The Bullets Count the Cost

Don't you shoot him down/
He's about to leave here/
Don't you shoot him down/
He's got to stay here/
He ain't going nowhere/
He's been shot down to the ground/
Oh where he can't survive no no...
-- "Machine Gun," Jimi Hendrix

The latest ruling out of this extremist, archconservative Supreme Court pretty much guarantees an increase in the national body count when it comes to gun violence. Via Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog:

The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a rule that banned bump stocks, issued by the Trump administration after a 2017 mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas. By a vote of 6-3, the justices rejected the federal government’s argument that rifles equipped with bump stocks are machine guns, which are generally prohibited under federal law. In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s conservative justices emphasized that Congress could have enacted a law that banned all weapons capable of high rates of fire, but it did not – and so the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was wrong to interpret the federal ban on machine guns to extend to bump stocks.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, in an opinion joined by the court’s other more liberal justices, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. She warned that the majority’s decision “will have deadly consequences.”

The bump stock is an attachment that transforms a semiautomatic rifle into a weapon that can discharge at a rate of hundreds of rounds per minute. The Trump administration issued the rule at the center of the case in 2018. It followed a mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas in which the gunman used semi-automatic rifles equipped with a bump-stock device to kill 60 people and injure over 500 more. The rule, which concluded that bump stocks are machine guns, was an about-face from the ATF’s previous position, which until 2018 had indicated that only some kinds of bump stocks are machine guns. Under the 2018 rule, anyone who owned a bump stock was required to destroy it or drop it at a nearby ATF office to avoid criminal penalties...

Rather than leave it up to the federal agency to determine that bump stocks turned semi-auto guns into full-auto, Thomas and the other Republican Justices decided "fuck public safety, let the gun nuts have their firepower."

Because that's what was at stake here. Not a Second Amendment matter, but a public safety matter. And the goddamn Far Right don't give a rat's ass as long as they're not the targets (you will notice that a lot of the Far Right public gatherings are "Gun Free Zones").

If you want an idea of what a bump stock can do for an assault rifle, there's a YouTube clip going around that demonstrates (try to get to the 4:42 mark):

With a bump stock, you're shooting enough bullets to wipe out an entire room of people within seconds, not minutes. The Las Vegas concert mass shooting that convinced the ATF (and even a gun-happy trump administration) to ban bump stocks? The gunman was able to get off 1,000 rounds, killing 60 and wounding over 400 people (more people were also injured during the panicked fleeing).

Goddamn this. A solid majority of Americans want assault rifles banned, and yet our legal system - and far too many politicians bought out by the goddamned NRA - refuses to consider that need.

Gun violence is already a serious epidemic in our nation. Mass shootings are now so common that we don't even notice them unless the body count goes into double digits. By giving these gunmen the ability to do that, we are guaranteeing that the blood in our streets will not stop flowing. Not until every gun-loving politicians (mostly Republicans) are voted out of office, not until every gun-loving judges are forced to retire, not until we can do something about the twisted side of the American debate on guns that turned the Second Amendment from granting states the power to well-regulate their militias into a mindless license for gun nuts to shoot anybody they want.

The violence is going to get worse. Especially when the Far Right gun nuts get convinced the upcoming election isn't going their way...

Time to Break the NRA, Now That It's Financially Broke

I hadn't talked about it much, but the National Rifle Body County Association had been facing civil lawsuits in the state of New York - where their organization had been incorporated - and the State AG Letitia James delivered for justice and sanity (again) when the jury came back this afternoon holding the NRA leaders liable for decades of embezzlement, mismanagement, and corruption (via Emma Bowman and Brian Mann at NPR):

A Manhattan jury found three top executives of the National Rifle Association liable Friday in a lengthy civil trial that focused on alleged corruption and the misspending of millions of dollars.

Longtime NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, a key architect in the nonprofit's hardline gun rights agenda who stepped down as CEO last month, was central to New York state's case.

Jurors found that LaPierre "violated his statutory obligation to discharge the duties of his position in good faith."

They concluded that he had caused roughly $5.4 million worth of harm to the nonprofit group's finances — though they also found that LaPierre had already repaid roughly $2 million.

LaPierre is the same sonofabitch who made the decision after the horrifying Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre to double down on the madness of gun proliferation that has led to more guns and more gun violence. He went out there and claimed "there was no way to end the violence" and that the best way to solve it was "good guys with guns." (Guess what, good guys with guns doesn't work) All the while raking in the profits that the NRA succored out of the gun manufacturers - who all had a part of the NRA's leadership - that he then indulged himself.

The executives were accused of misappropriating and mismanaging funds donated to the gun rights group's members. According to New York state Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the lawsuit, their actions led to "the loss of more than $64 million in just three years."

During the six-week trial, state lawyers alleged that LaPierre had spent over $11 million for private flights and approved $135 million in NRA contracts in exchange for yacht access and free trips to the Bahamas, Greece and other vacation hotspots, The Associated Press reported.

All those vacations to overseas nations that have gun control laws in place. Probably made it safe for LaPierre to walk around at night spending more blood money.

LaPierre spent three decades growing the NRA's political and lobbying influence. Even as mass shootings became commonplace, LaPierre rejected attempts to change gun policy, branding gun control proponents as enemies of freedom and using the threat of firearms regulation to fundraise.

His resignation was announced just days before the trial began, with the NRA instead citing health as the reason for his departure.

The NRA's grip on politics has weakened in recent years as it's faced declining membership and revenue, and concerns within the group over leadership's direction and misuse of funds...

There was a moment, years ago, when ties to Russian intelligence exposed the dire financial straits that the organization found itself (It doesn't look like that investigation went far). There had also been power struggles both behind the doors and on the public stage that exposed how corrupt LaPierre had made himself and the NRA. There'd been complaints the organization had been rigging their internal elections for decades.

With any luck, this court ruling breaks all of that. This jury decision will block some of the more corrupt NRA leaders from holding office, hopefully leaving room for reformers to gain meaningful footholds. AG James is looking to install an independent court monitor to oversee the financials, which would go a long way towards clearing out any of the other org leaders unable to bribe or bully their way back into power.

While I am hopeful of all that, whether this will lead to any sanity on the political stage remains unknown. Far too many politicians - cough Far Right Republicans cough - have built their "brands" on being "gun-toting, 2nd Amendment Loving" psychopaths, and they're not going to change their public image any time soon.

It's up to the voters - now without the NRA funneling their blood money into the electoral process - to hear the calls for gun reforms more clearly, and to vote appropriately for the federal and state officials who will do something - banning the assault rifles that make up most of our mass shootings; reinstating gun safety regulations like waiting periods, registration and training; and stopping the intentional market glut of cheap guns; things like that - to stop our streets - and our schools, and our stores, and our churches, and our movie theaters, and our concerts - filling with innocent blood.

Hope you go to Hell broke, Wayne. You earned that.

Blood in the Streets of Kansas City

So there was a Super Bowl recently, and the Kansas City Chiefs won a back-to-back title in overtime over the San Francisco 49ers, and as usual there was a parade in the team's honor through the streets of Kansas City, Missouri (it's not in Kansas itself just on the state border, weird I know) and even with all the police and private security forces in place to manage the parade route and celebration sites, two three gun nuts were able to open fire and give our nation yet another mass shooting (via Jaclyn Diaz at NPR):

One person was killed and up to 21 others were injured after shots were fired Wednesday afternoon outside Union Station in Kansas City, Mo., at the conclusion of a celebration for the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl win, officials said.

The number of victims from this shooting is still evolving as law enforcement continues their investigation.

