Tag: Gun Violence

Last Thoughts On Guns

This is a wasted attempt on my part because most people have made up their closed minds on the gun issue.

Most of us do not give a sh*t one way or the other……beyond ‘thoughts and prayers’ and we move on to the next “jackass Movie……

A few useless charts for your consumption…..

Americans have blamed many culprits, from mental illness to inadequate security, for the tragic mass shootings that are occurring with increasing frequency in schools, offices and theaters across the U.S.

The latest, which occurred on May 24, 2022, at a Texas elementary school and left at least 19 children and two teachers dead, was the 213th mass shooting this year – and the 27th that took place in a school.

Yet during much of America’s ongoing conversation about the root causes of gun violence, the makers of guns have typically escaped scrutiny. As a public health researcher, I find this odd, because evidence shows that the culture around guns contributes significantly to gun violence. And firearm manufacturers have played a major role in influencing American gun culture.

That’s beginning to change, particularly since the US$73 million settlement between the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the maker of the rifle used in the massacre. This may open the door for more lawsuits against firearm manufacturers.

https://theconversation.com/6-charts-show-key-role-firearms-makers-play-in-americas-gun-culture-183900

Now my last thought…..

***Please this is someone’s opinion…..I offer it as a closing thought not an endorsement***

It’s obviously a damning statement that killing children in their schoolhouses, churchgoers in their churches and Black and Latino people in the places where they shop is something that happens with relative frequency in the United States. What’s even more damning, however, is that so many politicians essentially support this sociopathic behavior. Sure, they may make statements deploring the bloodshed and tragedy, but they sure as hell don’t do a damn thing about ending it. In their minds, there is nothing to be done about men (yes, it’s usually men) walking into a school wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying an arsenal more suitable to an invading soldier and murdering a couple dozen people. Then again, politicians claim there is also nothing to be done about hiring young men, arming them to the teeth and sending them off to kick in the doors of innocent families and killing everyone inside. It’s American democracy, goddammit. Take it in the face or we’ll kill you.

This is a country built on violence and determined to survive by violence or take the world down with it. It consistently rejects peace talks in favor of war, nonviolent approaches to crime in favor of killer cops, and open borders in favor of heavily militarized border enforcement. Then it cries when its children are killed. Then it sells more guns. It’s a twisted place to live and most of its residents have no clue how twisted.

Ban the Damn Guns

No more needs saying…..that is until the next time of a mass shooting….and the manure begins all over again.

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The ‘Heroes’ Of Uvalde

The tired debate ignites yet again….

Since the horrific shooting of children in Uvalde there has been another 10+ mass shootings….

Despite the horror and grief over the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and the rampage at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store before it, gun violence in the US has not diminished in the week since Uvalde. As of Monday, there had been at least 14 mass shootings in the US since the elementary school massacre, the Washington Post reports. Eleven of those were over the Memorial Day holiday weekend

The incident Stelter was speaking about took place in Tennessee on Saturday night, where six children between the ages of 13 and 15 were shot in what authorities believe was an altercation between teenagers. At a California party, one person was killed and three others were injured, one critically. At a Pennsylvania party, two people between the ages of 14 and 21 were killed and two were hurt. Six people were shot at an Alabama graduation party. At an Oklahoma festival, one person was killed and seven injured. A mother and her three young children were killed by a relative in Michigan, NPR reports.

Now the ‘heroes’ of Uvalde……

By now most people that are interested have heard the horror stories in Uvalde…..the deaths of children and 2 adults and then the other horror story is the crackerjack SWAT team that ‘saved’ the day……

Meet the Uvalde Police SWAT team. Where were they? Outside the school, waiting on reinforcements. When one parent shouted, “Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” they took out their Tasers to keep parents from entering the school to try and save their kids.

So basically the SWAT is little more than a coffee clutch while kids die.

What happened to the humor that is “To Protect And Serve”?

Though many police departments use the motto “protect and serve,” cops don’t have to come to your rescue, help you when you’re in distress or try to save your child from being shot. Under a Supreme Court case called Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, the police can’t be held accountable for not coming to your aid, even if the lives of your children are at stake. Yet they have the absolute right to taser, cuff and arrest you, if you complain too loudly about them sitting on their asses as kids are being shot in front of them.

So basically unarmed traffic offenders are targeted but a dude with a gun is off-limits….the people of Uvalde can sleep soundly now that they understand just how ‘heroic’ their police are (sarcasm in case you missed it)…..

Maybe all this would have been avoided if we had just armed teachers…(a cop-out by the Right)….

