Jacksonville Video Game Shooting Katz
courtesy cnn.com

According to the LA Times, “The gunman who opened fire at a busy Jacksonville, Fla., pizzeria during a video game competition — killing two gamers and wounding up to nine others before killing himself — has been identified as a player who had been defeated earlier in the tournament. The suspect, David Katz, 24, of Baltimore, sometimes played under the name ‘Bread’ or ‘RavensChamp’ while competing in the national circuit of professional gamers who play ‘Madden NFL 19,’ the popular football game.”

What we have here is basically a maladjusted sore loser who took out his frustration on the rest of the crowd. Katz, of Baltimore, killed two and wounded nine more before killing himself. Over a video game.

And just like in the living room — where emotions can run so high that players use the term “rage quitting” for sore losers who won’t play to the end — professional matches can be tense. The stakes can be thousands of dollars, larger audiences and sometimes just honor.

But the violence stays onscreen. At least until Sunday.

And rage he did. Katz reportedly opened fire on the crowd after retrieving a handgun from his car.

Braheem Johnson, a cook at the grill, caught a glimpse of the shooter, whom he described as a young male of average build who fired into the crowd using a large caliber handgun with a laser sight attachment.

“I just heard shots and I looked at the window and I see him,” Johnson said. “Dude came in there, basically like, to kill … He was just in his rampage mode.”

There’s no word yet as to how the NRA is judged to be responsible for this afternoon’s shooting, but give David Hogg, Shannon Watts and Andrew Cuomo 24 hours to come up with a rationale and the appropriate outraged sound bites.

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78 COMMENTS

  1. There is just something fishy about the number of “mass shooting” events in 2017/18. Not the totals. Not whether or not the events actually happened. But something is out of round here.

    • Definitely gonna fire up the video games = violence debate.

      The laser sight is an interesting detail. Might further the video gaming connection especially if incongruent with the particular handgun.

      Also, would this count as SWATing ones self?

      • It was a Madden NFL gaming tournament, so they’re going to have to actively ignore that to push the “games cause violent behavior” narrative.

        • Not a game that involves shooting anything, so presumably “toxic masculinity” will factor heavily in the analysis.

        • I’ve always said the mass shooting simulator part of the Madden franchise was a confusing and risky design choice.

      • I’ve been playing video games since I was a kid. I’m now 40, and I’ve never had homicidal urges.

    • so.. not the totals… what then?

      And what would be the ‘correct’ number?

      These will continue to happen and even increase as long as the media gives the gunmen what they want. Although in this case I think it’s a bit different… this just sounds like some unbalanced nut who got mad, rather than someone who wanted the world to know his name.

      • Guess he couldn’t adjust to the fact that in real life , everyone doesn’t get a trophy and it was a gun free zone.

      • That’s exactly it.

        The media coverage of these mass shootings is basically an incentive to these nuts, an infomercial for them. Especially the pulse night club, LV, parkland, newtown, those specifically, the media covered them endlessly for weeks and still talk about them years later.

        If anyone hears the word columbine, they don’t think about the plant/flower, they think the shooting in CO. The media gave those 2 nutcases immortality though the non stop coverage and hear 20 years later they still talk about it. The nut who killed people from the tower at the University of Texas wasn’t talked about non stop back then and a few years later he was not even mentioned.

        • Combine that with the redefinition of “mass shooting” to anything where more than one person was present, and the redefinition of “school shooting” to any gun fired near a school for any reason, and it’s like an all-you-can-eat incentive buffet for every closet psycho out there.

          That feeling that something’s “out of round,” as Sam says, is the ground being shifted beneath our feet.

          The progressive media-entertainment industrial complex is manufacturing a new reality. A new culture riddled with (as the left likes to put it) senseless violence is being woven right in front of our eyes.

    • Two people were shot and killed. That’s actually a good day in Jacksonville. Again, I still don’t get why there is so much noise about this. People get shot and killed, often in greater numbers, pretty commonly there.

      • The shooting was not done in West Side JAX, that’s why it’s on the news.
        All the murders in murder capital of Florida didn’t bother no one before.

    • Allegedly he had a Reddit full of Trump derangement syndrome, but nobody archived it so we can’t tell for sure.

