As defined by the Gun Violence Archive, a mass shooting is an event where “four or more people are shot or killed in a single incident,” not including the shooter. As of yesterday, we’ve had 317 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2017.
No wonder Trump, likely jacked up on jet-lag and dementia, got mixed up and sent a pro forma mass shooting tweet in which he forgot to substitute the location of yesterday’s carnage with the site of last week’s semi-automatic atrocity:
Trump or a minion has since deleted last night’s defective “thots-n-prars” tweet without bothering to provide an updated version. Good. Since Trump and his party are captive to the death merchants’ lobbying group known as the NRA, their fake concern and piety are an insult to the dead and wounded anyway.
But before the next mass shooting occurs, let’s pause for a moment and look at yesterday’s rampage, which killed four and wounded ten. Via the AP:
RANCHO TEHAMA RESERVE, Calif. (AP) — The gunman behind a rampage in Northern California was out on bail for a charge of stabbing a neighbor, had been the object of complaints from neighbors who said he had been firing off hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and had been the subject of a domestic violence call the day before the attack.
Yet Kevin Neal was free and able to use a semiautomatic rifle and two handguns Tuesday to shoot 14 people, killing four, in seven different locations across his rural community, including an elementary school, before he died in a shootout with police.
It’s not yet clear what the terms of Neal’s bail were, and whether he would have been allowed to possess and fire the weapons on his property at the end of a dirt road in Rancho Tehama Reserve. Nor did sheriff’s officials give details on the domestic violence call.
But his many contacts with authorities raised questions of why he was out of custody and able to go on the 45-minute rampage that began with the killing of two neighbors in an apparent act of revenge before he went looking for random victims…
Police said surveillance video shows the shooter unsuccessfully trying to enter a nearby elementary school after quick-thinking staff members locked the outside doors and barricaded themselves inside when they heard gunshots.
[Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil] Johnston said the gunman spent about six minutes shooting into Rancho Tehama Elementary School before driving off to continue shooting elsewhere. Johnston said one student was shot but is expected to survive.He said the 45-minute rampage ended when a patrol car rammed the stolen vehicle the shooter was driving and killed him in a shootout.
Can you imagine the terror of the children and adults inside that school, as the madman rained bullets on the building? It’s insane and shameful that we allow this situation to continue.
BruceFromOhio
It’s profitable and empowering. Until it stops being those things, it will continue apace.
Amaranthine RBG
Murder and crime rates in the US are at or near the lowest level in decades: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95379&page=1
TenguPhule
For the record, we can trace the start of this carnage to Bush vs. Gore.
The Supreme Court pretty much lost their marbles once he tilted the court and they invalidated most of the firearms regulations we did have for this country at the time.
I do not expect this to improve until this changes.
TenguPhule
@Amaranthine RBG: I’m sure this is a great comfort to the rising tide of mass shooting victims. //
clay
I work at a school, and we drill for this kind of thing to happen. I imagine that every school district across the nation does the same thing.
It’s a goddamn travesty that we are forced to plan for a nutcase coming to shoot up a school. It’s a goddamn travesty that it’s necessary. But thank God that this training saved lives yesterday.
Major Major Major Major
OT: A new kind of sketchy-sounding analysis of 2016 cell phone location data concludes that
MattF
So, another shooter who’s been on the verge for a while… and nobody does anything. I can see how it happens, actually– the guy’s got a gun, after all.
Adam L Silverman
There is no enumerated right from the Constitution that we don’t reasonably regulate in practice. From the beginning of the Republic. Because it would simply be impossible to run the US if we didn’t. Not everyone agrees with how we do these for each enumerated right, and often we relegislate and relitigate the reasonable regulation every so often as societal attitudes, technology, and the reality of events require. And there is almost always a time lag. In some cases, such as the protections enumerated in the 4th Amendment, a lot of the judicially driven reasonable regulation has gone too far in narrowing the scope of 4th Amendment rights. The 2nd Amendment absolutists are going to eventually face a situation where the window has closed on reasonable compromise on reasonable regulation of the 2nd Amendment as an enumerated right. For instance universal background checks for all sales and transfers as gifts (not a temporary transfer such as letting a friend shoot your handgun, rifle, or shotgun at the range one day), as well as for long guns, not just handguns. Reworking temporary restrictions on ownership due to restraining orders and as part of bail/bond agreements/arrangements when accused of certain types of crimes. Removing the legislatively imposed restrictions on actually funding research into firearms so we have a proper body of data, research, and analysis that can be referred to. And, perhaps, requiring liability insurance for firearms owners. None of this is or would be a panacea. None of it would prevent someone really committed to getting and using a firearm to do something illegal, but these are the actual reasonable regulations that are most frequently referred to. Continuing to just scream “shall not be infringed!!!!” and claiming that even a discussion of reasonable regulation is an infringement will continue the status quo until an actual tipping point is reached. And once that tipping point occurs reasonable will not be in the room for the discussion of regulation.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: I feel better. But that could be the antibiotics talking!
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@clay:
Agree x a million with all of that – and welcome, rest of America, to what Jewish schools and institutions have been living with for decades. As a commenter here has said: it’s the NRA’s country, and we’re just sheltering in place in it.
? Martin
To our credit, California does seize guns. We’re not great at it yet, just getting started, and there’s a huge backlog, but the state is actively working to improve things. Family members can go to a court and ask that the person be deemed a threat.
Of course, along with that goes the threat of domestic violence, etc. A lot of things need to happen for this to get fixed, but we’re doing at least some of them.
Betty Cracker
Hmmm…
Ian G.
