The vast majority of school shootings I have posted about over the last 22 years have had two things in common. The first is that they were all committed by selfish and entitled man-children. The second is that they all had easy access to guns. Whether the guns were purchased legally or not doesn’t matter. Even illegal guns were legally owned at some point. But now it turns out that 18-year-old Salvador Ramos may be the most entitled man-child of them all.
Before he murdered 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, Ramos shot his grandmother in the face. Do you know why he did that? Because she refused to pay his cell phone bill. Ramos texted an online friend from Germany that his grandmother was on the phone with AT&T about his account. It sounds like she was getting ready to cut him off. Six minutes after that text, Ramos texted his friend that he shot his grandmother and was about to go shoot up a school. Thankfully, she survived and is expected to recover.
So, why was Ramos living with his grandparents? He had a dispute with his mother after she disconnected the internet from the home. According to reports, Ramos moved out of the house after his mother disconnected his Wi-Fi access.
So, the question that then needs to be asked is why would his mom cut off his internet access. It may have a lot to do with the fact that he was threatening women online with rape, murder and torture, otherwise known as being an incel. It seems that Ramos used an app called Yubo that allows users to have a 10-person video chat. That sounds a lot like Stickam from the old days, but I digress.
In these chat rooms, Ramos would become unhinged…
“He was an extremely homophobic, transphobic and racist individual which of course resulted in him using slurs and he openly admitted his homophobia multiple times,” one witness said.
“During one livestream, a 19-year-old girl, said Ramos verbally threatened to break down her door and rape and murder her after she rebuffed his sexual advances. She said she witnessed Ramos threaten other girls with similar ‘acts of sexual assault and violence.’
An 18-year-old Yubo user from Ontario, Canada, said she reported Ramos to Yubo in early April after he threatened to shoot up her school and rape and kill her and her mother during one livestream session.
One female Yubo user said: “He would tell people to lock their doors, don’t show up to school tomorrow, just classic s**t that creeps on the internet say. I never knew it would manifest into this.
Sadly, this is exactly the shit creeps on the internet say every day. If you want to take a deep dive into the incel subculture, I recommend going to r/IncelTear on Reddit, but not before reading my post about Incels vs. Columbiners. But be warned, the incel rabbit hole is not for the faint of heart.
Yet, this was online, right? How was he in real life? He was a real piece of shit there too. He is said to have dropped out of Uvalde High School. However, while he was in high school, he was a violent piece of crap. Former classmates say that Ramos was quick to start throwing unprovoked punches and was constantly getting into fights.
As with most school shooters, Ramos’ name will be lost to the sands of time. While his name may be on our lips for a while, it won’t be forever. I can think of at least two school shootings that both happened over 10 years ago, that were some of the deadliest shootings of their time. Most people not from those areas would be hard-pressed to remember them.
None of Ramos’ behavior is a free pass to the ‘responsible gun owners™’ who are still acting like selling two AR-15s to an 18-year-old is acceptable. Once again, Texas shows its commitment to death by requiring neither a permit nor a waiting period to buy a rifle that can fire 45 rounds a minute.
This is the NRA’s target audience, Angry young men, who are looking for any excuse to shoot someone.
All school shootings have one thing in common. The coward’s weapon, known as a gun. Take away the gun and the shootings stop.
(Sources)
- Uvalde school shooter was in school for up to an hour before law enforcement broke into room where he was barricaded and killed him
- What we know about the gunman in the Robb Elementary School shooting
- ‘Incel’ Texas school shooter Salvador Ramos’ chilling live streams reveal ‘disturbing threats to girls’
- Uvalde shooter threatened to rape girl who rebuffed his sexual advances: report
Real Crime with Trench Reynolds 
So basically the assclown is what you get when you combine Lanza, Harris, and Pittman.
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Right, taking away the guns may stop mass shootings, but violence lives in our hearts, not in a gun. These links will take you to various examples of mass stabbing attacks in China, where private ownership of firearms is 100% banned.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-26402367
https://abcnews.go.com/International/18-injured-stabbing-kindergarten-southern-china/story?id=77368307
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/09/china/china-knife-attacks-mic-intl-hnk/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/deadly-knife-attack-east-china-leaves-dead-15-78104123
Mexican gun laws are right up your alley. Permits, licenses, and registration are all required to legally purchase and possess firearms from the nation’s only gun shop. Civilians are restricted to .22LR and smaller calibers, while anything larger is reserved for police, military, and private security. Civilians don’t have the option of carry permits as carrying a firearm is limited solely to police, military, and security.
