I am sick to death of watching the coverage of mass shootings on television, and I have decided that one of two things needs to happen:
1.) We stop fucking covering it, because clearly Republicans do not give a fuck and will not be shamed into doing he right god damned thing.
2.) We start really covering it and start showing the bodies and the blood and gore. No more blurring shit out. Show them what fucking guns do to a toddler. Let them live with that fucking image in their brains.
War for Ukraine Day 438: Air Defense Is Active Over Kyiv
zhena gogolia
The relatives of the victims should make that decision.
Alison Rose
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, as much as I understand the impulse, I would never put the families through that if they didn’t want it done.
However…making GOP members of Congress view them, that I could be down with. Like I said on the earlier post, make them all sit in the room when the bodies are being prepared for burial. Make them look at every picture from the scene before they can walk onto the House or Senate floor.
Also, how about for every person killed in an unlawful shooting, every NRA humper in Congress gets a punch in the face.
ShadeTail
Showing the carnage wouldn’t do anything. The extremist fascist minority who are blocking gun reform don’t give a shit.
Chetan Murthy
@ShadeTail: I think it’s to peel off the mushy middle voters who vote GrOPer b/c [reasons, like taxes, “ooh that black man”, etc]. Peel off enough of them, maybe you can get something done. But I sorta agree with you: we’re stuck with this until (maybe, ugh) something truly horrific happens, that wakes up that mushy middle. And if Las Vegas and Stoneman Douglas didn’t do it, if Sandy Hook didn’t do it, I don’t know what that would be.
ArchTeryx
I disagree. Showing the aftermath helped to end the Vietnam War after it dragged on for almost a decade. Just as intractable a political problem until the American public was FORCED to see what war did to their young men. That finally turned them against it.
Yes, get the families involved and get their permission, but I’d still try and impress on them that this is the only way to stop this. The Republicans don’t give a shit. The noses that need to be rubbed it in are the mushy middle that are for gun control but vote Republican anyway. Until one issue gun control voters outnumber the ammosexuals everywhere, the carnage will continue unabated.
Just dropping all coverage means we end up Lebanon. Permanently. It’s giving up.
BruceFromOhio
Until it happens to Gov Abbott, Ted Cruz or those like them, it continues. Unabated. I regret that fits neither 1) or 2).
Anne Laurie
Cole, showing the images retraumatizes relatives and survivors. (As others have already pointed out.)
Furthermore, the more graphic the videos, the more Repub sickos are watching them with one hand down their pants. Let them enjoy their nasty little jollies through 8chan and the right-wing news outlets, as their authoritarian ‘God’ intended.
gene108
@BruceFromOhio:
Rep. Steve Scalise was shot and wounded, when a gunman opened fire at softball practice. He’s still a gun humper.
ArchTeryx
People ask me sometimes why what worked in Australia wouldn’t work here. Three basic reasons:
– Parliamentary democracy. The rednecks do not get outsized voting power in Australia.
– No 2nd Amendment for a rogue Supreme Court to abuse.
– And most importantly, Australia is a heavily urbanized country. The rednecks are a tiny minority. They have an outsized share of people’s view of the country (‘Strine’ is basically redneck dialect) but they do not have an outsized share of the vote.
After the terrible Port Arthur massacre, the government moved to outright confiscate all assault weapons. The rural rednecks screamed as loudly as they did here, but they had neither the votes nor the power to do a damn thing about it. So the guns were bought back and destroyed. They haven’t had a mass shooting incident since.
Wyatt Salamanca
Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, was a guest on Mehdi Hasan’s show tonight and said that the release of graphic photos of shooting victims would have absolutely no impact on Republicans in Congress. She also opposed the release of the photos on the grounds that it would retraumatize the victims’ families. I’m inclined to agree with her. Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise et al are heartless fucking pricks and nothing will ever change their minds. The only solution is to vote as many of these assholes out of office as possible.
JWR
@Alison Rose:
How about we make it in the nuts. Can we make it in the nuts?
John Revolta
“We” are not covering it. The people who run the TV stations and the rest of the media are covering it.
I don’t need to tell you who those people are. (Hint: they “do not give a fuck and will not be shamed into doing he right god damned thing”)
Jager
I know I’m an old bastard, but can I roll Greg Abbott out into traffic and slam his Attorney General’s face into a desk, oh, and rip the eye patch off that phony Texas congressman’s face? The last time I was violent as a civilian was when a drunk ass 30-something spilled my wife’s wine all over her dress, and when I complained he said, ‘You looking to get your ass kicked old man?” He ended up on his back in the bar at the Breakers in Palm Beach. Thanks, Sgt Raoul McGinnis, your training stuck with me.
Dan B
@JWR: That would assure that MTG and Bobert would get shiners. Equality too!
Betsy
I have a better solution, although not as practical.
Put them on their own special Covid cruise ship, so to speak: Republican fuckwits (and right-wing fuckwits who won’t admit to being Republican) need to be launched into space where they can foul up their own dam planet.
But they should be sterilized first so that no innocent children will suffer after they get there.
opiejeanne
@JWR: What about Boebert and MTG? They don’t have nuts, they just are nuts.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I saw someone else say that we don’t have a second amendment problem, we have a Republican problem. It’s getting to the point that I am considering that maybe we need to televise every single shooting to force everyone to watch all of the real killing going on in America every single day.
Every shooting needs headlines that say “Brought to you by the Republican party and the gun industry”. “Thoughts and prayers” have become such a joke line that it’s hard to believe conservative politicians can still say it with a straight face. But then again, they are professional liars.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
I vote for the latter. We need to see it all. Every bit of it. The headless bodies, the children cut in half. All of it. Over and over again.
