Over the weekend, Texas Governor Greg Abbott promised to pardon a man whom a Texas jury had convicted Friday of murdering a BLM protester. An excerpt from the Austin American-Statesman:
Less than 24 hours after a jury in Austin found Daniel Perry guilty of shooting to death a protester, Gov. Greg Abbott announced on social media Saturday that he would pardon the convicted killer as soon as a request “hits my desk.”
The unprecedented effort, which Abbott announced to his 1 million followers on Twitter, came as Abbott faced growing calls from national conservative figures such as Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted in the shooting deaths of two Wisconsin protesters in 2020, to act to urgently undo the conviction.
“Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand your ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or progressive district attorney,” Abbott said in a statement. “I will work as swiftly as Texas law allows regarding the pardon of Sgt. Perry.”
Before the incident July 2020 incident, Perry, an Uber driver, said on social media that he might have to “kill a few people on my way to work. They are rioting outside my apartment complex.” Then he ran a red light, drove into a BLM march and stopped. (I don’t know if he hit anyone; the article doesn’t say, so I guess not?)
The murdered man, Garrett Foster, was in a group of protesters who approached Perry’s car. Foster was openly carrying an AK-47, which (insanely, IMO) he had the right to do in Texas.
Perry claims Foster pointed the gun at him, but that is contradicted by witness accounts and Perry’s own blubbering* confession during a taped police interview, in which he said he shot first because he didn’t want to give Foster a chance to aim the gun at him.
Anyway, as the prosecutor pointed out, Abbott had not attended the trial nor heard a scrap of evidence, but the governor announced he’s going to substitute his judgment for that of the jurors anyway. It’s not jury nullification but juror nullification.
It’s outrageous, but I expect we’ll see more of this kind of shit as Repub lemmings emulate the open criminality and fascist tendencies of their indicted party leader. It’s a race to the bottom on multiple fronts.
Open thread.
*One thing busted gun-humping murderers who go out looking for trouble and find it seem to have in common is that they blubber uncontrollably when confronted with consequences for their actions. The fetal hamster-looking Kyle Rittenhouse punk who is all over Fox News agitating on this case is an example of the type.
Baud
Nonetheless, the gun nuts are lobbying on behalf of the shooter rather than the person getting shot exercising his Second Amendment rights.
The Moar You Know
The goal is widespread jury nullification for the murder of liberals, as was the practice in Jim Crow South for the murder of blacks.
ETA: a bit surprised that Foster (the victim) was white.
Baud
Via reddit, apparently Kanye West has a school and some people were dumb enough to send their kids there.
Bugboy
@Baud: I’m so very confused: Now, which one was the “good guy with a gun”? The dead guy or the not-dead guy?
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
Fuck me – I’m living in the OK Corral. ANOTHER shooting within 10 blocks of where I’m sitting.
mrmoshpotato
Absolutely deplorable.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
The jury convicted the shooter.
Betty Cracker
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Holy shit, man! Stay safe.
Josie
Abbott is desperately trying to out-DeSantis DeSantis. I hope it turns around and bites him in the ass.
ETA: It’s almost as bizarre as Ted Cruz pretending lately to be more bipartisan.
Daoud bin Daoud
So it’s open season on BLM protesters in Red States – kill one (or more) and it’s Get Out Of Jail Free. What a wonderful victory for Freedumb in America! USA! USA!
Dupe1970
@Bugboy:
Not dead guy because he was a conservative shooting liberal BLM loving hippies….
The Moar You Know
Also just want to point out that Abbott is an arsonist looking to burn down the United States for his own gain and profit. At least DeSantis seems to have some kind of logic behind what he does. Abbott just wants to watch it all burn.
Baud
Reposted from below.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Baud:
Stealing.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I read something about the school before West revealed his Hitler fandom, and it sounded bizarre and cult-like even then. IIRC, it’s an expensive school, so it’s not like parents who send their kids there don’t have other choices. Weird.
Roger Moore
@Bugboy:
The not-dead guy, obviously. He was exercising his right to run over left-wing protestors, which obviously makes him the good guy.
Daoud bin Daoud
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: we just had a shooting at a neighborhood sports bar. We live in a very Blue area, no gun racks in pickup trucks or anything, but gun violence is overwhelming everything in this country.
The Moar You Know
@Baud: I noticed that. And if the procedure going forward is that shooting a liberal gets an automatic pardon from a judge (Rittenhouse) or governor, then jury verdicts are meaningless.
They’ll be even more meaningless once the psychos realize they can get on a jury and be the one person who says “nope” to any right-wing crime. Which is what happened for several decades in Weimar Germany prior to the rise of Hitler.
Geminid
As expected, Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey Jr. announced today that he will run run for reelection. The 62 year old Casey was reelected in 2018 by over 600,000 votes.
JML
@Geminid: I was honestly shocked when you listed Bob Casey as being 62. I thought for sure he was older, but it must be overlap from his dad in my head.
jonas
@The Moar You Know: That’s the whole MAGA mindset: if white nationalist Christians can’t have America, then no one can.
MattF
@The Moar You Know:
Being an armed white guy at a BLM rally is a no-no.
Baud
@jonas:
Nothing exemplifies dominion over a thing more than the right to destroy it.
Baud
Via reddit, allegorical comic.
https://i.redd.it/vnpots8ai1ta1.jpg
Jeffro
2A doesn’t apply to BLM protestors, though, dontcha know.
Abbott will say this at some point if he hasn’t already.
Baud
@MattF:
The right hates race traitors more than anything.
cain
@Jeffro: Isn’t Abbott reasoning is because of stand your ground? Dude was in a car! I don’t get it.
Nobody was looking for a pardon – and Abbott volunteers it. Still trying to figure out how this incompetent buffoon continues to get reelected.
Tony G
@Baud: An AK-47 — the weapon that the Viet Cong used to kill American soldiers and Marines — is apparently a favorite of American fascist lunatics. Par for the course, I guess. But I’m a little confused. Weren’t fully-automatic weapons outlawed back in the 1930’s? And isn’t the AK-47 a fully automatic weapon? What am I missing here?
Baud
@cain:
Tucker Carlson and other fascists were lobbying for a pardon.
The Moar You Know
@Jeffro: I would very much like for him to say that. I suspect the Right is about to indulge in some frantic goalpost-moving as regards the Holy Second Amendment, which for decades has been referred to as “absolute”.
Betty Cracker
Another aspect of the white victim/white shooter dynamics in the Texas case: The murderer’s supporters harp on the fact that the killer is a military veteran. So was the victim, but they never mention that.
Also, this case illustrates why open carry is such a fucking bad idea — it creates a fear paradox. The shooter is a murderer who went looking for trouble, but it’s normal to feel fear when someone approaches you carrying an AK-47, whether it’s pointed directly at you or not.
So the murderer in this case, by his own admission, preemptively killed the man — he “stood his ground,” according to Abbott. The same logic SHOULD apply to anyone else who preemptively kills someone who’s openly carrying a battlefield weapon in public, except that’s legal.
But of course that’s not what Abbott is doing here. He’s telling wingnuts it’s open season on BLM protesters, as DeSantis did when he signed new laws that allow motorists to run over protesters. The whole thing is nuts.
The Lodger
@cain: Abbott hates the same people his voters hate. Seriously, what else does he need to get re-elected?
Kathleen
Which IMHO is one of the reasons why far left, right and media loathe Democrats. especially Clinton and Biden.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
Definitely. That’s what they did when it came to regulating big business and judicial activism. They were against it absolutely until they gained enough power to do it for themselves.
snoey
@Tony G: The ones sold legally here are converted to semi-auto only.
WaterGirl
I don’t really see how it can be possible, but it feels like the sheer disrespect for the law is ramping up lately. Exponentially, not incrementally. Hoping it’s the desperate move of a lot of powerful people who – at least at some level – understand that their time is coming to an end.
Walker
If he is going to get Jim Crow nullification, the DOJ should resurrect the “violation of civil rights” charge from the same era.
Geminid
@Tony G: This AK-47 was modified to fire only one shot at a time. That is the case for other popular “assault rifles” produced for the civilian market in this country, like the AR-15.
The Moar You Know
@Tony G: the AK-47 as sold in the United States is semi-automatic, not full, although modifying it to be fully automatic is not really difficult. Just VERY illegal.
Same as the AR-15/M-16/M-4 series of battle rifles.
Fully automatic weapons are not illegal, by the way. they require (per weapon) a $200 application with the US DOJ and you giving the ATF or any other federal law enforcement entity the right to enter your premises or business with no warning or reason at all to make the weapon is where it is and in the condition as described on the permit. It had better be.
This is how you get those places in Vegas and elsewhere that allow you to “shoot a machine gun!”
Citizen Alan
@Baud: There is nothing surprising about this. If Kyle Rittenhouse had been shot and killed by someone else before he’d killed anyone else, the gun humpers now worshipping him would have painted him as a violent leftwing terrorist who deserved what he got.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: Agree 100%. It’s palpable.
cain
@The Moar You Know: I’m surprised he didn’t cite the law where I think in Texas if a protestor is blocking the way – it’s ok to run them over? Was it Texas or some other state?
