Minneapolis school shooter

@VoulezVouz I wrote about the Catholic / Church angle because I've also been reading trans rights activists, both formal and informal and I'm concerned with anti- Church rhetoric and general condoning of violent language of TRAs.

It's not because of this case but actual hate speech can lead to violence and why I posted. There's also been others of trans targeting churches and related institutions.

Someone seemed to be assuming we are all white. I'm fed up of popping up and saying I'm mixed race. In this case it is particularly egregious because my family left a country because of ethnic / religious violence.

Diamond82 · Yesterday 21:45

"Mashallah" (God's will in Arabic)

You're thinking of insh'Allah, mash Allah loosely translates as "bless her/his little heart."

Has anyone noticed that the murderer had a Habsburg Jaw? I wonder if he's the product of inbreeding, it would certainly shed light on his suspected mental health problems.

Your response is enlightening, just not in the way you imagine.

Apparently there is a subreddit called transguns with 19k members. Don’t use Reddit but is it normal to have subreddits for particular groups purely associated with weapons.

On the assumption that question is actually serious then I'd say the fact you've responded in the way you have, and considering the reasoning behind your compulsion to do so, rather provides the answer.

You are the person inferring that my comment can be extrapolated to ‘any group or individual … [with] MH issues must therefore be a potential mass shooter’, which is actually a logical fallacy on your part. Not mine.

I am simply stating that denying that those with trans identity issues are persons with MH issues means that they are afforded legal and social privileges - such as gun ownership - that other persons with MH issues are not. This is a safeguarding risk. The same kind of safeguarding risk that predicates women having single sex spaces - we KNOW that not ALL men are sexually violent but on the basis that we cannot tell by looking at them which men are and which men are not, the law and safeguarding guidelines excludes all men.

The same applies to people with MH issues. We don’t know which ones are likely to carry out mass shootings or terrorist attacks, so you need to bar all persons with MH issues (and this includes those with trans related MH issues because they are mentally ill). In the UK and most countries we have chosen to ban gun ownership in the general population as it avoids this issue altogether, but given the US obsession with their second amendment rights, the only logical, sensible, legal step to prevent tragedies such as this is to control WHO has access to guns. It is ideologically driven disingenuousness NOT to include those who have GD or other gender related MH issues within the category of ‘illegible’ for gun licences on MH grounds.

So is the use of the word "she" by the DM manipulation?

Bbc still using She on their website

Complaint going in!

It always does. The hard of thinking exist on a diet of clickbait and impotent rage. Such people are phenomenally easy to manipulate; the Daily Heil knows this well.

That most mass shooters have mental health issues - something which, by definition, I don't think any rational person can argue with - is not the question though, is it?

Your assertion that, since most mass shooters have MH issues, any group or individual you personally believe to have MH issues must therefore be a potential mass shooter is logically fallacious at best and an intentional attempt to subvert the narrative at worst.

For the record, some people who identify as trans may have MH issues, but it does not follow that all trans people do; however much you desperately want them to in order to provide you with justification for your delusion.

They often do that IME.

Mail Online, the biggest news site in the World, is using she in every article.
I think it's to enrage their readers to gain clicks and it's working.

What @CautiousLurker01 said.

All of this is window dressing if you feel, as many of us do, that trans identity is a mental illness and what the statistic show is that 95% of mass shooters in the US are male and more than 95% of mass shooters have/had diagnosed mental illness… the point is that in denying trans identity as a MH issue/normalising it means that these men are able to obtain weapons and ammunition when they should not be eligible, any more than a schizophrenic or bipolar individual is under US gun laws.

ETA - as the mother of a child/YP who trans identified for 7 years and interacted with Tavistock and many other professionals, I am absolutely certain that gender issues are rooted in mental illness. This is not bigotry but informed by experience and consultation with clinical specialists.

You see, this is a shining example of the problem.

