Mass Shootings...contd....of course (6)

The New York Times @nytimes | 12:15 AM · Apr 2, 2020:

Americans bought about two million guns in March. It was the second-busiest month ever for gun sales,
trailing only January 2013, just after President Barack Obama’s re-election and the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

About 2 Million Guns Were Sold in the U.S. as Virus Fears Spread
A New York Times analysis shows that March was the second-busiest month ever for gun sales, fueled by worries over the coronavirus.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/01/business/coronavirus-gun-sales.ht...

>1 margd:

Both sad and illogical. Violence will not resolve the coronavirus pandemic.

>2 John5918: I bet they probably were more concerned about people raiding their house for toilet paper and respirators.

I heard 19 Nova Scotians have now died--17 at least. No words...
(I lived near there as a very young child, where I remember apple blossoms, per Stan Rogers' 'Watching the Apples Grow': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KykkbM2le58 .)

After Nova Scotia Shooting, Families Mourn as Police Seek a Motive
Gabriel Wortman was believed to have killed at least 16 people in a 12-hour rampage that was one of the country’s worst massacres in recent memory.
Iliana Magra | April 20, 2020

The authorities on the east coast of Canada were searching for a motive on Monday after a gunman who appeared to be dressed as a police officer and was driving a vehicle that appeared to be a Nova Scotia police car killed at least 16 people, one of the country’s worst mass killings in recent memory.

Gabriel Wortman, who ran a denture clinic in Nova Scotia, began the massacre in the town of Portapique on Saturday night and did not stop until he died 12 hours later at a gas station in Enfield, 22 miles away, the authorities said...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/world/canada/nova-scotia-shooting-gabriel-wor...

Trudeau promises gun control legislation after deadliest shooting in Canadian history
Amanda Coletta | April 20, 2020

...Speaking at his daily coronavirus briefing, (Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau) said his government had been “on the verge” of introducing legislation to ban “assault-style weapons” when the pandemic hit Canada. He said he has “every intention” of moving forward with his campaign pledges.

...On Monday, a coalition of gun control groups implored Canada’s public safety minister to immediately ban the new sale of military-style assault weapons.

...Trudeau campaigned last year on a promise to ban and buy back legally purchased “military-style” assault weapons. He also pledged to help municipalities ban handguns — a measure supported by the mayors of Toronto and Montreal, among other cities...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/nova-scotia-shootings-trudeau-...

This will turn out to be another white male shit who hates women above all.

>6 LolaWalser: Not that we know of here in Canada. This man first killed his ex wife and her boyfriend. As best we know, he then when on a rampage killing women and men alike. Canada does not really know what his motivation was at this time. The killer was a man who was previously lauded for making free dentures for a woman who had lost her teeth due to chemo treatment. Perhaps we will know more about his motivation in coming days, but I don't think he was a " male shit who hates woman above all ." We don't know why he did what he did.

It's a terrible tragedy.

Lola, I see that you are Canadian just like me. The info that I have cited is on CTV, CBC, The Guardian in the UK and the Daily Mail in the UK.

>7 vancouverdeb:

Don't you worry about my news intake and information processing abilities.

>4 margd: I'm terribly sorry, Margd.

Nova Scotia shooting death toll rises as Trudeau calls on Canadians to stand united (Guardian)

Death toll from country’s deadliest mass shooting rose to 19, including the gunman...

>10 RickHarsch: It's about the last place in the world I would expect such horror, which speaks to its reach, I guess. Just dreadful: https://nypost.com/2020/04/20/nova-scotia-shooting-details-emerge-in-gabriel-wor... . My N.S. relatives live in Cape Breton and surrounding area, so not affected, thank goodness. Even so, as a cousin posted on FB: "You know maritimers... There will be love and support."

Does it seem like we've heard of fewer mass shootings during this time of coronavirus? Fewer target-rich places? Nutballs LIKE sitting alone? Biding their time?

These days, our local nutball here in Michigan has lots of cars parked in his yard and on the road--I wonder what the heck they're up to now. (He was questioned after Oklahoma City bombing, having run in the same circles...) Maybe they were in Lansing protest the other day? Impeachment and Sanders rallies earlier in the year in Ann Arbor were remarkable for police and plainclothes security. On our daily walk along the river we frequently hear gunfire (target practice?)--according to my son, probably a customer from that area, who boasted about his gun collection, including a semi-automatic... Liberate Michigan, indeed...

The latest death toll is now 22.

No doubt much will be revealed soon regarding the killer's motivations - in the meantime I think speculating or assuming anything regarding such is not helpful.

Some of the victims identified:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/we-mourn-for-their-families-teacher-nurse-cancer-s...

Miserable womanhating swine can go choke on their vomit.

Canada's deadliest shooting rampage began with gunman assaulting girlfriend, police say

Misogyny is often behind the acts we deem ‘senseless’

Police Provide Grisly Details of Nova Scotia Shooter’s Rampage

When asked if the gunman's assault of his girlfriend and her subsequent escape could have "set off this series of events," Campbell said it's a possibility.

"That could have been a catalyst to this," he replied. "However we're open to all possibilities and we're not excluding the possibility that there was any premeditated planning."

The man who murdered 14 women at Montreal’s École Polytechnique in 1989 said he hated feminists. The Toronto van attacker spoke of an “incel rebellion,” a term referencing men who identify as being involuntarily celibate, before killing 10 people in 2018.

Leighann Burns, an Ottawa-based family lawyer who works with survivors of violence, said police need to be more forthcoming when talking about violence against women. She said the École Polytechnique killings were, for a long time, written off as the acts of a lone madman.

In Friday’s press conference, Campbell only confirmed the assault victim was the gunman’s partner when asked by a journalist.

“We have to start honestly looking at theses cases and acknowledging that male violence against women is a hugely destructive force in the world,” Burns said.

She said Ontario’s solicitor general used to release detailed data about every domestic-violence-related 911 call and the response, but they stopped doing that in the mid-1990s, which makes it hard to assess where the gaps are.

Only two days ago mayor Tory in Toronto held a commemoration for the second anniversary of the incel shit attack in Toronto in 2018, without once making clear it was a massacre of women, planned and performed as a massacre of women. All the major media outlets swept the misogyny under the carpet too, going so far to call the victims "people", while foregrounding MEN in "men and women" when talking about the people who came to the aid. Posting pictures showing only men and men in the foreground at the site of the attack.

Tory started the commemoration by calling the incel shit's misogynistic womankilling spree "a senseless act". No, it wasn't you shit. It was filled with sense--the incel shit, brought up in a culture in which women are things he is owed and yet for some strange reason not getting his due, went out to kill as many women as he could out of spite.

So stuff your "senseless act", Tory you shit and all you other "senseless act" spouting shits.

Miserable womanhating swine--it's not just the killers. Every single shit who buries the fact of the hatred of women, and the targeting of WOMEN in these massacres contributes further to this state of things.

As for male "helpers", remember forever that the Montreal womanhating shit asked the present men--over twenty of them--to leave the room.

And they did.

Filed out quietly like little... boys. Little boys with beshat behinds, trembling for their lives, and grateful as men are every single second of the day, that they are not women.

Not one of them tried to "help", let alone volunteered to stay with the women.

A male journalist later in the day joked with colleagues that any man could understand the killer.

>16 LolaWalser: My great friend Sesshu Foster, the LA writer, was the first person I knew who had a sort of special place in his hell for men who committed suicide after killing their ex and the ex's new lover.
I think regarding the above that in the Hindu sense of the 'bad thing' harboring the seeds of its own destruction, the patriarchal male, which I guess means all of us, have fatal flaws, and that would certainly have to include such cowardice.

Let’s call the Nova Scotia mass shooting what it is: White male terrorism

Male-perpetrated violence underpins Canadian society and is by no means “senseless” — instead, it serves to reinforce patriarchy and male social domination. The mass shooting in Nova Scotia reportedly began with domestic abuse incident against a woman.

As long as we are unwilling to name, acknowledge and address male violence, the lives and well-being of people in Canada, especially women and children, are at risk.

The normalization of male violence

Regardless of specific motive, the fact that Canadian mass murders have been exclusively committed by men makes this violence explicitly gendered. This is male violence and, as such, must be linked to other forms of male violence and understood as gender-based violence. ...

Mass murder is white male terrorism
...

So why are white men more likely to commit mass murder? American masculinities scholar Michael Kimmel suggests that social justice efforts aimed at dismantling the social hierarchies that white men sit atop are creating “angry white men” with “aggrieved entitlement.”

Nova Scotia's Natalie MacMaster delivers a heart-rending performance
CBC News (3:28)

Musician plays along with victim Emily Tuck in a video tribute during CBC's Nova Scotia Remembers event.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1729393731916

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'Kitchen parties' such as victim Emily Tuck was preparing for are a thing in Nova Scotia.
A kitchen-party good-bye seems appropriate? (My son once sang this one at conclusion of a Christmas recital here in Michigan.)
'Here's to Song" by the Cottars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB5nIyBv7H4
Lyrics: http://gestsongs.com/11/herestosong.htm

>15 LolaWalser:, >16 LolaWalser: & >18 LolaWalser:

Right? Who's surprised?

>20 Nickelini:

Not women, to be sure.

What's so infuriating... is they keep telling us, keep slapping us shut, no, don't talk about it, no, don't mention it, no, it's not fair to the "nice guys", no, no, no, no--no to everything except perpetuating the situation in which any dickhead animal who takes it into his dickhead to assault women will find himself defended, passively and actively, and even glorified.

Three times in the time I was at U of T--only ever part-time to begin with--we had alarms about attacks/stalkers on campus coming after women; only one of those was even mentioned somewhere and that's because they had issued a uni-wide announcement.

And whenever it seems there's going to be a little debate, a little awareness raised, we go back not a step, but as Tory's APPALLING "commemoration" shows (it's online btw if anyone wants to check it out), a whole fucking city block. I can't stop being furious about this, how shamelessly blatant they are about committing misogyny even over the bodies of women killed out of misogyny.

They are bending over backwards not to "offend men", wife beaters, conjugal rapists, polygamists, "cultural" misogynists, but when it comes to women, not even the verbal, detailed confession of someone who stewed over a detailed plan to murder women and actually effected it, suffices for the officials to step up and say "women are being targeted". They can't even do that, utter what is already verbalised, stark fact. Let alone can they say "misogyny is a crime, a crime that kills, let's do something about it."

No, they leave all that silly worry about women--who become "people" when they are massacred--to the despised, outnumbered, underfunded silly little women's groups and shelters, like it's some "special interest" hobby.

Lies and obfuscation. Did you know when it came out that the Danforth shooter also had a history in the "manosphere", also hated women, also thought and talked about women as "sluts", and tried to kill as many "sluts" as he could that night? More than a year AFTER those killings--and you still can't easily find the info that the majority of his victims, the injured besides the two killed, were women because he went deliberately after women.

