Two children, aged eight and 10, killed in shooting with 17 others injured, including 14 children
Two children, ages 8 and 10 were killed, with 17 others being injured, 14 of those being children, said Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara.
He said:
“This worship service was marking the first week of school for children that are attending the Annunciation Catholic school.
During the mass, a gunman approached on the outside, on the side of the building and began firing a rifle through the church windows, towards the children sitting in the pews at the mass.
He struck children and worshippers that were inside the building. The shooter was armed with a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol. This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible …
Two young children, ages 8 and 10 were killed where they sat in the pews, their parents have been notified. 17 other people were injured, 14 of them being children. Two of those children are in critical condition. The coward who fired these shots ultimately took his own life in the rear of the church.”
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Human rights are not a matter of opinion!
The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.
It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!
If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.
Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.
Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.
It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.
Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.
Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)
No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”
Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.
If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!
If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.
I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.
Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!
Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.
Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.
Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.
Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.
Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.
This chaos was totally avoidable.
I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.
You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
You are here: Home / Politics / Gun Issues / Children Murdered in Minneapolis Mass Murder at Catholic Church
cain
We know nothing is going to be done. Sad for these families.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I am sitting in my 2nd grade classroom preparing for next Thursday’s 1st day. This country sucks.
rikyrah
He shot at the babies through the window as they were at Mass?
DA PHUQ?
WaterGirl
They cannot stir up all this hate and expect not to cause violence. Horrible.
rikyrah
Maybe because I’m getting older, but, these hurt more and more.
Just like, as I’m scrolling through TikTok, and I get the videos of the missing children. All I can see is Peanut, and what I would be going through if she were missing.
twbrandt
JD Vance called it a “fact of life”. Fuck him.
Steve LaBonne
I’m starting to wonder if there’s anything left in this country worth saving.
Jeffg166
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
Makes you think.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
The young children?
cain
@twbrandt: Yeah, it’s just a fact of life that only happens in the U.S.
WaterGirl
@twbrandt: With any luck, that might lose him some votes.
cain
@Baud: and pets.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Since he said that in September 2024, it didn’t lose him enough votes.
Aziz, light!
@twbrandt: If nothing can be done to prevent these murders, does that make them an Act of God?
jehrler
Minneapolis Mayor Frey’s statement is absolutely on the money:
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Can we save them? Even if we can get rid of Trump, the gun-humpers will still be a powerful blockade.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Do you want to stop trying to save them?
mr perfect
Because nothing screams manliness like taking your AR-15 (or what ever this shooter’s weapon of choice was) and killing a bunch of children.
My granddaughter will be doing active shooter drills in 3 years. Fuck.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Of course not, I will never stop fighting against all of the shit. But I can’t go on pretending this is the country I thought it was before 2016.
Jackie
OT, but the other thread appears to be fizzling:
Frum quit the Republican Party after FFOTUS was re-elected.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
It definitely isn’t. I agree.
The worst part of 2016 is that it appeared like a fluke at the time. It delayed us opening our eyes.
RevRick
I think of my 13 year-old granddaughter, and I shudder. It’s both the randomness and the malevolence that make these mass shootings so horrifying.
Ohio Mom
Nice to see you again, mistermix, even under this horrendous circumstance.
Every time there’s a school shooting I think to myself, I miss the school days phase of Ohio Son’s life but at least no more school ahootings worries for our family.
This nation state of ours is one sick puppy.
Sure Lurkalot
I believe Aaron Rupar’s children were there and are safe.
bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lxfdosxxu22v
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
Oh wow. Small world. He does such good work documenting the atrocities.
Ohio Mom
@Jackie: I’m torn: should we congratulate Frum on finally coming around or hold a grudge because too little, too late? He should have known better, sooner.
Off topic but “frum” in Yiddish means super religiously observant. Overly pious, making a big show about it.
