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Candlelight vigil for victims of Santa Barbara spree killing (courtesy cnn.com)

As much as the gun control freaks would love to dance in the blood of the victims and call for more gun control, it looks like their celebration of these latest deaths might have been premature. The initial knee-jerk reaction from even the killers parents was to blame the evil NRA for the gun that hypnotized their son into murdering people, but according to the latest reports it looks like they might want to evenly spread that blame on the Culinary Institute of America and Cutco too.

From KYET:

NewsChannel 3 was first to bring you the breaking news that three people were found dead inside his Isla Vista apartment on Seville Road.

[…]

“The three male victims were apparently stabbed repeatedly with sharp objects and it was a pretty horrific crime scene,” said Sheriff Bill Brown at Saturday’s press conference.

According to ABC’s reporting, the sheriff stated that these three were included in the initial body count. That means three stabbed, three either shot or run over, and one mass murderer killed by the police.

Bet you anything Shannon Watts ignores that little piece of information and blames all of the murders on the evil influence of the firearm.

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109 COMMENTS

  1. Every article I’ve seen on this (after a blissful day sans internet) uses that picture. A 22-year-old does not drive a six series because they saved up for it washing dishes over a few summers.

    • That’s a 3-series, an E92, dating from as early as 2009. By now, the price on such cars is well within dishwasher range.

      • I don’t know what you think dishwashers make but when I did it for $7.50/hr. several years ago, most of my coworkers cars were 20 years old and held together with duct tape. A 2009 BMW is not “within dishwasher range”.

        • If a 2009 bimmer is ‘within dishwasher range’, I want to know where those dishes are.

        • A 328 that year is about $13K on the low end, so a $7.50-an-hour full-time dishwasher could barely afford it if they were either willing to take out a ridiculous loan term, lived with their parents, or washed those dishes in Seattle for $15-an-hour.

        • Why are you guys arguing about this? Elliot Rodger’s mom bought him the BMW because he begged her for it. His school had a car hierarchy. Elliot had no money of his own. His family continually sent him living expenses (with which he purchased the guns and ammo and vanilla lattes).

      • Are you one of those wealthy people who does not understand why other people aren’t wealthy…?

      • The lines didn’t look right to me, but I guess the news is reporting it as a 3 series. I can only spot an E-38 at a glance, out of necessity (that is a car an industrious dishwasher could hope for).

        Still, a base model 2009 3 series, in fair condition, according to KBB, from a private seller, in the killer’s zip code, goes for over $11,000. Assuming he never spent a dime on anything else, he technically could have bought one from part time employment if he had been saving since he turned 16. Depending on how much his parents (or whoever was providing room and board) make, of course.

        As I understand it (not going to read the manifesto myself) this was a case of entitlement, pure and simple. Specific diagnoses aside, any person will react in an unpredictable way when confronted with an experience that contradicts their worldview. Someone who is conditioned to expect whatever they want within a reasonable amount of time of when they want it will snap the first time their desires are denied. And that transcends economic divides. There was a girl in my high school who freaked out when she turned 16 and the beat up fifth-hand Camaro her parents bought for her wasn’t white. It was worth more than the trailer they lived in, but (apparently) even Hitler wouldn’t have bought it because it was red. Or black. It was a long time ago.

  2. Ban all knives!

    In the UK, where few citizens are allowed to have guns, murders and assaults are committed by miscreants with knives and cricket bats. Some are surely clamoring for a ban on Sheffield knives.

  3. It’s like the mother’s that just smile when their little Angels act out. We have all seen that happen. Rich and not so. When shit happens it stinks. I just wish someone had a gun to stop him.

      • Even without a gun I would not have been a victim.

        One guy with a knife may have wounded me, may have mortally wounded me even… but in my early 20s (I’m assuming the male victims were in this age bracket), this sicko kid would not have been able to kill all those sorority girls afterwords.

        I don’t know his actual size, but all the stories I am reading state he was below average height too. At the very least he doesn’t look very built.

        At 21 years old I had a pocket knife on me at all times and 7 years of martial arts under my belt.

        My point is this: This isn’t just a mental health issue. This isn’t just a gun issue.

