Here’s the first paragraph from the top story on The Washington Post right now.
A man using an AR-15-style weapon shot and killed five people Friday, including an 8-year-old — an angry response to the neighbors’ request that he stop shooting in his yard while their baby was trying to sleep, Texas authorities said Saturday. The gunman then fled, prompting an ongoing manhunt.
What’s wrong with it?
I’ll tell you. The reporter actually wrote that a mass murder is “an angry response.”
An angry response would have been if the gunman had shouted “Fuck you!” back at his neighbors. Slaughtering a kid and four grownups is not angry. It’s many things–deranged, grotesque, evil, and the work not only of the killer himself, but every malign asshole in our recent history that has chosen to defend American gun madness against all comers. So yeah–that means just about every elected Republican (and a very few Democrats), the Fox News apparatchiks and all the usual suspects. They are accessories before and after the fact, never (usually) pulling the trigger, but ensuring that someone will.
But I digress. “Angry”!? What the fuck is that.
I’m out of words. Over to you. Open thread.
Image: Peter Paul Rubens, Kindermord, after 1611.*
*PS: it depressed the crap out of me that there’s no search time involved in pulling up a depiction of this scene for any post I do on guns. You’d think we’d get the point of the Biblical passage involved by now. Hah! Sometimes I crack myself up.
PPS: Also too–Texas. It’s time to recognize that GOP led states have installed a state religion. Not Christianity, though they’re trying to impose a twisted version of same on the rest of us. No. What’s already in place can only be described as Moloch worship.
trollhattan
Also in Texas, a man who got scammed out of money to park in a downtown lot, later returned and shot the scammer dead after retrieving a gun from his car.
America.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-resumed-date-killing-fake-parking-attendant-records-show-rcna81956
Tom Levenson
@trollhattan: I am genuinely unsure if I’d accept an invitation to speak at university in TX these days. It’s not that the odds would be that high of getting caught in a crossfire (or that I’d be directly a target.) But I’d rather Zoom, thank you very much, as I did with UT Austin a couple of months ago.
Being viciously muted is a risk with which I’m comfortable. Playing 9mm catch, not so much.
bbleh
Look, now is not the time to be dragging politics into what is just a disagreement between a man and his neighbors (who apparently are some of those people) in which they for some reason objected to him exercising his clear and legal Constitutional Rights. Also something something thoughts and prayers. (And no, we are not going to pay for mental health care, so stop bringing it up.)
Kent
So glad we got out of Texas 7 years ago. The state has gotten worse in every single way.
Warblewarble
A safe place for guns cannot be a safe place for children. Republicans have made their choice. AR15s and other weapons of war have no utility in any society except as weapons of mass murder.
JoyceH
In this context “angry response” probably means “the opposite of planning for months and writing a Manifesto”.
trollhattan
@Tom Levenson: I can understand your stance. It might not be fair, but there are swathes of this fine nation I now reflexively think of as another country entirely.
My Texas experience is limited to layovers at DFW, so my impression may or may not be accurate, but I’m not feeling the appeal. That Florida and Texas are among the fastest growing states, I try not to ponder.
rikyrah
Man was just shooting in his yard for the phuck of it?
In a residential neighborhood?
Chetan Murthy
@trollhattan: @Tom Levenson:
two takes:
I grew up there, and yeah, it’s all a no-go zone for me. Might as well be Somalia.
Nancy
I’m the boring friend who brings up that damn reality when the retirees in the group talk about taking their NYS pensions and living in tax-free Florida.
Denali5
Obviously he was just standing his ground.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nancy: Tell them Illinois doesn’t tax retirement income.
Eolirin
@bbleh: Mental health care isn’t going to meaningfully affect mass shooting stats. Would love to have more money for it, for sure, but they’re not even a little related.
Please be sensitive to avoiding talking about these things in a way that feeds the idea that just because someone has a deranged indifference to life, especially when angry, that they’re mentally ill by any recognized medical definition. It hurts our community, and is completely besides the point; having anger issues and access to a very deadly weapon isn’t the same as having a mental health condition. And depraved indifference to life is a sign of a psychopath, not of someone with a treatable pyschiatric condition.
These people are hateful and angry or evil, and not living with a disability, which is what the rest of us are struggling with.
Ksmiami
@Eolirin: every peer country has mental health issues… they just don’t have the gun violence we do. IT’S THE FUCKING GUNS.
MagdaInBlack
@rikyrah: My thought as well, but, you know…Texas.
Lapassionara
As I understand it, two of the victims were found shielding children. The terror that those children must have felt at that moment will no doubt stay with them for life. Not to mention the horror felt by the victims.
I’m not usually a death penalty fan, but I would personally torture this monster.
Alison Rose
@rikyrah: Interesting hobbies these people have, huh?
Chetan Murthy
@MagdaInBlack: Wikipedia is illuminating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland,_Texas
One supposes that the dwellings were spaced apart pretty well.
There’s a saying: “still waters run deep”. All sorts of crazies and crime in the countryside. Sherlock Holmes had words along these same lines.
Another thought:
Flo-RIDE-a: “hold my beer”
there was a story a few years back about a little waterside town where everybody had a canal behind their backyard (for their boat natch). So: houses pretty close together. This guy set up a shooting range in his backyard. Neighbors didn’t like it, but they couldn’t get him to stop. Far more dangerous than this shithead in Texas. At least Florida Man didn’t go on a rampage, so there’s that, I guess.
azlib
I lived in Texas for 37 years in Austin. I went to college at UT and remember well the Whitman shootings from the UT tower. There are a lot of good people in Texas, especially in the urban areas. However, the Republican governance has gotten worse and worse over time. It is just insane we let people own weapons of war like the AR-15 and its copycats. In red states it seems there is simply a race to bottom to see who can have the most permissive gun laws or lack of them in reality.
