Paris terror attacks

Guns for terrorists, lies and elections

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pinocchioThis post has been edited since first posted to include new information.

It’s no surprise that we are in the middle of the 2016 Presidential election. Candidates are posturing about all issues before them but in light of the Paris terror attack, the rhetoric has become hysterical and downright deceptive. The lying is absolutely stunning to me and the fact that Americans are buying it is what I am truly afraid of. When Donald Trump can drum up the fear and anger of Americans to get elected, we have a serious problem that we should all fear. How can we believe someone who claims that there were people in New Jersey who cheered when the Twin Towers collapsed? This claim received a “pants on fire” rating from Politifact. 

When we elect a President, among other things, truthfulness should be at the top of the list. This person will be the leader of the free world that is now more dangerous and complicated than ever.

One area of discussion that most of the Republican candidates don’t want to have is the ability of terrorists to be able to legally buy guns in America from licensed firearms dealers. An article from Media Matters sums it up nicely: 

NRA: Rep. King “Is Pushing A Scheme To Deny Your Second Amendment Rights” With Terror Watch List Legislation. The NRA’s online magazine America’s 1st Freedom misidentified Rep. King as a Democrat in an article opposing the legislation, writing, “Amid the horror and outrage over last week’s Paris terrorist attacks, on the pretext of stopping terrorism, New York Democrat Congressman Pete King is pushing a scheme to deny your Second Amendment rights — and deny your right to due process in the bargain — by banning firearm sales to anyone on the FBI’s so-called Terrorist Watch List.” [America’s 1st Freedom, 11/20/15]

Anyone can get a gun through a private sale with no Brady background check. So the argument that terrorists will just get their guns somewhere else is true but ludicrous. We can prevent that as well as most Americans understand and want us to do.

And let’s get this straight. Republican Congressman Peter King is pushing for a bill that would keep terrorists from having guns. He’s not a Democrat. Are the people who write this stuff ignorant or clever?

Why in the world would the gun lobby oppose a bill like this? It would not deny law abiding citizens’ right to bear arms or due process. And yes, there are problems with the list:

So, clearly, the watchlist itself needs improvement and that ought to come first. But nonetheless, there surely are many thousands of people who are legitimately on the list. And those who are should surely be barred from legally obtaining firearms.

But as usual, the National Rifle Association has stood in the way of legislation that is designed to prohibit terrorists from purchasing firearms legally, and that obstructionism goes back to 2007.

Naturally, one the NRA’s arguments is that terrorists will just acquire firearms illegally, so such a law would only hurt “law-abiding citizens.” The gun lobby also trots out its standard rap about this kind of legislation being “sponsored by gun-control extremists.”

We just don’t need those kinds of false statements. It’s all hands on deck right now. Let’s fix the problem in a bill that will prevent those who are actual terrorists from being able to buy guns. If we truly care about the safety of America, we will get to work post haste and get this done. We can’t wait for the politicians who are clueless, deceiving us or so in bed with the corporate gun lobby that they are afraid, to get on board. The time is now to act.

The New York Daily News has been on the attack against the NRA’s opposition to closing the terror gap and now going after their fearless leader, Wayne LaPierre in this latest publication. So where is Mr. LaPierre? Where is a statement from the NRA about a bill that could save Americans from a terror attack? From the article:

At issue is the NRA using their overwhelming influence with lawmakers to block a law that would ban anyone on the terrorist watch list from purchasing a gun.

The bill, known as the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act, was proposed in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris that left 129 people in Paris dead and hundreds more injured. Gun control advocates say that a legal loophole allows suspects on the terrorist watch list to purchase guns while the same list prevents them from flying on U.S. airlines.

The bill was originally proposed in 2007, but has been blocked by conservative lawmakers who are heavily backed by the NRA.

According GOP House member and bill co-sponsor Rep. Peter King of Long Island, the NRA is opposed to any bills that might stop anyone from purchasing a gun.

“Anything which they feel restricts the use or the ability to retain a gun they’re opposed to,” King said.

The Daily News doubled down on their attacks on the NRA for their intransigence on sensible gun legislation, with a lead story Monday morning that began: “Under the gun, with its leader nowhere to be found, the NRA faced a fusillade of new criticism Sunday for prioritizing gun rights over prevention of a Paris-style massacre in the U.S.”

I found this response by the NRA-ILA to the discussion about the terror gap:

Regardless of whether the transaction is given the green light to proceed or is denied, the encounter is noted at the time and its import is assessed in the same manner as all newly discovered pieces of intelligence about the subject of the investigation. … What the attempt to buy a firearm means in a counterterrorism investigation, and as a result the subsequent actions it warrants, necessarily must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Of course, just because and individual is allowed to purchase a legal item doesn’t mean that person is thereafter beyond the reach of law enforcement. If authorities knew, for example, that a person were buying fertilizer to make a bomb, they obviously wouldn’t sit on their hands simply because the fertilizer purchase was legal.

The same would obviously be true of the otherwise-lawful purchase of a firearm by a person who officials had evidence intended to use it to commit a terrorist act. In this regard, current law, coupled with the FBI’s procedure, could actually produce useful and actionable anti-terrorism intelligence.

On the other hand, prohibiting every purchase by a watchlisted individual gives real terrorists under investigation or surveillance an easy way to determine whether their acts have drawn the government’s suspicion. All they would have to do is go to a gun shop and attempt to buy a gun. If they were denied and knew they had no other basis of denial, they would know the denial was watchlist related.

What? So we shouldn’t try to stop them at the point of sale because our system will get around to investigating who they are later? Really? And within hours, we could have a terror attack. And if a terrorist were denied a gun sale at a licensed dealer, he/she would know the denial was watchlist related? And so?…. What then? The terrorist would be stopped and would have to find another way to get a gun which is, as we know,  far too easy in our country. That is also why we need to require a Brady background check on ALL gun sales.

