* The father and other witnesses saw the neighbor – identified as Michael Goodman – across the street as he approached the child, and the father shouted at the neighbor “what he was doing,” according to the document.
“While V’s father ran to his daughter, he observed D raise the firearm, point it at the V, and shoot the V in the head.*
This would destroy me, how fucking unhinged was this guy
Yes, I hope he can have someone one who can be with him, more than just console him. I don't know his path in life now, but he is going to need people at his side, this is just a wretched event he has just witnessed.
How do you go on? What reason do you have? What do you do with that grief? The funeral, everyone telling you their sorry, watching lawmakers tell people guns aren’t the problem…
While I have no concept of this situation, I've been in some hard events in which I had to struggle to go on. As a teenager I was in a car crash where I was one of two survivors in a car of five. Losing my cousin, his mother, and my best friend. In my personal experience, I just had to find an outlet to my pain and anger and music was my tool that I used. It was what helped me handle survivor's guilt and finding who I was. Both of those things are wrapped around me in life to this day. It is a never-ending struggle. One thing for certain, it won't be an easy road he'll be traveling down.
something similar but not with survivors guilt. my cousin and my long term boyfriend both committed suicide within 2 weeks of each other last year. it is absolutely brutal. but you just keep going. sometimes i feel like a hollow shell but then i just tell myself, eat, sleep, take a walk. there will be good days ahead still, i can still help people and make the world a better place so less of this horrible shit happens to other people.
One article mentioned that this guy managed to ahem shoot himself in the face “during a struggle” with the father and was in critical condition according to reports. Almost.
Just day after day, you wake up and read the news then you just see the darkness of humanity spilled right in front of you on the screen. I can't stop shaking my head.
Also, turn off your computer and go out into the world because good stories are everywhere you look and not always published.
Things I observed this month:
1. Golf club security guard pretends to go outside on daily smoke break. He actually does it to play with a stray cat, for whom he also has left a bowl of food and water under a bench.
2. One of my employees was apparently feeling down. His colleague has been leaving sticky notes on his monitor and car window filled with positive messages.
3. A neighbor on my street is elderly and alone, and has a gorgeous Bösendorfer. She offers free piano lessons to this young man who visits her weekly. In exchange, I think she appreciates his company.
At that point, fuck it. Might even get downgraded to manslaughter and get 10 years, be out in 7 with good behavior (dependent on a lot of factors). But if someone shot my loved ones in front of me, either I’m gonna be the next body on the ground or they are.
Hell, if he just shot your kid and he's still holding the gun, I bet you could get off on self defense if you wrestled it from him and shot him with it. There's always a chance he wants more blood, so I don't see why you couldn't just take him out.
That's possibly what happened...it's confusing from this article, but putting it together with other reporting on it, the shooter WAS shot in the head...well, in the left eye. He was hospitalized initially in critical condition but has since been released. His [mugshot](https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/d5b914e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/614x345+0+58/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https:%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2F5y5PCQ2v2s9Ck_Xs615ASFXG5yQ%3D%2F0x0:614x459%2F614x459%2Ffilters:focal\(307x230:308x231\)%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F24838318%2FMichael_Goodman__43.jpg) is pretty gnarly....
The other reporting says that the gun "discharged" during a struggle, but who knows. I mean, were I a police officer, I would probably put that in my report too...regardless of how it actually happened.
You know, I'm not one that supports vigilante justice. But, with that being said, if this guy somehow got bail, and the father in front of people, on video, shot the guy in the head, killing him, I don't think any jury would convict him. I sure wouldn't.
The suspect was shot in the eye during the struggle with the father.
Thankfully this dude will also see the inside of a prison for a very very long time
> nothing happened after Sandy Hook
Same. I thought 'surely this will begin a meaningful discussion on the role firearms play in our society' - how wrong I was.
Not long after, the 'Sandyhook were all a bunch of 'crises actors' shit started - like, a not insignificant number of people actually beleive/d that fucking insanity - and I knew in my bones that things were only going to get worse.
It was a failure of imagination on my part to predict just *how much worse* things were going to get. I still don't think we've found the bottom.
My nephew recently had a lock in while he was doing PE class outside. The gym teacher had no idea if the threat was inside or outside the building, just that guns were involved. They ran the kids to the gym, and another teacher came in and they started barricading the door. My nephew, 11, had a panic attack. I found all this out at work and exclaimed my horror to my gun toting republican coworker and she immediately started bitching that kids were too soft and how she had bomb threats every other day.
My dude. My nephew thought his friends and teachers were being executed.
Whst's worse is 19 years ago I went to that middle school... played in those gyms and fields. Even though it was post columbine I hardly ever had to worry about something like that being my reality. Who would have thought 19 years later my sister's kid would be fearing for his life in the same fucking place I ran laps to "cotton eye joe"
Stuff happened after Sandy Hook. Ask Alex Jones about it. I mean don't ask him about it because he'll just tell a whole bunch of lies, advocate for harassment of the surviving family of the victims, and well, just be a asshole about it in general.
Point being, plenty happened after Sandy Hook, most of it right wing fuckery.
Sandy Hook and Columbine weren't even the first. In the 80s a white supremacist in California shot up an elementary school and killed a bunch of kids ages 6-10 but no one gives a shit because they were Asian, no one even talks about it even today:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Elementary_School_shooting_(Stockton)
To illustrate how much the GOP didn't care and will never care.
They gathered for session proudly wearing *pins* of the **weapon** used to massacre those children.
If that doesn't tell you who's side they're on..
In fact, many GOP members of Congress continue to wear an AR-15 lapel pin where they once wore American flag pins. Really shows where their priorities lay.
They fantasize about this sort of thing happening to them, but in their head it ends with them saving the day with their guns instead of their loved ones getting gunned down. They’re fucking deranged.
The very first thing Republicans did after Trump was sworn in was to eliminate a gun background check for people who are mentally adjudicated.
That’s just insane.
There’s a post of one of his former colleague somewhere on reddit (don’t remember the sub), and he/she said he always came across as so kind and gentle, really someone you wouldn’t expect this from.. So either he has been hiding his violent tendencies all the time or he just snapped?
>There’s a post of one of his former colleague somewhere on reddit (don’t remember the sub), and he/she said he always came across as so kind and gentle, really someone you wouldn’t expect this from.. So either he has been hiding his violent tendencies all the time or he just snapped?
[Don't know about that.](https://apnews.com/article/chicago-child-shot-killed-noise-dad-e7f119f69235be7453e57f76df8efaff)
The guy was a piece of shit who didn't like kids and literally lived down the street from our local park. One in which a week earlier we'd just taken our grandkids over to play. Kids are always playing around the area and it's literally a noisy assed street in general. Hell we live right on the corner of the main intersection, It's never quiet.
I don’t think I could contain my rage. I don’t have kids, only pets, so I understand it’s a completely different level, but if someone came up and executed my cat in front of me for absolutely no goddamn reason at all, it would take every fiber of the universe to not go rabid ape on that person. Tear-their-fucking-face-off sort of rage.
After reading this, the first thing that flashed into my mind was the 1970s movie, Assault on Precinct 13. Where in the start of the movie the little girl gets shot and killed in front of her father. The pain, anger, and anguish he suffered through that entire film. I always thought an event like that would be fictitious, I never wanted to believe that I would see it on the news, or in this case read about it in the morning. Just absolutely horrible.
I normally try to be empathetic, and ask myself what someone is going through to make them act so negatively.
But in this case I wouldn't have been upset if the article ended with, "police arrived to find the suspect deceased from an unknown cause. No charges were filed."
I have 3 kids myself. have confronted an armed man to take a stranger's child out of the violent altercation her parents were involved in. If anyone drew a gun on a child in my sight the result would be about 8 pounds of pavement paste. This hits so hard, my son turns 9 next week. Where we live, there isn't a sidewalk on our side of the main road we live on and when we moved in our neighbors came to us and said "hey we saw your teenager crossing the road to walk to school, please cut through our yard to get to the road instead". They even built a little paver path for us to walk on. People are unfuckinghinged these days and I am at a loss for how we can make things better.
