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Looks like he passed the ATF background check 2 months ago.Originally Posted by allegro
http://concealednation.org/2015/08/a...rearm-legally/
Of course, politicians like are calling for gun control that would have done nothing in this situation... like ALWAYS. Hillary is saying that background checks and cool down periods would have prevented this. looool
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...rol-president/
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This is the 21st century version of "Going Postal". Not a new phenomenon
I saw a headline that said this dude lived in a "squalid" apartment. Then later, saw a short video of a walk through of said apartment. It wasn't squalid. That term has already been reserved in our time for hoarders. This place had a couple of dirty dishes. Unless the cops came in and took all his shit, which I doubt since the video showed those photos on his frig I keep reading about.
First story was from Fox
Video from MSNBC.
/head desk.
Last edited by Dra508; 08-28-2015 at 08:27 AM.
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Bullshit.
What this guy did was on par with Dylan Roof. It was a race-targeted hate crime by a mentally unstable asshole. But, the guy was black and gay so many on the left refuse to point out the hate crime angle. Meanwhile, the right is ALLLL over it but many on the right refused to call Dylan Roof anything but mentally unstable.
This partisan bullshit is exactly why this will be an endless tug of war.
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I agree that this story is being reported in a some sort of partisan way. I don't know how Fox news saying "squalid" when it wasn't is driving some particular agenda. What do you think?
To be fair, the term going postal was in the context of workplace violence perpetrator by someone who felt wronged, often by someone who has been fired. You can not deny this was workplace violence. Clearly, this Flanagan man felt it was racial. Are you saying his bias toward white people makes it a hate crime?
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It was very clearly "black vs white" in his mind based on everything he left behind. The dude talked about contributing to a race war with this act, for fucks sake. There were additional aspects, but race was a huge part.
I don't know about the fox news shit. That's a lot more of a nuance in the large picture. Supposedly he left a bunch of dirty sex toys sitting around, was living by candle light, and had cleaned up a specific room (stripped to the bare mattress) which the contents of were found nearby. The definition of "squalid" could certainly fit. All the pics you saw were AFTER the police went through the apartment and removed what they wanted.
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I would have thought the same, but the video showed his portrait pics on the frig as well as the stripped mattress. Interesting.
So, my understanding is that to qualify as a hate crime, the act is motivated by that bias (race, sex, ethnicity). Flanagan's statement was that he was biased against, because HE was gay and black. That sounds backwards.
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Roof claimed he was being wronged by Blacks. Does that make it not a hate crime?
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What about Flanagan?
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I think they are both hate crimes.
I get that you are pointing out that Flanagan killed specific individuals that he knew in advance while Roof killed strangers, but the underlying justification provided by the perps was race.
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I don't believe Flanagan called out his victims, hating them for them being white. He was glorifying multiple mass murders for the attention they got. Did he say he wanted to start a race war like Roof apparently said. I must have missed that.
To not drift to far from the "gun" topic of the thread, I agree there is serious challenges trying to figure out how to keep guns out of the hands of irrational people. This country's culture is very wrapped in this right, and honestly, I don't think it's ever going to change. If stories of toddlers killing their siblings or their dad with guns hasn't created a sea change, I don't know what would.
Last edited by Dra508; 08-28-2015 at 06:53 PM.
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No. Not just race. He cited black men harassing him for being gay. He was blaming everybody for everything. He says he was being bullied by everybody, including black men.
Last edited by allegro; 08-28-2015 at 07:24 PM.
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broaden your news sources
This is straight from the 23page manifesto that ABC received from him. Unfortunately, they have only released small clips of it and censored it all. The whole thing would be much more illuminating.
"You want a race war (deleted)? BRING IT THEN YOU WHITE …(deleted)!!!"
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Yes, but he was scattered. He was harassing people at work. People were afraid of him and reported him to HR. The dead cameraman had reported him to HR. He claimed he was bullied, but others said he was in fact the bully.
Saying he was harassed by black men for being a gay black man now clouds that whole "race" thing.
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absolutely, but race was the dominant theme in what ABC has released. It's also the dominant theme in a lot of the historical records on his behavior.
And from a legal level, the existence of race as ONE of the underlying motivations is sufficient for it to be a hate crime, right?
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We can't totally keep any weapons out of the hands of irrational or insane people. That is an impossible task. Trust no one who claims to want to do this.
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Not the stuff they are releasing here in Chicago. Maybe our media isn't purposely slanting it and leaving out all the other info. I've already quoted portions of the manifesto, here, paraphrased, that indicate he is just mentally disturbed and not a racist.
