Yes, I referred to potential white supremacists, not actual ones.
As someone who is non-white, I am not sure when and how this indoctrination takes place. I have my theories but I would prefer to hear from those from the dominant society.
As alot of these WS terrorists are quite young I assume, it comes from within the household rather than externally.
I grew up in a very monocultural west-of-Scotland town. There were two chinese students in my year at primary school. They were pretty much the town's minority ethnic representation, though when we got to secondary school I think the 'ethnic' representation doubled, with the addition of a couple of girls of Indo-Pakistani heritage. One of whom - being ignorant little shits - we called Punjab (I knew this was an insult, but had no idea it was a racist insult), though her real name was the very ethnic and foreign sounding Lindsay.
Fast forward thirty odd years and I'm in a mixed ralationship with mixed race kids and only the occasional urge to put a firey cross on my lawn, so I'm not convinced by Bruno's mono- versus multi-cultural suggestion.
"Amid a clamour in the aftermath of the Texas and Ohio shootings earlier this month for increased background checks on firearm purchases, Mr Trump had said he was "looking to do background checks".
But he appeared to reverse that position after a phone call with the chief executive of the National Rifle Association (NRS), Wayne LaPierre, saying: "I'm also very, very concerned with the Second Amendment, more so than most presidents would be. People don't realise we have very strong background checks right now."
My wife was reading the news headlines in bed this morning and said "There's been another mass shooting in Texas" in a bored frustrated tone. Because really how can you feel anything else but tired at the cultural stupidity that creates these events?
1. It is a bit strange. The police have said that he was a white male in his 30s and known to them, so it isn't a question of conclusive identification. My best guess is that they have had problems finding next of kin, who they are required to notify before releasing the name.
2. Yes, it has been discounted. They arose because he changed vehicles, beginning in the car that was stopped foe erratic driving and then stealing the postal van. The initial reports didn't take into account the possibility that the same guy was driving both vehicles.
The pattern seems not to follow recent mass shooters.
Their names have been leaked online either due to their manifestos being published just before they went out on their killing sprees or by Law enforcement/ Medical staff etc.
There are few secrets in this internet age. This might be a good thing as it may be evidence of these WS being chased off their message boards by law enforcement.
My take is that this was much more spontaneous than the "usual" mass shooting.
The guy was driving around with an arsenal (unfortunately not unknown or illegal in Texas), became enraged when he was stopped, shot and killed a cop through the back window of his car and then decided that he was going to take as many people with him as he could before the police killed him.
If that is the case, there wouldn't be a manifesto and there may not be a history of WS.
On the one hand, I feel like this could have been a very different story if guns were legal in the UK and he hadn't been intercepted.
On the other hand, I feel like 16 years is a very long sentence for something that didn't actually happen. It feels a bit like minority report. Maybe if he'd bought the gun, he'd never have gone through with any of his plans?
Reading his list of convictions, my immediate reaction is to wonder what kind of mental health evaluations have been done. He appears to be a profoundly disturbed young man.
Local report: defence counsel noted that Davies "had seen three psychiatrists during his 458 days in custody and been treated for a depressive illness, as well as a neuro-developmental disorder."
On the one hand, I feel like this could have been a very different story if guns were legal in the UK and he hadn't been intercepted.
On the other hand, I feel like 16 years is a very long sentence for something that didn't actually happen. It feels a bit like minority report. Maybe if he'd bought the gun, he'd never have gone through with any of his plans?
Seriously.
He was inspired by mass shootings globally and wanted to purchase other items to assist with mass terrorism besides a gun.
Added to that, he was in the possession of child porn.
The mentality in the US is that hunters get whatever they want as long as they're willing to pay something for a license. They're a powerful lobby and fish & wildlife commissions seem to just work for them and, sometimes the timber and mining industries.
It is certainly true in Pennsylvania (and, apparently to an even greater extent in Maine), but it isn't at all true in California or New York (for instance). Perhaps importantly, it is definitely true in the "purple" states that went for Trump in 2016 (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc.)
Really? Do California and New York have a different system then paying for game lands with license fees and resource extraction? The problem isn't just that the state house is run by rednecks, it's that the whole user fee system is designed to make the game commissions beholden to certain interests and those interests do not often line-up with the long-term conservation or the welfare of wildlife, as far as I can tell. Hunters claim that what they do is necessary for conservation but I fail to see how shooting the biggest and healthiest animals or killing all the predators is actually helping conserve those populations.
But that "anyone can hunt on private property" may be one of those weird Maine-specific thing. That would not go over well in PA, among other places. Indeed, in a lot of places, bringing a gun into private property without permission can get you shot.
Indeed, in much of the east especially, we still follow the old European model of letting rich people buy up land and streams for their own exclusive hunting and fishing privilege. A lot of the bed trout waters near me are only accessible to private clubs, for example.
We don't have state game lands that are designated as such. Hunting is allowed on some (but not all) public lands and on private lands by agreement. There is limited (if any) public infrastructure.
It always struck me as a bizarre aspect of Pennsylvania (the state game lands are very prominent on maps, as you know), though I now understand it not to be that uncommon in terms of the country as a whole.
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