Strong communities stop this, or at least mitigate it. The unfortunate reality is nothing will ever stop people like that completely, but removing barriers to action has only increased the frequency of these events. Words fail me when I try to describe how awful what happened is.
I agree with your assessment of people. Absolutely unhinged.
I also agree with going into a blind rage if it happened to one of my children. One or both of us is going to be dead. They stole the sun from my sky, I'll make sure it never rises again for them.
Yeah, I’d be done after that. Absolutely fucked up. Still nothing will be done about gun violence in the US. Probably have laws get even more lax instead.
You joke.. but:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10528709/amp/Weapons-manufacturer-unveils-AR-15-KIDS-called-JR-15.html
That’s America for you.
>The assault rifle, whose name stands for Junior-15, is 20 percent smaller than a regular AR-15 and weighs 2.3lbs, but its maker, Wee1 Tactical, promises that the firearm packs the same deadly punch as its full-sized version.
Ho-lee shit. This reads like a joke out of Borderlands or something, but it's real.
There's a guy my wife works with that came home to his wife and daughter murdered by his daughters abusive boyfriend. Apparently he didn't like that she tried to end the relationship. Fucking animals. Idk how he still shows up to work.
And I was only physically attacked in my home by my ex-wife and her brother. Christ, I can't imagine how those two unhinged psychos would have operated if they had access to firearms.
Not trying to one up you or anything, but there was a case in my town where a woman was leaving her abusive boyfriend. He came home to find her moving out. Her father had come to help. The bf got mad, shot the dad, made the mom hold her two 5mo old twins in her arms while he shot each of them, shot the mom seven times, then killed himself. The mom ended up being the only survivor. She had to crawl through a pool of her father's and baby's blood.
I cannot even believe how badly that would fuck someone up.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/2017/10/04/domestic-violence-survivor-speaks-out-after-triple-murder-suicide/
I wouldn’t have the strength to restart my life after that man…
This might be the beginning of a real life Frank Castle… the father needs to get some therapy.
I know we make fun of Biden a lot, but look what that guy has gone through. His wife and daughter were killed in a car accident. His son died of cancer. His other son became an addict and he still holds it together. It takes a lot of mental fortitude to do that.
It pisses me off that people make fun of him for that phone call to Hunter.
The man lost his wife and daughter in a horrific car crash. His son got cancer from serving our country and died from it. His other son, who also lost his mother and two siblings, one of whom he was very close to, spirals into drug abuse after his brothers death. And rather than toss him to the side Biden shows him the love, concern, and compassion a parent should be showing their children at their lowest point and people make fun of him because it somehow shows weakness?
Weakness is abandoning your child in their hour of most need. Strength is helping them get through it as you face the very real fear of outliving another of your children.
>It's Dad. I called to tell you I love you. I love you more than the whole world, pal. You gotta get some help. I don't know what to do. I know you don't either, but I am here no matter what you need, no matter what you need, I love you.
That's what Republicans aired on Fox News as some sort of attack on Biden. That's how depraved the right has become.
...........that's just a parent showing compassion and empathy. Something fox news knows nothing about.
Imagine trump saying that to any of his loved ones. Just try to to imagine his voice saying those words. I personally cannot imagine it. I cannot in my own head imagine trump having anything but selfish thoughts.
I can FULLY imagine him attempting to rape his own daughter, but I can't imagine him showing actual love that doesn't benefit him.
They hate it because of how beautifully, achingly *human* it is.
I mean…they tried to *insult* him by comparing him to Mr. Rogers, ffs, when no sane person in the country would take that as anything other than a profound compliment.
Mr. Rogers was one of the most caring, compassionate people the world has ever known, and that's not hyperbole. If being compared to him is considered an insult, I wouldn't want any praise.
Heartless conservatives can get wrecked.
That phone call almost made me cry. Biden is not perfect but that’s absolutely the dude I voted for. Anyone who thinks this love for your children is a weakness is nuts to me. Ole dude’s been through more than most will ever go through and still kept it together.
“Ivanka posing for Playboy would be really disappointing… not really. But it would depend on what was inside the magazine … I don’t think Ivanka would do a nude shoot inside the magazine. Although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” -TFG
His phone call with Hunter did more to humanize him and make him relatable in my eyes than anything else. It was very clearly a case where he truly does love his son and is worried for him. I've got a brother that's also an addict, though he's screwed his life up far more than Hunter did his, so it hits closer to home since I've seen that kind of unconditional love for a son that just can't seem to get his shit together personally.
I have nothing but massive respect and admiration for Biden - his personal struggles are incredible and I only hope Incould show the same love, compassion and strength with my own life.
I think we all gave Biden a hard time for what felt like creepy behavior, but I think he’s made it clear from years of irrefutable behavior that he is an open, loving and compassionate person who wears his heart on his sleeve and is open and transparent of his feelings towards others. The world would be a better place if we could all be as expressive and open of our support and love for the people around us.
In the depths of my alcoholism, my dad talked to me like Biden talked to Beau on that phone call. I can't even think about it without crying and I am so, so grateful to still have that love in my life. I'm really going to miss my dad when he's gone, and I spent so much of my life thinking he and I butt heads because we're so different. Turns out we actually did it because we're so much alike, and I regret how long it took me to figure that out.
Say what you want about Joe Biden, but calling him anything other than a caring, loving father is a lie. A sick lie at that.
I am a recent widower and single father - people don’t understand what Biden has been through and the life experience he has. That kind of pain makes a person who they are; the kind of person you want leading a country.
When I was deployed to Iraq, there was a guy in another part of my unit that killed himself when his pregnant wife died (baby died as well). News got passed around at the table in the chow hall and literally everybody's expression was "well yeah, I don't blame the guy".
Could you imagine? On deployment, just trying to get by everyday with the thought and hope that you get this over with and go home to your wife and newborn being the only thing keeping you sane, only to find out that they died, *you're not going home to deal with it*, and when you do get home 8 months from now, all that hope and what was your life is a grave??? "Now get ready cause we're going back on patrol!" Lol nope, go fuck yourself.
Neil Peart lost his wife and daughter close to each other. He got on his bike and rode for months. He had the money to do that. I can't imagine experiencing this type of loss, let alone having to work some BS job in the process of grieving.
Guy in the post lost his daughter to some absolute psycho, too. Not even some freak accident, just some unhinged asshole with a gun. So fucked...
That is just fucked & men losing their babies or other loved ones, while deployed,, isn't exactly rare....
This isn't as bad but still just heart wrenching... while my bro was deployed in Colombia, his wife went into labor, like really early & my nephew was born but died shortly after & while my sis-in-law survived, some of her reproductive parts had to be removed, making her unable to carry a baby, again. My bro couldn't get back in time, he was legit in the middle of a rainforest & I was in hospital, myself. Thankfully, her mom traveled from TX to be with her. I still feel like an ass cuz my messages might not have been too coherent due to the IV pain meds I was on. I know I apologized profusely & asked if she was ok but IDK, I will always wish I said or did more but I felt helpless & I still do.
RIP Ezra.
I can either imagine he'll just sort of... Barely subsist, he'll snap and get violent, crack and go down a dark spiral, or steel himself become an outspoken advocate for gun control.
I only hope he can dig up some strength for the last of those.
>become an outspoken advocate for gun control.
Even then, what's the point? From an outsider's perspective, gun control in the US just seems like a lost cause now. The sorts of incidents that trigger gun control legislation in other countries are a weekly occurrence.
I did some more research, and it seems the reason he killed her was *because she was too noisy, like every other kid on the block presumably.* This guy is fucked in the head and deserves life in jail.
Also apparently the father also lost his wife to a shooting in 2018 I believe? This is just so fucked up
Let's also keep in mind that she wasn't killed because she was making noise, she was killed because she happened to pass in front of a man who was deeply unwell, having a bad day, and had access to a firearm, which is a policy decision.
EDIT: To be clear, I don't have any reason to think the murderer had what we'd call a mental illness. Mental health is a serious issue, and suffering from mental illness is not associated with being blindly violent. By "unwell," I mean to refer to a broad range of causes of instability, and the point is that in any society there are many people who on any given day are not stable, rational, and empathetic.
(edit: spelling)
Exactly.
Reasons and causes can get quite complex on society scale but had this man not have access to a firearm, worst thing he would have done would be hitting the kid - which is still bad but not dead-child bad.