Yet, there is this ever present problem with firearms related violence all over Mexico, no thanks to the Cartels:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mexicos-soaring-murder-rate-proves-gun-control-is-deadly-11571696723
Of course, you may argue that their shared border with us fuels their violence (because violence is found solely in guns), so here are similar articles from El Salvador, which doesn’t share a border with us.
https://crgreview.com/gangs-guns-and-governments-a-look-into-violence-in-el-salvador/
https://insightcrime.org/news/analysis/el-salvador-seizing-weapons/
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/30/el-salvador-gang-violence-ms13-nation-held-hostage-photography/
Because people like to use the UK as a prime example of what gun control can achieve, I would like to point out that they still have drive by shootings:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17826886/man-gunned-down-shooting/
https://metro.co.uk/2021/09/22/four-men-arrested-at-heathrow-after-drive-by-shooting-in-south-london-15300565/
https://www.voanews.com/a/europe_man-kills-5-himself-uks-first-mass-shooting-decade/6209551.html
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/manchester-drive-by-shooting-caught-cctv/
https://metro.co.uk/2020/12/15/man-fighting-for-life-and-two-others-injured-after-triple-drive-by-shooting-13753346/
Banning guns won’t get rid of them, nor will it remove the violence that lives in human hearts. I’m all for workable solutions to the problems experienced by our nation, but getting rid of guns won’t work. Even if it managed to end gun violence in the US, the Chinese problem of mass stabbing attacks makes clear that people will simply find other weapons to commit violent acts. Do bear in mind that there has already been at least one mass stabbing attack in the US within recent years (https://time.com/55356/at-least-20-stabbed-at-pa-high-school/).
If you’re looking for ways to help end this nightmare, might I make a suggestion? Terroristic threats are a crime in every US jurisdiction, and mass shooters have a bad habit of declaring their intent online. What would go a long way towards ending these types of incidents would be to arrest and charge people who declare intent by making threats online or in person.
We should also take it a step further and charge as accessories anyone who had prior knowledge but chose to let it slide. When last I checked, people can’t commit mass shootings when confined to a prison cell for making terroristic threats, and the people who choose to let it happen are just as guilty, if not more.
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I see what you’re saying, but this is what I hear. “We should keep guns because of knives in China.”
If the Uvalde shooter had been armed with just a knife, police wouldn’t have been sitting on their asses for an hour before engaging the suspect. Not to mention, the number of school children that have been killed in school knife attacks between school shootings is so vast that it’s almost comical. And again, knives have multiple purposes, where a gun’s is only death.
With all due respect, you sound like an NRA apologist.
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I’ll begin by clarifying that I am not, have never been, and most likely won’t ever be an apologist for the NRA. I’ll also point out that your immediate demonization of the NRA, and the implication that someone supporting the NRA is evil, can only be described as an attempt to marginalize the opinions of people you don’t agree with. (Note: it also shows that you haven’t learned the history of the NRA)
Doesn’t work on people like me, so how about we stick to dialoguing on practical solutions that don’t involve penalizing people who haven’t committed any crimes, or demonizing each other? I may not be a member of the NRA, but I do hold beliefs similar to the ones they claim to possess.
I am a Constitutionalist, which means that I firmly believe in restricting our government to the confines outlined in the Constitution. I believe that we ought to interpret the Constitution through the lens of the founding father’s intent, as that is the best way to make sense of what it says. Needless to say, this means that I am solidly disaffected with both the Democrats and Republicans, as both parties couldn’t possibly care less about their constituents (i.e., you, me, and all the other “little guys”).
This also means that I fully support everyone’s attempts to exercise their rights as found within the Constitution, whether I agree with them or not. I’d even be willing to give my dying breath to protect your right to hold whichever beliefs you hold to, so long as you don’t actively advocate for violence against your fellow humans, the overthrow of our Constitutional Republic, and basically keep your speech within the confines of what is protected by the first amendment. I often like to joke that I fully support your right to be wrong. 😁 Now that we’ve covered that, let’s get on with the show.
You said, “If the Uvalde shooter had been armed with just a knife, police wouldn’t have been sitting on their asses for an hour before engaging the suspect.”
If you were to nip over to my blog and read my most recent post, you will see me spend nearly the entire post raking those cops over the coals for being cowards. I have neither patience nor tolerance for people who occupy positions of public trust and then abuse it. Those cops abandoned their community when they were needed most, and they all need to be replaced yesterday.
