Another Excuse for a Mass Shooter

[The Kilted Heathen]

I just don't get the connection between "my mother died" and "I'm going to kill a bunch of people at school".

 

[Epic Beard Man]

I just don't get the connection between "my mother died" and "I'm going to kill a bunch of people at school".

Well some people don't handle grief well. Same thing as husbands killing their ex-wives who cheat/divorce them. It is the "since I'm in pain everyone will be in pain" mentality.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Interesting the mass shooter was a part of a white nationalist group:

Florida school shooting suspect linked to white supremacist group: ADL

 

[Revoltingest]

Information still trying to settle down.
In the news....
Local law enforcement: No ties between militia and Florida high school shooter
Local law enforcement sources have not found a connection between accused Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz and a Tallahassee-based paramilitary group.

Leon County law enforcement sources told the Tallahassee Democrat that they could not find information linking Cruz, 19, to the Republic of Florida Militia, as claimed by the group’s self-proclaimed leader Jordan Jereb.

His comments to the Anti-Defamation League and The Associated Press set off a media firestorm Thursday at about midday that Cruz was connected to the alt-right, white nationalist group.

More on the school shooting:
Hours after news outlets around the nation reported Cruz's alleged ties, Leon County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Grady Jordan told the Tallahassee Democrat investigative work did not yield any connections.

“We are still doing some work but we have no known ties between the ROF, Jordan Jereb or the Broward shooter,” Jordan said.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Florida White Supremacist Group Admits Ties to Alleged Parkland School Shooter Nikolas Cruz

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Information still trying to settle down.
In the news....
Local law enforcement: No ties between militia and Florida high school shooter
Local law enforcement sources have not found a connection between accused Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz and a Tallahassee-based paramilitary group.

Leon County law enforcement sources told the Tallahassee Democrat that they could not find information linking Cruz, 19, to the Republic of Florida Militia, as claimed by the group’s self-proclaimed leader Jordan Jereb.

His comments to the Anti-Defamation League and The Associated Press set off a media firestorm Thursday at about midday that Cruz was connected to the alt-right, white nationalist group.

More on the school shooting:
Hours after news outlets around the nation reported Cruz's alleged ties, Leon County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Grady Jordan told the Tallahassee Democrat investigative work did not yield any connections.

“We are still doing some work but we have no known ties between the ROF, Jordan Jereb or the Broward shooter,” Jordan said.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Yes, and between protecting our children or collecting political donations from the NRA, for most congressional Republicans the latter is far more important. They won't even allow gun-control proposals to come up for a vote.

BTW, most Democrats are not anti-gun-- they're anti-watching our kids getting killed, such as in 18 school shooting this year alone. Why is so much easier to buy an AR-15 than it is to buy a car? Why is it that most people who vote Republican want stricter gun-control legislation, and yet their own congresspeople won't even allow an up or down vote?

Hey, I'm an actual honest to goodness Australian gun owner, and I think the situation is beyond tragic and out the other side of ludicrous. I'm not "anti-gun" but you guys need gun control.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Florida White Supremacist Group Admits Ties to Alleged Parkland School Shooter Nikolas Cruz

Fake news. He was actually a Muslim Mexican

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

 

[Trailblazer]

In the year 2000 I lost my mother to breast cancer. I was 19. I sat there for over a year watched my mother go from cancer remission to the cancer coming back spreading from her lymph nodes t ultimately her brain. On the day of her death, eyes rolled back I watched her gasp for air struggling to breath, her body fighting to hold on to its life in a futile effort. I even remember that moment intimately as if it just happened yesterday. Until the nurse trying to ease her suffering gave her a does of Ativan an anxiolytic. Her breathing calmed and eventually her breathing stopped where she passed. She signed a DNR so there was no effort to revive her. Sure, I was angry and at time still am which is why I haven't put anyone in the hospital here yet. I was depressed and never sought counseling. I took my grief and pain and sacrificed myself to go to school. I attained two bachelors degrees at a state school. I continued my education and attained a masters in Neuropsychology in 2012. I stopped going to school for a bit and began again in 2014 part-time.

