virginia beach shooting
Police work the scene where eleven people were killed during a mass shooting at the Virginia Beach city public works building (L. Todd Spencer/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)

It started about 4:00pm yesterday when a longtime Virginia Beach city employee, an engineer, approached a municipal building near city hall. He shot one person in the parking lot before he moved inside and opened fire with a .45 caliber handgun with extended magazines which was reportedly equipped with a suppressor. CNN reports that the gun and suppressor were legally purchased.

When police responded, the shooter engaged in an extended gun battle with four officers, hitting one in his bullet-proof vest. The shooter murdered 12 people and wounded four more before being shot and killed by police.

News of the shooting sent those who would disarm Americans scurrying for the nearest camera and social media platform to repeat rote talking points, no matter how ineffectual…

…or inaccurate…

Here’s the Associated Press report:

By Ben Finley

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — A longtime city employee opened fire in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, killing 12 people on three floors and sending terrified co-workers scrambling for cover before police shot and killed him following a “long gun battle,” authorities said.

Four other people were wounded in Friday’s shooting, including a police officer whose bulletproof vest saved his life, said Virginia Beach Police Chief James Cervera. The city’s visibly shaken mayor, Bobby Dyer, called it “the most devastating day in the history of Virginia Beach.”

The shooting happened shortly after 4 p.m. when the veteran employee of the Public Utilities Department entered a building in the city’s Municipal Center, and “immediately began to indiscriminately fire upon all of the victims,” Cervera said. Authorities did not release the suspect’s name, instead choosing to focus on the victims during a news conference.

virginia beach mass shooting
Police work the scene where eleven people were killed during a mass shooting at the Virginia Beach city public works building (L. Todd Spencer/The Virginian-Pilot via AP)

Police entered the building and got out as many employees as they could, then exchanged fire with the suspect, who was armed with a .45-caliber handgun, the chief said. “It was a long gun battle between those four officers and the suspect,” he said. He said officers gave the suspect first aid after he was shot, but he died.

Police initially said the gunman shot and killed 11 people, including one who was found inside a vehicle outside the municipal building. Cervera later said one more died on the way to the hospital.

The shooting sent shock waves through Virginia Beach, the state’s largest city and a popular vacation spot in southeastern Virginia. The building where the attack took place is in a suburban complex miles away from the high-rise hotels along the beach and the downtown business area.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement he was devastated by the “unspeakable, senseless violence,” and is offering the state’s full support to survivors and relatives of the victims.

“That they should be taken in this manner is the worst kind of tragedy,” the governor said during the news conference.

The White House said President Donald Trump had been briefed and was monitoring the situation.

Megan Banton, an administrative assistant who works in the building where the shooting happened, said she heard gunshots, called 911 and barricaded herself and about 20 colleagues inside an office, pushing a desk against a door.

“We tried to do everything we could to keep everybody safe,” she said. “We were all just terrified. It felt like it wasn’t real, like we were in a dream. You are just terrified because all you can hear is the gunshots.”

She texted her mom, telling her that there was an active shooter in the building and she and others were waiting for police.

“Thank God my baby is OK,” Banton’s mother, Dana Showers, said.

At a nearby middle school, friends and relatives were reuniting with loved ones who were in the building when the shooting happened. They included Paul Swain, 50, who said he saw his fiancee from across the parking lot, clearly in an agitated state.

“I think she knew some of the people,” he said.

Outside the school, Cheryl Benn, 65, waited while her husband, David, a traffic engineer with the city who was in the building where the shooting happened, gave a written statement to detectives.

She said her husband initially called her from a barricaded room and said it sounded as if someone had been working with a nail gun. Then he saw the bodies.

“This is unbelievable for Virginia Beach,” Cheryl Benn said. “By and large, it’s a pretty calm and peaceful place to live.”

254 COMMENTS

  1. “heard gun shots” but he used a suppressor? But Head Nanny Mom says thats inconceivable!

    • Craddock. Paddock. Just say’n. But not sure what.

      The only thing the can did was keep the survivors from sustaining permanent hearing loss.

    • All you can hear is gunshots. Yeah, the suppressor works just like on TV. Next item to be banned…and I am sure the conservative gun groups and politicians will fall all over themselves to help the liberals do it.

      • And watch as the NRA’s boomer Fudd apologist fan base comes out of the woodwork, spouting bs like ,”Suppressors were just a problem waiting to happen. We needed to get rid of them to appease the grabbers. Quit complaining, you mall ninja keyboard commando cheat thumper!”.
        I swear these types all secretly think that by the time sweeping national gun control is implemented, they’ll be dead and it’ll be some one else’s problem.

        • What young person goes to the mall these days? It’s a rare thing to do. Same with going to the movies or watching TV.

          The younger generations spend more time tapping away then typing away. For a long time east Asians have been accessing the internet mostly from their phones, now the “West” is moving in that direction. Soon most people will use cell phones over desktops and consoles like they do in Asia.

          Fudds are very out of touch with reality. They still have a Facebook and consume corporate news. The fudd does 3D chess while the young generations do 3D printing.

      • well, this incident will certainly damage the case for making them [suppressors] un- regulated….could there be something like a hughes amendment in their future?…the circumstances are similar to that of mg’s in the eighties when the cost was so low and people were actively marketing them….

        • Suppressors Are Regulated By The ATF
          AND Background Checks Are Done On Those Buying One.

          You might try Looking Up the Requirements Needed To Purchase And Possess Any Legally Purchased Suppressors For Hand Guns And Long Guns.

    • So much for the claim that they make people unaware that there’s shooting going on!

      But then again, evidence and logic aren’t exactly the gun grabbers’ strengths.

    • No…. here we do NOT go again. Dwayne Craddock is black and nearly all of his victims were white. Where: “White man murders 10 unarmed black people” may get international coverage, I don’t think we’ll be seeing the headline: “Black man murders 10 unarmed white people” anywhere. This story is already getting buried by the press and pols.

      • Well their is another issue here, too.
        When a white person does a mass shooting there picture is pasted all over the lamestream media.
        As of yet I haven’t see a picture of guy on any of the major networks.
        I wonder why that might be.

  2. PD Chief on presser: “officers were in the building within minutes of the first call.”

    Ahem. Cough, cough. As usual just in time to clean up.

    This happened in a govt building by a govt employee. The govt is going to take this personally. Wave goodbye to any progress on gun rights and your freedom.

    • Minutes? How many? 5-10? 20-30?
      60 minutes in an hour…
      When SECONDS count…cops are mere minutes away…great

    • What do you mean just in time to clean up? In fact, the officers responded, engaged the gun man and terminated him. This prevented further casualties. Yes, we’d all like to of stopped him before he killed anyone but that would’ve required some sort of examination and restrictions on his actions before he committed the crime. Just how would that work?

      • Do you know what a “figure of speech is”? It’s intended to illustrate the point that if several of the now dead employee’s and wounded had been armed the body count would have been considerably less – maybe even zero. The cops cannot ever be there as quickly as the people who are already there.

        • For f*ck’s sake. He ambushed someone in the parking lot, and then started randomly going through the building. He engaged multiple officers in a protracted firefight, even hitting one of them. Most ccw holders don’t even train in defensive shooting tactics. Many aren’t even proficient on a static flat range punching paper.

        • Delusional Keyboard Warriors,

          Anyone who is inclined to do so can ambush and easily kill an unsuspecting victim. And the attacker does not need a firearm to do that. The attacker could easily use an ax, machete, knife, or baseball bat.

          I don’t carry a firearm on my hip everyday so that I can respond to a sneak attack from behind that I cannot see. Rather, I carry a firearm everyday so that I can respond to an attack that I see coming. And in that scenario, my firearm will serve me well.

          As for your claim that most firearm carriers cannot shoot a piece of paper on a static range, actual real-world experience shows your claim to be false. And it is irrelevant either way since real-world self-defense requires the ability to put rounds on target at contact distance — something that 99.99% of the adult population can do.

        • Delusional, actually armed civilians stop more crimes in progress than cops do.
          It is a certainty that the killer had nothing to worry about since the building prohibited firearms carry by the victims.
          Mass shooters are enabled by these gun free zones

        • Mmmm………nice try, but no cigar. Claiming the cops’ contribution here was just “clean up” is tantamount to claiming that 9-11 consisted of just some people who did something. I am in general no big fan of the police, for reasons too numerous to list here, but suffice it to say that these officers on that day did their jobs and risked their lives in the process. A great many of their brethren are content to sit outside in safety, waiting for the gunman to commit suicide, as additional victims bleed out. They’ve been excoriated in these comments many times before. These officers, however, stepped up and faced down death to save people’s lives. That’s far more than cleaning up; your ham-handed backpedaling and “figure of speech” rationalization notwithstanding.

