In a little town in Northern California, a man under indictment for stabbing someone goes on a murder spree that only ends when he is fatally shot by police.  Ignoring the fact that he was forbidden to own firearms and seemingly should have been locked up at the time, the snowflakes are predictably responding by wanting to take guns away from decent, law-abiding people.

Thwarted losers, twisted specimens of humanity, occasionally go on murder sprees.  They keep killing until good people physically stop them.  Our friend Dave Workman links to a story in which a practical lady describes these things as simply a fact of life.

Is she being hopelessly fatalistic, or is she simply a realist?  Let’s go back over the last six weeks.

October 1: Screwball perpetrates a meticulously planned mass murder, opening fire from a sniper’s aerie at a crowd of some 22,000 unarmed, helpless victims in Las Vegas, slaughtering almost sixty and wounding many more.  He blows his brains out as armed police close in on him.

October 31: A religious fanatic sworn to ISIS and screaming “Allahu Akbar” mows down bicyclists and pedestrians in New York City, ultimately crashing his rented truck into a school bus.  Running with an air pistol in one hand and an Airsoft handgun in the other – to carjack another vehicle to continue his mass murder? To invite a police bullet and a martyr’s death? – he only stops when he is jack-knifed by a 124 grain Gold Dot +P hollow point from the 9mm service pistol of NYPD officer Ryan Nash.

November 5: A POS who in the past had fractured a baby’s skull and escaped from a mental institution opened fire in a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing 26 adults and children and wounding more.  His spree ended after he lost a gunfight with armed citizen Stephen Willeford, who ran to the scene with his own AR15.  After phoning his father to say he was wounded and thought he wasn’t going to survive, knowing the pursuing armed citizen had him at bay, the murderer finished himself off.

November 14: A pot-grower under indictment for stabbing goes on his sick spree, at one point firing some 30 shots at an elementary school, before he is engaged by police and killed by heroic, as yet-unnamed law enforcement personnel.

The Vegas monster had a clean record and bought his firearms legally with a background check. The Texas monster should have been institutionalized, but had fallen through the cracks – along with his records, allowing him to pass background check when he bought the murder weapon. The NorCal gunman, under indictment, was a prohibited person whose very possession of guns violated the law. The New York murderer didn’t use a firearm at all.

What’s the pattern? Already existing laws failed to stop each of these rogue humans who committed heinous crimes.

And each of them stopped as soon as they were confronted, or knew they were about to be confronted, by Good Guys With Guns.

“It’s just life, unfortunately.”

37 COMMENTS

  1. Massad,
    I wonder what you think about VIOLENT movies and TV shows ?
    Could there be some “Monkey see Monkey do” effect here ?
    We did not have these frequent shootings in the 1950s.
    What has changed ? Perhaps when latent Savages view violent
    media, bad things happen. It’s a sticky wicket, but if there is
    a 1st Amendment problem, we sure as hell better have a 2nd Amendment.

    • Buster Crabbe,

      Imagine a child viewing violence, but they have a parent or two there who explains how movies are made, and the difference between right and wrong. Now imagine a child viewing violence, but no parents are around, or maybe one of them is a bad influence instead of being a good influence on their own child.

    • We had more gun violence decades ago than we do now, even though we have far more firearms now. The difference now is we have far more coverage and it includes far more videos. Why? Because everyone with a phone has a video camera and every viewer has a different opinion. I am all for cameras, but firearms ignorance is becoming more evident, now.

      • The nature of violence is changing. We hear ‘he had a fascination’ with mass murder. He ‘shot up’ a church, school, etc.

        I see it as a form of hysteria created by a confluence of factors, one being ideas planted by external sources.

        Yes, hearing and seeing things can and does influence mentation of the normal or mentally ill, as well as the naturally criminal mind.

      • Please do not call it “Gun Violence”. That is the language of the left-wing extremists. Their ideology uses firearms as a scapegoat for HUMAN violence. So, they link the word “Gun” with “Violence” so as to create a buzz word for their ideology. The Left is very, very, very good at using language and propaganda as tools to brainwash others into their twisted mode of thought. Don’t fall into their trap and adopt their buzz words no matter how much propaganda they bombard you with.

        To address your actual point, in fact, many kinds of crime have dropped over the last couple of decades. The FBI crime statistics confirm this. What gives the impression that we are living in a more violence society is the increasing number of these sensational mass murders and the cycle of news media reporting that both inspires and then feeds upon them.

  2. Evil will always be with us. Being able to fight back is the only way to mitigate the damage. How do you stop an active shooter? Shoot back. It is not possible to stop all crime, criminals break the law. You can not punish a crime that has NOT yet been committed. The police can not be everywhere (and we really don’t want them to be). In a free country, we are responsible for ourselves. Don’t take away our freedom, don’t take away out natural rights, God given rights, to self defense.