Officers took three individuals into custody, Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said during the day's second news conference, updating the previous tally of two suspects brought in.

One suspect was captured after a foot chase with officers, she said...

In preparation for the expected crowd size, 800 law enforcement officers were on scene for the parade, Graves said. The heavy police presence helped in getting fans to safety once the shooting began and in administering life-saving aid to gunshot victims, she said...

Even with all those good guys with guns, gun violence still happened.

But KCUR reported that Children's Mercy Hospital received 12 patients from the rally, 11 of them children and nine of those with gunshot wounds. Fire Chief Ross Grundyson couldn't immediately confirm the ages of the victims.

Children.

The gunmen FIRED AT CHILDREN.

It is too early to speculate what the motive of the gunmen were, but the fact they opened fire with children present spells out that these sons of bitches didn't give a damn who they were hurting.

And there's one more event in public that we can't dare attend without risk of getting shot at.

We can't go to open-air music concerts.

We can't go to movie theaters.

We can't go to food festivals.

We can't go to our city halls.

We can't go to grocery stores. Or Wal-Marts.

We can't go to malls (TOO MANY TO LINK HERE).

We sure as hell can't send our kids to schools - we haven't been able to for decades since Columbine in 1999 - without the risk of them never coming back.

We as a nation cannot peaceably assemble - we cannot celebrate, we cannot convocate, we cannot be a community - because the ongoing threat by the National Rifle Body Count Association's public demands that their rights to carry murder weapons everywhere at all times shall not be infringed.

It's just that the gun nuts' right to carry assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns stocked with high-capacity magazines requires the rest of us to pay in our blood.

We in the majority are dying so that the paranoid, armed-to-the-teeth minority can fantasize to their Turner Diaries cosplay bullshit.

Goddamn the NRA. Goddamn the politicians who let them rack up these body counts.

We need gun reform NOW, before every street in America drowns in the blood of our children.

Blood on the Streets of Lewiston Maine

It's been a while since I'd written about a mass shooting, even though there's been over 500 mass shootings in America this year - and the year's not even finished.

The media hasn't fully paid attention to the gun violence unless the body count is in double digits anymore. Goddamn us, but that's where we're at this week as another angry gun with a military-grade assault rifle attacked multiple places in a small Maine city (via David Sharp, Robert Bumsted, Holly Ramer, and Michael Balsamo at AP News):

Authorities searched forests, waterways and small towns Thursday for a U.S. Army reservist who they say killed 18 people and wounded 13 in a mass shooting at a bowling alley and a bar that sent panicked patrons scrambling under tables and behind bowling pins and gripped the entire state of Maine in fear.

Schools, doctor’s offices and grocery stores closed and people stayed behind locked doors in cities as far away as 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the scenes of Wednesday night’s shootings in Lewiston...

The gunman apparently planned out an elaborate escape route that involved fleeing by boat using nearby rivers, which expanded the range of the search and the need to lock down nearby communities out of fear he was still well-armed and willing to kill again.

We don't know exactly what triggered the angry guy, but he had been placed under medical observation months earlier by reservist officers who noticed troubling behavior out of him and ordered him to a mental treatment facility.

That he was still able to gain access to an assault rifle with his mental issues speaks more to a nation dominated by fringe gun-worshipping sociopaths who scream "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" as a mantra. The United States is being held hostage by a National Rifle Body Count Association that profits from every massacre and propagates an ad campaign of fear and rage, convincing their fellow gun worshippers that the Second Amendment isn't about regulating militias it's a license to shoot anybody they want.

The gun nuts "right" to own firearms that most militaries think are too dangerous has overwhelmed our First Amendment right to peaceably assemble. We can't go to schools anymore without gun violence. We can't go to movie theaters or music concerts without gun violence. We can't go to grocery stores or churches anymore without gun violence. We can't go to our own homes without fearing gun violence by our own relatives or by some angry ex-husband unwilling to let a bad relationship go.

There's blood on the streets everywhere. I've been yelling and screaming and crying over that for the last 25 years. 

GODDAMMIT, WHEN ARE WE GOING TO TELL THE GUN NUTS THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO KILL US, AND DO SOMETHING TO STOP THIS ONGOING CYCLE OF VIOLENCE.

Blood on the Streets of Monterey Park

I woke up this morning to news about an Asian holiday - the Lunar New Year - getting disrupted by a gunman in Monterey Park, California overnight. Another goddamned mass shooting. At least 10 people dead (multiple wounded, so the numbers could get worse). Via NPR: 

A shooting in the city of Monterey Park, just outside of Los Angeles, has left 10 people dead and at least 10 others wounded. The attack came at the end of a day of celebration in the predominantly Asian American community in observance of the Lunar New Year. Authorities said the shooter remains at large.

Here's what we know:

The attack was at least the 33rd mass shooting in the U.S. this year — and the second in California in less than a week.

About 60,000 people — 65% of whom are of Asian descent — call Monterey Park home, according to Census estimates.

President Biden has been briefed on the shooting.

Authorities are investigating another scene in the nearby city of Alhambra.

Take a moment to look at that first stat: This is the 33rd mass shooting in the United States this year. WE ARE ONLY 22 DAYS INTO THE WESTERN CALENDAR. We are up to almost TWO MASS SHOOTINGS A DAY. We have become so jaded and worn down from gun-related deaths that we're utterly numb as a nation to this shit.

The attack focused on a large Asian community, signaling that this was racially motivated by Far Right factions hating on foreigners as part of their overall anti-immigrant mindset.

And given the high body count in just one setting, I'm willing to bet the weapon used was a military-grade assault rifle like the AR-15 (the chosen rifle for mass shooters across the USA). It is not a firearm meant for hunting wildlife, it is not a firearm meant for personal home defense. It is a firearm meant for war zones. Which is what the American landscape has turned into thanks to the Angry Guys With Guns community.

And again, nothing will get done.

There will be more mass shootings, because we're up to one per day, getting closer to doubling up, because this is how the goddamned National Rifle Body Count Association makes their money. 

And in the future, nothing will get done.

There will be more mass shootings, because we're up to one per day, getting closer to doubling up, because this is how the goddamned National Rifle Body Count Association makes their money. 

And another mass shooting, and another and another, and nothing will get done.

There will be more mass shootings, because we're up to one per day, getting closer to doubling up, because this is how the goddamned National Rifle Body Count Association makes their money.

And another... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

...

When are we going to have political leadership in the United States willing to step up and abolish the goddamned Second Amendment? We don't need militias anymore, and we've proven the PAST 40 YEARS THAT WE ARE NOT REGULATING FIREARMS IN ANY WAY. The Second Amendment has devolved from being "Empowerment for states to form and well-regulate their own militias" to "A goddamned license to kill anybody the Angry Guys want to kill."

There is blood on every American street, rising up on a tide of unrelenting hate and violence, and it is going to drown us all until we tell the goddamned gun nuts NO MORE.

Uvalde Followup: The Sound of Shameless Cowards (w/ Update)

The ongoing terror and ongoing shame in our nation regarding the plague of mass shootings and widespread sorrow of gun violence just keeps getting worse.

Back in late May, the community of Uvalde Texas suffered the unimaginable loss of 19 children and 2 teachers killed by a gun-wielding angry guy. Ever since then, there had been questions about how the school security and later how the local police mishandled the situation. For months, stories kept dribbling out about how the police waited for minutes during the most critical moments; how the police detained mothers who heard the screams and wanted to rush in to save their babies; how the local police chief failed to understand the severity of the situation to the point of criminal negligence; and even how one of the cops at the scene had to be restrained because he was getting text messages from his dying wife who was one of the teachers killed.

