I got several readers and friends sending me a copy of the pic.  I am very wary of unsourced screen caps, but this look very real so I went over Twitter and checked by myself.

Sweet gods of volcano sacrifice, it is true. This one is a fresh screen capture by yours truly”

And no, the guy is not trolling, he is that dumb.

I do believe we have people among us so stupid that require graphic instructions on how to breathe.

Year and years ago, I remember reading Centennial by James Michener and learned about the war against sheep by Cattlemen in the West. It was kind of surprising and even though my ancestors raised sheep in Spain, it took me less than a week visiting them and working the critters to come to hate them. My mom to this day will not eat lamb and wants to do nothing with those animals.

Anyway, it was funny to bump into this small article and confirm that it was not a figment of Michener’s imagination. I will recommend both the book and the mini series, I think it was the last one done in full grandeur, full production value and with a lot of great actors.

I had gotten this email yesterday, but forgot about it.

Reader Dave H. sent me this link (AKA Clue By Four) from Ammoland

Fairfax, VA – -(Ammoland.com)- PayPal, the world’s largest money transfer service for online transactions, has aligned itself with the animal “rights” extremists at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) through a deceptively named campaign called Paws United for a Cause!
PayPal has pledged to match donations made to HSUS through its Facebook page, up to a total of $100K, through August 31.
HSUS is no stranger to the charge of being deceptive, to put it mildly. The organization has long been accused of misleading people into thinking it has an actual relationship to directly helping mistreated or abandoned pets by operating shelters. In 2011, the group’s own tax records indicate it gave less than 1% of donor funds to pet shelters.

Never EVER donate to that scum organization.  You want to do something for abandoned animals? Call your local shelter, ask them what they need and then go shopping. One you have your bags full of stuff, go personally and donate them while thanking profusely to those working the shelter.

Comedian and Prankster Tom Mabe took it to another level and God bless him for that. But even your smallest of contributions will be greatly appreciated.

I only first read about the Jacksonville shooting last last night.

Early this morning I started to see the Tweets about it.

This one caught my eye.

We Can’t Even Play Madden In Peace??? #AnotherFLShooting

— Fetti? (@NBKFetti) August 26, 2018

The one thing I haven’t seen anybody mention is swatting.

Swatting started in online video game culture.  It was a way for a sore loser or disgruntled gamer to hurt another play in real life.

Why Would Someone Call a SWAT Team on a Stranger?
Everything you need to know about Swatting, the dangerous Internet trend that can end in death

In Ventura, California, an online spat between two players on the game Call of Duty escalated over Twitter to threats of SWATing, a popular form of online harassment that involves calling in a fake hostage situation, bomb threat, or shooting to authorities who then deploy a SWAT team to the home of an unsuspecting victim.

Swatting has longstanding roots in the online gaming community
Live video-gamers, especially those with large virtual audiences, have become increasingly susceptible to swatting attempts since the term was first coined by the FBI in 2008. As mentioned in a report by The New York Times, “Those cameras have made them irresistible targets for swatting, as the prank is called, allowing mischief makers to indulge their voyeurism by watching the tense and confusing moments of a police raid.” Twitch, the streaming app of choice for gamers, even changed their terms of service to include a zero-tolerance policy on swatting, carrying indefinite suspension. Regardless, swatting videos litter the web, some accruing more than millions of views.

Earlier this year, a man in Kansas was killed in a swatting incident he wasn’t even a player in.

There is something terribly wrong in the hardcore gamer culture that makes it acceptable to kill, or try to kill, other players* that swatting has particularly associated with.

*Based upon a comment, I agree that “acceptable” was the wrong choice of words.  The NFL is often referred to as the National Felon League.  There is a uniquely high incident rate of crime associated with football players that isn’t found in Hockey or Tennis or Golf.  At the high school and college level, football stars are encouraged to cheat to keep good players in the game despite poor scholastic performance.  There is an argument to be made that the culture of bending the rules for football players in school is what makes them think that they can get away with anything in the NFL.

So even though swatting is a crime and is looked down upon by players and the public alike, what is it about the gamer community that has made swatting a thing?  It’s not like spelling bee kids are swatting each other.

Why would a young man bring a gun to a video game tournament?  Does it have something do to with this culture of swatting?

Of course the internet is screaming for more gun control, like that will actually do anything.

Last weekend I spent Saturday running around with an AR-15, shooting a carbine match.  The weekend before I was shooting USPSA.  Two Saturdays in a row I was shooting silhouette shaped cardboard targets as quickly and accurately as I could.  I didn’t do particularly well (in my defense, I’ve only been shooting USPSA for less than a year) but at no time did I think “if I don’t win, I’m going to shoot everyone else here.”

