The mass shooter who allegedly killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday reportedly used to keep a “hit list” and a “rape list” while he was in high school.
The suspected shooter, 24-year-old Connor Betts, was fatally shot by local police shortly after he began spraying bullets at a busy district in Dayton, leaving investigators struggling to piece together his motive. According to the authorities, Betts’ clean background as an adult allowed him to purchase his weapon legally.
Two unnamed former high school classmates of Betts told the Associated Press that he had been suspended twice for compiling threatening lists while attending Bellbrook High School near Dayton.
Betts was first suspended after putting together a “rape list” of some of his female peers, which included one of the former classmates who spoke to the AP. According to her, she found out about the list when a police officer called to inform her about it.
She told the AP that the authorities “didn’t give any warning” that Betts was returning to the school after the incident.
The two classmates, who spoke with the AP on the condition of anonymity, said that Betts was suspended again during his junior year after his “hit list” was discovered in a school bathroom.
When the Dayton Daily News reached out to the former principal of Bellbrook High to confirm Betts’ second suspension, he responded: “I would not dispute that information, but I don’t want to get involved any more than just making that comment.”
Good thing our background check system doesn’t do anything invasive like look for character references going back to a 20-something buyer’s history as a teenager, y’know, the age when much of the anti-social behavior that is a red flag for eventual mass murderers starts showing itself.
I always hear you can’t stop all these shootings- no system can stop it.
I say just don’t sell the assault weapons to the public and do a national buy back gun program.
This country does not have an issue with citizens dying from hand grenades. They aren’t sold to the public. This doesn’t seem so hard.
Every amendment has limits- machine guns are not legal but were in the 1930’s.
Can we please all remember that this guy was a totally law abiding citizen, just exercising his god given right to carry any gun that he could, right up the the instant that he started killing people this weekend.
What’s to keep anyone from thinking him a “good guy with a gun” until he pulled the trigger that sprayed the crowd.
Except either the after-the-fact steps taken by New Zealand and Australia or before-the-fact steps taken by every other industrialized country on the planet.
They pretty much stopped in this country when we banned assault weapons. Republicans let it lapse so hit the entire party with this.