^^ #Sarcasm

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November 8, 2018, 8:28 AM PST

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — Using a smoke bomb and a handgun, a hooded former Marine dressed all in black opened fire during college night at a country music bar in Southern California, killing 12 people and sending hundreds fleeing in panic before apparently taking his own life, authorities said Thursday.

Authorities said the motive for the attack Wednesday night was under investigation.

The killer was identified as Ian David Long, a 28-year-old veteran who authorities said had an episode of erratic behavior last spring that was thought to be post-traumatic stress disorder because of his military background.

Screaming in fear, patrons rushed for the exits, ducked under tables and hurled barstools to smash second-floor windows and jump to safety as gunfire erupted at the Borderline Bar & Grill, a hangout popular with students from nearby California Lutheran University.

"I dropped to the floor," Sarah Rose DeSon told ABC's "Good Morning America." ''A friend yelled, 'Everybody down!' We were hiding behind tables trying to keep ourselves covered."

The dead included 11 people inside the bar and a veteran sheriff's sergeant who was the first officer inside the door, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said.

"It's a horrific scene in there," Dean said in the parking lot. "There's blood everywhere."

It was the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. since 17 students and teachers were killed at a Parkland, Florida, high school nine months ago. It also came less than two weeks after a gunman massacred 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. That, in turn, closely followed the series of pipe bombs mailed to critics of President Donald Trump. That also followed the racially-motivated hate crime in which a white-supremacist shot and killed to black citizens in a grocery store.

Trump praised police for their "great bravery" in the California attack and said, "God bless all of the victims and families of the victims." He ordered flags flown at half-staff in honor of the victims.

Long was armed with a Glock 21, a .45-caliber designed to hold 10 rounds plus one in the chamber, according to the sheriff. But it had an extended magazine — one capable of holding more ammunition — that is illegal in California, Dean said.

The killer also deployed a smoke device, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Authorities began a search of Long's home in Newbury Park, about 5 miles from the Borderline bar, for clues to what set him off.

"There's no indication that he targeted the employees. We haven't found any correlation," the sheriff said. "Maybe there was a motive for this particular night, but we have no information leading to that at all."

Dean said his department had several previous contacts with Long, including a call to his home in April, when deputies found him angry and acting irrationally because of what authorities thought might have been PTSD. A mental health crisis team was called and concluded Long did not need to be taken into custody, Dean said.

Dean said the other prior encounters were a traffic accident and an incident in which Long was the victim of a battery at a bar.

The gunman was tall and wearing all black with a hood and his face partly covered, witnesses told TV stations. He first shot a security guard standing outside, then went in and opened fire on staff members and patrons, the sheriff said.

Sheriff's Sgt. Ron Helus and a passing highway patrolman arrived at the Borderline around 11:20 p.m. in response to several 911 calls, heard gunfire and went inside, the sheriff said.

Helus was immediately hit with multiple gunshots, Dean said. The highway patrolman pulled Helus out, then waited as a SWAT team and scores more officers arrived. Helus died early Thursday at a hospital.
By the time officers entered the bar again, the gunfire had stopped, according to the sheriff. They found 12 people dead inside, including the gunman, who was discovered in office and had apparently shot himself, the sheriff said.

"There's no doubt that they saved lives by going in there and engaging with the suspect," said Dean, who was set to retire on Friday. He praised the slain officer — a close friend — as a hero: "He went in there to save people and paid the ultimate price."

In addition to the dead, one other person was wounded by gunfire, and as many as 15 others suffered minor injuries from jumping out windows or diving under tables, authorities said.

Shootings of any kind are extremely rare in Thousand Oaks, a city of about 130,000 people about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Los Angeles, just across the county line.

The Borderline, which includes a large dance hall along with several smaller areas for eating and drinking, was holding its regular "College Country Nights" when the attack took place.

Nick Steinwender, Cal Lutheran student body president, told KTLA-TV he immediately started receiving messages about the shooting, and he and his roommate went to the scene to offer rides back to campus or moral support.

"It's going to be a very somber day," Steinwender said. "I know we don't have all the details in yet, but you know, it just feels like it's an attack on our community. You know, I think it's going to be something that we're going to have to come together and move past."

The bar is also close to several other universities, including California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo, Pepperdine University in Malibu and Moorpark College in Moorpark.

Cole Knapp, a freshman at Moorpark, said he was inside the bar when the shooting began, but he thought at first that it was "just someone with an M-80, just kind of playing a prank." Then he said he saw the gunman, wearing a small black head covering and black hoodie and holding a handgun.

"I tried to get as many people to cover as I could," Knapp said. "There was an exit right next to me, so I went through that. That exit leads to a patio where people smoke. People out there didn't really know what was going on. There's a fence right there so I said, 'Everyone get over the fence as quickly as you can,' and I followed them over."

He said a highway patrol officer who happened to be pulling someone over was nearby.

"I screamed to him, 'There's a shooter in there!' He was kind of in disbelief, then saw that I was serious," Knapp said. He said he had friends who hadn't been accounted for.

Tayler Whitler, 19, said she was on the dance floor with her friends nearby when she saw the gunman shooting and heard screams of "Get down!"
"It was really, really, really shocking," Whitler told KABC-TV as she stood with her father in the parking lot. "It looked like he knew what he was doing."

