There’s some evidence the Highland Park shooter was a Trump fan, including a photo of the killer wearing a Trump flag as a cape and dressed as Waldo at a Trump rally. The shooter also allegedly liked a tweet by President Biden, which right-wingers claim proves he’s a Democrat. The town the shooter attacked has a substantial Jewish population, so some are speculating the murders were a hate crime.
All or none of this may turn out to be true, but here’s one thing we do know right now: If the shooter had not been able to easily obtain an AR-15-style rifle that can spray a street with deadly rounds, he wouldn’t have been able to kill seven people and injure dozens more in a matter of seconds.
The same is true of the Uvalde school shooter, the Buffalo supermarket shooter, the Parkland school shooter, the Pulse nightclub shooter, the Las Vegas music festival shooter, the El Paso Walmart shooter, the Sandy Hook school shooter, etc., etc., etc.
Sometimes we find out shooters had specific motives, like the racist Buffalo and El Paso shooters. A history of domestic violence and misogyny are also common traits among mass shooters. And sometimes, maybe most often, they’re just psychos with no discernable motives.
Motivations aside, these mass shootings are becoming more common, and we need to steer the conversation away from gun rights and toward the right the rest of us have to live in peace and safety. There are some telling quotes from the latest members of the mass shooting survivor club at CNN.
One witness said he and his wife were standing around confused about what was happening when the shots first began, but their children, who had participated in active shooter drills at school, immediately realized what was going on and dove for cover, causing the parents to snap out of it.
One father ran into an alley and put his small children in a metal dumpster to keep them safe, asking strangers who were cowering behind the dumpster to watch the kids while he went looking for the rest of his family. Here’s how another father described the experience:
I ran from a mass shooting today with my two little girls in my arms. We got separated from my wife. We hid behind a car and then sheltered in the apartment of some good Samaritans for 5 hours watching swat teams from the windows. We are all ok but we’re angry, very very angry.
— Hunter Stuart (@Hoont) July 4, 2022
Enough anger can change things, even the Republican-imposed paralysis on guns. As I said here after the Parkland massacre, I believe those of us who are in favor of sane gun laws will win, but not until a critical mass of people realize their own freedom — to send their kids to school, to go shopping, to the movies, to nightclubs, to music festivals, to Fourth of July parades, etc. — is being curtailed by a relatively small group of fanatics and vote accordingly.
Someone — not Churchill — said America almost always does the right thing, eventually, after exhausting all other possibilities. We’ve been exhausting the possibilities, even though the solution to stop this madness has been obvious all along. But I still think we’ll get there. Eventually.
Open thread.
Raven
The mayor had him in her Cub Scout troop.
Nicole
There was a scare in Harrisburg, PA (near where I grew up) yesterday- some probably illegal fireworks went off and people thought they were guns and it started a panic. A friend of mine from grade school posted about it. She’s, while not right-wing exactly, definitely on the conservative side, and it took all my willpower not to post something about “So much for an armed society is a polite society.”
The fact that the defacto assumption from everyone there, on the 4th of July, upon hearing firecracker noise, was GUN! GUN! – yeah, at some point we as a society have to say “enough,” right? Right?
Mike in NC
Breaking News: “A special grand jury in Georgia probing former U.S. President Donald Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat there issued subpoenas to Senator Lindsey Graham and Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.” Also getting subpoenas are Eastman and several other crooked lawyers tied to the Fat Orange Clown.
Kay
Great post.
Ruckus
This is like living in a country sized insane asylum.
No wait, it isn’t like it, IT IS a country sized insane asylum, where the insane people have the keys. And the guns and the bullets.
Kropacetic
The first two show support for an individual (individual #1) while the third, at best, shows some form of support for an idea.
I can’t make any particular assumptions about the man’s ideology, but some of the evidence provided is more compelling than the rest.
Curious what the content of the Biden tweet was.
Scout211
I hope you are right, Betty. They tried to do the right thing in Highland Park.
But local laws banning assault rifles seem unenforceable if both state and federal laws allow them.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Ben Cisco
I also believe we’ll get there.
I HAVE to – it’s the only way I can keep getting up in the morning.
Scout211
@Raven:
And his father ran for mayor in 2019 against the current mayor.
Joy in FL
Thanks for this post.
H.E.Wolf
Well said, Betty. Thank you.
jonas
Aside from the guy who opened fire a couple of years ago at that Congressional softball game who appeared to have been an erstwhile Bernie supporter who had a mental break of some kind, have *any* mass shootings in recent history been carried out by someone with overt liberal/leftist sympathies? In my counting, they’ve all been either radical incel/white supremacist types, radical Muslims, or simply deeply disturbed people who acted on the voices in their head w/o any clear motive (e.g. that guy who shot up that music concert in Vegas a few years ago).
