253 points

This is a weird way for me to find out about another shooting

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95 points

It wasn’t as bad as some (2 dead, 6 injured).

He originally started with a shotgun but it jammed without firing a shot. He grabbed a pistol from his vehicle and fired into the bystanders.

Police were on scene quickly (FSU is always crawling with plain clothes officers and unmarked cars) and shot and wounded the shooter.

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136 points

Oh, what a fucked up world we live in that we see a school shooting as “not so bad, all things considered”…

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It’s only “not so bad” in America.

‘No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

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32 points
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That pistol he grabbed from the vehicle…

…was his Mom’s old service pistol.

His Mom was a school resource officer and later deputized into the Leon County Sheriffs.

https://www.newsweek.com/fsu-shooter-leon-county-deputy-phoenix-jessica-ikner-2061301

In a news conference hours after the first reports of the active shooting were announced, Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil identified the suspect.

“The shooter is 20-year-old Phoenix Ikner … and he is the son of a Leon County sheriff’s deputy,” McNeil said.

According to Revell during the news conference, Jessica Ikner [the shooter’s mother] is a school resource officer in Leon County. The county sheriff’s office website lists her as a “middle schools deputy.”

Deputy Ikner was awarded law enforcement employee of the month in March 2024, the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook.

[The Shooter] was “a long-standing member” of the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Youth Advisory Council, McNeil said during the news conference.

“He has been steep in the Leon County Sheriff’s Office Family,” McNeil said, adding that it is “not a surprise” that Ikner had access to weapons.

(apologies for possibly paywalled link, try internet archive if its blocked for you)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/04/18/florida-state-university-shooting-what-we-know-about-the-suspect/

Phoenix Ikner, a 20-year-old son of a sheriff’s deputy whom police accuse of using his mother’s gun, is in police custody after being identified as a suspect in a shooting on Florida State University’s campus Thursday, which killed two people and injured at least six others.

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/2025/04/18/fsu-shooting-phoenix-ikener-fired-guns-deputy-mother-jessica-ikner/83159241007/

Jessica Ikner, a beloved Raa Middle School student resource deputy, was the 2023 law enforcement officer of the year with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office.

She also practiced shooting with her stepson, Phoenix, at a firing range, but “not in an official capacity,” according to LCSO.

Yeah so this guy was trained to shoot by his armed-with-a-firearm, middle school guard / county deputy mom, and he then took his mom’s service pistol to shoot up his own school/uni.

I can’t find more details on the shotgun, but it could also be the case that that is or was a service weapon as well… but that is barely informed speculation on my part, I just know that a lot of US cops also have a shotgun in their cruiser.

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13 points
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The headline is using ‘was’ as a weasel word.

They know it’ll be click bait because it will be read as:

“The weapon used is a weapon that is the service weapon of a deputy”, and not:

“At one point, in the past, the weapon used was a service weapon but isn’t any longer”.

Him using a service weapon implies that there was a lapse of security on his mother’s part. That’s why it’s being mentioned in the way that it is because, if it were true, it would be outrageous.

The fact that an adult Florida man was able to access privately owned firearms isn’t news. But making it seem scandalous by implying that he killed people with a weapon issued as the service weapon of an active duty cop gets clicks.

The shotgun story is based on first hand accounts that I’ve heard from the FSU students that I work with. I’m obviously just a random Internet person, so don’t believe it until you see other sources.

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26 points

If that happened in my country it would be huge news and all anyone in the country would talk about for weeks.

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10 points

This is America. Don’t catch you slippin’.

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8 points

It would appear that we have standardized school shootings here in the States.

This one wasn’t that bad. Remember that other one?

You going to catch The Game later?

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25 points

Local law enforcement was having a training session very close by. That and the fact the shooter was the son of a Sherrif deputy are the reasons you could hear them blowing themselves over their fast response the whole time. Not that the fucker was putting up all the red flags for fucking years while being heavily involved in local law enforcement and constantly around guns.

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8 points

Not that the fucker was putting up all the red flags for fucking years while being heavily involved in local law enforcement and constantly around guns.

There is a reason DeSantis & the fascists in the Florida legislature are about to get rid of the red flag laws.

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8 points

FSU is always crawling with plain clothes officers and unmarked cars

Wait what the fuck?

