Odessa Rampage Killer Showed Red Flags

There is new information about the man who committed mass murder in a shooting rampage in Midland and Odessa, Texas over the weekend. While the man apparently did not have a recent criminal record, he allegedly did commit acts that would be considered “red flags” before his killing spree.

The New York Post reports that two of 36-year-old Seth Ator’s neighbors reported the man’s threatening behavior. One neighbor reported Ator to police last month after he had threatened her with a rifle for leaving trash near his property. The woman said that Ator would often sit on top of his house and shoot animals at night and then retrieve the bodies. The woman reported Ator’s threatening behavior to police, but they could not find his house because it did not have an accurate address for GPS navigation.

The woman said that Ator’s house did not have electricity or running water and that he would sleep in his car with the heat on in extremely cold weather. Photos of a house believed to be Ator’s published in online news media such as Heavy show a barn-like structure with a boxy addition on the roof that resembles a hunting blind.

A second neighbor also told the Post that Ator had threatened her with his rifle. It was not clear if this incident had been reported to police, but the woman said that Ator owned at least two guns.

A third neighbor told Heavy that Ator “didn’t bother anybody.”

Ator had a criminal record, but it was almost two decades old. He had pled guilty to criminal trespass and evading arrest in 2002. Both crimes are misdemeanors in Texas. This would not have prevented him from legally buying a gun since only misdemeanors that are related to assault are disqualifying under Texas law. Even then, people convicted of misdemeanors are allowed to possess guns after five years. Rep. Tom Craddick, a Texas Republican, said that Ator had failed a background check but did not say when the check occurred. So far, there has been no confirmation of that claim except for a nonspecific tweet by Gov. Greg Abbott. The Washington Examiner also reported that Ator had received a traffic citation in 2018 for a federal motor carrier safety violation.

https://twitter.com/GregAbbott_TX/status/1168554204065087489?s=20

Additional reports say that Ator was fired from his job as a truck driver shortly before he was stopped by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers for a failure to signal a left turn in his personal auto. During the traffic stop, Ator pulled out what police describe as an “AR-style rifle” and attacked the officers. He then drove away and fired at innocent civilians as he drove through the neighboring towns of Midland and Odessa.

Unlike mass killings and serial murders years ago in which neighbors often said that the perpetrator was normal and not suspicious, in many modern rampage killings there are a number of warnings before the massacre. In the case of the Odessa murders, the killer exhibited threatening behavior on at least two occasions. Frequently shooting animals from his roof could be a red flag as well, although the report is not specific about Ator’s actions. Cruelty to animals (which does not traditional hunting) is an early warning sign for many murderers.

Even though Ator exhibited classic red flag warning signs, red flag laws may not have prevented this specific killing spree. Laws vary by state and in many cases only a close relative can petition to have guns taken from a person who shows signs of potential violence. With only two neighbors experiencing his threatening behavior and no recent criminal history, a red flag statute might not have been triggered.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said over the weekend that “Words must be met with action” but has not backed any specific new laws yet although red flag laws have gained widespread popularity among both parties. Recent polling shows about 70 percent support for the measures.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Both Sides Should Look In The Mirror When It Comes To Political Violence

With two mass shootings within 24 hours, the rhetorical battle lines are once again being drawn. On the one side, liberals are blaming guns and President Trump’s rhetoric while many on the right are trying to shift the blame away from white supremacy and presidential tweets. The truth is that there is more than one cause for the murder spree and both sides share some responsibility for the charged political environment that may have contributed to the killings.

While the motive is not obvious for the Dayton murders, an online manifesto posted to the 8Chan message board prior to the El Paso attack appears to be genuine. The manifesto rails against Hispanic immigrants who the murderer blamed for many of America’s political and economic problems. Unlike many on the right, the author of the manifesto did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.

The racist motive for the murders presents problems for conservatives, many of whom don’t want to acknowledge that people on the right are not only capable of violence but commit domestic terror attacks on a fairly regular basis. Since the news of the manifesto broke yesterday, I have seen at least one right-wing social media user speculate that Antifa was behind the El Paso attack as a way to discredit the right. Based on what I’ve seen online in the past, this sort of reaction is not that rare.

