More on the Texas school shooting, and the perpetrator
It is depressing in so many many ways.
First and foremost, there are the victims, now listed as 19 children and 2 adults. The cold-blooded killing of children is evil personified, and most human beings are especially revolted and outraged by it.
But beyond that, there is the sameness of it. It’s a theme we’ve seen before, with variations. One of those variations is the political use of such things by Democrats to demand a crackdown on gun owners that would virtually never have prevented it. Another is the portrait of a disturbed person as perpetrator (sometimes a very young one, as in this case of an 18-year old).
As is so often the case with these incidents, I find that the most early information is often available in the British press:
Neighbors and classmates say his behavior spiraled into the bizarre and macabre as he entered his later teenage years, with one friend telling Good Morning America: ‘He had scars on his face and someone asked him, ‘Are you ok?’ and he just said with a smile ‘I did it myself, I liked how it looked.’
He began dressing in dark clothes and military boots and used his BB gun to target random people, one local claimed…
The would-be mass murderer lived with his grandmother on Hood Street…
According to Ramos’ neighbor Ruben Flores, 41, the shooter and his mother would often have screaming matches, with police being called to the home on multiple occasions.
So was the mother at the grandmother’s house too? The article goes on to say that he had recently moved from the mother’s to the grandmother’s house. There also was a grandfather present in that home:
In since deleted Instagram videos, Ramos had allegedly filmed his mother interacting with police.
Classmate Nadia Reyes claimed: ‘He’d call his mom a b***h and say she wanted to kick him out… He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively.’
Flores, meanwhile, told the Washington Post how he had tried to be a father figure to Ramos but that the situation at home only worsened as he got older.
So a neighbor had tried to be a father figure.
Jeremiah Munoz, an alumnus from the local high school who used to play Xbox games with Ramos, also told the New York Times he would often hear him arguing with his mother through the microphone – and his mother would scream back at him, telling him he needed to go to school and he was doing nothing with his life.
Munoz said Ramos would often leave his mother’s house and stay with his grandmother for several days after a big fight – and over the past year he has been spending more and more time with his grandmother.
Ramos’ grandmother, who owned the house on Hood Street, was reportedly in the process of evicting the mother over her drug use in the days before Tuesday’s killing spree. Flores said Ramos had moved into his grandmother’s home across town some months earlier.
There, his grandfather, Ronaldo Reyes, 72, said he lived in a front room and slept on a mattress on the floor. Reyes told ABC News he had no idea his grandson purchased two AR-15s nor that he kept them in the house.
Perhaps not all of this is accurate, but the British papers have a good track record. The article goes on to add that the grandfather was a convicted felon.
This type of thing is a classic story among disturbed teens. We used to see this sort of family quite often at the clinic where I got my training. Fathers sometimes were absent but not always, but whether present or somewhat absent they often were violent and/or abusive as well.
Not all of these kids grow up to become murderers or criminals – very fortunately. Some are even helped by the mental health system, or grow out of it in some way. But some, like Ramos, go out in a blaze of ignominy which they interpret as glory.
RIP to the victims.
This may well be a problem without any real solution, since the cultural element is so important, and the state has little ability to ameliorate cultural and moral decline in a free society, although draconian measures in a totalitarian regime can sometimes work (the PRC, in its first decade, had some success, at astronomical cost, in battling against such “vices” as opium-smoking and prostitution). The issue of mental health, exacerbated without question by insanely stupid COVID-related policies in the schools (masks, remote learning, etc) also admits of no simple fix. What is all too distressingly clear is that the propaganda always favored by the Democrats in these situations will continue to intensify.
Liberals demonstrate the same abandonment of logic on gun control that animates their idiocy on Covid, BLM and cops, global warming, homeless policy, fossil fuels, and economics.
It isn’t just that their feelings ignore reality. They specifically and emphatically reject reality.
It’s about time they get called out for the childish tantrums. They need to be insulted, laughed at, and embarrassed. And if the media calls us mean, wear it as a badge of honor.
Not surprising to me that somehow or other illegal drugs are involved – maybe in this case not used by the shooter, instead used by his mother – and yet I don’t hear anyone talk about “cracking down” on illegal drug use like they scream about guns.