The underlying complaint is that he was the perpetual VICTIM. Nothing he did was ever his fault. No performance review was real, but was due to his being gay or black, etc. He is more similar to the dude who killed all those chicks for not dating him in CA than a race crime.
They had a few experts on TV, here, who did really interesting commentary on this.
Last edited by allegro; 08-29-2015 at 09:25 AM.
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I guess we will have to wait for them to release the full text without the censorship. However, I still see a lot of parallels between Roof and Flanagan. Dylan Roof was also endlessly talking about being a victim of race. He also cited a prior shooting (Trayvon Martin) as being the launching point of his actions. He was also, apparently, mentally ill.
I don't think being mentally ill precludes you from being motivated by race, even on a legal level.
absolutely agree, but that guy was framed as being a misogynist too. He was made to represent a lot of the gender problems, remember?
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Also, @Dra508 - the thing I always tell people is to look at the data more objectively. First, factor in the crime numbers for all weapons. If you are concerned about mass killings, look at more than just "mass killings with guns." Second, factor in population. The USA is huge. Statistical anomalies are going to be more common as a whole, even if they may be comparatively lower on a per capita perspective. I think it was mass killings were one of the more surprising things that the USA does not stand out on when you factor in population, and thats without even factoring in other weapons. I think Sweden was #1 and USA was like #15.We can't totally keep any weapons out of the hands of irrational or insane people. That is an impossible task. Trust no one who claims to want to do this.
This approach is much more honest and you'll find that the "gun problem" in the USA rarely is what it is made out to be.
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Yes, but also identity problems. This perp had BLAME problems
Racist specifically focuses on one race being superior. This guy didn't do that. He was a VICTIM of racism. But he claimed to be a VICTIM of MANY things: gay bashing, racism, unfair work practices, sexism, all kinds of stuff. He was a disgruntled employee, but he blamed all kinds of other local news events; VA Tech, the SC church shooting.
HOWEVER, he was also an abuser; he had already threatened people at work, telling them that they would "regret" crossing him, far before the SC shooting. He was a bully with a hair trigger.
Last edited by allegro; 08-29-2015 at 12:43 AM.
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What exactly do you think I read to make a comment like that?
I go back to my original statement. Gone postal.
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Amen, Sister.
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He definitely had a hair trigger and was a bully. There are other facts about him surfacing. Someone had a video of him from a road rage incident where Flanagan had followed the other driver for a while until a confrontation in the parking lot (http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7dd_1440613976). There isn't much to see in that video, but the guy was clearly involved in lots of confrontations. He seemed to be perpetually offended and looking to be a victim at all times.
Dra508 - That comment wasn't supposed to be as serious as you are taking it. I was just pointing to the fact that his quote about "race war" was heavily covered in right-wing sources but had very little coverage in left-wing. A google search for "flanagan race war" returns pages of sources that are all biased to one side.
Last edited by DigitalChaos; 08-28-2015 at 09:59 PM.
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See this article.
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I'm not taking your comment any way, that's why I asked the question.
If right wing media is calling it a hate crime and the left isn't, that says something, but I don't think it's saying that the topic is being ignored. I'm sure there's good reasons for not releasing all 20 some-odd pages for public consumption just now. My name might be in there as supposedly slight Flanagan and I never met the dude. I'd like to think that the police, the FBI, whoever it is that labels these things is looking into it, not just the media.
Enough "witnesses" have been interviewed in the media, especially in the article @allegro posted that sat Flanagan had "issues" with a lot of different types of people.
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Jesus, that guy is ridiculous. It's still a huge theme of perceived racism through the article.
Note: Dylan Roof's "life changing realization" was based on "black on white crime." He thought he was the victim of racial problems too.
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Yes, but he was "playing the race card" as a game, to portray himself as a perpetual victim. There's a difference between that and really being a victim of racism. He was also claiming sexual discrimination. The guy was a constant trouble-maker, he was "warned that he needed medical attention." When he didn't get his way, he'd play the race card -- even when race had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was reprimanded for treating the cameramen like shit, and he said that the station was guilty of racial discrimination for reprimanding him and he filed a racial discrimination suit, which was thrown out of court. He claims in his manifesto that it was "settled."
If I'm a total abusive asshole at work and bully everybody and treat everybody like shit and then when I'm reprimanded or fired I claim sexual discrimination, it doesn't mean sexual discrimination actually existed. It just means I've either in denial or that I'm deliberately gaming the system.
There is also this, which contradicts this as a total anti-white motivated source of anger.
It's all pretty detailed in this article and video.
