Male Shooter of Two Teenagers Was 'Radicalized by Some Network'
The teenager who shot two other teenagers in a Colorado high school was said by authorities to have been "radicalized by some extremist network.”
About 20 miles from one of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, two teenagers were shot at Evergreen High School. The suspect, who opened fire in the Colorado high school on Wednesday, shot himself. The two teenagers are in critical condition, according to authorities.
Jacki Kelley, the spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, identified the suspect as a 16-year-old white student named Desmond Holly during a Thursday, September 11 news briefing.
Kelley said during a press conference Thursday of Holly, "He was radicalized by some extremist network.”
Authorities are still investigating, but they believe he had a "mission," according to officials, and they are continuing to search for information about the network and mission.
Holly allegedly murdered two teenagers because was radicalized by extremism. The details of which kind of extremism have not yet been identified, but when we combine any kind of extremism with easy access to guns, we get gun violence.
The Trump administration has made significant cuts to funding for gun violence prevention programs, including terminating federal grants for community violence intervention (CVI) programs, defunding key research efforts, and closing the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
“Officials determined the weapon was a revolver that was ‘fired a lot.’ Shots could be seen fired at windows and lockers, authorities said on Thursday,” ABC News reported.
The identities of the two victims have not been released yet.
It’s unfortunate that school shootings are so frequent in our country that they no longer get a lot of news coverage. They are not held up as shocking tragedies that we can and must speak up about, but rather as inevitable events that we must harden ourselves to, as if we have all agreed that the deaths of school children to guns are a price we are willing to pay.
But I have yet to meet a person in real life who will articulate that shameless calculus out loud. Very few people actually think this is a good learning environment for kids and most Americans want some kind of gun control to make these events less likely to happen.
The reality is a majority of Americans want stricter gun laws and various gun control measures, with polls from groups like Gallup and Pew Research showing that around 56-58% of the public wants gun laws to be more strict. Specific policies with broad, bipartisan support include universal background checks (86%), red-flag laws (76%), and licensing/registration requirements.
But we don’t have them.
Rather, Utah (where conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed yesterday) implemented in July a new law that allows not only concealed carry, but open carry as well. The law:
clarifies that an individual who may otherwise lawfully possess a firearm may possess a firearm at the individual's residence;
openly possess a firearm in most public locations;
conceal a firearm in most public locations without a concealed carry permit;
clarifies criminal provisions regarding who is required to have a concealed carry permit in certain circumstances;
removes the criminal provision for law-abiding citizens to possess a loaded rifle, shotgun, or muzzle-loading rifle in a vehicle;
removes the crime of carrying a loaded firearm on a public street;
includes a coordination clause coordinating technical changes with this bill and S.B. 14, Private Sale of a Firearm Sunset Review Amendments;
and makes technical and conforming changes.
We do not know the motive or identity of the person who shot Charlie Kirk yet, but it’s a safe bet that the person was also radicalized.
Radically easy access to guns is making this country more dangerous, and as it becomes increasingly more radicalized due to the rhetoric from people in leadership positions, that extremism mixes with access to guns and becomes tragedy.
We should not be living this way, and we should not be a country that barely even acknowledges the gun deaths of school children because we are so used to it.]
What do you think about school shootings getting so little coverage? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Brazil knows how to do it right, unlike our "great bastion of democracy". NYT: "Bolsonaro Convicted of Attempting a Coup in Brazil Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro of overseeing a failed plot to overturn the 2022 Brazilian election that included disbanding courts, empowering the military and assassinating the president-elect."
Thank you Sarah. Everyone should be horrified by our children being shot in their schools. But the shooting in Colorado was buried by the murder of the up for sainthood Charlie Kirk. Today is the 24th year since that awful day September 11. Barely mentioned today. What about the senator in Minnesota and her husband. Crickets. Public shootings are terrible and shouldn't be happening in this country. Guns of all types are readily available here. You can't feel safe going to the grocery store or even driving down a street. But good old Charlie was not a good man. He was not a Christian. HR preached hate in an amiable way. I mourn for the children and for my country, not someone like Kirk. Children are our future. How can we teach them if we can't keep them safe?