The Morning Dispatch: Grappling With the Buffalo Mass Shooting

Plus: U.S. troops to return to Somalia after most left in late 2020.

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Happy Tuesday! We asked you yesterday to think of a bigger geopolitical own-goal than Vladimir Putin driving Finland and Sweden into NATO’s arms with his invasion of Ukraine. 

What about Vladimir Putin driving McDonald’s to permanently exit the Russian market entirely with his invasion of Ukraine?

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • Voters head to the polls in a handful of states today: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky, Idaho, and Oregon. Competitive GOP primaries in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial and Senate race will test Donald Trump’s continued influence on the party and will help determine how competitive the party is next fall. In North Carolina, Trump-endorsed Rep. Ted Budd appears set to defeat former GOP Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker. Sen. Rand Paul is expected to breeze to victory in his GOP primary in Kentucky and Idaho and Oregon both feature interested gubernatorial primaries.  

  • National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson confirmed yesterday that President Joe Biden signed off on a plan to redeploy up to 450 troops in Somalia in an effort to fight and contain al-Shabaab, the Islamist terrorist group. Former President Donald Trump had ordered nearly all American troops to withdraw from Somalia in the months before he left office. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected president of Somalia on Sunday, returning to the post he held from 2012 to 2017. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Julie from Texas

    I'm in the middle of a move, so I just now got to this post, but I'm glad I saved it and read it. This is the best coverage I've seen of the Buffalo shooting. I especially appreciate The Dispatch's decision to name all the victims but not name the murderer, who deserves zero public recognition for his heinous acts. He should be forgotten as quickly as possible while the victims are remembered by friends, family, and the community at large. May God comfort their loved ones!

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  2. Emma

    I'm sorry, but enough. Per usual, this happens and what do I hear? Excuses.

    He was bored.
    He was on the internet
    He feels lost
    He has mental health issues.

    When minorities are the shooter we tend to hear "when is the black community going to take responsibility for the violence in their neighborhoods?" "Where are the fathers?"

    When is white America going to take ownership here? When is the white community going to have a "serious conversation" about its young men?

    Nope. Im sure next week we'll hear about how he was teased when he was 9 and mommy and daddy fought.

    Enough

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  3. Eileen Ross

    Stop ignoring red flags. Many shooters preview their plans.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Narwhal

      The Buffalo mass murderer should have been easier to prevent than some, maybe most.

      He had made a previous mass murder threat on a school and that placed him on the police radar. Then after turning eighteen he bought an AR-15, illegal extended magazines for it, a lot of ammunition, and body armor. He was regularly interacting with others on places like 4chan and expressing anger and hate, and he did research on where he could kill the most non-whites. He also didn’t join a local gun club at a shooting range either as far as I know.

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  4. Bubba

    Why would I “grapple” with a nut job? There will forever be nut jobs. They will do bad things. Grapple with boring, routine risks.

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  5. Mike A. Chekal

    I think I need to deny your initial premise. I don’t think there is any resurgence. Maybe increased awareness. However, I think most mass shooters exhibit deviant behavior before acting out (a shooting incidence). I believe that in many (most) were known to the mental health community (i.e., the Buffalo Shooter) and were not given treatment.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Dave Conant - MO

    "rather than the impermissible objective of simply limiting the amount of money in politics,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority." One wonders what basis Justice Roberts has for deciding it is impermissible for Congress to limit the amount of money in politics since that is precisely what we're all saying needs to be done.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Scarlette Tarte

    “[But] you expect us to keep doing this over and over again,” Whitfield continued. “Forgive and forget while the people we elect and trust in offices around the country do their best not to protect us, not to consider us equals, not to love us back. What are we supposed to do with all this anger and all this pain?”

    I have often said that if I was born black in this country, I would be the biggest Angela Davis, .38 hidden in my hair, protesting, blackest panther there was. This country has repeatedly disregarded the needs and protections of her black citizens to appease the white majority. Aside from fighting to free the slaves, every other time these people needed help from the government, they have been failed. Starting with the country having African based slavery, to leaving the south after reconstruction and not caring what southerners did to black people, stripping them of their rights, lynching them willy nilly, expecting them to come to the defense of the nation, but then expecting them to shut up when they got home.

    Thanks to themselves, and a movement dedicated to non violence, they finally won their civil rights and voting rights, but we have a party (the one that freed them, ironically) trying everything they possibly can (and get away with it) to limit their voting opportunities, and stoke racial animosities. Feeding grievances about affirmative action, or social services, they stoke this crap.

    Then, you have the doofuses, which appear to number in enough millions that they can cause real problems, that believe this "replacement" crap.

    Oh hell yeah, I would be a militant black person. That by and large, most of them are not, speaks volumes about them and their understanding and forgiving hearts.

