A Mass Shooting? Wake Me Up when Something Unusual Happens

[Sue U]

Just another isolated incident by a disturbed young man ... oh wait:

[Econoline]

[MajGenl.Meade]

I think we could avoid a lot of murders if parents would just stop giving their kids three names. I only have two and have not yet killed anyone at all.

[Lord Jim]

As frequently happens in these horrific situations, while the shooter represents the darkest of what our species is capable of, someone else rises to show the other end of the spectrum of human potential:

Army Veteran Praised As A Hero In Oregon College Shooting



(CNN)When Chris Mintz heard gunfire at Oregon's Umpqua Community College on Thursday, his thoughts were not of himself.

Instead, he thought first of protecting others. Then he thought of his 6-year-old son, Tyrik.

Nine people were killed when a gunman opened fire at the College on Thursday. Nine others were injured.

When the shooting broke out, Mintz, 30, a military veteran and a former high school football player in Randleman, North Carolina, tried to save the lives of others.

"Tries to block the door to keep the gunman from coming in," his aunt, Wanda Mintz, told Fox 8, a CNN affiliate in High Point, North Carolina.

"Gets shot three times," his aunt said. "Hits the floor."

"Looks up at the gunman and says, 'It's my son's birthday today,' " his aunt said.

Still, there was no mercy. The gunman shot Mintz again. It's not yet clear exactly how many more times, but both his legs are broken, said family members who talked to him by phone on his way into surgery.

"He's going to have to learn to walk again," Ariana Earnhardt, his cousin, told Fox 8. "But he walked away with his life, and that's more than so many other people did."

Frantic students hid behind backpacks, chairs

Some on social media hailed Mintz's courage and encouraged people to remember him rather than the killer.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Applause for that man.

2nd amendment? Oh, spit. I think the genie's already too far out of that bottle but sign me up. All would-be owners to be licensed and licenses to be expensive. All handgun sales to be banned. Shotguns and long guns only after weeks of background checks. Something. There are already sufficient guns around in the USA to keep hunters going for a billion years.

...and already enough so that mass-killings can go on for hundreds of years. But, as a Christian... end the insanity of the 2nd amendment

Damn... just got a message from HRC welcoming me ... must shoot self

[liberty]

Which regional and political group did this guy belong to, after all he was trying to make the country a better place by eliminating as many
Christians as he could. John Brown of the twenty first century?



Witnesses to the Oregon bloodshed described Mercer as questioning people at gunpoint about their religious affiliations, and appearing to single out Christians for killing.


http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/probe- ... spartandhp


Probe in college slayings peers into Web rants and possible religious rage

ROSEBURG, Ore. — The gunman who cut a deadly path through a college campus appeared armed for an extended siege according to investigators who were probing more deeply into suspicions the shooter may have been driven by religious rage and a fascination with the twisted notoriety of high-profile killers.
What is known so far about the attacker — identified by a U.S. law enforcement official as Chris Harper Mercer — appears mostly as loose strands that suggested an interest in firearms and the infamy gained by mass shooters.
Witnesses also said he seemed to seek specific revenge against Christians, and police examined Web posts that hinted of wider antipathy toward organized faith.


An agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said at a news conference Friday that investigators had recovered 13 weapons, including six at the school. Also recovered there was a flak jacket with steel plates and five magazines of ammunition. The rest of the weapons, and more ammunition, were found at Mercer’s home.
But authorities still struggled to build a clearer picture of what drove the California-raised Mercer to stalk rural Umpqua Community College and methodically pick off students and professors Thursday on the fourth day of the fall semester.
When it was over, nine people were dead, plus Mercer, and the college joined the mournful roster of America’s mass shooting sites — and the backdrop for the latest debate about gun control.
[Mercer left behind a portrait of a lonely youth with a grudge]
Thursday night, as police picked through Mercer’s apartment near campus, hundreds of people joined a candlelight vigil. Some sang along to “Amazing Grace” — the same hymn President Obama offered in June when Charleston was the focus of the nation’s grief and questions over another rampage.
This time, Obama said collective grief was “not enough” and made an emotional appeal for a national groundswell toward stricter gun laws.
Witnesses to the Oregon bloodshed described Mercer as questioning people at gunpoint about their religious affiliations, and appearing to single out Christians for killing.
“He said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,’ ” said Stacy Boylan, recounting the account of his wounded daughter, Anastasia, who underwent surgery to treat a gunshot to her spine.
“And then he shot and killed them,” he said.
At least 10 others were admitted for treatment at the Mercy Medical Center, said the chief medical officer, Jason Gray. He said three patients were transferred to larger facilities for more intensive care.
“Disbelief, anger, sadness, resolution” was how Gray described the emotions among the staff scene as the wounded arrived.
[How the horror unfolded]
Autumn Vicari, whose brother known as J.J. witnessed the shootings, told NBC News about the gruesome selection process Mercer imposed.
According to NBC: “Vicari said at one point the shooter told people to stand up before asking whether they were Christian or not. Vicari’s brother told her that anyone who responded ‘yes’ was shot in the head. If they said ‘other’ or didn’t answer, they were shot elsewhere in the body, usually the leg.”
The violence stopped only after authorities exchanged gunfire with Mercer. At 10:47 a.m., the end was announced over the police scanner: The suspect was down.
One victim, Chris Mintz, a former Army infantryman, was shot three times as he tried to block the door and keep the gunman out of a classroom, according to his aunt, Wanda Mintz.
Her nephew was knocked to the floor, looked back up at the gunman and tried to reason with him.
“He hit the ground and looked up at him and said ‘It’s my son’s birthday, don’t do this,’” Mintz recounted, after speaking to the mother of Mintz’s child, who has been by his side at the hospital. “And the guy shot him at least two more times.”
Mintz survived but suffered two broken legs among his wounds and will need extensive physical therapy, according to a gofundme page set up to raise money for him.
[2015 so far: 274 days, 294 mass shootings]
As with many other shootings, investigators turned to the dark corners of the Web for possible clues on what pushed the attacker to move from words and images to deadly violence.
A Myspace page shows a photo believed to be Mercer sporting a crew cut and holding a rifle. The page includes posts extolling the Irish Republican Army.
Other apparent social media pages linked to Mercer point to an interest in horror films and a possible blog post on Aug. 31 about the gunman Vester Flanagan, who killed two television news employees in Virginia a week earlier while they conducted a live broadcast. Flanagan, a former employee of the station, fatally shot himself after a police chase.
“On an interesting note, I have noticed that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are,” the post read, according to the Oregonian newspaper.
“A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone,” it continued. “His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”
“Not Religious, Not Religious, but Spiritual” Mercer wrote on one dating Web site, also listing membership in a group called “Doesn’t Like Organized Religion.”
[Why the gun debate won’t change after this]
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin — more out of anger than discretion — said he would not utter the assailant’s name. “I will not give him credit for this horrific act of cowardice,” said Hanlin, an outspoken critic of state and federal gun control proposals. “Media will get the name confirmed in time . . . but you will never hear us use it.”
On another front, authorities are investigating a conversation on the message board 4chan posted Wednesday evening. The site is notorious for staging online hoaxes, in addition to cat memes, hackings and Internet attacks.
But the conversation, if authentic, appears to include a warning. “Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest,” the post reads.
School shootings have figured prominently in this series of tragedies, including the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings and the deaths of 20 children in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Umpqua, one of 17 community colleges in Oregon, has about 2,000 students and about 200 full- and part-time faculty members. Federal data suggests Umpqua is a quiet campus; the only crimes reported there in recent years have been an occasional burglary and, in 2013, an aggravated assault.
After a 2006 incident in which one student was shot by another at Roseburg High School, local institutions — including UCC — hired security guards, according to the Eugene Register-Guard. Those security guards are unarmed, interim college President Rita Calvin told the newspaper. The campus is a gun-free zone.
Mercer was born in Britain and came to the United States as a young boy. In California, he attended the Switzer Learning Center, which describes itself as a setting for students with “moderate to severe learning disabilities, emotional issues, attention problems and behavioral disorders.”
Rick Rada, a former classmate, recalled Mercer as quiet, cheerful and calm.
“To me Chris was just an ordinary guy, really. He was one of the silent types like me,” Rada told The Washington Post. “But we got along with our teachers. He opened up with the teachers, talked to them, had fun.”
Former neighbors in Torrance, Calif., a beach-side city just south of Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times that Mercer liked to practice target shooting and tended to act “anxious or nervous,” as Rosario Espinoza put it.
He and his mother, Laurel Harper, mostly kept to themselves, except for occasional disputes over bugs or loud noises. Espinoza’s mother, Rosario Lucumi, recalled thinking it “strange” that Harper referred to her son as “baby.”
Mercer moved to Oregon with his mother a year or two ago, according to public records. It’s not clear if and how he may have been affiliated with Umpqua Community College, though a student told CNN that she took a theater class with Mercer, and a “Chris Harper-Mercer” is listed as a production assistant on the Facebook page of a UCC fall show.
[The Fix: What is killing Americans?]
His father, Ian Harper, still lives in Los Angeles. Harper stepped outside his home there briefly on Thursday night to say that he’d spent the day speaking with law enforcement and couldn’t answer questions about his son or the shooting.
“Shocked is all I can say,” he told reporters. “It’s been a devastating day.”
Gloria Buhring, a neighbor at the Winchester apartment complex where Mercer appeared to have lived, said police officers swarmed the area Thursday, blocking much of the complex off with police tape.
Buhring didn’t know Mercer. But on Wednesday, she returned home to find a previously empty trash container “overflowing with stuff that looked like it had been moved from an apartment,” she told The Washington Post. “It looked like somebody had gotten rid of a lot of stuff and left.”
Another Winchester neighbor, Bronte Hart, told Seattle TV station KIRO that Mercer would “sit by himself in the dark in the balcony with this little light.”
Hart said a woman she believed to be Mercer’s mother lived with him and was “crying her eyes out” Thursday.
Steven Fisher, who also lives nearby, described Mercer as “skittish.”
“His demeanor, the way he moved, always looking around,” Fisher said. “I got a bad vibe from him.”
The violence started just after 10:30 a.m., when students in Snyder Hall — a modest building in the southeast part of campus where science and English classes are held — heard a sudden popping noise.
Some were bewildered by the noises. Sarah Cobb, a 17-year-old who heard the sound from her Writing 121 class in Snyder, recognized them immediately.
“I grew up hunting, so by then I knew what it was,” she told The Washington Post. Cobb screamed to her teacher that they all needed to get out, and the instructor opened the door into chaos: students running, a teacher crying, a man screaming for someone to call 9-1-1.
Cobb left her phone, her backpack and all of her belongings in the classroom, and then ran out of the building, tripping her way down the stairs.
“There was so much screaming you knew it was serious,” she said. “I was terrified. I was sprinting. You could hear the gunshots echoing in the hall.”
The UCC campus remained closed Friday. Around Oregon, flags are being flown at half-staff.
Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown (D), said mass shootings “must end,” but urged for a pause to the political battles over gun control to give Roseburg time to heal.
“It’s very clear these types of tragedies must end, not only here in Oregon, but across the country,” she told CNN.
Hoyt is a freelance writer. Markon reported from Washington. Brian Murphy, Mark Berman, Susan Svrluga, Abby Phillip, Ellen Nakashima, Darryl Fears and Nick Anderson in Washington contributed to this report