The weapon being used by that evil monster is immaterial to that point. There were multiple departments and agencies on the ground and the best they could manage was to wait an hour? One teenaged man child held dozens of cops at boy for over an hour. This waste of space was outmanned, outgunned, and the people capable of stopping him and saving the lives of those children got cold feet? Let that sink in. That’s called cowardice, and I have zero respect for cowards. They should either do their jobs or move aside and allow others to move forward and get it done.
I’ll clarify my position. I am not arguing that we should be able to keep our firearms because of “knives in China”. That’s an oversimplification, and doesn’t even go in the right direction. The point I was making is that banning firearms won’t do a bit of good because the problem lies within our inherently violent nature and not the guns we use.
The point I was making about Chinese mass stabbing attacks, and the gang/cartel violence in Mexico and El Salvador is that people will still be able to acquire firearms through the black market. While that’s bad enough, imagine what it would do for the violent crime rate in the US when the only people in possession of large numbers of firearms are the criminals on the streets, being supplied by the likes of the Mexican Cartels.
Now, ostensibly, your stated intent behind banning all or certain types of firearms is to reduce or eliminate the number of people dying in mass shootings. There are a few problems with that idea. They are as follows:
1. Mass shootings are relatively rare. Granted, not as rare as FBI stats would have us believe, but they don’t happen as often as the media would have you believe, either. I recommend you check out the gun violence archive website. They keep a near real-time log of every active shooter event in the US, and they’ve been keeping record since 2014. Their causes are as complex as they are rare, which means that there won’t be any simple, catch all solutions, as much as we’d like them to be.
2. The majority of the school shootings in these last few decades were entirely preventable. All that was needed was people doing their due diligence rather than sitting on their hands and ignoring the very real threats being issued by the shooters, oftentimes years before the fact. Uvalde is a prime example, as the shooter was making such threats for years and no one saw fit to take him seriously. That was their mistake, and they’re just as guilty as he is, if not more.
3. The majority of these mass shootings have taken place in so-called gun free zones, which means that such zones are more dangerous, not less. What happens if you turn the entire country into a gun free zone? Would it be safer or more dangerous? I tend to believe it would be exponentially more dangerous, and I do so because the evidence suggests so.
4. The majority of mass shootings are carried out using handguns, not rifles. It’s far easier to conceal a handgun than it is a rifle. Yet, we’re supposed to jump on the bandwagon and ban weapons that account for fewer than 1,000 deaths per year? If reducing the number of people killed in mass shootings is the goal, then why isn’t anyone focusing on handguns?
Handguns account for approximately 60% of firearms related homicides each year. They also account for the majority of suicides each year. It would seem to me that people genuinely interested in reducing the threat of firearms violence and deaths would be focused on handguns and not rifles, so why is it this way? Why the focus on AR-15 and AK-47 rifles? I know why, but I’m interested in your answer. Let’s put our heads together and see what we come up with.
As for the ultimate purposes of firearms vs knives, as someone who hunts for the table, I can see what you mean. However, you’re oversimplifying again.
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For someone who isn’t an NRA apologist, you sure do know all their talking points. Except, you missed the one about Chicago.
Anyway, I am familiar with the history of the NRA, and like most institutions that start out with good intentions, they’ve become a corrupt, greedy, and twisted shadow of their former selves. Am I marginalizing their opinions? Yes, because they care more about their almighty guns than the lives of those left bleeding on the ground.
When I hear someone say they’re a constitutionalist, I have the same reaction when I hear someone say they believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. So, should we have stopped after the first ten amendments? No abolition of slavery? No women’s right to vote?
But let’s talk about the sacrosanct 2nd Amendment. Do you think the founders really imagined a time when a peacetime civilian population were armed to the teeth? Did they think a well regulated militia was any simpleton who was looking for any excuse to shoot someone? Did you know that Madison wrote the 2nd Amendment specifically to repress slave revolts and escapes? Did you know the word amend means to change or improve?
And yes, I’m well aware about handguns. The deadliest school shooting in American history was carried out by someone only armed with two handguns. Again, that were purchased legally, I might add. I don’t care, get rid of them all.
And to say that mass shootings are rare is ludicrous. While I know the statistical possibility of a mass shooting happening in a given location, that doesn’t stop the fact they are happening and with grater frequency. It’s also an insult to every man, woman and child who has lost their lives to one of those gutless cowards.
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I know their “talking points” because these are the solid arguments that form the basis of the pro-gun position. Truth is truth, no matter who’s uttering it. The worst humans on the planet can tell the truth from time to time.
