A local morning news reporter and her cameraman were shot and killed on the air near Roanoke, Virginia this morning.
Police are searching for a person who they say shot at multiple people Wednesday morning, killing WDBJ7’s Alison Parker and Adam Ward at the Bridgewater Plaza near Smith Mountain Lake.
According to Franklin County Sheriff Department’s Spokesperson Phillip Young, the shooting occurred at the Bedford County-Franklin County line in Moneta at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday, August 26.
WDBJ7 says the shooting occurred during their live shot and are asking for your prayers.
Members with Bedford, Franklin County and Virginia State Police are on scene. Sgt. Ryan Young with the Virginia Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries confirmed half a dozen of their department are on scene searching the shoreline and surrounding area.
Police say they continue to look for the shooter at this time and are hoping to get a description out to the public shortly. This incident remains under investigation.
At this time Bedford County Public Schools are on perimeter lock-down until further notice, according to the superintendent. For those students on their way to school, officials say they will be secured upon arrival.
And again, this happened live on the air. Raw Story has the video, I won’t put it up here, but it’s just unreal. Parker is interviewing a woman at a dockside shopping center and there’s three shots, screams, the camera falls over and you see the planks, and it cuts back to the anchor in the studio.
The look on her face is heart-rending.
Manhunt continues for the shooter.
rikyrah
I just can’t.
Just can’t.
Unreal.
JenJen
Absolutely horrifying.
Joel
Not getting out of the boat.
Elizabelle
I’ve been to that very shopping center.
Smith Mountain Lake seems to be a retirement community, of sorts, for the wealthy. A cousin lives there. There’s an area called “Penicillin Point” (doctors’ houses). One of cousin’s neighbors across the lake commutes in and out via private helicopter.
Nick
There’s violence in the air — I had to live in Montana for 9 months after being abroad for years, and you can feel it in the news, and the politics, and the way people relate to each other and their government. Something like this could happen in Canada, but it didn’t.
Gin & Tonic
The fact that this happened on live TV makes it “public,” but keep in mind that based on historical averages these are only two of the 30 people who will be the victims of firearm homicide in the US today. Why are the other 28 any less deserving of horror or outrage?
MomSense
How much tragedy do we have to suffer until we can say enough with the fucking guns?
Zandar
Parker’s fiance was another reporter at WDBJ-TV. He tweeted about the fact they had just moved in together.
Humanity is awful.
Derelict
Clearly, the only rational response to this is more guns. Everyone everywhere at all times packing a gun. In fact, we need to pass a law mandating that every man. woman, and child have a gun in one hand at all times. That’s the only way to deal with this.
I wish the above was just stupid snark, but I fear that Wayne Lapierre and the NRA will soon be advocating exactly this.
RaflW
I won’t watch the raw video. Just too horrible. Was the woman being interviewed also hit? Is there news on her condition? I cannot even imagine how she is doing if the shots missed her and she just watched two people get killed on the spot in front of her.
I feel awful, and I am so f*king angry at the gun nut culture in America I really could just scream. Part of what is making me ill is thinking about all the ways the NRA will waive this away.
Our country is disgustingly f*ked by gun culture. Reading the most recent Matt Taibbi makes me think things may get rather worse in the near future as Trump continues to light a fire under the already incensed Teahadi/GOP base.
debbie
Glenn Beck’s already blaming Planned Parenthood. He’s saying the country is doomed, but doesn’t seem to realize he’s the one engineering it.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Haven’t seen the video — not sure I want to.
I wonder if we’ll see a shift the media’s reporting on gun control? Perhaps less “easy access to murderous weapons; views differ” and more of a “these people are crazy” slant now that they’ve literally seen one of their own killed?
Sherparick
I suspect someone’s boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, estranged husband, etc. will be the perp. Also white male.
Zandar
@Gin & Tonic: You’re right, and I don’t have an answer for that.
Joel
@Gin & Tonic: Well, because these victims were chosen randomly, and publicly. It’s the threat that’s different. Most murders happen between people who know each other.
Elizabelle
What a surprise this happened in Virginia.
Not.
FWIW, my sense of Smith Mountain Lake is a lot of huge homes owned by the greatest generation (lotta Tea Partiers at cousin’s parties) and the heirs cannot afford to live in such large homes, nor are there much in the way of jobs nearby. Interesting little economic microcosm.
Punchy
The morning news here in KC ran the video, almost certainly before knowing that the 2 had been actually shot and killed (the graphic said “shots in the area during broadcast”) and it was freakish. Camera just hit the ground but kept rolling. Peeps screaming.
Betty Cracker
It happened on TV. Can we acknowledge that it’s real now?
Cermet
Tragic, yes; surprised, no. The only report I have read say’s the woman being interviewed was not shot. Poster is correct that this will gain wide spread coverage – a blond, attractive woman is murdered on camera but the other (on average) shooting deaths today will not be covered.