  3. Yep.
    It’s just life.
    And, occasionally, inevitably, death intrudes.
    But as long as we can protect & defend ourselves death can be, in many instances, fortunately forestalled.
    Thanks again, Mas.

  4. I wonder if the same critics shouting “guns” “guns” “guns” as the cause of all that is wrong in society would be as quick to shout “drugs” if it was learned that many of the miscreants were under the influence of mind/mood altering drugs?

      • The left-wing ideology is built, from its very foundation, upon the principle of placing the blame for all of the world’s ills upon mankind’s external environment rather then upon mankind himself. Therefore, leftists are ALWAYS willing to seize upon some kind of scapegoat (any kind) rather than face the hard truth that evil springs from within mankind himself.

        The leftist mentality has no problem with blaming crime and violence upon inanimate objects in mankind’s environment although, logically, this concept is totally stupid as your example points out. One can easily list other examples to illustrate this stupidity. Do we blame microphones for hate-speech? Do we blame child pornography upon video cameras? Do restrictions upon the sale and use of video cameras make sense to you as an anti-pornography measure?

        Yet, a century ago, the leftists were able to sell a majority of Americans on the notion that alcohol causes crime and violence. That banning the manufacture and sale of alcohol (Prohibition) would move America into a golden, Utopian age.

        Today, leftists (enslaved to the same type of mentality) are using their helpers in the mainstream media to preach the gospel (daily) that firearms prohibition will move America into a golden, non-violent utopia. The sad thing is that millions of gullible Americans have been brainwashed into believing this nonsense!

        Truly, there is a “sucker born every minute”.

    • ‘many”? Stats Ive read recetnly have all but one over the past two or three decades having used them. Seems the Las Vegas shooter did, and we don’t yet know about the Tehama county guy. Nor do we know about the truck assassin in New York. But those incidents are fairly recent. Not enough is known yet. My bet is the tehama COunty creep has……

  6. You asked…”Is she being hopelessly fatalistic, or is she simply a realist?”

    I believe the latter is true. When I entered the academy, O’ so many years ago, we were told that 80% of the population were good honest people, who consciously lived honest and law abiding lives. Of the remaining 20%, many were willing and likely to commit criminal acts, but only if they felt they could get away with it, a smaller percentage had no reservations against living an anti-social life. We were told that if not for this 20% there would be no need for police, and society’s failure to deal with them was what created a need for police officers. My 34 years of law enforcement experience bore these numbers out.

    These members of our population who refuse to live in harmony with their fellow man have always walked among us. It’s a fact of life. It’s society’s duty to deal with them. Societies, or communities, in order to maximize the available skills of their members, segment themselves. Some become merchants, some bakers, mechanics, salesmen, etc., some establish restaurants and cafes, still others are set aside to keep order and “protect” the community.

    Throughout our history (at least until recently) even though we have specialized our skills for maximum efficiency, we also retained the skills and ability to perform many tasks for ourselves, even though there are others that we could pay to do them for us. Do you give up your kitchen utensils because there is a cafe that performs that task? Do you give up your tool kit because there is a mechanic who does those repairs if needed? Do you watch helplessly as your house burns to the ground because you failed to take action when it first started and hadn’t grown out of control while you waited for those who specialize in fighting fires? Then why the hell would you give up the tools to fight the threat that those incorrigible few pose, when the “professional” is not there to do it for you?

    Pardon my ramblings. Old age and increasing frustration will do that to you. It also brings an ever decreasing tolerance of stupidity. I refuse to sacrifice the lives of my loved ones and the means of protecting them while waiting for Unicorns and rainbows to usher in Utopia.

    • Dennis,

      The problem is simply that we common people are stubborn. We resist letting our superiors on the Left rule over us and fix all our problems. They are the smart ones, they are the Enlightened, and they will lead us to Utopia if only we are wise enough to submit to them. After all, they have the answers.

      Now, the thing to do is to impeach Donald Trump and coronate Hillary Clinton as our “Queen for Life.” Get used to this idea. Repeat after me, “Yes, your Majesty. Whatever you say, your Majesty. Thy subjects delight to do thy bidding.”

    • Dennis:

      Thanks for a great explanation.
      One other little secret- there are a LOT of people out there without a badge, who never the less are likely more skilled with weapons than a lot of badge-wearing professionals.Example folks who have qualified at MAG-30 .
      GKT

  7. Yep. Evil and sickness has killed the innocent since mankind has existed. In modern times, evil and sick snowflake types have been trying to bring our USA down one law at a time in terms of “gun control”, thereby letting evil and sick rule. To counter that narrative, we, the sane and kindhearted need to fight back with more fervor than they. I will submit as many here do, we need CRIMINAL control, be they sick or just pure evil, and there is no clearcut answer for that without constitutional concerns. Or is there? It is my hope that the good will always prevail.

    Stay safe!