Ksmiami
@Chetan Murthy: Red State, Dead State… Any time a Republican calls themselves pro-life, a lightning bolt should strike them
band gap
What? “stop shooting in his yard while their baby was trying to sleep” – so the idiot author of this piece implies the victims thought it is ok for the neighbor to fire weapons in the yard when the baby is awake.
The author must have been edumacated in Texas.
mrmoshpotato
@Chetan Murthy:
That saying has nothing to do with crime, etc.
Chetan Murthy
@mrmoshpotato: Perhaps in your upbringing. But in mine, in Texas, that’s what we meant: that out in the sticks, they get up to all manner of shitty and criminal things, and you don’t know it only b/c its deep out there, out of view.
Cameron
Well, I think saying he had an angry response is entirely appropriate. I mean, you could say it was evil or savage or depraved, but that would just be so, so judgemental! After all, we’re not talking about something truly outrageous, like not holding a press conference between 10 and 4.
All four of my brothers and sisters live in Texas. Since I live in Florida, though, I guess I don’t have much to hold over them.
Bill Arnold
Both of the reporters are on twitter and both linked that story and their tweets have 9/0 replies.
They would notice feedback.
pat
I haven’t read all the comments so this may have been brought up already,
BUT WHY DID THE NEIGHBOR NOT HAVE A GUN IN THE HOUSE TO DEFEND HIMSELF AND HIS FAMILY?? HUH?
I thought that’s what guns are for!! //
Bill Arnold
@band gap:
The piece has two authors, and WaPo gives their profiles and they both have twitter accounts with low numbers of replies.
ETA:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/justine-mcdaniel/?itid=ai_top_mcdanielj
https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/andrea-salcedo/?itid=ai_top_salcedoa
Chetan Murthy
@pat:
Hehsigh indeed. It seems the victims were Honduran, and a number of them had only recently arrived in the US.pat
@Chetan Murthy:
So not long enough to get their own “protection.”
This story is heartbreaking. That is all…..
Well, infuriating as well. And not at all surprising, when you think about it.
ETA: and these people come from Honduras, most likely because of the danger they faced in their own country.
eclare
@pat: I know, they were trying to escape violence, most likely. Heartbreaking.
trollhattan
@Chetan Murthy: Foreseeing the day when migrant caravans form at the border to head back south, to Central America. “We thought we were escaping violence….”
trollhattan
On a lighter note, mentioned yesterday the kiddo is in Philly for the Penn Relays and she’s reporting she really likes Philadelphians.
“People in this town give 0 shits.”
“It’s crazy, like no one has time for BS, at the hotel, this lady was yelling at the poor front desk guy and he clocked out and left.”
This is pretty on-brand for her, so maybe she’ll apply to Penn for grad school!
Another Scott
DW.com:
Jefferson knew that too many of his fellow Americans were drunks:
He didn’t have to worry about drunk neighbors shooting up his house with weapons of war though.
:-(
Look for the RWNJs to try to eliminate all drinking age restrictions next – St. Washington and the Founders wanted everyone drinking liquor, donchaknow, and the Constitution doesn’t say anything about not drinking. Commerce, über alles, and it’s important to start ’em early. Q.E.D.
Grr…,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Tom Levenson:
I left a job in 2005 after 11 yrs that had me traveling all around the US for 8-9 months a year. I would no more do that job now even if I was 20 yrs younger, and it is the reason you raise. Great swaths of this country are basically unlivable, because some jackass might just open fire for the shittiest possible reason. Because he can. There are swaths of humanity that have zero idea how to exist with other humans closer than 5 miles. And now they seem to be armed with military weapons. And the military doesn’t allow those weapons to be uncontrolled and hasn’t since I’ve been alive. And my experience in the military with small arms was that it’s not as safe as it should have been. But it is dramatically better than today’s civilian life can get in an instant.
eclare
@trollhattan:
Ha! Forget Brotherly Love, it’s the city with NFLTG!
Steve in the ATL
@trollhattan:
Need a mental health check, STAT!
kalakal
Florida has some Allman Brothers related gun nut neighbourly misbehaviour . Be very careful if you go rowing…
Donna Betts jailed
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Another Scott: And at the same time, raise the voting age to 30, to give Fox News time to clear away the indoctrination of all those liberal-fascist-commie colleges.
Unless you’re the Right Sort, of course.
kalakal
@Ruckus:
This.
I seriously just don’t get it. It’s beyond me. Too many people have no sense of proportion.
And I am so sick of the excuses.
It. Is. The. Availability. Of. Guns.
It lets people escalate from zero to ultra violence in seconds. If all you have is your fists and you lose your temper that’s one thing, if you can just pull out a gun and start blazing it’s quite another.
As for knives…
That asshole who shot up that concert in Vegas from his hotel balcony would have been nothing but a tricky issue for the hotel staff if he’d been waving a bread knife instead of an AR-15.
Dangerman
There will be a connection to the top story, I promise. Wait for it.
Some people collect baseball cards. Others collect stamps. I collect medical specialists. I have 2 Cardiologists and a Neurologist (and a damn fine Dentist I should add). Anyway, I’m in line for, perhaps, a third heart procedure in June. I don’t know yet. I do know I’m only supposed to drink Decaf. Dammit.
(Oh, side note: Went to 2 pharmacies for a booster on … whatever day it was … and I don’t qualify. Fuck).
Anyway, for the Neurology issue, I am fairly sure, in the Doctors Notes, you will see the words “tried all the weak ass shit; fuck it, give him the good stuff”. So, he did. Then he doubled it. I take it at night and basically check out. It’s strong and tightly controlled. Pharmacy didn’t even stock it. Special order.