JGabriel
It’s the new normal. And still nothing will change. The lack of will to reduce gun violence in this country is pathological.
Davebo
@RaflW:
Clearly you did watch the video.
The incident, while tragic, is all too common. But don’t let the fact that it was broadcast live delude anyone into thinking it will make a difference.
Rather than dreaming of a way to eliminate the 300 million guns in America we need to begin to grapple with how we can live with them because they aren’t going away.
different-church-lady
@Gin & Tonic: The sad answer: novelty.
C.V. Danes
If I had to hazzard a guess, the shooter will not be some dirty hippie lubrul, because they never are. Conservatives have no one to fear but themselves.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: No.
jibeaux
@Derelict: of course I had to get out of the boat and read about how people need to get concealed carry permits and protect themselves. How on earth is a concealed weapon, in a holster, while you are busy doing your fucking job interviewing people or operating a camera, going to be of any use to you whatsoever? I mean, eight year olds stop believing in the tooth fairy, when are people going to stop believing this fairy tale?
Brandon
@Joel: Actually you do not know that the victims were chosen randomly at all. The shooter was dressed in all black. It was 6:45 AM. The location was a bit out of the way. Nothing points to random crime of opportunity
I suspect the shooter was either a psycho stalker or known to one of the two victims and the result was more likely an execution, not a random killing.
JGabriel
@Nick:
If I ever arm myself it won’t be for defense against criminals, but for defense against Conservatives. It’s beginning to feel a lot like the end days of the Weimar Republic in this country.
JPL
@Joel: Do we know that it was a random shooting?
Brandon
Keep in mind that this is semi in jest, but when does the police start rounding up (and beating where necessary) all white guys with facial hair in the vicinity? And I hate to do this too, but I can only wonder if the suspect was Black how many RW nut jobs would advocate for this.
Punchy
@RaflW: Nope, she was popped too. In surgery, natch. Dont know how bad.
Elizabelle
CNN just showed the footage. It’s not that graphic (IMHO), but the still photo of the shooter appended at the end is chilling.
CNN says they will “just” run the video once an hour.
Carol Costello looking stunned at the story.
I remember her smirking a few months ago over a story on Obamacare. People denied healthcare die or dwindle more slowly, may not be as telegenic, are not necessarily journalists.
I’m not finding a lot of sympathy, very honestly. No one did shit after 26 little kids and their teachers were killed; if anything the NRA gained the upper hand.
Those two women killed in the Lafayette, LA theatre shooting: anybody remember their names or faces? (I remember the faces.)
That this is “real” for Costello and the CNN team, where the rest was just reporting?
Fuck them.
peach flavored shampoo
Where do I go to wager $1 brazillian dollars that Westboro will “protest” at their funerals? It’s about as predictable as it gets.
PaulW
Until we find the shooter we won’t know the Whys. At best we know that the person pulling the trigger has serious anger management issues (every shooter does).
But we sure know about the Hows.
It is too fucking easy to kill people thanks to guns. That our body politic refuses to even acknowledge this fact is why we’ve got a goddamn body count of a fucking ongoing war.
Derelict
@jibeaux: When will they stop believing the gun fairy tale? Looks like never.
This is America, and you cannot make a pile of dead toddlers big enough to change people’s minds, nor can you kill young blonde women live on TV often enough to change people’s minds. Violence is always the answer to any question to which tax cuts are not the answer.
Elizabelle
@JGabriel:
I have thought that for some time. If I had more talent, I’d do a blog of “posts” from late Weimar.
CNN was fellating Trump just before this latest gun tragedy.
They have no news sense, and no moral gravity.
JenJen
@RaflW: CNN says the woman being interviewed was with the Chamber of Commerce and was indeed hit by gunfire and is being treated.
@Elizabelle: Why does CNN keep calling this place a “water park”??
NotMax
@JGabriel
Willkomen, bienvenue, welcome,
Im Cabaret, au Cabaret, to Cabaret
shell
Im not trying to make light of this or make a joke of any kind, but if any news story could knock the cable news channels 24 hour coverage of Trump, it would be this.
khead
@Gin & Tonic:
Thank you. I’m not up for a public internet crucifixion today so I decided not to go there on FB. But I’ve damn sure been thinking it.
Face
Gawker’s update says the po-po likely know the shooter’s name and plates. That’ll get him arrested within a day, assuming he doesn’t off himself first.
Said he was prolly a disgruntled former employee. Sounds about right for such a planned, non-random crime.
Robin G.
It’s a horrible video, but I’m actually kind of hoping some gun fence-sitters saw it. Shots rang out out of nowhere, and in seconds two people were dead. It was over before anyone could have known what happened. Watch that video and go “When, exactly, was that woman supposed to pull out her concealed weapon and save her life by taking the other guy down first?”
Most gun nuts have never seen an actual shooting. Hell, if that thought occurs to even a half dozen of the people watching that broadcast, it’s something.