The truth is that white supremacist violence is a growing problem. Domestic terrorist attacks by leftist groups were common in the 1970s. In the 1980s and 90s, these gave way to attacks by foreign Islamic radicals. After September 11, homegrown Islamic radicals launched a wave of attacks. Now, it seems that white supremacists are the up and coming source of violence.

In June, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “A majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”

Domestic terror attacks related to white supremacy from 2018 and 2019 alone include the murder of student Blaze Bernstein in California, a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, an arson attack at a California mosque, and another mass shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California. If we expand to include other right-wing attacks, we can add a vehicular attack on a New Jersey Planned Parenthood clinic and pipe bomb attacks by the so-called “MAGA bomber” to the list.     

Earlier this week, an FBI bulletin released by Yahoo News detailed concern about  “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” who might be inspired by such Deep State conspiracy theories such as QAnon. The Q conspiracy theory ties President Trump’s opponents to “a conspiracy involving ‘deep state’ actors and global elites allegedly engaged in an international child sex trafficking ring.” The report notes, “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures” could further incite domestic terrorists.

It’s clear that there is a problem on the right, but the flip side is that the left is all too willing to tar all conservatives with the extremist brush. As Erick Erickson pointed out on Twitter, liberals are quick to label anyone who supports border security as a racist. For many on the left, “common sense gun controls” for many Democrats would amount to near-total bans on privately-owned guns and ammunition. For every liberal who says, “I don’t want to take your guns,” there seems to be one who openly says, “yes, I do want to take your guns.”

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1158048421149847552?s=20

Liberals complain that conservatives won’t have a meaningful discussion or take action on the issue of gun violence, but liberals have shown themselves to be untrustworthy on the issue. The same policy prescriptions are trotted out after each attack. In many or most cases, the policies that the left advocates, such as waiting periods and high capacity magazine bans, would not have prevented the attack.

Even an outright ban on guns would have a minimal effect since there are an estimated 393 million guns in private hands in the United States. A large percentage of those guns would remain outstanding in the case of a gun ban and confiscation as law-abiding citizens suddenly became outlaws. It’s interesting to note that, despite the ratio of more than 120 guns per 100 Americans, the US violent crime rate has been falling since 1993. This has remained true even as the “assault weapons” ban expired and concealed and open carry laws were passed around the country.

A liberal orthodoxy that needs to be shattered is that gun control is equivalent to crime control. Mass shootings seem to occur almost randomly around the country. They have occurred in states with strict gun controls such as California and New York and they have occurred in permissive states such as Florida and Texas. They have even occurred in military and government facilities where personal weapons are prohibited.

Mass killings are also not limited to AR-15s and similar types of semi-automatic rifles. The murderers have used various combinations of rifles, shotguns, and pistols. In other cases, killers have also used weapons such as bombs made from pipes and pressure cookers, knives, machetes, nerve gas, swords, and even a baseball bat to commit mass murder.

One of the few types of gun control that might be effective is red flag laws. Since many murder sprees have been committed by people with long histories of mental illness, some states are passing laws that allow temporary confiscation of guns owned by people who are deemed to present a threat to themselves or others. However, the potential for abuse and the deficit of trust between gun owners and the left presents a problem here. Earlier this year, police killed a Maryland man who had committed no crime as they attempted to serve a red flag order.

Rather than guns being the problem, weapons are merely a symptom of a problem with the human heart. The violence problem is related to a number of evil thoughts and desires such as greed, racism, the desire for political power, or the belief that one is a holy warrior or an instrument of divine judgment.

It is a defect of one’s humanity to possess the desire to gun down innocent people in cold blood, but it doesn’t mean that the person is crazy. The murder plot might be a calculated desire to incite a race war, as Dylann Roof intended to do, or it might be a desire to defend one’s country against its enemies, as Cesar Sayoc’s attorneys claim. Maybe the shooter bought into a conspiracy theory like Pizzagate or QAnon or maybe they blame their own misfortunes on people who look or talk differently.  

