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I may have to take this video down – if YouTube catches up with our friends News2Share. But I don’t apologize for putting it up and I will keep it posted here as long as possible. Here’s why . . .

As a gun blogger who’s reported on the Gifford’s assault, the Aurora massacre, the Newtown slaughter and other firearms-related spree killings, I’ve seen how officials cover-up important details of the crime scene in the name of their “criminal investigation.” Details which – if and when revealed – undercut the argument that more gun control legislation is needed to prevent similar tragedies.

The Newtown case is, perhaps, the most instructive example. The official report was delayed for over a year – time enough for Connecticut to pass knee-jerk civilian disarmament legislation. In that case and more, the killer was known to be a danger. Parents, mental health professionals, school officials, even the police failed to stop him. Through their negligence, incompetence or a simple refusal to take responsibility for their actions.

Don’t get me wrong . . .

I am fully aware that shit happens. People miss things because that’s what people do. When I miss something here, no one dies. When the police who interviewed Elliot Rodger failed to ask to see the threat videos that triggered his therapist’s request for an urgent “mental health check,” when they failed to get sufficient background on the request to know what questions to ask, when Rodger’s therapist or parents failed to communicate the exact nature of their concern to the police, people died.

I am also aware that deciding who’s a serious threat to public safety and who isn’t is an imprecise science/art. We cannot ask for perfection from those in charge of making that decision – because we won’t get it. Nor should we jettison our Constitutional protections in the name of public safety. But if we don’t know the truth – the who, what, when, where and why of the killings – we can’t make sound judgements about what – if anything – we can do to prevent attacks in the future.

These tapes are an invaluable original source material to Elliot Rodger’s frame of mind. They show that mental health – not “easy access to firearms” – was the problem. We await the official investigation into the murders that resulted, hoping, once again, that the truth will out.

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48 COMMENTS

  1. What I don’t get…

    How do you have a rich daddy and a black Beamer and NOT get laid?

    I had neither of these things and never had to even try…

      • I wonder if he did the same kind of prep and rehearsal before approaching women.

        Like his car video where he came off like an emo Snidely Whiplash…

        • My understanding is that he did not approach them. He expected them to realize how great he was, and come to him.

        • I think Steve is right.

          That and he has creeper written all over him.

          Also… wow is this dude creepy. If you watch the whole video… just wow..

          It makes you wonder how many other people are out there like this who turn into rapists rather than mass shooters. He seems the type.

    • Women, in general, have pretty good radar for psycho creeps, and if these videos are any indication, this guy probably exuded a seriously creepy vibe when he was talking to girls. I also suspect, given his “I’m superior” attitude and sense of entitlement, he was probably aiming for girls who were way, way out of his league.

      • ^ This too…

        But you don’t have to be psycho to aim for girls/guys out of your league. That’s a common mistake of virgins and young people in general.

        Also, this dude (because he hadn’t dated yet) just didn’t know that having the perfect 10 blond gf he envisioned wouldn’t make his life magically better.

        Happiness comes from within, not from who you’re bangin’

  2. Maybe if everyone gets these peeks into the disturbed mind of a killer they’ll finally realize that it’s not guns, movies, video games, or even your run of the mill mental health.

    • Honestly, I don’t think it’s even a mental health issue. I bet that if you go to a mental hospital, more than 90% are actually pretty decent and peaceful people. It’s just that some people are looking out for blood. Just as I was taught in my CCW class, when absolutely all options have been exhausted: proper shot placement.

      • Oh I don’t think it’s a mental health issue at all. About 30 million people in the USA are on antidepressants for mood disorders. Even more people are on the same kinds of drugs for other physical disorders like migraines and nerve pain. Even more are on other mind-altering medications. Scapegoating these drugs or even “mental health” is no better than scapegoating guns or video games or movies.

        If we want to learn anything from these deranged murderers we should look at all of the places they slipped through the cracks. A college “kid” with no job receives thousands of dollars from his parents with no accountability for what he does with it? His parents too involved in their careers to raise their kid or have a clue who or what he is? Police “investigating” him and missing all his public media?

