Unutterably tragic
These murders are incredibly horrific. I am providing the link, and you can talk about the event in this thread if you can bear to do so.
Awful, awful, awful. RIP.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
These murders are incredibly horrific. I am providing the link, and you can talk about the event in this thread if you can bear to do so.
Awful, awful, awful. RIP.
We don’t hear about it as often as other kinds, but unfortunately a man murdering his family is the most common type of mass murder in the US, something like 50% of them. There have been over 200 of them since 2020.
The countries that have strict gun laws have these too; often the victims are sleeping, very young, or otherwise vulnerable and so lack of access to firearms isn’t much of a barrier.
Niketas:
Yes, but this man murdered 2 families of his and 7 children of his plus a relative’s child. The scope is highly unusual. It is always heartbreaking, but this involves more children than usual. Both mothers are also in critical condition, I believe shot in the face .
@neo:Yes, but this man murdered 2 families of his
Very few men HAVE two families available to murder, which is in itself pretty unusual, I agree. It’s not unusual within the context of family murders for other relatives present to be murdered as well. For example, in 2023 a man in Utah killed his wife, five children, and his wife’s mother, as they were all in the same place.
In this case everyone but one of the mothers were in the same house. Going out looking for the second one is unusual, but most men don’t have a second one to look for. Even for family murder, already unusual, it’s an unusual one.
Niketas:
Two families, via an ex spouse and present spouse or girlfriend, is hardly unusual these days. Google says 15% of men have children by at least 2 women by the age of 40.
@neo:Google says 15% of men have children by at least 2 women by the age of 40.
The facts are the important thing, whether we want to call 15% “unusual” or not. I don’t think we disagree on facts.
Wait, what? Fifteen percent of men have children by at least 2 women by age 40? Now that’s a statistic I was not only unaware of, I also was not expecting anything of the sort. I feel like American culture has passed me by.
@F:Now that’s a statistic I was not only unaware of, I also was not expecting anything of the sort.
Been a lot of divorces over the last 50 years, quite aside from the separation of marriage and children. In recent years about 40% of American births are to unmarried women.
It’s not across the board, of course. There are parts of society where women frequently have children by multiple men and men frequently sire children on multiple women, and parts of society where this is still rare. Was the premise of the film Idiocracy for that matter.
Being shot in the face and surviving? Uhg, that’s horrible. The details matter a lot. Sometimes, if the angle is extreme enough, the brain is largely or entirely undamaged. Then there is the facial damage too.
An in-law of mine told me of her experiences as a nurse working in a part of the country I’ll call “gun country.” Dealing with suicidal gunshot wounds to the head was not an uncommon experience, and a great many survived. Too many, in her opinion. She said that the management of her hospital was seriously considering running PSA advertisements about what type of head shots are guaranteed (almost?) to be fatal. But never did.
“demons”
Lots of complications, including personal liberty, when dealing with what amounts to odd behavior on one end of a spectrum.
It would even be tough to avoid him, having heard “chilling” talk. Up sticks and move?
Regarding shots to the head :
Many years ago I read about a man who tried to commit suicide with a power drill, which I’d assume is pretty unusual. But the most unusual part part was that when he was admitted to the hospital (still alive) he had TWO holes in his skull – the first attempt didn’t work, so he did it again.
… a man who tried to commit suicide with a power drill,
I hate to make light of such a somber situation, but when I lived in Kentucky, not long before I left, there was a man who killed himself with a hammer. I was at work, looking through the newspaper, and the headline read, “Man Kills Self With Hammer.” Well, that will get your attention so I started to read through the article a bit. Evidently there was a witness to this event, and the article went on to describe the scene and read something like, “after which, the man began to repeatedly strike himself in the head with a hammer.”
It was the “repeatedly” that got me. I got the giggles and eventually was laughing so hard as to attract attention. Everyone wanted to know what was so funny. I did my best to explain, but I don’t think I did a very good job.
One more horrific example of the existence of evil…
So much for Sailer’s Law of Mass Shootings
richf:
“Many years ago I read about a man who tried to commit suicide with a power drill” but survived with two holes drilled in his head!
Scientists have learned that there are parts of the brain you don’t need, and other vital parts you do! We’ve seen it in the late late parts of “Silence of The Lamb,” under the scalpel wielded by Dr. Lector.
A bit of physiological study should make it clearer to the next death by suicide via head drilling to get it right.
The rest of us can happily ignore such folly.
In the 80s a couple Chicago Outfit thugs tried to “hit” another one, using a .22. They shot him in the head from the back seat of the car he was in, but he survived and testified against the Mob. The would-be assassins’ bodies were discovered in the trunk of a car shortly thereafter.
@”Steve Sailer”:So much for Sailer’s Law of Mass Shootings
The REAL Steve Sailer understands probability distributions.
@ Selfy > “The would-be assassins’ bodies were discovered in the trunk of a car shortly thereafter.”
Kind of a kinetic way to say, “You’re fired.”
Been reported this guy got eighteen months probation for firing a gun at a school. Anybody know more about that?
@Niketas Choniates
As do I.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhjXg3JumBY