Mass Shootings

Female shooter attacks YouTube headquarters, wounds three

April 04, 2018 Leave a Comment

Nasim Najafi Aghdam, a 39-year-old woman from San Diego, traveled to YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California and began shooting random YouTube employees with a 9mm handgun. She wounded three people before turning her weapon on herself. One of her victims remains in critical condition.

Aghdam was reportedly upset with how YouTube was “filtering” her videos so that nobody was seeing them. Evidently, she was echoing many of the same complaints made by Steven Williams, the man who plays Boogie2988 on YouTube, in a recent video. Boogie2988 has since removed his video, claiming it was out of respect for the people harmed yesterday.

My guess his motivation for removing the video has more to do with self-preservation than respect or solidarity for anyone at YouTube. He complained about the same things Nasim Najafi Aghdam complained about.

Was the shooter a subscriber to Boogie2988’s channel? I know from interacting with a few of his fans in the Boogie2988 comment section on YouTube, he has more than his fair share of weirdo fans. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest of the shooter was a regular viewer of Boogie2988’s content.

Maybe that is something law enforcement will look into. Not that it would really matter. Even if she did watch his videos, it doesn’t make Steven Williams in any way responsible for Aghdam’s actions.

Dick’s Sporting Goods to stop selling assault weapons

March 01, 2018 Leave a Comment

The CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, Edward Stack, has decided that it will no longer sell assault-style rifles. They will also end sales of firearms and ammunition to people younger than 21.

That means if you’re 18 years old and you want to get your hands on a firearm, you’ll need to join the U.S. military.

Stack, son of Dick, said Dick’s Sporting Goods is a supporter of the Second Amendment but doesn’t want to be part of the story with mass shootings. Although they didn’t sell the weapon used at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, they sold other weapons to the killer.

As a quick reminder, here is the Second Amendment in its entirety:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I’m no Constitutional lawyer, but it seems to say the reason people have a right to keep and bear arms is for the purpose of a well regulated militia. Not for self-defense, hunting, or target practice, but for the purpose of a militia.

The Second Amendment is so poorly written, it’s hard to really know what it means.

I commend what Dick’s Sporting Goods is doing, but it’s a little late. There are already more guns in this country than people. Any weirdo who wants to get their hands on a gun will not have too much trouble doing it.

Whatever we are doing to stop mass shootings is not working

February 15, 2018 Leave a Comment

Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old white nationalist walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School located in Parkland, Florida armed with an AR-15 style assault weapon and murdered 17 people, including both adults and children.

It seems pretty obvious to me at this point that whatever we’re doing to stop these mass shootings isn’t working. Maybe it’s time we tried to do something else.

We can’t ban guns because it says in our Constitution that citizens are allowed to keep and bear arms. Granted, at the time that was written with a feather pen, an “arm” could fire up to three rounds a minute if the shooter was trained and had a lot of practice.

We’re incapable of amending that antiquated clause in the Constitution because a tiny but vocal minority of our population likes guns and refuses to allow the rest of us to ban then for our own safety. Plus, they’re very well funded and in a democracy like ours, that’s important. It shouldn’t be, but it is.

So guns are here to stay.

The Washington Post reports that there are approximately 357 million firearms in the United States. That’s forty million more than there are people.

So if we can’t ban guns, it may be time to do the complete opposite. Allow every law-abiding citizen with a clean criminal record and free of mental defect to arm themselves. Require them to first pass a training course but after that, allow them to strap a firearm to their leg for everyone to see. It would be important that the firearm is easy to see to act as a deterrent, hence the leg holster.

I am in no way saying this is the perfect remedy to this terrible problem. The thing is, it’s better than what we’re doing now which is absolutely nothing. Either make all guns go away or allow everyone to use them.