          You had a valid point about armed self-defense, belatedly. However, you greatly overplayed your hand with the piling on the police attitude and didn’t even get to that obvious SD point until forced to spin your previous lame comment. There’s no shame in conceding that these officers saved the day for the survivors. Neither does that acknowledgement diminish or disregard the benefit of expanding armed self-defense abilities among the populace.

    • Heavy.com has the audio of the radios.

      I would estimate that it took them about 15-20 minutes to pin down the killer then put him down like a rabid dog.

      • Which is why people should have the opportunity to arm themselves.

        The police did a good job but………

        • Yes. This is why cops are not as effective as armed citizens who are getting shot at. The cops are unthreatened, they are going to move cautiously and slowly because they keep *increasing* risk to themselves as they close distance and give up cover in order to engage.
          The civilians are already targets, already in lethal range. Cops are safer by going slowly and being passive, civilians in the building are not and have less to lose by engaging someone who can and will kill them anyway

        • 20 minutes? It’s a courthouse, not an outhouse. How long do you expect it should have taken them?

        • They weren’t taking a stroll through the local museum, or jaunting down to the commissary at lunch time. They were clearing a building with a known active shooter. Who knows how many shooters that could be? There were multiple attackers in San Bernardino, Columbine, and the Boston Marathon in the U.S., just as there were in the Paris attacks, the Kenyan mall attack, the Mumbai attacks.

          Granted, those overseas events were terrorist attacks. So what? Who knows upon arrival whether this would be, too? Who knows whether any bombs were placed? Who knows whether anyone is hiding in crawl spaces, above suspended ceilings, or within furniture or equipment? Anything is possible.

          There are always shoulda coulda woulda gripes people can make in the aftermath of these attacks. Many may be perfectly valid criticisms and might help improve responses next time. That the police made immediate entry and may have taken up to twenty minutes to clear out an entire building, isn’t one of them; especially when some of that time is spent, you know, getting shot at by a known killer with a “blaze of glory” agenda. Good grief. Go down to the academy, sign up, and show ’em all how it’s done, why don’t you?

        • I think that’s the advantage any person who witnessed the shooting has. He knows who the shooter is and where he is. That’s why it’s important to give good information to the police although it takes a few minutes for it to filter down to the people on scene.

      • I was listening to the recording of the radio traffic and at around 20 minutes the police were asking for keys or breaching equipment because they could not get into the floors.

    • This is the way it’s gonna go when legislators pass that line. It will be a modern day equivalent of the old-fashioned duel, but it will be by citizens who have had their rights infringed, not just an offense of honor.

      It won’t be random street crime. It will be people who want to say, and for the record, “enough is enough.”

      They will go after these corrupt politicians, and their families. It might before they vote to pass it, or maybe after. But it will happen.

      I’m not saying I approve, I’m just saying it will happen. Because it will.

      • I hope you are correct in your statement, Burt. That is, citizens finally saying “no more”, standing up, and fighting back. I have my doubts. Americans have had it too good for too long. Sad to say, it is far easier for crooked politicians to eviscerate rights slowly, until one wakes up one morning to realize he/she has no more rights. The “boiling the frog slowly in hot water” analogy comes to mind, and is quite an appropriate comparison. From those supposed, Second Amendment supporters who claim that one does not “need” a suppressor, does not “need” a bump stock? Pretty soon, the government will decide you do not “need” any rights whatsoever, both the Second AND the First amendment. And do not think the United States is too exceptional, that “it could never happen here”.

  3. Not typically the conspiracy theorist type. But now that they got bump stocks taken care of after Vegas. Suddenly a suppressor is used. How convenient.

      • Given the remarkable string of “coincidences”—including those from history which turned out to not be coincidental—I think it would be unreasonable to reject the possibility that there is enemy action.

        • History has demonstrated that “coincidences” like this situation are manufactured more often than not…

    • Grow up! The shooter used a .45 with a suppressor and extended magazines. If anything it demonstrates firearms knowledge on the part of the shooter. Having and using a can means he knew the handgun needed an extended, threaded barrel to attach the can to (not your typical .45). Having extended magazines meant he knew most .45’s have reduced magazine capacity due to the size of .45 rounds (vs. 9mm for example). Conspiracy? Really?

      • I want more information on the suppressor. Was it homemade, legally or illegally purchased. What was the make of the 45 and the maker of the magazine’s.

        This Ass certainly has some firearms knowledge.

        12 people who should have been armed. I’m knocking police as I usually do, but those people should have had the opportunity to protect themselves. If you don’t have a weapon on you that you are proficient with your chances of survival are about zero.

        • Early in the article there’s a linked claim that he purchased the suppressor legally.

        • I saw that but I want specifics. I have NO trust of the media especially when it has to do with firearms

          There lack knowledge of firearms continually impresses me.

      • Anyi gunners saying extended magazines usually just means they hold more than 10 rounds. If they are referring to magazines that stick out of the grip, that’s not necessarily that many rounds. The 1911 or HK elephant foot mags are only 10 rounds. 16-18 ifor glock with baseplates. There are lots of stock guns with threaded barrels and double stack magazines from HK, FN, SA, etc. I’m more interested in the suppressor. Did he have an NFA stamp? Was it factory manufactured, DIY, or one of the formerly legal solvent trap or filter adapters?

      • People use conspiracy thinking to avoid the cognitive dissonance of realizing that a guy that they might have had next to them on the range and shot the shit with at the store is the same guy that decided to murder a bunch of people. And that, as a gun guy with access to a suppressor, of course he would use it.

        They’d rather invent an conspiracy that would need to involve hundreds of people, any one of which could blow the lid wide open in the greatest story of the decade- many of them gun guys themselves (cops in Virginia). But of course the journalists must be in on it too- make that thousands of people involved in the ‘secret.’ Sure.

        • You don’t need many people to have a successful conspiracy.

          Most people follow orders and can’t/don’t ask questions. That’s called compartmentalization. They naturally trust their superiors and countrymen. If anything causes them concern enough to breed fear they will close off their minds as a protection strategy. They will pretend no one is that evil and no one can keep a secret. It’s a way to stop information entering their fragile minds, information that will haunt them forever.

          2A people do this type of thing all the time. As you explained. They will talk out of both sides of their mouths to protect their fragile minds and stop them from having to take action. For instance, they will say they love and respect the men and women in uniform, then they will complain that the government is infringing on their human rights. How can you love and respect the people that are taking away your property, your liberty and your life?

          You can’t love your oppressor and be free.

          • User1, Americans (for the most part) do not associate the police force with oppression. You see the videos of police and state troopers using excessive force, in situations-whether justified or not. But real-world, everyday-life oppression is nothing most Americans can relate to. They have no clue what it is like to truly live in a society where the police and the military are extensions of an oppressive government-read to do the government’s bidding and dirty work. To try and explain this to them is like blowing hot air in their face, because until it happens to them, few are going to listen to you.

        • some of you guys really have a strange way of thinking with your constant conspiracy theories…do you really believe this crap?….

    • Jesus, you guys sound retarded. How do the gun grabbers go about recruiting someone crazy enough to kill their coworkers in a specific manner, using specific weapons, all for a political cause?

      Millions of firearm owners in the US with more and more awareness and promotion of certain weapons and accessories (bump stocks, cans, large cap mags) and it’s unbelievable that they would eventually be used by one of these ass-hats? Gee, the industry is promoting these products all over, pushing the tacti-cool bad-ass shit in every publication and on every firearm website, but it’s unthinkable that someone bent on shooting up a place might actually use those very weapons?

      • The media keeps saying the AR-15 is the best mass murder weapon. They did it so much that the Parkland shooter looked it up and decided to buy that gun to use to kill kids. Obviously this is social engineering being done on purpose.

        Tell the kids that the best killing tool is an AR. They will believe it. Some of them will use to murder. Then the government will get what it needs.

      • Normally I would say “Craigslist”, but I think they’ve shut down their personals ads section in recent months.