Well, this past week, a video recording from security cameras inside the school leaked out. And while the mayor began screaming about going after the leaker(s), everyone else was horrified by the visual evidence that police did nothing (via Justin Peters at Slate (paywall)):

Though the video does not include any gory footage, and though we do not see inside the classrooms in which Ramos shot and killed 21 people, it is nevertheless hard to watch. (You can hear a lot of gunshots in the video; an “editor’s note” appears periodically informing viewers that “The sound of children screaming has been removed.”) Almost exactly three minutes after Ramos enters the school, three police officers enter and head down the hallway toward him. A minute later, after receiving fire, they retreat. More and more police officers show up. For over 40 minutes, as the video makes irrefutably clear, they more or less just stand there...

The one thing every viewer and pundit focused on when the video got out: The inhuman line "The sound of children screaming has been removed." Stephen King could never write a line more horrifying than that.

On Wednesday in Slate, my colleague Rebecca Onion nicely captured the excruciating experience of watching over an hour’s worth of footage of officers sanitizing their hands, checking their phones, standing around, and doing pretty much everything but intervening to stop the shooter...

It’s one thing to read about the police inaction at Robb Elementary; it’s another, much more viscerally maddening thing to see it with your own eyes. The written accounts that I’ve read of the police response have contained excuses and rationales and official statements; they’ve left room for doubt over what happened and why, and for the prospect that the police on the scene actually acted heroically after all. But the video has no bandwidth for  such shades of gray. It is an indelible partial record of what happened that afternoon. It sticks in a way that the stories I’ve read did not...

And when the video leaked, what was the official response from Uvalde officials like the city mayor?

On Tuesday, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin announced that the news outlets were “chicken” for publishing the video before the victims’ families had had a chance to see it...

The mayor’s response, in which he appealed to emotion in order to criticize the media for doing their jobs, is worth analyzing. On its face it sounds reasonable, even humane. The victims’ families have indeed been through enough, and it’s natural to want to spare them additional gratuitous trauma. But this plea to consider the families’ emotional welfare reads as smarmy and self-serving when uttered by the mayor of a town whose first responders failed the students and teachers of Robb Elementary on the day of the shooting, and whose authorities have been trying to duck responsibility for their own behavior ever since then...

More than an hour elapsed between when the first police officers arrived on the scene at Robb Elementary and when the police finally confronted and killed Ramos. This gap was not initially public knowledge, and in the aftermath of the shooting, Texas Department of Public Safety director Steve McCraw announced that “the bottom line is that law enforcement was there, they did engage immediately, they did contain him in the classroom.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, meanwhile, praised the police on the scene for showing “amazing courage by running toward gunfire..

The video proves that Abbott's praise is absolute bullshit. Even when the cops had body armor, helmets, even those bulletproof shields clearly visible on camera, they waited like chickens for the gunman to finish his bloody agenda.

Every goddamned Uvalde and Texas law officer who failed to act on that day, and every goddamned Uvalde and Texas elected official all the way up to the goddamned Governor who tried to cover up this shame, should have the phrase "The sound of children screaming" tattooed to their foreheads for the rest of their gutless miserable lives.

This is, by the by, absolute proof that the Far Right wingnut fantasy of "Good guys with guns" is a goddamned lie. We had a platoon, nay an entire police force of "good guys with guns" and even they were too terrified to go after a lone gun nut who just happened to carry assault weapons with enough firepower to scare them.

The widespread availability of military-grade assault rifles - thanks to the blind and inhuman misreading of the goddamned Second Amendment by conservative wingnut justices and politicians - is a serious problem for law enforcement across the United States. You wanna know the excuse for why every police department is stocked with riot gear and firepower that even our own military thinks is excessive? The excuse is that the cops want to be "prepared" to face off against any large-scale riot where the rioters may have these AR-15s and similar semi-auto (and illegally converted full auto) firearms.

But even that excuse is a lie. Watch how the cops behaved at Uvalde - when there was just one gunman - and how they cowered behind their shields for a full hour. Then watch how these cops behaved at Black Lives Matters protests: Where most of the protestors were waving signs and carrying water bottles, and where the cops responded with rubber (and real) bullets, smashing in heads with batons and the butt of their own rifles because the cops fucking knew they held all the firepower on those streets.

If our nation's law enforcement were truly honestly serious about protecting themselves in dangerous situations, if they truly wanted to live with the belief that they should "go home to their families at the end of every shift," you'd think every sheriff's department and police union out there would be fighting tooth-and-nail to pass assault weapon bans to make their lives easier. 

But they don't. You barely hear a peep from police unions when it comes to debate for assault weapon bans or any other gun safety option.

Part of cop rationale is that they want that excuse of mad gunmen running around so they can play soldier with overpowered gear of their own. Part of it is that the cops are on the same page with the National Rifle Body Count Association when it comes to ensuring the goddamned White Nationalist Christianist "Rapture Is Coming" Gun-Worshipping wingnuts are locked and loaded for the Second Civil War vs. bleeding heart liberals.

The anxiety cops have with every traffic stop could easily go away when the open-carry prevalence of guns go away. But no: they would rather live with the fear, all because it lets them impose their fear and firepower on the ethnic minorities they deem to punish and harass.

In the meantime, the shameless cowards in Texas will keep bleating the same excuses and the same lies until they are held accountable. Until each and every cop who failed in their duty, each and every official who failed to be honest and upfront, each and every demagoguing politician who blustered and lied are either in jail or out of office.

The sound of children screaming should haunt them forever.

Update 7/18: Am waking up this morning to reports that there were 376 officers that eventually showed up at Uvalde. All those cops, and they STILL could not work up the nerve to apprehend a single gunman. All because the gunman had AR-15 murdersticks with him. /rage 

IT'S THE GUNS

IT'S THE GUNS

IT'S THE GODDAMNED GUNS.

Get rid of the assault rifles and maybe just maybe the cops will stop being cowards and bullies.

Blood On the Streets of Highland Park

Just as I was writing my second "Four For the Fourth" blog article today, news popped up that - in honor of our nation's independence from British tyranny - a goddamned gun nut showed up at a 4th of July parade in a Chicago suburb and opened fire (via Michael Tarm and Roger Schneider at AP News):

At least six people died and 24 were wounded in a shooting at a July Fourth parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, and officers are searching for a suspect who likely fired on the festivities from a rooftop, police said Monday.

Highland Park Police Commander Chris O’Neill, the incident commander on scene, urged people to shelter in place as authorities search for the suspect, described as a white male wearing a white or blue T-shirt.

Lake County Major Crime Task Force spokesman Christopher Covelli said at a news conference that the gunman apparently opened fire on parade-goers from a rooftop using a rifle that was recovered at the scene. He didn’t know which building.

Covelli said police believe there was only one shooter and warned that he should still be considered armed and dangerous. He and O’Neill described the shooting as random...

It doesn't matter if it was random. It matters that the mass shooter had easy access to an assault rifle and an angry desire to use it on innocent people.

These gun nuts, these mass buyers of AR-15s, these worshipers of murdersticks, you ask a lot of them "Why" they are so desperate to own weapons of mass death, and they usually answer the same: "It's to defend ourselves against the tyranny of the evil librul government that's gonna take our rights" - namely, the very guns they're stockpiling - "from us!"

These goddamn gun nuts don't care about the reality that "More guns = more gun deaths" all because it doesn't fit their fantasy worldview of being racially pure heroes of some twisted Turner Diaries fanfic. Some of them even celebrate these mass shootings, because then they'll scream "you see? gun laws don't make you safe!" even as they're prepping themselves for the Second Civil War in their bomb shelters.