JPL
@Face: That’s what the Washington Post is saying…
Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe said the suspect who has been identified is believed to be a disgruntled employee of the TV station. Federal law enforcement officials are searching for the gunman.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: Be nice if we had a 24 hour cable channel, with lots of air time to fill and allegedly “professional” journalists.
Would seem there might be 30 interesting stories each day, and would give viewers a sense of the magnitude of gun deaths in America.
ETA: Great. Ad on CNN for latest Johnny Depp movie. Black Mass. Footage of him firing a gun, rapid repeat, with song “The Devil is Alive, the Devil is alive…” in background.
Think it’s a movie about Whitey Bulger?
AndoChronic
I can already tell that I’m going to be spending a lot of time with Peruvian Shamans and Freudians in my fifties working on the resentment of not leaving this shithole country for good in my twenties.
lamh36
@Elizabelle: they’ve edited it out maybe?
The vid I saw you hear shit’s and almost instantly u see shat appears to be a bullet hole appearing in reporters nexk…then camera hits ground
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Robin G.:
You mean action movies don’t count?
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: Think it’s a movie about Whitey Bulger?
Yes, it is.
D58826
@Sherparick: Terrible to say but I hope your correct. If its a ‘terrorist’ incident the braying jackals in the GOP will be unstoppable.
Elizabelle
@lamh36: I did not see that. Watched the raw story footage, and did not notice it.
Sad all around.
OT, but hope you get to see President Obama this week. Woo hoo.
Roger Moore
@JGabriel:
Conservatives are just one category of criminal.
JPL
@D58826: It’s not a terrorist incident, in less you call a disgruntled employee a terrorist. See my comment at 42
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@JPL:
Well, now we know the subject is going to be turned to how we need better mental healthcare so we don’t talk about the fact that crazy people have easy access to guns. I fully expect one of the gun apologists here to claim that the guy could have used a knife or a baseball bat, so we’re not allowed to blame the poor, innocent gun.
Joel
@Brandon: Fair enough. But the threat derives mostly from the public nature of the killing.
NotMax
@Face
I fully realize it was Virginia’s governor, not you, who labeled him “disgruntled.”
Boneheaded way to soft soap the occurrence, and immediately disrespectful to the victims
Like calling John Wilkes Booth a disgruntled actor.
Robin G.
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Nope. Not unless it’s Tarantino, obvs.
JGabriel
@Roger Moore:
That’s doing a disservice to criminals. Conservatives are fanatics.
Robin G.
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: Nope. Not unless it’s Tarantino, obviously.
scav
Before that last detail about identity, I’d rather just assumed this shooter was one of the many that wanted the attention and instead of going for higher bodycount especially bodycount of children, went for on-air PR points. Anything to get their minutes of famous seems to be a trend.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
That’s tone deaf, to say the least. But unsurprising.
Bobby Thomson
@Joel: not random. A former coworker.
boatboy_srq
@JPL: @Bobby Thomson: One more crazy lone gunman. And one less opportunity to discuss ammosexuality as a social disease.
RaflW
@MomSense:
What has amazed me is that, relative to when I was young, it seems very few political assassinations (or visible attempts) happen these days. Of course I am not advocating for that, but it seems to me that as long as the violence is either random (or sold as random) or targeted (which breaking news suggests is the case in this killing) towards low-level or average, everyday folks, there is no motive for politicians to care.
Also, too, as was tweeted in June:
What he says rings horribly true.
JPL
I’m not sure that this has been mentioned..
Vicki Gardner of the Smith Mountain Lake Chamber of Commerce was hurt in the shooting. We are told she is in surgery.
celticdragonchick
@RaflW:
Yes, the woman being interviewed was also shot. She is still in surgery right now. She was shot in the back of her neck.
D58826
@JPL: I hadn’t seen that when I made the comment. Unfortunately ‘terrorism’ is the default first thought these days. NYPD provided enhanced security to the NY TV stations so they had the same thought. And the braying jackals will still be out howling at the moon
JPL
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I’m listening to CBSN and the person being interviewed, just mentioned that he was disgruntled with maybe mental illness…
He’s obviously white.
PurpleGirl
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA: A friend of mine, who owns several guns, was shocked when I told him that Arnold Schwartznegger held strong views for gun control (laws and regulations). His response was on the order of “but his movies, the guns in his movies…” I told my friend that Arnold was raised in Austria where there are strict gun laws, it’s what he knows.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Jarring and insensitive, but it may have been a local or regional ad or rollover, something over which CNN has no control.
Petorado
It really says a lot about this nation that after this shooting the local authorities placed local schools on lockdown. That’s a strong tell and a sign of how conditioned we’ve become that if there’s a crazy person with a gun running around that they will likely seek out more innocent targets of opportunity, like young school kids. I’m amazed movie theaters haven’t gone on lockdown as well. We’ve been down this road so many times we’ve come to expect things like this, yet take no action against it, nor reprove of the ubiquity of guns.
