Is anyone still surprised at this point?
Is anyone confused about the characteristics of the perpetrator that primed him to be a mass murderer of women who look a certain way?
Ocean Vuong Breaks Down How Toxic Masculinity Is Linked to Violence
MARCH 19 2021
A 2019 clip of poet and author Ocean Vuong breaking down the connection between toxic masculinity and violence is making the rounds on social media following the devastating mass shooting at several Atlanta spas and other increases in anti-Asian hate crimes…
“In this culture we celebrate boys through the lexicon of violence,” Vuong replied. “‘You're killing it,’ you’re making a killing,’ ‘smash them,’ ‘blow them up,’ ‘you went into that game guns blazing,’ and I think it’s worth it to ask the question what happens to our men and boys when the only way they can valuate themselves is through the lexicon of death and destruction?”
He continued, saying “I think when they see themselves as only worthwhile when they are capable of destroying things, it’s inevitable that we arrive at a masculinity that is toxic.”…
Anti-Asian racism isn't the only issue behind the shooting, as official say the suspect has a sex addiction and targeted the spas in order to “take out that temptation.”
What all of these excuses stack up to is exactly what Vuong was talking aboutL A young man grew increasingly angry, directed his hate at women and people of color, and used violence, the only language he knows, to express that anger.
Armed and Misogynist: How Toxic Masculinity Fuels Mass Shootings
A Mother Jones investigation into nearly two dozen attacks reveals a grim pattern—and key warning signs.
MARK FOLLMAN/ Mother Jones
June 2019
There is also a strong overlap between toxic masculinity and public mass shootings, according to our latest investigation.
Based on case documents, media reports, and interviews with mental health and law enforcement experts, we found that in at least 22 mass shootings since 2011—more than a third of the public attacks over the past eight years—the perpetrators had a history of domestic violence, specifically targeted women, or had stalked and harassed women. These cases included the large-scale massacres at an Orlando nightclub in 2016 and a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017. In total, they account for 175 victims killed and 158 others injured. Two of the shooters bore the hallmarks of so-called “incels”—a subculture of virulent misogynists who self-identify as “
involuntarily celibate” and voice their rage and revenge fantasies against women online. A man who recently planned to carry out a mass shooting in
Utah and another who opened fire outside a courthouse
in Dallas also appeared to be influenced by incel ideas…
The trail of violent misogyny and abusive behavior in many shooters’ cases dovetails with a key finding from research published by the FBI in 2018: Not only do most shooters give off multiple behavioral warning signs that are observable to people around them, a majority do so starting months and even years before their attacks. The shooters in Tallahassee, Chicago, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, and elsewhere brutalized women long before their gun rampages. These patterns are significant to threat assessment professionals, who are trained to gauge how dangerous a person may be by analyzing a range of possible warning behaviors, including a history of violence, acquisition of weapons, and signs of further violent intent…
As part of an attempt to reauthorize the federal Violence Against Women Act this spring, House Democrats sought to broaden gun restrictions for domestic abuse and stalking convictions and close the so-called boyfriend loophole. But the National Rifle Association and their allies have stood in the way...
As the NRA opposed the Violence Against Women Act this April, a spokesperson reiterated the group’s opposition to tighter gun restrictions for known abusers: “The fact that Nancy Pelosi and her minions of anti-gun zealots insist on adding a gun-control poison pill to an otherwise good bill is just another example of the shameful politics Americans hate.”
A week later, a new study based on FBI data revealed that intimate partner homicides in America have been steadily on the rise, increasing 19 percent between 2014 and 2017. In 2017, a total of 2,237 victims were killed. Two thirds of them were women, most of whom were shot to death.