You know how the question is always asked, “will the moderate Muslims denounce this?” when there’s another terrorist attack? Can we ask that the sane people who make up the majority of gun owners in the US stand up and say that the NRA doesn’t speak for them?
Something like “I own a bolt action rifle for sporting purposes. It can’t wipe out a crowd full of music fans or an elementary school. People who stockpile semiautomatic weapons to defend themselves from gay Muslim UN stormtroopers trying to force them to drive electric cars are insane and do not speak for me.” Something like that.
MattF
@Adam L Silverman: I’ve noticed that the NRA is nowhere to be found (at least in public) these days.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: I’m not sure that’s really the case in this instance. When you read the Heller and McDonald rulings what is very clear is that Associate Justice Scalia recognized that the US has historically regulated firearms ownership and usage, both reasonably and in some cases unreasonably. He made it clear in the ruling that reasonable regulation was constitutional and should/could continue. This is consistent with all the previous Supreme Court jurisprudence on the 2nd Amendment. What Heller and McDonald did do was take what was recognized as an implicit right to personal ownership of firearms separate from militia service/duty and make it an explicit part of the enumerated rights regarding firearms delineated in the 2nd Amendment.
All of the above said, however, what is also very clear is that every other US Federal court, especially at the appellate level, has continued to function as if there was no Heller and McDonald rulings. And the Supreme Court has no desire, even with Associate Justice Gorsuch on the court, to revisit the 2nd Amendment any time soon. None of the justices trust the other justices on this issue. And, especially, Associate Justice Kennedy and to a lesser extent Chief Justice Roberts. The only justice that wants the court to revisit this is Associate Justice Thomas and his argument is that the Supreme Court has to weigh in because the other Federal courts are ignoring the Supreme Courts own rulings. He is not wrong even if I wouldn’t agree with his solution.
MomSense
And again domestic assault is present in this case. After the last mass shooting the failure of the military to report his domestic assault was discussed. The problem is that even if it had been reported, the guy could still buy whatever weapon he desired through a secondary sale.
Why don’t our media run segments showing what happened to mass shootings when the assault weapons ban was in effect? The NRA and their enablers get away with statements that make it sound like there is nothing we can do to prevent these mass shootings except make sure more people have guns in all the places.
Fuck it, we should get enough governorships, state legislatures, the White House, and both branches of Congress and repeal the fucking second amendment. I’m done waiting for these gun nuts to be responsible enough to keep it.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: The last I heard from them, they were pro-banning-bump-stocks.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: They tend to lay low in the first few days or so after something like this happens if it is getting major news coverage. Given that there is one mass shooting a day – as in four or more shot dead not counting the shooter – and most of them don’t get any coverage outside of the local area, they basically don’t say anything publicly because they don’t have to.
Faction
When I was in grade school we only had fire drills and tornado drills…never had an angry-white-guy drill.
“Lock the doors, children! Someone’s life didn’t turn out like he thought it should!”
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: No they weren’t. They stated that the ATF should decide what to do. Which technically is the correct answer as bump stocks fall under the ATF’s purview. But by stating that the hot potato should be handed to the ATF, which has also already stated that they can’t do anything about bump stocks, they gave legislators they fund a shield. That shield was this isn’t a problem for new/more legislation. Rather this is a problem to be resolved through the appropriate regulatory agency.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: Heller and McDonald ignored past precedent in favor of a radical reinterpretation which the NRA is using to challenge every type of firearm regulation imaginable wherever they can file a case. We’re not going to get anything done on guns until its overturned.
Mary G
@? Martin: Twitler didn’t issue a revised thoughts and prayers tweet, because we don’t deserve them, since we didn’t vote for him.
Patricia Kayden
@Amaranthine RBG: So? What does that have to do with these awful shootings?
Ruckus
@Amaranthine RBG:
You are a useless fucking piece of shit.
Trying to justify this because crime is at an all-time low.
You should be permanently banned.
feebog
@Adam L Silverman:
And did so ignoring almost 200 years of legal precedent. Basically the most partisan decision since Bush v. Gore.
ETA, I see TP beat me to it.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: The ATF that Congress has underfunded, is understaffed and crippled by the rules which pretty much make enforcement of firearms regulations a joke.
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I just remember them saying they weren’t opposed to that particular bit of regulation, and Gun Owners of America responded by saying fuck you, that would be taking away our freedom, we’re the real gun rights org give us your money
Patricia Kayden
@MomSense: Why would it be so difficult for Congress to pass legislation making it illegal for guns to be sold to anyone convicted of domestic violence or any other violent crime? This is truly bizarre. The NRA has scores of puppets in Congress doing its bidding and the American people are suffering because of that.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: But still pro-silencers.
MJS
@Adam L Silverman: I wish you were right, that there will be an “actual tipping point”. But if it wasn’t reached when all of those children were massacred in Connecticut, it never will be. This country is sick.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Ruckus:
Oh, c’mon now, it’s just a piece of pie.
Possibly Russian fish pie.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Actually it isn’t the NRA challenging things under Heller and McDonald. It is the 2nd Amendment Foundation. The NRA prefers to stay out of court. They are hyper fearful that the courts will rule against them and restrict the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that they’ve been pushing since the mid 1970s.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: @TenguPhule:
IANAL, but I think Scalia acted in bad faith in his decision on Heller. He had to assert that qualifying clauses in Constitution were introductory, and merely ornamental, throat clearing that meant nothing, and didn’t give any operational test, or guidance for one, on what a reasonable concern for self-defense should be and how far it should be balanced with other concerns. Is it any wonder that courts want to stay away from that foul mess of a decision?