Jeffro
Amen! Open carry is extremely dangerous AND stupid.
If the wingnuts must have their guns, they (the guns) should stay locked up at home. Let the rest of us enjoy our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness without worrying about random armed strangers’ state of mind on any given day.
Home is the only place where ‘stand your ground’ should apply, too (making it kind of the same thing as the ‘castle defense’ or whatever). Just because someone spooked you on the street doesn’t mean you get to start blazing away. If someone’s breaking into your house, sure (although even then, you’re probably safer using a bat). But ‘stand your ground’ on a street corner? Just because you have an over-active imagination?
Bill K
The unspoken premise of all these stand-your-ground laws is that it only applies to white people ‘defending’ themselves against non-white people.
cain
@cain: Never mind, it was Florida.
cain
@Bill K: and their allies.
CaseyL
@cain: I think that’s Florida, but other states may have followed suit. (And other countries; I think there is now a similar law in the UK.)
raven
@The Moar You Know: or a bump stock
PAM Dirac
@The Moar You Know:
I think that’s what got our asshole redneck sheriff indicted. The local firing range submitted paper work with a Sheriff’s Dept letterhead signed by the Sheriff that the machine guns they were buying were only for demonstration to the Sheriff’s office. In fact, they were renting them out to their customers. The dirtball sheriff that claims to be all about respect for the law when it comes to immigration laws, doesn’t seem to have the same views about gun laws. Which surprises exactly no one.
The Moar You Know
@Bill K: True, although your political affiliation matters as well.
But yeah, the only black person I know of who tried the defense (black woman who shot an ex who was trying to murder her, pretty much the most clear-cut case of “stand your ground” I’ve ever heard of) is doing 20 years for murder. In Florida, if I am not mistaken.
Jeffro
Btw, since this is an open thread: Frank Luntz has an oh-so-helpful 8-point plan in That Paper today for any GOP candidate who wishes to take on trump and win
aaaaaannnnnnnd we’ll just stop right there, no point in going any further. He actually wrote that! About today’s GOP and its candidates!!
Ok, just one more:
Did I miss something? When was the last time these goons DIDN’T move in complete fascistic unison? You need all of them,
KatieFrankie.The Moar You Know
@raven: hey I trust you heard about the colonel?
citizen dave
The NRA Annual convention is back in my fair city (Indianapolis) this week, Thursday-Sunday. A rare Orange Man addresses it on Friday, along with the white hair man the Orange Man tried to kill a couple years ago. Good times. I’ll be working from home…they are closing the convention center starting Wednesday, I guess to put up the Wall of Guns
Always ironic that guns are not allowed inside the NRA convention.
cain
@Jeffro: You need the help of people who have no ethics or sense of personal responsibility. That’s where the GOP is at right now.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Roger Moore: They were both good guys with a gun. One is now good and alive, the other is good and dead.
UncleEbeneezer
@jonas: Where “have America” means they get the right to kill those people, for any reason at all, without any repercussions.
Kirk Spencer
@jonas: That’s because America is, in their mind, a white Christian nation. Any non-white, non-Christian control is by definition an occupation by a foreign force.
raven
@The Moar You Know: Yea, I’d done well to completely stay away for years. I went there when I saw Adam’s post and it’s interesting how many other people he banned. I’m sure he was great once-upon-a-time but, damn, he was off the fucking hook.
UncleEbeneezer
I hate to be overly broad here but this sort of Wild West, pro-lynching mentality has always been central to our country’s Gun Fetish (and to American Conservatism). If you’ve ever spoken to one of these Amo-Sexuals for a couple minutes, these scenarios of them killing scary rioters, criminals, protestors etc., come to the surface every time. They are perpetually petrified of the other (and any who supports BLM is absolute the other too) and feel like they should be able to simply kill us.
raven
“Doug O’Connell, who represents Perry, told the Statesman in a statement Saturday: “Right now we are completely focused on preparing for Daniel’s sentencing hearing. I visited Daniel in jail this morning. As you might expect he is devastated. He spoke to me about his fears that he will never get to hug his mother again. He’s also crushed that his conviction will end his Army service. He loves being a soldier.”
Sheeeeet.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Another thing Luntz said (I think) was that in 2016, Trump told voters about what he would do for them, but now he’s telling them about what’s being done to him.
I think that Trump has real weaknesses as a primary candidate, but this situation reminds me of a boxing truism: “Ya gotta have somebody to beat somebody.”
I’m not sure Republicans “have somebody.” Pompeo might be the somebody. This Republican electorate seems unpredictable though, and I don’t expect to know what or who they want until they start voting next year.
Suzanne
@cain:
He hurts the people they want to hurt. That’s it. There’s no unified theory of the appropriate role of government or ethical behavior in the public square or any of that snowflake cuck bullshit. It’s law as weapon. The cruelty is the point.
Suzanne
@The Moar You Know:
Yes.
Ruckus
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
@Betty Cracker:
This is not just a few places or places where open carry is allowed. There are guns everywhere in this country, even when open carry is not allowed and people do get shot because they can be shot. I have no idea where Deputize lives but no this doesn’t shock me here in LA county. And this is not a new thing. We had a guy working for us that carried a loaded gun in his car, decades ago in Los Angeles, because he was mostly scared of, well everyone. And no there are not shootings every day or regularly but there are people who carry guns, legal or not, at least in their cars. There is a reason that a lot of cops wear bullet proof vests in this country. I don’t understand why, other than a portion of our citizens seem to think (such as it is) that everyone hates them, likely because they hate a lot of people. I think it’s because a lot of those people, whoever those people are, who don’t look like them or have what they have and they think they are privileged, worth more and that everyone they don’t like knows that and is trying to take away everything from them. I think what most people want from them is to take away their hate for hates sake.
gwangung
The victim was a white man, who served in the military.
The criminal drove his car into a crowd of people.
The victim was pushing his wife’s wheelchair.
Yet Abbott thinks the criminal merits a pardon?
What an evil man he is.
prostratedragon
@Baud:
People keep trying, but somehow the point doesn’t get through enough to stop endangering everyone. The stupidity externality.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
Ha! I hadn’t seen that one.
Josie
@Geminid: I think Pompeo has a mean streak that will appeal to the hard core Trump supporters. It remains to be seen how he handles Trump himself.
Also, he is not as stupid as DeSantis, Abbott and Pence.
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: They really are terrified that when the cities fall (one of their tropes) all of the poor black people, who they already believe are criminals, will come pouring out of the cites and try to ravage the countryside. You know that’s what the zombie fetish is mostly about, right?
Soprano2
@raven: Ahhh, guess he should have thought about that before he proactively shot someone in cold blood.
raven
@Ruckus: We had a guy (professor) kill his wife and two other guys at` a community theater picnic a few years back. We got text message from the university saying someone was shooting people in the neighborhood. For the first time in many years. I loaded my weapon. I wasn’t going out looking for him but I’ll be dammed if I was not going to be ready of I needed to be.
Shalimar
The article misstates Texas law. Yes, the governor is the person who approves clemency, but only on the recommendation of the Pardons and Parole Board. So it isn’t up to Abbott.
MattF
@prostratedragon: It’s worse than that. “You knew I was a snake.”
Betty Cracker
@Ruckus: Florida doesn’t have open carry (yet), but it’s been legal for anyone who can legally own a gun to carry the gun in their car as long as I can remember, no special permit required. I agree with you about the effect on cops. The fact that we’re ass-deep in guns really does make their job more dangerous but most cops seem to support unfettered access. It doesn’t make any sense to me. None of this shit does.
Betty Cracker
@Shalimar: Nope, that’s on me because I excerpted a piece of the article. Here’s what it says:
I figured the “hits my desk” quote from Abbott implied the other step, but I should have been more precise!
Shalimar
@cain: His predecessors were Rick Perry and George W. Bush. Texas loves idiots.
Steve in the ATL
@Betty Cracker: how does it compare to R. Kelly’s school for girls?
prostratedragon
@Baud: Some sharp cartoonist actually did it before the 2016 election, in the early campaugn as I recall.
prostratedragon
@MattF: I’d forgotten about that! So much shit under the bridge.
Mike in NC
Way back in 1992 one of the officers in my Baltimore Navy Reserve unit got a job in Texas and moved down there with his family. We wished him good luck and to keep his head down because of the gun nuts.
The Moar You Know
@raven: I agree completely.
WereBear
Texas keeps wanting to be MOAR Texas but it’s all lies. So naturally this path leads to a very bad place…
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
Really, you think so? Can you please tell me what logic that might be? Because I don’t see it.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
@Suzanne:
I think it is more subtle than that cruelty is the point. Many people think that everything is finite, including money. If the poor and the not pure white is going to get anything it has to come from them because everything is finite. And they have taken the freedom away from so many to make themselves better than someone else. It of course doesn’t do that but their world view says that it does. And in my experience that means that for them to be free, they have to take freedom away from others. They are trying to conserve their freedom by taking it away from others. They are also full of shit.