Kelly
@JWR: Not all of gun humping Congress folk have nuts.
Alison Rose
@opiejeanne: In the cervix. If you aim the kick just right…
…and it doesn’t take much force for something hitting that to hurt like hell.
Tony G
@Alison Rose: Unfortunately, from my point of view, the problem isn’t Republican politicians, per se, or even the NRA, per se. The problem is the members of the public who are gun fetishists. The gun humpers are a minority, but they are a large enough minority to make a difference, and they are single-issue voters who are opposed to even the mildest gun control measures. About ten years ago I had a job at an IBM software support office in East Fishkill, New York. It was only about 50 miles north of New York City, but it might as well have another planet. My co-workers were guys (mostly men) who lived in rural areas and, yeah, they loved their guns. Aside from that they were normal human beings — intelligent enough to work with software and pleasant enough when they were talking about ice hockey or their families. During my time there, there were two of the worst mass shootings — in Aurora, Colorado and in Sandy Hook. Many of these “nice, intelligent guys” reacted to these crimes by declaring that they would go out and buy MORE guns and ammunition “before Obama make guns illegal”. There’s a sickness in our culture, and I can’t see the solution.
Elizabelle
We have a lot of good artists and makeup artists on our side.
I think we should have them make us up, to look like AR 15 victims, along with the bloody and torn clothing, and we can go stand silent vigil outside Congressional offices (if allowed; if not, outside the Capitol), outside the Supreme Court, and I would love to be outside the rightwing justices’ homes. On the roads in, if we are not allowed to be outside their homes.
If teased about being zombies, so be it. At least we would have a positive purpose.
“Look at what these weapons do. You are enabling this.”
I think a strong visual would get press coverage. Would the photos be more distressing to children than having to do the endless shooting drills? Or knowing little kids are getting shot?
I think the solution has to be federal. Texas is going to Texass long after we are all gone. Don’t let the minority force these murders upon us.
For what it’s worth, I saw a photo of JFK’s bloodied button down striped Oxford shirt while flipping through an old Time magazine yesterday. It has the power to stop you in your tracks. You can see how stiff it is, around the neck and the right shoulder. It was bright crimson once, now just solid dark red.
It belongs to the National Archives now.
JWR
@opiejeanne: You’re right. I was thinking about what would hurt me the most. Also: Ted Cruz’s smug-ass face.
ETA @Kelly: And you’re right, too. Sorry for leaving them out. But now I’ve got an image of MTG and Boebert’s faces in my head and I still wanna kick ’em in the nuts
Jackie
@Alison Rose: Maybe find out how many gunned down were republicans… if the GQP find out they’re killing their own…
Nah, nebber mind. They’re just sacrificial lambs dying for “The Cause and FREEDUM!”
Elizabelle
RevRick and Kay and others were discussing today making the ammosexuals objects of derision. Run advertising against them. This would also seem to be a great exercise for Tik Tok, K Pop fans, the BeeHive, whoever wants to amplify the effort.
Two comments from the morning thread (you can search for “gun”: https://balloon-juice.com/2023/05/07/sunday-morning-open-thread-fly-guy/)
Kay’s comment number 98:
Suzanne:
Ridicule them. They are ridiculous. But they are running up a body count.
And: there is no small irony that they were discussing this in a thread whose theme was Mark Kelly. Senator from Arizona, husband of Gabby Giffords, who would have gotten there first but for a gun.
Kelly
In 2020 Oregon just barely passed Measure 114, limiting ammo capacity to 10 rounds and setting up a permit system. Votes were 50.7% in favor 49.3% against while the Presidential split was Biden 56% Trump 40%.
Starfish
@Alison Rose: Someone elsewhere suggested starting a news series that was like the Iran Contra coverage. “America Under Seige” and you revisit it every day.
Jeffro
Third thing: a concerted push to get GOP voters to realize…they’re the only folks who can make change happen here.
Dem voters are on board.
Dem politicians are on board.
Heck, even majorities of GOP voters are on board with many common-sense gun safety measures! But their reps are only listening to the NRA and its $$$, because those same GOP voters a) can’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat and b) can’t be bothered to harass their reps into DOING SOMETHING on this one issue.
So they key is to get GOP voters to realize: hey, we know you won’t vote for a Democrat, not just because of this one issue. But could y’all PLEASE be bothered to get your own reps to do something, before it’s too late? Before it’s YOUR kids with their brains splattered all over a fucking outlet mall?
That’s what it will take. GOP voters realizing they have options here other than voting for the Dem…but they have to actually DO something.
Elizabelle
You cannot shame the shameless.
But we could embarrass the hell out of their family members and associates.
In most places, people do not drop the N word, or smoke in restaurants (certainly not on airliners and in public buildings), and it’s not cute to drunk drive. These were all successful campaigns.
We can do this.
Jeffro
Btw also: a hearty FUCK. YOU. to Megyn Kelly, who decided/tweeted that’s it’s the fault of the gun safety advocates for not realizing they’ve “lost” and finding some other way to solve this problem. Yes, really.
“Friend of arsonist blames fire department for daily infernos”, in other words.
Sebastian
@Elizabelle:
first step is to stop calling them assault rifles but instead call them school shooter rifles. Make it mandatory to label it as such in advertisements and product descriptions.
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle: I doubt ridicule would change a thing. They’re angry already, that’s why they have multiple guns. Ridicule would only make them angrier. I agree with @Jeffro: the only thing is to convince the non-gun-nut GrOPer-voters to do something. Which is …. pretty damn improbable.
Elizabelle
Every time a mass shooting happens, my first emotion is anger, and then a bit of weariness, but then back to anger.
