.
“America” — meaning that almost-entirely-white, very-largely-male portion of the population that gets to write the laws and set the norms for the rest of us — has an addiction problem. “America” is addicted to guns, to the noise and the power and the ever-ready hard shaft of The All-American Weapon. Like any other addiction, presumably it started as a way to salve some unspeakable pain, to lubricate the sharp edges of the consequences to some decision gone terribly wrong. But now it’s an overwhelming burden all its own, a disconnect at the heart of all our political interactions, something that even those of us who don’t share the addiction have to plan our lives around.
James Fallows, in the Atlantic — “Two Dark American Truths From Las Vegas”:
… The dead and the wounded, and their family and friends, of course deserve most support and sympathy. But their fellow countrymen should reflect on two dark truths the episode underscores. I was going to end that sentence with “reveals,” but that’s not right: We know these things already.
The first is that America will not stop these shootings. They will go on. We all know that, which makes the immediate wave of grief even worse.
Five years ago, after what was the horrific mass shooting of that moment, I wrote an item called “The Certainty of More Shootings.” It was about the massacre in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and after acknowledging the victims it said:
The additional sad, horrifying, and appalling point is the shared American knowledge that, beyond any doubt, this will happen again, and that it will happen in America many, many times before it occurs anywhere else.
That remains true now. I expect it to be true five years from now. I am an optimist about most aspects of America’s resilience and adaptability, but not about reversing America’s implicit decision to let these killings go on…
Here’s the other dark truth about America that today’s shooting reminds us of. The identity of the shooter doesn’t affect how many people are dead or how grievously their families and communities are wounded. But we know that everything about the news coverage and political response would be different, depending on whether killer turns out to be “merely” a white American man with a non-immigrant-sounding name.
That’s who most mass-shooters turn out to be, from Charles Whitman at the University of Texas tower back in 1966 onward. And from Whitman onward, killers of this sort are described as “deranged” or “disturbed” or “resentful,” their crimes a reflection of their own torment rather than any larger trend or force… These people are indeed deranged and angry and disturbed, and the full story of today’s killer is not yet known. It is possible that he will prove to have motives or connections beyond whatever was happening in his own mind… But we know that if the killers were other than whites with “normal” names, the responsibility for their crime would not be assigned solely to themselves and their tortured psyches….
This is who we are.
I was going to add, “—unless we decide to change,” but that’s the kind of mandatory-uplift note you put, because you have to, at the end of a speech.
This is who we are.
There’s only two “cures” for any addiction: the addict can give up his drug, or he can chase the high until it kills him. Right now, I’m not feeling optimistic about the ammosexuals among us — or the powerful white men who profit from their desperation — ever giving up the temporary high just because it’s predictably going to destroy them. (Along with every other person they love almost as much as their guns.)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m noticing that ammosexuals REALLY dislike it when you call them that.
Turn up the volume – mock their cowardice, mock their totems.
NotMax
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
– George Santayana
If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind.
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge
That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
– Aldous Huxley
oldster
But they need their guns to protect our liberty!
Just like in “Red Dawn” when the Russians invaded and took over our country and installed a puppet president but the Wolverines resisted with their guns!
Except last year the Russians *did* invade and *did* take over our country and *did* install a puppet president, and all of the gun-humpers did nothing whatsoever. Actually, they cheered it on, because the Russians told them that the mean lady might take their guns if they did not accept the Russian puppet.
So they made their choice. Instead of defending America with their guns, they betrayed America in order to keep their guns.
And the Russians know that if they can keep fanning the flames of racism, and keep the NRA strong, that America will continue to weaken itself through internal division, suicide, and self-inflicted terror.
Wolverines!
oatler.
Sarah Silverman Retweeted
SarcasticRover @SarcasticRover 18h18 hours ago
More
“Humans will always murder, no gun law can change that!” screams a country that outlawed too much toothpaste on a plane.
OzarkHillbilly
1,516 mass shootings in 1,735 days: America’s gun crisis – in one chart
p.a.
Quite possibly the only way to get certain people to support real gun control is for the government to guarantee free medical for life to all surviving shooting victims and the families of the deceased.