Again, IAMAL, but that is my layman’s understanding, and if some lawyer wants to correct me, I will listen.
TenguPhule
@Patricia Kayden:
Because the NRA decided that they can’t.
ETA: Corrected for accuracy.
Adam L Silverman
@feebog: I am not arguing that. I think that Associate Justice Scalia was a terrible historian, legal or otherwise. As is the case with virtually every subscriber to and adherent of legal and judicial originalism.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Scrape a nail over the skin of that foundation and you’ll find the people of the NRA inside of it.
trollhattan
Yes I can, because when my kid was in 4th grade her school went into lockdown while an active shooter engaged the cops in the neighborhood. He was eventually killed but not before shooting a police dog. Significantly, he didn’t shoot up the school, just engaged in the “usual” running gunfight after exiting the interstate and bailing, following a lengthy freeway chase. Dude was from Butte County, which just happens to be adjacent to Tehama County, where yesterday’s madness occurred. Coincidence? We’ll let you decide.
Major Major Major Major
@jl: I also am not a lawyer and this is my understanding of the decision as well. That doesn’t mean that Adam’s take isn’t technically correct as well, and to be fair “technically correct” counts for a lot when we’re talking about the law.
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman: There is nothing in the Constitution or in Heller that would prevent a State (or the federal government) from requiring licensing, which includes education and periodic testing (eyesight, knowledge about firearms, etc.) and liability insurance for all gun owners. There probably is nothing that would prevent a State from requiring every child who goes to a school to report what guns are in their homes as part of the wellness/health survey. All types of military grade weapons can be outright banned. So can dangerous add-ons (like bump stocks, mega-clips, etc.) None of these violate the basic right of personal gun ownership for defense recognized by the Court.
The problem is political. State legislators are just afraid to do it.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Yep, that’s them.
Amaranthine RBG
@Adam L Silverman:
You’re probably right. Most gun owners, like most non gun owners, support a variety of sensible restrictions that are unlikely to be enacted anytime soon.
Hard-core gun owners will continue to fly their Gadsen flags and gun control advocates will continue to advocate ineffective, punitive restrictions around the margins of the problem (IDs for ammunition!!!).
It’s unfortunate that the atmosphere has become so poisoned that compromise appears unlikely. Most disturbing of all is that reasonable, relatively non-controversial steps (such as education, gun locks, training, etc.) that can have a real impact on reducing deaths are basically ignored by people who, apparently, more concerned with posturing than actually making a difference.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty Cracker: Fingers crossed that this is true. Something needs to be done about gun violence. Like yesterday.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: It was a very smart PR stunt. It made them look reasonable on that issue and got the press to leave them alone while they knew it would lead to absolutely no changes. And having the GOA yell at the NRA publicly was an additional benefit as it makes them look less extreme by comparison.
Ruckus
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
I have this asshole pied on the home box but the phone seems to be problematic. Probably operator error.
Adam L Silverman
@Patricia Kayden: It is already illegal for anyone convicted of a felony who has not had their rights restored to own, purchase, and/or possess a firearm.
Immanentize
@jl: The holding of Scalia’s opinion is amazingly narrow: A State (in that case, the District of Columbia) cannot outright ban the ownership of a handgun, in the home, for self-defense purposes, absent any particularized State interest in doing so. period.
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker: Sorry, not going to try to kick that football.
They should know better by now.
Anything offered by Republicans will be full of shit. Always.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Again: Associate Justice Scalia was a terrible historian, legal or otherwise. As are almost all those who subscribe to his understanding of judicial originalism.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: You may find overlap in the membership/supporters. But the NRA leadership and the 2nd Amendment Foundation leadership are not the same and do not agree on much in terms of legal strategy.
Immanentize
@MomSense: Domestic violence is present in every single mass shooting case, it seems, except maybe for San Bernardino which was a peculiar case all around….
Adam L Silverman
@Immanentize: I do not disagree with you.
TenguPhule
@Immanentize: Dylan Ryan?
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
Before the Vegas slaughter Nevada was already one of a considerable number of states with gun deaths totaling higher than traffic deaths.
I’ll let that one sink in for a moment.
Anybody who thinks gun deaths are at a level they can live with [heh] is a sociopath who needs clinical help.
jl
@Immanentize: OK, thanks for the clarification. But that is not how it is interpreted popularly, and I think that makes a difference. And, regardless of how technically narrow Scalia may have tried to make it, does that mean his reasoning is sound? It bother’s my IANAL head that he seemed to have to find a BS reason to just throw out half of the language of the second amendment in reaching his decision.
Edit: also no explicit right to self-defense, as there is none for privacy in the Constitution. So, many ways the decision seems like bad faith Originalist or Textualist dishonest, inconsistent, biased and tendentious, hokum to me.
Adam L Silverman
@Amaranthine RBG: The problem is what it is. And what it is is about dollars. Specifically dollars that fund political campaigns.
ChrisH
We need a shorthand way to talk about these incidents. My best idea so far is to say “2.5”
This refers to the lesser known but obviously existing 2nd and a half amendment, which states it is the unalienable right of a white man to take out as many people as he can before finally killing himself, either by cop or blowing his own brains out. This is obviously a right because if it wasn’t, we’d try to do something to prevent it.
“2 point five” would most commonly said with a shrug in the same way you’d respond to complaints about the weather. Yeah it sucks that it’s raining / your son just got killed, but nothing we can do about it.
