Have we talked about the Isla Vista shooting?

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

I don't see a thread about it but I only went 2 pages back.

fitmama418 · May 2014

The video that he shot was haunting. As a friend of mine put it: "Virgin son of a Hollywood mogul with a narcissistic God complex hellbent on destruction and revenge? Ok, then."

Hit post too soon: I also heard that a little while back he tried to push people off of a 10 foot ledge at a party. And followed a couple he saw making out back to their car and dumped coffee on them. I can't even handle this guy. I hope no one on here has anyone close to the tragedy out there, if so my heart goes out to you.

MrsLaLaBug · May 2014

I was listening to the radio about it this morning and they said that the police did recently go out and question the guy after prompts from the therapist and parents, and not just on one occasion. Yet the police found him to be calm and polite and that was that. I think in the written manifesto he mentions that if the police would've searched his dwelling, it would have been all over because they would have discovered his weapons, things he had written, and things on his computer. Almost like he was poking fun at them and putting the fault on the police for him getting away with it.

LuckyDad · May 2014

The whole thing makes me sad and sick

RondackHiker · May 2014

I've been following this and have had so many thoughts and have really struggled to kind of put them together.

Here are two links friends posted on facebook that express my thoughts more clearly than I can. I'm so sad about yet another mass shooting and so sickened by his reason... I find it all really upsetting.

https://www.msnbc.com/disrupt/watch/yesallwomen-responds-to-california-shooting-266091075525?cid=sm_facebook_video

https://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/05/lets-call-isla-vista-killings-what-they-were-misogynist-extremism

Lolapop29 · May 2014

I must have been living under a rock all weekend, because this is the first I've read about this shooting. How horrible.

I'm off to read all the articles now.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

I really hate it when these people kill themselves.

Own your shit, asshole.

RondackHiker · May 2014

Every time we talk about these tragedies we talk about needing to fix our mental health care system. I know the system is broken... but what would we need to change to fix these things?

I may be missing something but I feel like unless we can commit people against their will and force them to take their meds there isn't much that can be done. That's a depressing thought since I'm sure there would be more people committed involuntarily than would do this kind of thing.

I'm also really annoyed that there's so much talk (in general, not saying this board in particular) about how this is due to guns or mental illness and less focus on how this jackass felt he was 'owed' women.

RondackHiker · May 2014

Mackalien13 said:

CinemaGoddess said:

I really hate it when these people kill themselves.

Own your shit, asshole.

I feel like it also deprives the families of closure. They never get to hear answers from the shooter or see him brought to justice.

In this case at least they know "why", even if the reason is horrible and twisted and upsetting. Does the hoopla of a trial give more closure than things just being over?

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

RondackHiker said:

Mackalien13 said:

CinemaGoddess said:

I really hate it when these people kill themselves.

Own your shit, asshole.

I feel like it also deprives the families of closure. They never get to hear answers from the shooter or see him brought to justice.

In this case at least they know "why", even if the reason is horrible and twisted and upsetting. Does the hoopla of a trial give more closure than things just being over?

for some, I'm sure it would.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

Exactly, Lois.

Dude should've had to pay for his crimes, not just be able to end it all.

Same as Ariel Castro. I was fucking ragey when I heard that douchenozzle killed himself.

SandyClam · May 2014

https://bellejar.ca/2014/05/24/elliot-rodger-and-men-who-hate-women/

TW for violence against women, misogynistic language, violent language, talk of rape

Last night, a 22 year old man named Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured seven more in what most news outlets are describing as a “shooting rampage.” Rodger died later that night from a gunshot wound to his head, though it’s still unclear as to whether or not it was self-inflicted or from responding deputies shooting back after he opened fire on them.

Almost everything I’ve read about him has referred to him as a “madman” or “mentally ill.”

No. We have no evidence yet that he suffered from any kind of mental illness or was seeking any sort of treatment. Immediately claiming that with no proof to back that fact up leads to the further stigmatization of the mentally ill, and contributes to the (incorrect) assumption that mental illness equals violence, and vice versa.

We don’t know whether Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. What we do know is that he was a Men’s Rights Activist, or MRA.

He was an active member of the “PUAhate,” an online forum (which has been down since the shootings) dedicated to “revealing the scams, deception and misleading marketing techniques used by dating gurus and the seduction community to mislead men and profit from them.” And just to clarify, they’re not revealing these scams because of how vile and misogynistic they are, but rather because these men have tried these techniques and still failed to trick women into sleeping with them. These are men who both feel entitled to have sex with women and also blame all women everywhere for not fucking them. See, they want to have sex with a woman because that’s what they deserve just for being dudes, but they also hate women for withholding what they view as rightfully theirs. And I mean, boy do they ever hate women. The PUAhate forum has, according to an article on The Hairpin, threads with titles like “Are ugly women completely useless to society?” and “Have any hot women ever committed suicide?”

