News organizations around the country were quick to pick up on the news that the newly identified Austin bomber was homeschooled by strict, conservative Christian parents.
While no motive has been established for the bombing and Mark Anthony Conditt’s confession says nothing about terrorism, the media is already stating with confidence that negative aspects of his personality can be attributed to his homeschool background.
Conditt was homeschooled by conservative Christian parents in Pflugerville. It is being reported that as a teen he was involved in a Christian survivalist group named Righteous Invasion of Truth (RIOT). RIOT offered Bible studies as well as classes on how to use guns, mock battles and other activities for young people. The organization was set up and named by local homeschooled teens in Pflugerville and Mark’s younger sister also took part in the activities.
Cassia Shultz, a member of RIOT who knew Mark well, notes that while RIOT did not provide any sort of instruction on how to make bombs, a number of teens attending programs were science aficionados, and often discussed the properties of particular chemicals and how to mix them.
Conditt stated in a public social media post that he was conservative, but didn’t feel prepared to defend his beliefs. He hoped that the classes he was taking would help him to do just that. He wrote articles against gay marriage and abortion and in favor of the death penalty. A number of his friends describe him as being an assertive person who would dominate any conversation. Others, however, state that due to his homeschool background he was shy and found it difficult to make close friends.
There is little in Mark’s telephone recording to indicate that he hated particular groups of people, or had a desire to destroy certain individuals. Religion, hate and terrorism are not mentioned a single time in the recording according to local law enforcement officials, leading them to conclude that Conditt was a troubled young man who wound up making very wrong choices. However, the lack of stated motive has led journalists and regular citizens alike to come to their own conclusions regarding why he chose to assemble and mail lethal, homemade bombs to various individuals.
Activists are already pointing out that the two men killed by Mark Conditt’s bombs were both African Americans. They have not only labeled him a terrorist, but also a racist one. Others are blaming his conservative and religious viewpoints, even though Mark actually walked away from his faith several years before he began building bombs.
At the same time, others have made it a point to highlight his homeschool education, essentially blaming his parents for raising someone who made very wrong choices later on in life. Given the fact that there are many people who would be all too happy to restrict or even ban homeschooling, it would not be surprising to see this tragic story being used as a rallying call against parents who choose to teach their children at home instead of sending them to a public or private school.
Conditt’s involvement in a homeschool group that offered knife, gun and battle training has also been widely reported and could very well be misused not only by the anti-homeschool lobby, but also the anti-gun lobby.
Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee that a homeschooled child will not make very wrong choices later on in life. However, no one blames public schools or universities when young people schooled in these institutions turn into mass shooters. By the same token, it is wrong to automatically blame homeschool parents when one of their children commits a heinous crime.
Homeschooling does in fact offer children and young people many opportunities that simply are not available in public or even private schools. Such students get personal attention, can have schooling tailored to meet their specific needs and interests, are able to bond with people of varying ages and walks of life instead of only associating with same-age peers and much more. It would be a shame for homeschoolers around the country to take a hit because pundits from one side of the aisle want to take a tragedy and use it for their own purposes.
~ Conservative Zone
But he still came up a mentally deranged, far left libertal loon who hated the 2nd amendment and just couldnt cope with the world
Will we be required to show I.D. to buy gasoline? How about highly volatile cooking spray? If you don’t know that one turn your gas-fired kitchen stove on and spay Pam over the stove.
Perhaps we need more laws for bomb control. That would be sure to stop this sort of thing from happening again. NOT!
This complaining about homeschooled children is nothing more than the left’s continuing attempt to exert more control over the population. In public schools, the left can tell the children WHAT TO THINK. Witness the uproar of students over gun control! WHEN THE GUNS GO, THE OPPRESSION STARTS! This history is not taught to today’s school kids.
Amen!
You want to beat them at their own game? Stop passing school levies! You will see their horns come out and they will try and use the children as scape goats for their communistic agenda.
Conditt was homeschooled and he committed a heinous crime, so we need to stop allowing homeschooling. I guess this means that since Cruz, Harris, Klebold, et. al. were taught in public schools and they, too, committed heinous crimes-that therefore, public schools should be shut down. Now what? It sounds as though being taught anything leads to the propensity to commit heinous crimes. The only solution is to dump all attempts to educate our young and to just allow them to grow up to be your standard, run-of-the-mill, ill informed Democrat.
Glad someone finally pointed out this obvious fact!
As was stated he left the church. That is the real problem!
Perhaps there were others involved? And he was used? Just a thought…
Do anyone would think that homeschooling turn our children to commit heinous crime? Of course this is the mentality of the liberals. I don’t believe that parents would ever do such this to teach their own children bad things. What makes these liberals think this is the way we do at homeschooling our children. Wrong!!! Many parents wanted to do homeschooling instead of sending their children to public. We think that’s where they pick up things we didn’t want them to learn. Parents are the sole educators or our children.
The MSM and progressives will clutch at any straw. I remember a few years ago CNN and MSNBC entered a suspect’s house. All they could talk about among piles of books was one by Bill O’Reilly There was no indication the suspect had paid any attention to it, but they kept implying Bill’s book contributed to his criminal mindset.
Home schooled, goes bad, public schooled, goes bad, jewish schooled, goes bad, christian schooled, goes bad, guess there are bad of all kinds; if you see something, say something!
The Left never says anything about the violence taught by muslims. Some of them use their mosques to store guns and bombs but the Left doesn’t go crazy over that. It was mentioned last week that Mueller,head of special counsel,had erased 500,000 background info.on muslims.He did it because O wanted the names gone along with any other info.that would help to find them when we had another terror attack.