    • When your own government runs fast and furious operations and uses mentally retarded individuals for atf entrapment cases, its hard not to at least consider the possiblity.

    • I absolutely agree with how freakin fast they jumped on the silencer/suppressor thing. They immediately blasted the HPA and just piled on. They then went after the ‘legally’ acquired trying to show even legal means of purchase aren’t enough.
      I dont think there is any coincidence that a can was used knowing how truly rarely they are used or have been used in other crime/shootings. They gave a very low profile ‘accessory’ a high profile outing to ‘expose’ the danger. I used to think that only crazies believed in conspiracy; as of late, there are just too many coincidences and interesting timing for me to believe otherwise.
      Its all a coordinated long-con for the politicians and it kills me to say that they are actually making progress. I hate it and it knots my stomach to think about it.

  4. There goes the hearing protection act. We’ll be lucky if suppressors remain legal to own…

      • Funny I don’t recall Trump vetoing the HPA.
        Oh yeah, that’s becasue he didn’t.

      • Yup, and hardly anyone made a peep when the bills died, instead worried about GOP fortunes in 2018. The RNC is lucky to have such a patient, understanding constituency. Fudds in denial; totally pro-2A, but just not if it might result in some congressman with a R after their name having to get a real job or retire.

  5. 35,000 gun deaths…600,000+ abortions…
    at least the victims in one of those scenarios stands a chance…just sayin’…

    • Yeah, but those 35,000 people were actual living, breathing human beings. Not clumps of cells with no detectable brain activity.

      • If it was okay to kill lumps of cells with no brain activity, how long would you survive?

      • 150,000 of those abortions were in the second and third trimester, which means the baby had heartbeats and brainwaves.

      • I just want to remind you that a “clump of cells” is a human being with a thumping heart and a unique set of human DNA that the world has never seen before and will never see again.

        • Goldfish have a unique set of DNA, brainwaves and a thumping heart. I will never understand that argument. Does that make a goldfish a person too?

        • You’re wasting your time. People that have adopted his position (most pro-choice people) are Godless, dead-souled nihilists. How else could anyone dismiss human life in such a cavalier fashion?

        • “Goldfish have a unique set of DNA, brainwaves and a thumping heart. I will never understand that argument. Does that make a goldfish a person too?”…. No, it makes it a Goldfish.

          • Yes, you understand. A goldfish is a goldfish even in the unborn state because of the genetic makeup. So an unborn human is a human and ceasing the life of the unborn through abortion is murder (malice of forethought). This same logic goes for Rights of a free Man (or person for those who don’t understand the concept of kind). If a Right is endowed by the Creator and is affirmed in the Constitution then little old man cannot change or infringe on the Right absent the specific individual’s action. Example if an individual murders someone they have placed themselves subject to a possible loss of life and liberty because of their actions and not by some blanket decision (law) of man.

        • My issue is not that it’s not human. It’s the definition of a person. If I was to concede that it was a person that would mean human cells in a lab is a person. It’s just very loose and a problem in it of itself. Why is it murder to kill human cells because it has brain waves and a heartbeat? Why is it a person because of that?

          Is it the potential for a personality, personal traits, human intelligence? Because it’s no smarter than a goldfish for a lot of it’s time.

          Not only that if I was to concede it murder it would be justified to use violence to prevent it. Not just vote for politicians who are against it “Which just tells me no one cares about murder”. If it was murder it is the same as creating camps of extermination. It tells me no one would stop mass murder if it came to that.

          No one was debating whether it is homo sapien. My side is arguing it’s not a person. You can grow cells in a lab with all of that and no one would call it a person unless it had human intelligence, personality and many other factors that make a person a person.

          I could understand the argument of just not wanting the government to allow the destruction of human life but that would ruins a lot of science related to growing cancer cells in labs and studying disease. I don’t see why masturbation and such would be okay as well. That is human life by your standard of murder.

          • When, in the history of mankind, have we ever gotten the definition of “person” right? When has limiting which human beings were “persons” ever not resulted is massive atrocities? Why is this time any different?

        • Let me get this straight….

          When you see a friend or relative and they are pregnant you ask them….

          “How’s your clump of cells doing?”

        • Biatec, I realize I will not sway your opinion anymore than you will sway mine. However, I am obliged to point out that human DNA cannot be created in a lab. And it is unlikely that it ever will be. Human DNA can only be harvested from living humans. And it only become its own life when male and female DNA are brought together under very specific circumstances. (This CAN be accomplished in a lab.)

          At what point should this DNA Blob be considered human? I have concluded that the same standard for death should be inversely applied to life. (The presence of a heartbeat and normal brain activity, or the absence thereof.). Others have come to a different conclusion. Unfortunately my stance is a great inconvenience to many who find themselves undesirably pregnant.

          I guess I should also comment on the topic of this article.

          People have died, unwillingly with one exception. (The shooter went there to die, so was willing.) That is tragic on many levels.

          Tragic because a man disregarded human life so blatantly, (including his own.)
          Tragic because we do not live in a world where we no longer need to be prepared to defend ourselves.
          Tragic because these people who died were disallowed even the CHANCE to defend themselves with the greatest equilizer mankind has created.
          Tragic because it brings division and not unity.
          Tragic because people will exploit this act of violence to push an agenda.
          I could go on and on, but I will only be repeating what others have said.

        • The Old Reagan quote comes to mind. “I’ve noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”
          That “clump of cells” isn’t going to turn into a goldfish. Sad and sick how pro-death people rationalize evil.

        • Most racists (including Hitler) also classified certain groups as not being fully human. Nice company your sharing dude. You must subscribe to social Darwinism. Nice system if your strong. Not so good if your anyone else.

        • Stop having irresponsible sex with women to whom you are not married and you won’t need the BS. Girls, keep your damn pants on

      • I can think of more than a few liberals who might fall into the clumps of cells with no brain activity classification.

      • And yet if found on any other planet…would be called LIFE…even by the most ardent dem/lib scientist…
        I am pro 2A and pro-choice…just like to get the numbers out there for comparison
        Besides…republicans ought to like abortion…many are to dem/libs and minorities (especially AAs)…just sayin’…

      • And 60% (21,000) of those 35,000 deaths were suicides.

        Firearms were just the convenient way of committing suicide. In Japan (which has a much higher suicide rate, per-capita, than the United States), the preferred suicide method is hanging oneself.

        Approximately 6,500 of the remaining 14,000 are gang and drug crime-related, leaving the remaining 7,500 to cover other homicides, including justified homicides by police and armed citizens.

        That leaves a per-capits murder by firearms rate of less than 0.002%. (two thousandth of one percent).

        Compare that with 4% for death caused by medical errors and you can see where the Government and citizens should be focusing their efforts (obviously not firearms).

      • Those “clump of cells” IS a child i.e. homosapien sapien. The person inside the womb most certainly has brain function/activity or nothing would move, heart would not beat, no swallowing ect… This is proof of brain activity and these are the most helpless humans in the world. Perhaps you just view this shooting in a gun free zone as a very late term abortion? Projection is a psychological malady.

      • So medically and dcientifically incorrect that it makes my head spin.

        My eldest could respond to tapes on momother’s belly, demonstrating that he could count to 3 while in Utero.

    • No kidding. Maybe thats why their for abortion, 600,000 less potential “assault weapon” purchasers.

    • While the area was technically not a “gun free zone”, employees were forbidden to have firearms, so he could be confident that the area would be gun-free.

  6. the dreaded .45…one shot kill…knocks them back 6 feet…blows a hole 3 inches out the back…/s
    AND a muffler on it? or is that just a rumor at this point?
    sorry for the victims…it should always be suicide-murder…NOT murder-suicide…

    • Calculate the momentum of a 225 grain. 45 caliber bullet at 1,000 feet per second.

      Calculate the resulting velocity of that 225 grain bullet transfering all of that momentum to a 100 pound ballerina.

      225 grain = 1/2 oz =1/32 of a pound.

      ( 1/32 of 1 pound x 1,000 feet per second ) / 100 pound = 1/32 of 1pound x 10 feet per second

      Resulting Velocity = 10/32 feet per second or 5/16 of a foot per second or about 3 inches per second.

      Note to everyone who did not need this explained to them, I simplified the calculation by not converting to metric or using Slugs as the unit of mass so that everyone can understand.

      • energy=mass x velocitySQUARED before it hits the 100 pound ballerinas.Still won’t knock her down,but that would really hurt.