Domestic Violence, Mass Shootings, and Gun Control: A Public Health, Criminal Justice, and Civil Rights Issue
Eleanor M. Kiesel, Esquire, MSW, PhD
Stories of gun violence are ubiquitous in the United States. An article in The New Yorker in June, 2016, regarding mass shootings, terrorism, and a possible connection to domestic violence caught my attention and led me to review current research on this topic, culminating in this brief analysis. By way of background, and full disclosure, I am a managing attorney with Delaware’s oldest and largest civil legal services program, Community Legal Aid society, Inc., where my colleagues and I represent victims of domestic violence in obtaining orders of protection. I also hold a Masters and PhD in social work and so bring an academic and research-based framework to the challenges confronting our clients. In the low income communities we serve, domestic violence can often have a more severe and wide-reaching impact due to the intersection of a multitude of societal challenges and the lack of resources facing this population. Domestic violence has often been referred to as domestic terrorism because domestic violence and terrorism are similar—both rely on the use of violence and intimidation...
The idea of living in one’s own home without fear may be taken for granted by many, but it is anew experience for many of my clients, and for many victims of abuse in the United States and around the world. In the most recent center for Disease control (CDC) large scale survey, The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Assault survey summary report, found that more than 1 in 3women (35.6%) have experienced certain aspects of intimate partner violence such as, rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner.3 Most men and women who experience domestic violence have their first encounter before they reach the age of 25: 69% of female victims, and 53% of males experienced their first incidence of domestic violence as defined above before age.3…
Researchers have only recently begun to examine a potential connection between access to guns, mass shootings, and domestic violence. According to Clark McCauley, a professor at Bryn Mawr College, there has been no empirical support for the assertion of a causal connection between mass shootings of strangers and domestic violence,4 however, it may not simply be a coincidental that a number of perpetrators of mass shootings had also committed acts of domestic violence. Micah Johnson, the shooter in Dallas, had a report of sexual harassment and a request for a protective order against him while he was stationed in Afghanistan in the military5; the killer in the Orlando shootings, among other incidents of abuse, had beaten his first wife for not finishing the laundry; the Virginia Tech killer had been charged with stalking a female student; one of the two Boston Marathon bombers had been arrested for domestic assault and battery of awomen6; in February, 2016, a man shot 17 people at his Kansas workplace, killing three, 90minutes after being served with a restraining order filed by an ex-girlfriend4; and, the mass shooting of a Planned Parenthood Healthcare Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, that left three people dead and nine wounded was perpetrated by a man who had incident(s) of domesticviolence.7Battered spouses, their families, and friends have been victims of mass shootings for years. “Analysis of the criminal justice history of hundreds of thousands of offenders in Washington state,” writes Pamela Shifman and Salamishah Tillet in a February 3, 2015 Op-ed piece for The New York Times, “suggests that a felony domestic violence conviction is the single greatest predictor of future violent crime among men.8” Everytown for Gun safety issued a report in August 2015, which analyzed FBI mass shootings statistics and domestic violence, and concurs with Shifman and Tillet.9 Among other interesting findings, Everytown found that the link between intimate partner mass shootings, those where four or more people were killed with a gun, and prior reports of domestic violence is significant: in 57% of cases of mass shootings from 2009 to 2015, the perpetrator shot and killed a current or ex-spouse, girlfriend, or other family member, and at least 16% of those perpetrators had previously been charged with domestic violence offenses… (emphasis added)
No one should be surprised, no one should be confused:
Toxic masculinity, White privilege, the GOP anti-government cult, and guns. Why white men shoot. (May 19, 2019)
Michael Harriot, writing for The Root, elucidates the uncanny parallels in the views of another ordinary White male mass murderer, and how these views are downplayed by law enforcement and the media:
Despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence that the 2017 mass murder on the Las Vegas Strip may have been motivated by extreme-right-wing ideology, law enforcement officials still say they have no idea what caused Stephen Paddock to commit one of the deadliest mass shootings of all time.
After losing a court battle to keep them private, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department on Wednesday released a trove of documents from the investigation into the Oct. 1, 2017, shooting that left 58 people dead in Las Vegas.
The 1,200 pages of police reports, eyewitness accounts and interviews reveal that Paddock shared some of the same narratives espoused by the right-wing nuts who believe that the government is coming to confiscate their guns and implement martial law…
Even though the evidence seems clear as to what motivated Paddock, police and FBI agents still say that they have no idea what caused him to go on the shooting spree. Claiming an “ongoing investigation,” Clark County (Nev.) Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak said that no motive has been identified.
