According to The Washington Post, the latest shooter (the one at the Tulsa medical complex, in case you don’t have your mass shooting spree card handy) bought his AR-15 about three hours before the rampage:
The gunman who killed four people at a Tulsa hospital on Wednesday blamed a doctor at the facility for ongoing pain after back surgery and vowed to kill him and anyone who got in his way, police said Thursday.
Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin told reporters that Michael Louis bought an AR-15-style weapon on the same day as the attack, killing St. Francis Hospital doctors Preston Phillips and Stephanie Husen. Two other victims were identified as William Love, a patient, and Amanda Green, a receptionist.
As the late great Janis Joplin once said, “It’s all the same fucking day, man.”
There’s not a ton of cause for optimism that we’ll see real gun safety reform at the federal level since the U.S. Senate is a catastrophically dysfunctional institution. But maybe red flag laws, waiting periods and age limits have a shot at the state level, especially if gun safety activists push for the measures while the state in question is still reeling from a mass shooting. We’ll see.
Open thread.
ETA: President Biden will give a prime time address tonight (7:30 PM ET) on mass shootings and “urge Congress to pass ‘common-sense laws’ in response,” according to a WaPo news alert that just popped up on my phone.
Thursday Morning Open Thread: Cue the RW Whiners…
Baud
Do we have a motive for the Uvalde shooter yet?
debbie
I would think at least waiting periods would have more validity now.
debbie
@Baud:
I remember reading that he shot his grandmother after they argued over a phone bill. ♀️
Kay
Hardening hospitals is going to be super expensive, not to mention hardening grocery stores and (obviously) 15,000 school districts.
How much are we willing to spend in order to mollify a minority who object to all gun regulations? An unlimited amount? BILLIONS.
Baud
@Kay:
We should pass a law that expands the Supreme Court building to include the entire country. Then we could ban guns.
Hildebrand
I know this is hardly a novel question, but what other motive, beyond money, is behind the Republican’s recalcitrance for any kind of gun control measures? Maybe I’m being wildly naïve, or too cynical, but greed just doesn’t feel like the whole story.
Kay
@Baud:
Guffaw.
We used to do mediations in a bank conference room – for years– and then just quietly with no real discussion or overt group decision we all started using the law library at the courthouse where everyone gets seached on entry. We’re afraid of getting shot but no one wants to say it. Let’s switch Right wing judges over to schools and give the kids the courthouse. Safe as houses in there.
Mathguy
@Kay: Hey, they lived in fortresses in the Middle Ages, which is what we’re regressing to.
Betty Cracker
Just updated the post: Biden will speak at 7:30 Eastern about the recent shootings and urge Congress to DO SOMETHING.
Mathguy
Deleted.
Steeplejack
@southpaw: “I assume this means we’ll soon be hearing proposals for surgeons to be armed in the operating room. And I’m wondering about sterilizing the guns.
“Probably not wise to put bullets through an autoclave, right?”
@pygmalion55: “Individually wrapped surgically sterile rounds.”
PDXBob
So, I won’t hold my breath, but since the Republicans think these mass shootings are all about people with mental health issues, how about the Dems put up a bill to require a full mental health screening, including a full review of the person’s online presence, before being able to purchase a firearm. We can even limit the types of firearms that would require a screening.
Also, I would like to see anyone that interviews these gun nuts ask them to cite the first clause of the 2nd Amendment. I bet most of the couldn’t, as it messes with them… “A well-regulated militia,…” The 2nd Amendment was meant to regulate guns.
Hoodie
@Hildebrand: Gun nuttery has become one of those tribal litmus tests that characterize the GOP base, much like abortion. The money donated by gun industry related groups is certainly significant, but probably less important except to the extent that gun interests can use the issue to primary wayward GOP pols.
Betty Cracker
@Mathguy: It’s not anymore — I sprung it — but if this is the first time you’ve commented since the site came back up, that’s why, and it shouldn’t happen again.
raven
@Hildebrand: There are people who believe they need guns to fight a tyrannical government. I also know people who are not giving up their guns because of the fascist threat here.
Haydnseek
Hi folks. Just quick question. If you use gmail, are you having problems with it? I can’t receive e-mails and I don’t think the ones I’m sending are getting to their destination. Anybody else experiencing this?
Comrade Scrutinizer
9-1/2 years ago:
Nothing has changed.
raven
@Haydnseek: Nope
Geminid
@debbie: Also, laws requiring application for and approval of a “permit to purchase” before someone is allowed to buy a firearm might help. Missouri had this system until Republicans killed it in 2011, and gun homicides increased substantially afterwards. It’s only another step in the process, but it might cut down on impulse purchases. Also, it provides a framework for future reforms like training requirements.
A carpenter on a job I was working on described the steps he had to go through to get a Virginia concealed carry permit. He took pride in this. I told him, maybe we should make anybody who buys a gun meet those requirements. He did not agree, but it didn’t sound like he thought it was that bad an idea.
Kay
@Mathguy:
I will never understand why gun nuts don’t see that. That there’s a real liberty interest here, and they’re on the wrong side of it. I think I have a much better liberty argument than they do- mine is about walking around free and unfettered and going places and also not spending money on “security”. What’s theirs about? Carrying around some stupid fucking gun?
SpaceUnit
I smell a business opportunity . . . a 24 hour live cable channel that covers mass shootings as they spring up around the clock on a daily basis.
NRA Redzone
trollhattan
Three hours? Three hours?!? That’s literally, specifically why cooling off periods exist.
Danielx
Read on CNN that the shooter had pain from back surgery and wanted something done about it by the surgeon , who wasn’t acting fast enough to suit him. So he shot the surgeon, another doc, and two other people before shooting himself.
Haydnseek
@raven: Thanks. I don’t know if it’s a nationwide thing or what. I’m in L.A. county.
AirSpencer
@Hildebrand:
Most will give you some BS about needing massive firepower as a check on an overreaching government or needing an arsenal for self defense.
The truth, I suspect, is that they harbor fantasies of shooting black, brown, not cis het men and liberals for sport.
zhena gogolia
@Danielx: Horrible.
