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.

17 thoughts on “Thoughts on the Mass Shooting du Jour

  1. I did read one report that they were booted off the Bundy ranch, which would place them beyond the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe.

    Bundy remains the most underreported story around; what is at stake there is the very concept of rule of law, which is the foundation of everything else that makes a civilized society. If rule of law fails, then the edifice collapses. But this is of no interest to news media; where are the ratings in covering that?

  2. As if our police aren’t jumpy enough already.

    Now, they’ll also worry about just going out to have lunch.

    And I can’t say I blame them – when every car they stop, every home or apartment door they knock on, every place they go for a meal, may have an armed and violently deranged kook there.

    Their jobs are tough enough already, and FSM knows we have more than our share of police with their own issues…

  3. “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)?”

    Well, the early returns show the, “They’re neo-nazis, therefore they’re liberals, ipso facto, QED”. That’s the Dumbest Man On The Internet’s (Jim Hoft) approach. The fact that they allegedly had Gadsden flags and were proud Bundy ranchers doesn’t seem to enter TDMOTI’s calculations.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/09/white-supremacist-walmart-revolution-shooters-kicked-off-bundy-ranch/

  4. Also, too – if I were a policeman, I’d be FOR gun control.

    For MY sake, and MY FAMILIES sake!

  5. I often see cops relaxing a bit on their lunch break – just like anybody else – and I wept a little when I imagined these two young guys with wives and kids at home chowing down some pizza and getting offed by some idiot. And then to head into a Wal-Mart, guns’a’blazin (what was that about?).

    Bundy remains the most underreported story around; what is at stake there is the very concept of rule of law, which is the foundation of everything else that makes a civilized society.

    It’s interesting to me how a civilization frays. How areas of the outback, which were always marginally part of a civilization, revert back to their uncivilized state.

    A few days earlier, I was in a bar, watching the LA Kings claw their way to victory over the NY Rangers in the Stanley Cup finals. A working-class, young barmaid wore a black The Gun Store T-Shirt, which is from a place off the Las Vegas strip (do check out their website). As you drive into Las Vegas you’ll see billboards enticing you to come in and fire an AK-47 or M-16, or any number of other guns. This is the kind of nutso environment these cops have to contend with.

  6. And then to head into a Wal-Mart, guns’a’blazin (what was that about?).

    That’s the manifestation of “Don’t tread on me”. Seems the Tea Party has taken first blood. It shouldn’t be such a shock that these Tea baggers ambushed 2 policemen who represent the tyrannical Obama administration.. That’s what their obligation to their cause is all about…Remember.. The tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots from time to time.
    I’m sure these Tea Party Patriots will be martyred and venerated among their Tea Party ranks.. It’s one thing to fly your Gadsden flag and walk around with an AR15 slung over your shoulder shouting about tyranny.. but it another to take action for the cause of liberty.
    erinyes make a comment a while back saying, “It’s all fun until somebody loses an eye” That’s exactly what this whole patriot/ tyranny narrative is coming down to. You can’t pump peoples heads full of notions that they’re being oppressed and that they need to be armed to the teeth in order to combat that supposed oppression without expecting some of the less stable or more courageous? to act on that understanding.
    If it’s true that the gunmen laid a Gadsden flag on or at the bodies of the slain officers then those kills belong to the Tea Party. No mistake about it.

  7. Swami,
    Want to bet that they’ll say that this couple were a couple of Libtards doing a “black-flag” operation, to discredit conservatives and gun owners?

    They’ll say that The Gadsden Flag is proof!

  8. gulag …Well, I’m a firm believer in the infallible word of God.. 🙂 , and the Lord says: As you sow, so shall ye reap.. The Tea party has been sowing the seeds of believing that we are being oppressed by tyranny and the call to strike back at that percieved oppression. Those Tea Party killers did exactly what they were exhorted to do. The Tea party reaped what they sowed. I mean, what exactly does a symbol of a rattle snake with the words— Don’t tread on me—mean if not a warning of impending death if you oppose their beliefs. No mystery there! Unfortunately 2 police officers were killed because they wore a uniform representative of the Tea baggers perceived enemy.
    I’m sure the Tea Party will try to distance themselves from the result of their rhetoric, but the reality is that the blood of those 2 officers in on their hands.

  9. (CNN) — A Las Vegas couple who gunned down two police officers and a civilian before killing themselves apparently looked at law enforcement as oppressors, a sheriff’s department official said Monday.

    Among the clues: a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag and a Nazi swastika the couple placed on one of the police officers they ambushed Sunday at a pizza restaurant. They also pinned onto the officer’s body a note saying something to the effect of “this is the beginning of the revolution,” Second Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill told reporters.

    “We believe that they equate government and law enforcement … with Nazis,” McMahill said. “In other words, they believe law enforcement is the oppressor.”

    Police said Monday that Jerad Miller shot Officer Igor Soldo in the back of the head, then shot fellow Officer Alyn Beck in the neck before Miller’s wife, Amanda, pulled a gun from her purse and also fired on Beck.

    They then ran to a nearby Walmart where they shot a bystander before barricading themselves inside the store during a brief firefight with responding officers.

    Amanda Miller shot her husband repeatedly as officers closed in on them inside the Walmart, McMahill said. She then turned the gun on herself.

    Investigators searched an apartment believed to be where the couple lived late Sunday night. They also are going through the couple’s social media postings, McMahill said.

    A woman who says she lived near the couple told CNN affiliate KTNV that the married couple liked to dress up as the villainous Batman characters Joker and Harley Quinn.

