Monday, August 27, 2018

Jacksonville Shooting

     When it popped up in my newsfeed, I thought, "Oh, no, here we go again."  A mass shooting in Jacksonville, Florida -- was it going to be political?  Was the shooter a deranged loner?  A hardened criminal?

     ...I didn't expect an outraged chump with a sense of entitlement.  A sore loser, writ too large.  What can anyone say about that?  It's not really a mental health issue, at least based on what has been reported so far.  It's not about poverty or asymmetrical warfare.  It's just...wrong.

     Police were on the scene rapidly, within two minutes according to some accounts.  Despite that, two people were killed and nine more injured.  There's a lesson there, but it's mostly that low-probability events can kill you.

    Expect the usual political aftermath.  One punk shoots up a gamer championship and everyone else gets chided.

6 comments:

  1. I fully expect to see all the anti gunners trying to ride this one too. I figure that pretty much like you said, there are just some things that you cannot defend against, and life is itself dangerous.

    By the way, here in Michigan, on the west side, near the middle of the mitten, we got hit hard last night with the storm that you felt coming a day or two ago. It was the strongest one of the summer, I believe, and there are many without power right now. I have to venture out later, so I will see if we have many trees down, but I would think so, with the power outages.

    On a good note, the church on the corner always plants a community garden to help feed those in need. And I think this is the best year that they have had, as far as how their crops are doing. They pick 3 times a week, and distribute the produce starting at 10 am, and people are lining up from before 8:30 am. About 4 years ago, the set their plants on the ground for planting the next morning, and someone came in and stole everything. 700$ worth of plants gone. I live in a trailer park, and we took up a collection, and not only gave them enough to replace everything, but even more than they had lost. It seems that while there are horrible people in the world, there are many more who want to help others.

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  2. His whole life he got participation trophies and was told everyone was a winner and everyone was special. Too bad things don't work like that in the real world.

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  3. Mental health definitely played a role here. He was twice institutionalized and prescribed medications for his condition:

    https://triblive.com/usworld/world/14017115-74/jacksonville-shooting-suspect-david-katz-had-history-of-mental-illness

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  4. This had to be pre-meditated. You don't carry firearms to a gamers convention accidentally. I'm guessing he wanted to make a statement and die famous. Some say his targets were intentional - maybe he wanted some revenge for past losses.

    A loon with a gun - a bad combination.

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  5. Some people carry firearms routinely.

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  6. The guy bought the guns in August and was from Maryland with all of the hoop jumping that entails.

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