The Moar You Know
Something I don’t know: under federal law, you have to admit guilt to get a pardon. Does Texas law work the same way? (I bet not, but really have no idea)
I’d hope that the parole board tells Abbott to pound sand, but I know that’s so damn unlikely.
Matt
My personal reading, based on exactly as much information as Governor Prick Erry’s: dude was about to embark on a vehicular homicide spree, then realized his targets weren’t as defenseless as he’d planned and panicked.
geg6
@Josie:
Asserts fact without evidence. I don’t buy it. People keep saying that about Puddin’ Boots, too. Again, I don’t see it. Ivy League credentials mean absolutely nothing. Less than nothing actually.
JWR
@Shalimar:
No, but I heard a former TX prosecutor say that approval by Abbott’s pardon board is far more likely than not, that they would very likely and quite regrettably okay his request, if you can believe that at all, and I’m not sure I believe it, at least not yet. But then I have morals.
Geminid
@Josie: Mike Pompeo definitely does not lack for meanness.
As for his attitude towards Trump, I think he is not intimidated. Pompeo made a name for brown nosing Trump, but he got what he wanted- the Secretary of State post. Pompeo had his own power base before he took a Trump administration job; he was basically the Congressman from Koch Industries.
It seems Republican elites would like him, but I cannot predict how Republican voters will respond to Pompeo.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker
The whole thing is nuts.
It is far worse than being nuts. It is as you put it, murder. It’s somethingism – can’t call it racism in this case but it is political murder. It’s OK to be a conservative murderer, it’s not OK to be in any way against what conservatives stand for. And now you can be killed for it. OK that’s not fair, you have been able to be killed for it for ever, other than the few years now when it wasn’t fully acceptable to kill someone for conservatism. In TX and FL it now seems to be acceptable.
bupalos
Vigilante justice is bad. But the moral hazard of this guy walking around really might be worse. Not to mention the…well…hazard hazard.
The Moar You Know
@geg6: can’t promise that this will make sense or that I’ll do a good job of explaining my reasoning.
DeSantis’ decision making is wholly media-driven. Whatever the base is riled about, that’s what he’s doing. It’s very consistent. He wants to be president of the Republicans. I might point out that this will not make him president of the US, but I really don’t feel like giving him a clue.
Abbott does not do that. Nobody was hollering about this asshole until Abbott decided to get involved. Now, they’ll approve, because they’re garbage people who want garbage things. Of course they will. But Abbott is not following the conservative media narrative nor is he trying to create his own. He just does the worst things he can all the time, to everyone he can, without any regard for the consequences. And that’s why I say he’s an arsonist, while DeSantis is not. DeSantis plans. Abbott just sets fire to everything.
Roger Moore
@Tony G:
Two points:
The Moar You Know
@bupalos: He’ll kill again. So will Rittenhouse. That asswipe Zimmerman tried again as I recall. Societies give murderers very harsh sentences for a reason. People really do get a taste for blood.
Geminid
@geg6: Pompeo is not an Ivy Leaguer, but rather is a West Point graduate, first in his class supposedly.
He seems to have more going on upstairs than DeSantis or Pence, or Trump for that matter. That’s not all it takes, obviously.
Another Scott
@geg6: Though some in the press are trying to fluff him, Pompeo was a flop at CPAC in March.
Of course, I don’t think TFG filled the place either, but he had much, much more support than Pompeo.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@gwangung:
Also, the criminal ran a red light:
Perry, an Army sergeant, was working as an Uber driver in Austin on the night of July 25, 2020, when he ran a red light at the intersection of Fourth Street and Congress Avenue and drove toward a Black Lives Matter march before stopping.
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
Don’t know if it’s changed or not but one could own automatic weapons if they had a federal gun license. I used to know someone that had that license and had a couple of automatic weapons. The license cost something like $10-15 bucks. I believe that the only real restriction was not having a criminal record. This was like 40 yrs ago so have no idea if it is still true.
Geminid
@Another Scott: The CPAC conference doesn’t matter. It’s donors, then primary voters who do. We’ll know how the donors respond to Pompeo by this Fall; I don’t think anyone can accurately predict how the voters will respond until the primaries start next year.
Suzanne
@Ruckus:
Status is finite. If everyone has it, no one has it.
Ultimately, the GOP and its voters want to use government to cause harm to people. The question is really only which people?.
Josie
@Another Scott:
I hope this holds true, because he really scares me due to his religious beliefs.
scav
Rukus: What part of you’re entirely free to be a bigoted white heterosexual Christ-stain male without consequence don’t you understand? Everyone else is just pen-raised legitimate targets for red-blooded 2nd amendment amusement. Hell, Cheney made his target appologize.
Another Scott
@Ruckus:. Looks like the Tax Stamp generally costs $200 (Form 4 here).
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@Tony G: It is sold as a semi-automatic. You can get a full auto version, but you have to pay a $200 Annual fee & the Feds know you have it. Thus, for the gun crowd, semi auto it is.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: I think the BLM protester has to be at least carrying a stick or give them a funny look…
BlueGuitarist
“Whitney Mitchell, Garrett Foster’s [African-American] fiancée, in a statement: ‘I felt some sense of justice and relief…The governor has immediately taken that away since he announced there are two legal systems in Texas: One for those with power, like Mr. Perry, and one for everyone else.’”
https://mobile.twitter.com/tplohetski/status/1645179035100610560
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
This.
And I believe that as the country is changing, getting to what that piece of paper in DC actually says it is supposed to be, as more humans actually get accepted as humans, the buffoons who think that only white is right are getting more and more scared that people who don’t look like them are going to be able to extract their due for all the decades of hate that they have used as an absolute truth.
Mike in NC
@Tony G: Years ago I knew a guy whose father was a fighter pilot in WW1 and among the souvenirs he brought back from France was what they called a “balloon gun”. Basically a fully automatic machine gun that was never registered but kept in his cellar for decades.
WereBear
@JWR: Texas lives to execute. One of the most depressing books I ever read was by an Innocence Project lawyer who worked (for a while) in Texas.
trollhattan
Remember the little girl whose parents thought it would be a great experience to add a machine gun shoot to their Vegas vacation? She shot the range instructor in the head.
Wonder how her life turned out?
EarthWindFire
@Geminid: IMO no one who worked for Trump has a snowball’s chance in hell running against him. Trump simply has to say that Pompeo worked for him only to betray him and the grievance machine will eat him alive. Same goes for Haley and especially Pence.
Maybe Pompeo’s mean streak somehow gets him out of that dilemma but no one does grievance like a MAGAt.
patrick II
@The Moar You Know:
Abbot wants Texas to be its own sovereign confederate country, a place where they can treat black people and Mexicans as if white Texans were plantation owners. They want the poor whites to learn that it could happen to them too, so stay in line.
trollhattan
@WereBear: Then Governor Bush and his counsel, Alberto Gonzales did all they could to keep the Texas execution count as high as a prairie sky.
Mike in NC
@Geminid: Pompeo for whatever reason is a hardcore evangelical Christian, who seems to care more about that than his West Point experience. Also a former rep from Kansas.
Gravenstone
Well what this accomplishes is ensuring any future armed protestors (at least in Texass) will treat anyone choosing to confront them as a threat. They will go in weapons hot, and they will fucking shoot someone whether warranted or not. Good job,
TexasAbbott.Geminid
@EarthWindFire: That may be true for the dedicated Trump fans, but there are also Republican voters who want a winner and think that Trump will lose. Most Republican elites already believe this. That is the best line of attack for anyone challenging Trump.
geg6
@Geminid:
I know that and, I concede, I wasn’t clear. I was referring to Puddin’ Boots, who everyone seems to think is also super smart because he has a couple Ivy degrees. I know people who have graduated from Ivies and none of them have impressed me with their levels of intelligence. In fact, they have uniformly been some of the stupidest people I’ve ever met.
ETA: As for West Point (with an Ivy thrown in for good measure) and it’s progeny, here’s one I’ve known since he was in kindergarten (he was in my younger sister’s class) and he’s a total idiot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Urban
EarthWindFire
@Geminid: If the primary polls are anywhere close to accurate, those who want a winner are going to have to pick one candidate and stick with that strategy asap. Between the 2016 race and covid, we’ve seen plenty of evidence that the collective action required for that strategy is not a GOP trait at any level. That’s why I firmly believe Trump will be the GOP candidate in 2024.
Geminid
@Mike in NC: Pompeo represented Wichita, Kansas, which is where Koch Industries is headquartered. When he left the Army, the Koch brothers gave Pompeo a start by financing the purchase of a Wichita aircraft component company by him and three partners.
Pompeo has a good reputation among conservative evangelicals. He’s got the patter down for sure.