Now, I have a neighbor that likes to shoot off fireworks. Not firecrackers. Fireworks. Every month or so. Sets off the car alarms level of fireworks. It’s a helluva show if you are into fireworks (presently, I am not). I’m not sure who it is but I have a decent idea. The police have been called. Multiple times. I guess if you are going to blow off several hundred to a few thousand dollars in fireworks, paying a small citation is nothing. I don’t think it’s a felony.
Anyway, took my pill last night and was gone …
… and fireworks.
I’m going to have a talk with this person if it happens again. If it happens again after THAT, there is going to be a problem.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: Funny you mention. On my FB memories, an incident from a year ago popped up. I was walking around Philadelphia, and there was some dude wandering and twirling around, wearing a bathrobe and high-top Chucks, and he was shouting nonsense, and he appeared decidedly unkempt, just giving off a general vibe of self-control and sobriety, yeah. Anyway, he looked at me, and said, “UGHHHHHHHH!”. And I was like, I’m so sorry I don’t meet your high visual standards, friend.
trollhattan
@eclare: Other discoveries: her hotel is right next to Ben Franklin’s grave, the gay neighborhood is literally called Gayborhood.
Bobby Thomson
Texas Man is one of the reasons the British Commonwealth countries are putting out travel advisories for the U.S.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: 😂
I had a D.C. trip and the street people were sooo more interesting than in Cali. My favorite was a dude dressed as a kind of Cousin Itt in an outfit made entirely of neckties. This was December.
Suzanne
@Ruckus:
100% true. I don’t even like getting gas in Texas.
Though there are definitely parts of Pennsyltucky that I like to admire from inside the car or train and not get out. The landscape is beautiful, the people give me nightmares.
eclare
@Dangerman:
Ugh. Be careful. I don’t know if it would be better or worse to already have your phone set to record.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: I kinda hate Philadelphia. I got catcalled by a Philly cop once and it pissed me off. There’s some good restaurants, tho. There’s one called Talula’s Garden that’s a few blocks from Independence Hall (close to your daughter’s hotel).
At least the cop thought I was hotter than Bathrobe Man did, I guess.
Bobby Thomson
@trollhattan: I love the Philly vibe more than that of any other city. These are my people. It’s TRUE brotherly love, not that Leave it to Beaver shit.
Kofuu
That the victims were Honduran, at 11:30 at night, speaks volumes. I’m sure they were at their wit’s end and had anguished conversation among themselves about going over to please ask him to stop shooting his gun because the children couldn’t sleep. Trying to figure out how to ask, as politely as possible, for the best reason they could imagine he might respond to. Finally, someone decided they had to do it, despite the obvious risks.
Living in America. It takes an effort not to spell it with three ‘K’s.
Bobby Thomson
@Suzanne: There’s an offshoot in Kennett Square called Talula’s Table.
sab
I need fighting words for future fights. A transwhatever person called me out when I was defending me and my transniece. Called me an antitrans person. They are lying/wrong and I am angry
In retrospect I awas disapppointed at my comments. But they werr wrong and I am angry, and you were just some twerp Cole invited inro our space andnI do not kbow what he was thinking.
Dangerman
@eclare: I think I’m going to go see the Police on Monday. They know who it is. They just can’t stop him (or her, but, come on, this is pure Asshole Guy stuff) …
…so, go to the police for purposes of seeking a restraining order. At some point, getting your thrills with loud booms late at night is a problem if someone has a medical condition next door.
Alison Rose
@sab: What do you mean by a “transwhatever person”? If you meant transphobic, okay, but if you meant they were transgender themselves, please don’t call them “transwhatever”.
Also, she’s your trans niece, not your transniece. I assume that was a typo, but in case it wasn’t.
As far as fighting words, it would help to know what you said and what they said and what the impetus for the whole situation was.
thruppence
Trump voter, almost certainly
Suzanne
@Bobby Thomson: I’ve been there! I liked it!
I really like eating. Five out of five stars. It’s rad.
raven
@sab: Fuck some words.
cain
@Dangerman: I would see your state representative and other politicians to put in an ordinance. There is no reason to have fireworks late into the night disturbing people.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: If I recall correctly, immigration from Mexico itself is already net negative, more Mexicans leaving than entering.
Suzanne
@cain: You mean….. an ordnance ordinance?
cain
What’s wrong with these people? What’s wrong with 35% of this country that believes that you should live in a world where things like this happen? Most of us don’t think we need to be armed.
I just came back from the UK and Europe and you know, it’s nice to go through customs and not see armed men everywhere. It’s nice not see armed police. We’ve really put up with a lot of this bullshit and we need to start pushing back and not accepting that this should be our status quo just because a subsection of this country have raised weapons to be a religion.
It can be done. We did it with smoking. We just need to keep pushing relentlessly. Of course with smoking our courts/institutions didn’t get corrupted like it is now – but all it takes is a short window where we have all 2 branches of govt and then we can start putting the fixes in.
trollhattan
@Dangerman: Ugh. They’d be illegal here but lots of states allow seemingly unlimited fireworks, including rockets and M80s.
Can I suggest replacing your lawnmower with one of these models, then demonstrating it for him in a showoff kind of way?
Omnes Omnibus
@sab:
Wha???
cain
@Suzanne: 😼 yes. :)
Baud
@cain:
Smoking took a long time. I fear people don’t have the perseverance for that siet of thing anymore. Every travesty is just another excuse to wallow.
JoyceH
@cain:
On the news the other day they were talking about a poll from Fox News about public support for various gun control issues. The discussion covered the items that had over 80% support, but further down the poll, I noticed that support for an assault weapons ban was at 61%. How much higher does that have to go before politicians actually do something about it?