  7. Being a municipal employee myself this guy must have been a world class fuck up to get fired. It’s nigh impossible to terminate anyone working for the town/city/state no matter how awful an employee they are.

    • Per the city manager, the shooter had not been fired, was still an employee at the time of the incident.

      • Possibly he (the shooter) was making a statement – demonstrating the need for banning all guns.

        • More like the statement made was that citizens should take their civic responsibility to provide for their own safety by being armed seriously.

          Even in places with the strictest gun laws in the world, evil still finds a way of obtaining the weapons (including firearms) necessary to commit mass murder. The only way to thwart evil under these circumstances is for law abiding citizens to be armed.

          It is your civic duty to provide for your own defence and be your own first responder. Be prepared for evil, natural disasters, accidents, and man-made failures.

        • Not a chance. No one is both nuts enough to decide to go on a killing spree ending in their death and sane enough to wait to legally get a suppressor. And if he wanted to “make a statement” about guns he could have gone the whole way and used an AR.

    • Agree, was thinking the same thing since I work for a larger county gov.

      I’m wondering if security will be tightened after this….we’ll see I guess.

      I’m contemplating buying a suppressor now, at least get the paperwork and $200 in so maybe grandfathered when the ban hammer falls.

      • I hope you are not grandfathered in and you get the book tossed at you.

        In my opinion, that kind of logic and mentality is not acceptable. If they pass “laws” I want everyone to feel that pain equally. No privileges to bribe corrupt people. Only then will people actually fight back. If they give people a personal loophole those people will be content and laugh at those whom didn’t get it.

    • The shooter seems to have moved from drinking water to road project management recently. This is an unusual move for a mid career civil engineer. Very different skill sets required.

      Pushed too hard by affirmative action?

      • Pushed too hard by affirmative action? Seriously, WTF does that mean? I work in local govt. Believe me, AA doesn’t “push” anyone. Quite the opposite if anything. You have to be a total f-up to get fired from local government. People don’t go on a shooting spree of colleagues because too much was expected of them at work.

        • He might have been even less well suited to his position than the typical local government employee.

  8. Local Congresswoman Elaine Luria didn’t wait for the facts. She immediately publicly decried the incident as “proof” Congress needs to do something about gun violence. She did this before any public information was released by city officials. Before anyone had a grip on what happened. Before any facts were established! But, she’s a democrat. She didn’t need to wait for the facts. You know, like how yet another gun free zone failed.

    • A local article I read states that this was not actually a gun-free zone. Only schools and courthouses.

      • Frequently, employees are prohibited from carrying while in work. It might not be a criminal offence but it could get you fired.

      • thinking about my local municipal building…where only the cops are protected by locked doors…it appears they had more protection than that with only card carrier access…still wasn’t enough…

  9. Looks like someone else (Government employee) got “ELF’ed” Any the DEEP STATE.”
    Sorry, but how convenient for promoting “Gun Control, Curtailing 2nd Amendment Freedoms, and Authoritarianism….”

  10. Guarantee info will dribble out about his mental status.
    Instability that was ignored.
    But……suppressors.

    • And magazines, semi-auto’s, etc. and eventually repeal the 2A, and eliminate your freedom altogether. That is the end goal, after all.

      Might be time to dig them up and put ’em to work pretty soon.

      • Yeah, right, put them to work soon. So you’re suggesting that potg get ready to put to work those suppressors and extended mags and firearms? Yep, I think the Liberals have their next target for red flag confiscation, individuals publicly posting about plans to commit unlawful acts with firearms. That one post with really serve POTG very well in the future.

        • So… yer sayin’ that the Declaration of Independence promotes “unlawful acts”? And if so, is that actually a bad thing?

        • Red flag and all other laws will be irrelevant if the cold civil war goes hot.

          Remember, on April 19th, 1775, the British came to take the Colonists gunpowder. It didn’t end well for the British then and it won’t end well for the gun controllers now.

          Firearms ownership is an American tradition and is enshrined in the US Constitution in the Bill of Rights and no Leftist/Multiculturalist/Globalists are going to be able to abolish it without a hot war.

          The right to keep and bear arms to deter tyranny is essential to the proper functioning of our Constitutional Republic. All firearms laws are unconstitutional.

        • There’s more at stake here than just firearms. Firearms are tools, but not the ONLY means of defending freedom. My loyalty is to the Constitution, not to some inanimate object or any person of whatever stature.

        • This jackoff is threatening to doxx people now; can you guys ban his ass, already? For fuck’s sake…

        • “My loyalty is to the Constitution”

          I agree with you a lot and I agree with you in spirit but my loyalty is to liberty. The Constitution is supposed to remind government of some liberties but is not all inclusive of my liberty.

    • And he had to use extended magazines too, or how else could the focus fall on magazine capacity greater than 10 from a .45 Auto (without it being a doublestack)? With AR’s and other semi-autos already well pegged for a ban, this gambit also extends the controllers scope to last weeks bugaboo, the more deadly large caliber handguns… If he had only a 9mm, fewer people would have died! Large cslibers have to go! Even if not by plan and design, this atrocity is nonetheless spectacularly convenient to the controller’s expanding agenda. I’m only surprised he didn’t use a pistol brace…

  11. Lets see 1st before making noises.
    The usual cry babies waving the bloody tee shits are already making noise.
    Im more interested in how long this will be in the news cycle since no AR15 or its brethren was used.
    How will thy pick on handguns now??
    Im sorry for the people killed and injured.
    But of course this happened in yet another “Gun Free” zone. Im guessing as I don’t know if it is or not.
    Get rid of them already. They invite the nut bags to kill in them.
    1st responders are minutes away when seconds count.

    • they’re doing their best to characterize us as threatening individuals…who could snap at a moments notice…even as we appear “normal” right up to when it happens…this recent incident plays right into that…in that respect, they’re winning the propaganda war…

  12. now the stupid bullshit starts again, no facts with stupid democrat-communist retoric and wild-ass guessing that this was planed and exicuted by nra or the repubs.and QUIT USING CNN FOR A STANDARD IN REPORTING they would not know the truth if it bit them in the ass.

  13. MY 1st thought was “at least it wasn’t the dreaded AR15 ass-ault riffle with the shoulder thingy that goes up”. But silencer. And scary extended mags. Pathetic this thread devolved into a discussion on baby murder…

    • You notice how quick and brave all the red states were to pass abortion restriction laws the instant they saw an opening? Those guys have their shit together, and big orgs that actually want to end the practice.

      When’s the last time the NRA promoted something like a “heartbeat law” in order to force a court challenge & get what they supposedly want? Or GOA/etc convince lawmakers to take a risk on promoting gun rights?

      • Let me clear his comment up for you. It translates to: focus on the topic, and shove your abortion bullshit up your ass. Fucker. Nothing here has anything to do with abortion. Go rant on Facebook you fucking troll.

        Loose translation, but the same thing.

        • Clap. Clap. Clap. I wish we could up-vote or star comments because yours deserves it. I was thinking along these same lines when I got to your comment.

          I want to know more about the shooter and the situation, not wade through a pro-life vs pro-choice discussion.

          Back in the day, TTAG would have been all over what type of gun was used – Glock 21, FNH-45, etc. – and other pertinent details that mainstream media gets wrong or ignores. Nowadays, they just give the easy coverage (e.g. CNN quote) and move on.

          IMHO, comments below an article should relate to that article. ‘Nuff said.

  14. …she and others were waiting for police.

    That’s your problem right there. They should have been fighting back to save their lives and those of their coworkers.

    • Yeah, right. Even if armed, when ambushed people will try to take cover, and the average Joe/Jane with no real tactical or defensive training isn’t gonna voluntarily engage in a firefight. This dude engaged multiple officers and hit one while armed to the teeth.

      Plus, in this instance you have your coworker shooting up the place, and now you’re suggesting many more coworkers engage. How do you differentiate who is good guy and who is bad guy? Armchair warriors and internet commandos are funny.

      • He wasn’t armed to the teeth.

        The shooting started outside. I believe a man was shot in the arm while in his car. That man could have shot back if he had the ability, that could have stopped the whole thing that happened inside. As he went inside people recognized him, his coworkers eventually told police it was Dwayne Craddock and they gave the physical description to the police and what gun he had.

