Details Of Milwaukee Shooter Appear To Emerge :: 02/28/2020

The killer in the Milwaukee shooting wasn’t a mystery for long, but it took some time for us to learn about the details of his life and what may have contributed to his deadly rampage.

Now, unfortunately, we know more.

From a NY Post article earlier today:

The 51-year-old disgruntle Coors employee had worked in the plant for 15 years before slipping off a ladder and hurting his shoulder, forcing him to miss work, said [next door neighbor Erna] Roenspies, 82.

After the fall, he told her that “spies” from the beer company had been sent to the neighborhood to watch his movements and make sure he wasn’t faking the injury. He once pointed to a “spy” in a car and griped that he “irritated” him, she said.

Of course, this appears to make him look paranoid, but it should be noted that he might not have been wrong. It’s not unusual for workers comp insurers to hire private investigators to check up on people who aren’t supposed to be working. A friend of mine is a private investigator and such cases make up a fair bit of his business.

It’s entirely likely that the killer made the PIs and, perhaps not understanding what it was about, simply interpreted it a way that sounds paranoid.

Or he was paranoid and was just seeing things.

That said, the killer apparently wasn’t an employee at the brewery any longer.

On Wednesday, [the killer] was reportedly fired from the firm before returning to the 82-acre beer facility to enact the bloody massacre with a silenced gun while wearing a stolen name tag.

That would give us a motive. People filled with rage often flip out over something like being terminated. Especially if he believed he was wrongfully let go.

It also seems that the killer had a hobby of assembling guns at home. Whether or not that means so-called “ghost guns” or not remains to be seen. Many people buy completed lower receivers, then assemble firearms rather than trying to complete a lower first.  As per usual after a mass shooting, we don’t have enough information.

We also don’t know if such firearms were the weapons he used to carry out his deadly attack.

Regardless, though, expect this to spark further debate about so-called “ghost guns” as well as renewed debate on suppressors for the general public. While it’s unlikely any kind of new law would have prevented this deadly rampage, that hasn’t exactly stopped politicians from trying to legislate in the immediate aftermath of a senseless tragedy like what happened Wednesday in Milwaukee.

The killer’s neighbor described him as a “gentleman,” a description that seems a world apart from the Parkland killer. It seems to me that it’s a better time to take a look at what all these killers have in common as well as any factors they have that are unique to them. If you want to stop mass killings, don’t focus on the tools, focus on the tools using them.

You know, the killers themselves.

Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/

https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2020/02/28/details-milwaukee-shooter-emerge/