In the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, some elected officials are making calls anew for teachers to be armed and trained to use firearms to protect the nation’s schools. To shine light on the matter, The Conversation reached out to Aimee Huff and Michelle Barnhart, two Oregon State University scholars who have studied the ins and outs of putting guns in the hands of the nation’s teachers as a way to protect students.

https://theconversation.com/arming-teachers-an-effective-security-measure-or-a-false-sense-of-security-183909

Let’s be real…..NOTHING will change kids will die and Congress will get their donations….and the cycle will go on and on…..inaction can kill….as our society keeps proving.

Eventually this episode will fade for the next great crisis that will grab our attention and our ire.

“Guns don’t kill people….Congress does”

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Those Damn Guns!

But first a factoid….the year is not quite 180 days old and we have had 200+ mass shootings….now there is a stat to be proud of (sarcasm)……

The mass shooting in Texas that has left 21 people dead, mostly children, has ignited the debate on guns and what to do……and of course those idiots that say ‘thoughts and prayer’ are doing nothing to help only patronizing the people involved.

As usual after the fact the Congress has taken up the problem of guns and associated deaths…..The House tries to pass some form of solution and the senate as usual will do NOTHING!

At least 10 GOP senators would have to support gun control legislation for it to pass. The New York Times contacted all 50 Republicans to see whether they’ll back two measures that the House has approved to toughen background checks for people who want to buy guns. Most of them either wouldn’t say how they’d vote or said they’d oppose the House bills. Here are a sampling of their responses, which the Times ran along with their grades from the National Rifle Association and the amount of money the organization has contributed to the senators over their careers.

  • Maine Sen. Susan Collins: A spokeswoman said “Senator Collins is one of two Republican senators currently serving who voted for Manchin-Toomey, which included background checks for all commercial transactions.” NRA rating: A. Funding: $18,000.
  • Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: The senator blamed Democrats “and a whole lot of folks in the media” for rushing to “try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.” NRA rating: A+. Funding: $176,000.
  • South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham: “None of these things we’re talking about seems to change the outcome, before these most recent cases. I doubt if any Republicans vote for that.” NRA rating: A. Funding: $433,000.
  • Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey: “My interest in doing something to improve and expand our background check system remains.” NRA rating: C. Funding: $1.5 million.
  • Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell: No answer. NRA rating: A+. Funding: $1.3 million.
  • Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville: “I’m willing to say that I’m very sorry it happened. But guns are not the problem, OK? People are the problem.” NRA rating: A. Funding: $10,000.
  • Utah Sen. Mitt Romney: “I do believe that we will be looking at ways to improve our background checks. … And I do believe that red flag laws … are helpful.” NRA rating: A. Funding: $13.6 million.
  • Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: No answer. NRA rating: A+. Funding: $3.3 million.
  • Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe: “I hadn’t thought about it. You’re the first one to bring that to my attention.” NRA rating: A+. Funding: $82,000.

The usual track of this debate on guns will proceed at a usual tempo….blah, blah, blah and then it will fade for something else that will become more important….

After a racist shooting earlier this month at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and Tuesday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, guns have — yet again — emerged as a political issue that has dominated headlines. Democrats have issued impassioned pleas for the government to more tightly regulate the sale of firearms, and if past shootings are any indication, we will soon get a fresh batch of polling data showing that solid majorities of Americans agree with them. But again, if past shootings are any indication, Congress will not pass any reforms, in large part because many Republicans oppose gun control reform. And as happened so many times before, the strong public support for gun control will fade away with our memories of the shootings.

FiveThirtyEight took a look at polling and media data to show how support for gun laws has increased amid intense media coverage of past school shootings, but then reverted back toward the previous mean as the media spotlight moved on to other issues. We examined the period around two school shootings in 2018 to see how coverage of those events corresponded with changes in support for increased gun control. Specifically, we examined data around the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the May 18, 2018, shooting at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas.1 And as you can see in the chart below, there was an abrupt increase in the share of Americans who favored stricter gun laws right after each shooting, most especially Parkland, followed by a decline in support.

Support For Gun Control Will Likely Rise After Uvalde. But History Suggests It Will Fade.

I am a gun owner and I believe it is time, actually beyond the time, to have a real and honest debate without all the BS that some want to spread to deflect the attention from the fact that these killings were done with a gun….

Let’s take a look at the most manure that is spread….

