This is Transgender Visibility Week, so I was bouncing around ideas this morning about what to post, but when I checked in on different internet communities where trans news abounds, things are squarely focused on how afraid people are from the backlash of the Nashville shooting that happened Monday.
I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing to focus on an individual shooter’s identity because no person goes out and shoots up a school who just isn’t simply sick in the head first and foremost. Our attention should be focused on the grieving parents, students, and communities who want tangible action against gun violence.
Three nine-year old children are dead: Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney. Three staff members are also dead: Katherine Koonce, 60, the head of The Covenant School; Mike Hill, 61, a custodian at the school; and Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher. You can read more about all the victims here.
This is devastating, but now it is getting disgusting as the Right wing, media, and all our usual suspects (MTG, Musk) have latched onto this shooting as an anti-trans Reichstag Fire.
Even before police officials in Tennessee identified the person responsible for murdering three children and three adults in the latest mass school shooting in the U.S., far-right extremists and transphobic people began spreading misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation focused on transgender people and not guns.
The shooter had access to two AR-style rifles, an AR-style handgun, and a handgun, but a Congresswoman is blaming the trans community for gun violence.
People who are trans are much more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the perpetrators.
It’s the guns. https://t.co/CH6YNGderH
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) March 27, 2023
Ingraham: We also don’t know the extent to which drug therapy of any sort also might have come into play here pic.twitter.com/YP4owJDhNk
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 28, 2023
Interesting how no one is talking about how the shooter is a “biological female” (eyeroll).
Some facts:
- According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 130 mass shootings this year, 647 in 2022. In total, they calculate 2,871 mass shootings in the U.S. since 2016. Some of those incidents involved multiple shooters.
- In that time, 3 of those shooters have been identified as transgender or nonbinary (I’m not counting the Club Q shooter since that has largely been debunked).
- That’s roughly 0.1% for those of you running the math in your head.
- Re: Hale. It’s quite unclear whether they are transgender or not, since there are conflicting reports from family and friends. Again, it’s not the damn point. Since the overwhelming percentage of mass shootings are carried out by white cis-men, it reeks that this shooter’s identity is the hot topic du jour.
Multiple members of my family lived in Newtown, CT during the Sandy Hook massacre, and I remember thinking at the time… this will stop, this has to stop. I fully expect that this tragedy will instead be used as a rallying flag for the right to gin up more anti-trans and christo-fascist nonsense, instead of actually doing something to protect children from guns.
— Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) March 27, 2023
Joyful Trans Visibility posts will be forthcoming later this week.
EDIT: Thanks @Matt_McIrvin and @SpaceUnit for pointing out my typos. I blame my terrible ADHD.
SpaceUnit
Personally, I’d like to see tangible action in favor of gun control.
planet eddie
@SpaceUnit: Fixed! Typos sure are a treat.
The Moar You Know
I must say I appreciate the honesty of Representative Tim Burchett, (MAGA-R-TN), who simply said that he has zero intention of doing anything and the way to fix the problem is for everyone in America to get Jesus and homeschool their kids.
Nora
How much of what MTG says is something she means and believes and how much is just performance art? “Everyone can stop blaming guns now” reeks of the latter.
She’s rapidly becoming one of my least favorite public figures.
Baud
There are two types of people in the U.S.: Those who want to the militia to be well-regulated and those who don’t.
Old School
From the Daily Show, John Leguizamo on MTG blaming the trans community (starts around five minutes in):
Baud
@The Moar You Know: Yeah, I prefer honesty too.
Betty Cracker
It’s. The. Fucking. Guns.
rikyrah
I’m going to say this again. Maybe I am being paranoid, but, I think the school needs to be looked into. Something ain’t right.
Jerzy Russian
@The Moar You Know:
If the do this then the least they could do is to teach the kids a bit of math and statistics, along with some critical thinking skills.
Barbara
When white men engage in gun massacres (the overwhelming majority of such perpetrators) it’s the fault of a single individual who is usually described as being “disturbed” or “unbalanced” and not representative of the group. When a person in any other demographic engages in a mass shooting, the whole group is assigned collective responsibility. If massacres only matter when someone you don’t like (transperson) kills someone you do (Christian school kids), then just go and fuck yourself because you are a monster who has nothing useful to say.