        This story illustrates how different the youth of today are from even a decade ago.

        And is it just me or does his “retribution” manifesto remind me of a casting submission video for the part of Joffrey in Game of Thrones?

        • Unless you were sleeping when he cut your throat.

          We should do whatever we can to move the odds in our favor, but there are no guarantees.

        • Two of the three stab victims were probably his Asian roommates which he hated. That was his plan. He could have easily killed them in their sleep.

        • Good points guys.

          That said, when I /did/ live with room mates, especially when I lived with a roomie who hated me, I always kept the door to my room locked. Anybody this creepy I’ve never turned my back to.

          There is no sure thing, yes. However, I think Mr. Bond Villain voice would have had a tough time offing me without a scratch.

        • He reminded me of Pete Campbell from “Mad Men” so much that I had to turn off the video, collect myself, and watch it again with the pretense of who he really is, and of the gravity of what he has done in the forefront of my mind.

      • Perhaps, but if this guy was really as creepy as he appears to all of us in just a short video, then he would have been abundantly creepy to these roommates; likely with frequent diatribes against women and the world as he paraded about the apartment. They should have kicked his psycho butt to the curb long ago. Blaming the victims? I don’t know. Let’s call it a failure to stay away from stupid people.

  4. He stabbed 3 , ran over one and shot 2 by my last count. Psychopath in a slow news cycle. Totally eclipsing the 3 shot at the Jewish Museum in Europe.

  5. 3 shootings is barely going to make the NEWS in Chicago. The weather is greater this weekend. I look for a violent weekend here in Chicagoland. Sigh.

    • It was a more involved procedure a couple years ago for me to make a statement about a fender-bender on the Mackinac Bridge than when my aunt and uncle got caught in the crossfire of a drive-by in Saginaw in the early ’90s. It’s not NYC or LA, they don’t care.

      By the way, I spent the better part of an hour exposed and unarmed in a less than friendly part of Detroit last week, and didn’t hear a single gunshot, or siren, or see any sign of a fire.

    • To show how pitiful Chicago can be, I woke up yesterday morning to a news reporter gleefully reporting that no one had been shot Friday night. Haven’t turned on the news yet today. I am sure they made up for it last night.

  6. The news reports say that for the three people he shot, he was out of his car and that he walked up to them and shot them. They were not victims of drive-by shootings. That means that they might have possibly had a chance to defend themselves if they had been allowed to be armed.

  7. Shannon’s panties are so wet with excitement, no she won’t change the story. It is mid year review time and this is her ticket to an annual bonus from king midget

      • surprisingly, one of the CNN channels had on “experts” in mental health, former FBI, etc, and they all said the mental health “professionals” treating this kid are to blame for not getting his name into the NICS system and not pushing involuntary commitment with police based upon his youtube rants.

        • While they’re right that the therapists ought to have caught this before it escalated, the NICS comment shows how deluded these people are. So, if his name was included in this database, he couldn’t have bought the guns? Great. Tell that to the people he stabbed and ran over with his car. This is a textbook case that illustrates that a sociopath bent on mayhem will use whatever means are at his disposal.

        • it is not a gun story b/c he acquired his weapons legally. . . . if he had bought them on the street from someone, Bloomberg would have busted a nut on himself. . . .

        • Dirk, that used to be true, but the antis have let too much of their mask slip. They don’t care about legal and illegal, and they never did. In their twisted minds there should be no guns, period, no second amendment. Well, no guns except for the police and government, of course, because they’d never misuse them.

  8. The media calls this wacko a “gunman” he was another wacko who used a knife and a gun to kill Has anyone seen or verified his membership in the NRA? He created a manifesto read it see if it mentions anything about gun control. He suffered from Asperger syndrome maybe this is what should be blamed for his murderous ways?

    • You’ve GOTTA stick to the story line. The guns “went off” while he driving to get help for the three guys in his apartment, and the girl ran into the path of his car. Check the Official News Center Story Board.

  9. I hear he also struck 4 victims with the BMW. I don’t think my 9mm or .45 would be very useful against a BMW unless I got a lucky shot through the tinted glass. We should ban cars because it isn’t easy to concealed-carry a .50 BMG.

