Active shooter thread

[scottsins 1975]

 
Maybe it's the difference of "traveling" around the world versus actually living there. But to echo Brisket's point... when I visit Europe, I'm not exactly witnessing the decline of a society. 

Nearly you haven’t been to all of those “no-go zones” I keep hearing about.

[DigglerontheHoof 21254]

21 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Trump supporters show up at a memorial to chant for Trump and brandish weapons.

Other obnoxious Trumpers showed up at a Warren rally a few days ago.

They're looking for a fight. It appears that they may be willing to be outnumbered and overwhelmed to make the case for white victimhood followed by white vengeance.

Shits ramping up.

I’m their huckle bearer.

[atomheartbevo 89821]

20 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Trump supporters show up at a memorial to chant for Trump and brandish weapons.

Other obnoxious Trumpers showed up at a Warren rally a few days ago.

They're looking for a fight. It appears that they may be willing to be outnumbered and overwhelmed to make the case for white victimhood followed by white vengeance.

Shits ramping up.

Every time they pull this shit, it helps the gun-control movement just a little bit more.  

Most of them are dumbass enough to have forgotten the AWB from 1994-2004, and all of the legal challenges it survived, but the gun control movement has not, and chances are high that AWB II will be far more extensive than the original AWB.

They want to be victims of the government "taking mah guns or keepin' me from protectin' my family from feral hogs", they are going to be the cause of it.

[Born to Run 6569]

I see he got the Alex Jones bumper sticker starter pack.

Ha ha no shit. I like the "9-11 was an inside job". Lets see the GOP was in power then, so I'll need pro GOP stickers everywhere too. Wait wut?
Maybe he is for the government blowing up buildings then, maybe his brain is mush, maybe he should go fuck himself.

Either way this fetishised view of gun ownership and cavelier brandishing of arms should really de-escalate things.

[Hank Scorpio 17731]

 

[Gap03 3336]

1 hour ago, retread said:

 

Based on the press that he got in the Washington Examiner, seems like this guy is the type that is looking to intimidate / instigate - he seems to be dying for some attention.  Just once it would be nice if one of these jackasses got the Philando Castile treatment instead of someone that wasn't specifically trying to start shit.

[Thrawn 538]

Those two officers in the first picture look like they may be of Hispanic descent.  Too bad this dipshit didn't decide to make things fair and try to start his inevitable rampage against brown people right then and there.  Of course that would have been too fair.  These pussies can't handle that.

[Zepol87 9195]

9 minutes ago, Gap03 said:

Based on the press that he got in the Washington Examiner, seems like this guy is the type that is looking to intimidate / instigate - he seems to be dying for some attention.  Just once it would be nice if one of these jackasses got the Philando Castile treatment instead of someone that wasn't specifically trying to start shit.

Yep. Fuck those mfers. 

[Dirk X West 772]

14 minutes ago, Gap03 said:

Based on the press that he got in the Washington Examiner, seems like this guy is the type that is looking to intimidate / instigate - he seems to be dying for some attention.  Just once it would be nice if one of these jackasses got the Philando Castile treatment instead of someone that wasn't specifically trying to start shit.

Unfortunately, white racist cops don't seem to like roughing up white racist civilians.

[texas08 1599]

What in the fuck? That Dotard troll and pickup situation is not real right?

[Biff Tannen 45749]

2 minutes ago, texas08 said:

What in the fuck? That Dotard troll and pickup situation is not real right?

I asked this earlier and got no response.  I'm assuming it is and everything is just fucked.

[JimmyJames 12271]

2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

So that was really real?  The guy in El Paso that was prepped for mass shooting part 2?  And they just let him go?

Dude was white. Of course they let him go. 

[Gap03 3336]

45 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I asked this earlier and got no response.  I'm assuming it is and everything is just fucked.

Appears to be real:

https://www.kvia.com/crime/armed-man-driving-trump-truck-detained-outside-el-paso-migrant-shelter/1107247805

[JimmyJames 12271]

3 minutes ago, Gap03 said:

Appears to be real:

https://www.kvia.com/crime/armed-man-driving-trump-truck-detained-outside-el-paso-migrant-shelter/1107247805

Maybe hot wheels will invite him to the governors mansion to feast on some bill miller BBQ. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Nitrile gloves, he must be allergic to latex.

