toxic masculinity that it seems to be (life isn’t going my way, someone needs to suffer) then why the hell aren’t they making healthcare freely available and easy to access?  Same party that is pro-gun is against that.   Most gun lovers insist that it’s their Second Amendment right to own as many guns as they want.  I think they’re wrong.  The Second Amendment is to ensure a “well-regulated militia” to defend the states.  That’s our National Guard.

I agree with Justice Burger.  I’ll bet that a whole lot of people see it that way, but the politicians who have been purchased by the NRA  are willing to step over the bodies of dead children to cash those checks. More guns for eveyone! Your fun is not more important than our nation’s children. Your “right” to a gun does not trump a child’s right to grow up safely. I absolutely do not understand how anyone can’t see that.  I know a couple of gun nuts.  If I told them tomorrow that they could turn in their guns and give every child in the country a better life, they’d refuse.  I do not understand the worship of guns. I realize that many men have that Rambo fantasy, some unresolved warrior-wannabe fetish, and a gun feeds that hungry ego.  Earlier today I saw this comment and it felt like a bullseye.

What would you give up if it meant no more slaughtered children?  What would you give up to make supermarkets, movie theaters, and concerts safer?  I’d give up just about anything - certainly any of my material possessions.  Honestly,  I wish I cold pack up my whole family and leave this country.  The thought of my grandgirl growing up in a place without active shooter drills in her kindergarten classroom  would be my dearest wish. If you care at all, if those sweet children - fresh from their end-of-the-year awards ceremony, watching Lilo & Stitch in their classrooms on a warm May afternoon, two days from summer vacation, with their entire lives stretching in front of them - deserved better, then I’m begging you to do something.  Vote like your life depends on it, because it does. Say safe, stay well. XOXO, Nancy

[magnetictapedatastorage]

Americans have been saying for a year they want to get back to normal. Tragically, they're getting their wish.

With the gradual return to public places comes a specter the country was all too willing to set aside as it grappled with a pandemic capable of killing thousands of Americans a day. Mass shootings are starting to make headlines again, and though their return is most unwelcome, they've proved to be an inextricable part of life in the United States.

The latest mass killing left 10 dead at a grocery store. For the past 12 months, Americans have been vigilant in grocery stores to avoid contagion. Monday's slayings in Boulder, Colorado, reminded them that even with pandemic hope on the horizon, they should remain vigilant for a different reason.

This is a hard thing to read, but important. Full text under the cut.

CNN | 3/24/2021 | Listen Analysis: Mass shootings signal a dubious 'back to normal' in America Analysis By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

Updated: Wed, 24 Mar 2021 00:21:23 GMT

Source: CNN

Americans have been saying for a year they want to get back to normal. Tragically, they're getting their wish.

With the gradual return to public places comes a specter the country was all too willing to set aside as it grappled with a pandemic capable of killing thousands of Americans a day. Mass shootings are starting to make headlines again, and though their return is most unwelcome, they've proved to be an inextricable part of life in the United States.

The latest mass killing left 10 dead at a grocery store. For the past 12 months, Americans have been vigilant in grocery stores to avoid contagion. Monday's slayings in Boulder, Colorado, reminded them that even with pandemic hope on the horizon, they should remain vigilant for a different reason.

Americans shouldn't have to fret about dying in a supermarket, or at a spa, or anywhere for that matter. Catching a bullet should be far from their minds, but with a return to American normalcy comes the reality that anyone could die for nothing, just about everywhere.

Seven mass shootings in seven days

Just as the country is conquering a new pandemic, an old, familiar epidemic makes its return. The last week has been a harbinger of what "back to normal" means for the US.

The most recent string of senseless gun violence began March 16 when a shooter killed eight people at three Atlanta spas. The next day, a drive-by in Stockton, California, injured five people who'd gathered for a vigil.

Four people were hospitalized Thursday after a shooting in Gresham, Oregon. On Saturday, a pair of shootings at clubs in Dallas and Houston left a young woman dead and 12 people injured. Shortly thereafter, a shooter opened fire at what Philadelphia police termed an illegal party, killing one man and injuring five more.

Now, Boulder makes seven in seven days. When the gunfire at King Soopers stopped, 10 lay dead, including hero officer Eric Talley, the first policeman on the scene. His wife and seven children will pay an astronomical debt for their dad's bravery.

"Flags that have barely been raised back to full mast after the tragic shooting in Atlanta that claimed eight lives and now the tragedy here, close to home, at a grocery store that could be any of our neighborhood grocery stores," Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Tuesday.

The King Soopers location where the melee unfolded is one of about 1,000 providers in Colorado working to repel the killer Covid-19.

Steven McHugh's son-in-law had queued for a dose of vaccine, like more than a million other Coloradoans. He was third in line, and his daughters chatted with their grandmother on the phone as he waited, McHugh said.