Time and again. Time and again the cops, the officials, the media and then the public, hide, ignore, downplay, avoid the misogynistic aspect of these killers' profiles and, as we can see with Tory now as historically, even the killings no matter how strident and obvious the motives are.

People think Toronto is this "feminist" progressive city when it's the exact opposite--Rome is less dangerous for women than this place. It's dangerous precisely because of this conspiracy to lie about crimes against women here.

And it doesn't surprise me when the same appears true for Canada in general. Remember all those insane judges from just last year, a few years back, constantly in the news for the outrageous shit they were saying to female victims in court, like "why didn't you keep your knees together" and the like? That wasn't Kazakhstan, that was Western Canada in the 21st century.

Maybe less care about appearances and lumberjack machismo and more real care about "people" targeted by misogynistic violence (oh, what's that word I'm looking for... women?!) is in order.

Sorry about the rant of a reply, Joyce, I just can't stop seething since Tory's "Toronto won't be broken" spiel.

>21 LolaWalser: A rant? A way should be found to turn this into an incantation...of course flexible enough to both accommodate the next outrage and up the fire.

Sounds like a good book (reviewed below, no touchstones, but on amazon) on raising young men.

(One of the best things we did for our youngest (the engineer) was to acquire a small terrier when son was a high schooler. He was afraid of dogs from early experiences and knew NOT how to properly engage them. Having a dog in the house allowed him to see us care, play, gently discipline, laugh with a small (albeit feisty) being and eventually he learned how to enjoy her in the family--useful attitudes/skills if ever he has kids, I think.)

The End of Manhood: A Book for Men of Conscience
By John Stoltenberg
Reviewed by Stephen Andrew Sherblom (1995)
https://www.hepg.org/her-home/issues/harvard-educational-review-volume-65-issue-...

I'm surprised these weapons were permitted in Canada--even handguns are restricted to security guards and target shooting club members? Maybe collectors could own assault-style weapons?

Canada bans assault-style weapons after its worst ever mass murder
Paula Newton | May 1, 2020

...Police said the gunman had several semi-automatic handguns and at least two semi-automatic rifles, one of which was described by witnesses as a military-style assault weapon.

...The ban is effective immediately but disposal of the weapons will be subject to a two-year amnesty period. Trudeau said some form of compensation would also be put in place but the firearms can also be exported and sold after a proper export license is obtained.

...The Nova Scotia shooter used a replica police car and an RCMP uniform to impersonate a police officer as he killed both people he knew and strangers, police said. He was fatally shot by officers.

Of the 22 people killed, 13 were shot and nine died in house fires, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Tuesday.

RCMP said the gunman, Gabriel Wortman, 51, also killed or wounded animals and pets that he found at the homes.

...The gunman did not have a firearms license and that only one weapon was traced back to Canada, police said.

Last week, RCMP announced its officers had expanded their investigation into the US but would not elaborate on the nature of their leads. Police say they believe the gunman acquired at least some of his weapons in the US...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/world/canada-assault-style-weapons-ban-trnd/index...

All white men are evil. They should all be killed.

No, wait - cancel that. That is fucking god damn crazy.

I lost my head there for a moment.

I apologize.

And the swine keep swining.

Mothers in labour, pregnant women and babies were Kabul gunmen's target - MSF

Not a mass shooting but because I talked in here about Toronto and the misogynistic attacks in 2018 and 2019, I'm linking to the post about the attack in February of this year I only just heard about (see what I said about the behaviour of the media before...):

https://www.librarything.com/topic/316390#7165569

None of this is a coincidence, a random event, a "meaningless" attack. Not in the terms of the global situation, not in the terms of Canadian society, not in the terms of the circumstances in Toronto.

Eight shot after 'inebriated' man turned away from Texas bar (Guardian)

A man who was turned away from a bar in Texas on Friday night shot and wounded at least eight people in the parking lot...

Inside the White House, a Gun Industry Lobbyist Delivers for His Former Patrons
Michael LaForgia and Kenneth P. Vogel | July 13, 2020

...Michael B. Williams spent nearly two years helping to run a trade group focused on expanding sales of firearm silencers by American manufacturers.

But try as he might, he could not achieve one of the industry’s main goals: overturning a ban on sales to private foreign buyers enacted by the State Department to protect American troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Then Mr. Williams joined the Trump administration.

As a White House lawyer, he pushed to overturn the prohibition, raising the issue with influential administration officials and creating pressure within the State Department, according to current and former government officials.

On Friday, the State Department lifted the ban, and a longtime industry goal was realized. The change paved the way for as much as $250 million a year in possible new overseas sales for companies that Mr. Williams had championed as general counsel of the American Suppressor Association...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/trump-gun-silencer-exports.html

New York Attorney General Moves To Dissolve The NRA After Fraud Investigation
Tim Mak | August 6, 2020

he attorney general of New York took action Thursday to dissolve the National Rifle Association following an 18-month investigation that found evidence the powerful gun rights group is "fraught with fraud and abuse."

Attorney General Letitia James claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday that she found financial misconduct in the millions of dollars and that it contributed to a loss of more than $64 million over a three-year period.

The suit alleges that top NRA executives misused charitable funds for personal gain, awarded contracts to friends and family members, and provided contracts to former employees to ensure loyalty.

Seeking to dissolve the NRA is the most aggressive sanction James could have sought against the not-for-profit organization, which James has jurisdiction over because it is registered in New York. James has a wide range of authorities relating to nonprofits in the state, including the authority to force organizations to cease operations or dissolve. The NRA is all but certain to contest it...

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/06/899712823/new-york-attorney-general-moves-to-diss...

Ex-NRA insider speaks out: Gun owners should be 'horrified' by what I saw
Pierre Thomas and Pete Madden | September 7, 2020

In an exclusive interview, Joshua Powell breaks ranks with the NRA.

...In his forthcoming book "Inside the NRA: A Tell-All Account of Corruption, Greed, and Paranoia Within the Most Powerful Political Group in America," Powell's portrayal of LaPierre, who Powell says he once "looked up to," is particularly stark.

He accused LaPierre of cynically manipulating the public dialogue on guns for fundraising purposes and "stoking a toxic debate" for the purposes of "keeping those donation dollars coming."

"I think the biggest transgression of the NRA under Wayne was that he turned the NRA into an organization of 'No,' in response to any effort to quell gun violence. He helped to create and fuel the toxicity of the gun debate over the years, until it became outright explosive," Powell writes. "Wayne in essence bowed to the most militant and extreme faction of the NRA's five million members. Whenever the organization fell short in its funding drives, Wayne would 'pour gasoline on the fire' to ignite donations. And that strategy worked, time and again."

And he condemned the hypocrisy that he said funded LaPierre's lifestyle.

"In spite of Wayne's attempts to paint the other side as the 'Elites,' he himself was the epitome of elitism," Powell writes, "robbing every $45-dues-paying member to cover the costs of his own extravagance and his shameful mismanagement of a multi-hundred-million-dollar association."

Powell claims LaPierre led a billionaire lifestyle, flying on private jets and having a public relations firm representing the NRA purchase more than $200,000 in custom suits from Beverly Hills Zegna for him. LaPierre, Powell writes, "explored" having that PR firm and the NRA "buy him a French country-style $6 million 'safe house' in a gated community on a golf course outside of Dallas."

...Powell himself is one of three NRA executives named alongside LaPierre as codefendants in the New York attorney general's headline-making lawsuit against the NRA, directly linking him to the malfeasance he says he is trying to expose.

...Powell now supports universal background checks, red flag laws and other measures designed to address gun violence that have been vehemently opposed by the NRA.

...And as for lawsuit that threatens the very existence of the NRA -- ensnaring him in the process -- Powell suggests there is much more for (NY) Attorney General James to uncover.

"Her suit, frankly, doesn't go nearly far enough," he said.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nra-insider-speaks-gun-owners-horrified/story?id...

Gun Control Groups Voice 'Grave Concerns' About Supreme Court Nominee's Record
Carrie Johnson | October 9, 2020
Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday

...in 2019,... Barrett, wrote (for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) that (USSC-approved) blanket ban (on felons owning weapons, District of Columbia v Heller) violated the Second Amendment.

The 7th Circuit case, Kanter v Barr, involved a man convicted of one count of mail fraud. Rickey Kanter, (who made orthopedic shoes and inserts that he falsely represented had been approved by Medicare), served his time and wanted his gun rights back. The court majority rejected the idea. But Barrett produced a 37-page dissent tracing the history of the Second Amendment and the history of punishing convicted felons.

In essence, Barrett concluded that historical precedent led to the conclusion that only people convicted of dangerous felonies should lose their right to keep and bear arms. The judge left open the possibility that others convicted of misdemeanor charges — on, for instance, domestic violence — should lose their gun rights for some time.

"In sum, founding-era legislatures categorically disarmed groups whom they judged to be a threat to the public safety," Barrett wrote. "But neither the convention proposals nor historical practice supports a legislative power to categorically disarm felons because of their status as felons...

...But scores of federal judges have upheld that blanket ban for people convicted of felonies after balancing the Second Amendment against public safety. (UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, who wrote a book about Second Amendment jurisprudence called Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America) said he agrees that a categorical ban on felons is "over-inclusive," but he diverges when it comes to Barrett's line of reasoning.

He said her originalist approach to the Second Amendment could throw into question a lot of newer laws on the books, from prohibitions on machine guns to so-called red flag laws in at least 20 states that allow authorities or relatives to ask for court permission to remove weapons from people who represent a danger to themselves or others...

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/09/921713631/gun-control-groups-voice-grave-concerns...

"Walmart's 2006 decision to reduce the number of its stores that sold firearms caused a statistically significant reduction in the suicide rate for counties in which Walmart did not subsequently resume firearms sales."

Ian Ayres et al. 2021. The Walmart Effect: Testing Private Interventions to Reduce Gun Suicide. The Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics (First Published January 6, 2021) https://doi.org/10.1177/1073110520979404 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1073110520979404?journalCode=lmec&a...;

Abstract
This article tests the impact of Walmart's corporate decisions to end the sale of handguns at its stores in 1994 and to discontinue the sale of all firearms at approximately 59% of its stores in 2006 before resuming firearms sales at some of those stores in 2011. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find that that from 1994 to 2005 counties with Walmarts robustly experienced a reduction in the suicide rate and experienced no change in the homicide rate. These models suggest that Walmart's policy change caused a 3.3 to 7.5% reduction in the suicide rate within affected counties, which represents an estimated 5,104 to 11,970 lives saved over the studied period (425-998 per year). In contrast, Walmart's 2006 and 2011 decisions to discontinue and subsequently resume the sale of rifles and shotguns in many of its stores was not associated with a robustly measured effect on homicide or suicide rates. We do find evidence that Walmart's 2006 decision to reduce the number of its stores that sold firearms caused a statistically significant reduction in the suicide rate for counties in which Walmart did not subsequently resume firearms sales.

