Juno News - February 11, 2026Canadians mourn after mass shooting in B.C.
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Summary
10 people are dead, including the suspected shooter, and dozens more injured in the small mining community of Tumblr Ridge, British Columbia. The gunman has been identified as Jesse Strang, a 17-year-old transgender student, believed to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Transcript
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Well, flags are at half-mast across Canada in honor of the victims of a mass shooting
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at a secondary school in northeastern British Columbia.
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Ten people are dead, including the suspected shooter, two dozen others injured in the small
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Now, Juneau News was the first to identify the gunman as 17-year-old Jesse Strang, a transgender
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student believed to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
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Here is one harrowing account by a parent who spoke to Rebel News.
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My two kids that were in school were probably in the best part of the school to be at at
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And, I mean, they didn't really hear the shooting, and, you know, they heard the alarms go off,
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Yeah, they had the welding tables and everything put up against the doors and barricaded themselves
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in, uh, my middle child, she, uh, uh, they, they heard something, they thought it was fireworks
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at first or something, and, uh, then someone came running down, hide, hide, or something,
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had, and they, they all scurried and hide in the, so these, uh, storage closets in the classroom.
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And, uh, and then my youngest, she's, uh, homeschooled, but, uh, I believe it was five of her friends
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I'm writing this post sitting in Vancouver Children's Hospital while my daughter fights for her life.
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Now, however, my 12-year-old daughter is fighting for her life while they try to repair the damage
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from a gunshot wound to the head and one to the neck.
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Now, Prime Minister Carney canceled his trip to Europe on the news.
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Uh, it's obviously a very difficult day for the nation this morning.
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Uh, parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, in Tumblr Ridge will wake up without someone
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I want to thank and pass on a number of world leaders who've reached out directly to me in
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solidarity and compassion, France, United Kingdom, His Majesty himself, Norway, Finland, India, United Arab Emirates, many others.
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A conservative party leader, Pierre Polyev, had this to say.
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We are all devastated by the news of this appalling shooting in Tumblr Ridge.
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The fact that this took place at a secondary school makes it even more tragic.
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As a father, I can't even imagine the phone calls that parents might have received.
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I can't imagine the heartache and hell that they're living through at this moment.
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Um, this is a time for all Canadians to unite, to support the families and the community at large.
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Uh, we'll be in touch with the prime minister and the other parties later today to offer all of our support,
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to work together and help the community in any way we can in this terrible time.
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Uh, uh, this is a, I encourage all Canadians to pray for the community and pray for the family
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as we go forward and take the necessary steps to support them.
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Now, Juneau News reporter Cosman Georgia broke the story of the shooter's identity.
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Yeah, so last night, um, obviously there was a lot of information and speculation circulating
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Uh, some false negatives proposed, uh, but there were a lot of questions.
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And I think those questions were spurred by the way the police framed this situation.
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So the initial active shooter alert that went out to the community of Tumblr Ridge yesterday,
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uh, and surrounding communities said that the suspect was described as a female wearing a dress.
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Now, in B, some parts of BC, it's pretty warm, like for example, here on Vancouver Island,
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it's about, it was about 10 degrees yesterday and sunny, but Tumblr Ridge is quite cold.
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And I think, uh, a lot of the circumstances started to raise questions and asking about,
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is this shooter in fact a male who might have been dressed as a woman or presenting as a female?
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And so we looked into this information and we tracked down one individual, um,
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who we thought was the suspect and contacted the direct family.
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And this would be the direct family of Jesse Strang and his uncle, Russell.
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And Russell confirmed that Jesse was in fact the shooter and that he was in fact his uncle.
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And that's the information we went with, uh, to press.
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I mean, there's, I believe, two dozen people who were injured, including, um, a young girl who
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went to, ended up in Vancouver Children's Hospital. Do we have any information about those who were wounded?
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So far, uh, the police are not providing much information, which is a huge frustration. And
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that's why we see nobody in the legacy media is touching the, the suspect's identity, uh, or the
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name of the suspect. And what they're falling back on is while the police haven't confirmed,
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uh, in reality, it's the journalist's job to confirm information. The police are just one source of many,
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uh, primary sources of information and incidents like these. Obviously it's a very tragic situation
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and, uh, everybody's hearts go out to the victims involved in this.
