Utah State University has just announced that Anita Sarkeesian has canceled a talk she was scheduled to give at the school tomorrow after receiving a threat of a “Montreal Massacre-style attack” by someone promising ““the deadliest school shooting in American history” if the cultural critic was allowed to speak.
Here’s the official announcement:
Anita Sarkeesian has canceled her scheduled speech for tomorrow following a discussion with Utah State University police regarding an email threat that was sent to Utah State University. During the discussion, Sarkeesian asked if weapons will be permitted at the speaking venue. Sarkeesian was informed that, in accordance with the State of Utah law regarding the carrying of firearms, if a person has a valid concealed firearm permit and is carrying a weapon, they are permitted to have it at the venue.
Emphasis added. That’s right: the school received threats from someone promising to shoot people at a public event, but because of Utah’s gun laws, authorities would not be able to prohibit audience members from BRINGING GUNS to the talk.
Before learning that this was the case, Sarkeesian — after consulting with authorities — had planned to go ahead with the talk. As a spokesman for the school told the Standard Examiner, a northern Utah newspaper:
“They determined the threat seems to be consistent with ones (Sarkeesian) has received at other places around the nation. … The threat we received is not out of the norm for (this woman).”
The email threat came from someone who claimed that “feminists have ruined my life and I will have my revenge, for my sake and the sake of all the others they’ve wronged.”
The email, sent to several campus officials and posted online by the Standard Examiner, warned:
If you do not cancel [Sarkeesian’s] talk, a Montreal Massacre style attack will be carried out against the attendees, as well as students and staff at the nearby women’s center. I have at my disposal a semi-automatic rifle, multiple pistols, and a collection of pipe bombs. This will be the deadliest school shooting in American history and I’m giving you a chance to stop it.
The email writer claimed that even if authorities manage to stop him from an attack at the event,
There are plenty of feminists on campus who won;t be able to defend themselves. One way or another, I’m going to make sure they die. …
Anita Sarkeesian is everything wrong with the feminist woman, and she is going to die screaming like the craven little whore that she is if you let her come to USU. I will write my manifesto in her spilled blood, and you will all bear witness to what feminist lies and poison have done to the men of America.
All this because she made some videos discussing sexism in fucking video games.
Here’s a screenshot of the full email, from the Standard Examiner site:
I’m speechless. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
NOTE: This is a NO TROLLS, NO MRAS, NO GAMERGATERS, NO VICTIM BLAMER thread. I will delete comments and ban people who do not respect the rules.
UPDATE: Sarkeesian has provied more details on Twitter; there were multiple threats, including one that specifically referred to GamerGate
Forced to cancel my talk at USU after receiving death threats because police wouldn't take steps to prevent concealed firearms at the event.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 15, 2014
Requested pat downs or metal detectors after mass shooting threat but because of Utah's open carry laws police wouldn’t do firearm searches.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 15, 2014
Multiple specific threats made stating intent to kill me & feminists at USU. For the record one threat did claim affiliation with #gamergate
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 15, 2014
At this point supporting #gamergate is implicitly supporting the harassment of women in the gaming industry.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 15, 2014
I’m safe. I will continue my work. I will continue speaking out. The whole game industry must stand up against the harassment of women.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 15, 2014
Daeran, some things do not need nor deserve an explanation. Just acknowledge it was an awful statement and move on.
Understood, it was a terrible, terrible thing to say and I’m sorry, once again.
This is almost too much for me to handle. I was unfortunately already aware of the Utah situation, as a Facebook acquaintance has been fairly zealous in arguing that “no gun” signs at businesses aren’t legally enforceable and encouraging people to carry there. (That’s not true in Illinois – when we were finally forced to pass a concealed carry law they made sure there were provisions enabling businesses to ban carrying on their premises)
This is incredibly disheartening.
