The balls on this prick:
“I am heartbroken by the crying of the people in the state of Texas. I am tired of the dying of the people of Texas. Too many Texans are in mourning. Too many Texans have lost their lives. The status quo in Texas is unacceptable, and action is needed,” Abbott said.
Man, if only Governor Abbott were in a position to do something. He should probably talk to the fucking asshole who signed these bills:
A series of new firearm laws will go into effect in Texas on Sunday just hours after a shooting left five people dead in the western part of the state.
The laws will further loosen gun restrictions in a state that’s had four of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern US history. They will make it easier to have guns just a month after a shooter stormed a Walmart in El Paso and killed 22 people.
Eat a bag of dicks, you scumbag.
joel hanes
It’s
ChinatownTexas, Cole.debbie
Actually, I think those “loosenings” is Abbott’s idea of needed action.
trollhattan
I was stunned to read of all that legislation last night. Even allowing for Texas it’s just mindboggling anybody in the Land of the Unfettered Spree Murder is putting their energies into making guns more available.
Ann Richards must have really pissed people off for the string of psychopathic governors Texas has blessed us with since.
Baud
Texas almost elected Beto and actually gave Hillary more votes than any recent Dem. Hopefully things like this will help speed up purpleization.
Chetan Murthy
@trollhattan:
Obligatory link: Think Trump’s bad? Remember Clayton Williams?
JDM
Yes, he’s tired of hearing the crying of Texans weeping over their dead children and other family members and friends, so shut up everybody!
MisterForkbeard
Kay’s response from this morning’s Beto thread is really wise and speaks to the entire problem.
Most gun lovers just can’t bear to ever admit they were ever wrong about this at all. There’s been too many bodies and too many dead children. If they admit they were wrong in the slightest, that makes them complicit in the killing of children and they can’t believe that. So it CAN’T be the guns. I think the same thing applies for a lot of republican voters over the past decade or two – they can never admit how wrong they were, because that means they supported racist murderers and fascists. So all the problems HAVE to be something else. Like Democrats.
This doesn’t apply to Abbot, who certainly knows better and is just thumbing his nose at the entire public.
JoyceH
Does it strike anyone else as weird that the Odessa shooter hasn’t been identified yet? It makes me wonder if the guy has a digital footprint that would be… inconvenient to the ruling party.
burnspbesq
There’s a special place in Hell for the lawyers and legal academics who made Hellerpossible.
Chetan Murthy
There are a lotta reasons to damn this fucking governor: Abbott Faces Questions on Settlement and His Advocacy of Tort Laws
The stones on this piece of shit.
Tim C
@MisterForkbeard: there is more truth here…. look at the polls between 2003 on if you supported the Iraq debacle vs those who claimed to have supported it in 2010. It’s not even close. A whole bunch of people just flat out lied about their previous support. Being part of the gun nut brigade is similar. Too much pride, too much bullshit. They will never back down. No matter how many kids die.
Mike in NC
So now can any 10 year old with a sack of cash walk into the nearest Walmart and buy guns and ammo?
burnspbesq
In about 25 minutes, we’re off to the Austin Film Society to see Raise Hell, the new Molly Ivins biopic.
Miss her more every day. I don’t think I fully appreciated her until I moved to Texas.
MattF
My guess is that Abbott advocates more guns and more prayer. But not more thoughts— that would be inappropriate, under the circumstances.
bbleh
@MisterForkbeard: @Tim C: It’s worse than pride. It’s somewhere between a fetish and a psychopathy. I’ve tried to talk to too many “responsible gun owners” — especially “collectors” — including notably relatives in Appalachia, and the response to even a suggestion of reasonable gun safety measures is visceral; it’s like suggesting emasculation with a kitchen knife. They aren’t capable of discussing it rationally.
burnspbesq
Whatever else he is or isn’t doing, Beto is bluntly speaking truth on this issue.
Van Buren
Elected Republicans as a rule are incapable of empathy unless something bad happens to someone close to them. It will take the random murder of a loved one before a POS like Abbott alters his stance.
Firebert
I’ve got a too-close view of Greg Abbott in action, here in southeast Austin. He has a vindictive streak a mile wide, to go with the smug self-righteous attitude. Typical Texas Republican.
Gelfling 545
@JoyceH: I believe I read that the sheriff (?) declined to id him to prevent him from getting the notoriety they presume he hoped for.
trollhattan
The death count is at seven.
And yeah, “radio silence” on victim names, shooter name, rifle name, anything specific. BBC article closes thus:
Catherine D.