If we stop terrorists at the point of sale, just perhaps a terror attack would be averted, at least for a time. Meanwhile, the FBI would know for sure that that person was attempting to buy a gun. If someone on the Terror Watch List buys a gun, it just can’t be for sport. This kind of faulty reasoning by the gun lobby is ludicrous and potentially dangerous for us all.

It’s not time to be making things up about guns and terrorism in the silly season known as election time in America. Donald Trump appears willing to say just about anything to pander and ramp up the fear and hysteria. One of his latest deceptions is that black Americans commit the most murders in America. From the article:

The statistics, purported to be gathered by a Crime Statistics Bureau in San Francisco this year, appear to be fabricated. The Crime Statistics Bureau cited in Trump’s tweet does not exist. The FBI, which does gather official crime statistics for the U.S., has not yet released them for this year.

Last year’s FBI statistics show that the numbers in Trump’s tweet are incorrect and appear to be aimed at perpetuating racist myths about black people and crime.

In 2014, about 82 percent of murders involving white victims were committed by other white people, while only 14 percent were committed by black people, according to the FBI.

Among murders involving black victims, just under 90 percent were committed by other black people, while 7 percent were committed by white people.

Crime experts have concluded that homicides are most likely to occur among people of the same race because people are usually murdered by someone they already know, and most people primarily know people of their own race.

What we absolutely don’t need is Trump’s hyperbole and fabrications because it gives excuses for Americans to feel terror and fear that is unwarranted considering the facts. The rhetoric is leading to armed Americans “patrolling” the streets because of fear of “the other”. In Texas armed open carriers appeared outside of a Mosque making dangerous claims:

“We tried to talk to the mosque before we did this, but they wouldn’t return our messages,” said David Wright, dressed in black all the way from his backwards baseball cap to the barrel of his tactical shotgun. “So here we are.”

Wright said he organized the rally in the wake of an Islamic terrorist group’s massacre of Parisian civilians this month. Like millions of Americans, he wants to block Syrian refugees from U.S. shores, lest they replicate the attack here.

But like a fraction of those millions, he was convinced that Irving’s mosque had established the country’s first Islamic court earlier in the year—a false rumor that started online but grew in popularity after Mayor Beth Van Duyne made it the focus of speeches to Tea Party groups.

“They shut the illegal court down,” Wright said, incorrectly. “And then, they threatened to kill the mayor.”

Thus, the guns. A protester with a bandana over his face showed off his AR-15 to traffic. A 20-year-old who wants to join the Army and ban Islam in the United States carried a Remington hunting rifle while his mother held the sign.

“They’re mostly for self-defense or protection,” Wright said, eyeing his 12-gauge. “But I’m not going to lie. We do want to show force. … It would be ridiculous to protest Islam without defending ourselves.” (…)

“My initial impression was they were using them for intimidation,” Palmer said. “I doubt that they’d be happy if some of the Muslim churchgoers here showed up at their Christian church, their Baptist church, their Methodist church tomorrow morning with rifles slung over their shoulders.”

Palmer said the police chief personally warned mosque leaders about the rally. They in turn urged their worshippers to steer clear of the group, which calls itself the Bureau of American Islamic Relations and had recycled some of the signs it took to a Richardson mosque last month, on a national day of protest against Islam.

The worshippers largely took that advice, ignoring the protest until it broke up after a couple hours. The Muslims in the tiny audience declined to share their opinion — instead offering praise for freedom of speech and variations on “no comment.”

But back on the sidewalk, a man who wore a name tag that read “Big Daddy Infidel” and was afraid to give his full name worried about the day he would be forced to use his hunting rifle to take a human life.

It’s just a matter of time before some of these folks, armed to the teeth, will act on their fear and cause our very own terrorist incident. And that is exactly what Daesh would love to have happen. I wonder if that is what Trump and other candidates would love to have happen? Because if they don’t stop their own dangerous and false claims, they will be igniting a group of Americans who are ready to fight on the streets against their own and/or against those they fear will hurt them.

This is why we have a military and National Guard. We don’t need untrained and uneducated heavily armed people patrolling our streets with their military style assault weapons ready to go to war.

These are complicated and dangerous times. We need common sense and the facts. Potential and actual insurrectionists with guns are dangerous and have no common sense. We have our own home grown terrorists and mass shootings that need our attention. For example, 16 people were just shot and injured in a New Orleans neighborhood. From the article:

A manhunt was underway across New Orleans on Monday after 16 people were shot during a gunfight at an impromptu music video recording at in a city park, authorities said.

The victims were all in stable condition.

The shooting broke out late Sunday at Bunny Friend Park in the Upper Ninth Ward where about 500 people were gathered for the video shoot, officials said.

“At the end of the day it’s really hard to police against a bunch of guys who decide to pull out guns and settle disputes with 300 people between them,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said at a news conference.

Why isn’t this a terror attack? Where is the outcry over this mass shooting?  No one died, thank goodness. But does the scene look familiar? Two or more gunmen opened fire at a crowd of people. Chaos and panic.

Sigh.

Also in New Orleans a Tulane University medical student was shot by a robber when the student attempted to help the woman being robbed of her purse. Yes, it’s scary being on the streets of America. What the gun lobby wants us to do is arm ourselves as if this student could have stopped the robbery had he pulled out his own gun. It would have been another gunfight on the streets with potential collateral damage.

Since I posted this, I came across this article about the New Orleans shooting:

Landrieu said the shooting that erupted in a crowd of nearly 500 people is akin to terrorism.

“Dead is dead, whether it’s national terrorism or domestic terrorism,” he said.

“This is senseless. We will never stand for it,” NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison said.

The answer is not more guns on the streets. It’s fewer guns on the streets carried by those who shouldn’t have them. We are ignoring what is before our very eyes every day.

Where are our priorities?  There is a lot of work to get done. Let’s get together and make it happen.