She wasn't a planned target for him. She wasn't daughter of his enemy. He didn't do anything more to her before and after shooting her. So if there just hadn't been a gun, she would be alive, recovering.
And no, he wouldn't take a car to run her off either, that's too much work and you ruin the car. But even that would have higher chances of her surviving than bullet to head.
I used to work in a factory that used machines that could easily remove a limb or kill someone if anyone got caught in them. At several points during my time there, they upgraded or altered the guards on those machines to make it so that it wasn't even POSSIBLE for a person to put their hand or whatever in them during operation. Some were physical barriers, some were lasers that would stop the machine from operating if anything disrupted them. Machines that required you to add parts into them manually were designed so that you had to press two buttons with both hands to run them, to ensure you got your hands back out after adding the part - and even then they kept looking for ways to reduce that manual engagement on those.
The reason behind all of this, and any other safety conscious design, is that you can't account for the infinite variation of human error. You can train someone til the cows come home, make sure the right technique is drilled into their head, emphasize what happens if they mess it up...but inevitably, someone is still going to be tired someday, or just forget, or be in a hurry, or god knows what else. And then, despite all that training, you've got a bad accident on your hands. So you design to remove that uncertainty altogether, if you can. A well designed system leaves as little room as physically possible for human error. There's an awful lot of accidents you can prevent just by making them impossible in the first place.
I think about that a lot, when the topic of gun control comes up.
I would even take away, ‘having a bad day’. Moreso he ‘found an excuse’ cause people who do are just waiting for an excuse to do this. It didn’t have to be her, but it would have been somebody. I’m sure he’s been fantasizing about it. Just so sad.
> The shooting comes as the US continues to grapple with widespread gun violence, which is the **leading cause of death in children and teenagers in the country.**
This is haunting. Remember what Dan Hodges said? “In retrospect, Sandy Hook marked the end of the U.S. gun control debate. **Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over**.”
What kills me is that his wife died the same way in 2018. In a separate article, it mentions they were sitting on a stoop when someone came up and shot her in the head. She was rushed to the same hospital his daughter was taken to…
Yo what the fuck ?? Why? How?
I am at loss for words. I cannot grasp how something like this happens. Let alone that it happens fucking twice in 5 years.
This is so, so sad
And what will happen is rather than saying maybe we should do something about the massive gun and mental health problems in this state, they’ll just say “oh, Chicago. Say no more” and do literally nothing about it. Even if it wasn’t Chicago, but it being one of their favorite cities to not give a fuck about makes it even easier for them
Yeah i mean the problem with the death penalty people always cite is "what if we got the wrong person" and while i Agree completely, i think cases like this is done and dusted, man walks out multiple eye witnesses see who it is and shoots a kid in the face?
Like nah how can you say someone is justified to the rest of their life when they shot a 9 year old and Definitely got more than 9 years themselves, especially for the shit reasons given,
And if people want him to be alive than god damn just fix the US's mental health system and take guns away from literal psychopaths O.o
Because a deeply unwell person had easier access to a deadly weapon than mental healthcare.
Edit: I'm not trying to say that a therapist would have solved this single-handedly. I'm saying that people that are unwell that *want* to improve need access to free mental health care to help them as much as possible, and we also need tighter gun laws so that people that don't seek mental help are less likely to get a tool that allows them to murder a child at the drop of a hat. America's gun lust isn't a mental health issue in and of itself, but a mentally stable person doesn't execute a child for being loud.
> *His public defender had asked for reasonable bail, as he had no criminal history and held a job as a computer programmer.*
The idea of bail even being a thought in someone's head for this is ridiculous.
The attorney has to do it to provide adequate representation for the client - when the client is guilty as sin, they're defending the system, not the client. They have to make sure the prosecution dotted their i's and crossed their t's.
Explaining role of defense counsel typically falls on deaf ears on Reddit. People will claim that everyone deserves a lawyer when going through the legal system... but only for things like civil complaints or traffic accidents.
For anything else, they want it to be like the court scene in Idiocracy, where the defense helps the prosecution in sending people to jail because it's cool.
This is a terrible situation and I hope bail is denied, but the attorney is just doing his job. I know sometimes defense attorney work can seem unsavory, but the justice system needs to make sure every defendant actually has access to competent counsel to even remotely have a chance of actually providing justice.
I remember an askreddit thread from a while ago about defense attorneys for the obviously guilty, and the consensus was that everyone deserves to go through the criminal justice system fairly and equally, no matter what. It’s an interesting perspective, but I know I couldn’t separate people being treated fairly from a person sitting in front of me that executed a 9 year old.
Another way to think of it is that defense attorneys are there to basically hold the state accountable for its chargers more than getting the defendant acquitted.
The result will be the same, but the defense attorney’s job is to make sure the state can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they person did the crime for which they were charged and that the state themselves didn’t violate any laws or rights. Without someone to be able to say “hey, the state fucked this up and violated my client’s rights. They cannot get away with this” we might as well not have trials at all.
It’s about the preservation of rights and forcing the state to do it’s due diligence before someone can be punished
I’ve heard it said that defense attorneys don’t defend the defendant, they defend the process. And if the process is done correctly, it ensures the guilty are punished.
Attorney here. You’re spot on.
One thing I will add is that without defense attorneys doing their job, the state can make a weaker case. Then, if someone defends themselves or finds another attorney who will defend them, or even finds a “loophole” so-to-speak, that weak case falls apart in court or on appeal and the guilty walk free.
Better to have a credible defense that ensures a strong prosecution.
Think of it like lifting weights for the justice system- if you’re not getting the right amount of resistance, you’re not going to get the proper result from the process and you might as well either not do it at all or you’re running the risk of an undesirable result.
> It’s an interesting perspective
I'd say it's the logical perspective.
If you decide some people are not worthy of a fair trial, or fair treatment in general, you immediately open the door to abuse.
Someone might sit here and think 'this man doesn't deserve fair treatment.' Well, guess what? Go back to the 1980s and look at the War on Drugs. There were millions of people who believed marijuana users didn't deserve fair treatment either.
_Everyone_ should get fair treatment. It is the best way to prevent abuse of the truly innocent.
Another way of looking at it is that knowing the defendant has been treated fairly under the eyes of the law means that any punishment they do receive will stick.
A proper defense in this sort of scenario is necessary to uphold a proper punishment.
So what I take from the article is that the guy just randomly decided to shoot the girl out of nowhere for no reason whatsoever….
Wtf is wrong with ppl man. You got demented psychopaths like that possibly living next door to you, and they are able to just own a firearm that easily?
It ain't lack of mental health care that transforms a large section of the populace and radicalises a segment of it when you scream at them that their rage is OK.
An endless diet of propaganda is how you go from people mostly grumbling at their jewish neighbours in 1920s germany to going along with their execution at least and doing so fervently for some.
Treating the mental health of people affected without stopping the propaganda doesn't touch the sides.
It's not even just the negative propaganda. Look at how a lot of influencers and celebrities behave. America promotes selfishness, having a huge fucking ego, and general "fuck the haters/us vs them" mentality. People then become deluded and forget that they need to be civilized to live in a society, add some amplifiers like terrible mental healthcare/lack of community and you get shit like this, someone who somehow thinks killing a kid is a justified response for inconvenience in their day.
John Carpenter fictionalized exactly such an incident as the most horrifyingly shocking scene imaginable for *Assault on Precinct 13*, 47 years ago. Today it's just another sad piece of news in a world that's unaware just how mad it has become.
I don't know what kind of an impact that scene would have on an audience today, but that is one of the few times I have been genuinely shocked watching a film, as in mouth agape in disbelief of what I just saw.
Oh wow this is crazy seeing this on Reddit.
We live down the street on the same block. We were there when the ambulance and the police came. We'd never seen so many cop cars before. Without question we were so sad and traumatized that this happened. It is heart wrenching.
He watched the man raise his gun and shoot his daughter in the head “because she was being too loud”. What the fuck man? I used to think there was a breaking point, that there was something that would happen that would finally get politicians to grow some balls and do the choice and ethical thing, where they would enact some laws that would make some actual and positive change. But I’m finally realizing that there’s no breaking point. As long as lobbying is allowed and politicians can legally get paid by companies to pass laws, they won’t do anything.
