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| Above, the shooter, Robin Westman. |
The following was posted by Jamie Fraser-Page, the administrator of the Facebook page, Gun Owners of New Mexico:
It was impossible to avoid hearing about the shooting at a Catholic Church in Minneapolis, a parish church with a school attached not unlike the one in my neighborhood in Queens where several of my friends went. Some deranged individual, armed with a rifle, shotgun and pistol fired all of them into the church where grade school kids were at prayer on the second day of the school year.
The coward took her own life. Or his life. The shooter was a transgender person, which will no doubt become part of the narrative from one side, just like the three firearms will become the main point from the other side. Neither fact is the reason this happened. It happened because people who knew this person and saw their descent into madness did nothing to stop it.
There were a lot of indicators. Detached, isolated, creating a YouTube manifesto to explain the inexplicable - why anyone would shoot into a church filled with kids from the ages of 6 and 14, killing two, 8 and 10 and wounding 14 others as well as three parishioners in their 80s. The shooter entered the church only after their deadly fusillade of gunfire ceased to end their life with a self-inflicted gunshot would.
We need to ask why no one saw this coming. Friends, parents, followers on YouTube and other social media must have known. And, assuming they could see it coming, why - why - did they do nothing to intervene and stop it before it started?
I wonder if this person's change from Robert to Robin was influenced by the increased normalization of transgenderism and by the incessant progressive's preaching abut "toxic masculinity. Perhaps for some M->F transgenders among the young their decision to identify as female is driven or exacerbated by a feeling of being treated as "toxic" by some.
While transgendered individuals according to several studies are only 0.6% of the population the number of young people ages 13 to 24, is twice the average across all ages. I am not saying that there is a direct connection between a person identifying as non-binary or transgender means that they will become mass shooters, just that among those who seem driven to this aberration it might be a contributing factor. Food for thought, at least.
We do a terrible job of identifying and treating the mentally ill. It is still an affliction viewed with a great deal of ignorance and fear - needlessly, since most people with mental health issues pose no threat to others and even little threat to themselves. But those who harbor suicidal and/or homicidal ideation - two sides of the same coin according to some - do pose such a threat. Few mass shooters are taken alive. After inflicting carnage on others they either take their own lives or force suicide by cop by taking precipitous action to trigger a lethal response.
We need to stop using these tragedies to further the agendas of the left or the right and actually *do* something to identify and fix the problem. So many mass shooters give a lot of notice that they are going to do something horrific. We need to listen, watch and get them the help they need, intervene to prevent them from carrying out these acts.
And, yes, when identified, they should be prevented from legally acquiring firearms. For nearly 60 years I have advocated for stripping from our laws the infringements to exercising our right to keep and bear arms protected by the 2nd Amendment . But I also feel that if a person is adjudicated a danger to self or others they need to be barred from access to firearms and explosives. And, if evidence is presented to a court of a credible threat, while a person's mental health is evaluated to rule out it posing a threat to self or others, they should not have access to firearms. This does not mean I support so-called Red Flag laws, since those lack due process. No right should be infringed upn nor abridged but by due process.
In the end, we as a society need to actually care - give a damn - about the incidents like this, which, though relatively rare compared to other types of killings happen far too frequently and are often preventable if due care is exercised. We need to push our elected representatives to create and fund programs to identify and get treatment for the millions of people with mental health issues and not turn a cold shoulder and a blind eye to their affliction. Out schools need to be especially observant of the signs and precursors of such acts and move to thwart them early by getting the individuals help. And, we need to consider having trained armed individuals in our schools and other places which have been targets in the past. And we need t avoid situations of command paralysis such as the one in Uvalde, TX. There is a lot we can do but we, the people need to push to make it happen. And it begins with giving a damn.