Baud
After the election, there was talk that we should concede the gun debate to win over more voters. I suppose we should decide if that’s what we’re going to do before we engage in these sorts of self-reflections.
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Schlemazel
@OzarkHillbilly:
The Onion wrote a parody a couple years back and they prepost it every time there is a huge event
These Things Just Happen Says Only Nation On Earth Where This Happens”
If I owned newspapers that story would run on page one above the fold every time
geg6
A local woman is one of the victims in Las Vegas. She’s in a medically induced coma, serious but stable. Because it was Vegas, victims are from all over the country. This hits home everywhere, but nothing will change. I hate ammosexuals. Just hate them.
Schlemazel
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
The missus got into it with an ammosxual on FB. The tried to taunt her because she used the word “silencer”. Their newest fetish since the clip/magazine bullshit battle is over. SHe knew what a suppressor was though so he slinked away. I am sure he rubbed one out using his 50 round magazine
Like all fetishes the practitioners are very particular about honoring the fetish in the correct manner to the nth degree.
bemused
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I’ve noticed that many conservative white guys get nervous and angrily offended when any terms with word s-e-x are used to describe them. It would be unnatural to not speculate why they are so touchy.
Elizabelle
@oldster: Ammosexuals are losers, losers, losers. They need to buy the Congress, because they’re extremists. Great comment about the Wolverine set.
Not going to think about gun massacres today. Cable is booking money with all their coverage.
Gonna think about Tom Petty, and all the great music and stories he left us. Godspeed. It’s sort of sweet that we got a little bit of advance warning to grieve, before he was gone, gone.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel:
Not at all, they just want to prove what a stupid ignorant libtard one is, and that they are vastly more knowledgeable.
eclare
Wow Jimmy Kimmel last night was en fuego. He has decided to get political.
OzarkHillbilly
America’s passion for guns: ownership and violence by the numbers :
88 guns for every 100 people
This is the gun ownership rate in the United States, the highest by far in the world, according to the UN office on drugs and crime through its annual crime survey for 2012. The No 2 country, Yemen, has 54.8 per 100 people.
Up to half
This is the proportion of civilian-owned guns worldwide held in the United States. With less than 5% of the world’s population, the United States is home to roughly 35–50% of the world’s civilian-owned guns, according to the Small Arms Survey from 2007.
3%
Proportion of people who own half of the country’s guns, according to an unpublished Harvard/Northeastern University survey result summary. Anchoring this group are America’s gun super-owners – an estimated 7.7 million Americans who own between eight and 140 guns.
32%
The proportion of US men who said they personally owned a gun in 2015, down from 42% in 1994, according to the Harvard/Northeastern study.
12%
The proportion of US women who said they personally owned a gun in 2015, up from 9% in 1994.
25 times
Americans overall are “25 times more likely to be murdered with a gun than people in other developed countries”, gun control advocates say.
More numbers at the link.
delk
Every Member of Congress Who Took Money From the NRA and Tweeted ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ to Las Vegas
Got up to walk the dog and the radio was playing “Miss You” by the Rolling Stones. Came back in and “You Got Lucky” by Tom Petty was playing.
Patricia Kayden
@oldster: Bill O’Reilly claimed that mass shootings are the price of freedom so yeah, nothing is going to change.
satby
And Bill O’Liely used his flapping yap to say yesterday’s episode was “a price of freedom”. When will the universe take pity on us and silence that fucker?
eclare
@satby: I cannot imagine how victims’ families feel when they hear that.
TriassicSands
@NotMax:
Those who are stupid have no hope of learning from the past even if they could remember it.
NotMax
@satby
Disgusting. How long until he starts a campaign to add Kalashnikov to Mt. Rushmore?
satby
@eclare: he’s a powerful voice, he explains things very well, and it’s good he’s been on the side of the angels. We need every sane non politician speaking out we can get; too many people just discount whatever a politician says as partisan. They’ll discount Kimmel too, but the more Kimmels there are speaking, the louder the volume gets. And maybe the will to finally start moving in the other direction on all this can also grow.
eclare
@satby: I agree…just noting for years he has stayed away from politics, now with his son, and this, he is all in. Good on him, he has a megaphone, use it.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: good link, shared it.
