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In a "what the fuck even is this timeline" update: Anderson lee Aldrich, the Q Club shooter, is apparently non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, and already had an Encyclopedia Dramatica article detailing his career as a 15 year old "professional hacker", calling him a pedophile, and describing his absent father as an MMA fighter and porn star.
I'm feeling very vindicated in my impulse to hold off conclusions... but I would think that, given my biases, wouldn't it? The real test would be a tragedy that looks at first glance to fit my biases perfectly and allows me to cathartically Boo Outgroup. I suspect that differences in media ecosystems have that less likely... but I would think that too, wouldn't I?
Plus obvious, audacious narrative updates in real time.
And our first echo shooting, as usually happens in the immediate wake of a highly publicized mass shooting. No apparent political/CW element, disgruntled employee.
The playbook has gained a few pages but man it's been the same overall strategy to respond to mass shooting events as long as I can remember:
If the shooter's political motivations make outgroup look bad, hammer on those.
If shooter had no clear political affiliation but their identity (white and male, usually) is useful, hammer that.
If their identity is bad for the narrative but the victims are particularly sympathetic (children, women, LGBT, immigrants, etc.) hammer the hell out of that. I would bet most people don't remember that the Pulse Nightclub Shooter was an Islamist. And the 'new' page is blame outgroup for 'hateful rhetoric' causing the shooting anyway.
If literally all else fails, then just hammer the lack of gun control (even if it happened in a 'gun free zone' in a state with strict gun laws). Usually the pivots aren't as visible, but you see them regularly.
The Kyle Rittenhouse situation was interesting because they tried, very poorly, mind you, to use every one of these approaches, despite it never really being a good fit on any count. There's still people who claim he was a White Supremacist who crossed state lines with an illegally owned rifle with the intention of killing minorities. This, after an acquittal at trial and copious video evidence he was attacked and chased and everyone he shot was white, anyway.
Incidentally, I do believe this is why the Waukesha Christmas Parade Attack got relatively little coverage and has not led to any particular political movement. 6 Deaths, 62 injured.
No political motivations, attacker was minority, and the victims were middle class and white and probably Republican, and there wasn't even a gun involved.
And I'm not saying there should have been a political movement! I think treating it as a semi-random tragedy is the right approach and overreacting by, say, banning parades or something would be stupid.
But the fact that journalists and media don't take this tact with every mass killing gives away the game.
We regard car crimes as an acceptable cost for a lifestyle enabled by cars, so few people clamor to ban cars in the wake of car attacks. Guns are regarded by the left as chiefly a nuisance and not a critical tool that enables our way of life. Cars don't need a second amendment to protect them; the benefits are obvious.
We could take obvious common sense steps like limiting the maximum speed a car can go, and also limit the size of gas tanks so they can't run from police for very long and banning racing stripes because nobody needs to make their car look cool.
That's about how gun control advocates sound when attempting to articulate "reasonable" compromises on firearms.
Those are only obviously onerous because most Americans rely on cars though.
How many people have to exercise a given right for it to be onerous to impose upon it?
Regardless of if it's actually onerous, observe that because many people drive the limitations would be obviously onerous. There's less of an explanatory hurdle.
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