Boatboy_srq
@clay: I’m just old enough to be aware of the Duck And Cover nuclear strike drills. The US has noved from exercises to protect its citizens from attacks by foreign powers through the foreign-agent-targeted security theatre that is TSA down to exercises to protect US citizens from attacks by other US citizens. Whodathunk.
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman: I know you don’t — I should have started with — “Adding to what Adam so cogently explained….”
Immanentize
@TenguPhule: Who?
D58826
Only 4 dead, nothing to see. keep moving. Will be covered back on the page with the championship curling scores. Death toll has to be in double digits before it rates front page coverage. (snark)
chris
@Adam L Silverman: There were four mass shootings on Monday.
https://massshootingtracker.org/
Immanentize
@jl: I do not disagree — that decision and Citizen’s United were the two that probably upended more precedent than any others I can think of right now. (Bush v. Gore really had no precedent to upend, so it was sui generis awful because, well, the Constitution has its own remedy they ignored).
But
That is our political/money challenge, not a legal doctrine problem.
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman: This
TenguPhule
@Immanentize: Sorry, Dylann Roof.
I’m getting my mass shooters mixed up, there’s been so damn many of them.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Oh, well, if overall crime rates are down, who cares if a guy who was out on bail for stabbing his neighbor proceeds to haul out his stash of guns and go on a shooting rampage? After all, crime is at an all-time low!
Adam L Silverman
@D58826: Actually 5 dead plus the shooter. They found his wife’s body under the floor boards of their home when they searched his house.
Adam L Silverman
@chris: Does not surprise me.
trollhattan
@D58826:
Whatever, wherever and how many are slaughtered, in Republican heads is the absolute knowledge it’s worse in Chicago.
My kid’s HS government teacher assigned the class to watch John Oliver’s Sunday explanation of Trump’s manipulation tactics. I may have a new favorite teacher.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: It says something that I’m not even surprised by this at this point.
trollhattan
@TenguPhule:
State Capitol flag is now on more or less permanent half staff (not kidding) in honor of the various spree killings. Actually can’t say the last day it was at full staff.
But kneeling is worse.
Amaranthine RBG
@Patricia Kayden:
The question it raises, in my mind, is why if overall crime and murder rates are down why is this one particular type of shooting (apparently) on the rise?
Murder and crime are multifaceted problems with multiple causes. It’s easy to yell “Get their gunz!!!” but it doesn’t seem to really be a serious attempt to address what is going in in the real world.
Betty Cracker
@D58826: If the shooter hadn’t tried to enter a school, this story wouldn’t have gotten the attention it did. Via NPR, another description of what happened at the school:
Thank FSM they had locks on the doors and brave, quick-thinking staff. It could have been so much worse.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: There is nothing that would prevent an insurance company from charging more for liability insurance if there are guns in the house.
A couple of years ago I switched homeowner’s insurance carriers. The new company cam to my house and made several detailed and specific demands about mechanical systems before they would issue the policy.
ET
Another day another group of martyrs to the religion of the NRA and their god The Gun.
Immanentize
@TenguPhule:
Sadly, I understand how that happens….
Roof was almost certainly the victim of domestic violence, as well as having some pretty serious mental health issues. His sentence of death is sad, not because of the proportionality, but because the Court let* him represent himself at the punishment phase of the trial — where he refused to present or argue — and disavowed earlier evidence of — his own mental illness and abuse. I represented a number of clients like him who just did not want the painful story of their lives laid out before a jury…. It was basically suicide by jury.
*Lord knows, I know that competency to represent yourself is a complicated issue, both at trial and if you want to later give up your appeals….
But the trial court was in such a hurry to get the case finished that it did not take the time necessary to fully figure out what Roof was doing.
ETA to clarify self-representation at the punishment phase only.
No Drought No More
Jet lag? Trump tweeted that because Trump does not care. Worse, he is incapable of caring. That point should be hammered home at every opportunity. Remember, every razor slice helps bleed the beast.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic:
Or a mortgage company from demanding such a rider….
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Yep. The first time we bought a house, we had to get a veterinarian to certify that our dog was a boxer because the insurance guy who inspected our house thought he (the dog) was a pit bull and had refused to write a policy for us.
VFX Lurker
I don’t have to imagine. The Los Angeles Times reported children afraid to leave their home and/or go to school.
Rancho Tehama gunman killed his wife and hid her body under their home, authorities say
http://lat.ms/2zJ8Rj9
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
San Bernardino was almost more Columbine-like. You had two people who got entwined in a folié a deux and decided to take revenge on people that they felt had wronged and ostracized them. The fact that they decided to hashtag themselves as “ISIS” was pretty meaningless.
Amaranthine RBG
@Gin & Tonic:
I ain’t an expert on insurance law, but I thought that insurance generally did not apply for intentional criminal acts.
It makes sense for accidental stuff and other losses and all of my firearms, like camera equipment, stamp and coin collections, etc. had to be itemized on a rider to my homeowners.
Lyrebird
@Patricia Kayden: @Adam L Silverman:
Someone maybe at LGM did a good post on this way back a couple thousand mass shootings ago…. SIGH! I don’t have the link, and IANAL, but what I recall was that some of the problem is that many arrests for domestic or public (e.g. bar-fight) violence do not lead to convictions. (ETA: and the earlier author had looked up the numbers suggesting that such arrests strongly predict gun violence, according to my imperfect memory.)
The other problem is that female* lives don’t matter to at least 37% of the voting populace.
*Yes men are sometimes abused, and women are sometimes abusers, all comparably horrible. Just looking at why policy hasn’t moved forward — somehow I don’t think Joey O’Biden woulda had to work half as hard to pass a “Violence Against Male Law Enforcement Officers Act” …fer instance.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: That is a good analogy….