Here is something that the Democrats could do to reduce school attacks. Suppose they appropriated $50 billion, to pick a number, for school security? It could be used to build fences and gates around schools. It could pay for armed school resource officers to monitor the gates. And also to respond to problems within the school. It could be used to pay for training and weapons for volunteer school personnel. It would be interesting to have a Republican submit a bill to implement this.
Ramos was merely another victim, unlike Kyle Rittenhouse, who was clearly a monster.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how the Left sees it. :-/
SMH.
I remember back to my college days that one of my classmates, who was very smart, became psychotic and never recovered to live a regular life. In later years, one undergrad in our lab became psychotic and had to be institutionalized. Somewhat later, one of my grad students suffered from severe depression and took nearly a year to recover. Happily, he went on to complete his PhD and live a decent life.
Three young men, all of whom had terrible mental problems right at the transition from adolescence to young manhood. (I know of a couple of women who had similar problems, but only at second hand.) From discussing it with other people, it appears to be a very standard time when these sort of mental problems appear.
Given Ramos’ prior history and nasty home life, he may have had a serious mental break of the kind I described above when he went on his rampage.
There used to be mental hospitals that housed people like this, but the libs shut them down because they were nasty places (they were) and claimed that the “community” would take care of them. No help showed up and we have homeless people on the streets and the most extreme committing atrocities like this. Utopia never arrives, does it?
That definitely is a sad story. In a post-Covid world, I hesitate to jump on potential solutions; I don’t know what we could do to identify and stop people like this before they act without massive government overreach.
I’m always curious, but I don’t know if anyone really knows: what drives a person to want to commit a mass murder? A single homicide, a suicide, or terrorism for political/religious reasons are comprehensible to most of us, even if we’d never do them ourselves. What’s the motivation for the cold-blooded slaughter of random people? Maybe it’s a complete failure of imagination on my part, but I can’t even come up with the potential train of thought that would lead someone to think going to a school and shooting a bunch of schoolchildren is a good idea. Posthumous fame? Inflicting a lot of pain and suffering on the world around them? They’re just completely delusional and believe they’re acting out a game or a fantasy? Imaginary voices told them to do it? People always want to say the mass shooters just weren’t raised right, it’s a symptom of moral decline. We do have moral decline on a mass scale, but it’s a very rare individual that sinks to this level.
A psychotic break in the 17-21 age range is possible, and it may be exacerbated by or triggered by marijuana use. What has so far not emerged is any evidence in this shooter’s case.
(the PRC, in its first decade, had some success, at astronomical cost, in battling against such “vices” as opium-smoking and prostitution)
If I recall correctly they just shot all the opium addicts and dealers working on the theory that if you’re dead you can’t be an addict or a dealer. I don’t think we could do that.
Paul,
It wasn’t just liberals who shut them down. Deinstitutionalization was endorsed in California by then Governor Ronald Reagan. You’re right, many of those institutions were quite nasty places. Unfortunately, as too often happens, society swung too far in the other direction (it is virtually impossible to involuntarily commit someone for any length of time, if they’ve committed no serious crime). We continue to endure the fallout.
I do think that the criminal records of 15 , 16,17 year olds should be public records and used during background checks. Whether that would have any effect in this case in unknown.
I don’t know how many times we’ve seen the same pattern, a “troubled youth,” the kid exhibits lots of warning signs–strange behavior and sometimes dress, at the home there is lots of shouting, fights, and sometimes violence–the family and the kid are “frequent fliers” with the police–and, yet, nothing is done and then, one day, the kid just explodes, and tries to or succeeds at becoming a mass murderer.
Gun control is not the answer, but a lot more intervention by the police and the juvenile courts, to get the kid out of the home and into some sort of institution where they can be supervised and given the psychiatric care they need are, at least, a better answer.
Yeah, the mother now claims that her son was not violent and they had no problems at home. Sure.
This may have been covered in the other thread’s comments but is there any reporting on gender issues?
Photos are posted widely with him wearing a skirt, or a bra, or draped with a Trans Flag. Claim is that it’s from his social media but who knows. Just as likely to be fake news, I’m sure.
Ramos was a victim – who then victimized others; murdering them, and sort-of committing suicide by resistance against the police.
We should have more, and smaller schools.
” In 1929-30, there were approximately 248,000 public schools, compared with about 98,500 in 2017-18.”