        Everyone in society always tries to pass off a dirty bill on someone else and eventually someone gets caught with it. Same problem with the Gabby Giffords attack, the Virginia tech attack, Sandy Hook, Aurora, and most of the others. Any scheme we come up with, any ban, any system, will not even dent this issue and it’s all an anemic alternative to becoming more responsive to warning signs and responsible for each other. The only solution is if everyone in society becomes more responsive and more responsible.

        • “I don’t think it’s a mental health issue at all.”

          I agree. Evil and insanity are not necessarily related. Some very evil people are completely rational.

  3. ” Here’s why . . .” …I want more page clicks.

    Good job giving him the sort of attention he craved and killed for, though.

    • I sympathize with your position on not giving them publicity, but it seems to me that (1) It’s too late to stop the legends. We had a Columbine inspired attack foiled just this year, 15 years after it happened. The horse has left the barn. (2) The issue of inspiration would be moot if they didn’t have gun free zones to hunt in. The fact that the UC shooter did pretty poorly in a zone WITH guns kind of proves my point. He had a car to zip around in and he still only managed ten minutes before he was cornered by armed good guys on the scene and only managed 3 killed via gun. I suspect he’s at about the top end of the scale of what’s achievable if gun ownership/carry were unrestricted.

    • Unfortunately, Jumble is right.

      Everyone knows about these attacks, who committed them, and how they went down.

      But all that the American People see, is what snippets the police and AG are ready to release at the time. In this case, all the true information about the killer is out for the world to see. Perhaps this could finally be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and the people we have entrusted with our general safety and organization (Law Enforcement and Government, respectively) will come to realize that the fight against spree killers starts with the PROPER identification and treatment of individuals that are very likely to commit these acts.

      Most spree killers have left behind trails of evidence of their intent to harm others, evidence that is quick and easy to find and analyze after the fact. Now everyone needs to start acting proactively, rather than retroactively.

  4. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I watched enough to say this:

    YIKES!

    If I were a young woman and he came up to me and tried to talk with me (or *to* me, more like), I would be backing off and getting away as quickly as I could. And warning my girlfriends about him.

    • This is exactly what my girl said when she saw him, everything about the young man is repellent. His parents raised a real creep with him and they should have taken the obvious warning signs more seriously. He needed more than token therapy and probably from a very early age.

  5. Hannibal, normally I would agree with you- but this situation is so clearly an example why California’s laws, the strictest in the nation, had no effect upon Rodgers, and just like Lanza,

    the solution is not to ban guns from the law abiding, but to get mental health help for the troubled, and for their parents, who clearly had no other options other than to call the police- which simply wont work in most cases.

    Thats why Everytown, MDA, Brady, the VFC, and every other anti-gunner is quiet on this, and the various varieties of “news” media that supports the anti-gun agenda, is so desperate to find other angles, other stories, anything to avoid the truth.

  6. This is what happens when you give every kid a participation trophy, they never learn about winning and losing, that life isn’t always fair or easy. This is what happens when you give a kid a BMW, they learn they don’t have to work for anything. This is what happens when you play video games all day, you don’t learn how to communicate with other people in the world. Get your god damn kids off their computers, and internet and tv’s and phone’s and make them play organized sports, let them get their ass kicked and tell them to get up again, make them get a job where they learn to interact with other humans…

    • Or, by Occam; murder is what, on rare occasions, happen in a population of 300 million people. Some of your factors may have altered the probability a bit, as may others (fame/celebrity obsession, pervasive whoreification of women, the obesity epidemic rendering 75% of women unboinkable according to the PUA community this guy hated so much but which does that stuff for a living), but people have managed to find excuses to kill each other since the dawn of time. Nothing all that special or unique about this guy’s particular “reason.”

  9. Wow. Just wow. I don’t blame the parents for his actions. Just the video by itself reeks of bad parenting and not teaching their son about life. I could be way off the mark and he was just certifiable.

    And the media wants to blame “easy access to guns” and the NRA? I’m glad this was posted. It’s an eye opener.

  10. When the police who interviewed Elliot Rodger failed to ask to see the threat videos

    The cops knew about the videos and chose not to view them.