Jackie
@Ohio Mom: I have four grandchildren in three different schools. I hold my breath almost daily that they come home safely. And there’s ALWAYS copycat school shootings…
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: Frum was THE guy who inspired John Holbo’s classic dissection of “Donner Party conservatism” (though Holbo actually gave it the too-cute-by-half name of “dark satanic millian liberalism”): the idea that we should eliminate the nanny state primarily to make life more miserable and dangerous for the lower orders, so they don’t feel the sense of safety that leads to bad behavior.
To his credit, Frum seems to have gone through some major soul-searching in the 2010s by which time he was more or less repudiating this whole set of ideas when others like Charles Murray advocated them. But he’s a rare case.
Paul in KY
@Steve LaBonne: The kids.
Fair Economist
Horrible.
In somewhat related news, the town of Calera, AL, no longer allow minors to go to public function unattended, because they are afraid people open carrying at events will get into fights and shoot them. Ban guns at public events with children? Sorry, not allowed, the Supreme Court says it interfere with freedumb.
So now kids can’t go places. Gosh, they must feel so free!
Jackie
@Ohio Mom: I believe Frum informally left the party right after J6, he just didn’t make it official until Nov.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: We didn’t lose the election by that much. And we won the popular vote in 2016 and both popular and electoral in 2020. I don’t think we should give up on the American people just yet.
I lived through landslides by Nixon and Reagan. I keep trying to remember that. THEY WERE LANDSLIDES
Belafon
@Sure Lurkalot: I’m now wondering if his family was the target.
zhena gogolia
With the way the media is, I think it’s a miracle that as many people vote Dem as they do. We are working against all the headwinds.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Giving up is not a choice except for people who emigrate.
Ohio Mom
@Sure Lurkalot: Well, physically safe but emotionally and psychologically safe and well, not so much.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
This 100%.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
And as it turns out, that’s nearly impossible to do legally for most people
Eolirin
@zhena gogolia: Yeah. That’s the only ray of light in all this. We’ve somehow kept it close despite everything being stacked against us. That means there’s a lot more decent people than it sometimes feels like.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Depends where you’re willing to go.
suzanne
@Ohio Mom: @Jackie:
The two younger Spawns are still in school, and it fills me with terror.
I’m noting that shooting toward the building from the exterior means that the shooter didn’t have to go through a metal detector. Thereby rendering that layer of protection useless.
Paul in KY
@Fair Economist: Not sure what there is to do in Calera, AL. Probably staying home playing video games and getting high is your best bet.
stacib
@Baud: The $64,000 question is how considering this country’s overwhelming love with guns and the steadfast refusal to do anything about them. I truly thought Newtown would change things – five and six year olds, and those fuckers only mouthed the same bullshit about thoughts, prayers and it not being the time to discuss guns. How will we save the children?
Eunicecycle
@suzanne: also they were in church. And I’m sure those children pray regularly in school. Those school prayers did not protect them.
Maccheerful
My feeling regarding Frum, and Kristol and whoever else is that you take support from whoever is willing to offer it. We’re not such a successful political movement that we can afford to turn down help. The only question is whether those offering help want progressives to change their mission as a condition.
Eolirin
@stacib: We won’t save the ones who die to gun violence, at least not for a generation or two, but we might be able to save the ones who will starve without SNAP or would die from contracting measels.
Juju
@RevRick: The thing is, you can do all the lockdown practice you want, but it doesn’t help in a situation like the one in Minneapolis. I’m a former teacher and I have plenty of lockdown drill experience.
Betty Cracker
Sad and infuriating.
When my kiddo was in high school, we texted during a lockdown that school officials ordered due to a report of a person with a gun near the school. I’ve never felt so helpless and terrified in my life.
Nothing happened at my kid’s school, but you never forget that helpless feeling. In addition to all the actual school shootings, I wonder how many kids and parents have been terrorized by false alarms?
And yet nothing changes. It sucks.
Deputinize America
I’ve been in Switzerland since Friday. I’m tempted to stay.
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: Take all of that and add to it that kids are no longer allowed to have their cell phones here in Texas.
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: I think he was mentally on the way out before that. He was no fan of Donald Trump even in the 2016 cycle, if I recall correctly, and he wrote Atlantic book reviews that seemed to be expressing disgust at ideas that he himself had espoused back in the 1990s.