How The NRA Helped Foment An Armed Insurrection At The Capitol
Insurrectionists had enough ammo to shoot everyone in Congress “five times” — and they were radicalized by decades of NRA fearmongering, a new report finds.
Christopher Mathias | Jan 28, 2021

...Nick Suplina, the managing director of law and policy at Everytown, told HuffPost. “You don’t get to Trump inciting an insurrection without an NRA laying the groundwork for all these years”

...For decades, Everytown’s report* argues, the NRA has shamelessly deployed over-the-top rhetoric and conspiracy theories about “mass civilian disarmament and looming authoritarianism” to get people to turn against even modest gun control measures, in turn helping radicalize a generation of American armed extremists.

...(See table at Political Research Associates' “Paramilitaries At Your Protest: An Activist Field Guide To The Armed Far-Right“
https://www.politicalresearch.org/activist-field-guide-far-right-old)

...From May 2020 to January 2021 there were at least 100 instances of armed demonstrators with guns at protests in the capital cities of 28 states, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project and the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University**...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nra-capitol-riot-insurrection-second-amendment_n_...

----------------------------------------------------------------

* The Role of Guns & Armed Extremism in the Attack on the U.S. Capitol
Everytown Research & Policy | 1.28.2021
https://everytownresearch.org/report/armed-extremism-us-capitol/

** DISAGGREGATED DATA COLLECTION, ANALYSIS & CRISIS MAPPING PLATFORM
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project
Bringing clarity to crisis
https://acleddata.com/#/dashboard

Shootings at three Atlanta massage parlors leave eight dead, police say (Guardian)

Man taken into custody after attacks, as police say many victims believed to be Asian women...

Atlanta shootings: Asian women among eight killed at 3 US spas (Al Jazeera)

At least eight people, including six Asian women, were killed in shootings at three different spas in the US state of Georgia on Tuesday, with a 21-year-old white man in custody on suspicion of staging all three attacks, police said. The shootings came with many Asian Americans already on edge following a recent spike in hate crimes against the community and triggered immediate fears that Asian-run businesses may have been deliberately singled out...

Gun Laws Now! | Episode 6 | The Divided State of America with Heather Gardner
Loren and Heather Gardner, Meidas Touch • Mar 25, 2021

Gun violence is at an all time high and lying Republicans refuse to take action to save lives.

4:56 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHlAGv_r-Os )

Cartoon:
"The original pandemic strain" (musket)
"Far more lethal variants" ( ... )
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1381250197183885314/photo/1

Springtime in America... :(

Police: Gunman dead, multiple shot at Fedex facility
AP | 4/16/2021

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Multiple people were shot at a Fedex facility in Indianapolis and the suspected gunman killed himself, police said.

When police arrived late Thursday, officers observed an active shooting at the facility, Indianapolis police spokesperson Genae Cook told reporters early Friday.

Cook confirmed multiple people were shot but did not give a specific number. She added that the gunman has died and the public is not believed to be in immediate danger.

Live video from news outlets at the scene showed crime scene tape in the parking lot outside the facility.

A witness who said he works at the facility told WISH-TV that he saw a man with a gun after hearing several gunshots.

“I saw a man with a submachine gun of some sort, an automatic rifle, and he was firing in the open,” Jeremiah Miller said.

Five people shot in Louisiana incident; 3rd U.S. multiple shooting in one day
Reuters | April 19, 2021

Five people were hospitalized after being shot and injured in Shreveport, Louisiana, CBS-affiliated television station KSLA reported late on Sunday, the third multiple shooting reported in the United States with 24 hours.

...Earlier on Sunday three people died at an apartment complex in Austin, Texas and authorities were hunting for a former deputy sheriff wanted in connection with the fatal shooting. Separately, three people were killed and two wounded in a shooting at a bar in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, in the early hours of Sunday...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/five-people-injured-shooting-shreveport-louisia...

Next term:

BREAKING: The Supreme Court agrees to take up a major gun rights case. In NY State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Corlett, the justices will consider the extent to which the Second Amendment protects the right to carry guns outside the home for self-defense.
Image ( https://twitter.com/SCOTUSblog/status/1386674718015692805/photo/1 )*

- SCOTUSblog @SCOTUSblog | 9:33 AM · Apr 26, 2021

* excerpted from https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/042621zor_e18f.pdf

California’s assault weapons ban overturned as federal judge compares AR-15 to a Swiss Army knife
Timothy Bella and Rachel Siegel |
June 5, 2021 at 3:55 p.m. EDT

A federal judge Friday night overturned California’s longtime ban on assault weapons, saying the state’s law was unconstitutional and that prohibiting such firearms for decades was “a failed experiment.”

In a 94-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California said that sections of the state ban in place since 1989 regarding military-style rifles violate the Second Amendment. Benitez characterized the assault weapons Californians are barred from using as not “bazookas, howitzers or machine guns” but rather “fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles.”

The judge then compared an AR-15 to a Swiss Army knife. “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment” ...

In addition to issuing a permanent injunction Friday, Benitez granted a request from California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) for a 30-day stay of the ruling, which will bring about an appeal from the state...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/05/california-assault-weapons-ban-...

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southpaw (lawyer) @nycsouthpaw | 11:36 PM · Jun 4, 2021
A US District Judge appointed by George W. Bush overturned California’s three decade old ban on assault weapons tonight.
His opinion relies heavily on Justice Scalia’s decision in Heller, even though that opinion said you could ban guns like the AR-15.
https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/firearmspolicycoalition/pages/5381/attachm...

>42 margd: Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment

The ubiquitous Swiss army knife, of which I have two, is "a perfect combination of home defence weapon and homeland defence equipment"? That's news to me, and I think also to Billy Connolly - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTh14EF44XA

Edited to add: I use my Swiss Army knives for things like opening cans and bottles, cutting string, stripping the insulation off the ends of wires, repairing my Land Rover, poking holes in things (the gadget for removing stones from horses' hooves is particularly good for that), but I can't say I've ever had to use it for "home and homeland defence". The scissors, nail file, toothpick and tweezers are also very handy, but again not for defensive purposes.

2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades. So far, 2021 is worse.
Reis Thebault, Joe Fox and Andrew Ba Tran | June 14, 2021

...Gun violence this year has cut through celebrations and funerals, places of work and houses of worship. It has taken lives at a grocery store and in a fast-food drive-through lane. And most of all, it has unfolded on city streets and in family homes, away from the cameras and far from the national spotlight.

...2020...finished as the deadliest year of gun violence in at least two decades.

...2021 is trending even higher. (graph)

...attributed...to...entrenched inequality, soaring gun ownership, and fraying relations between police and the communities they serve — (which) all intensified during the coronavirus pandemic and widespread uprisings for racial justice.

...increase in shootings during summers, especially last year, echoing a trend that law enforcement officials and gun violence researchers have warned about for years. With the weather warming, school letting out and virus-related restrictions falling away, leaders are worrying about a deadlier season than usual.

...Gunfire deaths began to rise in April 2020, when covid-19 shut down much of the country, in-person schooling was paused and more than 20 million people lost their jobs...takes an unequal toll on communities of color...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/14/2021-gun-violence/

>42 margd: contd.

Appeals Court Blocks Ruling That Overturned California’s Assault Weapons Ban
The decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit leaves the three-decade-old ban in place while litigation continues.
Azi Paybarah | June 22, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/us/assault-weapons-ban-california.html

A weekend in America: Shootings in Washington spotlight growing problem (BBC)

Families supporting the local team. A woman waiting for her ride. A six-year-old girl playing outside. In one weekend, a series of shootings affected all of these Washington DC residents - and shocked a city all too familiar with the plague of gun violence...

The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller | 8:59 PM · Jul 18, 2021
8 YEAR-OLD who was at the Nats game:
"It was my 2nd shooting, so I was kind of prepared. I’m always expecting something to happen."

A gun-sick nation.

From Jess Arnold
0:18 ( https://twitter.com/TheTNHoller/status/1416925524065148928 )

Washington shooting: Gunman opens fire outside restaurant (BBC)

A gunman has opened fire outside a restaurant in an upscale area of Washington DC, about a mile (1.5km) from the White House. Diners at outside tables ran for cover as more than 20 shots were fired...

While rates of most violent crimes have gone down, assaults with a gun are on the rise - not just in Washington DC but in many American cities. According to Washington DC crime statistics, the rate of assaults committed with a gun has risen each year since 2018. So far, 471 assaults with a gun have been reported in 2021. This time last year, there had been 434...

Gun maker Remington offers $33m to settle Sandy Hook lawsuit (Guardian)

Families brought the case to demonstrate to banks and insurers that gun manufacturers are a risky business ...

Mexico sues US gunmakers in unprecedented bid to stop weapons crossing border (Guardian)

The Mexican government has launched legal action against US gunmakers in an unprecedented attempt to halt the flow of guns across the border, where US-made weapons are routinely used in cartel gun-battles, terror attacks on civilians – and increasingly to challenge the state itself. The Mexican government is suing six gunmakers in a Massachusetts court, alleging negligence in their failure to control their distributors and that the illegal market in Mexico “has been their economic lifeblood”... The lawsuit alleges that gun companies openly pandered to Mexican criminals, citing Colt’s special edition .38 pistol, engraved with an image of the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. One such weapon was used in the 2017 murder of the Chihuahua journalist Miroslava Breach, who investigated links between politicians and organized crime and was shot dead while taking her son to school...

Mexico sues US gun manufacturers over arms trafficking (BBC)

The Mexican government has sued some of the biggest US gun manufacturers, accusing them of fuelling bloodshed through reckless business practices. The lawsuit alleges that the companies knew they were contributing to illegal arms trafficking, which has been linked to many deaths...

“The Second Amendment Is Not Intended for Black People”
Tracing the racist history of gun governance.
Dahlia Lithwick | Aug 03, 2021

...At the Ratification Convention in Virginia, the Constitution has been drafted, ratification is happening, and then it stalls. Virginia is one of the big holdouts. James Madison runs down back home to Virginia to try to push this thing through. He runs up against Patrick Henry and George Mason, who are apoplectic because Madison has put control of the militia in the federal Constitution, under federal control. They’re like, You know the North detests slavery. If we have a slave revolt, how can we count on them to get the militia to come down here and protect us, to put the slave revolt down? We will be left defenseless. Madison is quaking in his boots because his arguments aren’t working. He’s already like, Look, slavery is protected. You already got the three-fifths clause. You already got 20 extra years on the Atlantic Slave Trade. You already got the Fugitive Slave Clause. But what they wanted was a bill of rights that would protect them. And they said, If we don’t get it, we’re going to push for a new Constitutional Convention. What Madison was afraid of was that this would hurl the U.S. back to the unworkable Articles of Confederation.

