Odessa shooter was fired from trucking job hours before killing spree

[Tanuki]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/01/us/death-toll-texas-shooting.html

"The 36-year-old man who terrorized two West Texas towns with an assault-style rifle Saturday had been fired from his trucking job a few hours before he led the authorities on a chaotic high-speed chase that ended with his death and the deaths of seven others.

......
Police officers shot and killed Mr. Ator in the parking lot of a movie theater in Odessa, ending a shooting spree that began after the authorities had tried to pull him over for failing to signal a left turn. Although officials said in interviews that the gunman had been fired from his job with a trucking company on Saturday morning, the authorities stressed that they had not yet established a clear motive to explain the level of violence and firepower.

“There are no definite answers as to motive or reasons at this point,” Chief Gerke said, “but we are fairly certain that the subject did act alone.”

The chief said it was not immediately known whether the gunman had legally purchased the rifle. Similar assault-style weapons have been used in most of the deadliest shootings this decade, including at a country music festival in Las Vegas, a church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., and outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio last month. Military-style assault weapons were largely banned from 1994 until 2004, and remain at the center of a continuing national conversation about gun control."....(more)

[lapfog_1]

1. trucking industry is really suffering

right now due to... Trump tariff war with China.

[Ace Rothstein]

2. Sounds like that Michael Douglas movie, Falling Down.

[Xipe Totec]

4. You give him way too much credit. nt

[Newest Reality]

3. When we get to the point

that the cultural circumstances contributing to the massacres are studied and investigated, wake me.

Superficial views, moralizing and knee-jerk reactions to it are missing some salient points.

[MyOwnPeace]

5. But at least

there's discussion!

It's better than washing it away with "Thoughts and Prayers!"

[Newest Reality]

7. Yes, it sure is!

Dialog can be both both fruitful and cathartic and it can help us rise about the reactions and start to focus on the deeper aspects of this phenomena and expand our scope on the causes.

I am wondering how many people who are aghast about the growing mass shooting problem are looking into it more, now?

There are resources, like studies and many articles with insights into some poignant factors that are viable contributors to it and extremely important to diminishing the numbers of events like we see?

There is also Natalie Wynn of Contrapoints who has a very intelligent and effective sense of what's going on and her YT channel is not only addressing the cultural issues but also having a effect on the problem itself and the men who could become perpetrators. Of course, she is no holds barred and not for the prudish, etc., but even the way she styles the videos can be seen to be ways to appeal to that audience in a rather witty way. So, I count her as somebody who is actually more aware of the cultural issues and active in influencing the situation.

When you consider that there may be hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals out there who are prone, due to several possible factors and under certain conditions, to falling down, more knowledge about it and public discussion are really necessary.

There is a two-prong approach to consider: deal with the gun problem overall, (especially background checks, assault weapons and magazines) AND the motivations for this behavior, which do not have their basis in morality, mental illness or video games.

It's a cultural crisis and we are seeing the symptoms. Just like with an illness, the symptoms point to the disease and its cause.

[MyOwnPeace]

10. Oh, yeah!!!!

SO well stated - ANSWERS - things that we CAN do besides "thoughts and prayers."

We need action, not just lame responses.

WAY TO GO - LOVED IT!

[emmaverybo]

6. It is sometimes the case that people on a downward spiral either start neglecting work, alienating

co-workers, or engaging in disruptive behaviors. We don’t know which came first, chicken or hen, but I am not about to blame tariffs for this one. Easy access to assault-style weapons, yes.

[jmowreader]

8. If he would have shot up the trucking company office...

...I'd describe what he did as a case of going postal.

So let's go through this: angry man suddenly left jobless decides he has nothing left to lose. Combine that with man-killing firepower, and you've got yourself a bloodbath.

[PSPS]

9. "not yet established a clear motive to explain the level of violence and firepower"

I'll give them the violence part, but the "motive to explain the level of firepower" isn't hard to figure out at all. It's solely because he could.

[MyOwnPeace]

11. SO many times

we've heard "Your fired" as being part of the problem/incentive to outbreaks of violence.

Hmmmmmm................

Where have we ever heard someone say that?

[no_hypocrisy]

12. Can any "warning signs" be detected in these shooters?

Personality traits, behaviors, etc. that give away that they are ripe to start spraying bullets?

[SCVDem]

13. They all have dead eyes

Look at them and you can see that they are a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

It's not enough to intervene directly but they should be investigated.

[VOX]

18. I knew of a "dead-eye" guy at the State College I attended.

In the Art Department yet. Everyone— faculty, staff and students (usually female) knew of this strange guy who bothered fellow-students, asked genuinely bizarre questions in class, and, yes, had that “dead eye” look in spades.

The day finally came when this ticking time-bomb went off: he pulled a pistol on a prof during class, spouting the unoriginal-but-still-menacing line, “How’d you like me to blow your head off?” Mercifully, he gave up quickly, and no one was hurt— except for their psyches. Ever since that incident (and imagining all the ways it could have gone horribly wrong, but didn’t), I’ve been far more vigilant in public spaces.

This was some 30 years ago now, and I expect that if it were to happen today, the outcome would be very different (in the worst way possible).

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

14. Ahh, yes. Being fired is a perfectly acceptable

reason to shoot up a bunch of people.

What? It's not? Oh.

[Progressive Jones]

15. IF, and I say IF, this was over being fired from a job,

it sounds like a case of a butt hurt man-child throwing the ultimate temper tantrum.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

16. the only solution is mandatory gun ownership

All U.S. citizens should be required to carry an M240 at all times. Based on RWNJ rationale, this should solve all our bad guys with guns problems.

If you're not Rambo, you're part of the problem! Be sure to buy enough ammo to fire continuously until the barrel melts.



And now for a moment of sanity...
Weapons of war belong in war, not in the hands of civilians.

[Celerity]

17. why stop at an M240, go full Jesse Ventura and mandate handheld M134 Miniguns for eveyone