When the gunfire erupted, a bullet found its way to the woman at the front of the line. Her fate is unclear, as is much about Monday's shooting. Authorities haven't divulged a motive, but history tells us it won't make sense.

McHugh's son-in-law fled with the girls -- one in seventh grade, the other in eighth -- to an upstairs staffing area above the pharmacy and hid in a closet. Dozens more shots rang out, McHugh said, citing his son-in-law.

It was "extraordinarily terrifying," the grandfather told CNN, "and of course the little one's saying, 'The coats weren't long enough to hide our feet,' as they were standing behind the coats in the closet."

'A normal we can no longer afford'

The US government doesn't have a centralized database to track mass shootings, but anecdotal accounts indicate they were down during the pandemic as Americans were encouraged to stay home and many of their favorite gathering places were shut down.

Former President Barack Obama called for action Tuesday, expressing disbelief that only Covid-19 could quell the gun violence the country has long endured.

"A once-in-a-century pandemic cannot be the only thing that slows mass shootings in this country," he said. "We shouldn't have to choose between one type of tragedy and another. It's time for leaders everywhere to listen to the American people when they say enough is enough -- because this is a normal we can no longer afford."

For the mass shootings that did unfold amid the pandemic, their locations were frighteningly familiar: a Buffalo, Minnesota, health clinic; a bowling alley in Rockford, Illinois; a Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, mall; parties in Rochester, New York, and Washington, DC; and a brewery in Milwaukee where, authorities would learn later, the gunman had been employed.

Gun violence is not a uniquely American phenomenon, but part of the rich American tapestry are threads of evil and violence: people (almost always men) who use weapons (often firearms) to snuff out innocents. Sometimes they're mentally ill, but more often they're just angry or vicious.

Their reasoning -- when it's attainable -- fails to provide closure. Outrage invariably erupts after each massacre. One side demands stronger gun laws. They're labeled un-American. Their opponents tout the Second Amendment. They're labeled callous. A stalemate ensues until the next killing, then repeat.

Within an hour of the Boulder killings, the National Rifle Association tweeted the Second Amendment. It later retweeted it. Nothing more.

It should surprise no one that a special interest group champions the Second Amendment. The amendment is a promise to every American, but 15 years prior to its ratification, the Declaration of Independence brought other promises of rights deemed "unalienable."

The full guarantees of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" will never be achieved by Officer Talley, Tralona Bartkowiak, Suzanne Fountain, Teri Leiker, Kevin Mahoney, Lynn Murray, Rikki Olds, Neven Stanisic, Denny Strong, Jody Waters -- or any of the thousands of victims who fell before Monday in Boulder.

'Part of the American experience'

In all likelihood, another person died by a gun while you were reading this. Despite the media's breathless focus on mass shootings, gun violence takes myriad and frequent forms.

According to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the country saw 14,414 homicides in 2019 -- about one every 36 minutes -- while another 23,941 souls fatally turned guns on themselves -- roughly once every 22 minutes.

In his statement, Obama called out other scapegoats: disaffection, misogyny, hate. The United States has monopolies on none of these, though it has special brands that can be pernicious.

Sandy Phillips, who co-founded the organization Survivors Empowered to console and guide survivors of gun violence, pointed to the victims who suffer in silence, because the killings of their loved ones are seemingly not important enough for the newspapers or the nightly news.

Doubt her? Google the details about last week's shooting in Stockton, California, one of the most racially diverse cities in the nation.

"We have mass shootings in slow motion every day in this country, in other neighborhoods that never get the press, that never get the opportunity to speak out about what's happening in their communities -- and we need to change that," Phillips, who lost her 24-year-old daughter Jessica Ghawi in 2012 to gun violence in Aurora, Colorado, told CNN.

Those neighborhoods often belong to minorities, who have had a particularly rough time of the pandemic as well. It's another crushing American axiom that society's ills tend to home in on people of color, and those victims must yell so much louder to be heard.

There will be much yelling in coming days, perhaps weeks. Obama is right when he said Americans possess the ability to "make it harder for those with hate in their hearts to buy weapons of war. We can overcome opposition by cowardly politicians and the pressure of a gun lobby that opposes any limit on the ability of anyone to assemble an arsenal."

The margins are thin, though, and the complexity of that American tapestry will be on display. A Gallup poll from late last year showed 42% of Americans had guns in their homes, a number that's risen since 2019. Another Gallup query indicated 57% of Americans want stricter gun laws, a percentage that's on the decline.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said "absolutely nothing" will stop the country's return to pre-pandemic mass violence if lawmakers refuse to curb access to the weaponry.

"This has become part of the American experience, and let's not forget: It's completely unique to us," he told CNN. "There's not another similar country on Earth that experiences the same number, the frequency of mass shootings as we do, and it is directly attributable to the profusion and the availability of guns, particularly high-powered assault-style weapons and how easily pretty much anyone can acquire them here in this country."