First off, why is the New York Post of all outlets suddenly doing detailed reporting on the Chico library shooting? When did they start practicing journalism?
I say that because I usually approach the Post the same way I approach a text message from a random stranger. I’m going to be skeptical, to say the least. The Post has built a reputation for stories that feel more like they were written to win an argument online than inform people. But in this case, they appear to have obtained court documents that add some important details about the background of accused Chico library shooter Bradley Scott Sayer.
As a quick recap, 18-year-old Bradley Scott Sayer is accused of walking into the Butte County Library in Chico, California, on June 22nd and carrying out a planned attack that left two people dead. The victims were identified as 46-year-old Jacob Cody Hull and 74-year-old Robert Johnson. A 7-year-old girl who was with Hull was also injured while escaping through a shattered window.
From the beginning, investigators said this was not a random act of violence. They believe Sayer entered the library, looked around, left, retrieved a shotgun from his vehicle, and returned ready to attack. Authorities later said he had been fascinated with Columbine and other mass shootings for years. Prosecutors say he wore a shirt with the words “Natural Selection” written on it, a reference to the shirt worn by Columbine coward Eric Harris.
Sayer had spent years in online communities that glorified mass shooters commonly known as the True Crime Community, or TCC. According to the Butte County District Attorney, Sayer went down what he described as a dark internet rabbit hole around the age of 14, becoming involved in TCC spaces centered around mass shootings and people who treated killers like celebrities instead of the cowards they were.
Now we are learning more about what was happening at home around that same time period.
According to divorce documents obtained by the New York Post, Sayer’s parents had disagreements over his access to guns years before the shooting. His mother, Vicki Sayer, reportedly objected to his father, David Sayer, taking him shooting when he was 14 years old. She argued that allowing him to use firearms was a safety concern and questioned whether his father was taking his son’s needs seriously.
David Sayer argued that shooting activities were supervised and that teaching Bradley how to shoot was part of building a bond with his son. He described those activities as something that ‘enriched’ his son’s life.
What is it with this generation of ‘fathers’ who feel the need to introduce their kids to guns at such a young age? Why is teaching your child how to shoot becoming such a common way for some dads to bond with their sons and daughters? Does everything have to revolve around guns?
There are plenty of ways to build a relationship with your child. But for some people, guns have become their entire identity, so they feel the need to pass that obsession down to their kids.
Which is ironic since Sayer didn’t even know how to load the shotgun properly during the attack. Authorities claimed Sayer was loading the shotgun one shell at a time because he did not fully understand how to use it. The fact that his lack of knowledge may have limited the number of victims does not make the situation any less disturbing.
The other issue here is the focus on screen time. The divorce documents reportedly show disagreements over how much time Sayer spent on his iPad. His mother was concerned about his isolation and online habits. But the screen itself was never really the problem. The real problem was what was on the screen.
A teenager spending hours online is not automatically a warning sign. Plenty of people spend excessive amounts of time online and never become violent. I’ve been terminally online since 1997, thank you very much.
But if a child is spending years consuming content that glorifies mass murder, collecting writings from killers, obsessing over previous attacks, and participating in communities built around that material, someone should probably take notice. If anyone was actually looking.
Which came first in this story? Was Sayer introduced to guns before he developed his obsession with Columbine and mass shooters? Or did the obsession come first, and the access to guns simply give him the ability to act on a fantasy he had already built in his head?
Also, was this another situation where a young person convinced a supposedly responsible gun-owning adult that they were mature enough for access to guns? Natalie Rupnow supposedly tricked her father into buying her a gun before the shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Wisconsin.
Again, saying you are a ‘responsible gun owner™’ does not automatically make it true. Responsibility is not just buying a safe or saying you trust your kid. Responsibility means knowing who has access, understanding what your child is doing, and recognizing when something has changed for the worse.
The Chico library shooting was not caused by one thing. It was not caused by Sayer’s autism or his iPad.
It was the result of a teenager spending years immersed in a violent online fantasy while also having access to the guns needed to turn that fantasy into reality.
The warning signs are often not hidden. Sometimes they are sitting right in front of you. The question is whether you’re willing to actually look.
(Source)
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