He probably still felt for a while that something decent could still be salvaged of conservatism. But I think *he* was changing as conservatism got worse.
Melancholy Jaques
@zhena gogolia:
And let’s not forget the Bush I landslide.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Well, anywhere you and I would like to live is incredibly difficult to legally move to
gene108
@stacib:
The problem with the USA on guns and so many other issues is a dedicated well funded radical right-wing minority dominates much of our politics. It undermines the point of representative democracy, where elected officials should be more responsive to the majority than a smaller cadre of fanatics.
I don’t know how to get the majority to be as fired up about things like gun control as the gun nuts are about having guns everywhere.
Matt McIrvin
@Melancholy Jaques: A lot depends on chance events and timing. Bush was at close to 90% job approval right after failing to stop 9/11. If, say, Bush had been up for reelection in November 2001, he probably would have won by the biggest landslide in US history, bigger than Nixon or Reagan. By 2004, the best he could do was eke out a squeaker, and it was all downhill from there.
laura
God Damn America.
Doc Sardonic
@Ohio Mom: ¿Por que no los dos? I can hold, nourish, nurture a grudge, in fact I will name this one David. I can welcome him in due to his conversion from his erroneous ways, however, as soon as he fucks up, and he will, then the grudge holder in me will be more than happy to remind him of all of his past sins and shortcomings. I can do the forgiveness part, it’s the forgetting I have a problem with.
Lamh47
Damn. So sorry for that community and the family if the poor kids
rikyrah
@Sure Lurkalot:
OH MY GOODNESS
Tazj
@twbrandt: WTF? I can’t believe the crap they got away with saying before the last election.
Another horrible tragedy with lives that have ended or changed forever. Incredibly angry and sad at the same time.
Jackie
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, the 2016 election caused a big rift and dilemma for old school republicans vs the newbie MAGA/QAnon movements. I realize MAGA and QAnon weren’t joined at the hip in ‘16, but they’ve since melded together with FFOTUS’s help.
Frum, Jennifer Rubin and countless other former conservative Republicans don’t recognize the Trumpism Republican Party as theirs. Some have officially joined the Democratic Party, while others VOTE Democratic, while claiming the independent label.
Professor Bigfoot
@Eolirin: Your keyboard to all the gods’ monitors.
bluefoot
I don’t know why but for me shooting people who are worshipping is particularly egregious and painful: Oak Creek, Pittsburgh Tree of Life, Charleston Emanuel Church, etc.
and people would rather dead children than regulating guns. And where are all those so-called patriots as the government is literally disappearing people of the streets?
Elizabelle
Pope Leo will have something to say on this terrible loss, even if the Criminal in Chief and JD Vance cannot manage to do so.
Did The Felon ever make any appropriate mouth noises about the previous Minnesota murders of state representative (speaker emerita) Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, (and their Golden Retriever, Gilbert), and the shootings of state senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette? I don’t recall that he had much to say, although who cares?
Very sad for all those affected. Only (first world?) country in the world where this happens. Regularly.
TONYG
Yet another man exercising his Second Amendment rights. Nothing will change as a result of this atrocity.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
It is also because these jackasses are doing this crap because what they want is absolutely insane, illegal and not to mention – bullshit. If they want to commit suicide why do they need to take out other humans? If they are going to kill themselves so they don’t have to go to jail they have to know and understand what they are doing is one billion percent wrong. And gains them and humanity absolutely nothing positive.
I’m far past beginning to believe that our constitution allowing all citizens to be armed is, at least in a modern world insane. I also have zero idea how to fix this, but also 100% sure that we have to. When this country was founded it may have been necessary and rational, I’m pretty sure it no longer is. OTOH……
I also wonder if the current level of conservatism has gone a few decades past it’s time. IOW as above I have exactly zero concept of what the hell to do. I read on the internet the other day that we have a relatively young new far, far, far right political segment building with seemingly the idea to go back 2025 years and start over, and to make that happen we’ll have to not have anyone left alive so the whole thing is bull and shit. Once again – I have zero idea on what to do. Is this bullshit building in other countries?
