On Sunday, a shooting at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, left the suspect dead, her 7-year-old son in critical condition, and a bystander shot in the leg.
What’s amazing to me is this happened a couple of days ago and I’ve seen Joel Osteen’s name in every newspaper in big black print, but I have to read way, way, way, way, way down in the article to learn that the shooter appears to have been transgender.
By my count, this is at least the sixth ‘trans’ person to commit or try to commit a mass shooting in the past couple of years, and each time the media completely downplays that fact and lets the story wither on the vine. These are not accidents.
I have a policy of not naming the shooter in these situations, but the suspect in this case is a 36-year-old woman who had used male aliases in the past. While her previous arrest and jail records identify her as female, her ex-husband referred to her by the name “Jeffrey” in divorce papers. She also had a documented history of mental illness.
Given those concerns, there are questions about whether there should have been more gun enforcement or a red flag law that would have made sure this person could not get access to firearms. But it’s outrageous to me that we are not taking a closer look at this.
The profile of the people who commit these crimes tend to be white guys in their late teens and early twenties who have a schizophrenic break. There’s usually some sort of a warning sign. Maybe there are posts online. But we are starting to see the profile change.
I remember with the shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, last March – where they still haven’t released the manifesto – that when we found that it was a girl posing as a boy, my first instinct was, ‘Girls don’t do this. This is not a girl thing.’ Of course you can always find an exception, but this is largely a ‘boy thing.’
And yet we’re seeing it more and more among girls who are taking testosterone, who’ve obviously struggled with mental health issues. And there is an absolute unwillingness to acknowledge that piece of the story and probe why. Why is the dynamic starting to shift?
I am willing to ask if there should have been a red flag law that would have gotten this person within the crosshairs of the gun screeners down in Texas or wherever she bought it. But we also need to look at: Was she on hormones? Was there a change in her personality? What triggered this mental health problem with her? Instead, we get total blackouts from the media.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 723 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.