The Waffle House Shooter
This dude was a nut job. In case you're unfamiliar with the incident, Travis Reinking burst into an Antioch, Tennessee Waffle House and gunned four people down while wearing nothing but a green jacket. A customer of the Waffle House tackled him and took away his gun before Reinking ran away until he was recently captured. This guy had some other mishaps with law enforcement the past year or so that are worth covering.
Last June, Reinking showed up at a community pool in Tremont, IL wearing a pink dress where he started yelling at people and exposing himself.
In July, he breached a White House security barrier because he wanted to meet Donald Trump. He identified as a "sovereign citizen" which is someone who doesn't identify with the US and, as a result, doesn't have to obey the law.
In August, his weapons (which included four firearms and ammunition) were seized from his father's apartment where he resided. He told the officer that was seizing his weapons that he was being enticed to break the law since he started to write to Taylor Swift. Which, by the way, was a whole other conspiracy where he believed Swift was stalking him.
Anyways, Reinking was banned from owning any guns but his father transferred his weapons to him. Now his father could face charges.
Does this go to show that no matter who we prohibit from buying guns, even the weirdest people can still manage to get their hands on one if they really wanted to? Would that be generalizing a bit too much? Interested to see what you guys think.
He's mentally ill.
My favorite is the fact he thought Taylor Swift was stalking HIM.
If people didn’t have hands, he wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger.
banhands
Let's take it a step further...
If people weren't around, we wouldn't be able to kill each other.
hashtags: ban-everyone-from-living, problem-solved
3 Things come to mind:
I'm going to agree with your first point as Reinking demonstrated he cannot handle a firearm responsibly. So that makes me question two things:
If law enforcement believes you cannot handle a firearm, should all firearms in the home you reside be taken as well? Say, if you live with a family member?
If yes, does this conflict with the other family member's second amendment right? Is it justified? If no, do we trust that the family member won't be inclined to give it to their son/daughter/brother/sister anyways? Do we trust the family member will keep it somewhere their son/daughter can't get? Seems hard to enforce.
I know that it may seem like a very specific case but nearly the same situation happened with the Sandy Hook shooter. i.e. living with parent(s) and had easy access to a gun that belonged to a parent.
Just curious as to what you think.
Not sure what the right answer is to be honest, but I'd lean towards no. If you've done nothing wrong, you shouldn't be helped responsible for the actions of your son. That being said, if I had a wife or child with some sort of mental illness, I sure as hell wouldn't keep a gun out in the open.
I’m skeptical of ‘mentally ill’ as much as I am of ‘guns is the problem’. How about America ‘Land of knife wielding nuts’ or ‘Land of Truck Drivers on Sidewalks’.
This mental health stuff can’t be the simple cause. Even Lenny killed a poor puppy and girl by accident, not because he was just dumb, but because he loved too much. Being dumb only got him in trouble due to lack of awareness of his own strength.
The shooters like this guy are deliberately out to hurt people and get some disgusting satisfaction through it. It’s feels like a charge against current society. The deliberate intention is much worse than the action.
Ahh. Interesting point @iBankedUp" Also curious as to how they classify "mentally ill". Most of these shooters were never diagnosed with mental disorders from what I've read. Most simply showed signs of serious aggression. e.g. discharged from the army, kicked out of school/suspended frequently and/or racism. Reinking was fired from a job a few weeks before the shooting.
Well, there’s also the case of the Vegas/Mandalay Bay shooter. I don’t remember if they labeled him as being ‘mentally ill’ because people who knew him described as actually being competent, successful, and generally living a pretty full life. Sure you get some losers that seem to blow off some steam by becoming a mass shooter. Maybe they’re more susceptible to that type of demon, being so aggravated to assault with a feeling of no hope or outlet.
What we seem to be getting more times than not is people will put all of these shooters in that one camp after the act is done, labeling them as ‘mentally ill’. If we want to use that label to preempt people or identify them pre-incident, we have to be careful from a legal perspective. It runs the real risk of prematurely taking away people’s rights. That’s obviously the aggrievances of the gun enthusiasts. As a black male, I definitely hate the use of labels, so I sympathize to some degree.
I think as society continues down its current cultural path where maybe this problem keeps growing more severe, there are ways out of the gun issue through technology. Of course I’m referring to id tech on guns, etc. It’s obviously very sad that this problem seems to be growing more severe.
I think the first mass shooting was an event of passion. But now, these guys just wake up and commit these gross acts as if it’s some sort of bucket list item. That’s why I think it’s a systemic issue and who knows who around you is hanging on by a thread.
The drug addictions, sex/porn addictions, attention whoring, etc. society we live in is an obvious indication about how poorly we are evolving as supposedly ‘civilized’ people. I can’t help but think the system is very broken when looking at the moral decay of society. Watched an interesting documentary on Vice describing the 90s as a time displaying the robbing of innocence from the youth, because our prison population is just another quality of a broken society.
+1 for working a Steinbeck reference into a WSO post.
We should forcibly confiscate guns. The images of barely high school educated sheriffs, dressed as delta force, kicking down doors and arresting Americans would be great.
Should do it right after the Democrats impeach the lawful elects President because of “Ma feelz”.
I have a few comments;
-First, the father is completely at fault for transferring those guns to him, they should have been sold immediately. The equivalent of giving your 4 year old a loaded firearm, or leaving it unattended in the house.
-Second, this is a great example of how easy it is to get guns in America. Unless we completely get rid of every single gun (which I am 100% against) we need to focus on putting people like this in the loony bin before they do something like this (while also limiting their access to dangerous items). This guy was already on the radar and had his weapons confiscated, why didn't we take it a step further and make sure he didn't have any easy access them? Why didn't we put like an ankle monitor on him?
-Third, maybe T Swift was stalking him? She is kind of crazy?
-Fourth, terrible tragedy for the families affected, with all of the run-ins this guy has had, there is no way he should have been allowed outside of a gated fence.
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Would I bang? Yes.
Would I change my name and leave the country afterwards?Also yes.
Not doubting her success and large fan base. But ever since I saw the story of her cramming herself into a box and having her bodyguards carry her to her van to avoid fans I lost most respect for her. lol
Agree on all points. I lol'd at Taylor Swift comment.
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