If each school had a list of disturbed kids, like the top 3-5, that would be a million kids on a “watch list”. Is that too many for special attention by gov’t social workers, for once a month visit at school (or out)?
Ramos was a high risk kid – how many are there?
We need more gov’t funded mental care & social care places for a safe place to sleep and some reasonable food — while forbidding alcohol & drugs (& sex?).
The mother a mess; the father mostly absent. Our society needs to offer big kids, teenagers, the option of leaving a bad home environment and living in a better state institution – maybe more Hogwarts style boarding schools. (Harry Potter started there at 11).
I was very impressed with J.K. Rowling’s adult book (non-HP) The Casual Vacancy, and especially the drug addict mother of the main character and the difficulties so realistically described.
Current schools are stupid to believe that low IQ folk can be taught to be average with the “right school”. We have a “Cult of Smart” (Freddie deBoer) that needs to be challenged.
Ramos needed more help than he got, sooner – and there are others like him. A LOT of them – which means a LOT of help is needed. Being honest about the actual problem is a necessary step.
(Like Snow on Pine posted as I was writing)
Beyond the great tragedy of innocent kids murdered, I’d like to pick up on what Stan mentioned.
The Ds/libs/leftists I have contact with are exhibiting a high level of rage beyond what I’ve seen before from them. Basically, they are attacking anyone on the right as they see those people as being responsible for the children’s murders; not the kid who pulled the trigger. Now, I see Beto going into a rage at Abbot’s press conference, and a D Rep going into a F-bomb laced rage at Ted Cruz. Actors saying “f*** your prayers for the kids!”. So it seems to be a common reaction. What worries me is that with the possible Roe decision coming soon, which has already unleashed a great level of rage, add that to the current mental state of the left, we may be in for a level of leftist violence unlike what has come before. Unhinged may not be a strong enough word.
physicsguy, I share your worry. Law enforcement agencies were already looking at possible riots over the Roe decision. Many leftists are really not entirely sane these days.
So they want to confiscate all guns and they want to defund the police and end the surveillance state.
Who is going to confiscate all these guns?
Social workers?
Such unserious people.
Are we allowed to discuss what a poor job so many single mothers do?
1. Unconfirmed reports that the killer posted a picture of himself in a skirt.
2. The mother is a drug user. Remind me again why the Left wants to legalize pot.
From Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” – “I think if Satan was sitting around and what’d a means to bring mankind to its knees, he’d come up with narcotics.”
Confiscate all firearms still leaves you with thousands of seriously mental ill people who will find a way to do evil if they want to.
And schools pushing mental illness even if it’s only them who get hurt isn’t helping these situations.
“So they want to confiscate all guns”
The minute anyone says they actually want to try taking guns away from people who already have them, I know they aren’t serious about preventing violence. Anyone who wants police or military – or, God forbid, social workers lol – to go door-to-door confiscating guns is asking for more violence and bloodshed than we’ve seen in any mass shooting, maybe even civil war.
We live in a truly terrible society at present.
shadow,
The social workers were more my sarcastic remark as I assume even these people wouldn’t suggest they deploy an army of social workers for this task.
But yes if this task was attempted there would be daily shootouts and the death toll would be immense and the amount of radicalized anti government people would be immense.
The only thing I would say is if someone seriously proposed this and came up with a strategy it would be an actual plan that if successful would actually stop gun violence unlike all these other pie in the sky proposals that wouldn’t actually stop any of these attacks.
Any time the ‘confiscate guns’ line comes up, I tell them to come back when heroin, meth, and coke are unavailable to those who really want them. Hey, they’re banned, right?
Paul; Ackler:
Closing mental institutions, etc., was spearheaded by libertarians, actually, and then taken up by liberals and even some on the right. Please see this post of mine from 2013.
shadow:
I think you got the two main motives right: “Posthumous fame? Inflicting a lot of pain and suffering on the world around them?” For some it’s also a way to kill themselves and escape whatever they hate about life. Many of them do kill themselves after killing others, but for some (such as yesterday’s perp) it’s a case of suicide by cop.
If you do a search for “Columbine” on this blog you’ll find other posts I’ve written on the subject. Many of these killers are psychopaths, too.
