Another Shooter in Odessa, TX

| September 2, 2019

No motive is given, and he probably didn’t have one. He was fired from his job driving a truck, after which, some days later, he hijacked a US postal service truck, killed the driver (Mary Granados) and went on a shooting spree.

I won’t term it a “rampage”, but rather a “spree”.  7 are dead, 22 wounded.

The media frenzy over this is about how bad guns are and not about why some idiot like this gets a hair up his backside and starts ambushing everyone he sees. That is what should be addressed, not the availability of guns.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/odessa-texas-shooting-sources-identify-gunman-as-seth-ator

He has been ID’d as Seth Ator.  There is probably more to come on this, but little to none of the analysis will be about what sets people off. That is always downplayed, which is a very stupid thing to do. The most notorious killer in history, Jack the Ripper, who may have been an East European dock worker living in London, was never caught. He taunted the London police and detectives about what he was doing, and out of the over 700 letters that were collected, people who saw the murders of five East End prostitutes as a hugely entertaining public melodrama in which they just had to have a part, which meant sending letters to the police detectives.  https://www.jack-the-ripper.org/letters.htm

In this case, something set Ator off and he took the downhill route of destruction of other people. His use of a gun to do it could have been replaced with something as nasty as contaminating off-the-shelf drugs like Tylenol. As with the Ripper and the Orlando nightclub shooter, his victims were random encounters.

What goes into the mental makeup of someone like this ne’er-do-well? What was the Ripper’s motivation when he was eviscerating five prostitutes in London, and in one instance, cutting the skin off the girl’s face? What was the motivation of Richard Speck, another ne’er-do-well, to trap, torture and murder eight nurses in a Chicago apartment building for student nurses?  https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/richard-speck

That is what should be closely examined. The means of destruction is irrelevant, except that what is used is convenient and easily obtained.

So let’s stop bitching about how it’s the gun’s fault. Guns are inanimate object. They cannot operate on their own, any more than a medical kit used by an anonymous mass murderer in Victorian London or an axe could operate without Lizzie Borden’s hands on it.  https://www.ranker.com/list/real-axe-murderers/jacobybancroft

I guess I’m just fed up with the immediate hysterics coming out of the media when these things happen.

 

Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists

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A Proud Infidel®™️

I hear you. A coward uses a vehicle to run into a crowd of people and we hear no cries for vehicle control. Someone of a certain Religion murders or sets a bomb off somewhere like Boston and we’re told NOT TO judge all members of that so-called religion, but just let some coward cut loose with a firearm and suddenly ALL Gun Owners are labeled as closeted maniacs hell-bent on mass murder, liberalism is truly a mental disorder!

OWB

Was his vehicle green? I keep telling y’all that nobody needs a green vehicle.

Perry Gaskill

Dude, green vehicle hysteria is so 2018. The new vehicle color hysteria is the BMW X6 in Vantablack…

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28845406/bmw-x6-vantablack/

Mason

Awesome. That vantablack is cool stuff. I’ve never seen it in person, but they say it’s like looking into nothing.

Slow Joe

If I could only paint my gas guzzler SUV like that…

Helpful Medal

“we hear no cries for vehicle control.”

Huh? Every year manufacturers make vehicles safer. Remember those old steel bumpers? Gone, replaced with carbon fiber, aluminum and urethane. They have accident detection systems, anti-locking breaking systems, airbags. Shit, you can’t buy a 2019 Z06 Corvette in Europe because it has those giant front bumper canards that could hurt someone crossing the street.

Also, we are making vehicles autonomous. Pretty soon, there’s a good chance you won’t even be able to drive your own vehicle without paying 10x the insurance as someone who only uses the car’s built in driving system.

So in summary, we are making cars safer and it’s getting harder to buy cars that are as destructive and dangerous as the old ones.

SFC D

I really think you missed the point. Let me speak slowly and use small words:

If someone uses a motor vehicle as a weapon, it really doesn’t matter how safe the vehicle is for the occupants. But I think you knew that. You’re just being an obtuse asshole.

Helpful Medal

No, you made your point pretty clear. And as I stated, the federal government is working, right now, on taking away the responsibility of operating a dangerous vehicle and putting that responsibility into the hands of a much more capable autonomous system, which will make them safer for everyone. So let me use EVEN SMALLER words for you:

The government is literally removing the most dangerous factor of vehicles to make them safer: us.

Hondo

Um, last time I checked it was the auto manufacturers and/or other industries (e.g., Google) that were developing the things you noted above. I know of no Federal mandates for any of them, and I’d love to see a reliable citation indicating any direct Federal involvement.

Oh, and all of those technologies that now exist (steering assistance, “too close” warnings, auto braking, etc . . . ) can be disabled if the driver wants to do so. They also have problems – e.g., unsafe to change lanes warnings occasionally alert on traffic on the other side of a divided highway, for example.