Baud
@JoyceH:
Politicians doing something about it.
Renie
@Eolirin: I like to watch court trials and learned this week that psychopathy is a legal term not a diagnosis in DSM even though people call antisocial behavior by that term.
trollhattan
@Suzanne: Heh. Once worked on an environmental investigation of a closed Army Airfield, a feature of which was/is “Ordinance Road.”
I guess instead of leading to storage for bombs and ammunition, they had a collection of typeset laws.
TiredOfItAll
Can we make “It’s the guns, stupid” a thing?
pat
@Baud:
Good grief. Leave laws against abortion up to the states, but not against guns.
“Supreme” Court coming up?
Also, some time ago there was a graph somewhere about how killings increased after the assault weapon ban ended.
Mallard Filmore
@Bobby Thomson:
The Cuban tourism board should be making all kinds of hay with this. “We have beaches. You won’t get shot.”
caphilldcne
@sab: This is not ok and “transwhatever” is in fact bigoted. You’re not doing your niece any favors. As for your statement about Cole inviting someone into “our space” I have to say you’re currently the one violating civility here. Cole pointed out that this space could use some assistance in discussing trans issues. I’ve not been here in a week and this is not at all cool to see no matter what happened and especially not on a thread about another mass murder.
Edmund dantes
I go with Mammon and not Moloch but either really work for the GOP.
Another Scott
@Baud: Things can change quickly, with the right people in office. That’s the beauty (and the curse) of self-government.
Giffords.org:
Civil lawsuits can punish bad behavior and make corporations and industries change. We need to sue the pants off of the monsters, while we work to elect sensible people to change the laws.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@pat:
Well, neither should be left up to the states IMHO, although I suspect I disagree with the GOP about what the national rules should be.
Mike in NC
Shitbag TX Governor Abbott should have resigned in disgrace after Uvalde, but TX voters liked what they saw. A mass shooting in Texas these days makes people yawn.
satby
@sab: if this was the infamous thread of planet eddie’s where people really let their inner Karens out for a stroll, I’d really just let it go, because that thread went so far sideways it passed Pluto. And planet eddie is a long time friend of Cole’s who he’s been inviting to post here for a while. I think John was thinking we would all benefit from the education, and it certainly seems he was correct.
JoyceH
@Baud:
That’s great and I love Jay Inslee. What I don’t get is how these red state governors keep getting elected. The legislators you can blame on jerrymandering. But after the last four years, why on EARTH did Abbot get reelected?! After letting hundred of people die because he couldn’t keep the power on, and that ridiculous border stunt that caused backups for days and millions of pounds of produce to rot? What does he give them that they want more of?
pat
@Baud:
Of course neither should be left up to the states. What a non-nonsensical ruling that was. Disgusting, and states already had their laws written up.
eta: Citizens United, gutting the Voting Rights Act. All terrible decisions that are having terrible consequences.
Frankensteinbeck
I am reminded of the link between suicide and guns. Having a gun handy gives someone who would calm down in five minutes time to kill people.
Baud
@JoyceH: Hatred of us, basically.
satby
@JoyceH: voter suppression fixes a lot forthe GOP, that’s why they do it. And I don’t have faith that elections in those states are run fairly to begin with.
trollhattan
Lots of discussions amongst themselves of how they would have done better.
caphilldcne
I’m truly worn down from the horrendous gun news. I was visiting my family 2 weeks ago and an utter pall was cast over the visit when we woke up to the news of a mass murder in their little town of Dadeville, AL. Of course already it’s starting to be forgotten except for the families. And unfortunately the good folks of Dadeville will keep voting for the moloch worshipping republicans.
Bill
Apparently the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants and small children.
Dangerman
An ordinary ordnance ordinance? Or extraordinary ordnance ordinance?
Jinchi
There is so much wrong with that sentence even if you didn’t know about the part where he guns down five people. I mean this is a suburban neighborhood. It’s not like the guy had a hundred acres separating him from his neighbors. How do you get away with “frequently” shooting an AR-15 in your backyard without the police knocking on your door?
James E Powell
@JoyceH:
@Baud:
Exactly. My only exposure to trumpsters is in my immediate & extended family, but for decades I have been listening to acquaintances justifying their votes for Dole, Bush Jr, Romney, along with openly bigoted & corrupt state & local Republicans by their hatred for Democrats.
trollhattan
“Sound like an AR to you?”
“Yeah, definitely an AR.”
“I’m calling in ‘nothing unusual noted.'”
“Roger that.”
My guess.
Dangerman
BTW, this being California, there are ordinances from here to there on Fireworks. At the Pismo 4th of July Show, every Summer, there are signs saying BIG fines for illegal fireworks, and I’ve never been to a Pismo show yet where there isn’t HUGE use of illegal fireworks. Massive. But, a crowd the size of Pismo, a goodly number drunk off their ass, they can only do so much.
Sure Lurkalot
I’m going to Texas in September to attend a niece’s wedding, my RW brother’s daughter. In addition to his family, 2 other nieces and a nephew live in Texas as well. The niece getting married is moving to a rural area 90 miles east of Dallas. I believe the other two nieces will move away within the next 2-3 years.
I have a dear friend who lives near Austin; she moved there to be close to her 80 year old mother with health issues. Hoping to see her too on this trip.
If I survive, this should be my last time in that hellhole.
Cameron
@Jinchi: If some of the immigrants were undocumented, that might have discouraged people from calling the police.
robtrim
@Ruckus: My experience in the military during the Vietnam war was that firearms were strictly controlled. I was stationed in Thailand for a year and the Air Force base I was at had a Red alert – a base in N. Thailand was attacked by guerrillas (probably from Laos). There was real shooting going on.
