Chris Mercer from his dating profile (courtesy cbsnews.com)

“Authorities investigating the shooting say they have found a number of firearms at the gunman’s apartment and CBS News correspondent Jeff Peques reports that one of the guns recovered at the scene of the shooting is not registered to the gunman.” The ATF just held a news conference revealing that they’d recovered 13 weapons, including six at the school. CBS reports that the killer’s arsenal included a 9mm GLOCK, a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol. a .40 caliber Taurus pistol and a “.556 caliber rifle” (Del-Ton carbine). CBS also reports – and the ATF confirms – that . . .

Chris Mercer wore or carried a bullet-resistant vest. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the British-born spree killer’s acquaintances are telling the media what a nice quiet boy he was.

Carmen Nesnick, the stepsister of Mercer, said her stepbrother was not a religious nor anti-religious person and that her family is Christian.

“All he ever did was put everybody before himself. He wanted everyone to be happy. No matter if he was sad or mad, he would always try to cheer up everybody,” she said.

Rick Rada, Mercer’s former classmate at Switzer Learning Center (for students with “moderate to severe learning disabilities, emotional issues, attention problems and behavioral disorders”) recalls Mercer as quiet, cheerful and calm.

“To me Chris was just an ordinary guy, really. He was one of the silent types like me,” Rada told The Washington Post. “But we got along with our teachers. He opened up with the teachers, talked to them, had fun.”

Mercer’s father told reporters that he was “shocked as anybody at what happened today.” Meanwhile, the press is running with the idea that Mercer was a loner motivated by a desire for posthumous fame.

In one post on the blog about Flanagan, Mercer apparently wrote, “I have noticed that so many people like [Flanagan] are alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems like the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

As horrible as it sounds, you can’t argue with that. (And please don’t lace into me for posting Mercer’s name and image. We’ve been through this before.) It’s increasingly clear Mercer fit the “disaffected loner” profile most recently attributed to mentally unhinged LA spree killer Elliot Rodger. (That’s Mercer’s online dating profile pic above.) USAtoday.com:

Authorities have recovered a document they believe may have written by the man responsible Oregon community college rampage that bitterly refers to a lonely existence with few actual human connections beyond the author’s online communications, a law enforcement official tells USA TODAY.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly, said that authorities were still reviewing the document that was described as “rambling.” Investigators believe the gunman appeared to associate with a loosely-affiliated online community known as the “beta boys” that has tended to glorify mass shootings, similar to the Oregon attack, the official said.

The document left behind, and believed to be written by the shooter, lamented an isolated life with little promise, the official said.

At the same time, the Post is leading with the idea that Mercer suffered from “religious rage.”

Witnesses to the Oregon bloodshed described Mercer as questioning people at gunpoint about their religious affiliations, and appearing to single out Christians for killing.

“He said, ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,’ ” said Stacy Boylan, recounting the account of his wounded daughter, Anastasia, who underwent surgery to treat a gunshot to her spine.
“And then he shot and killed them,” he said.

Citing two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation, the Los Angeles Times reports that Mercer “was a ‘hate-filled’ individual who had anti-religion, anti-government and white supremacy leanings.” The latter being a strange leaning for a man with a mixed race background.

For its part, breitbart.com reports that Mercer may have fallen under the influence of Mahmoud Ali Ehsani, one of two of the friends listed on Mercer’s MySpace page (who uses that anymore?). Ehsansi doesn’t appear to have it in for Christians (Mercer asked if his victims were Christian before deciding whether to shoot them in the head or legs) while Mercer’s contact is certainly no friend of the Jews.

Ehsani published a photo album titled, “Classic – The Mujahideen Collection LOL,” featuring Islamic terrorists from several countries, including PalestineIran, and Pakistan, among others.

One caption reads: “my brave soldiers keep on fighting for the liberation of Palestine against Israel. fuck israel. Kill the jews. jews are the only infidels.”

More info as we receive it.

148 COMMENTS

    • That was the first thing I wondered. Seems to be a connection between these events, the perpetrator, and prescription drug use.