    The neighbor, Krista Koch, told the station the man also sometimes dressed as Slenderman, a fictional horror character that recently surfaced in the stabbing of a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin.

    Nutjobs Nazis, know thyselves.

  10. I have seven grandchildren and in the not to distant future I can image them sitting on Grandpa’s knee listening to a history lesson about the Tea Party massacre. Yep, instead of the Boston Massacre and Bunker Hill they’ll be hearing about the Tea Party Massacre and Bunkerville.

    And instead of ..”Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes”; it will be.. “Don’t fire until you see the back of their heads”.

  11. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun?

    According to police, Walmart shopper Robert Wilcox, 31, was carrying a concealed weapon and confronted Jerad Miller. Wilcox was apparently unaware of Amanda Miller and when he walked by her to confront her husband, she shot him in the rib area.

    Well, maybe not all the time.. but probably most of the time.

  12. This from Friday –

    “(CNN) — Dennis Marx wore body armor and a gas mask. He brandished an assault rifle, an assortment of grenades, “all kinds of ammunition” and even used his silver Nissan SUV as a weapon of sorts, according to authorities. The 48-year-old man toted his own water supply and flexible handcuffs, presumably to corral hostages once he got inside the north Georgia courthouse.

    As Forsyth County Sheriff Duane Piper said, “He came prepared to do this.”

    But Dennis Marx never even made it inside.

    A nearly three-minute long gunfight Friday ended with Marx dead, after being confronted by a swarm of law enforcement officers.
    Dennis Marx was shot and killed by police Dennis Marx was shot and killed by police

    They seemingly came from everywhere — from the jail across the street, as part of a SWAT team that happened to be nearby and even inside the courthouse where they busted out windows in order to get more angles to target the attacked.”

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/06/justice/georgia-courthouse-shooting/

    So far there’s not a lot on the background or motive on this one. The method, planning and target are suspicious. So is the SWAT team that ‘happened’ to be there. How many incidents makes a trend?

  13. A little more detail on the Las Vegas killings. It turns out that the slain Wal-Mart shopper was packing heat, and as he tried to defend himself, he was shot by the “revolutionaries”. I thought this is exactly what wingnuts want us to do – everyone carrying arms so we can defend ourselves against the nasties? Also note the Clive Bundy connection:

    …From the pizza restaurant, the couple grabbed their backpacks and walked to the nearby Wal-Mart, entering through the front door. Jerad Miller fired one shot into the air and told everyone to get out and that the revolution had arrived. Amanda placed the backpacks into a shopping cart.

    Joseph Robert Wilcox, 31, of Las Vegas, carried a concealed weapon as he shopped. He moved to confront Jerad, but apparently didn’t realize that Amanda was with the gunman. As Wilcox confronted Jerad, Amanda fired into his ribs and he collapsed, dead, police said.

    The couple gathered items from around the store and essentially built a fort of products around themselves. From that position they exchanged fire with police officials and exchanged some words, police said.

    Wounded, Amanda took a handgun and fired several rounds into Jerad’s head before taking her own life with a gunshot to her head. Officers handcuffed both; Amanda was still breathing but died soon after.

    Neighbors at the Oak Tree Apartments where the couple lived were trying to figure out how the couple from the Midwest had come to such an end.

    “At first he was OK, then the Bundy ranch thing happened and things changed,” said Larry Burnette, a neighbor of the couple. “Him and his wife went out there carrying guns. I tried to tell them not to go, but they were so against the police. They wanted the cops to go away and leave the Bundys alone.”

  14. 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.

    There’s video of the male shooter speechifying at the Bundy ranch. He was there. The nutcases at the Bundy ranch threatened police a lot. No one likely gave these two their marching orders, but they encouraged idiots like them all the time, as did outlets like Fox News.

    It’s not that any given person is “affiliated” in any official way. That isn’t the problem we face here. And the distinction between Las Vegas cops and and other government law enforcement isn’t one that is likely to keep idiots like these two from shooting the former.

  15. Its just amazing not only how these people are being coddled, but are incited and even encouraged in their violence openly by elements in the media and right wing political leaders. They tell us we should be very afraid of “terrorists,” which has become a coded label for blacks, minorities, “liberals,” women, gays, Muslims, atheists, feminists, and damn near anyone who is for common sense on threats such as climate change, gun violence.

    Yet its white, right wing terrorists who erupt and kill en mass regularly, and even their open threats of violence against the government or anyone else are minimized as we are told they should never be seen as any more than, isolated actions of “crazy people.”

    Are they crazy? I can imagine many of them are. But the frequency and commonalities of the actors and their actions say that these are more than just random eruptions of the mentally insane. Deluded, maybe; but that’s different.

  16. I’m sure the Tea Party will try to distance themselves from the result of their rhetoric, but the reality is that the blood of those 2 officers in on their hands.

    Well, I’m going to give myself an Amen,brother! on that one. I hate to beat a dead horse or come off as all knowing in spite of my superior analytical prowess. 🙂 But in the final analysis, no matter how you spin it, flip it, dissect it, invert it or whatever you do to make it palatable the fact remains that the killer’s final statement was an alliance and allegiance to the Tea Party and its message. When they planted the Tea Party flag on the corpse of their enemy they proclaimed to the world that the Tea Party was responsible for the kill. I guess it’s sort of a Lexington-Concord moment for the Tea Party. The revolution has begun.

  17. To put in in plain English, they fucked with the wrong tribe. They killed 2 cops in cold blood. This “revolution” is about to get a big smack town.

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