Reporter: What are you giving up for Lent?
President Biden: You guys pic.twitter.com/SYUL9Lqnv8
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) February 14, 2024
Would that President Biden, and the rest of us, had that luxury. There are times I’m very glad to be a volunteer aggregator on a not-quite-ten-thousand-top blog, and not a professional journalist. Mr. Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire, on the last ‘Second Amendment’-related tragedy — “The Shooter’s Family Was Begging for Intervention Before She Opened Fire at a Megachurch”:
… Our latest unfortunate public exercise of Second Amendment freedoms took place in Houston, at the headquarters mega-church of Joel Osteen, a prominent teevee huckster Pharisee. (Osteen was the whited sepulcher who refused to open his megachurch so that poor and homeless people would not be left outside to face Hurricane Harvey in 2017.) On Sunday, a 37-year old woman named Genesee Moreno showed up at Lakewood Church with both her seven-year old son and her AR-15 in tow. She set up a firefight with two off-duty cops that ended up with Moreno dead, her son in critical condition with a gunshot wound in the head, and a bystander slightly wounded in the leg. The subsequent investigation has revealed Moreno to be quite insane. From CNN:
“My daughter-in-law when she was taking medication for schizophrenia was a very sweet and loving woman,” Walli Carranza, the mother-in-law of 36-year-old Genesse Ivonne Moreno wrote in a Facebook post that Moreno had been put under an order for emotional detention in 2016. She had a mental health history documented by Houston police, said Christopher Hassig, commander of the Houston Police Department’s homicide division. Carranza, the shooter’s mother-in-law, had unsuccessfully petitioned to be declared conservator of Moreno’s son Sam in 2022. She said Sam was wounded in the head when off-duty officers shot and killed Moreno at the church. Moreno should never have been allowed to own firearms, her mother-in-law said. Texas has no red flag law – also known as an extreme risk protection order law – that would allow authorities to take weapons from a person thought to be in crisis.“
…
Information from Moreno’s social media accounts and local authorities paints a portrait of a single mother with a history of mental health challenges grappling with the ups and downs of trying to turn her life around and launch a business. Hassig said the shooter used multiple aliases, including both male and female names. Records from the Texas Department of Public Safety show Moreno had a string of arrests for minor offenses over the last two decades, including illegal possession of a weapon. But in her 30s, she described herself on social media as the founder of a real-estate and financial services firm. By her own account on social media pages, she is involved in sales of everything from new condos to shopping malls.
So she was obviously troubled, had a police record, and had been busted for illegally possessing a weapon, and she was still able to buy a freaking AR-15 in December? Texas is checking all the boxes for being a real hellhole.
This has been Modern American Stories, brought to you by Remington, waterer of the Tree of Liberty…
Incidentally, I first ran across this story when the ‘Libs of TikTok’ monsters immediately seized upon the detail that Morena had ‘used multiple aliases, including both male and female names’ to gleefully brand her as transsexual, which was the only point they found important. I know Orthodox Jews don’t believe in Hell, but I hope Chaya Raichik has a very special afterlife experience waiting for her.
ETA:
Conservative response to mass shootings on here has become as grim as it is predictable: blame immigrants, if that fails blame trans people, if that fails blame mental health, if that fails claim it was a false flag. Just zero interest in making any progress on the issue.
— Jean-Michel Connard (@torriangray) February 14, 2024
Alison Rose
As far as I’m concerned, Raichik has been excommunicated from Judaism, so she may be facing something less pleasant than Olam Ha-Ba.
geg6
Chaya Rachik needs to have an encounter with karma. What a disgusting creature she is.
Yutsano
I always wish for someone I care about to have a gentle existence in the next step after death*. I don’t necessarily wish the opposite, but I don’t give them that credence.
*Tbh none of us actually knows what happens when the soul leaves the body.
Alison Rose
Also, for some reason, every time I try to play that little video, it lags right when he answers, so I can’t hear him.
RepubAnon
Where is Gilbert & Sullivan’s Mikado when we need him? He could find a punishment to fit the crime…
Manyakitty
So what are we up to? Four shootings today? So far
gene108
Feel so sorry for son. I hope whatever family he has left can help him to grow up and have a better life.