Tony G
@Gravenstone: That is undoubtedly the intention. Killing their enemies.
Paul in KY
@The Moar You Know: It’s also an Annual fee.
Salty Sam
Ever since my mom went under the Fox “News” spell, I’ve used it to have a bit of fun at her expense. I’ve used “Soros-bucks” before, explaining how I was able to afford flying out to visit her on getting my check from Soros for participating in BLM riots that year. My favorite though was when I informed her and Step-Dad that I got to be on the redistribution committee, and I specifically picked their home to go to a multi-generational AA family from Chicago, and they were slated to receive a shopping cart and cardboard boxes with which to build a new home under a freeway overpass.
Geminid
@EarthWindFire: Well, I’m glad someone is certain about how that nomination process will go down!
But you are right about the need for Republican voters to coalesce around one challenger if Trump is to be beaten. I’m not sure what you meant by asap, though. The way I see it, someone will need to get separation by this time next year.
Suzanne
@geg6: The whole northeast is really weird in this regard. Grown-ass adults mention — in actual conversations — where they went to college. Why not just talk about kindergarten? Or when you potty trained? Such a weird social norm.
ETA: OTOH, I have had multiple conversations since moving here in which I bring up working out, which was a generically safe topic of conversation in AZ, and the person said, “I don’t work out”. So. I guess it’s all regional.
WereBear
On the one hand, I have the Nazi memorabilia episode of Father Ted running on one track, which is okay, it’s a favorite episode.
On the other, it’s like a very bad mini-series reveal and it’s just so UNSUBTLE, you know? Just set the symbolism on fire, why don’t ya?
MisterForkbeard
@Betty Cracker: My experience is that a lot of police just… like guns and identify with the Right, so they like guns even more.
I have several relatives who are either police or married into police families, and they’re all weirdly gun nuts despite generally being good people.
brantl
@The Moar You Know: WHAT logic? Redneck bigots get whatever they want, and everybody else can DIAF? Can’t see any other rhyme or reason to it.
TheronWare
@Tony G: Fully automatic weapons are still illegal in every state of the union, fortunately for now. All these weapons in civilian hands are still only semiautomatic as deadly as they are.
geg6
@Suzanne:
Here in Western PA, it’s all about sports. For instance, you must signal whether you cheer for Pitt, Penn State or WVU. It makes my life interesting, to say the least. Six kids in my family, three went to Pitt (including me) and three to Penn State. And I get all kinds of shit at work (Penn State) because of my Pitt connections. It’s just sports. Plus, we all want to distance ourselves from any of the state college system grads. Here in Western PA, Pitt, Penn State and WVU are like the Ivies. LOL!
Captain C
@Jeffro:
I’m pretty sure that lack of decency, obnoxious public assholery, and passing the buck is the centerpiece of Trump’s agenda (along with racism and all the money and women belong to him).
Captain C
@raven:
Sounds like one of those people who signed up specifically so he could kill people legally.
geg6
@Suzanne:
I’m surprised by that. I don’t work out much myself, being old and all and walking seeming the safest workout at this point in my life. But all the younger people I know do. You would think that more people in Allegheny County would work out than in Beaver County, which trends old (like me) and unhealthily fat (not like me).
Suzanne
@geg6: So in AZ, it’s like that. Honestly, no one would talk about going to college at all if it wasn’t time to cheer for either the Sun Devils or the Wildcats. (I have a degree from each, so I’m a cheater.)
But, like, in my professional circles, people — GROWN ADULTS WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER — actually mention where they went to college. They bring it up, find ways to work it in.
I always want to be like, “Well, you only have a bachelor’s….”, just to be a total dick.
Tony G
@Mike in NC: Well, that’s cute. My understanding (correct or not) is that fully automatic machine guns and submachine guns were legal for civilian ownership until 1934, about 16 years after the end of ww1. Once they were illegal I doubt that the authorities went house to house searching for them (contrary to NRA fantasies). Probably it mean that it was illegal to buy or sell a machine gun (if you were caught). I’m still puzzled about the guy using an AK-47 — a weapon that was developed by the Soviet Union during ww2 as a fully automatic assault rifle — which sounds pretty illegal for a civilian to be owning. Maybe the guy’s AK-47 had been altered to be only semi-automatic? Or maybe it’s just the “white man in Texas” exception to legal consequences.
Hilbertsubspace
I recommend Biden responding by posthumously pardoning the tree that fell on future former governor Abbott. He could cite “Clear cut self defense” as the tree was afraid for it’s life.
I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waiters. And try the durian sorbet.
Tony G
@TheronWare: That’s what I thought. Thanks.
Old School
@WereBear:
They do, but I see Florida is seeking to broaden the death penalty to non-homicide crimes.
JWR
@Gravenstone:
Also, just basic intimidation. Hey, who’ll protest when they hear they can be legally picked off? But then I’m sure they already knew this, it being Texas and all.
TheronWare
@TheronWare: Kindly disregard my post as apparently the automatic weapons prohibition is at the federal level only. This is worse than I thought, oh my.
Roberto el oso
Of the 3 (Abbott, DeSanctis, Pompeo), Pompeo is the most personally corrupt. Which seems to be a plus for the base. On a meanness scale I’d say it was Abbott > DeSanctis > Pompeo (Abbott’s cruel and snarly bitterness is a constant, even pre-accident, whereas that of DeSanctis seems like petty peevishness, and he seems to actively seek out made-up or relatively trivial things to get pissed off about). Pompeo projects the dismissive, slippery arrogance that is reminiscent of a lot of Bush the Lesser’s cabinet and advisors, that Rumsfeldian quality of visible impatience when anyone asks him a question about anything
Of the 3, DeSanctis strikes me as the weakest, and I mean this in terms of his personal mannerisms, the artificiality of his attempts at swaggering, etc. One can practically see the waves of deep insecurity lapping behind his eyes. The strain of never-ending dyspepsia, the fact that all that privilege cannot assuage the hunger for attention, however much unsuited he actually is for life in the public eye, is something to marvel at. Even Richard Nixon was occasionally able to dampen down his bone-deep misanthropy and at least fake some degree of happiness. DeSanctis doesn’t seem capable of even the minimal effort required to do that.
Ksmiami
@jonas: still think we can solve this peacefully? The MAGATs will be better destroyed. Defund em, build a wall.
EarthWindFire
@Geminid: It’s a belief, not a prophecy lol
Tony G
@Mike in NC: Not really comparable, of course, but one of my uncles, who had been an infantry private in Europe in 1944 and 1945, had brought home a bazooka rocket (empty with the propellant and and explosive charge removed). A real object of fascination for me and my cousins; just a frightening-looking artifact. I imagine that all kinds of crazy stuff was brought home after both world wars.
Suzanne
@geg6: Lord. In AZ, there were gyms on practically every major intersection. At least five different major chains, plus all the specialty options like barre and yoga and cycle. There are a couple of gyms near me, but not like that.
Gin & Tonic
@TheronWare:
This is 100% false.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Ruckus:
I’m sitting at my desk within 10 blocks of both shootings today in Louisville. We’re instituting a new policy of locked office doors, and I’m horrified that the bank is something z I’ve walked past frequently when going to baseball games or gone to get a summer ice cream is the site of a mass kill. Been listening to helos and sirens all day (and I came in late because I had ortho followups early).
Plus, it’s the kind of beautiful spring day I relish – sunny, 70s. Hell, the video of the sound of gunshots that’s out now, you see the electric scooters happily out for rent.
And of course, again, it’s a fucking AR-15.
Betty Cracker
@Old School: DeSantis and the rubber-stamp FL statehouse also either have changed or shortly will change the unanimous verdict requirement for death sentences. They’re capitalizing off the outrage about the Parkland shooter getting life without parole rather than death.
This might be in response to Trump’s increasingly bloodthirsty rhetoric on the campaign trail. You’d think an indicted criminal would want throttle that back, but nah…
Ksmiami
@gwangung: Abbott let over 200 tx citizens freeze to death. He’s more of a sociopath than DeSantis
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Old School:
Christ, this is a very, very bad idea.
Taking death off of the table tends to keep the kids alive to testify.
Plus (and I’ve participated in a lot of these trials), a lot of the testimony is miserably unreliable.
Tony G
@TheronWare: Wait, so in the fascist states like Texas it’s OK for a moron to prance around with a fully automatic AK-47 or M16? WTF? I wonder where the line is drawn? How about mounting an M60 machine gun or an autocannon on the back of your pickup truck (right next to your Confederate flag)? How about a tactical nuclear weapon for that matter? This country is truly a train wreck. I guess it always has been.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: he acknowledges that he was wrong at #139.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Tony G:
As I told my sister-in-law when she checked on me:
“Thoughts ‘n Prayers, too early to politicize, person not the gun, my guns have never leaped out to kill anybody, you just want to declare me unstable so you can take my guns, etc., etc.
