Blogging for gun safety reform and changing the conversation about the role of guns and gun violence in our communities. Common sense gun laws and gun safety reform and gun rights are not mutually exclusive.
I am really tired of seeing the stock photos of police car flashing lights and crime scene tape on the front page of my local paper. Just in the last few weeks, Minnesotans and the Northland area have been involved in a long list deadly and/or dangerous shooting incidents. Sadly I can make a list of these incidents as if they were a shopping list or a “to-do” list. And the thing is, those affected are real people and real families suffering from the after affects of senseless shooting incidents. Neighborhoods are traumatized by the sound of gunfire.Only in America is this the case. The New Year will not be a happy one for many.
Here is just some of the incidents from the last few weeks in Minnesota and the Northland:
And these were the headlines that littered the media sources in Minnesota and the Northland. Have we become numb to the fact that guns are creating a terrible public health epidemic in our country? Media all over the country report these incidents daily. It’s a fact of life in America.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The devastation of gun violence in our communities is endemic. It’s traumatizing. It’s violent. It is painful and leaves too many families grieving over avoidable deaths and injuries.
The Gun Violence Archive reports shooting incidents in real time. As of today, the last day of 2020, 43,322 Americans have lost their lives to bullets. Let that sink in.
This is not normal. It should be alarming to all who care about their fellow Americans. The fact that our state legislators and Congress have not addressed this scourge head-on is not only an embarrassment, it is an American tragedy. This is simply not happening in other civilized countries not at war.
There are so many things that can be done about this national epidemic. There is no vaccine for it as there is now for COVID. But there are common sense solutions that have been tragically avoided. The majority of Americans know there are solutions and support the solutions. But some of our elected officials either ignore it or purposely do nothing. We don’t have good answers as to why they are doing this other than decades of allowing it. Pressure from the paper tiger called the NRA has a lot to do with it. Big money influences people in office. Fear of public sentiment has for decades shaped the conversation even when it’s a very small number of people who hold the views that have kept solutions from happening.
We have work to do. If people better understood how gun violence is affecting communities and the risks of guns in homes and in public, minds can be changed.
We have no illusions that 2021 will lead to immediate solutions for the scourge of COVID 19. It will take most of the year to get us all vaccinated and back to normal. It will also take some backbone to stand up to those who refuse to do anything about the gun violence public health epidemic. Both are huge problems that don’t have easy solutions. But the solutions are there if we make up our common minds that we intend to do something about it.
The national discussion will change. Change will happen, albeit slowly. Lives can be saved. Families and communities don’t have to live with gun violence as an everyday occurrence.
There is hope in spite of incredible grief and trauma. We are all experiencing a form of PTSD since the pandemic hit the world early this year. Nothing is the same. Nothing will ever be the same. But a new President is coming with a team of people who actually are qualified for the positions they will hold. Expertise and science is back. The truth is back. The public will not be fooled by those with evil and malignant intentions.
Be safe. Stay safe. Don’t bring guns to parties. Don’t fire a gun into the air. Don’t leave your guns out for kids and teens to find. Don’t drink and shoot. Don’t use a gun in an angry dispute. Don’t leave your guns unlocked and loaded. Store them safely. Don’t use a gun to take your own life. Save lives. Have some common sense.
The headline of the hard copy of the Duluth News Tribune is this: “We are children, dying before we live.” That was a quote from a Duluth student who experienced a real lockdown last April of all Duluth schools when a man threatened to shoot up a school and was found in one of the local high schools. The student noted that it’s been 8 months and 8 days since her lease on life was extended because she thought she was going to die that day:
Karin Berdahl, now a student at Drake University in Iowa, noted that it had been eight months and eight days since she was in the orchestra room at Duluth East High School “cradling myself and my friend, shaking with terror” after an alert was given about a man with a gun in the school.
She was born two years after the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., Berdahl said, and was 11 when the Sandy Hook shooting took place.
“I have never lived in a time where gun violence isn’t prevalent,” she said. “I have never not lived with that fear. Restrictions can be set in place. Laws can be passed. I was lucky that day; many are not. We are children, dying before we live.”