[Joe Guy]

Which regional and political group did this guy belong to, after all he was trying to make the country a better place by..... translation: huh? what am I saying? do I know what I mean? Maybe somebody here does and can tell me what I mean. blither blah pflug whimper nik nik nik gurgle splat rinse repeat......

[MajGenl.Meade]

Which regional and political group did this guy belong to, after all he was trying to make the country a better place by eliminating as many
Christians as he could. John Brown of the twenty first century?

John Brown planned and executed the plan for the capture of a Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry in the expectation that black slaves would rally to him in order to be armed for the insurrection that would eventually free all the blacks held in the south. He did this in conjunction with a number of armed supporters including two free black men. As bad fortune might have it, their first victim was a free black man of Harper's Ferry.

Chris Harper-Mercer was a lone gunman, emotionally disturbed - a terrorist thug who wanted only to kill people at random. His question is irrelevant - he randomly chose the people and place for his act of selfish insanity.

The purpose of your posting escapes me entirely. What possible connection can you draw between these two people?

[Guinevere]

Meade, please stop feeding the troll!

[MajGenl.Meade]

I only do it so you post that

[rubato]

Meanwhile, from the GOP brain trust "stuff happens".



http://www.vox.com/2015/10/2/9442099/ne ... ff-happens

Jeb Bush on mass shooting: "stuff happens"

Updated by Matthew Yglesias on October 2, 2015, 4:50 p.m. ET @mattyglesias matt@vox.com
Tweet (2) Share (5) +

Should we reduce the incidence of gun homicides with stricter regulations about who can buy a gun and under what circumstances? Jeb Bush doesn't think so, offering an argument that's strikingly reminiscent of Donald Rumsfeld trying to explain away the chaos and looting in postwar Iraq.

