Congress and guns

Abrogation of duty

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Card File with Inscription High Priority.Our priorities are all screwed up. I could use another word here because that is how I really feel.

It turns out that the Department of Defense has been abrogating their duty when it comes to sending the names of military members who have become prohibited gun purchasers to the FBI’s instant check system. And Congress has been sitting on their butts doing nothing about the increase in gun deaths in America. So 3 cities decided to take matters into their own hands by suing the Department of Defense. That seems to be the way things get done in this country. Rather than doing what makes common sense our leaders are waiting for an order from on high ( NRA and Wayne LaPierre) before they can do the right thing for public health and safety.

From the article:

New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia said in court papers that the military’s broken system for relaying such information helped spur the massacre of 26 people inside a Texas church last month.

“This failure on behalf of the Department of Defense has led to the loss of innocent lives by putting guns in the hands of criminals and those who wish to cause immeasurable harm,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “New York City is joining Philadelphia and San Francisco to stand up to the Department of Defense and demand they comply with the law and repair their drastically flawed system.” (…)

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Alexandria, Va., seeks an injunction and judicial oversight to ensure ongoing compliance with the Defense Department’s obligation to submit records.(…)

Earlier this month, the Pentagon’s watchdog agency said it found a “troubling” number of failures this year by the military services to alert the FBI to criminal history information. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered a review of the FBI database.

Troubling? Tragic.

There is no reason why insisting that the military branches send these records to the database so people can be denied gun purchases should be a problem. It would only be enacting laws already on the books. This is not an issue of the second amendment or gun rights. Yet, somehow it feels like it might be. It really is past time to do what’s right for the American people. 26 people were killed in Sutherland, Texas while attending church one day in early November. If the military had followed the rules and sent the criminal records of the shooter to the FBI database, it is likely the shooting would not have happened. But then again, there is that gap in the law that would have allowed the shooter to go to a gun show or on-line site to buy guns with no Brady background check. But we can’t go there.

If we don’t go there, we can expect the carnage to continue. If one of your family members or friends had been shot by someone who could have been stopped, you would be pretty angry. Congress should be angry. Are they? There is no evidence that they are. Mass shooting after mass shooting continue unabated with no action from our leaders. it is an American tragedy and a refusal of Congress to keep us safe from harm. Where does it say anywhere that people have a right to shoot other people with no reason? I haven’t seen that anywhere.

And can someone please tell me why the totally reasonable common sense legislation to ban bump stocks after the Las Vegas shooting didn’t go anywhere?

Only Congress can explain this. Please ask them to do so.

More than troubling. Total abrogation of a duty to keep us safe from harm.

Shameful.

There have been 340 mass shootings this year according to the Gun Violence Archive, unless another few occur in the next few days.

Where does this stop?

Remember the dangerous “default proceed” written into the FBI system when the Brady Law was enacted? The victims and survivors of the Charleston church shooting do. This is another abrogation of our duty to protect people from harm.

Thanks NRA.

The NRA tried to excuse this loophole by claiming it was a “safety valve”. For whom? This is beyond crazy ( see below).

Every day shooting after every day shooting continue unabated. Even on Christmas. This Arizona woman is now dead as are both of her children thanks to her ex-husband and a gun he obtained.:

A 38-year old woman and her two children were killed and a police officer was injured in Christmas Day shootings at a Phoenix apartment complex.

Anthony Milan Ross, 45, the woman’s estranged spouse and the father of the children, was taken into custody shortly after 10 p.m. Monday after exchanging fire with officers after a six-hour standoff, Phoenix police said Tuesday. Ross did not appear to be injured.

Happy Christmas.

What a nice way to spend Christmas for the neighbors of the woman as they waited for the end of the stand-off:

“It’s beyond crazy,” resident Gibson Daoud said. “It’s as sh–ty as it can get on Christmas Day.”

For hours, residents and visitors inside the complex were not allowed to leave and those waiting to return to their homes were not allowed in.

Power was cut to the complex about 7:30 p.m., and residents near the gunman’s apartment were escorted out by police SWAT team members.

Yes, “it’s beyond crazy.” Every day we let this happen is beyond crazy.
Our gun culture is beyond crazy. Thank you to Women Against Gun Violence Facebook page for this information:
more guns than cars
It doesn’t have to be this way. But this is the gun culture we have. There is no question that we can make simple and even difficult changes if we really care more about saving lives than making profits off of the sale of guns. Remember that guns are the only product designed to kill people and also the only product not regulated for safety by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The way things are going in America, that will likely change as the Trump administration de-regulates everything.
There are regulations for a reason. Our public health and safety should be at the top of the list of responsibilities for our leaders. Excuse me for being cynical that this is the case. The very least we can do is to follow the laws on the books to save a few lives here and there. If that life is someone you know or love, that would be of the utmost importance to you.
2018 is around the corner. If there is any logic at all, we should make a pledge to work together to save lives and reduce and prevent gun violence. Demand that our Congress members get a spine and stand up for what is right. Preventing the public health epidemic of gun violence should be a top priority for our leaders. If it is not, they should be looking for a new line of work.

Forced changes to gun laws

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forcingThe NRA and it’s minions accuse the side of gun violence prevention or gun control, as it is often called, of trying to force changes to gun laws that people don’t want and that would affect law abiding gun owners. Claims include gun registration somehow hidden in “gun control” laws, mostly laws that would require Brady background checks on all gun sales. How that would work is a mystery to me. Currently, and as long as the Brady law has been in effect requiring Federally Licensed Firearms Dealers (FFLs) to perform background checks on sales in their establishments. there has been no gun registration.

But to require private unlicensed sellers to do background checks on the very same people who often go to FFLs for their guns suddenly becomes gun registration. It isn’t true of course but facts don’t seem to matter to the gun lobby. Fear and paranoia are what sell guns and ammunition. And how this would affect law abiding citizens’ rights to own a gun is beyond me. The protests about this don’t fit the problem or the solution to the problem.

But further, as the claims go, following registration, confiscation is inevitable. Such nonsense is not to be believed. It just makes no common sense but never mind. I would remind everyone that this worked pretty well during the Obama administration and the 2016 election when the NRA, an arm of the Republican party, ramped up the fear of gun confiscation, driving sales of guns and ammunition.

Follow the money.

Can one say that forcing everyone to undergo a background check to acquire a deadly weapon is unlawful or would affect law abiding citizens rights? No, but never mind the facts.

We have laws for a reason. They are mostly to protect people from harm. And that is one of Congress’s main missions.

