Well-Regulated Bank Employee Kills Five, Injures Eight In Louisville, Kentucky

Yes, this keeps happening, damnit.

It was a Monday in America, so of course, there was another regularly scheduled mass shooting. The latest one took place at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky, where a 23-year-old man shot and killed five people yesterday morning. Eight others were wounded, three of them critically.

The killer ambushed his victims in an employee conference room after their 8: 30 a.m. meeting. He used an AR-15-style rifle and livestreamed his massacre.

Police have identified the four dead victims at the scene as Old National Bank senior vice president Tommy Elliott, 63, market executive Jim Tutt, 64, senior vice president of commercial real estate Josh Barrick, 40, and commercial banking agent Juliana Farmer, 57. The fifth victim, 57-year-old Deanna Eckert, died Monday night.

Officer Nicholas Wilt, 26, who'd just graduated from the academy on March 31, is also one of the critically wounded. (The Louisville Police Department said Wilt was shot in the head.)

According to the shooter's LinkedIn page, he was a full-time employee at the bank for two years and had interned there during previous summers. The police have no clue as to motive, although the pathology is maddeningly familiar.

PREVIOUSLY:

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Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear suggested that people focus Monday on the “friends and loved ones that are no longer with us.” This was a very personal sentiment for Beshear, who knew three of the victims and was close to tears during a press conference.

"This is awful," he said, barely holding himself together. "I have a very close friend that didn't make it today. And I have another close friend who didn't either, and one who's at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through."

“"I have a very close friend that didn't make it today," Kentucky Gov. Beshear says after 5 people were killed in a shooting at a Louisville bank. "And I have another close friend who didn't either, and one who's at the hospital that I hope is going to make it through."”

— NBC News (@NBC News) 1681137782 

After the Nashville shooting, Republicans and other gun lovers rushed to demonize trans people and suggest, without evidence, that the attack was a hate crime targeting Christians. Some cowardly elected officials declared there was nothing anyone could do to prevent gun violence in America, other than praying. There were also calls for an "automatic death penalty" for mass shooters, which would achieve nothing considering that the last two shooters were killed at the scene. 

Republicans would rather lock down schools like a prison than support reasonable gun safety legislation. However, banks are pretty secure. That's where people keep their money. Idiots whose names I don't feel like typing right now have decried so-called "gun-free zones" and insisted that all we need to prevent further tragedies are more "good guys with guns." Banks have armed security guards on the premises, and these guards probably have more training with their weapons than the average social studies teacher.

It's the damn guns.

Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts noted that perpetually mistaken machine Ted Cruz had recently pushed a bill putting more cops on school grounds. His reasoning had not aged well: "When you go to the bank and you deposit money in the bank there are armed police officers in the bank. Why? Because we want to protect the money we save. Why on earth do we protect a stupid deposit more than our children? We have an opportunity right now to double the police officers on campus and keep kids safe."

“This didn’t age well…”

— Shannon Watts (@Shannon Watts) 1681149155 

Comparing schools to banks is absurd for many reasons, but perhaps chief among them is that we lock up our valuables because we understand that they are a target. No one wants to literally live inside a bank vault, nor does any sensible person believe such conditions are conducive to a quality education.

But more guns and more police officers won't keep kids or anyone else safe, not while our elected leaders actively make guns more accessible to dangerous people. The Louisville shooter reportedly texted a friend that he was suicidal and “would shoot up the bank." Watts points out that "Kentucky does not have a red flag law to allow police or family to obtain a restraining order to temporarily remove guns from someone who may be a threat."

Kentucky has the 13th highest rate of gun violence in the US, despite heavily regulating drag shows. Kentucky lawmakers passed permitless carry in 2019 and think arming teachers is a swell idea. Kentucky Republicans also passed a bill last month making the state a "second amendment sanctuary," which would prohibit any public officer or state employee from enforcing any new federal gun laws.

Kentucky's Republican representatives and senators have, of course, extended their boilerplate thoughts and prayers. During a shouting match last month with Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Rep. Thomas Massie from Kentucky declared, "You know, there's never been a school shooting in a school that allows teachers to carry." There were armed school staff at The Covenant School in Nashville and there were armed guards at the bank. More guns just equals more death.

Meanwhile, on the same damn day, one person was killed and another wounded in a shooting outside a Jefferson Community & Technical College building in downtown Louisville.

But, hey, here's Massie's 2021 Christmas card! 

“Merry Christmas! 🎄 ps. Santa, please bring ammo. 🎁”

— Thomas Massie (@Thomas Massie) 1638642123 

We can't expect Republicans to experience an epiphany or feel anything close to remorse after the weapons they fetishize are used in a senseless murder. We'll just have to work around them.

[ ABC News / Courier-Journal / The Daily Beast ]

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