By David Futrelle
In the wake of every mass shooting, we hear the inevitable cries from NRA types not to “politicize” the tragedy by pointing out the obvious fact that stricter gun laws would make such tragedies less likely in the future. We watch the trolls and shitlords of the alt-right flood the internet with disinformation and conspiracy theories. These reactions are now as predictable as the reappearance of the sun on the horizon every morning.
The internet’s incels — the bitter fringe-dwellers who consider their “involuntary celibacy” to be a crime against their humanity — have their own predictable responses to such tragedies: they mock the victims as “normies” deserving death — and try as best as they can to adopt the latest mass killer as one of their own.
In the case of last night’s horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas — a massacre that at last count left 59 dead and more than 500 injured — Reddit’s incels did not disappoint on this front. In a number of different threads devoted to the murders, regulars on the Incels subreddit celebrated the death of “normies” and “chads” and even tried to claim that mass killer Stephen Paddock — a man with a girlfriend, and thus decidedly not an incel — was “a depressed and delusional former Chad turned to oldcel.”
For many in the subreddit, the news of the mass shooting was something of an inspiration. In a thread offering faux condolences for the dozens of “normies [who] just got fragged in Las Vegas,” several commenters had similar ideas:
Those calling for basic human decency got an earful from their fellow incels.
![lonelyrommel1998 32 points 3 hours ago RIP . Please my brothers, be civil during this time of tragedy. I know you guys hate anyone that isnt you, but they are human beings nonetheless permalinkembedsavegive gold [–]novalueinvictimhoodhttps://goo.gl/2yvNyj 2 points 44 minutes ago they are human beings So? Being a modern human being is the greatest crime you can commit. permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]wandercampEmbracing the sublime terror of incel existance -3 points an hour ago Fuck off normie I fapped to that video permalinkembedsaveparentgive gold [–]fuck-women-everyday23 KV Approachcel Hopecel Knowledgecel -2 points an hour ago Las Vegas is normie heaven. People go there for drinks, socializing, one night stands, and gambling. Incels will never experience that.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/inm3.png?resize=580%2C636&ssl=1)
In another thread, Reddit’s incels lashed out at the “normies” expressing sympathy for the victims on social media — and at the alleged “degeneracy” of Las Vegas.
![BlackPill4831yo bald manlet escortcel 卐 'Self improvement is masturbation' 10 points 3 hours ago I hate all this 'competitive grief' on social media. They don't give a fuck about the homeless, jobless and sexless. permalinkembedsavegive gold [–]Bojack101 6 points 3 hours ago The degenerate las vegas city deserved it](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/inm6.png?resize=517%2C459&ssl=1)
![BlackPillRevolutionWeAreRevolting | Copernicus | ?NormiesCanAllBurn?| Hate 5 points 3 hours ago All virtue-signalling and posting it all over instawhore or fakebook to show how much they "care" just to fit in the rest of the conformitard sheep who do the same thing permalinkembedsavegive gold [–]touchbutt2Women can't be lonely. women can't be depressed. can't be incel 4 points 4 hours ago Exactly. they can call us evil all they want but at least we are honest. The entire degenrate city of las vegas and everyone in it could die and it wouldn't affect my day in any way](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/inm4.png?resize=517%2C724&ssl=1)
The subreddit’s regulars found it much easier to identify with the shooter.
Still, it’s unlikely that Paddock, a 64-year-old retiree who apparently lived with a girlfriend, will be embraced by incels as another Elliot Rodger, the incel mass murderer celebrated as a “saint” and “supreme gentleman” by this despicable crowd. But that didn’t stop some from trying to posthumously recruit Paddock to inceldom, none more ingeniously than this fellow.
It’s a bit of a reach, given that pretty much the only things we seem to know for sure about Paddock is that he was neither a former Chad nor an incel. I guess the Incels subreddit regulars are a little hard up for, er, “heroes” these days.
As far as “sexy gun ad” goes the kind of thing I was thinking of was an ad featuring a model in a “little black dress” and high heels, holding a pistol. Or wearing camo print short shorts, a midriff baring tank top, and a baseball cap. In other words outfits that would be rather impractical to be shooting in, and intended to appeal to male libido.
In non-gun related news of men behaving badly Washington Nationals hitting coach Jacque Jones has been suspended by the team. It’s alleged he shared nude photos of a woman without her consent, after promising not to.
@ Policy of Madness
Owning a gun is a life insurance policy. When you don’t have a gun, it’s too late. I learned this the hard way Sunday night. Hiding in the closet.
I begged the police to help me and they refused!