One thing that bothers me about the gun fellator crowd is that they (by design I’m sure) refuse to acknowledge that these rights only apply to certain segments of the population. White open carry activists in Texas can wander around with their guns displayed and nothing happens. They don’t get arrested. They don’t even get bothered by cops. Meanwhile, a black man holds a bb gun that is being sold at Wal-Mart in a Wal-Mart and gets executed by the cops without a peep from the gun fetishist crowd. They claim that the 2nd amendment is so sacred even though they clearly haven’t read and comprehended it or learned the history behind it. Yet they only want white people to have these supposedly sacred rights. Can you imagine what they would have said if Trayvon Martin had been carrying a gun, even a legal one, instead of just skittles and iced tea?
wwth, yeah, it’s pretty much assumed that all these “rights” to carry weapons are white-people only (possibly also to protect themselves from scary dark-skinned threats?).
Anyway even if it didn’t have so much racism and classism embedded, to non-USians all that obsession with the sacred human right of carrying a firearm no matter what is a really strange form of fetishism.
tinyorc RE stinkbombs.
Wow, I never thought of that. My goodness. That is my thought of the day, thank you very much.
@Daeran, out of all the feminist outrage that I’ve heard over this you are *literally* the only feminist I’ve heard that advocated fighting fire with fire. Excuse me if I think that you’re a false flag and that you’re only walking back to cover your tracks and not look so obvious.
These men/women don’t need violence; they’re not any more likely to stop in the face of violence than we are. What they need, and what they fear, is social irrelevance, social powerlessness. Violence won’t take their power away, but great numbers of men and women standing together and denouncing them does. Just… go away from feminism if you’re going to suggest violence. No explanations, just be quiet. You’re batting for the other team.
I’ve already expressed my outrage at the school letting terrorists win in the other thread. It would be very difficult for my broke ass to leave my children and get across the country to physically protest this, but I wish I could. Even if you hate Anita and all that she stands for, this is just appalling from a human rights/free speech stand point.
“wwth, yeah, it’s pretty much assumed that all these “rights” to carry weapons are white-people only (possibly also to protect themselves from scary dark-skinned threats?).”
This is absolutely true. In fact, it’s a sad fact of history that the first gun control laws were specifically targeted at black slaves, then black freemen.
Also, as crazy as Utah’s gun laws are, even if he couldn’t have carried on campus, I’m not sure if they would have helped in THIS case (and please do not take this as me arguing that gun laws should be loosened because they don’t always work) because this guy seemed fucking intent on killing women, any women if the talk went ahead, which is absolutely terrifying. With such a real, credible threat like that, they had no choice; you would have needed Presidential level security to pull it off without any casualties and even then, it would have been dicey. It is REALLY hard to stop a determined killer from finding an opening to cause havoc, especially when he’s willing to die to maximize the amount of havoc, which this guy might ahve been.
Let’s also not forget the right wing saint Ronald Reagan put gun control laws in place in response to fears of the Black Panthers when he was governor of California. For some reason the gun nuts don’t hate him for that. I wonder why!? Oh wait, no I don’t wonder why at all.
Like I said before, please beware of fake social media accounts of trolls that claim to be:
– Supposedly women who support and/or defend “GamerGate”,
– Supposedly feminists that insult everyone (especially men) and give a “man-hating” speech that misogynists hear in their heads.
I’m finding imposers everywhere that try to confuse people who was maybe not up-to-date with this or are just finding out.
They seek to twist, manipulate, confuse, divide and destroy, much like “Operation Lollipop”.
Omg. This conversation I had on Kotaku is too hilarious not to share. I wonder if this person is secretly Janet Bloomfield. Or are there two people who invent fake quotes to try and prove a point? http://kotaku.com/i-was-using-south-park-as-an-example-instead-of-video-g-1646562802
Well, I guess this is as good a time as any to go ahead and delurk.
As a man who has lived in Montreal since I was born, I can tell you, would-be-mass-shooter, that no, Marc Lépine was most emphatically not a hero to anyone here in Montreal, and I dare say anywhere else that I know of. If anything, all he achieved was to strengthen anti-gun and feminist sentiments, at least here.
Welcome to the wrong side of history, would-be-mass-shooter. You are exactly where you deserve to be.