[DixonHur 11393]

16 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Maybe hot wheels will invite him to the governors mansion to feast on some bill miller BBQ. 

If that won't kill him, nothing will

[Ted Lange 16144]

Answer is obviously more guns and less background checks. 

 

[Ted Lange 16144]

So. Much. Grifting 

 

 

[Ted Lange 16144]

FYI, he has no legal bills to pay.   Dude has to have a masters from TrumpU

[Pancho 45059]

So another mass shooting is definitely on the horizon

 

[Brisketexan 105432]

23 minutes ago, Pancho said:

So another mass shooting is definitely on the horizon

 

What's going to be interesting is the self-defense case when someone with a CHL or whatnot drops one of these tiny-dicked dipshits.  Is it reasonable to fear for your life when some shitheel fuckhole with a loaded AR and body armor struts menacingly into a Wal-mart?  Based on the current state of knowledge, I sure as fuck think so.

And hey fellow gun owners -- how does it feel to know that some of our fellow gun owners, acting like pointless terroristic dickheads, are 100% going to cause gun control measures that will flip your lid?  Fucking gun owners -- our own worst enemy.

[Ted Lange 16144]

As long as they think the AR carrying douchebags are pwning the libs, then fuck consequences or tomorrow.  Idiots. 

[Message Board User 12396]

 

[Pasken 1309]

1 hour ago, Pancho said:

So another mass shooting is definitely on the horizon

 

Maybe he was trying to make a point about open carry?

“As shoppers were panicking and fleeing the store, Lucas said the man was taking video on his phone and making comments to people while pushing a shopping cart. “

[atomheartbevo 89821]

39 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

And hey fellow gun owners -- how does it feel to know that some of our fellow gun owners, acting like pointless terroristic dickheads, are 100% going to cause gun control measures that will flip your lid?  Fucking gun owners -- our own worst enemy.

100% this.  

Dipshit gun owner: WAH, IM A VICTIM I JUST LOVE THE CONSTITUTION PEOPLE WANT TO PREVENT ME FROM CARRYING

Dipshit gun owner straps on armor and carries a rifle into a Walmart less than a week after 20+ killed at a Walmart

OC laws/policies change to prevent Dipshit gun owners from antagonizing/terrorizing people.

Dipshit gun owner:  SEE!  THEY HATE MUH GUNS IM A VICTIM WAHHHH!

[UTDD 362]

6 hours ago, DixonHur said:

Shit, I totally forgot about that guy.  I was gonna say the Senate in general, but then remembered Cory Booker. 

For the Dems, I think this state is Biden's firewall that someone has to break if they are going to win the nomination.  It might be hard to stop momentum if Biden stomps everyone in this state.  

Edited August 9, 2019 by UTDD

[UTDD 362]

5 hours ago, Gap03 said:

Based on the press that he got in the Washington Examiner, seems like this guy is the type that is looking to intimidate / instigate - he seems to be dying for some attention.  Just once it would be nice if one of these jackasses got the Philando Castile treatment instead of someone that wasn't specifically trying to start shit.

I'm...speechless.  Just that image on the back of the truck.

[HenryJames 66188]

I feel safer already.

[Ted Lange 16144]

IGN is some sort of onion website, right?

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

That guy with the pickup truck in El Paso? The pic on my computer is a little fuzzy (please do not enhance it, please do not enhance it) but it kinda looks like Trump in a tank top ala Rambo? The mental image I am getting of real life Trump in a tank top is all kinds of blech. Plus, the mental gymnastics required to think of this and actually have it put on your car is just well...sigh.

[fattyflattie 4638]

4 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Nitrile gloves, he must be allergic to latex.

Holy shit. I wouldn’t have believed this shit exists, though I have seen the “fuck trump” truck in south Houston so who knows about the fringes. 

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

And hey fellow gun owners -- how does it feel to know that some of our fellow gun owners, acting like pointless terroristic dickheads, are 100% going to cause gun control measures that will flip your lid?  Fucking gun owners -- our own worst enemy.

Brisket, what exactly should as a fellow law abiding gun owning citizen, should I do?  Stronger restrictions, OK.  Black gun ban, OK.  Large cap mag ban, OK.   So who’s got that plan that isn’t going to stifle the rest of my hunting/sporting arms. Drunk and willing to listen.   

