Shooting rampage at my alma mater, UCSB. 7 dead. Horrifying.

<p>That privilege thing is going to look like criticizing a grieving family, but it’s out there, too. He had lots of issues. No doubt. </p>

<p>My daughter said the one thing that she found relevant coming out of this was the discussion of how some men think and talk about women and the “rape culture” (her words) on sites like Tumblr and Reddit. To her, as a 17-year-old thinking about going to college in a year, this is an issue that needs to be addressed instead of swept under the carpet. </p>

<p>Well, he was clearly mentally ill. To say all mentally ill should be locked up is ridiculous, and has nothing to do with it. To say it lets him off the hook is irrelevant since he is dead. A lot of people tried a lot of things; this is not some inner city kid who had no access to services. He had no empathy and thought he had perfect right to kill those who had anything he didn’t have and wanted. A lot of things that ‘might help’ in other circumstances simply are non starters here because he WAS ill and not at all inclined to change it. He might have gone to a counselor for picking up girls and participated whole heartedly, but he wasn’t interested in ‘getting well’ because he didn’t consider himself sick.</p>

<p>cobrat - did you read the manifesto?</p>

<p>I didn’t get the sense that there was a ton of class privilege/financial entitlement in his writing all the way through (he mentions fondly a family vacation an hour away where they stayed at a Holiday Inn – I stay at these types of hotels all the time, but I would’ve assumed that would’ve been “beneath” him before reading it). There is definitely some racism and class issues in other parts. He writes of being embarrassed by his mother’s small rental apartment he lived in as a child in a “low class neighborhood” when compared to his friends’ families’ large homes in “nicer” areas (don’t know reality versus his reality but FWIW) but he doesn’t say anything about demanding/expecting a larger home…there are several parts where he mentions his parents’ financial problems/troubles…lots of moving, changing apartments/houses, even some lodgers at some points.</p>

<p>His entitlement issues seemed to me to stem from his complete inability to connect with people (anyone - friends, women, family members) - and then escalated into a rage that ultimately he was entitled to these things (Friendship, sex, love, whatever).</p>

<p>I am in NO WAY excusing his behavior, which is horrific. That said, I guess I made an assumption that this BMW driving kid would have grown up in a silver spoon-esque type household and from his manifesto (which again, is likely totally distorted in any event but has a lot of ‘facts’ in there) got the sense this was definitely not the case.</p>

<p>In any event, l feel for the parents. All of them. Including the Rodgers. We may all second guess their actions now, but it seems that they were at least trying (or had tried) to do what they thought was best. </p>

<p>People were questioning the content of the videos that made his parents call the authorities. This seems to confirm that he had in fact said some seriously creepy and potentially threatening things. It’s from someone who was also on a bodybuilding forum with ER.</p>

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<p><a href=“The Disturbing Internet Footprint Of Santa Barbara Shooter Elliot Rodger”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/05/24/the-disturbing-internet-footprint-of-santa-barbara-shooter-elliot-rodger/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>For all intent and purposes, culturally this kid was a WASP. He was born in England for Pete’s sake. He considered himself to be a WASP and hated the fact that his mother’s heritage didn’t conform to his own perceptions of the privileges he felt he deserved. Seriously disturbed.</p>

<p>Sally, I don’t think anyone was questioning the content of the videos. My question is what information did the police have when they conducted the welfare check. I don’t think we know that but they did say they were unaware of any videos. Seemingly, they were unaware of a gun issue because they didn’t bring it up. I don’t know. But, the call to police was not straightforward, at all.</p>

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<p>I did and there’s a bit in there. There’s more from his video rant and facebook page. </p>

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<p>He makes references about how he drives a BMW and yet, girls won’t give him the time of day and that’s why he’s angry and wants to destroy them and hates other “brutes” who don’t have as much as he does…but gets girls anyways. </p>

<p>There’s a part where he was offended by an Indian guy with two women who was driving an “inferior” make of car. </p>

<p>Peter Rodger was not a Hollywood big-wig until 2009. The Hunger Games. </p>

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<p>No.
The most critical part of his actions were to hack to death his roommates, shoot at and kill a bunch of innocent people and try to run over others.</p>

<p>There are plenty of entitled people, people angry at perceived injustices, short people, people with bad parents, that don’t go on planned murderous rampages.</p>