Immanentize
@Lyrebird: Also, I’ve mentioned this before, but if you want to see Kafkaesque levels of legal irrationality, follow any case where a police officer is charged (or not…) with domestic violence. People trip all over themselves to do something so that the poor perp doesn’t get a conviction and lose his right to carry.
Snarki, child of Loki
The “gun law” situation won’t improve until there is a mass shooting that slaughters Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch; while seriously wounding Kennedy.
Some might say that I’m a dreamer…
Lyrebird
@Betty Cracker: Thank you for bring that NPR story to our attention as well as for an as-usual painfully on-point OP.
Some of us are overly imaginative, so yes. And I’m crying. If I believed in Hell, I would surely believe that a special place is reserved there for the people who harass the Sandy Hook survivors.
I am sure every teacher & school staff person in there was thinking, “NOT MY KIDS! NOT THIS TIME! NOT MY KIDS!”
@clay: Good on you for doing the exercises. Maybe I am crying so much bc my kid’s school just did their own shelter-in-place drill…
Kelly
Were I the King I’d outlaw, collect and destroy all guns excepting only those you must load one round at a time and double barrel shotguns. I’m my youth I hunted deer and elk with a Winchester Model 94. Held plenty of ammo. Never needed to reload in a hurry.
D58826
@Adam L Silverman: saw that after I added the comment. But still only in single digits.
Adam L Silverman
@Lyrebird: Yes, a lot of domestic violence calls into the police do not lead to an arrest. And a lot of the domestic violence charges never lead to conviction.
trollhattan
More details on what happened at the school.
From wide shots the school looks like a double-wide hauled onto the site, which would make it about as stout as a cardboard box. That staff worked miracles yesterday.
JustRuss
@Amaranthine RBG: Assuming you’re not concern trolling, “Why does this happen?” is certainly a valid question, but not nearly compelling as “How do we stop this bullshit?” Which we already know the answer to, because there’s lots of countries where this is extremely rare and none of them give citizens carte blanche to stockpile an arsenal. So yes, “Get their gunz!” is a great first step to ending this lunacy.
Betty Cracker
@Lyrebird: Don’t people who are arrested for DUI get their licenses yanked immediately? At least in FL, I believe a DUI arrest results in an automatic suspension, then there’s a mandatory suspension of the license if/when the person is convicted.
'Niques
@MJS: The tipping point will come when a Republican Senator or Representative or NRA office holder is personally affected by one of these mass shootings. Not before.
Lyrebird
@Immanentize:
Yeah.
I wish more people had the guts and whatever else to do the work you do.
Was an assistant leader for a youth group when I was in college… one of the teens forbade us from notifying authorities even when we knew her dad would punch and shake the kids. (Like “never ever ever shake a baby” shake the kids.)
Dad? A few promotions away from being chief of police in the town.
Wish I had known of something I could do.
geg6
@MattF:
Depends on what you mean by “public.” Where I live, about 80% of the vehicles are plastered with NRA stickers, so they are in my face all day, every day.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Cops I know say domestic disturbance calls are their least favorite, a mashup of tempers, irrationality, unknowable weaponry and substance abuse.
Lyrebird
@Betty Cracker: From your lips to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s ever-loving ears, Betty!
Lyrebird
@Adam L Silverman: So true.
In the town we just moved out of, the biggest goal of the local org trying to combat domestic violence was to build a big ol’ pedestrian tunnel, so kids with (ETA: violent parents who still have) visitation rights would be less likely to lose their lives or their moms when the kids get handed over.
I am glad they’re doing what they do, but aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh
trollhattan
@Kelly:
Word. Whatever Australia did after Port Arthur, I’d start with that.
I should find a Burger King and get crowned. “Kneel before Zod and hand over your firesticks.”
geg6
@Amaranthine RBG:
Insurance requirement. I won’t stop fighting them until they are required to get insurance in order to own one. This is the only effective thing I can think of that will stop all this crazy military weapon stockpiling that the gun nuts do.
Major Major Major Major
@Lyrebird:
Huh?
Immanentize
@Lyrebird: You cannot know how sad that makes me. Those kids are both trapped today and fucked for life.
Now, such leaders, in most states, are mandatory reporters. Even so, as a mandatory reporter myself (for title IX at the least), I know plenty of my teaching colleagues promise students confidentiality when they talk about harassment and abuse…. Which is illegal to do.
Duane
@Adam L Silverman: 95% of gun deaths are committed by men. Simple, effective way to reduce that number: make it illegal for men to purchase or possess guns. How’s that for unreasonable?
Lyrebird
@Major Major Major Major: As in, too many people dying when ex-spouses were in the same room or just separated by a door. If the violent parent brings a gun but can’t see where the tunnel lets out, the kid can walk through the tunnel to the other side, and maybe the violent parent will be less likely to bring out a weapon and start shooting at the resented ex.
r€nato
someone needs to organize the survivors of mass shootings to march on the NRA headquarters in DC with the medical bills they are saddled with, chain themselves to the doors, and demand that the NRA pay their bills.
Immanentize
@Lyrebird: Wow. Just wow. But the Courts wont make them surrender their guns…. Did you know that the Judges most often killed in court are Family Court Judges. Criminal Law Judges get threatened from time to time, but the crazy shooting men target their divorce judges.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Here in PA, you only will automatically lose your license for a DUI if you refuse a breathalyzer and/or blood test. Otherwise, you will lose it in court (actually a few days later when you get a notice from PennDOT) for thirty day for a first offense. I know this because I helped a friend through this situation.