    • No, but grenades are fairly easy to conceal, well, bulky and heavy but certainly more concealable than anything chambered in .50BMG. Of course .44mag, 454, .460S&W and .500 S&W are all made in concealable packages, but they feel about like you used a grenade instead but forgot to throw it.

    • Isn’t all that glass, the justification some use for the .357Sig?

      I’ve driven cars armored to supposedly be “handgun round resistant”, and they aren’t exactly Ultimate Driving Machines post treatment. Can only imagine what a .50BMG resistant one must drive (or not) like.

    • 9, 40 and 45 all perform pretty well on windshield glass depending on angle of impact. Sheet metal is much the same, all readily penetrate car hoods and doors provided they don’t strike support beams or other more solid substrates unless the angle of impact is very shallow. That said, an 8mm rifle at point blank will ‘bounce’ off a common car hood at very shallow angles of impact (I’ve personally seen this). I’ve fired hundreds if not thousands of rounds of various common handgun cartridges into all sorts of automobiles and my experience is that all types tend to penetrate car doors through to the interior when the angle of entry is over 45 degrees.

      Interestingly, most rifles and some magnum handguns can be fired into the trailing edge of the hood at angles common to standing in front of the car while firing, with good odds of penetration through the hood, firewall and dash for impact in the lumbar area of the seat. Just the sort of shot one might take on a driver who is attempting to use the dash for cover while still operating the vehicle. I have not seen any reliable penetration with this shot though using 9,40,or 45. A lucky shot might get through but penetration is sufficiently unlikely to make such a shot a worthwhile endeavor.

      • Hey I saw a movie once(I think Stallone)where the detective flipped open his .38 and inserted a +P+ and shot a semi coming at him and it stopped it dead cold like it hit an invisible wall.Also saw another movie (could have been the same on) where it blew a quarter size hole clear through a bulldozer blade.
        Could have been Tango and Cash. sorry couldn’t help it.

    • Certainly not! One shot from a .45 will remove the entire window and wrap it around the de-souled body of the car’s occupant. I know this to be true, I read it on a firearms blog.

  10. This was a preventable tragedy and was a failure in the part of the police it seems. They had probable cause to get a warrant to search his place. I mean he was posting a bunch of videos where he pretty much was advertising what he was intending to do. This would have probably been one of those cases where involuntary commitment would have been legitimate.

    • Bottom line: protecting civil liberties is vastly more important than preempting a nut-case killer. This kid was highly verbal and obviously able to talk his way out of further police or medical intervention. Even if they’d taken him in for a psychiatric evaluation, I think he was so good a appearing normal that he’d have talked his way out of that too. This is something that happens all the time, btw. The fact is, aside from posting angry, threatening videos, he apparently hadn’t done anything legally actionable. We have to be careful when we start demanding that “something” be done because that “something” invariably involves the denial of civil rights that keep the rest of us free. That’s what is happening right now. Already, government is talking about treating gun ownership and gun use as a pathology, turning our constitutional right to bear arms into a medical problem in need of “treatment”. Think about what that means for us.

      • + some high number.

        Even more tax feeder intrusion into the lives of people may, just may, be a net gain “solution” to some corner case problem in Somalia, where government is more properly limited to begin with; but never, ever in a progressive Hellhole like the current US of A.

  11. How about instead of being as equally twisted as Shannon Watts and turning this into a gun control debate within 24 hours of people losing their lives, you just report the facts for now and exclude language like, “dance in the blood of the victims.”

    Many of TTAG’s opinion pieces on this event, especially so immediately in the wake of this shooting, are ill timed and equally as crazy as the anti-gunners that are skipping mourning for people and immediately turning this into a political issue.

    Stop being crazy pro-gun lunatics and find a balance!

    • So if pro gun control really does dance in the blood of victims figuratively then TTAG shouldn’t speak the truth? I mean it’s kinda in the name of the website…
      Oh, and “Crazy pro-gun lunitics”? WTF – is that /sarc?

    • I want to agree, but in politics you fight fire with fire.