We cannot let the ammosexuals wear us down.
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: Good. Maybe they will stroke out on us. That works.
@Sebastian: School shooter rifles.
You are good at this.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Chetan Murthy:
It wasn’t that long ago when people were skeptical abortion rights would drive people to the polls. Maybe it’s not exactly the same situation, but we can’t give up either. I’m just saying things that were considered improbable have later come to pass
CaseyL
If enough GOPers were gunned down, you’d see some action on gun control.
If a few oligarchs got taken out, you’d see some action on gun control.
Make them as frightened as regular civilians are. Make them wonder if their kids or spouses or precious little selves will come home each night.
nickdag
I saw something on the Twitter earlier today about a mother doing exactly this. She insisted on showing her son’s destroyed body to drive the insanity home.
Anyone have the source? I don’t have a clue.
Jackie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Vote for children NOT guns.
mrmoshpotato
@Alison Rose:
I’m more for throwing them all into the Sun.
SpaceUnit
Nothing will change until the Republican Party is destroyed via the voting booth. They are a death cult and the gun is their symbol.
ETA: FWIW, I think that between the mass shootings, backlash against the Dobbs decision and other issues, we may actually live to see the fuckers destroyed at the voting booth.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Jeffro:
I posted a link to an article about Megyn Kelly’s odious comments in a previous thread. She becomes more despicable with each passing week.
Jeffro
@Jackie: I like it – gets right to the point!
Jeffro
@Wyatt Salamanca: ah – did not see that, thanks! We’ve been a little busy today at the Fro household.
Also, fuck Megyn Kelly.
Elizabelle
@CaseyL: Agreed.
Something else to do, visually:
Empty desks. Small ones, for Sandy Hook and Uvalde. Empty chairs for the week’s or month’s shooting victims, with small chairs to indicate children were killed.
Make the “justices” drive past them on their way home.
Array in front of the thoughts and prayers crowd.
But I agree with those who say bring the pressure to bear on the non crazy Republicans who enable this with their votes.
Michael Bersin
@ArchTeryx:
Exactly.
“The first girl I walked up to was crouched down covering her head in the bushes, so I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side and she had no face.”
If Steven Spainhouer had to see that, everyone needs to see it.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
What has the fat old Sun ever done to you to make you so disrespectful of it?
;)
Another Scott
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Heather Cox Richardson at Substack:
The problem is the NRA (which is weaker than it was), and the GQP operatives who weaponize every bit of society they can to increase their political power.
Worth a click.
Fight for 15!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Michael Bersin
@Elizabelle:
Guns have changed. Shouldn’t gun laws?
dmsilev
@nickdag:
Emmett Till comes to mind. That was a previous generation’s horror, but it still fits.
Jeffro
ad narrator: “We get it. You might not ever be willing to vote for a Democrat. There are issues other than just gun safety that matter to you – fine. But your Republican reps are leaving your kids in the crosshairs while they cash those fat NRA checks. They’re completely ignoring your safety – and that of your kids, and your parents, and your fellow parishoners, and fellow shoppers. And day by day, the carnage mounts.
Just. call. Just call them and tell them you want to see some action on gun safety. Universal background checks are something that 85% of all Americans support. Waiting periods are something that 76% of all Americans support. Can we at least do that?
Don’t wait until it happens at your kids’ school, your church, your mall. It’ll be too late.
Just call them and tell them: on this one issue, you want some action. Thank you.”
Elizabelle
There are 21,000 reader comments on the WaPost story on the shopping mall shooting. Wherein Mr. Spainhouer tried to assist a girl who no longer had a face, it turns out.
That is the most reader comments I have ever seen on a story. Ever. And it just went up today.
People are fed up. Tipping point.
Meanwhile, the FTF NY Times is not allowing reader comments on its gun stories. That tells you something, too.
laura
If called to bear witness, I will do so.
I have not, and will not seek the evidence of wanton killing, but if requested by family in order to demand regulation of guns? I will do my part to advance the cause.
Michael Bersin
@dmsilev:
Sandy Hook. The mother of one of the children. She asked the governor to look at her son’s body in the casket.
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle: I dearly hope that this will be a tipping point for our country. But I remember feeling that precise feeling after the Stoneman Douglas massacre. I felt “no country, no people, can allow their children to grow up, to be educated, in such dangerous surroundings; surely *now* they will act”. And then …. crickets. I fear it’ll take a lot more than this. Sigh.
Another Scott
@ShadeTail: Basically, I think this is right.
The problem is that the GQP monsters know that they cannot win popular support for their positions and policies in fair elections. So, they tilt the playing field in their favor, ram through monsters as judges, and rile up their supporters into a constant fight-or-flight – but-mainly-fight response to get them to come out to vote for them. Popular opinion (e.g. something like 90+% wanting universal background checks for gun purchases) doesn’t matter, because they don’t depend on popular opinion for their position. They cannot be shamed because (among other things) reality doesn’t matter to them.
We need to elect more Democrats, and take away the monsters’ power to have crazy-minority rule. 15 SCOTUS justices. No filibuster / cloture crap in the Senate. Time limits for Senate consideration of appointees or they go through. Statehood for DC and PR. Expand the House so that the popular vote matters more. Pass a strong new Voting Rights Act. Etc.
The sensible majority needs to get things done.
I’d like a pony too, but I’m going to keep working for making things incrementally better until that pony arrives.
Cheers,
Scott.
JWR
@Jeffro:
Yes! I hadn’t read much about what she said or why it mattered, considering she’s largely irrelevant these days, (she has a Sirius/XM show), and so I read a story about it over at Yahoo, and aside from her being a clueless jerk, her Twitter feed is full of likeminded creepazoids, and I came away thinking that America is at war with itself. In fact, I wonder how daily U.S. gun death rates compare to countries locked in civil war?