So this past week when H.R. 38, Concealed Carry Reciprocity or “arm anyone” passed in the U.S. House, there was no talk of just enforcing the laws already on the books or doing something harmful to law abiding gun owners. Maybe that is because this law, if passed in the Senate and signed by an eager NRA supported President, would supercede the laws of many states. Currently 12 states require no training or permits for people to carry guns. So anyone can carry regardless of their status. That is because, anyone, including presumably felons, domestic abusers, those who have been adjudicated mentally ill and others don’t need to get a background check from local law enforcement to carry a loaded gun around in public. And further, these same dangerous people, if living in a state that does not require universal background checks can buy a gun(s) with no background check from a private seller on-line or at a gun show. 1 in 5 guns are sold without background checks.

This is a double whammy for innocent people living in places where stricter laws preclude these folks from buying and carrying.

I don’t have to remind my readers that in the last year and a half two of the nation’s worst mass shootings have taken the lives of dozens of Americans. And in the last few months two mass shootings have killed many innocent Americans. In light of this fact, one would think that our Congress would consider strengthening our gun laws to prevent these from happening. For some of them could have been prevented with stronger regulations or following the laws we already have.

But one would be wrong. In light of that, Congress went ahead with its’ adherence to folly and lunacy by loosening gun laws. This week, the 5th anniversary of the heinous massacre of 20 first graders and 6 educators will occur. There will be hundreds of vigils around the country to mark that anniversary.

What are we doing? Continuing to allow the shootings to happen unabated and shrugging as if it’s inevitable.

95% of Americans agree to universal background checks. Who are these people representing anyway?

We know the answer.

We only need to google news stories to find the truth.  As just one recent sampling of the news stories I found that , these yahoos- “law abiding” gun owners, had gunfights on the streets of Texas over road rage. There were 3 incidents of this in a few days. One assumes it was legal for the perpetrators to carry but if H.R. 38 becomes the law of the land, that won’t make one whit of difference. We won’t know. Anything goes.  Check it out:

Investigators said two men involved in a crash on Westheimer and South Kirkwood fired on one another, sending bystanders-including Erica-scrambling to take cover.

A woman nearby was grazed in the ear and taken to a west Houston medical center for treatment, while one of the shooting suspects was transported by Ben Taub Hospital.

All these incidents highlight a need for everyone to be prepared for the unexpected and to keep your eyes open.

That highlighted paragraph is from the last shooting mentioned. Two men squared off with their guns, presumably legal gun carriers, endangering bystanders, pedestrians, car passengers and law enforcement.

“…be prepared for the unexpected…”

Why should the majority of us who don’t carry guns and don’t want them where we live, work, drive, play and learn, have to be prepared for lunatics with guns around? One woman died and one was grazed with a bullet in these incidents. The other one frightened a young mother who was driving with her 3 year old when a man pointed a gun at her.

There are no excuses for this but our Congress excuses it all by hiding behind the “rights” thing. Or what exactly do they think? Or are they thinking at all? This is just about paying the gun lobby back for their contributions in their elections. Or maybe they actually believe that we will all be safer with more loaded guns around everywhere. If that is the case, the truth and facts prove them wrong.

If one of their own was involved in one of these incidents, would they think differently? Oh right. One or two of their own have been shot and seriously injured. Of those, one- Gabby Giffords- is working hard to prevent shootings. The other, Steve Scalise, is still, inexplicably, in the pocket of the gun lobby.

The shooter of Scalise “escaped the system”. This happens far too often in America leading to avoidable, senseless gun deaths and serious injuries. We can’t allow anyone to escape the system. We are talking here about people who shouldn’t have deadly weapons having them anyway. This is not acceptable or normal. Innocent lives are shattered by a system made to protect gun rights under cover of the second amendment rather than to protect citizens from harm. Our Congress has a duty to protect the citizens from harm. They have failed to protect us. They have failed to protect their own.

Gabby Giffords’ shooter is the very person who would be allowed to carry his gun into another state legally if H.R. 38 passes through the Senate. Arizona is a permitless carry state. No permits required. Therefore no background check by law enforcement when applying for a permit to keep someone from carrying who shouldn’t. It’s optional to get a permit. One can’t assume that the gun carrier went through a background check to buy that carried gun.

It’s not optional to get a driver’s license in any state. If you drive a car, you have to have a license. If you buy a car, it has to be registered. There are reasons for that. Gun permits are not like driver’s licenses. If they were, we would call it gun licensing which the gun lobby hates. There are similar requirements, state to state, for getting a driver’s license. That is what allows states to be confident that someone from Texas driving in Arkansas has gone through a permit and driver’s test to get a license to drive and is legal to drive. The same is not true of gun permits. From the above linked article:

States honor one another’s driver’s licenses under a voluntary agreement. There’s no federal mandate. States also have fairly uniform requirements for issuing driver’s licenses. If you’re renting a car to someone with a New York license who is visiting Texas, you can be pretty confident the New Yorker has passed a road test. Guns are different. At least 26 states will issue a gun permit to someone without requiring that person to ever actually shoot a gun.

And, of course, we must talk about the hypocrisy (sometimes on both sides) in the argument about states’ rights, commonly used by conservatives. In this case, states’ rights to pass their own gun laws would be trampled by the bill under consideration.

And finally this incident just came across my emails. A young man who had an open arrest for a murder was, thankfully, rejected for a gun purchase at a Walmart store. Luckily for everyone, Walmart did their lawful duty and took the time needed to stop this man from getting a gun legally:

Laura Cutilletta, the legal director of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said Beardsley offers a sharp example of why the new definition poses a danger to the public.

“Somebody who’s wanted for a crime is not someone who should have a gun,” she said, “Not only have they broken the law, but they have evaded the law.”

U.S. Marshals picked up Beardsley for murder on Nov. 14,  just as the three-day waiting period was running out, sources close to the case said. He did not have a gun, according to a Marshals spokesman.

But our very own Justice Department has inexplicably loosened our laws so that FFLs don’t have to reject a gun purchase if there is an open arrest. Why? Good question. And these could be the kind of people who could carry a gun around in public places.

No one ever said politics was easy or uncomplicated but the issue of gun rights seems particularly fraught with controversy and inconsistency.

And finally, regarding “everyday” shootings, there was another school shooting- in New Mexico. The shooter was known to the FBI for having threatened a mass shooting but they closed the case because he didn’t have a gun at the time.  Two are dead as a result of another case of not paying attention and flagging dangerous people like this guy- because rights. When gun rights supercede common sense, this happens over and over and over again.

This is not an either/or all or none situation. Gun rights have co-existed with reasonable gun laws and can continue to do so. Making strong laws is for the good of us all. The fact that we can’t come together about this is tragic and deadly.

We all deserve better than this. These things are not inevitable and they are not normal. We are shirking our responsibilities as Americans to keep our communities and families safe from gun violence.