The American security police on base were deployed along with 100 or so regular airmen (me). I was in a rapid deployment squad led by a Security NCO. We were issued an M-16 and about 100 rounds of ammo. We were told by the NCO, “Do NOT load your weapon!” Even when we responded to a guard dog alert at the end of the runway (it was the middle of the night) in the jungle. We never loaded our weapons.
The idea that assault rifles are fun toys for civilians (or even the military) was not au courant in 1968.
America today is what during the war was called a “free fire zone.” It’s literally insane.
MattF
This, from the NRA (reportedly, via Margaret Soltan’s University Diaries blog):
I say ‘reportedly’, because who knows?
Alison Rose
@satby: Wow, if sab is indeed referring to planet eddie here, then I’m even more annoyed by the comment.
sab, if that’s accurate, you need to take a seat and think about what kind of person you’re trying to be.
Alison Rose
@MattF: “Highly regarded”? Where? In hell?
Roberto el oso
@Mike in NC: You’re an ally or you’re not — amend the phrase to “Republican voters in Texas” and yeah, that’s about right. The outrage over what happened in Uvalde on the part of Democratic voters in Texas has been relentless.
I see this all the time and it’s infuriating. If you’re fine with throwing out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to red states with very large populations of blue voters then just say so.
eclare
@Dangerman: Absolutely. I live in a pretty dense neighborhood, and a few years ago some guys were shooting off fireworks. The noise didn’t bother me, but it hadn’t rained in a really long time, and I was worried about fire. I got my camera, walked outdoors, and started taking photos. Luckily that worked.
Going to the police sounds like the best option. I would not do what I did again.
AlaskaReader
House parties?
karen marie
@Chetan Murthy:
1995 is when Texas began to remove all gun control.
Baud
@karen marie:
Bush also kept America safe as president.
eversor
OP screws something up, Christianity, including the New Testament and Christ himself, endorses patriarchy, slavery, brutality, subjugation of women, slavery, and demands private not state charity. So it’s very Christian. The liberal version of Christianity is a bullshit lie that only exists to protect the most nasty ideology on the planet.
raven
@robtrim: Often people in the bush couldn’t load their weapons without orders.
Omnes Omnibus
@eversor:
A bigot says what now?
Jinchi
The tower shootings were notable enough that people were still talking about it decades later when I was in Austin. A tragedy caused by a deranged man on a college campus. It’s barely a blip compared to what we’ve been experiencing over the last 10 years. Now it’s hardly news when the victims are 20 kids at an elementary school.
I’m really disgusted by the Republicans for shrugging this off time after time after time.
Mike in NC
Anybody know of an upcoming GOP event where an AR-15 will be the door prize? Those seem to be really popular.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Somehow my pie of this douchebag failed
eta
Ah, I got it back!
Baud
@MattF:
Probably fake. I doubt the NRA spends money on ordinary people, and especially not on ordinary non-white people. But who can tell these days?
MattF
@raven: Yeah, me too. I had to re-pie him.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: I hear using lard in the crust helps.
Another Scott
@Jinchi: I don’t think they’re shrugging it off. They’re actively trying to make people forget about it and shut down questions about it.
It used to be “thoughts and prayers”.
Now it’s “we are staying closely updated by law enforcement as details emerge.”
They can’t express any opinion on what their government officials should actually do about it because they don’t have “details” yet.
And, of course, the “details” never come before the next mass slaughter.
We have to vote the monsters out.
Grr…,
Scott.
raven
@MattF: “nut up and join us or shut the fuck up”!!! Join who asshole>
WaterGirl
@raven: It just worked for me. Try again?
You do have to pie on each device you use for BJ.
Alison Rose
@eversor: I wish it were possible to get laryngitis of the fingers so you could never type one of these tedious repetitive comments again.
raven
@WaterGirl: Yea, I got it. thanks
Sister Golden Bear
@sab: I really don’t want this thread to go sideways like the infamous thread, but this aggression will not stand. You pretty clearly seem to be referring to planet eddie, and if so, referring to them as “transwhatever” is transphobic— or more accurate non-binary phobic.
As others have noted, you need to take a seat and check yourself before you wreck yourself. Because while while you call yourself an ally, you sure aren’t acting like one. Especially when you chose a thread completely unrelated to trans/non-binary issues, where planet eddie is absent, vent your wrath at them and accuse them of lying.
We now return to our regularly programming.
Captain C
@JoyceH:
Sadism directed at the correct people, in their minds.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
50% butter, 50% shortening, creates a crust with the texture and taste of shortbread. Never fails. Can be made in a food processor.
Tony G
My opinion: The problem is not the lede; the problem is the reality described by the lede. The psychopath in question was undoubtedly angry that his neighbor was complaining about the fact that he was firing his semi-automatic rifle in the middle of the night. The problems are: 1) That a psychopath like could own a gun in the first place. 2) That the psychopath in question was able to fire his weapon in a residential neighborhood with impunity. 3) That those types of semi-automatic weapons are available civilians in the first place.
Captain C
So what happens when a hostile dipshit like the one from the article is shooting his AR in his back yard, and one of his neighbors just snipes him dead. Assuming said neighbor gets caught, can they plead self defense and/or stand your ground on the grounds that the last time this happened, the backyard shooter tried to wipe out an entire family (and murdered several) and thus the sniper was legit in fear for their life?
I know if I was on the sniper’s Texas jury, I’d be very receptive to a plea of self-defense or stand your ground in these circumstances.
Jay
eclare
@Sister Golden Bear:
Very well put, thank you.
