Mass murder in California

If you have a better suggestion...

 

He ran away, as in literally took off running then jumped in his car and drove away. And if he had been reported just because the victims said he threw coffee on them doesn't guarantee anything. He could deny it and then it would be his word against their word. And police generally cannot arrest someone just because someone claims they were assaulted. The officer would have to witness it.

And someone doesn't get a psychological evaluation for throwing coffee on someone, all he had to say was "He said he was going to kick my ass and started to come after me, so I threw my coffee on them.". In what kind of world does simple assault mandate a psychological evaluation?

 

Okay, so there was nothing anyone could do. All of this has happened before and, according to one article I read, all if it will happen again on an average of once every two weeks.

What I said was: "Might also have drawn attention to the fact that he was mentally disturbed, and mandate a psych eval."

Do you imagine he'd have sat there placidly waiting for his folks to spring him? Or would he have tried the "You obviously don't know who my father is" ploy and, when that didn't work, started bouncing off the walls worse than a meth head until somebody said "Whoa! Intervention time"?

Not saying that's absolutely positively what would have happened, but it's a possible.

This is what Tamar refers to as "garamet never explains anything."

Then someone else complains that "garamet's posting too much."

 

No, he was aware that the wrong type of attention could lead to his Day of Retribution being found out about. And from what wrote in his manifesto he probably would have started crying and cried until he was bailed out and released. And again, unless an officer witnessed the coffee throwing not much would have been done. He probably would have been able to bail himself out as well.

Hate to tell you, but cops don't come swooping in sirens blaring, lights flashing and guns drawn over a simple assault case. One would have eventually shown up at his apartment and asked if he had done the coffee throwing. He'd say "No, what coffee?" and that would have been it.

 

Assault in the 3rd (Class A Misdemeanor) is very unlikely for throwing cold coffee on someone because you'd have to prove the intent was "serious injury." It'd probably get kicked down to Menacing (Class B Misdemeanor) or, more likely, Disorderly Conduct (Class C Misdemeanor).

Generally, you can't arrest for a misdemeanor unless you see it in person. Honestly, assuming I did not see it, the way I would have handled it would be to tell the victim to be at the Magistrate's Office at 0805 local the next business day to swear out a warrant. Then, and only then, will something be done about it. I know the Magistrates and the Chief Magistrate. They're only going to offer DC. So, even if everything goes swimmingly, the victim will swear out a warrant for DC and it'll go in the file to be served...in the next year or so when the overworked and understaffed warrant folks get around to it. When he's finally hooked for it, if there are no priors and he's in a fair enough attitude, he'll be allowed to sign his own bond and he's out the door in less than an hour. When it comes to trial, again, with no priors, he'll get a $500 fine plus $161 worth of Court Costs. Pay the lady at the desk and he's out the door.

 

And would that in any way stop a person from obtaining a firearm?

 

Ugh.
Twelve pages of this gun shit now.
When will the hurricanes and tornadoes start?
That always resets the news cycle.

 

We're actually having a rational conversation about the incident over at TBBS, outside the Neutral Zone in TV & Media! . In interesting point that came up is that there may just be no one to blame at all - not the parents, not society, not the police. The kid was "wired wrong from birth" and nothing would have helped him.

 

Garamet said I should offer a better suggestion.

Here it is.

Get the press, print, television, internet, everyone to agree to deny these mass killers the notoriety they seem to crave.

No mentioning the names of the killers or any of their family members. No post tragedy interviews with family members. No visuals from the site. No publishing manifestos. Once a person does something like this, whether they are alive or dead, make their life a complete black hole. Nothing gets out.

I firmly believe that once other potential killers see that a monstrous act like that is a short path to obscurity and oblivion, they will tend to rethink throwing away their lives for absolutely nothing.

 

I agree...to an extent.

My beef about the coverage of incidents like this is that the media goes into too much detail. They end up glamorizing and fetishizing the story instead of just reporting it.

Cover the story with the basic facts, but don't obsess over it for days and days and days.

But thanks to the idiot Ted Turner, that ship has unfortunately sailed. They've turned coverage into "smotherage". :

The link I posted earlier in the thread lays out the problem pretty damned well.

 

I hear they're serving chocolate pudding in the commissary today. You should ask the nurses if you can have some, and an extra napkin for when you dribble down your chin.

 

There's a mental image I can do without.

 

It could be done though. Despite the growth in social media, most people still get their basic national information through sources that flow through the public domain. And if it uses the public domain it can be regulated.

 

That's the perfect word!
Hey, how IS the search for that airplane going?

 

Why exactly is it that so many people seem so keen to deny the Elliot Rodger was motivated primary by misogyny? Here's why:

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How dare you feminists besmirch the good name of misogyny?!

When some bigot does something so bad that conservatives can’t get behind it—whether it’s go on a misogyny-inspired killing spree or said something so inarguably racist that it can’t be hand waved away (see: Donald Sterling)—I’m always curious how they’re going to distance themselves. There are three basic reactions: 1) Utter silence, which is usually the smartest move but also the hardest to pull off for many a bullshit artist 2) Writing off the bad person as a “true” example of a loathed bigotry while maintaining they aren’t bigots themselves, no sirree or 3) Or play the victim while doubling down on your bigotry. This is invariably a stupid move, since it, at best, makes you look insensitive and, at worst, makes it sound like you’re not actually distancing yourself.

