Nearly 30 People Died in Two Mass Shootings Less Than 24 Hours Apart

Late Saturday morning, a man opened fire at a shopping center in the border City of El Paso, Texas, in the latest mass shooting of the summer, killing at least 20 people and injuring at least 24, according to authorities. The shooter, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius from the Dallas suburb of Allen, was taken alive by police, and, according to PBS, law enforcement officials are currently trying to confirm whether or not he wrote a racist manifesto posted online shortly before the attack.

As the New York Times reports, the manifesto cites a "Hispanic invasion of Texas," draws inspiration from the massacre at two New Zealand mosques earlier this year that left 51 people dead, and references the "great replacement," a racist conspiracy theory that claims behind-the-scenes elites are trying to destroy "white culture" through immigration. That would make the El Paso shooting only the most recent in a series of deadly attacks by white nationalists, including the shootings at synagogues in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Poway, California.

Only hours later, another shooting happened in Dayton, Ohio, in a popular night club and bar area called the Oregon District. The shooter was reportedly only active for about a minute around 1 A.M. Sunday morning before police intervened, and in that time he managed to kill at least nine people and wound 26. He was reportedly wearing body armor and carrying a "high capacity" rifle, according to witnesses.

On Sunday, Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, both Republicans, each told Fox News that these shootings are the result of violent video games, despite the fact that there's no word on either shooter mentioning video games and the complete lack of mass shootings in other countries where video games are popular, like South Korea and Japan.

Speaking on CNN's State of the Union, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, who formerly represented El Paso in Congress, put the blame on the anti-immigrant and white nationalist-friendly rhetoric frequently used by Donald Trump."We have a problem with white nationalist terrorism in the United States of America today," he said, adding, "These are white men motivated by the kind of fear that this President traffics in."

Originally Appeared on GQ