I supported gun control before this. Never again. Hopefully your shotgun will collect dust on a shelf. But God forbid anything happens. At least you will be able to equal the playing field.
@ Michelle
I doubt I could find the video again, but basically they gave each of ten people a paint gun and told them they were going to be in “a situation” that day, against a bad guy with a paint gun – one at a time.
In every case, the “bad” guy paint-killed the “good” guy. The most confident man who shot regularly was “killed” before he could even get his gun out.
Good guys with guns do not stop bad guys with guns unless they’ve had a lot of training.
Hate the phrase, “level the playing field.” It’s not a fucking game, don’t treat it as one please. Even verbally.
Doesn’t mean self defense can’t be a bit of fun – IIRC theres one or two people on here with belts in various disciplines and I’ll lay money they have fun training!
@PoM
Good. (insert thumbs up here – not worked out how to inset pics yet)
PS – I’m missing the significance of the cat on the bicycle. 😛
@Shelia
True, or mostly true. Just like a person who consistantly gets half inch groupings in target practice has no guarantee of hitting the side of a barn in an actual situation. There’s a fair difference between popping at a piece of paper and trying to shoot at a living person while others are running around and screaming.
I always say ignore the whole “good guy with a gun” thing – you’re not Deadpool. Treat any form of self defence – be it weapons, martial arts, the ability to scream like a pissed off banshee – the same way you’d treat a plane depressurization. Put your own oxygen mask on first, before you even think of helping others. 😛
@WWTH, @Catalpa,
If you go back one thread, you’ll find Michelle’s story. Basically she was one of the people present at the massacare (though not one of the concert goers).
@Michelle,
First off, I’m sorry you went through that ordeal.
Second off, someone earlier – either in this thread or the other Vegas thread where you told your full story – linked to some tweets by the headliner at that concert, who had a concealed weapons permit at the time of the attack. You may want to read those to see why he and his crew couldn’t draw their guns to defend themselves and their fans. The reason why would have just as easily applied to you if you had a gun then, too.
Ah. Apologies for the dismissal of your experience, Michelle. That sounds like a very harrowing time. I hope that you have all the help you need to cope with a traumatic experience like that.
That said, I still deeply disagree with your conclusion. Gun control works (to at least some extent) in Australia and the UK and Japan and Canada and likely a bunch more countries as well. There have been 277 mass shootings in the states in 2017 alone. Only 153 if you count just the ones where at least one person was killed, ignoring shootings that ‘only’ caused non-lethal injuries to multiple people. There have been three mass shootings just since the Las Vegas massacre.The longest period of time between mass shootings in the US in 2017 was SIX DAYS. Those numbers are staggeringly horrific. This doesn’t happen in other countries, ones that have reasonable gun control laws. http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
And having a gun with you during the event might have been psychologically comforting, I won’t deny that, but there’s no way it would have been of any practical use. The killer was 18 stories above the street, sequestered in a hotel room. There would be no way to stop him by firing a gun, but being panicky during an unknown situation while having a weapon on you could have lead to you shooting someone innocent who startled you, or lead to you being a target of law enforcement or other ‘good guys with guns’ who saw you near the scene of a mass shooting while holding a gun.
@Haise, the husky puppy
Re Laci Green (who I also used to love): this piece gives a fairly good overview.
tl;dr – transphobia; “red-pilled”; “we need to hear both sides”
(apologies if you’ve already looked into this since you posted – I just saw it now)
Re guns & gun control: Over on the other thread, the two comments seemed to assume that gun control supporters are naive & sheltered. But for some of us, this support is grounded in horrific experiences with gun violence.
This is not to downplay Michelle’s ordeal (& not directed at PoM’s post above, at all). I’m also well aware that my perspective is shaped by the Aust. context where gun control is the norm. Even so, pls remember that some of us have good reason to be terrified of guns.
I’m not trying to say that anyone except me needs a weapon. We all make our own choices based on what we believe to be best. What I believe is best for me is a shotgun in the closet. No disparagement of anyone who makes a different calculus for themselves, but at the same time a blanket statement like “guns are bad 100% of the time and you’re a fool if you keep one” is kind of a disparagement of my choice.
The reason I brought it up was that I saw some folks coming to a very cozy consensus that guns for home defense are always a mistake, and I want to note that this is not a consensus. I don’t want to kill anyone, but I don’t mind filling a home invader’s face with birdshot. It’s not like home invasions never happen in my city or in my part of the city, and homeowners do sometimes hold them off with a weapon.
Ah, I didn’t see the previous post from Michelle. I’m automatically suspicious of posters that come out of nowhere to say “I used to be a feminist/liberal/for a progressive policy until ____” But yeah, a mass shooting in a public place is about the last place a gun can be successfully used for self defense.
