Yellowstone National Park officials say a gunman killed by park rangers as he fired a semiautomatic rifle at the entrance of a dining facility with 200 people inside had told a woman he planned to carry out a mass shooting

The warning from a woman in Yellowstone National Park came in just after midnight on July Fourth: She’d just been held at gunpoint by a man who said he planned to carry out a mass shooting — a random attack common in the U.S. these days but not in the Yellowstone region, let alone the park itself.

Rangers spent the next several hours trying to find the gunman before he showed up outside a dining area with 200 people inside. He shot a barrage of bullets with a semi-automatic rifle at a service entrance.

The rangers — including one who was wounded — shot back. Their rounds hit the attacker, Samson Lucas Bariah Fussner, 28, of Milton, Florida, who died at the scene in the busy Canyon Village tourist lodge area near the scenic Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

  • Flying Squid
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    10010 months ago

    She’d just been held at gunpoint by a man who said he planned to carry out a mass shooting — a random attack common in the U.S. these days

    I don’t have anything to add beyond repasting that. It speaks for itself.

    • @Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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      1710 months ago

      Yeah that worries me a lot. I am heading to that same campground today my third year in the park. I had worried about bears, Bison, or falling or getting injured in a hike. This first year I worry about getting shot just trying to enjoy a vacation. Sick of the gun violence in this country. That no one in the GOP will acknowledge.

  • @foggy@lemmy.world
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    6110 months ago

    I’m not much for 2A bullshit but homie…

    You went to YELLOWSTONE to attempt a mass shooting.

    Do you honestly think there is a soul that resides nearby that doesn’t have wet dreams about taking someone like you down every night?

    Good riddance.

    • @notabot@lemm.ee
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      4510 months ago

      There’s a fair chance he knew that and wanted to die while killing as many as possible.

      As you said, good riddance.

      • @CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1510 months ago

        I believe this to be the motives behind most mass shootings. They know they are going to die.

        It’s about getting their name printed on newspapers, shown in the news, talked about for a few days before the cycle repeats.

        We would be better served if the news simply referred to the shooter as “an assailant” and never say their names.

        • @notabot@lemm.ee
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          710 months ago

          Absolutely. If they’re killed during their crime they should be completely anonymous. No names, no ‘manifestos’, no reference to the sorts of communities they were part of online, no last words, just, ‘they were a vile stain on humanity’ and then forgotten. Obviously, if they live more will come out as they’re prosecuted, but that should be minimized and once they’re jailed they can be forgotten by all but those tasked with keeping them alive to serve their sentence.

      • @foggy@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        That’s what I mean though…

        You don’t go to what is essentially the actual ‘wild wild west’ for that shit and not expect to get Dirty Harry’d before you succeed.

        • @otterpop@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          While I agree that the surrounding area would be well armed, I believe firearms in the park itself are actually banned for civilians. (Wrong, see below) This is a rare case of a police force stopping an active shooter quickly.

          • @GluWu@lemm.ee
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            510 months ago

            That is false, firearms have been legal to carry in national parks since 2010.

              • @otterpop@lemmy.world
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                410 months ago

                "In areas administered by the National Park Service, an individual can possess a firearm if that individual is not otherwise prohibited by law from possessing the firearm and if the possession of the firearm complies with the laws of the state where the park area is located. 54 U.S.C. 104906. "

  • stinerman
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    5410 months ago

    he planned to carry out a mass shooting — a random attack common in the U.S. these days

    Well they’re not wrong, but it’s kind of surreal to see it plainly said like that.

    • @samus12345@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      We seem to have a hard time grasping the idea that if you make it easy for people to obtain weapons that kill with the simple pull of a trigger, there are people who will kill a bunch of people with them.

      • @Bigoldmustard@lemmy.zip
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        1110 months ago

        This is the part where someone replies with how they’re a super responsible gun owner that supports common sense gun control (but never describes what that means to them) and that a majority of gun owners are like that. Then everyone thinks “huh that really makes sense if you compare the number of gun owners to the number of mass shooters” and then we have the same conversation next week.

        • @samus12345@lemmy.world
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          1010 months ago

          I’m okay with responsible gun owners…but it should be difficult to prove that you are. The power of life and death shouldn’t be handed out like candy to anyone who wants it.