Elizabelle
@Michael Bersin: That is excellent. Should be on the air, in heavy rotation. Alarming, then funny, and gets the point across.
Dopey-o
”Kid Killer Guns” featured in commercials, just like laundry soap and beer. Totally deadpan.
eclare
@Chetan Murthy:
Florida did pass red flag laws after that. Obviously not enough, but if that can pass in Florida should be able to get them in other states.
I think Florida also raised the age to purchase guns.
Mallard Filmore
Let us pray to this
goldengun metal idol.satby
They have seen gore on TVs and movies for years, to the point where young gun shot patients in the hospital were surprised that they were still in acute pain weeks later. Because everyone’s able to fight in the next scene in movies. It all goes away when the screen goes dark.
THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT THE VICTIMS, they care about holding on to power. No amount of gory photos will change that because they won’t look. Threaten to take away their power. Make people single issue voters on this just like the anti-abortion people did. Because it worked.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: Ridicule won’t change the gun nuts. They are unreachable. We wouldn’t be aiming at them. We would be aiming at dividing gun nuts from hunters and target shooters. We would be aiming primarily at the next generation. Making being a gun nut something that people turn their noses up at. Making people associate being a gun nut with being immature and inadequate. Letting people know that a “real man” isn’t afraid to face the world without a gun. Will something like this take time and effort? Of course, but the current system isn’t working. So why the fuck not?
SpaceUnit
@Mallard Filmore:
Yep. There’s nothing more sacred to these nuts than their holy boom-sticks.
And there’s no amount of carnage that will move them from their faith.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: i see your point. And now I agree.
Jackie
@eclare: Pudd’n Boots just erased those. He just this past week signed to carry guns w/o a permit.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/03/desantis-signs-gun-bill-00090170
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well said. It’s worth trying for sure
worn
@Starfish: Or like the daily ‘How long has Iran held the hostages count’ we were treated to every fucking day in the waning weeks of the Carter Administration.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jackie:
What the fuck happened? It was only what, 4 years or so ago, that those laws were passed? Didn’t he himself sign those into law? Or was that Rick Scott? It’s like getting whiplash
ETA: All of this BS because he wants to run for fucking president
SpaceUnit
@Omnes Omnibus:
I actually think this strategy would work if we could get Hollywood and the entertainment industry fully on board. We need to start depicting gun kooks on film as the trembling and insecure little men they are.
Unfortunately the macho-man shoot-em-up movies are too lucrative a genre. And they’re a huge part of the problem.
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: This is probably the best long-term solution. And I do mean long term; as an analogy, it took a few decades for attitudes about smoking to really truly change enough to make a big dent in that rate.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: Yes, I don’t think that anyone who advocates for this believes that it will have any near term effects. Assault weapon bans, large capacity magazine bans, etc. can help in the short term. So can a Supreme Court that readopts a rational view of the 2d Amendment.
way2blue
I would like to see someone with a platform tell Texans—if you’re NOT okay with your kids being shot & killed when they go to the mall—contact this person (XYZ Texas mucky mucks) via one of these methods (ABC) and tell them bluntly… If everyday Texans can’t do that—They’re a lost cause. Biden for sure could do this. But there are other people. Obama? Bush? Clinton…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jackie:
💯
That’s a great slogan
Dan B
@Omnes Omnibus: Perhaps a little edumacation like in the wild west you had to surrender your gun when you entered a town. Cowboys never wore their six guns or carry their rifles in saloons or on Main Street. It was considered dangerous. Leave the guns to the Sherriff.
Geminid
I think Virginia Democrats will try to put gun safety on the ballot in this fall’s General Assembly elections. They passed six gun safety laws in 2020 and Republicans tried to repeal them last year. These gun safety measure, including expanded background checks, a one-per-month purchase limitation and a “red flag” law, all polled at +70% and defending them ought to be a good issue for Democrats.
Elizabelle
Perusing the WaPost reader comments. Now at 22K.
Q: Why does anyone need an AR-15?
A: To pretend they are going to fight the government in a civil war then figure out they will get killed so settle for shooting unarmed locals
====
ETA: Someone else called the rightwing “christians” the “evilgelicals.” I like.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Dan B:
There was an episode of the Rifleman I caught on TV that my uncle was watching on Thanksgiving a few years back that explicitly dealt with this. What’s hilarious? The show tried to portray that tactic (checking your gun with the Marshal) as heavy-handed and ineffectual, being implemented by a disabled war veteran with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove. Interestingly, this episode was written in the early 60s, when gun laws were much more restrictive
All of those western shows/movies were fantasies
Rudi666
@nickdag:
Jon Cooper posted a video of some of the victims. It’s gruesome! Emitt Till’s mother went with an open casket, to show what they did to her son.
Elizabelle
@Rudi666: And even there, Emmett Till was cleaned up a little bit for public viewing. For one thing, his eye had been hanging out of its socket. Not in the casket, though. (Jet magazine published photographs.)
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
They made no claim of being anything otherwise.
Ruckus
@ArchTeryx:
I agree with this.
The people that have lost have seen far, far more than enough. But the only way that those that don’t give a fuck is to rub their faces into it. Many of them won’t give a damn of course because it’s not their kids/wife/whatever but still Vietnam should be a lesson that many people do not give a damn about anyone but themselves until they see the absolute worst that anyone of them can imagine, that it could be them or their kids or wife. Or even husbands. We will never convince any of the assholes but we don’t need to, we just need to convince the squishy middle ground, much of whom already knows but doesn’t care as long as it isn’t them.