...in these amendments, you get freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the right not to be illegally searched and seized, the right to a speedy and fair trial, the right not to have cruel and unusual punishment—and then you have the right to a well-regulated militia for the security of the state? This thing is such an outlier in this Bill of Rights. And this outlier is because this is the bribe to Patrick Henry, to George Mason, to the Southern slaveholders: This is how you contain federal control, by making sure that the states have control of the militia and so they will not be left vulnerable to “the abolitionist whims,” as Patrick Henry saw it, of those in Pennsylvania or Massachusetts. Now the control of the militia will be in the hands of the enslavers.

... President Ulysses S. Grant...said, “What these states all have in common is not Christianity, is not civilization. It is the right to kill Negroes.”...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/08/second-amendment-guns-racist-black-a...

Obscene.

Remington Subpoenas Report Cards of 5 Children Killed in Sandy Hook Shooting
Matthew Gault, Jason Koebler | September 2, 2021,

As part of a lawsuit defense, the company that made the guns used in the Sandy Hook shooting demanded the disciplinary and attendance records of dead children...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/akgpdg/remington-subpoenas-report-cards-of-five-...

Sandy Hook: Alex Jones loses case over 'hoax' remarks (BBC)

US radio host and prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has lost another legal case after falsely calling a mass school shooting a "hoax". Twenty children and six adults were shot dead at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in 2012. But Mr Jones claimed the event had been made up by supporters of gun controls and the mainstream media...

Parents of Sandy Hook victims who have spoken publicly about their experiences have been harassed by trolls, both online and in person who make false allegations about the shooting.

In battle at Supreme Court over N.Y. gun law, a surprising split among conservatives
Ann E. Marimow | Oct 29,2021

...At issue is New York’s requirement that a gun owner obtain a special license to carry by satisfying local authorities that the gun owner has “proper cause” for doing so. Seven other states — California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island have similar laws.

The two people challenging the law — Robert Nash and Brandon Koch — have licenses to carry handguns for hunting and target practice. But New York authorities denied their requests for “unrestricted” licenses for self-defense because officials said they could not show a “special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community.”

...more than a dozen professors of English and American history who say limitations on carrying firearms in public are “of ancient vintage.” Saul Cornell, a Fordham University professor, said those challenging the law are wrong on the history. They fail to acknowledge, he said, the “staggering array” of gun laws enacted in the post-Civil War era, including permitting laws and bans on concealed carry...

(As appeals court judges, (Justice Brett) Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett expressed support in their writings for examining the historical record when assessing the viability of gun restrictions. In each case, however, they were making the argument that the restrictions in question were unconstitutional.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-ny-gun-law/2021...

Madisyn Baldwin, age 17.
Tate Myre, age 16.
Hanna St. Julian, age 14.

Went to school yesterday and didn't come home (November 30, 2021, Oxford HS, MI).
Photos ( https://twitter.com/Dr_R_Strange/status/1466043678040993799/photo/1 )

- Dr. Strange @Dr_R_Strange | 8:57 AM · Dec 1, 2021
-------------------------------------------------------

Justin Shilling, 17, died of his wounds December 1, 2021.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/01/us/michigan-oxford-high-school-shooting-wednesday...
___________________________________________

What We Know About the Michigan High School Shooting
Livia Albeck-Ripka and Sophie Kasakove
Dec. 1, 2021

...As of Wednesday night, three students remained hospitalized — a 17-year-old girl in critical condition and a 17-year-old and 14-year-old girl in stable condition, according to the sheriff’s office. Three wounded students and a 47-year-old teacher had been released from hospitals.

Phoebe Arthur, the 14-year-old, improved from critical to stable condition after undergoing surgery..

...Karen D. McDonald, the Oakland County prosecutor, said she was considering charges against the suspect’s parents, who had a face-to-face meeting with school officials on Tuesday — roughly three hours before the shooting — about the suspect’s behavior in the classroom, according to Sheriff Bouchard.

He said the suspect had also met with school officials about concerning behavior on Monday, the day before the shooting. He declined to specify the nature of that behavior, but said law enforcement agencies had not been notified.

...The 9-millimeter Sig Sauer handgun used in the shooting had been bought by the suspect’s father four days earlier

...The suspect was charged as an adult on Wednesday with one count of terrorism causing death and four counts of first-degree murder, which could lead to a life sentence if he is convicted.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday that the suspect had planned the attack “well before the incident.”...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/oxford-school-shooting-michigan.html

>56 margd: it’s been reported there have been more than 700,000 Black Friday gun purchases in the United States last week.The handgun used by the student was just one of them.

>57 lriley: I'll never forget accompanying DH on a busy weekend at Cabela's to purchase some arrows: a customer at the counter put me in his gun sights(!) Like those poor kids, I instinctively dove out of sight, heart pounding. (What is wrong with such guys?? As a young child, the first lesson my hunter/veteran/military dad instilled in ME is that you never EVER point a gun at someone, even unloaded.)

(Gun sales might be booming, but the legitimate reason to own one (hunting) is in decline. Looks like DH has given up on deer: CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) one county over from us, 80% have antibodies to COVID, and EHD (Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease) is creeping north--the latter, at least, poses little risk to humans... We will be crawling in young deer at this rate 'coz it doesn't look like those diseases alone will keep numbers controlled... )

>58 margd: My in laws are from rural PA and grew up hunting and fishing. I get it that for some people those activities are a rite of passage. Personally I could never see myself killing an animal. For me it's one of those is what it is things but too many people these days are purchasing firearms and assault weapons like they're toys and they're not. You also have generations of kids brought up on violent video games and the ability of some of them to discern and the accessibility to firearms and the lack of proper gun safety training all factor into mass slayings. The NRA and the Republican party have been running cover for all this for decades. I wonder if Hinckley--Reagan's would be assassin had succeeded the Republican party would be where it is now on this issue.

Michigan shooter now has his defense. Parenting horribilis.
Can you imagine your son a school shooter and charged with murder--and you RUN?
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/03/us/michigan-oxford-high-school-shooting-superinte...

ETA: Sounds like police caught parents. Bonnie and Clyde they may aspire to be, but they are NOT!

>56 margd: unreal! He had the semiautomatic pistol with 3 clips on him while his parents were at the school and they didn’t think to make sure of the location of the gun? From the NYT ;

On the morning of Nov. 30, the day of the shooting, she said, the suspect’s parents were urgently called into the high school after one of his teachers found an alarming note he had drawn, scrawled with images of a gun, a person who had been shot and a laughing emoji, and the words, “Blood everywhere,” and, “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”

The day before the shooting, a teacher had seen the suspect searching online for ammunition for the gun in class, which led to a meeting with school officials, the prosecutor said. After being informed by the school about their son’s behavior, Ms. McDonald said, Mrs. Crumbley texted to her son: “LOL, I’m not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught.”

Thanks to the modern-day GOP death cult we have three choices ~ die from Covid / die from a gunslinger's attack / die from natural causes if neither of the first two gets us.

Were the Crumbleys on a mission to turn their son into a Kyle-like gunslinger???

Thomas Massie: US Congressman condemned for Christmas guns photo (BBC)

A US congressman has faced a barrage of criticism after he posted a Christmas photograph of his family posing with military-style rifles, just days after a deadly school shooting. Kentucky's Republican representative, Thomas Massie, tweeted the photo with the caption: "Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo". The post has been condemned by a host of families affected by gun violence, plus figures on both sides of politics...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-congressman-posts-family-christmas-picture-w...
U.S. congressman posts family Christmas picture with guns, days after school shooting

My take ~ This is how a 2021 GOP family is celebrating the birth of the Lord. Religious leaders across the country have lost their flocks to the Trump Cult. And, sadly, at least one religion has leaders who are now members of the Trump Cult.

Massie’s gun collection: ‘They shouldn’t be in the hands of civilians’ (Guardian)

It is the Christmas card that has sent shockwaves across the world – and provided a chilling reminder of the size and type of weapons that are perfectly legal to own and carry in large parts of the US... He wrote: “Merry Christmas! PS Santa, please bring ammo”...

The calibre and range of the weapons on display horrified one expert. Philip Ingram, a former British military intelligence officer, told the Guardian: “There is no way in a modern society these weapons should be in hands outside law enforcement or the military … They are designed for one purpose: to kill people"... The weapon held by Massie, bottom left, has been identified as an M60 machine gun, first developed for the US military in the late 1950s and which, with its belt-fed ammunition, became one the best known weapons of the Vietnam war... Machine guns made since 1986 are banned in the US – but US federal law allows any weapons that were registered before 1986 to be traded... an Uzi... a Thompson M1SB... a Spanish military rifle, a Belgian rifle, and two AR-15s...

It appears to me that GOP families who have their members holding guns in holiday card photos are on missions to take "Christ" out of "Christmas." This is the bookend of a year which began with an insurrection.

Another mass shooting averted, perhaps?

Capitol Hill Staffer Arrested After Showing Up to Work With a Gun (Daily Beast)

A 57-year-old Capitol Hill staffer was taken into police custody Thursday morning after trying to enter part of the Capitol Complex with a handgun in his bag, police said in a statement. The staffer, identified as Jeffrey Allsbrooks from the House Chief Administrative Office, told authorities he’d forgotten the firearm was in his bag before trying to enter the Longworth Building. He was apprehended four minutes after security spotted his handgun on an X-ray machine. The incident caused a brief panic when it happened, shortly before 8 a.m., with an alert going out to staffers that warned of a “security threat.” Capitol Police said the incident is still under investigation, and Allsbrooks has been charged with “carrying a pistol without a license”...

Aide arrested after bringing gun to US Capitol complex (CNN)

The Longworth House Office Building of the US Capitol complex was put on a shelter-in-place order after a Capitol staffer brought a gun into the building, multiple sources told CNN. United States Capitol Police said in a statement this morning that officers "spotted the image of a handgun in a bag on the x-ray screen" and the man, who was identified as 57-year-old Jeffrey Allsbrooks, was tracked down four minutes later and arrested. USCP said he is a staffer with the House Chief Administrative Office. He is being charged with carrying a pistol without a license, according to the statement...

Community violence, views of police drive youth firearm carriage
Alex Piazza | February 08, 2022 10:48 AM

More than 65% of all violence-related deaths among adolescents and young adults across the United States are caused by firearms.

...youth are more likely to carry a firearm if they have been exposed to a higher level of community violence. This association was found to be even stronger if the individual does not trust the police to protect them against such violence...

...`surveyed more than 1,300 individuals, ages 16-29 years old, who presented for emergency department treatment to Hurley Medical Center in Flint. The city of Flint has a history of severe racial segregation and is experiencing escalating crises of youth firearm violence and homicide.