SpaceUnit
@Barbara:
Yeah, it’s typically the incels who are addicted to right-wing grievance BS.
RedDirtGirl
@Barbara: Upvote!
Matt McIrvin
@Barbara: As long as they can maintain that double standard, a high rate of shooting deaths is really good for conservatives. The solution is to crack down hard on anyone who isn’t exactly like them, and more guns, always more guns.
Manyakitty
@rikyrah: any of those private christian schools are automatically sketchy AF.
Shana
I drive past the NRA headquarters fairly frequently, at least a couple of times a week. For the last couple of weeks they haven’t had their flag flying at all. Yesterday it was at half mast.
Not sure why they didn’t have the flag up for the last few weeks, they always have had it up in the past.
JoyceH
IS she? I guess I’m confused. The news reports said ‘trans woman’ and I thought that meant male transitioned to female. Is that wrong?
Matt McIrvin
@JoyceH: The shooter was a trans man. Those news reports were likely just confused.
…and maybe somewhat driven by the perennial tendency to regard trans women as a threat, and trans men as a phenomenon that doesn’t exist or that we ignore.
japa21
@Manyakitty:
Are you eversor? Just as wrong as he is.
H-Bob
A trans person was allegedly responsible for one shooting — the other 2,870 are due to the ammo-sexual pathology!
planet eddie
Tucker Carlson last night… ugh
Suzanne
I will note that apparently somewhere in the realm of 20 schools in PA, NJ, MA, and possibly others received computer-generated swatting calls this morning reporting active shooters. And thank FSM that none of them were the real thing. But that’s thousands of terrified kids and families.
I happened to be in the Oakland neighborhood in PGH this morning — where two of the schools are — as this was all going down this morning. I saw at least 30 vehicles from different agencies swarm the neighborhood and bring pretty much everything to a halt. The mayor noted that responding agencies included city, state, and county police, FBI, ATF, the collegiate police departments of Pitt and CMU, and police from multiple neighboring townships and counties. How many resources are we going to waste?
Barbara
@planet eddie: Part of me thinks that this is just too obviously ridiculous to appeal to anyone who isn’t already completely invested in transphobia and ammopsychosis. There are just too many mass shootings for anyone who is sane to think that it’s all because of transgender identity. But I also think that some of this identity politics reaction is the result of being a bit shocked that they might be the victims — underlying extremist support for gun rights is an idea that conservatives are the ones who are going to inflict violence, not be on its receiving end.
piratedan
KY lege overrides Gov, Bashear’s veto of SB 150.
WaterGirl
@Barbara:
Yes.
Kelly
@planet eddie: Let’s start by being honest, a standard cliche of every dishonest asshole
WaterGirl
@japa21: That seems like a serious overstatement to me.
Citizen Alan
@japa21: It is possible to think that eversor is an idiot but also recognize the fact that the majority of private religious schools started in the past Seventy five years were created for the express purpose of perpetuating white supremacy and avoiding desegregation. I have no problem assuming that the typical Baptist Academy is basically the Christian equivalent of a shiite madrassa school until the school itself demonstrates a commitment to real education rather than religious indoctrination.
Matt McIrvin
It’s 0.1%.
And, yeah, one of the first things I did was to look up the fraction of trans adults in the US. Most recent estimates I can find are, it’s about 0.3-0.4%.
So that would imply that trans people are about 1/3-1/4 as likely to commit a mass shooting as the general population. Though the numbers here are so small that all we can really say is, they’re not obviously more likely.
planet eddie
@JoyceH: Hale was not a trans woman. Hale was assigned female at birth, and may have identified as a trans man. Some indicators are a linked in page where Hale listed he/him pronouns and apparently Hale had asked some people to use the first name Aiden.
It’s still unclear since friends and family of Hale indicate that they weren’t transgender. It’s possible that they were in the early stages of questioning or coming out and it’s also possible that they were playing around with gender fluidity, which lots of cisgender people do. Nothing I’ve read confirms it one way or another.
cain
@planet eddie: Only white men are lone wolves when this happen. Everyone else has an agenda against them so are suspect.