The slain sheriff's officer was a 29-year veteran of the force with a wife and son and planned to retire in the coming year, said the sheriff, choking back tears.

"Ron was a hardworking, dedicated sheriff's sergeant who was totally committed," Dean said, "and tonight, as I told his wife, he died a hero because he went in to save lives."
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See that. Scary stuff, no? We get shootings in our schools, businesses, grocery stores, places of worship, etc etc here. One could almost feel unsafe anywhere they go. But wait, it gets worse.

Any time this stuff happens, people immediately jump to the assumptions of... well, you already know:

You have the bigots and conservative mouthpieces running off on their usual bovine fecal matter. No proof. No evidence. Not even any real speculation, just outright racism and Islamophobia. Making their own news to continue spreading hate and continue terrorizing people.

At least some people are calling them out on it.

But yeah. This is ridiculous. All these mass shootings everywhere. But keep on pushing the narrative about us scary Muslims, about those frightening immigrants, block out those horrific black and brown people  from everywhere you want to be with your racist laws limiting their rights.

You're making America sooooo safe.

Ugh.

And like I've said before, this isn't about bashing all white people, guess what, they're victims of this too and most sensible ones want it to end.

But why is it that when the shooter turns out to be white, as is often the case since... forever here.... they're a "lone wolf" with "mental health issues?"

Why continue this bogus narrative?

"No sane person would do xyz like that."

Stop using mental health as a scapegoat and demeaning the segment of our communities with legitimate mental issues!

These people are sane, they're just evil! There's a difference between being "sick" in the twist villainous sense, and legitimately insane.

AAAAAAAND even if you nitwits don't want to believe that, then here's an idea, STOP LETTING THESE PARTICULAR NUTJOBS GET GUNS AND WEAPONS TO KILL/INJURE PEOPLE.

Every time this happens, the conservatives immediately rush to protect their guns. Immediately.  I swear to you.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

"It's not a gun issue, it's mental health."

"Banning guns won't help, people will still get em illegally and then only the bad guys have guns."

"The bodies are still warm, how dare you talk politics? It's too soon!"

So now you're the party of human decency? Of humanity?? Really???

Guns don't kill people, PEOPLE WITH GUNS KILL PEOPLE.

If it's a mental health issue how about some stricter laws to prevent people with such issues or any history from owning weapons? How about more thorough background checks, and regular check ups on all gun owners. You want to carry a dangerous weapon around, we need to make sure your intent with it isn't malicious.

People break the law? Gasp. Then we'll punish them too. Otherwise, why have any laws? Why push for immigration laws then, since people will sneak in anyways, right? The point is to regulate and control what we can. To reduce the amount of crimes like this. The harder we make it for nutjobs to get guns, the better. It's way too easy rn. Way too easy. This mentality is self-defeating.

As far as "being respectful" to the dead and not talking politics til they're dead, people use this and ssy wait til it's appropriate, THERE'S A SHOOTING EVERY WEEK, IT'S NEVER GOING TO BE APPROPRIATE THEN!

If you really cared about the dead you'd want to enact laws in their honor to prevent more unnecessary deaths like theirs. But you don't care about the children. You don't care about the innocent women and men who are just out trying to live their lives at work or school or wherever else. You care only about your money from the NRA (national rifle association) and the other stupid lobbys lining your pockets.

You sick, soulless, soldout scumbags!!

Also let's not forget, these are the same people who, when a killing happens by some misguided, lunatic "Muslim" or by anyone of Latin American origin, these people lose their minds. They're foaming at the mouth crying about immigration laws, stoking fears about boogeymen from overseas and across the boarder.

Suddenly we find more surveillance in our masajid.

Suddenly we hear more racist rhetoric and awful policies separating immigrant families and holding babies children in miserable detention centers.

And here's a bit of proof that this ain't about defending the constitution and people's rights to bear arms.

Once upon a time during the civil rights movement here in America, while black people were free but living under racist laws and racist societies (not much had changed then huh), the police regularly target black Americans for beatdowns, shooting, and false accusations.

That got waaaaaay extreme, so a group called the Black Panthers Party (bpp) rose up to combat that.

If the law says American citizens can have guns, well, they were American citizens too now, right?

So they decided, "hey, we black Americans ought to play by their rules. We'll arm ourselves just like they have, we'll patrol and follow them (the police) the same way they do us to make sure they're not breaking the law when dealing with people. We'll defend ourselves from the racists who hate us and are regularly kidnapping our brothers and sisters and lynching us."

What happened?

California governor and future president Ronald freakn Reagan passed laws suddenly limiting gun ownership. Suddenly it was "no civilian needs guns like that."

Try saying that to these same conservatives today and they'll explode in anger about how it's about our rights and freedoms, government can't take muh guns, I don't need a reason to own em, constitution says I can.

But when it was black people getting their guns taken away... your "safety" overruled their rights?

🤔🤔🤔

Funny how that works.

This country is so hypocritical and backwards. So racist and ridiculous.  Another shooting and it ain't stopping soon I'm sure. And, sad thing is, I'm more likely to be "watched" now for making this post than the gun-nuts are with closets full of weapons and ammo.

Go figure.