What is the N.R.A. doing?

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mafiaAs the Russian investigation by Congress and the special counsel Robert Mueller continue, we are learning about the extent of the influence of the Russians into corners we did not necessarily expect. But we shouldn’t be surprised at anything. Ever since Trump was elected it’s been a surprise a day and daily chaos and dysfunction, if not corruption.

Is that by design, incompetence, craziness or whatever other word has been used to describe what is going on? Kleptocracy has been mentioned as a cause for this American travesty. It’s so hard to determine what is going on but things are coming into closer focus.

It’s becoming more difficult to discern the difference between the NRA and the Republican party of late. What exists today is not your father’s or grandfather’s NRA. Back in the day, the NRA was a sportsmen’s organization, supporting hunting and shooting sports and training people ( and kids) how to properly handle their guns and be safe with them while hunting and shooting for sport.

Today? Not so much. A hostile take-over of the organization occurred in 1977 and it hasn’t been the same since.

After the corporate gun lobby managed to get laws passed to allow just about anyone to carry guns in most of our states, the NRA stood to make some money by offering classes to instruct prospective permit holders how to safely carry loaded guns in public and about the laws in a particular state. (You can even get a free gun on this site if you sign up).

Sigh.

One wonders, as an aside, what will happen if the NRA and the corporate gun lobby gets HR 38 ( Concealed Carry Reciprocity) or “arm anyone” bill passed into law? Why? Because 13 states don’t even require any hours of training before allowing someone to pack heat in public places and 3 have some version of the idea of “constitutional carry”. What will happen to the NRA revenue stream if classes are not required? They can hope that the bill to allow the legalization of gun silencers passes ( which by all rights it should not after the Las Vegas shooting) so a new source of revenue will open up.

That bill, too, is the clever theft of language to change something into something it isn’t. You just have to love that the bill is named the “Hearing Protection Act“.  The bill was included in a House Natural Resources Committee bill called the SHARE Act. Seriously- what do gun silencers have to do with natural resources? Another theft and co-opting of language. The goal is to remove gun silencers from the National Firearms Act which was passed for good reason after the mafia used gun silencers and machine guns to silence their enemies.

We get it. If we allow silencers ( and then possibly machine guns) to be sold like every other firearms instead of the now very strict regulations,  the consequences will be dangerous. Because of that law, it is extremely rare but not unheard of for them to be used in crimes. 

Back to “constitutional carry”. This is the stealing of a right ( second amendment) as written in our Constitution to make it into something it was not intended for. Tricky but we get it. It is the theft of the right to be safe and to make sure those who carry loaded guns are at the least, minimally trained to carry that deadly weapon.

You would think this is only common sense. But you would be wrong.

What about bump stocks? They are still being sold. Will Congress pass a law requiring at the least, a Brady background check before purchasing? Or will they be outlawed all together after the Las Vegas shooting?

This is insanity and more mass shootings waiting to happen.

The NRA has become an arm of the Republican party. That is pretty well known. But in the last few days we have discovered that a prominent member of their organization helped arrange a meeting between a Trump campaign leader and a Russian for the alleged purpose of helping Trump get elected.

This is like a spy novel. The intrigue is fascinating. Now we know what we have suspected. The NRA is an extremist organization and not in existence to just support shooting and hunting sports. They are a lobbying organization with a lot of power, control and influence in Congress and on our sitting President. This is dangerous.

As shooting deaths rise and lapdog politicians work to help the NRA and others in the corporate gun lobby with profits and more influence, we are becoming less and less safe from gun violence. I say this is an untenable situation.

Sigh.

Let’s take a look at the above linked article about Russian influence in the 2016 election:

 A conservative operative trumpeting his close ties to the National Rifle Association and Russia told a Trump campaign adviser last year that he could arrange a back-channel meeting between Donald J. Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, according to an email sent to the Trump campaign.

A May 2016 email to the campaign adviser, Rick Dearborn, bore the subject line “Kremlin Connection.” In it, the N.R.A. member said he wanted the advice of Mr. Dearborn and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, then a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump and Mr. Dearborn’s longtime boss, about how to proceed in connecting the two leaders.

Russia, he wrote, was “quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S.” and would attempt to use the N.R.A.’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., to make “ ‘first contact.’ ” The email, which was among a trove of campaign-related documents turned over to investigators on Capitol Hill, was described in detail to The New York Times. (…)

The emailed outreach from the conservative operative to Mr. Dearborn came far earlier, around the same time that Russians were trying to make other connections to the Trump campaign. Another contact came through an American advocate for Christian and veterans causes, and together, the outreach shows how, as Mr. Trump closed in on the nomination, Russians were using three foundational pillars of the Republican Party — guns, veterans and Christian conservatives — to try to make contact with his unorthodox campaign.

You really can’t make this stuff up.

The hypocritical calling for Hillary Clinton to reveal her ” acid washed” emails or lock her up is coming back to bite the Republicans and their supporters.

There are really no coincidences here. More from the article:

Indeed, evidence does appear to show deep ties between Mr. Erickson, the N.R.A. and the Russian gun rights community that were formed in the years when many American conservatives, put off by the Obama administration’s policies, were increasingly looking to Mr. Putin as an example of a strong leader opposing immigration, terrorism and gay rights.

The N.R.A. was one of Mr. Trump’s biggest backers during the campaign, spending tens of millions of dollars to help elect him.

Follow the money. Follow the influential lobbyists and you will get to the bottom of the mystery. For it’s nothing short of a mystery as to what is going on today. There is no common sense in any of this intrigue. There is danger. There is collusion. There is corruption. There is trouble.

If this is what we have become, God help us. We are no longer a democracy.

Guns should not be influencing national elections or our local or state elections. No Mr. Wayne LaPierre, the guys with the guns should not be making the rules. This is insanity itself and we must #resist.

Arm anyone

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armed manWhile important things are going on in Congress concerning national security, raising taxes on the middle class, a President re-tweeting a white supremacist UK site with fake videos about muslims attacking others, they found time to mark up a bill to allow anyone to carry loaded guns in public.

You can’t make this stuff up. But in today’s political atmosphere, absolutely everything is turned inside out and left is right, up is down. You would be right if you think this is lunacy.

There is no reason for HR 38 to become law except that the corporate gun lobby wants it and their lapdog politicians are all too willing to bow down and acquiesce. The bill is stupid and dangerous. The Law Enforcement Partnership To Prevent Gun Violence is against it:

The complete lack of consistent training standards, the different standards for identifying individuals that are too dangerous to carry, the uncertainty of a document’s validity, and the exposure of agencies and police officers to civil liability create unacceptable risks to our nation’s 900,000 police officers and the public at large. We reject the idea that one state’s approach to carrying a concealed firearm will work across the country. States and localities should maintain their rights to legislate concealed carry laws that best meet the needs of their citizens. The National Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence urges you to respect and defend state laws while protecting and supporting our nation’s police officers by opposing H.R. 38 and S. 446. Thank you for your support.