    • I don’t understand this fixation the pro-2A crowd has on anti-psychotic medications. If someone is crazy enough to kill another person, they are clearly psychotic. Therefore, they are put on an anti-psychotic medication. Later, they have their psychotic break and kill someone and people use the medications as a scape goat. He was psychotic – psychotic people need antipsychotic meds.

    • Why Don, cause we are too politically correct to use a contraction? Can’t say sugar meds? heart meds? psych meds? maybe this was a side effect of Cialis?

    • P….r….e…s….c….r….I….p….t….I…..o….n…………..m…..e……d…..I…..c……a……t…..I…….o…..n
      Is that slow enough ?
      Is the other description too mean to someone who is taking ………………………………… P….r…..e…..s…..c….r….I….p…..t…..I…..o…..n………….m……e…..d…..I…..c……a……t…..I…..o….n for psych ?

  1. That picture is from his online dating profile? Geez, no wonder he couldn’t get laid. No woman in her right mind would give him a second look. It screams loser who lives in his mom’s basement.

    • You only say that because he actually was a loser who lived in his mom’s basement.

      Hey at least he wasn’t fat.

      • Actually his dating profile said he’s 5’9 and 180 lbs, so he’s definitely overweight (probably sucking in his stomach or wearing the baggy shirt to hide it).

      • Nope. His picture just reeks of inconsequence and sour defeat. That stench is hard to clean from my screen here. It would only have been worse for a woman viewing it on a dating site.

        Now, I get it, women seem wicked, when you’re unwanted, and the rest of that, but it’s abundantly clear even without hindsight that he was going nowhere with that.

    • Who wouldn’t want to go out with a guy who is willing to put forth so much effort? He put on a tank top for his picture. And went all the way to the kitchen.

      • His two MySpace friends have hundreds of friends of their own linked to their profiles. Compared to almost all of them, CHM’s profile picture is like a GQ fashion plate.

        ===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

  2. Guns were purchased legally & were done with PASSED background checks.
    Yet AGAIN, what new “common sense” laws wold have prevented this? NONE!

      • Which is why we need to go a step further and restrict magazine capacity and quantity and mandatory registration so we know who has how many guns.

        – The Left

        • Magazine contents should be restricted to magazine follower only, and no “one in the pipe!
          Far left

        • Playboy objectifies womyn and is basically the same thing as rape. It also forces a fascist, heterosexual, patriarchal view on womyn and homosexuals. Anyone responsible for it should be in prison.

          -The extreme left

          P.S. Lock up anyone who has ever touched a gun outside of a government job.

      • We just need MORE background checks! Then when that fails, just ban arbitrary features! Then when that fails, ban MORE arbitrary features!

        • Background Checks on ammo, I mean checks on the Ammo to make sure it is the safe no evil kind that kills unicorns and fairies

        • Wait a minute , what about ammo that doesn’t kill at all , has anyone thought of that ?
          Man , I think I’m onto something . It just might work . Non lethal ammo , you know , like , made out of cake or jello pudding . That way if someone went to shoot us we could just put on our bibs and open our chops . UMMMM .

        • hmmmm… reminds of the loyalty oaths in Catch 22.

          Figuring making you sign more was better, ultimately signing one was required to visit the mess hall.

    • Obviously we need rectal probing, for reasons. If you disagree, then you hate children and are probably a Nazi and or pedophile. This is just common sense, folks.

    • I know!

      The law isn’t magic Mommy Juju protecting everybody! Who could have known?

      Therefore we need to get rid of all laws, or have more laws. I can never figure out which.

      Get rid of all laws for those who won’t comply with them, more laws for those who will.

      I think that’s it, right?

  3. One fooked up punk-curiously no age on Peoplesmart. Sadly it fits the “profile”…

  4. How is it that Christians are targeted, yet Muslims already blamed and Jews implied as victims? Political correctness running wild.

  5. Guns were purchased by shooter (and some by his family members) legally. But they will still push for more laws that only affect law abiding gun owners.

