Colt Gray pic.twitter.com/WAaFriA9zV
— ???? Geo Is Still Pissed ????????????????????????? (@Geo_Is_Pissed) September 4, 2024
We know it’s back-to-school in America because the shootings have already started. Georgia has among the weakest gun laws in America. https://t.co/ln9YfDwVUe
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) September 4, 2024
Colt Gray was suspected of making threats to shoot up schools more than a year ago. FBI says it sent Jackson County deputies to his house but the then-13-year-old denied making the threats. Dad said son didn’t have unsupervised access to his hunting rifles.@ATLNewsFirst pic.twitter.com/Wp1RCAfvoe
— Brendan Keefe – Atlanta News First (@BrendanKeefe) September 5, 2024
It doesn’t have to be this way. https://t.co/spI98BmfCn
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 4, 2024
… But as long as the GOP is the face of the NRA, it will be:
Here’s @RepMikeCollins that represents the district where the school shooting happened today responding NO to Kamala Harris asking Congress to renew the assault weapons ban just 10 days ago pic.twitter.com/clwwgsHnM0
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) September 4, 2024
Is this you? https://t.co/ZR0l9E6Rxk pic.twitter.com/VnxawNscnf
— greg (@mistergeezy) September 4, 2024
Recall that she got her start in politics by harassing Parkland survivors. https://t.co/ZxbV1JHxTb
— zeddy (@Zeddary) September 4, 2024
The Poster Girl of Gun Violence. ???? https://t.co/IX2Y6zZqKd pic.twitter.com/zPt4u5v0x6
— greg (@mistergeezy) September 4, 2024
i don't know why this video from @TessRafferty isn't burning up this app but… let's fix that.#VoteBlueUpandDownBallot
pic.twitter.com/eaHNoMdPCr— Steve Marmel (@Marmel) September 4, 2024
On The Road – Elma – Iceland, long delayed, part two
Baud
I was just thinking I hadn’t heard Greene’s name in a while.
Spanky
@Baud: Did you say it three times into a mirror?
different-church-lady
No Marge, I won’t be joining you for a single goddamned thing.
Almost Retired
The first school shooting I remember was in San Diego in 1979. It dominated the news cycle for a week or more and inspired a catchy Boomtown Rats tune. It seemed unthinkable at the time. Now it’s just another Thursday and part of the American school experience like pep rallies and Winter Formal. Damn these gun humpers to hell.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Perhaps we should start e-mailing and Xing these assholes that they should change the name of assault rifles to “Molochs” since they are so keen on sacrificing children to them in return for prosperity.
Phylllis
There’s a part of me that wants to see parents sue districts en masse for civil rights violations. The problem with that is it would be another wedge used against public education to bring about its demise.
lowtechcyclist
We need to be telling the book banners, “no, we aren’t going to let you do that because books shouldn’t be banned. But if your kid gets hold of a book you think will infect them with teh gay or something like that, we will offer our thoughts and prayers.”
The Thin Black Duke
Nowadays the op-eds about gun violence in America are identical. Nothing changes because people don’t care. The template is the same. All the writers have to do is cut and paste the names and locations, easy peasey. Thoughts and Prayers, everyone, and good luck.
satby
@Phylllis: it’s not the school district’s fault if the state laws on guns are so lax as to be non-existent. People should sue the Republicans, gun manufacturers, and the NRA if they should sue anyone; but IIRC Republicans have passed laws protecting the gun makers from liability.
matt
Was the boy named after a gun?
The Audacity of Krope
It is time for politicians to get off their ass and do what they have known is right for a long time…turn our schools into high-security military encampments. Lessons will only be given by armed, uniformed personnel.
I didn’t think of that, but it seems damn near certain. So weird that “guns” are a distinct sub-culture.
TS
@matt: It would appear so. Not an excuse for what happened, but it almost seems prophetic that this would come to be. Did this child ever have a chance in our society.
lowtechcyclist
@Phylllis:
Speaking of groomers, have you read about the school resource officer in a Richland County high school? Multiple girls reported him for sexual abuse over a period of a dozen years or so before anyone finally did anything about him. It’s a pretty horrible tale, so brace yourself before clicking through. (It’s a gift link so it should work.)
gvg
@Phylllis: The school district boards didn’t pass the laws that made it possible, the state legislature and to a certain degree the Supreme Court did. Maybe they can sue the state? Challenge those laws in federal courts? but first we need to clean up the federal courts…SC also made it harder to “prove” bribery. That is prove in a legal convict sense, not to my eyes and other ordinary people. I don’t think that is a coincidence, because I think that means they are on the take, and that means we need to make more of that decision. Play it up, point out that just because they say it’s not bribery, doesn’t really make it so and implies they themselves or maybe just their friends and family ARE taking bribes. Then dig.