Timurid
Trump is having a productive first day back.
Yarrow
OT – MomSense, have you seen this? Also any other Mainers.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: Mr. Suzanne is a school SLP. They had to go on lockdown a couple of years ago when a jackass was brandishing a rifle in the public park across the street. The lockdown was long enough that the kids had to use the bathroom…..but the design of older schools in this part of the country with exterior circulation prevented anyone from going to a bathroom without ending lockdown. So they pissed and shat in buckets in their classrooms. Which their teachers then cleaned up.
America: the greatest country in the world.
Major Major Major Major
@Lyrebird: Oh, wow, jeez.
@Yarrow: If only she had some sort of power to slow it down or stop it.
Lyrebird
@Immanentize: Yikes.
And thanks for your other remarks.
I only want to target judges who sell out to for-profit prisons and wrongfully send extra kids to juvie hall to make a buck…. with prosecution and trials in front of honest judges of course.
But yeah, crazy…
Yarrow
@geg6:
Totally agree. Also, any time a “responsible gun owner”‘s gun is used irresponsibly, their insurance premiums increase and they are put on a list of Irresponsible Gun Owners. Toddler takes your gun and shoots a hole in the wall, or worse shoots a sibling or parent? You’re an Irresponsible Gun Owner and that has consequences. Your gun in your purse “accidentally” goes off and shoots someone? Irresponsible Gun Owner. We need to change the language around “they’re a responsible gun owner” to labeling them Irresponsible gun owners when that’s what they are.
Immanentize
@Lyrebird: Do you live in Pennsy? My friends at Juvenile Law Center nailed those bastard judges….
MomSense
@Immanentize:
And local papers are often afraid to weigh in on the issue as are local activists because you can then find yourself with a bunch of gunnutz harassing you.
Yarrow
Update:
@Major Major Major Major: She does. Maybe she’ll use it.
Gin & Tonic
@Amaranthine RBG: Insurance does not apply for intentional criminal acts, but a significant portion of firearm deaths and injuries are “accidental” (i.e. negligent) discharges. Just as my liability insurance covers the guest who falls off my stairs because I neglected to fix that loose brick, it covers injuries due to “accidental” discharge of a firearm. There’s no reason my insurance shouldn’t cost more if there are firearms in the house.
TenguPhule
@‘Niques:
Wrong. It happened and they did nothing.
Origuy
@‘Niques: Already happened, remember the shooting at the Congressional baseball game? Steve Scalise went from the hospital back to the floor of Congress and spoke against gun control
Johannes
@Adam L Silverman: I’ve been saying this to non lawyers and ammosexuals since Heller issued. However, if you need a palate cleanser, check out the fractured legalese in the demand letter written on behalf of Roy Moore to AL.com; the best of many howlers is the malapropism warning against the drawing of an “Adverse Interference.” Which will be the title of the worst legal thriller ever.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Via Wapo. Don’t trust her.
Immanentize
@Yarrow: Also OT —
I saw your earlier question but I had to book it for work…. Someone probably answered (I didn’t see the whole thread) but:
A seat is vacant when the person who was elected to the seat can/does not fulfill the term of office (death, appointment to another position, retirement, etc.). Then that vacancy is filled in one of two ways — appointment or election. In most states, appointments to vacant seats can only happen relatively close to the time for a new election (almost never more than for more than 1/2 of the full elected term). In cases like Sessions, who was re-elected in 2014 and would have had to stand for re-election in 2020, the State (by the Governor in Alabama’s case) appoints a replacement to fill the vacancy until a special election can be called — this keeps the State’s US Senate representation at “2” until an elected replacement can be installed. So that appointed person (in this case, Strange) is a place-sitter until the duly elected person can be put into place for the vacant seat. In Alabama there has been all sorts of high-jinx to get Strange in and to prevent a better Dem turnout by putting the election in December instead of at the same time as the normal November election….
But those aside, this election is to fill the vacant seat of J. Sessions, which seat is being temporarily held by an un-elected, appointed interim replacement. The upcoming election will fill the vacancy with a duly elected replacement. But that person will have to run again in 2020 because that is when the seat is again scheduled for election.
Clear as mud?
Immanentize
@MomSense: The harassment of gunnutz is the best reason to regulate guns I can think of.
J R in WV
@Lyrebird:
So kids would walk from one vehicle (Mom’s) through the pedestrian tunnel to the other vehicle (Dad’s) for visitation over the weekend? So the separated parents never actually meet or see one another? Wow!
I frequently see two vehicles parked at the 4-lane exit with kids moving from one to another. Seems less – stressful. somehow. I’m not denying that there are horrible relationships and parents that are dangerous. Glad it doesn’t appear to be an important issue here, so far. Not that most murders in the area aren’t family related, they are, whether firearm related or done with an ax.
different-church-lady
BROWN PERSON DOES MASS KILLING: “BAN ALL MUSLIMS FROM THIS COUNTRY!!1!”
WHITE PERSON DOES MASS KILLING: “Oh my gosh, we need to understand what makes them do this!”
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
This stuff is just sad and insane.
Yarrow
@Immanentize: Thank you. I thought it must be something like that after your previous comment.
ruemara
@Snarki, child of Loki: basically
Frankensteinbeck
Trump and his party are captives to a gigantic cauldron of bigots along a whole range of resentment that they’re not allowed to hurt and scare whoever they want. The NRA is merely squeezing this phenomenon for every dime it’s worth. It helps that there is huge overlap between the elected Republicans, the bigots, and the NRA leadership.