  6. Eh, I’m always leery of the “he had body armor” in these type of factual disaster articles because the media can’t tell the difference between a nylon tactical vest with ammo pouches and a IIIA soft vest or a plate carrier with hard plates and they don’t really care as long as it is “ZOMG, TOTALLY SENSATIONAL!!!!”

    • Yep remember the Aurora clownshoe had 10,000 dollars in armor according to conspiracy theorists, and it was what a drop leg holster and a NCstar vest

    • Police reported that he had a plate carrier with steel plates (I assume AR500). So, yeah he had real body armor, not a airsoft vest.

      • while he was waiting for the victim to state their position on whether or not they were or considered themselves to be Christian another student could have bypassed said body armor and politely given this punk the proverbial
        ‘ head shot ‘ .

  7. LOL @breitbart.
    Disaffected loser shoots up school. Same M.O. as usual. But wait! He’s MySpace friends with a Mozlem loser who hates Jews. That’s gotta be the real reason.

  8. The shooter described himself as biracial. Which, in modern MSM speak, makes him a “white black.”

      • Black on the outside and white in the inside, like an Oreo?

        Here’s a puzzlement. Many black people in America have some non-black genes, with some having more than others. So why are they considered “black” and not “biracial” or something else?

        Did Rachel Dolezal become black because she identified as black? Is Elizabeth Warren a native American because she considers herself to be the modern Pocahontas? Or is the whole concept of race a confusing agglomeration?

    • Shades of the multi-racial George Zimmerman being dubbed “White Hispanic”.

      Seriously, why does the MSM have **any** credibility at this point?

  9. I think whoever said give this 48 hours had it on the money. Seems to be far too much speculation and unconfirmed stuff compared to factual substance.

  10. White supremacist? A mixed-race person (half black, to be a bit more precise)? Oh, right, it’s from the LATimes

      • Reminds me of Steve Martin, as Navin Johnson in The Jerk, shocked as an adult to find he’d been adopted.

  11. The details that are inconvenient truths will be ignored by the ReliablePartyOrgans, while they preach and propagandize for The Gun Grabber in Chiefs last ditch effort for a legacy on gun control…

    The speed of The One’s press conference, with call for action to the press was classic soviet style agitprop.

  12. The quote talking about Flanagan is from a blog by a person who used the moniker “Lithium_Love.” This was identified as Harper-Mercer, but if you look at LL’s writings, they actually seem pretty reasonable. People are Photoshopping the posts to make it seem that he was a BlackLivesMatter supporter; the opposite was true.

    I grabbed a bunch of relevant comments by Lithium_Love and put them up here, with a bit of context:
    http://www.dehavelle.com/2015/10/lithium-love/

    The writings are so unalarming that I strongly suspect that Lithium_Love is not Chris Harper-Mercer. In the meantime, watch out for altered postings.

    ===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

    • I just read a report that said specifically he was anti BLM, which is where the white supremacy angle is coming from. Apparently if you don’t support BLM you are a KKK member.

      • Here’s what “Lithium_Love” said about BlackLivesMatter:

        Black lives matter is different because most there are far more murders done by blacks against themselves than by police, and to defend a thug like michael brown is just wrong. And a man grievances, whether real or percieved are more of a justification(not saying he was right)than stealing a cigar from a store and people protesting his death, which he brought on himself through his actions and choices. Those same people ought to be protesting about the violence is in the inner city. People won’t respect you until you respect yourself

        Hardly provocative to a reasonable person. Nor is this suggestive of a “white supremacist.”

        Again, I don’t think this fellow is the Oregon shooter, but so far his words are being touted as if he were. The other fellow, the one on 4chan and /r9k/, is if anything a “nerd supremacist.” He doesn’t seem to be the Oregon shooter, but he strikes me as a candidate for next week’s mass shootings.

        ===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

      • Is BLM “Black Lives Matter” or “Bureau of Land Management”?

        Can’t tell the difference anymore. 🙂

    • “Why is it that whenever a crime is committed with a gun, Democrats want to take guns away from the people who didn’t do it???”

    • Be an adult! Not a child!

      If anyone thinks that refusing to publish a killers name and post a killers picture is somehow preventing future shootings you have the intellectual capacity of a 5 year old.