@Chetan Murthy: Yup, the screaming red flag I recall over and over about Abbott.
MisterForkbeard
@bbleh: That was basically Kay’s point. I should go dig out her comments because it’s even more insightful than she usually is.
Basically admitting they there were wrong at all means they have to admit they were/are terrible people. So they double down and that just digs them in deeper, and eventaully you get this vicious and delusional response to even the faintest suggestion that guns might be at fault. They can’t be engaged with at all.
Any “compromise” will have to be between neutral people and gun control advocates. The “pro-gun” people have written themselves out of a solution to the problem.
dmsilev
@MisterForkbeard: The thing with guns in the US is that there are more and more guns owned by fewer and fewer people. Which, of course, makes those fewer people more and more devoted to their “cause”. But, and I hope this happens soon, there comes a tipping point when those few fanatics just don’t have the numbers to make the politicians care about them.
rikyrah
@JoyceH:
Uh huh?
Uh huh ?
Keep that tinfoil hat on??
wasabi gasp
Someone tell him massacres mean lost tax revenue.
James E Powell
@MisterForkbeard:
@bbleh:
Here is Kay’s comment from the Beto O’Rourke thread, below.
This tendency is almost universal among right-wingers. As it is with guns, so it was with the Iraq invasion & occupation. So it is with every tax cut for the rich that doesn’t produce jobs & prosperity. So it is with the whole world that goes by the name conservative.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Did you used to be in California? For some reason, my teeny-tiny brain thinks of you as being in CA, not sure why.
“Every day, in every way, I forget more and … um, what was it again?”
bemused senior
@burnspbesq: I “invested” in this documentary! Enjoy!
rikyrah
@JoyceH:
You are not the only one wondering about the name of the shooter:
the replies…people are suspicious as Phuck towards the Odessa Police Department.
Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) Tweeted:
I disagree. The identity is a matter of public record and importance. The police should provide it.
The issue of not giving these shooters extra notoriety is a matter for the media. https://t.co/kN8stZy0yv https://twitter.com/JoaquinCastrotx/status/1168226049353768960?s=17
Mai naem mobile
@JoyceH: that’s what I was wondering. Bet he was a big incontrovertible Trumper/white nationalist/GOPig. I watched some of Abbotts presser. So legalistic in his language of gun crime prevention. Bevins is a POS as is Desantis and the idiot from Alabama but Abbotts got to be up there as of the biggest asshole governors. BTW anybody want to bet NC won’t get as much money commensurate to hurricane damage as compared to Fl and SC because the governors a Dem?
Martin
@Mai naem mobile: Sounds right. CA has been getting screwed left and right by the Feds because we didn’t give Trump as many votes as he wanted.
Yarrow
Abbott is awful and he just got reelected by a wide margin in 2018.
SFAW
@Martin:
Nice try, libtard. He actually WON California — or would have won, if not for the 23 million illegal/fraudulent votes cast for Hitlary. In Orange County alone. That were triple-counted by the Demon-rat cheaters. Or something like that.
Yarrow
Re: the shooter, from the CNN live blog:
joel hanes
@JoyceH:
from
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/west-texas-shooting-odessa-midland/index.html
Bill Arnold
@Gelfling 545:
Released now, “Seth Ator”, No motive known for West Texas shooting rampage that killed 7 people, injured 22 others, say police (Paul J. Weber and Jake Bleiberg, Sep 01, 2019)
But yes, noticed that. So unnecessary. Now, the conspiracy mills will have something to chew on, e.g. perhaps (this is not fact, just an example of a possible conspiracy theory!) there is a pro-Trump (or something similarly embarrassing) manifesto on social media (or somewhere) that that fixers have been trying to clean up. (I could go much more cynical/paranoid but no point.)
Marcopolo
I really think we are close to reaching a tipping point in the way voters view sensible gun legislation & whether or not elected officials support it or not.
1. Gun violence will continue to happen, will continue to happen more frequently, and will continue to happen in more and more locations.
2. That means more and more people every damned day are experiencing the effects of gun violence in their lives with regards to their family, friends, co-workers.
3. Kids who’ve had to undergo active shooter drills since they were in kindergarten (post-Columbine) are now reaching voting age. I am hopeful the vast majority of them who are inclined to vote will make this an important issue when they are at the ballot box.
4. Gun advocates (organizations/politicians) are finally facing the blow-back that they should for promoting ever lax gun laws. All those folks shouting “Do Something!” at DeWine in OH a few weeks back is just the beginning. The NRA (and being supported by them) is now as likely to be viewed as toxic than as a plus.
