Beet L. Jooz

Disgusting harassment caught on camera.

Do you feel comfortable giving up a cornerstone of our republic for a safety dependent upon enforcement by a government that has failed at this before?

The Democrat narrative that President Trump suppressed national investigative efforts that would hurt his friends and supporters in the white supremacy movement is flat-out false.

Tragic shootings by white supremacists must not convince us that America is on the wrong track, or that we must surrender liberty.

‘It’s ridiculously stupid’

A teenager appeared in court on Tuesday charged with attempted murder after a six-year-old French boy was reportedly thrown from a 10th-floor viewing platform at the Tate Modern art gallery in central London.

Last weekend's mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton (following the devastation in Gilroy the weekend before) prompted the usual evidence-free avalanche of political point-scoring, blaming "the other side" for all the world's woes.

“Did George Bush ever condemn President Obama after Sandy Hook. President Obama had 32 mass shootings during his reign. Not many people said Obama is out of Control. Mass shootings were happening before the President even thought about running for Pres.” @kilmeade @foxandfriends

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2019

Babylon Bee's satirical take summed things up perfectly:

An exhaustive new study from the CDC reveals that the leading cause of gun violence in America is your political opponents. Researchers looked at a number of potential causes of gun violence such as mental health, family situation, cultural shifts, gun laws, rap music, videogames, sugar consumption, and the actual gunman, but by and large, the most prominent cause of gun violence was what most already suspected. The fault lies with those who you disagree with politically.

But, as Jillian Peters and James Densley write in an LA Times op-ed, instead of apportioning blame based on the narrative being pushed, analyzing and understanding data about who commits such massacres can help prevent more lives being lost.

For two years, we’ve been studying the life histories of mass shooters in the United States for a project funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. We’ve built a database dating back to 1966 of every mass shooter who shot and killed four or more people in a public place, and every shooting incident at schools, workplaces, and places of worship since 1999. We’ve interviewed incarcerated perpetrators and their families, shooting survivors and first responders. We’ve read media and social media, manifestos, suicide notes, trial transcripts and medical records.

Our goal has been to find new, data-driven pathways for preventing such shootings. Although we haven’t found that mass shooters are all alike, our data do reveal four commonalities among the perpetrators of nearly all the mass shootings we studied.

First, the vast majority of mass shooters in our study experienced early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age. The nature of their exposure included parental suicide, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and/or severe bullying. The trauma was often a precursor to mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, thought disorders or suicidality.

Second, practically every mass shooter we studied had reached an identifiable crisis point in the weeks or months leading up to the shooting. They often had become angry and despondent because of a specific grievance. For workplace shooters, a change in job status was frequently the trigger. For shooters in other contexts, relationship rejection or loss often played a role. Such crises were, in many cases, communicated to others through a marked change in behavior, an expression of suicidal thoughts or plans, or specific threats of violence.

Third, most of the shooters had studied the actions of other shooters and sought validation for their motives. People in crisis have always existed. But in the age of 24-hour rolling news and social media, there are scripts to follow that promise notoriety in death. Societal fear and fascination with mass shootings partly drives the motivation to commit them. Hence, as we have seen in the last week, mass shootings tend to come in clusters. They are socially contagious. Perpetrators study other perpetrators and model their acts after previous shootings. Many are radicalized online in their search for validation from others that their will to murder is justified.

Fourth, the shooters all had the means to carry out their plans. Once someone decides life is no longer worth living and that murdering others would be a proper revenge, only means and opportunity stand in the way of another mass shooting. Is an appropriate shooting site accessible? Can the would-be shooter obtain firearms? In 80% of school shootings, perpetrators got their weapons from family members, according to our data. Workplace shooters tended to use handguns they legally owned. Other public shooters were more likely to acquire them illegally.

So what do these commonalities tell us about how to prevent future shootings?