JPL
They are in pursuit of the suspect on I 64.
Eric S.
@MomSense: like Peak Wingnut, we will never experience enough violence to enact gun control.
Capt Seaweed
But is there anything useful we can do…
Loviatar
@RaflW:
I would change only one thing in that statement to make it perfect.
—–
In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing white children was bearable, it was over.
PurpleGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s a commercial, it’s making money for CNN. Do you want to cut into the profits of CNN? The god of Mammon must get his profits, no matter what. (only a little bit snarky)
ETA: As to the shooting itself, OMG. May the reporter and her cameraman RIP and I hope their families can find peace and comfort.
Chris
“You don’t really know what the framers were thinking do you?”
“No. But I know that if you combine all the populations of Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia you’ll get a population roughly the size of the United States. We had 32,000 gun deaths last year, they had 112. Do you think it’s because Americans are more homicidal by nature or do you think it’s because those guys have gun control laws?”
boatboy_srq
@Petorado: Makes you wonder how soon it’ll be until “shelter-in-place” becomes the norm – and anyone caught on the street will be
arrestedshot on sight.JGabriel
@JPL:
Is it OJ?
JPL
McAuliffe just spoke about gun violence in our country. The NRA is not going to be happy because during a time of tragedy, we need to pray for the victims.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@PurpleGirl: I forget that there are people who genuinely believe what they see in movies, and will resist attempts to explain that movies are fiction. I think it’s just way too comforting for them. Facing the world as it is would be too hard.
They’re children.
EdinNJ
@JPL:
Some rumors that a former reporter who left over “differing views” matches the picture of the suspect. Won’t post the name but he’s Hispanic and formerly worked for Fox News.
GregB
The only rational solution is to retrofit all video cameras with grenade launchers.
Comrade Dread
Two more sacrifices to Moloch.
No shooting spree, no matter how horrific, will ever be enough to stop the sacrifices. We are a violent and bloodthirsty people.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@JPL: If he doesn’t kill himself, for some reason I’m thinking they’ll take him alive.
Nick
Why do people use the word ‘disgruntled’ in these situations? It doesn’t mean ‘murderous’.
NotMax
@Capt Seaweed
One step is to call your Congresscritters and state legislators. (Phone calls pack way more punch and clout with their offices than do e-mails or faxes.)
Whether that turns out to be useful is certainly debatable, but not taking that step removes any possibility of it being so.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@EdinNJ: A local Fox affiliate, or the Fox News cable channel?
Robin G.
@Loviatar: Precisely. A conversation I had at the time:
Friend: This is finally going to bring about real gun control.
Me: Because almost two dozen upper-middle-class white six-year-olds were gunned down like animals while they huddled in the corners of their classrooms until their bodies were nearly unrecognizable?
Friend: Yeah.
Me: …bet it won’t.
Seriously, it’s never going to get more clear-cut than that. They’re right. The debate is over.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Gin & Tonic:
One of the few public services the Los Angeles Times does is the Homicide Blog, which does a story on every homicide reported to the police in Los Angeles County:
http://homicide.latimes.com
They also do an end-of-year story with statistics and something like 75 percent of the people who are killed were killed with a gun.
JPL
@EdinNJ: Reddit posted a name, that was false. I guess the reporter was being inundated with phone calls.
EdinNJ
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
Looks like CNN spoke to him and he’s not a suspect. That’s why I didn’t want to post a name.
JPL
CBSN now said that the state police issued a statement saying that they are not in pursuit of the suspect.
It appears that the governor’s information on that was wrong.
MomSense
@Eric S.:
I’ve given up. If Sandy Hook couldn’t shake us out of our gun stupor, nothing could.
Mark B.
@JPL: The race of the shooter doesn’t matter to me. Although, if he turns out to be black, I’m sure the racist assholes will try to make something of that.
If it turns out to be true that he was a disgruntled former employee, this really sucks. ‘Disgruntled’ means to me someone who writes an angry letter or maybes sues his ex-employer. It’s only in our super-violent society that a violent response to losing a job seems like a viable alternative. It’s about the lack of accessible mental care, easily accessible guns, and the general idiocy that blankets American society.
JPL
Suspect is Leslie Lee Flanagan..
Name correcter to Vester Lee Flanagan according to twitter.
SatanicPanic
Maybe the media will start doing something if its own members are threatened. Probably not. But maybe.
Mister Papercut
Not a former Fox employee, and not Hispanic, as far as I can tell. He appears to actually be a black guy, so get ready for the White Lives Matter arglebargle to get cranked up to 11.
EdinNJ
@Mister Papercut:
Yup, Lester Lee Flanigan, black male, as stated above.
SatanicPanic
@Robin G.:
I don’t think so. Gun owners are a noisy minority, and they’re politically powerful, but their numbers are shrinking, and gun ownership is more and more being associated with right-wing assholery. The tide will eventually turn on this.