      • Use your brain. Plastering his name and face all over the place is what he wanted, and doing so encourages others to “beat his score”. It’s not preventing shootings, it’s about trying to not encourage them..

        • Yes agreed , but having a picture of him coming out of a very cold shower in his birthday suit would have been productive . I think embarrassment is the best form of punishment for nearly all humankind and could be used as a strong deterrent . They discovered this long ago with the village pillory and stock and the scarlet letter .

      • In one post on the blog about Flanagan, Mercer apparently wrote, “I have noticed that so many people like [Flanagan] are alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems like the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

        Did you even read the article?

        • That’s some kind of backwards logic.. if no one knows his name it has literally no power.
          The Voldemort thing doesn’t apply here. In the world of Harry Potter, the wizards were afraid of him, and he used his name to induce fear. We’re not afraid of these mass shooters, we’re apparently enamored by them which is what drives them. This guy supposedly said it himself. Nobodies become somebodies just by killing a few people in a public place thanks to the news spreading their identity.

  13. As I write, the Governor and we have Senator Wyden speaking in OR and using the words “compromise” and “Rights” all in the same sentence. These intensive power-hungry politicians can’t resist an opportunity to promote agenda.
    We have a behavioral problem. Why we do or what to do about it is unknown. But is the problem worse or do we all just know about what has always gone on per capita? But we certainly do not have a firearm problem.

    Those who speak out in this way deserve total and complete scorn as they only serve to destroy the fabric of our society as a whole.

    • I have a feeling you will have a fight on your hands next year. With the blue oregon legislature tragedy, and a governor who probably hasn’t seen an unconstitutional gun she doesn’t like, it doesn’t bode well.

      • “There’s always a crisis and the impulse is always to do something, and it’s not necessarily the right thing to do.”
        –Jeb Bush, Furman University – Greenville, 2 Oct. 2015, commenting on the Umpqua College shooting

        “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
        ~ Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, Feb 08, 2009

  14. I’ll bet this guy was “christian” like a leftist NY jew is “jewish”. In both caes their born religion is meaningless and they live the values of Leftism. The chief value of Leftism is that there is no objective standards of right and wrong and you are you’re own God.

    The increasing common mindset that there is no ultimate judgement for your
    actions is propagated by the Left. To me it’s a common thread that runs thtough most mass killings.

  15. At other places I heard the Australian gun control system brought up. I cannot justify it and the country is just not the same as the US in that Australia has 25 million people. A much easier to control population in the logistic sense. To imagine the US in the same condition is not even close to any reality.
    That said…
    Again we have a quiet unassuming type ( to those close to him) who is evil incarnate.
    What the hell do you do about that?

    Divination?

    • You don’t do anything about it, because in spite of how horrific these events are they (“mass” shootings) account for less than 1% of all firearms deaths in the US. As one of the earlier articles today pointed out, in Chicago there have been something like 60 gang/criminal related shooting deaths in Chicago in the month of September. These are shootings committed with guns that have likely not changed hands legally in this decade in spite of all the laws making it super illegal. These are perpetrated by people with rap sheets longer than most doctoral theses who just keep getting sent out into society through the revolving door of the US “justice” system.

    • The “he was such a nice, quiet boy who never hurt a fly…I can’t believe he did something like that” thing is a psychological defense mechanism. Admitting that you knew this guy was broken for years and the real surprise is that it took this long for him to kill a bunch of people creates a feeling of culpability that a lot of people will lie through their teeth to avoid.
      Kind of like how no one who runs over a person with a car ever sees them.

  16. So many nut-cases! It’s an unknown when and where someone with bad intent will appear and threaten ones health and existence. In that moment of need, there is only one person we can ultimately depend on, ourselves. Every creature is inherently hard-wired with some degree of self-preservation.
    As humans, if the time arises, most will attempt to save ourselves from impending death, if possible.
    Some may place their fate in faith, which generally doesn’t work so well. Those remaining after tragedy sometimes owe survival to blind luck. Others remain due to pure determination and the will to survive who refused to succumb to deaths chance.