Most Americans are against it.

But never mind the majority.

It should be noted that the corporate gun lobby ( NRA, etc,) want this to happen soon just in case the Republicans lose their power. And after the news of the past few days, that may happen sooner rather than later. So many incidents, tweets, statements and policies are making America dangerous again. The gun death rate has increased over the past few years so now over 100 Americans a day die from gunshot injuries. This is due to more guns everywhere. More guns are making us less safe. There are more guns on our streets thanks to stolen guns, trafficking, purchasing without background checks and straw purchasing. I wrote about recent reports of stolen guns in my last post.

Facts matter. We have a President who lies to us every day- sometimes several times a day. The gun lobby is lying to us as well. And the very sad and tragic thing is that many in Congress believe it. Apparently 2 of the nation’s worst mass shootings occurring in the last few months does not faze them. They don’t seem to care about victims.

Where is common sense?

Let’s take a look at H.R. 38 for a minute. You can watch the hearing on the bill here. During the hearing, Congressman Bob Goodlatte, chair of the House Judiciary Committee unbelievably said that people with violent misdemeanors are “law abiding”. This means that those folks, though not felons and technically not prohibited purchasers should be allowed to carry loaded guns in public.

After 6 hours of discussion, the hearing ended with the committee voting in favor of the bill on a party line vote. In spite of any common sense arguments about public safety being at risk, the NRA bought and paid for politicians voted for yet another dangerous bill.

Now tell me that allowing people with no permit or training to carry guns wherever they want to is a great idea. One of the arguments from the gun lobby is that people don’t need permits to carry because, they say, you have to pass a background check to get the gun you will be carrying around with you loaded in public. That is totally false. We know that crime guns come from many places- one is from private sales on-line or at gun shows. Others come from stealing guns and some from straw purchases. Some of these aforementioned guns are trafficked. It’s easy to get a gun with no background check.

Concealed carry permit holders actually do kill people as this site from the Violence Policy Center shows clearly. Since 2007 when the VPC started keeping track, 1119 people have been killed by permit holders and 31 mass shootings have been committed by gun permit holders. That should be reason enough to kill this bill.

So now, if Congress passes the Concealed Carry Reciprocity bill, people with violent misdemeanors, those adjudicated mentally ill, domestic abusers and others who shouldn’t have guns in the first place can carry where you are.

We can expect an assault on public safety and we definitely will not be a safer nation.

What in the world are they thinking? Not about public health and safety.

Follow the money and power for the answer.

It’s not too late to contact your Representative and Senators to oppose this craziness. Please make some calls in the name of the victims of gun violence.

We are better than this.

 

Constant carnage

commongunsense, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

PrintI must give credit to my friend Kandi for this phrase. She messaged me about a toddler shot and injured in St. Cloud, Minnesota. What the heck? A toddler. But yes, constant carnage and it’s just another day.

From the article:

 

Through investigation, police say it appears the shooting was accidental due to negligent storage of a firearm. Authorities said they believe the child accidentally shot himself with a loaded firearm that was within his reach. The boy is still hospitalized in stable condition.

Every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult. This adult had a felony conviction on his record. He can’t own guns legally. But he had one anyway and allowed access to it by his toddler child.

Just another day in America.

Where is common sense?

Toddlers cannot be responsible enough to handle guns, period. (see story above) In my neighboring state of Wisconsin ( I can see it from my windows) toddlers can now hunt. What could possibly go wrong?

In Northern California, a gunman shot up people at 7 crime scenes, ending at an elementary school, where he injured 2 children. At the end of this spree ( mass) shooting, 5 were dead and 10 injured. It barely made the news. Why? Maybe because only 4 died?

From the article:

“I really don’t know what his motive was,” Mr. Johnston said. “I think he was just on a rampage. I think he had a desire to kill as many people as he could.” (…)

Mr. Johnston said that investigators had reviewed video from the school’s security system that showed the gunman walking the hallways and entering a restroom, but appearing to get frustrated that the classroom doors were locked.

The school went on lockdown at the sound of gunfire, Mr. Johnston said.

“We would have had a horrific blood bath in that school if that school hadn’t taken the action when they did,” he said.

The alarming thing here is that the man manufactured his own assault weapons at home. How? Here’s how:

The AK-47, perhaps the world’s best-known gun, is so easy to make and so hard to break that the Soviet-designed original has spawned countless variants, updated and modified versions churned out by factories all over the globe. Although US customs laws ban importing the weapons, parts kits—which include most original components of a Kalashnikov variant—are legal. So is reassembling them, as long as no more than 10 foreign-made components are used and they are mounted on a new receiver, the box-shaped central frame that holds the gun’s key mechanics. There are no fussy irritations like, say, passing a background check to buy a kit. And because we’re assembling the guns for our own “personal use,” whatever that may entail, we’re not required to stamp in serial numbers. These rifles are totally untraceable, and even under California’s stringent assault weapons ban, that’s perfectly within the law.

This is lunacy. Time to pass laws to make this illegal.

The shooting in California started with a shooting of the man’s wife. Too often mass shootings are the result of domestic violence that lead to anger and the shooter takes it out on innocent Americans.

And to make matters even more ridiculous, our very own President tweeted condolences to the wrong community after the shooting in California. Either there are so many mass shootings of late that he can’t keep track of them or he is being his usual uninformed and hopelessly unprepared for his job. From the article:

Mr. Trump’s Twitter response, which has since been deleted from his account but is timestamped at 11:34 p.m. on November 14, mentioned another mass shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which occurred on November 5, killing 26 people and injuring 20 more.

“May God be with the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI and Law Enforcement has arrived,” Mr. Trump wrote in the tweet, offering thoughts and prayers to the wrong town.

dorsybtvwaayaif.jpg

I thought that his tweets were part of the official Presidential record. Can he delete these lies and misinformation? That is a huge problem right now. The misinformation about shootings and gun policy are ubiquitous in the public sphere. Just take for example the usual talking point from the far right extremists that since California is a liberal state with strong gun laws, how does a shooting like this happen? Remember that the shooter made his own guns. And further, many of the guns used in crimes in California come from other states where gun laws are much weaker. In spite of that, California’s gun death rate is lower than in most other states.

But never mind the facts. And these are the folks, and the President, who love to accuse others of #fakenews. The hypocrisy is hard to stomach.