Mike J
I was discussing the OKC bombing with a right winger last week, and we were talking about how when you buy fertilizer the feed store is going to record your name. This person thought it was unfair of me to say it’s because fertilizer manufacturers don’t give money to the NRA.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Loviatar:
Not all of the kids who were killed at Sandy Hook were white — some were Asian-American, Latino and (going by photos), at least one who was mixed race.
The point is more that they were middle-class kids who lived in a “good” neighborhood and no one gave a shit.
Nick
As an American who lives in Canada now, and is opposed to gun ownership, I think that focusing solely on the availability of guns is a bit of a red herring. Sure, that’s not good — but there’s also the will to kill. Canada has guns too, but our public sphere isn’t filled with rage and violence and fear, and I think that’s at least as important. A constant background of fear, violence, trickery, and competition, in which the government is not on your side and has no solutions, is the sea that Americans swim in.
Eric S.
@Mnemosyne (tablet): The Chicago Tribune pretty much published the body count every week. As best I can tell the only affect is to make people fearful of the city and want to hoard more guns. Stories about the murdered would be nice but I don’t think it will create a desire for gum control.
Mike in NC
About 20 years ago, after another shooting incident, I lived in Virginia and witnessed where the state passed a law limiting gun purchases to one per month. The gun nuts went apeshit and I’m pretty sure the Republicans got rid of said law as soon as they could.
Eric S.
@SatanicPanic: I hope your are correct. I’m a pessimist on this issue.
Mister Papercut
@EdinNJ:
He’s tweeting.
Elizabelle
CNN has two blonde reporters talking about Vester Flanagan. Who shot another blonde TV reporter.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Eric S.:
The LA Times blog does a story about each incident and victim. They don’t just publish the names.
I also doubt it does anything to make people want to curb guns, but the complaint was that we only hear about the infamous murders. I was pointing out that that’s not the case in all cities.
RP
I’m not sure the answer to this question is as obvious as you think.
JPL
Hopefully, the police are in pursuit. CBSN is not saying that they found the car at the Roanoke airport. I’m not sure what that means, if it is true.
Nick
@ Elizabelle
So what? Two humans were killed. CNN’s reporters are human. What does it possibly matter that they have blonde hair?
Oatler.
Zappa said it all in “More Trouble Every Day” in 1966.
Elizabelle
@RP: Really? I find it quite convincing.
Would that we had Swiss-style gun laws.
AliceBlue
The shooter is black? Oh god, here we go. The only thing that would make this more perfect for the RWNJ is if he’s a recent convert to Islam.
japa21
@Nick: Important point. One of the worse aspects of our current gun culture (and overall culture) is that it is actually being taught that violence (and guns) is an appropriate way to get back at people. Oh, it is never stated that way, but it comes out that way.
Amir Khalid
@Mike in NC:
Who the fuck needs a dozen new guns a year? They don’t give you that many in the army — in any army.
JPL
@Mister Papercut: He was just suspended. Bizarre
Mister Papercut
And he just posted POV video of the shooting. Fucking hell.
the Conster
Apparently the shooter posted the shooting to his FB page, and is tweeting it. Holy fuck, I can’t even.
Elizabelle
This is like a true crime reality story, this time involving two dead TV people, which is the only thing between us and CNN going back ALL TRUMP ALL THE TIME.
JPL
@Mister Papercut: I was able to watch one video where he was walking towards the news crew.. It was awful… I didn’t have a chance, fortunately, to watch the second video. I can’t believe that he video taped it.
PurpleGirl
@Mike in NC: Virginia has been identified as one of the places that supplies guns to the ‘underground’ in NYC. It’s one of the places that is the focus of Michael Bloomberg’s gun control efforts.
Carolus
He filmed the shooting for his facebook page.
Liberal With Attitude
Just going to repeat the same damn thing I say after every shooting.
We need to take the offensive and start talking about repeal of the 2nd Amendment and the alleged “right” to own guns.
There is no natural moral right to posses a deadly weapon.
The window and framing needs to move.
PurpleGirl
@Amir Khalid: They take a little ride north to NYC and sell them there…
Robin G.
@SatanicPanic: I hope you’re right, but changes on a cultural level — and this is cultural — seem to usually play out by generation. And unlike on, say, GLBT rights, statistics indicate that Millennials are just as stupidly devoted to guns as their predecessors.
Steve from Antioch
@JGabriel:
By the “new normal” are you referring to crime and murder rates that are at their lowest level in decades?
There was a front page post here recently about how people are such ninnies for cowering in their housed behind recently installed deadbolts because they think that everything was so much safer in the old days. That’s just stupid talking.
PurpleGirl
@the Conster: The twitter account has been suspended.
