I haven’t looked too deeply into the shooting at YouTube headquarters in California. The only person who died was the shooter (although a couple of those in hospital are in pretty bad shape, so that could change) so it doesn’t quite qualify as a massacre. The shooter was a woman, which makes it a bit different from the usual profile. You could say she was a disgruntled employee, but that does not accurately reflect YouTube’s business model. She was a disgruntled YouTuber.
There have been plenty of comments about it on Facebook, so my blog tonight is more in response to those than the act itself.
First, one of my friends was quite surprised to find that there is such a place as the Mark Zuckerberg hospital, and seemed to think that was a very bad thing. Mark Zuckerberg donated 75 million dollars, and I think naming the hospital after somebody who donates 75 million dollars is reasonable. If every billionaire did that, we’d have a lot more hospitals, and when someone needs a hospital, they don’t care much whose name is on it.
One gun nut meme I saw (I see a lot of them) somehow seemed to think this showed the futility of banning guns, because it happened in liberal California. I think it shows the need for more rigorous mental health checks. One other poster, though, had the best comment. It was rather long, and I’m not going to look for the link now, but the gist of his essay was that it was fortunate she did not have an AR 15, but a handgun. Three injured, and herself dead, instead of 17 dead, or 26 dead, or 50+ dead.
The same person also pointed out that many of the things she posted on YouTube were activist vegetarian videos, of the “Meat is Murder” variety. She probably didn’t even get the full irony of her own actions.
