The police held a press conference at 11 a.m. Eastern today.
The shooter was Wade Michael Page, who was shot dead by police during the incident. He was shot in the parking lot after he shot at police.
Police confirmed that Page was the only shooter, but did not give any information about motive or connections.
The names of the victims were read by a member of the Sikh community to make sure the pronunciation was correct.
Both CNN and Fox News cut away when the U.S. Attorney took the stage and launched a lengthy speech which sounded like an Obama campaign speech.
Needless to say, the MSM and left-blogosphere have concluded the shooter was a white supremacist/neo-Nazi based on tattoos and being a former member of what they describe as a “skinhead” band — which they then obscenely generalize to be “right-wing,” a way of trying to link him to the political right. This is the age-old tactic. If Page was a white supremacist/neo-Nazi/skinhead, then he stood against everything the political right stands for.
But for now, it’s all speculation. Politics never is far behind a mass shooting, unfortunately.
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I suspect that people at the margins of society and mental stability are more likely to snap when the economy is bad than when it is good. If the point hasn’t been researched, it should be.
Reportedly recently suffered a romantic break-up.
Often a cause of a psychotic break.
Ironically, getting married can cause the same.
Especially in the father of the bride, paying for a wedding…
Tell me about it. Two daughters here. I keep a ladder leaning against the back of the house, but so far, no luck.
Next time, Henry, don’t have such smart daughters. You’re the one that bought ’em books.
Do I detect the voice of experience here?
Actually, Rags, it’s easy. You just mortgage the house to the hilt and hand over your wallet. The bride will take it from there.
Romantic loss/rejection and prescribed psychiatric drug cocktails are the major causes of mass homicides. Not “hate”.
(I find it hard to believe that a former soldier wouldn’t know the difference between a Muslim and a Sikh, i.e. British army.)
The problem there is you or I really cannot relate to someone who is actually psychotic.
Which of us could begin to understand what he saw? They might have been blazing fiery demons to him.
Well, hate or something akin to it would still be the underlying cause, while a romantic breakup could serve as the trigger, the catalytic event that turns the hate – or psychosis – into action. Romantic breakups happen all the time, but do not produce violence unless there is hate, psychosis, etc., something ugly already in place, cooking, building pressure, ready to burst.
I have conducted forensic evaluations on killers who said their motivation essentially was they just felt like it, and appeared to be sincere in that. They just felt like killing the person, or a person, any person. I did such an eval on a 12 yr old accused of trying to smother his infant little brother, stating he wanted to see what it felt like to kill someone and his little brother “was handy” (his exact word) and couldn’t tell on him if he failed.
In the end, it is often a fool’s errand to look for reason or logic in such an unreasonable, insane act.
Well, I don’t know, HH. Twigs don’t burn in the absence of a spark. “Hate” is felt by lots of people who don’t murder, and most schizophrenics don’t murder either. Discounting the catalysts and getting too philosophical about “what is a cause” prevents us from being able to assess risk factors, and also prevents us from being able to differentiate the “Allahu Akbar” kind of cold-blooded “terrorism” from the “going postal” thing.
It’s true that most persons who have suffered romantic rejection and/or who take psych meds known to create suicidal thoughts don’t kill. Neither, on any given day, do most drunk drivers get into accidents.
Well, we’re in agreement then. I was saying a romantic break up would be a trigger, not a cause, requiring some underlying pathology sprung loose by the emotional upheaval.
I’m just talking shop here – my other posts on this all allude to insufficient info to draw any kind of meaningful conclusions.
1. In the end, it is often a fool’s errand to look for reason or logic in such an unreasonable, insane act.
Even if individual mass killers are too highly variable to draw conclusions about, statistically significant conclusions might be possible about their population.
2. Now that people mention it, it does seem plausible that romantic failure is more correlated with mass killing than the economy is. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me if the economy, especially economic standing, is significant after romance is controlled for.
Mass killing reflects a deep, pathological self-obsession: “when things aren’t as I think they ought to be, by God, somebody needs to die. Parsing out a given killer’s ‘things’, ‘ought to bes’, and ‘somebodies’ is extremely difficult, especially when so many of these killers are themselves killed by police or shoot themselves. If the killer survives, they may not have any idea why they killed. Or they lie about it. Very difficult to get anything reliable.