UPDATE:

Vox has done some research on the topic of discussion- terrorism. They found what I have been saying and many have been writing about. The chances of a Syrian refugee committing an act of terror against America are far far slimmer than an American radicalized citizen shooting up a bunch of innocent people. And many of these are labeled right wing extremists- they are radicalized by religion and ideology. Let’s look at what Vox wrote about:

Domestic terrorism kills a small number of Americans each year; far more die from gun violence annually. But what gets lost in the national conversation on domestic terrorism is that terrorist acts are largely perpetrated by American citizens already living inside America’s borders. Radicalization — whether it’s jihadist extremism or right-wing extremism — more often than not starts at home in the US rather than entering the country from abroad.

When will we admit to the facts? The safety of Americans depends on our getting this right.

 

The “elephant in the room”

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elephantWe are at a crucial tipping point. Will the terror attacks in Paris at long last lead us common sense solutions to gun violence prevention? I say this broadly because what happened in Paris has already led to a lot of discussion about how we in America can prevent a similar attack. Of course there is the strident and paranoid hyperbole and fact free discussion about what to do with Syrian refugees. It’s disturbing to watch and listen to political candidates and politicians pander to the hysteria.

Do we really want to target one religious group by asking them to register in a data base meant to keep track of them?  Apparently candidate Donald Trump would consider this:

That’s more Trump bluster, of course. Forcing every Muslim in the country to register for some sort of database would do nothing to secure the borders or stanch the flow of undocumented migrants. It also wouldn’t prevent the possibility of some radicalized and disaffected American youths deciding to join the jihadi cause. Indeed, by stigmatizing an entire religious community, it would make such behavior more likely. Trump must know that his proposals don’t make sense, but he’s pushing on regardless. He has moved from rabble-rousing to demagoguery, or something even uglier. And this time, sadly, we have no option but to take him seriously.

Can we be that intolerant now? Can we tolerate one candidate’s calling a religious group “rabid dogs”?:

While speaking at a campaign event in Mobile, Alabama, Carson compared the need to screen refugees before they enter the U.S. with the steps a community would take to protect children from rabid dogs.

“If there is a rabid dog running around your neighborhood, you’re probably not going to assume something good about that dog. And you’re probably going to put your children out of the way,” Carson said. “Doesn’t mean that you hate all dogs, by any stretch of the imagination. But, you’re putting your intellect into motion and you’re thinking, how do I protect my children?”

This is ugly and self serving rhetoric that makes us worse as Americans and dumbs down a very important discussion about how to protect our own country from a future terror attack.

Here is what we should be considering and talking about. We can stop a potential terror attack by making sure those on the known terror watch list can’t legally purchase guns from licensed firearms dealers:

Currently, some known or suspected terrorists are prohibited from boarding airplanes by the government’s no-fly list — but all are allowed to buy assault rifles and other weapons.

While the bill remained a nonstarter, more than 2,000 suspects on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist bought weapons in the U.S. over the last 11 years, according to the federal Government Accountability Office.

The GAO reported that 91% of all suspected terrorists who tried to buy guns in America walked away with the weapon they wanted over the time period, with just 190 rejected despite their ominous histories.

In 2013-14, the number of successful buyers rose to 94% — with 455 suspects buying weapons and just 30 denied as allowed under current laws.

“It is hard to believe that anyone could defend that someone on the Terrorist Watchlist should get a gun, no questions asked,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “I can’t believe that our Republican colleagues would block this now.”

Will the Republicans and rural Democrats  block a measure to stop this? Will terrorists continue to be allowed to buy guns in the US? Let’s see how much power the gun lobby will have now. And if Congress doesn’t act, we will know that they are too weak to stand up for the safety of Americans at the behest of the corporate gun lobby.

Senator Harry Reid has common sense, thank goodness. His statement challenges the Republican Senators to put their money where the mouths are when it comes to protecting us from terror attacks. From the article:

“Republicans care more about kowtowing to the NRA than preventing terrorists from legally buying assault rifles and explosives like the ones used in the Paris attacks here in America.

“Shockingly, Republicans continue to preserve a loophole that allows FBI terror suspects to buy guns and explosives legally, without background checks. As we speak, a terrorist on the FBI’s terror watch list can walk into a gun show in your hometown and buy as many AK-47s and explosives as they need to commit the kind of mass, heinous slaughter of innocents we witnessed in Paris and which we know terrorists want to perpetrate here in America. Al Qaeda openly urges militants in the United States to purchase firearms through this loophole.

“Democrats have sought to close this loophole for years but have been blocked by Republicans blindly doing the bidding of the NRA. In the wake of Paris, closing the loophole that allows FBI terror suspects to buy guns and explosives should be an obvious step. Legislation to close the loophole has existed for years. But Republican leaders in both Houses of Congress continue to block legislation to close this terrorist loophole.

And in the height of hypocrisy, Erick Erickson of Redstate.com   proclaimed ( as quoted in a Paul Krugman editorial for the New York Times) that he wouldn’t go to a movie theater to see the new Star Wars movie because there are no metal detectors at theaters. Really? This is coming from the mouth of someone who, along with the gun lobby, supports gun extremists who want the carrying of guns into every public place in our country.

How does his statement square with the idea that gun carriers believe they need their guns to protect themselves from terrorists and other scary things? It doesn’t of course. Guns would not be allowed if we had metal detectors in movie theaters. But never mind common sense. You just can’t make this stuff up. Erickson got caught with his “pants wet” as this writer wrote for Salon today about Erickson’s ludicrous statement:

Erickson got caught with his pants wet and has had to backtrack. He now says that he is not afraid to go to the movies because he will be carrying a gun and assumes that others will too. If that’s true, a lot of people should rethink their plans to attend Star Wars. With theaters full of armed men who are quivering in fear and ready to fire at the first loud noise, does seem wise to avoid that situation. Those fellows are dangerous even when they aren’t on edge from terrorist attacks that happened on other continents.

Oopsie.

