Where Did He Get the Money?
So, the 18-year-old racist piece of shit who murdered 10 people in Buffalo a few days back was from my neck of the woods. He lived in Conklin, NY, about 9 miles down the road from where I grew up on the West Side of Binghamton. I saw his address online, Amber Hill Road, and I recognized it. I didn’t know that road particularly well, but an old girlfriend used to live out that way, and I remembered the homes. They’re nice — large, manicured lawns, long driveways, generally an acre or so of property, maybe a pool. They’re not McMansions, but they’re pretty sweet if you have a cul-de-sac mentality and aim toward achieving the American dream of 2.5 fences and some white-picket kids.
Out of curiosity, I opened up a real-estate website that does price estimates for folks in the market for a new home. I plugged in the shooter’s address. If you’re interested in making an offer, the suggested starting point was $277,000 — which, if I roll some numbers together in my mind, is about $276,780 more than I’ve got on hand — if I sell my bike, and I don’t really want to sell my bike. So, yeah, have at it, though you’d probably be moving into a pretty fucking toxic environment, and might seriously want to reconsider the relocation if you’re skin tone is anything tawnier than old milk or a fish’s belly.
Digging in a bit more on this asshole, I found a to-do list that he posted on Discord in the days before the rampage. It included these nuggets:
- Continue writing manifesto (fix leftism equality)
- Clean and oil AR, fully load mags, write important list on guns with sharpie
- fully charge and replace batteries in speaker, gopro, phone (charger in car), sordins.
I didn’t know what sordins were, so I looked them up. They’re noise-suppression headphones that run about $200 a pair. Perfect for both preventing damage to the eardrums during live-fire activities AND for broadcasting your murderous rampage to your racist, shitbag followers on Twitch.
In the to-do list, he also references three different guns — a Bushmaster XM-15, which starts around $700 apiece and goes up to $1700. He also notes that he’ll be taking an Axis and a Mossberg. I don’t know enough about what he had with him to do exact prices, but he notes that he will need to push the passenger’s seat all the way back for those weapons, so I’m guessing they’re long guns — perhaps a Savage Axis XP, which retails for about $400, and, say, a Mossberg Patrol Rifle (he seems to like .223s) which goes for $700, retail. We also know from reports that he was wearing tactical gear, which can run up to $1000 pretty easily if you’re willing to spend the money — and this guy clearly was.
But, of course, none of it was his money, right? This 18-year-old murderer from the tony suburb of Binghamton, this recent high school graduate, didn’t have nearly $3000 to outfit himself with equipment he would be far more likely to need in a warzone than during hunting season. I mean, come on, get real. There’s not a job in America, short of being a straight-from-high-school-to-the-NBA basketball prodigy that is going to provide you with the jack to spend that kind of money on your . . . what would you call it before it turns into terrorism . . . on your hobby?
I’ve been wracking my brains about this, and I just can’t imagine any realistic way that Payton Gendron — that’s his name — bought any of this stuff on his own dime. It was clearly either directly purchased by, or purchased with the consent and knowledge of, his parents — right?
Right?
18-year-old kid.
Thousands of dollars of tactical gear and weapons.
How? Unless mom and dad were either criminally stupid or utterly negligent. How in the fuck do you NOT ask your kid why he needs a bulletproof helmet, a bulletproof vest, an AR-15, two expensive rifles, and god-knows how much in ammo when that credit card bill comes at the end of the month?
How, after your kid is sent to the hospital for psychological evaluation when he threatens his classmates, do you not intervene and lock those fucking guns away? Or get rid of them altogether? Or send your little monster to counseling?
How do you not talk to him about the fact that he is writing a manifesto about murdering people based on the color of their skin? How do you not stop this from happening?
Maybe I’ve got this all wrong. Maybe he moved out of his family home at seventeen and somehow managed to buy a nice place in a suburban neighborhood on his charm and wit. Maybe all the guns and tactical gear were gifts from his weird Uncle Adolf — but that seems unlikely. And knowing something about how many, many, many people in my community think about issues like race and gun ownership, I’d say it’s a far better bet to assume that, while they might not have had the impetus to pull the trigger themselves, his mom and dad — along with more than a handful of his neighbors — believe all the toxic Great Replacement Theory nonsense that filled this little shitball’s head with hate.
Ugh.
I’m sick with this stuff.
Just sick with it.
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Still, love — and peace — to you all.