There is no culture of swatting in USPSA.  Despite the fact that everyone is walking around with guns, dragging wagons full of ammo, I’ve never heard of a mass shooting at a USPSA event.

Clearly, this has nothing to do with guns.  Unfortunately, it’s going to be us gun owners that pay the price.

I don’t want to be accused of racism for this post.  It is not my intent to be bigoted with it in any way.

I am simply reporting on an experience I have had on several occasions, the most recent one this weekend.

There is an indoor play place near me in Huntsville.  There is a large multi-level maze with obstacles to crawl through, some large inflatable slides and bounce houses, and a ball pit.  I’ll take the four-year-old there an we’ll run around and jump and get a lot of energy out.  It’s great when it is super hot and muggy or rainy because it’s inside.

My son loves the ball pit.  We’ll go in there and roughhouse around.

Several times when I’m playing in the ball pit we will be joined by other children.

That’s always difficult because they are not my kids.  I am not going to toss a child, or bury one in balls, or play with a kid that is not my own.  There is just too much liability there.

Frequently the children who join us are black boys, usually a few years older than my son.

It is clear as day what they really want is a dad to roughhouse with.  That’s not me though.

That’s not the problem.  The problem is that with these other kids, they get hyper aggressive.

My four year old will throw balls at me.  It’s another thing to have a seven or eight year old stand over me (I sit in the ball pit to be eye level with my son) and beam balls into my face as hard as he can.

Every single time I’ve been in that situation, the child throwing zingers at me at point blank range is black.

When we get out of the ball pit, I will do my best to surreptitiously spot mom.  Mom is usually on her phone or maybe talking to other moms, and every single time, mom doesn’t have a wedding ring.

There is tons of academic evidence that shows how kids, especially boys, need rough and tumble play for proper social development.  Fathers are uniquely adept at rough and tumble play.  Kids need rough and tumble play to learn how to regulate themselves.  By playing, kids (especially boys) learn what is too hard and not fun and what is appropriate.

What has happened in the ball pit, doing my own armchair psychology, is that these are boys who have had insufficient rough and tumble play with their fathers, see a dad playing, want to join in, and have no idea how much aggression is too much aggression and I end up getting pelted with balls and my son gets upset and leaves the ball pit.

Now I’m not going to say that each one of these boys is a criminal in the making.

It does make me wonder though, if you don’t understand why it’s not fun for a stranger to pelt him in the face with balls in the ball pit at full strength, how well you will be at impulse and aggression control at sixteen or eighteen.

Maybe I’m reading way too much into this, but there are a lot of black young men killing each other in Chicago, Baltimore, Birmingham and other cities across America, and the only kids who treat the ball pit like the thunder dome are black boys with moms who don’t have wedding rings and aren’t paying attention to their kids.

Again, this post is not intended to be racist.  I am simply documenting something that I have experienced more than a few times first hand, and may be part of a social phenomenon.

Ladies and Gents, I present you asshole David Katz.

Apparently he got his ass kicked in the game and decided to show how bad of a loser he was by shooting his fellow players.  And as you can imagine, the Usual Suspects of Gun Control have jumped all over the place demanding more laws and solutions to mass shootings and stuff. But I just clicked on News4Jax and found a wealth of interesting information with what already knew from the initial reports:

1- The shooting occurred inside the GLHF Game Bar which by Florida Statute is a Gun Free Zone.
2- Asshole David Katz was from Baltimore Maryland and came to the tournament. Maryland and Florida do not have a reciprocity agreement so he was illegally carrying a concealed weapon.
3- Asshole David Katz violated Federal when he traveled from Maryland without the protection of FOPA as it was illegal for him to carry in Florida.
4- Shooting people and causing death and grave bodily harm is illegal in Florida and pretty sure the rest of the 49.

Questions remain: Where did he get the gun? In Maryland most likely, but we need to find out if legally or otherwise. If he got the gun legally in Maryland, passed then he passed the Background check (oops!). If he got it illegally, that is not only a crime up there but he also illegally transported a firearm across state lines, double miles if the gun is stolen. If he got it in Florida, he did so illegally that is another law he broke.

I am sure I am missing something or other, please fell free to add and correct mistakes in the comments.

PS: He killed 2 people officially so the Mass Murder tag also disappears. I predict his case will vanish from the media by Tuesday night.

Four Dead at some sort of video gaming event in GLHF Game Bar.

So yes, another Gun Free Zone by Florida law.

UPDATE:  The local sheriff gave an update in which he made very clear and the media picked up that the shooter was a White guy.

And the ugly Race Card makes its presence.