We have passed laws to keep guns away from domestic abusers but there are ways to get around it and there are too many loopholes that allow these angry folks to buy ( or manufacture) guns anyway. Too often someone in their lives know that they are potentially dangerous with guns. We could pass Gun Violence Protection Orders to make it harder for them to have guns. Will we?

We could save lives and prevent shootings.

On the political front, we will have 2 new Democratic governors who spoke openly about their support for gun violence prevention measures. And they won- not by a small margin. Talking about guns works. The public found that issue to be one of their top issues. Finally.

No need to be afraid to talk about gun violence. How can it be avoided when the constant carnage is killing so many people that soon enough all of us will know someone who has been shot.

We can actually do something about all of this. The public does understand that which is why they voted for candidates who spoke out about solutions. As a public health issue, gun violence needs a cure. The American Medical Association is becoming more concerned about deaths and injuries due to gunshots as well they should. In a new article, the Journal of the American Medical Association writes that physicians should treat gun violence like a public health problem and look for the cause of it like in other illnesses:

Guns kill people. More background checks; more hotel, school, and venue security; more restrictions on the number and types of guns that individuals can own; and development of “smart guns” may help decrease firearm violence. But the key to reducing firearm deaths in the United States is to understand and reduce exposure to the cause, just like in any epidemic, and in this case that is guns.

The constant gushing of gun deaths has hollowed out a huge hole in America. Every day, toddlers shot with a gun found in the home. Every day, women killed by abusers. Every day, guns used in suicides. Every day, every day, every day, every day………..

This column by conservative columnist David Frum opines on actions taken in America after all of the mass shootings. It is not what you would think is common sense:

So it’s not at all true that “nothing changes.” In fact, a remarkable research paper published in 2016 by Harvard’s Michael Luca, Deepak Malhotra, and Christopher Poliquin found that between 1989 and 2014, the most probable policy response to a mass shooting was a loosening of gun laws. (…)

This may explain why gun advocates insist that the immediate aftermath of a spectacular massacre is “too soon” for the gun discussion. They want the pain and grief and fear to ebb. They want ordinary citizens to look away. Then, when things are quiet, the gun advocates will go to work, to bring more guns to places where alcohol is served, where children are cared for, where students are taught, where God is worshipped. More killings bring more guns. More guns do more killing. It’s a cycle the nation has endured for a long time, and there is little reason to hope that the atrocity in Las Vegas will check or reverse it.

Ordinary citizens cannot look away. They must be noisy and insistent that our gun laws are strengthened, not loosened.

This is a moment in time that can make a difference. The constant carnage is digging a deep hole in our collective memories and day to day lives. Stay constant in the demands to act to prevent gun deaths and injuries.

And to our elected leaders, we must demand that they represent the vast majority of Americans ( almost 100%!) who support requiring Brady background checks on all gun sales and strongly support many other common sense measures to end the carnage. This Quinnipiac poll is stunning in that it reveals the truth about how our leaders have failed us:

That marks the highest level of support since Quinnipiac first asked the question in February 2013 in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead.

Let’s get to work and do what almost all Americans know is the right thing to do.

The corporate gun lobby should not be calling the “shots”.

As I write this,  Senators Chris Murphy and John Cornyn are working on a bill that would fix some of the problems in our background check system that allowed the shooter at the Texas church to get a gun he shouldn’t have had. I’m all for it.It’s a fix around the margins but it’s a fix. It’s so interesting that when a shooting happens in a Senator’s state, he/she is under pressure to act ( Senator John Cornyn). Wouldn’t it be great if all Senators wanted to act whether the shooting happened in their state or another of our 50 states because they do, of course.

The constant carnage is killing us.

Las Vegas costs

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Costs - Puzzle with Missing Piece through Loupe.Las Vegas is known for its’ casinos, hotels and restaurants where people go to ( hopefully) make some money and spend some money on shows featuring singers and other stars.

It is also now known for the cost of loose gun laws, bump fire stocks and lasting emotional, physical and health care costs for the victims and survivors of the nation’s deadliest mass shooting. The dead have been buried, leaving families with the actual financial cost of a funeral. And now the families and friends are spending their time and energy wondering why this happened to their loved one and how they will spend the rest of their lives without that person.

The sounds of weeping.

The survivors are traumatized and many will need counseling. They can’t get the scene out of their heads- the noise of the gunfire- the noise of the screaming- the noise of the dead and injured- the noise of people running for their lives-the noise of the sirens. And some will face astronomical financial costs as long as they live.

We all pay.

Thanks to the corporate gun lobby and the lack of courage of many in Congress, the carnage continues every day and Americans pay billions every year to cover the costs of the shootings.

But I digress.

In this article there is a video where the sounds of screaming and the rapid fire of the gun are heard. It was frightening.

The sound of Congress doing something about changing gun laws after the massacre?

Silence.

The sound of the media 4 weeks out- silence.

We have already forgotten the Las Vegas shooting.

This is an American tragedy.

The victims and survivors have not forgotten. Time will tell if their voices will join the thousands of others who have experienced the loss of a loved one or friend, the injuries from bullets or the trauma of being at the scene of the shooting.

This is the cost of not doing anything about gun violence in America.

Listen to the “Sounds of Silence.”

We will not be silent.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut along with Connecticut Senator Blumenthal and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin made some noise this week by introducing yet another bill to extend Brady background checks to all gun sales.

It appears that Congress will be silent on banning bump stocks even though they made some noise about it.

It is inexcusable that we have allowed them to get away with ignoring their responsibilities for protecting the public against insanely loose gun laws and allowing just about anyone to purchase just about any gun or accessory they want because they are cowards.

There will be a cost for this abrogation of responsibilities.

Congress members should pay with their seats. The rest of us are paying with our lives and the loss of loved ones.

There is no common sense.

Let Congress members visit this woman whose life is forever changed by the shooting as she sits in her wheelchair in therapy knowing she will likely never walk again. Let them hear her story. Let them understand that our healthcare system is broken and will not pay for this woman’s care for the rest of her life.

Would they be silent if this were one of their own?

Would they pay what it takes to prevent shootings in America?

The victims went to a concert the night of October 1st. They were not silent that night until after the bullets started flying and the carnage began. They had to do things they never thought possible( article from National Public Radio):

SIEGEL: First, had you experienced anything like this, and did you sense your training kicking in at all during the – during this?

LACY: I’ve never experienced anything at this magnitude. I’ve seen a lot in 20 years in Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Panama, Turkey but nothing like this where you’re supposed to be out having a good time and you don’t expect something like this to happen. My training kicked in immediately, and I bolted and looked towards the – where the shots were being fired from. And then I started trying to assess the wounded and trying to get people out of the area so we could take care of those that needed help and get those others that could move out of the area so they were not – no longer in harm’s way.