We need clean courts. Can’t really have democracy without them.
Jeffro
What is their plan? What’s their plan for reducing gun violence in this country? What is it, GOP? Let’s hear it, GOP. Tell us why this happens here and only here, and then tell us how you’re going to bring down the violence, GOP.
<crickets>
lowtechcyclist
@The Thin Black Duke:
Plenty of people care, but between a permanently gerrymandered Senate, the filibuster, and the reality that the Bogus Scotus is on the side of the gun humpers, actually doing anything about guns is an extremely heavy lift.
Unfortunately, we’re stuck with the political system we’ve got, rather than whatever one we’d like to have.
Jeffro
Someone should be sued for depriving Americans of their “life, liberty, and ability to pursue happiness” in a society with open carry, ‘stand your ground’, no red flag laws, etc etc. I agree with satby – sue the Republicans. Why not? They’re not just doing nothing – they’re actively making things worse.
It’s like living in a country with sticks of dynamite laying all around and free matchbooks on every corner. Ridiculous.
Baud
Via reddit, Kemp.
Betty
@matt: I have a grand-niece who did. Colter. Had a dog named Ruger. Evangelical Dad.
Jeffro
OT on two happier topics:
(for that second one: I wish we were in a better position to capitalize on them fighting…but hopefully it’s bad enough on the R side that our candidate can squeak in! )
OId Man Shadow
Kemp’s statement makes it sound like the school was hit with a natural disaster: “Nothing we could have done to prevent this. It just happens. Act of God. Pray that the bullet tornado doesn’t hit your kids’ school next. Move along.”
Betty
I have heard it asserted twice in the past 24 hours that Republicans support traditional family values. I would like someone to explain to me exactly what they mean by that. Does it include making sure your kids have access to guns?
RaflW
GA-10 is considered R+15, but contains Athens, GA and not just that county but at least one other is ‘blue’ and several parts of the district are growing. Which means it’s probably a bit less red than before.
Lexy Doherty, Democrat for GA-10 (lexydoherty.com) is the Democrat. I have no illusions that she’s gonna unseat him (coverage of her chances), but I sent her a bit of money last night. Anything to push back against these monsters.
Starfish
If/When the mass shootings that make national news go to trial, do you know how many potential jurors they have to call before they can seat a jury?
What if your peers do not want to see what an assault rifle can do to numerous bodies?
Sorry, I have strong feelings about a jury pool that I was eliminated from the other week.
The Thin Black Duke
@OId Man Shadow: Every time someone mumbles something about “Thoughts and Prayers”, an angel loses their wings.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Yep, “too soon” to talk about what we might could actually DO about it.
If I’d been in that room, I’d have been thrown out after telling him to go fuck himself.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: Yup.
:-(
If it’s like seat belts and motorcycle helmets and drunk driving and … , all the rest then it’s going to continue to take decades of struggle. Funding gun violence research. Demanding manufacturers make their guns safer and prevent unauthorized use. Etc.
Decades of work. Unless, unless, people vote the monsters out.
Things can change quickly with the right people in office. I like to think that we’re close to an inflection point for the better on this and many other important issues, but we have to get it done.
Peace and comfort to the innocents,
Scott.
BethanyAnne
Amending the Constitution to remove the second amendment seems a necessary but impossible first step.
dm
I like that the Harris campaign has been talking avoid this in terms of freedom — the freedom to go about your daily life and school day without fear of being gunned down.
Another Scott
I don’t want to derail this topic, but I posted a pointer and an excerpt of a WhiteHouse briefing on the Gaza negotiations in Adam’s most recent thread. Lots of details there, and yet another caution that one has to read comments from the various sides with a critical eye.
Cheers,
Scott.
artem1s
@Jeffro:
I can take a guess.
Hopefully TCF will actually say the quiet part out loud at the debates if the moderator has the balls to ask him and get an answer out of him.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty:
They must favor Old Testament family values, since their Dear Leader has had three wives and a fair number of concubines.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Kay
@Phylllis:
I think more criminal charges and lawsuits for parents (as in the case in Michigan) might have an impact, but only for gun crimes committed by juveniles.
Denali5
@dm: Exactly, the right to go to school, church and public spaces without the risk of a mass shooter.
rikyrah
@lowtechcyclist:
😡😡😡😡😡
RSA
And those were easy lifts in comparison, on the implementation side. We can see if you’re wearing a helmet or a seat belt (in some situations at least), and we can judge whether you’re DWI.
We need a way to take 400 million easily concealed, durable lethal weapons from people who don’t want to give them up.
I’m all for gun control legislation. It would be a start. I agree that a solution will take decades if not a century or more.
Kay
I wonder if it’s time we tried something else and started talking about this whole issue as “gun crimes”.