5. Finally, more and more folks are joining/supporting groups like MomsDemandAction/Everytown & getting hands on involved in the electoral process at all levels of government.
Fighting gun violence in our country is going to be a marathon, not a sprint, but I am optimistic over the course of the next decade or two. If anyone here would like to join me in committing to a small one-time (or even better recurring) contribution (I started the day after the El Paso shooting), please go to the Mom’s Demand Action website.
I also plan on first time ever attending the local monthly meeting in October (will be out of town this month). I worked side by side with these folks on many campaigns in 2018 (local, state, and federal levels). They are hard working passionate advocates for electing folks who are serious about reducing gun violence (and yes, that means D candidates).
joel hanes
OT:
I’m watching the live webcam from the
Grand Nassau HotelBritish Colonial Hilton in Nassau in the Bahamas.Dorian apparently still offshore there, but the beach is deserted.
Some wag has written a message in the sand, visible to the webcam:
“SEND BEER”
ETA: corrected
Ladyraxterinok
OT Kendra Horn, the surprising democratic winner of a Hpuse seat from OK, is facing tons of $$ being poured into the GOP possible primary winner. I think there are 2 frontrunners, each with heavy support.
She represents the district OKC is in and was NOT supposed to have a chance. I don’t think the national democratic party gave her much $.
The GOPer who became governor is an Evangelical and IIRC has a super anti LGBT guy as a major advisor.
OK could really stand to have a dem representative. We seem permanently cursed with ‘snowball throwing’ Sen Inhofe.
Ella in New Mexico
Took the words right outta my mouth when I read the CNN Headline “Texas governor: “I am tired of the dying” realizing his new gun law rollbacks start today.
Marcopolo
An image someone made of VP Pence’s tweets in the aftermath of mass shootings shootings 2017-2019.
Of course, once could probably make an image like this of any republican politician–the twitter thread I saw this on has smaller images of Paul Ryan’s & Marco Rubio’s tweets.
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
I wonder if the Florida and Florida State women’s soccer teams are flying home from LA today, or perhaps extending the trip for a bit?
I know what I’d do.
Ella in New Mexico
@rikyrah:
Earlier today I told my husband that it seemed really strange we still didn’t have information on who the shooter was. Was it a media fail or were they keeping it a secret for some reason?
Given that Texas has a whole lotta these crazy shooters, and recently rolled back their gun laws…
and given the authorities there might believe that the “left wing media narrative” is that most of these shootings are done by angry white men who espouse some any one of a form of racist/3%er/RW conspiracy theory…
Part of me wonders when we’re gonna find that either with this guy or when another mass shooter meets those qualifications in a place with Texas-style politics we might hear they try to squelch that info from the public because it CONFIRMS OUR GODDAMN POINT.
trollhattan
@Marcopolo:
Just a look also serves as a reminder of HOW MANY there have been, If somebody gave me pen and paper I probably couldn’t list half of them.
trollhattan
@Ella in New Mexico:
Let’s just imagine we were one of the lucky ones who had his/her F-250 perforated but was not hit or peppered with glass. I’d sure as hell want the I.D. of my assailant. Heck, so would my insurance company.
Ruckus
@Marcopolo:
2. That means more and more people every damned day are experiencing the effects of gun violence in their lives with regards to their family, friends, co-workers.
I have one degree of separation with the Las Vegas shooter. One and a half if you count that the person I know was only standing next to someone shot.
I wonder how many of us are less than 2 degrees away from a mass shooting?
trollhattan
@joel hanes:
From the CNN page.
Just. Can’t. Imagine.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Someone pointed out that there have been more in numbers than the current day of the year. I’d bet you can’t get close to 1/2.
Lapassionara
Shooter identified as Seth Ator.
low-tech cyclist
Like any individual shooter anymore is going to get that much notoriety, when there’s a new mass shooting every few weeks (or sometimes after just a few hours).
The Virginia Beach mass shooting was just three months ago. If you polled Americans to see how many remember his name, anyone think even a double-digit percentage would remember?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m seeing reports the shooter had a criminal record, but not what it was for. Anyone seen more on that?
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
????
low-tech cyclist
@Ruckus:
A co-worker who I had worked pretty closely with for several years, and still occasionally see around the office, was in the crowd at Las Vegas. Escaped without injury, fortunately.
joel hanes
@Ruckus:
I wonder how many of us are less than 2 degrees away from a mass shooting?