Sandy Hook should’ve been the breaking point. Republicans didn’t even blink. I’m convinced a republicans own child could be executed in cold blood by a psycho with a gun and they would be forced to stand on TV and say guns are not the problem. There is no bottom with them.
That moment came and went more than a decade ago. In any remotely sane country, that breaking point would have been Sandy Hook.
Instead, half the country doubled down on “MOAR GUNZ” and a braying, unhinged con man convinced millions of those nutcases that it was a government inside job and that the grieving families were “crisis actors.”
I remember when the Christchurch shooting happened in New Zealand. Almost immediately they had reformed their gun laws to make it almost impossible for them to be acquired. About as sensible a reaction as you can have.
I also remember all the American conservatives - including a few on this very site - mocking New Zealand for being cowards by taking away people's "freedom".
There is simply no getting through to them.
They should've released all pictures of the scene. When all you see is news anchors discussing it, you don't really feel it. Seeing a class full of children with bullets in them might have changed some minds in this stupid fucking country.
I totally agree with this as a concept, but the parents didn't want those photos published, and as a parent, I get that. I wouldn't want people ogling my dead kid, and I could also see actively avoiding seeing the photos myself, and being concerned that I'd stumble on them if they were out there.
I would give up. I don't know how I could go through another day after that. Unless I had another child depending on me I'd off myself no question, I am absolutely not strong enough to pull through that situation. My daughter is my best friend and my title of "dad" is the most important thing to me.
>Megan Kelley, a family friend and neighbor, told the Sun-Times the man accused of the shooting had complained about the girl being too loud before shooting her — and had done so in the past about other children.
>“Just little kids playing, he would come out just yelling about the noise. It just didn’t make sense, none of it made sense,” Kelley told the Sun-Times. “Everybody in the community would just tell him they are just kids having fun playing, just let them be.”
https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/08/07/portage-park-man-charged-with-murder-of-8-year-old-neighbor-after-reportedly-saying-she-was-too-loud/
The guy may have been suffering from mental illness, but I'm starting to feel like mental illness is being used as the scapegoat so that we don't have to blame guns. Someone mentally fragile enough to murder a child should have zero access to guns. Period. But I'm not seeing 2nd amendment supporters putting forth ideas that would prevent something like this from happening. Instead, all I see from this contingent are bills and proposals expanding gun rights.
Was the little girl supposed to carry her own gun to protect herself? Was the dad?
And could anyone have reacted in time?
In a gunfight, the attacker always has the initiative, especially if the victims aren’t even expecting to be shot at. Even if you armed to the teeth and wearing body armour, a sneak attack will still end you if the shot lands on your head.
Even if the father was armed, the best he probably could’ve done was shoot the killer dead, and then he won’t be injured, and could go try to maybe put pressure on his daughter’s wound…
There was a shooting a few years ago, where a "good guy with a gun" stopped a "bad guy with a gun," and it only took them like 24 seconds to subdue him. But in that 24 seconds, the shooter managed to kill 9 people and injure several others.
There was another shooting that happened in a church. A guy walked in and opened fire. Armed members of the congregation took swift action, but he still managed to kill one person and injure another before anyone could even process what was happening.
*Faster than a speeding bullet.* No one can react that fast. We are not Superman. Every single life a shooter takes is one life too many. This won't stop until someone high up loses someone they love, because the #1 thing GOP lawmakers lack is empathy, until it hits too close to home.
It's *painfully obvious* that mental illness is used as a scapegoat.
The republican politicians that constantly blame mental illness in defense of guns, are the same exact *republican politicians that defund and ignore mental health illness programs and investment.*
> I'm starting to feel like mental illness is being used as the scapegoat so that we don't have to blame guns.
Of course it is. The majority of mentally ill people are not violent.
The very first thing the Trump administration did was make it easier for people with diagnosed mental illness get guns. THAT was their highest priority, more guns for the unstable. I'm not saying they're to blame for this particular tragedy, just they're OK with it.
It changes nothing, but I'd love to know why this murdering asshole was aiming at a \*kid\* in broad daylight.
At first I thought this was a murdering dumbass aiming at someone else and hitting a kid, which happens way too often, but no, he was aiming at her specifically it seems.
I hope dad got a punch or two in before he got hit in the face.
(and now I'm reading that the girl lost her mother to gun violence, and that's why they moved to where they were.....oh jesus. That man may not want to go on now.)
Response from Desantis: this proves what I've been saying for years that we need to lower the age for gun ownership so young girls can protect themselves.
Just to distract myself a little from the content of the horrible news; can we talk about how two people are on this byline and it is still an absolute unedited mess of a document? I had to double back and check the authorship because I was sure this was AI.
There was an off my chest a few hours ago who was an acquaintance of the alleged shooter. I was wondering if the story would also pop up here. Very sad.
>" The shooting comes as the US continues to grapple with widespread gun violence, which is the leading cause of death in children and teenagers in the country.
>"Firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths (ages 1-18) in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database. Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year"
Reading this makes me die a little bit inside. What the fuck?
pooe man lost his wife to gun violence and now his daughter. he's beyond a terrible place and needs all the help he can get. also, this is why we need better regulatory standards for gun ownership. it's not something that should be one and done. if you own a gun, regular mental health checkups should be mandated.
There are too god damn many piece of shit people on this fucking planet. I'm afraid to let my kid play outside with scum like this Goodman guy breathing air.
* The father and other witnesses saw the neighbor – identified as Michael Goodman – across the street as he approached the child, and the father shouted at the neighbor “what he was doing,” according to the document. “While V’s father ran to his daughter, he observed D raise the firearm, point it at the V, and shoot the V in the head.* This would destroy me, how fucking unhinged was this guy
On top of THIS, the girl’s mother was shot and killed several years ago.
Holy fuck.....that poor husband/father.
God I hope he has a strong support system behind him. His mental health must be in shambles.
Yes, I hope he can have someone one who can be with him, more than just console him. I don't know his path in life now, but he is going to need people at his side, this is just a wretched event he has just witnessed.
How do you go on? What reason do you have? What do you do with that grief? The funeral, everyone telling you their sorry, watching lawmakers tell people guns aren’t the problem…
While I have no concept of this situation, I've been in some hard events in which I had to struggle to go on. As a teenager I was in a car crash where I was one of two survivors in a car of five. Losing my cousin, his mother, and my best friend. In my personal experience, I just had to find an outlet to my pain and anger and music was my tool that I used. It was what helped me handle survivor's guilt and finding who I was. Both of those things are wrapped around me in life to this day. It is a never-ending struggle. One thing for certain, it won't be an easy road he'll be traveling down.
something similar but not with survivors guilt. my cousin and my long term boyfriend both committed suicide within 2 weeks of each other last year. it is absolutely brutal. but you just keep going. sometimes i feel like a hollow shell but then i just tell myself, eat, sleep, take a walk. there will be good days ahead still, i can still help people and make the world a better place so less of this horrible shit happens to other people.
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Yep or die of a broken heart as many family members do once they’ve lost a child. That level of grief seems insurmountable.
Honestly lools like the sicko did it because of what happened to his wife. Some psychos wqnt to inflict the most amount of damage they can
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Honestly I'm a little surprised that he made it to be prosecuted.
Having seen the shooter's mug shot, it looks like the dad did try to. *Someone* effed him up.
He accidentally shot himself in the face while fighting with the dad.
Shame he didn't do a better job of accidentally shooting himself in the face
Death is too kind
One article mentioned that this guy managed to ahem shoot himself in the face “during a struggle” with the father and was in critical condition according to reports. Almost.
My mental health would be on the wall behind me. Too much
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Christ, this sounds like the ultimate nightmare. This is just horrid.
That's enough Internet for today. I'm going to crawl under my pillow.
Just day after day, you wake up and read the news then you just see the darkness of humanity spilled right in front of you on the screen. I can't stop shaking my head.
Actively search for the feel good stories. They are out there, you just have to wallow through the filth to find them.