I disagree with Jean-Michel Conrad’s X-post. Conservatives idea of progress on mass shootings is more gun sales, which usually happens. The rest is window dressing to make it seem like they have a shred of humanity in them.
cain
Until their own lives are at stake due to guns we are not going to see much change. These people have emotionally distanced themselves from what people are going through. There are some so lost that even when they are involved they are steadfast and resolute in 2A freedom seeing themselves as heroes even in the face of personal tragedy. They disgust me.
RaflW
I just got back from Kenya. Which was an amazing and highly varied experience. But one thing that was fascinating was that everywhere in Nairobi that could be considered middle-class or above, or for tourists or business, there was private security including xray machines for all bags, and metal detectors for all people to go through.
When we’d pull into our hotel, even when arriving in a van dispatched by the hotel, we all had to pile out before a heavy barricade, march through a little hut (where everyone was nice!) and do the xray/metal detector thing. Even if the person in the hut recognized us from an hour earlier.
I say all this because it could be how we all live here in gun-crazed America, soon. I’m sort of surprised it hasn’t come to this already. Not that I want it! I want about 350,000,000 guns permanently removed from US circulation, and the manufacture and sale of new guns to be dramatically curtailed. But since that’s damn near impossible, we are probably heading for some sort of arrangement like I just encountered.
Many of our schools, courthouses, gov’t buildings and I believe some shopping malls already do this here, so it’s not even in the future, just about scaling up. And it’s shitty that we are where we are.
bbleh
Just zero interest in making any progress on the issue.
They don’t see it as an issue.
Righteous Responsible Americans like them should have all the guns they want, because they are righteous and responsible.
Other people should be shot down by Righteous Responsible people when they misbehave. Something something polite society something.
It’s all very simple. Like their minds.
Gretchen
Children’s Mercy Hospital KC is treating 11 children with gunshot wounds from the parade. They put out a notice to parents that if you can’t find your child, call us and see if we have them.
Harrison Wesley
https://youtu.be/CoxQWFtqaYM?si=Ezh4BG72Pv2w8Mu1
Gretchen
Idiot Governor Parsons was seen running for his life from the gunshots, surrounded by his security team. He’s done everything he can to gut every gun regulation he can get his hands on. Meanwhile, Coach Reid stopped to comfort scared kids.
Mike in NC
Didn’t Fat Bastard state at one of his recent rallies that if re-elected he’d repeal all gun safety laws? Because of course he would. He sells hate, fear, and chaos every chance he gets. Violence and hate crimes against non-white people skyrocketed when that lunatic was in the White House.
TBone
@Harrison Wesley: ❤️
cain
@RaflW:
Maybe that’s exactly what private business should institute. Start pulling that shit and make it very inconvenient. It’ll piss the conservatives off. But they can’t really do anything as it is private business.
cain
@Gretchen:
You can write some really good attack ads where of course Parson is not concerned about the laws he signs about 2nd – he’s got a private security detail.
Jay
@RaflW:
Since Bush II’s “War on Islam”, Kenya has experienced quite a few Al Shahabb terrorist attacks, due to their sending Peacekeeping troops to Somalia.
Most of these attacks have targetted tourism.
TBone
My current locale, a Bucknell college town, was declared a fukn “Second Amendment Sanctuary” 🤮🤬 and my Rumpy neighbors were so delighted they all bought AR-15 T-shirts. The only real firepower they possess IRL is a BB gun. I’m shopping crossbows and M80s. /s
Gretchen
I think one of the best books on this subject is Dying of Whiteness by Jonathan Metzle. He grew up here in Kansas City, and part of the book is about how racial fear and resentment shaped gun policy in Missouri. He interviewed people in support groups for relatives of people who died of gunshots and had some surprising conversations. I think it’s an indispensable book.
He’s got a new book on the subject of gun violence, which ironically came out today. My copy is due Saturday. It’s called What We’ve Become.
Suzanne
Open thread? Open thread!
If anyone had Rachel Dolezal — pardon me, Nkechi Diallo — losing her elementary teaching position in Tucson because she started an OnlyFans….. on their 2024 bingo card…… damn, you’re good.
mrmoshpotato
@Suzanne: Was she white or black on OnlyFans? (I don’t actually care about her trashy ass.)