    As it is, I am pissed beyond words. Terrorism in our own land, by one of our own, committed against our own. This cannot stand. It must not stand. Full throated condemnation and rejection of anyone who espouses or preaches this crap must be undertaken. Especially those, like Carlson, who uses this "theory" as a cynical ploy to divide Americans politically.

    We also need to address the internet. Great tool. Lots of fantastic info at our fingertips, buuut...also a great tool for radicalizing.

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    1. Avatar photo
      JohnM.

      Angela Davis? Really?! Davis is an unrepentant champion of domestic terrorists and murderers. She has also collaborated with some of the world’s most nefarious regimes and was a fan of the cult leader Jim Jones. As a third-tier academic shilling for fascist regimes and extremists around the world her entire career, she should be rightfully relegated to obscurity.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Scarlette Tarte

        That's my point. I have often thought if I was black, how bad America has been toward black people, would have turned me into a huge radical. That black people, by and large, are not, is something we should be grateful for, because we absolutely deserve some of that.

        And it speaks well of them as citizens who have had to endure much mistreatment.

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    Michael Dan Martin

    Wow, some of he comments here about Tucker Carlson and his listeners read like a white supremecist message board in reverse.

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  9. Mary Stine

    Human beings were not psychologically, or emotionally prepared for our current onslaught of social media and "info-mation". Our brains never evolved for this level of artificial stimulation. We need a mass intervention on a national, if not international level to deal with this. Because on of the bad things resulting from too much electronic stimulation is our brains grasping desperately for relief. Sadly, that relief too often appears as tribalism and fanaticism.
    While I am leery of too much government "help" here, I do see a few things governments could do that would help:
    Strengthen the protections for our last wild places by banning all forms of motorized transport , cell phones and computers inside national parks, with exceptions for maintenance, security and emergency medical needs. This would help people connect better with nature and leave their screens behind.
    Set aside funding for public "decompression" green spaces that are quiet, electronics free zones that are also safe, with outside lockers for cell phones and other electronic devices.
    Every library and school would be encouraged to also have an area like this..free of electronics, speakers, unnatural lighting, and constant noise.
    The DOD could mandate this for all veteran's centers and recommend it for VFW's and American Legions. If anyone ever deserved a decompression space, it would be our vets.
    Listening to one of the Good Faith podcasts recently, I was impressed that one of the guest speakers had already started doing this with his own family, to the extent that they have at least one night a week with just candlelight!

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    1. Avatar photo
      Rjosephpaquette

      "Our brains never evolved for this level of artificial stimulation."

      Many said something similar thing about books off new printing presses.
      That the wrong books in the wrong hands caused things like the American and French Revolutions.

      Information is not the vice.
      Stimulation is not the enemy.
      You don't want a phone with you in the park--leave it behind.

      And you are free to buy a decompression space.

      Asking the government to do it--is not the right step.

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    2. Avatar photo
      C C Writer

      Friendly amendment to your proposal: Decompression spaces should have an option for interacting with a dog or other friendly pet. Revise laws to allow this, while respecting people's right to stay away from an animal if they're not comfortable with it.

      I was watching a veterinarian show the other day, and there was a dog who was an official nursing home dog, beloved by the residents (and made a nice recovery, too). And I found myself thinking: It wasn't so long ago that the presence of animals (germs!) in such a place was considered inappropriate. Now their morale/therapy function is understood by science.

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  10. Dave D.

    Really disappointed in this article's extreme cheap shot. "Slightly watered down" version of this crackpot's rantings? You are shocked that 50% of Republicans and 20% of Democrats believe that the Democrats want to replace the electorate with theoretically more progressive minorities from Latin America? Well, "replace" isn't really the right word, but they are all writing books and columns about the emerging new minority Majority and why else have the Dems turned their back on working class unions that were always against unlimited immigration, except to make it easier to win elections? They've been talking about it constantly, so those voters that shock you maybe are just the ones paying attention. It's not racist to notice it, it's simply a fact. I don't watch Carlson but it's pretty clear he had nothing to do with this guy, any more than the Black nationalist in Waukesha who mowed down a parade could be blamed on the liberals who put BLM signs in their yards. He was an avowed Communist and was moving toward being a "left wing authoritarian", in his own words. He trashed Fox News along with all other media. He was influenced by racist rantings on the web. It is almost always the case that these extreme rantings may be an exaggeration of a legitimate argument that takes the argument well over the line, which is a phenomenon that happens on far left and right. Our media loves to conflate them unfairly when they can find the most tenuous connection to a conservative argument, as they always prefer to declare arguments out of bounds rather than engaging. Rich Lowry argued a much better perspective on the matter today-- https://jewishworldreview.com/0522/lowry051722.php

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