Mack
I’m sitting here wondering if a shooting like this, that is, captured live during a routine morning news segment, won’t actually result in some sort of collective PTSD for some who viewed it live. I’ve seen my share of violence up close, and I’m convinced that every act left a mark, psychologically speaking. I know it’s the tiniest sliver of silver lining to cling to, but maybe when more Americans see this kind of thing live, they may be more prone to fight our ridiculous gun culture.
Brandon
It looks like early reports about the shooter being a white male were wrong. It was a light-skinned Black male named Vester Lee Flanagan. He had a Twitter profile @BryceWilliams7 and quite sickeningly the man GoPro’d his execution and posted the video online. Twitter took the account down, but the video is probably out there.
Betty Cracker
@Liberal With Attitude: We don’t even need to repeal 2A; a sane interpretation of the introductory clauses the wingnuts like to ignore would do. Start regulating that armed militia, and regulate it well. Regulate the fucking hell out of it, even.
Cheryl from Maryland
Smith Mountain Lake is near where I grew up — Roanoke, VA. They’ve identified the shooter — an employee who was fired.
My brother told me this weekend he was going to visit “the lake” (local shorthand for a trip to Smith Mountain Lake). Located my brother at a different lake about 3 hours after the shooting– how horrible for the reporters and their families.
I’m disgusted at how way too many Americans settle disputes — this needs to change, and the best way is to make guns less available for these people.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Backgrounder on convicted felon and former governor Bob McDonnell repealing Virginia’s one gun a month limit in 2012, signed into law in 1993 by previous Governor Douglas Wilder.
This is from The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper, and it’s remarkably even-handed. Good on reporter David Sherfinski.
Fuck Bob McDonnell. I hope he spends every moment possible in prison, and soon. Wretched man, who was soft spoken and considered a possible presidential or VP candidate.
JPL
@Brandon: There were two videos, the one that I saw before they took down the feed, showed him walking towards the crew. It was horrific.
SatanicPanic
@Robin G.:
Are they? Kind of skeptical
RaflW
So the new story will be disgruntled black man.Yikes, that’ll get the guns-n-ammo crowd all the more incensed and fearful, and make the narrative all too easy to waive away from gun access to “black man rampage.”
Gin & Tonic
@Steve from Antioch: I don’t know how you define “decades”, and don’t want to speak for JGabriel, but firearm homicides in the US have been stable in a pretty narrow range of 11,000 to 12,000 per year since about 1998. To me, that’s “the new normal.” Source.
That’s about the rate at which US servicemen were being KIA during the peak of the Vietnam war.
Elizabelle
@Steve from Antioch: Crime and murder rates are down, yes, but mass and random victim shootings are up. We’ve had a few in cinemas in recent years and months.
Gun violence is a real, real threat. Please skip the gunsplaining.
Capt Seaweed
@NotMax:
I don’t share your shred of optimism. Nothing will change.
Start the 3 Day Clock: first day to be horrified by this, second day to argue about this, third day to forget about this. 2nd Amendment collateral damage. It’s what the Founding Fathers wanted…
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
As I understand, the original intent of the 2nd amendment was to guarantee a right to own firearms for people obliged to answer when called up to an official state militia. State governments in the US no longer call up civilians, so no one needs a gun to be ready for such a duty anymore.
AliceBlue
@japa21:
The Donald is coming very close to stating it that way.
Robin G.
@Steve from Antioch: It is unfair to call it the *new* normal, since gun deaths numbers are almost exactly the same now as they were in the early ’70s. There was a jump in the early nineties, a drop in the late nineties, and now we’re back to where we used to be. (Mind you, it’s very difficult to find unbiased reporting, but most will only start at 1993 or so, so as to show How Much Better things have gotten.) Crime is lower, yes, but on gun deaths, we are spinning our wheels.
rikyrah
Michael Skolnik ✔@MichaelSkolnik
JUST IN: Civil Right icon Amelia Boynton Robinson has passed away at the age of 104.
10:32 AM – 26 Aug 2015
Mike in NC
@RaflW: Yup, starting this afternoon there will be a stampede to Wal-Mart and other gun/ammo vendors and the shelves will be cleared overnight.
? Martin
@Mack:
Yes, it will. When I was a teenager I was living in Harrisburg PA and was home on a snow day and saw Budd Dwyer kill himself on TV. A lot of kids were home that day watching whatever on TV and the local stations cut in and aired the footage completely unedited and largely without warning as it had just happened. It wasn’t live, but it may as well have been. They cleaned it up as the day went on, but the most graphic footage was probably mostly seen by kids. It affected people.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I’m sure our resident muzzle-strokers will be along to dispute that point soon, but yours is just as reasonable an interpretation of the text as the free-for-all others will insist it decrees — much more reasonable, in my view.
Steve from Antioch
@Gin & Tonic:
What was relevant population in 1998 versus 2015?
Despite tens of millions more people and many millions more guns and adoption of concealed carry in most states, the gun murder RATE has dropped significantly
Old white conservatives vastly overestimate crime rates b/c their racism makes them imagine that some scary black guy is going to break in and steal their Lladro figurines. Same way that some pee their pants about gun crime rates because they obsess about guns.