        If you are inside a building a person walks into a room and starts shooting you could engage and you might win because they don’t expect that at an office building. The more people inside that room with guns the better the chances are that the shooter won’t make it out.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc0UGhPXmD0

      • the “bad guy’ is the one who is trying to shoot you…it’s really not that complicated…

    • Not a truly gun free zone. Visitors can carry. I believe employees aren’t allowed to. Also next door to police HQ. Hardly qualifies as a typical gun free zone.

      • Goes to show banning employees from carrying doesn’t stop them from murdering but it does stop them from being able to defend themselves against a former employee who is coming back to murder all of them. The police were right next door yet that didn’t stop the 12 deaths and it took 20-30 minutes before the shooter was killed by responding police.

        Imagine sitting there listening to the gunfire while not being able to run or fight and the police refusing to sacrifice themselves to rush the shooter and kill him. We can’t expect the police to die for us or children. Realistically you can’t get rid of guns nor bombs and suicidal murderers. American society/culture is broken, so all you can do is protect yourself if the government doesn’t stop you from doing that.

    • Really? A guy goes out and murders 12 people at a municipal center. “was this a gun free zone?” is the only question?

      • ok…just what is the question?….why he did it?….we may never know the answer to that…all you can really do is protect yourself…..

  15. Well shit! There goes my hopes for seeing the HPA reintroduced. This should go to show the NFA is useless as it didn’t prevent the use of a suppressor in a mass shooting but we all know better. Brace for enhanced background check super ban fun time episode 467.692.

    • lol if you had any hope of that being reintroduced you are as crazy as this guy
      your representatives will take your vote and your money and it will buy you a bill… that’s all. The GOP is NEVER going to do something like legalize suppressors. They want things just how they are.

      …although they wouldn’t mind if the dems got a national assault weapon ban passed because they figure that would give them more votes than anything else.

  16. Wait, some Democrats out there will copy California and require a microstamp on handguns and institute a handgun ban like California, with the usual LEO cutout.

  17. “Police entered the building and got out as many employees as they could, then exchanged fire with the suspect, the chief said.” “…who was armed with a .45-caliber handgun…” was redacted from the article in the Grand Junction (CO) Daily Sentinel.

  18. There go suppressors on the list of things banned. Trump will order it, Demon-Rats will cheer it, and spineless wimp Republicans will go-along-to-get-along. How ironic in that this same, state governor who will be so concerned for our “safety”, that he takes guns away, is the same one who calmly talked about getting rid of a baby once he/she was born. Sad to say, Americans are losing more guns rights under Trump, than they ever did under Obama. That old saying of “Death by a thousand cuts” comes to mind.

    • You forgot all the gunowners that will cheer it, telling the rest of us that silencers are a stupid toy.

      • Who needs a suppressor? Are you in the military or are you a cop? You need a suppressor as much as you need a full auto or a polymer gun. Just because Europeans can have a moderator doesn’t mean Americans should. Us NRA members know you don’t need a full auto AK, night vision and a suppressor for hunting. All you need is a Remington 700 or a bow.

        • “Just because Europeans can have a moderator doesn’t mean Americans should.”

          Sure it does, ‘Progressives’ tell us all the time that the ultimate state of enlightenment is to be like Europe, therefore, over-the-counter moderators are what America must have… 😉

        • My ears need a suppressor. No sense in damaging your drums when it can be avoided

        • I hope you are being sarcastic. The last time I checked the Bill of Rights, no where in there did it say I had to get the government’s “permission” (or yours, for that matter) to exercise a Constitutionally protected right, given to Americans-and me-by God. I do not give a damned if you-or the government-“think” I “need” it or not. Whether it be a suppressor, a bump-stock, or anything else you deem “not needed” or “too scary” for the ordinary citizen to possess. Go back to where I grew up if you feel that way. You will feel right at home with that “daddy government” dictating every facet of your life.

      • they were already regulated…bump stocks weren’t…expect it to stay that way, at the very least…

    • “That old saying of “Death by a thousand cuts” comes to mind.”

      The long game favors tyranny. There’s really only one proven effective way to deal with tyrants.

  19. You need mass to have a mass shooting. It just so happens that most places where people gather are posted but I am willing to bet that someone going out on a suicide mission doesn’t care whether it is a gun free zone or not.

    This shooting incident is a good example because a building adjacent to a police station is not a gun free zone. The shooting started outside which is clearly not a gun free zone but technicalities aside virtually every space is gun free because there aren’t enough people who actually carry to deter anybody, particularly those people who are on a suicide mission.

    Having a defense shooter around armed with a pocket pistol isn’t effective either. It is a close in defensive weapon that can only protect people in your immediate area. A compact is the minimum size weapon that allows a defender to engage a shooter from a distance in a potentially crowded environment. But there is more. You actually have to practice at ranges beyond 10 yards to be effective with any pistol in a mass shooting situation. How many people actually do that? Walking around armed line Harry Callahan doesn’t do any good if you can’t hit anything beyond 5 yards.

    • Force on force testing routinely shows that a single shooter with a rifle stands almost no chance against two guys with pistols, and stands a large chance of being felled by a single carrier so long as he doesn’t engage the carrier first by chance. Even two shooters didn’t fare reliably well against two carriers (though they were typically able to defeat a single defender)

      You generally don’t need an M4 to take out a jackass who thinks he’s Mr. Peanut.

      • The guy with the rifle has a much BETTER chance if he engages at 100 meters or greater especially if he has any cover. Rifles are range weapons. Using them up close is giving away your advantage.

        Of course carbines, like legit SBRs and SMGs are made to fill that gap. But 2 on one makes it a hard gap to fill.

        • But that doesn’t happen indoors…which is pretty much where all the mass shootings happen (and why Vegas was both so bad, and such an outlier in every respect; I suspect now it will be like the Platt & Matix robbery, where it remains a strange event that stands alone for many decades for a whole host of reasons)

          Remember the Scalise ballfield shooting? Guy with an SKS rifle was taken out by *two* body guards with guns. Now, there’s some evidence the guy was drunk as a skunk while he was doing this, but still goes to show how numbers matter more than equipment in these situations.

      • So does that mean that you go about your business with your buddy? /Sarc

        I know you think you sound tacticool but that is for two coordinated defenders armed with service pistols not two independent shooters with weapons that are ineffective beyond 10 yards who can be defeated in detail.

        • Not at all; hell, TTAG did a story about it (I’m not being ‘tacticool,’ I’m recalling the studies as best I can off the top of my head) at a training center. And set it up so the carriers were both ambushed, and didn’t know who the other was (or if another was present), among a bunch of other variables. Now, carrying a gun in a defensive-scenario training center probably means they weren’t “condition white” (now *that’s* a tacticool buzzword) but they did attempt to mix things up enough to cover a number of different circumstances. I want to say this was trying to recreate the Charlie Hebdo shooting with two attackers armed with rifles (so, indoors, small rooms).

          And consistently, two attackers have a geometric advantage over one (if for no other reason than the second is tipped off as the first is cut down & can prepare). It’s less likely one alone can consistently win (nearly impossible if 2+ attackers) but it still proved out to be a statistically significant advantage over simply trying to flee past the attacker, and was largely due to simple chance of when/where the attacker first engaged his targets (either killing the defender almost immediately, or giving them time to react)

          Anyone who’s played paintball understands the non-linear advantage of 2 vs. 1 in this sort of ‘competition.’ That advantage cuts both ways, so it’s fortunate that the vast majority of these shooters are such losers they can’t get anyone to go along with their plan.

        • Do you understand the difference between a canned scenario used to train a tactical team and the real world? Apparently not.

      • “Force on force testing routinely shows that a single shooter with a rifle stands almost no chance against two guys with pistols…”

        Pure bullshit.

        • I won’t say pure BS. It depends on the range. Most mass shootings take place within effective service pistol range. If the two defenders position themselves so the rifle armed shooter has to turn his back on one to engage the other then the shooter is pretty much done for.

        • Again, in training scenarios, it was much, much harder for a single attacker (rifle or pistol, it matters not in indoor close ranges; a pistol is probably even better for slaughtering with, except for its lower typical capacity) to escape unscathed and inflict as much damage when there were two defending guns present, coordinated or not. I will say that the UT tower shooting shows that even at much longer ranges which favor rifles, pistol pot-shots were enough to pin Whitman down enough for more people to escape, and distract him from head-shooting all the people who were cowering in place but not behind cover.