Every single one of these is a crime and people profess to care about “crime” and media already fearmongers about crime. Over and over and over :”gun crime”. To Repubicans “what are you doing about gun crime?” and then cite either a school shooting or an armed robbery or a drive by shooting. Stop differentiating between “mass shootings” and the whole host of other crimes committed with guns.
RaflW
I don’t really believe that people don’t care about gun violence. At least, some modest majority of people do care. But the perversity of our “best in the world” constitution, pushed to its limits by an evil GOP, has made action on gun violence incredibly difficult. Are people detached and hopeless about gun violence? Probably. That can change
eta: Like, what kay says makes sense. Turn the narrative. Early in the investigation, but it appears that the dad in GA was warned by officials, said to them it was ‘handled’ and it clearly wasn’t. Criminal negligent manslaughter? If the facts line up, it should be.
And the Harris-Walz campaign may, if elected, be able to weaken or end the cabalistic blocking of civil liabilities claims against gun makers and sellers. “Tough on crime? Yeah, Kamala Harris is tough on gun crime. She stopped gun dealers from selling to dangerous people.”
Another Scott
@Jeffro: The answer is, of course, they don’t want to bring down gun violence. They are intentionally creating the environment to increase gun violence for the rest of us, while they think they are immune and safe in their tribe.
Make public schools more dangerous, and increase police and searches and lockdowns, and tell parents – schools are more dangerous; we need more police in schools, and we need more funding for police, and we need to take funding away from dangerous public schools so you can send your kids to private schools.
Make the public square more dangerous for folks outside their tribe. Enforce their idea of conformity. Prevent civic challenges to their political, economic, and social power. Don’t like it? Be careful, we know where you live and oh, look, anyone can have an unlicensed concealed gun now…
Join our tribe and you won’t have to worry about all these scary things because we don’t attack our own. Oh, unless you wander outside the lines or question us…
Etc. Stuff like that.
It’s intentional. They’re not stupid. They know what they’re doing. Their crocodile tears are an intentional distraction.
Grr…,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Betty:
It means patriarchy. Low-quality men want “access” to women, so they want patriarchy to give them financial, sexual, reproductive, and domestic control.
RaflW
@Suzanne: Those distant Nebraska Walz cousins were in front of a Trump flag that said Take America Back. Yep, to 1953. Or 1903.
Another Scott
@RSA: Mostly agree, but there are well-known ways to get guns out of the public. We did it with Tommy guns. Lots of places have done successful buy-backs. Severe punishment for use of a gun in a crime, etc., etc.
We know how to do that. It will cost time and money, but we can get it done. And when the default is that the general public doesn’t own guns, or want to own guns, then it gets easier going forward.
Most people put on seat belts without prompting now…
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Starfish
This is my favorite mass shooting song. “All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you better run, better, out run my gun.”
What planet do we live on that I have a favorite song for when this happens?
I guess I will go read my favorite Onion article too.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
I think that’s a good idea – turn them into the soft-on-crime party.
It might at least turn the ‘soft on crime’ issue into a he-said, she-said over who’s really soft on crime.
Geminid
@Betty: Are you sure “Colter” was named after a gun, and not some family ancestor? Colter is an old name.
Your grand-niece might be like Virginia State Senator Russet Perry, who was named after a relative and not a potato. At least, I think she was. Maybe Mr. Moshpotato will weigh in on this question.
Matt McIrvin
@The Thin Black Duke: The main variation is when some of the victims’ friends or family become activists, in which case the conspiracy theories about “crisis actors” multiply and the gun folk start harassing and defaming them.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
I think twinning “gun” and “safety” or “regulation” was probably a mistake.
The issue with guns is gun crimes. If you’re a hunter then you don’t have to worry about “gun crimes” impacting you anymore than someone who goes into a bank thinks they will be impacted by bank robbery laws.
We’ve managed to group all gun issues together, so we talk about accidental shootings and suicides along with school shootings and drive by shootings. Mistake. “Gun crime” is a clean distinction, it’s true, and it requires no further explanation.
Let’s get tough on gun crime.
Phylllis
@lowtechcyclist: Literally right up the road from me. We don’t believe kids. They tell us every day who the bad people are, and we shush them. And Sheriff Leon Lott can eat a bag of salted dicks.
raven
@Phylllis: oops
Booger
Can somebody explain where homeowner’s liability insurance come into play in the whole gun crime debate? If I own guns–for hunting, for self-defense, for MAGA cosplay–shouldn’t my homeowner’s insurance rates reflect the potential hazard those guns represent to the community at large, and by extension, to my personal liability? Shouldn’t, you know, the invisible hand be flipping the bird at lax gun ownership by now?
TBone
I wish this post also addressed Putin’s “endorsement” of Kamala Harris made yesterday, but it’s good nonetheless.
https://digbysblog.net/2024/09/05/liz-cheney-patriot/
Please don’t @ me about Liz, I know her allyship is temporary and I also know where she comes from. But she’s doing a good thing at a great time at a great location. And she said the important part in no uncertain terms.
