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Ian Mercer (courtesy dailymail.co.uk)

“The father of the gunman who killed nine people at a community college here called on the nation to change its gun laws on Saturday, saying the massacre ‘would not have happened’ if his son had not been able to buy so many handguns and rifles,” nytimes.com reports. As the Brits would say, he would say that wouldn’t he? That and more . . ..

“How was he able to compile that kind of arsenal?” the father, Ian Mercer, said in an interview with CNN at his home in Tarzana, Calif. He said he had no idea that his son owned more than a dozen firearms . . .

This despite the fact Chris Mercer’s neighbors’ portrayed the spree killer as an enthusiastic gun collector who frequently went target shooting with his mother. Why so ignorant?

Mr. Harper-Mercer’s parents divorced a decade ago, and he had lived with his mother. The father said he had not seen his son since he and his mother, Laurel Harper, moved to Oregon about two years ago, but said there was no “disharmony or any bitterness” between him and his son.

Mercer’s father’s lack of contact with his son echoes Newtown spree killer Adam Lanza’s parental alienation. And the distant relationship between Columbine shooter Eric Klebold’s disaffection from his father. Although correlation does not equal causation, familial relationships – or a lack thereof – appear to be a marker for mass shooters. And, it should be said, teenage gang bangers.

Make of that what you will. Meanwhile, guns . . .

“It has to change,” he said. “How can it not? Even people that believe in the right to bear arms, what right do you have to take someone’s life?” He would not discuss his son’s mental health issues, deferring to the police investigation. “Obviously, someone who goes and kills nine people has to have some kind of issue,” he said.

It’s hardly credible that Mr. Mercer didn’t know about his son’s mental illness before his son went postal, murdering classmates and wreaking havoc on the lives of an entire community. Sadly, it’s not entirely impossible either. [h/t JoR]

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79 COMMENTS

  1. “I had no part to play in my isolated, disaffected, Satanist son’s problems, despite the fact that he shares 50% of my DNA and I was the primary male figure during his childhood. It was the guns, I say!”

    Copy that, you Limey f***.

    • Using the term “primary male figure” is totally wrong. He should have been a dad to his kid. Not saying that had any method of preventing the shooting, but it sure as hell couldn’t have hurt.

    • I’m not a big fan of blaming parents for their children’s misdeeds as I have witnessed frustrated parents who have children with some serious behavioral problems. Of course Mr. Mercer blaming a group of people (gun owners/manufacturers) for his son’s murderous act sure leaves him open to similar types of comparisons to his fatherly responsibilities.

      • Doesn’t sound like he was much of a father, the article said he didn’t know his son owned more than a dozen guns or that he’d go to the range with his mother.

        He should have tried having a conversation w the kid.

  2. “what right do you have to take someone’s life?”

    Last I checked, barring certain extreme circumstances like self defence, homicide is already illegal…

    • This is typical Anti thinking that guns only exist to kill people. They would rather someone get stabbed by a knife or beaten by a mob instead of being able to defend themselves. The Anti crowd already believes that multi shot TASER guns are better for self defense than guns.

      Liberalism is a mental disorder.

      • If I were about to be murdered, I would be hoping that he had a gun. A gun is one of the most humane (quick and painless) way to kill someone. There is a good reason they have firing squads, instead of machete squads or stabbing squads.

        The antis’ obsession with gun violence versus violence with other weapons is just unbelievable.

        • I would not say guns a quick and painless. I’ve seen and heard of plenty of folks get shot and not die, just wounded in excruciating pain.

  3. So you failed at being a responsible father and want all the legal gun owners to pick up the tab?
    Typical.
    ‘would not have happened’ if his son had not been able to buy so many handguns and rifles,”
    And this has something to do with anything?
    Many people have a nice collection of guns and they do not go off on spree killings.

    • Does he really, REALLY believe that this would not have happened if his son had only been able to buy one gun? Or if he had been forced to buy a stolen Glock on the black market instead of a dozen or so at a gun store, most of which he did not use?

      • Basically, he is trying to shift to others the blame for his failure as a parent. Divorce doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility to influence your children for the better. He is also making the assumption that his son was so personally incompetent that he couldn’t have figured out some other way to take out his frustrations on other people.