Alison Rose
@Captain C: I do wonder what the gun humpers’ response would be if the neighbor had gone over with their own gun and plugged the dude.
Alison Rose
@Sister Golden Bear: I’m sorry you have to keep encountering this shit here.
TriassicSands
@JoyceH:
Angry response? No, just a totally normal response for someone so selfish, stupid, and irresponsible that he is firing an assault rifle in his yard in an area where other people live and at 11 o’clock at night.
The Texas 2nd Amendment:
The most sacred right of all is the right to determine who lives and who dies, but mostly who dies, since, you know, collateral damage. Yawn.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Among the many deplorable things caused by Trump is the way everyone forgot how horrible Bush was.
eclare
@Jay:
Oh gawd, that is terrifying.
PaulB
No, you really don’t. What you need to do is to take a break: go outside, “touch grass”, take a deep breath, and let it go.
Baud
@James E Powell:
I’m not looking forward to the Republican president that makes us forget about Trump.
kalakal
@Jay: That is nauseating.
Frank Wilhoit
What you are saying is that when a baby breaks its toys, it does not matter whether it was, momentarily, “angry”; further, that the concept of “anger” has so little meaning in such a context that its application is essentially a category error. What matters is (A) that the toys are broken and (B) that the baby is not capable of comparing the toys-intact outcome with the toys-broken outcome, and therefore also incapable of assigning a pragmatic preference to the former over the latter, nor yet remotely capable of assessing the potential collateral damage.
So it really comes down to expectations of mature <i>versus</i> infantile behavior, <i>i</i>. <i>e</i>. what is to be done with babies who are (clicks through…) 38 years old — or even, as in the case a couple of weeks ago, 84 years old.
TriassicSands
Amen. I was always amazed when people would say, “Trump is so bad he makes me nostalgic for Bush.” (People actually said that. It even appeared in at least one Op-Ed column I read years ago.)
Yeah, the recent pandemic makes me nostalgic for the last pandemic. (Because, even though the last pandemic killed more people, the more recent pandemic was a bigger infringement on my FREEDUMB!)
People should never forget what a disaster Bush was, and how he was a symptom of what the Repubican Party was and the direction it was headed (to Trump).
Next question: Who was better? Stalin or Hitler.
PaulWartenberg
the far right extremists WORSHIP THE GUN.
they worship a GOD OF DEATH.
that is all you need to know about how f-cked this nation is when it comes to gun reforms.
Bill Arnold
@eclare:
I once put out a small brush fire started by a neighbor’s fireworks (a rocket) on July 4th. Spotted it when it was small, and quick drove my car to it and put it out with a fire extinguisher in the trunk. Which was just barely large enough to put out the fire. Otherwise, the FD would have been called and it still would have burned an acre or three.
This was East Coast (July and a bit dry at the time); in an arid area it would have been game over.
TriassicSands
@Baud:
Right now, that is most likely to be Trump II making us nostalgic for Trump I. Needless to say, we must not let that happen.
Elizabelle
The FTF NY Times did not even run the story, prominently, for hours. You had to scroll way down, maybe 2/3 of the way down the website, and there it was at the top of the national news, so I give the WaPost props for highlighting the story so quickly, these constant murders are so demoralizing, but there has got to be a tipping point .
Baud
@Elizabelle:
The tipping point might not be known until years after it has passed.
Captain C
@TriassicSands:
Say what you will about Hitler, at least he killed Hitler. Although he also killed the man who killed Hitler, so…
Elizabelle
@Kofuu: I know. It is so tragic.
Elizabelle
@Baud: Please let it have been Uvalde.
Eolirin
@Renie: To be fair, it’s a diagnosis in other countries. There are a *lot* of issues with the DSM, and antisocial personality disorder is so broad in its diagnostic criteria as to be effectively meaningless. Psychopathy is much more specific and has a better evidentiary basis.
It’s still not a treatable disorder though. And most of these rage monkeys aren’t psychopaths, and most psychopaths aren’t violent.
These are mostly people with shit emotional regulation skills, steeped in a culture of toxic masculinity and victimization complexes, that have access to something so dangerous that a moment’s lapse in impulse control can kill people.
They’re more properly adjacent to abusers, which means it’s likely they’ve got a ton of traumatic shit they’re not dealing with. And we could be doing a better job treating trauma, but it’s not quite the same as mental health issues, even if it’s adjacent. We’ve all got trauma, it only becomes a disorder if it starts to cause a pattern of disregulation that impacts your ability to function. And being an asshole isn’t a condition that rises to that level, even if it’s fueled by similar stuff. That’s driven more by socialization than pathology.
Behaviors like these are a cultural problem.
trollhattan
What the everloving hell is Jackie Whoa wearing in this DeSantis video?
TriassicSands
@Captain C:
Just exercising his 2nd Amendment rights
Not only that, as my one-time German girl friend’s grandmother would say (in the late 1960s), “At least he [Hitler] made the trains run on time and young people respected their elders.”
Hmm. Tens of millions dead, countries in ruins, but kids were polite and the trains ran on time? That’s a tough one.
Roberto el oso
@trollhattan: Looks like she borrowed the jacket from Jimmy Page.
James E Powell
@TriassicSands:
Well Hitler did kill Hitler.
Matt McIrvin
@TriassicSands: A while back I was looking up old YouTube videos of freaky analog video effects, used in TV network idents and such, and discovered that the Spanish national TV network TVE had been a treasure trove of these in the late 1970s.
Then I poked back a little too far into the past and found a TVE sign-off from the Franco era. Black and white, with a pretty announcer bidding us goodnight followed by an anthem playing over a picture of the Generalissimo. And the comments for this video were… full of people nostalgic for the Franco dictatorship. Talking about the peace, the order, the way youth respected their elders, not like all the crime and chaos we have today…
Eolirin
@Sister Golden Bear: Sab seemed very drunk in that post, and if they’re not drunk, I’m honestly concerned about a neurological event or stroke.