WaterGirl
@Danielx: I guess that shooting himself stopped his back pain?
Steeplejack
@Haydnseek:
I use Gmail and am not having any problems. Just sent an email to someone and BCC’d myself—received it right away.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@raven: Oh, you mean the GQP and TFG?
Kay
@Geminid:
One would think they would want the exclusivity of that- that they’re specially qualified and licensed. It would also take them out of the general “dangerous gun nut category”, which they’re always whining about being grouped in. If you want to be a “law abiding gun owner” there have to be some laws, right?
Haydnseek
@Steeplejack: Thanks. It’s not recognizing my password for some reason.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@trollhattan: The largest number of gun deaths are from suicide, and a cooling off period might help that too
SFAW
@Baud:
And THIS why you will get my vote in ’24. (assuming Hunter Biden’s father isn’t running, that is).
kindness
I don’t have great expectations wrt how much ‘gun control’ any law that can be passed will have. The one thing that I think would help the most in slowing down the massacres is to limit magazine size. When hunting you aren’t allowed to have more than 5 shells in your gun in most states. So I think a 5 round maximum (not including 22’s as there are millions of Ruger 10/22s out there) with no grandfather clause. Create a buyback program for all the newly illegal magazines.
If this were to happen, gun nuts heads would all explode nationwide.
Brachiator
@Kay:
I don’t know that hardening means anything, especially in states where you can freely walk around with weapons. All these so-called precautions just means that an assailant can take advantage of the secure access once they are inside.
Elizabelle
@Haydnseek: Amtrak’s website has been down all morning (at least since 10 am or so).
Danielx
@WaterGirl:
Makes as much sense as motivation as for any of the rest of these mass murders.
SFAW
@Kay:
So they can “protect” their own “freedom” from libtards like you, who want to make them wear face masks. Or something.
Danielx
@trollhattan:
Old but gold from Homer Simpson:
”Three days?!?? Ohhhh, but I’m angry NOW!”
Dangerman
So, this Dude was on pain meds? Some of that stuff can whack you out. So, we’ll need mental screening, pharmaceutical screening, alcohol screening … ah, fuck it, just ban them.
debbie
@Brachiator:
No, it doesn’t, but “hardening” is a word RWNJs like to use to appear knowledgeable. //
Danielx
@Dangerman:
Not enough, evidently.
Steeplejack
@Haydnseek:
Do you have your email address spelled right?
Soprano2
@Hildebrand: They are afraid that ravening hordes of antifa and non-white people are coming to take their stuff, rape their women, and kill them. Wish I was kidding.
Haydnseek
@Steeplejack: Everything worked fine yesterday. I haven’t changed my address. It just doesn’t recognize my gmail password.
cain
@PDXBob: They should immediately introduce those bills in both the house and the senate. You know it will die in the Senate, but make them vote on it just for debate.
Then use their votes and ram it through every state highlighting that GOP doesn’t even want to debate about it. Same thing at 24 hour news. Generate a buzz so that reporters will ask GOP members about it.
Come up with some quips – “Your child’s safety is not up for debate – it’s a non-starter”
Geminid
@Geminid: A posting by Gifford.org tells me that nine states require a permit to purchase before someone can purchase a firearm. New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois require a “License to Own” that must be renewed every five years in order to legally possess a firearm.
The Giffords.org entry said that when Connecticut instituted a permit to purchase requirement, gun homicides dropped by 28% and gun suicides dropped by 33%. Conversely, after Missouri ended its permit to purchase law gun homicides increased by 47% and gun suicides increased by 24%.
Brachiator
@debbie:
It is maddening to hear conservatives babble their nonsense.
I think the sad events in Texas might cause some pushback and lead to a little gun control. The gun nuts used to love it when law enforcement officials gave news conferences and sounded like they had things under control as they explained how they took down the shooter. But this latest incident revealed that the information presented can be a bunch of lies. They people who are supposed to be the experts at providing protection and assessing the situation turn out to be bumbling fools.
trollhattan
@Geminid: Some eye-popping statistics. Two states going in very different directions.
rikyrah
@Hildebrand:
White Supremacy
Hoodie
@Baud: Do we need one? Anyone who massacres a bunch of 4th graders is obviously mentally ill, so “motive” doesn’t really mean much. People do all kinds of crazy things for various crazy “reasons.” Discussions of motive, police response, hardening schools, etc., seem to distract from the point that it’s all about the guns. Guns, particularly ones like the AR-15 and its clones, are like fentanyl, i.e., too dangerous to fuck around with and really not all that useful, anyway.
Baud
@Geminid:
Next you’ll be telling me masks help prevent covid.
Baud
@Hoodie:
Need is a pretty strong word there.
bbleh
President Biden will give a prime time address tonight (7:30 PM ET) on mass shootings and “urge Congress to pass ‘common-sense laws’ in response,”
And Mitch McConnell will waggle his jowls and say of course Republicans want common sense but they won’t stand for Democrats comin’ to take away yer gunz.
And all but a VERY few Democratic political leaders, at all levels, will frantically dump their lunch money on their desk tops and dive back under them and hope that those mean Republicans would just go away.
waspuppet
@Hildebrand: Everyone believes in one conspiracy theory; mine is that the NRA is the conduit for money and — let’s say, communications — from Russia. And I’m not sure this even qualifies as a conspiracy theory anymore.
FelonyGovt
Obviously the main problem is the guns. But what is it about our society that killing a bunch of people becomes the solution to any perceived setback or slight? Heck, I’ve had some bad medical outcomes in my life. Killing the doctor has never once crossed my mind.
dave319
@Hildebrand: Ummmmm… destabilizing society through armed violence, degrading and ultimately destroying public faith in the state’s ability to protect its citizens from that violence, introducing a strongman who “alone can fix it”, might suggest an alternative explanation to “greed”, I would think. If America walks like the Weimar Republic, talks like the Weimar Republic, and fails to uphold its fundamental charter responsibilities like the Weimar Republic, well…QED?