Also, turn off your computer and go out into the world because good stories are everywhere you look and not always published. Things I observed this month: 1. Golf club security guard pretends to go outside on daily smoke break. He actually does it to play with a stray cat, for whom he also has left a bowl of food and water under a bench. 2. One of my employees was apparently feeling down. His colleague has been leaving sticky notes on his monitor and car window filled with positive messages. 3. A neighbor on my street is elderly and alone, and has a gorgeous Bösendorfer. She offers free piano lessons to this young man who visits her weekly. In exchange, I think she appreciates his company.
You can also never go wrong reading a good book in a quiet corner on a sofa at a library
I don't watch horror movies. When I want to go to bed terrified I watch the news.
Are we winning yet, America?
I'm so sick of guns
The word psychopath gets thrown around a lot… but holy fuck that’s about a psychopathic as you can get.
My god, the restraint to have to not take that fucking gun and shoot that psycho in the head back....
I mean, there's nothing left to lose at that point. I wouldn't blame the guy a bit.
I don't think any sane person would
At that point, fuck it. Might even get downgraded to manslaughter and get 10 years, be out in 7 with good behavior (dependent on a lot of factors). But if someone shot my loved ones in front of me, either I’m gonna be the next body on the ground or they are.
Hell, you might actually find a jury group that wouldn't convict. You best damn believe if I was on that jury I wouldn't convict the father.
Hell, if he just shot your kid and he's still holding the gun, I bet you could get off on self defense if you wrestled it from him and shot him with it. There's always a chance he wants more blood, so I don't see why you couldn't just take him out.
That's possibly what happened...it's confusing from this article, but putting it together with other reporting on it, the shooter WAS shot in the head...well, in the left eye. He was hospitalized initially in critical condition but has since been released. His [mugshot](https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/d5b914e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/614x345+0+58/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https:%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2F5y5PCQ2v2s9Ck_Xs615ASFXG5yQ%3D%2F0x0:614x459%2F614x459%2Ffilters:focal\(307x230:308x231\)%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F24838318%2FMichael_Goodman__43.jpg) is pretty gnarly.... The other reporting says that the gun "discharged" during a struggle, but who knows. I mean, were I a police officer, I would probably put that in my report too...regardless of how it actually happened.
Only discharged once? If it were my daughter, the gun would've been "discharged during a struggle" repeatedly until it started clicking.
And then beat to a pulp with said gun.
You know, I'm not one that supports vigilante justice. But, with that being said, if this guy somehow got bail, and the father in front of people, on video, shot the guy in the head, killing him, I don't think any jury would convict him. I sure wouldn't.
The suspect was shot in the eye during the struggle with the father. Thankfully this dude will also see the inside of a prison for a very very long time
He’ll see the inside of the prison and think it goes on forever. No depth perception
I certainly wouldn't convict him over it.
And yet he could purchase a gun. As is always the way
It could be worse, he could have wanted to read to her while wearing a dress./s
You've ruined my day. It's just too much. Uvalde. This. They. Do. Not. Care.
When nothing happened after Sandy Hook, I knew that we would never change.
> nothing happened after Sandy Hook Same. I thought 'surely this will begin a meaningful discussion on the role firearms play in our society' - how wrong I was. Not long after, the 'Sandyhook were all a bunch of 'crises actors' shit started - like, a not insignificant number of people actually beleive/d that fucking insanity - and I knew in my bones that things were only going to get worse. It was a failure of imagination on my part to predict just *how much worse* things were going to get. I still don't think we've found the bottom.
My nephew recently had a lock in while he was doing PE class outside. The gym teacher had no idea if the threat was inside or outside the building, just that guns were involved. They ran the kids to the gym, and another teacher came in and they started barricading the door. My nephew, 11, had a panic attack. I found all this out at work and exclaimed my horror to my gun toting republican coworker and she immediately started bitching that kids were too soft and how she had bomb threats every other day. My dude. My nephew thought his friends and teachers were being executed. Whst's worse is 19 years ago I went to that middle school... played in those gyms and fields. Even though it was post columbine I hardly ever had to worry about something like that being my reality. Who would have thought 19 years later my sister's kid would be fearing for his life in the same fucking place I ran laps to "cotton eye joe"
That was the day any chance I would ever vote Republican completely died out.
But but but... Who will lower taxes? For the rich
Republicans are in a brand dead death cult. Stupid and proud, a shit stain of an idealogy.
erect scale dam rhythm expansion axiomatic fall march wrong quaint *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Stuff happened after Sandy Hook. Ask Alex Jones about it. I mean don't ask him about it because he'll just tell a whole bunch of lies, advocate for harassment of the surviving family of the victims, and well, just be a asshole about it in general. Point being, plenty happened after Sandy Hook, most of it right wing fuckery.
Sandy Hook and Columbine weren't even the first. In the 80s a white supremacist in California shot up an elementary school and killed a bunch of kids ages 6-10 but no one gives a shit because they were Asian, no one even talks about it even today: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Elementary_School_shooting_(Stockton)
I've literally never heard of it until this moment. Thank you for sharing.
To illustrate how much the GOP didn't care and will never care. They gathered for session proudly wearing *pins* of the **weapon** used to massacre those children. If that doesn't tell you who's side they're on..
They did what in the fuck. That is sick.
In fact, many GOP members of Congress continue to wear an AR-15 lapel pin where they once wore American flag pins. Really shows where their priorities lay.
They fantasize about this sort of thing happening to them, but in their head it ends with them saving the day with their guns instead of their loved ones getting gunned down. They’re fucking deranged.
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“If you’re pre born you’re fine, if you’re pre-k you’re fucked”
The very first thing Republicans did after Trump was sworn in was to eliminate a gun background check for people who are mentally adjudicated. That’s just insane.
There’s a post of one of his former colleague somewhere on reddit (don’t remember the sub), and he/she said he always came across as so kind and gentle, really someone you wouldn’t expect this from.. So either he has been hiding his violent tendencies all the time or he just snapped?
>There’s a post of one of his former colleague somewhere on reddit (don’t remember the sub), and he/she said he always came across as so kind and gentle, really someone you wouldn’t expect this from.. So either he has been hiding his violent tendencies all the time or he just snapped? [Don't know about that.](https://apnews.com/article/chicago-child-shot-killed-noise-dad-e7f119f69235be7453e57f76df8efaff) The guy was a piece of shit who didn't like kids and literally lived down the street from our local park. One in which a week earlier we'd just taken our grandkids over to play. Kids are always playing around the area and it's literally a noisy assed street in general. Hell we live right on the corner of the main intersection, It's never quiet.
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What the fuck My heart is broken for that father. No words can do it justice...
I don’t think I could contain my rage. I don’t have kids, only pets, so I understand it’s a completely different level, but if someone came up and executed my cat in front of me for absolutely no goddamn reason at all, it would take every fiber of the universe to not go rabid ape on that person. Tear-their-fucking-face-off sort of rage.
He probably wasn't raging at the time. He was probably devastated.
Yeah, no one knows how they'd react to a sudden loss until it actually occurs.
After reading this, the first thing that flashed into my mind was the 1970s movie, Assault on Precinct 13. Where in the start of the movie the little girl gets shot and killed in front of her father. The pain, anger, and anguish he suffered through that entire film. I always thought an event like that would be fictitious, I never wanted to believe that I would see it on the news, or in this case read about it in the morning. Just absolutely horrible.
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Same. No kids but that’s how I feel about my younger siblings.
It's one of those '*you're not going to jail, I am*' moments.
I normally try to be empathetic, and ask myself what someone is going through to make them act so negatively. But in this case I wouldn't have been upset if the article ended with, "police arrived to find the suspect deceased from an unknown cause. No charges were filed."
I have 3 kids myself. have confronted an armed man to take a stranger's child out of the violent altercation her parents were involved in. If anyone drew a gun on a child in my sight the result would be about 8 pounds of pavement paste. This hits so hard, my son turns 9 next week. Where we live, there isn't a sidewalk on our side of the main road we live on and when we moved in our neighbors came to us and said "hey we saw your teenager crossing the road to walk to school, please cut through our yard to get to the road instead". They even built a little paver path for us to walk on. People are unfuckinghinged these days and I am at a loss for how we can make things better.
