Two dead, up to 20 injured in West Texas shooting; 1 suspect in custody

I agree that a painfully slow ( within 24 hours) death would be a deterrent for some mass murderers. The ones that have a death wish or suicide by police are impossible to scare with the death penalty.

 

Ever been to West Texas Odessa- Midland area? It is flat desert wasteland for the most part. Lots of oil wells and new jobs from fracking. Lots of rough people from all over coming there looking for work. It is a dusty rural area with police and sheriffs that might have copters but there aren't no cameras except at banks and maybe Walmart but no drones flying all over the place. They have some armature video. That is all I have seen. Once media converges there, then there might be some aerial footage but it would not be something the cops there would normally use. Distances between A-B are just too far.

 

An "expert" is a talking head who blurts out an opinion. The so called experts are not reporters so we cannot honestly say that they are spouting Fake News. What we can say is that their opinions are FOS.

 

A reporter's job is to report the what, who, when, where. If any of those are wrong that is Fake News. Commentary and opinion cannot be Fake News because it us not reported it is commented upon.

Too many people confuse the two.

 

When the commentators (reporters) do not attempt to correct their sources, who they pay to be "experts," and who spew unverified garbage opinion, the commentator and their networks are culpable for everything that is reported.

 

Most of these nuts go into ter rampage expecting to die. The death penalty would be absolutely no deterrent to mass shooters. Most of them kill themselves at tha scene. I do not know what will stop these crazy killings. There is no easy answer, that’s for sure.

 

I've been to the panhandle, which sounds like your description.

I figured the texas state troopers would have some air support.

 

You are still mixing reporting with commentary. Commentary is opinion.
How do you "correct" opinion? Reporting is who, what, when, where.
Opinion or commentary is why something happened, how do we stop it, should it be stopped, what are the effects.

Example....white man aged 22 shoots five people in a Black Virginia church on Dec 31, 2039. That is an example of facts presented as news.

Opinion is " White man aged 22 shoots 5 blacks in a Black Virginia church because he is a White Nationalist and racist.

 

That's true, but if he's shooting at someone else you then have your chance to stop it right there.

Here's the deal; I've lived in gun rich El Paso and now in gun rich New Mexico. Where I live I can walk into a gun store or pawn shop, buy a pistol and walk out with it on my hip. When I had jury duty last year, the 90 or so potential jurors were asked who had a concealed carry permit and half the room raised their hand. We were then asked who owns a gun and nearly every hand in the room went up. From what I've seen, many people have guns, they just don't carry them around a lot or they simply leave one in their cars. I know if I owned a handgun that I would probably never carry it due to the awkwardness of carrying it. I do, however, own a rifle but it hasn't been fired in about 6 years.

This has nothing to due to this current shooting, but when you live in an area where most people are armed you see very few home burglaries. A person would literally be taking his/her life in his/her hands breaking into a home around here. And if that ever happened and you shot the guy between the eyes, when the cops arrived they'd say that's good shootin'.

 

It’s pretty sad that guys like you delight when the shooter is black, Mexican or better yet an undocumented Mexican. The other side really likes it when the shooter is a white guy. Here you go off and blame your least favorite political party for all of the negative elements of certain cities. Your adversaries blame the NRA and the gun nuts who are generally Republicans.

It seems that nobody from either side ever comes up with any ideas about how to solve the problem but rather make silly comments pointing fingers and blaming the other guy. It would be really nice to see reasonable people from both sides of the political spectrum in congress and the Senate sit down and have some positive conversations in an effort to minimize this madness. Perhaps experts from other countries with far lower gun death and murder rates could sit in and give their perspective. Who knows, maybe just the act of being civil and toning down the hateful political rhetoric would help reduce these shootings.

 

lol@a few minutes, I'd suggest some practice time with your firearm. Mine is loaded, hammer back, ready to go. Would take me 1.5 seconds to present an armed response.

Practice practice practice.

 

So using that same logic...don't build a wall because those determined enough to "commit a crime" will find a way in?

 

They do. And because of lots of oil money, the area has become built-up in areas with shopping, theaters, hospitals, etc. There are though wide flat expanses of oil fields and some farm/ranches. Drones still need to be piloted. I think it's more common for them to use small planes and helicopters to cover areas for searches. It's basically a big area with small town old fashioned sheriffs and police. TX state troopers, they may do things a little more modern.

 

Movie theaters are often posted with both 30.06 and 30.07 signs, meaning that both concealed carry and open carry are prohibited. Those in Texas who would have made an armed response are also law abiding and had left their firearms in their cars, as required by law.

 

Your Opinion example is exactly what CNN started reporting at the same time other reputable sources were trying to gather some facts and not Opining with their BS for political purposes.

 

Rudy Giuliani managed to clean up New York, perhaps the cities with problems should look at how he took care of the problem.

 

Where all those who were shot get shot inside a theater ? I heard reports that he shot at people in a theater parting lot.

 

If they ID'd the shooter as a White Nationalst before anything was known thatbis wrong. Did they (CNN) actually say that he was a White Nationalist or did some opinion talking head speculate that hecwasc White Nationalst. Reporting something and opining on something are two different animals.

 

I saw video of some of the shot up car windshields. The guy was apparently riding around the parking lot at least part of the time. Reports are of a running gun battle. I sort of doubt that. Cops usually won't shoot while in pursuit even if the shooter is shooting at them. I think he ended up in the theater parking lot where the cops started shooting back. He may have left his van. I heard some bursts of what sounded like 10-12 rounds about 3 times. That could easily have been almost any double stack pistol magazine in a caliber probably not larger than 9mm-.40.
It's not clear who was shooting who. I saw one windshield that had an elongated hole in it. That didn't look like a rifle. The bullet glanced off the sloping windshield without much velocity. More like what a 9mm or .40 pistol would do, but could have been a ricochet.

 

Ignore the signs, the dude who would like to use you and yours for target practice ignored the signs.

 

All I know is that I heard them spewing the word white nationalist before there were ANY facts about the shooter. As soon as I heard it on CNN, I turned the channel to try to learn some FACTS, not their BS. Their political bias is common knowledge.

 

True, the signs would be meaningless to me especially if he was shooting in the parking lot. But I am of the opinion that this guy was being chased by the cops into the parking lot where he left the van he stole and either started shooting at cops, went berserk and started shooting randomly at people in their cars or walking around the parking lot while also shooting back at the cops.

If the cops were already on the scene, It would not be wise for a citizen to interfere.

 

well we know a poster here must of thought that

"Louisiana Theater Shooter Praised Fundamentalist Muslims, Signed Up On Tea Party Page, And Quoted Hitler"

http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/24/l...igned-up-on-tea-party-page-and-quoted-hitler/

"And in another, Houser cheered Muslim extremists for defending their religion.

“Yes it’s true, Muslims are alone in shutting down liberals that mock their God. They have my complete Christian respect.”"

John Russell Houser was a poster here

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?members/rusty-houser.62178/

 

There was a video on FB that showed the scene at the theater when the cops caught him and killed him. He had stolen a mail truck and they chased him to that parking lot, there was a crash and then cops from all directions shooting and it was over. I believe it started with a traffic stop, Trooper got shot and there was a car chase. Shots were fired on 42nd street in front of Twin Peaks, not sure when the mail truck was stolen but the end was east of TP toward Midland on 191 service rd. to the theater. It's all chaotic, reports changed all afternoon and I've heard of more things this evening. Hoping it will clear up tomorrow and we can figure out just what did happen. 191 is 42nd street when it leaves Odessa toward Midland.

 

Uh, that's not using the same logic.