OOPS wrong thread!
Mousebumples
Postcards updates –
I’m off to my day job, but let’s keep putting in the work!
gene108
@Jeffro:
Not enough armed good guys to scare off potential bad guys.
Any “gun free zone” is just an invitation for bad guys to start shooting, such as schools.
Woke liberal humanism, the homosexual agenda, no fault divorces creating an epidemic of fatherless households, transgender people, drag queens, lack of faith in Jesus Christ, childless cat ladies, lack of strict discipline for children, coddling children too much, participation trophies, etc.
gene108
@matt:
Don’t know. Common naming convention in the South is to came a child after the mother’s family name. Mother’s maiden name was Colt, then name a kid Colt.
Or parents look to name kids with slightly “unique” not too weird name for their kids like Colt or Jackson or Noah, etc.
artem1s
For the forgetful, a reminder that every Democrat in Congress and the WH, AG, SoS, head of ATF, FBI, and even the CDC and for the last 30 years has been under threat to lose their seat, jobs and get primaried if they dared to step on the 2nd amendment third rail. Even the CDC and NIH aren’t allowed to do research on gun violence because the NRA has had held the entire country hostage so Wayne LaPierre can get rich off the blood of children.
Bill Clinton is the last POTUS who was able to get any real affective gun bans passed for weapons of mass destruction in this country. GOPers and Dixiecrats alike funded by Big Tobacco and the NRA had no problem drinking the blood of children to stay in power and were more than willing to throw the colleagues under the bus and continue the bloodbath. Only recently have there been others who have decided losing is an OK price to pay rather than staying silent. Just ask Beto if he thinks calling out gun violence was worth it.
Harris is incredibly brave for not sidelining this during her campaign. It’s going to be the only real hammer the GOP has left in their arsenal that will resonate with the base that is slinking away from TCF. But like Big Tobacco, guns were a third rail issue until it wasn’t. The Sandy Hook trial and win was the first chink in the NRA’s armor against civil suits. The MI case against the parents of the mass shooter is another chink for criminal prosecutors. We have trust that the former CA AG and prosecutor knows when she sees an opportunity. Let’s hope this will also motivate those young voters who think sitting out of an election is a cool thing to do.
Paul in KY
@Betty: Why would you name your dog after a POS weapons manufacturer like Ruger?!!?
Should have named him SIG…
brantl
I’ve noticed that homely people seem to think guns make them better looking, and as far as I can tell, it only makes them dumber looking, when that’s even possible……………
Paul in KY
@Starfish: Seen Foster the People twice. Great band. Lead singer is from Cleveland.
Paul in KY
@Kay: Very good point, Kay!
Chief Oshkosh
@OId Man Shadow: Kemp is the asshole who had a campaign commercial in which he threatened a teen with his shotgun – something about “if you plan on dating my daughter…”
I guess it’s true that liberals just don’t have a sense of humor.
Har-dee-har-har.
I think it would’ve be hi-lay-ree-us if the “teen” snatched that 12 gauge away from him, shove it up his ass, and pulled both triggers.
See? I’m working on my humor.
jonas
@Booger: I think most homeowner liability policies have available riders for firearms liability (as opposed to theft/loss, etc.), but I assume that they won’t pay out if the claim is a result of improperly securing the guns or the gun being used in a crime.
Denali5
@Kay,
Totally agree. What is happening over and over is criminal behavior with guns. And in the cases of minors, parents should be held responsible. And charged.
S Cerevisiae
Go after semi automatics. There is nothing in the constitution giving a right to a particular type of action and we’ve already banned full autos so add semi automatics to that existing 1934 law.
I’ve hunted all my life and never needed or wanted one, make people prove they need one.
Weftage
@Another Scott:
I think this is key. It’s another enclosure of the commons.
Anything they must share with Those People must be destroyed.
H-Bob
@jonas: I doubt that most “responsible gun owners” are responsible enough to get those insurance riders.
m.j.
Someone has to go into that school and clean it. You know, the blood and the body parts. People are literally chopped to bits by these rifles.
Maybe we need video. Maybe we need to hand Marjorie a bucket and a sponge and tell her to go to work.
Gvg
There are laws forbidding foster care agencies from asking foster parents if they have guns in their home. They used to ask if we had them secured. I was a foster mom when the law was changed in Florida. There are now laws forbidding doctors from asking patients if they have guns. It used to be part of feeling out if someone was suicidal. This can be very relevant especially when prescribing meds that have rare side effects of causing depression and suicidal thoughts.
I suspect insurance has been forbidden to ask, or charge more about guns. I don’t know that one, but it seems unlikely the lobbyists would have missed that angle.