19/08/2021 - The Plymouth Shooting

Right. Due to the level of controversy and how fresh this incident is, I did not want to cover this all that much, but the amount of presence this discussion has online warrants a requirement to share what I know regarding this incident.

before this starts, obvious trigger warnings for the following:

- ableism

- Incel ideology/toxic masculinity

- death/murder

- suicide

please read with caution, and remember, this is still a fresh and traumatic incident. There are many people grieving, and many suffering due to this, so be respectful when discussing it.

As I'm sure many of you (if not all of you) are aware, on the night of Thursday the 12th of August, a man named Jake Davison shot and killed 5 people, including a 3 year old girl.

Why did he do this?

His own reason was because he was toxic, hateful, and felt he was entitled to having a relationship with a woman, after he had been rejected many times.

Why does the media think he did this?

Less than 24 hours after the horrific news broke about this incident, newspapers such as The Guardian were instantly jumping to blame anything other than the fact that he was a horrible human being. They couldn't accept that a white man could do something so horrible, and to cover for themselves, immediately attempted to shift the blame off to a minority.

It makes the majority feel comfortable when they can pretend it "wasn't one of them" who would do something as horrific and evil as this.

Which minority did they choose? Why, Autism of course! Because who else could possibly be to blame than the group who have historically been accused of having bad moral compasses & theory of mind (all proven false, but that's an argument for another day)

not 24 hours after the incident, the Guardian had already published articles claiming (off backhanded comments he made on social media, no less.) that the shooter was Autistic, and that this had to be the reason he had committed such a horrific crime.

Forgetting for a minute whether or not he was actually Autistic in the first place - what does it have to do with it? There have been studies which have shown that Autistic people are more likely to be the VICTIM in a crime than the perpetrator, and plenty of Autistic people go on to live very happy lives and form relationships. There is nothing about Autism, at any "severity" that would cause him to have not lived a happy life unless something else was wrong.

What was that something else?

He was a vile excuse for a human being. He was a supremacist, a misogynist, hell, he'd even called an Autistic man a "paedo" for carrying around a support doll literally a few weeks prior. He was a nasty and intolerant man, and it is blatantly clear why nobody wanted to be with him.

He also assumed he was ENTITLED to a relationship.

Sure, I'm single, (though I am still only 17, so...) but I do not feel like I have some god-given right to some girl wanting to sleep with me. If and when I get into a relationship with someone, it'll happen, but I don't feel in any way entitled to it, and as Twitter very clearly demonstrated in the aftermath of the incident, neither do most Autistic men.

For the many steps society is taking to become more accepting of Autism as a whole, this is one massive leap backwards, as it creates yet another stigma towards Autism, which can and likely will hinder our ability to socialise, get jobs, because we will be considered dangerous if we "don't get what we want" and comments like the "future mass shooters" comment I saw under an instagram post by account @the.autisticats the social norm for beliefs regarding Autism.

it's wrong, it's dangerous, and it's pathetic that the media instantly targeted the fact that he MIGHT have been Autistic as to why it occurred, when he was very clear about his reasoning for the shooting prior to the incident.

It also didn't help to see Anne Hegerty, one of the "chasers" on the British game show "the Chase" (who is openly Autistic, and her entire career is made around having high levels of knowledge as a whole) sharing such uneducated and misinformed opinions as the one below

(this opinion is factually incorrect, as the "theory of mind" argument she presents has been disproven many times at this point. The concern here is that someone known for being both Autistic and extremely knowledgeable is sharing such poorly informed comments, and defending them)

This is not to say Autistic people CAN'T commit crimes or be responsible for terrible things like this, they very much can be, and to defend the idea that an Autistic person can't only gives way for it to become a get out of jail free card (as presented by Elon Musk a few months ago) - no, this is simply stating the obvious. Whether he was Autistic or not makes zero difference to what he did and the lack of prevention that was put in place to stop this from occurring. He clearly was not of a stable mind and had many other issues that needed attention, and the fact he had an active gun license in the country that claims to have some of the "toughest gun restrictive laws in the world" shows a horrific failure in our licensing system.

The media instantly leaps on the first minority they can attach it to, so that the average person can feel comfortable knowing they were one step further away from being the "same as" the terrible person who did this.

To conclude, whether the shooter was Autistic or otherwise, it does not change what he did, and him being Autistic is an irrelevant point anyway, and just creates further stigma towards Autism and developmental disabilities in the eyes of the public than necessary.

Thank you all for reading, I know this is a really heavy and controversial topic, so I apologise if this in any way offended anyone. My thoughts go out to anyone affected by the incident, whether it be family or friends of the victims, or anyone who had to fear that they had lost someone in the horrific aftermath.

Stay safe everyone, more coming on the usual schedule (either whenever something pops up I feel I need to address, or on the 2nd of the upcoming month)

remember to subscribe to our mailing list if you want to be informed when we post, and share our content around! Seeing higher numbers of views really helps motivate me when writing these posts.

- Josh.