      Trying to be a bigger person is a really easy way to lose and be irrelevant in less than 5 years.

      • We don’t have to be the bigger person…. that’s why we have the 2nd amendment because there is always someone bigger and scarier than you out there.

    • We wouldn’t if we didn’t have to. The battle for gun rights is a PR war. It is the anti-gun cultists who make every crime, every murder about the gun and other gun owners. Not responding forcefully and immediately gives them the upper hand.

      The moment the Shannon Watts’ of the world stop trying to immediately politicize every mass murder (at least they’re not looking for a Tea Party connection this time) we’ll stop. Until then, we fight on.

      • Yeah yeah yeah, I’m well aware of the 2nd amendment. That’s always the go to language of a pro-gun argument. And while the language is straight forward and easy to understand, anti-gunners DGAF. It adds absolutely nothing to the argument. I think it’s about time to rethink the pro-gun approach to things rather than spouting the same crap over and over. A fresh approach might get people to start listening. As a young gun owner I can’t wait for the OFWGuys to be out of the game so their tired arguments can be overshadowed by new ideas and approaches from a youthful pro-gun crowd.

        • So you’re volunteering to lead the effort? Great! What’s your new and improved line of argument?

          Else sit back down, color, and let the adults continue to handle this.

        • “As a young gun owner I can’t wait for the OFWGuys to be out of the game so their steadfast devotioncan be overshadowed by new capitulations and surrenders from a weak pro-gun crowd.”

          Fixed.

          I’m a young gun owner and it sounds like you’re one of the pathetic apologists I’ll be fighting in the future.

        • So, because the average progressive couldn’t hack in in math class, we should all stop the tired old argument that two plus two really is four, despite the bunch of them performing the sacred act of voting on it, and arriving at 5?

    • If the leftists didn’t turn every tragedy into an excuse to take away my rights, I wouldn’t have to fight back. Blame them.

  12. I see people commenting about how the victims were disarmed. This is true, but not in the conventional sense. The majority of college kids ARE disarmed, but it has nothing to do with the lack of physical weapons like guns or knives.
    We’re raising a generation of kids that are conditioned to view violence against bad people as positive in Hollywood, but negative in real life. When the Hollywood “Heroic Vigilante Anti-Hero” slaughters gangsters/terrorists/whatevers in job-lots for killing his family/dog/whatever, they eat it up. When in real life a citizen shoots a mugger or rapist, they immediately express disapproval and say it was “Vigilante Justice”.
    These kids would have been unarmed even if California had good (nonexistent) gun laws, because the mindset necessary to be aware of your surroundings, asses them for danger and take whatever steps are prudent to mitigate that danger has been vilified as being somehow “paranoid”. These kids have gotten to the point where if they exist in any state other that willful, blissful ignorance, they’re chastised and censured by their peer group. Victims, and proud of it.
    BUT…
    That shouldn’t have been enough to get them killed. The killer is ultimately, and completely, to blame.
    Let’s talk about the killer, and his little video…
    The hatred that I saw when I watched his pathetic little “manifesto” was stunning. This was hatred borne of perceived betrayal. If you’ve felt this kind of hate, and you likely have, you know how exceptionally powerful it can be, and how crucial it is to prevent it from taking root in your psyche. Squash it fast, before it poisons your mind. This kid not only didn’t cope with his hate, he purposefully cultivated it. He believed that society had betrayed him because he didn’t “have a girl”. Right there is the root of the the problem. “A girl” is not like my sewper-kewl MC Operator or my ancient and Sharpie-scribbled Xbox. They’re not something to be granted for good behavior or because of station in life, and we’re certainly not “owed” a woman.
    The killer grew up in a culture where possessing an attractive girlfriend is only one piece in a huge narcissistic puzzle. Without one piece, the whole puzzle falls apart. We see this in Hollywood. There’s a line in the first Transformers movie where Shia LeSomething says “I’ve got the car, now I need THE GIRL”. ‘
    “The Girl” is only important as a component of his personal vision of a good life, not as a person.
    When denied the culturally mandated and promised pair-bond, suffering and emptiness must result, until the perceived need is met. That’s what happens in the Hollywood version of the world. If a movie doesn’t have explosions, it has unhappy people who get happy by entering a relationship. Culture has taken this harmless (and irritating) movie meme and made it mandatory in real life.
    This kid let himself get twisted into believing that there’s some vast “girl-conspiracy” out to deny him his “birthright”. Disgusting and pathetic. I’d laugh if not for all the dead kids.
    I know, this is a long post, but it’s the only one I’m going to make regarding this atrocity. I’m getting my licks in all at once. No more frantic search-and-destroy keyboard-mashing interspaced with trips to the FBI UCR. I can’t stomach arguing with idiots anymore.
    Peace out!