Janitor, he was a FORMER soldier, as in “kicked out of the Army because he was nuts”. He was removed for psychiatric reasons from the US Army, not the Royal Army, so I doubt that he met many Sikhs during his brief time in the service.
I’m curious – “Nazi” is (translated) short for “National SOCIALIST Workers Party” why do people keep calling it’s followers right-wingers? Hitler was a vegetarian, and he and his “elites” were all atheists who believed in the state control of every aspect of life. Sounds more like modern “Leftists” to me.
“The reflex to draw political inferences or make political connections within hours of such a dreadful event is disturbing at the least. We have to ask yourselves, who would do this and why? The inability to demonstrate basic human decency and self-restraint in these circumstances, and the refusal to wait until all facts are gathered and all those touched by the calamity have time to recover their sense of balance is almost feral, a political animalism. It begs one to ask: is it really opportunity that such people see in a human crisis? Who are these opportunists, and why shouldn’t we call them out and make them feel shame? Have they no decency?”
There you go, Mitt. Free of charge.
This dead f*cking moron probably thought he was attacking a mosque.
As for political affiliation, let us not forget that the National Socialist scum in this country sided with the Occupy movement, not the Tea Party movement. Their bottom-feeding führer even wrote a public letter stating as much.
Again, nice shooting, Milwaukee PD.
The same person who told Harry Reid that Romney hasn’t paid his taxes told me that this shooter was an agent of the DOJ. As an extension of the Fast and Furious scheme, this was done in order to blame weapons for the shooting. Can the DOJ disprove this?
reading the article I see that the police are treating this as a “domestic terrorism” case. Nidal Hassan at Ft. Hood was “workplace violence.
Once again.
Obviously the local police are smarter than the Federal government under the current administration.
Milwaukee PD drink in the same bars as the people they serve. The probably listen.
Heh. The Fargo police are smarter than the Federal government. Ya gotta give Milwaukee officers more credit that that.
The Left/Dem/Prog/Statist/Facist/Utopian crowd never have been able to come to grips that the source of evil acts is the result not of what’s in the perpetrator’s hand, but rather what is in his/her heart.
Perhaps because that might accidentally prompt a quick look into the mirror (physically and metaphorically) to reflect on their own heart conditions and find out that what’s staring back at them is “Despicable Me.”
That, plus the knee(-and-other)-jerk reaction to “not let a crisis go to waste” to score political points.
Spot on. Progs have to pretend they’ve figured out a “reason” for every human act. Everything is done for a reason, they believe, and since they are the smarter bunch, they alone are allowed to name the causative factors. It’s an ego thing. It’s because their mamas always praised them, even when failed. Let that be a lesson to mothers. Teach your children the errors of their ways or they’ll turn into progs and embarrass your family for four generations.
Or, to quote the famous Pogo stripe of yore:
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Here’s the thing about the left (or any group that’s run off the PC rails.)
In my state, we have a KKK adopted highway. The courts ruled that the KKK has a right to adopt said highway under the 1st amendment.
Even though I hate the KKK and what they stand for, as a legal issue we on the political right accept that the ruling itself was correct. We do so because we realize that if it goes the other way the tables could turn and our speech could become that which is censored (for example, if the KKK can’t sponsor a highway now, what’s to prevent the state from saying the Catholic Church can’t next when they’re out of favor?)
The left turns this into “You support the KKK” because they see no right to free speech (or free association) therefore supporting speech (even speech you disagree with) becomes supporting the group.
The same goes here. If the guy turns out to be a neo-nazi, the left will try to lump him in with the political right because the political right supports his rights to free speech (different than supporting his actual speech, which we don’t. Also, I shouldn’t have to say this, but some troll will take it out of context, shooting people isn’t speech. The right doesn’t support that at all)
The conflation is almost criminal. But it’s a natural conclusion of PC thinking.
Nazis were “socialists”, as I recall, sort of the opposite of conservatives. But that teensy fact shouldn’t get in the way of throwing blame around. Fire away!
How many innocent people must die before the left wing fringe and the MSM get their ultimate wish – a major incident where the perpetrator is a member of the Tea Party or conservative movement? I don’t believe for one minute that every time a major incident like this breaks, those people don’t get a thrill up their leg that maybe this is the time they are finally proven “right” that the Tea Party or conservative movement is spawning violent behavior.
Why are these people such haters?