I get a perverse enjoyment out of posting facts that counter the prevailing right wing b.s. and watching people unlike my FB business page.
TriassicSands
@NotMax:
There may not be room for both Kalashnikov and Trump. I’m expecting Trump to privatize Mt. Rushmore. First, he’ll buy it and have his hideous likeness blasted into the rock. He’s only eight months into his disastrous reign of incompetence and he’s already sure he belongs on Mt. Rushmore. The only question in his diseased mind is “Do the others deserve to be in his company?”
TriassicSands
@Patricia Kayden:
It amazes me that anyone is so stupid or so deranged that he or she could make such an idiotic and indefensible statement. If mass sootings are truly the “price of freedom,” then life must be pure hell in all those slave states in Europe.
NotMax
@Triassic Sands
In truth, the remaining face rock is too brittle or too unstable for any additions.
Maybe engineers can find a workable Lilliputian pocket off to the side to carve out one of his hands.
debbie
@Baud:
What happened to going high?
Baud
@debbie: Going high or getting high?
debbie
@satby:
Well, let’s shoot him in the balls and see how much he likes his freedom.
debbie
@Baud:
Go, like MO said.
Baud
@debbie: How is that relevant to what I said?
Cermet
Yet the white male gun lover does in fact pose the greatest terrorism threat the US of A has – they are the number one class of people that murder woman. How woman handle the fact that the most likely person to murder them is the person they date and/or marry? This ignore the other acts of violence that woman face from white males. That coward that murdered all those people is the EXACT profile of the most likely type of person to commit terrorism – against woman. This fact is overlooked by every reporter and lying political rep.
satby
@debbie: I don’t watch him so only caught that headline on trending news, but I hope anyone who heard that crap asked him if he was willing for his family to be sacrificed for freedom the same way.
JPL
@debbie: That made me laugh.
debbie
@Baud:
Conceding the issue of gun control to win over voters isn’t going high. Going high would be standing strong on that issue. Unless I misunderstood your post?
NotMax
@satby
Apparently it is never “too soon” to spout repugnant bullsh*t.
Baud
@debbie: I’m just relating a debate that occurred here and elsewhere about what changes we need to make to win. To my knowledge, that debate was never resolved. It seems cheeky to me to talk about gun deaths if we’re going to give up on the issue to get votes.
debbie
@Baud:
Ah, I missed that debate. I agree on the cheekiness.
debbie
@Baud:
I think the better strategy is to focus on convincing the convincible how Democratic positions in fact are good for the middle class and, by extension, the country.
rikyrah
@geg6:
I feel you.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
This is the age of trump, we are all post-cheeky.
japa21
@Baud: There will always be those who say we should, but I will never give up on it. And I doubt many will.
ETA: When 2 % say we should concede and 98 % say otherwise, it isn’t really a debate.
Kay
@Baud:
Guns are a loser for Democrats. Ted Strickland had an A rating from the NRA. He said there should be limits on assault weapons and they spent tens of millions against him.
Any Republican will always be to the Right, because Republicans are as far Right as one can go on guns.
So, no. Democrats shouldn’t abandon their actual supporters and chase 1% of GOP voters.
TriassicSands
@NotMax:
There’s a piece of gravel in a parking lot somewhere that would suffice.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
debbie
@Kay:
They said he didn’t really mean it.
Patricia Kayden
@OzarkHillbilly: Shhhhh. Stop that!! Don’t you know that it’s way too soon to talk about gun violence?!!
@Cermet: The focus is on finding out the shooter’s motive. I assume it will be determined that it had nothing to do with terrorism as it is currently defined. The bottom line is with the ease of acquiring guns, it really doesn’t matter what motivates some folks to snap and shoot down innocent people.
Kay
@Baud:
Strickland is a pretty good general example of how adopting fake positions just makes both sides disgusted with you. He kowtowed on the death penalty too. My reaction was like “oh, please”.
Patricia Kayden
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Trump (and his enablers).
Baud
@japa21: We’re a coalition party that can barely scrape 50%. All of our debates are with a fringe.