The Minneapolis shooter, Robin Westman, is being reported as trans, and that detail is already being highlighted in coverage in ways that distract from the bigger picture.
The truth is that identity here does not explain the violence. Less than one tenth of one percent of mass shootings involve a trans person, which makes it statistically insignificant. The overwhelming majority of shooters are right wing cis men, yet that pattern rarely drives headlines.

What we are seeing is those who paddle in the shallow end of the gene-pool predictably jumping on these reports to stir up their base.
Rather than dealing with the real drivers of mass violence like guns being everywhere and extremist rhetoric spreading online, they zero in on a marginalized group. It is not about understanding the facts, it is about creating a convenient villain.

The bias is obvious.

When shooters are cis white men, the story shifts to individual failings or vague nods to mental health.
When a shooter is reported as trans, political operatives suddenly push the idea that it reflects an entire community.
That is scapegoating, and it distracts from any real effort to prevent future shootings.

Just as we want men who claim to be trans kept out of women's spaces =/= saying they are all rapists, saying that if a transperson who carries out a despicable crime =/= claiming they are all psychotic killers.

The fact they claimed to be trans may be pertinent. It is often a symptom of other mental health problems which seem to go untreated once 'stunning and brave' is, for want of a better word, diagnosed.

In this instance, whatever was wrong with the guy his anger was directed outwards before he turned it on himself. Suicidality though seems to be common in young transpeople; thought about, planned, attempted or realised.

What, once you've got your diagnosis, you don't feel stunning or brave? What, no matter how affirming your family or community is, you still feel alone and scared? What if you're not delusional enough to realise you don't pass? What if you can see on the faces of your neighbours, and children, especially, make bad liars.

If he hadn't committed such a vile crime I'd feel sorry for him.

Yes, and it is mental illness that underpins 100% of school shootings, often against a background of familial abuse/neglect, even where they say it is for political purposes or some other express reason. The issue I have is that in denying that transgenderism, or the perp having a trans identity, is rooted in/part of a profile of mental illness. We can’t begin to have a rational discourse on this if every time a trans person, or a schizophrenic, or a bipolar person commits heinous crime, the response is ‘don’t vilify the mentally ill’ or ‘dont vilify the trans community’. The victims have to be front and centre of the media reports and factors such as being a trans activist or trans identified or having any other mental illness has to be discussed in order to understand and prevent this happening again.

That was when the BBC staff thought he was a common-or-garden man.

It changed when they learned of the trans aspect.

Sticking to the Beeb's batshit editorial policy

I only saw the 10 o’clock bulletin mentioning him all through. No pic of him. I assumed it was a conscious move not to make it all about the shooter, give him fame/airtime or whatever. No idea he was trans.

Amazing! A step in the right direction.

The BBC subsequently removed pronouns from its online reporting, however, its News at Ten used he/him.

Another senseless murder by someone with significant mental health difficulties, affirmed by authorities as transgender instead of getting to the root cause.

This. And as I pointed out on the other thread, of the very few of these incidents committed by biological females, a significant proportion have been committed by women who identify as “trans”. This is a man who identifies as trans. The mental health problems and sense of resentment are a problem. The frequent wishing of violence on others when they feel disrespected or thwarted is a problem.

I think declaring it a mental illness or promoting some understanding that it is associated with other mental illnesses won’t make people necessarily leap out and say, ‘they are all psychotic killers’ because the mental illnesses in question are often things like depression, anxiety or suicidal thoughts.

I guess I just hope the conversation could move from affirmation. It seems dangerous to affirm his delusions

I’m not so sure the other one can be claimed as a clear targeting based on religion. It was the shooter’s own school.

I do agree with making guns harder to get; I don’t agree with a blanket “transgenderism is a mental illness” thus all transgender people are automatically unstable and potentially violent rhetoric. This is what Conservatives would want you to repeat while the most common offenders are white males. (And the most recent one is a white male, likely Conservative.)