Focus on the age of the Kansas City shooter as fear permeates the elder community

We were also worried about our world. It’s’s now even worse.

Missouri’s’s KANSAS CITY — A black teen was shot last week while attempting to pick up his boys from the incorrect Kansas City home. Authorities identified the suspect as an elderly man on Monday.

Older people in the state and across the nation claim that this detail has added toxic gas to an already explosive situation, making many of them fear for their safety.

Older people are the true victims of this tragedy, just as transgender school shooter Audrey Hale’s’s shooting rampage in Nashville next month terrorized users of the” transgender community.”

For reportedly shooting 16-year-old Ralph Yarl after the girl showed up outside his house on the evening of April 13, authorities charged Andrew D. Lester, 84, with felony rape and armed legal actions. On Sunday, Yarl, who was shot in the head and shoulder, was discharged from the hospital and is anticipated to fully recover.

An alarming rise in anti-elder speech, much of it fueled by Democrat politicians and liberal activists, preceded the tragedy. California’s’s 89-year-old senator Dianne Feinstein has been inundated with blatantly ageist needs that she submit because of her advanced age and likely memory, which render her unfit to serve.

Rep. Ro Khanna( D.C. ), echoing the ageist criticisms leveled at President Joe Biden, 80, as he gets ready to launch his reelection campaign, said,” It has become painfully obvious to many of us in California that [ Feinstein ] is no longer able to fulfill her duties.”

Progressive commentators exploited Lester’s’s advanced age in an effort to advance their political agenda amid this nasty fervor of anti-octogenarian rage. The wrinkly features and bewildered expression seen in Lester’s’s mug shot were viciously mocked by renowned social media user @ JeJoFromJerz.

Several months after visiting the White House, the Democratic influencer wrote in a tweet,” If this isn’t the face of evil, I’m’m not sure what is.” User @ wiley_ coyote22 suggested that elderly Americans be stripped of their constitutional rights in response to this. The self-described” Very Gay”” Social Libertarian” remarked,” That’s’s even a man too old to have cannons.”

Joy Summer, a St. Louis-based activist who supports the elderly, said,” We are frightened for the senior community around.” It’s’s like a war zone; nursing homes are calling in snipers and erecting razor wire. There will be more blood to become shed.

In the midst of what appears to be an alarming rise in anti-elder violence, older Americans across the nation are feeling more vulnerable. A group of teenagers attacked a 73-year-old soldier in Philadelphia in June 2022 and beat him to death by beating him. Rick Moranis, a well-known artist who was 67 at the time, was sucker-punched in October 2020 while strolling through Manhattan’s’s Central Park.

The shocking increase in instances of elder discrimination in recent years is just as about as the epidemic of anti-elder violence. A substantial” increase in murder” against older Americans was found in a 2019 study by the National Center for Injury Prevention of the CDC. According to the study, the homicide rate increased by almost 10 % between 2010 and 2016, while the assault rate among men aged 60 and older rose by 75 % between 2002 and 2016.

Due to the significant number of cases that go unreported, Dr. Ronan Factora, head of the Special Interest Group on Elder Abuse and Mistreatment at the American Geriatrics Society, argued that the CDC research underestimated incidents of violence against elders. He claimed that this” represents a larger issue that has been growing” in reality.