Just make them agree that 2nd has no exceptions and trans folks can continue to purchase guns.
planet eddie
@Matt McIrvin: yoooo I definitely thought I wrote that. Okay I need to double check my typos. Yikes!
mrmoshpotato
@Nora:
Seeing as how she’s a member of Congress, I really can’t take her bullshit as performance art.
She definitely is an asshole who shouldn’t have any position of power over anyone however.
Matt McIrvin
…also, that calculation really understates things since the fraction of trans people in younger demographics, who are more likely to both commit and be the victims of violence, is much higher. For people under 24, it’s over 1%.
rikyrah
LUNACY
LanaQuest aka RosaSparks (@LqLana) tweeted at 5:09 PM on Tue, Mar 28, 2023:
The Missouri proposal to ban toddlers, kindergarteners, elementary, middle, and high school kids from carrying guns without adult supervision in public failed by a 104-39 vote. You can’t make this stuff up, but you can vote Blue! #FreshWords
(https://twitter.com/LqLana/status/1640838462533255170?t=pRefaqAt0v6uc_oX_-90Jw&s=03)
planet eddie
@Matt McIrvin: As to your secondary point: the statistics on trans people are highly inaccurate given that you simply could not come out and live openly as trans until quite recently. Lots of adults I know who identify as trans did not until sometime in the last decade. If you had asked me prior to 2017, I personally wouldn’t have identified as trans, despite the fact that I was 28 years old and was changing my name. It takes time to come out and feel safe in one’s identity. I have lived more of my “adult” life as a cisgender presenting person, despite knowing deep down that something wasn’t right.
I would say it would be smarter to look at the statistics around transgender youth, which are significantly higher.
Baud
@Kelly: Reminds me of Trump’s “believe me.”
Baud
Dangerman
Reichwingers are Evil. That’s OK. They will first keep losing elections until they get tired of losing and want to start shooting, which is also OK, as they are the distinct minority and the majority has guns, too. This time we finish the job.
planet eddie
@Matt McIrvin: Source, please?
Mai Naem mobile
@japa21: i was trying to figure out what kind of school it was. There are a bunch of schools named ‘Covenant’ all over including in Floriduh and Charlottesville, VA. I get the feeling this one is not one of the total RW whackjob ones. Its an older school. But what I did find is that there are 10 newer(IIRC ~2016)Covenant Schools across the country following the Hillsdale curriculum which is RW whackjob curriculum. Hillsdale is one of those pro segregationist , anti- Civil Rights Act colleges etc.
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile:
Not that this means a whole lot, but the images I’ve seen of the school and the community make it seem relatively diverse.
Alison Rose
As soon as I started seeing things about the shooter possibly being trans, my heart broke for all my trans/enby friends, knowing exactly what was coming.
The right wants to make this about the shooter’s (possible) identity, but aaaaaaaaaaaall the other times when shooters are cis white men, suddenly identity doesn’t matter.
Old School
@planet eddie:
Seems to be this paper. (PDF) Page 6.
Dangerman
Just thinking out my ass here …
… but maybe it’s time for a Constitutional Convention. Previously, that would have been bad because they would have gone after Roe, but that ship has sailed.
Yes, rewriting the Constitution would be an unholy mess, but we are already in an unholy mess.
Things like can’t be an elected without a security clearance; that should take out Trump, Boebert (hooker), MTG (threats of violence), and more.
I have no idea about the mechanics of such a thing. Again, thinking out my ass.
planet eddie
@Old School: I think I am misunderstanding his comment in regards to % of trans folks as the perpetrators of violence.
MazeDancer
@rikyrah:
There is much not right about Covenant Presbyterian. None of it deserves murder, of course. But it is another kind of wrong.
Covenant is a PCA Church. PCA means Presbyterian Church of America.
In 1973, the very conservative PCA faction split off from mainstream Presbyterians, who, in general lean more liberal. Many gay ministers.
PCA churches won’t even ordain women. The picture of Chad Scruggs, Covenant’s head minister, holding his 2 or 3 year old blonde daughter that has circulated widely, even in People magazine, after the girl’s tragic murder, gives you a sense of perfect female.