But back to my main point. We should also pass a bill to require Brady background checks on all gun sales. Why? Because it will prevent those who shouldn’t have guns from being able to get them anyway. Yes, even terrorists. Because if terrorists are stopped ,by closing the terror gap, from legally purchasing guns from licensed dealers they know where to get guns very easily- from private sellers at gun shows, flea markets, on-line and other places:

It is also worth noting that this gap in the law is compounded by another huge loophole in federal gun laws—the one that allows individuals to buy guns from private sellers without a background check. One of the Garland shooters was a convicted felon and therefore prohibited from gun possession under federal law. While we don’t yet know exactly how he obtained the guns used in this attack, he would have had little trouble buying one without a background check through a private sale, online, at a gun show or anywhere else.

This weakness in our gun laws is not a secret. In 2011, America-born Al-Qaeda propagandist Adam Gadahn urged his followers to take advantage of our weak gun laws to arm up, explaining, “America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check and, most likely, without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?”

The question for the rest of us is: What are we waiting for?

What are we waiting for indeed? Haven’t we had #enough of the hyperbole and fear mongering based on false information? Why not do something about what can actually stop the next terrorist from getting firearms and explosives?

Stopping refugees from coming to America will not solve the problem. America has the most stringent screening process for refugees of any country in the world. That’s a fact. Few if any refugee has committed an act of terror in the US:

The history of the refugee resettlement program has a nearly spotless record when it comes to ensuring that those offered a place in the U.S. are not inclined towards committing acts of terrorism.

“The United States has resettled 784,000 refugees since September 11, 2001,” Newland wrote in a recent op-ed. “In those 14 years, exactly three resettled refugees have been arrested for planning terrorist activities—and it is worth noting two were not planning an attack in the United States and the plans of the third were barely credible.”

Two of the men were indicted and jailed for plotting to send weapons to terrorist organizations in Iraq. One Uzbek man was convicted of terrorism-related charges for possessing explosives and supporting a terrorist organization in Uzbekistan.

The Syrian refugees are mainly families who are fleeing the terrorists who are now attacking innocent people in the Western world.

But the U.S. House of Representatives has taken a vote that is political and claiming it will keep us safer, potentially worsening a humanitarian crisis that has affected countries all over the world. Even France has said it will take up to 30,000 Syrian refugees after one of the worst terror attacks suffered by their country.

The terrorists who committed the heinous act of violence in Paris are almost all home grown. They were all born in France or Belgium with the possible exception of one who may have used a fake Syrian passport which was left at the scene of terror.  They did not come out of a Syrian refugee camp.

Hysteria and fear has caused Americans to make inhumane decisions in the past. Have we not learned from our mistakes?  Think the Jews trying to flee the Nazis during World War ll. Think Japanese interment camps during World War ll. 

Things are getting ugly in America. Knee jerk reactions  won’t solve the real problems. Acting without thinking through the consequences will haunt us as we look back at this period of our history. There are measures, like closing the terror gap in our gun laws, requiring Brady background checks on all gun sales, altering  our temporary worker visa program as is now considered in the U.S. Senate:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is introducing a bill along with Flake to restrict that visa waiver program, which allows citizens and foreign nationals from mostly European countries—like France and Beligium—to come to the U.S. for 90 days without visas. Their legislation would bar visa-less entry to people from those countries if they had been to Iraq or Syria in the past five years. Flake is joined by at least one other Senate Republican in not being totally insane about refugees. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker said, following the briefing, that “the visa waiver program potentially is the place where there’s greater gaps, possibly, than the refugee program itself.”

Where Republicans are not working with Democrats, not at all shockingly, is on the gun part. The part wherepeople on the FBI terrorist watch list can buy guns. According to the General Accounting Office, between 2004 and 2014, “suspected terrorists tried to purchase guns through the loophole at least 2,233 times, and were able to do so in 2,043 of those cases.” That’s comforting, huh? Thus far, Feinstein has no Republicans wanting in on that proposal.

Who is Congress more afraid of- terrorists or the gun lobby? Ignoring a safety risk in front of our own noses will make us less safe and so far, that is what Congress is doing. This article from The Trace highlights the hypocrisy of the gun lobby bought and paid for Congress members:

Yet legislative stonewalling does not solve the political problems that the events in Paris present for the NRA and its conservative allies, who find themselves in a double bind: They must decided (sic) whether or not a no-compromise interpretation of the Second Amendment supersedes U.S. national security. The gun lobby and Republican leaders each positions themselves as stalwart defenders of the former as well as the latter. On the question of the so-called terror gap in gun background checks, there is no clear way to be both.

And further, from the article:

In 2013, the New England Journal of Medicine published a poll that asked Americans whether they supported prohibiting suspects on the watch list from buying guns. Eighty-six percent of respondents answered in the affirmative. That included 82 percent of gun owners surveyed and 76 percent of NRA members.

“There have been all of these extreme efforts to deter terrorists in this country,” says Karen Greenberg, the Director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University. “And yet we’ve missed this huge elephant in the room, and that’s access to firearms. By not enhancing background checks, you’re taking an essential piece of prevention out of the hands of law enforcement.” She notes that with respect ISIS, which was responsible for the rampage in Paris, there is a call for “local attacks in a kind of ad hoc way. In the U.S., guns are easy to get. Explosives are tough to make.”

The public wants Congress to act on whatever measures will make us safer. Will they do the right thing? The real problems are staring us in the face but Congress and others ( Governors) are ignoring the facts before them in order to score political points.

We’ve had #enough.

Common sense, facts, calm decision making and courage are needed. It’s time to stop the pandering and get down to the business of keeping us safe from terrorist attacks from foreign fighters who mean us harm, from our own home grown terrorists, and from the devastation of every day gun violence in our own country.

We are better than this.

 

UPDATE:

The Center for American Progress has put together some information about the terror gap. Below is a graphic that explains things pretty well:

CAPAF-TerrorGap

In addition, they have provided a great fact sheet so that Americans can understand this potential risk to our national safety. I suggest if anyone doesn’t get it, they will after reading this information.

