He’s Turkish…which means for those that do already think that way he IS one of those dark skinned guys with a beard and turban.
Remember they have closed minds and narrow views.
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True - there isn’t an easy answer there. If we outright stop sharing the names of every perpetrator no matter their background, then maybe it works. Except the media sells us stories based on basic identifiers. We live in the age of click-bait terrorism.
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About that…
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well, fuck. We have brought up previously that no race, religion or national origin has a monopoly on assholes. Here is another murderous asshole. I am sure his motives will come out, and Il Douche will not wait a microsecond to declare this a terrorist attack, because brown people and all. Still waiting for him to so so re: NZ attack.
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Just want to point out that in this instance I believe that the suspect is still at large, so sharing photos, his name, and any other information that can be helpful in identifying and locating the suspect does indeed have a value. After he’s caught, maybe sharing his name is a little less useful.
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Solid point. Also, we need some way to provide demographic info to help nab the guy, but block demographic info from people trying to promote a political narrative.
I saw how, after the Christchurch shooting, rightwing darling Ben Shapiro was tweeting stuff like,
“DO NOT MENTION HIS NAME. DO NOT MENTION HIS MANIFESTO. DO NOT MENTION HIS MENTIONS. THIS IS WHAT HE WANTED,” and so on…
… but any time the perpetrator was Muslim, dark-skinned, etc, this same Shapiro could be counted on to post things like, “TWENTY THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT [name of Muslim shooter].”
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The problem there is that the current narrative promoted by many of our political leaders is “FEAR THE BROWN PEOPLE” whereas the reality is that most acts of terrorism in the West are now committed by White Nationalists. So in those cases is providing demographic information on the killers “promoting” a political narrative or debunking one?
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re: Dealing with the issue of exposing a terrorist’s messed up ideology, while not contributing to his cult of personality, I noticed this site has his faced blurred. Though possibly this is for legal reasons?
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Weird. Since gun control supposedly stops or reduces mass shootings, I’d expect to see declining numbers of shootings in Europe, which has strict gun laws which are getting stricter.
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Do you want to compare shooting deaths for countries with different gun laws?
Because we can totally compare shooting deaths for countries with different gun laws.
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I don’t think it would be particularly difficult to talk about the reasons surrounding a killing without actually naming the killer… in NZ’s case, for instance, you could discuss the facets of White Supremacy/Nazism without stating the person’s name. You could point out the sex & ethnicity (maybe if NOT white, since 90% seem to be middle class white Men) without naming a name. Ie - “angry middle class white nazi scum shoots people in the back” could be you headline without naming and glorifying the killer.
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I’m not remotely making anything out of Some Asshole being Turkish, but I wonder whether it’s relevant that Some Asshole President (no, not THAT one, for once) has been using the NZ video for electoral purposes:
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Yes, but again: if your thesis is that increasing legislation reduces gun deaths, then a situation where both the United States (which has arguable loosened gun laws with the recent SC ruling that affirms a personal right to ownership) and Europe (which has tightened gun laws) also sees an increase, then that’s odd. Total numbers of gun crimes will vary based on a wide variety of factors, but at the high level you’d expect to see a downward trend if the EU’s legislation is effective.
So maybe the issue isn’t the guns themselves, but the operators. Maybe in the past, this sort of person would have killed themselves, but for whatever reason is choosing to lash out at society.
I don’t think simply banning the guns and not addressing the underlying issues is helpful.
It just means the next one will rent a truck or simply go on a stabbing rampage.
But if we did that, then how in the world could we wring our hands yet again about how that sweet neighborhood boy somehow turned into a crazed lone wolf killer?
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That doesn’t refute the thesis that regulation is a key factor in reducing gun deaths, it just means that regulation is not the only factor in gun deaths. Obviously a rise in right-wing Nationalism is a contributing factor too.
It’s hard to target a specific set of victims with a truck. And it’s extremely rare for a single attacker armed with a knife to rack up a body count on par with what a person armed with a semiautomatic weapon can do.
The same week that a psycho murdered scores of people at an elementary school in Sandy Hook, a similarly deranged psycho staged an almost identical attack in China. The difference was that he was armed with a knife, so he wounded a bunch of people but didn’t actually kill anyone.
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If that’s what it means that’s still a major improvement in terms of harm done. The link you provided was a coordinated terror attack with 10 perpetrators working together, leading to 29 victims. While terrible, it’s nowhere near the body counts of some recent slaughters that individual perpetrators were able to pull off with guns.
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In other words, “just another day in the US.”
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“I choose to ignore the total numbers, which don’t support my thesis”
“I choose to look at the ‘trend,’ which I believe supports my thesis”
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