    • Didn’t use a single, common pistol for his attack? The other guns were not even a factor unless you believe in demonic posession or that owning more than X guns is a marker of insanity.

  4. I really, truly hate these morons. They’re too stupid to realize how much more damage could be done by something as simple as a can of gasoline, a lighter, and some bike chains. I also hate them for implicitly condoning violence as long as it isn’t done with a gun.

    • Yeah, I never see vitriolic attacks by the when there’s a bombing by Muslim terrorists or when victims of the “knockout game” are brain damaged.

      I think it comes down to a racial thing. This shooter was part black and CNN Photoshopped him to look white. You see all the shootings in Chicago, done primarily by black gangs, but it’s never talked about. There needs to be a push to fight reverse racism where if it’s done by a minority, it’s not talked about. Bringing that to light and not gun violence is more important to people’s safety.

  5. I put a Ruger MKII pistol in the middle of the dining room table last week. In order to tempt it to go “postal,” I left a loaded magazine in it, and a box of ammo close by. Have to walk by that muzzle many times each day.

    So far, the gun hasn’t moved. Zero signs of aggressive behavior from it.

    A central problem is that far too many people still think that there is some special evil spirit that inhabits all guns… that these inanimate objects can and will inspire or even force ordinary people to become homicidal monsters.

    No, the right to armed self defense does not give anyone a “right” to kill innocent people. And I think very few of those who own guns think that it does.

      • Mine are lazy too, just laying around in the nice rack that my dad built. I have to pack them all up and take them to the range just to get them to talk.

        • Rubber produces very well adjusted guns… Of course it wouldn’t attack you! Try a kimber next time, they seem quite high strung!

  6. Hmm…Dad who spent every little time with his son, surprised at whoat happened…this is my shocked face. Well Dad…I will cede that sometimes, regardless of how involved a parent is, things can still go wrong with a child…but you weren’t one of those parents. You were the one that abandoned him and left him to be raised by a working mother.

    I’d say that if someone wants to sue party for the death of their child in this horrific event, then maybe instead of an ammo company, they sue someone who truly has exhibited gross negligence in shaping of the killers personality…that would be you sir.

  7. The father said he had not seen his son since he and his mother, Laurel Harper, moved to Oregon about two years ago,
    Ian Mercer is a mobile sperm dispenser and a waste of one at that.

  8. This is so sad. He cannot even take the slightest amount of blame; he doesn’t even have any remorse or shame at failing his son.

    Read up on serial killer/mass murderer history…broken families & shit families are a common theme.

  9. Has TTAG ever posted something about the effects of Psych drugs on shootings ? Got a great link from Front Sight yesterday about this subject: http://www.ignatius-piazza-front-sight.com/2015/10/02/if-obama-truly-wants-to-stop-the-massacres-he-needs-to-sign-this-executive-order/
    Not sure this will stay up as it does include some Front Sight ads but the body of the message seems very relevant to the possible cause of these mass shootings. I tried to log in and search the forums on TTAG but that system seems broken. At least for me as I can’t seem to login or contact anyone about not being able to log in.

    • Millions of people use SSRI and other psycho-active drugs. Single-digit numbers of them turn into mass murderers.

      You’ve got your causality backwards. They are on drugs because they are head cases, they didn’t become head cases when they started taking drugs.

      • And yet, if you read those little slips of paper with the very tiny print that come along when you get these drugs you will very often see the words under Side affects: “may cause suicidal tendencies.” “Notify your doctor if you have suicidal thoughts or depression.” “Do not discontinue use without your doctor’s advice.”

        Even in the cases where these drugs MAY control a person’s symptoms of mental distress, they are NOT a cure, and the side affects from abusing, misusing, or discontinuing their use can be dramatic.

      • “If it saves one life”
        Read up on Prozac and it’s cousins, and also Benzodiazepines (sp?) which are so called anti-anxiety drugs like Valium and it’s newer much more powerful offspring. These multiple shootings are only the ugly tip of the iceberg, and almost every shooter in the media has been on one or more of these meds. Usually psychotic breaks occur when ramping up the dosage or more often when they stop taking the meds. This is not in any way an underlying mental illness suddenly showing itself, it is the withdrawal effects from a substance that causes permanent brain damage. Check out the books by Peter Breggin and also “Prozac Nation” Don’t forget to look at Ritalin also.