My granddaughter and her son, my great-grandson, were within a hundred feet of the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter when he began firing. Her sister-in-law and niece were among the wounded. Receiving that cell phone call, minutes after the last fired shot, was …
frosty
@Ruckus:
2 degrees for me. A cousin’s daughter was shot in the head in Las Vegas. Lost an eye, and recovering.
Suzanne
@MisterForkbeard: Yes. People who are wrong often can’t admit it, most of all to themselves.
I see this in my personal life with my in-laws. Both of them are in mediocre-at-best health. FIL is having open heart surgery next month after having a whole bunch of seizures this year, and he’s having seizures partly because he wants to take supplements rather than anti-seizure medications. And MIL is always, always complaining about some illness or cold or whatever. Yet both of them lecture me about the importance of eating organic food exclusively for supposedly improved health. They have spent a huge premium on organics over the years, and they really cannot afford it. When I bring up that study after study has demonstrated no relative benefit in nutrition or in amount of pesticides, they tell me that those studies are bullshit. I should note that I only bring this up when directly challenged about it, such as when they shamed me for not feeding the kids organic ketchup or when they tried to get Spawn the Younger to stop eating peas. But if they were to change their ways now, they would have to admit that the were wrong, for years, to the tune of probably tens of thousands of dollars.
germy
Seth Ator is the shooter’s name.
Previous criminal record for trespassing and resisting arrest.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/odessa-texas-shooting-sources-identify-gunman-as-seth-ator
Suzanne
@Ruckus:
A HS acquaintance was at Columbine. Not injured.
germy
cynthia ackerman
@dmsilev:
The elected parasites care about the gun dollars into their campaigns, not gun owners (except as they provide cover for the grift, in which case numbers can be made irrelevant).
Since consumers represent a fraction of gun profits/bribes, your tipping point may be a mirage.
A better tipping point may be enough of us loudly and ballotly taking up Beto’s refrain.
MisterForkbeard
@Suzanne: Right. And that for buying organic food, where the cost to admitting you’re wrong is that admit you wasted some money over a long time period.
Imagine admitting you were supporting/pushing fascism, child deaths, stealing from the poor, etc. Only a really strong person could do that and apologize for it.
Most Republicans can’t. They’re fundamentally weak, cowards. And that fits with their ‘fear everything’ approach to politics, too.
Kirk Spencer
@low-tech cyclist: Here is the Wikipedia list of mass shootings in the US during this year of 2019.
297 shootings.
335 deaths.
1219 wounded.
People have trouble naming all seven of Snow White’s dwarves. The number of people who can name all 50 states is vanishingly small.
Not naming the shooter at this time because “we don’t want to give him notoriety” is working in ignorance of just how bad it really is. I appreciate the sentiment, mind, but nobody’s going to remember this stain on the universe for another couple of weeks. (not least because at the rate we’re going there will be another dozen new contenders for the attention.)
Jay
@low-tech cyclist:
On the MIGTOW/Incel/Nazi sites like Dischord, Telegram, Gab, 4chan, 8chan the names and manifestos are celebrated and shared. The shooters are given “sainthoods”. Their murder sprees are used to incite others into mass shootings. Their “status” on these sites is used as a reason for others to seek the same type of fame.
They are not seeking “mass fame”, they are seeking fame in their sick little online cults.
J R in WV
You would think Greg Abbott would be a little compassionate given his own history of accidental injury leading to a wheelchair. But nope!!
scav
Friends of mine were in Jessup for the shooting in Iowa City in ’91 and I met Miya Rodolfo-Sioson later. Then a friend had taught the guy at Northern Illinois University in 2008 which entirely freaked her out on the day.
And I originally thought I wouldn’t be able to think of any connections.
Kirk Spencer
@Jay: I see those multiple sites. And I keep thinking how if these shootings were being done by non-Christian non-whites and cheered by more of the same we’d be talking about all the raids and arrests of terrorist cells.
Suzanne
@MisterForkbeard: The bigger cost, though, is losing face. Being wrong, and having other people know that you were wrong. My in-laws already have some insecurity about their relative lack of education and career success relative to Mr. Suzanne and I, and the organic food thing allows them to feel smarter than us. The ammosexuals can’t bear to admit that the coastal elitists were right about another thing.
In my bigger-hearted moments, I pity people like this…. it must be incredibly mentally exhausting to feel that bad about yourself all the time.