Tyranny of the British Crown? Gone, old news.

Tyranny of the gun? Thank you, National Rifle Body Count Association, our nation's citizenry is still not free from your ongoing threat of mass shootings that your golden calf the assault rifle affirms every day.

Blood On the Streets of Tulsa (w/ Updates)

(Update: Thanks again to Batocchio for linking me to Crooks&Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up!)

Because the National Rifle Body Count Association wants its blood money (via Rina Torchinsky with NPR): 

Police in Tulsa, Okla., say the shooter's doctor was among those killed Wednesday during a mass shooting at a medical building. The shooter had complained multiple times about pain following back surgery and sought additional treatment in the days prior to the attack, police said.

The shooting on the campus of Saint Francis Health System left five people dead, including the gunman, according to police. Two doctors, Preston Phillips — who had treated the gunman — and Stephanie Husen, were killed as was Amanda Glenn, an employee, and William Love, a patient, according to The Associated Press...

The gunman apparently felt ongoing back pain that the treatment didn't correct, and became angry at the doctor and the office that treated him. Driven by that anger, the gunman did this:

At 2 p.m. Wednesday — hours before the shooting — the gunman purchased an AR-15-style rifle from a local gun shop, Franklin said. The shooter also purchased a semiautomatic handgun on May 29 from a pawn shop.

Do you understand? As soon as the angry guy got his AR-15 murderstick (it's not so funny how THAT weapon is the preferred assault rifle for these mass shootings), he went on his shooting spree killing "everyone who got in his way" on his path of vengeance. No sign of a background check done, no waiting period, no cool-down, no training period, no mental health check, nothing.

He got his assault rifle and immediately became a murderer. Killing doctors, killing a staffer, killing a patient who had nothing to do with his treatment. And then killing himself knowing he was fucked forever.

One of the frustrating realizations about all of these mass shootings criss-crossing our nation is the repeating patterns to them all. It's like there's a script to this:

Step One: A guy - and it's usually a guy, often White but sometimes Black/Latino/Asian/Arab - gets pissed off about a personal injustice or perceived slight. It may involve his job, it may involve a legal dispute, but nine times out of ten it'll involve women.

Step Two: The guy comes to believe he has no legal recourse to respond to the slight, or else believes the legal system is already conspiring against him. He also refuses to seek mental help support, because he's been raised to think that's for pussies.

Step Three: The guy, getting angrier, buys a gun or twelve. If he's REALLY angry or his anger is focusing on a large group of people, he will buy an ArmaLite Rifle aka the AR-15 (the Murderstick of CHAMPIONS). This is a major problem: Nearly every firearm used in the mass shootings we keep witnessing were purchased legally or acquired legally by an ally/friend/family member, oft-times within days of the shooting events.

Step Four: A moment will trigger the angry guy into picking up his weapons - and all the ammo clips he can carry - and heading out to a place that is either the source of his woes or a place where his preferred target "audience" can be found.

Step Five: Mass shooting gets reported on the major networks. More money for the NRA!

These ongoing acts of gun violence keep involving the same three things: The number of angry guys walking among us; The relative ease to purchase and employ firearms powerful enough to kill tens of people in mere seconds; And our nation's inability to push legal reforms or public aid to solve those first two problems.

If we're going to resolve the ongoing gun violence crisis in the United States, we're going to have to come to terms with this fact: Either we get rid of the Angry Guys threatening acts of violence against us, or we get rid of the Assault Rifles that make it too damned easy for them to kill.

It's honestly impossible to get rid of Angry Guys. That would involve passing laws mandating every hot-tempered person out there check in with a psychologist or health care worker to talk them down from their rage, and that would go against a lot of privacy laws (you'll definitely get a lot of lawsuits from guys angrily disbelieving they have anger issues in the first place).

Also, to you people who would argue "Oh let CHRIST'S LOVE into your hearts" as a cure for Angry Guy Syndrome, that's a load of shit. Half these mass shooters claim to be loving Christians already when they pick up their murder weapons to kill those they deem unworthy of God's grace (just look at the so-called Christians shooting up synagogues and grocery stores). Mandatory Religion is not the solution you want it to be.

And thanks to the Second Amendment and a Supreme Court skewing to an extreme Far Right agenda, it's gotten harder to get rid of the assault weapons. Even though we've had a history of banning the AR-15s and their copycats for ten years rather effectively until 2004.

The United States is a toxic brew of fear, hate, rage, and easy access to military-grade firepower.

The shootings will continue until morale improves, or until there's no one left as target practice for the NRA to profit from.

P.S. As I type this, there's reports of a mass shooting in Racine, Wisconsin. It's at a funeral service for a Black man who was shot and killed by cops. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.

P.S.S. Following the Racine shooting, there was a shooting at a church in Ames, IA. The killer turned out to be an Angry Guy ex-boyfriend of one of the two killed college women. For the LOVE OF ACTUAL GOD, PEOPLE...

Blood on the Streets of Uvalde

No other country outside of an actual goddamned war zone has to go through this shit.

YET ANOTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING.

This time in Uvalde, Texas. This time with 19 elementary schoolkids and 2 adults shot to death by another angry guy with fucking guns (via Vanessa Romo at NPR): 

The number of people confirmed killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, has risen to 20, according to Sgt. Erick Estrada of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Estrada told CNN that 18 children and two adults are among the dead... (Note: death toll updated to 19 children by 10:47 PM)

The suspect allegedly shot his grandmother before he entered the school. Thursday was meant to be the last day of the school year, according to the school's website.

In a brief news conference hours after the shooting, Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo confirmed some of the details offered by Abbott. Arredondo called the bloodshed a "mass casualty incident" but did not specify the number of dead. The chief also told reporters that the gunman acted alone and is deceased...

The school year for those kids was going to end this Thursday. Now for 18 families those kids will never come home. All because of an angry guy who, when he recently turned 18, went and bought military-grade firearms and decided to use them on children.

ON CHILDREN. 

WHO NEVER HARMED ANOTHER SOUL. WHO NEVER GOT THE CHANCE TO LIVE, TO BREATHE, TO GROW UP AND GROW OLD.

GODDAMN THE SHOOTER WHO KILLED THEM.

AND GODDAMN THE SONS-OF-BITCHES WHO MANUFACTURED THE WEAPONS, AND SOLD THEM TO HIM AND HUNDREDS OF OTHER ANGRY GUYS WHO GO ON SHOOTING SPREES.

You know something? This is a goddamned rigged game. This is a goddamned setup. The National Rifle Body Count Association has its hands all over the gun-making industry, and so they make money off of every gun sale, and every mass shooting is like an advertisement to the gun nuts to go and buy more guns which is more money to the NRA National Body Count Association.

It's a hell of a racket. Even organized crime mobs aren't this evil. At least the Gambinos and the other Families don't make money off of school massacres.

I swear, we need to go after the NRA National Body Count Association for Racketeering, for criminal conspiracy to commit murder, because these motherfuckers KNOW that every gun - especially the assault rifles - they're selling there's a decent chance it'll get used in a mass shooting.

THEY ARE MAKING MONEY OFF OF MURDER, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

THIS WILL NOT STOP UNTIL THE GUNMAKERS CAN'T MAKE MONEY OFF OF OUR DEATHS ANYMORE.

Voting out the pro-gun politicians won't be enough (although that needs to happen too). These sons-of-bitches need to pay for all the blood spilt in the glory of their rich lives while they mock our existence.

Goddamn them. Every dead child not just in Uvalde but all across America, all across the last 30 years of their fanatical worship of their God of Death, is on them.

