Thoughts on the Mass Shooting du Jour

Initial reports are notoriously unreliable, and it may take a few days before we can sort fact from rumor. But some of alleged details of Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas really need clarifying asap —

The Las Vegas Review-Journal says the murdered police officers were covered with a Gadsden “don’t tread on me” flag. According to neighbors, the alleged shooters have been talking about the Bundy ranch and how they planned to kill police officers.

The Review-Journal says the pair exchanged gunfire with a bystander carrying a concealed weapon. Other accounts say they exchanged fire with police before retreating into the Wal-Mart and killing themselves.

Several stories have said a lot of white supremacist literature was found in their apartment.

Again, initial reports are unreliable. None of the above may be true. But let’s go with the theory that the two shooters, a man and a woman, were anti-government white supremacists.

I’d be really surprised if they were affiliated in any way with the meatballs sovereign citizens who made a cause out of siding with cowboy/welfare kingpin Cliven Bundy. I doubt that crew could plan/organize itself out of a wet paper bag, but never mind. The meatball fantasy war is with federal agents, not Las Vegas cops.

The shooters may have had no affiliation with anything but their own fantasies, but it appears right-wing anti-government rhetoric had inflamed their un-tethered imaginations. Will the sovereign citizen crowd take a page of the NRA and dismiss what the shooters did as “mental illness” (e.g., their ideology had nothing to do with the shootings; the pair was just crazy)? Watch for that. This shooting appears to be right-wing domestic violence, and if the facts support that appearance this must be publicly acknowledged. No sweeping reality under the rug.

Notice to gun nuts: You cannot possibly argue that these shootings took place in a “gun free” zone.

General notice: When your scary neighbors who are always angry and live in camouflage pants talk a lot about killing police or anyone else, you might want to let local law enforcement know about this.