  3. Baltimore, as in Baltimore, Maryland? Which has a 10 round magazine limit?

    There’s 12 or 13 shots fired in the video. Either he bought it after leaving home for this tournament and planned this way before he lost, or he broke Maryland law by having it there.

    • The Maryland law only prohibits sale, purchase or transfer within the state, but not possession. So one can buy a “large capacity magazine” out of state and bring it into Maryland.

  6. if this a$$ hole was such an avid player, why didn’t he just break the other guy’s thumb. the world is full of these a-holes. grow up, be an adult. but if they insist on murder-suicide, make it a suicide-murder. it is at an advanced level, and the rewards are greater.

  8. He didn’t shoot the people he lost to:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jtH8cCtK3Y

    Sounds more like he planned to kill himself and he decided to go to one last tournament before he did. Two days ago a very famous gamer went suicidal and tried to kill people in the process. Sounds like the tournament started the day after that famous gamer killed two people and himself using his Mclaren. Monkey see, monkey do. In this case, it appears he went after some of the top players instead of random people.

    Competitive gaming/streaming life is much more complicated than most older people think. It’s not simply down to losing a game. For instance, I know people who won a million dollars and make over a hundred thousand a year on top of that. It’s not like those old arcade tournaments way back in the day. A year or two ago I was trying to get a coaching position that would have took me around the world and made me a lot of money.

    I don’t think this is exactly the same as a school shooter. More like a lonely pro poker player or failed Wall Street investor type of thing, but with a similar school shooter infamy goal. He knew it was going to be streamed, he knew it was going to make it on Reddit, he knew fanboys were going to talk badly of him so he went after their idols. It seems more like lashing out at the new culture that is the internet rather than an effort to get revenge on bullies and normies.

    • Yet, the really highly paid players of other children’s games (baseball. football, basketball, soccer, etc.), who also are generally low IQ, don’t kill each other over a loss.

      Explain.

      • No, they just kill their ex-wives/baby mommas and get murdered FOR losing. Oh and run dog fighting rings.

      • They get paid regardless. The guys who win get paid, but eventually will get paid more.

        You lose a gaming tourney, you walk out losing money, since most are pay to play.

        Regardless, the fact that millions are glued to a screen for days watching others play screen games baffles my mind. I can’t make it through an entire episode of Shapiro, that’s usually 45-50min. Bartocci videos intrigue me a great deal, but even the longer ones of those sometimes get turned off half way through.

        Maybe I’m the weird/mentally ill one…

        • You lose a gaming tourney, you walk out losing money, since most are pay to play.

          So sorta like the stock market? Since I trade options I stare at the screen most days for a living. Some days you win, some days you lose. Was this idiot losing several hundred thousand dollars for playing Xbox, sending him into bankruptcy?

        • I day traded for about a year. I did well, but I didn’t like what it was doing to my health.
          I got sucked in. Constantly checking my “spots”.

        • Although I occasionally day trade, I am not a pattern day trader. But trading is better than working for someone else. That is if you have a brain.

          Still, since I only trade options I am in the market every day.

        • I tip my hat to you Mr. Griffin.
          I couldn’t do that. I am very comfortable where I’m at.

        • @Tom in Oregon, it’s a balancing act. My wife and my 401Ks and IRAs make 12+% a year, but my goal in my personal investment account is 100% a year.

          Interestingly enough, I tried to start an investment subgroup (stock tips, how to get better rates from your broker, etc.) on a forum I manage and there was no interest.

        • @BlazinTheAmazin yes! Yes, I have lots of advice to hopefully help you avoid some of the pitfalls I have endured. A lot of it has to do with your goals and dedication/availability. There is a strategy for everyone, from someone who is available during the day to someone who works a day job and can only check in at night.

          I am not a financial advisor, but if you want to email me, my address is [email protected]

      • This is the first time someone did this and it doesn’t conclusively appear to be over a loss.

        Professional gaming/streaming isn’t like professional football. You are guaranteed a pretty good life as a professional football player. Yet we see how some of the current day NFL players be acting out.

