Murder Spree in America continues

[Elixir]

One of the biggest problems with Christianity is the tendency to believe that the church you belong to (and its affiliated) is the only true God following church and others are the Antichrist.

Before signing up for any One True Faith, it’s best to check it out with a different One True Faith just to make sure it’s really the Antichrist. Smart shoppers know!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Prayers are the actions of those incapable of doing something useful.

 

[southernhybrid]

Prayers are the actions of those incapable of doing something useful.

Or too damn lazy to really care or get off their asses and do something useful. Whenever I see the stupid prayer tents in my town that say, "Need prayer", I so want to ask the idiots in the tent why they aren't doing something useful like working at a food bank, volunteering to help lonely old people or simply giving money to a charity that helps poor people or abandoned animals etc.

OK. I'm off topic. But it's always tragic when people are killed regardless if they are in a church, a school, a grocery store, a bar, a party, in a mall, at a concert.....etc. Mass murders or attempted mass murders have happened at all of those places. What will it be tomorrow?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So let me get this straight, this was some extremist conservative terrorist from a rural area and he was a veteran?

Conservatives: "Poor guy. He was mentally ill. Probably had PTSD. Also, somehow I am going to blame the left for this. Send the marines into cities!"

Conservatives: "Oh yeah. Also, Thoughts and Prayers to the victims' families."

His motivations aren't known.

There's some evidence of what was going on in his head and what kind of ideologies he had. For example, he had called Mormons The Anti-Christ. This is typical of Christian fundamentalist strains. In conjunction with his strong support of Trump, this establishes him as a conservative. Now, consider his motivation was personal, like his girlfriend was there or some other hypothetical, then burning the whole place down while shooting a bunch of people and having already an ideological anti-mormon view isn't really following Occam's Razor. I am not saying we have absolute proof at this point. Often stories change over time.

He was killed at the scene, and his friends and neighbors seem completely baffled that he would do something like this. I presume he was a conservative, or he probably wouldn't have a Trump flag in front of his house, nor would his suburban Michigan neighbors be likely to describe him as "normal" in interviews, but that doesn't mean his conservativism motivated this violence.

I'm trying to figure out why you wrote that. I guess when I wrote he was an extremist conservative terrorist, you interpreted this to mean he was a conservative terrorism-ist, which isn't an entirely unreasonable interpretation, but I was merely saying he was conservative and if we use the rules conservatives use, he was also a terrorist. I could also call him a blond-haired terrorist if he had blonde hair but that would not mean I was saying he was a practitioner of blonde-haired terrorism. That all being said, his views on Mormons being The Anti-Christ are from particular strains of Christian conservative propaganda. I remember reading these kinds of pamphlets when I was a kid--there were some about how D&D leads to Satanism and some others calling the Pope The Anti-Christ. So, on this other hand, it also wouldn't be entirely unreasonable for someone to say that the extremist views held by the group were some kind of factor in what he did. I didn't claim that, though. My point was much more about when someone who is a conservative and does something terrible, conservatives will latch onto the mental illness defense, but when it's not a conservative but there's mental illness, it doesn't happen. I point back to these two events that happened in close proximity of a Christian conservative blowing himself up in a cybertruck while advocating for a Purge of Democrats from government and military by force if necessary which is now happening and a Muslim (if I recall correctly) in NOLA also a veteran with PTSD killing people, but mental illness wasn't mentioned as a factor or at least there was incredible sympathy for the former and no critical examination of his ideology and a completely different take on the latter.

It does seem like he meant to kill everyone in the church though, not just one person he was angry at, etc. You don't drive a truck into a building and set the builiding on fire over a personal grudge.

I agree.

Right-wing conspiracy about Mormons and the Illuminati?

This one is most likely out of the three with many variants since he had called the church The AntiChrist. There's also one variant where he was mad that Tyler Robinson killed Kirk because Robinson was a Mormon. Who knows.

Left-wing epiphany that the church had been lying to him about his suppressed homosexual feelings being a sin?

That isn't consistent with him calling them The AntiChrist in conjunction with his strong support for Trump.

Had a mental break and thought he was back in Fallujah shooting Muslims?

Logically possible, but far less likely since his target group was consistent with what he had said: Mormons are The AntiChrist.

All three? We'll likely never know, because he is now dead and not able to elucidate his reasoning anymore.

Investigators will comb his social media. But under Trump, there will be a lot of spin about this. Since he was a Trump fan and Trump tends to make events like this into ways to increase his own power, he likely will invent something about The Left or Cities. This is why I pointed to conservative followers of Dear Leader who will parrot whatever and juxtaposed it with the reality that this perpetrator was one of them.

 

[Politesse]

Prayers are the actions of those incapable of doing something useful.

Or too damn lazy to really care or get off their asses and do something useful. Whenever I see the stupid prayer tents in my town that say, "Need prayer", I so want to ask the idiots in the tent why they aren't doing something useful like working at a food bank, volunteering to help lonely old people or simply giving money to a charity that helps poor people or abandoned animals etc.

OK. I'm off topic. But it's always tragic when people are killed regardless if they are in a church, a school, a grocery store, a bar, a party, in a mall, at a concert.....etc. Mass murders or attempted mass murders have happened at all of those places. What will it be tomorrow?

