With the last name Hasan, the crazies are going to have a field day with this one.

I was so hoping the shooter would have a name like Smith or Jenkins or something.

As soon as his name was released, the CNN commentator speculated about an "ideology" that may have been motivating him; Blitzer picked up the terminology pretty soon after. So it's in the air. The Pentagon was asking people not to speculate about motive a bit before the name was released, I assume that was why.

I hate people. [link] At an anti-healthcare-reform protest, someone holds a large sign with the caption "National Socialist Health Care: Dachau, Germany – 1945” and a photo of a pile of dead bodies.

And now's when I start getting nervous for my highschool peeps who still live in tx with surnames: nasir, wassef, nasser, moussafa...

Hasan was an MD who worked in mental health issues.

NPR reporting the deceased shooter may have been an MD - which would fit with his being a Major.

We had a campus alert this afternoon too - armed and dangerous fugitive - and the BEST source of information was the student paper Twitter account. Probably one guy with a police scanner. (There was a murder at a small shopping center near campus, and they thought the perp was possibly on the campus golf course, but he turned up suicide in another county within a couple of hours.)

From USA Today:

A law enforcement official who spoke to AP said Hasan, believed to be in his late 30s, was killed after opening fire at the base and was an Army mental health professional.

[link]

You know, so often when there's a mass shooting, there's a population that starts saying, "Well, if only everyone were armed, if you could carry guns on school campuses, this wouldn't be able to happen." But this happened on an Army base , where presumably everybody is both fricken armed and knows how to actually shoot the guns.

I wonder if MAJ Hassan worked at the SRP site. I am a little surprised the guy was a major and that he was working with other people.