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

8 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

willing to listen.   

1 down, 49,999,999 to go. 

[fattyflattie 4638]

Just now, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

1 down, 49,999,999 to go. 

Nope. Been drinking beers with @Llano Estacado all night.  Pretty sure he’s in.   And @Brisketexan too 

[Bozo_Casanova 26578]

So another mass shooting is definitely on the horizon
 

This reminds me of what my dad (carries) said when those morons went into chipotle with their guns at a ready position. “If I see that guy coming I’m assuming he’s a shooter and dropping him.

[Bozo_Casanova 26578]

gun owners -- how does it feel to know that some of our fellow gun owners, acting like pointless terroristic dickheads, are 100% going to cause gun control measures that will flip your lid?  Fucking gun owners -- our own worst enemy.

It’s these dickheads who think that carrying a gun is some kind of vehicle of self-expression.

[Doc Sam Beckett 5797]

3 hours ago, Ted Lange said:

Answer is obviously more guns and less background checks. 

 

How the fuck do they not have a good description of the suspect or his vehicle? 

[Brisketexan 105432]

Brisket, what exactly should as a fellow law abiding gun owning citizen, should I do?  Stronger restrictions, OK.  Black gun ban, OK.  Large cap mag ban, OK.   So who’s got that plan that isn’t going to stifle the rest of my hunting/sporting arms. Drunk and willing to listen.   

Start by beating the fuck out of morons who walk into Walmart like Rambo. Only kinda kidding.
Gun owners need to not be fucking dicks, and need to call out the stupid ass small dick gun culture.
Finally, it would help if we - people who actually understand these weapons - would LEAD on the issue, instead of being dragged into it.

This reminds me of what my dad (carries) said when those morons went into chipotle with their guns at a ready position. “If I see that guy coming I’m assuming he’s a shooter and dropping him.

Yep. You walk in any place at a low ready, you’re a shooter. No questions asked, you should be dropped.

[Bama Chick 28596]

Well, if this is true it adds another wrinkle to the Dayton shooting.

[Born to Run 6569]

What's going to be interesting is the self-defense case when someone with a CHL or whatnot drops one of these tiny-dicked dipshits.  Is it reasonable to fear for your life when some shitheel fuckhole with a loaded AR and body armor struts menacingly into a Wal-mart?  Based on the current state of knowledge, I sure as fuck think so.
And hey fellow gun owners -- how does it feel to know that some of our fellow gun owners, acting like pointless terroristic dickheads, are 100% going to cause gun control measures that will flip your lid?  Fucking gun owners -- our own worst enemy.

Or when you have an active rogue CHL shooter and a bunch of CHL shooters are shooting at the shooter too then the cops show up to subdue the original shooter and shoot the CHl hero shooter then his buddy ( the patriot but non LEO shooter gets revenge on the crooked cop shooter) and shoots them.

But you sell lots of guns.

[Born to Run 6569]

Brisket, what exactly should as a fellow law abiding gun owning citizen, should I do?  Stronger restrictions, OK.  Black gun ban, OK.  Large cap mag ban, OK.   So who’s got that plan that isn’t going to stifle the rest of my hunting/sporting arms. Drunk and willing to listen.   

Create a new NRA that goes back to outreach without hostility and fear?

[RPM 26360]

ARMED MAN FOUND IN SCHOOL WALLS – After a six-hour search, authorities found a Paradise man, who was reportedly seen earlier in the afternoon carrying a rifle near the Paradise High School football field, in the walls of the high school late Wednesday night. Officers placed Elvin Fox, 59, of Paradise in custody. Fox was found with his rifle in between the walls of the Paradise High School gym, according to the Wise County Sheriff’s Office. Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin said they found the man at 10 p.m. Some staff and students had been on lockdown inside the school during the manhunt, which included multiple local departments searching the area. Akin believes Fox was in the ceiling prior to slipping in between the walls, and he remained in the gym for the entirety of the lockdown. Akin said this morning that Fox is being held under a mental health detention and they are preparing to file two felony charges: felon in possession of a firearm and aggravated assaulted with a deadly weapon (for entering a school with a firearm)

[texas08 1599]

Yeah, basically anyone with a pulse owns a gun.