...survey results showed that 14% of participants had carried a firearm within the past 90 days. And among those individuals who affirmed recent firearm carriage, 71% stated their primary motivation for carrying or owning a gun was to protect themselves, their family or friends.

The association between community violence exposure and firearm carriage increased when study participants cited higher levels of cynicism toward law enforcement, with some individuals perceiving police as unresponsive and ill-equipped to ensure public safety...

https://labblog.uofmhealth.org/rounds/community-violence-views-of-police-drive-y...
---------------------------------------------------------------

Rebeccah L.Sokola et al. 2022. The association between perceived community violence, police bias, race, and firearm carriage among urban adolescents and young adults. Preventive Medicine Volume 154, January 2022, 106897. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2021.106897

Abstract
Firearms are a leading cause of death among youth and young adults. Given community violence is an important correlate of youth firearm carriage, we evaluated: 1) If the association between perceived community violence and firearm carriage is stronger when perceived police bias is greater; and 2) If this moderated association differs by race. Cross-sectional data came from screening data for a longitudinal study of firearm behaviors among young adults seeking urban emergency department treatment between July 2017–June 2018 (N = 1264). We estimated Poisson regressions with robust error variance to evaluate associations between perceived community violence, police bias, race, and firearm carriage. Community violence was positively associated with firearm carriage (average marginal effect (AME): 0.05...). We also found that the positive association between community violence and firearm carriage increased with higher perceptions of police bias (interaction...). We did not find evidence of a three-way interaction by which the moderated association between violence exposure and firearm carriage by perceived police bias varied by race of the respondents. Our findings suggest that community-level strategies to reduce violence and police bias may be beneficial to decrease youth firearm carriage in socio-economically disadvantaged urban settings.

US far-right podcaster charged after machine guns found in basement (Guardian)

Federal prosecutors have charged an “alt-right” podcaster who espoused strong anti-government views with assembling an arsenal of weapons, including machine guns, in the locked basement at a home in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. They also charged his father, the Daily Beast reported. The pair, Joseph Raymond Berger, 67, and Joseph Paul Berger, 32, were arrested last week and charged with multiple firearms offenses including possessing machine guns, possessing non-registered firearms and possessing non-registered silencers... the cache included eight AK-style rifles, two C308 .308 Winchester caliber rifles, two MP5K submachine guns, and one RPK-style machine gun...

Families of Sandy Hook victims settle with Remington (BBC)

A company that made a rifle used in one of the US's deadliest school shootings has settled with the families of victims for $73m (£53.9m). The settlement from Remington Arms comes in response to a lawsuit brought by the families of nine of 26 victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. The case marks the first time a gun-maker has faced liability for a mass shooting. Until now, the industry had immunity from litigation...

The families of five adults and four child victims claimed Remington pitched its rifle to "at-risk" young men in violent video games and with bombastic, militaristic language. They pointed to an exception in the federal law that prohibited illegal marketing claims. Remington's decision to pay $73 million to end the lawsuit suggests the company weighed the risk of going to trial and opened its chequebook. This settlement may encourage state governments and gun-control advocates who want to hold manufacturers financially responsible for gun violence to press on - offering them hope that existing legal protections won't always be an insurmountable obstacle...

Another example of an unnecessary death caused by a firearm.

Boy, three, accidentally shoots mother dead in Chicago suburb car park (Guardian)

Family were sitting in their car when child somehow found weapon owned by father and fired it...

At Whose Risk? Understanding States Parties’ Implementation of Arms Trade Treaty Gender-based Violence Provisions (Small Arms Survey)

The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is the first legally binding agreement linking international conventional arms transfers to gender-based violence (GBV), but there has been limited practical application of these specific provisions to date...

Noting the international impact of small arms and light weapons, and the gender-based violence implications.

Plus: SOUTH SUDAN: Bishop Carlassare Calls on Civilians to Get Rid of Weapons and Embrace Dialogue (AMECEA)

The newly installed Catholic Bishop of Rumbek Diocese, Rt. Rev. Christian Carlassare, has asked civilians members of the population in South Sudan to get rid of weapons and promote dialogue as means of solving differences. He stresses that weapons are supposed to be held by security personnel, not ordinary civilians. Bishop Carlassare urges the people of Rumbek to resolve their misunderstandings through dialogue and give peace a chance...

I wonder when we will hear US bishops making a similar call?

>72 John5918: It's not that the US bishops might not make a similar call, but whether people in the US will heed the call. People in the US are so fearful of everything--they have no real faith in God.

Eric Topol (Scripps) @EricTopol | 10:57 AM · Apr 16, 2022:
🆕 @NEJM What is the leading cause of death in American children, adolescents, and young adults now?

Graph-mortality, US vehicles v guns, 1-24YO, 2000-2020
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1515343755716440068/photo/1

Lois K. Lee et al. 2022. Crossing Lines — A Change in the Leading Cause of Death among U.S. Children (Perspective). NEJM April 16, 2022 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp2200169 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2200169

Family fled violence of Sudan’s civil war only to have sons gunned down in Armory Square (Syracuse.com)

Mary and Peter Lual decided to leave Sudan in 2000 to escape a years-long civil war that was destroying the African nation and left millions dead... On Friday night, the couple’s lives were shattered when Akok and Lual were shot on a crowded street in Armory Square along with three other young men. Akok, 24, died at Upstate University Hospital. Lual, 22, is in fair condition as of Monday afternoon, according to hospital officials... “We come here to raise our kids,” Mary said. “We didn’t come here to see them get killed”...

Not the first Sudanese refugees to be shot in the USA. Many years ago the son of a very close friend of mine was shot in the stomach in a random shooting. Thankfully he survived.

Gun deaths were the leading killer of US children in 2020 (BBC)

Guns overtook car crashes to become the leading cause of death for US children and teenagers in 2020, new research shows. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that over 4,300 young Americans died of firearm-related injuries in 2020. While suicides contributed to the toll, the data shows that homicides form the majority of gun-related deaths. More than 390 million guns are owned by US civilians. According to the research - which was published this week in the New England Journal Medicine - the rise in gun-related deaths among Americans between the ages of one and 19 was part of an overall 33.4% increase in firearm homicides nationwide. Homicides, the study noted, disproportionately impact young Americans. Over the same time period, the rate of firearm suicides in the US rose by 1.1%. The overall rate of gun deaths of all reasons - suicide, homicide, unintentional and undetermined - among children and teenagers rose by 29.5%, more than twice that of the wider population. "We continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death," said a research letter published in the journal on Wednesday...

And on the other side of the coin (and the Pond)...

No London shooting deaths in six months as police say gun trade stifled (Guardian)

Drug gangs are finding it increasingly difficult to get guns to terrorise rivals and their own members as London approaches six months without anyone being shot dead, Scotland Yard has said... {deputy assistant commissioner, Graham McNulty} said a squeeze by police was making guns increasingly a weapon of last resort for drug gangs. “We are picking up that urban street gangs and organised crime groups in London are finding it difficult to source and move around firearms,” McNulty said. It is not just gun deaths that have plummeted. So far this year police have detected 27 shootings in the capital – barely one a week. In 2010-11 there were 499..

Great job!

more probably due to Brexit.

>79 Kuiperdolin:

Interesting. How do you think Brexit has affected it?

By the same source (police) knife crime decreased over same period, even though there is no knife scarcity. If truly guns were becoming "a weapon of last resort" then one would actually expect knife incidents to increase in compensation.

By contrast Brexit keep both knife-wielding and gun-wielding illegals out (too late for many victims unfortunately), so it explains the decrease across the board.

>81 Kuiperdolin:

And the evidence that most violent crime is caused by "illegal" foreigners is where? Incidentally, most non-Britons who were in UK before Brexit were not "illegal".

And you asking for your precious "evidence" when the narrative was a just-so tory about guns is where ?

>83 Kuiperdolin:

You're the one who made an unsubstantiated claim. It would be interesting to see if it can be substantiated. I rather doubt it, but I'm ready to be surprised.

>83 Kuiperdolin: I agree with you. It think it'd be totally unreasonable to expect you to support your assertions with facts, particularly when the assertions in question are so thoroughly muddled. I imagine it would take you a week just to figure out what you're trying to say, let alone figure out why you think it.

I think you should just get a prize for participating and doing your very best.

You literally posted an unsubstantiated claim in >77 John5918: which I destroyed with two minutes of googling. You don't care at all about anything being substantiated, you're just shooting weak rhetorical barbs at the truths who threaten your beloved murderers.

>86 Kuiperdolin:

I quoted a story from the Guardian, a reputable newspaper that has professional standards. The Guardian story is quoting the Metropolitan Police. I gave a link to my source. You, on the other hand, have made an unsubstantiated claim that Brexit is responsible for the drop in crime by keeping out "both knife-wielding and gun-wielding illegals", without citing any source or link or giving any explanation. So be it.

>86 Kuiperdolin: Maybe it takes more than two minutes to make an argument? You have not even started unpacking the assumptions embedded in " Brexit keep both knife-wielding and gun-wielding illegals out (too late for many victims unfortunately), so it explains the decrease across the board.", let alone supported any of them. Are you even aware of them?

If you consider the Guardian a "reputable newspaper" then it's understandable you.'d believe their claims uncritically... although the contradictions in the story still remain. Sad!

>89 Kuiperdolin:

The Guardian is simply reporting what the Metropolitan Police have said, namely that gun crime has dropped in London, and that the Met believe it is because their operations have reduced the number of guns available to criminals. It makes no mention of Brexit - you are the one who has introduced into the conversation unsubstantiated claims about Brexit. If you disagree with the Met's analysis of the situation in London, then you're welcome to produce evidence to the contrary. And if you believe that the Guardian (an award winning newspaper, incidentally) has not reported the story accurately, you're also free to offer evidence.

What happens in a country where there is no law and order and where everybody has firearms:

Gun prices soar ahead of Somalia’s presidential elections (The New Humanitarian)

The price of an AK-47, the standard weapon of Somali militias, has soared on gun markets ahead of a fraught ballot this weekend, when lawmakers will select the country’s next president... Armed clashes broke out in April 2021 when politicians resisted Farmajo’s attempt to extend his first term by two years. The president said it was to allow long-delayed elections to be held, but his critics interpreted it as a “power grab”. The fear is that a disputed vote on Sunday could trigger even worse violence. As a result, the price of a standard AK-47 has more than doubled since last year – up by nearly 40 percent in just the last few months, according to research by The New Humanitarian among gun traders. Demand is also high for belt-fed PKM machine guns and RPGs, the equipment needed for full-scale fighting...

Buffalo shooting: Ten dead in attack at supermarket in New York state (BBC)

Ten people have been killed in a shooting in New York state that is being investigated as a racially-motivated hate crime. An 18-year-old man was detained after a stand-off at the scene in the city of Buffalo. Police have not named him. The suspect entered a busy supermarket on Saturday afternoon before opening fire. He used a camera to stream the attack online, police said. The FBI described the shooting as an act of "violent extremism"...