Rodger also subscribed to several YouTube channels on how to be a ‘pick up artist,’ including The Player Supreme Show and RSDfreetour as well as multiple MRA channels.

Last night, shortly before going on his killing spree, Rodger posted a video on YouTube to serve as his manifesto. In it, he declares that he’s a 22 year old virgin, and then goes on to say:

‘College is the time when everyone experiences those things such as sex and fun and pleasure. But in those years I’ve had to rot in loneliness. It’s not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me. But I will punish you all for it,’ he says in the video, which runs to almost seven minutes.
>‘I’m going to enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB and I will slaughter every single spoilt, stuck-up, blonde slut that I see inside there. All those girls that I’ve desired so much, they would’ve all rejected me and looked down on me as an inferior man if I ever made a sexual advance towards them,’

‘I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one. The true alpha male …’

This is what the Men’s Rights Movement teaches its members. Especially vulnerable, lonely young men who have a hard time relating to women. It teaches them that women, and especially feminist women, are to blame for their unhappiness. It teaches them that women lie, and that women are naturally predisposed to cheat, trick and manipulate. It teaches them that men as a social class are dominant over women and that they are entitled to women’s bodies. It teaches them that women who won’t give them what they want deserve some kind of punishment.

We need to talk about this. The media, especially, needs to address this. We live in a culture that constantly devalues women in a million little different ways, and that culture has evolved to include a vast online community of men who take that devaluation to its natural conclusion: brutal, violent hatred of women. And I don’t mean that all these men have been physically violent towards women, but rather that they use violent, degrading, dehumanizing language when discussing women. Whose bodies, just as a reminder, they feel completely entitled to.

Another reminder: this isn’t an isolated incident. Not by a long shot. No, most men don’t go out in a blaze of glory after shooting up in a sorority house, but there are so many examples of men becoming violent towards women after being rejected. Like the kid last month who stabbed a girl to death because she wouldn’t go to the prom with him. The threat of violence is the main reason why many women feel unable to leave an abusive relationship – because after leaving is when they are at their most vulnerable. When you look the statistics on violence against women, Elliot Rodger’s act doesn’t seem so much like a one-off incident. He was participating, albeit in a grandiose public way, in the time-honoured tradition of controlling women with violence and punishing them when they don’t behave as desired.

We don’t know if Elliot Rodger was mentally ill. We don’t know if he was a “madman.” We do know that he was desperately lonely and unhappy, and that the Men’s Rights Movement convinced him that his loneliness and unhappiness was intentionally caused by women. Because this is what the Men’s Rights Movement does: it spreads misogyny, it spreads violence, and most of all it spreads a sense of entitlement towards women’s bodies. Pretending that this is the a rare act perpetrated by a “crazy” person is disingenuous and also does nothing to address the threat of violence that women face every day. We can’t just write this one off – we need to talk about all of the fucked up parts of our culture, especially the movements that teach men that they have the right to dominate and intimidate and violate women, and we need to change things. Because if we don’t, I guarantee that this will happen again. And again. And again.

‘”Why do men feel threatened by women?” I asked a male friend of mine. So this male friend of mine, who does by the way exist, conveniently entered into the following dialogue. “I mean,” I said, “men are bigger, most of the time, they can run faster, strangle better, and they have on the average a lot more money and power.” “They’re afraid women will laugh at them,” he said. “Undercut their world view.” Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, “Why do women feel threatened by men?” “They’re afraid of being killed,” they said.’

Margaret Atwood, Writing the Male Character (1982)

ETA: A few people have been commenting to tell me that I’m wrong about Elliot not having a mental illness, as his family members have reported to the media that he had Asperger syndrome. Asperger syndrome is not a mental illness – it is a neurological condition, and it does not predispose people to violence. Correlating Asperger’s with violence is wrong and uninformed and you are doing more harm than good by saying that.

RondackHiker · May 2014

CinemaGoddess said:

RondackHiker said:

Mackalien13 said:

CinemaGoddess said:

I really hate it when these people kill themselves.

Own your shit, asshole.

I feel like it also deprives the families of closure. They never get to hear answers from the shooter or see him brought to justice.

In this case at least they know "why", even if the reason is horrible and twisted and upsetting. Does the hoopla of a trial give more closure than things just being over?

for some, I'm sure it would.

True. I hope I didn't make it sound like I was dismissing their right to closure and a trial.

I read an interview with a mother of one of the Colorado shooting's victims and she said the media was horrible when the trial was approaching. Of course, that's on the media and the media would still be shitty even if there was no trial, so ignore my earlier statement.