But the little girl was 9. Not 3. Immense tragedy. But not as angelic or cute. Creeps me out they needed to use that picture.
Just today is a contemporary picture of the child emerging.
In 2013, Covenant covered for a genuine pedophile. John Perry. Because that’s what one does. Cover it up. Article on it.
Having been raised Presbyterian in TN, I cannot imagine how impossible that would be for a transperson. Not excusing, of course, there is no excuse for the shooter’s evil act.
But “pre-destination”, the central tenet of the Presbyterian creed did a number on cishet, but always liberal, and a tiny feminist, in the racist, misogynist South, little me.
There is a backlit picture in the hallway of the school of a man. Saw it in the police video. It looks like a venerated leader poster. Keep wondering if it is Rev Scruggs.
Matt McIrvin
@planet eddie: Sorry about that, it was unclear.
It was that, much as you said upthread, trans youth are much more common in their demographics–using those numbers one would regard trans people as much less likely to commit mass shootings than the general population.
planet eddie
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks for the clarification! :)
gvg
@Betty Cracker: It’s the fucking gun nuts who go around polluting the culture and society with toxic stories and hero stories that are actually bullying might makes right and have no morals. They have glorified lynching but disguised it with carefully misleading words like home defense or protecting the children.
Guns can’t talk or lie.
They need to be regulated of course but we must fight a counter propaganda war before we will be able to do that. They need to lose some cases before a sane Supreme court and hear their fellow citizens celebrate. Then we need to attack and debunk. Repeal the special legal protection of gunmakers. Repeal the law that prevents keeping statistics on gun deaths. Allow doctors to counsel about gun safety. Allow the facts to get out and crack the ignorance of some of the sheep around the core of true violent gun lovers.
I am pretty sure the core of them are family terrorizers, but that is just my guess. They have prevented accurate statistics from being gathered. That means they are covering stuff up and it’s worse than we guess. Drag them into the light, as suddenly as possible. Truth.
MazeDancer
@planet eddie:
When the media started identifying the shooter as a “transgender woman”, I immediately thought that meant “she” was a woman. Someone assigned male at birth who was actually female.
And how remarkable all the media was calling her “she”.
And that she may be evil and/or deranged, but at least we have come far enough that people respect her pronouns.
It was many hours before I realized not a woman. As you say, someone, in transition. But a trans man, not a trans woman.
And many – like Mika and Joe this morning – insist on calling her “she”. Many more are simply not using a pronoun. Saying “shooter”.
StringOnAStick
@Dangerman: A constitutional convention is taking a huge risk, even with Roe gone. What’s going to stop the right from using it to jam through even more anti democratic laws, enshrine them with a slim majority that will then require a 3/4 majority to overcome, and at a time when we have more R governors than D’s? It’s Pandora ‘s box. There’s no guarantee the results of such a hair on fire hail Mary won’t put us even further on the road to Hungary.
Dan B
@Old School: John Leguizamo is being tongue in cheek. He did a movie in drag decades ago and seemed to be having a great time. He stole every scene. Yes, drag is not the same as trans but the same prejudice underlays them.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Barbara: Hear, hear.
mrmoshpotato
@Dangerman: Wanna relax a bit with your civil war jerk off session there?
gvg
@MazeDancer: I don’t blame them for not using a pronoun. The reporting and info is clearly incomplete and possible suspect. the fact that family are denying it and reports are saying recent…well it might be the person was not trans at all or it might be some family or all was totally in denial and maybe the police aren’t even sure yet what the facts are. So stalling on saying something when you think the info is maybe wrong doesn’t seem so bad or at least not about being anti trans.
Ladyraxterinok
@Citizen Alan:
I think the school is run by a Presbyterian church
C Stars
@planet eddie: This is why I have avoided reading about this incident entirely. I mean, also because it hurts that our country considers schoolchildren and teachers a worthwhile sacrifice at the alter of unregulated gun ownership.
