The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/mass-shootings/)
A University of Arizona researcher argues that special protection orders allowing police or family members to remove access to guns from dangerously unstable individuals, now in place in 13 states, can reduce firearm deaths among the elderly, who are most at risk for committing suicide with a firearm.
“I hope people call me insane,” said Ian Long on Facebook before he killed 12 people at a California bar last week. Facebook and Instagram, where Long also posted, deleted his accounts.
The case of synagogue shooter Robert Bowers may illustrate how the Internet and social media have created new pathways from strident ideology to radicalism.
In the two deadliest shootings in the U.S. this year, the accused gunman displayed warning signs before his killing spree. Neither Nikolas Cruz in Florida nor Ian David Long in California were committed for treatment.
“A very high percentage of these attackers are suicidal,” said criminologist Adam Lankford of the University of Alabama. “The idea that he is going to be scared away by an armed security guard just doesn’t compute.”
A hooded gunman dressed in black opened fire at a country dance bar holding a weekly “college night” in Southern California, killing 12 people and sending hundreds fleeing, including some who used barstools to break windows and escape. The gunman, David Ian Long, 28, a Marine veteran, killed himself.
Police said a suspect with a history of antisemitic statements online was in custody after multiple casualties at a shooting Saturday in a baby naming ceremony at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Four police officers were shot in the attack at the Tree of Life Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood.
One year after Stephen Paddock killed 58 Las Vegas concertgoers, experts still lack evidence of a motive. One says that in such cases, “some people kill for notoriety and infamy, and that’s what he did.”
In 2014, a man smuggled six high-powered weapons into the same casino hotel that Stephen Paddock used as a venue for the most deadly mass shooting in US history. Victims argue in lawsuits against the casino owner that the earlier case shows that the hotel did not do enough to prevent guests from bringing in an arsenal.
Snocia Moseley, 26, a temporary employee of a Rite Aide distribution center near Baltimore, opened fire, apparently indiscriminately, killing three and wounding three others before killing herself. Authorities did not immediately find a motive.