We should look at Dadeville like other mass shootings

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The shooting over the weekend in Dadeville, Alabama is yet another in a string of mass shootings. As such, it’s unsurprising that many are using the incident to call for gun control in one of the most gun-friendly states in the nation.

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They’re going to need to get used to disappointment, but that won’t stop them from trying to push anyway.

It doesn’t help that there’s a lot we don’t know about what happened in Dadeville. Authorities don’t seem to be sharing a lot of specifics.

However, one thing does seem clear. What happened at that party doesn’t look like you’re typical mass shooting.

Tragedy struck Alabama Saturday night as gunfire erupted at a “sweet 16″ birthday party in the heart of Dadeville, killing four young people and injuring 32 others — some of them critically.

The investigation in Tallapoosa County lasted throughout the day Sunday with no announcement of any arrests in the case.

Keenan Cooper, the DJ at the party, told WBMA-TV the event was stopped briefly when partygoers heard someone had a gun. He said people with weapons were asked to leave, but no one did.

Soon after, the shooting started.

This is consistent with the fact that law enforcement officials say that they found no shell casing consistent with something like an AR-15, but did find plenty of handgun round casings.

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So what this looks like is that someone showed up with a gun despite the relative ages of those who would attend someone’s 16th birthday party, was asked to leave, then for some reason opened fire and killed four people and injured dozens more.

Mass shootings tend not to work this way. They tend to be events that happen by design. The killers plan to kill people.

This is different. Very different.

Instead, this looks like someone with a beef just trying to get even. We see this with gangs on the regular, but we can also see it with people who may not be part of a gang but have been influenced by gang culture. The idea that being disrespected warrants a violent response is common there.

Of course, that’s me trying to read between the lines based on what we know, but I’m confident I’m right.

Which is why you can’t treat Dadeville like, say, Nashville.

Sure, some mass shootings are reactions to something. Uvalde, for example. The same for the Cafe Racer shooting in Seattle.

Yet those aren’t common.

“Why does it matter?” someone might ask.

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It matters because guns aren’t the issue, especially if this was another minor carrying a handgun. That’s against the law on every level, and yet it looks like it happened.

That means we need to focus on something deeper. We need to look at the root causes of such attacks so we can more effectively prevent them.

If this was some gangbanger or wannabe with a grudge, someone too young to lawfully own a handgun but possessing one just the same, then the reasoning for gun control calls evaporates worse than in most other cases.

Dadeville doesn’t look like a targeted yet seemingly random attack like 95 percent of the other shootings we end up having to cover. It’s something different, and it needs to be treated as that something different.

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