Calm

Given their chosen occupations and realizing I know nothing else about their life choices, my guess is his parents are feeling crushed, very confused and heartbroken right now (father is in law enforcement and mother healthcare).

Misread a comment…ignore

Then Nehor is definitely not part of the problem.

From what angle? The Church is conservative and promotes hate or we aren’t Christian? Or something else? I need to brace myself*** to go look at it myself today, but can’t hold the curiosity back either. ***For some reason it wasn’t my grandson being there that triggered a sense of hopelessness, maybe that made it too unreal. But somehow thinking of the killer running through the neighborhood afterwards just really bugs me. Maybe my brain chose that to get emotional about because it’s safer for my family at least. Or maybe it’s just the accumulation of horrors.

Saw this after I posted. It was very upsetting to me.

Was he labeled as a suspect by law enforcement? I heard and read people calling him that because they jumped to conclusions on hearing someone was detained, there were some rumors about him that seemed to later be disproven which could lead to thinking he was a suspect, such as he had confessed (I assumed he was a wannabe volunteering a confession when I first heard he was not the shooter because of that rumor). I am curious if LEOs called him a suspect or not. It’s unfortunate that happened. This was not good. https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/national/north-texas-family-says-son-wrongly-linked-charlie-kirk-shooting-asks-public-stop-spreading-false-claims/287-671ff337-b6e3-43bf-ae2e-06cb79a809d8 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-director-kash-patel-faces-scrutiny-inaccurately-saying-kirk-killer-had-been-2025-09-11/

I missed this before. What do you believe is evidence that they have been normalized? Maybe you could define what you mean by normalized first. They are seen imo by pretty much everyone as horrendous crimes, perpetrators are treated as criminals or mentally ill. To me that is not looking at mass/school shootings as normal. Bjskki is a longtime poster who has demonstrated her sincerity over and over again. I think it quite inappropriate to suggest she is playing any sort of mind game, manipulating, or whatever other form of insincerity you are implying she is engaging in with “attempting to sound scandalized”. Her comment sounds full of pain to me.

This is what he said… He was focused on religion and conflict (he after all has studied it), but speaking of its potential to foster violence does not imply he sees that it’s inherent and must occur, nor does it exclude he sees other possibilities of conflict. Do you see it as necessary to include all potential causes of something when you discuss influences? It does not seem so from past posts of yours. If your doctor were to focus on counseling you to exercise where you could and to have better sleep hygiene because you went in to talk to him about how exhausted you were, do you see his advice as incomplete if he also does not counsel you to stay out of debt and love your wife (very good advice, but not relevant to what he has chosen to focus on in his field)?

I just had a conversation with my daughter where I found out we agreed a lot more than I had thought in the past five years (maybe more) because we were using words differently and I was making incorrect assumptions about who she was talking about and what she meant. So I am very aware of the confusion language can cause and the need for being careful with it.

Please don’t speak for others on this board in this conversation when they can speak for themselves. It is hard enough to understand each other without those kinds of assumptions getting thrown in.

One person shot him. We have no knowledge of the guy’s motivation. So I am confused by your comment. Not all assassination attempts of political celebrities are even political (John Hinckley Jr). Are you using “they” here for this one person or for an unknown group? Or for those who did not believe as he did (which is how it reads to me based off of how I was taught grammar where “they” refers to the precedent “those who did not believe as he did”)? I understand frustration and even anger given the reactions I have been seeing online (justifying and even celebrating the murder). Added: I am not criticizing your comment. I am trying to understand it. I am not going to criticize something I am confused about. I hope no one takes my posts as anything but asking for clarification.

I think you having a very meaningful spiritual experience in the temple if you were to enter it today is quite possible, even likely. But opening the temple up to the public would shift the purpose, the sense of what is going on there. Which would mean we are no longer using the building for the purpose God had us build it for. There are a variety of religious experiences out there. It’s not just about having a spiritual experience at the temple, but having a particular type of one. I don’t believe it fits God’s purposes to make all varieties of spiritual experiences available to everyone no matter how they are prepared to engage with God (this is not to imply those who are admitted to the temple are better prepared overall spiritually). To me it’s like the verses “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (I always sing this when I write it even though it’s been years, maybe decades since I heard that song, better go add it to my playlist). Only I add “place” into that as well. And the temple is a place that has a certain purpose that God has given it in our belief. A purpose that he wants us to prepare for in certain ways (and not everyone who goes to the temple is prepared in that way, but it’s more likely with the current restrictions than if we opened it up even more, imo). When God desires to change its purpose, then perhaps that will include opening temples upon nonmembers to come and have a different type of spiritual experience (I see this as a possibility in the millennium).

Interesting idea

I am shocked by how many people I know, including myself, who have kids who were there.