Haydnseek
@Steeplejack:You’re right. Something weird happened. For years the address ended in gmail.com but now it shows as Gmail.com and google doesn’t allow changing email addresses. I’m stuck unless I start a new account, but I’d rather not.
Baud
@bbleh:
What exactly does this mean? Name a Dem in Congress that acts this way. Even Joe Manchin put his name on the Dem’s gun legislation. If you mean the Dems won’t engage in useless performative acts to appease online liberals, you are correct, but that has nothing to do with what you wrote.
Another Scott
I saw that Pelosi will have the House vote on an assault weapon ban soon. No idea where it will go in the Senate, but seeing how many GQPers are willing to vote for it in the House might be an early indication if anything has changed.
I’ve been kinda surprised how the April 22 DC sniper event has been memory holed. A guy from Virginia had a sniper’s nest set up near a DC school, fired at least 239 shots, live streamed it, injured 4 people, and it took the cops quite a while to find him and end the incident (he killed himself).
:-/
That is a perfect illustration that the solution has to be national laws (DC already has strict gun laws) that restrict access. Not more police training, not more officers in schools, not fewer doors, not more background checks (people who haven’t yet had encounters with the police are not automatically responsible). Understanding that all progress is incremental, if things passed in the Senate are mostly encouragement for states to do things, then it shows that there is still much more that needs to be done.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
bbleh
@Hildebrand: @Hoodie: @AirSpencer: @rikyrah: As to money, it’s money for the gun manufacturers — who make a LOT of it — and for Republican politicians, who milk the issue for all it’s worth.
But as other commenters noted, for the great mass of gun nuts, it’s about identity. They have comic-book visions of themselves as Heroes Who Save The Day, muscles rippling and high-caliber weapons firing, from whatever paranoid fantasies they can concoct and share with their equally overweight couch-potato buddies, most of them involving black and brown people. It’s a token of masculinity for emotionally underdeveloped men, a second penis, and they are as fearful and belligerent about it as about their actual one.
Kay
Such a free and open culture on the Right. Not weird authoritarians who grab any and all real or fake power to boss people around at all, no sir.
Random Right wingers can’t order anyone to do anything, despite what they may believe.
Geoduck
@Haydnseek: I just read on another forum a claim that Google did change something with Gmail:
“General note to anyone using Gmail to receive their game files
As of 30, May 2022 Google arbitrarily decided programs like MS Outlook that only ask for a username and password are no longer secure enough for their comfort and have blocked all Gmail to these types of accounts/software.”
Not sure what that mean or if its related to your problem.
bbleh
@Baud: And if Joe Manchin’s “name” is itself anything but performative, I will pass out from surprise. He won’t vote for anything with teeth, anything that would make a real difference, and even if he did, it wouldn’t pass the Senate.
And unfortunately, the only Dems I can name who are the ones who are actually doing something — Beto, Chris Murphy, Sheila Jackson Lee. And why is that? Because from the rest there’s murmuring at best.
Yes, I DO want performance, because I think that’s ALL that’s going to have any effect here. That effect will NOT bring about anything sensible at the Federal level in the short term, but it MIGHT have useful effects in the long term, specifically, changing the direction of the discussion slightly, tarnishing the Republican brand significantly, and keeping the story alive in the media. THAT imo is what will EVENTUALLY lead to significant gun safety legislation, not some potential bill that’s “being discussed” during a Senate recess, by the end of which media interest will have died down and everyone will go back to where they were before.
Yes, how about a little performance? How about a little outrage, by the whole damn Democratic caucus? I mean, kids being gunned down in schools and all? More kids killed in schools than police killed on the job?
Oh no, mustn’t do anything “performative.” Dwacious doodness what would the ladies at the bridge club say?
Baud
@bbleh:
You are part of the problem.
Eolirin
@Hoodie:
No, they’re not obviously mentally ill, not in a meaningful way.
There’s something wrong with them, yes. But having impulse control issues and unresolved anger and not having the right mechanisms to deal with those in a way that doesn’t result in murder isn’t sufficient grounds for a mental health diagnosis. Just like racism isn’t considered a mental illness.
Violence of this nature is a cultural issue. And one that’s normalized in so many ways that it’s not a sign of anything by itself. Don’t conflate a willingness for obscene violence with a mental health condition.
People with diagnosed mental health conditions are less likely to commit violent acts than people without them.
bbleh
@Baud: And people who think any progress is going to be made on this issue without some major troublemaking are deluding themselves.
Steeplejack
@Haydnseek:
I’m pretty sure Gmail addresses are not case-sensitive.
ETA: Are you using “naked” Gmail (through the website) or going through an email client (e.g., Outlook, Thunderbird)?
The Moar You Know
I read this somewhere once, that every bullet has an evil pressure inside, demanding to be used.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: Plus, as I understand it, it wasn’t really the “hospital” that was attacked, but a medical office building in the hospital complex. There are medical office buildings everywhere…
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@bbleh:
Then make trouble. Hell, vote every Dem out of office. That’ll show them.
mali muso
Found this article to be a very insightful summary of the situation.
Another Scott
@Haydnseek: There are some comments about Gmail and Outlook issues at this site today – Downdetector. I don’t know if it’s anything unusual. The map might be informative to you, but again I don’t know if it’s anything unusual.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
The Pale Scot
So sumpin a liberal Oxy script would have prevented, going more see more of this
Tony G
@Hildebrand: I’ve long thought that the primary motive was just electoral politics. The gun-humpers (at least the ones that I’ve met) tend to be single-issue voters. They’ll voter for anyone who protects their gunz, and will vote against anyone who favors the most mild gun-control measures. So it might be that. Or maybe they are just people who love the suffering and death of other people.
Elizabelle
@Baud: //giggling. For sure.
trollhattan
Heh
Mike in NC
Moscow Mitch is not going to allow any Senate action on gun safety. Every Republican will oppose it. You can take that to the bank.
