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There's generally a clue when the shooter leaves behind a 'manifesto', but until it is released it's hard to be certain.
These two options are not in contradiction and can easily both be true.
No.
But the entire message coming from the media in the wake of every other mass shooting is that white people/gun owners/right wingers are in some way responsible for the actions of one violent person.
So it's quite noticeable when the message differs from that.
Yes, because they want gun control. Which is a position that the right would not agree to and, likewise, is unlikely to solve the problem.
You see the problem here?
In the wake of a mass casualty event, if it is perpetrated by a white male, or anyone with possible right wing affiliation, then the message is "white males and/or right wingers are a dangerous threat that must be curbed, and we can do that by banning guns." They demonize outgroup, and demand gun control.
If it's perpetrated by a nonwhite person or someone who has lefty affiliations, it gets buried immediately, and then they demand gun control.
The message always demonizes one side, and the proffered solution is always a policy the right opposes fervently. There is no acknowledgement that the problem runs deeper than guns or that whites, males, and righties are not the main driving factors of violence in the U.S.
But they're made to bear all the stigma.
The right has noticed this for a long time. But in this event, it was a lefty shooting up a bunch of Christians.
And oh boy seems like we don't get to have any discussion on this issue because that would cloud the waters on who the bad guys and good guys are.
I don't know if you're really missing the context here but consider the following:
Biden didn't visit the town, he didn't talk to any of the victims' families, and as far as I know has not actually condemned the shooter.
Kamala Harris visited... but didn't meet the victims or their family, and instead met with the expelled legislators.
MEANWHILE, those same three Nashville legislators GOT INVITED TO THE WHITE HOUSE.
Please, can you possibly explain the difference in messaging and treatment between the victims of the shooting and the legislators, other than the victims being red-tribe coded and the legislators blue-tribe coded?
The whole point here is that the Right has NOTICED THAT THEY ARE TREATED DIFFERENTLY, and are effectively treated as though their concerns barely matter.
Over and over and over again.
And they felt the need to lash out or otherwise make their displeasure known.
And Anheuser-Busch wandered in and made for a wonderful target with a terribly tone-deaf marketing push.
The shooter didn't call it a manifesto and some of the people who've read it have also objected to the term. It may well turn out to be an explicit call for violence against Christians in the name of trans rights, but it may also turn out to be the incoherent ramblings of a crazy person. Public statements from police officers who've read it imply that it's the latter.
My understanding is that the blame is not placed on gun owners as such, but on gun ownership as a phenomenon and, indirectly, on those who support it, who, yes, tend to be mostly gun owners and right wingers. The view of people advocating gun control is that reducing access to guns reduces mass shootings, hence those who support easy access to guns are actively preventing the prevention of mass shootings. It's not just a vague tribal association between them. In contrast, how does an ad featuring Dylan Mulvaney actively promote mass shootings by trans people?
So the disagreement is on whether gun control will reduce mass shootings. As I said above, the reasoning is "we want gun control" -> "gun owners oppose gun control" -> "gun owners are bad", not, as you are suggesting, "gun owners are bad" -> "gun owners oppose gun control" -> "we want gun control". This means that, if you could, theoretically, convince them to oppose gun control, they would no longer believe gun owners are bad. (The major assumption here is that politicians are sincerely trying to make the world a better place and aren't just playing tribal signalling games.)
The position of gun control advocates is consistent with the above. They're not trying to ban guns for their outgroup, they're trying to ban them for everyone, because removing access to guns prevents mass shootings, and then the discussion of who is to blame for mass shootings is moot because, even if the outgroup are violent neo-Nazis who want to massacre minorities, they can't access guns and are therefore unable to do so.
Do sitting presidents usually visit the site of a mass shooting and meet the victims' families? (Two randomly selected examples: in 2018 Trump visited the victims, in 2021 Biden didn't, even though the shooter was in the outgroup and apparently personally disliked Biden.) Do presidents usually explicitly condemn mass shooters, or is their belief that mass shootings are bad and the shooter is a bad person implicit in their order to fly flags at half-staff, their expressions of condolences, etc.?
Honestly, meeting the victims and their families seems like a pointless PR move. He'll say how sad he is, thoughts and prayers and all that, take a few photos, but will anything useful come out of the meeting? (This applies in general, not just in this particular incident.)
In contrast, from the Democrats' point of view (I'm trying to steelman here), the legislators are heroes who are trying to prevent this kind of thing from happening again and who are being persecuted for it. A meeting with them won't be used just to express condolences, it can be used to discuss political matters, to further their cause, to facilitate the enactment of policies that would prevent mass shootings. This is real, meaningful action, not just a PR stunt.
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