# Another White Male Perpetrates a Another Mass Shooting **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 22, 2021, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463 "2021-03-22T22:39:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/41 "2021-03-23T19:28:43Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > The Colorado shooter has been named as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Arvada That is some alliteration. I can add to it: Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa formerly of Arvada, next of ADX Florence, the federal Supermax, for what remains of his life, which may not be long. Oh, BTW, the NRA just tweeted the full text of the Second Amendment, in case anyone is wondering whether anything will ever be done about this. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/42 "2021-03-23T19:43:56Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > That is some alliteration. I can add to it: Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa formerly of Arvada, next of ADX Florence, the federal Supermax, for what remains of his life, which may not be long. While it probably will be a federal prison it probably won’t be in Colorado, [at least based on where there Aurora theater shooter ended up.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/09/28/aurora-movie-theater-gunmans-location-finally-revealed-a-federal-prison-in-pennsylvania/%3foutputType=amp) But Allenwood doesn’t hurt your alliteration. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/43 "2021-03-23T19:47:52Z")
Yeah, I don’t know how those decisions are made. The Boston Marathon shooter did end up in ADX Florence, even though he’s technically on death row. ETA: Meant to say, the Boston Marathon bomber, not shooter. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/44 "2021-03-23T19:52:14Z")
A kid I went to high school with’s dad was a shrink in the federal penitentiary system based out of Lompoc, CA. He spent a lot of time with Ted Kaczynski at ADX Florence there really are a lot of bad people there so it’s a good guess. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/45 "2021-03-23T19:52:48Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Yeah, I don’t know how those decisions are made. The Boston Marathon shooter did end up in ADX Florence, even though he’s technically on death row. > > ETA: Meant to say, the Boston Marathon bomber, not shooter. ISTM that if you had time to write an ETA, you had time to correct it. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/46 "2021-03-23T20:09:47Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > ISTM that if you had time to write an ETA, you had time to correct it. Thanks for the posting guidance. 😛 Just trying to be totally honest about having made a mistake. Normally I do go back and edit when it’s purely in the interest of clarity. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/47 "2021-03-23T20:35:39Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Especially if one doesn’t exclude Muslim Caucasians… Why should we exclude Caucasians of any religion? I’m not convinced Muslims - of any race/ethnicity - are any more violent than Christians of any race/ethnicity. Plenty of nutjobs from all sorts of religions. And the all-time high score for domestic terrorism in the US is still held by Timothy McVeigh, a White, Christian male. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/48 "2021-03-23T20:39:22Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Yeah, I don’t know how those decisions are made. The Boston Marathon shooter did end up in ADX Florence, even though he’s technically on death row. Except he’s not - his death penalty was changed on appeal. The SCotUS is currently reviewing the case so it might be reimposed, but for now the Boston Marathon bomber is NOT on death row. Which is probably why he’s in ADX Florence and not some place like Terre Haute. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/49 "2021-03-23T21:33:27Z")
> [@Oredigger77](#): > > He spent a lot of time with Ted Kaczynski at ADX Florence there really are a lot of bad people there so it’s a good guess. Did he have an opinion about Kaczynski that he could share, or was he forbidden to say anything at all for fear of violating HIPAA? ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/50 "2021-03-23T21:51:46Z")
It was a bit of a messed up situation. While he was spending time with Kaczynski he also met a mistress in Colorado and started withdrawing from his family. Within a year he had abandoned his family was was living full time in Colorado. I only saw him once after he met Kaczynski the first time and he didn’t really want to talk about it with a 15 year old. Basically, all he told me was he was crazy buy not in the legal sense just in the wildy not normal sense. ---
**Author:** ![mordecaiB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mordecaib/32/7725_2.png) [@mordecaiB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mordecaiB)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2021, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/51 "2021-03-23T22:59:25Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > IME people can get extremely angry when embarrassed by a situation that publicly highlights their own antisocial behaviour. The more they know they are doing something bad, the more their guilt drives their anger. I think this is a huge part of it. I bet 99% of the screaming customer stuff you see in a store or restaurant is because the customer was wrong about something but are too embarrassed to admit it. it’s like doubling down when you have already lost. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/52 "2021-03-24T05:45:15Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Why should we exclude Caucasians of any religion? _I_ wouldn’t. But I’m sure there are plenty of people who would put all Muslims under the non-White category so that they can pretend it isn’t mostly White men in the “ideological nutter” column. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/53 "2021-03-24T06:01:00Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Note that I’m _not_ saying this latest Boulder shooting is an example of political/ideological motivation, I don’t think we know what it was about yet. This Colorado mass murder might not have been a political / ideological / class-hatred or whatever kind of shooting. The guy’s family is saying they think he was simply mentally ill, anti-social, and paranoid. They told various stories of some paranoid things he said and did. (He thought people were following him, watching him, investigating him, stuff like that.) > **[Colorado shooting suspect was paranoid, family says; asked for his mother...