My gawd we are fucked.

[atomheartbevo 89821]

4 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

What's going to be interesting is the self-defense case when someone with a CHL or whatnot drops one of these tiny-dicked dipshits.  Is it reasonable to fear for your life when some shitheel fuckhole with a loaded AR and body armor struts menacingly into a Wal-mart?  Based on the current state of knowledge, I sure as fuck think so.

First of all, I'm on a completely different floor than you, and I'm not actually out on the ledge, I've just got the window cracked a few inches.  

I've spent the evening on the couch watching over a sick kid who wants to do nothing but watch Paw Patrol, so I'm in a surly mood to start with.  Anyways, with iPad in hand, I've browsed a shit-ton of forums - Free Republic, TexAgs, half a dozen subs on reddit, twitter, Facebook (including the more redneck of my relatives), just lots and lots of different forums and social media.  Lots of random stuff.

I'm tired and surly, so perhaps I'm projecting, but I'm getting a serious sense of electricity in the air.  I think El Paso has changed everything.  Yeah, I know, what a not-so-bold and not-so-original statement, but it's pulled open the curtain and exposed a lot of people for what they are, and they are open about it.  We've now seen a big mass shooting that didn't involved a place close to the shooter (place of employment, school, church that they attended), and most importantly, was focused solely on race.

I see a lot of dipshits on those forums mentioned above, who don't see a problem with that dude open-carrying into a Walmart today.    They are in such a fucking bubble unto themselves, that they are not stopping to think of the repercussions of that.  They have not stopped to consider what happens if a CHL holder drops one of these mouth breathers open-carrying like that dude.  Who do they support - the CHL holder who did what they claim (fantasize) they need a CHL for, or the dude who is just open-carrying?

They are of the mindset that "hey, we have to exercise these rights and push these boundaries, to let the rest of America know we won't be blamed for anything, and that we are out there and won't give a single inch on anything!"  They are like little brats who are chafing against the boundaries and rules laid down by the adults, and so they are going to try and play with the wording and do everything they can to find out where that line is that the adults have drawn.

I also see plenty who buy into Tucker's narratives, although most of them seem to be older, but still, it's too many who feel far too bold because Trump and Tucker used the same invasion language.  They are also in their own little fucking bubble, not realizing the rest of the country thinks they are racist, and not realizing that they are helping to get out voters on the left.  They truly believe that Tucker had some pre-planned vacation that he didn't want to reveal until 30 seconds before the end of his last show for a week and a half.

Wthin a few days of a white supremacist-inspired mass murder, you have these two young dipshits, one open-carrying into Walmart, the other trying to make people at a shelter feel nervous, and I admit, I feel like there are probably a few dozen more of them than either just haven't worked up the nerve to do something stupid, or they are two busy comparing manifestos or whatever on the internet.   Too many of these young fuckers seem to be really chafing against society, and they want to feel superior (I'd almost bet money that today's two dipshits have plenty of white supremacy in their backgrounds).  While they may not have opened fired, they certainly put themselves in a position to die by cop, so they are clearly missing a critical thinking function in their heads.

What gives me hope, is I do see plenty who are saying that guys like that are going to cause problems for everybody - they are at least self-aware, and probably old enough to remember the AWB from '94-'04.  But then I realize they will still vote Trump next year.  I also think/hope we see a lot more CHL holders confronting these open-carry fuckers when they pull stunts like they did today.  The folks I know who not only hold a CHL, but actively carry, are the same types as that off-duty firefighter that confronted that little shit at the Walmart today - they are liable to confront some open-carry dipshit if they are dumb enough to do it around them.

I also see a whole lot of anger at Trump and his supporters, and I think that not only carried over from 2018, I think it's increasing with the happenings of this week.

School is ramping up, my wife works in education and is frequently at various schools, and I got a first grader, and while I used to not worry at all, I've got a little twinge that we are we going to see something just as bad or worse in the next month than Walmart.  Too many of these fuckers are getting too bold, and FNC and Trump and the rest are all but encouraging them.

Anyways,. I'm rambling, I at least admitted I opened the window and looked at the ledge.