I'm just so sad and angry about this.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

There definitely needs to be stricter gun laws. This guy should not have had access to a gun.

Also,this dude went and killed a bunch of women because he was still a virgin.

Instead of just going to a hooker, he decided to shoot some people.

SEEMS LEGIT.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

If this guy did have Aspergers, I hope the Aspergers community distances themselves from him.

RondackHiker · May 2014

CinemaGoddess said:

There definitely needs to be stricter gun laws. This guy should not have had access to a gun.

Also,this dude went and killed a bunch of women because he was still a virgin.

Instead of just going to a hooker, he decided to shoot some people.

SEEMS LEGIT.

But he shouldn't have to pay.

We women should just give it up, right?

That's what we're there for.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

I have a feeling there are hookers that look better and have more skillz than your standard 20 year old college girl.

Especially when you come from money. Dude could've gone to Europe or someshit and got the fancy courtesans.

RondackHiker · May 2014

IamInigoMontoya said:

Every time we talk about these tragedies we talk about needing to fix our mental health care system. I know the system is broken... but what would we need to change to fix these things?

I may be missing something but I feel like unless we can commit people against their will and force them to take their meds there isn't much that can be done. That's a depressing thought since I'm sure there would be more people committed involuntarily than would do this kind of thing.

I'm also really annoyed that there's so much talk (in general, not saying this board in particular) about how this is due to guns or mental illness and less focus on how this jackass felt he was 'owed' women.
Where to begin? Like LoisLayn mentioned, more extensive screening to purchase weapons to start. Also making it easier to access care particularly at a young age. Even people with significant resources (as it seems this kids parents were) continue to report how difficult it is to access good, quality mental health care particular for children and young adults. We also need to improve care coordination and communication across systems. As is true of most health care, information is often fragmented and doesn't always follow an individual from one provider to another. So you could see multiple different providers and get different information every time simply because no one has a compete history or all of your past treatment info. And of course, more work to reduce stigma so that individuals and families feel comfortable asking for help and know where to go to get it. These are just a few but there is a lot of white papers out there that lay out a blue print for how to fix our system. There is just a lack of political will and resources to do it.

Thanks.

This makes it much more clear.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

That MRA bullshit can fuck right off.

[Deleted User] · May 2014

This article adds to LL's comments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/us/limits-to-law-and-information-sharing-despite-gunmans-danger-signs.html?_r=0

From the article.

1. Mr. Rodger’s mother had seen some of the earlier videos posted on his Facebook page and alerted mental health officials, who in turn sent the police. But Mr. Rodger, for all his inner turmoil, displayed to deputies who showed up at his doorstep the kind of outwardly balanced behavior not uncommon for troubled people when confronted by authority figures.

The police determined they had no grounds to hold him for psychiatric examination — or, perhaps more significant, to search his apartment, where he had hidden three automatic handguns and a trove of ammunition. Once the police left, Mr. Rodger took down the videos.

2. Mr. Rodger rejected attempts by his parents and therapists to treat him. “I don’t know why my parents wasted money on therapy, as it will never help me in my struggle against such a cruel and unjust world,” he wrote in his manifesto. A doctor prescribed him risperidone, an antipsychotic drug, but Mr. Rodger wrote that after researching the drug, he had refused to take it.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

But what could the police have done, really? He wasn't really a danger to himself or others until he actually took action. Of course, by then it was too late.

Before funding needs to come stricter gun laws. Then start funding the mental health stuff.

Guns are the bigger problem here.

nonoemily · May 2014

When I first read about this I wanted to throw up. When I was twenty this strange guy I met ended up stalking me for about six months. He seemed quiet and nice on the surface but after talking to him for a few minutes it was obvious that he was really angry at women and really angry about being rejected.

He didn't understand why women weren't interested in him, why I wasn't interested in him (I was married at the time) and there was just this scary rage sitting under the surface.

He followed me everywhere, my XH threatened him many times, but he wasn't intimidated. I got rid of him eventually, but it sucked. It made me feel gross.

I've met a few men like this over the years. They don't understand that their anger at women is so visible. They think they are smarter than average, and therefore "deserving" of something more. They really don't see women as anything more than status symbols and objects.

I feel for this young mans parents, too. I can't imagine what it's like to have your child commit such a horrific act.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

IamInigoMontoya said:

CinemaGoddess said:

But what could the police have done, really? He wasn't really a danger to himself or others until he actually took action. Of course, by then it was too late.

Before funding needs to come stricter gun laws. Then start funding the mental health stuff.

Guns are the bigger problem here.

This is what's still confusing to me though - is who had what information and when? If police or his therapist knew that he was talking about plans to kill sorority girls on his campus then this could be considered an actionable threat because he has an intended and named target. Unfortunately hindsight is always 20/20 and I'm sure no one imagine that he would go this far but I think it's natural after these events to look at what could have been differently to prevent things like this from happening moving forward.