          -The instant one of them gets a shot off, the attacker is forced to prioritize their destruction, allowing others to escape, or the other defender to take action
          -The instant the attacker begins firing, two carriers he may not see before him begin taking action to prepare

        • “Whitman is a bad example because he was taking a lot rifle fire.”

          It was rifle and handgun fire, and most importantly, un-trained civilians kept a Marine Corps-trained shooter pinned down long enough for the police to exterminate him…

        • During the final engagement between the the Rodney, KGV and the Bismarck the battleships secondary armorment came into play. Do you think with all those 14, 15 and 16 inch rounds flying about that anybody on board noticed those 5 inchers? I doubt Whitman noticed the pistol rounds either.

    • leave all that to the police…all I want to do is defend my immediate area…and, hopefully…survive….

  20. Per WSJ:
    “DeWayne Craddock, 40 years old, had made multiple firearm purchases in recent weeks, officials said. The suspected shooter, who died after exchanging gunfire with police, used a handgun and rifle that were legally purchased, a law-enforcement official said. The .45 handgun had a suppressor on it, police said, and officers recovered multiple empty extended magazines, which can hold more ammunition than regular magazines.”

    I keep seeing that he had a rifle. What kind of rifle, and apparently it was used along with the 45? Anyone know details? Also what firearm was used in the recent Colorado shooting? Why aren’t we hearing details? Not an AR-15?

    • And the guy legally purchased a silencer along with his guns in mere “recent weeks?”

      These reporters still have no Earthly clue what happened, only who to blame.

      • Not necessarily false. He could have received his ATF approval a couple a weeks ago and then picked up his suppressor.

        • Form 4 times have been over a year for quite some time, if I’m not mistaken. Unless he built this himself on a Form 1 using the faster eForms system (which is backlogged a mere four weeks), that means the “bought guns & ammo in the past few weeks” has fuck-all to do with this guy’s ability to prepare the attack.

          The reason you see that refrain in these articles so frequently, is because one of the favorite anti-gun chestnuts is “waiting periods,” so the authors tend to frame the chain of events as the guy ‘being allowed’ to tool up for the massacre by lax gun laws. I expect no different here.

          If this guy did have the foresight to play hanky-panky with the ATF/feds a year in advance as part of his master-genius plan to kill his co-workers, and STILL wasn’t intercepted, I’ve just love to hear what the anti-gunners think could have possibly prevented this attack, other than straight up banning all firearms.

    • There was no rifle. That was the media attempting to start up their anti black gun propaganda. The police said and reiterated that it was a .45 handgun only. So far it appears he bought everything legally.

      The Colorado STEM shooting was done with two handguns they stole from the parents by breaking into the gun storage. Not sure how they broke into it and what exactly that storage was. We likely have to wait a year before we get those details.

      • No wonder we didn’t hear much about what kind of gun it was (Colorado). It wasn’t convenient for demonizing. Multiple outlets reported a rifle related to the VA shooting. It was probably in his car or his house, or within a 5 mile radius of the site. Plus, news outlets copy each other without verifying in order to get the story out ASAP.

        • The stem shooters were also “transgender” and posted remarks saying they hated Christians. It has been buried since the beginning by the press, even here in Colorado.

  21. 45. I just hope this wasn’t the next violent and twisted stage of the caliber wars.

    • 9mm 12 wounded 4 dead, , , , , 45 12 dead 4 wounded. What caliber wars?

      • It’s either speed or diameter unless you can get both.

        A .45 is good for non armored targets close up. If you have to shoot through objects or armor it’s a bad choice. I have seen a man shot with a .45 that had a huge hole in his chest. Saw another guy with one to the abdomen. You could notice the difference between a .45 and a 9mm.

        10mm gives you what the 9mm and .45 offer. Downside is it’s loud, has more recoil and it’s rare.

  22. Was DeWayne white? Black? Albino? Curiously unstated in ANY report😩😡

    • Race only matters when a non-white person was shot by a white person. Race is always prominently featured in those articles. It’s almost as if a narrative is being presented.

    • He was a 40 year old black man who worked at that building and owned guns legally. The police refuse to mention his name until they notify the family of his death and they said they will only mention his name once. His name is Dwayne Craddock, a long time government worker.

  23. Like the Las Vegas shooter there is a 100% chance that psychotropic pharmaceuticals were involved. Neighbors noted the black male was “jacked”, probably indicating steroid use also. But the fact that a substantial portion of our population are on some form of legal psychology based drugs is not going to be mentioned. We are just going to continue to pretend this is not a problem.

    • The funny thing is that if it comes out that this guy was on no such thing you will continue to trot out this canard and next time also claim “100% chance that this guy is on…” X

      • He has a point, he just doesn’t realize it & goes for the crazy conspiracy angle; pretty much all these guys were known to be weirdos by everyone the met, and many were even so weird that they were in the process of attempted de-weird-ification by mental health doctors.

        Society has a much higher tolerance of weirdos than perhaps any point of human history to date, and it has accelerated the past five decades; we have had more mass murderers as well as serial killers per capita, at an accelerated rate the past five decades (on a long enough timescale the numbers are actually large enough to draw conclusions from). More than mere tolerance, the most recent couple of decades have been focused on purposefully placing weirdos in close proximity with the rest of us, which further stresses these already unstable souls.

        • what’s missing from this discussion is an innate sense of conscience…an ability to sense right from wrong…and some inner walls to deter this type of conduct…as religion retreats from our lives it is replaced by what?….perhaps a narcissistic sense of entitlement?

  24. I didn’t read everything available…yet, but do we know if this building was a gun free zone? Of course we all know how well that always works out where there are GFZs!

    • I think I heard the police say that building has no security and people are not allowed to carry. It’s a city building for public works.

      • If there were no guns present…it’s safe to say it was a GFZ regardless of the law/rules. Same outcome.

  25. The suppressor, capacity, type of bullet, and calibre are all irrelevant. Banning any of these items won’t change human nature. A simple attack with knives could have achieved the same level of violence and damage. Banning the item used is like banning the brand of pant worn by the attacker.

    These same items are used continually by all kinds of people for all kinds of lawful purposes.

    Police have no duty at all to protect. And are only marginally effective at identifying attackers if they can escape a crime scene. This isn’t a dig at police. It’s just common sense. Gun Free Zones create a false sense of security. Anyone with I’ll intent can bring all kinds of weapons into a gun free zone at will. There is no unicorn magic which protects these areas- all it does is reduce risk for those who would commit violence.

    Creating a gun free zone is like creating a “shoplifting free zone” then eliminating all security measures. It’s patently absurd.

    • Who cares?
      Why did no one return fire and stop him till the police got there?
      Dead people and their families care…
      I care.

    • I heard he was fired. Still waiting for confirmation on that. Police wont’ say his motive.

  26. Police heard shots from inside another building from the enclosed building and the gun was a subsonic gun with a suppressor??????

    If it was a 45acp semi-auto…..A suppressed 45acp is very quiet with the action making the most noise.

    Again the leftist with their gun free zones have blood on their hands 4 ever murder that occurs.

    Murder was illegal yesterday and today.

    If a few people had been carrying a gun this would of turned out different.

    Until citizen defenders are allowed to carry everywhere this will keep happening.

    Is it a fluke that all schools in 20 states where teachers carry guns there have been ZERO SHOOTINGS???

    https://crimeresearch.org/2019/05/major-new-research-on-school-safety-schools-that-allow-teachers-to-carry-guns-havent-seen-school-shootings-during-school-hours/

    • “Police heard shots from inside another building from the enclosed building and the gun was a subsonic gun with a suppressor??????”

      And far enough away/concealed well enough that it apparently took them over a quarter-hour to engage the guy (to be fair, I don’t know how big the complex/search area was)

      Most likely this is some invention by the author, and in reality it was panicked people rushing into the police station that alerted them (the shooting apparently began outside)

      • From what I remember, the building is rather big and has three floors. The shooter ran up and down the three floors shooting. Police were mostly on the first floor and some made it to the second. They took up safer positions and didn’t want to run into the shooter. They took their time and when they corned him they took their time again. They wanted to wait for the shields and help the cop that was shot in his vest. Whilst doing that a bunch of other cops were helping victims and the tacticool guys were setting up outside.