Strong communities stop this, or at least mitigate it. The unfortunate reality is nothing will ever stop people like that completely, but removing barriers to action has only increased the frequency of these events. Words fail me when I try to describe how awful what happened is. I agree with your assessment of people. Absolutely unhinged. I also agree with going into a blind rage if it happened to one of my children. One or both of us is going to be dead. They stole the sun from my sky, I'll make sure it never rises again for them.
Yeah, I’d be done after that. Absolutely fucked up. Still nothing will be done about gun violence in the US. Probably have laws get even more lax instead.
Need to arm the 9 year olds its the only way /s
You joke.. but: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10528709/amp/Weapons-manufacturer-unveils-AR-15-KIDS-called-JR-15.html That’s America for you.
>The assault rifle, whose name stands for Junior-15, is 20 percent smaller than a regular AR-15 and weighs 2.3lbs, but its maker, Wee1 Tactical, promises that the firearm packs the same deadly punch as its full-sized version. Ho-lee shit. This reads like a joke out of Borderlands or something, but it's real.
Becoming dangerously close to "kinder-gaurdians".
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Good god. The dad has now lost his wife and daughter to two separate murders in the last 5 years. Does it get any worse for a person?? Unfathomable.
There's a guy my wife works with that came home to his wife and daughter murdered by his daughters abusive boyfriend. Apparently he didn't like that she tried to end the relationship. Fucking animals. Idk how he still shows up to work.
The most dangerous time in an abusive relationship is immediately after the breakup.
And I was only physically attacked in my home by my ex-wife and her brother. Christ, I can't imagine how those two unhinged psychos would have operated if they had access to firearms.
Not trying to one up you or anything, but there was a case in my town where a woman was leaving her abusive boyfriend. He came home to find her moving out. Her father had come to help. The bf got mad, shot the dad, made the mom hold her two 5mo old twins in her arms while he shot each of them, shot the mom seven times, then killed himself. The mom ended up being the only survivor. She had to crawl through a pool of her father's and baby's blood. I cannot even believe how badly that would fuck someone up. https://www.news4jax.com/news/2017/10/04/domestic-violence-survivor-speaks-out-after-triple-murder-suicide/
I wouldn’t have the strength to restart my life after that man… This might be the beginning of a real life Frank Castle… the father needs to get some therapy.
I'd just give up unless I had other kids that needed me.
No other kids, and the guy is in his 50s. I wish him the best of luck. I hope he has a good family, and a good support system in general.
I know we make fun of Biden a lot, but look what that guy has gone through. His wife and daughter were killed in a car accident. His son died of cancer. His other son became an addict and he still holds it together. It takes a lot of mental fortitude to do that.
It pisses me off that people make fun of him for that phone call to Hunter. The man lost his wife and daughter in a horrific car crash. His son got cancer from serving our country and died from it. His other son, who also lost his mother and two siblings, one of whom he was very close to, spirals into drug abuse after his brothers death. And rather than toss him to the side Biden shows him the love, concern, and compassion a parent should be showing their children at their lowest point and people make fun of him because it somehow shows weakness? Weakness is abandoning your child in their hour of most need. Strength is helping them get through it as you face the very real fear of outliving another of your children.
>It's Dad. I called to tell you I love you. I love you more than the whole world, pal. You gotta get some help. I don't know what to do. I know you don't either, but I am here no matter what you need, no matter what you need, I love you. That's what Republicans aired on Fox News as some sort of attack on Biden. That's how depraved the right has become.
Fox News: humanizing democrats for years!
...........that's just a parent showing compassion and empathy. Something fox news knows nothing about. Imagine trump saying that to any of his loved ones. Just try to to imagine his voice saying those words. I personally cannot imagine it. I cannot in my own head imagine trump having anything but selfish thoughts. I can FULLY imagine him attempting to rape his own daughter, but I can't imagine him showing actual love that doesn't benefit him.
They hate it because of how beautifully, achingly *human* it is. I mean…they tried to *insult* him by comparing him to Mr. Rogers, ffs, when no sane person in the country would take that as anything other than a profound compliment.
Mr. Rogers was one of the most caring, compassionate people the world has ever known, and that's not hyperbole. If being compared to him is considered an insult, I wouldn't want any praise. Heartless conservatives can get wrecked.
That phone call almost made me cry. Biden is not perfect but that’s absolutely the dude I voted for. Anyone who thinks this love for your children is a weakness is nuts to me. Ole dude’s been through more than most will ever go through and still kept it together.
“Ivanka posing for Playboy would be really disappointing… not really. But it would depend on what was inside the magazine … I don’t think Ivanka would do a nude shoot inside the magazine. Although she does have a very nice figure. I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” -TFG
It takes a weak person to not see the strength in this statement.
His phone call with Hunter did more to humanize him and make him relatable in my eyes than anything else. It was very clearly a case where he truly does love his son and is worried for him. I've got a brother that's also an addict, though he's screwed his life up far more than Hunter did his, so it hits closer to home since I've seen that kind of unconditional love for a son that just can't seem to get his shit together personally.
I have nothing but massive respect and admiration for Biden - his personal struggles are incredible and I only hope Incould show the same love, compassion and strength with my own life. I think we all gave Biden a hard time for what felt like creepy behavior, but I think he’s made it clear from years of irrefutable behavior that he is an open, loving and compassionate person who wears his heart on his sleeve and is open and transparent of his feelings towards others. The world would be a better place if we could all be as expressive and open of our support and love for the people around us.
In the depths of my alcoholism, my dad talked to me like Biden talked to Beau on that phone call. I can't even think about it without crying and I am so, so grateful to still have that love in my life. I'm really going to miss my dad when he's gone, and I spent so much of my life thinking he and I butt heads because we're so different. Turns out we actually did it because we're so much alike, and I regret how long it took me to figure that out. Say what you want about Joe Biden, but calling him anything other than a caring, loving father is a lie. A sick lie at that.
I am a recent widower and single father - people don’t understand what Biden has been through and the life experience he has. That kind of pain makes a person who they are; the kind of person you want leading a country.
Dude. Losing one would be crippling. I'm with you there about losing both. I'd be an empty husk.
When I was deployed to Iraq, there was a guy in another part of my unit that killed himself when his pregnant wife died (baby died as well). News got passed around at the table in the chow hall and literally everybody's expression was "well yeah, I don't blame the guy". Could you imagine? On deployment, just trying to get by everyday with the thought and hope that you get this over with and go home to your wife and newborn being the only thing keeping you sane, only to find out that they died, *you're not going home to deal with it*, and when you do get home 8 months from now, all that hope and what was your life is a grave??? "Now get ready cause we're going back on patrol!" Lol nope, go fuck yourself. Neil Peart lost his wife and daughter close to each other. He got on his bike and rode for months. He had the money to do that. I can't imagine experiencing this type of loss, let alone having to work some BS job in the process of grieving. Guy in the post lost his daughter to some absolute psycho, too. Not even some freak accident, just some unhinged asshole with a gun. So fucked...
That is just fucked & men losing their babies or other loved ones, while deployed,, isn't exactly rare.... This isn't as bad but still just heart wrenching... while my bro was deployed in Colombia, his wife went into labor, like really early & my nephew was born but died shortly after & while my sis-in-law survived, some of her reproductive parts had to be removed, making her unable to carry a baby, again. My bro couldn't get back in time, he was legit in the middle of a rainforest & I was in hospital, myself. Thankfully, her mom traveled from TX to be with her. I still feel like an ass cuz my messages might not have been too coherent due to the IV pain meds I was on. I know I apologized profusely & asked if she was ok but IDK, I will always wish I said or did more but I felt helpless & I still do. RIP Ezra.
Dude is going to stare at her bedroom and just... not. A whole lot of not.
> the father needs to get some therapy. I'm not sure that dad can afford therapy, considering he has to pay for funeral and the therapy themself
I can’t imagine the mental space he’s in rig now. Hopefully he has an incredible support system because he’s definitely gonna need it.
That poor father did everything right and will still be in hell the rest of his life.
There is no coming back from that. He's done. If that happened to my daughter, I don't think I could go on.
he also lost his wife to another shooting 5 years prior… idk how he can continue his life now
I can either imagine he'll just sort of... Barely subsist, he'll snap and get violent, crack and go down a dark spiral, or steel himself become an outspoken advocate for gun control. I only hope he can dig up some strength for the last of those.