  11. I am still waiting for the police press conference where they show the knife he used.

    Was it an assault knife? Was it CA legal?

    The world wonders.

  12. If you run into any video you’re concerned will be taken down for one reason or another, use keepvid.com and download a .mp4 of it. Paste the video url into the site and it’ll give you all the flavors available of it.

  13. Why the f*** didn’t this whiny punk-ass bitch pull the trigger on himself, first, instead of killing others and then offing himself? So you didn’t get laid, Bitch. Boo F****** Hoo!

      • Easy enough to reach that conclusion, having the benefit of knowing what he later did. But before the fact, no, there is nothing “batshit” in this young man’s presentation, until he begins talking about the revenge he intends to exact for the injustice he has suffered at the hands of all the women who, he believes, were “repulsed” by him. Up to that point, he comes across as simply being pathetically lonely. I doubt that he even once actually approached a young woman and tried to start a conversation. Most likely he expected the young women to recognize him as the polite, sophisticated gentleman he deemed himself to be, and to come to him unbidden. As most of us who can’t call ourselves “chick magnets” know, that’s just not the way it works.

  16. I bet it’ll be creepy for that woman with the dog to see this and realize she came that close to a spree killer near the end. To my knowledge, I’ve never known anyone or come in contact with anyone who’s ever or soon gone on to commit any murders, let alone an infamous mass murder.

    I have known over the years several people who have gone on to kill themselves, though, and contact with each in the days preceding their final event was strikingly similar to this guy’s comportment. Less of the wild eyed vacant stares one might expect, and more a resolved gaze spanning the spaciousness of loneliness they all must have felt.

  17. We need to be careful what we wish for here! Two weeks ago we were upset about the general slide towards state paternalism, now we want this guy’s intemperate words to be cause enough for him to forfeit his civil rights.

  18. Ok, so I just sampled 4 1 minute segments from the video. Total creeper, deeply disturbed, and the final segment from 30:00 to the end is chilling. Anyone who saw that before he snapped should’ve called the police.

  20. Dude comes off really creepy and feminine and last time I checked women are attracted to masculinity. I mean…what guy puts his hands on his hips like a woman and says “magnificent”? Then the guy goes online and finds a website that bashes men that are good at gaming women. This is all on this guys family here. His father should of taught him how to be masculine and approach women. Considering the father is in the entertainment industry it should of been very easy for this kid to not even try and pull aspiring models and actresses.

  21. this idiot’s videos were staged and the killings were perpetrated by other individuals
    Richard Martinez is an actor. Who goes on TV and has press conferences after a death in their family. This is stupid

    • I’ve wondered this same thing. At Sandy Hook, the parents were in front of the cameras just a few hours after the shit unfolded. Same with this one. I don’t mean to presume to know what it’s like to grieve a slain child, but man. I just cannot imagine myself submitting to the media so quickly.

  23. I refuse to watch this video. I feel that when something like this happens, no one should ever know his name. His pictures and videos should never be seen. Do not give him the legacy he wanted. Maybe these maniacs would not bother to go out in a glory, if they knew there would be no glory. Maybe they would just die alone…

  24. He was a creep with a gargantuan sense of self and entitlement. I am not sorry he is dead. I am glad for it.

    I was interested to see what kind of creepy, twisted stuff this one dead lonely would have to say. But, I must admit that the first 5 minutes of that clip raised a very big question: How many other lonely, misfits are out there (that don’t express their frustration violently)?

    Have you ever been alone? Alone in a sea of people that don’t understand you? I have – living in a foreign country, unable to converse with the local kids. Not comprehending a different culture. Too afraid to try to fit in. And not knowing how.

    Find the misfits, suck it up and befriend them. Maybe you save one of them from a fate worse than loneliness. One ‘cool’ kid found me.

  25. Don t play this asshole anywhere .Burn these videos and never never say his name.this P.O.S no longet exists.Let’s keep it that way and show respect for the victims and rheir families!.

  26. Love how the dog was barking at him at the beginning of the video and the owner said the dog is normally friendly. Dogs (like women) can sense crazy and they don’t like it!

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