>92 John5918: drives from Conklin southeast of Binghamton 200 miles or so to Buffalo to attack a grocery store in a black neighborhood. Decided to livestream his rampage and of course there’s a manifesto about white people being replaced and other racist and anti-Semitic tropes.

One wonders the right wing/conservative environments some young people grow up in these days that have become normalized. Whereas teenagers have access to high powered military grade weapons—where they can outfit themselves in tactical gear. Our his parents watching this?—encouraging him in his beliefs? Where they’re daily fed resentment from racist and propagandist right wing networks. This 18 year old dipshit will never see the light of day outside of prison walls for the rest of his life.

Social media has turned out to be a huge Petri dish which is encouraging the growth of conspiracy theories in the minds of way too many Americans. What is it going to be like when Musk and his billions are added to the mix??? We already know the damage that has been done by Murdoch and his billions to today's news business.

Buffalo shooting: how white replacement theory keeps inspiring mass murder (Guardian)

This once fringe ideology, which was at the heart of Nazism, has gained mainstream traction thanks in part to the likes of Tucker Carlson on Fox News... the ideology that inspired the murders. Gendron was motivated by a classic version of White Replacement Theory, the view that a cabal of global elites is trying to destroy white nations, via the systematic replacement of white populations. According to White Replacement Theory, the strategies employed by these “global elites” include the mass immigration of supposedly “high fertility” non-whites, and encouraging intermingling between members of non-white races and whites. Gendron was deeply influenced by a series of recent mass killers who were animated by white replacement theory... According to the ideology guiding Gendron, Black people are not intelligent enough to engineer the replacement of whites, and the destruction of their civilization. The real actors behind White Replacement, according to Gendron, are the Jews...

Mass atrocities do not occur in a vacuum. They are enabled by a present normalization of a lengthy previous history, a process that the philosopher of mass killing Lynne Tirrell labels the social embeddedness condition. White Replacement Theory was the dominant structuring narrative of Nazi ideology. Adolf Hitler also announced his genocidal intent in a lengthy manifesto about the supposed Jewish threat to white civilization, entitled Mein Kampf, which was published in 1924. Hitler also was obsessed by mass immigration, and the threat it posed to “white civilization.” Currently, White Replacement Theory has been mass popularized and normalized, perhaps chiefly by the American political commentator Tucker Carlson. It is rapidly moving to the center of the mainstream narrative of America’s Republican party... But what Carlson has been doing is spending an entire year repeating a conspiracy by Christopher Rufo that says that American education has been infected by a pro-Black ideology (CRT) that was created by German Jewish Marxist intellectuals (the Frankfurt School)...

White Replacement Theory is not just an attack on minorities. It is a weapon directed by fascists at American democracy itself...

I understand how and why unscrupulous political ideologues want to subvert democracy by spreading fringe conspiracy theories. It's been done before, by both fascist and communist parties, and has often resulted in and maintained totalitarian regimes. What I don't understand is how so much of the population of a highly developed democracy like the USA (and many European countries seem to be slipping in the same direction) can be fooled by the propaganda. Is there no critical thinking going on? Is there no fact-checking? It's true that the media in the USA is dominated by right wing interests, but nevertheless with the internet the ordinary person has access to a vast range of international media and resources such as has never been available so easily before, and which can provide a more complete and balanced picture. Do people not have any sense of curiosity, no desire to explore issues, to learn more? I'm truly baffled.

An increase in the number of mass shootings actually works to the advantage of loathsome GOPers. The everydayness of present-day mass shootings increases the immunity factor to the horror of all of the killing, and it decreases the necessity of GOP reps having to worry about dealing with gun legislation. The lunatics in America are winning.

https://www.mediaite.com/print/wall-street-journal-editorial-board-acknowledges-...
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board Acknowledges ‘Racist Subculture Exists in America’

***
The GOP is enjoying an uptick in the enthusiasm of its base because the base is the racist subculture in America. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk made their fortunes playing the racism card for 10, 20 and 30+ years. The GOP base, led by dudes like Tucker Carlson, would love to turn the hands of time back to the good old 1950's.

>96 John5918: Trump convinced at least a third of the US that mainstream media can't be trusted. So they look for information on the internet but without the tools to vet the sources so they just gravitate to what they want to see.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/replacement-theory-a-fringe-belief-fueled-onli...
Replacement Theory, a Fringe Belief Fueled Online, Is Refashioned by G.O.P.

........There is no indication that the Buffalo gunman watched Mr. Carlson’s show, or any other on Fox, and Mr. Carlson has denounced political violence even as he fans his viewers’ fears.

But there are also notable echoes between Mr. Carlson’s segments and the Buffalo suspect’s long litany of grievances, reflecting the blurry boundary between internet-fueled griping and lines of attack now common in conservative media and politics.

“Why is diversity said to be our greatest strength? Does anyone even ask why? It is spoken like a mantra and repeated ad infinitum,” the suspect wrote. The line nearly matches one of Mr. Carlson’s go-to attacks on Fox. “How, precisely, is diversity our strength?” Mr. Carlson asked in a 2018 segment. one of many in which he has hit on the question. “Since you’ve made this our new national motto, please be specific as you explain it.”.........

***
The Carlson hour could have been playing for many years on TVs in the home in which the shooter and his family lived. He could have picked up snatches of TC's rants very easily.

Scrutiny of Republicans who embrace ‘great replacement theory’ after Buffalo massacre (Guardian)

The massacre by a white supremacist gunman of Black shoppers at a Buffalo grocery store has drawn renewed scrutiny of Republican figures in the US who have embraced the racist “great replacement theory” he is alleged to have used as justification for the murders. Born from far-right nationalism, the extremist ideology expounding the view that immigration will ultimately destroy white values and western civilization has found favor not only with media figures, such as the conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson, but a host of elected politicians and others seeking office...

The alleged Buffalo shooter was also inspired by Islamophobia. That’s telling (Guardian)

The alleged shooter copied the manifesto of the New Zealand mosque attacker – showing how easy it is to replace Muslim with Black or Jewish in the logic of the extreme right...

At least 14 children dead after shooting at Texas elementary school, Gov. Abbott says (CBS News)

A teacher is said to have also died from the attack, involving a handgun and possibly a rifle. Details are still emerging. Official reports relayed through multiple news sources have said the school of about 600 students teaches second, third, and fourth grades.

It’s up to 19 students and two teachers. The shooter bought his AR-15’s online from Daniel Defense a company based in Georgia that manufactures and sells a variety of these kind of weapons. Purchase from their website is easy and accessible. Any 18 year old who has bought anything else online like a pair of sneakers or a video game as long as they have $1500/2000 should have no issue getting an AR-15 (or two as the shooter did) of their very own. No end of conservative hacks ready to defend his right to bear arms afterwards. They’ll only make the shooter out to be a mental defective afterwards and move on after a few praise Jesus prayers.

"A well-regulated militia doesn't kill children."
https://twitter.com/WyonaLendo/status/1529223265478184961/photo/1
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When the 2nd Amendment was ratified, it took an average of 1-2 minutes to reload a flintlock rifle for each shot.

- Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 @RonFilipkowski | 7:35 PM · May 24, 2022
Attorney, Marine, Triathlete, Historian. Fmr Fed Prosecutor & Repub; now Defense Att & Democrat. Track and Report on the Right-Wing. Seen on BBC, CNN, MSNBC.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

This isn't gonna stop until there's a heavily armed teenager in driveway of every lawmaker?

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/sen-chris-murphy-something-is-dying-inside-the...
Sen. Chris Murphy: ‘Something is Dying Inside the Soul of This Nation’ When We Accept School Shootings as New Normal

and a few hours later a FOX News host provides evidence for what Chris said

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/laura-ingraham-agrees-with-guest-who-puts-onus-on-pa...
Laura Ingraham Agrees With Guest Who Puts Onus on Parents of Murdered Schoolchildren: ‘It’s Your Responsibility’

Guest ~
.....You have to know now after these shootings – and every week there’s a shooting, whether it’s at a school or in a supermarket – that you need to check where your kids go to school.....

>105 margd: it took an average of 1-2 minutes to reload a flintlock rifle for each shot.

The British army were trained to fire three to four rounds a minute using a Brown Bess musket. They'd never have beaten Napoleon at 1-2 minutes per shot! But your point is well taken - hard to massacre schoolchildren even if you can fire three shots per minute.

https://www.mediaite.com/entertainment/matthew-mcconaughey-calls-for-action-afte...
Matthew McConaughey Calls for Action After School Shooting in His Hometown: ‘Tragically Proven that We Are Failing’

.....“This is an epidemic we can control, and whichever side of the aisle we may stand on, we all know we can do better,” he wrote. “We must do better. Action must be taken so that no parent has to experience what the parents in Uvalde and the others before them have endured.”.....

>107 John5918: "It takes two or three minutes to load a flintlock rifle, as opposed to, say, eight seconds for a musket. If you're trying to shoot a squirrel out of that tree, you've got all the time in the world."
https://www.ncpedia.org

No wonder Americans fired from behind trees during their war with Brits!

Redcoat re-enactors (college students) at Ft Henry (Kingston, Ontario) use a (~12-soldier?) circular formation where some are shooting, while others are kneeling to load. A couple of American veterans I hosted agreed that those redcoats would have been formidable indeed!

GOPers reaction to the most recent school shooting is evidence that they care more about some cells occupying the wombs of females than they care about the children in America's classrooms ~ schoolroom kids are just collateral damage in this gun-war era.

>111 Kuiperdolin: Would you care to describe what we're supposed to see in that image?

Two pieces from the Guardian today:

Why can’t America do anything to stop mass shootings?

Joe Biden’s condolences to the community of Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting at Robb elementary school on Tuesday, also came with a demand for action. “Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday evening. “It’s time to turn this pain into action. For every parent, for every citizen in this country, we have to make it clear to every elected official in this country: it’s time to act.” But despite hundreds of mass shootings unfolding in America every year, Congress has repeatedly failed to pass major gun-control legislation. The hurdles to enacting stricter gun laws in the US are numerous and significant, but activists say they will not give up until change is made...

Who are the right blaming for the Texas shooting? Trans people, immigrants and victims’ parents

From congressmen to TV show hosts, rightwingers are blaming everything but guns for the loss of lives in Tuesday’s massacre...

If you want to see just how dysfunctional the US obsession with guns is, just take a look at how the right is responding to the horrific shooting. You’d think that 19 dead children might weigh on their conscience a little bit; make them reconsider commonsense gun laws. But, no, they are busy regurgitating all the usual talking points and arguing that guns aren’t actually the problem, everything else is.

First, trans people and immigrants were blamed. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Republican congressman Paul Gosar tweeted that the shooter was a “transsexual leftist illegal alien”. His source for this lie was the rightwing social network 4Chan, which was busy circulating the picture of a transgender artist and wrongly claiming it was the shooter*. (He has now deleted the tweet.)