    PS: Watch Z Nation tonight. I’m the one playing cards for Z-Weed and taking straight shots.

  17. Just curious is TTAG removing posts that are properly stated but is not liked. I have one post that seems to have disappeared regarding ttag (robert) being like the mainstream media instead of being better than it.

    • They’ve always trimmed editorial comments and made it clear they don’t believe they serve a useful purpose in the comment threads. Don’t like a post? Send an email.

    • There are Known knowns . These are things that we know . There are known unknowns . That is to say , there are things that we know we don’t know , but there are also unknown unknowns . There are things we don’t know we don’t know .

    • Marty, they have software to remove spam and other undesirable posts. It’s not perfect and they are not deleting your post on purpose. It’s sitting in a holding cell at the moment, waiting for someone to walk by and say…oops?

      It has happened to me. Especially the posts where I actually put thought and effort into a well written, lucid long comment, only to have it vanish into nothingness. Naturally at that moment, I generally went on a profanity laced tirade of short duration.

  18. “Beta boys”

    Lol.. /pol/ is literally everywhere now. And it seems like they are right again. Oh, 4chan.. how they still, to this day, manage to mess with every serious event.

    • You are right and the media is playing right into it because they don’t know any better/don’t understand what is happening.

  19. And again the media’s making these people into instant celebrities is clearly at least partly responsible for the blood spilled.

    How many more before some common sense restrictions on reporting violence in the mainstream media are put in place? What excuse do they have when it could be so easy, with simply a few reasonable broadcast rules, to completely remove a primary motivation from these kind of killers?

    • That was the point of my seemingly disappeared post.

      That TTAG thrives on giving dirtbags a podium to be famous.

        • Just because other media is making known and /or showing the scum’s picture,
          does that mean every point of media should.

          Would you jump off a cliff simply because everyone ahead of you did?

          At least the Sheriff will not utter the bastards name.

          His name and photo does nothing to teach us how to possibly respond should we ever get caught in a situation like that. We can learn and glean info from situational events without the bastard’s themselves getting immortalized by the media.

        • Would you jump off a cliff simply because everyone ahead of you did?

          Could you be any more obtuse (you’ll have to look it up). I wouldn’t jump off a roof because it would hurt me. This post doesn’t. If it makes you butthurt, too bad. Don’t read it, close your eyes, put your fingers in your ears and hum. See, now the boogie man can’t hurt you.

  20. The journalist screwed up the piece. There is no “registration” there, but the media dimwits that don’t understand firearm laws wouldn’t know any better. The ATF couldn’t TRACE the weapon to him, meaning he bought it used, not that it wasn’t registered to him (how do you register a gun to yourself when there’s no place to register it?)

    • I see the ‘registered firearm’ mistake a lot. I’d tend to think it was on purpose but that seems counterproductive to the gun control crowd. Millions of non gun owners think there’s a whole system of gun control in place that doesn’t even exist because lazy reporters almost never get the story right. Then again there’s millions of people who think point nine millimeter is a popular handgun caliber.

  21. All of these nuts and their body armor, I am going to start doing the body armor drill more often. All the armor in the world is not going to stop a 9mm round from going through your face and destroying your brain.

  22. “a lonely existence with few actual human connections beyond the author’s online communications”

    He may well have been crazy, but if this is the extent of the leading indicators we have to work with, then it’s going to be impossible to build usable profiles of people in hopes of intervening before a spree shooting.

    After all, that same could well describe a substantial minority of commenters on TTAG.

    • For the time being I’ll run with the profile “somewhat-to-very autistic, collects guns, goes target shooting with his mom and lives in her basement or living room, hasn’t seen his dad lately, and hasn’t lost his virginity by the time he can legally buy a drink.”

  23. “Meanwhile, the press is running with the idea that Mercer was a loner motivated by a desire for posthumous fame.”

    And this is exactly what they, and you are giving him. Congrats on being part of the problem.

