Friday, December 10, 2021

A Terrifying Brush With Tragedy This Week

I woke up to this news and it terrified me.

We almost had yet another college mass shooting event, this time the threat was at Embry-Riddle in Daytona (via Claire Metz at WESH Orlando): 

John Hagins was arrested at his off campus apartment Thursday after two other students alerted authorities of the suspect's alleged threatening statements.

Officials have no doubt classmates of 19-year-old Hagins, an aeronautical science student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, averted tragedy Thursday, the last day of classes before winter break.

According to the arrest report, last week Hagins began talking excessively about purchasing a gun and the gun being able to fold so it could fit inside of his backpack to take to the school...

Hagins also allegedly told the student witness he would purchase a silencer so he would be able to shoot inside the school library...

"He referenced Columbine," Daytona Beach police Chief Jakari Young said. "He said once he was done at the firing range he was going to campus to enact a Columbine.

Hagins is charged with terrorism, written threats to injure or kill and attempted murder...

Some of the photos and video clips show the wanna-be gunman packed extra clips to ensure as many targets hit as possible.

And when I say targets I mean "students, professors, campus staff, and anybody else that would satisfy his bloodlust."

And when I say this news terrifies me, more than any other recent gun-related nightmare our nation has witnessed during my whole lifetime, I mean this one hits me close to home.

I have a nephew attending Embry-Riddle in Daytona right now.

Do you hear that, gun nuts? Did I stutter, National Rifle Body Count Association?

One of YOUR fucking "lone wolf" shooters was about to kill or wound a family member.

GODDAMN YOU.

GODDAMN YOUR WORSHIP OF MURDER WEAPONS, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU GODDAMN GUN NUTS.

GODDAMN YOUR PROFIT MARGINS, NRA. GODDAMN YOUR PUSH TO MAKE IT EASIER TO GET MURDER WEAPONS AVAILABLE TO THE MENTALLY UNSTABLE AND HAPPILY VIOLENT AMONG US. 

These mass shooters, these gun nuts going off in our schools and our malls and our churches, THOSE MURDERERS ARE COMING FROM YOUR WORLD, YOUR CULTURE, YOUR OBSESSIONS AND OUTRIGHT WORSHIP OF THE GUN. We didn't ask for these rifle-toting sociopaths but YOU ALL keep insisting they have their chances to KILL the rest of us.

This would have bloodied my family.

Just as EVERY OTHER MASS SHOOTING IN THE UNITED STATES HAS TOUCHED THOUSANDS OF OTHER FAMILIES WHO DID NOTHING TO YOU BUT STAND THERE AND BE TARGETS FOR YOUR RAGE, YOU GUN NUTS.

GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL.

#GunReformNow

1 comment:

dinthebeast said...

For the most part, the folks who advocate for the tools of murder to be more easily obtained by the would-be murderous have never actually witnessed a real murder.
Having lived behind the MacArthur BART station at the height of the crack epidemic, I have witnessed a few, right up close and personal.
I would like to be able to say that witnessing such carnage at close range would steer those folks away from their misguided beliefs, but I have no faith that it would. It certainly didn't for the gang bangers on our block, even the ones we were friends with.
Gun culture in America is a disease, and I don't know what the remedy would be, but more guns more easily obtainable isn't it.

-Doug in Sugar Pine