Brachiator
Is Highland Park still an upscale area? I seem to recall it being referred to that way in John Hughes comedies, Ferris Bueller, etc?
I am not making assumptions about political ideologies in the community or anything like that. It just feels a little strange to feel that you know a place a little bit because of cinematic mythology.
bbleh
The Crazies — by which I mean literally, more than half of the Republican Party, and by far the most important part during primary season — will NEVER do the right thing. They will endure terrible personal suffering, and they will inflict terrible suffering on their friends and family, before they will do the right thing. They have many and varied reasons for (not) doing so — it’s all a lie, it’s the fault of Democrats/Blacks/Muslims/Gays/uppity wimmin, it’s God’s plan, yadda yadda — but it is now so much a part of their identity that they would rather die (and some will) than do the right thing.
Moreover, they hate everyone not like them, because they are told over and over and over that the Others hate them, and that therefore they must hate Others. (See, eg, Dinesh D’Souza Fourth of July tweets — what a happy guy!) They will therefore never listen to reason, never acknowledge the consequences of their own behavior for themselves, and NEVER consider actually cooperating for the common good.
As a consequence, the American people as a whole, alas, will never do the right thing. It’s on the non-Crazy population to do the right thing, and doing that requires defeating the Crazies utterly, and I mean utterly, burning their cities to the ground and salting the earth. Only then will the right thing be possible (which, of course, the Crazies who benefit therefrom will never acknowledge, let alone thank us for: see also the Affordable Care Act, the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, deficit reductions under Clinton and Obama, etc, etc, etc.).
I wish I saw another way. But the alternative is, we’re all screwed.
/rant
Kropacetic
Political violence by leftists is the only political violence. Those on the right are simply watering the tree of liberty with the blood of
tyrantscommunities they disapprove of.The rest are just a mental health issue, which should be our real focus…
Leto
Indiana doubling down on crazy: Indiana police set as state handgun permit requirement ends
Republicans doing everything to terrorize us, ensuring that their stormtroopers are armed and ready wherever we go. Fuck’em all. I’m beyond the point of wanting to ban every single weapon. Fuck hunters, fuck Olympians, fuck’em all.
Scout211
One strong advocate for gun control in the past has been Diane Feinstein. She really stepped up after the Stockton school yard mass shooting and has pushed for gun control laws ever since.
AFAIK she has been silent lately, likely due to her reported health decline.
Let’s hope we get more politicians to step up like she used to do.
SFAW
Who alleged that? Anthony Ornato? TFG? Rudy von Orlok?
bbleh
@Brachiator: News stories are routinely describing it as one of the 100 richest cities in the US.
Birdie
Two things continue to surprise me about US politics vs. the country where I grew up: The surprising prevalence of extreme single issue (especially single cultural issue) voters, and the willingness of political parties – mostly Republican, but Democrats too on the ‘centrist’ margins – to cater to them at the expense of a majority perspective.
I’m at a loss to understand where it comes from and why the apparent majority accepts ongoing interference from a busybody minority. I’ve thought about it for years now with no answer – there’s the engaged group that shows up in the comments here, so it’s not about you; but why aren’t the otherwise apathetic “leave us alone” crowd more motivated to send a message?
You see “sending a message” votes all the time in other English-speaking democracies – the UK had a couple of by-elections a few weeks ago that were widely interpreted that way. The recent Australian election results included elections of a number of independent representatives, each on a “pro-climate” platform. Why not here and why not on these issues? Is there someone who’s got a better understanding who has an opinion?
Tony Jay
@Ben Cisco:
You will.
There’s no effortless Utopia. No friction free glide on marshmallow rollers through candy floss fields and orchards of easy peelers. The fact that it’s difficult is what makes it real life.
I know you already knew that, but sometimes it’s good to say it out loud,
Miss Bianca
Sheriffs who denounced Colorado’s red-flag law are now using it
Baby steps, baby steps…
Gosh, Sheriff Wilson of Dove Creek…I agree! We agree on something!
Meanwhile, here in another blood-red CO county, both (Republican) candidates for Sheriff loudly, proudly, and *repeatedly* promised that they would *never* enforce the state’s red flag law, by cracky. Indeed, the one who won the primary wrote a chilling letter to the editor to my paper, basically, “welp, it’s everyone else’s responsibility but law enforcement’s to prepare for a mass shooting event here! Vote for me!”
Fourth of July gathering in my neighborhood threatened to get downright uncivil when the topic of the Highland Park shooting came up. One thing I’ve noticed is that even men who I consider fairly reasonable on other issues, including my pal D and my neighbors, all of whom I really like, are frothing absolutists about guns – it’s all or nothing, all the time – we have to have unfettered access to any firearm ever invented, because even the mildest forms of gun legislation means that the evil libtards are going to take ALL MY GUNZ AWAY, OH NOES! And the absolute textbook “if you don’t know the difference between a clip and a magazine or an automatic or a semi-automatic then you have no right to talk about guns at all” and the “gun violence can and must be traced to absolutely anything except unfettered access to guns! It’s bad parenting! It’s mental illness! Argle bargle!” It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so infuriating.