The Madness of Gun Worship

There's a statistical chart going around on social media about the uptick in gun violence in the United States:

It's from this source:

The surge in firearms homicides that began in 2015 has an important feature not highlighted in the recent CDC report.

Prior to 2015, nonfirearm homicides and firearm homicides tracked each other well (figure shows raw CDC data).

In 2015, these trends diverged. https://t.co/bf3bgcQf1L pic.twitter.com/2MtLr0YU8N

— Andrew Morral (@AndrewMorral) May 16, 2022

And it's horrifying to watch that "Firearm Homicides" number spike upward like it's the Himalayas. The only time the Non-Firearms chart spikes that high was 2001, when Bin Laden sent his peeps to attack the United States on Sept. 11. 

How telling is it that the NRA is building up a body count equal to America's deadliest terrorist.

There's been some talk that the uptick of gun violence is due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, which forced a lot of people into their homes during the early quarantine months... and which triggered an uptick in domestic violence cases. That alone is a horrifying reality, where the "safety" of home gets subverted by the easy access to a gun amid abusive relationships. But that sharp increase in the charts seems to start before 2020 and the pandemic (with a noticeable bump around 2016), which points to another culprit causing that spike.

If there were anything happening in 2018 and 2019 to affect firearm usage in the United States, I would point to these two possibilities:

1) In response to the mass shootings going on during and after the 2016 election cycle - especially the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016 and the Parkland High shooting in 2018 - a lot of Republican-controlled states were passing laws by 2019 towards easier access to firearms, arguing that "more guns = more safety".

Of course, the chart below proves the lie to that belief. The reality is that "more guns = more gun deaths" and it's more than just anecdotal (via German Lopez back in April 2021 at Vox.com)

Using data from a 2016 study in Injury Prevention and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mother Jones put together the chart above that shows states with more guns tend to have far more gun deaths, including homicides and suicides. This has been found across the empirical research: “Within the United States, a wide array of empirical evidence indicates that more guns in a community leads to more homicide,” David Hemenway, the Harvard Injury Control Research Center’s director, wrote in Private Guns, Public Health...

And of course the gun cult that makes up the Far Right will never accept this truth. They would rather keep making it easier and easier for themselves to own guns - some states are getting rid of regulating and registering gun licenses altogether! - rather than respect the supermajority of Americans who want stricter gun safety laws.

2) The gun violence is ticking upwards as the extremist elements of the Far Right - emboldened by trump's "Make American Great White Again" and the normalization of the "Great Replacement" fearmongering - act out their racism and rage.

We've seen that in Buffalo and we've been seeing more extremist violence since the January 6th Insurrection. The Anti-Defamation League tracked cases up to 2021 and found that three-quarters (roughly 75 percent) of the violent acts nationwide were perpetrated by Right-Wing extremism. By comparison Left-Wing extremism accounted for 4 percent, while Islamic (domestic) extremism counted for 20 percent (there was 1 percent left over for Other). Odds favor you getting killed by a Proud Boy / Oath Keeper before getting killed by a jihadist.

It doesn't help that in the past decade - as the Far Right became enraged by an Obama presidency and stoked by a Fox Not-News media that kept feeding them fearmongering about dirty brown immigrants raiding our borders - our nation has suffered a low-burning civil war of sorts. A culture war between racist sexist angry Whites and the rest of the United States that's pro-choice, pro-immigrant, and more progressive than the mainstream media gives credit to.

For all their public demonstrations of being "Christian" and holy and whatnot, these wingnuts keep proving that they worship the idolatry of the blood-soaked AR-15. The hypocrisy of them proclaiming a holy victory over the rest of us while they shoot up every Black, Hispanic, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ community center they can. 

The fever of gun worship will not end until these wingnuts fall completely out of power, and saner heads passing safety laws prevail.

Get the damn vote out, Americans. We're at war. They got the guns but we got the numbers.

A Terrifying Brush With Tragedy This Week

I woke up to this news and it terrified me.

We almost had yet another college mass shooting event, this time the threat was at Embry-Riddle in Daytona (via Claire Metz at WESH Orlando): 

John Hagins was arrested at his off campus apartment Thursday after two other students alerted authorities of the suspect's alleged threatening statements.

Officials have no doubt classmates of 19-year-old Hagins, an aeronautical science student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, averted tragedy Thursday, the last day of classes before winter break.

According to the arrest report, last week Hagins began talking excessively about purchasing a gun and the gun being able to fold so it could fit inside of his backpack to take to the school...

Hagins also allegedly told the student witness he would purchase a silencer so he would be able to shoot inside the school library...

"He referenced Columbine," Daytona Beach police Chief Jakari Young said. "He said once he was done at the firing range he was going to campus to enact a Columbine.

Hagins is charged with terrorism, written threats to injure or kill and attempted murder...

Some of the photos and video clips show the wanna-be gunman packed extra clips to ensure as many targets hit as possible.

And when I say targets I mean "students, professors, campus staff, and anybody else that would satisfy his bloodlust."

And when I say this news terrifies me, more than any other recent gun-related nightmare our nation has witnessed during my whole lifetime, I mean this one hits me close to home.

I have a nephew attending Embry-Riddle in Daytona right now.

Do you hear that, gun nuts? Did I stutter, National Rifle Body Count Association?

One of YOUR fucking "lone wolf" shooters was about to kill or wound a family member.

GODDAMN YOU.

GODDAMN YOUR WORSHIP OF MURDER WEAPONS, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU GODDAMN GUN NUTS.

GODDAMN YOUR PROFIT MARGINS, NRA. GODDAMN YOUR PUSH TO MAKE IT EASIER TO GET MURDER WEAPONS AVAILABLE TO THE MENTALLY UNSTABLE AND HAPPILY VIOLENT AMONG US. 

These mass shooters, these gun nuts going off in our schools and our malls and our churches, THOSE MURDERERS ARE COMING FROM YOUR WORLD, YOUR CULTURE, YOUR OBSESSIONS AND OUTRIGHT WORSHIP OF THE GUN. We didn't ask for these rifle-toting sociopaths but YOU ALL keep insisting they have their chances to KILL the rest of us.

This would have bloodied my family.

Just as EVERY OTHER MASS SHOOTING IN THE UNITED STATES HAS TOUCHED THOUSANDS OF OTHER FAMILIES WHO DID NOTHING TO YOU BUT STAND THERE AND BE TARGETS FOR YOUR RAGE, YOU GUN NUTS.

GODDAMN YOU ALL TO HELL.

#GunReformNow

Oakland High Shooting: Red Flags Everywhere

"He said Bro. Red flag."
- unnamed student surviving the Oakland High shooting, before classroom flees from the possible shooter. It turned out that was a sheriff's deputy looking to evacuate the room, who chose a poor time to use 'hep slang'. Watch that video. Nearly every student freaked when he said 'Bro'.

It's not even a joke in this pandemic reality that the United States' "return to normalcy" for 2021 included the return of mass shootings. 

We've gotten so blase about gun violence at our schools that no major media outlet noticed until this week we're up to our 28th school shooting and our 641st mass shooting for the year. And we've still got December to go.

What made the Oakland High shooting in Michigan stand out were the circumstances that led to that fateful Tuesday November 30. A series of decisions and actions that should have raised concern and triggered a secure response that kept getting ignored or overruled.

A timeline should help highlight what went wrong (via Becky Sullivan at NPR):

The 9 mm Sig Sauer SP2022 pistol used in Tuesday's shooting at the high school in Oxford township, a small community north of Detroit, was purchased by James Crumbley at a local gun shop, authorities said. His son, Ethan Crumbley, was with him at the time of the purchase, they said.