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17 points

I’ve seen a full on homeless man, with dreadlocks and scruffy blanket (urban Ghillie suit) sitting outside of a Waffle House. The local clubs were letting out and there were gunshots in the parking lot.

Dude stood up and radioed in shots fired and pulled an AR from the bag he was sitting on.

Tons of unmarked cars around campus with lights mounted in the grill and illegally tinted windows.

It’s a heavy security presence that you wouldn’t notice unless you were around it a lot.

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3 points

Thoughts and prayers

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5 points
*

Definitely not my first time finding out this way, which is even weirder

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143 points

Weird how that keeps happening.

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33 points

I want to stress that it has absolutely nothing, I repeat, nothing at all to do with gun “culture” and easy access to guns.

Nothing at all. Promise!

/s

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5 points

Unfortunately I think it runs deeper than guns being around. As people point out, nearly every house in Switzerland has a gun, but they have little gun violence.

Though you’re right that America’s loose gun culture makes the underlying problem ten times worse.

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4 points

Yes culture is a big part I think too, and the availability, can you just go up to a stand at a gun expo and buy a gun in Switzerland? I don’t think so right?

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4 points

nearly every house in Switzerland has a gun, but they have little gun violence.

Totally different situation because most of these guns are from reservists in the army which are stored without ammo. So they are literally unusable unless you happen to get ammo for it.

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15 points

“Nothing we can do about it, says the only nation in the world where this happens regularly”

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3 points

The Onion should copy the White House and just start scribbling through the mass shooting article headline they repost each time with red crayon.

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112 points
*

And his mom is a police officer.

And he used one of her unsecured guns.

In a system where we want to discourage this we need to hold the parents accountable.

I think a life sentence for each life her son took is fair, for her and her son.

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40 points

irresponsible gun owning parents, who literally put firearms into the hands of their homicidal children, need to be held accountable for these tragedies.

dozens of mass shootings in recent years, especially school shootings, were absolutely preventable. if only these fucking lazy stupid ass adults would stop fetishizing guns for 2 seconds, long enough to store their weapons securely like a sane responsible person. or they could, idk, maybe steer their mentally disturbed crotch goblin towards a more pro-social, harmless activity?

firearm ownership is a responsibility too few take seriously.

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13 points

Maybe just less guns?

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11 points

No. We’ve been having too many random fires lately. The obvious answer is MORE FLAMETHROWERS! Yeah! That’ll fix all the fires!

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4 points

Fight fire with fire! That’ll surely work.

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9 points

The NRA has entered the chat.

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-22 points

Why not life sentences for grand parents too? Uncles and aunts? Doctors, teachers…

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16 points

If a gun owner’s gun is used in a murder, the owner should be charged with second-degree murder, full stop. When you own a gun, it is your responsibility to keep and secure it properly. I don’t care if it’s stolen or whatever, that gun is ultimately the responsibility of the owner. That’s the social contract when acquiring a device whose sole purpose is to kill.

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10 points
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I think stolen is too far as long as the gun owner acts responsibly following the theft and reports it to the police but otherwise, I completely agree. Owning a gun should come with personal accountability for that gun.

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2 points
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I’m sorry context is such an issue for you

It must be hard

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99 points

the word is ‘terrorist’

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21 points

Um, actually, the tweet clearly says “Florida State University” not “Tesla Cybertruck” so no this wasn’t actually an act of terrorism, it was just a peaceful protest instead

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14 points

you mean ‘troubled young man’ ? /sarc

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86 points

“He’s just a bad apple”

“Lone wolf”

“Let’s talk about mental health”

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57 points
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“Okay, what can we do for mental health?”

“Nothing or genocide/restablish the patriarchy, fuck you lib”

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28 points

“We need Jesus in schools!”

No joke, I’ve heard people say that exact thing in response. That taking God out of schools is what started all this, so if there was more prayer in school, we wouldn’t have shootings.

Yeah, because nobody does mass shootings in religious places.

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15 points

The poor kid was clearly driven insane by the wokeness surrounding them. Better ban pronouns.

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8 points
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Yep. I bet the poor man once saw a trans person when using a public bathroom and was TRAUMATISED

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7 points

Unironically how millions of people in America see the world.

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8 points

“He should have gotten a job with health insurance so he can afford therapy!”

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10 points

Bad apple from the 250-year-old Southern Orchard.

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