Although at least one of my neighbors finally acknowledged that maybe allowing the under-21 crowd to buy an AR-15 was perhaps not such a hot idea. Baby steps, baby, baby steps…
SFAW
@jonas:
Well, the Bowling Green Massacre was carried out by 100s of Antifas, and “Portland” (i.e., the Left Coast pretender) was totally destroyed by Antifas with AR-15s which fired not-so-small bore nucular ordnance. And Parkland and Newtown were “false flag” operations.
Or so I’ve been told by Fux “News.”
SpaceUnit
America will eventually get around to doing the right thing. Just like it did with slavery.
Okay, so maybe that’s not the best example.
Ladyraxterinok
@Scoup
I read somewhere that Justice Thomas in a descent from that case said that most people who had those rifles were good people and didn’t misuse them
I think the same source whatever it was said that Thomas and Scalia dissented
Omnes Omnibus
Very much so.
ETA: North Shore on the lake and not Waukegan. it’s upscale.
The Moar You Know
@jonas: the only common factor that mass shooters have is gender: male. The rest is, as they say, open to all comers.
Most of them seem to be apolitical, frankly
Most of them use handguns. The AR-15 as the weapon of choice is a recent development and not a good one. Harder to hide, but does more damage.
Leto
Meanwhile in Amsterdam, local cops handling a problem via bicycle. (Enable sound via top right corner of the gif)
Betty Cracker
@jonas: I can’t think of any either, but politics seem irrelevant in the vast majority of mass shootings, except when it comes to Republican intransigence about addressing the problem.
That said, right-wing violence and intimidation sure seems to be a growing threat, and politics absolutely is relevant to that problem. I’m thinking of the recent incidents where fascist white men target gay bars, pride events, etc., mouthing the insults they hear from right-wing politicians, like “groomer.”
artem1s
for those in batshit crazy red states like OH and IN where the conceal carry and open carry regs are now non-existent, our only recourse is going to be boycotting events/places/businesses who don’t push back on this violent fashion statement. This isn’t a Serge Leone movie. Time to stop playing cowboy FFS.
Felanius Kootea
Speculation about Crimo’s political affiliations is interesting. Since the current mayor (Rotering), a Democrat, beat Crimo’s father for the mayor’s election in 2019 with a vote tally of 72% (Rotering) to 27% (Crimo), I’d say that the shooter doesn’t come from a family of Democrats and leave it at that.
CarolPW
@Scout211: Her intensity about that started with Dan White’s shooting spree while she was on the San Francisco city council, when her colleague and her mayor were slaughtered.
Feathers
@Leto: My only hope at this point is that they have overreached and that when it comes time to do clean up, we’ll be able to push back hard against the assumption that the right has the moral high ground on all issues in America.
Scout211
@Ladyraxterinok:
Yup. From the same article I linked above:
The Golux
Right-wingers always trot out their concern for mental health when one of these atrocities occurs, so the logical thing to do is to pass a law that requires that all would-be gun purchasers undergo a mental health evaluation before being cleared to take possession. And no grandfather clause – existing gun owners would have to prove their mental fitness to keep their guns.
I am confident that, if implemented, this would significantly reduce the number of guns in circulation, because a large percentage of these ammosexuals are bugfuck nuts.
artem1s
@The Moar You Know:
I would disagree. They may not affiliate strongly with any organized political party, but they are far from a-political. From what I can tell they and their families tend to be strongly to virulently anti-government. The constant stream of hate and anti-government rhetoric from the wingnut right and glibertarians has definitely been an influencing factor in the mass shooter psychopathy.
scav
@The Moar You Know: That is the scary thing actually, that they can be essentially unpredictable near-motiveless just-because bursts of violence. Not comfortably relegated to those others and other places where bad things “make sense”.
Kropacetic
@Miss Bianca: if you don’t know the difference between a
clipblastocyte and amagazinezygote or aautomaticpersonal belief or asemi-automaticconstitutional freedom then you have no right to talk aboutgunsabortions at allYou can pedant the fuck out of any issue. As a rule, someone telling you that you have no right to speak on X is full of shit for virtually any value of X.
Claiming authority on X is an entirely other matter.
ian
@Tony Jay: Do you have thoughts on the Boris Johnson cabinet resignations today?
Matt McIrvin
@bbleh: Which cities are theirs?
trollhattan
@SFAW:
Word.
We were in Portland last month and while Antifa weren’t spotted sweeping the cops out of downtown, lesbians had completely taken over Pioneer Courthouse Square. Granted, it was an Indigo Girls concert but still….