Manyakitty
@Anne Laurie: OMG, all of this. You know each and every one of those creepy fuckers wishes they were out there, murdering innocents. Utterly grotesque. How did we end up with an entire political party made of sociopaths?
Manyakitty
@Betsy: lock all the Republicans in Washington in a room filled with AR-15s and thousands of rounds. Let them solve the problem for us.
TriassicSands
Not covering mass shootings is not an option.
The Post, supposedly in an effort to show the damage bullets do, ran an article that was a joke. It uses cartoon figures to show the damage and 100% of the effect is lost. There is also no blood. It’s well-intentioned but totally ineffective.
The Post got the permission of the victims families, but I can’t imagine any of them actually watching a video, looking at photos, or reading graphic descriptions. Their trauma was in losing their loved ones.
Anonymizing photos would be necessary. Backgrounds could be changed (or just blurred) to make them unidentifiable. The worst, most horrifying photos would be of victims’ heads and faces, but in many cases the damage would be so catastrophic their identities would be unknown.
However, graphic photographs probably won’t help either because the people who would be affected by them, probably won’t (understandably) want to view the carnage. And the people who don’t care, would watch them with popcorn. They aren’t just sick. They are inhuman.
Maybe strapping governors and legislators into chairs with their eyelids held open (as in A Clockwork Orange) and forcing them to watch the carnage daily would have an effect. On the other hand, most Republicans wouldn’t be moved. The Abbotts of the world would get off on the carnage. All they care about are votes, not human beings.
In the end, the “solution” will likely require a complete reorientation of the US. First, a solid majority on the Supreme Court. Large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. And a strong, courageous Democratic president who is willing to prioritize this issue. None of that is in place now or likely anytime soon.
The conclusion? Regular reports of one mass shooting after another while the American voters sit by and refuse to get rid of every gun-supporting POS in the Republican Party (and, if necessary, the Democratic Party). This isn’t because voters value guns over lives, it’s because they value lots of things over the lives of their fellow human beings.
eclare
My cat Oliver started declining on Friday, trouble walking, not eating. I just checked to see if he would eat, and he’s passed. I was going to take him to the vet tomorrow.
eversor
Look guns defend Christianity, so that part will not change. You’d have to take on Christianity first, and nobody here will do it so the gun battle is lost and pointless. Unless people are going to nut up and take out Christianity, any takers, nope so shut up about guns you lost that when you didn’t turn the Bible into Mein Kmapf, and the cross into a swastika, it’s over, they win.
I’m also leery of showing people what guns do. You been shot? I have. You shot someone? I have. This does not go down like most think. It’s so beyond the pale it won’t register. It’s not going to change the minds of those who need guns to defend and enforce their religion. It’s going to horrify the hell out of those who are already on our side. It’s also something most people can’t grapple with.
But the raw reality is we aren’t going to confront Christianity. So we we will fuck around with race, sexism, patriarchy, conservatism, republicans, and not address the fucking cross that has caused the cancer. So it won’t be fixed, ever. Until that religion is gone. And it will be gone, in maybe 30 or so years but that religion will be the new KKK or even worse and then shit will start to get fixed.
Manyakitty
@TriassicSands: I also like the idea of sending burial bills to the states where the shootings happen. Also bill the gun companies. What else do we have to lose?
Manyakitty
@eclare: oh no. I’m so sorry to hear this. Sending all the love.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@eclare:
Sorry for your loss. Losing a pet is like losing a friend or family member. I went through the same thing two years ago with my cat, Bilbo. I’m sure Oliver knew he was loved
TriassicSands
The Post, supposedly in an effort to show the damage bullets do, ran an article that was a joke. It uses cartoon figures to show the damage and 100% of the effect is lost. There is also no blood. It’s well-intentioned but totally ineffective.
The Post got the permission of the victims families, but I can’t imagine any of them actually watching a video, looking at photos, or reading graphic descriptions. Their trauma was in losing their loved ones. One question that should be considered is this: Is the possibility of retraumatizing victims’ families more important that all the lives that will be lost if nothing changes? Again, why would anyone related to a past victim ever access in any way the graphic depictions we’re considering here?
Anonymizing photos would be necessary. Backgrounds could be changed (or just blurred) to make them unidentifiable. The worst, most horrifying photos would be of victims’ heads and faces, but in many cases the damage would be so catastrophic their identities would be unknowable.
However, graphic photographs probably won’t help either because the people who would be affected by them, probably won’t (understandably) want to view the carnage. And the people who don’t care, would watch them with popcorn. They aren’t just sick. They are inhuman.
Maybe strapping governors and legislators into chairs with their eyelids held open (as in A Clockwork Orange) and forcing them to watch the carnage daily would have an effect. On the other hand, most Republicans wouldn’t be moved. The Abbotts of the world would get off on the carnage. All they care about are votes, not human beings.
In the end, the “solution” will likely require a complete reorientation of the US. A solid majority on the Supreme Court. Large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. And a strong, courageous Democratic president who is willing to prioritize this issue. None of that is in place now or likely anytime soon.
The conclusion? Regular reports of one mass shooting after another while the American voters sit by and refuse to get rid of every gun-supporting POS in the Republican Party (and, if necessary, the Democratic Party — Yeah, you, Joe Manchin!). This isn’t because voters value guns over lives, it’s because they value lots of things over the lives of their fellow human beings.