If nothing else, mass shootings and school shootings always bring out the creative side of America’s worst human beings. Whether they’re desperate for the shooter to not be a white supremacist (for fear it would make other white supremacists look bad, because they look so good and normal otherwise) or for the usual reason that they just really, really don’t want gun control. They want it to be about literally anything else. Ideally, they’d especially like it to be about a thing they are mad about so that they can blame it on the Left. Because for them, it’s not about actually preventing these massacres or making people safer, it’s about who gets the political points.

To be fair, they also claim to believe that this is what we are doing. They believe the reason we look at mass shootings and say, “Wow, seems like we should perhaps be more careful about who gets guns and perhaps not sell guns that make it super easy to kill a whole bunch of people within a very short span of time” is not because this is the most obvious and logical conclusion to reach, but because it is part of our long game to take their guns and do tyranny to them. Granted, these are people who also really love Augusto Pinochet, Vladimir Putin, and Viktor Orbán so it’s not totally clear what they imagine “tyranny” is. It’s certainly not forcing everyone to adhere to one’s own religion or forcing them to give birth against their will or forcing them to conform to what you believe their gender identity or sexual orientation should be, because those are things they would enjoy. I’d say it’s “everyone having health care” but Russia and Hungary both, technically, have universal, publicly funded health care and even Pinochet couldn’t totally get rid of FONASA (Chile’s public healthcare program). It’s honestly hard to tell!

So in order to keep people from turning to that very logical conclusion, they have come up with umpteen entirely unreasonable conclusions in hopes of distracting us. Let’s take a look at some of the gems we’ve seen this go-round.

https://www.wonkette.com/mass-shootings-really-bring-out-the-creativity-in-america-s-worst-gun-creeps

This issue is an excellent example of just what money can buy from the Senate…..

Sadly the debate will soon die off and NOTHING will be done to try and prevent this from happening.

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“lego ergo scribo”

More Bad News

It is always sad when a child dies…..and there are many different reasons for the demise….accidents, hunger, illness, suicide, etc….but for the first time in our history another category can be added…..death by gun.

Guns became the leading cause of death among children and teens in 2020, killing more people ages 1 to 19 in the U.S. than vehicle crashes, drugs overdoses or cancer.

More than 4,300 died of firearm-related injuries that year — a 29 percent increase from 2019 — according to a research letter published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The letter analyzed decades of mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“In the last 40 years, and almost certainly before that, this is the first time that firearm injuries have surpassed motor vehicle crashes among kids,” said a co-author of the letter, Jason Goldstick, a research associate professor at the University of Michigan.

Goldstick said homicides, rather than suicides, made up the majority of firearm deaths among children and teens in 2020. Gun killings, which disproportionately affect younger Americans, went up by 33 percent from 2019 to 2020.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/guns-leading-cause-death-children-teens-rcna25443

Think about that stat for a moment.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a deplorable stat?

Every week we have at least one mass shootings…..and yet no one does anything but bitch about gun rights.

Words are doing NOTHING!

Thoughts and prayer are doing NOTHING!

And while we wait for some actions more people MUST die…..more children MUST die.

How sick is that?

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“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–02Dec21

As the police shootings and killings of civilians continues to spiral out of control….there comes a story that is just so disturbing on so many levels……it involves cops and a old fart in a wheelchair……

The Tucson Police Department has swiftly distanced itself from an officer who shot dead a man in a motorized wheelchair. Police Chief Chris Magnus said on Tuesday he was “deeply disturbed and troubled” by what transpired on Monday night: Officer Ryan Remington responded to a report of a man who was allegedly armed with a knife and stole a toolbox from a Walmart. An employee there said that upon asking 61-year-old Richard Lee Richards to show his receipt for the toolbox, he revealed his knife and said “Here’s your receipt.” Police bodycam video shows Remington later going after Richards as he drove his wheelchair toward the entrance of a Lowe’s across the street.

Remington yelled at Richards to keep out of the store, then fired nine shots, striking Richards in the back and side. The Arizona Republic reports Richards was pronounced dead a short time later. The New York Times reports surveillance video from Lowe’s shows Remington handcuffing Richards, who made no movements. “His use of deadly force in this incident is a clear violation of department policy and directly contradicts multiple aspects of our use of force and training,” Magnus said in a press conference. “As a result, the department moved earlier today to terminate Officer Remington,” who has been a member of the Tucson police department for four years. KOLD reports it could take up to a week for the termination to be official.

 

Remington’s lawyer, Mike Storie, described the chain of events as “unbelievable circumstances,” saying, “This event happened roughly 24 hours ago, and we have a chief of police who has fired the officer and the mayor who is calling for his indictment,” per the Times. Storie told the AP that Remington felt he “had no nonlethal options. He did have a Taser, but in his mind, he couldn’t use it because he didn’t feel he had the proper spread to deploy it, with the wheelchair between him and Richards.”

