Comment by zephorah@lemm.ee on America Will Be Obsessed With Luigi Mangione for a Long Time

This will probably be taken down, but psychology is what I do so here it is. This is not endorsement this is an explanation as to why there’s different sentiment for this shooting.

This was stated in Trevor Noah’s latest podcast in open discussion. Josh Johnson raises the point. Most gun violence stories on the news, people personally feel threatened. Outraged that they or theirs could be at a music festival, a movie, at school. Most assholes with a gun are killing innocent people, never mind all the other bits. And most are clearly a little “crazy.”

This was targeted, killer on killer, no collateral (death/injury) damage. The CEO had kids that’s the collateral damage. There’s even a lady with coffee who walks on scene then nopes out unharmed.

This isn’t endorsement. This WHY the public as a whole doesn’t seem to mind. The guy who died killed thousands. That solves the innocent part. The killer doesn’t feel threatening to any of us. Because he’s not. That solves the threat. As for sanity, gun arguments aside, the manifesto isn’t unhinged.

And so we find ourselves in an unusual space. Understandably so. This is new.

No I didn’t read the article.

The CEO had kids that’s the collateral damage.

Given his falling out with his ex-wife and penchant for alcoholism, they’re arguably better off without him, assuming he wasn’t already a deadbeat dad.

Sure. Can you explain why this guy gets charged with terrorism, but school shooters and Jan 6ers don’t?

Perception management, probably. I thought terrorism applied to upsetting state entities not private ones. How, by any stretch of the imagination, is a private health insurance company part of the United States government? It’s bizarre. Jan 6 would fall under that umbrella for sure.

What do you think?

My thoughts is they’re making an example of him because he went after the true ruling class - CEOs. And the Jan 6 ers went after “the help” so the cops don’t care. Just like when the children of the masses are gunned down in schools. Get a school shooter at the private academy the president’s kids all attend and suddenly the ruling class will care.

“The help”. That deserves more attention.

As for sanity, gun arguments aside, the manifesto isn’t unhinged.

Just curious, what do you mean by “gun arguments aside”?

I’m a gun owner. There is a subset of people who think that alone makes you unhinged as a human being.

Luigi is just crazy enough to do what he did (allegedly). Probably not even a gun owner beyond an engineer guy makes this tool/thing on his printer and then learns how to become proficient using that tool/thing. I don’t think Luigi was LARPing training exercises with an AK, with friends, in the northern MI woods. I think he probably approached it the same way the rest of us would approach learning Linux for our next PC build.

I see, thanks for the clarification! I thought you were referring to the actual manifesto, and I was going to point out that the supposed real one didn’t mention guns at all, but if I recall correctly the fake one did. So never mind me.

Shit, now I’m wondering. I’m talking about the pseudo apologetic one that talks about printing the gun. Not being the best person to decide this, etc.

Oh, I think that’s the real one. Really short, only mentions CAD instead of actually printing the gun, and refers to Moore who can explain things better.

On that note, Moores reaction is interesting.

The killer is not threatening to you until semeone decides that you deserve to be killed.

I would say that if you find this particular killer’s motives personally threatening, you should probably resign from your day job and move into your bunker.

Have you killed thousands of people through insurance denials to make a quick buck? No?

Then you’re fine.

Yes, exactly. I don’t think there is anyone in the world who knows me and believes that I, specifically, deserve to be killed. I think almost every person feels the same way. The rare exception being someone who has intentionally profoundly harmed or killed people.

semeone decides

I would simply not deny Luigi his health care. And I’d sleep easy.

Someone else may decide to kill you for a different reason.

That’s already true though. Anyone can kill anyone. It just costs the killer their freedom or their life.

That’s a pretty dumb argument, this was a targeted killing. You’d be supportive of killing a major terrorist right? Most would, because the terrorist is evil and kills thousands of Innocents… Well it’s literally no different here. They can be against murder and yet still support killing a terrorist, which is what a Healthcare CEO is.

That’s a risk we’ve always lived with.

So you’re upset that we killed Osama Bin Ladin then?

From what I can tell, Osama bin Laden was killed legally.

Someone, maybe, a fair point. It will probably happen at work if at all given the boring, “helper” life I lead.

But not this guy. That’s the salient point.