We’re being governed in a way that maximizes and coddles the prejudices and parochialism of camo-clad, goateed MAGA hat wearers in wraparound sunglasses, shirts that expose their bellies, and pants that barely contain their pork rind-manufactured cellulite.
Makes me want to toss a lit packet of firecrackers onto the floor at an NRA convention and let nature take its course.”
geg6
@Suzanne:
Everybody I know goes to the Y. There are three in close proximity here: one in Rochester/New Brighton, one near Robinson Mall and one in Sewickley. There are several boxing clubs here in Beaver County and a Planet Fitness. But the Y is the place to be. That’s where I used to go. Now I just walk (or treadmill at home) and swim (but only in the summer at my sisters’).
raven
@Tony G: Just figuring that out huh?
Tony G
@Tony G: And, of course, if fully-automatic weapons are legal in one state they are, de-facto, legal in every state. Just hide them in a duffle bag and head north or east on an interstate highway.
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne: I got my law degree at Princeton but I never talk about it
Betty Cracker
@Roberto el oso: That all sounds about right.
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Yikes, that’s a great point that never occurred to me, not that I support the changes to the law in any case.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Steve in the ATL: yeah, well, I got rejected by a school near Boston
Another Scott
@Tony G: My grandfather brought home a German machine gun from WWII. He and my dad went out to the mountains in Colorado to shoot it one last time before turning it in to a gunsmith to be made somehow legal.
I never saw it, just heard the story.
I knew a guy in high school who had a genuine Tommy gun. I never saw that either, but heard stories about it.
So, yeah, there are still genuine machine guns out there, but fear of prosecution with actual teeth (federal gun laws have stiff penalties) keep yahoos from parading around and brandishing and threatening people with them.
Fight for 15!!
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
For those of you who need an infographic.
What States are Automatic Weapons Legal 2023
EarthWindFire
@Geminid: I think this time next year would be far too late. IMO, the elites need to engineer a one-on-one race no later than the NH primary or it’s Trump. Once their voters have had a chance to pick from a group of favorites, it’s 2016 all over again. That and the GOP primary field IMO is incapable of dropping out like the Dem field did with Biden in 2020. And Biden couldn’t even talk his party into giving up its platform or raise money from an indictment. If I were a politician having to run against someone who could that, I don’t know what I’d do.
The Moar You Know
@Suzanne: That is the weirdest. If you did that shit in California you’d have no friends and be mercilessly mocked behind your back everywhere you went.
The only people who know where I went to college are the friends I have from college, and my family (my brother and I went to the same school, so it’s easy to remember).
raven
@Steve in the ATL: I got my doc from Georgia so I can annoy all these people! GO DAWGS!!!
(and I just came from the Y)
Tony G
@raven: Well, at least I can still be confident that the Easter Bunny is real!
Helen
Deleted
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: You still need to pay the $200 Annual fee (per weapon). The FFL just allows you to buy firearms at ‘dealer’ rates.
raven
@Helen: Of course it is but don’t let that interrupt the fun.
geg6
@geg6:
I forgot to mention that so many around here are involved in team sports more than individual workouts. Even the adults. There are women’s hockey and football teams that compete at a pretty high level.
And then there are all the colleges and universities in the region, which have their own fitness centers. Our students here are a steady stream at all hours of the day into the fitness center. Just in the Beaver County area, we have Geneva College, CCBC, Penn State Beaver and Robert Morris. Closer to the city, the number of post-secondary schools with facilities goes up exponentially.
Paul in KY
@TheronWare: Illegal unless you have that $200 Annual tax stamp.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I was first in my AP class.
geg6
@The Moar You Know:
As I mentioned in my reply to Suzanne, it’s all about sports. People here would think it really weird that people in the West apparently don’t have anything to cheer about.
Citizen Alan
@MisterForkbeard: The biggest problem with policing in America in my opinion is that we have way too many people who decided to become cops because there were not any jobs available for concentration camp guard.
Paul in KY
@Tony G: USSR and PRC (and other generally ‘Warsaw Pact’ countries) made many, many semi auto versions of the AK series.
Tony G
@raven: Interesting. I would have expected the “legal” states to line up precisely with the borders of the Confederate States of America, but that’s not quite the case. Illegal in Texas and Arizona but legal in Vermont and Connecticut? More complicated than I thought. But, again, if fully-automatic weapons are legal in any state in the lower-48 they are effectively legal everywhere. Just jump on the latest interstate highway.
Gravenstone
@Shalimar: Except the clemency board is appointed by the Governor. So Abbott’s rubber stamp.
Geminid
@EarthWindFire: There will be at least 8 Republican candidates (including Trump) going into the New Hampshire primary, no matter what Republican elites do. But if someone can get separation by April 10, he can make it into a two man race with Trump. Then the nomination might come down to who wins the last 10 primaries.
I just don’t know how strong a candidate Trump will be by then.
Raven
@Tony G: Are you familiar with bump stocks?
JoyceH
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
That shot up a BANK. Hey, listen, they couldn’t MAKE AR-15s without the assistance of banks. How about the banking industry as a whole just refuse to fund businesses that make or sell assault weapons? If you can’t have a bank account or get a business loan, making assault weapons would be impossible.
For that matter, how about a nationwide boycott on assault weapons? If you make or sell assault weapons, quit. If your spouse makes or sells assault weapons and refuses to quit, divorce them. If your adult child makes or sells assault weapons, disown them. If your neighbor makes or sells assault weapons, shun them. If your client makes or sells assault weapons, cancel their contract and refuse to serve them. If your parishioner makes or sells assault weapons, refuse them communion. If the government is too jerrymandered and dysfunctional to take action against assault weapons, maybe it’s finally the job of every citizen to fill in the breach.
Betty Cracker
Anyone have any idea what the hell is going on with the leaked national security intel? From NYT:
Sweet weeping Jeebus!
SomeRandomGuy
@Tony G: The AK-47 is not a revered weapon. The AR-15, which is the civilian form of the M-16, is the revered weapon.
AR-15s are only fully automatic with the addition of a “bump stock” which means, they’re totally not machine guns, because “HA HA HA SUCK IT LIBs (signed) the NRA”
They’re a good gun for people who need a gun to feel badass, because they’re *really* easy to shoot, they take almost no skill, and they’re designed to kill people. (Oh, they can kill other large animals too, don’t get me wrong. But they were designed to pierce the standard military helmets of the day – pretty hard to say that’s not intended to kill people, eh?)
Now, me, if I could fire 8 rounds into the bullseye, using a Springfield, I’d feel proud. That’s a heavy gun, with no recoil suppression, and it’s even perfect for explaining “clip” versus “magazine.”
(A clip isn’t part of the gun – it just holds bullets. The Springfield clip holds 8 rounds, 4 high, 2 wide. The magazine is internal, and does the feeding of a fresh round when you lever a new round to the chamber; the clip just keeps the bullets stacked neatly for the magazine to do its thing. In common usage, “clip” and “magazine” are interchangeable, but some pedants like to scorn people who don’t know the difference.)
Anyway: I’d feel proud to say I could shoot a Springfield, and if I qualified as a Marksman by Army or Marine standards, I’d feel as hoppy as a one-legged man who won the butt kicking contest. If I did the same thing with an AR-15, well… I mean, can’t anyone do that, if they practice long enough, and want it badly enough?
Gravenstone
Unfortunately, Fucker Cumstain was yelling about this asshole and namechecked Abbott directly to “do something”. So in this case at least, Abbott is being lead about by his short hairs by Tuckems.
JWR
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Funny how once an area is secured the police will routinely tell us the neighborhood is no longer in any danger, (LoL wUt?), leastwise not until the next “law abiding” gun nut decides to reverse the equation. Stay safe!
Tony G
@Tony G: “closest interstate highway”. Bad typing.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know the reality, but I don’t trust the NYT and that excerpt reads like an exercise in speculation.
Paul in KY
@SomeRandomGuy: The nice thing about the AK series of rifles was that they would still work even when very dirty. The AR rifles need to be properly maintained to work as intended.
Gravenstone
@Tony G: No, I mean in this case the dude open carrying the AK on the side of the BLM protest (who ended up dead because he kept it slung) would become the aggressor. Basically I expect he (or others like him) would draw down on the driver and demand he exit the vehicle. And you can bet he’d likely shoot (in self defense) the second the driver looked at him funny,
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Laura Rozen has been linking to some informed commentary on the leaks, on her Twitter account. Yesterday’s Washington Post had three articles on the matter.
And of course people have been going round and round on the leaks in Dr. Silverman’s excellent Ukraine threads. We have not yet cracked the case, though.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@The Moar You Know:
On a non-tragic Louisville note, the standard question is “where did you go to high school”. Because there is a very large and community-focused Catholic school system that ran alongside the public schools, that question identifies the neighborhood you grew up in, your rough economic status, your sports history, and what common friend network you are likely to have. There’s genuine social currency to it here that’s always been charming and kind of fun.
pat
I have been reading comments, not done yet, but I have to ask, if the AK-47 or whatever was used in one of the school shootings (hard to keep them straight) was not automatic, how was it possible that it fired 150 bullets in like 10 minutes?