        I knew there were issues, but even I was shocked at just how bad this problem is.

  10. I love this: “How was he able to compile that kind of arsenal?” as if the amount of guns he owned super-enabled him to accomplish this?

  11. Just saw in the news this morning a bad guy killed 2 Isreali’s and injured a child with a knife. Not a shot fired. See how peaceful the world is without guns.

    He lived in CA and his son lived in WA and he hadn’t seen him for 2 years. He didn’t want to see him.

  12. On another note, “The more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight”. So can we start suing the mainstream media or should we still afford them 1st amendment protection?

  13. ““It has to change,” he said. “How can it not? Even people that believe in the right to bear arms, what right do you have to take someone’s life?””

    This is what you get from someone who only knows socialist societies – this is statism in a nutshell.

    Ignore reality and consider all solutions to come from the state – no consideration of the potential for the individual to both take responsibility and to accept blame. People are killed with guns; the state must take all guns, and that is that.

    Apparently completely unaware that the second amendment is not a law – and that it in fact can be changed. So change it then! Stop complaining and deflecting blame, if the call is for confiscation, then do what needs to be done to make this happen, organize and make a change to the constitution, because that is what needs to happen for the state to infringe on this individual right.

    I have heard this from Brits more than a few times… “you have to change this now don’t you?”

    My concern here is that our society is becoming more and more composed of people to do not value the constitution and the rights of the individual. They only understand socialism and at that they only understand these things in the most basic ways…. what benefits can the state get for me? Why can’t the state make these things stop?

    Always looking outside themselves for solutions and blame. Not valuing individual rights nor accepting individual responsibility.

    And no wonder, this is what they have been taught for decades by design by the schools, by the media. Taught these beliefs by organizations paid and directed by, any guesses? The state.

    Almost like it has been planned this way.

    “Even people that believe in the right to bear arms, what right do you have to take someone’s life?”

    You have the right to keep and bear arms, and you do not have the right to take anohter mans lfe, save for when it is in self defense in the course of protecting yourself from someone elses desire to take your life!

    This is simple basic common sense! What is it that makes so many people so blind to simple common sense?

  14. “It has to change,” he said. “How can it not? Even people that believe in the right to bear arms, what right do you have to take someone’s life?”
    So he knows that the right to bear arms is contained in the Second Amendment, I hope he knows enough that there is no provision in the Bill of Rights for taking life. Instead it is permitted in very narrow circumstances where there is fear of great harm. That was clearly not the case here.

    He would not discuss his son’s mental health issues, deferring to the police investigation. “Obviously, someone who goes and kills nine people has to have some kind of issue,” he said.
    This is about the closest that he actually comes to admitting that his son may have been culpable in some manner.

    I suppose one of the first stages of grieving is denial.

    • Us tax payers probably, by giving him free housing, healthcare, and food, extra money to buy toys. What a mess

  15. He unleashes his rotten crotchfruit on us then has words of wisdom to share?
    Excuse me if I take them with a grain of salt…

  16. maybe YOU should have started gun control at the individual level, you know, by disarming your whack job of a kid. Instead, after the fact and failure as a father, you want to disarm all the people that didn’t shoot up that school. classic progressive lack of responsibility.

  17. He graduated from a high school for emotionally screwed up students. A list of graduates should have been forwarded to NICS by Comrade Education.

    He was a first phase drop from basic training…not suitable. Recruiter didn’t background check the diploma.

  18. Hey, dad: You were a crappy father. That’s one reason why your kid did this.

    If you hadn’t been a complete failure as a parent, 9 people would be alive today.

  19. This piece of limey f***tard sh*t. Blow a load are relieve yourself of responsibility and blame other people that had nothing to do with your half finished load love child. This asshole should get the death penalty just for being a horrible parent. And there are many more like him…

  20. So, is he saying that if his son had only 4 guns, this would not have happened? What nonsense. Even if he couldn’t buy a gun, a ten minute search on the Internet, and a person can find out how to make a bomb with commonly available components that don’t require a background check. Is he passing that lie that mass murders happen in the US at higher rates per capita than places in the world with more restrictive gun laws? What a lying sack of excrement. If there is anyone alive today that is responsible for this, you have to look at his friends and family, for they ignored a big chunk of his psychotic behavior from us. If this guys evil son tried this in a non-gun free zone near a conceal carrier, he would have been put down quickly, and it would have been a blip on the back page of a local newspaper.