“plan that if successful would actually stop gun violence”
I thought that guns were inanimate objects. How do they become violent? Do you have to tease them or bully them or do they just snap and start killing people?
Problems w/parent, co-workers, police … yet allowed to buy guns ? ‘He posted videos on his Instagram where the cops were there and he’d call his mom a b—- and say she wanted to kick him out. ‘He’d be screaming and talking to his mom really aggressively.’ He had a job at Wendy’s, where colleagues say he accosted female staff. It’s unclear how the teenager paid for the (aprox $3,500) weapons plus ammo and body armor. //// Was this Salvador back in 2018?)
https://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/two-teens-arrested-after-planning-mass-casualty-event-for-uvalde-school/273-548565605
Ray,
My point was if they were actually successful with conviscating all guns obviously gun violence would go down because there would be no, or at least much fewer, guns in circulation.
This is obviously ridiculously unrealistic but it something that is brought up every time something happens.
FWIW I am not for or against guns in fact I have never even touched one but these ridiculous statements made by gun control people do nothing.
Cb asks a great question: where DID this non-functioning 18 yr old get the kind of money to make those purchases???
I’d say 98% of good 18 yr olds don’t have access to that sort of cash.
Griffin:
As far as confiscating all guns goes – I think that even with the most draconian efforts to confiscate all guns, the guns that would be confiscated would be the legally purchased ones. The illegal ones wouldn’t be on any registry, and the owners would probably be quite adept at hiding or burying them. So only criminals would have guns, which certainly wouldn’t reduce crime.
That’s my take on the likeliest effect, anyway.
Neo wrote, “Closing mental institutions, etc., was spearheaded by libertarians, actually, and then taken up by liberals and even some on the right. Please see this post of mine from 2013.”
Here’s a comment of mine from that 2013 post. I’ve never forgotten how baffled I was by Thomas Szasz — then the leader of deinstitutionalization efforts — so sure of the righteousness of his cause and so utterly, absolutely without any realistic plans for managing its consequences, or apparent common sense.
“Thomas Szasz spoke at my law school over 30 years ago. I’ll never forget how he smugly told us that mental illness did not exist, that the symptoms of mental illness were behavioral choices, and that the legal system had no reason to impose restrictions on the mentally ill. People in the audience — many of whom had personal experience with the “choices” imposed upon the mentally ill — pleaded with him to hear reason but he was obdurate. At the time, I thought that HE was the one who was nuts, and never imagined that his ludicrous ideas would prevail. But here we are.”
And here we are again, even further on. Szasz was indeed libertarian rather than liberal, and he’s a fine example of what’s wrong with the extremes of libertarianism. But let me just say that I spent some time in one of the institutions where awful conditions helped to create the deinstitutionalization movement — Willowbrook in NY, for developmentally disabled rather than mentally ill people — and it was every bit as horrible, or more so, than any account of it could suggest. It needed to be closed. But tossing the residents out onto the streets with no support was not the answer.
The older I get, the less I imagine that I have any answers to anything.
physicsguy,
Just the holographic gun sight that he had on the one rifle costs about $600 or $800.
Neo,
And you bet when the gun confiscators get into some battle trying to take the guns in say, I don’t know, Chicago the cries of racism will be loud.
My bigger point is almost none of the gun side solutions will work the solutions are on the human side.
It is being reported now that the first thing that happened when the shooter came on to the school campus was that he engaged the school resource officer in a gun fight and incapacitated the SRO. That is one of the problems with having a single uniformed SRO stationed at the front door. He is a known quantity and the attacker is probably much more prepared for him, than he is of the attacker.
Now if there is a second SRO or other additional countermeasures, then you might have a serious impediment and deterrent.
Griffin,
You missed my point. Guns are inanimate objects and they cannot be violent. When these people talk about gun violence they talk about inanimate object violence.
I suspect the SRO probably hesitated not wanting to shoot the shooter who was more than willing to shoot first. When a person carrying a gun in a vest shows up at a school in the future I am hoping the SROs will be willing to shoot him and shoot him in the head since the vest might have amor plates. Those are difficult decisions.
We have not yet seriously considered acute schizophrenia, with total detachment from reality, have we? It starts in the young.
I for one do not care if hospitals for the gravely mentally ill were not nice places. They were a form of prison, and it got the crazies off the streets, housed, fed and otherwise cared for.