SiubhanDuinne
@low-tech cyclist:
I didn’t even remember that event — and should have, as it happened only a mile or so from where my brother lives and works. That’s how fucking commonplace these shoot-a-ramas have become.
Bill Arnold
@germy:
Yep, bad move on the part of LE (unless they were actually trying to do a cover-up). If there is a cover-up, then Seth Ator is a loose end, so there are probably already accompanying speculations that he’ll be suicided by the Texas detention system. I’m not looking, though.
The Dangerman
I’ve lost track; have we had yet a “good guy with a gun” (non-police variety) stop a “bad guy with a gun” in one of these mass shootings?
WaterGirl
@Baud:
I love your new word. Purpleization.
SiubhanDuinne
@frosty:
I have a friend whose college roommate* was rather seriously injured in the car-in-a-crowd “good people on both sides” Charlottesville event that killed Heather Heyer. Not a shooting, so don’t know if it even counts.
*ETA: Might have been roommate’s daughter. Anyhow, too close for comfort.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: Decades ago before TV remotes, I fell asleep on the couch and woke up to the sound of a terrifying scream and a youngish woman on the phone with 911, saying that her father was trying to kill her, and then the terrified scream again as he killed her.
That was a total stranger on TV, yet It has haunted me for decades and I can still hear the scream if I think about it. But your sister? I’m sure she will replay that thread in her head for the rest of her life. Breathtakingly awful.
edit:I have no idea what show was on that played that. At least now I don’t think they would play that on TV.
trollhattan
Abbott continues to impress.
Not every lung cancer death is caused by cigarettes, you bombastic, monstrous piece of shit. Let’s give tobacco to our kids.
Capri
I read an interesting article once that claimed that gun nuts and anti-vaccers share the same psychology. In both instances they stumble upon something that is out of the mainstream that makes them feel special and more safe than they had before. I’m sure eating organic is another example.
For those against vaccines it’s the belief that they are protecting themselves and their families from something the non-educated believe is safe. For gun nuts it’s that they have the means to protect themselves when the government agents in their black helicopters and/or rampaging lawless gangs assault their homes. Their beliefs fill a primal need to feel safe and no amount of reasoning and no fact is going to change their minds.
Ruckus
@Kirk Spencer:
In the hospitals on Wed and Fri I was asked to name the president. I answered to both the ladies who asked that I wasn’t sure that they would appreciate the swearing that would go along with my answer. They both laughed and said “Yes you know his name.”
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Well played. :-)
Jay
@Kirk Spencer:
When it was ISIL using techsites and social media to recruit and radicalize, the Tech Companies/IC shut those sites down PDQ.
Jack will ban ISIL but won’t ban Nazis.
Despite a plethora of digital wonks producing reports on how Jordan Peterson/Ben Shapiro/Stephan Molneux, etc, YouTube videos are radicalization gateways into Nazism and mass shootings, YouTube won’t pull down or even demonetize their channels, let alone full on Nazi channels calling for Race War.
Facebook pulls down anti-nazi and radicalization researchers pages, but not Nazis.
Ruckus
I can see that my question strikes home closer than one might imagine. I suspected it would.
Bet this could be a post by someone, “What’s your degree of separation from a mass shooting?”
I hate to think what the percentage of BJ readers is that can answer “Way too fucking close.”
Quinerly
If you need a laugh. I did.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2452406125035790&id=1786599751616434
skerry
My daughter was on campus during the Seattle Pacific Univ shooting in 2014. In the building next to where the shooting took place.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ruckus:
Sorry, must have missed that you are/were in hospital recently. Well done on the answer to the POTUS question, and all best for a comfortable, speedy recovery!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Van Buren:
Hell, two years ago Senate Republicans were themselves shot at by a madman with an assault rifle, with at least one, Steve Scalise, being critically injured at congressional baseball practice. Still didn’t change their minds. I figure if that didn’t change their minds, nothing will. They will have to be outvoted
Ruckus
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Difficult to change a mind as closed as a block of concrete. As @Van Buren: said, it will take one of their personal own actually getting dead to even bring a spark of recognition. Any one that comes up with “A good guy with a gun” you know that moron is so full of shit that they have shit brown brain cells and their hair stinks like a dairy.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Ruckus:
Hah. They were assessing whether you were alert and oriented and to what degree. Asking who the president is assesses whether you oriented to time. It’s a mental status test
The most a person can be is A&0×4.
Alert and oriented:
1. Person
2. Place
3. Time
4. Situation
Burnspbesq
@bemused senior:
It was fabulous.
Burnspbesq
@SFAW:
Until seven months ago.