Elizabelle
@Sure Lurkalot: OMG.
We could not have a better journalist or advocate than Aaron Rupar, and am sure he will have plenty to say. In time.
Other trending topic on Bluesky: Subway Jury.
Elizabelle
@TONYG:
That’s the spirit. Let’s just lay down and die.
Jackie
The murderer has been identified.
Matt McIrvin
@bluefoot: The Charleston shooting was what directly led to the end of our general grudging tolerance for Confederate kitsch, a change that is, in turn, one of the big MAGA grievances.
These mass shootings are acts of terrorism–they terrorize more widely than they actually kill, and that has political effects. Unfortunately I feel like they’re effective terrorism: the backlash to the backlash is the main thing they accomplish. They’re effective advertising for the weapons used to perpetrate them, in part because people go into a panic imagining that they’re about to be banned.
Elizabelle
@Steve LaBonne: There is plenty worth saving in this country.
Just not as much as we thought we had, before 2016. But there are always good people, and things.
Defeatism does not become you, or anyone else here. Children are wonderful, but I hardly think they are the only humans worth saving.
I know we are all saddened, if hardly shocked. This one just made the news because (1) Catholic school and (2) killer shot through the window.
We have had several other multiple shootings recently. Do you recall the details of any of them?
Ruckus
@TONYG:
He’s NOT exercising his Second Amendment rights. He’s not defending himself from actual harm, only the diseased version of life that he has which says he has to eliminate anything he doesn’t understand or which doesn’t agree with him. That is nowhere near the concept of the Second Amendment.
We have to be clear, if someone was protecting themselves from this armed jackass shooting at them, that would be second amendment defense. Him shooting at people not attacking him, especially people that couldn’t attack him is not the second amendment. Not within a million miles of the second amendment.
Baud
@Jackie:
Always glad to see the killer be a white guy. One less piece of bullshit for Republicans to spread.
ArchTeryx
@Ruckus: It is according to the Inferior SCOTUS.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Aren’t virtually all school shooters white guys with grievances?
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
Almost all ≠ all.
We’ll still have to deal with the smear that this guy was a Biden/Harris Democrat despite all the Trump paraphernalia in his home (just a guess).
Jackie
@Baud:
Westmore hasn’t been defined as a guy – at least in that article. Only as an “adult child.” Robin, as a name, can be male or female.
Baud
@Jackie:
I was judging by the photo. I’ll await confirmation
ETA: I see the story suggests a name change. We may not be out of the woods when it comes to the smears.
Matt McIrvin
Be on guard for all sorts of rumors about the identity and proclivities of the shooter–this is a big thing for the usual shits to do in the opening hours after a mass murder incident.
Socolofi
This is beyond words. My youngest at 14 is about to start school, also a Catholic school, and will have a mass like this. And at the church it’s hot without AC, so windows are of course open.
I really, really wish for a politician or two to just stand up and say, “We’re going to DO SOMETHING. We’re going to pass laws to prevent FUCKING NUTJOBS FROM OWNING GUNS.” And when the GOP says “2nd Amendment” just say, “I’m ANTI FUCKING NUTJOB KILLING KIDS, they’re PRO FUCKING NUTJOB KILLING KIDS.” and “PRO RICH PEDO BANGING KIDS” while they’re at it.
Just hammer away at how the GOP won’t do fucking anything, and will in fact block things, because they’re PRO FUCKING NUTJOB WITH GUNS.
Oh and rights? These are the guys who see a Black person and are like, “STOP AND FRISK!” Who cares about the 4th Amendment?
Melancholy Jaques
@gene108:
The show up & vote according to their issue, they get what they want from the people they voted for. Same with anti-abortion. How else do you think it should work?
Melancholy Jaques
@Matt McIrvin:
At the time and to this very day, I was shocked at how close the 2004 election was. Without 9/11, I think the Bush family would have had two one-termers.
Anyway
Thanks for sharing this. This is a great summary of the atrocities in T2.0. None are distractions …
Mike E
@Baud: gateway pundit is claiming the shooter was trans. Lather rinse repeat
schrodingers_cat
Frum and Rubin get it.