Amir Khalid
@eclare:
I’m sorry for your loss.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Well, no, they didn’t to be fair. But too many people believe what they see on TV and media influences people
TriassicSands
@eclare:
I’m so sorry. It is so painful losing our much loved companion critters. I hope Oliver’s end was at least painless for him.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
We know this. We know that there is a concrete headed group that thinks that guns are a god given right. We will never convince them otherwise. And yes it will not be in any way good for the families of victims but how else can the bobble heads ever learn? This is a disaster and every event makes the disaster worse. At some point the only way to get the don’t give a damn middle is to make the don’t give a damn middle realize that change is possible but not in any way easy.
I’ll ask the question though – how else could we change the minds of those that don’t already care? Nothing else seems to work, is showing them the direct damage is really the only way. I’m not saying we have to show the faces but we could at least try to show the bodies.
This is life and death stuff and it is not something that most of us see, even in this current disaster of arming the idiot citizens with weapons of war and all the deaths that the current disaster of arming the fucking idiots who think it is their absolute right to shoot people they don’t like for completely asinine reasons.
I don’t want to have to show the victims but what else might work?
Alison Rose
@eversor: I will once again tell you to shut the fuck up, but also, this:
go absolutely fuck yourself. As a Jew, I have every reason to dislike certain sects of Christianity, but it is NOT every one of them, and comparing the Bible and the cross to the fucking Nazis is repugnant and even more ignorant than you usually are.
Why the fuck can you not just shut your stupid face? I don’t know why the FPers allow you to keep posting this hateful shit. What do you think you’re accomplishing, aside from making it clear that you are a complete waste of skin and provide nothing of value to the world?
SHUT THE FUCK UP. God, I pity anyone who knows you in real life, you absolute trashpile.
Elizabelle
@eclare: I am so sorry, eclare.
eclare
Thanks everyone. It was just so sudden.
JWR
@eversor:
So, I guess we can put you down in the Megyn Kelly camp. Got it.
Ruckus
@Michael Bersin:
Yes guns have changed.
When the constitution was written guns were single shot weapons and reloading was somewhat slow. A practiced person could be fast but no where near as fast as a semi automatic weapon. And yes even the military weapons were single shot, hand reload powder and bullet. Not automatic loading and 10-30 or more shots as fast as the trigger can be pulled. And a lot of people hunted for food. We no longer have to do that.
Guns have changed. And have changed a lot in the lifetime of many living.
Chetan Murthy
@JWR: @Alison Rose: he’s tiresome.
Alison Rose
@eclare: So very sorry <3
Sister Golden Bear
@Ruckus:
At the time, an expert might be to fire four times per minute with a musket, once a minute with a rifle (the rifled grooving made it harder to reload).
TriassicSands
@Alison Rose:
When eversor wrote this:
I thought, “Yeah, I can believe that.”
I don’t know what eversor’s fixation on Christianity is, but our problem with guns in this country has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with a political party willing to sacrifice any number of lives in its quest to gain and keep power and millions of Americans who are so broken and twisted their need to have guns may be the most important issue in their lives. At the least, they are so deranged they can’t feel safe and whole unless they are parading around with a weapon to show the world how tough and intimidating they are. One thing is certain — their intellect isn’t going to impress a banana slug.
StringOnAStick
@eclare: My condolences on the loss of your sweet companion.
Omnes Omnibus
@eversor: Hey look, a bigot.
Chetan Murthy
@TriassicSands: even Serbia, a country notably awash in guns, is starting to do something about guns. And they also have massive racism problems (specifically with, it would seem, any neighbor who ain’t Serbian).
It’s the guns.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@eclare:
My condolences to you, eclaire. Chase the mice over the rainbow bridge, Oliver. Rest in peace.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@eversor:
If nothing will change unless Christianity is stopped, then give up and quit worrying about it.
Poe Larity
Megan McCardle Pitchbot: What if body armour could be made fashionable?
TriassicSands
Yes. We need to ban assault rifles and semi-automatic pistos and get rid of them — including the millions already in private hands. That will go a long way toward solving our gun violence problem. (Odds that it will happen? Too low to get a number.)
And no. Getting rid of all the guns is critical to saving countless lives, but the problem that looms above that — in my mind anyway — is the Republican Party and their rejection of democracy and good government and all the people (with or without guns) who support them.
It would be a huge step forward if we could fix the gun problem, but that wouldn’t make democracy safe or prevent the neo-fascists from taking over. That is in the hands of voters. Saving all those lives so they can get to live in a mindless, authoritarian kleptocracy is a very incomplete victory. (Still worth saving those lives.)
If we could solve the gun problem, we’d still have the Republican problem. If we could solve the Republican problem, we could take care of the gun problem. I wish I had even a shred of confidence that we’ll be able to do either.
I constantly harp on the problem of voters, because they are at the root of everything. In an earlier comment, I said that voters who don’t care about gun rights and would like all the killing to stop, still vote for Republicans who guarantee the gun carnage will continue. That is an assemblage of very different people. Some are religious zealots who want to impose their version of their religion on everyone. Some are people who despise government aid for people who are struggling. Some are wealthy people who want their taxes cut. And on and on. What they have in common is that something is always more important that stopping the killing.
Maxim
@eclare: I’m so sorry.
TS
@ArchTeryx:
There are still screaming about it – as are many city dwellers who are desperately trying to remove gun control in Australia. Fortunately, the police (who have their moments) want to hold on to their own control & do not want the general public out there with guns. This is probably one reason why those against gun control are losing the argument.
Needless to say, being able to send your kids to school, go to the movies & shopping malls with NO fear that anyone will be shot is something most of us do not want to change.
afterthefirstdeath
@Anne Laurie: I am a survivor of gun violence and I have had people I cared about shot dead, including a child.