Jennifer Crumbley referred to the gun as their son's "new Christmas present" in a social media post, McDonald said during Friday's news conference. She added that the gun was stored unlocked in a drawer in the parents' bedroom.

The day before the shooting, an Oxford High School teacher reported Ethan Crumbley, a sophomore at the school, after the teacher spotted him using his phone to search for ammunition, the prosecutor said.

School officials left a voicemail and email for Jennifer Crumbley, who did not respond, according to McDonald. But Crumbley sent a text message to her son that said, "LOL I'm not mad at you. You have to learn not to get caught."

Then, on the morning of the shooting, the prosecutor said, Ethan Crumbley's teacher found a drawing on Ethan Crumbley's desk of a handgun, bullet and shooting victim, with the words "blood everywhere" and "the thoughts won't stop, help me."

Disturbed, the teacher informed school authorities, who called both James and Jennifer Crumbley to the school; they were told they would be required to seek counseling for their son.

"Both James and Jennifer Crumbley failed to ask if their son had his gun with him or where his gun was located, and failed to inspect his backpack for the presence of the gun, which he had with him," McDonald said.

The parents "resisted the idea" of Ethan Crumbley leaving school at that time, McDonald said. Afterward, Crumbley returned to class. Just before 1 p.m., he entered a bathroom wearing a backpack, then came out with the pistol in his hand and began shooting, authorities have said...

At every single point where the parents made the situation worse, I noticed myself shaking my head and muttering "Jesus Christ..."

Just the idea that his parents thought a handgun would make a nice Christmas present for their teenage son is a serious red flag to me. Until I saw someone point out on social media that on Black Friday - the high holy Consumer Day of holiday shopping - there were around 187,000 legal firearms purchases. Historically, Black Friday seems to be a great time (sarcasm mode) to stock up on murder weapons.

Guns?! FOR CHRISTMAS?! In religious terms, a day honoring the birth of one of humanity's greatest seekers of Peace and Hope for all??? In secular terms, a day for family and friends and ugly sweaters snuggled in against the cold winter outside (Northern Hemisphere only, Southern Hemisphere gets beach trips and sand castles)??? /headdesk

Back to the timeline, where the parents' behavior towards each growing alarm about their son's openness at school about pursuing - obsessing over - guns, ammo, and acts of violence kept ignoring his deteriorating mental state. When the mother texted "LOL don't get caught" that should have been a moment for herself to wake up and realize "Wait, he's getting caught at school obsessing over guns maybe we need to calm him down." Christ, she thought it was funny. I wonder how her reaction would have been if Ethan was caught scanning PornHub videos at school instead of the Guns & Ammo shopping page.

One thing bothering me - and probably haunting the school officials from now until forever - is the point where the school authorities had both parents and Ethan in the office, why the hell didn't they inspect Ethan's bookbag then? I thought the schools had exemptions to search students' belongings if they could show cause for others' safety.

Then again, the parents would have likely thrown a major conniption. Given what we know now - with the report that Crumbley's mother wrote a letter praising donald trump for his Second Amendment support along with rants against illegal immigrants threatening her livelihood as a realtor - any attempt in that principal's office to see if Ethan was packing a gun would have led to lawsuits or a physical altercation. The rights of the privileged gun nuts - usually upper income, usually White, always paranoid and aggressive - will always outrank all other rights in this NRA Utopian America.

Instead, there were no altercations, just the Crumbleys insisting that Ethan remain in school, giving him one more opportunity to show off that Christmas gift to the world.

Even then, it looked like the parents were abandoning their own son to his demons, his rage, his fate.

The only time either parent expressed any concern was after the shooting started, when Jennifer Crumbley sent a cover-your-ass text message "don't do it." By then it was already too late. James Crumbley reported the gun "stolen" from his house, but by then law enforcement had a pretty good idea James allowed Ethan full access to "his Christmas gift".

All of this damage done, four teens killed, more wounded, all because one family worshipped the gun more than they worshipped the Christmas Spirit.

All of this leading up to one of the more interesting twists in our nation's ongoing gun violence crisis. For the first time in recent memory, the parents of the school shooter are facing manslaughter charges. As mentioned in Becky Sullivan's NPR article, this is a rare move indeed:

"These charges are intended to hold the individuals who contributed to this tragedy accountable and also send a message that gun owners have a responsibility. When they fail to uphold that responsibility, there are serious and criminal consequences," (Oakland County Prosecutor) Karen McDonald said...

The involuntary manslaughter charges for the suspect's parents are highly unusual for a school shooting. But Michigan's criminal code does not give prosecutors more straightforward options: The state is not among those with laws that specifically target children's access to guns, nor does it have a negligent gun storage statute, according to the Giffords Law Center, a research group that advocates for gun control laws.

The Oakland County prosecutor advocated for strengthening the state's gun laws at her news conferences this week, calling the laws "woefully inadequate."

In addition to the rare step of charging the shooter's parents, prosecutors' decision to charge the younger Crumbley with terrorism is unusual in Michigan. The criminal complaint accuses Crumbley of "intending to intimidate or coerce" the high school community.

"What about all the children who ran, screaming, hiding under desks? What about all the children at home right now, who can't eat and can't sleep and can't imagine a world where they could ever step foot back in that school? Those are victims too, and so are their families and so is the community," McDonald said at a news conference Wednesday. "The charge of terrorism reflects that..."

Given McDonald's enthusiasm to pursue more serious charges, I doubt that terrorism charge will stick. The Nation Rifle Body Count Association is sure to step up to file a complaint, arguing that gun ownership isn't an act of intimidation or threat, trying to protect their fellow gun-worshipping fanbase from any similar charges brought against them when they open-carry everywhere.

But the charges against the parents should be a welcome change to see about reducing the risks of guns in our schools. Far too many times, the absence or abandonment of any parental figure working to keep their kids away from guns has led to those school shooters getting their hands on those murder weapons. A number of times, those shooters were coming from a home where parents pushed those guns onto them, teaching them a mindset that those weapons were everyday common, simple to use, and that those things gave them power over everyone else.

No more. I hate to break it to the parents, but dammit you got to teach your children the dangers of firearms and the risks they carry. Of all the red flags parents are supposed to keep an eye out for - drug use, sexual harassment or assault, bullying (either as victim or perp), petty theft, vandalism, listening to bad Country music, other troubling signs of teen behavior - the likelihood of gun violence ought to top the Parenting To Do list.

If we can hold parents accountable for their guns, if we as a nation can start getting into those parents' heads that they have to treat their guns with better personal security, if we can make these gun nuts realize they DON'T have to treat firearms like Christmas toys...

If...

Blood In the Streets of Lakeland

No. No no no. This happened near here. This is in Lakeland. This is my metaphorical backyard (via Divya Kumar Tampa Bay Times (paywall)): 

A shooting north of Lakeland this morning left four dead, including a 3-month-old infant. An 11-year-old was shot multiple times. After two shootouts with deputies, the suspect is in custody after being treated for injuries.

At a news conference at the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Grady Judd said Bryan Riley, 33, from Brandon, had no apparent connection to the victims...

Somehow, that shooter knew them, and knew them well enough to kill them with a firearm.

What we know about the shooter is that he served as a Marine overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, that he was honorably discharged but that he suffered from PTSD and may have been on drugs. His girlfriend talked about him providing security at an Orlando church and that he came back last week claiming "he could talk to God."

What we also know about the shooter is that he seemed armed to the tooth and body-armored for a fight, because he got into a firefight with county deputies before surrendering.

What we also know is that this sonofabitch - like so many others who committed mass shootings across this country nearly every day now - had easy access to firearms, and a willingness to use them.

