Mass Shooting in Thousand Oaks, California

[Content Note: Gun violence; terrorism.]

Last night in Thousand Oaks, California, an armed man went into the Borderline Bar & Grill on "College Country Night" and starting shooting, killing 12 people and injuring about around a dozen more. The gunman was later found dead; it is not known at the time of this writing whether he killed himself or was shot by Ron Helus, a veteran sergeant in the Ventura County Sheriff's Office who was killed while responding to the shooting.

Isaac Stanley-Becker, Mark Berman, Lindsey Bever, and Allyson Chiu at the Washington Post report:

The only weapon recovered by early Thursday was a handgun, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said. Officials have not publicly identified the shooter.

"It's a horrific scene in there," Dean told reporters. "There's blood everywhere. The suspect is part of that."

...The attacker is a white male who may have used a larger clip for his handgun or was able to reload, according to a person familiar with the matter. Investigators were still working to determine the motive and other details.

...Claire Gietzen told an ABC affiliate that she ran behind the bar when gunshots broke out, but then joined a man who pulled down a ladder leading into the attic.

"He motioned for me to follow him. I thought that was the best option at the time," she said. "[We heard] gunshot after gunshot. I heard glass breaking. I heard commotion and screaming. …We kept thinking it would stop for a while, that we were okay, and then it would start up again."

...The shooting unfolded just 13 months after 58 people were killed at a country music festival in Las Vegas, when a lone gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

Some people who were at Borderline Bar on Wednesday night had also apparently survived the shooting last year in Las Vegas. Chandler Gunn, 23, told the Los Angeles Times that when he heard about the shooting, he called a friend who works at the bar and who was also at Las Vegas festival.

"A lot of people in the Route 91 situation go here," Gunn told the newspaper about the tragedy in Las Vegas. "There's people that live a whole lifetime without seeing this, and then there's people that have seen it twice."

I am just filthy angry that more people are dead and more people are injured and more people are traumatized because of a man with toxic ideas and access to guns.

My condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of those who died. My thoughts are also with those who survived, and I hope those who were physically and/or psychologically injured have access to the resources they need to heal.

Of course law enforcement are offering the standard line about how this shooting doesn't appear to be connected to terrorism, but I honestly don't even know what the hell that is supposed to mean anymore. This is terrifying every time it happens.

Even if the shooter isn't connected to some ideological clusterfuck of vile bigotry (and it's very likely he is), his actions don't exist in a vacuum. He didn't get this idea out of nowhere, and his decision to act on it will have far-reaching ramifications, as people across the country make choices about whether to go out and be part of a public community knowing the risk that their day or night will end with gunfire.

If that isn't terrorism, tell me what the fuck it is.