@Kay:
I agree. But I’m not sure our position will prevail.
Kay
@debbie:
Of course they did. They demand absolute fealty and they find it on the Right. It helps if you remember the NRA is actually a weapons industry lobby. Forget the 2nd Amendment. It’s the money.
Patricia Kayden
We don’t even keep up with all of the mass shootings. We’re overwhelmed.
Baud
I’m glad we spent time debating Wall Street speeches last year. That was a useful and cathartic discussion. We’re a better country for it.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I think Democrats should appeal to concert moms.
Who among you cannot imagine your kids, your family, your friends, yourself at an outdoor concert? How do you like your chances against an assault weapon, 32 stories up?
I really think the worm will turn on this one.
And who gives a shit why the shooter did this? The point is, he was able to buy an arsenal without anyone noticing. Apparently legally.
Guns are a sickness of our society.
Kay
@Baud:
It’s funny you mention that because Trump has caused me the think about that- do we switch sides if our position doesn’t prevail? I decided “no” :)
It helps to be a political minority where you live. I almost never “prevail”. I won’t adopt the Right’s position on guns not because I’m hugely moral but because their position is utterly ridiculous and is completely inconsistent with everything else they do and say. You can’t be for “national security” and not do anything about mass slaughters of citizens. That’s ridiculous.
Eric S.
@TriassicSands:
But they belive life is hell there. After i was back from Europe this summer I met up with one of my few remaining conservative friends. He asked about my trip and i gave a short answer ending with “I love Europe. ” He was nonplussed. Then asked, “But what about the people?” I described them as very nice and welcoming. None of it jived with his beliefs. He didn’t ask any more questions.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Just have principles and don’t think that you can get those voters.
Chyron HR
@Baud:
Look, I know you neoliberals have been going on about the gun thing forever, but the fact is that guns in Vermont are not the same thing as guns in Chicago.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Always about the money
japa21
@Baud: There is a special bit of bitterness seeping through your comments this morning. I can understand why.
JPL
Fox news must have said something nice about Trump because he just tweeted this
Proud is not the word I would have used.
rikyrah
It amuses me how, once again, a White male who slaughtered the innocent escapes being labeled a DOMESTIC TERRORIST.
I lie…it doesn’t amuse me at all.??
rikyrah
@Baud:
Tell the truth.
I keep on saying this, and I mean it.
Those who voted for Dolt45 and those who voted third party will NEVER be forgiven.
NEVER ??
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Wrong Kay. It’s Republican. Wait a minute, my bad. It’s a difference without a distinction.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I don’t think they should target anyone. They have a consistent reasonable position on guns that aligns perfectly with their general position on regulations and with the bulk of their supporters. That’s enough.
Republicans are incoherent on this. It’s fucking ridiculous to go crazy on terrorism and law enforcement and ignore these mass slaughters. Republicans have the problem. Democrats are just where they should be on guns. Moms will just have to put some effort in and figure it out.
The percentage of gun owners is dropping, not rising. There are fewer gun owners than there were 20 years ago. Each one has more guns. This is consistent with what I see when I inventory estates. Gun households have 9, 10, 20 guns. Non-gun households have zero.
This is amusing in the “make fun of gun owners” category. They ALWAYS over-value their collection. They ALWAYS think the guns are worth 2 or 3 or 4 times what they actually would sell for. That’s because guns last forever. There are millions of them in circulation. They’re like the people who think record collections are valuable.
Eric S.
@debbie: Kevin Drum had a post yesterday about how unpersuadable the voting public is. Registration drives and GOTV is where the bang for the buck resides. Sorry no time to go find a link.
Baud
@japa21: To be honest, I feel like it’s not limited to this morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: God bless America! With another mass shooting!
gene108
@p.a.:
Who are you targeting with this? The gun-humpers probably cheared as people in wheel chairs got dragged off protesting Senators trying to take their healthcare away. And no way in hell will gun-humpers be happy with paying for healthcare for some poor black kid in Chicago, who got shot.
@Baud:
We conceded gun control a long time ago, when Bill Clinton’s passage of two gun control laws helped Democrats lose Congress.