But issues of gender identity have gotten wrapped up in right wing [EDIT: mass shooting ] rhetoric in a way that I find very disturbing. When there was a recent shooting in CO, the right wing troll army successfully convinced the media and the public that the shooter was nonbinary, which later turned out not to be the case. It seems we don’t have the full story on this shooter’s identity, other than the fact, that, as you point out, they senselessly murdered six people with legally purchased guns, primarily an AR. That’s the important part, as I see it.
Matt McIrvin
@Dangerman: The bad guys win in a Constitutional Convention (if anything happens at all) because the process is biased toward representing states rather than people.
The right has been keen on having one for a long time. They want to pass constitutional abortion bans, gay bans, institutionalized Christianity, bans on income tax, etc. The whole wish list.
Sister Golden Bear
@Barbara:
Christofascists are absolutely losing their shit by the sudden realization that trans people might have guns too. One reason they’re amping up on the “trans people are mentally ill” angle — it’s teeing up bills to prohibit trans people from owning guns on the basis that because they identify as trans that means they’re inherently mentally ill.
I’m no fan of gun ownership, but if I lived in a rural area in a Red State, I’d definitely consider getting one for self-defense given the way they’re stoking violence against us. Waiting for the first “midnight ride” to terrorize us.
Eduardo
@rikyrah: holy fucking shit
TriassicSands
This is not about the trans community, but it is about gun control. Linda Greenhouse has another excellent column in the NYT today. It is about a specific decision by the 5th Circuit Appeals Court’s decision saying that we can’t infringe on the right of an individual to possess firearms simply because he has threatened to kill his wife and violated a restraining order. The reasoning — unanimous decision by two Trump appointees and one Reagan appointee — is that because at the time of the founding of the country there were no government actions taken to protect individuals by taking away their guns, we can’t do that now. Basically, the state has no interest in protecting its citizens.
Of course, the real issue here is women, since they are the overwhelming victims of domestic violence. Two academics point out:
The reasoning behind the Circuit Court’s decision is the language of Clarence Thomas in his opinion concerning New York’s gun laws and his insistence that we have to pretend we’re still living in the 1800s.
Note to all wives and husbands: Apparently, since there was no proscription against a husband beating his wife in 1790, any law today criminalizing that would be unconstitutional.
Next up from Clarence and the Gang: Since Dobbs made women second class citizens, we must acknowledge that constitutionally women are property. Thus, we must suppose, they may be bought, sold, beaten, and “disposed of” at the will and whim of their husbands.
Welcome to Clarence World.
MazeDancer
@Ladyraxterinok:
Not the Presbyterian Church. Covenant is PCA.
Big difference.
Explained up in #47 Comment.
Jacqueline Squid Onassis
There’s no longer any daylight betweeen “Republican” and “Nazi”. Nazis and Republicans are calling for the eradication of every trans person in the country and they’re no longer trying to hide their genocidal aims.
An awful lot of trans people I know are putting their escape plans in order these days.
sab
@Dangerman: You do realize that the Kochs and ALEC have been working for years towards having a Constitutional Convention? They have been organizing for one. That is one of the reasons they have worked so hard to take over state legislatures. It will not end well for our side or our country if one happens.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
I saw somewhere — and I’m really sorry I didn’t bookmark it, because now I can’t remember where — that the wife of TN Gov Bill Lee was a close friend of one of the three adults that were killed, and that the two women actually had made plans to have dinner together that evening. I don’t necessarily think that’s exactly sinister, but I found it a bit curious.
Old School
@rikyrah:
Minor point of clarification. The Missouri vote defeating the requirement of adult supervision for minors with firearms was seven weeks ago. It wasn’t today.
It’s still nuts.
Betty Cracker
@gvg: We won’t have a sane SCOTUS majority in the foreseeable future, of course, but I’m glad the irresponsible MAGA-addled moron parents of the Michigan school shooter (Crumbley is the name, I think) are charged with involuntary manslaughter for giving their mentally ill 15-year-old son access to a gun. It’s about damn time enablers face consequences.