Then the Federalist found a way to blame Ukraine for the shooting in Texas... Then last night, Fox News, tried to shift blame on to the parents... There you go: it’s all the parents fault! If you don’t have the money to send your kids to private school then it’s your fault if they get shot!...

* Is this the irresponsible "fake news" picture in >111 Kuiperdolin:?

Edited to add: Uvalde Suspect Salvador Ramos Trans Claims—What We Do Know, What We Don't (From Newsweek's Fact Check team)

speculative and misleading narratives about the identity of the alleged shooter, Salvador Ramos, have spread quickly online. Photos circulated on Twitter and other social media purporting that Ramos was both trans and an undocumented immigrant... only hours after the shooting took place and before any information could be verified or confirmed... The very fact that social media posts were made within hours of the shooting, some of which evidently used photos appropriated from elsewhere, demonstrates just how unreliable these "hot off the press" responses are, and how tragic events can be weaponized to fuel false narratives and hate speech...

Conservative politicians and media are saying it’s time to have a discussion about the mentally ill. When the subject of gun ownership, accessibility to guns, stricter gun regulations etc. comes up they shut down. They don’t want to talk about it and it’s two things driving that 1) their voters and 2) campaign cash. So they distract with the bullshit mentally ill line which they don’t really care about or have any solutions for either. It’s just something stupid that sounds like maybe there might be something there that they can give their base while at the same time showing some faux concern. Other than that it’s all fucking prayers. I thought Mitch McConnell’s remark that ‘Words fail us’ was apt in a way he didn’t intend. They do have words but only words. There’s no action behind them.

As for Mr. Manchin…..he’s still looking for his 10 good Republican Senators. Anything that endangers the filibuster is off limit so the Democrats can’t get their house in order either.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/26/nra-meeting-houston-days-after-t...
Outrage as NRA to gather in Houston just days after Texas school massacre

***
The humanity of GOP reps is barely visible when black or brown people are gunned down by mass killers. Green is their second favorite color ~ white is #1, of course!

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/25/1101181842/nra-trump-speech-guns-banned-houston
"Guns are banned during Trump's upcoming speech at the NRA conference" (NPR)

The conference is going ahead in the shadow of Tuesday's mass shooting at a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school that killed at least 21 people — including 19 students.

According to the NRA, the Secret Service is taking control of the hall during Trump's speech and is prohibiting attendees from having firearms, firearms accessories and knives. Ammunition, laser pointers, pepper spray, toy guns, backpacks and other items also won't be allowed.

The link within the article to "What we know so far about the school shooting in Uvalde" goes to developing piece that says an additional 17 people were injured (not counting the woman shot in the face before her grandson went with his new weaponry to the school that day). Seemingly unharmed is the "school resource" officer who allowed the attacker to continue visibly armed into the school building after encountering him.

>112 aspirit: they put a filter

Jacinda Ardern wows Harvard with New Zealand’s lesson on gun control and democracy (Guardian)

Jacinda Ardern has spoken out against the online “scourge of disinformation” in an address at Harvard University, in which she also won standing ovations for her government’s gun control laws, diversity and decriminalisation of abortion. The New Zealand prime minister was honoured by the American university , making the annual commencement address to more than a thousand students on Thursday from the same stage as figures such as Winston Churchill, Angela Merkel, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey. Ardern’s address was built around the need for democratic systems and informed debate, invoking the same plea from the late Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who underscored the “fragility” of democracy in her own address to the university in 1989. But, with the United States reeling from the Texas school massacre and paralysed over how to stop the violence, she won loud cheers and a standing ovation when she spoke about how her government cracked down on gun ownership in the wake of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks. “We knew we needed significant gun reform, and so that is what we did,” she said. “But we also knew that if we wanted genuine solutions to the issue of violent extremism online, it would take government, civil society and the tech companies themselves to change the landscape.” Developing her theme of trying to combat online extremists such as the perpetrator of the Christchurch attacks, Ardern tied the problem to the defence of democracy...

It's the guns.

Graph- gun-related deaths per 100,000 v. guns per 100, by country
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1529881970494394368/photo/1

- Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton | 1:47 PM · May 26, 2022
---------------------------------------------------

Same graph w few more countries via NYT and Eric Topol:
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1530178152684584962/photo/1

Lawn darts and Kinder-eggs banned in US, but not guns...

Brittlestar @brittlestar | 8:43 PM · May 25, 2022:
WE'RE TOO STUPID TO HAVE GUNS
2:24 ( https://twitter.com/brittlestar/status/1529624159386587136 )
----------------------------------------------------------------------

‘I have to get a fishing license to fish. It shouldn’t be easier to get an AR-15 than a Rainbow Trout.’

-Jimmy Kimmel

What research shows on the effectiveness of gun-control laws
Glenn Kessler | May 27, 2022

Assault weapons ban
Large-capacity magazines
Universal background checks
Firearms prohibitions based on mental health

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/27/what-research-shows-effective...

Graph-US school shootings 1971-present (via Eric Topol):
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1530197147718541313/photo/1

https://www.axios.com/2022/05/26/gun-deaths-children-america
Guns have become the leading cause of death for American kids

Firearms were the leading cause of death for kids one and older for the first time in 2020, the most recent year for which CDC data is available.

***
Our Nation's Founders would be shedding a waterfall of tears if they knew the Second Amendment they drew up centuries ago has led to an era when guns are the #1 cause of death for children in America.

>123 Molly3028: But the so-called pro-lifers are the same people who are preventing us from doing something about it.

Literally choosing to kill kids, and then coming at us with their unsufferable sanctimonious twaddle about saving babies.

>124 kiparsky:

A political party's false interpretation of the Second Amendment has caused it to be a never-ending political football which they use to keep their members riled up.

https://www.mediaite.com/crime/uvalde-police-delayed-border-patrol-from-entering...
Uvalde Police Prevented Border Patrol From Entering School to Stop Gunman For Almost an Hour – Report

***
The truth about the whole sad story is being told in bits and pieces by Texas officials who should all be fired.

The Uvalde screwup is hopefully the tipping point we have needed to occur since the Columbine High School massacre took place in 1999. Gladwell defined a tipping point as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point."

Carefully monitoring the proposals from the supposedly pro-life Republicans. So far, they've proposed punishing the perpetrators quite harshly (which, as is well known, has the effect of reversing time and undoing the original crime), making people go through the front door of the school (which, it turns out, the Uvalde killer did, and walked right past the "good guy with the gun"), or the mind-bogglingly consistent strategy of "do what we're doing now because it's working so good".

I have to wonder if any of the so-called conservatives reading this group are finding these responses just a little bit lacking. I mean, y'all are supposed to be the ones get all kinds of bothered if anyone looks crosswise at a fetus, but can you show me a single "pro-life" politician who is proposing any serious action to prevent the wholesale murder of post-fetal human beings? If not - and you can't because they don't exist - does this cause you to question your ideological owners'' commitment to the sanctity of human life? Maybe wonder if you're being had a little bit? Or are you happy to swallow what you're told to swallow for all eternity?

Looking at you prox and co. You got anything at all, or is this one too hard for you?

https://komonews.com/news/nation-world/anonymous-donor-pays-all-funeral-expenses...
Anonymous donor pays all funeral expenses for Uvalde shooting victims

***
This is way more helpful than the GOP's thoughts-and-prayers crap after allowing America's children to be sacrificed to the NRA gods.

>128 kiparsky: How they would go about punishing the Uvalde shooter is anyone’s guess since he’s already dead as happens quite often with mass murderers. For those who surrender like the Buffalo shooter when you’ve come to the point of punishing someone with a life (or even death) sentence your so called solution to the problem has already failed. The solution really is to head off these events before they happen…..not afterwards. A kid buying an AR-15 from an out of state gun manufacturer one day after his 18th birthday actually is a problem. In Texas he can’t buy a beer until he’s 21 yet he can buy a military grade assault weapon….and then shoot up a school. The Republicans don’t want to go there. They say ‘you’re politicizing a tragedy’ but any real solutions will be legislative so of course it’s political. Republicans fear two things here 1) they’ll piss off a large part of their base and 2) gun groups like the NRA will cut off political donations. They’d rather more schools were shot up than deal with either 1) or 2). They really would rather that….and because for at least the foreseeable future they can block all kinds of gun control that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Freedumb.

LaPierre’s message to NRA members at the Houston convention ‘to preserve the gun rights of law abiding Americans’.

To be clear though the shooters in Buffalo and Uvalde were law abiding gun owners as well until the moment they started killing people. LaPierre’s organization had preserved their ‘rights’ too.

We had an assault weapon ban for 10 years: 1994-2004.

The world didn’t end.
People kept their (other) guns.
They bought new guns.
It was hardly an attack on gun ownership.

This is the least we can do.

- Dr. Joanne Freeman @jbf1755 | 11:14 PM · May 29, 2022
Award-winning historian, Yale. Early US politics and violence, & A.Ham.✏️"The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress & the Road to Civil War.” President, SHEAR.
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David Hogg 🌻 @davidhogg111 | 8:49 PM · May 28, 2022:
The Texas shooter and the shooter at my high school both waited until they were of the legal age. Don’t tell me these laws can’t do anything.
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Qasim Rashid, Esq. @QasimRashid | 12:08 PM · May 29, 2022:
Human Rights Lawyer • Author • ... Host of The Qasim Rashid Show on Sirius XM Channel 126 Sundays @ 10am EST

“Gun laws don’t work because criminals don’t obey the law.”

Let this graphic debunk this myth once & for all. A system that allows such would be terrorists to acquire weapons of mass murder so easily is a broken and unjust system. Those who refuse to act are knowingly complicit.

Text- NYT Sunday Review
https://twitter.com/QasimRashid/status/1530944241018589193/photo/1
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29 of 62 school shooters were under 18. Ten more were 18-21.

Molly Jong-Fast @MollyJongFast | 6:09 PM · May 29, 2022:
writing at @theatlantic & @voguemagazine & @onesignalpub, podcasting @newabnormalpod

Pretty good case for raising the purchasing age to 21
https://ctinsider.com/news/article/Data-show-most-school-shootings-carried-out-b...
Text ( https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1531035108924346368/photo/1 )
------------------------------------------------------------------

Response to other hazards c.f. guns...

bettemidler @BetteMidler | 9:13 AM · May 29, 2022:
Text ( https://twitter.com/BetteMidler/status/1530900184988889090/photo/1 )
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Eric Michael Garcia @EricMGarcia | 9:05 PM · May 29, 2022:
Señor DC scribe independent . @msnbc columnist. Author: We're Not Broken.

