How long, oh Lord, how long?
Payton Gendron's home town is Conklin, New York. The 2020 census tells us Conklin's population of 5,000, or so is nearly 90% white and a shade less than 1% African American. This racial disparity is probably the reason young Payton drove across the state yesterday to Buffalo. You can't murder a bunch of black people if there aren't any around.
According to New York Governor, Kathy Hochul, Gendron bought his AR-15 legally in New York, but had to go into Pennsylvania to legally buy the high capacity ammunition clip he used so successfully in that Top's grocery store. Since Conklin sits hard by the NY-PA line the drive to pick up the deadly accessory was probably far shorter than the one to Buffalo.
Currently there isn't any news about where Gendron bought his gun, or ammo clip. It probably doesn't matter since you can buy both in this country easier than you can a bunch of seedless grapes. In too many circles such purchases are considered a sacred right guaranteed on a piece of paper written hundreds of years ago by a bunch of white slave holders. These same people consider everything else written on the same paper utter bullshit meant to be ignored.
But, we digress. Early reports are as late as a couple of years ago Payton Gendron was just another small town teenager stranded at home, like everyone else, by the pandemic. To relieve the boredom he began to roam around the internet. Unlike most teen boys he skipped the porn and settled on message boards and social media sites full of white supremacist quackery. According to various pundits the rhetoric there radicalized him, turned him into a monster willing to plot mass murder.
Maybe so, but one has to think he was already a crude racist and all the fanatical crap he read simply validated views he already held. In fact it might be the only thing he truly learned on line was how to write a coherent sentence.
Authorities suspect a 180 page manifesto written under Gendron's name, which appeared on line shortly after the carnage began, is genuinely his. In addition, being a 21st century type of guy, he live streamed the crime on the media site, Twitch.
Tragically it seems we will never be rid of this shit. Too many right wing news networks promote it for ratings and fun. Too many republican politicians cultivate it and depend on it during elections. And, finally, too many white rubes believe in it.
Payton Gendron is 18 years old. The only question we can ask ourselves now is how many more loons exactly like him are out there right now--their brains, as Jim Morrison wrote, "squirming like a toad."
Ladies and gentlemen, as you might guess, bar is open.
5-15-22
Too many nervous, worried - and gullible - people out there. So sad, but the situation is what it is.
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