Trying to make sense of the Texas and Buffalo Murders

By Mike Keleher

Like the rest of you, I am left reeling and angry today after hearing of the nut shooting in Uvalde, TX yesterday where one mentally unbalanced 18-year-old entered the elementary school and murdered 19 school kids and two teachers. I can’t begin to imagine the terror felt by every single parent who sent their child to that school yesterday morning and the subsequent soul crushing losses felt by those families and the teacher families when they found their loved ones had been deliberately slaughtered by this mental case.

The only good in it, was the shooter barricaded himself in the school and a federal officer from the Border Patrol Tactical team was able to get into the building and kill this evil turd. God bless the Border Patrol and every policeman who responded with one thought in their minds- to save those kids.

This shooting comes of course on the heels of a mass shooting in a grocery store in the Buffalo ten days ago by another 18-year-old with mental health problems who killed 10 people and shot three others. The background of the Buffalo shooter was touted as white supremacist inspired by Rolling Stone and picked up by the media, then other very mixed messages came in about his beliefs which finally ended with him saying he was a left-wing authoritarian and a populist, and he offered up examples of other left-wing authoritarians from history- Hitler, Mao and Che Gueverra. The media dropped that story like a hot potato after he was no longer just a “white supremacist.”

29 people publicly executed in these two incidents in large splashy headlines all within two weeks is heart rendering and full of dire changes pledged/threatened. Too bad those same pols and talking heads don’t care so much about day-to-day violence. Chicago alone has had 42 humans shot and killed in this same month and 269 shot. Shouldn’t something be done?

I have responded to active shooter calls, interjected with potential active shooters to try and derail that train before it gets too far down the track. I have trained civilian and military personnel how to deal with active shooters, put on schools and exercises, written numerous articles starting after the Sandy Hook grade school massacre, and even put on a “How to Survive Active Shooters” class for civilians from time to time.

We know a lot about shooters, and we also know, is in the aftermath of such a horror, the biggest thing is the initial media reports are going to be wildly speculative or even flat out wrong. I have watched multiple accounts today, only 24 hours after the murders in Texas, and wish politicians and paid commentators would just let the investigators do their job before laying blame. Although to be fair- even when the facts come in and are completely reversed- the politicians and media heads never go back to explain it or admit they were wrong in the rush to headlines, so it’s just the same as if it was true all along.

The President and Vice President have already weighed in with “enough is enough” talk and pointing blame at guns and laws and somehow the NRA is to blame. Heaven forbid, they would blame the madman who committed the murders or even speak ill of them. It is of course right on track with the Clinton-esque tactics to never let a good tragic story go to waste- make dramatic announcements- you never have to walk them back!

“We need new laws!” and “We need to ban assault weapons!” have been headline politics this week and last as expected. Active shooters don’t follow the law. It is illegal to purchase weapons or use weapons with felonious intent. It is illegal to shoot and murder people in every civilized nation on the planet. It is illegal to bring guns into school zones in every district in America- has it stopped the school shooters? There are volumes of federal and state laws governing firearms, how and when to purchase and laying out who can’t purchase them. Background checks are required to commercially purchase every gun in the United States. Criminals don’t follow those laws. Would a school shooting law that requires the death penalty of any aggressor deter them- the shooters who rarely survive their massacres? Oh, and with the current liberal control of the nation’s population centers and white house, they won’t support a death penalty offense. Far too strict.

I would like to reiterate some knowledge points here about active shooters and show you the Buffalo and Texas shooter similarities along the way- even though, yes, I am dealing with a news story that is only 24 hours old you will still see the patterns which are embedded in every active shooter case.

1. These shooters are all mentally unsound. They are not right in the head. They don’t fit in and are loners. They know it and their families and schools know it. They reach a point where they know they will never be popular or successful. They know life will not hand them all the good things they see on TV and the internet and decide to just go out in a blaze of “glory” to get attention. “Oh, they will be sorry.” This has been particularly awful when committed against children and churches where the bad guy knows they won’t be impeded. Was the Texas shooter mentally unsound? Well, we are hearing today at age 18 he was known to wear odd clothes in high school along with eye makeup and was prone to self-cutting-on his face. Buffalo shooter- was routed for psych eval one year ago by state police and his school.

At the Parkland school shootings when students heard about the attack several named the shooter as most likely to have committed the murders before ever hearing his name. They have all had mental health treatment and almost every one of them has been on psychotropic drugs…and have stopped taking them. (I feel fine, I don’t need them!) I have not seen info yet on the Texas shooter, but as cited above, the Buffalo shooter was referred for psychological review a year ago.

