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Showing posts with label assault rifles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assault rifles. Show all posts
08 June 2024
05 June 2022
He Did Not Act Alone An incomplete list of the Uvalde shooter’s accomplices. 26MAI22
THIS is the best response to the gun carnage tolerated by America. Thank you Clara Jeffery and Mother Jones. Share this with family, friends, social media, co-workers, local and national media contacts and send to your national representative and senators as well as your state representative / delegate and senator (I did).
He Did Not Act Alone
An incomplete list of the Uvalde shooter’s accomplices.
MAY 26, 2022
“We don’t know his motive yet, but authorities believe he acted alone”…“it was a lone gunman”…“the shooter acted alone…”
No, he didn’t.
A motive will probably be assigned to him. We have studied every mass shooting since 1982. And the “motives” are usually some combination of the following: He struggled with bullying. Or self-loathing and depression. Maybe he had an ax to grind with an authority figure. Maybe he hated a certain group of people.
But whatever we learn about the Uvalde shooter, or any future ones—because there will be more—don’t say they “acted alone,” which is largely media code for “this doesn’t appear to be Islamic terrorism.” No matter the particulars, these “lone” gunmen all have scores of accomplices. Here is a wholly incomplete list of those who bear direct responsibility in this slaughter of 19 children and two teachers, and the brutality visited on those still in the hospital, all the families, and the community and country at large:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott: A relentless cheerleader for gun extremism, last year he gleefully signed seven bills rolling back gun regulations—including abolishing licenses for handguns. In the aftermath of this shooting he blamed mental health issues, a go-to tactic to distract from the gun debate, despite having cut $211 million from the agency that provides state mental health services.
The GOP-controlled Texas statehouse, which had already passed a slew of laws that rolled back any reasonable gun restrictions—many of which they did immediately after mass shootings, including permitless carry.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a leading recipient of gun lobby money, who now suggests the solution is forcing students and staff to enter and leave through one door. Scholars of military “kill zone” tactics and the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire beg to differ.
Sen. John Cornyn, ever content to draft in behind his slightly more venal compatriot, who is making bleating noises about possible compromises he will vote against in the end.
Rupert Murdoch, for translating the El Paso, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh shooters’ screeds into prime-time programming.
Every damn person who works for Fox News now, and really since at least 2010. Like gun manufacturers, they sell fear and grievance to a mostly white male audience. They profit off of hate. And cable companies are their accomplices.
Every politician—looking at you, Elise Stefanik—fueling “replacement theory” hate to raise money and get more Fox air time.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who won’t bring HR 8—requiring universal background checks—to an immediate vote because, he says, people know where their senators stand, and he hopes to reach a compromise bill that can get 60 votes. Charlie Brown, Lucy, football.
Every member of Congress who isn’t right this minute working to get additional bills to the floor to pass national red flag laws, institute waiting periods, limit high-capacity guns and clips, finally digitize ATF records, permit federal research into gun crimes—any of a dozen commonsense laws that have overwhelming bipartisan public support. No meaningful federal laws have been passed since 20 children and six educators were slaughtered at Sandy Hook elementary, in Newtown, Connecticut.
Every member of Congress and every single one of their staffers who is more concerned with getting home for the holiday weekend than doing something to end the carnage. Especially after they just acted with “lightning speed” when people peacefully protested at the houses of Supreme Court justices.
The four Democratic senators (Harry Reid doesn’t count) who joined the Republicans to vote against the 2016 Manchin–Toomey compromise bill on background checks. Especially Heidi Heitkamp, who, when asked about her vote on Thursday, told a reporter, “I no longer have to answer your questions.” Nice.
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who will not override the filibuster even to prevent the slaughter of school kids, shoppers, or churchgoers—even for HR 8, which is essentially the bill Manchin championed for years.
Extra points for Manchin telling reporters yesterday that this time compromise talk “feels a little different.” Which he said after Parkland. And Newtown.
And for Sinema, who said she doesn’t believe that “DC solutions are realistic here.”
Every member of Congress who voted to give gun manufacturers a liability shield in 2005. (Looking at you, Henry Cuellar!) George W Bush for signing it.
Antonin Scalia, for replacing the actual, arcane, mostly insignificant Second Amendment with an entirely invented new one that overrides seemingly everything else in American life.
The high priests of the Beltway “both sides” oracle.
The “thoughts and prayers” crew.
Gun manufacturers and their handmaidens at the NRA, which agreed to the Manchin–Toomey bill back in 2013, but then walked away once it received concessions.
Vladimir Putin, who, together with his spies, helped bolster the NRA because he saw it as a way to sow domestic division.
Alex Jones. Seriously, fuck that guy forever. Ditto to his anonymous Bitcoin donor. And Ted Cruz for defending him.
Ted Cruz, again, for this.
Trump. Too many reasons to list. Here’s the latest.
Social media companies and streamers that drag their feet about taking down shooters’ videos and rants, and do not invest nearly enough to keep their platforms from fueling the “Columbine effect.”
Everybody pushing lockdown drills and bulletproof backpacks and arming teachers—and other reactive, largely performative measures. Active school shooter drills are shown to deeply traumatize children, and there’s little evidence that they’ve reduced the overall carnage. They certainly don’t prevent school shootings. We should be investing school and community resources in a far more robust and universal “threat assessment” plan to ID troubled individuals, support them, and dissuade them from violent acts.
Every politician and pundit saying more armed cops on campuses is the answer. Uvalde is an utter refutation of the bogus “good guy with a gun” claim, which was only ever about increasing gun sales.
Every politician who declares they are “pro-life” yet are wantonly indifferent to the carnage of their gun policies and positions. They’ll force you to have a child, and then lead that child to slaughter.