The man was in the military and said this to the interviewer:

LACY: You know, if you want to describe what war is, I guess this is what looks like war but on a civilian scale. These people didn’t deserve it. And I’m just glad that there were true Americans that stayed behind and helped those that were wounded and helped the individuals that were deceased.

It was worse than war- on a civilian scale, as he said.

This woman came close to death. She describes the scene– listen to her, Congress members. Or can’t you bear the thought of the blood and carnage? Her family talks of how much this will cost and whether they will be able to afford the cost. Loss of work, loss of mobility, loss of functioning in everyday life, loss of freedom, loss of security. From the article:

At the hospital, people were lined up along the wall. “Just so many people, just stacked, and blood—just tons and tons of blood,” Sheppard said. She was lying on a gurney next to a girl who had been shot multiple times in the leg. “I was breathing really hard, and I was like, screaming and making noise, and I was really, really, really, really, really, really struggling.” She hollered that she was going to throw up, was given a bucket, and began vomiting blood. An X-ray machine was brought into the room. She heard someone say, “Surgery, immediately.” Her last memory before she woke up, five days later, is of a doctor—no one at the hospital knows who it was—grabbing her face with both hands, looking in her eyes, and telling her, “You’re gonna fucking make it. You’re gonna fucking do this.”

One of the misperceptions that accompanies a mass shooting is that those affected are divided into the victims, who are killed, and the survivors, who live. The news cycle moves on—as it already has, a month later—and the collective notion, insofar as anyone who wasn’t there or didn’t lose a loved one thinks about it, is that those who survived are in the process of moving on, too. But, for those who were injured, existence is transformed.

“…and I was, like, screaming and making noise….”

The silence of Congress is deafening.

Whose rights come first? The right for anyone to own and carry any gun wherever they want and to shoot innocent people? Or the right to live free from gun violence in our communities?

I know my answer. Congress is silent.

 

And it continues unabated

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spinning.jpgAs Congress and the country turn to the trivialities of our current President’s insanity over soldiers shot and killed in Niger, the shootings right here at home go on and on and on and on……

4 were injured at a Minneapolis bus stop.

Another mass shooting, this time in Maryland, took the lives of 3 and injured another 3. 

The shooter was heading towards a school when he was caught.

Yawn.

Sigh.

Just another few days in America. The death toll mounts. We do nothing. The President creates chaos about virtually everything. Congress fails to act on anything.

Remember the Las Vegas mass massacre?

We have moved on. Now to the Opioid death epidemic. Let’s do something about the deaths from opioids that are decimating our communities. Let’s set up a task force.

But Guns?

Crickets.

The families and friends of the worst mass shooting in American history have not moved on. They have just buried their loved ones. Children are missing their parents. Parents are missing their children. Siblings are grieving for their siblings.

There is a deep hole in the hearts of Americans all over the country.

Congress is at the bottom of that deep dark hole that is called avoiding action on something they could do something about. But they can’t do anything about a President run amok acting more crazy every day.

If the President tweeted about solutions to gun violence like he attacks anyone who has the nerve to disagree with him, we would be doing something tomorrow.

Alas, that will never happen.

Congress is at fault. Congress sits by and watches our country go deeper and deeper into some place we do not recognize any more.

We have huge problems that are sitting right in front of us every day. No action. No words. No nothing.

We are going around and around and around and around and getting nothing done on anything. Not health care. Not national security. Not gun violence. Not diplomacy. Not the economy. Nothing.

The free press is under attack. We do nothing.

Today and tomorrow and the day after that, about 90 Americans will die each day from gunshot injuries. That many or more will die from the opioid epidemic. Soldiers are dying. People will lose their health care. People still live in poverty. Kids and teens will shoot themselves or someone else with a gun left unsecured.

We can do something but we don’t.

One bit of good news is that the Brady Center’s ASK campaign has been found to be the most effective campaign for awareness of safe storage of guns.

So let’s talk about the risks of guns in homes. Let’s talk about simple things that can be done to save lives. Congress refuses to act. We can act.

Where is common sense?

 

 

Not even bump fire stocks?

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spinelessReally Paul Ryan? Not even bump fire stocks?

Halloween is approaching and our Congress is scared and scary in more ways than one. Our leaders are failing us in more ways than one. Our leaders claim that care about Americans. If they actually did, they would grow a spine and stand tall for the majority and do it proudly and feel good about it.

They are lapdogs for the NRA and other special interests.

The cynical and evil leadership of the NRA suggested that they may be able to support a ban on bump fire stocks. NOT. Not even that very small measure will pass muster with this group of disingenuous group of guys who represent the industry that sells these things.

So where are we? We are where we are after every one of the nation’s mass shootings. Lapdog and weak politicians with no backbone are afraid to do what they know is right. Because…..rights.

Rights? Where are the rights of Americans to be safe when going to concerts, shopping at malls, going to college classes, sitting at work or school, having a drink at a nightclub or at a military base? They don’t count. Death is not their concern. If it was one of their own though, they would care. 

The gun issue is not untouchable. We will make it touchable. We will demand answers and demand solutions. Politicians will have to address it. They will not be left to avoid it any more. Some are already changing their tune:

Another Democrat who had once been in the NRA’s favor, Rep. Tim Walz (Minn.), also donated a sum matching his past NRA contributions this week. Walz, who is running for governor and was under pressure from a Democratic primary opponent, sent $18,000 to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, a nonprofit group that helps the families of service members who are killed or severely wounded.

“I’m doing what I can to get past the political attacks and back to addressing this problem,” Walz said, who also held an “A” rating.

They want to be elected and perhaps they are finally waking up to the common sense of the American voters. I have personally spoken with Rep. Tim Walz who is the only Democratic candidate for Governor with an A rating from the NRA. That is poison for him. We need to make it poison for all candidates. Gun violence is one of the most important issues of our day. It’s a public health epidemic that we are ignoring.

Speaking of NRA money, who does get the most money from the NRA anyway? Let’s take a look from the article:

Below are the top 10 career recipients of N.R.A. funding – through donations or spending to benefit the candidate – among both current House and Senate members, along with their statements about the Las Vegas massacre. These representatives have a lot to say about it. All the while, they refuse to do anything to avoid the next massacre.