[Anastasis 23489]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lost-in-life-el-paso-suspect-found-a-dark-world-online-11565308783?mod=hp_lead_pos5

 

 

ALLEN, Texas—The family of Patrick Crusius, the alleged gunman in El Paso’s mass shooting, worried he was a little lost, with few friends, but thought he wasn’t any more aimless than many others his age, said family lawyer Christopher Ayres.

When Mr. Crusius discussed current events, history and politics with his grandfather, with whom he lived for a while, his ideas didn’t appear to be out of the mainstream, according to Mr. Ayres. Like many young men in Texas, he occasionally went to the gun range with his father.

Evidence is emerging, however, that Mr. Crusius, 21 years old, cut a much different profile on the internet, where he spent some eight hours a day, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He has told investigators that he came to his views by doing research online, according to a law-enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation, and didn’t speak to or organize with other white nationalists in person. He said he read the manifesto by the perpetrator of the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand and thought it had the right message.

According to law enforcement, shortly before the attack in El Paso began on Saturday, he posted a manifesto on an online forum called 8chan. The document expressed a desire to kill as many Hispanics as possible, claiming they were culturally replacing native-born Americans and taking away job opportunities.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What action should people and / or platforms take if they encounter speech about potential violence online? Join the conversation below.

8chan has long been a home for users who want to discuss mass shootings and racist, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic and antigay ideologies. Law-enforcement officials are inquiring about the extent to which Mr. Crusius may have become radicalized on sites such as 8chan.

The anonymity of users on the platform makes it hard to determine what else he may have posted, who he communicated with and whether he left any clues to what he was planning.

 

Mr. Ayres, his family’s lawyer, said the family is baffled by where he picked up some of the ideas contained in the manifesto, which seemed more sophisticated than the way he usually talked. His grandfather, Mr. Ayres said, “never got the impression that Patrick was going to a dark or strange place.”

The public defender representing Mr. Crusius didn’t return calls seeking comment.

Mr. Crusius attended Plano Senior High School, where he didn’t have a lot of friends. PHOTO: ERIN AILWORTH/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

After his arrest, Mr. Crusius has spoken at length to authorities. “He basically didn’t hold anything back,” El Paso Chief Greg Allen said. “He expected to die.”

8chan offers forums where racist views and the celebration of mass shooters are unfettered. The site was launched in response to the censoring of certain views on 4chan, another fringe site. The only rule of the forum is that users not post, request or link to any content that is illegal in the U.S.

After the shooting, which killed 22, the owner of the forum, Jim Watkins, defended it in a YouTube video, saying his company was helping law enforcement in its investigation. He said the manifesto may have been written by Mr. Crusius but uploaded by another user.

People who have spent time on the site said they couldn’t recall Mr. Crusius ever previously identifying himself in posts. Few users ever do so, they said.

 

8chan Users

The online forum is most popular among younger males.

Age distribution

25.1%

18-24

32.1

25-34

15.0

34-44

11.7

45-54

8.5

55-64

7.6

65+

Gender breakdown

Female 15.1%

Male 84.9%

Source: SimilarWeb

It appears that he was familiar before Saturday with the forum, which can be difficult for first-time users to navigate. The site is divided into more than 21,000 discussion boards, and the one Mr. Crusius chose, called “politically incorrect,” is the same one used by the gunmen in two other shootings: the April killing of a worshiper at a synagogue in Poway, Calif., and the March killing of 51 at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Mr. Crusius appears to have been influenced by previous manifestos on the site. In the first paragraph of his own manifesto, he laid out how New Zealand shooter Brenton Tarrant spurred him to launch his own attack, writing, “In general, I support the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto.” In March, Mr. Tarrant allegedly posted a 74-page anti-Muslim manifesto to 8chan before he began shooting. He is often referred to on the site as “St. Tarrant.”

Mr. Crusius appeared to be nervous about how his manifesto and subsequent shooting would be received on the board. “I have do this before I lose my nerve,” he wrote. “I figured that an under-prepared attack and a meh manifesto is better than no attack and no manifesto.”

In the hours after the attack, a discussion broke out on 8chan about his place in the history of mass shooters. Responses were riddled with racist and antigay language. One said, “Every shabbat,” which a regular 8chan user said was an expression of hope that there would be a mass shooting every week.

