On Friday night, May 23rd, twenty-two year old Elliot Rodger went on a wild killing rampage that left seven people dead and several others severely wounded.   The bloody spree took place in Isla Vista on the University of California Santa Barbara campus and lasted for no longer than twenty minutes.

It appears that Rodger had been planning the attack for several weeks and possibly even months before, and he referred to the day of the spree as the “Day of Retribution” in his one hundred and thirty-seven page manifesto entitled “My Twisted World:  The Story of Elliot Rodger”.

In the manifesto, Rodger revealed his frustration that he not only remained a virgin, but that girls his age did not see him as the attractive and perfect gentleman he believed he was.  The troubled young adult blamed girls for not allowing him to experience sex and fun; thus, the rampage, he explained, was intended to punish women for this “injustice”.  Rodger emailed the manifesto to his mother just minutes before beginning his rampage.  Unfortunately, by the time she saw the email, it was too late.

Elliot Rodger also posted a chilling video to his YouTube channel just a day before the shooting.  While sitting behind the wheel of his car, Rodger informed the viewing audience his intention to end his misery the next day.  He referred to all girls as “sluts,” and said that they deserved to be annihilated.  Rodger confessed that he could not wait to slaughter them and every so often Rodger threw in a creepy, self-satisfied chuckle to emphasize his point.

The next day, May 23rd, Rodger began his killing spree in his own apartment by stabbing his two roommates and a third individual.  In his manifesto, Elliot Rodger called his roommates “very ugly with annoying voices,” and expressed his desire to kill them, which he succeeded in doing.  The roommates were identified as nineteen-year old George Chen and twenty-year old C.H., whose full name remains private by familial request.  The third individual was twenty-year old Weihan Wang who was visiting the apartment at the time.

After killing his roommates and their friend, Rodger then drove to what he considered to be the “hottest” sorority on campus, Alpha Phi.  The residents of the house later reported hearing a loud, insistent knocking on the door for several minutes, but no one opened the door.  Rodger abandoned his attempt to enter through the front door, and when he was not even twenty paces away, he spotted a group of three sorority sisters across the street.  Rodger shot and killed two of the girls, Katherine Cooper and Veronika Weiss, and the third was severely injured.  At this point in time, 9:27 p.m., the first call to police was made.

The shooter reentered his vehicle and drove to a nearby deli where he shot and killed another UCSB student, Christopher Michaels-Martinez.  Then while he driving, he fired multiple rounds at several pedestrians and struck and injured two bicyclists with his vehicle.  With police pursing him, Rodger lost control of his vehicle and crashed into parked cars.  When police reached him, he had already taken his own life with a self-inflicted gun wound to the head.

Elliot Rodger’s horrifying actions sparked controversy.  People around the nation debated whether he was truly a mentally unstable individual or perhaps an embodiment of a growing misogyny that includes an online men’s rights movement.  Of course, there remains the possibility that he could be both.  However, his rampage further evidences the increase of school shootings and gun violence in recent times and the need for some defense against these ultimately fatal attacks on society.