Papa Boyle
They know the shooter’s motive now? Great! Now that they know the motive they can stop mass shootings from ever happening again! Because, obviously, the motive is the problem in all these shootings. And not, you know, crazy easy access to guns.
bbleh
@Baud: No, as specifically noted, make trouble for Republicans. Make them own this issue. Hang every massacre squarely around their necks. FFS over ninety percent of the public supports stronger background checks, and healthy majorities support more stringent measures. And yet nothing happens? Why? Because Republicans block it and they pay no price for doing so. And why is that? Because nobody (referring here to the vast majority of Democratic political leaders) makes trouble. Because Comity™ is so very important. Because outrage and performativeness are just so déclassé. Brings up images of all those scruffy hippies waving protest signs or something. Spoils teatime.
I’ll give TFG one thing: he understood the value of performance in politics. Dems should also read Clausewitz. I don’t want Dems out of office; I want them engaged full-bore on this issue.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The book, Dying of Whiteness
Baud
@bbleh:
Fixed
SpaceUnit
Whatever happens (hint: nothing) our media lords are going to frame this as Democrats Fail to Enact Gun Legislation.
germy
@trollhattan:
Is it a pumping motion?
The Moar You Know
Also, was just sitting here thinking, I had a lot of surgery last year and am still frankly in constant pain from it, and suspect I will be for a long time, but I never once until reading this story even thought about shooting my doctor over it.
Not sure how that’s supposed to make me feel better.
SpaceUnit
@The Moar You Know:
So you’re thinking about it now?
trollhattan
@Mike in NC: I’m curious about Sinema. Will she side with Mark Kelly on this one, or go rogue and defend the gun’s precious rights to be a gun?
We already know Manchin’s vote.
brendancalling
@raven: I’m sympathetic to the second half of that comment. There IS a fascist movement here, and eventually it WILL come for all of us on the left.
Calouste
The GOP is against same-day voter registration, but they are for same-day gun massacres.
germy
@trollhattan:
Here’s her voting record regarding guns
justfacts.votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/28338/kyrsten-sinema/37/guns
bbleh
@Baud: Lol WHAT focus? What Dem politicians — apart from a very few already mentioned — are really focusing on this? And how long will even that last? Hell the media are doing far more than Dem political leaders right now, but without someone keeping the issue in the news, the defeat of ANY measure in the Senate will be reported with a shrug, they’ll bumblebee on to the next thing, and we’ll all settle back to wait for the next massacre.
Also, please stop name-calling. Thank you.
The Moar You Know
@SpaceUnit: just trying to follow the thought process that gets you from “fuck, I’m hurting” to “shooting my doctor will fix everything”.
Maybe I’m stupid but it seems like either there’s a missing step, or that particular pain relief regimen just won’t work.
Shalimar
@Kay: Republicans are the Tax and Waste party. They take all your money and flush it down the drain on complicated solutions to simple problems.
JaneE
I have been where the Tulsa shooter was with pain after surgery about 10 years ago. Fortunately I did not have access to a gun at the time, and I wasn’t mobile either, but I did fantasize about going in guns blazing until someone had to kill me to stop it, at least after I stopped fantasizing about blowing my brains out and putting an end to the pain. It was 6 months or so before I stopped praying almost every night that I would just not wake up again. Pain can drive you crazy, insane, and angry. That is a really bad combination.
We have a waiting period for guns, have had for years, so it would not happen like that here. Whether he would still be in a killing rage after a few days or a couple of weeks, who knows.
Yes, the man who pulled the trigger is responsible for the deaths. BUT. Without an assault style rifle he would have had to do a little more work to kill so many. Without the ability to buy and use a gun in the heat of anger, he would not have been able to kill on that day. Would someone have been able to do something during the waiting period and prevent this? Again, who knows.
What we do know that if the laws of Oklahoma were as stringent as those in California, the people would not have died that day.
Shalimar
@The Moar You Know: I assume it wasn’t to make the murderer feel better. He was giving up on life and decided to punish the doctor for failing to cure his pain by taking the doctor’s life too.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Kay:
Most of my favorite bars and restaurants have more than one door, too.
More importantly, how do you keep a good guy with an AR-15 out of your business premises without violating his sacred rights…….
Shalimar
@JaneE: He wanted to kill the doctor and probably commit suicide afterwards, so he probably would have settled for a knife if that is all he could get. The doctor’s life was in danger regardless. But keeping the guy from an assault rifle would have massively increased the chances for those 3 dead and 10 wounded who got caught in the crossfire.
Kay
@Shalimar:
Will anyone ask them about this before we remodel tens of thousands of schools at a cost of hundreds of millions to reduce the number of doors?
Schools can’t have windows either. Maybe underground bunkers. Freedom!
Kay
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
The windows issue will be a real dilemma because while the shooter can enter through a window, you can also pull kids out of a school through a window.
Decisions, decisions.
FelonyGovt
On both guns and abortion, fanatical single-issue voters have managed to bend the majority to their will. I hope the current outrage over these, particularly from women and the young, translates to voting in November and real change.
SpaceUnit
So I guess the lesson is that everybody has a breaking point.
Which would be all the more reason to dispense with good guy / bad guy narratives and simply make sure that no one has access to weapons of mass murder.
Another Scott
@Kay: A colleague’s kid was at Virginia Tech during the massacre. He escaped by jumping out a window and suffered a broken leg in the process.
It’s clear that the obvious answer of restrictions on gun access is the correct one.
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
I’ve had problems with back pain since 1987, and I’ve never once thought about shooting anyone over it. This makes me think he was on some powerful pain meds that messed with his head. I assume we’ll find out if he was showing signs of this before he had the surgery. A 3-day waiting period would probably stop a lot of things like this.
Haydnseek
@Geoduck: Thanks for responding. The problem seems to be gone. Google seemed to be down this morning for a lot of people but not everybody. Hope they get it straightened out.
RaflW
IIRC the Uvalde killer bought his very expensive gun & tons of rounds on credit. Which is a gruesome notion, that a person can buy a tool of huge destruction knowing they’re highly likely to also perish in the event. So impulsive murder is basically free of cost to the killer.