Jackie
I need a new word in my vocabulary that is stronger than “hate, detest, loathe…” They don’t adequately describe my emotions upon reading this:
Melancholy Jaques
@Jackie:
So before the 2024 election, when every Republican was working feverishly to put that asshole back in power, Frum was still a member of the GOP? He still thought it was a good thing?
Ruckus
@TONYG:
He’s NOT exercising his Second Amendment rights. He’s not defending himself from actual harm, only the diseased version of life that he has which says he has to eliminate anything he doesn’t understand or which doesn’t agree with him. That is nowhere near the concept of the Second Amendment.
We have to be clear, if someone was protecting themselves from this armed jackass shooting at them, that would be second amendment defense. Him shooting at people not attacking him, especially people that couldn’t attack him is not the second amendment. Not within a million miles of the second amendment.
@Deputinize America:
Have a spare room? My passport is still valid……
Ruckus
@ArchTeryx:
There is an extremely valid reason you call it inferior.
zhena gogolia
@Maccheerful: Exactly.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: All the ones I’ve ever heard about were white Republicans, or apolitical, i.e., they did it to make some sort of a sick statement (like the thing that started it all, Columbine).
That doesn’t stop the Right from tarring us with every school shooting. It doesn’t stop the Right from tarring us with everything bad that goes wrong. They can all go fuck themselves. Sometimes, one’s lying eyes betrays their narrative no matter what they vomit into a microphone.
ArchTeryx
@Ruckus: It’s nothing more than a Star Chamber legislature with unelected members. It always has been that, even when it was voting our way. It should at the least be neutered the way other superior courts in other Western democracies have limited power to override the legislature and executive. The judicial branch, in most places, is the weakest of the three. And truthfully our SCOTUS started that way, but kept arrogating more and more power to itself after Marbury vs. Madison.
When it becomes the strongest, and has the other two branches backing up a lawless destruction of our Constitution, that is a problem. And one with no real Constitutional solution. Nothing short of revolution or assassination or blind, stupid luck with actuarial tables. That’s an even bigger problem.
Baud
@ArchTeryx:
There was a trans shooter in KY or TN a little while ago. I think it was a bullying reaction.
Republicans smear like we breathe.
ArchTeryx
@Baud: So was Columbine. What was the reaction? Blame the victims of the bullying. Same as it ever was.
Ruckus
@ArchTeryx:
They can all go fuck themselves.
With an army tank, which could fuck them greatly by running over them.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Mike E: Red State as well. Spit.
Jackie
@Melancholy Jaques:
Ask John Cole how hard it is to admit your Party has become something you no longer identify with. Frum left the Republican Party in spirit years ago, but didn’t formally divorce the Party until after the election. I expect, same as us, that he thought Kamala would win. I judge him by his actions, not by what he once identified himself as.
bluefoot
@Matt McIrvin: I attended a talk by the son of one of the people killed in the Oak Creek shooting. He has partnered with an ex-white supremacist to combat hate. It was really interesting to hear how young and how systematically white supremacy and hate are nurtured. I’ve asked here before what counterprogramming can we offer, and how do we meet young people where they are? I don’t have good answers.
we don’t know yet why this person in Minnesota decided to shoot up a Christian school, but to deliberately kill children takes (IMO) some measure of hate. Hate of what, I can’t even guess at this point.
Chief Oshkosh
@Elizabelle: Nope. And he’s yet to even acknowledge the CDC shooting that included the killing of a cop (retired Marine, father of two, wife pregnant — oh wait, we was black, so…)
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Yes, and since that incident, they’ve claimed like clockwork that EVERY mass shooter is trans. So, as I said, be on guard, and we should avoid speculating about the shooter’s identity and motivations without solid evidence ourselves.
Jackie
@Baud:
TN. The private school that killed several young elementary students. And two state representatives were expelled for protesting in the House Chamber, but regained their seats via special election. Justice and Jones.
Elizabelle
@Chief Oshkosh: Right. The late officer David Rose, killed responding to the CDC shooting.