Senator John McCain heads the list and had this to say about the Las Vegas shooting: ““Cindy & I are praying for the victims of the terrible #LasVegasShooting & their families.”” He has taken $7,740,251 from the NRA in his career as a Senator. It goes on from there. You get the picture.
No- your prayers and thoughts are insincere as long as you don’t have the spine to stand up for the victims and actually do something to prevent at least some shootings.
American support for stronger gun laws is at an all time high according to this latest polling after the Las Vegas shooting by Quinnipiac:
American voters say 63 – 27 percent that it’s possible to make new gun laws without interfering with gun rights. Republicans voters say 51 – 37 percent that it’s possible to make gun laws that don’t interfere with gun rights and voters in gun households agree 57 – 33 percent. “The Las Vegas massacre echoes though a survey that shows American voters want stricter gun laws and a ban on high-capacity clips and bump stocks, the device that makes a lethal weapon even more lethal,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. -m
 So Speaker Ryan and Republicans in control of our country- what say you?
Shame on them all. We need much more than a ban on bump fire stocks.
What we need is a comprehensive bill to make America safe again, including a ban on bump fire stocks, a reduction in the number of bullets in an ammunition magazine, a ban on certain types of assault rifles and the accompanying features that can be added to make them more deadly, universal Brady background checks, research into the causes and effects of gun violence, adequate funding for the ATF, stronger straw purchasing and gun trafficking laws, mandatory training before owning or carrying a gun, mandatory secure storage of guns, child access prevention laws, gun violence protection orders, limiting who can carry a loaded weapon around in public, and yes, perhaps even a system of gun registration.
These are my personal ideas by the way. Some of them, but not all, are shared by other gun control groups. But I am writing for myself on this blog post.
What we don’t need is concealed carry reciprocity, the NRA’s wet dream, that would leave us all with gun carrying yahoos walking around anywhere we are gathered in our communities without a shred of training with that gun and no permit to carry it. What we don’t need is for the deregulation of gun silencers so mass shooters can carry out their massacres making much less noise so law enforcement and victims can’t locate the shooter in order to flee or stop him.
Even Speaker Ryan got a spine for just a little while after the Las Vegas shooting. But never trust that the gun lobby will let it go away. They will be back. They will scare the lapdogs who carry their water into voting on a bill that makes no common sense and is a slippery slope to to doing away with the 1934 Gun Control Act.  
I have spoken to many hunters and gun owners before and since the Las Vegas shooting. They agree with every one of these measures. And yes, to the gun extremist who doubted that my husband was a hunter and gun owner, he is. And he agrees with me and would even were he not married to me.
Oh, and I forgot to add the repeal of PLCAA and the Tiarht amendment and bringing law suits against gun manufacturers and sellers.
Speaking of that, the Brady Center to prevent gun violence has done just that. A class action law suit was filed earlier this week against the maker and sellers of bump fire stocks on behalf of the 22,000 or so concert goers whose lives were affected one way or the other by the heinous shooting of 58 of them and the injuring of about 450, some still in serious or critical condition.
Here is just one story to think about:
Like the rest of America I learned of the latest mass shooting in Las Vegas last Monday morning. My first thought was there will be fatalities. Families like mine receiving the devastating, life-altering news that a loved one has been murdered. That friends and family members will never come home again. More lives taken by bullets. These families will unknowingly and unwillingly join the sad club that no one wants to join. Tragically this club continues to grow, because a small loud vocal group of extremists love their guns more than they love their families. So I cry out to you America, it’s time to rise up and out shout the extremists to honor the 58 lives cut down at a music concert. It’s time to rise up and help me and thousands of other gun violence survivors, so that your family won’t receive the devastating phone call that a family member has been murdered by a disturbed man with a gun. Pick up your phone and call your U.S. Congressman and Senator and demand they fight for gun safety laws.
Speaker Paul Ryan- where are you? Senator Mitch McConnell- where are you?
Hiding in plain sight behind the second amendment with absolutely no backbone or will to protect your fellow Americans from senseless shootings. We know how the Las Vegas shooting happened Speaker Ryan, since that was your excuse to do nothing. It was the guns stupid. It was our nation’s feckless gun laws that allow easy access to weapons of mass destruction meant for war that allowed this to happen.
Get a backbone. Get some common sense for the love of God. If you are too weak to even consider challenging the corporate gun lobby over bump fire stocks that were used to massacre 58 Americans in cold blood, you don’t deserve to be sitting in your seats. Go home and be with your families and let those who are bold, courageous and with backbone do what needs to be done.
The thing is, every country has angry men. Every country has people who are dangerously mentally ill or who are felons or domestic abusers. But only in America do we have these people accessing arsenals of weapons to inflict mass destruction.
We are better than this.

“Get small”= gun control

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if today is not the daySo let’s review this awful week.

58 dead and over 500 injured and we are told to be quiet and talk about guns and gun violence another time.

We were even told by South Dakota Senator John Thune to do more to get away from a shooter who is aiming a weapon with a “bump stock” making it act like a fully automatic weapon. He said we should “get small”.

Yes, he said that. He blamed the victims. I called his office and asked for an apology. As my family has suffered the loss of my sister to a gun homicide, I was wondering if she got small to try to defend herself against the totally unexpected situation of her estranged husband holding a gun to her head at close range. Then I started wondering if those innocent little children mowed down at Sandy Hook Elementary School could have gotten any smaller when a shooter rushed into their classrooms with no warning and opened fire.

Or what about Rep. Steve Scalise- one of their own? Could he have made himself small as a shooter took aim and seriously injured him? Yet, even he is afraid to speak up for what makes common sense.   In fact in this article he claims that his own shooting “fortified his views on gun rights.” What? Yes, he said that. Check it out if you don’t believe me.

A stubborn adherence to an agenda without thinking through what could change to make us safer does not make sense- unless we follow the money and influence and the years of the gun lobby fooling us into believing that more guns would make us safer.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Insanity reigns.

And it’s not the claimed insanity of the shooters I am talking about. It is our very own elected leaders who are exhibiting insanity.

We are told that this is about mental illness and evil people- not guns.

(Oh- and I haven’t even talked about the daily carnage from guns aside from the almost daily mass shootings. That would be the 90 or so Americans who die every day from gunshot injuries that don’t get 24/7 media attention. One just happened in my home town- a young man used a gun to end his own life.)

It is about guns. We all know that. Who do they ( corporate gun lobby that is) think they are fooling? Maybe a minority of Senators and Representatives who actually represent fewer of us than the majority.

Fareed Zakaria knows this is not about mental illness:.

Second, turning immediately to the “sickness” of the shooter and piously calling for better mental-health care is, more often than not, an attempt to divert attention from the main issue: guns. (It’s also breathtakingly cynical because the politicians who use this rhetoric are typically the ones who also aim to cut funding for mental-health treatment.) Every conversation about gun deaths should begin by recognizing one blindingly clear fact about this problem — the United States is on its own planet. The gun-related death rate in the United States is 10 timesthat of other advanced industrial countries. Places such as Japan and South Korea have close to zero gun-related deaths in a year. The United States has around 30,000.