Shoppers exit with their hands up after the mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso. PHOTO: JORGE SALGADO/REUTERS

 

“The new guys deserves some praise, he reached almost a third of the high score,” one commenter wrote, a reference to the largest death toll in any mass shooting. 8chan users regularly refer to the death count in mass shootings as the “score.”

Others mocked him for failing to kill more people, or for targeting Hispanics instead of Jews.

“Hail all our men of action and martyrs,” wrote one person. “Hail Tarrant, Bowers…Roof, Breivik, and Ernest,” a list of shooters who espoused racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic ideas.

The manifesto went online at 10:15 a.m. local time, about 25 minutes before Mr. Crusius allegedly began his slaughter. There has been no indication that any 8chan users alerted authorities, according to one law-enforcement official. Site administrators eventually removed the manifesto, but it was reposted and mentioned on 8chan and other fringe social media sites more than 750 times, according to Storyful, a social media analytics company. (Storyful is owned by News Corp , the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.) It also was mentioned more than 77,000 times on mainstream social-media sites, including Facebook .

The FBI is now turning more attention to violence by white supremacists in the U.S. after nearly two decades in which it primarily focused on overseas Islamic extremism. Domestic terrorists are being radicalized online in much the same way as their overseas counterparts.

While federal law enforcement has wide latitude to crack down on foreign terror plots, the First Amendment complicates investigators’ efforts to thwart attacks by Americans. If white supremacists share hateful comments among themselves on online forums, even if they talk about weapons, the FBI is largely powerless to investigate because both speech and gun ownership are protected rights.

Patrick Crusius in a law-enforcement class in photo as it appeared in the Plano Senior High School 2017 yearbook.

Because Mr. Crusius’s manifesto didn’t include specific plans to carry out a shooting, it isn’t clear whether law enforcement would have taken action even if they had known about it. There regularly are many vague threats of hate-fueled violence on numerous sites across the internet. On 8chan alone, there were 2,370 posts in a single hour on Aug. 5, two days after the shooting.

If someone in the U.S. were communicating with a foreign terrorist overseas about weapons or ideology, U.S. terrorism laws give authorities the ability at least to take a closer look and launch an investigation, if warranted. But federal officials have fewer options when it comes to domestic threats because the U.S. government has no specific statute for acts of domestic terrorism. Prosecutors instead frequently turn to hate-crime or gun-related laws.

 

“It’s not a question of manpower, it’s really a question of the ability to begin to penetrate that sort of circle,” said Michael Mullaney, who worked as the Justice Department’s counterterrorism chief during the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations.

Mr. Crusius grew up comfortable in the majority white suburb of Allen. His parents divorced in 2011, in part because of his father’s drinking and drug use, according to court documents and a memoir published by his father. He attended high school in Plano, where he took a law enforcement course and was part of the 2017 graduating class of more than 1,000.

“He didn’t necessarily have a lot of friends,” said Paige Nunnally-Rowley, who attended Plano Senior High School and Collin College, a nearby community college, with him. “He just shied away from a lot of people, no matter who they were.”

 

His older brother, Blake, described Mr. Crusius in a 2016 college assignment as a “generally very introverted” person who made some friends through online gaming and chat rooms. “The anonymity and less intimate nature of the internet allow him to connect with others more comfortably and branch out to make new friends,” Blake wrote at the time. Blake said his younger brother also had offline friends, according to Mr. Ayres.

Mr. Crusius’s twin sister, Emily, was more popular, with a large group of high-school friends, said Damarius Griffin, who graduated in 2016.

After finishing high school, Mr. Crusius enrolled at Collin and moved in with his grandparents.

Some postings on a Twitter account with his name, which had the handle @outsider609, suggest that his political leanings were to the right, although not out of the mainstream. The movement to build a border wall with Mexico, said one, “is the best way that @POTUS has worked to secure our country so far!”

The manifesto said he spent about a month preparing for the attack. He moved out of his grandparents’ home about six weeks before the shooting. They thought he was about to take the next step in his life, perhaps a transfer to a four-year university, a job, or a military career.