    • *News Flash!* *News Flash!*

      Silencers don’t make guns *silent*…

      • sometimes they do…all depends on caliber and bullet type….a .45 suppresses rather well…with its report drastically reduced…

  27. Another tragedy. I fear these emotional tidal waves of backlash may eventually cost us our 2A rights. It’s hard to stay focused on the basic premises, when a-holes/whackadoodles want to get their 5 minutes of fame.

    On another note, I would be very interested in knowing the basic motivations the perpetrator harbored. He obviously had been a law-abiding citizen – what changed?

    I submitted a story, just a few months ago, where a different city employee terrorized his staff by brandishing his firearm and aiming the laser sight at them.

    While this particular VPPTC is still employed, I’m happy to report the entire city council was ousted. There was so much nepotism going on it wasn’t funny. We’ll see what the eventual disposition ends up being. I just hope the knucklehead doesn’t go off the deep end, like in this pzarticular case.

    • “I fear these emotional tidal waves of backlash may eventually cost us our 2A rights. ”

      You mean tyrants may use this as an excuse to shove more tyranny upon us. Our individual rights are unalienable. The 2A was just to remind government of that pre-existing fact. Even if the 2A was repealed tomorrow, it wouldn’t change the fact that individuals posses unalienable rights. If you and others accept the lie that government can give what it does not posses (rights) then you and others will accept the lie that government can take them away. If you want to defend your rights, you have to first know what they are and know about their fundamental nature.

      • Um, O.K., so I guess it’s straight to anarchy then? We’re entirely discounting what the Second Amendment was put in place for.

        This drivel about tyrants serves no purpose, other than to try to fan emotions on the other side of the equation. Nonconstructive.

        Our biggest obstacles, with regard to the Second Amendment, are that the benefits aren’t apparent unless the country is in deep kimche and they’re obnoxiously loud. Granted, some people like that loud part 😉

        This tragic incident is just another, bitter cost of our freedom. Whackadoodles will be whackadoodles. If not a gun, it’ll be a bomb, or a pandemic or an EMP or…

        • I state again, read it slowly, please…

          If you want to defend your rights, you have to first know what they are and know about their fundamental nature.

          Unalienable rights cannot be taken away. Their exercise may be impeded by tyrants but that’s it. Just because you don’t like the word TYRANT doesn’t mean tyranny doesn’t exist. Know what you are fighting for and what you are fighting against or you are just pissing into the wind.

        • “Um, O.K., so I guess it’s straight to anarchy then?”

          Maximum liberty is a state of anarchy. Please don’t confuse anarchy with chaos. We can have, at least for a time, some middle ground between anarchy and statism. I get it, the idea of freedom makes snowflakes melt. It is what it is.

          “We’re entirely discounting what the Second Amendment was put in place for.”

          No, your statement left a strong impression that the 2A was the right when it is only a reminder to government that the unalienable right exists and that it is necessary to the security of a free state.

          “This drivel about tyrants serves no purpose, other than to try to fan emotions on the other side of the equation. Nonconstructive.”

          The truth is constructive. What did the founders of this nation call those who trampled on the exercise of people’s rights? Tyrants! Get used to the term because it is a proper one.

          There’s the Tree of Liberty and there are tyrants… whatever might a free people do?

          “Our biggest obstacles, with regard to the Second Amendment, are that the benefits aren’t apparent unless the country is in deep kimche and they’re obnoxiously loud. Granted, some people like that loud part 😉”

          What’s going on is one of the oldest games in existence. A group is trying to weaken another group in order to force their will upon them. There is no real “conversation.” The long game favors tyranny. Media, social media, education, and many other factors mean that tyranny will ultimately win if the people pussy-foot about.

          “This tragic incident is just another, bitter cost of our freedom. Whackadoodles will be whackadoodles. If not a gun, it’ll be a bomb, or a pandemic or an EMP or…”

          It is a cost of freedom. And? I don’t see that as having much to do with what we were just discussing.

  28. Curious what is meant by “extended” magazines, whether it’s a +2, has an extended finger plate, or what.

    • It’s probably a Glock with ‘stendos. No reason to assume it’s something other than the usual. It’s not like this doesn’t happen every weekend in Chicago (although the gangbangers being shot at generally are able to return fire & drive off the attackers before too many are hit…unlike the poor law abiding folks in this building)

  29. “.. Used a .45 Handgun and Suppressor to Murder”

    Why is the tool used to commit the murder important to anyone other than the jury? Murder is the crime that was committed, he could have used any number of tools to do what he did.

    And to those who would try and argue that any other tool would have resulted in fewer murders need to be asked just how many murders would have been acceptable?

    • 1) They don’t care about the murder, except insofar as it serves their pre-existing purpose, which is;
      2) To ban all privately-owned guns, of course.

  30. The historical record provides compelling evidence that racism underlies gun control laws — and not in any subtle way.

    If we bring the message to the people that all gun control is racist it will help in 2020..as the Dems will have a hard time walking back something they have doubled… tripled.. down on like Rabid Communist!

    • The U.S. government doesn’t like to show their citizens evidence. They like to hide all the photos and videos of crimes. They might show some stuff when they can use it to gain more power for themselves.

  31. curious what the capacity of his ‘extended’ magazines were given they were 45 acp. could be as few as 14 rounds, no?

    as a mere mortal i only shoot 9mm.

  32. A black man. A person of color. Committing a violent act. This is gonna be real interesting. AOC and Kamala will say that it was a white man dressed as a black man. Why? Because POC’s are victims of the white regime. So it can’t be a black man. Uh huh… Time to buy more ammo.

  33. WOW, in the 58 years I have been around I have never heard of a suppressor being used in a crime. now that there is a push on to deregulate them “Hearing protection act” suddenly here it is.
    Come on people, if what the media says is true, how would any one have heard gunshots from a weapon that fires subsonic rounds and is equipped with a suppressor?
    Do some research and quit fearing inanimate objects. It’s the person that commits a crime not the object used.

    • Well the Washington Post article quotes a former Secret Service agent about what a big deal this is. Oh, and they say suppressors are used by cowards.

    • I figure that there are a few options here.

      1) It was a faux suppressor, one of those “training silencers” you can buy for like $40.

      2) People are misremembering things. They know there was a shooting and they heard a noise so they remember hearing a sound they associate with a gun. Eye/ear witness testimony really ain’t that great because people’s memories are malleable.

      3) It’s a mistranslation. The person said something like “I heard these sounds” which the media intentionally or not translated to “heard gunshots” because they either have an agenda or, more likely, have no clue about the topic and just inserted what they thought would read well.

      4) It was a homebrew silencer that wasn’t well made.

      5) It was a silencer that ran on wipes and the shooter didn’t understand they had to be changed or couldn’t acquire more before his rampage because the wipes are also controlled.

      The simple facts are that either “they heard gunshots” is untrue for one reason or another or it wasn’t a real silencer/properly functioning silencer. Even kinda crappy silencers change the noise to something the vast majority of people wouldn’t recognize as being a “gunshot”.

      If there really was a conspiracy to have the NFA availability of silencers removed the media would be hyping how well the silencer worked and even exaggerating it.

      • I read a story from a former Homeland Security person saying there needs to be bans on suppressors because they make it hard to hear gunshots, thus the police and victims can’t tell where to run to.

        The man has legally owned various guns for years. I don’t doubt he bought a suppressor and used it.

        • There’s a whole interviewish thing done with Andrew Wilkow where he talks about why he very rarely appears on the news. His number one reason is that they call you up and say “Here’s the side of the story we want you to take” and he often doesn’t agree with that side of the story so he won’t accept money to say things he knows are not true/he doesn’t believe.

          I don’t have any reason to doubt that he’s telling the truth, so I question a lot of what “experts” say on to the news.

          I would certainly question the creds of “Homeland Security” in terms of taking that to mean that the guy understands sweet-fuck-all about suppressors. Appeals to authority are something we need to be very careful about and we’re not.

          Just look at the guy from Vigilance Elite. Smart dude, business owner, former SEAL and CIA operator. He generally knows his shit when it comes to security and punching holes in bad guys but sometimes he says shit that makes no sense.

          In the teams he used Black Hills 77gr 5.56 ammo (Mk 262) so he says that’s what everyone should use. I won’t argue that 77gr might be better in many circumstances and the dude’s killed a lot of people with it so I’m inclined to think he might be on to something.

