Mass shooting in Illinois kills five people.

Swat officers at the scene of the crime. BBC/Getty.

A mass shooting in Aurora Illinois ended with the suspect and five people killed along with six police officers wounded. BBC. The suspect was Gary Martin, a 45 year old former employee of Henry Platt Company, a pipe making company. He may have been armed with a pistol with a laser sight. Martin's motive is unknown but his position had been eliminated two weeks ago and his family said he was "stressed out". When police arrived to the scene of the crime they were shot at by the suspect before killing him. Five officers were wounded by gunfire while another suffered a knee injury before shooting and killing the suspect. 

My Comment:

I have a standing rule to not comment on mass shootings unless I have something important to say. This is because I believe that mass shootings spread memeticlly and media coverage of these events contribute greatly to them. I don't think it is a coincidence that this attack occurred just a day after the anniversary of the Parkland shooting Florida. Gun control and mass shootings were in the news for days ahead of this and could have been what pushed this guy over the edge. He was already angry but may not have done anything at all if it wasn't for everyone talking about mass shootings. 

So why talk about this at all even though there is a risk associated in doing so? First of all the difference of outcome in this case and the Parkland shooting is obvious. In the Parkland case officers stood around and never entered the school as Nikolas Cruz killed children. In this case, the officers bravely charged into the fire and took the attacker out. Had Martin been given the time to kill more people he likely would have had a much higher body count. I have great respect for the officers involved in this case. Despite the danger they did exactly what they are supposed to do. 

I have always said that the way to deal with these mass shootings is to attack the gunman. Doing so will either kill the gunman, which will stop the threat, or buy time for people to escape. And many of these mass shooters either surrender or kill themselves when faced with resistance. Police can't be timid when one of these events happen and should do everything they can to engage with the shooter and put him down. 

Of course having civilians with guns helps as well. Illinois has concealed carry but it doesn't appear that anyone here was able to fight back. Either nobody had a CCW permit and/or the business forbids carrying a weapon. Illinois is a shall issue state but was the last state to allow concealed carry so it's very possible that nobody here was armed. If they had been the death toll might have even been smaller. 

This will likely result in more gun control in Illinois, which is already one of the worst states for gun rights. We don't have much information about how Martin got his firearm, but if he got it legally in Illinois then he went through a background check. Illinois gun control didn't prevent this attack and no further laws would have done anything to prevent this attack.

Race is another reason to talk about this attack. Martin is black and I am guessing that fact is going mean that this story is going to go away soon. The main media narrative is that mass shootings are a white male problem so when a non-white does one of these attacks happens, it gets memory holed. That might not happen locally since the Democrats control the government in that state and will do anything to pass gun control. Nationally though, this story won't be anything but a memory by next week.