Gun financing has to be shut down.
Mai Naem mobile
@Hildebrand: its a wedge issue and gets votes from gun fondlers. I do not understand why Manchin/Sinema won’t break the fillibuster for just universal background checks and either a ban on assault type weapons or even an age limit on assault type weapons. That’s it. This will be forgotten by normal people by the time they’re up for election and they’ll be able.to point to positive consequences.by then.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’ve made the point here at work to people who think we’re safer because they put in a key card swipe system that all the doors have glass in them; all a person would have to do is shoot out the glass, and they’re in the building! All this stuff is performative, to make people feel better. It really doesn’t do anything. The public works engineer in VA who shot up his workplace on his last day had a key card to the building, so he had easy access! That’s how it usually works. The guys hang out in the garage with the doors open during the first and last hour of the day – it would be super-easy for someone with a gun to walk in there and just start shooting.
Haydnseek
@Steeplejack: Thanks for getting back to me. Going through the gmail site. Problem seems to be gone. Looks like other people had problems too.
SpaceUnit
I would suggest a 90 day waiting period plus a psych exam.
ETA: Oh, and about 20 million in liability insurance.
Haydnseek
@Another Scott: Thanks. It does help. I was at Downdetector this morning and determined that the problem wasn’t with my machine.
HumboldtBlue
My friend Jen Fumiko Cahill has some thoughts on gun control.
It Might Be Time to Get Totally Motherfucking Unhinged
Chetan Murthy
[full disclosure: I have bad skin, too]
OT (since OT): I once read that one of the ways you know rich people, is that they have “good skin”. And so I wonder why so many of these Russki oligarchs have such bad skin. I mean, their wives seem to have typical “rich person good skin”, why not the men? It’s very different from rich men in the West, or so it seems.
Betty Cracker
@mali muso: Thank you for posting that excerpt. The point about the parallels between gun culture and rape culture — how the victims are asked to accommodate the aggressors at the cost of the former’s freedom — is exactly right.
Kay
@Another Scott:
No one wants to attend these horrible, grim, locked down schools they’re envisioning. My 4th grade public school classroom had a door to the outdoors with a cherry tree right outside. If it was warm the teacher would prop the door open and we could go outside and read if we finished our work. Just in and out, like normal people.
Why do we have to live like this?
Steeplejack
@RaflW:
Do you have a link for that? I have read stories saying that the gun manufacturer offers financing, but I haven’t seen anything saying that Salvador Ramos purchased his guns that way.
Tony G
@Another Scott: The notion of turning every location — every school/hospital/medical building/supermarket/park/sidewalk/etc. — into a “hard target” is so asinine on every level that it is obviously fundamentally dishonest. As long as deranged men (they are close to 100% men) have easy access to weapons that are significantly more powerful than those used by the US Army infantry in World War Two, then no place is “hard” or secure. The politicians and pundits who advocate these “hard target” non-solutions know that their ideas are nonsense. They and their billionaire masters WANT a populace that is frightened and miserable — that way they’re easier to exploit.
neldob
Should I be sending money to Beto?
Mai Naem mobile
@Soprano2: there was a thread by a reporter on Twitter about the Buffalo shooter being mad at his dentist who happened to be Jewish because he had a long term painful tooth that had not been taken care of which he of course blamed the dentist for. I remember reading somewhere that the three worst types of pain you can have are knee, oral and back pain. Maybe pain meds should be a red flag.
Betty Cracker
@HumboldtBlue: Every word co-signed. Thank you for sharing it!
Steeplejack
I haven’t seen schrodingers_cat since the site reboot. Has anyone? I’ve been on the lookout for people who could use an apostrophe in their nym. And missing her personally, of course.
RaflW
@Baud: Conversely, we should pass a law to prohibit metal detectors or any sort of fencing or other limits on free movement into the SCOTUS building.
I’m not serious, as I’d imagine the three liberal Justices would be the most immediately at risk. But the idea that 9 people (well, six really) can decide that everyone else should live in constant danger and fear of guns while they have extraordinary security is one of the many ways their very ivory tower makes their decision making such a disaster.
schrodingers_cat
@Hildebrand: Racism. The same reason that was behind the second amendment. They want to have the ability to be intimidate.
Kay
Mitch McConnell is not going to let any of his mindless drones vote for anything.
Another Scott
@Kay: Their proposals aren’t serious, of course. They’re intended to distract from actual votes on actual legislative proposals. They’ll continue to throw anything against the wall to see what sticks.
If an actual vote for school hardening was on the agenda, they would demand that it be an unrestricted block grant or something – they don’t care about federal funding for schools.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steep’s Helper
@schrodingers_cat:
News you can use.
HumboldtBlue
@Betty Cracker:
YW, Jen is an awesome lady and a helluva writer. She also knows her food, nearly every text we share has something to do with food.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hoodie: Agreed on the motive/mental illness front. No one without some kind of mental illness would do such a thing. But the US is not unique in having mentally ill people (even if better health care would help). Where we are unique is the guns. Any discussion that does not place that front and center is not a serious discussion.
JoyceH
@waspuppet:
Nope, that’s not a conspiracy theory, that’s just a fact. Russians funnel money into the NRA which funnels money into Republican campaigns. And now our campaign finance laws make it perfectly legal for our politicians to be outright bought by foreign enemies.
I mean, come on – the Russians sent an AGENT to the US, and she spent her entire time here palling around with influential Republicans and promoting AMERICAN gun ownership. Russia doesn’t want their own citizens armed to the teeth, but they sure want ours to be.
We need to start calling these gun nuts what they are – Russian puppets and useful idiots, the dupes of a hostile foreign power that wants to destroy us.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: to intimidate.
mali muso
@HumboldtBlue: Whew, that was a righteous rant. Cosign!
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, the common thread seems so apparent when you look at it.
Geminid
@SpaceUnit: Israel requires periodic mental fitness exams for private gun owners. Also, qualified gun owners are allowed only one gun and fifty rounds of ammunition. They have to turn in the empty cartridges to buy more rounds.