2. They leak information about their violent thoughts and plans. Every time. It is all just too exciting to keep shut inside. They are fixated upon it and leak out via emails, text messages, Facebook and Youtube. News from Texas? Oh, the shooter communicated with a female friend in stilted odd manner just prior to the attack. They will probably find more in social media and on his phone/computer. In the Buffalo? That guy went online in a chat room before the attack and talked with 15 people according to news sources, then he went live online via Youtube during the attack.

3. They make elaborate plans. They do not just “snap”. People wonder “What set him off?” Well, these attacks are laid out months in advance. Maps and plans are drawn up. Weapons are collected. They study other shootings hoping to use their technics to roll up a larger body count. We don’t have info back from Texas yet, but the plans will be found. From the Buffalo shooter, he had very long-drawn-out plans to include visiting the attack site a week before his attack to see it and draw maps. He was acting so bizarre he was kicked out of the store. In addition to bringing guns, he also purchased and wore a bullet resistant vest which defeated an incoming bullet shot by a Security Guard retired policeman who was in turn killed.

They also deliberately choose gun free zones. They want to succeed where the body count will be highest-we all recall the Columbine students and Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings by 18-year-old kids who deliberately picked those settings. The Colorado movie shooter picked a theater showing a crowded Batman movie after seeing another theater did not have a no-guns sign on the door. Schools are particularly vulnerable even after all these modern school massacres. Some “expert” was in the news today saying the security protocols at the Texas grade school “may be partially to blame” for the massacre. They did not mention putting the blame on the crazed gun man.

Another thing about the plans, is they rarely, if ever, have any plan to escape the attack scene or any plans for the day after. It is all about the big splash. The high percentage of these murderers kill themselves when confronted by police or civilians or are killed by police. A much smaller number are captured alive like the Buffalo shooter. Back down in Florida with the Parkland murderer, he shot up the kids and school, pulled the fire alarm and walked off campus to get a drink at Subway and sat inside a McDonalds. He had no other plans for the rest of his day.

4. They have long histories of violence with violent fantasies towards people, hours of training on murder simulator video games, bad acts against animals and a long list of perceived grudges. They feel they are not getting the life they are owed and vow revenge to get back at the people suppressing them or at the world at large. They also love to recount their violent fantasies and grudges to anyone who will listen. In every case there are documents found illustrating this point. No word in from Texas just yet who all he was pissed off at, but he did shoot is caretaker grandmother before assaulting the school. In the Buffalo, the shooter made threats to high school classmates last year and identified himself via a variety of ideologies starting when he was 12 years old and an avowed communist! In media content and manifestos, he said he moved on from communism and became a left-wing authoritarian (like Hitler, Mao and Che) and he was also a populist and racist all by the age of 18. He also admitted picking his attack site due to the high concentration of black people- 200 miles from his home. His ideas are all over the map. Could just be nuts? “Nuts”: a legal term of pseudo psychological state currently out of vogue with the medical profession, the media and liberals in office.

5. These shooters don’t develop in a vacuum. First and foremost, their family (who ever that may be), friends and school officials see these kids failing out and becoming violence obsessed. The police have had family-based contact with almost all known active shooters prior to their bad day. Schools and police need to be extra involved with kids before they are down the wrong path. Even visits to homes and inquiries with family about violence or access to weapons might seem intrusive- but would be done in the interest of everyone’s safety.

Families need to be involved in the lives of kids. We have a society where teens can just be odd or weird and stay to themselves on the internet, tv and video games with little other human interaction. One of the worst transgressions, was when the mother of the Sandy Hook shooter knew he had mental problems and prescription problems bought him a Bushmaster AR-15 just prior to his attack. Why in the world would a parent give a kid with mental problems a gun? Any gun?

In the aftermath of every shooting tragedy, they police will also get drug through the muck. Remember the police- the ones the left spent hating during the summer BLM Antifa riots. Remember the defund the police initiatives? Now we have rampant violence, and the left would like the police to do something about it. They can and should get personal with kids at risk. It doesn’t cost much and pays big dividends.

There is no word back yet on the Texas and Buffalo shooters gun sources, but they were both 18 and legally old enough to purchase guns- if they had no disqualifying backgrounds or had not been red flagged. The Buffalo shooter should have been prohibited from purchasing a gun after being referred to psych eval last year by the State Police and his high school.