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And I suppose the connection to his identity, the way he identifies himself, the, the shooter,
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there's a link there to other types of shootings that we've had, mass shootings in the United States,
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um, involving people who are trans and the questions around the mental health of these people.
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Is that being looked at right now to your knowledge? I know it's early, but.
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Well, there are indications that this individual had quite a social media presence,
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um, based on various links to a YouTube account, which was shared, uh, by his mother, Jennifer,
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um, who is deceased. We have reason to believe. And yes. So the questions are, uh, about his mental
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health, what motivated him to do this. I asked Russell, Jesse's uncle, were there any signs that
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Jesse would do something like this? He did not respond to that message, although he did, uh, confirm
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Okay. Well, you've done tremendous work on the story as has, uh, judo news in general. And, uh,
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we do appreciate that. I know you want to get right back to covering that, uh, that tragic,
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well, horrendous, uh, mass shooting. So thank you very much for coming on the show, Cosmo.
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Joining me now is security expert and bodyguard to the billionaires, Ross McClain. Ross,
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welcome to the show. Yeah. Good to join you on this topic. And the only reason I say it's good,
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Mark, is because I think I've got a lot to contribute for the public to know, to help
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understand what exactly is going on with this horrific case.
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already suspected and knew what the whole thing was going to play out like. And there's a reason for
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that there's more than a trend that goes on with these shootings. And let me qualify everything
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I'm going to say here today with two, two different ways, Mark. So I worked in law enforcement,
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right? I know the law enforcement, I know the response side of this, right? Where you react when
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a shooting like this takes place, which by the way, it appears RCMP did a great job on scene in two
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minutes of more to say about that. But I also work in the bodyguard business. And there your job is
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preventing things like this from happening, right? You want to stop them from happening. And this was
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something that clearly you have not looked at. We all know we're not discussing the elephant in the room.
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We're not dealing with preventing these problems. Let me clarify that a little bit more.
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If I have a client I'm protecting against, let's say, from the IRA, I'm going to say,
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I'm going to look at the IRA and how they attack people, what they do, where they do it. I'm going
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to know everything about them so I can prevent them from getting close to my client. I don't say,
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oh, well, it's politically incorrect to describe the Irish as being part of the IRA. Therefore,
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you can't discuss it. Therefore, don't consider that in your planning, right? That's ridiculous.
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You have to call things for what they are if you're going to prevent them from happening.
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And what I notice here is there's a complete lack of wanting to call this for everything that appears
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to be the other ones. This is trans violence that was put on by somebody. And you know what? I don't
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even necessarily blame this kid. He was molded into this, to a position where you know that this sort
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of thing is going to happen. We all know it. That's the elephant in the room, Mark.
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Yeah. And I guess when you add to that, the possibility that he was taking certain medications
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that are involved in his transitioning, that all of this in a young man, a troubled young man,
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an emotionally disturbed young man, you put it all together and you end up with the disaster that just
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unfolded in Tumblr Ridge. But you're looking at a society, Mark, that took him down that road.
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I mean, we can talk more about some of the things we need to do to prevent these sort of things,
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but you need to have an inquiry into this and all the things that brought this to be.
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I mean, from the police vantage point, for them to describe the shooter as a gun person,
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that's not normally a phrase that you hear. But it just makes you look at the woke language and
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extract from that the attitude of the police when they start using those types of terms and then
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withholding elements of the shooter's identity and so forth. But thanks to social media and so forth,
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we have evidence that this person was very troubled, talked about medications and their
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transitioning and what a hard time this individual was having in that particular stretch. And unfortunately,
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it ended in the way that it did. And I don't know, how do you begin to prevent this? I mean,
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apart from taking added security measures within the schools, obviously, the government's going to use
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this. At some point, they're going to politicize it like they did the Nova Scotia massacre and use
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that to go after firearms. That's very typical of what they do. You know, the bodies weren't even cold
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in greater Halifax when the government started exploiting that for political means. I hope that doesn't
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happen in this case. But let's not lose sight of the possibility that it might. But what every parent
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is thinking is, how do I avoid this at my kid's school? That's what they're thinking right now. Do
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you have any words of advice to them apart from homeschooling? Yeah, well, I would have things I
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could say to the parents and the bereavement and the shock that they're going through. But let me go back to
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your original question about how do you start to monitor and deal with some of this. There's some
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very foundational things you can do. But let me go up a little bit more from the foundation. We'll
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talk about we're on the first floor here, Mark. When you have a child who's going through clearly
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emotional distress, clearly deciding they want to transition their identity, clearly they're taking
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drugs, that should be on the school's radar. Because it's the same thing as if you drive a car,
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they rate you for your insurance, right? You're a male. Well, you're 16 years old,
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just got your license. You got a lot of tickets. They're going to treat you differently, right?