I agree though that gun control is the biggest issue here. At the end of the day, the only way anyone can wreak this kind of havoc and mayhem is by having access to high powered weaponry and artillery. Events like these, while still sad and devastating, just don't look the same with handguns or knives.

The last I heard, the parents had given the police the YouTube video but the police hadn't looked at it prior to their interview with Rodger.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

IamInigoMontoya said:

CinemaGoddess said:

But what could the police have done, really? He wasn't really a danger to himself or others until he actually took action. Of course, by then it was too late.

Before funding needs to come stricter gun laws. Then start funding the mental health stuff.

Guns are the bigger problem here.

This is what's still confusing to me though - is who had what information and when? If police or his therapist knew that he was talking about plans to kill sorority girls on his campus then this could be considered an actionable threat because he has an intended and named target. Unfortunately hindsight is always 20/20 and I'm sure no one imagine that he would go this far but I think it's natural after these events to look at what could have been differently to prevent things like this from happening moving forward.

I agree though that gun control is the biggest issue here. At the end of the day, the only way anyone can wreak this kind of havoc and mayhem is by having access to high powered weaponry and artillery. Events like these, while still sad and devastating, just don't look the same with handguns or knives.

Also, to the bolded.

It's one thing to sit here and brainstorm about what could be done differently for the shooter and how the victims could've been protected.

It's entirely another thing to take action on those ideas. That's where things get hung up. We can all talk until we're blue in the face about what needs to be done, but until someone steps up and actually succeeds in bringing that change, we'll have to get used to hearing new and increasingly horrifying stories about shootings and mental illness.

RondackHiker · May 2014

nonoemily said:
When I first read about this I wanted to throw up. When I was twenty this strange guy I met ended up stalking me for about six months. He seemed quiet and nice on the surface but after talking to him for a few minutes it was obvious that he was really angry at women and really angry about being rejected.

He didn't understand why women weren't interested in him, why I wasn't interested in him (I was married at the time) and there was just this scary rage sitting under the surface.

He followed me everywhere, my XH threatened him many times, but he wasn't intimidated. I got rid of him eventually, but it sucked. It made me feel gross.

I've met a few men like this over the years. They don't understand that their anger at women is so visible. They think they are smarter than average, and therefore "deserving" of something more. They really don't see women as anything more than status symbols and objects.

I feel for this young mans parents, too. I can't imagine what it's like to have your child commit such a horrific act.

I think that's part of what is scary. I know several men who were so burningly angry at women.

It is just so wrong that this man was able to get guns.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

mbenit4 said:

If you are talking about doing harm to yourself or others then yes that is suicidal and homicidal ideation. They received a call about his videos where even a lay person could see he was talking about killing random people. Around here you can be arrested for making threats.

True, but what happens if he is arrested for making threats. Is that a felony?

If not, then as soon as he gets out, he goes right back to the guns he'd already stockpiled (or stockpiles new ones if the others were taken by the police) and picks right back up where he left off.

The cops can detain him. They can't prevent him (at least right now) from having access to guns thanks to the gun laws in this country.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

Yes, which is why we need stricter gun laws instead of better mental health facilities right now. Deal with the immediate threat now (guns) while slowly building up to the end game (mental health care funding).

RondackHiker · May 2014

CinemaGoddess said:
Yes, which is why we need stricter gun laws instead of better mental health facilities right now. Deal with the immediate threat now (guns) while slowly building up to the end game (mental health care funding).

I don't understand how anyone could argue against changing the gun laws to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill individuals.

CinemaGoddess · May 2014

RondackHiker said:

Yes, which is why we need stricter gun laws instead of better mental health facilities right now. Deal with the immediate threat now (guns) while slowly building up to the end game (mental health care funding).
I don't understand how anyone could argue against changing the gun laws to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill individuals.

Talk to the NRA.

2nd Amendment, y'all.

nonoemily · May 2014

CinemaGoddess said:
Yes, which is why we need stricter gun laws instead of better mental health facilities right now. Deal with the immediate threat now (guns) while slowly building up to the end game (mental health care funding).

I am a gun owner, and I agree.

allrightmeow · May 2014

This.

https://www.theonion.com/articles/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this,36131/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:1:Default

virgin4lyfe · May 2014

I just can't get over that there's still this expectation in society that girls just have to be crawling all over you.
A girl got stabbed in the neck for telling a boy she wouldn't go to prom with him because she was going with her boyfriend.
Now this kid thinks he's entitled to women and because they don't like him he can kill a bunch of them?
It just makes me scared to walk outside. Or try to meet anybody ever.
(I know you all have moved on to mental health and guns and I'm way behind.)

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