Say their names.
Melancholy Jaques
@Jackie:
Your heart is much larger than mine.
Matt McIrvin
@ArchTeryx: My impression is that Columbine was not even actually a bullying reaction; that was largely made-up. They were a couple of very messed-up kids one of whom had had florid fantasies about committing mass murder for years.
As far as I can tell, the lesson of it was that the main warning sign of a kid who is going to do crimes is repeatedly telling people “I intend to do crimes.”
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Minneapolis Star Tribune is quoting the shooter’s mother as saying she was trans. A parent had to sign off on the name change.
Jackie
@sab: Damn it. I don’t care what the murderer identified themselves as, but FFOTUS and MAGA are going to be all over this. 😞
Ksmiami
@Steve LaBonne: I don’t think so.
rikyrah
@Jackie:
Just phucking evil.
E.
I just saw Trump is going to Minnesota and putting the nation’s flags at half mast and I thought, “Huh, that’s strange. I didn’t think he would care about a school shooting.”
Baud
@sab:
Thanks for the confirmation.
Baud
@E.:
He doesn’t. He cares about the identities of the shooter and the victims.
Jackie
@E.:
Read the posts re who the shooter was. That will explain (IMO)
The Audacity of Krope
See also, CDC Atlanta.
WereBear
@Eolirin: Agreed. IT WAS SO CLOSE. And they had to spend metric tons of money.
AND, we don’t have a white hat Democrat saving them from their own poor choices. That hammer will shape them more than we can.
The call is coming from inside the house.
Jackie
@Baud:
Governor Walz is gonna have to put on his MN Nice Hat and put up with FFOTUS, isn’t he? :-(
RevRick
@Juju: It is well nigh impossible to train for an ambush. Active shooter drills only “work” when the shooting has begun and you are not the immediate target. Teachers and students are put in a terrible psychological position.
The Audacity of Krope
It’s a process. We started some time ago, but it’s accelerating and should achieve full speed soon.
Booger
@Eunicecycle: Well, yeah–those were Catholic prayers.
Sister Golden Bear
Once again as they always do know after every mass shooting MAGA,
including the Puppy Killer in Chief, are there insisting—without any evidence—that MN killer was a trans girl.
Straight up Radio Rwanda demonization to justify eliminating us—with extreme prejudice—from society
Paul in KY
@E.: He must think he can make some political hay up there. I can guarantee you he doesn’t give a crap about the poor kids murdered and wounded.
Kathleen
@bluefoot: Exactly! Also, the Rethugs have the nerve to foment fear of crime in blue cities but they don’t make connection between crime and need for gun control.
Kathleen
@rikyrah: I like this one (h/t Shakespeare) “A foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.”
Kathleen
@Jackie: “A vile and pestilent congregation of vapors” (Shakespeare), which I reserve for the Beltway Political Propaganda Complex but applicable to other miscreants as well.
Citizen Alan
@twbrandt: Like all Republicans, JD Vance actually loves school shootings. Every time there’s a mass shooting, all the ammosexuals freak out in fear that the Democrats will come and take their precious binky-guns, so they race out to the gun stores to stock up. So then, the gun manufacturers are flush with cash, which they lavish on Republican politicians through lobbyists.
Plus, school shootings undermine public support for schools and make parents more inclined to homeschool, AND they trigger feelings of impotent rage in Democrats and other people who have souls.
Republicans ADORE school shootings
ON EDIT: Have they checked the shooter’s skin pigment against the Color Chart to determine whether he’s a terrorist or just a crazy lone wolf, yet?
Citizen Alan
Aside from being morally depraved, this theory is wrong as a matter of empirical fact. People who live with a sense of absolute desperation are far more likely to resort to crime than people who actually have something to lose.
Well, violent crime, anyway. I imagine people whose “sense of safety” derives from being effectively too rich to prosecute happily commit monstrous crimes, but they kill people with spreadsheets instead of guns or knives.