Elliot Rodger’s manifesto was so misogynist that it really did rival even the ugliest, most entitled whining of MRAs, PUAs, and anti-PUAs on the internet, which is saying a lot. The man actually suggested that women be killed off, with a few left in concentration camps for breeding purposes. Even if he hadn’t killed anyone, throwing his ideas under the bus with speed should be a no-brainer. The smart move would have absolutely been for conservatives to pull faces and say, “Wow, that’s what real misogyny looks like,” and to exploit this horror show from here until the end of the time as cover for lesser forms of misogyny.

Instead, for some reason, I’m seeing another response coalesce. I call it the “How dare you besmirch the good name of misogyny?!” gambit. The idea is to deny and deny and deny that Rodger was motivated by misogyny. Which is weird. Since 95-99% of misogynists deny they are misogynists, what’s it to them to admit that he was motivated by misogyny? The only reason I can think to deny he’s a misogynist is that you secretly know damn well you are a misogynist, and you want to deny that your misogynist ideology played any role in the killings.

. . . .

Let’s be clear: Anyone who accuses you of hating “men” when you are explicitly critiquing misogyny is rather unsubtly arguing that all men are inherently misogynists

Let me restart that: The argument that critiquing misogyny is the equivalent of “man-hating” implicitly argues that all men are inherently misogynists, and that this is an immoveable and, indeed, defining feature of being a “man”. It’s a little bit of three card monte to try to shut down any criticism of misogyny, because, clearly, the goal here is to defend misogyny as an ideology. If it weren’t, they’d be happy to admit that Rodger was a misogynist. Instead, the instinct here it to protect and shield misogyny from criticism.

It’s just weird is all. Whenever some celebrity does something like drop an N-bomb, conservatives immediately scramble to say, “See, I don’t use words like that, so clearly I can’t be a racist!” You’d think they’d use the same tactic, saying, “See, I don’t shoot up a college town, so I can’t be a misogynist!” Instead, the strategy appears to be, “He shot up a college town, so he clearly can’t be a misogynist, since misogyny is simply too good an ideology to associate with terrible people like that.” Dumb move.
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Seriously, why deny that Rodger was motivated by misogyny except to defend misogyny as a concept? No one denies that the 9/11 bombers were motivated by radical beliefs and hatred; no one denies that the guy burning a cross on a black family's lawn is motivated by hatred; hell, essentially no one denies that Matthew Shepard's killers were motivated by hatred. Why deny that Elliot Rodger was motivated by hatred?

 

It's just I didn't know we were taking on the gibbering of madness as debatable philosophical positions.

 

Oh, and Ophelia Benson isn't a good person.
She's a Nazi book burner, and the leader of a small personality cult.
You'd do good to avoid her.

 

That would be a mistake.

If you clamp down on "traditional media", new media will slither through the cracks even more than they're already doing.

 

I didn't coin it, but I use it.

Frequently.

 

Except there's this.

And "the kid was wired wrong from birth" suggests some sort of pre- or post-natal screening. You sure you want to go there?

 

I've always been curious as to WHY we insist on finding a reason someone did something anyway.

They were evil. Leave it at that. But I know lots of people absolutely loathe doing anything that sounds like making a value judgement regarding another person.

 

Because if we understand their reasons, we might be able to prevent the next nutter from snapping and killing people.

 

Labeling this kid a "misogynist" is like saying Loki has "sibling rivalry" issues.

The kid was a very angry young man who had pathologically focused his anger on females as a species. Not exactly a picture of rationality. This wasn't Dabney Coleman being a creep and trying to cop a feel from his secretary in 9 To 5.

But it won't matter. The Victimhood Industry is in full swing.

 

In my opinion, anyone that is so off the rails as to commit multiple murders will find a reason.

If it isn't misogyny, it will be racism, if not racism it will be , well god knows what.

You might call it hatred in search of a reason.

 

Again, if we can understand their reasons, we'll be able to identify them before they start killing people. If their underlying reason is that they're batshit crazy, then being able to figure out which kind of batshit crazy leads to mass murder and which kind leads to somebody going all Charlie Sheen, will be helpful, even if we aren't able to cure either person. Because at least will know which of them is going to harm other human beings and not just themselves. We won't worry when Charlie comes home with a trunk load of cocaine, but when Shooty McCrazypants comes home with a trunk load of weapons, we'll know its time to get the fuck out of Dodge and call the SWAT team.

 

If we don't think he was solely motivated by mysogyny then we are mysogynists.

 

And if he has committed no real crimes and bought the guns completely legally? What then?

Are you going to keep him under police surveillance for weeks? Months? Years?

That might well push even a normal person over the edge.

 

Reason?

Rodger's reason was that he resented the world because he was a sexual failure.

The problem is this: LOTS of people have the same feeling. And the vast majority of them will never act violently upon it.

To put it another way: killers who target women are likely misogynists, but very few misogynists are killers who target women.

You'll have a hard time identifying the few killers in a large group and it seems improbable that the state can cure everyone's sexual hardship. So what are you left with?

Look for the warning signs and act on them when they appear.

 

A lot of this will be solved when we get the holodecks up and running.