Redshift
@Barbara:
That is the core of conservatism, and why they freak out so much at the prospect of only being the largest subgroup and not the majority or at anything being taught that treats white people as just another group. Straight white Christians aren’t a group, they’re just people, normal, the standard, and everyone else is a special kind of person. So of course nothing can be blamed on being white. But for anyone else, it could be because they’re one of them.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@Kelly: Can Tuckems be honest about anything? If he or TFG announced the time, I’d look at my watch.
Manyakitty
@japa21: what? That’s not very nice.
Change my mind, then.
planet eddie
@C Stars: it’s pretty clear that the CO Club Q shooter was not non-binary, but chose that as a court strategy in order to avoid a hate crime after murdering actual LGBT folks. Really upsetting that the right wing is still perpetuating that lie, as if that event wasn’t painful enough as it is for our community.
OGLiberal
@The Moar You Know: We homeschool – and not for religious reasons at all. Real math, real science, real English, etc. But, whatever…not the point. Everytime we go to a store, mall, movie theater, restaurant, etc, we’re (my kids are teens) always checking where the exits are, particularly the out of way but nearby ones that might not be obvious to a shooter. This shit happens everywhere, not just in schools. Does the gentleman from Tennessee not bring his family to church?…because it happens there. Heck, this school is attached to a church.
Captain C
@planet eddie: If Tucker were honest, he’d tell the world that he needs a special private moment after each mass shooting. Also, he’s a horrible would-be genocide enabler with no discernable redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Fair Economist
Imagine the numbers if they talked about shooters who were transphobic.
AntiCliche
Why, why do these flyers say sh#t like “far more likely to be the victim… than the perpetrator”? Say something concrete. 10000 times more likely. 50000 times more likely. Put it in stark terms.
Who writes this crap.
sab
@Betty Cracker: We just had a niece kill herself with a gun. When she checked herself into mental health treatment for depression a sibling confiscated her gun. When she checked out of treatment her therapist recommended that they give her her gun back so she would feel safer. ( Huh?! We strongly suspect that Ohio law requires therapists to say this now. It’s her gun and she has a right to it.) So now she is dead.
Our laws care more about guns’ rights than the people that own them. That gun had a right to not be locked up.
Dan B
The Kentucky Legislature just overrode the governor’s veto of an anti LGBTQ law, a don’t say gay and no trans therapy law. One Senator whose trans child committed suicide was very verbal in opposition and hundreds demonstrated against it and there were arrests.
Nora
@sab: I’m really horrified by that. When my daughter had suicidal thoughts, her therapist asked if we had guns in the house, which we do (locked up with ammunition kept separately), and the therapist asked us to move them out of the building. Which we did. Without hesitation.
What kind of therapist would tell a family member to give a gun to a suicidal person? What kind of law would force anyone to do that, and what kind of therapist would follow such a law?
Dan B
Fetuses have a right to be born so they can be shot.
Amir Khalid
@Citizen Alan:
Do you not see the bigotry in this statement?
Betty Cracker
@sab: That’s awful — my condolences on your family’s loss.
I’ve dealt with depression on and off (much more off than on for many years now, thank dog) and sought outpatient treatment a couple of times. Each time the therapist asked if I had a gun and recommended getting rid of it if so.
This was years ago, so that may have changed in Florida too now that the gun nuts have gone full feral. I wonder if your niece’s survivors have grounds for a lawsuit? The recommendation to return the gun to a depressed person is so irresponsible!
sab
@Betty Cracker: If the law is on the gun’s side what is the point of a lawsuit?
The sibling involved is Republican but not nutcase. Just normal antitax small business people. Pro gay and pro trans and has been on state boards and proved it by voting. I believe them when they thought the law overrides family and therapists opinion in favor of the gun. (My pronouns are weird because I am trying to speak for a couple. Her sister died. Her husband tried to help. He is the guy on state boards. She is active but only local. Gay/ trans they are in agreement.
ETA Everyone agrees that she was a mess and should not have had a gun, but that concept no longer exists in Ohio, that your mental health limits your gun usage. Okay of it limits your job and housing opportunities. Not okay if it limits your gun’s access to you and your issues.
sab
@sab: I think one of the more horrible aspects of families dealing with suicide is that some family members are heartbroken and some familily members are utterly furiously angry, and the Venn diagram doesn’t completely overlap. Some are both, others are one or the other but not both, and everyone has to somehow reconcile the two positions because everyone is in pain.
sab
@Nora: I don’t know, but I do know that Ohio law is weird these days with nuts running the legislature.
sab
@Nora: When my granddaughter was suicidal we took away all of her belts and scarves. Ten years later she is happy and fine. But my niece got her gun back within weeks.
