The Dayton shooting was not politically motivated
As I’m sure you’re all aware of, there were two massive shooting tragedies that happened over the weekend within 24 hours of each other. The first was the shooting in El Paso, Texas that left 20 people dead. Then there was the shooting at a bar in Dayton, Ohio that left 9 dead. Both atrocities were committed by young angry white men. The two shooters had diametrically opposed political ideals. However, one of the shootings was politically motivated and the other was not.
The El Paso gunman was said to have written a very anti-Hispanic manifesto although that has yet to verified as far as I know. He drove anywhere from 9–12 hours from Allen, Texas to El Paso. El Paso is a border city just across the border from Juarez. Many Mexican residents of both cities often travel across the border to visit family or go shopping. If my geographical recollection serves me correctly, El Paso is the largest Texas city that’s on the border.
it’s been reported that the Dayton shooter was a leftist extremist. He is said to have loathed Donald Trump and the late John McCain and identified as a satanic socialist. Of course, the right-wing media is trying to spin the Dayton shooting as some kind of left-wing terrorist attack.
What the right-wing media is leaving out is that the Dayton shooter, Connor Betts, has a history of violent behavior dating back to when he was in high school. Betts was kicked out of school for having not only a hitlist of students he allegedly wanted to kill but also a so-called ‘rape list’ of female students he wanted to assault. To put it succinctly, Betts was a school shooter waiting to happen. He also sounds like a major incel, but I digress.
If I were to assume any kind of motive for the Dayton shooting at the Ned Peppers bar I would imagine it would be a school shooting delayed. Considering that Betts, his sister, and a friend all showed up at the bar together it’s not unlikely that the bar could be a local hangout for people Betts went to school with.
Nothing can ever excuse either of these two shootings, but when one side of the political aisle tries to point fingers by saying “See, liberals commit mass shootings too.” it’s nothing more than a diversionary tactic to try to steer the conversation away from gun control.
This is not unlike the shooting at STEM School Highland Ranch when the right-wing media once again tried blaming the shooting on the suspects being leftists, neglecting that both suspects also had previous histories of threatening behavior.
Make no mistake, in recent history, the overwhelming majority of politically motivated mass shooters have been MAGA hat-wearing members of the alt-right. Again, I can name such alt-right cowards as Nikolas Cruz of the Parkland school shooting, William Atchison of the Aztec High School shooting, Incel Prime Elliot Rodger of the Isla Vista shooting, Dylann Roof, Chris Harper-Mercer of the Umpqua Community College shooting, and the list goes on and on.
Don’t hijack the narrative just because your political party is in the pocket of the NRA. To ignore the fact that these shootings were not only motivated by hate but were allowed to happen due to the lack of real federal gun control is to ignore reality at its most fundamental level.