Why is the gun the first response?

Are you saying that the cops could not subdue an old fart in a wheelchair with a pocket knife without shooting him?

This is so disgusting on many levels for me….

Do you think the firing of this officer will change anything?

I do not!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Few Words About Rittenhouse

I hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving and that all were safe……

First I want to apologize for being late with this post but laptop problems and posting from a tablet made it impossible for me to write this sooner….please forgive.

So some silly little teenage white boy gets a buddy to buy an assault weapon for him then is mommy drives him to a protest then he shoots and kills 2 people and injures another…then he is arrested and tried and found not guilty….that is about the short version…..

A few thoughts…..

+ After Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted for shooting three people on the streets of Kenosha, Donald (I could shoot somebody on Fifth Ave. and not lose any voters) Trump is going to have to come up with some new boast about the kind of outlandish behavior he can get away with, since this will soon become routine event in America…

+ Apparently, you can now walk down many streets in America carrying what looks like a military assault weapon. This gun might make other people nervous about your intentions. You perceive their anxiety about your gun as a potential threat to your safety & shoot them. Case closed.

+ The concept of Stand Your Ground has become a legal version of Hemingway’s a Moveable Feast–it goes wherever you go or, really, wherever your gun goes. Your ground is literally wherever you’re standing with a gun–even if it is on someone else’s street in someone else’s town with someone else’s gun…

But Rittenhouse shot white people! Doesn’t that prove he’s not a racist? No. He shot race traitors, white people protesting the police shootings of blacks. During Reconstruction some of the most sadistic murders in the South were committed against so-called Radical Republicans, Southerners who supported emancipation and black suffrage, a threat that needed to be completely neutralized before JIm Crow could be implemented.

Like many suburban kids, I was force-fed the Dick and Jane readers in kindergarten. I guess in the updated post-Rittenhouse Patriotic editions of these books all the juvenile characters in the stories will be carrying AK-47s for self-defense, except Spot the dog and Puff the cat. I can imagine an episode where Spot and Puff are kidnapped by the evil Dr. Fauci for grotesque medical experiments on a island off the coast of Africa and have to be liberated in a commando raid by Dick, Jane and Sally.

+ A reminder: 907 people have been shot and killed by police in the US this year.

All the silliness of the trial reminded me (remember I am old) of the antics and chaos of the Chicago 7 trial….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–05Oct21

WE all know or have heard/read reports about the violence committed on civilians by the police of this country.

But did you know that those horrific reports you have seen are under reported?

That’s right….55% of the police killings do not appear in the stats…..

Police killings in the US represent an “urgent public health crisis,” the size of which is not accurately reflected in the official statistics that guide health policy, according to a new study in the Lancet medical journal. Researchers say they compared data from National Vital Statistics System to open-source databases and found that an estimated 30,800 Americans died from police violence between 1980 and 2019, but more than 17,000 of the deaths, around 55%, were either unreported or misclassified. More:

  • Racial disparities. The study found that Black Americans were 3.5 times more likely to die from police violence than white Americans, and around 60% of their deaths were misclassified in the NVSS database, the Guardian reports. “Inaccurately reporting or misclassifying these deaths further obscures the larger issue of systemic racism that is embedded in many US institutions, including law enforcement,” says co-lead author Fablina Shahara
  • Reasons for the undercount. The researchers say that while clerical errors likely account for some of the discrepancy, coroners and medical examiners who work closely with police departments are likely to feel “substantial conflicts of interest” that make them reluctant to record police violence as a cause of death, reports USA Today. The researchers note that vital statistics systems in the US and other countries are usually considered reliable, but conflicts of interests arise when reporting police violence, “since the same state responsible for violence is also responsible for reporting it.”
  • Oklahoma was the worst in two ways. The study found that Oklahoma had the highest rate of underreporting fatal police violence, followed by Wyoming, Alabama, Louisiana and Nebraska. Oklahoma also had the highest death rate from police violence. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Minnesota had the lowest rates of police killings.
  • Men 20 times more likely to die from police violence. The researchers say men were around 20 more times likely than women to be killed by police, with an estimated 30,600 deaths in men and 1,420 deaths in women during the period studied, though they noted that data from death certificates only lists two genders, concealing the extent of police violence against transgender women.
  • Calls for a uniform nationwide system. There are currently no national standards on identifying deaths caused by law enforcement violence. Former Washington, DC chief medical examiner, an expert on investigating deaths in custody, tells the New York Times that death certificates should have a box that can be checked to indicate law enforcement involvement. “If it’s a function of training, a function of bias, a function of institutional and structural racism—all the things we can assume—we can identify that once we have a uniform system,” he says.