Before anyone gets up my butt about this, just know that there is plenty of evidence from the Sparkmann suicide, Jeffords shooting, and Aurora shooting where the immediate response is to try to establish causation that does not exist.
Again, liberals, why do you all derive such pleasure from the opportunity to take advantage of these situations to score some political points with falsehoods?
Don’t know much about Twitter, but there must be someone resourceful enough to come up with a #Better”Luck”[email protected] hashtag
After 3 1/2 years the left wing may finally have a case of domestic terrorism being committed by the new Homeland Security definition. Only problem for them at this point is the shooter is reported to being dishonorably discharged and technically can not be considered a veteran. Not so sure that it will stop them from using the returning veteran as being a domestic terrorist argument as facts can easily be ignored when the bully pulpit is used. Evidence the workplace violence label being used to define Nidal Hasan and all references to his islamic jihad being stricken from the official records.
He got out in 98, so the whole returning vet label will be hard to push.
And, from what I read, it was a less-than-honorable discharge (not dishonorable). If that is the case, he’s a vet.
We don’t know that it was less than honorable. You really have to work at it to get a big chicken dinner or dishonorable discharge.
Big chicken dinner = bad conduct discharge.
Right. The less than honorable thing is being reported now. Totally subject to change.
I don’t know how the Army NJP/Admin sep works. Was in Navy and there are some big differences.
The two questions the discharge status leads to are: (obviously) Why the heck wasn’t it an honorable? And, if actually a dishonorable, how did he get the gun?
Stop with the lies. He was NOT “dishonorably discharged”. He was discharged “under honorable circumstances”. No, it’s not the same as an honorable discharge but it’s a far cry from a dishonorable one.
stop your lies.
he was not discharged under honorable circumstances.
he was discharged with a less than honorable discharge.
huge difference.
and there is also a difference between a less than honorable discharge and a dishonorable discharge.
The latest report regarding the shooter’s discharge status:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sikh-temple-shooter-discharged-demoted-army-20120806,0,6159499.story
Types of Military discharge:
http://www.vabenefitblog.com/types-of-military-discharge/
As to the Shooters actual discharge status, I stand corrected until an actual official report is made…
Wade Michael Page
End Apathy MySpace page
http://www.myspace.com/endapathyband
The link says Page’s band is based out of Nashville NC, which is where I’m sitting as we speak. It’s just a little country town of maybe 5,000 people, the Nash County seat. I’ve never heard of them, but I will ask around.
I have called the editor of our local newspaper, the Nashville Graphic, about the local connection and she assured she’s placed fully half her staff on it. (Total staff members: 2).
AP reported this from Nashville (NC)
Joseph Rackley of Nashville, N.C., said Monday that Page lived with his son for about six months last year in a house on Rackley’s property. Wade was bald and had tattoos all over his arms, Rackley said, but he doesn’t remember what they depicted. He said he wasn’t aware of any ties Page had to white supremacists.
“I’m not a nosy kind of guy,” Rackley said. “When he stayed with my son, I don’t even know if Wade played music. But my son plays alternative music, and periodically I’d have to call them because I could hear more than I wanted to hear.”
http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/officials-white-supremacist-wade-michael-page-was-wisconsin-sikh-temple-shooter-1.3885198
Saying prayers for the victims and their families.
I should think that attempting to massacre a group of people for contrary beliefs is behavior to be expected from the left rather than from the right.
My opinion: The *only* thing I care to hear about Mr. Page in the near future is the phrase “was excuted by the State of Wisconsin today by lethal injection…”
He was executed by a lethal injection of lead by the police.
That’ll work. I’ve been listening to too much NPR lately. They’ve been making him out to be a saint, but you can hear the subtones of “Why can’t we find a Tea Party link! Look harder!”
WHOA! Okay, I don’t listen to leftist agitprop as a matter of course, so I don’t know what NPR has been reporting about this dead f*ck. What are they reporting about the rotting corpse?
I went looking for the nearest local source, a local newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/storify-how-the-sikh-temple-shooting-unfolded-165073336.html
whose first story on this topic was closed to comments at readers’ request due to baseless, hateful speculation by purported liberals trying to pin the crime on — well, you saw it coming.
The political use of unjust, criminal accusations against people you know, or should know, had nothing to do with a sensational crime is offensive to real Liberals, just as they are to Conservatives.