This disparity is the central fact that needs to be studied, explained and addressed. When seen in this light, it becomes obvious why focusing on mental health is a dodge. The rate of mental illness in the United States is not anywhere close to 40 times the rate in Britain. But the rate of gun deaths is 40 times higher. America does have more than 14 times as many guns as Britain per capita, and far fewer restrictions on their ownership and use. That’s the obvious correlation staring us in the face, as we insist on talking about every other possible issue.

And then, he says what is now being spoken out loud but was only quietly said after each of the other now more frequent mass shootings that inflict only America:

Given the Second Amendment, America’s gun culture and the influence of the gun lobby, there isn’t any simple answer. But there are many small fixes that would make a big difference: universal background checks; restrictions on military-style weaponry (of which banning bump stocks would be a tiny first step); a ban on selling to people with a history of domestic violence or substance abuse. But first we have to stop the dodges and the diversions. When you consider America’s stubborn inaction in the face of this continuing and preventable epidemic of gun violence — I sometimes wonder if it is all of us Americans who are crazy.

It is actually not all of us. It is some of us. But we are all responsible for not taking on the lapdog politicians who owe allegiance to the corporate gun lobby. Shame on us all.

Who will be next? Where will the next deadliest shooting take place?

The NRA is trying again to fool us all ( cleverly and cynically) by saying maybe they would consider dealing with the “bump stocks” that were used in the nation’s worst massacre from guns. Who do they think they are fooling? Lapdog politicians for a few.

Why are “bump stocks” even a thing?

We are not fooled. The fox is guarding the hen house. In what world does the industry that makes the weapons used to mow down this many people get to decide on the policies that have allowed this to happen in the first place?

This is another cynical and evil attempt to get the gun violence prevention movement to shut up and go away:

The NRA and its allies in the gun-rights movement want to avoid the airing in Congress of controversial issues such as universal background checks on gun sales, a ban on assault weapons and limits on high-capacity ammunition magazines.

When we make noise, it doesn’t look good for them. Profits may tumble. Power may crumble. More lives may be saved.

Nathan, etc. lighting candlesIt’s been a hard week. The NRA went dark while the rest of us had vigils and calls to action. And no, thoughts and prayers are clearly not going to fix America’s unique national gun violence epidemic.

In what other country does this happen? It did happen once in Norway. When it happened in Australia, they acted. When it happened in Scotland, they acted. Australia

The result? No more mass shootings.

Other countries have angry people and domestic abusers and felons and people with dangerous mental illness. What they don’t have is these people killing innocent citizens with guns they shouldn’t have had in the first place.

All brought to you by the corporate gun lobby.

Now is the time to talk about our gun violence epidemic. NOW IS THE TIME.

94% of Americans know this. Even Republicans. Even gun owners. But their leaders are not acting and, indeed, acting against the wishes of their constituents.

Shameful. Deplorable.

Those who refuse to act lack the courage to do what even in their own hearts they know is right.

Here are the ones who have taken the most money from the gun lobby. They are in part responsible for the carnage. There is really no other way to say it any more.

We can see you. We can see how much you have taken to stop efforts to save lives.

Shame on you.

It’s the guns, stupid. Or is it the stupid guns?

Our local Rabbi sent me this when he regretted he could not attend our candlelight vigil the other night due to a Jewish holiday:

“I join with all those who grieve at the massacre that took place in Las Vegas and who are frustrated at the timidity of our elected representatives who fail to enact reasonable gun control measures or, worse yet, seek to loosen those that already exist.”

Yes- loosen. Speaker Paul Ryan took the SHARE act off of the table- for now- knowing how insane it would be to consider deregulating gun silencers in light of the discussion about how much worse this mass shooting could have been had the shooter used silencers.

They got caught this time. The media and sane politicians exposed this insanity.

But we don’t trust that it will stay off the floor. After the tears dry and the talk dies down and the victims’ families quietly mourn, the lapdog politicians will try to sneak it in.

Insanity.

And we know that the NRA has already said that their priority is the national concealed carry reciprocity act. In light of the Las Vegas massacre, we ought to consider how cynical it is to push this bill right now. But it will be used as another excuse to loosen gun laws that need tightening. Because- rights- the second amendment. I mean, think about how a person without a permit or training could have saved the day outside of the Mandalay Bay hotel that night!

In their dreams.

Fantasyland. This article explains it better:

The least fantastical is the idea that if a criminal threatens or attacks tomorrow, you want a gun handy to kill him. Being prepared for a showdown with a bad guy is the main reason gun owners give for owning one, and in the surveys that answer has doubled since the 1990s. During the same period, the chance of an American actually having such an encounter has decreased by half. In New York City, where restrictions on owning and carrying guns are among the strictest in the United States, the chance of being murdered is 81 percent less than it was in 1990. (…)

But beyond the prospect of protecting oneself against random attacks—and by the way, among the million-plus Americans interviewed in 10 years of Crime Victimization Surveys, exactly one sexual assault victim used a gun in self-defense—several outlandish scenarios and pure fantasies drive the politics of gun control. One newer fantasy has it that in the face of an attack by jihadi terrorists, armed random civilians will save the day. Another is the fantasy that patriots will be obliged to become terrorist rebels, like Americans did in 1776 and 1861, this time to defend liberty against the U.S. government before it fully reveals itself as a tyrannical fascist-socialist-globalist regime and tries to confiscate every private gun.

A friend noted on her Facebook page that it dawned on her that gun control is actually guns controlling our politicians.

True.

Where is common sense?

Now is the time.

Marulies cartoon

#LasVegasShooting

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crying#Enough 59 dead. Hundreds injured. So much more information yet to come. I will be blogging about this when I am less exhausted and less angry about what just happened in America. There is no excuse. There is no reason for this. There is no common sense. Congress has no backbone. The gun lobby is an insane extremist organization that deceives the public about the risks of guns. Not everyone should be able to buy a gun. Some people are too dangerous for guns. Weapons of war should not be available to just anyone. All guns should have a background check. Stronger gun laws WOULD prevent some of the shootings. More guns have not and do not make us safer. Someone with a gun could have done nothing to save lives in this shooting.  American gun laws are very lax. The American gun culture is totally out of whack. The second amendment does not mean this. We all have a right to be safe in our homes, at concerts, in schools, malls, nightclubs.

And Congress wants to act to loosen regulations about gun silencers this week.

Insanity,

Where is common sense?

I mourn the victims and mourn with their families. We all have PTSD. The 2 deadliest shootings in the country happened in the last 2 years. When is the next one? What will we do? Nothing is not an option. It never was. Demand action. Thoughts and prayers are nice but we need much much more than that.

Vigils occurring all over the country- again. #Enough.

We are better than this.