On Friday, Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, went a killing spree that left six dead before he took his own life during a shootout with police. The son of a Hollywood director, Rodger left behind a chilling YouTube video and a 141-page manifesto detailing his plans for a “day of retribution.”
The rampage unfolded Friday night when Rodger stabbed to death three victims at his apartment, police said.
He then drove to a sorority home and started to knock for a couple minutes in an “aggressive” manner. When residents inside didn’t answer, Rodger opened fire outside on three individuals, killing two and wounding another, according to authorities.
Rodger then traveled to a nearby restaurant where he shot to death a 20-year-old male, police said. At another location, he brandished a handgun at a female before firing multiple rounds, authorities added.
Eventually deputies confronted Rodger and he hit a bicyclist while fleeing. At one point, police exchanged fire with him, likely shooting him in the hip. As Rodger fled again, the 22-year-old struck another bicyclist, causing him to crash his vehicle and come to a stop, police said.
When police arrived to take him into custody, Rodger appeared dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, authorities said. Police recovered some 400 rounds of ammunition from his vehicle. All of his weapons, police said, were legally purchased and registered.
As detailed in his so-called manifesto, Rodger was tormented by the fact he was a virgin and had never kissed a girl. He condemned his classmates and peers who he felt looked down at him and treated him poorly. He sought “retribution” on those who he felt had wronged him. He also explained that he found solace in violent video games.
Rodger’s parents were increasingly concerned about their son’s well being, having alerted police to his erratic behavior. According to family attorney Alan Shifman, police interviewed Rodger and found him to be a “perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human.” He added that police did not find a history of guns, but did say Rodger “didn’t have a lot of friends,” had trouble making friends, and didn’t have any girlfriends.
The mainstream media has largely focused on the violence of the incident, but on radio this morning, Glenn took a slightly different approach, taking a deeper look into Rodger’s past and upbringing.
“I don't like to make stars out of killers, and I don't even want to address this kid by his name. I do want to talk about his family… This is a Hollywood cretin. It really is. This is a product of the Hollywood morals gone awry,” Glenn said. “You'll notice that people are screaming for you got to do something. ‘We got to take these guns off the street.’ He killed as many people with a knife as he did with a gun. Did anybody talk about that? Are we talking about knife control now too? Nope. Because the media has an agenda.”
The gun control narrative has so overtaken this country, and it can often feel as though no one is actually interested in getting to the root cause of the anger and frustration that led to such horrific violence.
“I can't be the only person on the planet or the only person in America that is worried about his kids,” Glenn said. “And I don't mean about just them getting shot.”
In his manifesto, Rodger explained that violent video games filled a void in his life starting at a young age.
“He already knew in his manifesto that he was going to point the gun to himself and kill himself. Well, that's the way you end all video games," Glenn said. "If you read his manifesto, he speaks about video games and said, ‘I knew at some point, I had crossed a bridge that I could no longer back. A piece of me had died inside.’ Is anybody talking about that? Because this is the conversation we should be having.”
As Glenn and Pat explained, Hollywood chooses to condemn gun violence while still promoting it via movies and video games. Similarly, Rodger’s detailed his sexual frustrations at length, which is interesting given his own father’s work in the industry. As the Daily Mail reported, Rodger’s father Peter sells erotic black and white photography of naked women.
“You can't have it two ways,” Glenn said. “You say that you can't have anybody smoking on television or in movies because it effects people. But gun violence is totally fine. You're also in the business of making all of these video games. The reason why they won't deal with this is because it points the finger directly to them. And I'm not looking for finger pointing.”
The writings and ramblings of Rodger shows the making of a very troubled young man, and yet no one in the media has had a real conversation about what ultimately created this monster.
“It's pretty amazing and you're right, nobody will talk about that,” Pat said. “They are all focusing on: ‘We've got to get the guns. Isn't it time we do something? We got to do something.’”
"I want to show how sick the media is. I mean they really don't see that the world is changing. That our children are changing… It's something entirely new. Can we talk about this? We weren't like this before,” Glenn concluded. “And guns were more prevalent then than they are now. I had access to my grandfather's guns. They didn't have them in locked boxes. They were up over the mantle. They were in a rifle case, open. What's changed?”
Front page image courtesy of the AP