The only place it really makes sense to have a self defense gun is in the home but even then I think a dog with a loud bark and motion detection lights are the best intruder defense. Lower the chances of them entering in the first place.
Also, it doesn’t make sense to draw the conclusion that the shooting in L.V. means gun control is bad. Mass shootings are so common here and rare in countries with strict gun control. Our lack of gun control allowed to amass the weaponry that allowed him to shoot mass numbers of people. Literally none of the gun control laws I’ve seen proposed in the US would make it so that someone couldn’t have a gun for self defense. It’s about having more hoops to jump through before you can get it. It’s about getting rid of the semi-automatic and other weaponry that has literally no purpose besides killing a whole lot of people.
@wwth
Agreed, but with one small nit pick: for mentally ill people, yes some of the proposed regulations would make ti so they might not be able to get a gun for self-defense.
This is the standard advice here for mass shootings or general attacks.
One thing I’m curious about is why they don’t publicise that if you dial 99955 that connects you to the police but they keep their end silent and just listen in. Not only would that be potentially useful in a terror attack, I can envisage domestic situations where it would be useful; especially as they make efforts to trace the call.
I had never heard of that “55” either. Quick google gives a couple of newspaper articles explaining that
you dial 999 as normal,
then when you say nothing the operator asks you to cough or make a sound,
and if you can’t do that either you get put onto an automated system (?!?!?) which prompts you to dial 55 to signal that you are indeed an actual emergency and not just a misdial.
Of course in an actual emergency I’d probably just fall apart, but still. Useful to know (well I hope not, of course)
@ opposablethumbs
It also works if you just dial as a five digit number. Bit like how you can sometimes skip those “Press 1 for sales…” things.
ETA: I’ve suddenly felt old thinking there’s a whole generation that’s never had to learn how to dial 999 in the dark on a rotary dial phone.
@Mish
Thank you for that article ! Even though reading through it was tough.. I’m still at a loss for words as to how Chris and her are dating. I’m certain he had big hand into RPing Laci. Along with Blair White. Blair’s another Milo, although on a much smaller scale. Playing the part of “I’m ___ but NOT a sjw/feminist” to earn “edgy” kudo points. Ugh. I’m over it and the whole “anti-feminist” group of youtubers profiting off of positively reinforcing terrible behavior from their supporters.
Good to know 🙂
(and never mind rotary dial in the dark – how do you find the numbers on a touch-screen if you don’t want the light to show and reveal where you are?!?!??!)
Michelle,
Who was that person going from victim to victim in that video of the fucking horrific Sunday massacre you linked to?
And if every fucking person was armed there, do you think the outcome would have been better or worse?
And if you had a gun in your closet (because you are talking about 2 COMPLETELY different events here), would the outcome have changed? Because I do not know the circumstances of what happened to you Sunday, but you linked evidence of what happens when nice people simply want to get together and enjoy an outdoor concert that a fucking gun-worshipping ASHHOLE used as an excuse to play duck hunt with 22000 unsuspecting people.
What was your purpose in linking that video, anyway? It did nothing to make me change my mind that sensible gun control is needed. It merely confirmed my suspicions that no matter what happens, people will spin it as “THE ANSWER IS MOAR, DEADLIER GUNS AND ACCESSORIES.”
Glad you are okay, though. I’d like to hear more details about why police didn’t help you.
@PoM
Just to clarify: I wasn’t referring to your comment when I posted earlier. I get where you’re coming from, & you made it clear you were speaking for yourself & your situation.
@Haise, the husky puppy
Totally agree!
Even though I think the “Cool Girl” label is over-used a bit, it really seems to fit in this case 🙁
Even though Amy in Gone Girl is unquestionably a villain, she’s almost a sympathetic victim solely based on how accurate and insightful the cool girl monologue is.
I may be a little tipsy because it’s my sister’s birthday and we’ve had wine but I can’t believe that on all the threads to get a rape apologist troll it’s this fucking thread.
Really?
People have died and he wants to
a..) excuse incels for being shitty people
b.) Be an apologist for people who joke about rape and who provide cover for actual rapists
c.) Imply that the number of convicted rapists in one year in the USA is the amount of actual rapists in the world.
Fuck that. The number of rapists walking free is so much higher. And I know because I’ve been there. A lot of us know because we’ve been there.
How much privilege does it take to come to a space like this and use shitty maths to discuss rape? I’m glad he’s been banned because that brought up way too much rage.
Gillian Flynn is such a good writer.
Freaks.
Hhaha Nicola
Straight talker 😛