And by the frustration of the Fallows piece and other comments, we are in no mood to fight on this topic.
Kay
@Eric S.:
I think that’s good for the Democratic Party. It takes them in the direction of putting resources on the ground instead of into ads. They don’t have to change how they RAISE money. They have to change how they spend it.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Since he said our great country, isn’t his job done. I didn’t know that maga meant mass shootings, but whatever.
Tarragon
Last night someone went though my car and got some change. They also went through the neighbors car and got her purse.
Then they got into her garage and stole a gun. What the Fuck.
OzarkHillbilly
@Eric S.: Trying to Persuade Voters? Good Luck With That.
Shalimar
I keep reading that there was nothing noteworthy or unusual about the mass murderer. That isn’t true. His brother said Paddock was a gambler but not a gun person. If accurate, that means he bought 30-40 guns in a very short period. That seems like it should have been a red flag, if anyone had known.
gene108
@TriassicSands:
The prevailing view of most right-wingers is that life is pure hell in Europe. That is why the scare of socialized medicine works so well.
rikyrah
Nevada basically has NO gun laws.
Las Vegas is one of the most watched cities in America. Cameras everywhere. How does one get 10 rifles into a hotel like that and nobody noticed?
How does he break two windows? No sensors on the windows?
Kay
@Tarragon:
We had home health care workers for the elderly who were scared to go into houses because they were afraid their dementia-suffering charges would shoot them. Absolutely reasonable concern, as far as I can tell.
These people are fucking reckless with this. They’re idiots. They need to be regulated.
Baud
@Eric S.:
@OzarkHillbilly:
The problem we have with the unpersuadeable voter theory is that too many people on our side have a political fantasy of the 99% vs. the 1%. Once you concede that nearly half of the 99% are off the table, then you have to change your whole outlook on politics, which no one likes to do.
Kay
@Shalimar:
I wonder if he was a problem gambler. There are a lot of them and they’re like all addicts- they lie about their winnings. Really serious financial problems can drive people over the edge.
raven
fuck it
Another Scott
I’m a great Fallows fan, but I’m not willing to give up.
We know how to turn from the path we’re on. It will take work, and it will take incremental changes. But we can do it. Here’s just a few things that will start to make a difference.
1) Regular gun buy-backs with substantial funding.
2) Graduated taxes on ammunition. Little on .22s, lots and lots on AR-15, lots and lots and lots on .50 cal.
3) PSAs on gun violence like the truth – #FinishIT on the facts about gun violence
4) Strict and severe anti-brandishing laws, anti-threatening laws, anti-intimidation laws. You want your precious 2nd Amendment? Fine, we’re going to “well-regulated” your precious.
5) Pushing every single day, the way MADD did with drunk driving, that you being an idiot and you pornographifying guns and endangering the public is no longer acceptable. We will shun you and do our best to lock you up if you don’t change your behavior.
etc.
We aren’t doomed. We know the way to change this country – we don’t have to invent new physics or new genetics. We can address and begin to solve this problem. It takes sustained work, and the the sooner we do so the sooner we will see the future we want.
And it takes voting out the monsters who write and enforce, and appoint the judges who interpret, the existing laws.
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
@Another Scott: In the olden days when deficits mattered, they could sell the tax increase as a way to pay down the debt. Deficits won’t matter again until they get their tax cut.
Sab
@Kay: Tell that to Tim Ryan my reprehensible Congress critter OH 13, He’s had an NRA rating in the 90s for years. Now he claims he hasn’t taken NRA money since Sandyhook. Would have been nice if he had mentioned it or voted that way at any point subsequently.
I hate gerrymandering. We always had decent normal sort of lefty Congress critters, and now we have this slimy weasel who worked for Jim Trafficant. He lives fifty miles away, but he is supposed to understand us. He is a backbencher who wanted to unseat Pelosi (and thought he could- nitwit). A gun nut until it was inconvenient. A right -to-lifer until it was inconvenient. He does seem to be serious about SCHIP but with him be have to wait to see about his seriousity.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: We all know that 27% are bugnut crazy, that they vote, and they make up a majority of the GOP. We also know that most of the rest of the GOP is too gutless to stand up to the crazies but would never vote for a DEM. Speaking only for myself, that’s just reality and I have no problem facing it. I have to. The GOP controls our govt now.
gene108
@Another Scott:
Place to start is calling Cngress to vote no on the silencer bill. Blitz their phone lines like we did on healthcare or the DeVos nomination.