I'm graduating this year with my second masters.....I wonder if I decided to take my Smith and Wesson Sigma 9mm and my Glock 20 Generation 4 and killed the same amount of people at 35, would they investigate to see if I am acting out a long standing trauma I experienced at 19? Or would they log on my Facebook and see some of my friends, some who are bloods and crips. Some with a checkered past which the media will use, like Trayvon to paint me as this disgruntled (and educated) black guy on a shooting rampage. Or what if my name was Muhammad ibn Abd'ullah? With the same historical background just switch names, would they think I had a mental condition or would they see if I had ties to ISIL? There are far too many people walking around with mental distress, even on this exact forum there are a couple that are enacting some form of bipolar disorder and I haven't even made a diagnosis just an observation based on my own clinical hours of behavior. How do you circumvent these situations by mental evaluation upon purchasing firearms? You cannot, lest you want to stigmatize those with mental disorders who are mitigating their demons with medication.

As the cop in my class stated yesterday "there are calls where we go out where a kid has a gun and it does not make it on the news." Rewind this back in the 80's there were class shootings that never made it into a national issue. Now it is. Mass Shootings have always been an issue, but because it reached beyond the urban areas into the affluent areas now we must figure if its drugs or psychological issues. Mass shootings happen for a variety of reasons but I refuse to believe losing his mother was the cause. He like so many are not unique to this. Killing himself would have been easier. I almost did it myself. The only thing that kept me was two things:

1) To know my brother coming in to see his little brother's brain matter spread across the white walls would be beyond traumatizing after losing your mother and

2) At the funeral I made a promise to my mother I'd get my college degree, which I did but now I have reformatted that goal into getting my graduate degree and I have reformatted it once more.

I want my future child to bury me and not my family...

I cannot accept this kid's reason...

Thanks for sharing your personal story. My childhood was not a picnic because I was emotionally abandoned by both of my parents who were both alcoholics. Then my dad who I was closer to than my mother died of a sudden heart attack when I was 12 years old and my life was never the same after that. I won’t go into the details but I went through a series of addictions before ii finally got help at age 32 and I have recovered but it took over a decade. However I will always have a predilection towards depression and anxiety because it is genetic; my father, mother, sister and brother were all depressed and anxious and that is probably why my parents had a drinking problem. I forgave my parents a long time ago, especially my mother who I had blamed the most since I considered her the one who was to blame, since she made the choice to have children when she never should have. My dad did not want children and that is why I never did either.

Nobody knows what a depressed person goes through. Sometimes it is directed inward and we hurt ourselves, as I did for over a decade, and sometimes it is expressed outward and becomes anger at others. I know how it feels to be depressed while everyone around you is happy. I have been there for most of my life since even in the best of times I am not like others around me. I am not saying it is okay to go out and kill people, of course not; I am only saying I think I might know why they do it. They are just so angry at everyone else for being happy when they are so depressed and it ceases to matter how they hurt others or themselves. Maybe this is the reason, maybe not, but every time these shootings happen I think maybe that might be why.

Depression kills, not only the person who has it but when it is not addressed depression turned inward becomes anger turned outward. It is just about time other people started caring about other people who are depressed instead of being so selfish and only caring about themselves and their immediate families and friends and now much fun they are going to have on the weekend. Of course I say this with glib tongue and cheek because I think people should understand like I do, but so many people do not know because they have never been there themselves. I have been suicidal many times but because I had a husband who cared and a lot of help from counselors and because I believe in God I never killed myself. Some people get help with medications but those only made me worse.

Before I got help and after I subjugated my depression by going to college and I got two graduate degrees, the last one in counseling psychology. After that I got a degree in homeopathic medicine because I wanted to help others with it as I had been helped, but that did not work out because my whole life has been one crisis after another and that has interfered with the career plans I had. I have never had any real stability or known any peace. I am a lot happier now but I cannot say I love this mortal life. It has been a storehouse of suffering for me and I cannot understand why some people seem so happy all the time. It is an enigma to me. The only thing I care about anymore is helping other people because only then am I am truly happy. Personal happiness has no real value to me anymore.

Given my background and education, it amazes me that mental health professionals cannot figure out why this shooter and others do what they do... They seem so baffled. But even if I think I know why I am not saying it is okay. I get so sick thinking about what those families who lost loved ones must be going through. It makes me wonder how there could be a loving God, but I have strong faith so I usually am able to rise above my feelings after a while. At the end of the day, only God can know why the shooter did what he did. Justice will be served in this world but I have to think that the only real justice will be served by God, because only God knows what justice is due anyone.