If you’re familiar with their history, then you know the NRA was formed by Northern Republicans with the expressed intent of arming and training freed slaves in the Antebellum South. Their activities were undertaken because the Southern Democrats had formed the KKK with the expressed intent of preventing freed blacks from exercising their rights by providing them with the ability to defend themselves. I’d regard that as an extremely valuable contribution, wouldn’t you?
I’m not sure how to answer your next point. Being a Constitutionalist means resisting changes to the Constitution? Am I understanding you correctly? If so, I would like to point out that the Constitution has a process built into it for amending it, which means that the founding fathers intended for that to happen from time to time. However, the first ten were the rights specifically set aside for the people, in both individual and corporate sense, as inviolate. It’s part of the social compact, whereupon the people surrender some of the rights inherently theirs, but set aside these specific rights as being reserved for the people.
If someone wishes to make changes to the Constitution, then by all means, follow the process described in the Constitution. It’s that simple. I get the sense that you’re seeking to bait me into something.
Did the founding fathers envision a time when civilians were armed to the teeth? I’d say so. Civilians in that day were typically armed, and with a lot more than muskets. Ben Franklin is quoted as saying, “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”
The intent was obviously to have a well armed populous to ensure that 1) there is a militia, and 2) to ensure that the people remain in a state of liberty by keeping and bearing arms. The second part was intended to keep the government in line.
Consider that there was no such thing as police when the Constitution was written, and I’d be willing to bet that was the part they never anticipated. This means that the people were solely responsible for providing for their own safety and security. I would maintain that this hasn’t changed, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I can’t be escorted by a cop everywhere I go. As I’m getting too old to take a beating, that doesn’t leave me many options.
You assume that military training is somehow unavailable to the average American citizen. You assume wrong. We have shooting ranges all over the place, including some that have combat simulators for tactical training. With a brief internet search I can find instructors for firearms, hand-to-hand combat, bushcraft, etc. It isn’t difficult for a civilian to receive comparable training to what I’ve received over the course of my military career.
Furthermore, you also assume that a civilian militia wouldn’t include veterans who can assist with training others. We’ve only recently ended two wars, and that was after countless skirmishes, minor wars, and of course, Vietnam. Vietnam vets are still around capable of sharing their own lessons learned with civilians. The pool of experience available to civilian militias is as deep as it is wide, and it’s always there for them.
The second amendment was intended to repress slave revolts? Pray tell, where did you get that from? I’d be very interested to know your source for that info. I don’t recall that being mentioned in my American History classes, though they also neglected to tell me about all that white privilege I was supposed to have. I guess they decided to keep it a secret from me on account of my dad being from Mexico. Who knew? 🤷
Now, we get to the fun part. You insist that the idea of mass shootings being rare is ludicrous, which is an idea I find laughable. Do you know where I got that tidbit from? In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, then-President Obama commissioned a study into mass shootings. He asked the CDC to do it. Here’s the info:
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2013. Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/18319.
It’s outside of the CDC purview to carry out such a study, so they enlisted outside help. Here are a few excerpts from the study:
“Between the years 2000 and 2010, firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearm-related violence in the United States.”
As I said before, the best way to reduce firearms related deaths is to become an expert in suicide prevention.
The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths. Specifically, since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons (Bjelopera et al., 2013).
As I said, they are relatively rare. Note that the study defines mass shootings as involving four or more individuals.
Now we get to the best part. Bear in mind that this study was commissioned by an anti-gun President who still wants to make us into what you think we ought to be. This part is one of the bits that he really didn’t like.
“Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010)”
Based on those numbers, guns are saving more lives than they’re taking. I’ve accounted for six defensive gun use incidents, none of which involved me firing a shot. They only had to see that I was armed and decide that they needed to be elsewhere. Based on the study I’ve quoted, and my own anecdotal experience, I firmly believe that taking guns away will only make our violent crime rates go up, not down. It’ll make things worse, not better. There is more.
“A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gun-wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies (Kleck, 1988; Kleck and DeLone, 1993; Southwick, 2000; Tark and Kleck, 2004).”
Not only do they save lives by preventing more violent crimes than are committed, but this study also says that those intended victims who fight back with firearms suffer fewer injuries than those who don’t. Based on this information, it would seem that there is wisdom in caring so much about our guns and the inherent right to defensive arms.
I certainly would want to be able to defend my family with the same weapons a violent criminal might have. While I am skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and the use of various hand-held weapons, those require that I get close enough to risk severe injury. Furthermore, if the criminal I’m facing has a pistol and I have a sword or staff in hand, which of us do you think is most likely to come out on top?
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“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but it is really fear.”
― Gandhi
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Said by a man who was felled by an assassin’s bullet.
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