My point exactly. I’m sure the irony that U.S. military service is less deadly than civilian life was not lost on those Plebe parents yesterday. Their children are assuming both sets of risk.
In order to address a problem you have to define the problem, determine root causes, and have evidence based solutions. We are not there yet. We would rather focus on 24/7 news, hysteria and yelling at each other.
Another hater of women, this time a stalker.
Almost.Every.Time.
A travelnut “kid” is a journalist. People may have all kinds of reasons to resent reporters and they live in the public eye, so the vulnerability has been palpable. I can think that this hits especially close to home; in a way it does. But my next thought is my kids went to school, they may go to a club, they go to concerts, they travel, they shop, they live in big cities and use mass transit. Yes, it is close to home, for all of us.
I was sitting in the office of the small chain of Maryland newspapers I serve as managing editor for watching the coverage, again wishing that I didn’t have a glass door to my office.
We have made an affirmative decision not to study this type of violence, sadly.
Thank you for sharing what your neighbor posted @4kids4us. I saw the nearly blank opinion page and cried, right in the middle of my work day. These victims were right in the middle of their work day. It is so heartbreaking. Everyday seems heartbreaking.
And thank you so much CNN for letting us all know how that lunatic prepped the building. This is what I don’t get. How does that help? It just gives copy cats ideas, I get so frustrated.
@conmama, from other sources, I read that the building occupants said they tried to run out the back door, but it “was locked.” I knew that didn’t make any sense (fire codes and such), so it was already clear to me that it was barricaded from the outside.
Horrific, just awful.
^^^ But people have questions. When tragedy happens they wonder how? Why??? It can help to deal with the grieving process. From the families it happened to to the people in the area who knew staff there to the general public. People want to know so they can take the info and figure out, “how do we prevent this in our place of business”?
I really get tired of people blaming the media for saying things. I’ll give you the constant reporting of the same thing over and over. But the media’s job is to inform. And sometimes to criticize.
After he was fired from his job with the federal government for being a security threat, he should have been put on a no-gun list.
But the lunatics now also think, “hey, that was a good idea”.
Where there’s a will there’s a way. 
And someone always - or should - bring up the vast percentage of guns that are used for hunting.
Good thing it wasn’t a political killing, instead just yet another nut the police had been warned about:https://nypost.com/2018/06/29/accused-newsroom-shooters-stalking-victim-i-warned-cops/
That the police weren’t able to do anything about him isn’t surprising. That he wasn’t seduced into being a mass killer by an assault rifle is about the only new thing here. And, folks… if there’s a single favor the media would be willing to do us all, it would be to completely ignore the fact he used a shotgun.
As a side note: while some might not believe it matters, I truly would like to know if he had a history of playing first shooter games.
Three more articles about the suspect:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/maryland-newspaper-shooting-suspect-jarrod-ramos/story?id=56249025
The news articles are scary—especially as there is very little/nothing that can or was done to protect people against the treats the shooter made or any of his harassment. There are a lot of “odd” and even menacing behaviors tolerated in our society.
I don’t know how anyone could conclude this is not (or is) a political killing. The killer is an unstable individual, but who’s to know whether he was tipped over into mass shooting by the political atmosphere and by statements made by political figures?
The news stories fail to mention that there was a “momentary” order by a judge that he undergo an involuntary mental evaluation, which apparently was immediately “retracted” by lining out the section of the order and initialing it. It was part of the order that he remove certain twitter posts. It would be interesting to know how that change came to be made. It was in 2014. Ramos posted it on one of his “fake” twitter accounts–this one using the judges name as the handle.
I also would think that every journalist who believes that it is his duty to report crimes to the public might be reflecting on what circumstances require such reports to contain the actual names of the people involved, and whether it would sometimes be better to not report the names and just describe the situation. In this case, one might have concluded that perhaps the harasser was “not all there”, as my mother might have said. Perhaps publishing his name and place of employment wasn’t the best idea. In any case, given what’s occurred, I’m certainly glad I didn’t write that column.
Its interesting, too, that the writer of that column either hasn’t been contacted for his thoughts, hasn’t replied, or has requested not to comment. I’d be interested to hear his thoughts about this, although, in fairness, if I were him, I’d like some time to collect them. He works as an editor at a different paper now. Maybe he has commented and I haven’t seen it.
As for me, I would not say I have concluded that it is, or is not a political killing. I can only say that all the evidence I have seen so far indicates this was a personal grudge that he just couldn’t let go of, and I’ve seen no evidence yet otherwise.
On Dateline last night, the story was about a string of shootings in Arizona in late May and early June of this year. I had not realized that they were committed by an individual who was mentally ill and had been terrorizing his child and ex-wife for many years. I recommend watching the segment if you can get it online.