I urge everyone to watch this video.

It's by Laci Green, and it's called: "Elliot Rodger: More Than A Madman".  She tackles the topic with humor, anger, and insight.

[direct link]

She talks about her own experience with stalking and threats from a "friend" she refused to date, and then moves on Elliot Rodger and how his actions exist on a continuum of "not all... but way too fucking many" men who "feel entitled... to women's bodies and to their time."

Even if you're talked out on this topic, or think you already know this stuff, it's worth watching.

More below the squiggle.

She's got great delivery, and an eloquent grasp of the situation.  Despite her usual bailiwick being sex ed, there's nothing risque about this video, unless you're shocked by a bit of cleavage and swearing.  It's graphic only in the sense that she quotes Rodger and his supporters and talks about their mindset.  (Her video does provide a time stamp to skip to if you don't want to watch the excerpt of Rodger's YouTube video.)

Perhaps my favorite bit was this:

Now, before the massacre, both the social worker and his parents were like, "Something's wrong here."  

So they called in law enforcement, and the sheriff was like, "Well, he seems kinda timid and not very violent -- nothing to see here."  Beside the fact that he was, you know, posting his plans to slaughter his peers on YouTube -- "nothing to see here."

The fact that Elliot was dismissed was partially because we've normalized this idea  of violent masculinity.  This stuff didn't raise enough red flags because the sheriff thought, "Hey, he's got a lot of aggressive feelings, just like any other guy.  It's nothing to be concerned about."

Now six innocent people are dead.

The emasculation that Elliot Rodger felt eventually amounted in him following the manual written for boys: "Don't be a pussy.  Do what it takes to take back control."  And that's exactly what he did.

Better gun control laws are crucial.  As the 23rd man in this article showing what real men's activists look like points out, fewer women are shot to death in states with background checks on handgun sales.

On the other hand, in 40% of mass shootings, the shooter targets his girlfriend, wife, or ex-wife, and in 60% of mass shootings, he kills at least one parter, ex-partner, or family member.  

And better gun control laws will not solve the problems of violent masculinity and men feeling entitled to women's bodies and time.  As Green says,

What happens when that angry entitled man is armed with a gun?  With a knife?  With date rape drugs? ...

That is misogyny, but it's not always extreme like this either.  Think about things like street harassment, cat-calling, the verbal abuse that so many women put up with online.  Stalking, threats, intimidation, assault, rape, physical violence.

Sensible gun control laws may lower the number of mass shootings, but they will not end the pervasive violence against women.  Only ending the acceptance of violent masculinity and male entitlement to women's bodies will do that.

My words © me, Laci Green's words and video © her.