We will probably lose, but we won’t go quietly into the night.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kay:
This. Each and every day, new firearms are manufactured and added to the macabre national inventory. Being durable, they rarely get scrapped.
Numbers have GOT to start coming down.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah sure. But we’re all preaching to the converted here. The wider world isn’t so advanced.
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
Considering Nevada’s lack of meaningful gun-control laws, maybe everyone noticed, but he wasn’t doing anything that the cops could treat as suspicious so there was nothing to be done.
Elizabelle
@Another Scott: I like your spirit.
We are dispirited, but there are more of us. Targets, I mean.
JPL
All and all, it was a good day
https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/915191812691828736
Shalimar
@Kay: Yeah, I wonder that too. That “won $250,000” message sounds familiar. In my only experience with a gambling addict, they’re quick to brag about winnings but don’t tend to mention the $50,000 per day they lost the rest of the week.
Sab
@Kay: Tell that to Tim Ryan my reprehensible Congress critter OH 13, He’s had an NRA rating in the 90s for years. Now he claims he hasn’t taken NRA money since Sandyhook. Would have been nice if he had mentioned it or voted that way at any point subsequently.
I hate gerrymandering. We always had decent normal sort of lefty Congress critters, and now we have this slimy weasel who worked for Jim Trafficant. He lives fifty miles away, but he is supposed to understand us. He is a backbencher who wanted to unseat Pelosi (and thought he could- nitwit). A gun nut until it was inconvenient. A right -to-lifer until it was inconvenient. He does seem to be serious about SCHIP but with him be have to wait to see about his seriousity.
@Another Scott: Keep saying this evertwhere.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: That’s why I said, “Speaking only for myself…”
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: Money controls our government now.
They have bought the GOP. Who are whores for the money.
Follow the money.
Lurking Canadian
@JPL: Jesus. A bad job would have given the guy a chance to kill 100, I guess.
Shalimar
@Eric S.: There was a study on political spending released last week from political scientists who had previously found that spending time talking with people on individual issues could change minds. What they found when studying political spending on campaigns is that it made no difference whatsoever. All that massive amount of money is wasted, except on get-out-the-vote efforts for supporters. Which coincides with what anyone paying attention the last few cycles had probably already suspected.
A Ghost To Most
@Elizabelle:
Chyron HR
@JPL:
Las Vegas is Trump’s greatest accomplishment since Puerto Rico. It’s the #1 bigly Presidency, believe me.
JPL
@Lurking Canadian: He’s a sick man, and congress will ignore it. They have an agenda, and that is to rid us of healthcare, food stamps, and aid for the poor.
CNN is playing the statement now.
schrodingers_cat
I have question:
If people believe that nothing* is ever going to change, then what is the point of commenting on a political blog.
*Be it gun control or R dominance of our politics or Mueller’s investigation.
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
Amir,
I don’t know about these guns. Were his rifles the kind that you can take apart and put together? If not, he had to walk into a major casino, where there are cameras EVERYWHERE, with 10 rifles.
I just don’t think a non-White person would be able to talk into a Las Vegas casino with 10 rifles and someone not be notified.
rikyrah
in moderation, please help.
Elizabelle
@JPL: What statement?
rikyrah
To speed this up a bit:
Lone wolf
Not terrorism
Thoughts and prayers
No gun restrictions
arm more people
Now back to tax reform#LasVegas
— Travon Free (@Travon) October 2, 2017
gvg
@Kay: I have never known an actual gambler but several relatives have. they say gamblers always report the wins and don’t report the losses, in fact until they are in real trouble, they don’t even seem to remember or notice the loses. They need that thrill of the win.
I am reading that the bank robber father was described back then as a psychopath and suicidal, therefore dangerous. It doesn’t say why he was described that way.