Miss Bianca
@Kropacetic: I like the way you think! Copied for future retortage!
Kropacetic
Since mental health is a transient quality, this should be subject to periodic reevaluation.
Miss Bianca: I’m honored
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Scout211:
I don’t understand why we have to slavishly follow these ridiculous rulings, as implied by those legal observers. They’re not worth the paper they’re printed on and we should treat them as such by ignoring them
Yes, I understand the rule of law and all that, but the Right is twisting it into Calvinball where they primarily benefit. That can’t go on
Scout211
After working for almost 40 years in the mental health field, I am not at all confident that diagnosing mental illness as a way to control guns would be a method that would be fair or effective.
VeniceRiley
@Tony Jay: Spotted you and awaiting your scathing farewell to the two ministers and welcome of the tumor … erm, two more.
Feathers
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yeah, the number one rule of not becoming a fascist state is don’t offer obedience in advance. Make them fight for it. Make people realize what the stakes are. Make them say out loud what it is they are demanding.
The media creates this false sense that the right wing is just… reality. Anyone who wants anything different is an activist. Make them be the activists for once.
Leto
@Felanius Kootea: Listen, don’t bring those liberal “facts” and “logic” here. Nobody has time for that! (heavy /s here)
@Feathers: that’s my hope too. When the pendulum eventually swings back, that it swings very far in the other direction (and we can keep it there).
Low Key Swagger
Apparently the Highland Park shooter had, in 2019, threatened to “kill everyone” and the local cops removed knives and a dagger from the home. Link when I remember where I put it.
Leto
@ian: I saw that BoJo apparently was trying to sweep a sex scandal, involving him and the act in the PM office, under the rug. Like… his entire cabinet is just an extended Trumpov act. In multiple shitty parts.
divF
@VeniceRiley:
@Tony Jay:
C’mon, is it really fair to expect more than one vituperative screed in a single day from Tony Jay? Not that we wouldn’t appreciate it, of course.
bbleh
@Matt McIrvin: I shall commune with the spirit of William Tecumseh Sherman and get back to you on that.
Ben Cisco
@Felanius Kootea:
Mama, there goes that number again…
kalakal
OT but that nice Boris Johnson’s just had a very large rug pulled out from under him.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/05/sajid-javid-and-rishi-sunak-quit-throwing-boris-johnsons-future-into-doubt?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
In US terms this would be like the VP and the Secretary of State resigning.
Hahahahahahahahah.
Tony G
The anti-democratic nature of the Senate prevents anything meaningful from being done to ban those semi-automatic rifles and to tightly regulate the other guns. Goddamn “founding fathers”. The problem, always, is the guns. There have always been men (almost never women) who are psychotic, psychopathic or just plain evil — but that young man in Highland Park might not have been able to kill anyone if he had been armed with a knife or a baseball bat. It’s much easier to kill with a gun (especially a military-grade rifle like an AR15) than it is to kill with any other weapon. In Japan (home of my in-laws) gun control is VERY strict, and there are occasionally incidents in which a young man (always a man) goes berserk and kills with a knife. But he’s always apprehended after one or two kills. Killing with a knife is hard work.
Feathers
@The Golux: One very real issue is that the DSM, which defines mental illness, is based on how much the illness affects the person who has it, not how much suffering it causes. So PTSD is a recognized mental illness, being a person who causes others to have PTSD really isn’t. This is a huge weakness in our system. Fearfulness, yes, violent, no. And because of the way our disability and justice systems are set up, if violent assholery were to become a mental illness, it would be harder to punish people for it.
The whole “the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violence than violent themselves” is part of this problem. This is true, but the intersection of violence and mental illness is tragic and has horrific consequences, but we aren’t set up to deal with it. The mental illness /= violence rhetoric means that violent people are excluded from many mental health treatments, their families are ostracized from support groups, and involuntary treatment is incredibly hard to access. Yes, it’s true that taking meds or not should be a person’s choice, but too many doctors take the choice approach with people for whom not taking meds has dire consequences for the people around them. I had a friend who had to completely sever ties with a sister she wanted to help because the sister kept getting doctors “helping her make the decision as to whether or not to take medication” and then getting calls in the middle of the night to pick her up from the emergency room during a psychotic episode (three states away).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Tony G:
Exactly. It’s much easier to outrun somebody with a melee weapon like a knife then to outrun bullets, which can travel for miles and go through walls
MomSense
The last couple of weeks have been a real shit picnic.
bluefoot
@The Moar You Know:
Considering the number of mass shootings/terror shootings that are based in white supremacy and/or misogyny, I disagree that most are apolitical.