We need to have an Austin jackal event.
Denali
My cousin just retweeted an anti-vaxxer. She was an Army nurse. Very disheartening. At least I know what subject to avoid at our upcoming family reunion..
Raven
@Ruckus: You know the real deal is these people frame the need for guns as a bulwark against a repressive government.
Raven
@Denali: I have a friend who was a nurse in an evac hospital in the Nam and she’s a total fucking Trumper/
trollhattan
@Burnspbesq:
If you’ve encountered the Zach theater, “Ann” about Ann Richards is playing there right now.
https://tickets.zachtheatre.org/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=8071
Jay
bago
I left a house party to catch an airplane. Whe. I had landed someone shot up the party and killed themselves.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Two friends were teaching at Virginia Tech when that shooting took place, one of them in the building where most people were killed.
Raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My wife’s sis is on the faculty and was nearby as well.
Ruckus
@Raven:
I think they misunderstand the word repressive. Like completely misfuckingunderstand. Oh well they are fucked up so…….
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Ruckus:
Unfortunately, you’re probably right. It’s such a shame it has to come to that, but here we are. I don’t wish any harm on their loved ones. I just wished morons like Abbot would get a clue
Raven
@Ruckus: They need guns to scare the cops from taking their guns.
trollhattan
Trashheap Greg Abbott is going to try and ensure good people like this will continue being able to access AR-15s.
Raven
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: It hasn’t really “come to that” it’s been that way for a long long time.
Kelly
@Ruckus: I attended a small high school with Larry Moore who killed 4 (a 5th died 32 years later of complications from his injuries) wounded 20 at the Oregon Museum Tavern, Salem, Oregon in 1981.
Ruckus
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I understand.
Been through this test so many times in my life I’d bet I could give it to someone else and score it. Just like a standard neuro test. Had that so many times I always know what’s coming next. Hell, had it enough times in the last 4 days to learn it completely.
It’s just that saying motherfucking asshole and then getting deeper into the swearing toolbox out loud in an ER is not the best way to insure that you get the score or help you deserve. And just giving out his name, without a lot of swearing, is not something I’m capable of. I am proud though that I swear better in person than in print.
Ruckus
@Kelly:
I will state here again that I knew one of the Manson girls. That was over 50 yrs ago but still, murder and mayhem is not all that far away from any of us. Humans can be as violent as any other animal, it takes far less than one might imagine.
I see that I was right, a post with the question of how many degrees are you away from a mass shooting or even a murder with any weapon would get a lot of responses. Way, way too many responses.
trollhattan
One that occurs to me is my spouse attended a talk by somebody killed in Las Vegas soon after.
SiubhanDuinne
@Burnspbesq:
There is a more than zero possibility that I’ll be driving from Atlanta to Tucson sometime in the next several months. Austin isn’t precisely on the route, but relatively speaking it wouldn’t be all that hard to hang a left at Dallas, drop down to Austin for a BJ meet-up, and thence to San Antonio and I-10 to AZ. If and as my travel plans evolve, I’ll keep the jackaltariat informed via Anne Laurie.
Timurid
A co-worker lost one of his best friends in the Lafayette theater shooting.
Jay
Ruviana
@Ruckus: Oooh, I wonder if we crossed paths! I knew peripheral family members and also went to high school with another member, which I didn’t discover until I saw her in Helter-skelter (the book). In school she’d been a girl who carried hairspray in her purse so finding her sitting in the dirt at Spahn Ranch was really a shock!
Calouste
Not technically a mass shooting, because “only” two people died, but someone shot at the bus and wounded the bus driver on the bus route I usually take back home from work.
JPL
I don’t think that I am but will mention on the outskirts of Midland/Odessa decades ago my ex and I were traveling with our two sons. We stopped at a Best Western or Ramada, can’t remember which because back in the day, they were acceptable places to stay with a family and a dog. Anyway we went to the fish buffet and I returned to the room with one of the sons. The ex returned in short order with the other son, because there was a gunfight at the bar next door. I don’t think anyone died though, but AR 15’s weren’t the weapons of choice.
wasabi gasp
When you get angry, you use a lot of sexy words.
trollhattan
@JPL:
That’s the most Texas thing possible.
Mike in NC
About 20 years ago an officer in my Baltimore reserve unit relocated his family to Texas to pursue a business opportunity. I said, “Keep your head down, Woody. Texas is filled with gun-toting crazies”.