That’s the point. “WHY” did they decide it had to be you.

I haven’t killed tens of thousands of sick people so I’m safe.

Someone might decide that something else you did is wrong.

That could happen any day but how is that fact relevant?

Do you want to live in a society where anyone can kill you because they think you’re a bad person?

I would absolutely love to live in a different world where everything is marijuana, video games and puppies. But we don’t live there, which is why the work class must remain armed no matter the pretext.

I could get shot in a school shooting that wasnt prevented because despite the outrage of the Democratic party no one wanted to impliment perimeter fences, check points, metal detectors, or building a police station next door or inside every school of the nation. It would still be true that the working class must remain armed.

We live in the shitter multiverse, and it is not a good place to be. Accept this fact of life.

No, but I don’t want to live in a society where people in power just let people in need die

That’s today. That’s our current reality. That’s the society that I already live in, because I’m a horrible, nasty, evil person who rides a bicycle to get places.

I’m in Madison, Wisconsin, too, so it’s rather fresh in my mind that anyone can kill me just randomly out of the blue.

We already do. You can already buy a gun, get it the same day, and straight up shoot someone with minimal barriers. What are you on about? Children are sacrificed every day and now that a CEO is dead its a huge problem?

Any idiot in a car can kill me at any time, because he’s getting road rage. I’m living in Europe, grew up in the 80s where nuclear war was a very real danger that could break out any moment, vaporizing all the cities. Even though we were allies of the US, highways were prepared to be outfitted with nuclear mines so the Russians couldn’t roll all over Western Europe. We have a war right now next to our countries which could turn into WW3 at any time. A close friend of mine is Bosnian, she has seen the fighting in the Balkans few years agom

People kill each other all the time, because they consider each other bad persons. I just refuse to live in fear.

And the longer I live, the more I believe in violence as a legitimate defense. If someone shot Putin tomorrow, I would be happy. If someone had shot Hitler in the 30s the would would probably have been a better place.

So where is the line that divides killing someone is a good thing vs a bad thing? I used to believe it is always evil, but I can’t anymore.

That’s all of human history and will never change.

However, now that the untouchable monsters that run things are getting a taste, things are just a tiny bit better.

You mean someone like Brian Thompson?

You mean Brian Robert Thompson?

It’s a long standing tradition to refer to serial killers by their full name. Think John Wayne Gacy. It seems appropriate here.

You watch yourself on that slippery slope now.

I see you getting downvoted but a lot of doctors get death threats too, and while everyone seems to have a horror story about a doctor they didn’t like, I’m pretty sure most are the scapegoats of a broken system. So yeah, while Luigi’s target was well-chosen, I don’t trust every vigilante to be as smart.

a lot of doctors get death threats too

I gotta wonder at the folks who have bombed (or threatened to bomb) abortion clinics and been lionized by pro-Life advocates. Even granted clemency by ultra-right wing Republican governors.

None of them seem particularly enthusiastic about this slaying, though.

So yeah, while Luigi’s target was well-chosen, I don’t trust every vigilante to be as smart.

The starkest comparison I’ve seen is Daniel Perry - who strangled a man to death on the subway - getting box seats with the President/VP and a full throated cheer from folks on the right.

Meanwhile, Luigi has enormous mainstream appeal, but enjoys virtually no positive coverage among liberals on the left.

The division is stark. It’s very obvious that vigilantism is encouraged by the state when it targets certain people. CEOs just aren’t on the approved list.

That’s why I think we should have a crowd funding campaign to build a big bronze statue of the guy. You know, those aren’t as expensive as you might think. Some searching suggests they can be built for $25k-250k. That seems well within the range of a crowd funding campaign. And unlike copy cat attacks or making death threats, there’s nothing illegal about building a statue to someone. At the same time, imagine what a message it would send if 100,000 people each gave a few dollars to build a statue to Luigi.

As far as location, I can think of two. One would be as close to the shooting site as possible. The other? On a main road outside of United Healthcare’s headquarters in Minnesota. I want ever UHC employee to have to drive past a big statue of Luigi as they go into work each day. A durable reminder of just what we think of them.

And if some vandals destroy the statue? We’ll build it again, but even BIGGER.

If the person you’re replying to was a health insurance CEO I would be extremely supportive of that.

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