I think it's unfortunate that there's a bit of misinformation on this thread which might be clouding the issue or not helping in our understanding of it.
"After he had surgery, he claimed that he was fully recovered in 8 days (not believable)" - I believe he claimed that he was pain-free, which is subjective and probably due to taking medication post-operatively any pain may have been masked, which is relatively common. 10ofRods wrote a helpful post about how directly after surgery there may be a large reduction in pain which may or may not be representative of the real situation long-term.
We haven't seen anything to state that he was in pain following the surgery, that pain was a motivation for him or anything of the like. <modsnip> We don't know if he was in pain or not at the point of the shooting. We don't know if surgery completely fixed the issue or not. We have no idea.
As far as someone taking a beginner surfing lesson and then having a problem, I don't think that's necessarily foreseeable. With a lot of conditions you're encouraged to stay active (e.g. with this one too, for example, keep attempting to do hills and strengthen the core and other parts of the body). It is incredibly hard to be a young, active person surrounded by friends who are able to do things you love and to sit out from them.
"he continued to participate in sports that ultimately led to a physical disability" - the problem is that anything could have set that off - like stepping on a piece of paper. It appears that his problem wasn't anywhere near as severe prior to the surfing incident (he mainly describes it as a bad ache) so he may well have thought it was fine to do that.
<modsnip> The assumption that someone is fine because they don't grimace, the assumption that someone is fine or pain-free because they're walking down the street. It just doesn't work like that. At all. We don't even know if this individual was even in pain in the footage we've seen yet there are so many comments about it and how he shouldn't be able to do this or that.
"I am still not buying the X-RAY Photo is the true “BACK story” to this situation.
But hey, “Poor Poor Luigi’s Back”
I call BS and I bet he loved the attention he got in person and online with his pity stories."
- Anyone who has screws in their back like that and the image seen on the x-ray which fits in with the story described so presumably is of his body, is likely to have experienced some pain. I don't get that vibe from the comments at all if we're talking about his indepth Reddit posts that discuss it. Again, it's comments like these that affect people greatly who are suffering with chronic pain and may mean they never speak out about it.
What he did was atrocious - you don't shoot someone because you disagree with them - but I think it's really important to try to understand why this happened and to keep things as accurate as possible. As far as I've seen his manifesto, if that's even accurate, doesn't mention pain as a motivation. In fact I haven't seen anything that mentions it in relation to the shooting.
You can feel empathy for a young man dealing with all of this (being laid off and then dealing with a spinal injury at that point - I don't know many people who wouldn't feel empathy for someone in that situation) AND have empathy for Brian Thompson and know what was done was completely wrong. It's not one or the other. <modsnip> Thanks for reading.