Israel had 180,000 privately owned firearms in 2013. The number actually declined to 130,000 in 2018 before it started to rise again. That was out of a population of about 8 million. There are a good number of illegal guns, though.
Steeplejack
Official Twitter account of the GOP side of the House Judiciary Committee. This is how they’re spending their time.
(For the Twitter-averse: It’s a GIF of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.)
Kay
@Another Scott:
I love how their fake proposal doesn’t even address most of the mass shootings. Buffalo was a supermarket. Pulse was a nightclub. The Dayton mass shooting was in the street but the gunman intended to conduct it in a bar. Like one out of five are even in a school.
HumboldtBlue
@mali muso:
And thanks for your link, my sisters and brothers are totally on board with Ms. Solnit.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@waspuppet: I believe that too
lowtechcyclist
OK, WTF are you talking about? bbleh wants the Dems we elected to make some trouble. He’s not saying we should make trouble for them.
Sure, win an argument by twisting the other guy’s words inside out.
The line I keep hearing is that Dems DO get angry, but we never see it because the nets don’t put it on TV. FINE. The Sunday political talk shows are one time when Dems are already on TV. What do they do with it?
This past Sunday, did any Dems get hot under the collar about guns? Or were they all nice and polite in their opposition to them?
I don’t know, but I never hear about a Dem being pissed off on any of those shows. And I’d expect a certain amount of performative pearl-clutching if one ever did.
SpaceUnit
@Geminid:
That seems entirely reasonable.
And so it probably wouldn’t fly here.
Wapiti
@Baud: Motive for the shooter: since he was on the school grounds for 10 minutes firing off rounds, before he went into the building, I will take a wild-ass guess at attempted suicide-by-cop. Unfortunately, the Uvalde cops were completely cowardly or useless or otherwise non-responsive, so he ratcheted up his suicide-by-cop attempt by shooting children. He took his time, and the cops still did not respond.
StringOnAStick
Resorting to violence, especially gun violence is celebrated in our culture. Look at our shoot ’em up movies, TV. So many of us here loved the Mandalorian series with the ultra cute baby Yoda, but how is everything resolved in that series of any other if not by righteous violence? It’s a human failing, made so much worse by easy and legal access to battlefield weapons. We would still be the same violent species if there were no guns, just with less efficient ways of killing.
I agree that the NRA is working hand in glove with Putin; different goals but parallel methods. The fanatical support of guns by R politicians may have a significant blackmail component as the stick while recognising that many of them are just that crazed about guns plus the electoral boost that position gives. Our job is to make their position as radioactive as it should be.
RaflW
@Kay: “Why do we have to live like this?”
I am not wishing harm on any elected officials, but so far, they just typically haven’t had to experience the sort of infringement and suffering their policies produce.
Though even when they do (ie: Scalise and the three others shot at that baseball game) that hasn’t led to anything! It’s why I think Jen Fumiko Cahill is sadly quite correct: We all have to turn into gun control banshees. Make the politics of inertia so f*king miserable that it shifts.
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
Hope Biden doesn’t go long – game one of the NBA championship begins at 9 PM Eastern.
Tony G
@Tony G: … and … those who (unlike me) have actual military experience (e.g. John Cole) should correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that in actual “hard targets” (military bases) there is very strict gun control — with firearms being locked away except for those who really need them (e.g. sentries, those in training or actual combat units). The gun nuts live in a world of make-believe that, unfortunately, affects the rest of us.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: @#$&. No. This is completely 100% wrong.
Most of these mass shootings are driven by people in circumstances that would not lead to any mental health diagnosis, and certainly not prior to them actually shooting people. Usually not after either.
Rage and impulse control issues are not by themselves sufficient grounds for a mental health diagnosis.
I should point out, most people who kill themselves aren’t mentally ill either.
The vast majority of gun related death, both suicide and homicide is driven by a moment of intense impulsive emotion. If there were no guns, it usually fades pretty quickly. That’s why cooldown periods and hoops people need to jump through to get access *work* in pulling the numbers down a lot.
Everyone is capable of momentarily snapping if put under the right pressures without the right supports.
Increasing mental health treatment is necessary for helping a vulnerable population that suffers an incredible burden from a society that isn’t set up to deal with their needs but it’s not going to do a goddamn thing to help reduce gun violence. Hell, pyschopathy and sadism aren’t even considered treatable conditions and those are the ones most likely to cross over into violence.
Hatred and racism and anger and fear and hurt aren’t mental illnesses, they’re part of being human. When you put incredibly dangerous weapons in the hands of anyone that’s momentarily emotionally compromised it is going to end in tragedy period. And that can be anyone at any time.
We live in a society that doesn’t provide adequate skill building on emotional regulation, that fosters conditions that lead to desperation, that has a media environment full of radicalizing eliminationist rhetoric… It breeds people willing to hurt other people. But most of them are not mentally ill! They’re just angry and desperate and violence is permitted, normalized, fetishized, and a better alternative to the pain of living.
Those of us with actual mental health issues have enough problems without this bullshit conflating. Please stop doing it. It is fundamentally discriminatory.
Almost Retired
Hardening schools. As if every school in America has the basic architectural design of the Tiergarten Flak Tower. My kids’ schools are open campuses with multiple buildings opening up into various courtyards, with a handful of temporary trailer classrooms (depending on enrollment fluctuation) How do you harden that, motherfuckers?
Another Scott
@Wapiti: My reading of the story of the Yubo chats, etc. indicates that he had much more in mind (someone asked “are you going to shoot up a school or something?” and he replied “stop asking stupid questions, you’ll see”) – he had something like 1000 rounds with him in the school/truck. He wanted the infamy of killing lots of children before he died.
Grr…,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
Yeah, they can have recess in the windowless gym or something. Can’t have them playing outside because you can’t fortify the outdoors very well.
Have the school buses drop off and pick up the kids in a tunnel, and no windows on the bus except for those that the driver needs. Gotta protect our children by any means – except dealing with the actual threat, of course.