Amaranthine RBG
@Gin & Tonic:
That makes sense but I wonder why it already addressed by insurers which, understatement of the year, tend to keep a close eye on the bottom line.
I had to itemize my firearms (along with other valuables) when I got my home owners but that was just to insure their value. It did not bump up my rates. And when I got my umbrella, they didn’t ask anything about firearms.
Amaranthine RBG
@Immanentize:
That seems to be common among people who have a hard-on for gun control.
Pity.
different-church-lady
@Frankensteinbeck:
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Central Asian people look plenty white to me (like the Tsarnev (sp?) brothers. Unless you want to define white as European origin and Christian, which is probably the wingnut definition.
Another Scott
One for Kay – Reuters: Cordray resigning from CFPB – presumably to run for Ohio Governor.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dave
@‘Niques: Except it already happened and it didn’t change a thing. I’m with Adam there will be a tipping point but I’m not under any illusion that what that point will be is predictable. That’s how things seem to work in politics in our country, at least the politics of improving things, a huge number of people come to a conclusion nothing seems to happen for far too long and then suddenly the dam breaks and we are in an entirely new environment. We may be near one of those environments.
schrodingers_cat
@sylvania: And people caught in the crossfire, acceptable casualties?
Immanentize
@Another Scott: She is gonna be very happy….
ETA Tomorrows morning thread should be celebratory….
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: I neglected to use an irony font — my comment is a sad parody of what I see on other (ostensibly non-political) forums. Which basically that the solution is simple if the lunatic is “other” but so hard to comprehend if the the lunatic “belongs here.”
trollhattan
@sylvania:
One wonders what would need to be contained in the schoolhouse armory in order to repel attacks using AR15 knockoffs and body armor? How long would they have on order to retrieve them and get into position? (See Lanza, Adam)
I remember my first flight after 9/11, when the airport was still patrolled by National Guardsmen in camo toting automatic rifles. Inside the place. Would that be a nice schoolhouse environment for kids? Multiplying by however many hundreds of thousands of US schoolhouses, how many “accidents” per year would be acceptable to keep our schools safe? Five? Fifty?
Adam L Silverman
@Johannes: I saw that last night. O2 and I were having a bit of a “I just can’t” about it offline. Have you seen his bio on his law firm’s site? He washed out of the Point during/after his sophomore year.
Did you see this from this morning?
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: It is.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Really? You’re really going to stir up trouble like that around here?
Immanentize
@Adam L Silverman: I like the theory (from his bio) that he has CTE from his days as a Center. Not a bad theory.
Amaranthine RBG
@Adam L Silverman:
I looked up the lawyer’s CV. It is a hoot: http://garmonlawfirm.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/curriculum-vitae-of-trenton-garmon-as-of-february2012.pdf
It’s divided into “secular” and “ministerial”. Lists his stint at – where else – Regent University.
But maybe you can give some insight into exactly what his West Point experience was. Does not appear that he graduated from there…
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: The issue for crime prevention or terrorism prevention through environmental design is to push the boundary of the clean/clear area out as far as practical combined with hardening the structures as far as practical. Most US airports haven’t actually done this, because of an inability to retrofit the physical site, which is why they are actually quite easy targets. We’ve just been lucky there have only been a couple of attacks at US airports.
For schools this would mean fencing them off from approach on all side with an electronic pass access via gate to the parking lot for pick up, drop off, meetings, etc. It would also mean hardening the actual walls – external facing and internal walls – as well as doors to make them bullet proof. And doing all of this in a way so it is as unobtrusive as possible.
Adam L Silverman
@Amaranthine RBG: He didn’t. According to his bio he left the Point during/after his second year and finished his degree at Troy State. West Point, for whatever else you may say about it, has high academic standards. Troy State is Troy State. It is also expensive to leave a Service academy – you have to repay the costs for the years you were there. Finally, he got in trouble with the Alabama bar and judicial ethics commission for hearse chasing where he was mixing his being an attorney with being a minister to try to get access to the family of someone who was killed in a car crash to pitch legal services to him.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Trouble? I don’t understand. She’s been advocating that he run for months, IIRC.
Cordray did a great job in DC. He’s fought the good fight but is now being undercut at every turn, including, apparently by Mark Warner. He would be a great governor for Ohio.
(Sorry if I missed the snark. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Johannes
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks, I hadn’t seen that, Adam. I can’t even.
Moore has managed to achieve the fairly difficult feat of finding a worse layer than himself to represent him.
La Caterina adds that she has to litigate against people on that level. EVERY. DAY. (Her emphasis..)
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Something else for her to freak over because whoever get’s nominated to replace him will likely dismantle the CFPB.
Johannes
@Adam L Silverman: How did we not draw the adverse interference that he was a hearse chaser from the letter’s text?
Adam L Silverman
@Johannes: Yep. It’s actually worse than his interaction with Don Lemon on CNN last week. I really think the guy is on drugs. On top of that if I saw him near a school or a play ground I’d call the police.
Amaranthine RBG
@Adam L Silverman:
Classy.
He had one entry on his CV that he worked on some case with Attorney A who was the son of Attorney B. I mean, who does crap like that?
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: That’s already underway with Cordray in place, unfortunately. He’s done what he could. If the Trumpers and the GOP want to continue to destroy it, there’s little he can do to stop them – they have the White House and the Congress. At the moment…
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Maybe you can get out your guns and threaten the people who make you feel bad for owning them. That’s what they’re doing to MomSense in Maine for daring to say in public that guns are dangerous. She’s now considering getting a gun of her own to protect herself and her family from the Responsible Gun Owners who are threatening to kill her.