Law-enforcement respond to the shooting in El Paso. PHOTO: JOEL ANGEL JUAREZ/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

When his mother, Lori, learned he had ordered an AK-style rifle several weeks ago, she called Allen police and was referred to a safety-resource officer to talk through her concerns that her inexperienced son had purchased the weapon.

“This was a mother who is learning that her kid is getting a gun and simply thinking, ‘What do I do?’ ” Mr. Ayres said.

The department asked a few questions about the firearm, but ultimately told her Mr. Crusius was legally allowed to own the gun.

Now the family is wondering what they missed, and where he picked up the ideas outlined in the manifesto authorities believe he posted.

When told about what Mr. Crusius has said to authorities, Mr. Ayres said: “This isn’t the Patrick they knew, and it’s not the view of the world that they have.”

Mr. Crusius was last seen by his twin sister when the two hung out at their grandparents’ house on Aug. 1, two days before the shooting. She didn’t notice anything out the ordinary with her brother, Mr. Ayres said. Mr. Crusius also visited the home the next night before making the approximately 10-hour drive to El Paso, but no other family members were there.

The celebratory posts on 8chan after the shooting reveal what experts say has become a motivation for many of the young men who launch attacks in public places: the desire for notoriety in the public and glory in certain corners of the internet, regardless of whether they survive or not.

“8chan not only has the manifestos, but users also have encouragement from the community that celebrates what they did and reminds all those users that if they do the same thing, they will never be forgotten. They will be lionized,” said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, which monitors activity on social-media sites including 8chan.

Stephen G. White, a psychologist who has studied multiple mass shooters, said shooters were “ seeking to become the next alluring antihero….One of our concerns is that these guys are thinking about the body count. ‘How can I score more points than the last guy?’ It’s a very terrible trend.”

The two students who launched an attack at Columbine High School in 1999 have remained subjects of fascination for two decades. Elliot Rodger, who killed six people in Isla Vista, Calif., in 2014, has become a hero to an online community of men who call themselves “Incels”—short for “involuntarily celibate”—who espouse misogynistic ideas and violence toward women. He was cited as an inspiration by a man who allegedly plowed his van into a crowd in Toronto last year, killing 10 people.

Jillian Peterson, a professor of criminal justice at Hamline University who studies the life histories of mass shooters, said the past 20 years of mass shootings and heavy media coverage have created a “cultural script” for people who are struggling emotionally to draw attention to themselves.

To be noticed today, she said, the shootings have to be “bigger and bolder” than in the past. “They are these violent performances, meant to be seen and watched,” she said.

 

Crosses at a memorial outside the Walmart where the shooting took place. PHOTO: LUKE E. MONTAVON/BLOOMBERG NEWS

—Zusha Elinson, Sadie Gurman, Jennifer Calfas, Tawnell D. Hobbs, Jim Carlton, Talal Ansari and Elisa Cho contributed to this article.

[Jack Straw 2954]

12 hours ago, DDD Dad said:

Garden variety, mainstream Republican in 2019.  

[Dropout 355]

Seen a few of these idk who this guy is but if you’re a white person and don’t get it he lays it out. Don’t be terrific Tom. We can’t just push it aside and act like it doesn’t exist because we don’t want to hurt white people feelings. Just admit this shit and help out. I’m usually encouraged by what I read here and when I see things like this so at least there’s that.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20505]

[WhatTheBuck 28805]

10 hours ago, UTDD said:

I'm...speechless.  Just that image on the back of the truck.

It's unreal, isn't it? The fantasy world these people live in that they can imagine that when thinking about this fat lazy fuck. 

[Biff Tannen 45749]

13 minutes ago, Axiom of Choice said:

I normally fall on the side of unrestricted free speech and I'm typically very wary of any proposed restrictions, but those 8chan nutcases need to be restricted.  Those comments given in this article are atrocious.  In my opinion, they are equivalent to shouting "fire" in a movie theater.  

This is what I've been saying.  

[Guest Lobo]

^ to axiom’s post   

is the dad’s addiction stuff that correlated to the son’s violent behavior.  I’m honestly asking because we are going to have the sons of millions of opioid addicts becoming young men in a few years and their access to serious weaponry is getting easier and more lethal.  Throw in the fact that even after he leaves office, Trump will stoke these flames.   

That’s a dangerous cocktail.  

Edited August 9, 2019 by Lobo