There are political movements that openly embrace such tactics. They are communism, socialism, and Islamism. Prominent practitioners were Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin, and current ones are Saul Alynski, Bill Ayers, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez. All of these people are the enemies of freedom and of Liberalism.
late night, bad editing. Sorry, but you get the idea.
Classical liberalism. Contemporary liberalism consists of little more than dreams of instant gratification without perceived consequences.
Nazis were and are left-wing lunatics. They share a common ideology with Muslim fanatics, and others who deem it generally appropriate to denigrate individual dignity and devalue human life. In America, they are certainly not right-wing, let alone conservative. Their philosophy and perspective of reality tracks closely with the Left, both here and abroad.
Try as they may, the Left’s effort to transform their character through projection and displacement will continue to fail. It’s the philosophy… the principles, stupid.
I will offer a simple admonistion.
When ANYTHING like this happens, remember three things.
1 – No one who knows anything is talking.
2 – Anyone who is talking doesn’t know anything.
3 – First reports are ALWAYS wrong.
DCP
Here’s the “goods” on that neo-Nazi rat:
“Wade Michael Page, the suspect in the mass shooting at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee, spent years in the underground white supremacist rock scene, the Southern Poverty Law Center found.
Page, who was shot by cops Sunday as he left the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin after allegedly massacring six members inside, played guitar and sang for the hardcore band End Apathy, the organization said.
The band was based in Nashville, N.C. Page, an Army veteran, was reportedly stationed at Fort Bragg, in the same state, for part of his service.
On the End Apathy MySpace page, the band describes its music as “a sad commentary on our sick society and the problems that prevent true progress.””
So there it is. It was a neo-Nazi rat who, thankfully due to a cop bullet, assumed room temperature and now is living eternal hell.
My thoughts and prayers go with the Sikh victims and their loved ones.
Are you kidding? Are you nuts?! The SPLC is not a source for anything. Only a fool would take their word for the time of day or the weather, let alone anything more important or harder to verify.
“…the MSM and left-blogosphere have concluded the shooter was a white supremacist/neo-Nazi based on tattoos and being a former member of what they describe as a “skinhead” band — which they then obscenely generalize to be “right-wing,” a way of trying to link him to the political right. This is the age-old tactic.”
Seems this information is being disseminated by the leftists at Southern Poverty Law Center
-WGN News Chicago at 1pm say’s that the FBI has not indicated a motive or verified any ties to White Supremacist Group.
I’d rather get my news from WLS than WGN.
That’s all we need, SPLC gaining relevance.
Just as a general note: I know this might shock the left, but us on the right also hate Wisconsin Nazis.
And Illinois Nazis.
The Bluesmobile took care of them.
Devil’s advocacy: Tattoos are permanent (till medically removed, anyway), while political ideologies are not. In other words, it’s *possible* he was once a neo-Nazi, got the tattoos, then abandoned the neo-Nazism. It is not at all unusual for the disaffected to traverse many ideologies.
Right. Another reason for everyone taking a wait and see approach.
I usually just slide over the questions, but isn’t there something about “less than honorable” on the ATFE slip when we buy at a gun store?
From the ATF form 4473:
G. Have you been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions?
Much depends on the rigor of the follow up on purchase permits.
Thanks.
[…] campaign speech. . . . Politics never is far behind a mass shooting, unfortunately.” – William Jacobson, Legal InsurrectionMainly, I’ve tried to keep my focus on aggregating facts about the Oak Creek shooting as […]
Rueters reports the shooter was demoted ad discharged for being drunk on duty. That stupid but it’s not a huge indicator of serious problems. The also report that 20 addresses in five states showed up for him on public record search.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/06/us-usa-wisconsin-shooting-idUSBRE8740FP20120806
AP reports a 1994 arrest in El Paso for misdemeanor criminal mischief with a sentence of six month’s probation and a 1999 DUI in Colorado.
Gotta love the mention of Wisconsin’s new concealed carry law. That would have no bearing in this situation.
NC Mountain.
Drunk on duty once won’t get it unless you’re on a particularly important duty and really mess something up. Possibly he effed up spectacularly and got this as a version of a plea-down.
Or, more likely, he was a drunk.
This is from how the Navy does things. I know there are different tweaks in the Army’s punitive structure.
But, a drunk on duty and the resulting NJP (assuming that’s why he went from sgt to specialist) within the last year of his enlistment (his time in is an odd number) could be reason for a less than honorable discharge.