Though it depends on how we define “mass shooting.” There are mass shootings that happen during the commission of another crime, and the gun violence is incidental to the primary intent. And there are mass shootings where a particular person is targeted (i.e. private dispute) and other victims are collateral damage. Then there are the targeted mass shootings like Buffalo, Oak Creek, Pittsburgh, Pulse nightclub, etc etc. I think of these as “terror shootings” since the are targeted toward specific groups with intent to cow, eliminate or otherwise change the behavior of the entire targeted group, not just the specific people victimized.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Feathers:
I agree.
That reminds me of some “legal analyst” from CBS on Face Nation that a commenter talked about here a few days ago. She basically endorsed the GOP 6’s “originalism’ doctrine, didn’t discuss the dissenting opinions, claimed that the decision didn’t make abortion illegal, merely “sent it back to the states”, that if Congress was too dysfunctional to codify Roe protections then so be it, and said more or less that a majority of states making abortion illegal was simply apart of the democratic process.
As if human rights should be put up to a fucking vote. Kay and others say that people like her are “bad hires”, but I think they know exactly what they’re doing and are carrying water for the GOP 6
Steeplejack
‘@Betty Cracker:
Brought up from downstairs.
@Zeddary:
“Chan” = 4chan and 8chan, notorious shitposting sites.
“Chuds” = dreadful incels and dudebros, from the 1984 movie CHUD, about sewer-lurking “cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers.”
ksmiami
@bbleh: There’s almost no scenario in which our country recovers unless the fanatics are absolutely destroyed, ground into powder etc.
Jim Appleton
Been thinking about brief exchange last night with zhenia and, indirectly, Mnemosyne about publicizing graphic images/footage of mass shootings.
My position is that this imagery is a missing part of the political equation which is likely to affect a not insignificant number of uninformed minds.
z’ and M’s core objections, as I understand: a) not ok without consent of family, under any circumstances, and b) (zhenia) even this will do nothing to effect positive change in gun regulation.
Addressing A, this is a moral debate which, reluctantly and sympathetically, I take a different side. I agree that survivors’ trauma is a vital concern and must be honored and protected. Great care needs to ensure that specific cases meet some as yet undefined standard of importance.
This is an existential issue both for each of us personally, and for our representative democracy.
That puts the core of the debate into its own class.
Survivors are now part of, and bystanders to, figuratively and literally, a picture which has the potential to direct outcomes affecting everyone.
Do survivors’ interests take precedence?
Would we ask that the Zapruder film be withheld out of respect?
I don’t know the answer, but in the mass shootings up to now in 2022, in the face of unrestricted and unanswered slaughter, I (again, reluctantly) think it’s time to step — cautiously — over that line, in favor of the potential for changing minds as Another Scott aptly reminded.
On B, historical precedent, as AS points out, has many instances where graphic imagery has changed seemingly intractable differences into positive change.
Reflexively asserting that nothing works re gun control is, though I share the sentiment, not a reason to forbid the challenge outright.
Kropacetic
AjoAssholes en polvoLeto
@MomSense: am I allowed to leave the picnic? I’m quite full, had all the “fun” I can, now I just want to leave.
Low Key Swagger
Here. https://twitter.com/i/status/1544420677347905537
zhena gogolia
@divF: he can’t top “transparent plastic codpiece “
Kay
@MomSense:
True. But this is the key though, I’m convinced:
Gun nuts are holding us all hostage. Everyone elses freedom and quality of life is being curtailed so gun lovers won’t have to be inconvenienced.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Steeplejack:
Zeddary and the others quoted are right on the money. I remember reading Channers claiming they invented the “OK symbol” as a white supremacist hand signal to troll liberals. It’s difficult to know how true this is when it comes to trolling. Either way, it’s all a nihilistic game to them and it’s incredibly irresponsible.
NotMax
‘@Steeplejack et al.
Media’s knee jerk go-to is to cram each case into a box labeled “Lone Wolf,” the like of which they possess in seemingly infinite supply.
livewyre
@ksmiami: Is there any problem in your world that isn’t solved by first killing all the bad people?
Kropacetic
My buddy showed me the footage from Buffalo a few days after it happened. No warning. I thought it was a video game and was deeply disturbed when I realized it wasn’t.
I explained to him that I stopped watching any videos of this nature. I saw Tamir Rice get shot years ago, said “I believe it, I believe it all,” and vowed never to watch anything like that again.
So I agree that it’s important that these images be out there, but I’ll go on advocating for justice for marginalized communities without having to watch, thank you.
livewyre
@Jim Appleton: Is there any systematic analysis demonstrating that such images both 1. would make a positive difference, and 2. are not sufficiently available to begin with? Or is this more of a hunch?
Kropacetic
Ignore the pack behind the curtain…
dnfree
Today on NPR, a local Chicago-area reporter from WBEZ was being interviewed, and at the end of his segment he said something like “This is happening everywhere. It’s hard to know how it will resolve itself.” And there I am in my car, screaming HOW WOULD IT RESOLVE ITSELF, YOU IDIOT?
mrmoshpotato
@Scout211:
From a layman’s perspective with no training or experience in any mental health field(s), I totally agree.