FWIW: I’ve driven a vehicle with those technologies, so I can tell you the above from personal experience. Yes, it was on an extended trip (3000 miles or so). And yes, it was of recent manufacture (2018 model year).

I found those technologies not ready for prime time and, frankly, annoying. After the first 300 miles or so, I turned them all off.

Helpful Medal

You know of no federal mandates relating to auto safety? Why do you think the government is dumping billions of dollars into automation technologies?

And yes, you can still turn them off. But enjoy it now, because eventually it will be mandated. So, some crazy asshole points his car and a group of people and tries to floor it, but the car won’t move because it detects people in the way. That’s the future: the government removed the human input from a deadly device because people are idiots.

Hondo

Read what I wrote, not what you want to see, troll. I clearly was discussing those automomous vehicle technologies you touted. (Well, the reference should have been clear to anyone with normal intellect, anyway. Perhaps that leaves you out.)

That was a clumsy attempt to change the subject, by the way. But thanks for playing.

And thanks for further identifying yourself as a troll who’s also a fan of authoritarian government vice freedom. Do you also believe that whatever is not prohibited should be mandatory?

Now, I’ve got more important things to do for a while than argue with a troll. So AMF.

Fyrfighter

Since you want to try and pretend there’s a parallel to firearms (remind me which Amendment guarantees the right to drive a car..), where are the buybacks for these dangerous old vehicles? I’ve got a 60’s jeep that I’d love to get some good cash for…

GDContractor

Yes. That pesky 2nd Amendment certainly is…inconvenient, for his ilk.

Perry Gaskill

Speaking as a motorhead kinda guy, I’ve just decided that since I can’t afford a 1957 Ferrari Testaross, because one costs $40 million, my next automotive yen is going to be a C8 mid-engine Corvette painted Vantablack, and with a Helpful Medal bobble-head doll on the dash.

Anonymous

Progressives want to disarm everyone (except their loyal enforcers of “social justice”).

OWB

It was nice to hear no one utter his name. In fact, this is the first time I’ve seen it. The local PD refused to release it, as did other law enforcement agencies. Well, they made appropriate excuses for not releasing it.

Oh, well. It had to come out eventually. I will continue to refuse to look at it or utter it. And I don’t need to know what he looked like either.

MI Ranger

I am hearing mixed reports on whether the individual was a felon (for those in California: a Person who has justice issues) or just someone who may have been sighted for a misdemeanor. He may also have been denied on his background check recently because he checked the wrong voter ID block on his application (I made up the why, but he was denied on a background check).
Regardless of whether he obtained his firearm legally or illegally (it may or may not have been a firearm previously registered under Fast and Furious), it was his actions during the traffic stop and after that should be examined and identified not the tool that he used to conduct his misguided temper tantrum.

11B-Mailclerk

Ketchup “Or” Mustard?

It was summer camp. These things happen. (Grin)

5th/77th FA

Hope you took the fruit OUT of the can before you put the canned fruit in the jello.

26Limabeans

We used to load up on Ketchup packets from
McDonalds and throw them in the road.

Mason

The Brits and Antifa have been taking to milkshakings.

Graybeard

According to one report the loser was a Beto supporter and (D) voter. I’ve not seen that officially confirmed, however.

HMCS(FMF) ret

Beta the Cuck is pushing for a national gun buyback program…

https://freebeacon.com/politics/orourke-pushes-for-mandatory-gun-buyback-legislation/

David

“How can you buy back what you never owned?”

SFC D

If you rearrange the letters in “buyback” it spells “confiscate”.

Slow Joe

Haha, you win teh internetz for today.

I am stealing this!
I mean, borrowing…

SFC D

It’s free for public use!

Fjardeson

That guy has less chance of becoming President than me. (Thank the Gods in Heaven).

Helpful Medal

“Beta the Cuck”

Holy shit, I know for a fact that you’re at least 70 years old and calling people “cucks?” What the hell kind of high-school kids-based chat forums do you idiots frequent?

11B-Mailclerk

You seem well informed on the subject of kiddie forums, short-eyes.

HMCS(FMF) ret

Wrong on the age, Helpful….

Anonymous

Reimbursed gun-grabbing.

RGR 4-78

I wonder if he cultivated the “Beto” moniker because he got tired of being called
“Bobby Francis”?

11B-Mailclerk

“Bobby Brown”

Hondo

OK, since ya asked here ya go – Zappa’s “Bobby Brown”.

Hey, it’s Zappa. Do I really need to remind everyone it’s NSFW/around children, prudes, or clergy? (smile)

NHSparky

Great, now I’m reconsidering my retirement plans and considering relocating to Montana.