Not to try to suggest the content was okay, because it isn’t, but something screams wrong there.
glc
@MattF: Unlikely.
No trace of that currently on the internet anywhere else (in any connection). I can’t even find the sarcastic version but I imagine there was one (or maybe that was the sarcastic version).
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kofuu: The shooter was a Mexican national, so I’m not sure that applies.
JAFD
@trollhattan: I am told Penn is a pretty good school
But then, they gave me a degree – you have to consider that ;-)
Ruckus
@Dangerman:
There is a house next to the complex I live in that every so often fires off a very large explosive device. And I know large, on the ship I was stationed on we had 2 – 5 inch guns. The sound of the 5 in gun at 25-30 feet away was not as loud as the neighbor’s explosive device and I know because during gunnery practice someone had to sit near the gun with a charged fire hose and cool off the gun if there was a misfire, so it didn’t blow up right in your face while you were cooling it down. Ask me how I know this…..
Ruviana
@Eolirin: I wondered that also, especially with the typos.
jackmac
I’m really late to this thread, but please allow me to circle back to the top.
The Texas shootings were horrific and every bit “deranged, grotesque, evil” as Tom Levenson describes. Further, what appears to be an initial WaPo news report (cited above) seemed sloppy and rushed.
An editor apparently stepped in and cleaned up the lede and the updated version is more coherent. As a semi-retired journalist, I don’t have a problem with the words “angry response” in the original and updated versions. It seems to accurately describe what the shooter did and does attribute information to “Texas authorities.”
It’s not the reporter’s job to proclaim in a news story that the gunman’s reaction was “grotesque.” The responsibility is to report the facts in a professional and timely manner.
trollhattan
@JAFD: 👍👍👍
caphilldcne
@Eolirin: that could be. maybe a front pager can check in with Sab just to make sure they’re ok?
Ruckus
@robtrim:
I was in the Navy and for in port watch I carried a loaded 45 pistol and my orders were – I know I specifically asked – that if I saw someone unescorted that didn’t belong on the ship to shoot to kill. No if ands or buts. There were 2 enlisted men armed this way with as I understood it, the same order. The quarterdeck watch (that’s at the ship end of the gangway) and the sounding and security watch, that was me. We were the only two armed people on the ship in a normal port. Today they are more armed sailors on watch and they are a lot more heavily armed. I have no idea if there is a reason for that other than it’s the military.
Expletive Deleted
@TriassicSands: Also, that reply is always a crock of shit.
The trains on time thing is literal well-documented fascist propaganda. They did not such thing.
And plenty of elders died in the camps. You can’t call a culture civil while its persecuting large swathes of its population, there’s no polite way to conduct a genocide. Perhaps some subset of elders was respected, but given their views on the disabled I suspect even than was very conditional indeed.
Another Scott
@Frank Wilhoit: PSA:
[i][/i] doesn’t work here for italics. You need to use [em][/em] (or the buttons).
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@TriassicSands:
Yup! And that doesn’t even count him becoming a war criminal in 2003!
Sister Golden Bear
@Eolirin: it did seem out of character, and I hope someone checks to see if sab is OK. But…. we just had some horrific anti-trans laws passed this week, a Republican state legislator openly said she’d rather have a dead child than a trans child, today armed Nazis showed to an adults-only drag show in Columbus, and Donald Jr. is sharing a meme about putting drag queens into woodchippers.
So I’m really not in the mood for those sorts of comments regardless of the reason. Even if someone is drunk or otherwise impaired, that doesn’t turn them into a bigot, it just reveals who they really are.
Every day I’m having to bottle up my rage at all the anti-trans shit going, and the anti-tans haters, least I turn into She-Hulk, but my patience is growing thinner and thinner. As the song goes, don’t push me because I’m close to the edge, I’m trying not to lose my head.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Golden Bear: Y’know, sometimes I’m just really glad I’ve missed certain threads and therefore have no idea what just happened.
Completely unrelated: I literally did not get the pun in your nym until I heard “Sister Golden Hair” on a neighbor’s radio the other day and the penny finally dropped. D’oh!
Quinerly
@caphilldcne:
I agree. Something seems really off.
Another Scott
I believe the numbers.
But until voters vote on things like that, well, …
Whoever comes up with a meme that makes voting GQP as disgusting to their current voters as stepping barefoot in [ insert disgusting sticky smelly stuff thing here ] will have my eternal gratitude.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: It’s a pantsuit, and when i saw her in it – from the front the other day – I thought it was the least bad thing I had seen her wear.
It does look a bit odd from the side.
WaterGirl
@caphilldcne: @Quinerly: @Sister Golden Bear:
Over the years, I have seen sab post comments of a similar feel, though never on the same topics. So I am not worried about some sort of neurological event.
Sab comes back the next day as if nothing unusual has happened.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: +1
I assume that she is stressed, and the comments in question may have nothing at all to do with a thread here.
Wishing everyone a calm and peaceful weekend,
Scott.
Quinerly
@WaterGirl:
Honestly, I only truly follow what about 15 BJers say in threads. Really connecting nyms with comments. Lots a great comments from most all but I don’t necessarily concentrate on everyone’s nym. That’s just me…I am here for the most part to get information. And comment rarely now…and when I do, it goes in spurts.
His/her nym is one I have seen for years here. I don’t recall anything so out of line and incoherent as the comment in this thread. That’s all.