It definitely makes it hard to feel safe. We had an incident just last week where a student (allegedly) meaningfully exposed the butt of a firearm at another student during an altercation over a fucking parking spot. What the hell is wrong with people? And just how many of my students are carrying illegally? Should I be wearing Kevlar to lecture, just in case someone realizes that Emile Durkheim was racist or Lila Abu-Lughod is Woke, and takes exception? Whatever happened to civil discourse?

 

[bilby]

Whatever happened to civil discourse?

The Second Amendment happened.

You shouldn't bring politesse to a gun fight. (Or, for that matter, Politesse, I hope).

 

[laughing dog]

I’d like to correct what I see as a misconception. Trump supporters are not necessarily conservative (certainly not in the traditional sense).

 

[southernhybrid]

Prayers are the actions of those incapable of doing something useful.

Or too damn lazy to really care or get off their asses and do something useful. Whenever I see the stupid prayer tents in my town that say, "Need prayer", I so want to ask the idiots in the tent why they aren't doing something useful like working at a food bank, volunteering to help lonely old people or simply giving money to a charity that helps poor people or abandoned animals etc.

OK. I'm off topic. But it's always tragic when people are killed regardless if they are in a church, a school, a grocery store, a bar, a party, in a mall, at a concert.....etc. Mass murders or attempted mass murders have happened at all of those places. What will it be tomorrow?

It definitely makes it hard to feel safe. We had an incident just last week where a student (allegedly) meaningfully exposed the butt of a firearm at another student during an altercation over a fucking parking spot. What the hell is wrong with people? And just how many of my students are carrying illegally? Should I be wearing Kevlar to lecture, just in case someone realizes that Emile Durkheim was racist or Lila Abu-Lughod is Woke, and takes exception? Whatever happened to civil discourse?

I don't know how this happened. All I know is that it's worse than anything I've experienced in my life time. Then again, I'm white and I wasn't living in the South during the Jim Crow era, but I do have some dear black friends who grew up during that era, yet they are so kind and loving despite what they had to deal with during their youths. At least the Southern schools where I live are all racially integrated along with our neighborhoods, so in one sense, we've made progress, while in another sense, it's like we're heading back to the dark ages. Damn, it's confusing.

One thing I know is that there was never a time when it was so easy to legally own a gun and there weren't more guns then people in the US in my earlier life. Of course, we do have a president who is certainly not helping the situation when he says things like it's okay to kill people on the street if they protest etc. That's probably not the only cause of all this hatred and chaos, but it's certainly an influence.

A friend of mine who I met about 2 years ago recently told met that she has decided religion was invented to divide us. I think she has a good point. Still, despite religion being a major cause of wars, torture and persecution, there's more to this hatred than that.

I recall being told as a child that it's never a good idea to discuss politics or religion with others, despite being raised by converts to evangelical Christianity who constantly told me I needed to witness to my Catholic friends to save them from hell. Maybe not discussing politics or religion with others wasn't such a bad idea after all. If people can do it peacefully without holding a grudge, that's one thing, but these days that doesn't seem common.

 

[Politesse]

You shouldn't bring politesse to a gun fight. (Or, for that matter, Politesse, I hope).

Oh no, I'd be totally useless. Even the Boy Scouts saw me coming and were like, "You know, archery might be more your style".

 

[Elixir]

"You know, archery might be more your style".

Archery is badass.

 

[Politesse]

Archery is indeed badass. At least, I enjoy it more now than I did as a shrimpy boy scout with no upper body. Never did learn to shoot with firearms, though. Do you suppose we could talk these Trumpistas into restricting the Civil War redux to fisticuffs-only?

 

[ideologyhunter]

After Sandy Hook, in which 6 adults and 20 six- and seven-year-olds were gunned down, isn't it all but certain that we're going to have live with this in America? Our first and second graders were murdered, and what we mainly heard from the Right is this mantra that we've got to "harden" our schools.

 

[southernhybrid]

After Sandy Hook, in which 6 adults and 20 six- and seven-year-olds were gunned down, isn't it all but certain that we're going to have live with this in America? Our first and second graders were murdered, and what we mainly heard from the Right is this mantra that we've got to "harden" our schools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting_conspiracy_theories

And yet to this day, conspiracy theories continue regarding that horrible mass shooting. The link contains lots of them, from it never happened, to it was a government plot to persecute gun owners etc.

 

[Gospel]

The shooter.

View attachment 52249

Trump called it an ‘attack on Christians.’ Regrettably, most of his followers won’t face that the attackers aren’t outsiders (aka liberals), they (Trump supporters) are themselves the attackers. Side note, when did Christians consider The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Christian? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It is tragic to die in this manner in and of itself, but to then have your beliefs sidelined and instrumentalized by the President of the United States? Wow.

 

[Gospel]

I’d like to correct what I see as a misconception. Trump supporters are not necessarily conservative (certainly not in the traditional sense).

Depends on what you mean by Traditional.. Reactionary/conservative is a decent label for the south during the civil war. The north was progressive.

 

[Shadowy Man]

what we mainly heard from the Right is this mantra that we've got to "harden" our schools.

Good thing they’re doing it now that they are in power, right? Only they can save all our kids, thank the lord!

 

[ideologyhunter]

Our city schools all have security doors, buzzers, cameras, etc. It sort of works, if you leave out dismissal time at the end of the day. Then you'd need to harden the street.

 

[Bronzeage]

I doubt we'll see any flags at half mast, but it might be more efficient is we just cut all the flag poles in half.