Other countries have people with mental health issues. Hell, probably ALL countries have people with mental health issues.
The main problem is EASY ACCESS TO GUNS.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@livewyre:
I can’t say I endorse what ksmiami’s solutions are, but there’s the possibility that the increasingly radicalized, authoritarian American right is not going to give any of us a choice, especially if we want a say in our government and society. The recent actions by DeSantis and Christopher Rufo are incredibly alarming, to say nothing of the GOP dominated SCOTUS. I hope it doesn’t come to that and I hope they can be peacefully defeated
Another Scott
@jonas: Made me look…
CSIS.org:
So, you see, Both Sides™.
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Cheers,
Scott.
Kropacetic
@mrmoshpotato: Making sensible gun policy is definitely the ultimate goal. As far as it relates to mental health, I think a better standard would be “propensity toward violence (whether directed toward the self or others).”
mrmoshpotato
@dnfree: No surprise that NPR stands for Nice Polite Republicans.
As for “resolving itself,” what does that even mean, what body count does that fucking ghoul want?
different-church-lady
@Scout211:
CIVILIAN: “I wish to own an assault weapon.”
DOCTOR: “Obviously you are a person who should not own an assault weapon.”
The Golux
@Scout211:
My tongue was in near proximity of my cheek.
James E Powell
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The media always regard any rights that liberals value as annoying burdens that are tolerated only if certain conditions are met.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
I’m convinced now that the media is doing it on purpose, because to actually try to link all of these shooters together would not say nice things about the GOP and the broader conservative movement, and the the owners of these media companies want the clicks and the low taxes
Feathers
@Jim Appleton: One point on this. I found fascinating that one of the things the UN(?)’s volcano rescue team does is take the super graphic first on the scenes video, which isn’t made public, and show it to the mayors and city counselors of cities which are at risk for being destroyed by a volcano. It’s footage that shouldn’t be shown publicly, but people who make decisions for the public about how to handle the local volcano need to see it.
On the flip side, it was felt that training for police officers who used tasers needed to include the officers’ being tased, so that they would know what they were inflicting on others. What was found in later studies was that police who had been tased during training were actually more likely to tase civilians. Tasing during training reduced empathy rather than increasing it.
Kropacetic
To wit, are conservative Christians comfortable with this?
topclimber
@mrmoshpotato: The true mental health problem is the insane folks who don’t acknowledge that mass killings do, indeed, have something to do with unfettered gun access.
Kropacetic
@topclimber: Right wing ideology (I dare not call it conservatism) is a mental illness.
mrmoshpotato
@livewyre: Re: ksmiami
When I saw Goku’s reply at 78, my first thought was, “So who does that motherfucker want to exterminate now in the name of ‘solving a problem ‘?”
Kropacetic
Frieza. His intent toward Namekian genocide can not be abided.
frosty
@livewyre: Here here. I’ve pied this bloodthirsty idiot more than once, looks like I have to do it again.
It’s particularly disgusting in a post about a mass shooting.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kropacetic:
Like, what does this mean? It’s a joke, but one at my expense? I didn’t say I endorsed what ksmiami said. I merely raised the possibility that armed violence might be necessary to defend ourselves and defeat an increasingly fascist and violent American right that is destroying our rights. I also said I hoped it wouldn’t come to that
RSA
U.S. Census quick facts for Highland Park, including demographics, economy, and income levels (e.g. median household income, 2016-2020, $147k; poverty, 4.6%).
Chicago, for comparison (e.g. median household income, 2016-2020, $62k; poverty, 17.3%).
Kropacetic
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It was purely a joke. The reference to the fictional source material I assume your name derives from should have been the tell.
And it wasn’t even purely directed at you. The poster I replied to seemed to have some confusion.
Sorry, didnt mean any offense.
Tony Jay
@ian: @VeniceRiley:
Heh. I’ll be getting to it just as soon as I’ve stopped laughing at the image of a craven lickspittle like Nadhim fucking Zahawi fronting up to Flobalob and demanding the Chancellorship as his price for not resigning… and Flobalob being so desperate he gave it to him!
Bullied by Nadhim Zahawi. FFS, that’s so humiliating. What a shitshow tomorrow is going to be.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kropacetic:
It’s alright, I overreacted
Another Scott
@topclimber: A lot of it is human nature. Sure, COVID is a horrible disease that kills people, but I’m healthy/have good genes/don’t hang around with sick people/etc. (BoJo was in this camp, until it almost killed him.)