You need to find your spine on this. You are not helping the ones who already have nightmares. I have had and will have to deal with my trauma regardless of what you think hurts or helps me. I don’t care about your sympathy because I think it is more about your own sympathy. It will make you feel good. It does little good for me. But it really benefits those who need to see the horror, the truth, and who have safely and conveniently avoided it, thanks to folks with your sentiments.
You are helping the people who don’t want the reality of gun violence to muss with their nice suburban white life.
Oh its so bad for the survivors! Yes. Oh fuck yes. But it was bad from the first bullet. It will always be bad.
Yes it will traumatize me again, and everyone else who lost someone.
Do you know who it is never bad for?
The stupid mushy middle — the NPR tote bag liberals and the nice christian white suburban republicans. The people who think showing the world what a human butcher floor looks like is somehow indecent and cruel and offensive. Absolutely it is. And it happens every goddamn week.
These are the same gentle people who love their steak and hamburger but have never seen a cow gutted and butchered. They don’t want to know. They want it processed neatly and wrapped in cellophane on clean white styrofoam trays. No skin or hair, please, that’s gross, and with a convenient sponge underneath the meat to sop up the blood, so we all can pretend that the animal’s hunk of muscle, now neatly displayed in more or less standardized units that resemble nothing like the animal, never bled. America wants the icky gore and blood abstracted away from real life. If you can’t see it it doesn’t really exist. Or at least it’s easy to believe it doesn’t.
A man’s intestines are blue. You will never forget once you see them on a floor. We are made of blood and shit and slimy stuff.
These blessed fuckers need to see what really happens after a shooting because it is already a fucking monstrosity. Nothing you or I do will change that. Or make it worse. It is reality. We endure this again and again because so many people can ignore that reality.
You cannot make this worse. You cannot make this worse for me. I remember the horrible images. They don’t go away. You will not spare me from them. I don’t need your concern about my trauma because it’s too late for that, and all that does is make it safe and easy for the people who should have also been traumatized to shirk their responsibility to society, to all of us. We are not all in this together, and you are helping keep it that way.
Hiding it denies the reality of it. It lets the normies of the beautiful mind and easy sleep pretend it isn’t as horrifying as it really is. It lets them off the hook.
They have a responsibility. They own part of this. They live in the same society and they are able to ignore their responsibility to that same society.
We survivors, the ones who but an hour ago, held a child who was eviscerated by bullets, we know what this means. We have the nightmares and the horror and the trauma years later.
It’s about time the complacent got their sleep disturbed. It’s about time they got traumatized and haunted the rest of their lives by things they see and cannot unsee. Because again and again they accept this carnage because it costs them nothing and is so easy to ignore.
It isn’t about the right wingers. Most won’t care, they are both lazy and defective people. And fortunately they are not a majority.
It’s the normies that are the problem. They have no pain, no risk from these massacres and deep down inside they believe they won’t ever. They never have skin in the game despite having a key part in determining the rules of the game.
Let them see what really happens. Let them suffer the shock and unease. In their nice insulated world censored of the consequences of their apathy, make them carry their share of their burden, their culpability. These nightmares, these images, this trauma, let them claim their share.
Their attitudes, their indifference will not change until they too see the horror. Until they too have seen things of nightmares.
Do not claim this is for the kindness of the survivors.
You need to gird yourself for the hard task of doing what needs to be done to protect the next victims. We need to show the complacent what mass death by bullets looks like. It’s going to take some backbone. I can suffer the trauma, I already do and will no matter what. Make it worth our while, give our suffering a reason. Others need to see this, the aftermath. Do not let them hide from this, do not enable them to avoid their part in this.
Sebastian
@Dopey-o:
yeah. The term assault rifle is dripping with toxic masculinity and that needs to change. Assault rifles in the military remain assault rifles because they can burst and go full auto.
Semi-automatic ARs become school shooter or kid killer rifles.
Aussie Sheila
@ArchTeryx:
The reason they don’t have an outsized portion of the vote is preferential voting. This gives people more room to move in assessing their options when casting a ballot. The other things is, everyone must turn up and get their name crossed off the register. It doesn’t mean ‘voting’ is compulsory, but turning up to the polling station and getting your name crossed off is. In the event, this means practically that 93-95% of the electorate actually votes.
One year I missed getting her ballot to my mother to vote. She/I was required to pay a $65 fine. I am content with that.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Sebastian: “Weapons of war” is the term I use. Even though some nut on Twitter once demanded I name one war in which the AR-15 had been used. (I didn’t pull out the long list starting with Vietnam, but blocked him because I deduced he was not arguing in good faith.)
Aussie Sheila
@TriassicSands:
Agree. I am a natural born atheist, but the constant diatribes against religion is simply tiring and misses the point. All religions call out people to be better people towards others. It’s just that people are slow learners.
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila: *Many* modern religions call people to better. But *some* religions (e.g. many of the Evangelical cults that seem popular with White Americans, and also some of the ultra-nutter Catholic sects) do nothing of the kind, and traffick pretty much solely in hate. And the roots of all religions are in the core function of marking in-groups (and hence, out-groups), which is anything but “being better people”.
TriassicSands
@Aussie Sheila:
I, too, am an atheist. I accept that people have the right to believe whatever they choose to believe. I don’t have to respect those beliefs or think they make any sense, but I’m not going to push for laws to make people accept what I believe. The trouble today is that there is a strong movement among American Christians to impose their beliefs on everyone. The Supreme Court’s “Illegitimate Six” lead that movement. (I call them illegitimate, not because of how they got on the Court, though some are also illegitimate for that reason, but because they clearly place the Bible and their religious beliefs above the Constitution and the secular society that is required in order to have freedom of religion.
