Today is the fourth anniversary of the Isle Vista massacre where a twenty two year old Elliot Rodger stabbed his 2 roommates and their friend to death before travelling to a local sorority house in his BMW, he then began to bang on the door of the Sorority house for several minutes, when no one answered he began to open fire on three women walking by, killing two and injuring one. Elliot then went back into his car and proceed to go on a spree of drive by shootings and purposely hit people with his car, Elliot then drove by and shot at a local deli where he killed his final victim a twenty year old male. After engaging in two gun battles with the Police where he was injured in the hip, Elliot put the gun to his temple killed himself, he was still driving his car at the time in which now it would crash symbolising the end to his killing spree.
In total six people died and fourteen were injured, seven by gunfire and seven by being struck by his vehicle. Rodger had at least planned the massacre for two years, buying a Glock 34 semi-automatic pistol in November of 2012, he then bought two Sig Sauer P226 handguns in the summer of 2013.
What I find interesting about this case is that the killer left a one hundred thirty seven page manifesto titled "My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger" detailing his life story and why he committed his massacre, Elliot also had a YouTube Channel where he would post vlogs of him driving around in his car listening to eighties music and also moan how lonely his life is. On the day of his rampage he posted a video called "Elliot Rodger's Day of Retribution" where he said how angry he was that girls rejected him and how he was never one of the popular kids, he then said that after he slaughtered everyone at the Soroity House he would take to the streets of Isla Vista killing anyone he saw. Elliot also had a massive online history browsing across dozens of websites and forums reaching from Warcraft online to sites like PUAHate, most of these are still online and can still be viewed today.
Despite all of this, the talking heads in the Media used the tragedy as part of their agenda for stricter Gun control or an increase in Mental health services, neither of these would of prevented Elliot's rampage since half of his victims were stabbed to death thus proving that Elliot killed and was going to kill people wherever you banned guns or not, Rodger also had multiple therapists since the age of nine, he had two social skill councillors and was prescribed a plethora of medication so an increase in Mental Health services would of done nothing.
Recently now the Media such as the LA Times have labelled Elliot as the "first Alt-Right killer", this of course makes no sense as Rodger's rampage was
in 2014 and the term Alt-Right wasn't used until the 2016 US Presidential Election, the Alt-Right are also White Supremacists and Elliot was half-Asian so they would hate him for being mixed race. In response to this a Right-Wing Commentator and Writer Mike Cernovich said Elliot was a "bitter male feminist", this makes less sense as Elliot mentioned multiple times in his Manifesto that he hated women and wished that he could torture all women to death.
Not long after the massacre, Elliot was and still is praised as a hero by an online community called Incels, the word Incel is short for involuntary celibate and is often used to describe those who are lonely and seek to be in a relationship, however, it must be said that the vast majority of Incels are everyday, normal people and it's only a small vocal minority who are sexist and misogynist.
Like Eric and Dylan, Elliot has inspired multiple mass murderers such as Chris Harper-Mercer, Nikolas Cruz and Alek Minassian to name a few.
After the recent Toronto Van Attack, Rodger's YouTube Channel was deleted, the reason for this is that so Incels won't be radicalised to commit acts of violence, this excuse it idiotic as not only is it deleting evidence and further analysis of a mass murder but also Elliot's Manifesto is still online and that probably radicalises more Incels than him driving in his car listening to Phil Collins.
The Isle Vista Killings is up there with Columbine, Red Lake, Stoneman Douglas, Sandy Hook, and Hungerford in my level of interest, the reason for this is how much I empathise and relate to the perpetrator, I too feel loneliness, rejection, depression and being stuck in a pit of despair; although this does not justify Elliot's actions it does give an explanation as to why he committed his act.
The YouTuber Mumkey Jones has made over a dozen videos on Elliot and has been described the Elliot Rodger expert:
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