I mean… maybe it could explain the motive… if it wasn’t fake.
If this person really is a closeted non-binary person and resented the freedom with which others were displaying their true selves… or some form of self-loathing… these are all possibilities.
But if there’s no evidence of this person expressing preferred pronouns prior to the shooting, or other legit clues they really truly are non-binary, it still smells like a ruse to avoid a hate crime charge. While I don’t doubt it’s possible for a black-on-black or Jew-on-Jew or gay-on-gay killing to be a bona fide hate crime, how many people have actually been convicted of committing hate crimes against a group they were a member of?
The point though is that it isn’t being gender non-conforming that is the problem, it is the bullying and vitriol that gender non-conforming people receive that is the problem. And any discussion of whether or not the shooter is NB distracts from that.
Admitting to myself that I am trans has led me to shave my legs and body, buy clothes that I like, learn to do my nails and makeup, and look in the mirror and feel beautiful. It’s made me cry over things that trigger my dysphoria. But it has never made me want to but a gun and go shoot people.
Yes, well thankfully that’s not most people’s reaction to… anything, including gender dysphoria.
I tend to come down on the side of mass shooters must have mental illness or they wouldn’t be mass shooters… that’s just simply not something that sane people do. But mental illness can drive people to do crazy things.
This is an utterly lazy excuse and completely insulting to people with mental illness.
It is the right-wing talking point, blame it on “mental illness,” and ignore the fact that these shooters are only happening because of their policies and exacerbated by the hate the they fuel.
In addition, if the right-wing actually thought it was a “mental health” issue you would think that they would do something to increase the quality of mental health care available? But, they know it is not the cause and just a convinient excuse that they like having available for these shootings that they also like.
That is certainly not my intention. There is all level of mental illness from low-grade depression that most of us will deal with at some point in our lives to very very severe forms of mental illness.
A person who commits mass murder is taking a very extreme action that they know full well is almost certain to result in either their immediate death or life imprisonment. That’s well beyond hatred and well beyond common forms of mental illness.
Completely agree other than the weird use of quotes. Mental health care in this country is objectively terrible and it’s shameful that we don’t do more.
Keep in mind that well over 74 million people voted for Trump in 2020, and maybe 0.0001% of them have or will go on to commit mass murder. I think there’s a touch more going on than right-wing policies.
We’ve had plenty of guns in our country for ages. We’ve had plenty of mental health problems in our country for ages. What’s new are the mass shootings, and what’s new is the volume of hatred coming out of right wing media such as Carlson or the Daily Wire. Hate speech shockingly brews hate.
Side note: I don’t think it’s the policies, more the extreme rhetoric and the lack of condemnation of that rhetoric by Republican leaders. As the elder Bush demonstrated, you can condemn bigots even if they support you, but current leadership has forgotten that.
This along with NRA-funded Republican party trying to sell more guns and ammunition as possible, regardless of the destruction their greed is causing. This includes the appointment of judges that will further this goal.
These are the policies that Republicans are pushing that i was referring to.
Now, their violent rhetoric and hate speech that they froths their now fully armed followers to a violent state, that is also a problem caused from the right.
Theyre trying to do this in canada. You cant really, because defining assault style weapons is pretty much impossible. The result is just banning scary looking guns, with a whole bunch of ‘no.way these are assault style guns’ being included.
Plus, imo if you ban a subset of guns because people have used them for violence, the next crazy will just use another model. It doesnt solve the problem its trying to solve.
Canada has a decent model. Handguns are heavily regulated. Long guns, not so much. Everyone passes a background check before being licensed, and is required to pass a safety course. And importantly, guns are a priviledge not a right.
Agree with all of this. It’s a similar concept to making airplane passengers remove their shoes for security just because one time someone tried to smuggle in explosives in their shoes. Mainly theater to make people see that the government is doing SOMETHING.
But doing the wrong thing is almost always worse than doing nothing IMO.
Here’s some of the problems they’re running into in canada.
they ban a gun. Someone owns that gun. What happens to that gun? You have to destroy it? that ain’t gonna fly. So in canada, they’ve done buy back programs (unsuccessfully). One of the buybacks that’s being discussed right now, the cost is estimated to be in the billions. So, banning specific guns is a problem.
the definitions of an assault gun are tenuous at best. So you’re stuck defining them using attributes of the gun - and then you end up banning guns that are no way near assault guns. e.g. they put in place a ban on guns with a muzzle diameter greater than X. Except…grampa’s single shot 12 gauge technically has a muzzle diameter greater than the limit if you measure where the choke gets screwed in. Oh, so now they change the definition to define where it gets measured, to carve out 12 guage’s.
pretty much whatever definition you use, someone’s got a modified elmer fudd gun they use only for hunting, that now is going to get banned. My son has a 12 gauge he’s built up. I’m not a fan of it because it ‘looks’ pretty assualt-y. But it’s still just a 12 gauge.
boating accidents increase after these types of bans. That’s where someone says ‘where’s that banned gun you used to own’ and the response is ‘Oh, damn, had a boating accident and the gun’s in the bottom of yonder lake’. That’s happened a lot in Canada. I know someone that refused to register their guns when canada required registration. The gov’t pulled their gun license since ‘they didn’t have a use for it, not owning any guns’. So now they don’t have a gun license, and yet…unclear if all their guns ended up in a boating accident or not. In other words, banning existing guns doesn’t get rid of the guns in practice.
they’re talking about banning (in canada) SKS rifles. These are 1950’s/WWII era rifles, and used heavily for hunting. You’re not even a gun owner in canada if you don’t have one. There’s likely millions of them. Implement a ban on them, ok, but how many are being taken off the streets? And now how many legal gun owners have become illegal gun owners? ‘most’, probably.
the solution isn’t to ban specific guns, other than perhaps the most extreme. The solution is to foster a culture of safety and privilege.