But we, as a modern species, have learned that human nature doesn’t work in deciding public policy. The benefits of living in a modern, peaceful, prosperous society means that we don’t: get to decide on our own to build a 50-foot high wall on our 1/4 acre lot to block to sun from our neighbor’s garden; get to manufacture explosives in our basement because we like loud noises and obviously would never threaten anyone else who walked by our 1/4 acre lot; get to opt out of taxes to support the school down the street because we don’t have kids that go there; get to sell magic potions that we say increase longevity and cure cancer without actual evidence and approval from authorities; get to ignore traffic laws; etc.
In all of human existence, rights have come with responsibilities. Yin / Yang. Nobody – nobody – in America exists separate from the rest of us. They’re part of our society and need to live within our laws and norms. It’s not “tyranny” to say that, it’s reality. Everyone else has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, also too.
The Fox News cartoon version of “responsibilities” is punching down. That’s not what it means though. Emphasizing the importance of taking responsibility might be another way to get the normies to pay attention before they vote in November…
/soapbox
Cheers,
Scott.
HeleninEire
Hello all my Balloon Juice friends. I am thinking about signing off for awhile. And by that I mean out of blogs. Being engaged and understanding politics is breaking my heart. I know that is the wimp way. But I am too old to care. Maybe tomorrow I will change my mind. But there is stupid stuff going on with my family and I need to focus. My sister Mary is in really bad shape. They are talking about taking her to the psych ward. And she will not know where she is.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HeleninEire:
Do what’s best for you and your family. I always enjoyed reading your comments
Tony Jay
@divF:
Thank you. Eventually my fingertips will resume their natural not-flat form and I get get back to Hating Through Words.
@zhena gogolia:
Oh believe me, as fond as I am of that description, where that gutless, lying fraud is concerned I can go a whole lot lower.
Omnes Omnibus
@HeleninEire: Do what you need to do. My best to your family.
Kropacetic
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): No worries. I’m not a big fan of eliminationist rhetoric, but I found my way to riff on ksimiami’s post too.
I just like to quip.
Tony Jay
@HeleninEire:
Take the sabbatical. You just look after you and those you love for now, everything will be here waiting for you when you get back.
Another Scott
@HeleninEire: That’s hard. I’m sorry. :-(
Hang in there, take care of yourself. We’ll be here trying to fight the good fight for when you’re able to return.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jim Appleton
@livewyre: I’m on my phone now and can’t link.
Another Scott last night pointed to Emitt Till, Vietnam war, and others as examples.
@Kropacetic: Imagine you’re a teenager in a gunhumping household who has a similar reaction.
That’s the “target” audience for graphic footage of real events.
Kropacetic
No need to imagine. I remember.
A difgerent teenager may watch, however, and see heroism.
James E Powell
@HeleninEire:
Sorry to hear this. There is nothing wimpy about taking care of your family. Best to you & yours.
HeleninEire
Thank you all.
Kropacetic
@HeleninEire: Self care is important. Hope to see you back some day feeling better.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
The median income in Highland Park is $90,000. I’m pretty sure that still counts as “upscale.”
Jim Appleton
@Feathers: I have some experience with officers using tasers, and I’m not surprised.
They see tasers as compliance tools, a billy club with greater range.
As currently used, cops should not have tasers.
Carry a gun and use it appropriately.
Use appropriate compassionate public safety instead. Not militarized, confrontational dick swinging.
Jim Appleton
@Kropacetic: If so, how many others see a wholey opposite message?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
The median income in Highland Park is $90,000. I’m pretty sure that still counts as “upscale.”
Kropacetic
@Jim Appleton: We can’t control how people will view anything, regardless of the intent of the creator or disseminator. I tend to favor both providing access and providing warnings.
Ohio Mom
@HeleninEire: Oh dear, so sorry for Mary and you.
I have a vague memory of an earlier crisis you were able to resolve, I hope for Mary’s sake you find a way to be helpful now. I know you will do your best in this extremely difficult set of circumstances.
I also hope you have IRL support.
We’re all pulling for you, if you take a break, come back sometime and say Hi.
lafcolleen
Just found out that I have a connection to some of the Hughland Park victims. Three members of a family were shot – Husband and wife plus their grandson. Husband is the 7th person that has died – name not yet released.
my niece’s boyfriend is cousins with the grandson.
brantl
@Tony G: Not as hard as you’d think, if you know what you’re doing; these people seldom do. People who actually train with non-ballistic weapons have more respect for them.
Betty Cracker
@HeleninEire: Take all the time you need. We’re like nuclear cockroaches; we’ll be here when you come back. Seriously though — peace and strength to your family. These are hard and dismaying times.
Jim Appleton
@Kropacetic: I’ve seen how used.
Example: I’m on shift as an EMT in an emergency department, called to a patient brought in by a cop. Reason: patient was suspected of loitering, no report or suspicion of violence, history of any offense or threat to anyone, runs from cop who then tases him in the back.
I’m called to remove the barbs and assess.
Cop boasts of how he brought down a guy who I asked why, he said because “he needed it.” A subsequent request to his department went unanswered.