Everybody who is tossing their hands up and declaring that nothing will ever change. Yes, the anti-majoritarian Senate and state legislatures are pushing the ideas of an extreme minority onto the rest of us, on this subject and so many others. Yes, there are millions of guns out there already. That only means we have to fight harder, and for longer. But change can come if we are willing to put in the work.
26 June 2019
09 February 2013
YOU ARE LETTING GUN CONTROL REFORM DIE IN CONGRESS & Public Pressure, Background Checks Central To Obama Gun Control Strategy 8&9FEB13
THE children and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary School are cold in the ground, in Chicago Hadiya Pendelton is being buried today, Congress is delaying action on passing any significant legislation on gun control, high capacity ammunition clips, background checks, school safety and expanding treatment for mental health and the American people are allowing the nra and gun manufacturers wear them down. Will you allow them to win through inaction and then be among those who weep, wail and pontificate after the next tragedy when maybe someone you love is killed or injured by gun violence? Click the link to see the proposals from Pres Obama. No matter what you think of him at least consider he has presented a plan and take a look at it. Understand if nothing is done it is on us, because we, the people, didn't keep the pressure on Congress and the President to take action. Call and/or e mail your Senators and Representative. Share this with family, friends, coworkers. From OrganizingForAction and NPR.....
President Obama has asked Congress to pass legislation to help protect our kids and reduce gun violence -- and we need to do everything we can to help. Forward this email -- and spread the word today:
Learn more:
http://www.barackobama.com/gun-reform/
President Obama has asked Congress to pass legislation to help protect our kids and reduce gun violence -- and we need to do everything we can to help. Forward this email -- and spread the word today:
Learn more:
http://www.barackobama.com/gun-reform/
Public Pressure, Background Checks Central To Obama Gun Control Strategy
Gun control historically has been one of the most divisive issues in Congress, between the parties and even inside the Democratic coalition. Yet some in President Obama's own party say he has put together a gun agenda that is sweeping without being too painful for most Democrats to support.
"He did the right thing when he laid out his principles. It was not a crazy wish list," says Jim Kessler, co-founder of the centrist Democrat group Third Way. "It didn't include a lot of things that gun rights supporters find anathema. You know, it didn't include licensing and registration. It didn't include one-gun-a-month limits. It didn't include waiting periods. It was a very measured package that was moderate."
On Tuesday, Obama is expected to discuss specifics of his gun control agenda during his State of the Union address, perhaps building on his legislative priorities.
Unlike former President Bill Clinton, who asked Democrats to walk the plank in the 1990s to pass an assault weapons ban, Obama has laid out a menu of proposed changes, including universal background checks, limits on big ammunition clips and an assault weapons ban.
"What he did is, he left it to the Senate to really work out the details," Kessler says. "And, you know, the president's playing the outside game and playing it pretty well."
On Monday, Obama was in Minneapolis, surrounded by uniformed law enforcement officials: "I need everybody who's listening to keep the pressure on your member of Congress to do the right thing," he told the crowd.
Obama was doing what his aides say he didn't do often enough in his first term — getting outside of Washington to build public support for legislation.
The president also had to convince gun control advocates that his newfound zeal for gun restrictions isn't just lip service. After all, in his first year in office, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence gave the president an "F" for a "lack of leadership for common-sense gun laws."
The past few weeks have changed all that, says Kristen Rand, legislative director at the Violence Policy Center.
"It's a complete sea change," she says. "Obviously, the tragedy at Newtown had a huge personal impact on him, and everyone in the gun violence prevention community was very open about being disappointed with him in the first term. But we're seeing a very serious, dedicated focus on identifying and passing effective gun violence prevention measures. So it's too bad we lost a term, but I think we're going to [hopefully] make up for it in the second term."
Focus On Background Checks
The gun control lobby has adjusted its sights as well. Groups like the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit that advocates against gun violence, support much more ambitious restrictions.
But now, Rand says, they would define a victory for the president as "anything that works to reduce gun death and injury."
Gun control advocates seem to be settling on one measure as their top priority — background checks. Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which was founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, aired an ad during the Super Bowl advocating background checks.
The ad, which ran in the Washington, D.C., television market, displayed video footage of National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre supporting background checks in May 1999. But LaPierre and the NRA now oppose background checks.
"There's going to be fees. There's going to be paperwork," LaPierre said last week on Fox News Sunday last week. "There's going to be law-abiding people caught up in a bureaucratic nightmare, and there's going to be abuse in terms of prosecutions. And it's all going to affect only the law-abiding people. The criminals could care less."
Mayors Against Illegal Guns knows the NRA has shifted course, and that's why it is highlighting the issue. Background checks get more than 90 percent approval in some public opinion polls, and may have the greatest chance of passing Congress.
Of course, the popular measure that's easy to pass isn't always the one that solves the problem. But in this case, the low-hanging fruit may be more important.
"If universal background checks pass, that is the gold medal in preventing gun violence and gun crime in the country," says Kessler, who calls the checks more important than a ban on assault weapons, even though the latter are associated with the most horrific crimes.
Background checks would make a bigger difference because the vast majority of gun crimes are committed with handguns, Kessler says. And in 9 out of 10 gun crimes, the killer is not the original purchaser of the gun.
"So you put those two facts together, and what you have is evidence of massive gun trafficking that goes on in the United States that funnels guns from the legal market to the shadows market," Kessler says.
"The lubricant that allows that gun to go to the illegal market is the private sale, which under federal law is not covered, which can be done without a background check."
Background check and gun trafficking bills have Democratic and Republican supporters in both the House and Senate. And this week the idea of improved background checks got an important and unexpected endorsement from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, the first member of the Republican leadership in either chamber to show movement on the issue.
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