I’m sure their reluctance has nothing to do with the fact that the FBI has downplayed the dangers of right-wing extremism ever since Jeff Sessions took over the Department of Justice. If investigators declared Paddock a right-wing extremist, that would make him a terrorist and put the worst act of terrorism since 9/11 squarely at the feet of Donald Trump.
By a white man, too. Not one of those Islamic fundamentalists or black identity extremists they’d have you fear. I’m sure race doesn’t factor in this at all.
Nah, it must be something else.
What is it that prompts White males to spray bullets (and to be able to do so with near impunity)?
The intertwined sociocultural cancers of toxic masculinity and White supremacy.
Prior diaries about toxic masculinity and violence:
Hate crimes— it’s what insecure cis-gender hetero White males do. It’s fundamentally who they are. (March 18, 2021)
When males assault and/or murder females, it is always a hate crime.
When white males assault and/or murder anyone because of ‘not sufficiently white’ status, it is always a hate crime.
When cis gender hetero males assault and/or murder anyone because of ‘not sufficiently cis gender hetero’ status, it is always a hate crime…
Toxic masculinity, White privilege, the GOP anti-government cult, and guns: why White men shoot. (May 19, 2018)
What is it that prompts White males to spray bullets (and to be able to do so with near impunity)?
The intertwined sociocultural cancers of toxic masculinity and White supremacy.
it’s not hard to see these elements in virtually every episode of mass murder we’ve witnessed with increasing frequency in the past thirty years.
Jennifer Wright at Harpers Bazaar shines a spotlight on the truth of toxic masculinty, suffused with White supremacist beliefs, right in front of us:
When men like Billy Bush say that “For a man, [losing your job is] the ultimate degradation” well, I can’t help but feel that men may be overstating the importance of maintaining a job. Certainly, I can think of more degrading things. Having to grovel for my life before an incompetent former co-worker who felt he was owed a job or he’d kill everyone, is one of them.
Even the most innocent seeming victims, who could not possibly have “wronged” these men in any way don’t seem immune from their rage.
A great many mass murderers have a history of domestic violence. They range from Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub shooting, whose ex-wife claimed he took her paychecks, forbade her from leaving the house and beat her if she did not live up to what he perceived as being her duties; to Robert Lewis Dear, who killed three people at a Planned Parenthood Clinic and had been accused of domestic violence by two of his three ex-wives…
Elliot Rodger, who killed six people near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara, before fatally shooting himself, stands out as a man who very clearly explained his motive for shooting. In his final video titled “Retribution,” Elliot claimed, “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. It's an injustice, a crime because I don't know what you don't see in me, I'm the perfect guy and yet you throw yourselves at all these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman. I will punish all of you for it.”
I can assure you that not wanting to sleep with a man is not a crime. Killing six people and injuring 14, as Rodger did, is…
The terrifying thing is that, within circles of toxic men that comprise those like the alt-right—a movement that decries feminism and celebrates white nationalism—the men who commit these crimes do receive affirmation that they perhaps felt denied in life. The Southern Poverty Law Center explains that:
“The 'supreme gentleman,' a title Rodger gave himself… has since become a meme on the alt-right.”
Fan pages for Elliot Rodger, with titles like “Elliot Rodger is an American Hero,” sprang up on Facebook.
The fact that these actions are in any way celebrated or joked about can only serve as an incentive for other men who feel they are owed more than the world is offering them to behave violently. A movement telling them their sense of entitlement is rational, and that women are bitches and, as Dylan Roof believed, black people are “taking over our country”—well, it probably doesn’t do much to stop men from acting on their most violent fantasies.
There have, thus far, been 13 alt-right related incidents.
When we have enough data points, we can no longer claim we lack the evidence to say definitively what is happening: White males with fragile egos are slaughtering hundreds of people each year in sexualized dominance displays, precisely because of their feelings of inferiority, of displacement from their ‘rightful’ position atop the sociopolitical hierarchy...