One step needs to be depriving potential shooters of the means to carry out their plans. Potential shooting sites can be made less accessible with visible security measures such as metal detectors and police officers. And weapons need to be better controlled, through age restrictions, permit-to-purchase licensing, universal background checks, safe storage campaigns and red-flag laws — measures that help control firearm access for vulnerable individuals or people in crisis.

Another step is to try to make it more difficult for potential perpetrators to find validation for their planned actions. Media campaigns like #nonotoriety are helping starve perpetrators of the oxygen of publicity, and technology companies are increasingly being held accountable for facilitating mass violence. But we all can slow the spread of mass shootings by changing how we consume, produce, and distribute violent content on media and social media. Don’t like or share violent content. Don’t read or share killers’ manifestos and other hate screeds posted on the internet. We also need to study our current approaches. For example, do lockdown and active shooter drills help children prepare for the worst or hand potential shooters the script for mass violence by normalizing or rehearsing it?

We also need to, as a society, be more proactive. Most mass public shooters are suicidal, and their crises are often well known to others before the shooting occurs. The vast majority of mass shooters leak their plans ahead of time. People who see or sense something is wrong, however, may not always say something to someone owing to the absence of clear reporting protocols or fear of overreaction and unduly labeling a person as a potential threat. Proactive violence prevention starts with schools, colleges, churches and employers initiating conversations about mental health and establishing systems for identifying individuals in crisis, reporting concerns and reaching out — not with punitive measures but with resources and long-term intervention. Everyone should be trained to recognize the signs of a crisis.

Proactivity needs to extend also to the traumas in early life that are common to so many mass shooters. Those early exposures to violence need addressing when they happen with ready access to social services and high-quality, affordable mental health treatment in the community. School counselors and social workers, employee wellness programs, projects that teach resilience and social emotional learning, and policies and practices that decrease the stigma around mental illness will not just help prevent mass shootings, but will also help promote the social and emotional success of all Americans.

Our data show that mass shooters have much in common. Instead of simply rehearsing for the inevitable, we need to use that data to drive effective prevention strategies.

*  *  *

Perhaps wannabe-politicians like Beto O'Rourke should wind their 'Trump is hitler and therefore to blame' soundbites in and focus on the real issues facing Americans.

In the wake of multiple mass shootings over the weekend, President Trump told reporters in Morristown Airport before departing for the White House on Sunday that "hate has no place in our country and we're going to take care of it."

As The Hill reports, Congressional Democrats, 2020 presidential candidates and others have rushed to draw comparisons between the motives of the El Paso shooter and Trump’s immigration rhetoric and suggested he helped fuel the environment that led to the attack.

“Let’s be very clear about what is causing this and who the president is. He is an open avowed racist and encouraging more racism in this country,” former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas), whose hometown is El Paso, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Notably, however, even Trump nemesis, former FBI Director, Jim Comey admitted in his latest op-ed (albeit in the 20th paragraph) that:

"...according to a 'manifesto' widely attributed to him, the Texas terrorist who killed at least 20 people in El Paso on Saturday wasn’t directly motivated by Donald Trump..."

The president ignored shouted questions about whether the El Paso shooter's anti-immigrant manifesto shared similarities with his rhetoric and noted instead that the shootings are part of “a mental illness problem.”

The president then added that he had spoken to Attorney General William Barr, FBI Director Christopher Wray, the Ohio and Texas governors as well as members of Congress.

“We have to get it stopped,” he said.

“This has been going on for years, for years and years in our country.”

He added that "perhaps" more needs to be done with respect to gun control. 

President Trump: “I want to extend our condolences to the people of El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, they're incredible people and they've been through a lot."

"Hate has no place in our country" pic.twitter.com/8Qy0B2CdYS

— Kyle Morris (@RealKyleMorris) August 4, 2019

Trump added that he will deliver a formal statement on Monday at 10 a.m. Monday at the White House. 