Welcome, M. Tremblay. I’m on my phone, so I can’t get you a Welcome Package, but hopefully someone else will.
WWTH, that person you responded to actually says this:
We can only blame the victims of massive, unrelenting campaigns to threaten, harass and intimidate them? I don’t think so.
b-but t-they doxed and harassed and sent death threats to themselves! I k-know because /v/ told me so!
“– Supposedly feminists that insult everyone (especially men) and give a “man-hating” speech that misogynists hear in their heads.”
I will say something (it doesn’t matter what) and an MRA troll will mansplain feminism to me and call me a misandrist, so I agree with him, say “kill all men” and move on. Because why would I try to reason with that?
M. Tremblay, welcome!
http://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
This is fucking awful. At times like these, I wish I was an ubercool hacker who could find the sender of the threat with my awesome hacking skills and report them to the police. This kind of blatant evil is horrifying.
As a side-note, I’m feeling really uncomfortable with the ableist remarks on this thread. I know this kind of behavior is really hard to understand if you’re a halfway decent human being, but there’s nothing about this that is “lunacy”, “insanity” or the like. There is nothing to indicate that the terrorist making the threats is “nuts” or “crazy”, or that people with mental health issues are known of doing shit like this. This is likely the work of a very calculating, rational person who is fully aware that threatening a large group of innocent people with violence is an effective method of getting your way (in the short term at least). He is probably completely sane. That’s what makes this kind of thing scary.
This is why an armed society is not a polite society. I really detest that expression. In that context, “polite” means “not daring to express a dissenting opinion, lest you make a violent, trigger-happy bully feel bad”. It’s a completely fake form of polite.
An armed society isn’t a free society either. Why does the “right” to own a gun, intimidate others, and dictate what can and can’t be said override everyone else’s right to free expression? Why does the Second Amendment always trump the First Amendment?
Beyond that, it’s really disturbing that USU officials have basically admitted they can’t keep their own students safe, thanks to the concealed carry law. If tragedy does strike, they’re powerless to prevent it.
I’m way behind on comments, but if people are indeed throwing around “lunacy,” and “crazy” to explain these threats, I want to encourage you to read the Welcome Package that Shaun posted upthread (thanks, Shaun)–in it, I have the collected wisdom of a number of Mammotheers on why that is a very bad idea.
Ah! Sweet, sweet scented candles! Nothing goes with enslaving all men quite like the suave blend of patchouli and lavender. Thanks, Shaun!… Oh no! I revealed the whole plan! Retreat! RETREAT!
😀
I don’t know how to do fancy quote boxes, but I’m replying to:
Also the Utah police need to inform airports that concealed carry permit holders can go where they like with guns. It will be a wake up call for the TSA.
I don’t know the law specifically in this case (having worked in Residence Life, I’m more up on campus laws), but I’m willing to posit that Utah is likely a state where the concealed carrier can have the gun in the airport all the way up to the security line. There was a case in another state (Florida?) where someone was open carrying in the airport, and this was apparently well within his rights in that state. So concealed carrying with a permit in Utah is probably AOK.
Once they get to the security area, it’s federally regulated areas, so state laws don’t apply. Similarly, if there’s a Federal building in Utah, they can restrict gun carrying in stricter ways than Utah normally allows.
I used the term gun nut. Usually, I prefer gun fellator or gun fetishist but the former term is so incredibly common I used it reflexively. Sorry about that.
I’m not a violent man. I don’t like violence for any reason. Still, I can’t help but think that if Utah gun laws allow the carrying of concealed weapons on college campuses isn’t there a distinct possibility that this jackass would pull out his gun only to have a bunch of people pull out theirs and turn him into something resembling hamburger? You’d expect him to realize that too, but we’re clearly not looking at a towering intellect here.
Aha, but if you have a gun, you can threaten the person who’s intimidating you right back.
Or just hand over your gun…
http://www.oregonlive.com/gresham/index.ssf/2014/10/gresham_man_robbed_of_pistol_a.html