    • That’s a thoughtful and interesting set of observations Jeff. I’m inclined to agree on most points and particularly on your insights about modern youth. Narcissism (at least at the subclinical level) isn’t a vice anymore but a virtue. It’s celebrated in consumerism and social media on a minute by minute basis. Large portions of todays youth have a literal friends counter that they can consult at any moment. The allure of this constant connection and group celebration of vacuity, narcissism and false accomplishment increasingly divides youth from real world problems and accomplishments in favor of a virtual reality.

      There used to be a joke line bandied about ‘Pictures or it didn’t happen.’ Todays youth seem to have taken that as a challenge and so document and publish every detail of their lives in a nearly compulsive manner, as if the events and experiences have no meaning until they are documented and distributed. It’s a slightly more mature game of ‘Look what I can do!’ that a young child might play with an adult. The need for the constant attention and approval from others is so evident and so dysfunctional that one has to wonder at what point the behaviors we refer to as Narcissism, delusion, neurosis and personality disorder stop being hyperbole and start being actual clinical mental health issues.

      On the flip side of the gratification system of social media is the relentless and in some circles nearly unavoidable permanent record of every mistake, every glib statement or misunderstanding and every poor decision a person has ever made. That has to be incredibly stressful, even destructive, especially for teens and young adults who tend to be caught up in self image anyway since they are constantly attempting to define or redefine themselves even to themselves, let alone to others.

      There was a time not so long ago that a ‘friend’ was someone you had met, found mutual satisfaction in the company of and with whom you enjoyed activities, events and conversations. A time when if you wanted to interact with someone you sought them out physically and a time when if you wanted avoid a person you simply didn’t seek them out and the relationship faded away. Now, with everyone knowing where everyone else is at all times and all the details of their activities the only way to separate a relationship is to ‘unfriend’ the person in a rather cold and formal way. All the nuances and shading are missing from the social interactions of much of todays youth and it can’t be healthy.

    • “That shouldn’t have been enough to get them killed. The killer is ultimately, and completely, to blame.”

      And if they’d been armed, they might be alive today.

      • A weapon without proper mindset is useless.
        A proper mindset without a weapon is invaluable.
        The vast majority of these kids have had the proper mindset beaten out of them. Even if they had all been armed, they still would have been killed, because the mindset wasn’t there.
        Weapons are a key part of a cautious and prudent lifestyle, but even the best hardware can’t compensate for the corrupting influence of software written by the worst liberal social engineers we’ve seen to date.
        That’s the point I was trying to make.
        Dammit, I broke my “1 post” rule. Maybe I’m not all typed-out after all. LOL.

  13. The NY Post had this to say: “Attorney Shifman said the Rodger family called police several weeks ago after being alarmed by YouTube videos “regarding suicide and the killing of people” that Elliot Rodger had been posting.

    Police interviewed Elliot Rodger and found him to be a “perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human,” but noted that he had few friends and no girlfriend, he added. Police did not find a history of guns.”

    • Right. Exactly. That shows, graphically, what a load of absolute crap infringements like “universal background checks” and “mental health screening” are. Had any one of his victims been armed, the carnage would have been stopped on the spot.

    • “Police did not find a history of guns”

      Which is odd, given that he purchased his first two guns in 2012 and 2013 (according to his “manifesto”).

      • I picked up on that too. Exactly what does that mean? Did he not have an armed robbery beef that was dropped? Was he not dealing in stolen guns? What???

