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Did bullying cause the Timberview High School shooting?

(Trench’s note 10/8/21: See correction and apology here.)

Yesterday’s school shooting in Arlington, Texas, was the second shooting at a school this week. It was also the second school shooting in Texas within a week. You can read about the previous Texas school shooting here, and I haven’t gotten a chance yet to post about the other school shooting that happened this week.

So, as you probably know by now, 18-year-old Timothy George Simpkins allegedly shot and wounded three people at Timberview High School in Arlington, Texas. The shooting stemmed from a fight, which seems to be the theme of this school year’s multiple school shootings, but I digress. We’ll actually get to the fight in a moment.

One of the victims was another student of the school who had to undergo emergency surgery but is expected to recover. Another student was grazed by a bullet, while an unidentified adult also received minor injuries.

After the shooting, Simpkins is believed to have fled the scene in a vehicle. He was later taken into custody without incident. Simpkins was charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and was being held on $75,000 bail. Local police believe they have recovered the gun used in the shooting, which according to reports was a .45 semi-automatic handgun. No word on where the gun was obtained yet. According to Texas law, you have to be at least 21 before you can legally purchase a handgun.

Getting back to the fight that is said to have sparked the shooting, a spokesperson for Simpkins’ family said that while they don’t excuse the use of a gun, Simpkins had been previously bullied. While the family may truly believe that, once again, I think the bullying claim was exaggerated. Here is a video from the fight itself…

(Source)

At first glance, you might think that Simpkins is the one being beaten, but he’s not. He’s the much larger person in the video allegedly brutally assaulting the smaller student. That is corroborated by Simpkins’ booking photo.

Timothy George Simpkins

In my opinion, this seems more like a pre-meditated attack than a supposed case of self-defense.

Both Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Senator Ted Cruz gave statements in the wake of yesterday’s shooting.

Here’s what Governor Assclown had to say…

“We as a state working with the local communities will do everything possible to ensure that the shooter will be prosecuted swiftly and effectively,” Gov. Abbott said.

“It is illegal for the shooter to either possess or to have purchased the gun that was used in this crime,” he said.

Whoa, way to take a brave stand there. Cruz was equally as pointless…

“I know all of us are lifting up prayer the students and the teachers and the first responders and the parents,” Cruz said during a press conference Wednesday. “There have been far too many of these at far too many schools and so we are grateful for the courage and heroism of the first responders and we are hopeful that all of the students or individuals who may have been injured will come through and survive.”

Here, let me translate that for you. “I’m going to deflect the subject to first responders because we’re never going to do anything about guns in Texas, let alone the rest of the country.”

It doesn’t matter if Simpkins had the gun illegally or not, he still had it, and he had to get it from somewhere. I can virtually guarantee that the gun was owned by someone legally at some point before it fell into Simpkins’ hands. Considering how reckless many ‘responsible’ gun owners seem to be, the gun may not have changed many hands before Simpkins got hold of it.

It really is a simple equation. You can’t have a school shooting, if you take away the ‘shooting’ part.

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