JESSICA VALENTI
Young White Male Rage Is the Biggest Threat to Our Country
To stop mass shootings, start by educating the people at risk of being radicalized
This is America: three mass shootings in less than a week. Just days after a 19-year-old gunman killed three people at a Gilroy, California, garlic festival, a 21-year-old in Texas opened fire at a mall on Saturday, murdering at least 20 people. The next day in Dayton, Ohio, a 24-year-old killed nine people. All of the shooters were young white men.
Minutes before the El Paso attack, the shooter released a screed saying it was “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” echoing racist statements made by the president and referencing the “cultural and ethnic replacement” of white people. Similarly, before the teenage shooter in California went on his rampage, he published a post on Instagram recommending a novel popular with white supremacists. A motive has yet to be identified in the Ohio shooting, but the killer’s former classmates note he was suspended once for writing a list of girls he wanted to rape.
These shootings are just the latest in what has become a horrific American trend of mass murders motivated by racism and misogyny. Think of the Isla Vista mass shooting in 2014 (committed by a young man…