        You can lose your job over one bad performance in professional gaming. Your social media reach is highly important to your success. If you lose fans/followers, for whatever reason, you can lose your entire career. Some people are contractually required to play certain amount of hours online a day to maintain followers, if you don’t you will be fined. You are required to do fan signs and other advertising. There is a lot of things. At the same time your team could be planning behind your back to kick you because they don’t like the way you talked to them or some other nonsense reason and your team owner could be stealing money from you. For instance, the compLexity owner took a large amount of money from his team and never gave it back because it wasn’t written in the contract that the players would receive that particular money that was intended for them.

        In other words, there can be so many reasons for why he decided to do this.

        There are many stories of gamers fighting after a loss, no one tries to kill other people. There was this one time a girl team went after another girl team at the hotel, it was ridiculous. There’s stories of players doing drugs to win a tournament. There are players who pay a lot of money to get private cheats to win thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands. There have been mafia deals made with some teams. There were people who made hundreds of thousands of dollars from kids through illegal online gambling.

        There are many reasons why a gamer would flip out. Maybe this time it was just for losing.

        • A reason is not an excuse. This appeared to be a maladjusted young adult who didn’t get a trophy this time.

        • Dude, NFL players have no guaranteed contracts. They can be cut at pretty much any time and the average NFL career is only three to five years. Stop trying to say the pressure of these video game tournaments is to blame; there are thousands of other jobs that have pressure, many of them way more pressure than any of these gamers every face.

          The problem is that many gamers are poor sports, they don’t know how to lose and they have no respect for other people. That’s not a video game problem, it’s much more than that.

    • This really isn’t a big deal. Everyone needs to GTFO it and focus on real problems.

      • @ New Continental Army says August 27, 2018 at 05:19,

        They (the posters) cannot, or, they refuse to see (what you stated above), and continue to beat this dead-horse topic/discussion. This is how $h*t begins to go down hill. Already three different postings/threads (here on TTAG), about the same incident –exactly what was accomplished?

        Its sane to post your view/opinion, but there are quite a few here that keep posting, pushing the snowball closer to the cliff.

        • Oh, I completely agree, this is absolutely pissing in the ocean, making a mountain range out of a mole hill, whatever expression you choose.

          The problem is, the media looks at this a little differently than 20 dead and 50 wounded in a Chicago weekend.

        • That’s why you guys can’t win back your rights through the government or pop culture. You don’t know what game is actually being played right now. The Left is way smarter than you want to admit..

      • You forget this was a millennial do millennial things, which means millennials will react to it differently than other shootings.

        There is two major things in a young person’s life: school and video games. When those things are attacked the youth react very strongly. I already see a lot of younger people saying it’s not video games, it’s the guns. A lot of kids have been saying one day someone is going to shoot up an esports event, that they need more security to make sure it’s a gun free zone. Now it finally happened. So it’s not a big deal to you, but it is to the millennial crowd regardless of the low death count. They now feel very unsafe. They say they just want to play videos games in peace to have some fun and escape the real world for a little while. They feel like they can’t even do that anymore because of guns…

        In the big picture, this can easily be used to get votes from the young people. This isn’t good for Republicans because they have been very much against video games and they put a lot of blame on the gamer lifestyle. Young people will choose games over guns. You may love guns and hate video games, but the new generation loves video games more than a lot of things.

    • My guess is that he targeted the people he did because they were the ones being live streamed at the time. He wanted their deaths to be broadcast. In the video I have seen, it showed Eli and someone else playing, then you see the laser on Eli then the video cuts and the gunshots start.

  10. Once again guns and the 2A are not the issue. We have too many fucktards in this nation. Do you want to hang defenseless around fucktards who may hurt you because they lost a game, because f politics, of television and public school brainwashing, drugs, prescription pills, etc? I surely don’t. It’s not even really a left/right thing, there are good manhurian candidates for the fucktard of the year award in ALL political camps, religions, races…If you give me a reason to use deadly force trust me I will not discriminate, we all bleed red don’t we?

    • Yep, too many idiots. We have not had a serious thinning of the herd since WW2. I tend to think that when landing at Normandy, lots of stupid people went down that didn’t get a chance to breed. A good friend of mine and a two tour viet nam vet agrees. He said they could pick out in the first 10 minutes what green newbies had a chance and the ones who were just too stupid. You didn’t do this to be mean, it was done to keep your own chances of survival as high as possible by knowing who was NOT going to recognize a booby trap or see a bunker before they walked everyone into it.
      No draft in 45 years has allowed generations of stupidity to over-run the country. That and all the pinko draft dodgers from Nam are now college professors and parents of professors and libtard politicians.