And this, dear readers is the American tragedy of gun violence. The Executive Director of Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs spoke about the trainings he does in Australia for the coordinated community response to domestic abuse known as the Duluth Model. In Australia, there is domestic abuse as there is everywhere in the world. But women are not being killed by their abusers in regular incidents as we hear and read about every day in our own country.
The Chief of Police spoke about Extreme Risk Protection Orders and why they would save lives:
This year, Tusken said, he consulted with St. Louis County Sheriff Ross Litman when it became known to police that a man with a permit to carry was mentally unstable. Without a red flag law in place, there was nothing police could do to protect the man from himself or o
A parent spoke and teared up about having to think about her sons being victims of a school shooting and she chose not to think about every day as she sne them off to school in the morning.A teacher and President of the Duluth Federation of Teachers ( a co-sponsor of the event) spoke about how teachers’ jobs had changed after all of the school shootings because now they have to think about an active shooter in their building and classroom and go through lock-down drills that traumatize kids and educators alike.
A gun owner spoke about how the NRA is fear mongering scaring people into thinking they must have their guns for self protection. He said that it isn’t gun safety reform that threatens their rights but rather it is gun violence itself. And further, no legal gun owners’ rights will be affected if common sense gun legislation measures are passed. They are lying.
The President of the Duluth chapter of the NAACP spoke about and remembered his brother and sister, both victims of shootings. A leader from the native American community spoke about how gun violence has affected his members. I read a statement from a transgender leader from our community who could not attend but spoke about how much guns and gun violence affect their community- both homicides and suicides. A veteran remembered the many veterans who die daily from gun suicides.
Gun violence affects us all. So many people are suffering from the after effects of shootings that have torn their families apart. The last speaker was a local woman whose brother was shot and killed last December- almost one year ago now. From the article:
For Wendy Waha, that person was Kevin John Weiss, killed in a shooting a year and three days earlier outside a Gary-New Duluth residence.
“Our innocence has been shattered, and life feels a lot less safe and a lot more violent,” Waha said. “We now think about things like guns, and that such a weapon doesn’t allow for second chances, or grace, or restorative ends to conflict.”
Waha spoke calmly and forcefully for nearly five minutes. But when it came time to say her brother’s name before ringing the bell, she faltered. After tearfully reciting his name, she added, “I would ask everyone here to please take action to do something that helps put common (sense) gun laws into place in order to end this insanity.”
Yes. Our innocence has been shattered. It is never the same. For the parents of the children shot 7 years ago today at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, they are now coming to grips with the idea that their children have been dead as long as they were alive. I read an article about the family of Noah Pozner, one of the children killed, as they deal with the ugly and offensive hoaxers who claim that Sandy Hook never happened and they have attacked these families and made their lives miserable. Their grief should have been enough. But this is so over the top, there are hardly words:
A month before what would have been his son Noah’s 13th birthday, Lenny Pozner told a jury about the last time he saw him, when he dropped him off at school on Dec. 14, 2012.
“It was cold, but he jumped out not wearing his jacket, and he had one arm in one sleeve and his backpack on the other arm, and he was kind of juggling both and walking into the school that way,” Mr. Pozner told a Wisconsin jury in October. “And that’s — that’s the last visual that I have of Noah.” (…) “We had a private viewing where we opened the coffin, and I got a chance to say one last goodbye to Noah,” Mr. Pozner said, as some jurors wept. “I remember saying goodbye to him and kissing him on his forehead,” which because the child had been shot in the face, “was the only part of him that was not covered.”
Do our leaders get this? Noah’s forehead was all that was left of his face. Dying by bullets from a gun is gruesome. The Duluth Police Chief spoke about how officers and first responders cannot unsee what they see when at the scene of a shooting. And the health care community also suffers from PTSD and the nightmare of treating gunshot injuries and those who die from their injuries. A retired nurse whose father took his life by firearm when she was a young woman, spoke about how it is for those who treat gunshot victims:
We tend to the living.
Injuries include paralysis, chronic pain, Loss of limbs, Need for long term ventilators and feeding tubes PTSD, and the latest concern is lead poisoning since often bullet fragments are unable to be removed. The most memorable patient I have cared for literally was left without a face.
Think of this with the Las Vegas shooting: 58 dead, but 620 sustained injuries, many who will suffer for a lifetime. A handgun wound usually requires one surgery, but an AR15 averages 3-10 surgeries.