I’m in Austria and I am going to bed now, but I’ll check back in the morning to see if my semi-coherent question has gotten a response..
Tony G
@SomeRandomGuy: I’m pretty sure that “needing a gun to feel like a MAN” is the primary motivation of most of these clowns (except for the ones who really intend to kill people). I just find it hilarious (in a sick way) that the AK-47 — a weapon that was invented in the Soviet Union and was used to kill American soldiers and Marines in Vietnam and other wars — should be the weapon of choice for some of these morons. Just pathetic guys with deadly weapons.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@SomeRandomGuy:
AK is also cheap and simple to fabricate, basically a bunch of stamped and bent steel – it’s also fairly indestructible.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Ruckus: The murder happened at a racial justice protest. Pretty sure racism was involved…
Suzanne
@The Moar You Know:
Yes, I know. AZ was much the same. It’s exceedingly weird.
Tony G
@Gravenstone: Well, it’s a well known legal doctrine that the existence of a black man is a threat to a white man and that, therefore, the white man has the right to use deadly force in self-defense.
raven
@Tony G: Why would that matter?
apocalipstick
@Tony G: No. The AKs sold in the USA are semiautomatic; the law only outlaws full auto. The fetish for the AK goes back to the myth that it was a better gun than the M-16.
And if you’re talking about Texas (it’s unclear to me; too many shootings to keep straight), the murderer used a revolver. The victim was carrying the AK.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
It’s a networking thing. There’s a whole stratum for whom college is about making connections rather than getting an education. Yeah, the education might be nice, but the real point is to be able to brag about going to an Ivy*, so all the other people who went to Ivies will know you’re part of the right crowd.
This is why legacy admissions are so important to those schools. Maybe the legacy students aren’t especially smart, but they’re rich and well connected. Since the point is networking rather than education, having the people you’re supposed to network with is more important than having the best and brightest.
*Or Seven Sister, or whatever.
Geminid
@pat: These mass shooters typically bring extra magazines that can be quickly switched with magazines that are empty. Thirty rounds is a common magazine capacity, although some states like Colorado ban large capacity magazines.
Suzanne
@geg6:
Oh, people out there loooooove their sports, including college sports. But lots of people cheer for teams at colleges they didn’t attend.
And what I’m talking about is, like, talking about where you went to college in a professional/social stratum context. It’s just really weird to me.
EarthWindFire
@Geminid: I’m not sure if I hope you’re right or I am. They’re all fascists of one degree or another now.
Matt McIrvin
@pat: It’s semi-auto, which just means you have to pull the trigger once for every shot, and everything else is automatic. It’s pretty easy to shoot a round every couple of seconds with that kind of setup–just go bang, bang, bang. You just lose time reloading, and if you have multiple large magazines even that can be fast.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: have you done the math, based on number of delegates and order of states? Because that seems way too late to me. But if you have done the math, I will take you at your word!
Roger Moore
@geg6:
Nobody out West feels like you need to go to a school in order to cheer for it. There are plenty of USC fans who never went there.
JWR
@pat: Others will surely know better, but I think they fire a round with every pull of the trigger, popoppoppoppop, as fast as one can go. There was a recent shooting in L.A. and the LAPD body cam caught it. I counted at least 27 shots in a matter of seconds, from one semi auto handgun, so 152 rounds in 10 minutes would be easy peasy.
TheTruffle
The governor was re-elected by a handy margin, as were most Republicans running last year.
Texans complain, but most of them happily return these people to office.
Roger Moore
@Tony G:
Available and legal are not the same! Yes, people can get fully automatic weapons into their state, but they’ll potentially get in trouble if they get caught. If they use that weapon to commit a crime, they’ll be in much bigger trouble.
pat
@Geminid: so it just fires rapidly until it it empty. By pulling the trigger each time.?
Roger Moore
@JoyceH:
The Republicans are trying to make that illegal. They don’t want banks or investment funds to be allowed to consider what kind of business they’re investing in.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore: At a firm I worked for in Phoenix, we had one dude, hired at the same time as me, who had gone to Cornell. He made certain we all knew it, and a few of us were like, “Uhhhh, okay?”. He got laid off in the first round.
The Moar You Know
@pat: one shot per trigger pull. At a slow one round per second, you could fire 150 shots in 2 and a half minutes. Most people could do it in far less.
trollhattan
@SomeRandomGuy:
All it took for me to understand what a “bump stock” does is listening to audio of the Las Vegas massacre. (Had never before heard of them.) Anyone arguing “it’s not a real machine gun” has rocks for brains.
Turns out you don’t need belt feed ammo if you simply fill your hotel suite with dozens of guns for you to enjoy sampling in serial fashion.
Geminid
@EarthWindFire: My guess is that Trump is the weaker general election candidate, while Pompeo (or DeSantis) would be a more dangerous President if only because he’s not as lazy. So I’m hoping Trump has enough zombie energy to shamble to the nomination.
Roger Moore
@pat:
A fully automatic gun means it keeps shooting until you let go of the trigger or it runs out of ammo. A semi-automatic, which is what most of the mass shootings are committed with, means it fires once every time you pull the trigger until it runs out of ammo. It’s not that hard to shoot 150 rounds in 10 minutes; it’s about one shot every 4 seconds.
FWIW, there’s still a lot of debate about whether it makes sense to arm soldiers with fully automatic personal weapons*. Unless they’re very well trained, people with full automatics tend to spray a lot of bullets around without aiming, which just wastes ammo and doesn’t result in many hits.
*This is not to deny that dedicated fully automatic machine guns are a good idea.
JoyceH
@Roger Moore:
If they’re trying to make it illegal, it’s not illegal now, so do it now. And make sure that Republicans don’t regain the ability to make that legislation law.
Geminid
@pat: Yes, and then the shooter has to remove the empty magazine and insert a full one.
Every now and then a shooter is stopped while trying to reload. That was the case with the guy who wounded Representative Giffords and killed four others in Houston. Colonel Badger, a retired Army officer who’d been wounded, grappled with the shooter as he tried to reload.
The gunman was judged to be insane and is incarcerated in a special federal prison in Missouri.
Ruckus
@raven:
I really wasn’t all that comfortable carrying a loaded weapon in the Navy because when I was first handed it I asked the Lt giving it to me what were my orders. This was for in port. sounding and security watch. Roam the ship, report in to the quarterdeck every so often, take soundings of compartments that were never maned for leaks. I asked him specifically about the 45 pistol I was given. The order was: “If you see someone on the ship that doesn’t belong here, shoot to kill.” He seemed pissed that I’d even ask. I wondered what if I saw someone like me, a new guy, that no one really knew, who belonged on the ship but I didn’t know him, had never seen him before, walking through the ship in civilian clothes. Shoot first, maybe ask questions later? What if he was a new captain, first day on board, would that go over well if I killed him? Yeah, it is actually a huge responsibility to carry a deadly weapon, you don’t just shoot to kill when you think this person MIGHT NOT BELONG HERE. Good times.
Another Scott
@pat:
Supposedly a standard semi-automatic AR-15 can shoot 45 bullets per minute. Fully-automatic is much faster, of course.
Much of the time, the thing that stops the shooter is the gun jamming, not the intrinsic rate of fire capability. :-/
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Scott.
Roberto el oso
@TheTruffle: Democratic candidates in Texas received more votes than any states other than California and Florida. The Texans who complain about GOP insanity are doing their best. Writing off those of us who are blue voters in red states is easy but inaccurate (although, yes, I get the anger in doing so).
Suzanne
@Geminid:
Congresswoman Giffords was shot in Tucson, and six others were killed. Loughner was subdued by bystanders and arrested without injury.
ETA: Jared Lee Loughner is incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I have not done the math. But it seems like it will take a few primaries for some non-Trump candidate to separate from the pack. He may need to do it before April 10 though, perhaps going into or coming out of Super Tuesday. Then I think it could turn into a two man race that’s decided on the issue of electability.
JWR
@Roger Moore:
Some rime ago ago there was a Floriduh woman with an AR chasing a thief down her driveway. She was screaming and steadying herself against a car with her left arm while holding the weapon with her right, just pumping rounds really wildly into the air. Mr. Silverman told me that’s called Spray & Pray.
Geminid
@Geminid: Sorry, that’s Tucson, not Houston.
And dammit, I swear I typed Tucson! Instead of Autocorrect, this new phone of mine has what I call “Ought-to Correct.” It’s like, “Oh, he must have meant this, not what he actually typed.” Drives me crazy!