On the gun issue, it’s pointless to rail against Christians, because they aren’t a monolithic group any more than Jews or Muslims or the members of any other religion form a unified group on all issues.
Good Christians, to me, would be so opposed to the gun violence in this country that they would be figuratively knocking down doors to get their representatives to act to bring about radical change. But that would be true of any “good” person. The real lack of “good” people is in the Republican Party where people, even those who are opposed to the gun violence, continue to elect politicians who will guarantee it continues. One can’t, in my estimation, be a good person and continue to elect people who refuse to do anything meaningful to stop the carnage in this country.
In a sane, decent country, no private citizen would have access to either a semi-automatic pistol or an assault rifle — for any purpose. Home defense? We’d need a lot less of it if there weren’t guns everywhere. And a revolver will be better for home defense, since it won’t jam and there is no question how many bullets are in it. I’ll repeat, if you need more than six shots, you’re probably done for anyway. I’ve never seen a statistic about what percentage of guns in this country are properly stored. But if one must, by law, keep a gun in a locked safe, then it may not be available for so-called home defense when it is needed. And keeping it unlocked must be against the law, otherwise your ‘home defense” is likely to end up in the hands of someone who shouldn’t have it.
We have some very difficult days…years ahead. Banning certain weapons now and leaving all the pre-existing weapons in the hands of private citizens is less than a half measure. It may be better than nothing, but if that is all we do then expect the mass shootings to continue.
Ultimately, yes it has to be about “taking away their guns.”
Aussie Sheila
@TriassicSands:
Agree with most of that. Especially the bit about confiscating guns. Unless you live on a farm, no one needs a gun on their property where there is a proper police force.
As to religion, after a bit it always sinks into the dominant culture, society and economics of its region. In other words, for most people it becomes an affirmation of that which they find useful and accommodating to how they prefer to live their lives.
Ksmiami
@Manyakitty: leave one bottle of water and one Twinkie, then lock the fucking doors
Gvg
@Aussie Sheila: Not quite correct. Also we do not always have a “proper” police force. First the USA is a big variable country. Any reformed gun laws have to take this into account. Alaska is remote, with weather that means no police can get there at times and has large dangerous bears. They do need guns. Not AK’s which I understand actually don’t have the right stopping power but experts can write those details. Other localities have some issues too. But not all that many. When areas get crowded, what your gun does infringes on someone else’s rights and life and the Constitution says everyone has rights and equality. That’s when laws need to get tougher and much more restrictive.
snoey
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Dude was trying to play clip/magazine games. The AR-15 is the semi-auto civilian model. The full auto military version is the M4.
Nukular Biskits
I’d like to see parents, family members hold “open casket” funerals and invite the media (as well as their respective state leg and Congressional delegation).
Something similar to what Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley did to publicize the horror/hatred that killed her son, Emmett.
satby
@eclare: Very late condolences on the passing of Oliver. Being a beloved member of a family in a safe home is heaven for them, and you have Oliver that. He slipped away quietly to save you the sadness of having to take him on that “last ride”.
E.
@Omnes Omnibus: Eversor may be painting with a very overbroad brush, but he is right to identify a political, not religious connection between guns and the church. My sister’s ex husband recently met a woman and joined her megachurch. Within weeks he had an AR15 and was teaching her sons to use it. The pastor stokes fear and the church members respond. All of them are armed and they train together.
E.
@eclare: Oh eclare I am so sorry. I am facing this too with an aged cat who has for long stretches been my only companion. But Oliver passed quietly and quickly and that is a blessing too. May we all pass on to the next adventure gently, and while loved.
Paul in KY
@ArchTeryx: The terrible Port Arthur massacre was especially terrible, given Australia’s population. The same level of carnage here would be approx 1,400 murdered.
Omnes Omnibus
@E.: Eversor is not painting with a very overbroad brush. He is flirting with eliminationist rhetoric, and I think I am being quite generous in using the the word flirting.
Paul in KY
@eclare: Very sorry to hear that. I’m sure he was a great cat!
Manyakitty
@TriassicSands: there is a connection between guns and evangelicals, though. Remember the ‘gods, guns, and country’s slogan? And there are churches with Jesus on a cross made of guns. Not sure which other religion does that.
For the record, I know LOTS of good, decent people who also are Christians. Some of them even own guns. Not at all who I’m talking about. Yes, it’s the guns, but it’s not ONLY the guns.
#nuancematters
E.
@Omnes Omnibus: You might be right. But I think he is confusing religion and church and his angry expression of that is not more eliminationist than a lot of the language about social groups that gets a very free pass here. And I do think he is right that the churches are going to become a very big problem in the coming years.
Ksmiami
@Gvg: you can’t have civilization with everyone paranoid and armed to the teeth. It can’t be done.
Damned at Random
@eclare: So sorry. I have a 15-year-old in decline and decided not to traumatize her by taking her to the vet (she does not take vet visits well). She is actually living her best life- extra cuddles, nutrient supplements that she loves, and made peace with the cat she always hated. By way of saying, no guilt. Oliver knew he was loved, he passed in his bed, like we all hope to, and the vet may have been of limited help. Mourn your fur-baby, but don’t second guess yourself. Hugs and sympathy
Tony G
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: My understanding (and I should be corrected if I’m wrong) is that the AR-15 was developed by the US Army as the prototype for what became the M16 – infamous for the Vietnam War and every U.S. war since. My understanding is that the main difference between the AR-15 and the M16 is that the AR-15 does not have fully-automatic mode enabled – but that that “shortcoming” can be overcome with a bump stock (as was demonstrated in Las Vegas in October of 2017).
Ascap_scab
I say no more smiling yearbook photos of the victims during news reports. Show the remains of their faceless bloody bodies.