Call the cops? Yeah, right.
Adam L Silverman
@Johannes: I do not know.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne:
You’re right. People who live in rural areas often can’t count on law enforcement to protect them.
But anyone who is considering getting a firearm for personal protection should carefully educate themselves about their options, including potential criminal liability and then seek out competent training in the firearm’s use and follow that up with diligent, regular practice.
Aleta
These fucking people and Trumps in the WH have never in their lives learned how to make civil gestures. A Ladies Speech for Melania at the convention, the inaugural cake, tweets after tragedy–just copy and paste. It saves on paychecks to inept employees! Need a sympathetic photo shoot of TJr or Melania looking like humans? Find a catalog, buy the outfit and put TJ up on a manly stump. When kindness is called for, just copy and paste!!
Mnemosyne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Yes, the answer is for MomSense to arm herself to protect her kids, not for rural assholes to stop threatening her life when she says guns are dangerous.
Great plan there.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t have a problem with increased insurance for gun ownership, but…. As gun ownership is thought of as a right, could mandatory insurance be considered to be a like a poll tax and people with money could afford guns but a less well off person might not be able to?
Aleta
@Amaranthine RBG: Make liability insurance mandatory for ownership (separate from homeowners insur) and relative to number and type of weapon. Might cut down on the semi-autos and impulse buys. If it went through, insurance companies would be evaluating safety, so their rates would become a new way of responding to the NRA.
Amaranthine RBG
@Mnemosyne: https://www.veneffect.com/products/anti-aging-intensive-moisturizer
Amaranthine RBG
@Aleta:
I see what you are saying but the thing I was wondering was why this isn’t already priced into home-owners insurance. Like I said, I itemized the firearms I own but that was for replacement value and it didn’t affect my homeowners premiums and they didn’t even ask about it when I got my umbrella.
It seems to me if there was an economically quantifiable risk that the insurer would already be imposing it – they way they do with (as Betty noted) people who own pit bull type dogs.
I don’t know.
Aleta
@Amaranthine RBG: That’s a good question. Now I wonder why also. Seems like insurance cos already do quantifiable risk for autos based on accident statistics for age, motorcycle vs car, sometimes lower rates for people who pass a course, and higher rates after accidents. Truckers by profession would, I think, be liability-insured differently; or I guess it might be an add-on included in the business’s policy. Are rates related to truck size because of potential for damage?
Do people who work professionally with guns have separate insurance for that work? Explosives workers get specific licensing, so how does that insurance for that job get figured? Is it voluntary, or an add on to the cost of insuring the business ?
If gun-owning liability insurance was mandatory, low cost because it’s only liability, then people who don’t own homes would also be covered for accidents. Right now some shooting victims can’t pay their medical bills, beyond their (we hope) regular health care coverage.
Or are guns too much of a liability risk for insurance cos to want to take on?
Given the number of guns owned, mandatory coverage might spread the risk enough though.
Aleta
@Ruckus: good point.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mnemosyne: I (late 60s, live alone) considered a handgun for “home defense” but rejected the idea on the grounds that I really didn’t want to shoot anyone, but I would face that prospect if no one was aware I had deadly force & was willing to use it. If they did know I had a handgun, it would immediately become the most valuable thing I owned (due to its money-making potential for a criminal) & therefore a target for theft – either via breaking & entering if I left the piece home, or being taken by surprise & being mugged or having my car broken into if I took it with me. (NB These are not theoretical considerations: At my current address I have been burglarized once [26 years ago], had my car broken into [several times over the 30 years I’ve been here], and have been mugged when taken by surprise in the neighborhood [last July].)
A friend suggested that I buy a shotgun with the shortest barrel allowed by law – it’s too bulky to carry concealed & thus is worthless to a street criminal, doesn’t need precise aim to be effective & can be used with a minimum of training. (He suggested loading it with bird shot so the discharge wouldn’t go through to the next house, but our row houses have 16″ cinderblock party walls so that may not be an issue.)
I doubt this would make sense for anyone with cohabitants (human or animal), but it might for someone in my situation.
dimmsdale
Lots of good suggestions here for gun control; I earnestly hope, however, that once enlightenment returns to the national government (??if ever) the appropriate agency can be tasked with treating gun violence as a public health (and possibly public MENTAL health) hazard, and pulling statistics from all the relevant authorities around the country; all this in order to identify the most EFFECTIVE way to start reducing gun deaths. I mean, I know we think we know what to do, but the dialogue would be enriched by e.g. epidemiologists scrutinizing the stats and coming up with recommendations. (This has been outlawed by the R’s, at present, as Adam indicates.)
I’m also in favor of making firearms as time-consuming to reload as possible, banning high-capacity magazines and bump stocks outright. Anything that enables a mass murderer to shoot large numbers of people quicky and efficiently, should be declared strictly ILLEGAL–and automatic felony jail time if you’re caught with e.g. bump stocks or banana clips. And if a predilection to domestic violence is a significant indicator of a potential mass-shooter, that guy’s life should be scrutinized down to what color socks he wears, and access to firearms should be verboten.
Look, I’m a gun nut myself, and I’m old enough to remember when the NRA was a benign organization that promoted ‘sportsmanship’ instead of weapons of mass destruction. But the back then, nation had just finished with the Korean conflict, and the only people dressing up in cammies and carrying guns and playing soldier were us 8 year olds; adults were too busy recovering from the shocks of war to be attracted to that sort of kid stuff.
Tehanu
@r€nato:
Yes! I won’t go on to say what I’d really like to do to the NRA — at its next national convention, say — but this would be an excellent start down the right road.