 

[Trailblazer]

I have spent the last 30 years of my in the mountains away from the big city. Even though I didn't make as much money, the cost of living was a lot less. My mind is much more clearer, and my fears all but subsided. The crowdedness is just not for me. When you crowd a few million people into an 844 square mile area, the craziness of one has a lot more effect on the crowded populace.

I do not know where you moved to, but I love the mountains. I wish I could live in them but for now I have to live where I am still working although I could retire if I wanted to. Where I live, the population is only about 120,000 but that is still larger than I like. I would prefer to live in a small town that has the basic services and is not too far from a larger city that has a hospital and other services.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

 

[HonestJoe]

The video clearly discuss a potential motivate, and theree was no sensationalism, just a clear cut interview.

Or to put it another way, to speculate about a potential motive . I also think there were attempts by the interviewer to trigger sensational speculation in her line of questioning, talking about young men having guns or being active on social media as “warning signs”, with the implication that the family he was living with could and should have do something about it. The lawyer was just too effective at closing that down. That’s probably why he was speaking for the family. If the interviewer had been speaking to them directly, in the emotional immediacy of the aftermath, I’ve no doubt she would have succeeded in getting them to say something the hacks could turn in to a sensational headline.

Anyway, we weren’t speaking about that video or this incident exclusively but about official and media responses to this kind of thing in more general terms.

Point is, where I drew the contrast is I lost a parent as well and I didn't think to go to a school or anywhere and decide to kill people. The point in saying that is, theree is always the psychological assertion of most if not all mass shooters. Since he lost his mother and perhaps maybe one of his motives what would be the media's speculation if I, as a 35 year old man did the same thing except instead of a school it was my place of occupation? Would I be seen as someone dealing with psychological distress that was not addressed or would they view me as something else as most media outlets do already?

I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at here. Remember that the media aren’t really interested in establishing definitive facts; they’re usually relatively limited and boring. They want speculation because that’s unlimited and means they can talk about lots of different, even contradictory, things, generating arguments and conflict. When anyone commits this kind of “irrational” crime, the media will dig in to every bit of personal information about the people involved they can to find things to speculate about and (perceived) evidence about their mental health is an obvious target.

In your case it wouldn’t be as obvious; an older adult whose parents died at some time in the past clearly isn’t going to be unusual and with no other reason to assume you’d been unusually or continuously affected wouldn’t be worthy of comment. A young adult having lost their parents recently and still being reportedly effected by it (not unreasonably) may well be. Even beyond media speculation and in to psychological reality, it seems clear that the recent loss of his parents could well be one of the countless factors feeding the complex psychological state which led him to such and extreme reaction where that wouldn’t be likely in your case today without further evidence of any ongoing emotional impact beyond the norm.

 

[Notanumber]

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In the UK, after all our Islamic attacks all we seem to get is thoughts and prayers with blind reassurance that we will not be defeated by terrorism.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

In the UK, after all our Islamic attacks all we seem to get is thoughts and prayers with blind reassurance that we will not be defeated by terrorism.

If you feel like you're going to be "defeated" by people who are less dangerous than falling out of bed and less common than lightning strikes, frankly, you probably deserve it.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Well some people don't handle grief well. Same thing as husbands killing their ex-wives who cheat/divorce them. It is the "since I'm in pain everyone will be in pain" mentality.

I kind of get that (especially the cheating; I mean that's a wronging in which an overreaction isn't unthinkable) but I just can't fathom who gets that angry at the death of a loved one that "murder spree" is the follow.

 

[Notanumber]

If you feel like you're going to be "defeated" by people who are less dangerous than falling out of bed and less common than lightning strikes, frankly, you probably deserve it.

Try telling the mutilated survivors or the friends and families of those survivors or those that were horribly killed that they deserved it.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

I kind of get that (especially the cheating; I mean that's a wronging in which an overreaction isn't unthinkable) but I just can't fathom who gets that angry at the death of a loved one that "murder spree" is the follow.

Well now they’re speculating it is a combination of that, and a girlfriend break up.

 

[Phantasman]

I do not know where you moved to, but I love the mountains. I wish I could live in them but for now I have to live where I am still working although I could retire if I wanted to. Where I live, the population is only about 120,000 but that is still larger than I like. I would prefer to live in a small town that has the basic services and is not too far from a larger city that has a hospital and other services.

I hope you find your dream place in this world, as I have.

 

[Trailblazer]

I hope you find your dream place in this world, as I have.

Thanks, but my dream place is not in this world.