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“Police have arrested Jason Brian Dalton in connection with three shooting incidents that killed six people and injured two more in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, prosecutor Jeff Getting said Sunday.” After issuing the obligatory “this has nothing to do with terrorism” assurance to the local populace, authorities admit they have no idea why Dalton cruised through town opening fire on (what seemed to be) random individuals last night. “‘What it looks like is we have someone just driving around, finding people and shooting them dead in their tracks,’ Kalamazoo County Undersheriff Paul Matyas told CNN affiliate WOOD-TV.” Yet another good reason — if they need one — for Michiganders to take full advantage of their state’s much improved concealed carry laws.

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59 COMMENTS

    • I will be interested to see if there are anti-depressants, or other pharmaceuticals involved. The phrase “may increase thoughts of suicide” are found on waaayyyy too many of today’s drugs – and suicide is not that many degrees from “kill everybody!” in terms of chemical imbalances.

      • I’ve personally known several people who had to discontinue Prozac because of homicidal thoughts (one after just a week of taking it, who was nearly hospitalized when the withdrawals started). So many mental health professionals would rather just throw pills at a problem until one sticks that they don’t even pause to wonder if they got the diagnosis right, let alone what side effects they might cause.

        • Since in the entire history of psychiatry no procedure or treatment has ever been devised that can reliably treat, much less cure, mental illness, treating the symptoms with psychotropic drugs is the fall-back position that makes it appear that they are actually doing something valuable. Psychiatry is the only medical profession where you do not have to actually cure anybody of the disease you are treating in order to be licensed to practice.

          Psychotropic drugs are to mental illness what banning guns is to crime prevention.

      • I fully expect that it will turn out the guy was on some kind of antidepressant meds. I also fully expect that we won’t hear much about that aspect of the case in media reports. That detail, which is alarmingly common in these kinds of spree killings, always seems to be glossed over and ignored, for some reason…

        That’s not to say that those drugs, on their own, cause people to become violent, but it does seem like there’s a pretty good case to be made that there might be a connection, and that certain conditions can be made a whole lot worse by drugs like Prozac and Wellbutrin.

      • “suicide is not that many degrees from “kill everybody!” in terms of chemical imbalances.”

        Do you have a source for this pearl of wisdom?

  2. I bet he lived with his mom. Hadn’t touched a real woman in 10 years. Was angry that he was being held back by preferential treatment for minorities. Etc. Etc. Etc.

    Angry douche of a troll.

    Be armed people.

    • He was married with two children, owned his house, liked to work on cars, and drove for Uber. Neighbors found this totally unexpected.

      In fact, he kept driving his fares around between the shootings.

        • I can see cab companies milking this crime:

          “Your Uber driver may be in the middle of a spree-killing, use Yellow Cab instead…”.

      • This could not possibly be true since Uber policy does not allow either drivers or passengers to have firearms in the vehicle.

      • Uber has a “no guns” policy. I don’t abide by it, because I’ve seen some pretty nasty behavior by Uber drivers ranging from DUIs to felony assault & battery.

        • His agent called and let him know he didn’t get the cover of SI swimsuit edition because his eyes are too close together.

    • According to the neighbor who lived across the street from the killer:

      “This seems so out of sorts for him,” said her husband, who described Dalton as “quiet,” and “nice.” Pardo did tell CNN, however, “I know he liked guns.”

      Ahhhh…………guns! NOW we’re getting to the bottom of this!

      • Yes, “nice” and “quiet,” but there is this little gem, also: “Neighbors described him as quiet and polite, though he caught their attention when he occasionally shot a gun out the back door of the house he shared with his wife and two children” (NY Times).

        Sure, he was a great neighbor, except when he was doing batshit crazy stuff. Who could have imagined that he would snap? (I will admit that his home is north of Kalamazoo, and it is in a pretty darn rural area, but there are homes that line his street.)

  3. My condolences to all the family members of the victims. This is my home state and it’s a shame what happened. This loser never needs to see the light of day again. He probably used a rifle to shoot from afar because so many of us are armed in michigan as we are a “shall issue state”. This loser was to chicken to try and get up close and do his evil because of our cpl law. Hope he rots in a cell forever.

  4. What an a-hole. I realize that chance running into a guy like this is extremely small but I feel just tiny bit more justified for wearing my vest about 2/3 of the time I am out. (They reported he was using a handgun) Sometimes you just won’t see it coming. In the winter it is part of my cold weather apparel, in the summer it is a torture device when not in air conditioning.

  5. The question here is not, “how did he get a gun” but “how was he a free citizen?” People this bat shit crazy are known by someone. No one just “snaps” and drives around killing people, I’m sure he was broken for a long time

    • Until a embryonic nutcase snaps and does something violent, there’s no (legitimate) reason in the world why he should not be a free citizen.

  6. Well now that it has happen in my city I wonder how many talking heads will say which with the ease this nutter got his firearm. In my shall issue state you are sent through not one but two background checks. Once when obtaining a pistol purchase permit then the NICS when you pick up your hangun. So I guess the idiotic universal background check would have doubly stopped this tragedy. I pray for those taken and their loved ones.

