4 Mass Shootings Are Foiled - But The Total Continues To Rise

The number of mass shootings continues to rise in the United States. As of August 22nd, there had been 263 mass shootings (a shooting in which at least four people are shot). And it could have been even worse. Authorities say they have foiled at least four people from carrying our a mass shooting in just the short time since the El Paso and Dayton shootings.

At least three of the four wannabe shooters were turned in by family or acquaintances. But we can't count on that happening on a regular basis. Many shooters don't brag about what they want to do, and the shooting continue on almost a daily basis. We have a serious problem, and it looks like the Republicans will again do nothing (but offer useless thoughts and prayers).

They are hoping that public outrage will die down after a couple more weeks, and they can safely get their NRA contributions while doing nothing. We must not let that happen. We must sustain the outrage -- all the way through next years' election if necessary.

Here is some of what Mark Follman at Mother Jones writes about the foiled mass shooting plots:

In the two weeks since the gun massacre in El Paso, Texas, federal and local authorities have thwarted four additional threats they said could have resulted in mass attacks. All four of the alleged plotters—in Nevada, Connecticut, Florida, and Ohio—were heavily armed young white men. At least three of the four appear to have harbored hateful far-right views, especially toward Jewish, African American, and LGBTQ people. . . .

On August 9, federal prosecutors charged Conor Climo, a 23-year-old Las Vegas man, for allegedly planning to attack a local synagogue and a bar he believed to be popular with LGBTQ people. Climo reportedly admitted during questioning by the FBI that he belonged to a neo-Nazi group; law enforcement agents seized weapons from his home including bomb-making materials and an unregistered AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.

On August 15, the FBI and police in Connecticut arrested 22-year-old Brandon Wagshol, acting on social media content in which he allegedly expressed interest in committing a mass shooting. Law enforcement seized firearms, ammunition, body armor and other tactical gear from his home and charged him with illegally possessing high-capacity magazines. According to reporting from Talking Points Memo, social media accounts apparently belonging to Wagshol included posts where he embraced Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and expressed hatred of minority groups: “I support transgenders’ rights to be some of the first in the gas chambers,” one tweet said. 

On August 17, 20-year-old James P. Reardon was arrested in Ohio, for allegedly targeting a synagogue. Reardon reportedly posted a video of himself firing a gun, with the sound of sirens and screams in the background; the video was tagged with the location of the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown and a caption reading: “Police identified the Youngstown Jewish Family Community shooter as local white nationalist Seamus O’Rearedon”—an apparent variation on Reardon’s name. He had a stockpile of firearms, according to authorities, and a history of identifying as a white supremacist, including attending the infamous Unite the Right rally that turned deadly two years ago in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In a fourth case, the arrest on August 16 in Florida of 25-year-old Tristan S. Wix, there appears to be no public evidence to date linking the suspect to far-right views. But according to local authorities, Wix expressed suicidal thoughts in a text message to a girlfriend and spoke about his desire to carry out a mass shooting on a public crowd. “A good 100 kills would be nice,” he said in one message, and stated in another that he wanted his attack to “break a world record.” Police found a hunting rifle and 400 rounds of ammunition in his apartment. . . .

It is unclear whether the flurry of arrests means that combatting far-right domestic terror has become more of a priority for some government authorities. But all signs suggest it is not one for the Trump White House. . . .

Since he became president, Trump and his advisors have accumulated a record of downplaying and distorting facts about white supremacist violence, including falsely suggesting that the problem is “fake news.” As for the latest alleged plots stopped by authorities, so far the Trump White House has said nothing at all.