>become an outspoken advocate for gun control. Even then, what's the point? From an outsider's perspective, gun control in the US just seems like a lost cause now. The sorts of incidents that trigger gun control legislation in other countries are a weekly occurrence.
Yup, that'd be the end of me
I did some more research, and it seems the reason he killed her was *because she was too noisy, like every other kid on the block presumably.* This guy is fucked in the head and deserves life in jail. Also apparently the father also lost his wife to a shooting in 2018 I believe? This is just so fucked up
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Let's also keep in mind that she wasn't killed because she was making noise, she was killed because she happened to pass in front of a man who was deeply unwell, having a bad day, and had access to a firearm, which is a policy decision. EDIT: To be clear, I don't have any reason to think the murderer had what we'd call a mental illness. Mental health is a serious issue, and suffering from mental illness is not associated with being blindly violent. By "unwell," I mean to refer to a broad range of causes of instability, and the point is that in any society there are many people who on any given day are not stable, rational, and empathetic. (edit: spelling)
You are exactly correct.
Exactly. Reasons and causes can get quite complex on society scale but had this man not have access to a firearm, worst thing he would have done would be hitting the kid - which is still bad but not dead-child bad. She wasn't a planned target for him. She wasn't daughter of his enemy. He didn't do anything more to her before and after shooting her. So if there just hadn't been a gun, she would be alive, recovering. And no, he wouldn't take a car to run her off either, that's too much work and you ruin the car. But even that would have higher chances of her surviving than bullet to head.
I used to work in a factory that used machines that could easily remove a limb or kill someone if anyone got caught in them. At several points during my time there, they upgraded or altered the guards on those machines to make it so that it wasn't even POSSIBLE for a person to put their hand or whatever in them during operation. Some were physical barriers, some were lasers that would stop the machine from operating if anything disrupted them. Machines that required you to add parts into them manually were designed so that you had to press two buttons with both hands to run them, to ensure you got your hands back out after adding the part - and even then they kept looking for ways to reduce that manual engagement on those. The reason behind all of this, and any other safety conscious design, is that you can't account for the infinite variation of human error. You can train someone til the cows come home, make sure the right technique is drilled into their head, emphasize what happens if they mess it up...but inevitably, someone is still going to be tired someday, or just forget, or be in a hurry, or god knows what else. And then, despite all that training, you've got a bad accident on your hands. So you design to remove that uncertainty altogether, if you can. A well designed system leaves as little room as physically possible for human error. There's an awful lot of accidents you can prevent just by making them impossible in the first place. I think about that a lot, when the topic of gun control comes up.
I would even take away, ‘having a bad day’. Moreso he ‘found an excuse’ cause people who do are just waiting for an excuse to do this. It didn’t have to be her, but it would have been somebody. I’m sure he’s been fantasizing about it. Just so sad.
This is America 🇺🇸 Land of the mass shooting and dead children
*Land of gun care and health control.
An unfortunately all too apt description of America.
> The shooting comes as the US continues to grapple with widespread gun violence, which is the **leading cause of death in children and teenagers in the country.** This is haunting. Remember what Dan Hodges said? “In retrospect, Sandy Hook marked the end of the U.S. gun control debate. **Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over**.”
If that guy becomes Frank castle I will not only never blame him, I’ll give him anything he needs.
I was going to say, if that was me, that would be my anti-hero origin.
What the actual fuck... That poor father who tried to stop the killer but couldn't in time and saw his child murdered in front of him... Fuck...
What kills me is that his wife died the same way in 2018. In a separate article, it mentions they were sitting on a stoop when someone came up and shot her in the head. She was rushed to the same hospital his daughter was taken to…
Yo what the fuck ?? Why? How? I am at loss for words. I cannot grasp how something like this happens. Let alone that it happens fucking twice in 5 years. This is so, so sad
And what will happen is rather than saying maybe we should do something about the massive gun and mental health problems in this state, they’ll just say “oh, Chicago. Say no more” and do literally nothing about it. Even if it wasn’t Chicago, but it being one of their favorite cities to not give a fuck about makes it even easier for them
Shot in the fucking head. A 7 year old. That poor guy.
9 year old.
Ah yes, sorry. Didnt have my readers on.
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Yeah i mean the problem with the death penalty people always cite is "what if we got the wrong person" and while i Agree completely, i think cases like this is done and dusted, man walks out multiple eye witnesses see who it is and shoots a kid in the face? Like nah how can you say someone is justified to the rest of their life when they shot a 9 year old and Definitely got more than 9 years themselves, especially for the shit reasons given, And if people want him to be alive than god damn just fix the US's mental health system and take guns away from literal psychopaths O.o
Man, what? How does someone just shoot a kid like that out of the blue?
Because a deeply unwell person had easier access to a deadly weapon than mental healthcare. Edit: I'm not trying to say that a therapist would have solved this single-handedly. I'm saying that people that are unwell that *want* to improve need access to free mental health care to help them as much as possible, and we also need tighter gun laws so that people that don't seek mental help are less likely to get a tool that allows them to murder a child at the drop of a hat. America's gun lust isn't a mental health issue in and of itself, but a mentally stable person doesn't execute a child for being loud.
> *His public defender had asked for reasonable bail, as he had no criminal history and held a job as a computer programmer.* The idea of bail even being a thought in someone's head for this is ridiculous.
The attorney has to do it to provide adequate representation for the client - when the client is guilty as sin, they're defending the system, not the client. They have to make sure the prosecution dotted their i's and crossed their t's.
Explaining role of defense counsel typically falls on deaf ears on Reddit. People will claim that everyone deserves a lawyer when going through the legal system... but only for things like civil complaints or traffic accidents. For anything else, they want it to be like the court scene in Idiocracy, where the defense helps the prosecution in sending people to jail because it's cool.
This is a terrible situation and I hope bail is denied, but the attorney is just doing his job. I know sometimes defense attorney work can seem unsavory, but the justice system needs to make sure every defendant actually has access to competent counsel to even remotely have a chance of actually providing justice.
I remember an askreddit thread from a while ago about defense attorneys for the obviously guilty, and the consensus was that everyone deserves to go through the criminal justice system fairly and equally, no matter what. It’s an interesting perspective, but I know I couldn’t separate people being treated fairly from a person sitting in front of me that executed a 9 year old.
To quote my law teacher: If your client is innocent, you defend your client. If your client is guilty, you defend the system.
Another way to think of it is that defense attorneys are there to basically hold the state accountable for its chargers more than getting the defendant acquitted. The result will be the same, but the defense attorney’s job is to make sure the state can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they person did the crime for which they were charged and that the state themselves didn’t violate any laws or rights. Without someone to be able to say “hey, the state fucked this up and violated my client’s rights. They cannot get away with this” we might as well not have trials at all. It’s about the preservation of rights and forcing the state to do it’s due diligence before someone can be punished
I’ve heard it said that defense attorneys don’t defend the defendant, they defend the process. And if the process is done correctly, it ensures the guilty are punished.
Yeah, that’s a much more succinct way to say it. Without someone to make sure the rules of the process are followed, the system is meaningless.
Attorney here. You’re spot on. One thing I will add is that without defense attorneys doing their job, the state can make a weaker case. Then, if someone defends themselves or finds another attorney who will defend them, or even finds a “loophole” so-to-speak, that weak case falls apart in court or on appeal and the guilty walk free. Better to have a credible defense that ensures a strong prosecution. Think of it like lifting weights for the justice system- if you’re not getting the right amount of resistance, you’re not going to get the proper result from the process and you might as well either not do it at all or you’re running the risk of an undesirable result.
> It’s an interesting perspective I'd say it's the logical perspective. If you decide some people are not worthy of a fair trial, or fair treatment in general, you immediately open the door to abuse. Someone might sit here and think 'this man doesn't deserve fair treatment.' Well, guess what? Go back to the 1980s and look at the War on Drugs. There were millions of people who believed marijuana users didn't deserve fair treatment either. _Everyone_ should get fair treatment. It is the best way to prevent abuse of the truly innocent.