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Because the warning signs are there. And if you start seeing behavior problems, like there was
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clearly according to social media, the great reporting, by the way, great reporting by Juneau News,
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getting all the social media out, you wouldn't know nothing if you were watching mainstream news.
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But, and you see these, as the behavior gets worse, you notify the police. You say,
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hey, we got a kid here, behavior problems, on drugs, getting a little bit detached from reality.
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Can you please check the home? See if the home has any weapons there. See if there's been any calls to
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that home before for violence and bad behavior by the child. And just do a basic check so we can be
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aware so we can protect everybody else. Because you know, it's going to go off the rails at a certain
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point. It very likely is. So the schools need to be taking an active prevention in that. And the police,
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I love the blue mark, as you know, they have to stop being so politically correct. And they have to
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deal with these issues straight up. And I had not liked the communication from the police on this.
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It sounds like, great, the call came in. RCMP was there in two minutes. We don't know much more
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after that what happened, except they entered the school. And at some point, you know, this person
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unaligned themselves. Was it three hours later? Because the police didn't clear it for four hours.
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Or were they in there right away and they saw it? They saw that the person was dead. They clearly
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didn't call an ambulance to take them away. Why are they not giving the information out to the public
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so the public can deal with this? Police chiefs are allowed to do that when it's in the public interest.
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So I think there needs to be way better communication. There's a call going on right
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now, I don't know what's happening with it, in Brantford, Ontario. It says a high school is closed
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down there. Police say, don't come near. Parents don't come to the school until we resolve this.
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I can just imagine what those parents are thinking, right? What are they thinking is going on at that
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school? So as long as we dance around naming the thing that needs to be named, that goes unnamed,
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you're never going to be able to solve this problem, in my opinion.
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I mean, they were in a fairly remote area. I mean, there were other communities in the area, but
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I mean, you're talking about a small community that might not have access to the kinds of services,
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social services that, say, you would get in Vancouver or Victoria. I mean, did that play a role
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here, do you think? I mean, I'm not looking for scapegoats, but I'm not looking for justifications
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as to why this happened. I think this was a heinous act, assuming it went down the way we believe it did.
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But, you know, will the government look at trying to maybe improve services for people who are
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quote-unquote transitioning in, you know, tiny communities like Tumblr Ridge?
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Yeah, well, I'm going to take, once again, I'm going to give you my preventative side on that one,
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Mark. And certainly they had enough social services there that he could see a doctor,
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get prescribed all sorts of drugs for this. The doctor would have had to watch him and see what
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was going on with him and still see what's going on to manage it. He was obviously influenced just
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looking a lot by his online activities, getting involved in violence online and talking in the
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Reddit subgroups about different issues. So my struggle is, is there enough there to help him
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continue down a road that's going to cause him a lot of trouble? I think you need to help him
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recognize the problem. You need to recognize the problem. And I say this, and I do not say this
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without compassion. One thing that I do in my job, Mark, when I look at criminals, crimes, and motives,
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I look at the identity of the person. And I can figure out a lot from their identity. When you're
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confused about your identity, you've got a real problem. And to have schools and doctors helping to
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confuse, you've got a real problem. I think it's much easier to give him mental health treatment,
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to get him comfortable with the way his body was made that it is to try and change his body
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to meet the struggles that he was having in his head.
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That's me. I'm not a doctor, but you have to look at how you prevent.
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Right. There was something that you said earlier about access to a firearm. I mean, in many of these
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communities, you know, you do have a gun and it's not strange to have a firearm for a myriad of reasons
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if you're in the country. But if you've got a child in the house that is clearly having emotional problems,
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disturbed, online saying things, on medication, then does it make sense to get the firearm
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to a place where that individual, a young person cannot access it?
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Absolutely, it does. You have to deal with that reality. That's been the case
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in several other mass school shootings. They come home and get the parents' gun and take it away.