We are at a point where we can't trust a single goddamned person with firearms. And yet, and yet, all because of a screeching, Russian-owned lobby group called the National Rifle Body Count Association, we live in a country that prizes the right to shoot anybody they like over the rights for the rest of us to peaceably assemble and, you know, NOT GET SHOT.

This level of violence will NEVER be normal.

This number of grieving families will NEVER be normal.

America Is Back to Daily Mass Shootings, How's THAT for F-CKED UP Normalcy

Over the weekend, it's been looking like the nation has gone back to mass shooting after mass shooting after mass shooting after mass s... you get the point.

• Indianapolis suffered a mass shooting incident at a FedEx warehouse, leaving eight dead, four of them Sikhs in a likely religious/racist assault. The shooter in question had worried his own family enough for federal intervention and psychiatrist detainment during which his shotgun was taken away for safety reasons... whereupon the shooter went out and legally bought two more rifles because Indiana's gun laws are lax as hell and we have no Universal Background Check or Waiting period laws in effect that could have red-flagged him.
• Saturday we had a shooting outside an Ohio shopping mall where people were honoring a one-year anniversary of a shooting death at that spot. We can't even grieve our shooting victims in peace, can we.
• Earlier this morning there's a report from Kenosha, WI of a shooting at a tavern leaving three dead and several critically wounded, so just for the record it's not safe to get a beer in this nation anymore.
• We're just getting reports today that three have been shot and killed in Austin, TX. As of 2:45 PM EDT, it's considered an active shooting situation.

We're still getting over the mass shooting in Boulder, and the one at the Atlanta Asian massage parlors, and the one in Virginia Beach, no not the one in 2019. We're at the point cities are getting repeat mass shootings. Hell, we're at the point where a school shooting involving just one death barely makes a ripple.

A sizable number of Americans have been screaming "IT'S THE GUNS, IT'S THE MOTHERFUCKING GUNS" but we are screaming into the void because the goddamned Russian-owned National Rifle Body Count Association owns enough of our government that we can't get any goddamned sensible gun safety law passed - Universal Background Checks, ban on military-grade assault rifles, limited magazine/clip capacity, licensing or insurance requirements for ownership - at all.

Anybody still arguing "that gun ownership is not a problem" in the United States is blind to the reality that we can't fucking trust gun owners anymore, you are ALL a goddamned threat to the rest of us. You are arguing for unsafe guns in unreliable hands. We keep seeing this in the news with every goddamned shooting report from the domestic violence bastards to the mass shooters blazing their way to infamy and a goddamned body count. Even the police officers way too twitchy with their trigger fingers are proof we can't trust a goddamned single person with a gun.

And the blood in our streets keeps rising and rising...

Blood In the Streets Across America 2021 (w/ Update)

We're still recovering from the trauma of what happened in Atlanta only for new trauma to arise in Boulder Colorado a week after that, and this weekend with mass shootings across different cities of Chicago, Virginia Beach (again), and Memphis, and...

There's a sick joke out there that you can tell Americans are recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic because we're going back to the "normality" of having mass shootings every week.

Here's the dilemma. A vast majority of Americans want basic steps of gun purchase regulations to improve the public safety. Eighty percent of Americans - crossing political and cultural divides like no other issue, even including Republican voters - want universal background checks. Yet thanks to the paranoid and corrupt practice of the gun-nut lobby (FUCK YOU, NRA), the Republican Party leadership opposes every minimal regulatory suggestion and obsesses over an absolutist position on "Shall Not Be Infringed."

To the vast majority of Republican voters who back universal background checks, do this nation and do yourselves the favor of dropping out of the Republican Party. Just quit it. Just go to the county elections office and refill your registration and check off "No Party Affiliate" instead of "Rep". You don't have to switch to "Dem," just drop out of a political party that does not give a fuck about our nation's public safety.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN. I will keep screaming this every day the GOP refuses to take firearm safety seriously.

(Update: Not more than THREE HOURS AFTER I POSTED THIS): Ahhhh SWEET JESUS, we got an active shooter targeting park rangers at the Everglades National Park this evening! I know this is Florida but for CHRIST SAKES CAN WE STOP THE GODDAMNED SHOOTINGS!

Old Enough to Remember

My thought for the day.

I'm old enough to remember they blamed violence on heavy metal.

I'm old enough to remember they blamed violence on D&D.

I'm old enough to remember they blamed violence on rap.

I'm old enough to remember they blamed violence on TV.

I'm old enough to remember they blamed violence on R-rated movies.

I'm old enough to remember they blamed violence on graphic video games, which they're doing right now in fact.

I'm old enough to remember the one real constant to all that violence the last 49 years of my life was easy access to guns.

They'll blame everything else but that.

Blood on the Streets of Dayton Ohio

Jesus GODDAMNED Christ. We can't go to sleep without bloodshed in our country. Woke up this morning to news about Dayton, Ohio (via Chas Danner at New York):

Nine people were killed and 26 injured after a gunman opened fire in Dayton, Ohio’s nightlife district early morning Sunday. It was the second deadly mass shooting in America in less than a day, and third in less than a week.

Dayton Police officials announced that an as of yet unidentified gunman opened fire on bystanders just after 1 a.m. outside of Ned Peppers Bar in the city’s historic and popular Oregon District. The gunman was wearing body armor and came armed with a .223-caliber “long gun,” high capacity magazines, and extra ammunition. Police officers already present in the area immediately responded to the attack and fired on the shooter, killing him at the entrance to the bar. The attack seems to have lasted only about a minute, but that was more than enough time for the well-armed gunman to exact a heavy toll.

At this point, SYRIA or YEMEN are safer places to live. Our national body count is exceeding that of HONEST TO GOD WAR ZONES.

And to all the sonsofbitches out there who fantasize about "Good Guys With Guns" being present to stop the "Bad Guys With Guns," you got your wish: Police were in the area and responded as quick as possible. IT STILL WAS NOT FAST ENOUGH TO SAVE NINE PEOPLE. The gunman was still prepared with body armor, high-capacity magazines (which means less effort to reload), and extra ammo.

It is still too early to report on what motivated the murderer besides 1) anger and 2) easy access to military-grade firepower. No idea if Ned Peppers was specifically targeted or just the first one the sonofabitch wanted to shoot up.

But we're now at the point in the escalation of mass shootings in the United States to where these mass shootings are overlapping.

Used to be a mass shooting every year.

Then it got to be a mass shooting every month.

Then we got normalized to the reality of a mass shooting every week.

Here we are today, where the mass shooting of one day hasn't even been cleaned up before the next day's mass shooting hits the news channels.

All this in a world where any other sane nation would have passed strict gun regulations for public safety after the FIRST mass shooting. But this is not a sane nation, is it?

In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over. - Dan Hodges, reporter

We live through one mass shooting after another and muddle on through our lives just praying we don't get stuck in one ourselves. And we can't avoid that anymore: We're getting reports about survivors from last week's Gilroy Garlic Festival having survived the mass shooting of a Country music concert in Las Vegas a few years ago. This is now getting so common that survivors should be issued discount cards for each incident they get through. And this is NOT the first time I'm making this observation!

JESUS.

Welcome to the NRA's wet dream: non-stop mass shootings that are certain to keep gun and ammo sales ongoing for the rest of our nation's short-lived future.

We need to pass a law requiring the board of the National Body Count Association to dig the graves of every victim of a mass shooting, for two reasons: First, if the shedding of OUR blood is the price WE have to pay for the gun nuts to own their murder-sticks, then digging our graves is the least THEY can do for us; and Second, at this rate the NRA needs to learn how to work at graveyards because at this rate they will be the only ones left to bury the rest of us.