JanieM
@Ruckus: A cousin’s daughter, and her grown daughter, were at the concert. They were not shot. Our families have not been close, so I have never met these people, but my sister and my mother have met them more than once. (This is mostly geography-driven.)
JPL
@trollhattan: Yup.. Nothing happens like that in TX, we just have the occasional gunfights in bars and parking lots.
JanieM
@Ruckus: I was in the ER getting stitches and the grit dug out of my face after doing a face plant a few years ago. They asked me these questions, with some conversation interspersed, and somehow, because of what had just preceded the question, I answered the “who’s the president” question by giving the name of the president of the hospital system. The doc and nurse did a double-take, then laughed. My best friend for a long time was a doc in that system, so I was kept up on all the corporate and relevant local politics. If someone asked me that now I’d have to do what you did, or say “Clickbait” — which the name I decided to use as of November 2016 for the asshole whose actual name I refuse to write or, for the most part, utter.
ETA: I wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass by giving the name of the hospital’s president, it just seemed like the most logical segue from the immediately preceding bit of conversation.
The Dangerman
@Ruckus:
I had a cousin killed in the San Bernardino terror event; now, to be clear, it wasn’t a close cousin, but it was a relative.
That day was weird; but for the choice of Costco’s I went to (Fontana, not San Bernardino), I could have found myself far too close to that action.
JPL
Whoops! I actually do have a big one. My SIL worked at 7 World Trade Center, but did not have to report to work until eleven that fateful day.
Raven
@JPL: A friend from Athens had dinner at the place on top the night before and somehow was give a plate.
JPL
@Raven: Ruckus is right. We are all well within the Kevin Bacon mark.
SIL had bad knees at the time and would have had trouble walking to her apt. at Stuyvesant. My BIL could not locate his son who frequently had meetings at the World Trade Center for hours because of spotty cell service.
Gin & Tonic
@Raven: Well, 7 WTC was a separate building. The restaurant called Windows on the World was at the top of WTC 1 (North Tower.) It was a spectacular location, honestly.
Raven
@Gin & Tonic: Um, I think it was WOTW. It was a nice plate.
zhena gogolia
Cole’s twitter is a lot more entertaining than his blog right now.
Since when did Labor Day become a big fireworks occasion? Goddamnit.
Raven
@JPL: Legend has it that Michael Stipe had a special phone that he let people use that day in Manhattan.
JPL
@zhena gogolia: It’s WV and every day ending in y might be time to celebrate with fireworks.
Raven
@zhena gogolia: I was going to try to change the direction by asking who was retired and what they do!
Jay
My only “mass shooting Kevin Bacon” incidents are from when I lived and worked in the US, ( Boston, Milwaukee, San Francisco) and in Sarajevo and Nicaragua. The last two how ever, were active war zones at the time.
spanky
The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter went to my high school, tho decades after I did.
A coworker’s daughter was killed at Va Tech.
My cousin was teaching in the building next to where the shit went down at Kent State. He committed suicide 20 years later.
zhena gogolia
@Raven:
I’m not yet. I’m feeling ready, but I have to stay with it for a few more years.
I plan to play the piano and do crosswords. More than I do right now, that is.
JPL
@Raven: Our local politicians are bipartisan so I will attend meetings and support folks that I like. We have elections coming up and I doubt that I’ll knock on doors and make phone calls only cuz I’m burned out. I will do other things………………
Elizabelle
@Ruviana:
That is a short story in a sentence.
donnah
My oldest son was five minutes away from the bar in the Oregon District shooting. He was heading in and the police cars roared past him. A cop shouted at him to get down and get out of there.
He knows the heroic bouncer who was running into the chaos to save victims and dragging them to safety.
JaySinWA
@ @Ruckus: Stil can’t get over LBJ?
Gex
@Ruckus: I had a friend at the Garlic Festival. It was the first time I heard about a mass shooting directly rippling from the actual event before news media put it out. I definitely spent some time pondering that fact that morning and thinking that we have definitely reached a new level with this problem. As you say, an ever larger and larger percentage of Americans will be more directly connected to these events.
Gex
@skerry: Oh my God. That is freaking me out, second hand, after the fact. I can’t imagine how that was for you!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@MisterForkbeard: It’s believing in magic, it’s much more clear with sword collectors, more so with Katanas. These people think if the weapon somehow the weapon has the spirit of the warrior in it and if they have it, they get that spirit too. In fact one of the problems with getting gun a control passed is the inverse of this, a lot people believe they touch a gun somehow they get that spirit and become unclean. Not because it assault rifles are tools only good for shooting up rooms full of people and there is no reason for a normal person to have one.
