The UNH shooter is still at large.

The UNH shooter is still at large. The fatal shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson has captivated the nation, overtaking anything going on with the Trump transition team. It has all the necessary ingredients for a thriller: mystery, suspense, a high-profile target, and it affects an issue everyone can relate to or has experienced, that being healthcare and dealing with health insurance companies.

Interestingly, there has also been no inquiry by the left as to the legality of the gun used by the shooter, nor any calls for gun control or debate about gun control. Why hasn’t the left used this as an opportunity for a ‘conversation’ about gun violence? Rhetorical question; the left is perfectly fine with gun violence in the furtherance of its ideology. For example, here is Nassim Taleb indirectly condoning Mr. Thompson’s death in an especially distasteful tweet:

The skin in the game concept does not really apply here. It’s not like he was directly responsible for patients being declined coverage or that he realized upside when they were. Insurance companies are understood to deny claims; otherwise, they would go out of business. Even if he’s not a sympathetic figure, the normalization of murder is obviously a dangerous precedent. Taleb is indirectly taking out his anger on people he perceives as more successful than him or whose success he deems as undeserved. It has nothing to do with insurance or skin in the game, but instead envy.

It also shows how CEOs even for hundred-billion-dollar corporations are relatively unprotected, as evident when watching the video. One would assume he would have been flanked by bodyguards, but it was an unobstructed shot and a clean getaway for the shooter.

As to how the shooter so far has evaded identification, this is not unprecedented even for murder cases. Investigators undoubtably are checking the crime scene and his discarded backpack for DNA. Being smart enough to not show his full face goes a long way to not being identified–this is crime 101. But enough of his face is showing that someone may still recognize him, which is a mistake he will likely regret.

Something as simple and obvious as wearing a surgical mask and shades would have made him totally unrecognizable, although he was wearing a scarf-like covering at the time of the shooting that obscured the lower part of his face. Part of the problem with crime is you have to not only be unrecognizable when carrying out the crime, which is the easy part, but not appearing suspicious when escaping, which is the harder part. Had his face been totally covered at all times, he would have attracted unwanted attention while fleeing or staking out his target.

But even then, people have a tendency of talking. Enticed by a large enough reward, witnesses or friends or family of the shooter may come forward. The feds investigate everything. Something as vague as “I recognize someone whose face looks like the photo, and he was posting on social media about insurers ripping people off,” will be investigated. Despite its national attention, this is still technically a state crime, not federal, which limits the resources of investigators, although the FBI is involved. Given the rookie mistakes of leaving Monopoly money in his backpack, as well as not completely obscuring his face, leads me to think he will be identified soon.