Death sentences

This week the journal of the Aurora, Colorado killer was released to the press and excerpts of the testimony at his trial have hit the news. Last week there was a debate about certain aspects of open carry legislation in Texas that also made national news. These two seemingly unrelated stories had a common element, though, that the media isn’t going to talk about…death sentences. I’ll explain.

The Aurora murderer outlines the process of selecting the scene of the intended massacre.
The Aurora murderer outlines the process of selecting the scene of the intended massacre.

The Aurora shooter (I refuse to use his name) turns out to have methodically planned his attack over an extended period of time with careful attention to detail. Over at the Active Response Training blog, Greg Ellifritz does a splendid job of covering some of the detailed planning the killer went through including figuring in the timing of police response to the act of violence. Let’s also not forget that this person wired his apartment with explosives in the hopes of drawing police and emergency services away from the scene of the massacre. He even left a remote controlled vehicle in a play area near his apartment rigged up as a trigger in the hopes that if nobody walked through his open door to blow up his apartment building, that a child might try to play with the toy and set off the bombs.

I’ve often referred to active shooters as malevolent narcissists. This…person…fits that description to a T. Listen to the explanation of why he wanted a body count. Seriously, go to the link and watch the video:

http://www.denverpost.com/theater-shooting-trial/ci_28227922/aurora-theater-shooting-trial-latest-from-day-22

He actually says that upon hearing that he had killed twelve people he said “I was worth twelve more people than I was before.” Later he goes on to say that “Anything they would have pursued gets canceled out and given to me.

The murderer claims to add value to his life by taking the lives of others…pronouncing on them a death sentence in pursuit of his own sense of self worth. To serve his own delusions and fantasies, he’s willing to see innocent people dead. Ponder for a moment the level of depravity indicated by that mindset.

Unfortunately, he is not alone.

On the surface of things, you wouldn’t think that the murdering scum in Aurora has anything in common with, say, a college president in Texas. As a part of the legislative wrangling to pass open carry in Texas (made more difficult by that jackass Kory Watkins) consideration of allowing concealed carry on some college campus facilities in Texas became part of the deal. This led University of Dallas president Tom Keefe to say:

“The only people I want having guns are police and the bad guy,” he said. “I don’t want police to have to sort out who is John Wayne coming to the rescue.”

The murderer lists the estimated police response time to the scene.
The murderer lists the estimated police response time to the scene.

Let us consider exactly what that statement means. This university president is saying that he wants to see people locked under the control of a malevolent narcissist bent on a body count (remember that at Virginia Tech Cho chained the doors of Norris Hall shut to keep his victims contained in the building and delay police response) until the police eventually get there rather than allowing the possibility of one of the intended victims shooting back…because that might be messy and confusing! A massacre, you see, is nice and simple.

We know for a fact that active shooters factor in police response time in their plans. You can see it right there in the Aurora murderer’s journal. We know they, in fact, need that lag in response time to generate the body count they are looking for. They try to extend the time it takes armed response to materialize so they can execute as many people as possible.

…and yet here is an educated, credentialed university official stating outright that he wants the murderer to have that level of control because in his sick mind that is somehow preferable to people shooting the murderer before he can execute his way to a higher level of self worth.

The president of Dallas University pronounced a death sentence. To serve his own delusions and fantasies about these sorts of events, he’s willing to see innocent people dead. Ponder for a moment the level of depravity indicated by that mindset.

I don’t think one has to be a university president to understand that coming down on the same side of the issue as the murderers is a bad thing.

The Aurora murderer is standing trial for his crime. He has claimed he’s not guilty by reason of insanity.

What, do you suppose, is Tom Keefe’s excuse?

 

 

20 Comments

  1. That disturbed administrative mindset is incredible common, sadly. The world is a moronic place indeed.

    And insanity is a copout, I’m curious why it’s still such a sought after excuse for actions. If you’re insane enough to kill people left and right all the better reason to off you for the good of society.

    1. The insanity defense is massively overplayed. Someone who is so mentally ill that they are unable to appreciate they are actually harming another human being is certainly a special case deserving of special consideration. The Aurora massacre was nothing like that…as you can hear from the man’s own mouth. He was conscious of how this would be covered in the media and avoided certain locations because he wanted a specific message, etc. I don’t think his insanity defense is going to be very convincing to the jury.

      Frankly I find the statements of educated, credentialed people to be much more worrisome and concerning than this loser. Violent losers will always be with us…but supposed leaders who prefer bloody massacres to even the possibility of defense against them by intended victims? That doesn’t have to exist.