Gretchen
And Anne Laurie, thank you so much for that wonderful Jason Kander post a couple of days ago. So good. He ran for Senate from Missouri, and his opponent Roy Blunt attacked him about guns. He said I’m not soft on guns, I was in Afghanistan and I respect my rifle. He did the famous ad where he assembles an assault rifle blindfolded, and challenges gun-jumper Blunt to do the same. Sadly, he lost by, I think, 3 points, but has gone one to do some great stuff including rescuing 75 families from Afghanistan.
dmsilev
@Suzanne: We’re still dealing with holdover stories from when the professional writers were on strike, right?
Baud
@Suzanne:
Why are elementary school kids visiting OnlyFans?
TBone
@Gretchen: 💔
Suzanne
@Baud: I assume for the same reason some of them have access to guns: their parents suck.
TBone
@Baud: thanks, I cracked a crooked smile.
Chris T.
@bbleh:
They’re missing the essential step that makes their logic work:
dmsilev
Speaking of whiners behaving poorly, really this headline speaks for itself:
Musk’s X sold checkmarks to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, report says
That’s …kind of a problem, the whole violation-of-sanctions-laws thing. It was fine in Old Twitter, since they didn’t actually charge for the Precious Blue Checkmark, but well Musk…
bbleh
@Chris T.: and also the Rapture, right? Somewhere in there, before or maybe after everyone’s dead? Not that it matters …
Geminid
@TBone: My Virginia county declared itself a Second Amendment Sanctuary in the Fall of 2019, right after Democrats won control of the General Assembly and promised to pass gun safety legislation. But Greene County never passed any ordinances to actually protect gun rights. I expect the insurance carrier told the County they’d cancel if it did.
When the General Assembly met that January, over 15,000 gun people descended on Richmond to protest but Democrats went on to pass 6 gun safety laws anyway. The funny thing was, when the laws went into effect that July, I looked and looked for news of protests and could not find any.
cain
@Gretchen:
He’s like Rambo – he should run again and then see what Roy Blunt says when the ad shows that he went to Afghanistan and saved 75 families.
Gretchen
Jason Kander was on Chris Hayes and said we could fix this if we just repeal that law that protects gun manufacturers from lawsuits. He says that, like tobacco companies and people who sold unsafe cars, gun manufacturers lose a few high-dollar lawsuits, they’ll figure out gun safety, smart locks, insurance themselves.
Sister Golden Bear
She and other anti-trans haters have been falsely claiming every recent mass shooter — at least for those shootings that get media attention — is either trans or non-binary. I’m sure they’ll do so with the alleged Kansas City shooters.
They’re doing it for the same reason that they accuse of being pedophiles, it’s an accusation that generated universal revulsion. They’re also doing it to further a Radio Rwanda narrative that trans people are “violent extremists” (their words) and implicitly people should kill us before we kill them.
TBone
@Geminid: funny how that works, not ha ha funny tho
TBone
@Gretchen: he was on with Chris Hayes tonight, making way too much sense. Oh you did see it 😊 I should have known.
Villago Delenda Est
@Sister Golden Bear: As always, with these deranged assholes, it’s projection.
wjca
Absolutely this. And we don’t even have to touch their (totally twisted into a pretzel from its original meaning) 2nd Amendment.
Villago Delenda Est
@wjca: Also, too, liability insurance for all firearms.
jesdynf
It’s important to me to be clear-eyed about what’s going on, because we can’t respond effectively if we don’t understand the lines of motion, and one of the tools I use to model and predict is what I call the Covenant of the Gun.
Realistically, the backline financiers of gunism aren’t funding it just because they like gunism — they fund it because anyone selling gunism is willing to sell all sorts of other desirable policies that negatively impact the people over which they rule. Gunism is just part of the package that doesn’t impact them any, an irrelevant externality that doesn’t appear in the calculus.
That’s the majestic Covenant of the Gun — that they who purchase gunism do not receive gunism, that it’s reserved for doctors and women, for poors and browns and lessers. As long as the Covenant of the Gun holds, rich dudes won’t change their buying decisions. We’ve had thirty years of protesting that hasn’t changed anything, thirty years of trying to engage with gunists like they’re people who learn things. None of those things worked because none of those things touched the Covenant of the Gun.