Why is this under reported?

Is it because the stats are withheld?

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Solution For Gun Violence?

Americans are worried about the rise in gun violence and murder in our largest cities……and now the White House endorses a plan by a insurrectionist senator to add 100,000 more cops on the street.

The White House distanced itself from the “defund the police” movement by endorsing Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley’s proposal to hire 100,000 new cops, according to a press release from the Office of Josh Hawley.

Hawley introduced legislation in June to combat spiking crime rates. The legislative agenda included hiring 100,000 new police officers, increasing penalties for assaulting officers, protecting the privacy of law enforcement officials, expanding concealed carry rights for judges and prosecutors and creating a criminal offense for targeting officers based on their occupation, according to the Office of Josh Hawley.

Image

“American families aren’t safe, but they deserve to be. And they can be if we will act. This is not the time to defund the police or vilify them, but to support the brave men and women in blue – and put more of them on the streets. Immediately,” said Hawley about his proposal.

Seriously?

The answer to gun violence is to put more guns on the street……add 100,000 more guns to the fray.

Biden is on board with this as a election strategy….he is trying to run away from any police reform to garner votes…screw the idea of trying to find actual solutions to the problems of gun violence.

As usual it is about the next election and never a thought of the actual problem.

This is what you get when you worship centrism….more problem added to the problem.

Just what this country needs….100,000 new cops with guns….what could possibly go wrong?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–08Jul21

One of the big ideas for trying to control all the gun violence in the US is the use of background checks when buying that gun……

And how is that working out?

America’s gun background check system, designed to keep weapons out of the hands of people who might use them in crimes, has struggled to keep up with record firearms sales over the past year — even as violent crime has risen dramatically in many U.S. cities.

In recent years, the FBI — which manages the system that vets gun buyers — processed an average of 8.6 million gun background checks annually, according to historical data analyzed by FiveThirtyEight.1 But last year, the bureau processed 12,761,328 background checks, according to FBI data obtained by FiveThirtyEight through a public records request.

Perhaps most alarming, the FBI never finished over 316,000 background checks in the first nine months of 2020 alone — far more than in any other year on record. And that number doesn’t include October, November and December — usually the busiest months for gun sales, when 3.4 million background checks were opened last year.

In other words, it’s impossible to know how many guns were sold to people in 2020 who couldn’t legally own them because those background checks were never completed.

More People Are Buying Guns. Fewer People Are Getting Background Checks.

Glad to see the big idea to help control our rampaging gun violence is working so we….I feel so much safer knowing this (of course that is sarcasm….it is another failed attempt to stop the violence)

How does that help the situation?

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“lego ergo scribo”

 

Closing Thought–07Jul21

The good new over the long 4th weekend is that the country is opening up from a year long lock down…..good news indeed for businesses that have been suffering setbacks for months.

The bad news is that the incidents of gun violence is getting worse as this year moves on…..over the weekend there were 200 fatal shootings.

The easing of the pandemic has been accompanied by a general spike in gun violence, with some mayors worried about what the summer will bring, notes NPR. The long Fourth of July weekend may have just provided an unwanted taste. The Gun Violence Archive counts 540 shootings over a 72-hour period starting Friday, with 189 deaths and more than 500 injuries. Examples:

  • Chicago: The Chicago Tribune reports that at least 104 people were shot over the holiday weekend in the city, including two officers who suffered non-life-threatening injuries while dispersing a crowd. It was the city’s worst Fourth of July total since 2017.
  • New York, elsewhere: CNN reports 21 shootings with 26 victims in New York City from Friday to Sunday. Overall this year, gun violence is up 40% in the city over the same period in 2020, with 767 shootings and 885 victims logged. Elsewhere, eight people were injured in a shooting in Fort Worth, Texas, and four children were shot in Norfolk, Virginia, one of whom has potentially life-threatening injuries.

How truly sad!

It is pathetic that people die every day and yet there is no problem with the guns according to the views of idiots.

Maybe we should take a page from Hollywood and have a ‘Purge” day and let the mental midgets kill until they cannot kill anymore.

Of course I am being sarcastic……when will this type of stuff be recognized for what it is….out of control and dangerous to one and all?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”