Anti-psychotic drugs are not the answer, either.
I once had a young married employee whose husband became acutely psychotic. He could not stand the drug side effects, so after about a year he drove his cycle straight into a bridge abutment at 100mph.
Mrs. Whatsit:
Szasz was a full professor of psychiatry at Syracuse when making his claims.
A lot of unanswered questions. For instance… who was shooting while Salvador was still outside approaching the school? [Comment from below picture] One video at the scene appears to show the suspected gunman, named by Governor Greg Abbott as Salvador Ramos, approach the school while what sounds like gunfire is going off in the background.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10853295/Uvalde-school-shooter-Salvador-Ramos-LEGALLY-bought-two-AR-15-rifles-week-18th-birthday.html
TommyJay:
The perp also has the element of surprise versus the SRO, especially if a concealed handgun. If it’s a rifle or something like that, I guess it’s pretty obvious, though.
Arm any teacher or administrator who is trained and willing. On Social media Just saw a pic of a sign in front of another Texas school. Says the staff is armed and will use whatever force is necessary to protect their students. And a mom in a different state posted a pic of a retired soldier standing in the hall of her kid’s school with his weapon. She was very happy to see him there.
“This type of thing is a classic story among disturbed teens. We used to see this sort of family quite often at the clinic where I got my training. Fathers sometimes were absent but not always, but whether present or somewhat absent they often were violent and/or abusive as well.
Not all of these kids grow up to become murderers or criminals – very fortunately. Some are even helped by the mental health system, or grow out of it in some way.” neo
Males commit mass murders. Fatherless households or ones with abusive fathers are the most common determinate in these mass murderers. No amount of gun control will stop them. The problem is societal and resides in the cultural and spirtual realms.
Stan,
Liberals “specifically and emphatically reject reality.”
All collectivist ideologies emphatically reject reality in specific ways. When enough collectivists exist in a society, they will eventually violently confront those who embrace reality.
Charles,
“I don’t hear anyone talk about “cracking down” on illegal drug use like they scream about guns.”
Remember Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no!”? As I recall that was viciously rediculed by those on the left.
physicsguy,
“The Ds/libs/leftists I have contact with are exhibiting a high level of rage beyond what I’ve seen before from them. Basically, they are attacking anyone on the right as they see those people as being responsible for the children’s murders; not the kid who pulled the trigger.”
But they’re fine with the continuing murder of 50+ MILLION babies?
“What worries me is that with the possible Roe decision coming soon, which has already unleashed a great level of rage, add that to the current mental state of the left, we may be in for a level of leftist violence unlike what has come before. Unhinged may not be a strong enough word.”
Sooner or later, the unhinged meet their fate.
Griffin,
If gun confiscation from the law abiding were 100% successful, gun violence would noticeably increase. Criminals would be as wolves among the sheep.
Geoffrey Britain:
Males commit most murders, including mass murders.
Fatherless teens are NOT predominant among school shooters. That is a myth that I investigated in this 2019 post as well as this one from 2018. It is apparently a very popular and tenacious myth, though.
cb @ 5:08pm,
Wow! That news item from 2018 is incredible, if valid. Even states one of them specifically mentioned performing mass murder in 2022.
This is odd:
I assume it’s an edit error and the dates are reversed?
Tom Grey 2 4:05pm,
Well stated.
Huge schools run in enormous, soulless concrete rectangles encircled with razor wire is an odd way to develop young minds.
Many good, religious institutions would gladly set up and run orphanages and half way homes for troubled youth, and many children and adolescents would benefit from such an environment, but absolutist atheists have made tremendous strides in eliminating “religious” institutions from public service.
Our daughter dd her initial years as a therapist in an organization here in Washington state that provides mental health care for people who can’t afford mental healthcare. She mostly worked with children who had been sexually abused. But she saw cases of angry teenagers who were beyond help with counseling and were referred on to psychiatrists for treatment with drugs. There are many more of those types of cases than we civilians know about. Some slip through the cracks. Some never see a therapist at all.
It was very demanding work and not well paid but gave her an education/understanding of mental health issues and treatment she could not have gotten any other way.
This organization, Compass Health, is a charity that struggles to find and keep qualified therapists. They are doing necessary work on a limited budget. I assume such organizations exist in most states, but few of us know about them.