Gin & Tonic
@JPL: “How quickly”? As I was leaving the house some dude was on CNN talking about response times, and said it took one hour and 11 minutes from when the shooting started to when SWAT entered the room.
rikyrah
Jimmy Kimmel: “Lawmakers should be praying for God to forgive them for letting the gun lobby run this country” https://t.co/kQVoTvseVZ
— Moms Demand Action (@MomsDemand) October 3, 2017
Cheryl Rofer
@rikyrah: done
Elizabelle
Fuck CNN. Banner headline on their website: The world asks why.
For God’s sake. It’s because someone who went pyscho, or was there to begin with, was able to amass an arsenal.
It’s not hard, CNN. It is not hard at all.
ETA: Did CNN put this type of headline up after the Bataclan massacre? Which is especially memorable because Europe does not do shoot ’em ups like we do here. They do them more rarely, but with a lot of deaths, that is true.
ETA2: Maybe “psycho” is not the right word. Sociopath certainly fits. A sociopath was able to assemble an arsenal. Because, Nevada.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
I’m not exactly giving up on some sort of gun control, but I don’t see it happening. Sandy Hook didn’t make things happen. Someone shooting Republican members of Congress on a baseball field didn’t make things happen.
gvg
@rikyrah: yesterday morning I saw an actual interview with the LV police chief explaining why they weren’t yet calling it terrorism. He just said, those laws depend on motives and reasons, and they don’t know anything yet. It seemed reasonable to me in that context. I would be terrorized myself if I knew what he was angry about. they haven’t come out with anything yet like white supremist links or religious or even hating country music….
It is possible that he is just a nut in a personal and unique way. Statistically it happens and even if we clean up the enabling parts of our culture some killers will still happen. I do think time may show there were ugly motives but I haven’t seen it so far. Even if he was unique in motive, if we had more gun regulation and more public gun skepticism he couldn’t have done as much damage, plus i think our gun culture could have inclined him to break this way.
I am so sick of the gun worship. guns aren’t that special in a democracy. they are really just another potential hazzard sometimes useful that just need safer attitudes and effective regulation.
JPL
@Elizabelle: A link is at comment 93 and @Gin & Tonic: mentions accurately, it took awhile.
Trump doesn’t do sorrow.
hueyplong
So I guess Trump is saying that, absent “miracles” from our first responders, we should routinely expect deaths in triple digits and woundings around 1000 if a single guy goes off with a fair sized collection of some of what the NRA’s pals have on offer.
Higher numbers, of course, if the ammosexual in question is a former Marine who brings top notch skill to the task at hand. [No offense to Rangers intended.]
The random price of Freedom seems to be increasing a bit. I assume it would be unpatriotic to take steps to lower the price.
Leto
At this point we need to start issuing every man/woman/child an IFAK (Individual First Aid Kit), and sending everyone through the Army Combat Life Saver course. At this point, statistically speaking, everyone needs it because we’re not going to escape this insanity. Also the Boy Scout motto still rings in my head: Be prepared.
I hate that I even had that thought.
Lurking Canadian
@gvg: It’s perfectly correct for them not to call it terrorism unless they know more about motives.
The problems are: (1) they were already calling it “not terrorism ” about five minutes after the guy’s (WASPy) name was announced and (2) they don’t wait to learn more before calling it terrorism if it’s a dark skinned person, especially a dark skinned person with a Muslim-sounding name. In fact in the latter case they tend to keep calling it terrorism even after the guy turns out to be a lone nut with no ties to any political group.
JPL
@hueyplong: It’s all good, and we should feel fortunate that he’s in charge . The mayor in San Juan learned quickly not to criticize the commander and chief, and according to the asshole, she already recognizes what a great job he’s doing.
stinger
@Another Scott: Thank you for all these great points.
If the shooter is a member of a minority or an immigrant, then he’s a product of his society or religion and all the members of that group are culpable. If he’s a White American, then he’s a disturbed lone wolf, unique, just a nut, and the rest of us are innocent and can go about our merry ways. I don’t know how to change that attitude, but we surely can begin with the steps you’ve outlined.
