Police in Lafayette, Louisiana are evidently struggling to understand why the outspokenly misogynistic, racist and anti-Semitic John Russell “Rusty” Houser murdered two women and wounded 9 other moviegoers at a showing of “Trainwreck,” a film written by and starring Amy Schumer, a feminist comedian with a Jewish father, known for joking frankly about sex.

[For more, see my latest post on Houser: “Did right-wing attacks on “Trainwreck” inspire John Russell Houser’s shooting rampage?”]

Col. Michael D. Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, wondered aloud about Houser’s motives at a press conference:

Why did he come here? Why did he do that? … We may not find a motive.

It seems to me that Houser’s likely motive is staring them in the face.

Because it turns out that Houser was pretty well-known, at least to regular viewers of one local TV talk show in Columbus, GA, as an angry right-wing fanatic who hated women. As one former host of the show recalled,

He was anti-abortion. … Rusty had an issue with feminine rights. He was opposed to women having a say in anything.

Houser evidently appeared on the live show dozens of times as a “gadfly” whose appearances “would generate calls.”

When Houser’s career as a loudmouthed crank on local TV apparently came to an end years ago, he moved to another medium, leaving a long trail of hateful comments on assorted websites, many of them openly praising Hitler and talking ominously about the future of what he saw as a deeply “immoral” culture.”

In the comments on a news article about an 60-year-old man who’d been murdered, Houser wrote

I am sincerely sorry for the loss of this fellow in the deer processing business. Most people over 50 in certain businesses are just as their parents were,rock solid morally. I am also sorry for what is to come for the other very few moral souls left in the entire US. I am not sorry for the 90% immoral population which will be meeting the same fate. Filth is rampant.That none have stood against it causes me to take rest in the worse than MAD MAX near future which approaches.

In Trainwreck, Amy Schumer plays a New York journalist “riding the cock carousel” — as the odious men I regularly write about on this website like to put it — who eventually falls in love.

It seems highly unlikely that Houser was someone “who just happened to be in this theater,” as the police superintendent put it.

It seems highly likely that a woman-hating neo-Nazi ended up in a theater showing Trainwreck on purpose.

When a religious fanatic blows themselves up at a cafe frequented by members of a rival religious sect, we have no trouble calling this terrorism.

When an outspoken white racist murders nine black churchgoers in Charleston, SC, well, some people (including virtually all of the Republican presidential hopefuls) have trouble calling it terrorism. But most people can see it for what it is.

When misogynists murder women, almost no one calls it terrorism.

Elliot Rodger, who left behind an assortment of misogynistic videos and a book-length diatribe, was a terrorist.

“Rusty” Houser — who left behind no manifesto but who was well-known for his odiously anti-woman and neo-Nazi views — was almost certainly a terrorist as well.

NOTE: According to court filings, Houser had “a history of mental health issues, i.e., manic depression and/or bi-polar disorder.” (Which are actually the same thing.) While this could certainly have had an effect on his state of mind, it says nothing about his motives. Bipolar disorder does not cause people to become misogynistic neo-Nazis who murder women.

EDIT: Added the note above, made tweaks to wording.

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