    • And Daddy would no doubt have his name prominently on the top of the wrongful death lawsuit immediately filed against the concealed carry holder.

  21. This whack job and his worthless parents was a carbon copy of the Newtown whack job and his useless parents. Only difference is that this one was higher functioning so it took longer for him to crack. Not surprising that he spent most of his life in SoCal where his behaviors were excused rather than anything serious having been done to correct them or put him away for his own sake and others’.

  22. I don’t buy into this guys reasoning. And I was amused at the effort to portray this guy as a Republican. Never met a Republican who listened to Goth Music and worshiped Satin. Did he do it at the same time? And he wanted to kill Christians also. Must be some sort of Rhino.

    I wouldn’t be so quick to blame the father of these killers though. All too often, when a child is having problems, the divorced father is told “you don’t have custody, we can’t even discuss this with you”. Doctors, school administrators, teachers, police, and the courts, all the same. And they are all very subject to manipulation. A father can frequently, only be involved to the extent that the mother chooses him to be. Often times it’s just not convenient to include the old dad. Mom has a new life, a new man, a new baby and allowing the old dad in the picture just… kind of messes up that whole idyllic picture. There are a thousand ways a custodial parent can sabotage the relationship. Some of them go at it like they have all of them on a checkoff list.

    If things don’t go well, and you see a crash coming, sometimes all you can do is pray that it isn’t to bad and stay close enough to pull the people from the wreckage.

  23. You know… I tend to be a compassionate critter. I… actually even feel some (very very little but some) sympathy for the killer here. The guy was obviously sick in the head. You gotta be to do this level of premeditated violence. But the guy’s father? No… no, screw him because he’s going political as a responses to the sickness in the child HE created.

  24. What a coward. He was not in his son’s life, didn’t care for him, and when his son goes apesh*t he just attempts to shift the blame onto firearms, not his son who did the killing. No concept of personal responsibility at all.

  25. “You know, Mrs. buckman, you need a license to buy a dog. You need a license to drive a car. Hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole to be a father. (From the movie Parenthood)”

    https://youtu.be/31pQOiclaTo

    ‘Nuff said.

    • That’s backwards. There is no rational or moral excuse to “license” anything, and nobody has any legitimate authority to control people this way.

      Each person who owns a gun, a dog, a car or engages in any other activity already does have the authority to do so as a human being. What most refuse to accept, liberty folks too, is the fact that each individual is ALSO completely responsible for the consequences of those choices and actions – good and bad. Responsibility is the price of liberty.

      Everyone must be free to act, free to defend themselves against those who make aggressive choices and actions. Self ownership and self responsibility. How could anything else be called freedom?

    • Well I kind of get the reasoning for where you’re coming form, but honestly do you really thing letting some authority decide that is going to help?

      Of course a jokes a f-ing joke. But still it’s not a good mindset to let propagate without challenge.

  26. Where did that kid get the money to buy all those guns dad? He was a student. What, was he working at McDonald’s?

  27. The father said he had not seen his son since . . . about two years ago, but said there was no “disharmony or any bitterness” between him and his son.

    That’s an astonishing lack of self-awareness, even for a Brit.

    • Well that’s total crock!. Dad knew his boy was a mess. He obviously lacked any meaningful communication with the kid other than superficial BS. “No disharmony” Well no kidding! I also have no disharmony with people I don’t know. On a personal note, the father sounds like a real ass hat. He obviously isn’t that smart or he wouldn’t have opened his mouth over this incident other than to express sympathy and heart felt sorrow for those who lost so much at his sons hands. Embrace blame, don’t place blame! What a douche.

  28. I happen to live around 1.5 hrs from UCC. The victims’ families were interviewed by a local paper and this was the exact opposite of the majority response. Mainstream media cherry-picked the interview shown in this [TTAB] article. The few families that commented in the local paper either avoided gun control topics, or were against gun control.

