Within minutes of Kirk's death, with the assassin still on the loose and with no proof of what the shooter's motives were, Trump and his allies declared that now was the time to use the full force of the state to, according to at least some of Trump's more outspoken supporters, eradicate the leftist menace. Some talked of a civil war; others of the need to "exterminate" people they see as "anarcho-terrorists."
Last week, a 23-year-old man who, according to police, was obsessed with previous mass shooters, opened fire at a school in Minneapolis, killing two children and injuring 18 others. It was the latest mass shooting to make headlines, and it ended the way most of them do, with the gunman killing himself. In highly publicized cases, the horror looms large in the public consciousness.
You know, 96% of attackers when you're looking at the US Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center, looking at 172 mass attacks in the US between 2016 and 2020 96% were non-trans men, Keilar said. So I know you're focusing on this shooter being trans. The shooter was trans and that is certainly of note. But are you missing the bigger picture here when you zero in on that instead of more broadly these school shooters as an epidemic and you perhaps miss the through line that connects them all?
MINNEAPOLIS - Hundreds of people in the U.S. have died in mass shootings over the past 25 years in offices, stores, theaters and other places, but the carnage perhaps hits hardest when it happens in schools and colleges where children and young adults are often the victims. In some cases, the victims are children who still have some of their baby teeth. Others are newly adult students with career and family dreams, and teachers or religious leaders who frequently become role models and mentors to their young students. Wednesday's mass shooting at a church where Catholic school students were attending Mass in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the latest in a long list of attacks targeting students since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado.
But Bruce then echoed comments from Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) who rejected the calls for thoughts and prayers. As you heard from the mayor there in his heartfelt remarks saying, you know, praying isn't enough at this point, Bruce said. These children were quite literally praying when they were gunned down.
Safety design experts say that preventative techniques work best. Threat mitigation should begin with the building design process, says Peggy Phillips, who leads engineering consulting firm Thornton Tomasetti's Protective Design and Security practice.