Sweeping away the real risks of guns

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vacuumIt should not be surprising that we are sweeping some of our more serious problems under the rug. For example, the many incidents involving legal gun owners that occur every day. Why aren’t we talking about the true risk of guns in the home or in public places? We know the answer. The gun lobby doesn’t want us to know about this stuff. They just want us to know that if we aren’t all armed, we will be attacked by zombies, or God forbid, terrorists. And so the hyperbole and paranoia continues. I wrote in my last two posts about the foolishness of politicians and presidential candidates regarding the Paris attacks. Many opined that things would have gone so much better if only those folks had been armed.

But they don’t want to talk about the real dangers of guns carried by people who, even in situations that don’t involve terrorism, can’t handle their legal guns. And so the carnage continues.

Only in America can we read about incidents like the those I am listing below:

A man shot a woman in a “freaky sex” incident and killed her. He forgot to take the bullet out of the chamber. Really? I thought gun owners knew better. They are supposed to make themselves and the rest of us safer. Guns and sex don’t mix.

Do you need to be carrying your gun while vacuuming? It turns out that it could be dangerous. Who knew? I guess those dust bunnies are pretty scary after all. Guns and vacuuming don’t mix.

Speaking of sweeping our real problems under the rug, only in America can a white gun extremist who threatened on Twitter to kill Jews and school kids get released to his parents by a Montana judge. From the article:

Lenio’s defense team managed to have his trial postponed earlier this year and has been working on a plea deal with prosecutors. Hutson noted, however, that when he was released on the condition that he not use social media at all, Lenio immediately reactivated his Twitter account under the name @PsychicDogTalk3 and proceeded to retweet anti-Israel propaganda and musings on how to satisfy the “urge to kill.”

“He has violated the court’s order and shown contempt for the judge 348 times,” Hutson told Strickland. “He is unfit for release into his parent’s custody in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I question if he would be getting such preferential treatment if he weren’t white and the son of an investment banker.”

A Native American or Muslim man would be treated very differently under Montana law, Hutson said.

Brant Getty, the public defender assigned to represent Lenio declined to comment for the DailyInterLake article.

This article, written by Jonathan Hutson, the man who reported the extremists’ tweets, resulting in his arrest, says this about the case:

My concern now, shared by many others, is that justice may not be served by the backroom deal apparently in the works, in which a young man who may be a danger to himself and to others could be released without having been held to account for his online threats against the Kalispell community, and without the court ensuring that Lenio receive appropriate mental health care which he apparently needs and deserves.

The prosecutor, County Attorney Ed Corrigan, is considering a possible plea bargain which could result in the felony charge of intimidation being reduced to a misdemeanor, or a deferred prosecution, which would mean that eventually, the felony charge would be dismissed, and Lenio would one day get his arsenal back. Imagine David Lenio, reloaded, courtesy of the State of Montana. That could happen.

We have our own home grown terrorists with guns:

But the breakdown of extremist ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists, antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed jihadists, according to a count by New America, a Washington research center. (…)

Non-Muslim extremists have carried out 19 such attacks since Sept. 11, according to the latest count, compiled by David Sterman, a New America program associate, and overseen by Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert. By comparison, seven lethal attacks by Islamic militants have taken place in the same period.

If such numbers are new to the public, they are familiar to police officers. A survey to be published this week asked 382 police and sheriff’s departments nationwide to rank the three biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction. About 74 percent listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed “Al Qaeda-inspired” violence, according to the researchers, Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina and David Schanzer of Duke University.

We have our own problems with terrorists at home. The Montana case represents our nation’s willingness to let people who shouldn’t have guns get them anyway because….. rights.

Sigh.

With the latest terror attack and all of the talk of radical Muslims attacking people in the Western world, we absolutely must join together to do whatever it takes.

We also do need to deal with young white angry bigoted men here at home. The young man arrested for his threats to Jews and children  may get away with his threats. Where else does this happen? Are his gun rights more important than the potential damage he can do once released? I think not. And what could possibly go wrong if he gets his guns back?

We have a double standard in our country. I have written before about mass shootings being committed by mostly young white angry men with (mostly) legally purchased guns. And yet the evidence is in about young black men becoming the majority of the homicide victims in our country. They are also incarcerated at a higher rate than white people.

We have some pretty serious problems that we are not addressing in America. Yes, there was a terror attack in Paris. There was a terror attack in Lebanon. We have serious problems with violence all over the globe. Ours is with gun violence not seen in any other civilized country not at war.

Today we are alarmed and talking 24/7 about the latest terror attack. And we should be talking about that in a reasonable thoughtful manner that will result in a plan to stop the terror and the violence. But the conversation is dumbed down by those who are speaking before engaging their brains or getting the facts.

Shameful.

And when this terror attack fades from constant public attention in a few weeks as it inevitably will, will we then pay attention to our own serious public health and safety epidemic? And will we, at the least, stop people on the terror watch list from buying guns legally in our own country? From the article:

And, as the GAO found, a number of them do: Between 2004 and 2014, suspected terrorists attempted to purchase guns from American dealers at least 2,233 times. And in 2,043 of those cases — 91 percent of the time — they succeeded. There are about 700,000 people on the watch-list — a point that civil libertarians have made to underscore that many on the list may be family members or acquaintances of people with potential terrorist connections. (…)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) introduced a bill to do that earlier this year. The “Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2015” would prevent several hundred gun purchases by suspected terrorists each year, and it includes provisions to let people challenge a denial if they believe they were placed on the watchlist in error.

But these bills have rarely made it out of committee, in part due to vehement opposition from the National Rifle Association and its allies in Congress. The NRA objected to earlier versions of the bill, saying they were “aimed primarily at law-abiding American gun owners,” that “prohibiting the possession of firearms doesn’t stop criminals from illegally acquiring them,” and that the bills were “sponsored by gun control extremists.”

The NRA doesn’t want us to know about this or talk about it. Why not?