      • Sounds like you were told to stay away from John McCains funeral.

        Wow. Just wow. The crazy runs deep in this one.

      • survival at Normandy was mostly a matter of random chance. for example, the entire first wave on Omaha beach was nearly wiped out – 16 rifle comoanies destroyed in a short period of time. Were those guys dumber than than the brits or canadians landing on the less defended beaches? or were they dumber than the 2nd and 3rd and subsequent waves?

        your premise is not entirely accurate.

  13. I’m sorry for all of those murdered and wounded by this unstable fellow. The FBI defines a “mass shooting” as 4 or more deaths not including the shooter. This was NOT a mass shooting.

  14. More people were shot and or killed in Chicago shootings 2 weeks ago but that wasn’t given the billing this was.

    I wonder why?

    Actually I don’t but it is a good question to ask.

    • You have that right! I do not carry every day (workplace rules, style of dressing at work) but occasionally I have to let people go. Once I had to fire an IT guy that I would describe as a lonely loser (variation on the guy in Jacksonville) and another time, an IT woman who was a complete mental case. You bet there was a handgun under my jacket those days, workplace rules be damned. Not every IT person is crazy, and as a matter of fact, any day that I have to fire anyone is a carry day. But a gamer meet like this is going to attract all sorts of weirdos, as did Las Vegas with the sniper guy. If “gun-free”, needs metal detector and off-duty cops as armed guards.

  17. The usual will make some noise today about gun control. Then this story will disappear.
    Not enough killed to be a “mass shooting” no black rifle used and no 30 round clips as thery say.
    Since no AR15 over 4 or more killed. This one doesnt fit the bill and the news media should look for the next thing to make noises about.
    Yet another shooting in a “Gun Free” zone.
    When will Libitards learn. Criminal or mentaly imbalanced dont obey laws.
    Since this was in my home state. I can only imagine how many CCW carriers left their guns in the car. Due to signage??

  18. Should be A 3 day waiting period before you can enter a casino after a fbi background check- put a limit on what you can lose $10 should do it If they serve booze FBI check and 3 day waiting period !!

  19. So was it “just a game” that set this guy off or was it the “thousands of dollars” that he lost out on?

    If this was his “job”, how is this any different than a warehouse working shooting up the break room or a day trader murdering his entire family?

  20. I get it…loser’s don’t get girl’s(or boy’s). Their whole identity is wrapped up in freaking video games. Sad but thems the breaks…a Brave New World of BS.

    • If you win you get money and fame. Those two things can get you girls and “friends.” You’d be surprised how many girls a successful gamer gets.

  21. THIS is why no-guns-zones are valid and do have some, albeit limited, usefulness.

    Yes, I get it: a determined mass shooter who’s planned his attack is going to blow right past a no-guns sign, laughing. No argument there. Signs do nothing to deter such shooters. Only the prospect of the rampage being cut short by armed resistance has an impact.

    All of that is a different animal from the sudden passion shooter, however. In places where people are susceptible to violent, unplanned outbursts, a gun-free policy might be a good idea. Or not, but I’m fine with property owners deciding that for themselves.

    On publically owned property, it’s trickier, because the default should be maximum freedom. Neverthless, I would still support gun free zones in courthouses, public official meetings, airports, and major sporting event venues.

    And before anyone posts a hundred links to videos of parents going ballistic at some tee-ball game, let’s just say the line has to be drawn somewhere. The places I mentioned are more practical to defend with security and to screen with checkpoints.

    Also, I get that people can go get their car and run people down. Anything is possible. What matters is extending the cooling off period by making major sudden passion retaliation less convenient. No, that does not mean everyone should be subjected to purchase waiting periods. That’s far too broad.

    Bars are places of sudden passion, too, which are impractical to screen out all weapons. I’m fine with bar carry for anyone not drinking.