Sometimes underlying prejudices can be ignited by claims from political leaders, which brings us back not only to Donald Trump but to opposition leaders as well. Yes, President Trump says many irresponsible things and, yes, he should tone down his rhetoric. The president has demonized immigrants as violent criminals, whipped up fear of migrant caravans prior to last year’s election, and railed against both Democrats and his own Justice Department as corrupt Deep State enemies of America. It isn’t hard to imagine that this sort of talk could inspire someone who is already on the brink of violence.

But it isn’t only Donald Trump’s rhetoric that is a problem. Claims that Trump is a stooge of Russian President Putin, that he is a fascist, that he is a white supremacist, and that he will refuse to leave the presidency after his term is up are all examples of things said by the left that could incite violence from Trump opponents. It should not be forgotten that it was only two years ago that a radicalized Bernie Sanders supporter nearly killed a handful of Republican senators as they played baseball.

The truth is that both sides are guilty of overheated rhetoric as they attempt to drive their respective bases to the polls. What often motivates voters is the fear that the other side will win and destroy the country rather than the hope that their own side can implement good ideas. Instilling fear requires a scapegoat, but when people, either individuals or an ethnic group, become the object of fear, that fear can lead to violence.

Currently, the national political climate seems to be a tinderbox around which warriors of the two parties are constantly dropping sparks and red hot coals. It’s a wonder that we haven’t experienced more political violence in recent times than we have. Both sides are more than willing to point the finger at the other when violent attacks occur, but if we really want to make America better, both sides need to look in the mirror.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Both Sides Are Hypocrites On Mass Killings

The response to mass killings has become a sick joke.

After yesterday’s mass shooting in Texas, leftists took to the internet to attack gun laws, the NRA and the Republican Party before the bodies were even cold. As an added measure, anti-religious zealots attacked Christianity and the effectiveness of prayer since the mass murder took place at a Baptist church. Never mind that the killer was apparently an atheist who got his gun illegally.

Few stopped to ponder that the left had attacked Donald Trump only a few days earlier for tying immigration policy to the New York City truck attack. Trump’s claim ignored that his immigration policy would not have affected the terrorist who immigrated from Uzbekistan to the US years before becoming radicalized.

To its credit, Congress had attempted to eliminate the diversity visa program that allowed the New York terrorist to immigrate as part of an immigration reform compromise in 2013. At the time, the bill was opposed by many conservatives who considered it “amnesty.”

The sick joke is the reflexive jockeying after terrorist attacks and mass killings to determine who can benefit politically from the tragedy. The left infamously hopes that killers are white men while the right crosses its collective fingers for a Muslim terrorist or Antifa activist. Neither side wants to let the crisis go to waste.

Social media is scoured for signs of the perpetrator’s political leanings. Was he a Democrat or a Republican? A liberal or a conservative?

For many conspiracy theorists, the facts don’t matter. According to them, the Texas and Las Vegas shooters were secret Muslim converts or they had histories of attending far-left rallies. Maybe both. Lack of evidence just means that their posts were scrubbed by the Deep State. Regardless of the killer’s politics, if any, Alex Jones can be depended on to trot out a false flag conspiracy.

But it isn’t just conspiracy nuts. Both sides are filled with hypocrites. The roles change according to what is found on the muderer’s Facebook profile and Twitter history, but partisans on both sides shamefully leverage the deaths of innocents for their own political gain. One side attacks and the other side attacks the first side for its insensitivity.

The cynical gamesmanship is transparent to most Americans and doubtless contributes to the disapproval and lack of confidence that the country feels toward both political parties. The majority of Americans are repulsed by the bickering, insults and accusations.

A national tragedy is not the time to push a pet political agenda or try to drive a wedge between voters and your opponent. Politicians and activists should act with at least a modicum of class, dignity  and self-restraint in the wake of mass murders.

Let us get past the shock of scores of people being murdered while peacefully attending a worship service, a concert or just walking down the street. As a nation, we need time to mourn. We need to come together in our grief and sadness rather than rushing into an emotional policy debate that, in all likelihood, won’t stop the next psychopath or jihadist anyway.

Coming together in mourning may help the nation heal politically as well. We may realize that the other side isn’t made up of bloodthirsty radicals who want to destroy the country, but are, in reality, our friends, neighbors and relatives who are just as shocked and saddened as we are.

Originally published on The Resurgent