Goddammit, America.

We are killing ourselves one shooting at a time.

Blood On the Streets of El Paso

Goddamn us (via Reuters).

A gunman armed with a rifle killed 20 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday and wounded more than two dozen before being arrested, authorities said, after the latest U.S. mass shooting sent panicked shoppers fleeing.

Many of those in the busy store were buying back-to-school supplies when they were caught up in the rampage, which came just six days after a teenage gunman killed three people at a food festival in Northern California.

The suspect was identified as a 21-year-old white male from Allen, Texas, a Dallas-area city some 650 miles (1,046 km) east of El Paso.

The sonofabitch drove EIGHT HOURS out of his way to shoot up a Wal-Mart in El Paso.

Asked during a CNN interview about reports of disturbing online posts made by the suspect, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would not be surprised in any way.

“I think those can help shed light on why he did it,” Paxton said. “They are still interviewing him.”

El Paso police chief Greg Allen said authorities had a manifesto from the suspect that indicates “there is a potential nexus to a hate crime.” Officials declined to elaborate and said the investigation was continuing.

Word is the sonofabitch shooter was a fan of the Christchurch mass killer, and the manifesto is railing against "Hispanics" invading the United States. Which is pretty much donald trump's consistent message of rage and hate on the ongoing immigration matters.

Citing a law enforcement source, El Paso television station KTSM published on its website what it said were two photos of the suspect taken by security cameras as he entered the Walmart.

The images showed a young white man wearing glasses, khaki trousers and a dark T-shirt, and pointing an assault-style rifle. He appears to be wearing headphones or ear defenders.

Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the images.

The assault rifle, a military-type firearm that has become the favorite weapon of choice for White boy Neo-Nazi Klan-worshiping assholes. The perfect accessory for the Angry Guy in need of a Gun.

That sonofabitch needs to be charged under terrorism laws because that's what he is.

And trump needs to go the fuck away. That Shitgibbon may not have pulled the trigger but he sure as hell loaded that gun and aimed that murderer towards El Paso and all the families living there.

GODDAMN YOU, trump. GOD DAMN YOU TO THE DEEPEST PIT OF HELL RIGHT NEXT TO EVERY GODDAMN POLITICIAN WHO DOES NOT DO A GODDAMN THING ABOUT GUN SAFETY REFORMS.

Blood On the Streets of Virginia Beach

A gunman - apparently a long-time employee of the city - attacked the municipal center in Virginia Beach VA this afternoon. Eleven dead so far, more wounded, entire community in shock.

Another goddamn angry guy with another goddamn gun.

And this one hits close to home.

My family lived in that area when I was five, six years old. Dad was still in the Navy then, got assigned to Norfolk until he retired in 1976, and we moved down to Florida after that. I have some fond memories of growing up in the Kempsville area, and those beaches were the first ones I remember going and learning to swim. I remember riding the car past all the beach venues, an amusement park with bright lights, the deep tunnels under the Bay wherever Mom drove us, the sand-filled air and sea-salt scent...

Goddammit, America.

God DAMN YOU, National Rifle Body Count Association.

We are ALL dying one mass shooting at a time.

Our homes, past present and future, all at risk.

All because angry guys have easy access to weapons like this.

I want my childhood homes safe again, America. When? When will this war on our neighborhoods end?

A Lobby Choking On Its Own Con Game

One of the more bizarre elements of trump's Darkest Timeline is how one of trump's most powerful allies - the NRA aka National Body Count Association - is falling apart.

Having been one of the Republicans' deepest-pocket fundraisers, the NRA should have been reveling in winning the 2016 election cycle against hated gun-safety Democrats and expanding its power as more Red States pursue insane agendas like arming teachers. Instead, this is happening (via Adam Wren at the Daily Beast):

As allegations of financial mismanagement thrust the NRA leadership into turmoil this weekend, with its president Lt. Col. Oliver North ousted Saturday in the wake of critical stories by outlets such as The New Yorker and The Wall Street Journal, the Scotts are among a number of members here who told me they think the association has lost focus on its original mission and needs a leadership change ahead of a Monday board of directors meeting. “I think one of the reasons people aren’t going to join as much is they either need a leadership change or they need to switch how they’re doing business,” Allan said. Both Allan and Jim complained about the increasing number of expensive-looking fundraising mailings they receive seemingly each week in the mail requesting more money. On Friday, news broke that North tried to force Wayne LaPierre, the association’s chief executive, to resign.

On Saturday morning, LaPierre received a standing ovation at the beginning of the members meeting. He was seated next to Oliver North’s empty chair and placard. First Vice President Richard Childress, the former NASCAR driver, took the dais awkwardly, explaining that he found out at 7 p.m. Friday that he would be presiding over the morning’s meeting. As he read a letter from North explaining that he would not be renominated to serve in his role, the room fell silent.

“There is a clear crisis and it needs to be dealt with immediately and responsibly so the NRA can continue to focus on protecting our Second Amendment,” North wrote in the letter read by Childress. North warned the organization could lose its tax-exempt status. Indeed, on Saturday, The New York Times reported that the New York Attorney General had opened an investigation into the association’s tax-exempt status. Members rebuffed a no-confidence vote against Pierre, voting instead to leave that issue to the board, which meets Monday...

So what exactly the hell is going on?

Drunk on their own success, maybe?

To me, I'd argue it's a combination of things.

It's a leadership headed by LaPierre who'd been in power for decades, convinced they are an untouchable gang who could set themselves higher salaries and never get voted out for it. Their internal elections process is a tightly-controlled vetting process that's bound to screen out any moderate voices from getting nominated in the first place.

One result of the same a-holes being in charge is that the decision-making calcifies. Most of them will share similar ideology regarding guns (and other cultural and economic issues). In their minds, whatever worked in 1989 will work in 2019. They'll double-down on a "solution" - MOAR GUNS -  when it doesn't work, because that's the only solution they'll know. There probably hasn't been an original idea on that board since 2000. This also means they will go "on offense" to defend a policy, such as increasing calls for more guns in public places like schools because the alternative equates to losing.

In the process, they alienated more and more members - ones who are rational about not having guns in schools, or who agree to the argument for universal background checks - into quitting or ignoring the growing demands for fundraising. I can sympathize: I've gotten sick of the constant emailing for fundraising help from candidates I raised money for years ago... and I actually *want* them to succeed. Yes, I will send you $25 for now, but dammit stop emailing EVERY HOUR FOR IT. /headdesk

Ahem. Back to the point. The extremist positions the NRA have shifted towards have scared off more and more people who understand how dire the situation in the real world is. That leads to less money in their coffers. Even as their expenses - trying to start their own media outlet, indulging in higher pay for board members - go up. Not enough people are buying into their gun-worship narrative anymore.

It doesn't help that the NRA is under legal scrutiny for money laundering for the Russians. Some of the deep-pocket allies that could keep their finances afloat do not want to mix their money into a pot that might lead to criminal charges.

Granted, this isn't the first time the NRA has faced financial woes. When researching this article I came across reports from the 1990s about how they were facing their end times. But when it seemed the organization was gasping its last, they apparently changed their internal rules to agree to more questionable tactics.

But this time it's different. There's state attorneys looking at their finances now. Serious civil and criminal allegations are out there. A bill for the gun-nuts' bad behavior is coming due.

Couldn't happen to a meaner, bloodier sack of death-worshipers. I hope they arrest the crooks. I'd love to see LaPierre scream about his gun rights, only to have the judges remind him that the Second Amendment is not a license to commit fraud.