On August 3rd I heard from my dad that there had been another mass shooting. Typically these things only bring on a temporary sadness for me and then wash over soon enough. However I felt that I had mostly brushed these things aside for too long and so I decided to spend some time researching it.

I found a thorough and well written article about the shooting and I read through the shooter's manifesto. After the research I did I decided I would write about this El Paso shooting, even though I despise talking about politics.

Yet the next day there was another shooting.

It's a little unreal to think that I now will be writing about two horrible atrocities instead of one. I also now feel the need to say that, as of writing this article, these are the only two shooting of this week. Let's hope it stays that way.

I'll start with the El Paso shooting since there is more to be learned from it because the shooter wrote a manifesto. As an important side note though, I would highly recommend not encouraging the sharing of that manifesto. The El Paso shooter was inspired by the manifesto of another shooter and it would be horrible to see another shooter inspired by this one.

Beginning with a quick summary, on August 3rd, 2019, around 11 AM, a gunman walked into an El Paso Walmart and opened fire on the people within. However, shortly before this shooting, a highly relevant post was made on a website called 8chan most likely by the shooter himself. This post contained his manifesto and a short comment telling his "brothers" to spread the manifesto and the intent behind it.

The manifesto itself was highly anti-Hispanic and constantly mentioned the supposed threat of a "Hispanic invasion". Most of the manifesto harped on various notes of this topic. There was also an interesting hatred of big corporations, frustration at the destruction of the environment, and a strong sense of patriotism that, all together, had a strong resemblance to ideas expressed in Hitler's own manifesto.

Also included in the shooter's manifesto was the gear he intended to use. The comments on this section was honestly rather unnerving as he talks flippantly about how certain ammo types and guns can best be used to maximize casualties.

In another section of his manifesto he expresses his belief in the importance of gun rights to his cause. "Our European comrades don't have the gun rights needed... They have no choice but to sit by and watch their countries burn." I feel a bit dirty quoting from his manifesto, but I don't think there was any other way to get across the impact his statement had on me.

A well written article(linked here) covers the entire situation and manifesto very well, but one of its most interesting topics was the role of 8chan within this shooting. 8chan itself is one of the last "bastions" of free speech in that it will allow almost anything to be posted on its website. This attribute has drawn in a large amount of characters to the site, but most importantly, it has drawn in people like the El Paso shooter, who undoubtedly has been motivated by various users on the site and even states in his manifesto that the Christchurch shooter's manifesto was an inspiration.

The shooting on August 4th occurred in Dayton, Ohio around 1 AM. Luckily the shooter was suppressed 30 seconds after he opened fire by a patrolling officer, but that is no condolence to this whose lives are already lost because of the shooter.

As of right now the shooter's motive is unknown, but the presence of the shooter's own sister within the list of victims seems to remove the possibility of a political or racist motive. The lack of any manifesto or comments on social media from the shooter also would suggest that this was not a copycat shooter.

The shooter acquired his guns(a gun similar to an AK-47 and a shotgun) online from a Texas gun dealer who shipped them to a arms dealer in the area. This cuts a little deeper for me since I was "born and raised" in Texas.

I gained a large amount of the information regarding the Dayton shooter from this article. It is well worth a read over and goes into much further detail than I have here.

I really can't imagine anyone wants to see or hear about more mass shootings, and honestly I've become conflicted on whether learning more about these things is actually a good idea. I would love to tell everyone to keep their eyes and ears open and show respect to those who have lost their lives to these shooters, but at times it seems that the attention the shootings receive is only giving other potential shooters more motivation. It's a disgusting cycle with no right response.

I hate to end the article in this tone, but I don't feel that is any other tone to do so in. Thank you ever so much for reading this and I wish every single one of you the best of luck.

Article regarding El Paso shooter: link

Article regarding Dayton shooter: link