Navy Yard killer shared traits with other rampage murderers

Aaron Alexis

Already there are voices calling for increased gun control in the wake of Aaron Alexis’ murders of 12 people in the Washington Navy Yard yesterday. As Examiner reported, traditional gun control seems to be counterproductive in reducing crimes and mass killings, but an analysis of this and other shootings reveals several common threads between many perpetrators of rampage killings. Diagnoses are made more difficult by the fact that the killers in many of the rampages are often killed themselves, but in many cases, the killer had been diagnosed with some form of mental illness or can plausibly be considered to have an undiagnosed mental illness. Other factors, such as video games, movies, or broken families are also common.

Aaron Alexis is reported to have been undergoing treatment for mental illness with the Veterans Administration according to the Washington Times. The report indicates that Alexis had reported hearing voices in his head and suffered from paranoia. NBC Newsreports that Alexis had two prior arrests for gun related crimes. In 2004, he allegedly shot out the tires of another man’s car during “an anger-fueled ‘blackout’” in Seattle. In 2010, he was arrested in Texas for shooting his gun through the ceiling of his apartment. The bullet went through his ceiling into the apartment upstairs. Alexis told police that the shooting was accidental. According to Seattle police, Alexis was present at the September 11 attacks and was an “active participant in rescue attempts” [at the World Trade Center according to the Telegraph] and may have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

 

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Parental Advisory: Popular Xbox game contains bestiality

Xbox bundle containing the "Gunstringer" (David W. Thornton)

There have been numerous debates about sex and violence in such popular video games as “Grand Theft Auto,” but many parents would probably be surprised to learn that a popular game being sold in a bundle with a sensor for Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect video game system contains scenes of graphic bestiality.

On a recent visit to an Atlanta-area Best Buy electronics store, the game was playing on the in-store Kinect demonstrator.  The game, “The Gunstringer,” featured a skeletal cowboy who fights a surly lumberjack in a flashback.  In the course of the fight, the lumberjack falls from a high platform and lands atop a large alligator.  In a long scene, the lumberjack writhes atop the alligator in an unmistakably sexual manner.

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http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/parental-advisory-popular-xbox-game-contains-bestiality