The fact that a majority of people want to restrict guns for people with mental illness more than a federal database shows that people are once again going to use people with disabilities and mental illness as a scapegoat rather than actually taking measures to curb gun violence...
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Guns kill more children in US, than police officers, active duty police officers...

Molly Jong-Fast @MollyJongFast | 10:38 PM · May 29, 2022:
writing at @theatlantic & @voguemagazine & @onesignalpub, podcasting @newabnormalpod

The fact republicans want you to ignore

https://scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-is-clear-gun-control-saves-li...
Excerpt ( https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1531102751274549248/photo/1 )

Bang for the Buck
The American love affair with guns
Adam Hochschild | April 5, 2018 issue

...Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s "Loaded" (touchstone brings up another book by that title) is like a blast of fresh air. She is no fan of guns or of our absurdly permissive laws surrounding them. But she does not merely take the liberal side of the familiar debate. “Neither party,” she writes of that long squabble, “seems to have any idea what the Second Amendment was originally about.” Of course the amendment was written with militias in mind, she says, but, during and after the colonial era, just what were those militias? They were not merely upstanding citizens protecting themselves against foreign tyrants like King George III. They also searched for runaway slaves and seized land from Native Americans, often by slaughter...

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/04/05/guns-bang-for-the-buck/

Years ago, under Conservative leadership(?), Canada dispensed with a public registration list. POLICE missed it the most as they no longer knew going into a domestic situation whether there was a gun in the house.

Further strengthening our gun control laws
PM of Canada Justin Trudeau | May 30, 2022
Ottawa, Ontario

Quick Facts
To ensure the national freeze on handguns can be implemented swiftly, the Minister of Public Safety has already tabled regulatory amendments in both the House of Commons and the Senate. These regulations will help stop the growth of personally owned handguns in Canada and are expected to come into force in Fall 2022.

In 2020, the Prime Minister announced the ban of over 1,500 models and variants of assault-style firearms. A buyback program will be introduced to offer fair compensation to affected owners and businesses.

Going forward, we will also ensure military-style assault weapons are automatically prohibited when they enter the market. We will continue working to ensure any new weapons that fit the definition of assault-style weapon are captured.

Earlier this year, the government announced an investment of $250 million through the Building Safer Communities Fund (BSCF) to help communities across the country prevent gun and gang violence by tackling its root causes, particularly for at-risk children.

Budget 2021 provided more than $312 million in new funding to increase firearms tracing capacity and implement stronger border control measures to fight gun smuggling and trafficking. Law enforcement agencies seized more than double the number of firearms at the border in 2021, compared to 2020, which is also the highest number of firearms seized in recent years.

The number of registered handguns in Canada increased by 71 per cent between 2010 and 2020, reaching approximately 1.1 million. Handguns were the most serious weapon present in the majority of firearm-related violent crimes (59 per cent) between 2009 and 2020.

In 2018, firearms were present in over 600 intimate partner violence incidents in Canada. Victims of intimate partner violence are approximately five times more likely to be killed when a firearm is present in the home.

https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2022/05/30/further-strengthening-our-gun-...

US mass shootings will continue until the majority can overrule the minority (Guardian)

Guns symbolize the power of a minority over the majority, and they’ve become the icons of a party that has become a cult seeking minority power...

"The Second Amendment did not come down from Sinai. The right to bear arms will never be more important than human life. Our children have rights too. And our elected officials have a moral duty to protect them.”

- Cardinal Blase Cupich #Texas
( Vatican News @VaticanNews | 11:00 AM · May 25, 2022 )

A "well-regulated militia":
Image- https://twitter.com/BetteMidler/status/1531821907900760064/photo/1

- bettemidler @BetteMidler | 10:16 PM · May 31, 2022

>135 John5918: and >137 margd: Given your unbelievable efforts with respect to reporting on this and other subjects, is there any chance you might have reputable statistics for the US concerning the number of "good guy with a gun" kills for things like actually shooting a burglar in your home or really having to defend yourself because there was absolutely no other means of escape (none of this I-shot-him-because-I-can-stand-my-ground garbage).

The reason for asking is because we have accurate counts of the number of deaths from various mass shootings. Those two numbers would give us a ratio: butchered innocents/actual unavoidable kills. This, in turn, would let everyone know just how genuinely uncaring the pro-life, guns-at-any-price politicians and associated members really are when it comes to tossing away other peoples lives.

>138 alco261:

Sorry, I'm afraid I don't have those statistics. In my own personal experience (and not in the USA) I have faced several armed invasions of my home, and I know two things: (1) I have survived all of them by talking peaceably to the intruders and calming them down; (2) if I had offered any resistance at all, I would be dead. Even if I were armed myself, I might have shot one or two of them before the rest gunned me down, but there were always more of them than there was of me.

>138 alco261: Surely the NRA has stats to back up their claims? Oh, but you asked for reputable stats... :D

Anecdotally, Suez peacekeepers were advised to feign sleep if they woke to find a thief in their bedrooms. Otherwise they risked having their throats slit. When India sent Sikh soldiers, the home invasions stopped: the Sikhs not only killed the thieves, they strung their bodies up for all to see. (My dad always ended this story by saying he was glad the Sikhs were on "our side".)

If the NRA has any robust stats, I suspect they'd string them up for all to see?

Isn't Sikhism a pacifist religion from India?

Ask Indira Gandhi.

ETA: "Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated at 9:29 a.m. on 31 October 1984 at her residence in Safdarjung Road, New Delhi. She was killed by her Sikh bodyguards...Satwant Singh and Beant Singh in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star. Operation Blue Star was an Indian military action carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984, ordered by Indira Gandhi to remove Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the holy Golden temple of the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, Punjab. The collateral damage included the death of many pilgrims, as well as damage to the Akal Takht...The military action on the sacred temple was criticized both inside and outside India." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Indira_Gandhi

>141 jjwilson61:

As far as I know Sikhism is not a pacifist religion. The Sikhs were renowned warriors. I think a Sikh must first try peaceful means but can resort to violence in defence of justice. Forgiveness is a virtue, but nevertheless a Sikh should fight against injustice and religious persecution, using violence if necessary. One of the five articles of faith which Sikhs are supposed to wear at all times is the kirpan, a curved sword or dagger.

Think I read somewhere that the adoption of a common surname (Singh?) was attempt to reduce internecine violence. Lovely people and hospitable / charitable, the few I know, but Sikhs as a group have been working on it for a while?

Arvind-Pal S. Mandair. 22 March 2022. Violence and the Sikhs. Published online by Cambridge University Press. https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/violence-and-the-sikhs/7F206F1063105...

Summary
Violence and the Sikhs interrogates conventional typologies of violence and non-violence in Sikhism by rethinking the dominant narrative of Sikhism as a deviation from the ostensibly original pacifist-religious intentions and practices of its founders. This Element highlights competing logics of violence drawn from primary sources of Sikh literature, thereby complicating our understanding of the relationship between spirituality and violence, connecting it to issues of sovereignty and the relationship between Sikhism and the State during the five centuries of its history. By cultivating a non-oppositional understanding of violence and spirituality, this Element provides an innovative method for interpreting events of 'religious violence'. In doing so it provides a novel perspective on familiar themes such as martyrdom, Martial Race theory*, warfare and (post)colonial conflicts in the Sikh context.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_race

"...the British discovered the (Sikhs') military aptitude after defeating them in a series of particularly tough battles..." https://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2006/12/myth-of-martial-races.html

Forty-odd years ago I spent a couple of years living and working in Southall, west London, which currently has the largest Sikh Gurdwara outside India. They used to have a "curry kitchen" where anybody could come and get a free meal. I ate there once or twice, probably during inter-faith events. There was a thriving inter-faith community there, bringing together the different faiths.

#141-145 I was thinking that with Hindus and Muslims for neighbours, and Brits for masters--at least for a while--Sikhs had reason to be ferocious on occasion. Like Ukrainians?

Not the thread to discuss, but Sikh question prompted me to google briefly "turning the other cheek". From Wikipedia:

"...The scholar Walter Wink, in his book Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, interprets the passage as ways to subvert the power structures of the time.

At the time of Jesus, says Wink, striking backhand a person deemed to be of lower socioeconomic class was a means of asserting authority and dominance. If the persecuted person "turned the other cheek," the discipliner was faced with a dilemma: The left hand was used for unclean purposes, so a back-hand strike on the opposite cheek would not be performed. An alternative would be a slap with the open hand as a challenge or to punch the person, but this was seen as a statement of equality. Thus, by turning the other cheek, the persecuted was demanding equality.

Wink continues with an interpretation of handing over one's cloak in addition to one's tunic. The debtor has given the shirt off his back, a situation forbidden by Hebrew law as stated in Deuteronomy (24:10–13). By giving the lender the cloak as well, the debtor was reduced to nakedness. Wink notes that public nudity was viewed as bringing shame on the viewer, and not just the naked, as seen in Noah's case (Genesis 9:20–23).

Wink interprets the succeeding verse from the Sermon on the Mount as a method for making the oppressor break the law. The commonly invoked Roman law of Angaria allowed the Roman authorities to demand that inhabitants of occupied territories carry messages and equipment the distance of one mile post, but prohibited forcing an individual to go further than a single mile, at the risk of suffering disciplinary actions. In this example, the nonviolent interpretation sees Jesus as placing criticism on an unjust and hated Roman law, as well as clarifying the teaching to extend beyond Jewish law..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_the_other_cheek
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Wink

>146 margd:

One of the many tools of active nonviolent resistance.

>138 alco261:

Nadler: "Texas is filled with 'good guys with guns' but that couldn't save them lives of those 19 children & 2 teachers. It's time to try something new ... (Republicans) told us that armed officers in schools would solve the problem. Each time they've been proven wrong."

0:38 ( https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1532405769043320835 )

- Aaron Rupar @atrupar | 12:56 PM · Jun 2, 2022

Your morning reminder that in the 10 days since Uvalde, there have been 20 more mass shootings in the United States. In those 20 massacres, 91 were shot and injured and so far, 19 died.

- Chris Murphy @ChrisMurphyCT | 9:18 AM · Jun 4, 2022
US Senator (D-CT)

>138 alco261: City & school police and all Texas's "good guys with guns" couldn't stop the massacre, but Border Control SWAT team did. Also, a mom, a tiny woman, saved a class and two of her sons--in spite of police, who handcuffed her at one point. When she reached her first son's class, she convinced teacher that it was safe to make a run for it. The second teacher couldn't be convinced so the mom grabbed her second son and ran. While police were milling in hallway, she said gunfire could be heard...

'I'm going in there!' Uvalde mom describes running inside elementary school during mass shooting to save her kids
Ariana Garcia | June 4, 2022

Angeli Gomez says she was handcuffed by police shortly after arriving at Robb Elementary School during the shooting...

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Uvalde-mom-describes-running-in...

ETA:
2:35 https://twitter.com/SxarletRed/status/1532853860737372161