  14. The real story here should be the inaction of police and mental health professionals. No matter which tool he used to commit his crimes he was intent on causing harm, and it could have been prevented.

      • Videos document threats to others = potential for harm + mental disorder = 72 hour involuntary psych hold.

        • Show me a video that was posted before the April 30th visit backing up your claim. The threatening videos weren’t even recorded until a couple of days ago.

  15. I am surprised that MDA has not proposed new laws that would require pretty girls to throw ugly dweeby mentally unstable young men a bone. This would have prevented the whole thing. Think of the children.

    • Can mentally stable dweebs get in on that as well? Not asking for any particular reason, just curious.

  16. And one legally armed person could have stopped this sick individual at any time during the rampage. And why did it take the cops so long to respond? If they had responded in a timely manner they could have stopped it too.

  17. Shannon Watts and the anti-gun folks that run Kalifornia have all the laws they want
    in place and yet the fine men in blue, black, or wrinkled suits FAILED to spot a potential killer by not entering the home and searching. Was there a psychologist with the officers?

    Did the fathers clout in Hollywood blind the officers and cause them to not follow through
    or was this young man so convincing he talked his way out of being sent for a psych eval?

    The lawsuits over this should be coming soon and drag out for years.

    • “Did the fathers clout in Hollywood blind the officers and cause them to not follow through…”

      SCORE!!!

  18. “Where were the cops?” How could the cops have responded in time, unless they had flying motorcycles and magic eight balls? He killed his three roommates with a knife, likely no one could’ve gotten there in time to save them even if one of them had called. Then he got in his car, drove and then shot a few more people, ran some others over, and finally died either shot by the cops or suicide. The murders in the apt by nature had to happen quickly, so did hitting seven people with a car. We’d need a response time of mere seconds, getting to an operator often takes longer than that, let alone giving enough info to dispatch someone.

  19. I don’t like this situation at all. For the obvious reasons, of course, but also because it has the potential to develop into a minefield of decaying rights. Mental health is a huge part of this mess, of course. Police had been called and had been sent to speak with the lovelorn loser, but nothing was done. The kid appeared perfectly rational during that interview so the police went away. I know we need to address mental health, but we don’t want to succumb to a knee jerk suggestion that police should be allowed to haul people away even without direct evidence of a mental breakdown. Family members had expressed concern about the kid’s behavior, should that be enough for an involuntary committal? If they go that route, then we all better watch our backs because suddenly, it will be damned easy to be deemed a threat and while they’re tending to your mental health, they’ll also be taking that CCW permit you worked so hard for. I dunno. This one makes me itchy right between the shoulder blades.

  20. If YouTube had fewer video ads, more folks could have been exposed to this buttlord’s posts and reported him to the proper authorities.

  21. I don’t think this guy fit into the traditional definition of mentally ill. Evil and homicidal sure, but not CCFCP (coocoo for Cocoa Puffs). Could he have been arrested for planning mass murder? Others have been, which is both comforting and disturbing as it smacks of “pre-crime.” Stephen King et al have planned mass murders in their novels. Gabe Suarez, legendary gun guru, has freely admitting to planning a mass murder plan, interrupted only by an actual “coming to Jesus” meeting on the way to the crime scenes. Did the cops have the PC or time to find and read his manifesto? Should they have initiated a psych hold so that he could have been properly evaluated?

  22. There have already been more gun murders at Black Bike Week in Myrtle Beach than this Elliot Rodger committed. Why isn’t there a media circus down there covering that like there is in Santa Barbara?

  23. 60 killed in a weekend in Chicago and it doesn’t even make national news, because that’s like every weekend.

    Creepy white kid kills 7 and it’s a national freaking emergency.

  24. The perpetrator posted a video threatening others online almost a month ago. If he’d posted such a video threatening a politician, he’d have been smacked down hard. Instead, he talked his way out and went on to murder six innocent people and injure a dozen more.

    I’m not advocating that the government target anyone solely on the basis of being diagnosed or treated for mental health – that would be a horrific violation of civil rights. But when someone has a history like this and they start making public threats, it might be wise to take those threats seriously.

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