OGLiberal
ThinkProgress says both former reporter and ex-boyfriend:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/08/26/3695487/tv-journalist-shooter-id/
So probably more jilted lover than disgruntled employee. (reporter’s fiance also reporter at station)
But somehow, this will be about those animal brown people.
Brandon
@JPL: In the second video he shoots at the female reporter and then the woman being interviewed. It came across my Twitter. I didn’t really understand what it was at the time it began running, but then it became clear. I should’ve turned it off and have no idea why I watched it as I now feel very ill. As an FYI to anyone out there, there is a way to turn off the auto-run video feature in Twitter. I just now figured that out and have done so.
Mike in NC
@PurpleGirl: When the VA GOP ran crackpot felon Ollie North for US Senate, he staged a photo-op in DC to complain about how the crime rate there and ban on handguns were related. It never passed his midget mind that the guns flooding the district came across the river from VA. He just thought everybody should be armed at all times.
Robin G.
@SatanicPanic: Here’s a few studies. There’s just not much variation. The Millennials are as into their guns as anyone else.
Gin & Tonic
@Steve from Antioch: The data are all in the report I linked. Go read it.
Betty Cracker
CNN Mobile says the gunman shot himself as the cops were closing in. Wonder if he live-streamed it? Good riddance.
guachi
You could see from the video the shooter was black. And yet we had people stating confidently the shooter was white.
Did those individuals bother to watch the video before their racist statements that the shooter had to be white? I’m not even sure race has any bearing on this shooting. I’ve seen no evidence that disgruntled employee shooters are more likely to be one race or the other. Male, sure, as men are far more likely to shoot people.
Betty Cracker
@Steve from Antioch: You and your fellow ammosexuals are the obsessive ones. The rest of us would simply like to live in peace without your fetish objects endangering our loved ones and coarsening our culture. So many American pathologies are linked to your pweeeecious, including out-of-control police brutality.
SiubhanDuinne
Gunman is dead, according to NPR citing the TV station.
Gin & Tonic
@guachi: Initial reports on breaking stories are just as likely to be incorrect as correct. Remember the three Marines on the train in France, who disarmed the gunman because they heard him locking and loading in the bathroom? Yeah, not Marines, and not the way events played out.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: CNN saying Virginia police spokeswoman clarified; shooter is still alive. Barely.
TooManyJens
@guachi:
I understand your frustration with the inaccuracy, but under the circumstances, I’m not going to blame anyone for not watching the video.
celticdragonchick
The Guardian reporting the gunman is in critical condition.
SatanicPanic
@Robin G.: Do they actually own guns though? That’s where I think we’re going to see real differences
celticdragonchick
I just watched the POV video where he walked up and shot them.
My God. I have no idea what to even say.
Another Holocene Human
@Nick: There’s always violence in the air in the South, and Roanake is in the Southern part of Virginia. It’s gotten to where I don’t notice it. (Last time I noticed was driving ground through AL and MS. Scary. Think I’ll stick to taking Amtrak through there (so, so peaceful) or flying over it.)
Southerners are good at talking, bad at communicating. Way too much thin skin and deflected (not diverted) aggression.
celticdragonchick
I have owned guns my entire adult life. I participated in an 18 century black powder shooting competition just over a week ago.
That being said…this shit has got to be curtailed. If that means bringing the militia part of the 2nd Amendment back into use and requiring all gun owners from 18 to 60 to attend mandatory monthly safety training and drill sessions, so be it. (that is what the Founders would likely have thought appropriate in the first place).
I have no idea how the hell you get nuts away from guns at this point entirely (and as we have seen, sometimes it is the cops who go nuts and start a killing spree) but a one month delay in getting a handgun and limit to say, one or two a year is not out of the question.
Also, random ballistics checks by the police on handguns.
charluckles
Fuck this defeatism. It’s exactly what the right wing and the NRA want from you. It’s not going to be easy to make this change, but because there is obviously so much room for improvement, it is going to be worth doing. Don’t back down, every chance you get, make your views about guns known. And don’t focus on these kind of events, yes it gets all the attention, but there is huge problem because these events fit perfectly into the NRA marketing that if everyone were armed this country would be safer. Instead lets focus on things like this story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/us/a-culture-clash-over-guns-infiltrates-the-backcountry.html?_r=0
As a life long gun owner, and outdoorsman let me tell you type of story hits home with many people on the fence about guns. It belies the very notion of the good guy gun owner and the myth of an armed society being a polite society. And it makes it very obvious to people on the fence that many of these guns owners think their right to own and shoot a gun in any manner they choose outweighs all other rights. Moreover it drives a massive wedge into the gun owning population.
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic:
I feel similarly (although I can recognize the horror of the brazenness of the attack and the horror of their last moments being recorded on video).