This is anecdata for why I think tasers are dangerously misapplied.
Tried unsuccessfully to find video of a naked guy on a ground floor storefront awning in Manhattan who clearly posed no threat to anyone, gets tased by two cops, falls, breaks neck and dies.
Give them guns and use appropriately, not “less than lethal” which get used inappropriately.
Geminid
@Kropacetic: I am for any and all reasonable restrictions on firearms purchase and possession. My state, Virginia, enacted six gun safety laws in 2020, and I want my state to keep tightening up until we get to where California is, with a mandatory training requirement and separate permit purchase, registration of individual firearms, and background checks just to purchase ammunition. I think my two gun owning friends would have no problem with such a program.
Assault-style rifles and the high capacity magazines are a particular problem in these mass shootings. Their high powered rounds are much more devastating than those of handguns, and the 30 round magazines they accomodate multiply the destruction. The man who murdered people in the Aurora theatre shooting had a hundred round drum magazine that fortunately jammed.
I think these rifles intimidate police. If the Uvalde shooter had a handgun the police might have made short work of him. Instead he had a weapon that could shoot through walls and doors. I wish the police chief there had the moral courage to admit that the military grade weapon he faced was a factor in his backwards response.
An assault weapons bans is a tougher proposition than laws like the six Virginia enacted in 2020. Polling showed that the six that were passed had 75%+ approval. A proposal to ban new sales of and licence existing assault rifles had more like 55-45% approval and was punted to the state’s criminal justice commission for study.
Other states have bans though, and magazine limits as well. These I think would be good issues for Democrats to run on, especially magazine capacity limits.
sab
In Ohio cities the prosecutors have mostly announced that they will not bother to enforce the state’s abortion law. ” We are too busy fighting actual criminals to get involved with a woman and her doctor.” Local assistant law dean says ” Yep. That’s the rule. Local prosecutors allocate prosecutor resources.”
Hopefully that settles it, but I bet instead that they go for the local civil vigilante law like Texas’
Geminid
@different-church-lady: Israel requires people to pass a mental heath screening before they can purchase a firearm. They must pass the review periodically to remain eligible to possess it. Civilians are limited to one firearm and fifty rounds of ammunition, and must hand in empty cartridges to buy more.
After Israel tightened up its firearms laws, legal civilian firearms ownership dropped from 180,000 in 2012 to about 130,000 in 2019, when ownership started rising again. This was out of a population of around 8 million. That’s not to say there are not many thousands of illegal guns in that nation’s Jewish and Arab populations.
sab
@sab: I thought Texas had gone insane with that law, major major overreach.. Now I think that they were just thinking ahead.
Geminid
@Jim Appleton: I think a wider exposure to such images could enhance public support for stricter gun laws, in particular restrictions on military grade assault weapons and high capacity magazines.
But I’m thinking of normal people here, and I wonder about the sociopaths and psychopaths among us. These could be inspired and incited to go on their own rampages. I lack the base of knowledge to do more than speculate about this, and I’d want professionals with knowledge in this area to weigh in before I got behind this idea.
livewyre
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): There are a few unquestioned assumptions there. One is that going out and killing actually accomplishes anything that one would prefer to have accomplished. Another is that it will be required to do so at any point – as if that’s how self-defense works, for example. And then there’s the elephant in the room of practicality.
Are you willing to do it? Are you sure?
Are you prepared to? Are you sure?
Is there any non-fictional element to the question?
If not, what is the point of invoking it, other than to share a grotesque fantasy? And how appropriate is that?
Some of these questions are rhetorical. Finding out which is left as an exercise for the reader.
J R in WV
@HeleninEire:
I so sorry to hear about your sister. Best of luck with that, it can be really hard when a loved one loses contact with reality.
Take care, B-J will probably be here when you’re ready to come back — barring another Data Fire…
Skepticat
@HeleninEire: It’s a necessary rather than a wimpy way, and you must care for yourself if you’re to be able to care for others. I recently went through a extremely stressful time (though not as difficult as yours), and the only positive was that it forced me to take a break from marinating in the disaster that is our country. Rest when you can; we’ll be thinking strong thoughts for you.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@HeleninEire: feel better & do what you & your family needs. We always appreciate everything you’ve had to say but personal time is crucial & blogging can wait.
HeleninEire
@Skepticat: Thank you.
varmintito
Maybe I will repent this sentiment in a calmer moment, but I truly believe there needs to be an element of revenge here. Something along the lines of Wayne LaPierre being public forced to lick blood off the streets. And if he refuses, he is publicly flogged by any relatives of the slain who want a go at him. Then move on to Ted Cruz, etc.
Mike in Pasadena
Well said. Preach it, Betty.
S Cerevisiae
Put semi automatic rifles in the same class as fully automatic, there’s nothing in the Second Amendment that says you have a right to a specific mechanism.