With Spree Shooters, An Overwhelming Majority Of Gunmen Are Previously Known To F.B.I.
Invariably, when yet another mass (or, unfortunately – in this case – school) shooting occurs, the public eye turns to the discussion of gun control and reform.
Though the debate over how to implement changes to U.S. policy to stop any future slaughters have well intentions, a startling revelation involving spree shooters is constantly overlooked with each successive incident.
In overwhelming majority, most shooters are previously known to the FBI prior to their massacres.
Less than 6 weeks before the Parkland, Florida school shooting in 2018, the FBI received a tip complaining about the soon-to-be shooter and no one from the agency followed up. It’s not a stretch to wager that if an agent had further investigated the tip, the shooting may have been prevented and the lives of children saved.
Leading up to Pulse night club shooter performing his heinous act and killing scores of people in Orlando, Florida, the FBI investigated the shooter for 10 months and were still unable to prevent the mass shooting despite looking into the subject for close to a year.
After killing 10 at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, the FBI admitted that the shooter had already been on their radar.
In 2015, a married couple in San Bernardino, California opened fire on a work event, killing 14 in the name of Islamic terrorism. Afterward, the FBI said that the husband and wife discussed jihad and martyrdom online as far back as 2013.
Both shooters at the Tops grocery store in Buffalo and the Ulvade school shooting were previously known to the FBI.
A retired FBI agent allegedly corresponded with the Tops grocery spree shooter via Discord and received a half-hour warning in advance of the shooting after the gunman sent his manifesto and targeted choice of location to the chat.
The Ulvade shooter is suspected to have threatened to “shoot up a school with an AR-15” after losing on an online game, drawing the attention of another gamer who reported the disturbing incident to the FBI – just hours before the shooting transpired.
As the Associated Press puts it, “Shooters are leaving digital trails that hint at what’s to come long before they actually pull the trigger” yet the warning signs are consistently ignored to the detriment of life.
Federal courts have declared time and time again that the police have no actual duty to protect people, with a judge ruling in 2018 that cops “had no constitutional duty to protect” people if they aren’t in police custody. Stunningly, the FBI has turned a willingly blind eye to the warning signs leading up to a surprising number of these spree shootings.
The truth is, we do not need gun control or gun reform. We do not need to ban or illegalize anything. We do not need to trample on rights and liberties we would never get back.
We need American institutions to start having even just an isomer of integrity again. Plainly, when police are unwilling to even put themselves on the line for the lives of schoolchildren, there is an epidemic of rot within our country’s systems that has infested the nation to its very core.
The solution is right in front of our faces: utilize and reform the systems we are pretending to depend on. 19 children are dead and nothing is going to change. 19 children are dead and nearly half of Ulvade’s police force stood by idly for their slaughter. See you in another 10 years for the next one.