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You know, it's such a tough thing to talk about, right? It really is.
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But you have to name the problem. You can't run away from the problem. We're seeing these kids that
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are suffering through this. They have the highest rates of suicide of just about any group. Why? Well,
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we know why, but we're continuing to encourage the problem. And it's become like a social... I don't
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want to go too far afield from where I'm at, but it's just like anorexia. It was a socially
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transmitted disease. That's what it was. They did a test where they went to the Far East,
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Papua New Guinea. Nobody had a problem. None of the girls there had a problem with it.
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They brought in TV. They showed all the skinny models. Anorexia broke out in Papua New Guinea,
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right? There are some memes that are transmitted socially. And this is a child. He's 17 years old.
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He apparently started this transition. He was 15, according to the online stuff that I'm seeing. That's a
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child. He can't drive a car. We need to name this and deal with this. And, uh,
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uh, I have to ask, well, I mean, are there those who feed into the idea that trans people are mistreated,
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misunderstood? You know, your parents don't understand you, your friends. It's at school.
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Other people at school don't understand you. It's their fault that you're miserable, that you're
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feeling uncertain about who you are and what you are. And, you know, that sort of thing happens.
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factions in this world that want to feed into that mindset almost to push these people over the edge.
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Well, absolutely. You have prominent politicians and activists who wear shirts that say things like
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trans rights with a knife on it. You see, there's a whole lot of talk
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in the trans community about, we will kill you if you get in our way, if you don't give us what we
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want. I mean, that's just a fact. So if I was having to protect someone against someone who suffered
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from this mental disease of trans, I would know all about them and I know how to prevent it. And I know
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how to deal with it. It, it is when you, you know, when I used to protect the billionaires,
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the worst ones I protected them against, Mark, the hardest ones for me were cases of mental illness.
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I helped advise a lot of media people as well, too. A lot of people in media get fixated on
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by people who sit at home and build up mental ideas in their head. And then they come and you,
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they come at you from all kinds of angles. They're almost the, the trickiest to deal with.
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If it was just a political ideology, you could deal with it differently.
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Billionaires. That's is that maybe my phone cut mentally ill going after to attack billionaires.
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Some of them were now, most of them are very good.
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Well, Ross, I thank you for coming on the show. I mean, you really provided some great insights into
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this whole thing. I don't know if there are any answers yet. People will be grappling for answers.
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They'll look at things like services. They'll look at things like firearm access. Unfortunately,
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you know, legal firearms owners are going to once again be put in the crosshairs,
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figuratively or metaphorically speaking, by people who somehow blame
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access. You know, the, the fact that we have access to firearms, legal firearms in this country,
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illegal. I mean, let's face facts. All these things are going to be grappled over, over the next
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weeks. And at the end of the day, when the smoke clears and the stories have stopped,
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you're going to have families grieving the loss for the rest of their lives. I mean,
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there are families whose lives were destroyed as a result of this thing. And we can never forget those
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people. It is the apple of their eye, the work that people put into their children. Trust me. I work
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with counselors. I understand PTSD. I seen cops that have ended their lives because maybe they attended a
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call like this and what they saw. It is traumatic, traumatic. But back to your point there, you can't
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blame the gun. It's the person with the gun. This could have been done with a car. We've seen cars
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for ideology drive through and kill people. You have to deal with and name the problem. All of this,
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trying to work around the outside of it, you're never going to deal with it. And these kids that are
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going through these struggles, they need the right kind of help. I believe they closed the one
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transitioning place over in England, the Tavistock, it was called, because they could not believe the
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work that they were doing in there. And I think the US has ended it in a lot of states. They're shutting
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down, doing a lot of this, because you know what the problem is. You're going to wreck these kids.
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You're going to wreck them. And the incidence is just too high for damage to the kids, as opposed to
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helping and someone's going to go on and have a great normal life moving forward. You got to name it.
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You got to name it, Mark. How do people access your terrific content online, Ross?
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They can catch me at McLean Chronicles on my YouTube. And I try to do on there what I'm
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doing here. I try and call the balls and strikes. And life is hard, Mark. It's hard. But nothing's
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harder than those parents that have to bury those kids. Absolutely. And our condolences go to all of
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them. Sad day indeed. Ross, thank you for coming on the show.
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And if you enjoyed this show, consider supporting great independent journalism,
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