I agree we need self defense tools. I am not arguing for completely English style laws. I am curious though if the increase in stabbing attacks means there is no significant decrease in overall violence (one tool for violence has just replaced another rather decrease in accidental/unintential gun injury and deaths being more significant than increase in stabbing injury and deaths). While stabbings can certainly be harmful and definitely fatal, seems like they would still cause less injury overall than guns. I am thinking along the lines of just removing guns from accessibility will not prevent suicides from occurring as there are infinite ways this can happen, but most other forms require thought and take longer allowing regret and other emotions to play a bigger factor in stopping completion of the act of taking one’s own life. Besides lowering chances of accidental deaths by removing guns, it is easier it seems to me to point a gun at someone and pull the trigger when the situation gets too intense than it is to feel oneself push a knife into someone else’s flesh (thinking about crimes where the purpose is robbery or something that is not inherently intended to physically harm the other).

Very much disagree with this one. This simplifies the conditions surrounding abortions and ignores the heartbreak many women (and probably men as well) endure in making this decision even without including those who eventually regret their choice. This also ignores when a mother does not desire the abortion but is pressured by others to have one (a younger woman perhaps or a mother who is threatened by her partner who doesn’t want a child) or a father who is given no choice in the matter, but who would have desired to raise the child on his own if he had been allowed to. While these are not a clear and direct link to kids taking their own lives, there is evidence of influence from media in contributing to vulnerability. Thankfully the reverse can also occur when there is greater focus on positive coping skills, etc…though how it’s done is important (well intentioned efforts can sometimes romanticize or otherwise increase attention to suicide as an option). https://988lifeline.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Lifeline-Papageno-Effect.pdf Having said the above, I would never use such logic to argue that makes guns any less lethal than they are. I find the comparison to cars, etc, tools that are designed to do something besides kill not an argument I would make for guns either. Plus if we removed cars because of car deaths, we would probably find an increase of mortality rates due to lowering accessibility to medical care. If we removed guns, we might find an increase of some deaths due to the greater difficulty of self defense, but we need to also include decrease in homicides (possibly less people dying in robberies or even gang violence when knives are used versus guns simply because it takes more effort to kill without guns), suicides, and accidental deaths. If stats show no decrease in overall injury and deaths, I would stop thinking a community without guns is the most desirable, but from what I have seen even with increases in other forms of violence, there is still less violence over all. And having said that, given the amount of guns, our culture, and a myriad of other facts even national laws banning guns alone are not going to be that effective at removing guns from our communities, imo (I suspect we as a people wouldn’t be patient enough to stick with the bans long enough as I think it could take decades even if unlimited funding was provided…and it wouldn’t be). I am more for starting out by limiting number of guns allowed to be owned and stricter rules on making, selling, transporting, and owning them.

I find this reasoning in this day and age unrealistic. It was different when an armed citizenry was somewhat comparable to the military. While there may be tons more privately owned small arms than military small arms, the potential for drone strikes, tanks, bombs from unreachable by guns locations, etc these days and just the sheer mass of the military’s fire power, at best you’ll get a symbolic standoff with likely a lot of innocent bystanders not choosing to be there caught up getting massacred along with the freedom fighters. I find it much more sensible to invest your money and time in creating a culture that won’t elect a government that considered armed response against their citizens as an option. PS: I wonder if he actually read the Narnia books. The opening book was dealing with an armed rebellion against a tyrant. Other books deal with unjust government, etc. Though maybe that is what he meant by CS Lewis being smart…though if so, why did he use Narnia as an example in the first place?

Does he look really young to you? I get they need to do this, but I worry about the people who look like him.

You and my daughter! Must be a liberal thing.

If someone has gotten to the point they think taking out a political celebrity in public (or private) is a good idea, I am willing to grant them all sorts of stupidness. Bet you filmmakers are already imagining how they would play it. Good way to maximize his notoriety. If they catch him, he might claim that’s what he did even if he didn’t, so I don’t think we will ever know.

My guess is the shooter was anticipating similar comments, listening in to choose his moment.

If it’s an isolated shooter, it’s a different motivation than organized terrorism using intimidation tactics. Imo, lone shooters want to promote noise…mostly about themselves, they enjoy the battle. I am not suggesting you not speak up. I just don’t see why it likely matters in this case. If it is an organized movement or the shooter is actually attempting to intimidate other speakers and not just a loner, I have no problem saying I am wrong.

So it was not someone in the front rows as suspected. I wonder how this will affect future outdoor events in the quad.

And how will that help?

My grandson was there with friends. Haven’t talked to him yet, just exchanged “I love you” texts. What do you say to someone who witnesses a murder? My husband is sick at heart (retired UVU professor, now bus driver for sports teams for fun). Pissed off the event wasn’t inside with more security. Apparently it was a student club thing and not a university admin/faculty planned event, so they held it in the quad. Too unreal for me to even process. A high school in my sister’s (she just retired full time teaching last year, still subs a lot) school district in the Denver area had four students injured in a shooting, two critically with gunshot wounds, one of them is the shooter. Another sustained injury while fleeing and a third it’s unknown from the article I read. https://www.cpr.org/2025/09/10/evergreen-high-school-shooting/ Bizarre that three of my near and dear are so impacted on the same day. What the hell is going on? Added: it happened in Colorado during lunchtime and the kids didn’t know what to do. Looks like drills during lunchtime will now be added to our youths’ every day lives. https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/shooting-evergreen-high-school-denver-metro-area/