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<p>Straw man.<br>
I don’t think anyone is claiming that his mental illness is an excuse or a way to plead an insanity defense.</p>

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<p>Seriously?
First off, he is dead, so I don’t know why it matters if he has criminal responsibility or not. </p>

<p>Second, not calling it for what it is because someone may be stigmatized is a complete cop out. If we can’t call things for what they are, then how are we supposed to deal with what the underlying issues are?</p>

<p>Let’s keep dealing with the wrong issues, because it is at least doing something, and we all know we have to do something, even if we aren’t willing to talk about the root causes because God forbid, someone gets their feelings hurt.</p>

<p>Using that ineffective approach, here are things we could do that may have prevented this.</p>

<ul>
<li>make it mandatory that a person has sex before graduating college. </li>
<li>require everyone to have a significant other by sophomore year for at least 6 months.</li>
<li>get rid of all knives (or whatever it was he used to kill his roommates).</li>
<li>get rid of all guns</li>
<li>get rid of all BMWs</li>
<li>provide platform shoes free of charge to all short people.<br></li>
<li>require tall people to not wear shoes and hunch over so they don’t seem so tall.</li>
<li>forbid all public displays of affection so people won’t get jealous and go on a murderous rampage.</li>
</ul>

<p>Funny that there are so many people who worry about stigmatizing the mentally ill by calling a mentally ill person mentally ill, but have no problem in talking about whether or not this person has Aspergers and to what extent that contributed. Don’t people care about stigmatizing people with Aspergers?</p>

<p>I agree, Flossy. The PARENTS certainly knew about the videos’ content, as did the therapist. It’s possible that information wasn’t passed on to the police who checked in on him. I imagine this will all come to light eventually. </p>

<p>I do not get it: Why do the majority of women like tall men? (it seems to be like this no matter what country women live in.)</p>

<p>I can understand that women may not like men who are particularly short. But as far as I know, after a man is taller than a certain height, being even taller just makes his heart work harder for his whole life.</p>

<p>At one time I mentioned to a (female) friend that a young male friend of mine may be interested in finding a SO and asked her if she happened to know anybody of the opposite sex who is interested in exploring a relationship. Her first question to me was: How tall is he?</p>

<p>(It is not that our family members are short so that I rant about it here.)</p>

<p>P.S. Maybe in a couple of hundreds or thousands of years from now, I would guess the medical technology is advanced to the stage that we may be able to control the height of a human being to a certain extent. At that time, what is the value of a person’s height?!</p>

<p>Yep . . . nobody likes short guys </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nextmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/HHC-Hi-res.jpg”>http://www.nextmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/HHC-Hi-res.jpg&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>:-B </p>

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<p>While many cultures do emphasize a strong preference for taller men in the dating/marriage scene, my impression is that in this murderer’s case, his insecurities come mainly from his own perceptions of inadequate height. We don’t know whether that was matched in reality…especially when many witnesses have said his real trouble laid with his personality/behavior…including attempting to throw happily socializing dating couples off of a roof. </p>

<p>While shorter men do have a harder time on the dating scene, this could be overcome with great personalities and confidence. I know plenty of shorter men…some as short as 5’ who have had much romantic success in dating in NYC. Granted, it does help that none of them felt entitled to feel women owed them attention or sex for merely existing or for their material wealth*.</p>

<ul>
<li>They’d certainly be laughing over that notion considering they’re comfortable, but not living to the point they/their families could afford BMWs, first class plane trips to/from Europe to attend private A-list pop star concerts, etc.<br></li>
</ul>

<p><a href=“It%20is%20not%20that%20our%20family%20members%20are%20short%20so%20that%20I%20rant%20about%20it%20here.”>quote</a>

[/quote]
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<p>Seems like even you are quite sensitive about this issue.</p>

<p>Tallness imparts a sense of authority. For men, it also correlates to earnings
<a href=“Walk tall”>Walk tall;

<p>^ I could be sensitive about this issue for my child, not for me. He’s 5-10. Is he high enough, ladies? LOL.</p>

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<p>Depends on the lady. One couple I know is one where the wife is a 6’2" redhead and her husband barely 5’4" and another is a former co-worker who is 5’9" and his wife, 6’3" blonde. Both in NYC. </p>

<p>^ Is it true that there are more women than men in NYC, especially dating age ones? I guess DS pins his hope on that city. (Just joking.)</p>