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US mass shooters predominantly white males: Analyst

Wednesday, 04 October 2017 7:41 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 04 October 2017 7:44 PM ]

Terror attacks in the US are not confined to certain demographics or religions, but mass shootings are usually carried out by white males, according to an American analyst.

“It’s certainly true that white males have committed plenty of terrorism in the United States, particularly terrorism motivated by racism and to a lesser degree by religion,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.

“The overwhelming majority of terrorists are [white] males,” Preston told Press TV on Wednesday.

The mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday night that left at least 59 people dead and over 500 wounded was the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history and once again highlighted America's extreme rate of gun violence.

The perpetrator, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, rained down a barrage of bullets from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel towards an open-air concert Sunday night, police said.

In a televised address on Monday, President Donald Trump offered his “warmest condolences” for the victims of the mass shooting, but did not address the scourge of gun violence that has become a common occurrence in the country.

Paddock, like the majority of mass shooters in the US, was a white American male. Critics say whiteness, somehow, protects men from being labeled terrorists.

Extreme "Trumpism" and "white victimization" motivated the Las Vegas shooter, according to a Drexel University professor George Ciccariello-Maher.

Ciccariello-Maher tweeted just hours after the massacre that “white people and men” will go on shooting sprees “when they don’t get what they want.”

"White people and men are told that they are entitled to everything. This is what happens when they don't get what they want,” Cicariello-Maher continued.

“The narrative of white victimization has been gradually built over the past 40 years. It is the spinal column of Trumpism, and most extreme form is the white genocide myth. Yesterday was a morbid symptom of what happens when those who believe they deserve to own the world also think it is being stolen from them."

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