What are my thoughts on the shooter’s manifesto? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
When I found out the manifesto was available for reading, I decided to get it in wanting to be informed on the matter. Personally, I think the whole thing should have come out a lot earlier. Now this isn’t anything that’s formally typed out or anything like that so some parts were hard to read just for that reason.
Going through, I wanted to see what this person said about their mental state and really, that was also hard to read. So much was sad about this. This is a person who needed severe help and wasn’t getting it. Also, while I favor quoting material, due to the sensitive nature and not everyone wanting to see it themselves, I am not going to do that this time.
The first day I got it and started going through it, I remember reading it and seeing something said along the lines of “Love is not real if my Autism is.”
At that point, I had to close it up for a bit and get back to it later.
In some ways, I can understand. I watch society and I don’t know what people think. I don’t know what’s really going on with them. One of my favorite shows is The Big Bang Theory and even if you don’t like it, this is one of the best clips I have seen on that. I have read material behind the show and Sheldon is on the spectrum. They just didn’t want to say that officially. Look at what he says here and I give this to people as an example of what this is like.
For me, I don’t understand social cues. If my boss corrects me, is she mad at me and I am a disappointment? Is that girl flirting with me or just being nice? If I say something to her different, will she want to go out with me or will she think I’m a creeper? Do people really care about how I am doing or are they just saying that to be nice? Why do we greet each other in public but when we go home there’s no interaction?
Feelings are hard to understand, but I do know I do have people who love me and people who care about me. It can be hard to tell who they are sometimes, but it is real. I do know after a failed marriage, I am on guard around people more and just want people to be real. It’s painful when I think someone hasn’t trusted me.
Going through further, the shooter repeatedly said that everything hurts. They wanted to die. They also wanted God to forgive them. This wasn’t an angry atheist from what I see. This was someone very delusional wanting to take it out on the world.
The shooter also said that their father loved the cats more than the shooter was loved. I don’t know about their father, but fathers are extremely important. Kids need father love. I do remember they spoke some about their parents conservative values and that was extremely difficult for them.
Granted, I am only getting one side of the story, but parents need to make sure they love their children even if they think their thinking is delusional, and thinking you are the wrong sex is delusional. At the same time, too many parents panic. It’s understandable, but they do.
Years ago my wife was feeling suicidal and I took her to see a great therapist who taught counseling at the seminary. I was hoping he would see the emergency here, but I was stunned as he talked to her as calmly as if they were talking about the weather as if this was no big deal and added at the end, “I hope you stay.” Turns out, he was right. Not much of a shock. I learned from him that if you act panicked, the people you are trying to help will also panic.
This is also why when your children show up doubting their faith, don’t panic. Josh McDowell and Francis Schaeffer both were calm with their children and encouraged questioning and it worked both times. That being said, I do understand it’s more difficult now as most therapists will automatically affirm the delusional thinking and parents will be reported for not going along with it.
This was an incredibly sick individual. Sometimes, sex was described in ways that seemed tantamount to rape. They had some delusional fantasies, but overall, I think they just wanted to be loved.
Something we all want.
Here is something else sad about this.
The whole thing could have been prevented.
They wrote at one point they were surprised they were not arrested in 2021. None of those deaths had to happen. (FBI must have been too busy arresting grandmothers who went into the Capitol on J6 or going after pro-life protesters.) Friends. New laws won’t change this. Criminals do not care about the law and if you are sick enough to do something like what this person did, you definitely do not care about it.
We need a whole worldview change.
We need the gospel.
I urge you to be prepared if you want to read this manifesto. It is sad. It is difficult. Pray for everyone involved. Pray for the families of the victims. Pray for the family of the shooter. Pray for the survivors.
Pray we can stop the next one because one school shooting is one too many.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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