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posted by takyon on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-baseball-jokes dept.

A gunman opened fire at U.S. Congressmen and others who were gathered at a practice this morning for the Congressional Baseball Game. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and at least four others were reportedly injured. The gunman, who has been identified by unnamed sources as James T. Hodgkinson III, was taken to a local hospital where he died from his injuries:

A gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire Wednesday at a park in Alexandria, Va., as Republican members of Congress held a morning baseball practice, wounding at least five people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.).

The suspected gunman is James T. Hodgkinson III, 66, from Illinois, according to multiple law enforcement sources. President Trump announced that the gunman, who was wounded in a shootout with officers, has died at an area hospital.

The wounded also included two Capitol Police officers and a congressional aide, according to one law enforcement official and witness accounts.

Congressman Scalise was shot in the hip and is in stable condition.

Hodgkinson's motive may have already been identified by the media:

A Facebook page belonging to a person with the same name includes pictures of Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and rhetoric against President Trump, including a post that reads: "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co."

Charles Orear, 50, a restaurant manager from St. Louis, said in an interview Wednesday that he became friendly with Hodgkinson during their work together in Iowa on Sanders's campaign. Orear said Hodgkinson was a passionate progressive and showed no signs of violence or malice toward others.

Also at LA Times, Reuters, The Atlantic, The Hill, and CNN.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Lagg on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:42PM (11 children)

    by Lagg (105) on Wednesday June 14 2017, @04:42PM (#525498) Homepage Journal

    This guy has basically ensured that propaganda is going to win out for the foreseeable future by providing the boogeymen that Trump's cultists were just hoping came along. I sure can't wait to see where the march to third world goes next while we promptly blame existing third world countries. Or other fanatics in our own.

    --
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jcross on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:25PM (10 children)

    by jcross (4009) on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:25PM (#525527)

    What I want to know is why he's being called a "gunman". The rule seems to be that non-muslim white guys who shoot people are "gunmen", non-muslim black or latino guys are "gang members", and all others are "terrorists". Gunman has a bit of a Wild West ring to it, surprisingly neutral in connotation.

    • (Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:39PM

      by Snow (1601) on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:39PM (#525533) Journal

      You answered your own question.

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:39PM (8 children)

      by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday June 14 2017, @05:39PM (#525534)

      Easy, a Bernie Bro simply can't be a terrorist. It would destroy the Narrative. He can't even be officially declared an Assassin, which would be the word most appropriate to what he did. It really is that simple, the Progs control the commanding heights of the culture and have the power to decree these things so they do. So this was not a political assassination attempt, it was not terrorism, the guy's connections to Bernie Sanders will be briefly mentioned in the mainstream news accounts and then memory holed in all future reporting and the motive will be unstated. There is absolutely no "toxic culture of hate" this could be connected to. He was simply a 'crazy' person who went off purely at random.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:14PM (6 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:14PM (#525563)

        You have it backwards, if they wanted to downplay the sanders part they would have only mentioned his anti-trump posts. There is the crazy they'reallouttogetme stuff I was expecting.

        • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:29PM (5 children)

          by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday June 14 2017, @06:29PM (#525581)

          Didn't I say it would be reported initially as the frenzy to update posts is in full swing. But watch as the Narrative is spun out of the Blue Checkmark Mafia in the next couple of hours. One in passing mention on the major evening newscasts and that will be one and only mention. It has to be in Lexis Nexus so when they are accused of rewriting the history they can point to it and truthfully say it was reported. They understand how to lie far better than most people have ever though about the topic because it is a religious duty for them. It is in how the Narrative will be spun about this event that the lie will be inserted, memory of the Bernie connection will be quietly excised. They might even have the balls to try to flip the script into a condemnation of Trump for 'creating a toxic political climate.'

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:25PM (4 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:25PM (#525677)

            He says without any irony at all.

            The defender of "right to oppress people we don't like" can't wrap his brain around the need to prevent states from violating human rights.

            Like it or not federalism won, so now we have reached the point where federalism is going too far on some things. We need to more strictly codify the limits of federal power, but revisiting the states vs. federal debate is not gonna happen without another civil war.

            • (Score: 2) by KGIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:23AM (3 children)

              by KGIII (5261) on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:23AM (#525766) Journal

              I dunno... It might happen, it'd help if people don't cheer on the shooting.

              I am a lefty McLefty person, who lefted as far as a lefty could left, while remaining mostly sane. I also spent eight years enlisted in the Marines. I'm not gonna try to fool ya, combat is scary shit. It's also really loud, but I digress.

              So, call me a hippie, call me a coward, but please stop shooting each other. K?

              Look at the vitriol in this thread. The vast majority of it is coming from people who are on my side of the political spectrum. It is strange to see otherwise intelligent people blame others for their misconduct.

              --
              "So long and thanks for all the fish."
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @03:58AM (2 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @03:58AM (#525863)

                You've hammered on your lefty nature a bit much. Yes a few users are letting their anger guide them, but honestly you are sounding a bit preachy. Liberals are humans too and even the democrat presidents have been pushing authoritarian policies. Trump's campaign really blew the lid off the latent racism and liberals have come under massive attack. I would be more worried if people weren't getting really pissed off. You've got a good message about not letting hatred rule your actions, but that is about it.

                You said you aren't nonviolent so you should be understanding of when people have been pushed over the edge. Want to prevent more violence? I'm not quite sure how, but being preachy about people venting on a forum is definitely not going to help. Perhaps addressing their feelings, help people work through them and come to the conclusion on their own that violence is not the answer.

                • (Score: 2) by KGIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:34PM (1 child)

                  by KGIII (5261) on Thursday June 15 2017, @02:34PM (#526029) Journal

                  You don't need my permission to hate. You can do that on your own.

                  I do hope that folks are aware that violence is nothing like they show in the movies.

                  --
                  "So long and thanks for all the fish."
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @07:12PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @07:12PM (#526153)

                    Good point, not many people are really aware. You still seemed to miss my point though, good job mr. highroad.

      • (Score: 2) by jcross on Wednesday June 14 2017, @07:02PM

        by jcross (4009) on Wednesday June 14 2017, @07:02PM (#525604)

        You may be right, but the issue seems to be bigger than this. I see some headlines that called Dylann Roof a gunman as well. Then there's the term "shooter" which seems to imply something else again. It actually should be pretty simple to quantify this in a semi-automated way by scanning headlines for shootings and seeing whether there's a bias by publication or by perpetrator characteristics.