Renie
On 9/11 my husband was in his office one block over from the Towers. They heard the first plane go over cuz it was so low. At the south windows they saw people jumping. At first the firm told people not to go outside but so many panicked and left. He also eventually left and starting going north; he got stuck in those clouds of dust flowing up all the streets. My BIL was in 7 WTC and his company also told employees not to leave but everyone did. A local friend was in one of the NYFD that responded and was never found. Afterwards my husband was home for several weeks cuz his building was all damaged and the firm had to find alternate offices for all the employees. What he saw that day bothered him for years.
Ruckus
@Ruviana:
Was she the homecoming queen?
Hell that would mean we might only be one degree apart. Both knowing at least one of them I think makes us two degrees.
Ruckus
@JanieM:
Over the last 4 days I’ve said to more than one person that my default personality is sarcastic or smart ass. I think it was appreciated especially after the president question. I think I also answered once “I refuse to answer because it is too awful to be reminded.”
Ruckus
@JPL:
I was on a plane when the towers were hit, the pilot came on after the first one and said he can’t believe what he just heard on the radio. About 15 minutes later he came on and said you really won’t believe this. The girl sitting next to me, her company was headquartered in the WTC. All of her friends were on their way to Atlanta for a conference so they all lived. When we landed the pilot told us, as we were parked on the runway at ATL that we could use our cell phones and I loaned mine to this girl because she couldn’t get a signal. She reciprocated by offering a coworker I didn’t even know was on the plane and myself to share her room, as we were booked on another flight that of course never took off. Just for clarity, we got another room. But all of the airline affiliated rooms were booked long before we got there, we were one of the last planes to land at ATL.
GregB
My father’s old boss was on flight 93. My brother’s brother in law was in the first tower to get hit on 9/11 but left the building for a smoke. All his co-workers died.
Ruckus
@JaySinWA:
Fuck LBJ.
That is all.
John fremont
@Ruckus: A coworker had a relative wounded at Columbine. I also know a a few cops that responded to the Aurora CO theater shooting
Kathleen Darrah
@JoyceH: been thinking about that all day. It’s fishy. Kdarrah
Ruckus
@John fremont:
I think my point, that a lot of us have a rather close connection, even if not directly with some sort of mass shooting or mass attack, has been made. What is it, 40,000 people get killed by guns. I’ve heard that between half and 2/3 are suicide but that’s a lot of people killed by guns for any reason. And even if only one third of that are people killed by someone else with a gun, that’s a lot for never a good reason. Especially when it doesn’t happen anywhere near as often in other countries who aren’t in an active war zone. Means, motive, opportunity. The three steps necessary for criminal conviction in our laws. Take away one leg the the crime doesn’t exist. There are of course more means than guns, but guns are the easiest to do the most damage. Motive doesn’t have to make logical sense, the person just has to have one. Opportunity, it’s a big country, if you are a hater there will always be people to hate, no logic necessary. Take away the fucking guns a lot of that means goes away.
JAFD
@JanieM: My father – who was 88 at the time – was in ICU, day after operation where they slice open carotid artery and clear out crud. Young lady comes in, says she’s a speech therapist, begins asking Father questions. Me and Mother could see that she’s trying to see if he’s ‘all there’, we know that he is, but what will she conclude. Finally she asks “Do you know where you are?”
Father replies “I’m in bed.”
Which is perfectly correct answer, but not what she was expecting, so she follows “And where’s the bed?”
“It’s under me.”
Sister Golden Bear
My father was on campus during the Cal State Fullerton massacre back in 1976, when mass shooting were a rarity. A friend of mine had friends at Gilmore, and another friend who was supposed to perform there, but got sick
A co-worker of my brother, was headed to his honeymoon with his wife on one of the planes on 9/11. As were a gay couple who were friends with one my best friends, who were returning home with a newly-adopted child.
sickofwhitebs
@SFAW: Really? 23 million votes in a state with 14 million voters total? You have no business calling anyone a “tard” given the drivel you are willing to post online. Dump lost California fair and square, get over it.
SWMBO
My FIL was murdered in 1997.The meth heads who dreamed up his death thought that if they got enough money to start their own lab, they could retire or something. They murdered him in the afternoon and another man that night. They got caught months later when the woman was pulled over for a traffic violation and she got out of the car and talked to the cop. She couldn’t/wouldn’t shut up trying to talk her way out of a ticket and then just kept talking about other stuff until she confessed to the murders.