  29. He Shoulda ended up in a gym sock.

    Thanks for being a p.o.s. parent, Mr. Mercer.

    If your kid ends up a spree killer, you failed as a parent more than any government did.

  30. Bad family situation led to his snapping more than anything. I don’t know for sure how many guns he used, but it sounds like he only used one. So his dad is saying it’s OK for his son to go around mentally disturbed as long as he is prevented from harming others. Why not stay in his life and help him through his problems?

  31. How about instead of calling for more gun control, we fix the system they have already foisted upon us? The DOJ needs to prosecute ALL denials, and the HIPAA laws need to be changed to require the head shrinkers to pass the info on these nutters to NICS.

  32. What a weinnie. And whiner. When my adult son went off track at least I tried to help. I left when he was a baby but he’s still my kid at 38. Go back to Britain azzwhole…

  33. “It was dem guns at killed dem people an moy son, I tell ya! If only we had a King an Queen we be just fine. If only you yanks didn’t rebel there’d be no death by guns ever.”

  34. What father would ever admit that “his” son is mentally ill or sick? Before, during, or after any event such as this, that would cast shame and embarrassment on the family name? Well then, let’s blame the gun, the car, the knife, the baseball bat, or any other inanimate object which caused harm or death to anyone. After all, “my” son doesn’t have any mental issues! Something else made “him” do it! What surprises me most is that he didn’t blame his ex-wife. Then again, maybe that would have reflected on “his” choice of women. I imagine this kid was always protected or defended by his parents his whole life.

  35. Yes, by all means, let’s not blame Islam, lousy parenting, or mental illness. Let’s instead blame guns.

    Hey, that exonerates the father from any responsibility.

    When I was a Probation Officer working Juvenile, we had a teen boy referred for a first offense shoplifting. Not a big deal; probably wouldn’t even go to court. But, the kid hung himself before the meeting. The father came in to the probation office and tried to blame the police and us because his kid hung himself saying it was all because he had been arrested.

    I won’t even go into what we told that father, but my point is, the families always look for someone else to blame except their kid how was the only one involved in perpetrating the crime. Mercer was alienated from his family, radicalized into a hatred of Christians, and a simple sociopath murdering slime. End of story.

    Solution, carry daily and know how to use your weapon in the defense of innocent life because this insanity is not going to go away.

  36. “saying the massacre ‘would not have happened’ if his son had not been able to buy so many handguns and rifles”…squarely denying any responsibilty himself, deflecting most of the blame away from his clearly disturbed son and blaming inanimate objects the most of which never came into play. Got it.

  37. Being a bad parent is one thing. Being a bad parent and blaming your sons failure on everybody else, and inanimate objects is something else again.

  38. One thing you didn’t know about Australia and Britain and everybody forgets, is KNIFE CONTROL !!!

    Alike the pistols all being banned in 1902, Knives sometime long ago were banned from carry and particularly “concealed carry” as much as 50 years back and no more than a folding pocket knife no longer than 2 inches is allowed.
    Once in a while a warehouse worker is booked for having a packing – “wrapping knife”(set of blades joined as a single retractable blade sitting in a handle housing). I was nearly charged a Mc Donalds becuase i had my apron vest on during lunch and its over the road almost where i was working.

    October 4, 2015 – 5:42PM “Teen forced to strip down in bizarre late-night train attack in Sydney’s west”
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/teen-forced-to-strip-down-in-bizarre-latenight-train-attack-in-sydneys-west-20151004-gk0y27.html

    Around 30 percent of murders in Australia are knives, and 60-70 percent are point blank lethal force of some type(knives inclusive) non-firearm.