Gun violence is insidious. It is violent. It shatters families and communities and leaves behind it a wake of grief and PTSD. It affects us all.
Let us remember the 26 who died one year ago today. Please watch this YouTube video. It is emotional and powerful.
Since my return home from my trip to Greece, the Minnesota House of Representatives has passed an Omnibus Public Safety Bill containing both background check and Extreme Risk Protection Order provisions. The vote happened at about 2:00 a.m. last Tuesday after the gun rights Republicans tried every trick in their tired old bag to weaken the bills. Stand Your Ground and Constitutional Carry- ever favorites of the now imploding NRA were tried but failed. One Representative suggested that, in the Extreme Risk Protection Order bill, other things besides firearms should be taken from those who could be dangerous to themselves or others. He suggested cars, knives, golf clubs and bats for just a few. Yes. He said that.
This is the first time ever that a common sense gun safety reform bill has passed in a Minnesota legislative chamber. There was a rally on Monday which I attended and at which I spoke, to call attention to the bill and make noise about wanting it to pass. They heard us in chambers and knew we were there. Also there were a couple of obnoxious gun rights guys, dressed in suits can carrying their tripod with iPhone around on it to record the rally. Paranoid as they are, they must find out what we are doing and report it to their fearful followers in case we do something like spread out in the area and start confiscating their guns.
There was a group of students visiting from their school who these guys decided to record without asking permission. Several of us stood between the phone guy and the kids and answered questions about what we were doing. They were uniformly against the gun guys and understood the stakes for themselves when people who shouldn’t have guns use kids in schools as sitting ducks. Listen to the kids.
All in all it was a good day. We spoke with legislators and made our cause known. Speakers were inspiring, including Governor Walz who pulled his pen out of his pocket and said he was ready to sign the bill into law.
It was a Pyrrhic victory and we knew that. It will now be in the hands of a conference committee where the Senate, full of gun rights members, will not vote in favor unless a miracle happens. Why? Great question. No gun registration or confiscation will occur. No legal gun owners rights will be affected. There may be a few minutes of extra time involved in getting a background check from private sellers but so what? Not a reason to oppose. We know the reason. Follow the money and the influence of the corporate gun lobby.
From Minnesota DFL
The Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka declared the bills dead. My sister is dead. Hundreds of Minnesotans die every year. We can’t make them alive again but he can make the bills alive again. We can save lives and stop people from becoming dead in senseless and avoidable shootings.
In fact, from the article above, after the Parkland school shooting, 97% of gun owners wanted to strengthen our gun laws. Remarkable. And also from the article:
A question remains. If gun owners across the country like Ware no longer identify with the organization, and polls show that they increasingly support gun control measures, who is the gun rights group fighting for?
Good question. And the other question that I asked on Monday in my speech was of whom are the legislators so afraid? This small group? The biggest problems is that the NRA is now an arm of the Republican party and part of the overall ideological bent of the party. It almost has nothing to do with guns anymore. They are a paper tiger but they have managed to wield a lot of influence anyway. Money talks. Corporations are people.
As the bodies pile up, our legislators will need to explain the real reasons they oppose reasonable gun laws. The archaic thinking that goes with their opposition is going out with those who are clinging to the old world order of mostly white guys having power and control. And when the NRA explodes, the road to victory will happen more easily.
Times are changing. Laws will change. The culture will change. Minnesota will change its gun laws. It may not be this year, though I still am hopeful. But it will change. Gun safety reform is here to stay and will be one of the most important issues of the upcoming campaigns and elections. We are not afraid any more of the “guys with the guns” who believe they make the rules.
It’s always hard to write at this time of the year knowing that so many people will not be at home for the holidays- not at anyone’s home. At the end of the year, the news is not really good is it? A Government shut-down and an unpredictable and unhinged President causing the markets to tank right before the Christian holiday of Christmas. The retirement in protest of our Secretary of Defense, causing shock waves the world over. Common sense has flown the coop, so to speak.
And to add to the chaos and bad news, gun death rates are up to a level not seen in a long long time. The CDC is keeping track. The latest numbers show that our nation’s lax gun laws and our gun culture are contributing to the pile of bodies getting higher and higher. Gun suicides take the most lives followed by homicides and then unintentional shootings. Most if not all are preventable and senseless.