Scout211
So there’s yet another new explanation of the law enforcement failures out of Texas. The information about all of the 911 calls during the massacre we’re not sent to Arredondo.
The information about the calls were sent to the city police. Hmmm. Not passing the smell test here, but does seem to prop up Arredondo (at the expense of the Uvalde police). Lots of finger-pointing and CYA still.
Democratic state Senator Roland Gutierrez, with a statement about that:
HumboldtBlue
@Tony G:
You’re correct, firearms are severely regulated on military installations.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I think we’re committing suicide-by-fascists by grading Dems as if we were judges on America’s Got Talent instead of fighting the GOP directly. But mine is a very minority view, so I hope I’m wrong and the preferred approach is successful.
Another Scott
@Baud: Beto is very good.
(Abbott is refusing to call a special session of the Texas legislature to address gun violence.)
Beto’s not being distracted. The rest of the elected and candidate Democrats should learn from his focus.
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
How do I “fight the GOP directly” besides support Dem candidates with my votes and money? Already doing that, thanks.
But once we elect them, I expect the Dems we elect to REPRESENT us, by fighting the GOP directly on our behalf.
Sure, by trying to pass legislation, but obviously we’re kinda stuck right now with that. And while I realize that though their words have more of a reach than mine, it’s far from unlimited – they can’t get on TV any damn time they like. That’s understood.
But that means that those times they know they’re going to be on TV, they’ve got to make the most of. That’s why I keep talking about those Sunday political talk shows. Like I said earlier, the line I keep hearing is that Dems DO get angry, but it never gets on TV. Well, here’s a time when they’re already there, and the nets aren’t going to turn their cameras off. Time to take the gloves off.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: exactly the point, as you know.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin: I am saying that mental illness is irrelevant to the discussion.
Eolirin
@lowtechcyclist: Do you watch those shows? I don’t. Going by ratings most people don’t. No idea what they’re saying on them. We don’t have the infrastructure to signal boost anything.
But if you could provide an example of something that was said on one of them and how it could be adjusted to better fit how you think it should be said that would maybe be a starting point.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
What’s the point of all the talking here and on social media then? Would you prefer it if news media just talked about Dem performance all the time. If not, why should we engage in it? Especially the original comment I was responding to, which didn’t criticize any particular Dem for any particular thing, but simply heckled them based on how they might respond. I think we prop up the fascists, but like I said, YMMV.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re doing so in such a way that paints people with mental illness as a potential violent threat which is a long standing slur against us. You don’t actually need to be mentally ill to do these things.
“No one without some kind of mental illness would do such a thing” is not true and is discriminatory language. Please don’t say things like that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin: That was not my intention. I will try to be more careful.
Geminid
@SpaceUnit: It would never fly here now; maybe in a couple decades.
We can make incremental progress, though. Gun safety is now a good issue politically, especially in the suburbs that are now crucial for either party’s success.
Virginia Democrats used to shy away from gun control, but they made it a winning issue in 2017 and 2019, especially in suburban districts. Then they passed six good pieces of gun legislation in 2020: expanded background checks, a “red flag” law, mandatory reporting of stolen firearms, a requirement for securing firearms in dwellings where minors are present, a one gun a month purchase limit, and local authority to restrict firearms in public building, public parks and at permitted demonstrations.
That’s a start. My hope is that five years from now we get to where California is on gun control. I don’t think most gun owners would kick if that was the system in Virginia, and many would welcome it. I think my two gun owning friends would. They don’t want their families or themselves getting shot by nuts or idiots. Plenty of gun owners would still resist more regulation at the polls because of scare tactics by the NRA and Republican politicians, but they are outnumbered.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you, I appreciate it.
The Pale Scot
Properly doped upped people aren’t violent. It’s way easier to get a gun than a Vicodin script
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: She has posted 3 times today on the open thread.
Ohio Mom
@Eolirin: When I was much younger, I just assumed anyone who would commit any violence was mentally ill. My calculus was “it’s crazy to kill someone, therefore he must be crazy.”
Then I learned more and grappled with the idea that some people are just plain bad and being bad is different than being mentally ill.
Then I learned about executive functioning issues and poor impulse control and meltdowns and processing disorders and lots of other ways brains can function less than optimally and that those things are not mental illnesses and have nothing to do with being a good or bad person.
I’m trying to say, I appreciate your comment. I don’t think most people know enough about what mental illness is and isn’t to even know that they don’t know.
For me, it was a slow evolution. I didn’t have to think or know about a lot of this until I had a kid with autism and topics like executive functioning issues were suddenly germane to me.
Certainly a lot of people are still at the “it’s crazy to kill someone’s therefore he’s crazy” stage of thinking. And it’s an easy framing for politicians to adopt, especially because it takes the focus off the guns.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin: I don’t want to distract from my point that humans are more or less the same from country to country and the thing that make these massacres so common here is easy access to military grade killing machines.
Geminid
@Geminid: I would add that gerrymandering can make progress on gun safety seem impossible even when a majority of a state’s population favor it. Virginia is an interesting counterexample, though. A Republican map enabled Republicans to have a 65 to 35 vote majority in 2017. Two elections later Democrats had a 55-45 majority and they passed the six laws I wrote about above. And the issue of gun safety was one of the reasons Democrats broke that gerrymander.
Juju
@Baud: He had issues with girls and women. He killed 14 girls and two women and five boys.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: Thank you for your comment. It’s important.
But I think one has to be careful. As we know, there are various kinds of mental illness and it’s certainly true that at least a few mass murderers have had symptoms of mental illness (persecution complexes, delusions, etc.) while at the same time tens of millions with mental illnesses will never be a danger to themselves nor others.
What seems to be a decent study of violence and mental illness issues is here:
Much more at the link.
Your implicit caution – that demanding a mental health professional act as a gatekeeper for a gun purchase won’t solve the problem – is a good one. The problem is not that a psychiatrist didn’t sign off on preventing the gun sale to the mass murderer. The problem is that guns are too easily available for no good reason.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Scott.