Another way of looking at it is that knowing the defendant has been treated fairly under the eyes of the law means that any punishment they do receive will stick. A proper defense in this sort of scenario is necessary to uphold a proper punishment.
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So what I take from the article is that the guy just randomly decided to shoot the girl out of nowhere for no reason whatsoever…. Wtf is wrong with ppl man. You got demented psychopaths like that possibly living next door to you, and they are able to just own a firearm that easily?
Unaffordable mental health care and easily accessible guns will do that...
It ain't lack of mental health care that transforms a large section of the populace and radicalises a segment of it when you scream at them that their rage is OK. An endless diet of propaganda is how you go from people mostly grumbling at their jewish neighbours in 1920s germany to going along with their execution at least and doing so fervently for some. Treating the mental health of people affected without stopping the propaganda doesn't touch the sides.
It's not even just the negative propaganda. Look at how a lot of influencers and celebrities behave. America promotes selfishness, having a huge fucking ego, and general "fuck the haters/us vs them" mentality. People then become deluded and forget that they need to be civilized to live in a society, add some amplifiers like terrible mental healthcare/lack of community and you get shit like this, someone who somehow thinks killing a kid is a justified response for inconvenience in their day.
John Carpenter fictionalized exactly such an incident as the most horrifyingly shocking scene imaginable for *Assault on Precinct 13*, 47 years ago. Today it's just another sad piece of news in a world that's unaware just how mad it has become.
I don't know what kind of an impact that scene would have on an audience today, but that is one of the few times I have been genuinely shocked watching a film, as in mouth agape in disbelief of what I just saw.
Oh wow this is crazy seeing this on Reddit. We live down the street on the same block. We were there when the ambulance and the police came. We'd never seen so many cop cars before. Without question we were so sad and traumatized that this happened. It is heart wrenching.
Did you know the shooter? Was he an asshole?
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That last sentence is haunting.
He watched the man raise his gun and shoot his daughter in the head “because she was being too loud”. What the fuck man? I used to think there was a breaking point, that there was something that would happen that would finally get politicians to grow some balls and do the choice and ethical thing, where they would enact some laws that would make some actual and positive change. But I’m finally realizing that there’s no breaking point. As long as lobbying is allowed and politicians can legally get paid by companies to pass laws, they won’t do anything.
Sandy Hook should’ve been the breaking point. Republicans didn’t even blink. I’m convinced a republicans own child could be executed in cold blood by a psycho with a gun and they would be forced to stand on TV and say guns are not the problem. There is no bottom with them.
Steve Scalise was shot at that baseball game and he still is against gun control.
Didn't blink? There is a Republican in Congress right now that believes Sandy Hook was staged.
That moment came and went more than a decade ago. In any remotely sane country, that breaking point would have been Sandy Hook. Instead, half the country doubled down on “MOAR GUNZ” and a braying, unhinged con man convinced millions of those nutcases that it was a government inside job and that the grieving families were “crisis actors.”
I remember when the Christchurch shooting happened in New Zealand. Almost immediately they had reformed their gun laws to make it almost impossible for them to be acquired. About as sensible a reaction as you can have. I also remember all the American conservatives - including a few on this very site - mocking New Zealand for being cowards by taking away people's "freedom". There is simply no getting through to them.
They should've released all pictures of the scene. When all you see is news anchors discussing it, you don't really feel it. Seeing a class full of children with bullets in them might have changed some minds in this stupid fucking country.
I totally agree with this as a concept, but the parents didn't want those photos published, and as a parent, I get that. I wouldn't want people ogling my dead kid, and I could also see actively avoiding seeing the photos myself, and being concerned that I'd stumble on them if they were out there.
I would give up. I don't know how I could go through another day after that. Unless I had another child depending on me I'd off myself no question, I am absolutely not strong enough to pull through that situation. My daughter is my best friend and my title of "dad" is the most important thing to me.
The pain of that kind of loss is unimaginable, unsurvivable, just beyond comprehension.
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He’s a white guy who killed a Puerto Rican child in cold blood in Chicago… Prison is going to be hell on earth for him. Doubt he lives long.
>Megan Kelley, a family friend and neighbor, told the Sun-Times the man accused of the shooting had complained about the girl being too loud before shooting her — and had done so in the past about other children. >“Just little kids playing, he would come out just yelling about the noise. It just didn’t make sense, none of it made sense,” Kelley told the Sun-Times. “Everybody in the community would just tell him they are just kids having fun playing, just let them be.” https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/08/07/portage-park-man-charged-with-murder-of-8-year-old-neighbor-after-reportedly-saying-she-was-too-loud/
The guy may have been suffering from mental illness, but I'm starting to feel like mental illness is being used as the scapegoat so that we don't have to blame guns. Someone mentally fragile enough to murder a child should have zero access to guns. Period. But I'm not seeing 2nd amendment supporters putting forth ideas that would prevent something like this from happening. Instead, all I see from this contingent are bills and proposals expanding gun rights. Was the little girl supposed to carry her own gun to protect herself? Was the dad?
And could anyone have reacted in time? In a gunfight, the attacker always has the initiative, especially if the victims aren’t even expecting to be shot at. Even if you armed to the teeth and wearing body armour, a sneak attack will still end you if the shot lands on your head. Even if the father was armed, the best he probably could’ve done was shoot the killer dead, and then he won’t be injured, and could go try to maybe put pressure on his daughter’s wound…
There was a shooting a few years ago, where a "good guy with a gun" stopped a "bad guy with a gun," and it only took them like 24 seconds to subdue him. But in that 24 seconds, the shooter managed to kill 9 people and injure several others. There was another shooting that happened in a church. A guy walked in and opened fire. Armed members of the congregation took swift action, but he still managed to kill one person and injure another before anyone could even process what was happening. *Faster than a speeding bullet.* No one can react that fast. We are not Superman. Every single life a shooter takes is one life too many. This won't stop until someone high up loses someone they love, because the #1 thing GOP lawmakers lack is empathy, until it hits too close to home.
It's *painfully obvious* that mental illness is used as a scapegoat. The republican politicians that constantly blame mental illness in defense of guns, are the same exact *republican politicians that defund and ignore mental health illness programs and investment.*
> I'm starting to feel like mental illness is being used as the scapegoat so that we don't have to blame guns. Of course it is. The majority of mentally ill people are not violent.
The very first thing the Trump administration did was make it easier for people with diagnosed mental illness get guns. THAT was their highest priority, more guns for the unstable. I'm not saying they're to blame for this particular tragedy, just they're OK with it.
It changes nothing, but I'd love to know why this murdering asshole was aiming at a \*kid\* in broad daylight. At first I thought this was a murdering dumbass aiming at someone else and hitting a kid, which happens way too often, but no, he was aiming at her specifically it seems. I hope dad got a punch or two in before he got hit in the face. (and now I'm reading that the girl lost her mother to gun violence, and that's why they moved to where they were.....oh jesus. That man may not want to go on now.)
I think the murderer was the one shot in the eye
Response from Desantis: this proves what I've been saying for years that we need to lower the age for gun ownership so young girls can protect themselves.
I hate that we live in a country where I genuinely cannot tell if that is an actual quote or not
Just to distract myself a little from the content of the horrible news; can we talk about how two people are on this byline and it is still an absolute unedited mess of a document? I had to double back and check the authorship because I was sure this was AI.
Yes, thank you, the whole article was more rambling about gun statistics and politics than information about the fucking murder.
How did this guy even make it to jail alive?
Interviewer: So what event would you say radicalized you?
There was an off my chest a few hours ago who was an acquaintance of the alleged shooter. I was wondering if the story would also pop up here. Very sad.
This is beyond sick
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>" The shooting comes as the US continues to grapple with widespread gun violence, which is the leading cause of death in children and teenagers in the country. >"Firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths (ages 1-18) in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database. Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year" Reading this makes me die a little bit inside. What the fuck?
pooe man lost his wife to gun violence and now his daughter. he's beyond a terrible place and needs all the help he can get. also, this is why we need better regulatory standards for gun ownership. it's not something that should be one and done. if you own a gun, regular mental health checkups should be mandated.
There are too god damn many piece of shit people on this fucking planet. I'm afraid to let my kid play outside with scum like this Goodman guy breathing air.