Gotta love all the so-called "experts" trying to establish a motive for this shooting. It's so obvious any first year psych student should be able to figure it out. The shooter by all standards was very successful in life except for one thing. He needed to one-up his father. The second I heard that his father was once on the FBI's 10 most wanted list, I instantly knew his motive. He wanted (if he'd have carried out his plan and gotten away) to be the FBI's number #1 most wanted man in America.
For ten seconds as he watched the SWAT team come down the hall on his cameras before he offed himself? I’m not buying it. If he was that sort of narcissist he’d be in custody or shot by the cops.
I never got this one. Don't get me wrong, I have guns if needed. But having one loaded an at the ready- well, not for everyone. Most victims know the person. But to imply everyone must be armed and ready? Well, I hope that is not the society we are trying to create.
Not really relevant what we “create”. Cops are great for filling out the paperwork and asking you what the suspect looked like after you’ve been attacked, if you survived it. Even in the most “civilized” societies.
And as many have pointed out, not everyone has the luxury of 60 second away cops. Best case for me is half an hour. If it bothers someone that I’m answering the door armed during the day, and probably not answering but leveling a firearm at whoever’s outside through the door or drywall or whatever at night... that’s their problem. There’s 850’ of gravel driveway you probably shouldn’t have come down in the first place unless you have a REALLY good reason to be here.
I think I’ve shared the story of the idiot FedEx driver who not only came down that driveway (fine), but opened a pasture gate (not fine), climbed a flight of stairs to a second story deck (way not fine), opened the house door at the top of the deck (incredibly dangerous and dumb out here) and walked into my living room without saying a word (nearly suicidal out here, with people’s dogs and arms), and came face to face with me who had moved to cut him off from his path toward the other room where my wife hadn’t noticed him even drive up... he was literally a draw stroke away from staring at a pistol at point blank range.
I told him to back out of my door slowly to the deck and tell me what he wanted and that he should not have come inside. He set a box down literally on my living room floor and backed out. I smiled and asked him (with my hand still on the butt of my pistol in a pocket) if he needed a signature and then explained that walking in open doors in the Country was probably a really bad idea. The lightbulb came on for him. Hopefully a learning experience.
Whether he knew I was armed or not, I don’t know and don’t care. But yeah... I was. And a revolver can be fired from a pocket... an advantage it has over a self-loader.
(We always called “semi-autos” self-loaders back in the day. It seems that’s a purposeful change to get self-loaders associated with “evil” automatics... semi-auto is accurate, but I never really liked that term. It’s just a gun that will load a new round from a magazine when fired. Nothing particularly special about it. Oh, and if you can’t “bump fire” with nothing but a shoulder and a finger, you haven’t shot anything much. I could unload a pistol or a rifle about as fast as it would fire, and “somewhat” accurately. Silly “bump fire” device, not required. Can teach someone else how to do it in about three minutes as long as we have a REALLY tall backstop for their inevitable mistake of letting the muzzle keep rising with recoil.)