Citizen Alan
@stacib: I think it was Charles Pierce who said conservatives don’t worship God, they worship Mammon and Moloch. Mammon because literally anything is morally acceptable if you can make enough money from it. Moloch because children are only there to be sacrificed rather than loved.
Citizen Alan
@Ruckus: I am slightly bitter that the last guy who Kyle Rittenhouse shot had the little bastard in his sites but didn’t pull the trigger.
planetjanet
@Matt McIrvin:
The local tv station KSTP says they have court documents that the shooter identified as a woman
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Citizen Alan: The shooter is white as fuck. The GOP is jumping on this because the shooter may have been trans. There’s the political angle.
Citizen Alan
@Interesting Name Goes Here: Just saw that. Wonderful. So now, on top of all the other systemic, state-sponsored transphobia, we get to watch demagogues go after every trans kid the say way they went after Goth kids who liked to wear lots of black after the Columbine shootings.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: The Charles Murray version was that the so-called crisis of modern masculinity came from the welfare state ensuring against the starvation of children, because if a man’s work isn’t keeping his children from starvation, it becomes meaningless and this loss of meaning causes him to fall to anomie, crime etc.
By the 2010s or so, David Frum was not buying this, despite its similarity to what he’d believed earlier.
Sister Golden Bear
OK, so the parents of killer say she did identity as a trans woman and changed her via court order. But MAGA is silent about the shooter being yet another Neo-Nazi.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
Trans Neo-Nazi?
What a world!
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: “Hey, at least those kids will be going straight to Heaven!” – RWNJ gun apologist Fux Newsie, probably.
mrmoshpotato
Related to the safety of children, Steve Hofstetter has a question.
Ruviana
@Miss Bianca: I think Trey Gowdy literally said that. Fox of course.
Miss Bianca
@Ruviana: oh, vomit.
TS
I’m not into prayers but from the other side of the world I do send thoughts and cares and wishes that one day the majority in the US will wake up & see the horror their gun carrying untenable laws have wrought. From the safety of a country that uses the US experiences to keep current gun laws in place (against the gun lobby) my heart does cry for the parents and grandparents who wait every day for their children to come home from school. In all my parent/nana days the worst was when a child missed a bus and decided to try and walk 10 miles home.
That politicians can see this and shrug and talk about amendments and rights, removes any rights from children, the ones they only care about before they are born.
pajaro
The Second Amendment was not written to deal with individual self-defense. It was about preventing the federal government from infringing State militias. It’s the only way to reconcile the two clauses of the Amendment. Scalia and his Court, in its Heller decision, changed the way the Amendment was interpreted. The idea that it was designed to block states from regulating possession of weapons capable of causing mass deaths in nuts.
Sister Golden Bear
@Baud: There’s Nazi Furries as well. <shrugs> Takes all kinds…
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear:
Equality means equality. Trans folks have the same right to be Nazis as every cis get white dude. Or at least have a Nazi outlook. I don’t know if the formal party has entry standards.
geg6
@Sister Golden Bear:
How? Seriously, how? How can you be a Nazi and trans? How?
My gawd, this world has gone completely insane.
Eyeroller
@geg6: A lot of the SA (Sturmabteilung, brownshirts) were openly gay, most prominently Ernst Roehm, so it’s not unprecedented in the LGBTQ community.
wenchacha
@Eunicecycle: No, but it feeds the persecution complex for Christians who look for that. “Where they targeted because of their faith,” asks the FOX newsreader.
wenchacha
@TS: The irony of schools banning books. Books! Because someone might feel bad, or question what they learn in religious training or just because their parents don’t want to explain that Peepaw’s granny owned Black people.
Matt McIrvin
@geg6: You can be anything and trans. And you can be Nazi and anything because some people are really good at compartmentalizing. They don’t think the goons will get them if they’re “one of the good ones”.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: It doesn’t take Nazis, but unfortunately we get them anyway.
Paul in KY
@pajaro: To me, it was about allowing citizens to maintain arms, as they were going to be in the ‘well regulated’ state militia that sorta functioned as a National Guard back in the day.
Paul in KY
@geg6: How can Miller be a Nazi and Jewish?