By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
The anti-gun Brady Campaign was quick to exploit the Isla Vista killing spree allegedly committed by a 22-year-old who posted a final epitaph video in which he complained about rejection, touted his superiority and revealed his plans for a bloody massacre so people would see him as the supreme “alpha male” and a “god.”
And the Brady Campaign is hardly alone. Moms Demand Action and Michael Bloomberg’s “Everytown for Gun Safety” also swiftly jumped into the spotlight, the latter launching a postcard campaign to flood the offices of state governors and members of Congress. The cards say “Not One More.”
Elliot Rodger, the apparent killer in three fatal stabbings and a trio of fatal shootings on May 24, was the son of Hollywood assistant director. He drove an expensive BMW, had his own apartment, saved more than $5,000 provided with support checks from his parents and grandparents, but apparently had no real friends, no interaction with women and not much of a personality.
The fact that he legally bought three handguns in California, a state with tough gun laws, passing not only three background checks but going through three waiting periods, did not stop the Brady Campaign from blaming the “corporate gun lobby and the politicians it has in its pocket.”
This followed the bitter remarks made by the father of Rodger’s final victim, Christopher Martinez. His dad, a defense attorney, told a gathering of reports on the day following the killings, “Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’s right to live? Stop this madness! We don’t have to live like this. Too many have died. We should say to ourselves, ‘Not one more!’”
Capitalizing on the comment, the Brady Campaign issued a statement that said, “We at the Brady Campaign stand with Mr. Martinez. He got it exactly right. Americans are dying every day because of the corporate gun lobby and the politicians it has in its pocket.
“Real solutions exist that are supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans — solutions that would prevent many of the 90 gun deaths that happen in our nation every day.
“And yet, the corporate gun lobby relentlessly blocks progress toward every commonsense solution. It gives substantial sums of money to buy politicians to ignore the will and well-being of the American people — by opposing expanded background checks and calling research into gun violence ‘unethical.’ These politicians do not care who is buying guns — convicted felons, domestic abusers, rapists – just as long as the corporate gun lobby is happily making the biggest possible profit.”
But the Brady Campaign, and other gun prohibitionists, seemed to overlook the fact that the first three victims in Isla Vista were all stabbed to death. It was only after that attack that Rodger went out with his three 9mm pistols – two Sig Sauers and a Glock – and spare magazines carrying 400 rounds of ammunition, that shots were fired.
In the mayhem, Rodger also reportedly rammed several people with his expensive coupe, finally crashing it after exchanging gunshots with sheriff’s deputies and then taking his own life with a bullet to the head. He allegedly shot two co-eds outside a sorority house and then killed Martinez when he opened fire on a mini-mart.
When authorities began investigating Rodger, they discovered a lengthy autobiographical “manifesto” in which he repeatedly ranted about female rejection, his expectations of sex and a hedonistic lifestyle, and his hatred toward beautiful young women and the men they dated. He quit the one job he had after one day because it was beneath him – a janitorial job – and appears to have been living off of his parental support.
His planned “Day of Retribution” massacre was hideously described in advance. According to his own words, he planned to “dump the bag of severed heads I had saved from my previous victims, proclaiming to everyone how much I’ve made them all suffer.”
These would be the people he lured to his apartment and silently killed with a hammer and knife.
“Once they see all of their friend’s heads roll onto the street,” he fantasized, “everyone will fear me as the powerful god I am. I will then start massacring everyone on Del Playa Street.”
Anti-gun sentiment
His “manifesto,” which already has been visited more than 2.2 million times, includes an account of his first experience shooting at a gun range. It was an episode that made him sick to his stomach, he said.
“I paid my fee and left the range within minutes, feeling as if I was going to be sick,” he wrote.
That is more a reaction from an anti-gunner than someone familiar with firearms.
This seems to bear out as his family is against guns, and he did not grow up in a home where firearms were available or kept, it appears.
Not only was the Brady Campaign trying to exploit the tragedy, so to was the Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America (MDA). That organization’s Facebook page only concentrated on the fact that a firearm was used.
In a statement on that website, the MDA said “the NRA enables mass murders like the one in Santa Barbara” and “gun violence kills twice as many children as cancer,” and initially discussed “a horrific drive-by shooting spree that has reportedly left 7 dead and 7 wounded in Isla Vista.”
The statement created the impression that all of the victims had been shot.
Various publications echoed the anti-gun mantra, with headlines talking about a “mass shooting” and stories that referred to Rodger as “the shooter.”
Narcissistic, pathetic
Variously described as having been extremely self-centered, leading some observers to comment on how “pathetic” his “manifesto” appeared, Elliot Rodger did not create a sympathetic persona. While he was planning the Isla Vista carnage, he was pampered. He even had a therapist. He enjoyed a vacation to England, flying first class with his mother and sister.
He even described boarding the plane, sneering at other passengers who had to wait for general boarding.
In the final analysis, Rodger comes off as a would-be elitist whose “mother provided me with a better car to drive in Santa Barbara, a BMW 3 series Coupe.”
“I have always wanted this,” he wrote in his manifesto, “since I cared a lot about my appearance. I had been asking my parents for a more upper-class car ever since I found out that there was a car hierarchy, and that some students at my college drove better cars than others. Now I was one of the students with a better, high-class car.”
But the nice ride, expensive clothing and even designer sunglasses did not seem to attract the women he desired. So, more than 18 months prior to the rampage, he appears to have started planning. He was meticulous in describing how he had put off the attack at least once because his father was at home, rather than on some movie set, and he did not want to face the prospect of having to murder the man.
The attack was also delayed because Rodger was ill. But timing and germs did not derail his plot.
Punctured myths
In addition to puncturing accepted gun control myths about waiting periods and “universal background checks,” the Isla Vista attack also confirmed that so-called “high capacity assault magazines” are not a requirement for bloodshed.
Rodger reportedly had a total of 41 ten-round magazines for the two Sig pistols and the Glock, as required in California. He could have picked up full-capacity magazines for those guns, one veteran gun expert observed, on his trips to Arizona where he bought lottery tickets in hopes of winning a fortune. But he did not, further reinforcing the argument that Rodger was hardly a product of the “gun culture.”
Yet even with ten-round magazines, the suspect unleashed a barrage of gunfire at the mini-mart, and also engaged local sheriff’s deputies in two different shootouts before he committed suicide.
So much about the shooting has essentially debunked arguments from the gun control lobby that background checks, waiting periods and magazine capacity limits would prevent this sort of crime.
That did not prevent Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, from trying to link the incident to domestic violence, which had nothing to do with the shootings. By his own admission, the suspected killer had not had a relationship of any kind, much less domestic, with a woman, including the two he shot as they stood together on a sidewalk.
If this case proved anything, other than that gun control laws don’t work, it would be that gun prohibitionists will try to milk it for everything they can.