  2. Tom Keefe is, clearly, an academic liberal who lives in an Ivory Tower. A true “Dick Weed” who has not a clue about the reality of violence and the mind set of criminals bent on human destruction.

  3. As an aside, Tim, your writing on this sort of thing for this blog is very often quite good.

  4. As your associate over at The Smallest Minority suggests, the reason for this “educated” person to think it’s best only for the police to have guns (as I clearly suspect that although his statement is not refective of it, he’d rather have **no one else armed**, especially the bad guy, but also no regular citizens either) is because the nanny state and it’s agents are the only ones qualified to dispense violence. The rest of us just can’t be trusted to be responsible for ourselves; someone else needs to make all those important decisions and enforce them upon us. We don;t know better.

    And that is exactly the mindset that the liberals and communists who have taken control of the vast majority of our educational institutions have been pushing onto our youth for decades. We will keep you safe. Part of being safe is that we decide what’s best for you. If you don’t comply with our directions only we should have the tools of violence that will be used to force you to comply… Perfectly frightening.

  5. Brilliant deconstruction of a statement Tim. With such skills of misinterpretation you can go on to be a wonderful politician. Bravo good sir, bravo.

    1. Mr. Keefe was quoted directly. His statement and the mindset behind it is, at best, idiotic. At worst, utterly malicious. When one states outright that the only people he wants armed during an attempted massacre are the bad guys doing the killing and the police which one hopes will get there eventually to stop it, there’s no real room left for interpretation. Mr. Keefe was pretty clear…and the implications of his statement are equally unmistakable: His policy requires more people to die.

      Policy choices have consequences and those who hold the power to make those policy choices ought to be on the hook for the consequences they inflict on the rest of the population.

      1. I perfectly understand that reasoning. Taking a single sentence of an ignorant man and spinning it in such ways that the meaning becomes:”I want innocents to die.” is perfectly legitimate. Why there’s no hyperbole, conjecture, or intellectual dishonesty in that, none at all. You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

        1. “An ignorant man” who is the head of a university, attempting to wield power with the Texas legislature, and who has a responsibility to look out for the safety of the faculty, staff, and students at his university. You don’t get to be “an ignorant man” when you attempt to make policy…especially on matters of life and death.

          1. Saying someone is an under qualified idiot is one thing, taking the words of said idiot and spinning them into one of the most loathsome statements a man can utter is simply disgusting.

  6. Admiral (Ret) McRaven, chancellor of the University of Texas, and former SEAL and commanding general of SOCOM, expressed much the same thoughts as Keefe, stating he was “particularly troubled about the ability of our officers to differentiate between the bad actor and persons seeking to defend themselves and others when both have guns drawn.” You’d think he, for one, would have a better understanding of violence.

    This particular canard has been brought up time and time again in opposition to concealed carry – that police won’t be able to tell the good guy(s) from the bad guy(s). But to the best of my knowledge, in every situation where an armed citizen stopped an active shooting in progress, the bad guy was out of the fight – either dead or wounded, surrendered, or run away – by the time the police arrived. I know of no cases in which the police arrived to find an ongoing gun fight or even stand off between a bad guy active shooter and one or more armed citizens.

    I see no reason to suppose that college campuses (and remember, the majority of students, especially those that live on campus – predominantly freshman – aren’t old enough to have CHLs.

    1. Yeah. By the time the police get there, 5 to 20 minutes later the bad guy is either long gone, (leaving a credible blood trail or not) incapacitated, or is in the process of acquiring room temperature. If this anti-rights wet dream-fantasy of a confused and deadly shootout between police, armed citizens, and bad guys was even a remote possibility, don’t you think it would have happened by now, at least once?

  7. Liberals answer to every issue that they become aware of… Make a new Law. If you can’t get the Legislature to pass the Law, make a new Rule! 18, 19 & 20 year old American citizens traveling to foreign lands to defend our country… not able to defend themselves on home soil?

  8. I got sidetracked… Tim, another great post, as we’ve come to expect!

  9. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink; you can lead a jackass to reason, but you can’t make it think.

  10. It used to be common to see rifles and shotguns in the back window of pick-up trucks at schools. Unfortunately, the Progressive movement has nearly completey taken over American public schools and colleges pushing the liberal agenda and anti-gun philosophy. So much so, that the educated men mentioned simply spout what they hear from their associates all the time.

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