Ruckus
@SomeRandomGuy:
When I was in the Navy we qualified with a 22 bolt action rifle. All arms practice was with 22 bolt action rifles on an indoor range with no other type of arms inclusion. Even though there were no 22 weapons used on active duty. We did have, once, on the ship I was on for 2 yrs, gunnery practice one day while at sea. Shoot directly off the stern, hit the water, you are golden. I fired off 2 clips from a 45 automatic pistol in about 15 seconds and handed the gun back. The gunner’s mate nodded his head approvingly as I handed him the empty gun and clips. I carried a loaded 45 pistol on in port watch, at sea all the individual type weapons were locked up. In port 2 enlisted carried a 45 pistol, quarterdeck and sounding and security watches and the OOD also carried a 45. This was a very long time ago, during Vietnam. We also carried on board BAR rifles and Thompson sub machine guns. And now I’ve spoken more about weapons than I have over the last 50 yrs.
trollhattan
The praying, being conducted by the poor neighbors.
Sister Golden Bear
The federal judge in Amarillo who issued the nationwide abortion law pill ban also is essentially doing something akin to juror nullification — making his ruling without a hearing.
Note: I don’t know if the two sides agreed to a bench hearing. But from what I’ve read, not even holding a hearing was highly unusual. Lawyer Jackals feel free to correct me.
Another Scott
Reuters on the mass shooting in Louisville today:
It’s the guns. We all know it’s the guns.
Grr…,
Scott.
Baud
@Sister Golden Bear: What case is there not a hearing in?
sab
@Roberto el oso: Ohio not so big but I feel the same. We keep plugging away. Mostly we lose, but sometimes we win ( Sherrod Brown.) I hate having everyone in the state written off when we work so hard for our victories which do happen.
JWR
@trollhattan: That’s what I noted at the time, the innocent neighbors. It was just crazy firing. Once the cops saw the footage I expected them to take the gun away for sheer recklessness. But hey, that’s America! No deaths, no foul!
Roger Moore
@JWR:
“Spray and Pray” is pretty common, even with soldiers. It takes a lot of training to get a soldier to the point full auto fire is actually useful for anything. Even people who can control their gun on the range can forget their training in battle.
Mallard Filmore
@Baud:
It is unlikely that gun makers will put an ad like that out. An anti-gun group certainly could.
—
I’m pro-life. MURDER STICKS FOR EVERYONE.
Xenos
@The Moar You Know: The Weimar judges were mostly appointed during the time of the Empire. The fascists did not need to influence them, they were already in the bag for reactionary activists and street gangs.
raven
@Roger Moore:
The Greatest Generation
JWR
@Sister Golden Bear: Sounds like the Tennessee legislature. Earlier this morning, MisterDancer posted a link to a 2022 story from NewsChannel 5 about how the supermajority conducts itself, and it reads like a horror story. Just making up rules on the fly. This TX judge appears to be following wingnut suit.
OGLiberal
@Another Scott: Some are claiming on the Twitters that this happened because this white man identified as “he/him” on LinkedIn. Damn, those evil pronouns!
raven
A 23-year-old bank employee opened fire at his workplace in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, on Monday morning and livestreamed the attack that left four dead and nine others wounded, authorities said.
Pennsylvanian
Mitch still MIA. Day 35 I think?
Curiouser and curiouser.
Leto
(Iowa Public Radio) Iowa AG’s office suspends emergency contraception payments for sexual assault victims
trollhattan
@Another Scott: They once called this “going Postal” on account of it occurring at USPS facilities. How naive we were.
KY governor stated he knows two deceased and one injured, personally.
Tony G
@raven: Another responsible gun owner.
sab
@JWR: Legislatures can get away with that shit. Federal judges not so much. There are higher courts above them. Colossal waste of everyone’s time and money every time they have to appeal this idiot’s idiotic decisions.
Every federal litigant in Amarillo has to wait while this judge repeatedly wastes his time and other peoples money on cases that have no standing to be in his court.
Suzanne
@Pennsylvanian:
Tawts and pairz!
I’m sorry. I’m an asshole.
trollhattan
@Leto: Here’s AG Brenna Bird, looking very pleased with your generous Amway order.
ETA, I needed to keep reading.
“Advocating for victims of crime” seems like quite the stretch, today.
JWR
@Roger Moore:
There was a Frontline investigation last year about how we were lied into Iraq, and some of the video from a battle between Iraqi sects showed plenty of arms holding ARs up above a wall, pointing them in a general direction and holding the trigger until the thing was empty. No aiming beyond that.
I watch the footage coming out of Ukraine and hope they do better than that. (And yes, they do seem a fairly well trained army, thank Jeebus.)
sab
Yikes. I went to the bank today. And I know they don’t treat their tellers well. I try to be nice, since it’s rarely their fault.
sab
@Suzanne: If you are so am I, and I know that could not be true.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@Sister Golden Bear:
For the scope of that injunction, there would need to be a full on evidentiary hearing with scientific evidence. My understanding is there wasn’t.
satby
@Pennsylvanian: seems pretty obvious he had a serious stroke. It was stated he was undergoing therapy to relearn to walk and speak. But the news media can’t be bothered.
karen marie
@Betty Cracker: I watched the police body cam footage. It’s remarkable for the lack of orders to Perry to put his hands where officers could see them and that he wasn’t “placed on the ground” once he was out of the car.
The cop sounded apologetic.
We now live in the world “conservatives” want. And yet they’re still not happy.
Suzanne
@sab: Come sit by me.
karen marie
@PAM Dirac: Yeah, I’m going to guess that the ATF does fewer inspections of weapons than the FDA does of meat-packing plants.
Tony G
@trollhattan: My daughter in law was in that crowd in Las Vegas that day in 2017. Fortunately she wasn’t physically injured, and she seems to have handled things OK psychologically in the years since then. Another reason for me to hate the gun nuts in this country.
trollhattan
@JWR: Everything I “know” about combat is from film/video seen in the comfort of home. The constant flow of video from Ukraine informs me their troops generally fire their weapons in brief bursts and only very rarely continuously.
Seems prudent from both an accuracy standpoint and preserving ammunition. (There was one guy fighting from a trench. He points the camera down to reveal walking atop an inches deep layer of spent shells. “We’re gonna need a deeper trench.”)
Kathleen
@Suzanne: Ha! Here in Cincinnati it’s high schools. First question grown working adults ask if they don’t know you is where you went to high school. I did not grow up here, nor did I attend high school here.
Besides high schools, local graduates are fixated on where they went to college. University of Cincinnati and Xavier are the two biggest and best known. It’s almost cult like. I just don’t fit in at all since graduated from a small Catholic university in Portland, Oregon. It’s interesting to hear how different cities/areas treat these topics.
Tony G
@Roger Moore: Absolutely. I didn’t mean literally legal, but it’s easy to transport guns from a state with weak gun laws (often in the south or west) to a state like New Jersey (where I live).
Leto
@trollhattan: it’s going against Iowa law, but she’s gonna do it regardless. Doesn’t matter how badly it backfires on them, no matter how much it hurts them in the election booth, they’re going to force this on us regardless the cost. I hope I live long enough to see them all burn.
rikyrah
@Pennsylvanian:
UH HUH
UH HUH
scav
@trollhattan: It’d be a crime if those uppity vessels deprived their rapist of his God-given child! Gotta protect that family unit.
Old School
@Pennsylvanian:
I mean, I suppose there could be something nefarious going on, but Mitch fell March 8th, stayed in hospital for five days, continued with inpatient physical therapy until March 25th, and went home. The Senate is currently in recess for two weeks.
JWR
@sab:
Especially noxious with supermajorities. More precisely, especially with Republican supermajorities. CA Dems, thankfully, don’t seem to have this problem. They just follow the damn rules.
sab
@Suzanne: Thank you. Six feet away with mask? I’m an old and they won’t let me get a booster.
My grand-daughter ( step-daughter’s kid, but I am the only one who acknowledges the little cutie) only thinks I wear a mask. Grandma is in purdah. How the phuck to people not acknowledge their very own perfectly nice grand-children? There are at least three other women who should be her grandma. Glad to have the monopoly but she should have more options.One real grandmother died of MS in her early thirties, and the other was moved to Alabama, but what about all the other steps?
Kathleen
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: Same in Cincinnati. As you said, I attribute it to the number of Catholic neighborhoods defined by the nationalities who settled them back in the 1800’s, in our case, German, Irish and Italian. Now community (downtown near in on western border of the “West Side”) we also now have much larger Mexican, Guatemalan and Black population.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
@trollhattan:
That’s barely long enough to learn where the best bathroom in the office is.
sab
@Suzanne: When I went back to Ohio to my childhood church, where I sang in the girls choir, a friendly usher being friendly to the allegedly new congregant told me what phucking snotty prep school in Connecticut he went to. He was 50 and he must have graduated at 18. My jaw dropped, and being a bad person I switched to a later service.
I also went to snotty prep school for one year and got kicked out for smoking when I don’t smoke. My public school was focused more on academics.
Roberto el oso
@JWR: I remember footage of the battle in Hue, during the Tet offensive, and there were scenes of US servicemen doing the same thing.
Ruckus
@karen marie:
We now live in the world “conservatives” want. And yet they’re still not happy.