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
I’ve been related to and known people other than cis for over 5 decades and I sometimes still have trouble with knowing what to say. My gay sister passed away from cancer over a decade ago, her partner of 9 yrs, who I was friends with for over 40 yrs, passed away 6 yrs ago and I gave memorials for both of them, to people mostly not cis and I’ve had more non cis friends than cis over all that time and I still sometimes have to remind myself to use all the correct terms. Someone with far less exposure might just be having a bit of a more difficult time getting all this correct. I’m not saying that we don’t need to make the attempt, we absolutely do, but I am saying that if I have over half a century of exposure and I still sometimes slip up, is it possible that someone else may have far less exposure than me and therefore even less practice? I am also not saying you should have patience because I see how this could easily be construed as me telling you not to worry about it, and I for sure don’t have that right.
I just know that it isn’t that easy it is to learn this stuff without a fair bit of exposure, especially if one has been under or unexposed for most of their life and possibly has senioritis. (It’s not just for the school aged!) We all get more set in our ways and have a harder time learning as we age and that includes language.
I apologize if this is offensive, that is for sure not my intent.
Quinerly
@Another Scott:
Thanks.
I always enjoy your comments. If I’m jumping around trying to just catch a few comments in a thread, yours are in my top 5 to look for.
Have a wonderful evening.
TriassicSands
@Expletive Deleted:
My girlfriend’s grandmother was probably typical of a lot of Germans during the Hitler years (and similar in some ways to what is wrong with so many American voters) — she was not directly affected by the depravity of the Nazis. Her life probably went on largely unchanged (directly) by the rounding up of Jews and others and their being transported to camps which “Grandma” never saw, nor concerned herself with. Young people being “polite” had liittle if anything to do with Hitler, it was simply a different time. The trains? I doubt if “Grandma” even used the trains; certainly not very often, so that was simply a fallback point of nostalgia for a time that seemed better to her in her very small, isolated world. Then, when Hitler and German lost the war, things got much worse for her, so the preceding decade plus looked very good by comparison.
In the U.S., we have Republicans across the country supporting or ignoring neo-fascist laws targeting vulnerable people for the purpose of creating “others” who can be used to rally support from bigoted followers. Most of the charges, threats, and complaints behind these laws are purely imaginary, and most Americans are untouched in any meaningful way by the LGBTQ+ community. There has been a huge increase in the representation of LGBTQ+ members on TV and in films. I can imagine that people resent that and rather than simply watching something else, they support crushing “those people.”
Increasingly, led by the SCOTUS majority, Republicans refuse to even tolerate the existence of difference, even if it doesn’t affect them in any measurable way.
The goals of the 1930s Nazi Party and the 2023 Republican Party are essentially identical — the achievement of a one party system where losing isn’t possible. When critics complain about comparing Republicans to the Nazis, the mistake they make is to consider the Nazis in question to be those of 1945 — WWII, death camps, etc. The relevant Nazis are those of the early 30s. That is the stage the GOP is in now. And many of their tactics are remarkably similar.
Where will they end up? No one can say for sure, but we do know that unassailable, one-party rule will lead to tremendous abuse and injustice. That is already happening. Looking at those leading the GOP today, Trump, DeSantis, Abbott, et al., I wouldn’t rule anything out. The level of depravity among those leaders is truly shocking.
ExpatchadPutin has become Stalin, the destroyer of worlds
@James E Powell: I fled to the Philippines years ago Because of the Lesser Shrub, and have been happily resident here since. so there’s that!
Another Scott
@ExpatchadPutin has become Stalin, the destroyer of worlds: The world is getting smaller all the time…
AlJazeera.com:
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@bbleh: Instead of thots and prayers isn’t the appropriate response shots and prayers? Stole that from another jackal a while back.
Nanxy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
On that.
But of course they like the climate. Low taxes=limited services.
So, about the flooding. . . .
Part of being annoying is reminding them that their granddaughters will be at risk
brantl
@Another Scott: GWB; the shit that keeps on shitting.
Paul in KY
@Eolirin: Agree. An evil motherfucker shot those poor people. I think he’s probably heading South, tho he may initially head North to try and throw off the pursuit.
Paul in KY
@Dangerman: Good fireworks (mortars and large bottle rockets) are quite expensive. I used to love shooting them off myself, but it just got too expensive.
Paul in KY
@sab: I’m assuming you were pretty drunk when you wrote that.
Paul in KY
@Captain C: I would think they could (in Texas or Florida and if they were whitey white) use ‘stand your ground’ or they ‘were in fear for their life’. In another state, I would think the person would have had to menaced you with the weapon before you could shoot him/her with expectation of getting off with no conviction on anything.
Paul in KY
@TriassicSands: Batshit McChimpy was 4 years of shit, but if I was faced with the Shrub or TFG choice, I would go Shrub in a heartbeat (and I’m on a very voluminous record of slagging Shrub for 8 loooooonnnnggg years).
Geminid
@Paul in KY: Maybe she was just angry.
Paul in KY
@Captain C: Stalin was better, as he didn’t start expansionist wars of aggression.
Paul in KY
@trollhattan: Some kind of ersatz ‘Oriental’ dress?
See now it is a pantsuit.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: My ‘Drunk Writing Radar’ went off. It might not be calibrated properly…
Geminid
@Paul in KY: Who can say? I know my comments when I’m angry might make it seem like I’m drunk, especially to someone who disagreed with them.
UncleEbeneezer
@Ruckus: There’s always the extremely simple option of just saying nothing. If there’s any question or hesitation about whether what we are about to say/type is right, appropriate or will possibly offend people from marginalized groups, it’s usually best to just sit this one out. It’s a really great practice that people of all types of privilege should make our default setting. It really hurts no one for us to bite our tongues when we are unsure of the proper language to use on touchy subjects.