In first on-camera remarks about weekend of mass shootings, Pres Trump says "perhaps more has to be done" about gun violence in America, @CBSNews rpts: https://t.co/EwHWKJOlYL pic.twitter.com/Wxk6cO6pUF

— Mark Albert (@malbertnews) August 4, 2019

On Saturday, a gunman entered an El Paso, Texas Walmart, killing 20 people and wounding 26 others. Less than 24 hours later, at least nine people were killed and 26 more injured when 24-year-old Connor Betts of Bellbrook Ohio used a .223 caliber rifle to open fire at a crowd on East 5th street in the city's popular downtown Oregon district. 

President Trump on Sunday declared that “hate has no place in our country” after a pair of back-to-back mass shootings over the weekend rocked the nation. “Hate has no place in our country, and we're going to take care of it,” Trump...

Deep state is pushing open race war and we can stop them, but only if you share this link!

Police claim 15-year-old set himself on fire and gave contradictory statements

Witnesses 'broke down howling' as man shoved mother and eight-year-old boy onto tracks

He later thanked his British followers for 'education on the individual I did not know'

Both sides have called the interception of one another's ships "hostile acts" and "piracy."

Democratic White House hopefuls are renewing their calls for gun control following Sunday's shooting in Gilroy, Calif., that left at least three dead.Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who has pledged executive action...

'Biden has made it a death penalty offense for everything but jaywalking'

In late February of this year,  Rep. Rashida Tlaib  caused quite a stir at the end of Michael Cohen‘s hearing when she accused fellow committee member Mark Meadows (R-NC) of a “racist act.”

Meadows was understandably upset in response to Tlaib and demanded Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) strike Tlaib’s remarks from the record. As Cummings tried to bring the chaos back under control, he asked Tlaib to rephrase her statement. She responded that she wasn’t calling Meadows a racist, but she accused him of committing a “racist act” by using Patton.

During the Cohen hearing, Cummings took great exception to Tlaib’s suggestion of racism and defended Meadows, whom he described as one of his closest friends in Congress. It was a rare bipartisan moment of support that stood out to many in this hyper-partisan time, one that has been raised as an example since President Donald Trump’s fierce rhetorical attacks on Rep. Cummings that many critics have claimed to be racist in nature.

Seeing as Cummings went out of his way to defend Meadows, there are many in the commentariat pointing to this moment as an example of behavior that should be showed by Meadows and fellow members of the Republican caucus who have notably been very quiet in the face of Trump’s hypercritical attacks on Cummings and his “rodent infested” Congressional district in Maryland.

Will Meadows return the solid and brave defense of an ideological foe but trusted friend in the same manner that Cummings did the same?

Magic Eight Ball says “Reply hazy, try again.”

Watch above, via C-SPAN.

 

'My son had his whole life to live and he was only six,' father says after his child is killed in latest American mass shooting

Neil deGrasse Tyson will reportedly keep his job as director of New York's Hayden Planetarium following the the museum's conclusion of an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against the astrophysicist....

A plague of grasshoppers has descended on Sin City, and their favourite spot is the pyramid-shaped Luxor Hotel.

‘We cannot allow this to happen’

(Daily Mail) The Arkansas middle schooler who, with a friend, fatally shot four fellow students and a teacher in 1998, has died in a car crash on a northeastern Arkansas highway.

Authorities said that Drew Grant, 33, died after his car was hit in a head-on collision with another vehicle on Highway 167 near Cave City, Arkansas, on Saturday at about 9pm, KAIT reported.

Grant had legally changed his name from Andrew Golden and had been living in Jackson, Missouri, and was driving the car at the time of the crash.

The post 1998 school shooter killed in crash appeared first on WND.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Monday morning signed a bill that will decriminalize the use of marijuana in the state and expunge the records of some people convicted on cannabis-related charges, ...

President Trump on Monday offered condolences to the victims of a dead...

USA TODAY: The 19-year-old who police say turned an assault weapon on festival-goers here was known as a quiet teen from an athletic family who [READ MORE]

The post Santino William Legan: Gilroy shooter from boxing-loving family, quiet teen appeared first on The Savage Nation.