SpaceUnit
@Geminid:
Agree that this is a winning issue for Democrats. They should be
talkingscreaming about gun safety and reproductive choice from now until the midterms.Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, it’s the guns straight up. I’m in full agreement with that, just making the argument from a slightly different direction.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Yeah, anything besides mindless ‘rah-rah Dems’ is propping up the fascists. That makes so much sense, Baud.
I criticize our elected Dems because I want them to be more effective. Sorry that seems to not make any sense to you.
Like Markos Moulitsas used to say (and still does, I guess; haven’t been to Daily Kos in years), I want more, better Democrats. At election time and in the run-up to it, I’ll do what I can to get ‘more.’ In between, I damn sure will point out what they can do to be ‘better.’
JaneE
@Shalimar: Certainly. And if he had not been able to buy that gun it would probably only have been delayed. But someone might have intervened. And he would not have been able to shoot so many so quickly. I do know how he felt and it took months to get over it.
Eolirin
@lowtechcyclist: The problem is that your criticism isn’t actually detailed or specific enough to mean anything. What’s actually being said on the Sunday shows that isn’t aggressive enough for you?
The house is trying to pass an assault weapon ban ffs. Dems are in fact leading on this issue.
Are they really not doing what you want them to be doing or are you just not seeing it because they aren’t able to say it where you can. So many of the complaints of this nature are just replacing what’s actually happening that we don’t get to see with a narrative about how dems are bad at what they do, with no attention to the structural impediments to us being able to see it. If a Dem goes on the Sunday shows and is as aggressive as you want, if they’re not already doing that anyway, do they get invited back? There’s good stats on how those Sunday shows are slanted toward right wing commentators.
But you know what would be actually useful? On the ground activism and organization. Donations to groups that do good jobs with that. Being involved in that. Dems don’t have enough control over messaging platforms to pull off what the right wing media environment does. Our leaders can’t just talk loudly enough, keep repeating the same things, and effect change. We need to be more involved to compensate. It makes things harder, but we still have agency.
lowtechcyclist
@Eolirin:
Probably everything.
I don’t watch TV. But I see the clips here, on Twitter, and elsewhere, when something a Dem says really grabs people. And if I’ve ever seen one of them from one of the Sunday shows, it was a long time ago.
Also, if a Dem on one of those shows was actually getting angry about something, or actually accusing the Republican present of being one of the bad guys, there’d be a lot of performative pearl-clutching from the Maggie Habermans of the world. And that would attract notice in the places I hang out online. So I’m guessing everything.
You bet – I’ve given hundreds of dollars to Voces de la Frontera, and to Fair Fight, because they’re doing exactly that. And I will be giving more, both to groups like that and individual candidates, as the year progresses.
But once we get Dems elected, I want them to express the anger most of us feel that the guns keep multiplying, no matter how many people die, and that women in much of this nation are on the verge of losing control over their own bodies.
And right now, in an environment where nothing useful can pass Congress about these issues, I want them to make it damn clear that the Rethugs can’t be expected to help out, that the only path to decent legislation on these things is to massively defeat the GOP at the polls.
There are 81 million of us who voted Dem a year and a half ago. There are ~270 Dems in Congress speaking for those 81 million of us. Each one of them has a platform that those of us in the 81 million don’t, but that we placed them on. Having done my part by helping to put them there, I expect them to make effective use of their platforms.
Eolirin
@lowtechcyclist:
See, you can’t make that criticism and expect it to get taken seriously then. You really have no idea what’s actually being said, there’s just a void and you’re making assumptions about the nature of that void that are probably not even true and then blaming elected Democrats for those assumptions instead of what they’re actually doing. Which might even deserve criticism, but it needs to be rooted in reality, not an imagined state.
jonas
@Hildebrand:
Their base increasingly consists of paranoid white men who have been convinced over the past generation that basically everything and everyone in America is an existential threat to them and their “way of life” and the only solution is to be continually armed to the teeth. Any Republican pol who wants to have a snowball’s chance in hell of reelection or future in the party crosses these radical ammosexuals at their peril.
JustRuss
This. Drives turnout. The suffering and death is a nice bonus though.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Where? She has two comments in this thread, none that I can find in any of the threads going back to the “Wenches” one last night.
J R in WV
@HumboldtBlue:
Every mother fucking word !!!
J R in WV
@lowtechcyclist:
Dude, do you watch the Sunday talk shows? They don’t invite Democratic folks who are willing to fuss with Republicans, that would be RUDE !!!
Tony G
@Kay: … not to mention that the entire notion of “hardening” every goddamn building in the country makes no sense on any level. Deranged people (almost always men) who have easily purchased very powerful guns will easily find a way to kill people. If a school/hospital/store/whatever has been “hardened” by having one (or a few) guarded entranceways with metal detectors then the shooter just has to loiter outside of (or drive by) the entrance to shoot a nice collection of “soft” targets. “Hardening” buildings is an idea that is so obviously stupid that it is clear that it is just a way to distract from the real problem — too much easy access to too many powerful guns.
Toxic
@Baud:
You’re really quick with the shallow, sarcastic bumper sticker quips but absent when it comes to proposing any solutions.
So what’s your solution stable genius? Be sure to include how your going to get it passed through the Republican filibuster with Manchen’s and Sineme’s active interference.
dnfree
@Ohio Mom: I appreciate both your comment and Eolirin’s. Just blaming this phenomenon on “mental illness” is far too simplistic. For example, road rage shootings are impulsive, generally nothing to do with mental illness per se.
We know, sadly, of teens and young adults who have impulsively killed themselves. Having access to a gun makes it much more likely they’ll succeed.
Like “hardening schools”, or the idea of hiring multiple security guards per school, this is another right-wing distraction tactic.
Ascap_scab
@Baud: He hated doors.
Racer X
“There’s not a ton of cause for optimism that we’ll see real gun safety reform at the federal level since the U.S. Senate is a catastrophically dysfunctional institution. ”
Let’s be more clear here – It’s the Republicans in the Senate that refuse to act.