And will we sign on to the UN Small Arms Treaty as the country that is providing the most small arms to the rest of the world? Will we do our part in stopping the terror in our own country and in the world at large? From the linked article about the gun lobby deceptions that keep the US from signing the treaty:

In 2013, after nearly a decade of effort (and opposition from the Bush administration), the U.N. adopted an Arms Trade Treaty to curtail illicit sales of war weapons, including tanks, fighter jets, warships, missiles, artillery, and small arms, chiefly to keep them out of the hands of rogue governments and militant groups. But that last category of weapons riles Second Amendment activists, who are concerned that the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is part of a secret globalist agenda to winnow away their constitutional right.

Under President Obama, American leadership helped the treaty get enough signatures to enter into force — as much force as the U.N. can muster, anyway — late last year. This week’s meetings in Mexico are when the 72 ratifying states will discuss amendments to and enforcement of the agreement. Notably, the U.S. will not be among them. It’s signed the treaty, but Congress has yet to ratify it and is unlikely to anytime soon. (…)

And it’s here that the real shenanigans begin, as the rest of the treaty text makes it clear that opponents are warping its intent to suit their own purposes. It is true that the ATT aims to keep guns (and tanks, and anti-aircraft missiles) out of the hands of “unauthorized… end users.” But contrary to the NRA’s interpretation, no one is required to provide small arms makers or their governments with specific identifying info on a gun’s ultimate owner. As the treaty now reads, exporting countries “may include end use or end user documentation” in the info they share with other treaty nations, when deemed “appropriate.” On top of that, the treaty also permits a participating country to tailor that arms-trade data “pursuant to its own legal or constitutional system.” In other words, if U.S. courts see reporting “end user” information as a violation of Second Amendment rights, the U.S. won’t be able to provide that info to exporters abroad.

More importantly, guns imported to the U.S. already get registered. With very few exceptions, all firearms brought into the country have to go through a firearm dealer licensed by the ATF, and a Form 6 for the deal must be filled out in detail and filed with ATF and Customs and Border Protection. Your individual sportsman can get a special permit to directly import sporting-gun parts and ammunition for personal use — but even then, there’s a record of the importation. In all likelihood, treaty parties will treat gun stores and dealers who receive imports as the “end user” for record-keeping purposes, rather than individual customers who may buy the weapon at a point of sale months or years later.

So in a broad sense, the specter of “registration” that the NRA raises has already been the law of the land for some time. The more specific fear — that foreign governments and UN lackeys will gain lists of every Tom, Dick, and Harry who owns a Beretta — is the absurd product of scaremongering.

I suggest you read more of this article. The scare mongering and paranoia exhibited by the American gun lobby are hampering efforts to try to control the trafficking of weapons world wide that inevitably end up in the hands of terrorists.

So again I ask, what are we doing about terror in our own country and our own failures to help with anti terrorism at home and abroad?

We can actually deal with the concerns about with the terror watch list and the UN Small Arms Treaty by the way. If we can send people to the moon, we can figure this out as well. It takes resolve and common sense which sometimes we have little of.

And why do so many Americans believe the hype about guns for self defense? The guys who were involved in the shooting while having sex and while vacuuming apparently believed nothing could possibly go wrong with a gun in their own hands. I am guessing these are the same folks who are thinking that the citizens of Paris should have been armed during the terror attack. What could possibly go wrong?

The real problems cannot be swept away.  As long as the gun lobby holds sway over our politicians, the house cleaning of our weak gun laws to save lives won’t happen. Let’s dust off our reluctance to attack the problem and get to work.

I would like to add an article to my post. I like this one about how the NRA and the corporate gun lobby are actually arming criminals because of their insistence that stronger gun laws won’t work. From the article:

Through all of this, the National Rifle Association has been resolute in its mission to protect Americans’ access to guns. Their success extends far beyond protecting Second Amendment rights.

They have been so effective at limiting or weakening gun violence prevention laws that they can legitimately be accused of helping to arm many of the United States’ criminals. And while they do this they cynically claim that there are plenty of laws on the books if you just enforce them.

Before you fire off angry letters and comments, please read just a few ways how the NRA’s mission has strayed from protecting law abiding gun owner’s rights to keeping the flow of arms to crooks steady.

And then the writer gets to my point from this post:

If you were wondering how out of touch the NRA has become, think about this – they strongly oppose legislation to prohibit the sale of guns to people on the terrorist watch list. Is any comment even needed here?

We need an honest debate about gun laws and how to reduce violence, balancing the protection of Second Amendment rights with realistic measures to keep guns away from lawbreakers. But the NRA, through scare tactics, exaggeration, lying and appeal to paranoia has shown they are not capable of participating in an honest debate.

Through their tactics, they make it easy for criminals to keep getting guns. And if you support the NRA, so do you.

No further comment.

 

 

Is there a right or reasonable response to terror?

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pray for ParisWe all weep for Paris. We all weep for the victims. We can’t avoid the continuous news of the Paris terror attacks. Just like what happened in America on September 11, 2001, we become paralyzed by the news and feel helpless in the face of the horror.

Terror attacks have again frightened and shocked the world. That is what the attackers want. Of course, the ultimate goal is to accomplish a political agenda involving power, control, religious intolerance and ideology, revenge and violence. What is achieved? It’s baffling actually and always has been. What is it about the Western world that so bothers the radicals who want to inflict damage to innocent people? I’m asking because I don’t understand it really and I don’t know if anyone really does.

Sometimes it has been the opposite. The Eastern world has experienced its’ fair share of attacks as well. But then, historically we have all attacked each other everywhere since humans have walked the earth. It defies explanation and yet, somehow we can understand it when we think about human nature and the propensity to violence and to harm others for a cause or a misunderstanding or something else. And we seem to want to resolve our differences with violence rather than peaceful solutions.

Two days ago I wrote my blog post about the Paris attacks. I wrote from own point of view of course from the vantage point of guns and gun violence. And then I read this New York Times editorial written by Frank Bruni about the immediate politicization of the attacks. Bruni is right. Immediately blame is laid at the feet of others and the event is used to further a cause. I’m guilty. I admit it.