  8. I could write pages questioning why? And it would take pages to answer.
    But there is one answer I follow:

    G30 – Don’t leave home without it.

    • Great choice (G30). I need to get my CHL. After what happened here in Texas, and other places. Unfortunately, we have restrictions as to where can carry a firearm.

  9. what to do? I am writing letters to every charity and cosnservation organization to which I donate. The letter states that I will stop all donations and send those dollars to SAF, NAGR, CaGuns, etc. The little Dakota Indian children’s school, Save the Redwoods, Trout Unlimited, Salvation Army, Toys for Tots, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, et al.
    If we loose this battle for our 2nd Amendments rights, this wonderful, beautiful, amazing country of ours is circling the drain for good.

    First things first. If we loose this battle for our 2nd Amendment Rights

    • Just guessing, he probably finished milling an 80% receiver and assembled unregulated parts kits. This has become a project many are trying. This is possible due a BATF ruling that an 80% receiver doesn’t have to be assigned a number and be transferred through a licensed dealer. Probably better for our gun illiterate media to believe he “manufactured” the weapon from scratch in his garage, otherwise they would be screaming about closing the 80% receiver “loop hole”.

      • Over on weaponeer.com, there’s a thread with photos, where a forum member whittled an AR lower from a wooden board. He got quite a few rounds off before it cracked. So he made a Mark II version by laminating some plastic cutting boards together.

        Meanwhile, Boris’ “Fruity Ghost” system lets you simply pull molds from an existing lower and cast your own copies in inexpensive plastic.

        Of course, an AR lower is simply a bracket to hold the magazine, grip, and FCG to the upper, where all the work goes on.

        There are a few firearms where the ATF considers the upper to be the serialized part; the little Ruger .22 pistols, for example. The ATF could make the upper “the gun”, but then they’d have the problem of dealing with all the existing uppers, which are many.

  11. My take on this rash of violence is that some are clearly “copycat” crimes committed because of irresponsible media sensationalizing of prior killers. Media coverage should never mention the name of a perpetrator and should show only their gruesome post-mortem photographs. That would effectively end the copycat killings.

  12. For oh so long America has not consistently enforced guns laws already on the books, allowed babbling crazies to run at large, enabled gross public rudeness and no accountability, and permitted the making and distribution of extremely violent movies and video games that are how-to murder manuals. Yet many of us still wonder why mass murders are becoming the new normal. Weird.

  13. There’s a lot of evil out there and it’s growing, nourished by the left, who are evil themselves. And it’s our fault because we have these inanimate objects the left so hate.

  14. Mas, Thank you for your level-headed insights. Dennis, as one of the 80%, thank you for your service. We are truly grateful. Buster Crabbe, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has written a book which addresses, in part, your question about the possible correlation between violence in the entertainment media and the violence we see in our society. The title is, “On Killing”, and it is worth reading.

  15. Though it’s not directly related to firearms there is one bright, shining, spot in the Northern California incident. As soon as the folks at the elementary school heard shots they instituted a lockdown which kept this lunatic from going into the school and running up his score. Alertness and proper training doubtless saved many lives. The same thing we need to stress in our daily lives. That, and always trusting the hairs on the back of our neck.

  16. Here we are all preaching to the choir. We must be out preaching to the antis. The powers are out to get our rights and they donthis with the anti gun media. While we may win these small battles the only way to win the war is to get more people to embrace shooting. Support groups like the liberal gun club even though we may agree on little else. Take a democrat shooting and stop fighting with them over abortion and gay rights. At least until we convert them.

  17. Something I have been noticing is a willingness on the part of bigots and other thugs to retaliate with violence against anyone who dares to criticize their bad behavior. (Maybe, it’s always been like this and I just wasn’t aware.) The retaliation ranges from a beating to murder. Anyone willing to speak up in such situations needs to be aware of the risk and be ready and able to win the ensuing fight. The judicial system could do a lot to suppress such attacks by severely punishing the perpetrators when they are successful and ruling it justifiable self defense when they lose.

  18. Just thinking again of the incomparable efficacy of a handy, powerful handgun for defense at close range against an animal attack. I can think of numerous Canadians, for example, who have died, or were injured, from the horror of either bear or cougar attacks, because of the Canadian laws against carrying a handgun. I hope we never fall to that level of “gun control.” I know off-hand of at least four people who were lately either killed or grievously injured while desperately trying to use a knife to deter a large predator. The right tool for the job of self-defense is indispensable. The full right to bear firearms is totally existential, and is the best deterrent to evil.

  19. Libs in colleges, schools, mental health professionals and physicians and now military and police departments are refusing to provide the information needed for the NICS system to work in the vast number of instances.

    • Unless you’re unfortunate enough to live in a “Universal Background Check” state, NICS only applies to purchases from an FFL. Most places, people take out ads in the paper or local online forums and buy or sell their property without need to involve official oversight.

Comments are closed.