          However, he also says that the proposed M855 made no sense because the Mk 262 is a better round anyway so no one should have gotten their panties in a twist about that ban because it wouldn’t matter anyway. What he doesn’t understand is that at the time he was getting his ammo from, as jwm would say, Uncle Sugar. People who had to buy their own ammo wanted cheaper ammo to shoot volume and M193 was kinda hard to find in some areas of the country after Obama went after the lead smelting industry. So M855 was the new hotness not because it was the GOAT but because it was cheap. The proposed M855 ban was a stealthy way to attack the ownership of rifles chambered in 5.56 by pricing people out of the ammo market for them. Same thing with the 7N6 ban on 5.45 imports.

          Can’t ban the guns so ban the cheaper ammo to price people out of the market. Homie might know a lot of about shooting and killing but he doesn’t understand the ammo market.

    • people have been marketing them [suppressors] very aggressively….and making acquisition easier…so I guess it isn’t surprising something like this happened…probably inevitable…considering the current climate….

  34. Everybody should carry a gun then these things like this would not happen these people think is a gun free zone so that’s ware they go thinking no one will have a gun

  35. I look forward to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a proud member of the Klu Klux Klan, (see his college yearbook pictures) demanding laws that will disarm black people in Virginia. There are plenty of “Black Codes” he can go to, to get reference material for his upcoming new gun control laws.

    • btw
      Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam is a southern (gun grabber) democrat. He is right at home in the Klan.

  36. I feel the need to point out that the ATF had a year to vette this guy. As did the feds and local authorities when he submitted his 4473. So, really the grabbers have had 32,000 opportunities to craft laws that mean something to them and yet they continue to be unsatisified. Perhaps they just accept that the way they choose to act on their feelings is irrational. And the rational among us refuse to acknowledge their ideas any longer.

    In the meantime, this guy was a shitstain and should be blamed. My concern is with the survivors and their families.

  37. If it’s true that this was carried out with a legally purchased NFA item, then any calls for enhanced background checks are forever bankrupt. The fact that Swalwell would immediately jump to that just shows how devoid of rational thought that side is.

    • Years ago a former government employee who was fired for speaking out about corruption went after the government. He was a 33 year old black male, former military, former cop. He owned about 12 suppressors and used them to attack the police. He was for gun control so civilians can’t own what he did.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9KkQbp3X_Y&t=1m11s

  38. So sad for those twelve families and all the people around this tragedy. Shooting people with a 45, plus a suppressor… His lawyer is going to have a hard time

  39. Why couldn’t a mass shooting like this target some government employees that truly deserve it such as the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program?

  40. Y’all europeans done lost all of your marbles you people are totally insane!!! Violence is america as apple pie and hot dogs. Ask the so called native American, ask the refugees of the trans-atlantic slave trade, ask the African American mothers of their children being shot down in cold blood by white supremacist racist ass cops everyday! If it weren’t for gun violence all of you europeans would be in europe killing one another off!!
    What goes around comes around! Those who live by the gun will die by the gun!
    LONG LIVE THE 2ND AMENDMENT!!!!! GOD BLESS THE 2ND AMENDMENT!!!!
    GUNS FOR ALL!!!!

    • LMAO. He was a black man. Again. He was a BLACK man. A person of color. An Obama mama. He killed white folk and black folk. How Don Lemon gonna explain that one? Oh wait. Black people ain’t violent like white people…

  41. Just a grammatical quibble, but I think the shooter used a suppressed handgun to kill those people. Much like using a handgun equipped with sights and grips to kill those people. Or while wearing pants, perhaps. I don’t think he used a handgun to kill some people and a suppressor to kill the rest. Just pointing out that a suppressor in of itself isn’t lethal. Unless you ram it through someone’s eye socket. Which I don’t think happened here. But maybe it did.

  42. It has the stench of False Flag for False Narrative Yellow Journalism Press all over it.

    • I am starting to put it together. It’s early, so things are not super accurate and will change.

      So far it appears this was an assassination of his coworkers. He quit his job that day via email. From what I know, he doesn’t have a wife or kids living with him. Now that he doesn’t have anything in his life, he decided to go to his former job with two legal .45 handguns using extended mags and NFA suppressors. He shot one person in the parking lot, went into the government municipal building, used his key card to get into his workplace, then started killing his coworkers. Police arrived at the shooting within about 10 minutes. He started shooting at the police. It took about 20 minutes until they could get handcuffs on him. He died on scene, likely before the police got to him.

      He used to be in the military before he went on to work for the city government as an engineer. He was trained and worked out regularly. He legally owned various guns and suppressors. They say he wasn’t being fired, but recently they have been fighting with him at work. It was said at some point there was physical exchange with a coworker. Eventually he put in his 2 week notice then went to his job to stealthy assassinate the people he had issues with. He used a suppressor to make sure his targets were confused in order to give him enough time to kill all of them.

      So it’s another ex military/government guy who went on to kill government. This is the fourth former military black male who decided to kill government (that I know of) in the last 6 years. Those being: Dorner, Johnson, Long, Craddock.

      This is why the police chief and city manager doesn’t want to say who he was or why he did what he did. They already knew about him and the conflicts at work. They already knew why he shot these specific people. They already knew who he was before he shot at police and died. They know and don’t want tell the public that this was a former military man who worked for the government that felt wronged by them and decided to attack government.

      Who wants to hear that possibly a black Christian man, who served in uniform, had an engineering degree, owned NFA items and worked for the government practically all his life, would decide to attack that government? We can’t have government going postal on government. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. It’s supposed to be government going postal on the people.

      The government will not like this, the Democrats will not like this, black people will not like this, the NRA will not like this, Republicans will not like this, the media will not like this. So, let’s bury the story quickly.

  43. THERES NOTHING ANYONE CAN DO STOP THIS MADNESS PEOPLE, OUR COUNTRY HAS BEEN FEEDING THIS PERFECT RECIPE FOR DISASTER FOR YEARS AND ITS NO 1 SINGLE PERSONS FAULT…Whether you disagree or not with this means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO ME, BECAUSE THE TRUTH IS AT THIS POINT THE ONLY THING THAT COULD HAVE MINIMIZED OR STOP THIS IS ANOTHER FIREARM IN ANOTHER NON HOMICIDAL PERSONS HAND. There’s NOTHING that can be done to affect the rediculously high amount of weapons we have on our streets in this country, and even if there was, people would just simply start making there own…many are ALREADY? Sadly….all you can do is hope your loved ones are NOT in the wrong place at the wrong time…PERIOD (Pointing fingers and blame does nothing…quit wasting your time bitching and spend that time with whom you love.)

    • THERES NOTHING ANYONE CAN DO STOP THIS MADNESS PEOPLE, OUR COUNTRY HAS BEEN FEEDING THIS PERFECT RECIPE FOR DISASTER FOR YEARS AND ITS NO 1 SINGLE PERSONS FAULT…

      Too many CAPS and no reasonable thoughts for discussion. Go read a book and take your meds.

  44. How do you get caught and you are using a silencer? Silencers are for assassinations not aim and spray random mass shootings. This guy was incompetent. How come every major mass shooting with an exotic weapons system has the guy dead or apprehended by police but cold cases and unsolved murders are done with regular guns needing no modifications or special knowledge?

    Mass shootings are getting boring.

    • “Silencers” or suppressors do NOT make a gun shot sound like the “silencers” that are portrayed in movies. They reduce the noise of the gunshot by about 20 decibels, from about 140 decibels to 120, but that .45 that the killer used was still a loud gun. Get your facts correct if you’re going to make comments or else you just make yourself sound ignorant.

  45. It’s finally happened: President Trump has decided he does not like firearms equipped with suppressors. And of course- the gun control fanatics pile on because they see their golden opportunity. SO: lets make up our minds to CONTACT President Trump and at least make him aware we are watching with alarm and want him to reconsider and REJOIN US in our determination to preserve our safety and our right to bear arms.

    It’s fun to comment on these articles and politicians antics but we do have the right and the ability to take action which can affect President Trump and thereby affect the outcome. Lets see how many people take the action needed (and who just keep having fun making comments here and all over the damned Internet).

    • I did just that, Jack. I went to whitehouse.gov, and sent an e-mail. Got a “received your e-mail” response, but do not expect anything, seeing is how President Trump is visiting Queen Elizabeth right about now. I was polite, but gave Trump my full thoughts on his gun control stance. Whether he listens, gives a damned, or changes his tune is the million dollar question.

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