Bruni says this, from the article:

Or must we instantly bootstrap obliquely related agendas and utterly unconnected grievances to the carnage in Paris, responding to it with an unsavory opportunism instead of a respectful grief? (…)

That’s how it works in this era of Internet preening, out-of-control partisanship and press-a-button punditry, when anything and everything becomes prompt for a plaint, a rant, a riff.

It all happens in the click of a mouse, its metabolism too furious to allow for decorum or real perspective.

I woke Saturday morning to Paris-pegged commentary about not just gun control and free speech on American campuses but also climate change—yes, climate change—and of course immigration, albeit to the United States, not France.

The editorial ends with these words:

On Saturday morning I read that Paris was going to be good for Republicans. I read that Paris was going to be good for Democrats.

I felt sick. For a few hours, even a few days, I’d like to focus on the pain of Parisians and how that magnificent city reclaims any sense of order, any semblance of safety. I’d like not to wonder if Hillary Clinton’s odds of election just ticked upward or downward or if Donald Trump’s chest-thumping bluster suddenly became more seductive.

I’d like not to be told, fewer than 18 hours after the shots rang out, how they demonstrate that Americans must crack down on illegal immigration to our own country. I read that and was galled, and not because of my feelings about immigration, but because of my feelings about the automatic, indiscriminate politicization of tragedy.

It’s such a disrespectful impulse.

And it’s such an ugly one.

It’s ugly. There are real people who are affected by this terrible tragedy. There are real faces to the carnage. Lives were taken violently and quickly leaving behind the devastation to the families and friends.

One response we don’t want, though, is the response suggested by the far right politicians, candidates and gun extremists. And that is that arming the people of the world will stop terror attacks. An article from the Washington Post highlights why that is a terrible idea:

There is also little evidence that more guns—especially in the possession of regular citizens—would do much to change the outcome when gun-bearing terrorists, bombs strapped to their chests, barrel through concert halls, sporting events, restaurants, and other public spaces.

In the United States, where the National Rifle Association has capitalized on an uptick in mass shootings to argue for putting guns in the hands of as many people as possible, most evidence suggests just the opposite: armed citizenseither don’t try to stop shooters, or fail when they do. Guns have also been shown to lead to more violence. And they’re rarely used in self-defense. (…) In other words, it’s not clear that more people with guns would have done anything other than get themselves killed, too. Especially given the military-grade firearms, like the Kalashnikov automatic rifles that have been flooding the black market in France, and were reportedly used by the terrorists in Friday’s attack.

Can we just finally get this straight? Armed citizens will not stop or prevent terror attacks and/or mass shootings. The evidence points in the opposite direction. But yet, there are foolish people spreading this nonsense around for their own agenda. Of course, arming more people will mean increased gun sales and increased influence of the corporate gun lobby all over the world.

But really, where is common sense?

I write about common sense where it concerns gun violence and gun violence prevention. I write from the perspective of someone whose sister’s life was taken violently and suddenly by bullets. I know how that phone call feels. Life will never be the same for me and for too many.

Life will not be the same in Paris or France or Europe either. But it won’t be permanently ruined. Life will resume, maybe somewhat differently. But we will move on. The U.S. saw many changes to intelligence, travel, security, and yes, even giving up some of our freedoms after 9/11. But we were not destroyed.

Living in the world of terror attacks and every day violence is apparently the new normal. What will our response be?

The bottom line is that we all need to come together to solve the problems before us instead of shouting past each other with our political agendas. Why can’t that happen? I believe it can but the hyper partisanship so on display in our own country of late makes it almost impossible. We are in the “silly season” of a Presidential election. Everything is fodder for both sides to attack the other.

This not the world we deserve or the world we want to leave to our children and grandchildren.

Let’s get to work to solve the serious problems in our own country and the problems of the world around us. We can’t separate them. With instant communication we are all connected to each other. One mother’s grief over the loss of her American daughter in the Paris attacks is also ours. It could be our child next or our sister, brother, father, mother, child. We can’t separate ourselves from the violence.

It’s easier to go about our daily business because thinking about the terror and violence is too awful to contemplate. We might have to think harder or get involved or cry or react in some way. It’s easier not to.

Some people want to pray. Praying is a nice idea but it won’t change anything. Praying for reasonable solutions that will address the violence and the carnage is what we need. Praying for a reasonable response from our leaders and our candidates may help. Making sure talking heads, politicians and candidates engage their minds before speaking would also help.

I don’t know about you but I remember after the 9/11 that it was considered unpatriotic to criticize President Bush or his policies in response to the terror attacks that hit our own country. We rallied around our President- Democrats and Republicans alike. Several years later we learned the truth about some of those policies which did deserve the bipartisan criticism they received. In today’s hyper partisan world the blame is going everywhere and everyone has an opinion- many of them attacking President Obama openly. What happened to getting behind the President and showing our patriotism?

We need to have considerate and reasonable responses to terror attacks. What they are we are still deciding and it will take a while to get it right. Maybe we won’t get it right. But, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman suggests, panic and impulsive responses will just not help:

Finally, terrorism is just one of many dangers in the world, and shouldn’t be allowed to divert our attention from other issues. Sorry, conservatives: when President Obama describes climate change as the greatest threat we face, he’s exactly right. Terrorism can’t and won’t destroy our civilization, but global warming could and might.

So what can we say about how to respond to terrorism? Before the atrocities in Paris, the West’s general response involved a mix of policing, precaution, and military action. All involved difficult tradeoffs: surveillance versus privacy, protection versus freedom of movement, denying terrorists safe havens versus the costs and dangers of waging war abroad. And it was always obvious that sometimes a terrorist attack would slip through.

Paris may have changed that calculus a bit, especially when it comes to Europe’s handling of refugees, an agonizing issue that has now gotten even more fraught. And there will have to be a post-mortem on why such an elaborate plot wasn’t spotted. But do you remember all the pronouncements that 9/11 would change everything? Well, it didn’t — and neither will this atrocity.