In Gainesville they are marking 25 years after Danny Rolling. (Pronounced “rawlin'” around here.) They still have his victims’ names on the 34th St wall. Here’s my thing: their killer was caught, put on trial, and executed by the state of Florida. There are dozens of murder victims in Gainesville and the surrounding county whose names are barely known and whose killers have never been brought to justice. Some of them are on the county “cold case” page right now, waiting for a tip.
It raises a lot of issues of race and class when you vigilantly keep the flame alive on these particular victims, and no others. It also seems like a slap in the face to the other families. Why not just let Rolling’s victims rest in peace?
Elizabelle
@charluckles: Yeah, I saw that NYTimes story about guns in the great outdoors/on parkland and it irritates me no end. Enough. They can have gun ranges; we can have the peace and quiet of the beautiful outdoors.
Another Holocene Human
@AndoChronic: Where were you trying to escape to? I dearly wanted to emigrate to Europe (probably France) in my 20s but given how things are playing out right now, my wife was right.
I do dream of retreating to a blue state enclave, but you can’t afford the good ones, and the ones you can afford are turning a horrible shade of purple.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL:
Yeah. I’m tired of this deflection too. You put all that violence out into the culture, yeah, people with poor judgment, teenagers, people with mental health issues, are going to act out first. They perceive what they’re hearing as real, not some sort of dog whistle (which it is) or political dance or political rhetoric, or that sort of fist to chest thumping you do to feel good that nobody actually follows through on.
Nor is violence more likely to be perpetrated by the mentally ill. (They are actually more likely to be victims of violence.)
Nor is it mental illness to be violent.
Nor is mental illness confined to “the mentally ill”. Anybody, any, body, okay? You too could become mentally ill under the wrong circumstances (detention, beatings, bankruptcy, rape, physical illness, etc).
Violence is an ugly thing that grows in every single one of us. We should be asking hard questions about the people in the media who nurture the shoots and fertilize the roots.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human: We should probably tear down all the 9/11 memorials too. After all, the killers are all dead, and recognizing that event as a national trauma is a slap in the face to people whose family members died in events that didn’t generate as much media coverage. Probably ought to uproot the Vietnam War Memorial while we’re at it — hell, bulldoze Arlington Cemetery too and turn it into a mall. Why should soldiers be memorialized any more than the hundreds of thousands who’ve died in car accidents over the ensuing years? It’s a slap in the face, I tell ya!
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: That seems rather unfair to AHH’s point that some victims of gun violence are practically lionized, while others are dismissed and forgotten, often along racial or socioeconomic lines. And glibly trying to equate those deaths with actual acts (as I would consider 9/11) and victims of war is a bit beyond the pale.
JGabriel
@Steve from Antioch:
No, by “the new normal” I meant the commission of multiple murders by a single shooter on a near daily basis.
So glad to make the ninny brigade, though. Assumptions much?
Edited to Add: Also, what Gin & Tonic says. I’m well aware that crime rates have been going down (albeit with occasional minor stalls and upticks) since the Clinton era, but gun violence has mostly just stayed stable.
Betty Cracker
@Gravenstone: I’m fighting glib with glib. The reason there’s a memorial in Gainesville 25 years later is that the serial murders deeply traumatized the entire community. Yes, it’s lamentable that people don’t pay more attention to unsolved homicides and that folks tend to invest more grief in victims who look like themselves. But it struck me as incredibly crass to imply that the Gainesville memorial is somehow a racist/classist “slap in the face” to other victims.
PurpleGirl
@Betty Cracker: Commenter PaulW wrote a post about that memorial wall and the serial killer. He posted a link to it way up toward the beginning of this thread. It speaks to the community’s pain. I felt it is very moving.
Betty Cracker
@PurpleGirl: Thanks — I saw it and responded on his blog. I was not very long out of Gainesville myself when the serial killings started, and I still knew people there. I go to Gainesville from time to time — mostly for football games. I always found the memorial comforting somehow, a sign that people still remember what happened 25 years ago, which is why I took AHH’s comment personally. Sorry, @Another Holocene Human — I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that.
Steve from Antioch
@Gin & Tonic:
The question to you was rhetorical to try to get you see the stupidity of saying that gun crime numbers are flat, since any reasonable analysis looks at rates, not raw numbers.
But you seem committed to shaving the data however you can to support your views, so have at it.
Steve from Antioch
@JGabriel:
Crime rates have been going down but gun murder rates are stable, eh?
Actually there were 23,000 murders in 1990 versus 14,000 or 15,000 in recent years. (This is murder by all means but gun caused track the same)
So both the rate and the actual numbers are going down.
Think those numbers are cherry picked? There were 23k murders or so in 1980 and 1990 and almost 16k in 2000.
When you look at murder rates – which is the on sensible way to look at crime trends – the drop is even more pronounced.
Steve from Antioch
First line should have said gun murder numbers, not rates