In ironic twist, UT shooter may have been a gun control advocate.

[cleanhippie]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/30/colton-tooley-ut-shooter-_n_745292.html



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[slackmaster]

1. We all know that unstable people exist among all races, genders, religions, political stripes, etc.

I'm grateful that nobody else was hurt.

[jobycom]

2. Not even close to what the article says.

It claims he had an interest in the debate, but nowhere does it imply he leaned one way or the other. It's just as likely from the article that he was a gun fanatic.

The more I read, the more I think this was a suicide by cop attempt, and when that failed, he shot himself. A couple days before there was another shootout in south Austin where the police chief claimed the victim was trying to commit "suicide by cop," so it was a big topic around here over the last week. He may have been making a point one way or the other about guns, or about something else, but I think his main goal was suicide. The only thing he seems to have shot at deliberately was a church. He had many people he made eye contact with and refused to shoot at. Where he was, at that time of day, he would have had to work really hard not to hit someone.

[cleanhippie]

3. Which is why I said "may be".

I don't know the details yet, but from this report, it is quite plausible that he may have been a gun control advocate.

[jobycom]

5. He "may be" a gun advocate, too, just as plausibly.

It's such a sad story. My daughter is just two years younger. She doesn't seem to know him or anyone else who knew him, but she knows people at his high school, and we were on campus in that exact spot just last week.

[X_Digger]

4. Crazy is as crazy does..

.. trying to derive motivation may be like trying to read tea leaves based on the pieces of everyday life this guy left behind.

[damntexdem]

6. Advocate? Not a practitioner.

;-)

[oneshooter]

7. And you are? n/t

[Euromutt]

9. There's plenty of gun control advocates who aren't practitioners

Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, to name but two.

[Glassunion]

12. Stallone, Bernie Mac(RIP), Rosie O....

[lawodevolution]

8. After researching more on him

He fit's the profile of a gun control supporter and he probably decided to help out with the cause

[spin]

10. I'm not sure that watching Michael Moore's "Bowling For Columbine." ...

helps make you "relatively well-versed on gun control".

Tooley also wrote that he had been to gun shows and was relatively well-versed on gun control, having read various books and viewed Michael Moore's "Bowling For Columbine."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/30/colton-tooley-ut-shooter-_n_745292.html

I can see how reading a selection of books on gun control that present both sides of the argument or hanging around gun shows asking dealers and customers questions might work.

[jazzhound]

11. "I'm not sure that watching Michael Moore's "Bowling for

Columbine" helps make you "relatively well-versed on gun control".

You can say that again!!!

http://www.davekopel.com/NRO/2003/Bowling-Truths.htm

[Euromutt]

13. Aaargh, can we not use abbreviations for universities that are the same as those for states?

It's turning into Virginia Tech all over again, where I kept going "there was a mass shooting in Vermont?" And now I went "there was a campus shooting in Utah?"