  7. I too live in Michigan a few miles north of where this happened. I was listening to the news while he was still at large and was thinking this was going to be very very bad. I was frankly surprised to hear the report of his capture.
    Nothing, NOTHING justifies this. Not upbringing, life issues, nothing. Get him mental help yes but in a prison (we are not a capitol punishment state yet) where he will NEVER GET OUT.
    One of my first thoughts, right or wrong was that it is too bad a good guy/ gal with a gun wasn’t there to end this sooner than it did.
    Not classified officially or not, to the families affected there IS NO DIFFERENCE.
    It should stand as such as any mass ( especially but not limited to) should.
    My Sincere condolences to all the families involved.

  8. So let’s see, which gun free zone did he drive into that stopped this rabid, murderous, psychopathic animal?

    Oh, it looks like that’s not what happened, this bad actor ended up confronting good people with guns who would not allow him to continue his rampage; and the killing stopped.

    It was guns that stopped the killing. Bears repeating; It was guns that stopped the killing, in the hands of good men. That they were police is inconsequential, it could just as easily have been a non uniformed and non-badged citizens with guns, the result would have been the same.

    It was guns that stopped the killing, and they were good guns, guns that acted in the pursuit of morality and justice – guns that were helping society, preserving order and making people safer.

    And do tell, absent the men with guns – what else would have stopped this man? GFZ signs? Larger GFZ signs? GFZ signes with blinking lights and sirens? Nope, good chance he would have just shot the signs. Anything else that would have stopped him? Running out of ammo I guess is all that is left.

    No. There is nothing else that would have stopped this man but force. Evil man with gun is only stopped with equal or greater force, that is to say guns.

    And this is a truth, a law, like gravity. It is.

    It was guns that stopped the killing,

    It was guns that stopped the killing,

  9. Sorry to see this. Yes-be armed. The interyahoo is blowing up about gun control. I sure hope this insane douche isn’t a legal upstanding citizen.

  10. I go pretty crazy this time of year too, waiting for Oberon to come back out, but this is just ridiculous.

  11. So, let me get this straight. This guy goes out and shoots a bunch of random people in public, and it’s not terrorism, but the meth-head “soccer mom” in the other article got thrown a terrorism charge for pointing a pellet gun at two people? It’s almost as if the overuse of the word “terrorism” has made it meaningless.

      • And the meth-head soccer mom wasn’t doing her thing for political reasons, which used to be part of the definition of “terrorism”. But that was way back in the good ol’ days, before we started calling high school bullies and people who posted unpopular opinions on Facebook “terrorists”…

    • “Terroristic threats” is a charge that’s been around for a long time, which doesn’t have anything to do with what we think of as “Terrorism”. It can be something as mundane as “Hey, I’m kicking your ass in the parking lot later.” The simple terrorizing of an individual. Its only taken on (wrongly) the implication of “Terrorism” since 2001, when Al Queda started hiding under everyone’s bed at night.

    • Uber is a giant international corporation with its US headquarters in California (bay area). It is not surprising that they would rather try to protect themselves against deep-pocket lawsuits than protect their driver’s and passenger’s RKBA.

      I drove four months for Uber in Las Vegas and no issues regarding guns in the car, even during SHOT show. Bottom line, the prohibition is as effective as any other GFZ – no effect at all. In those four months I NEVER asked a passenger that got in my car if they were carrying. No passenger checked with me before getting in whether or not I was carrying. No Uber inspector (and there are many making random checks) ever got on board and questioned me or even brought up the subject of guns.

      The worst thing that could happen if you carry concealed in an Uber car is that the driver MIGHT notice if you are careless, MIGHT ask you to exit his car (how brave is that in the face of an armed rider?) and might report you to Uber which would result in your account being canceled. Seems to me that the value of Uber or Lyft outweighs the slim chance that you might be found out and have your account canceled.

      I objected to the no firearms policy at Uber, but it did not keep me from driving for them (my console was quite roomy), nor was that policy the reason I decided to stop driving for them.

  14. Scary stuff. One would sure be justified to empty their gun at that that guy with extreme prejudice.

    • Remember, we are legally justified to keep shooting ONLY as long as it takes to STOP a credible, imminent threat of great bodily injury or death. The instant that our attacker is no longer a credible threat of imminent great bodily injury or death we must stop shooting.

      How many shots that requires varies from one instance to the next … and could vary from zero shots to 20 or more shots.

      • I’m pro death penalty. I’ll go on record as a volunteer for his firing squad. Provided of course that he is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt after an appropriate trial.

        • I support the death penalty in cases like this when there is irrefutable evidence (in other words no doubt whatsoever) that the accused is guilty. Irrefutable evidence would take the form of video and possibly audio recordings of the attacker perpetrating their crime. There might be other forms of evidence that would be irrefutable as well.