He continues: "I can remember one day in particular... leaving the courthouse... feeling overwhelmed... confused... even some fear. But by golly I knew I HAD to fight. ... They truly f----d with my life and caused an awful chain of events." He says he even killed his cats in a forest "because of them."Flanagan says that, "Hell yeah, I made mistakes," noting that he "should not have been so curt" with photographers in Roanoke. "[B]ut you know why I was? The damn news director was a micromanaging tyrant!!""[I] tried to pull myself up by the bootstraps," but, "The damage was already done and when someone gets to this point, there is nothing that can be said or done to change their sadness to happiness. It does not work that way. Meds? Nah. It's too much."
"And then, after the unthinkable happened in Charleston, THAT WAS IT!!!"
"Yeah I'm all f----- up in the head," he concedes.
Last edited by allegro; 08-29-2015 at 02:14 PM.
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Again, *perceived* victim of racial problems. I never said either actually was a victim. They are both mentally unstable and it probably helped perpetuate things.
I never said Flanagan was *only* focused on race. Just that race was a huge part for him. Just because sexuality was another aspect doesn't nullify the race aspect.
It's not "gaming the system" if you legitimately think you are a victim. You don't kill people over victimization that you are just pretending exists.
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He was also bullied by black men for being gay. He blamed all of society. He had to work as a male escort for a while, to make ends meet. He admitted having severe depression but didn't want to go on meds. HE KILLED HIS CATS IN A FOREST, FOR CHRIST SAKE. His coworkers thought the only reason he even HAD that job was because he was black and gay because he sucked at his job. The people who really knew him, his friends, said deep down he was a really nice guy (don't they all say that?). But when you're a black dude on the downlow, and you hate your job or your career isn't progressing or your mental illness isn't being treated ... Before he killed that woman, he called her a "bitch". That's not racism, right there. That's just plain old misogyny.
The right will play this up solely as race because they love to do that. But this guy was just evil and mentally ill. Period. He had about a dozen different grievances in about a dozen directions, and race was just one of a dozen. Fox News just loves to pounce on the race card because they can't read past the first sentence of an AP report.
Playing the race card doesn't mean that he even perceived being the victim of racism; it means that he could have hated his boss for being "a micromanaging tyrant" and used the race card to bring his boss down. Playing the race card using race as an excuse even when it is not a factor. He reportedly likely GOT that job BECAUSE he is black, due to desired diversity. He was reprimanded due to lack of professionalism and for scaring people; when that happened, he said it was BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK. That is playing the race card. Making people afraid to report you because you will file a race grievance is "playing the race card."
When you are mentally ill, OH YES YOU DO.
See this article
What triggered Vester Flanagan, a disgruntled former employee, to gun down a reporter and cameraman this week in Virginia? Speaking on CBS This Morning, former FBI Deputy Director John Miller called Flanagan an "Injustice Collector."
Miller cited the 23-page manifesto faxed to ABC News after the shooting saying, "This final act of leaving behind this, this long treatise about what everybody did and listing every tiny slight, that is the classic injustice collector."
Miller defined "classic injustice collectors" as people who feel they aren't finding success and blame others whom they believe stood in their way. It happens when a person holds grudge after grudge, until it eventually leads to hopelessness and rage.
LSU-Shreveport Graduate Studies Dean Sanjay Menon describes Vester Flanagan as having a 'persecution complex.' "It's rarely that somebody suddenly snaps," said Menon. "It's more like building, building up, building up 'til you suddenly snap."
Last edited by allegro; 08-29-2015 at 02:45 PM.
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triggered Vester Flanagan
called Flanagan an "Injustice Collector."
Miller defined "classic injustice collectors" as people who feel they aren't finding success and blame others whom they believe stood in their way.
Sanjay Menon describes Vester Flanagan as having a 'persecution complex.' "It's rarely that somebody suddenly snaps," said Menon. "It's more like building, building up, building up 'til you suddenly snap."
Well fuck, THAT sure sounds familiar.
We are going to start calling out the recent burst of social justice warriors right? The ones who promote this kind of victim mentality. The idea that there is always someone else holding you down and oppressing you. Elliot Rodger's actions prompted a ton of backlash on the idiotic "Mens Rights Activists" and "Pick Up Artists" because they helped prompt the entitlement and shitty views toward women. The internet SJW's are a really similar class of group as the MRA's and PUA's.
I am really curious to read the entire the full text of what he left behind.
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Exactly.
And Elliot Rodger had that same persecution complex, a PUA on steroids and a misogynist and probably actually gay.
I've mentioned this before, find it so tragic: Elliot Rodger was the grandson of legendary photojournalist George Rodger, the guy who photographed Bergen-Belsen.
Last edited by allegro; 08-29-2015 at 11:02 PM.
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