Stumps me too.
Dangerman
@mrmoshpotato: First, NEVER interrupt one of my jerk off sessions (unless you are bringing fresh pron, then, sure).
I didn’t say shit about a Civil War. That’s your jerk off session, not mine.
At some point, if they keep losing, some are likely to go the Timothy McVeigh route. Certainly not hoping for it, but that is what appears to be be coming. Stochastic terrorism. If you want to call that a Civil War, be my guest. I call it identifying the assholes and dispatching them appropriately (if they shoot, we shoot, if they can’t be apprehended and jailed). There are a whole bunch of 1/6 insurrectionists still walking the streets.
Reading comprehension. It’s not just for breakfast any more.
sab
@Dangerman: Not Civil War history. You should maybe follow political history of the last 50 years.
Dangerman
@sab: I’m confused but that’s OK. My Neurologist doubled my dose (I’m fairly sure, in his notes, are the words “fuck it, give him the good stuff, and, later, FUCK IT, double it). Meaning, I don’t understand your comment, but won’t burn a microsecond on figuring it out).
I’m pretty good on my history. Generally.
Jinchi
If we’re going to judge by the demographic of the mass-shooters, I pretty sure we’d conclude that 16-55 year old males should be banned from even looking at a weapon.
Tony G
@StringOnAStick: I would never trust a constitutional convention in this country. There are too many Americans that are very stupid and evil. An awful lot of Americans would love to see a “Christian” theocracy, and would be happy to get rid of the first amendment to get it.
lowtechcyclist
@Dangerman:
JFTR, the only thing a Constitutional Convention circumvents is Congress. Amendments passed by such a convention still have to be ratified by 38 states, per Article V of the Constitution.
Not that bypassing Congress is a small thing, given that no Constitutional amendment has passed Congress since the ERA, IIRC. But the states are still the heavier lift.
lowtechcyclist
@StringOnAStick:
@Matt McIrvin:
@sab:
Article V of the Constitution:
All it takes is 13 states to be a blocking coalition, no matter what a Constitutional convention does. CT, MA, RI, VT, NY, NJ, MD, DE, IL, MN, CA, OR, WA, and HI do the job with one to spare.
What happens if they get a Constitutional Convention to pass their amendments? Nothing. Unless they go 36 for 36 in all the other states (including VA, PA, MI, NV, NM) and somehow get two of these consistently sane and mostly liberal states to go along with them as well.
I’ve never gotten the liberal paranoia about a convention. It would be a circus, and I’m sure they’d get at least half the states to pass their crazy amendments. But not three-fourths. And it would be a circus that would cement the GOP’s growing reputation with most voters as a party that has gone totally into Crazy Land.
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
I attended an all boys Catholic technical HS run by priests and brothers from the seminary next door, with a very few non Catholic assistants and likely fewer non Catholic students, like myself. After freshman year I informed my mother that under no circumstances would I ever attend another minute of that school. And I would put that school in the same vein as the ones you talk about. I was agnostic when I started that school year, at the end of it I was absolutely sure.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
That’s awful, and I’m so sorry for your loss.
My father passed away years ago, but I’m still grateful that he never had a gun in the house. Not that he was anti-gun in a general sense, he just was aware that a gun in the house was more likely to harm someone in the house than to harm an intruder. He was politically quite conservative, but no ideologue.
But when I was fifteen, I very seriously considered suicide. (Not due to any particular crisis, just worn down by loneliness.) If I had gotten past the question of whether, to the question of how, there wouldn’t have been an answer in the form of a gun close at hand. And even though it never came to that, I’m still very thankful that that option wasn’t there.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
I really can’t take her bullshit as performance art.
I don’t believe it is. I believe that she believes every word she utters.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: this is a dead thread but it’s sure starting to look like you are right.