They fuck around and find out. They want a world that really doesn’t work because humans. They want complete control and if they don’t get it they want everyone to have weapons so they can take it and make it what they want. And then they get what they say they want and they find out it sucks huge donkey balls and yet they can’t have what liberals want because they know that a lot of their side has zero understanding or ability for/of actual responsibility to others.
Geminid
@Old School: The Senate returns from its recess next Monday, April 17. We’ll see then whether McConnell is well enough to function on Capitol Hill.
I have read conflicting reports about his health. So far his people have said he suffered a concussion and broken ribs. His doctor alluded to problems “thinking.” Republican Senators say they have spoken with him by phone. McConnell’s 82 though, an age when even moderate injuries sometimes start a downhill slide.
Mike in NC
@trollhattan: A home-schooled attorney general! Oh well, they put a game show host in the White House, so anything goes.
paul w, of roscoe village chicago
actually people, it’s government sanctioned political assassination.
Another Scott
@satby: The lack of any video is telling, I think. His Twitter stuff is carrying-on as normal, of course.
I have no idea whether he had a stroke or not, but (as I said before) it seems strange that his rehab doc said that he needed to work on his “thinking”.
(repost) WAVE3.com: (from March 15):
Obvious questions – 1) Why did he “trip and fall”? Was there something in his path? Or was it his body not working right? He took an awkward tumble in May, 2014 at a campaign event trying to go up a few steps and seemed to need help getting up. (0:31)
(It’s really hard to find that WAVE3 story – search results are dominated with happy talk from McConnell’s team.)
He should retire, but I don’t expect him to.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Baud:
It’s second amendment rights for me, not for thee.
The conservative asswipe is supposed to have 100% rights and everyone else has to be secondary. Because conservatism.
And no it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever but that’s conservative not thinking. Conservatives are always correct doncha know.
sab
@trollhattan: Two years experience and they elected her DA? In Ohio you cannot even motion in to get an in state law license from an out of state bar without four years experience elsewhere which, frankly, isn’t much.
Suzanne
@sab:
LMAO.
I guess this is how you behave when you don’t have any accomplishments. #peakedearly
eversor
@Ruckus:
They want a Christian theocratic ethno state and they can get that with guns. And if they decide to actually employ their guns the only way to stop it is to bring guns out against them. Until they get that they are going to keep at brining down the nation and getting madder and matter. It’s not a matter of if it will happen it’s when it will happen.
sab
@Suzanne: Bad girl speaking truth. LMAO now too.
ETA At the time I just thought “ick”.
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
He’s 81 and had polio as a child. He’s done pretty good to get where he’s gotten, even if he is absolutely the opposition, in politics and in life.
When I was 66-68 yrs old I went through a 2 yr period when 14 people I know passed away and only one was older than me and he was one yr older and the first of the 14. We all go at some point, I’m working on outliving everyone I knew in previous generations. That would get me at least to 95, by far the oldest in my immediate family. All the grandparents are long gone. All my parents generation are all gone. Some of my generation are gone and I’m the third oldest. The oldest is gone. The second oldest has cancer and can not live with the medication for the cancer. It likely will be weeks or maybe months.
We get old, we get more susceptible to injuries that can end us, to our bodies giving up, to illness. It’s old fartitus. In the best of situations we live a lot longer than others, in the worst we go horribly too early. It’s life, we all end up the same in the end, we should all get the same chance to getting there, but we don’t.
sab
@Ruckus: I can’t bring myself to wish bad on anyone since I am old enough to have seen people who successfully fought polio for years finally declline.
I hate MitchMcConnell but I don’t wish that even on him.
Hope it was just a basic noggin bash then stroke that anyone tough minded enough will recover from.
Chris T.
Background: I’m no expert but I know a guy who was in the Marines.
Apparently full-auto isn’t very useful even to the well-trained military. They were apparently instructed to keep their weapons set for three-round bursts in most situations. If you’ve ever fired pretty much any firearm, you know that even the best recoil suppression still gives you some kickback. This means each shot tends to go a little higher than the previous one. Some study or studies showed that with a three-round burst with an initial attempt to aim, this gave most people the most chance of actually hitting their target without just spraying bullets into the air uselessly.
So: there’s basically no excuse for full-auto other than as a Fear Weapon.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
As Ruckus says, MM is a polio survivor.
Also, he fell at home landing on a hard (patio, maybe outside, as I recall) surface in August 2019; news reports said he broke his “shoulder” and underwent surgery. Came very close to hitting his head.
Ruckus
@sab:
I’m old enough to have seen polio up close as a kid, before the vaccines. I went to school through 12th grade with a girl that had polio/crutches and leg braces – 10 yrs later she was walking fine, 2 of my friends moms had iron lungs in their front rooms (couldn’t get them anywhere else through the doors – other than the front door) – and neither of them are the 2 that still live in an iron lung, and one of my current neighbors my age had it as an infant as well. She now gets around in a wheelchair. If you are older than 68 yrs old you likely knew/know someone that has lived with it.
trollhattan
@Tony G: Oh god, I can’t imagine. How horrid for her, even as she’s lucky to have not been hurt.
My wife attended a conference that Monday where they began with memorializing a presenter who had been killed in Las Vegas. It affected a LOT of people.
Another Scott
@Bill Arnold: Yes, indeed.
I had a great uncle who was in a wheelchair from polio.
The comment section of the 2014 CBS News video above opens with a statement from his campaign that he’s a polio survivor.
But his people these days seem to be trying to memory-hole all of that. “He’s fine, he’ll be back any day now, nothing to worry about, we’ll tell you when anything changes, etc., etc.” Maybe it’s true, but the lack of information invites all kinds of speculation because of what is known about his history.
I guess we’ll all know soon enough.
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
This lamb was adorable. Orthodox is later. We can do it.
sab
@Ruckus: i am sixty nine. I now people who lived through it, and it makes me furiously angry to pretend people didn’t live through it.
sab
@Another Scott: Yikes! Memory whole polio?
Ksmiami
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: how about a fucking grenade ?
Another Scott
@sab: I mean, they aren’t saying anything about his history as far as I can tell, compared to his fall in 2014.
I get it. They’re trying to protect his (and their) power by wanting the press to push the story that it’s perfectly fine for him to be effectively hiding from the public and his state for around a month after being hospitalized for a fall. But eventually he’s going to have to appear in public and do the job that Kentucky voted for him to do. The people running his Twitter feed aren’t a Senator.
The Senate is supposed to be back in session (for 5 days) starting Monday April 17.
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@sab: Well this year the kids and dog seem fine.
But this year everyone !fucked up.
sab
Gave the vet level of benedryl . Makes her doze off. Saving the pooch from problems.
sab
@Another Scott: Whatever. I think it is worse, but that is just me.
Ruckus
@Chris T.:
In the Navy, for the 45 automatic pistol we carried, the Navy did not use full loads in the ammo. That reduced the kickback to almost nothing and if you knew how to hold and shoot it you could rapid fire a pretty small circle. But every other automatic or semi automatic weapon had a kick. A very good/knowledgeable operator could fire reasonably well in a pretty tight area. Even a BAR. I’ve seen it done. Most could not even shoot in a semi straight line.
Ruckus
@sab:
Yep. I was just sitting on the stoop talking to my neighbor in the wheelchair who had it as a infant. The girl I went to school with I haven’t seen since 1977.
Tony G
@trollhattan: She was shook up by it for a while, but she seems to have been OK since then. Some people are just very emotionally resilient; she’s a very tough young woman. But I think about her whenever I read about one of those idiots whining about “muh second amendment rights”.
Tony G
@Chris T.: I was lucky to have been a little too young to be invited to a trip to Vietnam — but I watched it on TV! I remember seeing one firefight in which the U.S. grunts were just firing blindly on fully automatic in the general direction of the jungle. I’m sure that I would have done the same if I’d been over there, but that’s not the way to win a war.
Pennsylvanian
@satby: maybe not the media, but why can’t the democrats be bothered? There could be an advantage to his absence.
And it would be irresponsible not to speculate, right?
He is down, and it is my opinion that this is the time to kick him. The man is a ghoul and would never miss an opportunity like this, AS WE WELL KNOW.
Tony G
@Kathleen: Throughout my “career” in I.T. I’ve worked in the Northeast (mostly New York, also some time in Philadelphia and New England). My college was mentioned only in the interviews for my first job after college — and then it was usually some joking about the basketball team. After that, they only cared about what I had accomplished (or failed to accomplish) at previous jobs.
leeleeFL
@cain: Because, Texas! The. Voting population there is inexplicable. Sort of the same all over the South. Occasionally, there is a surprise. 2008 Presidential Election, as an example. But the trends returns to norm fairly quickly!
Paul in KY
@pat: Think about pulling the trigger as fast as you can. Maybe 2 shots per second. Switching out large mags in a timely manner. Very easy (IMO) to shoot that many rounds in that period of time.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: All our rifle weapons (and I assume the enemy’s too) have a selection for firing a 3 round burst.