    • You may not have meant to, but you made a very strong point. Contrast the number of deaths by one lone nutjob like this one with the more calculated violence of a city like Chicago. I don’t think there’s any protection from nuts who want to die hurting others- mainly because its impossible to identify them. In Chicago, most of the shooters are criminals known to law enforcement. Despite strict laws, the shootings continue. The cops are doing their jobs, but prosecutors and the courts are releasing these known violent offenders back into public at an alarming rate. See http://www.heyjackass.com.

  23. A guy from Maryland goes to Florida and starts shooting. Maryland already has virtually every law on the gun control wish list. Check it out:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Maryland

    Need a permit to purchase a handgun; permanent record of all firearms transfers; no carry (open or concealed) without a permit; “may issue” state; restriction on magazine capacity if sold or transferred within state; universal background checks including private sales; assault weapons ban; red flag law.

    Hmm . . .

  24. I don’t know what’s more bizarre — the fact that are so many twinks with fragile egos like Katz in this world, or the fact that there are professional “gamers” who play “Madden NFL 19.” Being a “professional gamer” is almost as stupid as being a professional eater.

    What’s next? Hey, I know. We can organize a league of Professional Sh!tters! We can divide them into two groups, one that sh!ts on the left and one that sh!ts on the right, and we can call the game “Politics.” The players sh!t all day and the one that sh!ts the most wins!

    This could be big.

    • “Being a “professional gamer” is almost as stupid as being a professional eater.”

      And yet, some people make a living at both. In both cases, sponsors (e.g., Nathan’s Hot Dogs and Electronic Arts) put up enough prize money to make it worthwhile to participate in their contests. The participants have a chance at significant prize money and the sponsors benefit from the advertising, because people are watching and buying the promoted product.

      There is really no conceptual difference between promotion of professional video-gaming or eating and promotion of professional golf or bowling (or any other sport for that matter). If enough people watch , then it pays to sponsor it and compensate the participants. There’s a reason that tiddly-winks tournaments don’t get the support that the X-games get.

      Video-gaming is popular enough to make economic sense. You and I may agree that it is an utter waste of our time to watch it, but it’s a free market so it’s not at all stupid to be a professional if you are good enough at it.

  25. What’s a large caliber hand gun? .44mag, 454 casull, 500 S&W, 0.9mm?
    IMO:
    Mouse calibers: .22 upt to .380
    Small calibers: 38sp up to 9mm
    Intermediate: .357, 40, 45acp .44sp
    Large calibers: 44mag up to 460, 500S&W
    (Pistol calibers only)

    • When I died on the Nintendo (NES) (in 1989) I’d just throw the controller at the tv screen.
      Sheesh, It’s just a damn game!

      • It’s not “just a game” anymore. It’s a business and a lifestyle. This is how some young people buy nice houses and super cars. It’s like professional poker.

  26. Suicides tend to cluster- in other words, one suicide can “inspire” others. No one gets more fame today than a mass shooter. What we should take away from this is that posting a “no guns” sign works about as well here as posting a “no knives” sign does in the UK. https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/27/gun-free-london-teen-murdered-by-anti-knife-poster-two-wounded-after-knife-fight/

    Is it too early to say that these events should have screening checkpoints and better security? Does anyone know how many attended the event? What weapon was used?

    • It was one of a few small qualifiers for the larger event. There was enough people to get a big number of causalities. Last I heard, he shot 11 people. It’s not one of those large events where they might have checkpoints.

      He used a pistol with a laser on it. I think he had a 10 round mag. The gun was said to be in his car initially.

      Appears he drove down to the event. Someone said he didn’t change his clothes the two days he was there competing. Sounds like he lost all his games. He was last year’s champion. For awhile people have said he was not so friendly.

  27. doing a quick search, i see that this shooting is hardly even mentioned in the national news.anybody care to take a stab at why?

  28. what, a professional video gamer is a maladapted nutter lashing out at the world? Shocker.

    and another mass shooting in a “gun free zone?” i’m beginning to see a trend…

  29. More here than appears, a lot more. I have gone armed for many years, in the process suffering several disappointments. At one time or another, I likely offered a caustic comment or two, something like Oh Hell, Aw Shit, that sort of thing. Never shot anyone though, never drew a weapon either, not over a passing disappointment anyhow.

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