    Sept. 11, 2015, 2:21 p.m “Men charged in relation to double stabbing – Wentworthville”
    http://www.parramattasun.com.au/story/3343344/men-charged-in-relation-to-double-stabbing/

    Sep 10, 2015 “Family mourn after grandmother and young boy allegedly murdered”
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/family-mourn-after-grandmother-and-young-boy-allegedly-murdered-20150909-gjitm8.html

    july 2015 Corey Breen on way to kill mother (*and siblings) after murdering father and stepmother, court hears*
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/corey-breen-on-way-to-kill-mother-after-murdering-father-and-stepmother-court-hears-20150731-giono9.html

    Have you seen these liars article on CNN !!! Australia has had many mass shootings and many mass killings non-firearm since 1997
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/03/us/gun-deaths-united-states/

    Shootings:
    13 March 2000 – Millewa State Forest Murders – Barbara and Stephen Brooks and Stacie Willoughby were found dead, all three having been shot execution style and left in the forest
    Monash university Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 21 October 2002 Killed 2 and wounded five others
    26 May 2002 – A Vietnamese man walked into a Vietnamese wedding reception in Cabramatta Sydney, New South Wales armed with a handgun and opened fire wounding seven people.
    16 July 2001 – Peter James Knight an anti abortion activist walked into an abortion clinic in East Melbourne armed with a rifle and shot dead a security guard Stephen Gordon Rogers, he was later overpowered by staff in the abortion clinic and was later arrested. He was later charged and convicted of murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
    18 June 2007 – Melbourne CBD shooting – Christopher Wayne Hudson opened fire on three people, killing one and seriously wounding two others who intervened when Hudson was assaulting his girlfriend at a busy Melbourne intersection during the morning peak. He gave himself up to police in Wallan, Victoria on 20 June.
    10 April 2010 – Rajesh Osborne shot and killed his three children, 12 year-old Asia, 10-year-old Jarius and 7-year-old Grace before killing himself in Roxburgh, Victoria.

    Non firearm:
    30 May 2005 – Toowoomba triple murder – the bodies of three men, two aged 17 and one aged 30, were found in a house in Toowoomba, Queensland; the three men were beaten to death with metal bars and a hammer and are beaten beyond recognition, with dental records being needed to identify the victims. The murders were committed by three male youths, two aged 16 and one aged 17. One of the 16-year-olds and the 17-year-old are charged with three counts of murder while the other 16-year-old is charged with one count of murder.
    23 March 2004 – John Sharpe murdered his pregnant wife, two-year-old daughter and unborn son with a speargun at Mornington, Victoria.
    18 February 2006 – Cardross Hit and Run – Thomas Graham Towle crashed his car at high speed into a group of 13 teenagers killing six and injuring seven near the town of Cardross, Victoria
    30 June 2008 – Cowra murders – John Walsh used an axe to murder his wife his grandson aged 7 and his granddaughter aged 5 and then used the axe to attack and try and murder his daughter who is a police officer after she arrived home from work at the house in the town of Cowra, New South Wales. His daughter survived the attack and he is later arrested and is charged with three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder and he is later sentenced to life in prison.
    18 July 2009 – Lin family murders – Five members of the Lin family were found dead in their home in Epping, New South Wales
    8 November 2010 – Kapunda triple murder – Jason Alexander Downie repeatedly stabbed and killed Andrew, Rose and Chantelle Rowe in a frenzied attack at their home in Kapunda, South Australia

    ….AND MANY MORE OF EITHER SINCE 2000 AND MANY OBSCURITIES TOO SINCE YEAR 2000

  39. If I had got my son some help or even paid attention that he needed help it would not have happened. If I was not a socialist nanny state product it would have been recognized by others.

    Now that your son is dead return to the perfect social utopia the UK is. Destroy them further. This country needs less college an more apprenticeship jobs. I have 3 degrees only apprentice got me anywhere.

  40. The movie “Parenthood” quote says it all. Mr Mercer was a bad father. It was his fault his son was a dirtbag. My father had guns BEFORE I was born and I never shot anybody. No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS.Thanks for your support and vote.Pass the word. mrpresident2016.com

  41. Seems to me that a lot of this shootings are carried out by students attending their
    schools.-
    Now, all you need is a law that forbids students from lawfully acquire weapons:
    a temporary suspension of second amendment, as long as you are attending a school.-
    Sorry form my English I am from Italy.-

  42. Another Misguide parent wanting too be blameless
    funny how most of the killers are immigrants of or family members of such! yet we continue too let these assholes into our country!
    as far as this Parent is concerned he is a pathetic example of it not my fault it’s his son’s {whatever}
    I would check this guys status, if he adopted America as his country then he can have his say about how our country should be run if not TSTFU!

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