Also, there’s the early out program. I’m not sure if this was in effect in 98. But his command could have given him the option of getting out several months early. And this could be the reason for the odd length of time he was, reportedly, in.
Again, this is all speculation. But IF he had a drunk on duty charge, that, or any other number of actions could lead to him getting booted out early with a bad discharge status. But that means nothing (now) regarding the shooting. At least until we get more context.
More likely had an alcohol problem, and it took a final straw drunk-on-duty to get him booted. Plus he’s had at least one DWI conviction. He is not listed in NC’s Criminal Offender database, meaning he’s never been convicted in NC of an offense leading to probation or active jail time. Any conviction that led to lesser punishment is not listed on the public database in NC. Also, those of us who use this database in our work know it is rife with omissions, incorrect data, etc. Shocking for a gubbermint database website, I know.
Drunk on duty x 1 or more, DWI x 1 or more, highly transitory lifestyle, rock bands with political focus, etc…. could be alcoholic, drug addict, or decompensating psych problems, or all of the above. Who knows….
Jay. “early out” Haven’t heard that in some years. When I was in, 69-71 Army, some guys said the Army was so mixed up you could get an early out by going vol indef.
I have knowledge of a couple of guys who got into trouble with booze recently. One got a medical discharge since damned near killed himself with the bottle. I’d have thought his supervisors would have noticed something before that in his performance, which was a finicky specialty. Another guy was doing nothing wrong but the Army needed to throw a couple of guys under the bus to mollify the NYT editorial page and so he was going to be courtmartialed until the defense discovered some exculpatory info being withheld. So he got an “other than honorable”, which allowed him to get a VA job immediately. No rhyme nor reason.
This guy had to have a record of being incapable when he showed up, and possibly not showing up as well. I see the Army taking it easy on him due to previous good service.
I took early out back in January. Currently for the Navy it’s 90 days early if your NEC (MOS) gets a reenlistment bonus. 180 if you didn’t get one. They’re offering it now as the Navy is downsizing (Army too, I think).
That being said: I have no idea if it was the policy for the Army in 98.
[…] point endlessly over the past day, and will, I’m sure, continue to do so forever and a day. William Jacobson is spot-on: Needless to say, the MSM and left-blogosphere have concluded the shooter was a white […]
I think people can try too hard to make a theory.
There was a Chinese man who cut off a passenger’s head on a Greyhound bus in Canada Therefore …..
Do not nod off next to Chinese people.
Do not catch buses.
In this case …Tattooed people kill people in bright turbans.
What happened in this Sikh temple is an awful tragedy.
But there is a theme continuing to develop that says there has been systematic, wide-spread violence against Muslims in the USA since 9/11. And that Sikhs are experiencing a spillover of that systematic, wide-spread violence against Muslims because ignorant Americans don’t know the difference between Muslims and Sikhs. (See this Guardian article alleging exactly this point: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/06/sikj-abuse-america-911)
But I have never seen any detailed, reliable reports of systematic, wide-spread violence against Muslims or Sikhs in America since 9/11.
Can anyone point me to reports that discuss this alleged systematic, wide-spread violence against Muslims? Or is this just more media/government hype to advance one or more causes?
Your question intrigued, so I went a-googling. I haven’t vetted anything, but…
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/08/06/timeline-a-history-of-violence-against-sikhs-in-the-wake-of-911/
—
http://www.complex.com/city-guide/2012/08/a-history-of-violence-against-sikhs-since-911/
—
The sub host on Beck radio this morning had a phone guest who cited 700 cases of violence against Sikhs in the US since 9/11, and that most were mistaken ID by moronic attackers (thought they were Muslims). The guest cited no source that I heard.
—
The frequency and prevalence of any behavior must be factored against population size and the time frame being measured. In a free country our size, over 300,000,000, and a time frame of over 10 years, I’m surprised there aren’t more such attacks on record.
PS: The terms ‘systematic’ and ‘widespread’ are not tightly defined, and definition can depend on who employs them. Therefore, I’m guessing it’s a combination of many actual attacks being argued by people in media and government as ‘systematic and widespread’ because their respective agenda need it to be.
[…] point endlessly over the past day, and will, I’m sure, continue to do so forever and a day. William Jacobson is spot-on: Needless to say, the MSM and left-blogosphere have concluded the shooter was a white […]