The rise of homelessness is an indication of how badly mental health resources are needed. 80% of the homeless in WA are either addicts, alcoholics, or mental cases (sometimes a combo of all three). We need to do something to treat them, not just “get them off the streets.”
We can harden schools, especially K-6, and hope to discourage these killers, but I assume they would find other targets that are more vulnerable. That’s a partial solution, but this type of violence is very hard to stop without a suffocating police state in place.
I have owned guns since I was 12 years old. The primary use back in my younger days was for hunting rabbits, ducks, pheasants, deer, and elk. No one I ever knew considered a gun anything but a tool to be used carefully and respected. That has changed as our society has become more urban, less religious, with more easily obtained addictive substances, and less responsible. Some of our major cities are shooting galleries these days. And the mostly Democrat governments have no answers except gun confiscation.
The conversation we need to be having is about healing our society. Finding the money to treat mental illnesses, embracing the Golden Rule, teaching our children how to be responsible, shoring up family values, and unite as a nation that needs to chart a new course towards domestic tranquility.
Huge schools run in enormous, soulless concrete rectangles encircled with razor wire is an odd way to develop young minds.
Uvalde County has a population shy of 25,000. School one might wager has about 1,000 students.
Many good, religious institutions would gladly set up and run orphanages and half way homes for troubled youth, and many children and adolescents would benefit from such an environment, but absolutist atheists have made tremendous strides in eliminating “religious” institutions from public service.
The malevolent and tiresome lawfare artists did their part. The more salient problem, however, was the demographic collapse of the religious orders. A sister told me that twice as many women took their vows to enter her order in 1961 and 1962 as did throughout the entire period running from 1970 to 2001. At the time we spoke, she said the median age in her order was 70. Sisters and brothers live communally and are compensated with small stipends. This makes their apostolates economical. Cannot make it work anymore.
I’m going to disagree with you about school dimensions. IMO, north of 40% of each high school cohort should be enrolled in vocational-technical programs. A program which covers the waterfront is going to require a regional school district with a large enrollment and boarding options, though you might sort them into separate buildings with subsets of the full array of programs.
The rise of homelessness is an indication of how badly mental health resources are needed.
I don’t think you could demonstrate with census data that vagrancy is proportionately more common than it was 30 years ago. California has two problems: the weather is a magnet and the politicians insist the police not do their jobs.
“The older I get, the less I imagine that I have any answers to anything.”
You and me both, Mrs. Whatsit. We are in good company.
Finding the money to treat mental illnesses
Since 1950, the population has increased about 2.15 fold while the number of medical degrees awarded has increased by 3.4 fold.
As we speak, there are 25,000 working psychiatrists; 58,000 clinical psychologists; 365,000 counselors specializing in family problems, alcoholism, or drug problems; and 113,000 social workers who specialize in “mental health”.
The suicide rate is, if anything, slightly higher than it was in 1950. Spin those wheels.
Art D.: “I don’t think you could demonstrate with census data that vagrancy is proportionately more common than it was 30 years ago.”
Maybe not. It’s just my lying eyes that’s telling me homelessness has increased. Ten years ago, there were no homeless encampments on the sides of our freeways, on major business streets in Seattle, or in municipal parks. All common today. Ten years ago, you didn’t see needles and syringes littered on city streets. All common tdday.
I believe one factor in the growth of homelessness is the Social Security disability program. People unable to hold a job because of alcoholism or mental health issues can get disability payments. Not enough to live normally, but it will support a drug/alcohol fueled lifestyle in a tent by the freeway.
The winters here in Puget SDouind can be pretty miserable, but the “campers” don’t leave.
I agree that the police are not enforcing vagrancy laws – a feature of Democrat controlled cities. Seattle is spending millions buying hotels to put the homeless in. But they have rules, so the homeless don’t want to live there. If they relax the rules, the hotels become drug infested wrecks.
There are some things you can’t learn from reading statistics.
@ Neo > “As is so often the case with these incidents, I find that the most early information is often available in the British press:”
The 72-hour rule is to give the Brits time to do the actual journalism that American press won’t do.
They are also willing to print very long posts, with all the information, rather than trimming everything down to the smallest story they can get away with, as the US media is mostly just copying each other copying an AP or Reuters wire.