By Hunter Wallace

Update: The shooter has been identified as one “Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.”

I’m seeing reports on television of a Confederate Battle Flag that has gone on a shooting spree at the U.S. Naval Reserve Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Note: Now is the time where I say, “I told you so.”

“In light of the successful prediction that I made after Gabrielle Giffords was shot in 2011, let me make another prediction: if history is our guide, by the time the American public has digested the Dylann Roof shooting in Charleston, yet another rampage shooting starring a different character with different motives will have seized national headlines. In hindsight, it is amazing how quickly the public loses interest in even the worst atrocities, as there is always another self-detonating fantasist out there ready to tee up the next dish of carnage. And you know what? Next time there is a rampage shooting, and the next time after that, and the next time after that … and talking heads wonder aloud about the “root causes” of “the sickness in America,” the same deadly cocktail of expressive individualism, fantasy ideology, and mental illness will rear its ugly head. When the next self righteous narcissist walks down the catwalk of the 24/7 cable news media, only the details will be different. Oh, and that Confederate flag … that’s just a small, irrelevant detail.”