          • Liz
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            410 months ago

            Baseball bat, knife, sword, a small amount of rope, axe, hatchet, machete, chainsaw, fireworks, gasoline…

            Here’s the thing:

            1. You already have to pass a background check.

            2. So what more do you want? After that the criteria start to become subjective and will be applied be racists to disarm minorities and poor people.

            Now, I’m actually for some more generalized gun laws, like requiring that the gun or ammo be behind a lock when you’re not in control of it, but that’s not really relevant to stopping mass shootings. Ending mass shootings (a very small fraction of gun deaths) is way more about ending the desire to do such a thing.

            We’ve had easy access to guns for a long time, but mass shootings only started in the 90s, when angry white men felt they were getting left behind and had no way to feel valuable in the new society we’ve been working to build. I would suggest this episode of Some More News to get a quick understanding of angry men, and the book Angry White Men by Michael Kimmel to get a much deeper look at who these people are and why they act and feel the way that they do.

            • @samus12345@lemmy.world
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              210 months ago

              False equivalence. When’s the last time you heard about a mass killing using any of those things?

              “No way to prevent this,” says only nation where this regularly happens.

              • Liz
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                10 months ago

                So, taking away the guns is a solution to mass shootings I just don’t think we should do that. (You could argue they’d switch to cars.) The reasons get into conflicting principles in society and would derail the point in trying to make which is this:

                We used to have a society with lots of easily accessible guns whose build were conducive to doing a mass shooting, and yet we didn’t have mass shootings. That’s really my fundamental point. Mass shootings are a social phenomenon. We can get rid of the mass shootings without getting rid of the guns. It basically involves a bunch of left-wing policy, ignoring anything they have to say about guns. Strengthen unions, M4A, fixing town planning, strengthen EPA, break up the monopolies, go after wage theft, go after business that hire under the table, uncap social security, send social workers to 911 calls that don’t actually need a cop. Etc. Etc.

              • Liz
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                110 months ago

                So, taking away the guns is a solution, I just don’t think we should do that. The reasons get into conflicting principles in society and would derail the point in trying to make which is this:

                We used to have a society with lots of easily accessible guns whose build were conducive to doing a mass shooting, and yet we didn’t have mass shootings. That’s really my fundamental point. We can get rid of the mass shootings without getting rid of the guns. It basically involves a bunch of left-wing policy, ignoring anything they have to say about guns. Strengthen unions, M4A, fixing town planning, strengthen EPA, break up the monopolies, go after wage theft, go after business that hire under the table, uncap social security, send social workers to 911 calls that don’t actually need a cop. Etc. Etc.

    • Joelk111
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      1110 months ago

      Yeah, that’s a strange use of words. I was like “oh, he just had a gun where he wasn’t supposed to,” but no, he was in the act of performing terrorism.

    • @EnderWiggin@lemmy.world
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      210 months ago

      Whose to say he didn’t have one already? You’re not wrong about healthcare in general, but I’m not sure this is really the right forum for that point to be made.

        • @EnderWiggin@lemmy.world
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          110 months ago

          No doubt about the mental health issues, and I agree it’s a huge problem in the US. In terms of how the police responded to this though, it’s really tough to judge. It seems they prevented something worse from taking place.

          • Liz
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            110 months ago

            Their comment was not “we need to send doctors to respond to shooters.”

            Their comment was “we need universal healthcare so that people don’t feel the need to do these kinds of things.”

        • @EnderWiggin@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I’m confused. I’m going to assume this reply was meant for someone else? I only started here like a week ago.

  • Jo Miran
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    3810 months ago

    Wyoming resident and frequent Yellowstone patron here. Everything about this screams suicide. The man did everything possible to announce his intentions, then chose to shoot at a service entrance. He knew that there is a 100% chance that someone, patron or ranger, in the parking lot would have a high caliber weapon handy.

      • @crimsonpoodle@pawb.social
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        1010 months ago

        Per the National Park Service Website. You are allowed to carry a gun in national parks; but notably you’re not allowed to take it into government facilities: “government offices, visitor centers, ranger stations, fee collection buildings, and maintenance”. Additionally, it is not allowed to discharge the weapon unless you have specific hunting licenses.

        I don’t know what bearing this has on this tragedy, if any, but to facilitate civil discussion it’s best to have a shared understanding of the law.