Je Suis Paris

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Paris profileThe past hours have been filled with the news of what has now been determined to be a terrorist attack in Paris. It is estimated that 127 people are now dead, so far anyway. Some of those injured are reported to have very serious injuries so the death toll could rise. There are really no words for this incident. The world is watching yet another attack on innocent people perpetrated by those with hate and anger in their hearts. We are all asking- why?

Predictably there are Americans who actually believe that if only French residents were allowed to carry guns in public, lives could have been saved. These delusional people have an alternate view of the world not shared by most. If someone can explain how a gun could have been used to take out guys wearing suicide vests when there is no expectation that someone will blow themselves up in seconds, then go ahead. Enlighten us. If someone can explain how a pistol in a waistband holster would save innocent citizens from men armed with AK 47s, (maybe automatic type weapons) then go ahead- enlighten us.

Tragedies like the ones that unfold every day in America and international terror attacks will not be stopped by armed citizens. I saw some tweets today from American gun extremists and a few politicians stupidly opining that if only the French had our American conceal carry laws, this attack could have been thwarted. This tweet by a Wisconsin Sheriff suggests that the Paris terror attack could be an opportunity for the Republicans to win the White House. Sheriff Clarke has made other incendiary remarks regarding gun violence. He also has strong conservative views about gun rights and is a Constitutional Sheriff. Other gun nuts are claiming that they would now carry AR 15s in their cars along with the ammunition needed to thwart a terrorist attack.

Lunacy.

Just as the false claim that armed people could have saved themselves in the January Charlie Hebdo attack was debunked by a Texas gun group who set up a mock attack, the same is true in this attack and other terror attacks. From the article:

Killed or not, some of the volunteers still seem to believe arming themselves is the right thing to do.

“Still got killed, but I did better than I thought I would do,” said Parks Matthew, one volunteer who played the role of an armed civilian to KTVT. “If I was in a movie theater and someone were to pull a gun, what am I going to do? And I know now I’m not just going to fall on my kids and protect them. I need to advance on the threat,” Matthew said.

“It’s interesting to see how people react under stress,” said Nick Leghorn, part of the group that staged the reenactment. “It’s not what you’d expect people do.”

Texas.

Sigh.

This bears repeating from the above article: “It’s not what you’d expect people do.” That is the problem with the false logic of the corporate gun lobby and gun rights extremists. They live in a world where they are the “good guys” with guns who can inevitably take down the “bad guys” with guns. They are wrong and they even proved it to themselves in their mock scene of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. But even after that, they can’t admit that they are wrong.

Lax American gun laws, promoted by the corporate gun lobby and their bought and paid for politicians, are not working to keep us safer on our own soil- 89 Americans a day die from gunshot injuries and about 32 of these are homicides.

I found this article which highlights the problem of loose guns left over from wars on the Continent becoming the weapons of choice for terrorists. Weapons of former wars become weapons of current terror attacks. But weapons of war are not available to ordinary citizens in most of Europe. Other countries don’t need our gun culture. We need theirs.

It only takes a few people armed with guns and explosives to terrorize a city or a geographic area. Let’s look at the “DC snipers” and how they held the citizens of several communities in 3 states hostage for several days in 2002 with their military style weapons, readily available in the US to just anyone. And then let’s take a look at the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai and how easy it was for terrorists armed with military style AK 47s to hold a city hostage for days. The 2013 attack at the Westgate shopping Mall in Kenya  is another example of how a group of armed terrorists- domestic or otherwise, can use weapons to terrorize a large shopping mall for days. And we shouldn’t forget the 2011 attacks by an armed extremist in Norway that shocked that country and the world with the inexplicable death toll of 77.

And I’m sure I don’t need to get into our own country’s mass shootings that are carried out by our own armed domestic terrorists.  Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Charleston, Sandy Hook, Naval Yard, Fort Hood, and numerous others have also rocked our own country and the world.

Common sense tells us that ordinary armed citizens cannot defend themselves against attacks like these or the regular mass shootings, domestic shootings and daily homicides taking place in our own country. But gun extremists are suffering under the delusion that guns are the answer. Remember the attack on a French train this past summer? Remember that it was ended by brave unarmed Americans?

We are all sad and feeling helpless this morning in the wake of the “City of Light” suffering the darkness of the worst toll of human life in France since World War ll. But then let us also remember that in 2 days time, more than 127 Americans die from gunshot injuries. Since World War ll, hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their lives to bullets. And we do nothing.

Now we are outraged and fearful. Some of us will, inexplicably, promote more guns. Most of us want fewer guns everywhere and want to find ways to stop the carnage.

There are obvious political and foreign policy debates occurring after this attack which I am not going to get into on this blog. Those need to be discussed by people with a higher pay grade than my own.

But there are other considerations as well for American and world travelers. With terror attacks occurring in tourist destinations all over the world, what will we do about travel plans? That is also on my mind as someone who has done a lot of travel to places like Paris, Spain, Turkey, Greece, Norway, Croatia, etc. where terror attacks have occurred.

Travel writer Rick Steves has made this statement on his Facebook page:

I’m sure that many Americans will cancel their trips to Paris (a city of 2 million people) or the rest of Europe (a continent of 500 million people), because of an event that killed about 150. As a result, ironically, they’ll be staying home in a country of 320 million people that loses over 30,000 people a year (close to 100 people a day) to gun violence.

Again, our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Paris, the victims, and their loved ones. And it remains my firmly held belief that the best way for Americans to fight terrorism is to keep on traveling.

And what will we do about the carnage of mass shootings and terror attacks all over the world? It will take all hands on deck to deal with the modern world’s terrorists no matter where they attack. The world is full of angry men with guns. They are shooting innocent people in movie theaters, churches, schools, military bases, on our streets, in tourist destinations, in cafes and music venues, shopping malls and other public places all over the world. We can’t stop living our lives out of the fear that comes with these attacks. But we can demand that our leaders keep us safe from the carnage.

Vigilance, better and stronger policies, thoughtful and serious discussion, responsible solutions and whatever else it takes is what is needed now. We are outraged by the continued death and destruction caused by armed people all over the world every day. #Enough.