See? "stuff happens" it has nothing to do with guns. Find something to blame and turn your brain off.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

I only do it so you post that

Rather Pavlovian.

It seems that every time a mass shooting happens, legions scream and demand more gun laws!

I would be willing to wager the campus was a so-called a "gun-free zone".

Fat lot of good that did.

[rubato]

"....

It seems that every time a mass shooting happens, legions scream and demand more gun laws!
.

But every time the NRA blocks any effective action. Every time there is a mass shooting the gun laws are relaxed and even more guns are pumped into our communities with even less control over who can buy and possess them and with even less liability.



yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

I would be willing to wager the campus was a so-called a "gun-free zone".

Fat lot of good that did.

No, in fact it is not, and also in fact there were several other people nearby who were armed.

Fat lot of good that did.

Pay up.

[dales]

I won't hold my breath for payment

Umpqua Community College is a posted Gun Free Zone but allows concealed carry under Oregon law. The college security page states the following:


“Possession, use, or threatened use of firearms (including but not limited to BB guns, air guns, water pistols, and paint guns) ammunition, explosives, dangerous chemicals, or any other objects as weapons on college property, except as expressly authorized by law or college regulations, is prohibited.

Possession of knives with a blade longer than 4” is prohibited.

Brandishing weapons is prohibited.

Misuse of personal defensive weapons – e.g., pepper spray, etc. is prohibited. The owner is responsible and accountable for any misuse of these devices.”

The college is located on the North Umpqua River and serves Roseburg and the greater Douglas County area. The college was established in 1964 and educates close to 20,000 full and part-time students

This story is breaking and will be updated as more information becomes available.

[Sue U]

I won't hold my breath for payment

Umpqua Community College is a posted Gun Free Zone but allows concealed carry under Oregon law. The college security page states the following:
[/size]

FTFY.

[dales]

Need a Concealed Carry permit (I doubt if the murderer had one) to carry firearms onto campus.

Would anymore laws have prevented this tragedy...............me thinks not.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Oh dales, that's a bankrupt argument. If guns had been outlawed in 1902 in the USA, would that have prevented this tragedy? Maybe. How about 1955? If they'd been banned 60 years ago, would that have prevented it?

It is illogical to say that an event today could (under no circumstances) have been prevented by action at some indeterminate time in the past. I don't think "more laws" is the answer. A total ban on firearm sales... now that might work... eventually.... so that in the year 2115 there won't be a dales VII typing "would anymore laws have prevented this tragedy".

After all, that's what the owner of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory said in 1911.

[wesw]

if the reports are true, I have a hard time understanding why the students would not have rushed the guy.

I can t imagine my friends and I, or my son and his friends, getting on the ground and waiting to be judged and shot.

have we become, or taught our kids to become, sheep who go quietly to slaughter?

I wish that those veterans in the class were armed. I wish that many of the teachers at my daughters school were armed.

I wish that we would rid our streets of gangs and Mexican and latin american cartel drug influence using Rico laws.
(most of those "mass shootings" are gang and drug trade incidents, by the way)

I would deport a hell of a lot of people. most of the Spanish people, that I have worked with and lived beside over the past 20+ years, would not be among them. a lot of convenience store owners, Imams, gang members, and Chinese blackmarket types would be....

there are 300 million guns here now. they will never be turned in. the criminals and the people who believe in the necessity of the 2nd amend. , and the country folk will hide them all away.

will you go and take the gang members guns meade? have you the stomach for it?

or will you just take mine, cause I m not hurting anyone, and would probably be more reluctant to shoot you?

either way...., good luck.

any geek can print a gun these days and any hillbilly can make one with tools in his shop and the metal in his scrap pile.

there are worse methods that nutjobs can use anyway

[wesw]

I hope that the people on line, who urged him to act are prsocuted for inciting violence.

in today s environment there is a reasonable expectation that the guy could be a nutjob and act.

oh, and there are some here that should look in the mirror too, with their vicious anti Christian advocacy.

my god, this is the most open, equal country in the joint, and you harp about Christians and a war on women.

the western world is not the problem as far as women s rights and religious persecution and religious control go.

gah.