      • @ uncommon_sense
        If he shot at me or I witnessed him shoot at or shoot someone, I would make the judgment that he is homicidal and an extreme danger too everyone and given the tactical opportunity, maybe even a risky opportunity, I would shoot that guy until his head looked like a busted watermelon and there isn’t an agency in this country that would bring charges.
        I’m glad they got him alive though, we need a bad guy to point our fingers at.

  16. Of course badly needed gun control legislation will fix all of this. Of course the questions will be what kind of gun was it? Where was it purchased from? Who was it purchased from? Were background checks performed? Could the guy legally own or purchase a gun? Was the guy on meds? What unconstitutional laws would fix this? What non-effective laws can we pass to feel better about this?

  17. Just listening now to one of the moron talking heads on CNN recalling the “shooting spree that left six dead” in Santa Barbara. Once again, no mention half those killed (in fact three military age males) in that incident were by knife.

    In the UK they had a guy kill a dozen people driving around with a BREAK ACTION shotgun.

    Uber does both criminal and mental health checks though a medical record waiver. There is on single gun control measure proposed that would have affected this crime

    • There is one gun control measure that gun-grabbers believe would have affected the outcome of this crime: civilian disarmament.

      We know better. We know that violent criminals will always find a way to acquire firearms — even if they have to make their own. And in the absence of firearms, we know that violent criminals will simply use different tactics and weapons.

  18. JASON DALTON DIDN’T FOLLOW UBERS NO GUN POLICY; this posted 30 min. ago by CNN

    Kalamazoo, Michigan (CNN)The man accused of killing six people and injuring two more in a Saturday evening shooting rampage in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was an Uber driver who picked up and dropped off passengers between shootings, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN.

    The source, who is not authorized to speak to media, said investigators believe Jason Dalton was even looking for fares after the final shooting of a nearly seven-hour killing rampage.

    The ride-sharing company confirmed to CNN that Dalton, 45, was an Uber driver and said he had passed a background check.

    “We are horrified and heartbroken at the senseless violence in Kalamazoo,” Uber’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan said to CNN in a statement. “We have reached out to the police to help with their investigation in any way that we can.”

  19. Interesting to see what the motive or cause is. Goes to show you though, no background checks or gun bans prevented this tragedy. He also could have been a cabbie, truck driver, or a lawyer. Already the trolls are attributing it to being a card carrying NRA member – which nobody knows if he is or not.

  21. I live on the south side of the city near loy norrix…..was a moderate shock to hear something like this happen so close to home….

  22. Why does everyone in America say he must be sick. Could it be these people are not sick at all and they just want to cause harm to people. Because cnn and Drs say these people are sick . Just like a rapist people always say a rapist is sick. Why do we have to agree these people are sick. Is it a tool we use to excuse these murders so we can feel better. I feel so bad for the poor souls that were killed from a man who just wanted to kill. Where were the good people with guns to stop this guy. Does mich have strict gun laws that local sheriff has to approve or do they have the 2nd to say they can have gun rights. If you are a legal person to carry a gun then you should have that duty to carry a gun. We can’t depend on police to protect us. They are never around where the crimes are taken place and the police don’t know who what when and were the crime will be . People of America you are the police to protect yourself and others.

  23. What is with all the doctor bashing here on TTAG?
    The only doctors who cure patients of a disease are infectious disease and oncology doctors.
    Maybe G.I. doctors, if you include ulcers. Which are an infectious disease caused by H. Pylori. bacteria.
    Diabetes and hypertension are “managed”, not cured. So is asthma, most cancers and all other chronic diseases like gout, arthritis, and hypothyroidism.
    Even with tight control of glucose and pressure, we still see stroke, blindness, kidney failure and heart attack due to these 2 common diseases.
    As an Anesthesiologist, I have saved many peoples lives, including children.
    I have not cured a single patient yet.
    I wish I lived where I could safely shoot right out my back door. Honey! Kids! checking out my new red dot. Fire in the hole! Blam!

    • What doctor bashing? It’s incredibly tame, and if anything, should really be far more frequent in the sense that 300K from medical errors every year should be something we should be focused on, rather than 15K+ 90IQ low-level drug dealers killing each other for turf.

      But all joking aside, who the hell would an anesthesiologist be expected to cure? A narcoleptic? The couple of guys I know in the field put ’em down, and keep them alive to eventually come back. It can be complicated, it’s a specialty, but no one looks at your field like you’ll actually cure them. We expect you to keep the patient on that fine line between ‘unconscious’ and ‘dead’. There’s lots that you do, but “cure” is not really your bailiwick.

      I would take some issue with regards your position on diabetes. There are many scenarios where I and especially II are put into seemingly permanent remission with diet and exercise. Sometimes, lapband surgery. Not to mention this (if it pans out).

      http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/10/melton-creates-beta-cells

      We eat a bunch of garbage our bodies are not evolved for, because it tastes good or it’s all we have on offer. That it causes health problems is of no surprise. It’s like antibacterial soaps – it’s a horrid idea, we knew it was even in the ’50s (kill 99.9% leaving the strongest 0.1% with no competition, what could go wrong?) yet we plowed on.

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