Lessons to be Learned from Capital Gazette Killings
The mass shooting at the Capital Gazette office in Maryland yesterday was the result of the longstanding obsession of a lunatic with the staff of the paper. His obsession with the paper started in 2011 after he had pleaded guilty to criminal harassment of a former Facebook friend. The Gazette reported the story. The shooter, who will remain unnamed, sued the paper for defamation. The case was dismissed. He appealed. The case was dismissed again. Then the threats started. On social media and personally, the shooter threatened violence against the staff of the Gazette for SEVEN years. Yesterday, he carried out those threats by murdering 5 people at their desks. He’s being described on national media this morning as an “angry person” and an “injustice collector”, perpetually aggrieved about something, but obsessed with the Gazette.
There are two lessons to be learned here, in my view. First, Trump relentlessly attacks the press, even calling it the “enemy of the people” as recently as Tuesday in one of his self-worshipping rallies. He regularly vilifies reporters, creating a hostile environment for members of the 4th estate just doing their jobs of bringing the news to the People. This toxic rhetoric inspires violence, and is irresponsible coming from anyone, much less the President of the United States.
The second lesson? How weak gun laws allow someone like this guy access to any firearms. He has threatened people for years. He pleaded guilty to harassment. His record of years of threats was well known to police, but didn’t cross the line, because the line is simply too high. Criminals often plead felonies down to misdemeanors. Misdemeanors generally don’t disqualify people from buying guns, even though those who are guilty are often dangerous. Even if misdemeanors did disqualify, the loopholes to buy guns through private sales is gigantic.
These deaths, like tens of thousands a year, were completely preventable. In a civilized society, there is no excuse for this kind of violence. None. Yet, the invertebrates in Congress and state houses all over the country take money from the NRA and bend to a small handful of gun nuts to not do their damn jobs. I wish that just ONCE that Congressman would show the kind of anger against gun advocates that they showed against the good people of the FBI yesterday. Just once would be refreshing.
There is a place for anger, and THIS is it.
And a third lesson: misogyny expands into mass shooting. Again.
1Read on-line where the Shooter actually disfigured his fingers so prints could not be taken! He had NO ID on him, however, he was identified through face recognition equipment!
2And, Trump … awwww … sends his worthless thoughts and prayers! 🙁
Ron Rosenstein held his ground pretty well in that … well, whatever that was today! Goudy and Salwell were beyond jerkoff bullies!
Darn right! Dump has escalated the violence factor on women, minorities and the press, using highly inflammatory rhetoric to pump up his moronic base and has done everything in his power to get those 2nd amendment crazies going full tilt.
3Dump is complicit in each and every one of the mass shootings since his election*.
*illegitemate
3rd Lesson
4Women are the canary in the coal mine.
His harassment of a woman on Facebook and via email and calls to her employer which eventually caused her to lose her job, was what the article covered. The single best predictor of a mass shooting incident is a prior history of violence against a woman. Period.
Can someone here much, much smarter than me, connect the dots for me about why th shooter targeted this newspaper? And the content of his threats?
i just flat don’t understand how you get from a dismissed civil case, to hating on a newspaper for *years*, through threats, to killing people who likely had nothing to do with the defamation case. I see no cause and effect, leading me to conclude this shooter was just some mean-spirited crazy with a firearm.
jefe is correct: the shooter deserves not to be named.
5Micr, obviously I’m not the person you described to answer the question, but here goes anyway. Connecting the dots of sane logic and applying them to an insane act by a festering fool doesn’t apply. Or, at least not neatly. Once again, there were missed opportunities with this guy beginning when he entered his guilty plea to the harassment charge. Had it been a felony or had the judge entered court ordered psychiatric time for the guy or had LE taken his on-line threats more seriously, there’s a maybe possibility he would not have erupted yesterday. His imaginary ‘beef’ with the newspaper was something he himself kept stoking in his own warped mind from 2013 to 2018. There were clues during those 5 years, but apparently never enough altogether at the same time or in a foreseeable pattern that action could or would be taken against him. Although once again, the “foreseeable” is debatable in these circumstances and action wasn’t taken to prevent yet another mass shooting.
Better state laws or federal regarding stalking and harassment that would prevent a violent person from purchasing a gun? Court ordered treatment? Stricter gun laws? Probably all of the aforementioned and a few more prevention measures.
6@Jane and PKM,
Thanks for the analysis.
7I’m only surprised he didn’t go after the woman who told him to go away, or the judges who dismissed his civil suits. But thanks to trump’s “enemy of the people” rants, journalists are low-hanging fruit, and apparently it was easy to walk into the newsroom with a shotgun. And the survivor who said trump could “f*uck his thoughts and prayers” is being attacked for — you guessed it –her lack of civility.
This is madness.
8Was wondering when something like the Charley Abdou would happen here. No longer wondering.
9