O. Felix Culpa
Good morning, all. I’m needing a break, so just lurking for a bit. I’m nonetheless glad for your company.
Calouste
@stinger: He’s probably just another hetero white male terrorist.
My theory is that he met a woman, in Vegas, online, or at a country concert. They had some contact, but she turned him down, so he decided to take revenge. He didn’t know enough about her to know where she lives, but he did know she was going to the festival and/or that she is a fan of the guy who was playing when the shooting happened. Note that they found scopes in his hotel room. You don’t need those to just randomly shoot into a crowd of 20,000, even from a large distance.
Sab
@rikyrah: Las Vegas being safe what with all the cameras is a complete myth. I had a friend who had the tailgate of her pickup stolen in the Mirage parking lot while she was on the job for the Nevada Gaming Control Commission. The Mirage management was horrified, and reimbursed her, but that didn’t take away from the fact that somebody stole the back end of her truck while she was parked in a supposedly safe parking deck. Not to mention two people I knew being tazed and mugged while shopping- one was coming out of the grocery store, the other was picking her dog up from the groomer.
Ksmiami
@rikyrah: I can answer that- in Vegas it’s a major trade show city so big black cases in a hotel don’t attract attn
Elie
@Cermet:
This is something happening in the heart of families raising white boys. It is up to them and white relatives and friends to fix this extreme anger and alienation that is indeed holding this society and culture by our throats. They are a danger that must be addressed straightforwardly or they will murder us all in their quest for dominance and to quell this monster of existential pain.
Elie
@Shalimar:
I don’t think his brother really knew him. Didn’t live in same town. Dude was said to “keep to himself”. He was probably sick (paranoid) for a good long time. The story will come out slowly. He was enraged and fearful. His delusions may have been unrelated to the reality of the concert. He may have been seeing Martian invaders. We may never know but I think his girlfriend will know a lot and there may have been a reason that she was in the Philippines.
Cckids
@rikyrah: @Amir Khalid:
Having lived in Vegas for 20 years, and worked at a Strip hotel for 5, I can tell you; he didn’t openly carry those guns in. NV doesn’t have strict gun laws, but the hotels & cas1nos do.
Suitcases, duffel bags . . . my best guess for long guns would be golf bags; especially those hard cases they use for golf bags on airplanes.
Those hotels are HUGE. Mandalay Bay has over 3300 rooms, all over an enormous casino and convention center.
There is absolutely no way security would notice someone making multiple trips to & from their car carrying stuff in.
gvg
@Lurking Canadian: Oh yes you are right about the immediate labeling of any minority as bad. that happens and it’s inexcusable.
The media and I would say the general population are lazy and quick to jump to wrong conclusions. I was just saying that the specific police chief in the specific interview I saw seemed to have the correct we don’t know yet attitude and also an awareness of specific laws. I noticed that the media interviewers didn’t really pay attention nor emphasize that point and they should have known people were going to jump to the conclusion it wasn’t terrorism right away if the media didn’t make an effort to prevent it. I was also thinking we are taking it for granted that the media were accurately reporting what the actual police said. Often the police seem to be the root of the problems but this time I didn’t think so.
Shalimar
@Elie: Yeah, good point. From the way the brother talked about their most recent, post-hurricane conversation, it sounds like they were in touch at most every few months. Maybe a little more often for the mom, but that sounds more like a taking care of her in her old age kind of relationship rather than sharing anything personal. The girlfriend would have to have known him better, though. Maybe we will know more when she is back in the U.S. and can talk.
Mike in Pasadena
@Elizabelle: Buy an arsenal and get it up into a hotel room with nobody noticing.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Sensors are expensive. The places where the management’s money is at stake – totally covered with sensors and cameras, and guys on catwalks in the ceiling watching the dealers and the bets going down.
But a window on the 32nd floor? Fuq that shit, we can’t afford more security up there. What’s going to happen anyway, some loser going to jump? Who cares!
As far as bringing in the guns, big old leather zipped up gold bags. He brings one in every afternoon, full of what? Then he takes it out the next morning, full of – what?
Only take 2 or 3 trips to get those rifles in, they aren’t much bigger than a wood.