11B-Mailclerk

When the Ghouls get done dancing in the blood of innocents, they will resume informing us how we need more Jim Crow laws (“Safety”, “buyback”, ” reasonable” = bullshit excuses to disarm their intended serfs, but not of course disarm their own hired goons).

Club Manager, USA ret.

According to the NYT, “In fact, whether a background check would have prevented the West Texas gunman from acquiring his weapon is not known. Chief Michael Gerke of the Odessa Police Department said the gunman, who had been fired from a trucking job, had used an AR-15-style rifle, but had a criminal record. It was not clear on Sunday whether the gun had been acquired legally, and the authorities stressed that they had not established a motive.”
I suspect the “motive” was the guy was already pissed about losing his job and being stopped by the highway patrol set him off. Like every sane person drives around with an AR because one never knows when one has to defend against road rage. So either the background check law once again failed or the AR was purchased illegally. All the more reason to pass more gun laws and require more background checks.

Fjardeson

CM, I’m assuming the \sarc tag in use on that last sentence, yes?

Club Manager, USA ret.

Absolutely not, I am serious as a heart attack. We need more laws. More background check requirements. That is because suspicions confirmed, the Texas Governor tweeted that Ator failed a previous gun background check and didn’t go through one for the weapon he used in Odessa. He did not elaborate, and a spokesman referred questions to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which didn’t immediately respond for comment”
I am writing my US Senators and Congressman as we speak demanding more legislation.

Club Manager, USA ret.

I am shocked, shocked, a poster on this blog had to ask that question.

Hondo

You are aware that background checks are already legally mandatory for all firearms sales except those between one private citizen and another, right?

Stated another way: all firearms sales involving a FFL dealer already require a background check. What you’re advocating is mandating background checks for the tiny minorty of sales/other transfers that happen between private citizens – and good luck enforcing that in back-alley sales by criminals. Here’s one consequence for law-abiding citizens: that means that if you give, say, a .22 rifle to your 18 y/o child as a present, they must go through the background check process, to include filling out a 4473 – and one of you you must pay the required background check fee to someone. And of course, it also means you must wait to transfer the weapon until the background check comes back clean.

Is that REALLY what you’re advocating? Kinda sounds like it – which in turn means you’re a supporter of even more Federal government intrusion into everyday life. In other words: that means you’re a “big government” fan.

Is that REALLY the position you want to take? Because that’s exactly the logical conclusion that should be drawn from what you said above.

11B-Mailclerk

Those “universal check” laws also mandate long-term retention in a database of all such transfers, including name, firearm, and serial numbers.

In other words, universal registration.

Now what would they do with a database of all firearms? Hmm. What would it be for?

Perhaps they might say “oh, you don’t need -those-! Turn them in!”.

Which is why they push so hard for this nonsense. They mean for -confiscation- to happen, whatever newspeak covers the real intent, and they mean -all- of them other than those of a few well-connected sycophants.

Fyrfighter

Look into 80% lowers.. they’re readily available for AR’s and glock clones… and not hard at all to complete.. worth a look.. as are “solvent traps”… just saying..

11B-Mailclerk

I would be more tempted by a “80%” Winchester 73. (Grin)

They cover that. The next step is “oh, we missed current owners! Go get background checked!”

Aggressive inspection of FFLs and optical scans of forms also cover past buys.

And your credit card records are just sitting there. (Did you order the AR parts online? The ammo? Buy them over the counter on plastic?)

The mandatory turn-ins cover that home-brew gun. Can’t take it out and shoot it no more. And one whispered report by an informer and you are busted.

Best defeat these twits at the ballot box now. Otherwise lots of woe.

Fyrfighter

You’re 100% correct 11B, if things get that bad, such items would definitely not be brought out, until a time that they were needed according to the original intent of the 2nd…Let’s hope it never comes to that. I failed miserably with one child, but I’m doing all I can to educate the second one, so that he too will do all he can to defeat them at the ballot box

Fjardeson

Whoa, that escalated quickly.

Berliner

From Associated Press @14:30 Sep 2:

“Authorities say the gunman in a West Texas rampage was fired from his job and called both police and the FBI before the mass shooting began.

Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said Monday that 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator had been fired over the weekend from Journey Oilfield Services.

He said both Ator and the company called 911 after being fired Saturday but that Ator was gone by the time police showed up. FBI special agent Christopher Combs says Ator’s statements on the FBI tip line were ‘rambling.'”

NHSparky

And to get fired from a trucking job in the Permian takes some SERIOUS fucking effort.