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/03/23/boulder-shooting-suspect-ahmad-al-aliwi-alissa-what-we-know/6967680002/)** > > Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, the Boulder, Colorado shooting suspect, bought an assault weapon six days before the attack. Here's what we know > [@](#): > > Alissa’s family described him as “very anti-social” and possibly suffering from mental illness. > > Ali Aliwi Alissa, the suspect’s 34-year-old brother, told The Daily Beast his brother was paranoid and would say people were after him when he was a high school student. > > “We didn’t know what was going on in his head,” Ali Aliwi Alissa said, telling the publication he believes his brother is mentally ill. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/54 "2021-03-24T09:11:27Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > This Colorado mass murder might not have been a political / ideological / class-hatred or whatever kind of shooting. The guy’s family is saying they think he was simply mentally ill, anti-social, and paranoid. The two are not mutually exclusive. Paranoia schizophrenia no doubt combines very well with being told Bill Gates is putting nonochips in Covid vaccines, I’m sure. I would still label acting on that kind of belief as falling in the ideological/political basket. If he came up with something nutbar _sui generis_, then that would be a different matter. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/55 "2021-03-24T11:06:03Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > _I_ wouldn’t. But I’m sure there are plenty of people who would put all Muslims under the non-White category so that they can pretend it isn’t mostly White men in the “ideological nutter” column. Just plowing ahead with this despite finding out the shooter’s actual identity, I see. Let no one say you ever let reality get in the way of your agenda! ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/56 "2021-03-24T11:15:34Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > Just plowing ahead with this despite finding out the shooter’s actual identity, I see. Help me out–what would you say the shooter’s “actual identity” is, in this case? White male, right? From a Muslim family, but not an observant Muslim? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/57 "2021-03-24T11:19:26Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > White male, right? This is tricky, of course, because given his name, and given the social construction of race, it may not make sense to regard him–despite his very pale skin–as “White”: it sounds like he was the target of racist taunts from White people. Is a murderer who’s treated as Other by White people White? I dunno. ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/58 "2021-03-24T11:19:52Z")
He’s not some laxbro from Colorado who converted religions, he’s an Arab born in Syria. Unless you’re gonna tell me that white people did 9/11, white people suffered 20 years of misplaced backlash from rednecks and Donald Trump afterward, all of the complaints about “wanting to kill brown people for oil” in Iraq used the term “brown people” to refer to “white people” and so and so forth, you’re gonna have to incorporate the fact that under the American conception of race, Arabs are not white, into your explanation at some point. Or, I guess, just double down and keep on going with the “white entitlement” theory of this shooting even though it turns out the shooter isn’t white. I can’t make anyone do anything, it’s your choice really. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/59 "2021-03-24T11:25:12Z")
> [@ZosterSandstorm](#): > > Or, I guess, just double down and keep on going with the “white entitlement” theory of this shooting even though it turns out the shooter isn’t white. Nobody has a “white entitlement” theory, but it’s pretty cool to see you sneering at people for sticking to their ideas despite the evidence, when that’s precisely what you’re doing. So, to be clear, you’re saying his race is Arab, not White, right? Just wanna make sure I’m understanding you. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2021, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463/60 "2021-03-24T11:32:50Z")
The ongoing public discourse over whether certain Mediterranean - descended people are “white” or “brown” is one of my numerous sources of aggravation, as someone who is a living embodiment of the entire Mediterranean genome, with my ancestry a combination of Greek, Italian, Jewish, and Arab (Levantine and North African), with only the faintest vestiges (~2%) of nonspecific “Northern European” DNA, and yet presenting, pretty much unambiguously, as what any American would consider white. I’ve even been told I looked like Stephen Crowder, who is like the avatar of the “aggrieved white 30-something American male conservative” demographic. I routinely hear people - and I don’t mean racist conservatives here - describe Levantine Arabs like Syrians, Lebanese, and Palestinians as “brown people.” But any significant time spent around these people will disabuse you of this notion, at least insomuch as it’s used as a blanket generalization to describe a very phenotypically-diverse group of people. Is Bashar Assad brown? The fact is, the concept of what “white” means is really, really, _really_ flexibile depending on what kind of ideas about the world you’re trying to advance. (For most of American history, I should add, it seems to be more a measure of who’s “not Black” than of who’s “white.”) I’m going to say, based on nothing more scientific than my own intuition, that the man responsible for this shooting in Colorado would be read as “white” by 99% of Americans who might cross paths with him in public (a number that will thankfully drop to zero, as the son of a bitch is unlikely to see the light of day again.) Nevertheless, his name, and his religion, would complicate this classification. Both by the MAGA-ites who are overjoyed that this latest shooter ISN’T one of them, and the woke crowd who are - dare I say - disappointed that he defies their preferred narrative about where domestic terrorism is coming from. (My guess is they will somehow bring his maleness to the forefront of the debate to compensate.) It’s an unfortunate, but true, state of affairs that whenever an incident like this happens, the gears of the socio-political spin machines start turning before the blood has even dried. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-white-male-perpetrates-a-another-mass-shooting/938463.md?page=4)