    • JT, your comment might have some validity if only for the fact that his name and pictures were already broadcast to the world on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, BBC, NYTimes, LATimes, NYPost, Seattle Times, The Oregonian, CNN, Fox, and every other broadcast, print and digital news outlet in the entire freaking world. But hey, if TTAG kept it’s readers in the dark, we’d all be okay and no copycat would ever, you know, copy.

    • String his body up, leave it for a few days, and create a buzz around photos of his maggot-ridden, crow-pecked corpse so large that those dominate the first page of his Google images.

      • More realistically, once one of these scum is taken out, roll the body face-down, let some blood pool, and use that pic. Such a pic says, “Dead loser, not important, not worth notice”.

  24. This guy seemed to live at the intersection of Paulbot and OWS streets so it looks like my rebuttal characterization to Mark Bolen from yesterday was closer to the mark than I expected.

    • Wow, way to apply the characteristics of the political groups you hate to a known mass murder. Must really have an axe to grind this guy.

  25. “He was one of the silent types like me,” Rada told The Washington Post.

    Ah ha! Lock up that Rada guy. He’s a silent type just like the shooter. First victim, er, I mean “success” of the new more stringent “mental health” regime.

  26. It has been reported that he was discharged from the army after about a month of service, if you can call it that. Why? Why wasn’t he dishonorably discharged? Would have prevented a legal purchase

    Of course, that would have lowered his self esteem, and that would have been bad, mmkay

    • He might have just washed out of basic, which isn’t really a valid reason for a dishonorable.

      • Yep. We started basic with about 50 guys. At the end we had about 35. None of the dropped did anything warrenting a dishonourable. Not everybody can hack military life.

        Alvin York was a CO when he was in boot.

  27. From the Army Times

    “Chris Harper-Mercer, 26, was in the Army for a little more than a month at Fort Jackson — from Nov. 5 to Dec. 11, 2008 — spokesman Lt. Col. Ben Garrett said, but was discharged for failing to meet the minimum standards.

    Garrett did not say which standards Harper-Mercer failed to meet. Generally, the Army requires recruits to pass physical fitness tests and to be generally in good physical and mental health. Recruits must also pass a multiple-choice test covering science, math, reading comprehension and other topics.”

    http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/crime/2015/10/02/army-oregon-gunman-failed-basic-training-2008/73222218/

    • He’s also reported to have graduated from the school for emotionally disturbed/learning-challenged students in 2009. That doesn’t seem to make much sense.

      ===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

      • Uh yeah it DOES Keith. My son was in special ed for years(communication problems) and he generally got straight ‘A’s as the best in his class. He was tops in special ed in grade school graduation too. He was mainstreamed as a sophomore and graduated high school with honors. And got great grades in Jr. College. BTW a lot of his classmates were disturbed/uncontrollable too. Not enough $ to separate everyone…

        • It wasn’t the nature of the school, it was the timing, He was described as having attended the school for two years, but his stint in the military was inside this period.

          ===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle

  28. You guys should do an article on Chris Mintz. The guy that was shot so many times when he tried to stop this Psycho. I really hope that Chris pulls through and is not to messed up from his gunshot wounds. He is a TRUE HERO for what he did yesterday. Seems like a miracle that he is even alive today.

  29. I’m not looking forward to the day when the gang bangers in Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, and so forth….learn that if they just shoot 4+ folks, not a measly 2 (but every six months), they’ll be famous overnight.

    • Sadly that happens ALL the time in Chicago-and no fame is involved. Lots of incidents where 4 or more are shot…like last weekend.

  30. “t they’d recovered 13 weapons, including six at the school”

    SIX at the school.

    He came armed for business.

    I wonder, could one UNARMED security guard have protected the campus?

    No.
    And UNARMED security guard is an AFRONT to the respect, dignity, and safety of the students.

    Would the odds have improved if SIX ARMED Students and/or Faculty have taken him out before he had the chance to do his carnage?

    I think so.

    All those who think the students, or atleast the adult students, or atleast the veteran students should not have been allowed to defend themselves should have to serve as Human Shields until they change their minds.

  31. Prescription meds cause more problems than they fix, unless you count the bribes, I mean lobby” the politicians. No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your support and vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com

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