MI Ranger

I head that he bought his ammo at Walmart, so as a result Walmart is going to stop selling Ammunition without a background check ( so only in Illinois and some North Eastern States). Now they will only sell presses, molds, dies, casings, powder, primers, and rounds. They are considering a waiting period on the DIY kits but understand no one can make more than 30 rounds in a sitting!

rgr769

The ultimate goal is universal federal gun registration to set the stage for confiscation. That is the real motive of every one of these progs. Remember, “never let a crisis go to waste,” as the progs can use it to get laws passed they otherwise could not. Besides that, it looks like they are doing something to address the issue, even if totally ineffective, like the Clinton’s so-called “assault weapons ban.”

5th/77th FA

“…pried from my cold stiff fingers on a body surrounded by expended shell casings.”

Maybe. My plans are to be drinking mead out of the cups made from the skulls of mine enemies.

F

I already have a few gallons of home brew mead for just such an occasion…

Fjardeson

I am SO tired of the anti-gun freaks going off before the victim’s families are even notified. This has GOT to stop. Remember when the media was responsible? Also you’ve got more press idiots crowing about the *good* gun law changes (in Texas) that happened Sep 1st, as if the cyclic date of when new laws in Texas take effect had anything to do with this nut.

Helpful Medal

I liked Trump’s idea of bringing back insane asylums and locking up everyone and throwing away the key. I don’t GIVE A FUCK about helping them get better and I don’t care if they eat each other to death. Throw the mentally ill in hospitals to rot and throw the criminals in jail to rot. We don’t need these scumfucks walking the street because it’s only a matter of time before they relapse.

Hondo

You do realize that the fact that you are trolling here is obvious – right?

3/10/MED/b

“Helpful Metal”?

Iron Oxide.

3/10/MED/b

Mea culpa…

‘Helpful Medal’

Still don’t much of a difference.

3/10/MED/b

Goddamitt, still don’t ‘see’ that much of a difference.

11B-Mailclerk

Hempfull Mental

Cheap-Dope-smoking ignoramus that makes Poodle look intellectual and witty.

NHSparky

Someone needs to help you hold your head under water until the bubbles go away.

11B-Mailclerk

Leak check of a self-sealing airhead.

(Grin)

IDC SARC

Not one inch…fukk off

IDC SARC

The real issue is one that affects you. The gun rights aspect is the issue that affects everybody without exception.

The human behavior issue…what do you suggest?

Helpful Medal

I love Trump’s idea: going back to the old days where we locked up crazy people in institutions to rot.

Hondo

(yawn) And now the trolling is getting repetitive.

rgr769

He thinks he’s really smart now that he stopped spelling helpful without the third “L.”

IDC SARC

Probably better off teaching them them the reality that criminals don’t obey laws and the cause and effect relationship/consequences associated with that.

That fact regardless of the conversations that take place seems to get lost in the din.

IDC SARC

Helping to fund youth outreach is why I have an NRA Golden Eagles membership.

Thunderstixx

I just got my daughter some backpack armor that will stop most pistol and rifle rounds including the .223 which seems to be the one that the pukes use to kill a lot of people.
He had 2X felonies and it already was illegal for him to be in the same room with a firearm let alone own one…

Fyrfighter

Good choice Thunder! If my kids were still kids, I’d do the same.

SFC D

Maybe if we made murder illegal…

Anonymous

Far more got shot/killed in gun-controlled Chicago this past weekend, but the commie mayor there is all butthurt Ted Cruz brought it up and told him to shut up.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ted-cruz-chicago-mayor-gun-control-132318569.html

IDC SARC

yeah I had to chuckle that the POS managed to show disdain for both the 1st and 2nd amendments in her comment. Fuggit…they got what they voted for I guess.

11B-Mailclerk

Their shitholes will be paradise once we make everywhere a shithole, or so they seem to believe.

Just An Old Dog

The assbag had failed a background check and bought the gun from someone else.
I’m pretty sure the laws are that if you are selling or giving the weapon top someone their needs to be a background check done on them.
If not their should be.
I don’t give a flying fuck if I catch flack on this board or not. If you sell a weapon to someone you don’t know or don’t have a background check on you are a moron.
In my opinion the person who skirts this and sells a weapon to someone who failed a background check needs to be prosecuted, perhaps even charged as an accomplice to murder.

rgr769

Uh there is no such law in Texas or most states. And criminals don’t do backround checks when they acquire guns, even in the states where they are required for private party transfers. So you are not only and “old dog,” but also a dumb dog. Since the subject psycho asshole already was blocked by a backround check, you think he would be stopped by another one? In case you missed it, murder and attempted murder is already against the law, as was his possession of any firearm. Clue for you dumb progs, criminals are called criminals because they don’t follow laws. Query, Shotcago has the strictest gun laws of any major city; why do they have dozens of people shot every week with illegally owned guns? Answer: Becuase the shooters don’t give a shit about your background check and licensing laws.