Our leaders are adding to the chaos and the problems by not having the spine to stand up to the corporate gun lobby and its’ minions who cry stupid things like: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Well yes. Too true. And the point of this nonsensical myth that is pushed?
But together is where we find the collision that leads to senseless gun deaths and injuries. We have a public health epidemic. If almost 40,000 people died from auto accidents, wouldn’t we do something? Oh right, we did. If tens of thousands died from smoking and second- hand smoke wouldn’t we do something? Oh right, we did. If we knew that lettuce caused Salmonella, wouldn’t we do something? Oh right… If baby toys have parts that come off easily and can lead to choking deaths, wouldn’t we do something? Oh right again.
So what is it about gun violence that paralyzes us? Fear of the gun lobby? Yes. Fear of not being elected again? Yes. Fear of the mythical power of the gun extremists? Yes. Fear to challenge the current conversation around gun violence? Yes. Fear of having guns taken away ( by the gun rights extremists)? Yes. Being uninformed about the facts? Yes. Fear of compromise? Yes. Fear of having difficult conversations? Yes. Fear of the second amendment? Yes.
All of these and more. But we aren’t having it any more. Gun safety reform or gun violence prevention is on the front burner. Too many mass shootings and too many daily accounts of deadly disputes and too many families affected by shooting deaths is leading to a different conversation.
As it turns out, it’s almost unanimous that we want our leaders to pass stronger gun laws. 97% after the Parkland shooting! That many Americans can’t agree on anything else
There are common sense solutions to our public health epidemic. And they will be pursued vigorously. In the name of our family members and friends and the far too many victims, we will continue to demand action to stop the carnage.
And the big thing is changing the conversation and the narrative around the role of guns and gun violence in our country full of guns and gun violence.
You can’t know what’s like to not have a loved one be home with you for the holidays because their life was snuffed out in a violent and unexpected shooting unless suddenly you do. In case you think this can’t happen to you, think again. In case you think a mass shooting or a domestic shooting can’t happen to someone you know or love, think again. In case you think your teen-aged child or elderly parent won’t find a loaded gun and take their own life, think again. In case you think your brother or father or sister, home after serving our country in the military won’t suffer from PTSD and decide to use a loaded gun to end it all, think again.
One person in my family will be missing for the holidays because she was shot and killed in a domestic shooting. Her grandchildren never got to meet her. They will only know of her through photos and stories. She was vibrant, beautiful, talented, smart, unafraid to speak out and unafraid to fight for herself. And now we are without her.
Parents of young children and teens whose lives have been ended by bullets will never know the potential of that child or teen. Lives lost are lost potential and future contributions to society. Gun violence has a ripple effect and about now, we are all affected by the violence because we can’t avoid what is going on around us.
I wish my readers and followers a happy holiday and safe travels if you are going home for the holidays or if your family is coming home to you. I also wish a safe and peaceful Christmas free of shootings. One year, when we pass stronger gun laws and stop being afraid of the corporate gun lobby, that will be possible.
I want to start this post by recognizing that today is the day before the anniversary of the tragic murder of 12 and the injuring of 58 by bullets at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater. My friends, Sandi and Lonni Phillips are grieving for their murdered daughter, Jessica Ghawi who was brutally shot that day 6 years ago. They have gone through hell and back after that day. Who wouldn’t? I stand with them in their pain and their attempts to make changes to our gun laws and to support other victims. Thanks to the NRA, the shooter at the theater was able to purchase a hundred round drum magazine so he could carry out his massacre.
Remember the victims of that horrendous shooting: Jonathan Blunk, Alexander Boik, Jesse Childress, Gordon Cowden, Jessica Ghawi, John Larimer, Matt McQuinn, Micayla Medek, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, Alex Sullivan, Alexander Teves, and Rebecca Wingo. And let us also remember that the injured have and will suffer from life long injuries and likely PTSD after the horror of the shooting scene.
Thank you NRA. Thank you corporate gun lobby.
Since July of 2012, about 200,000 Americans have been killed by bullets and we have experienced multiple (1772) horrific mass shootings– Sandy Hook, Charleston, Las Vegas, Pulse Nightclub, Parkland, Sutherland, …………………………………………………………………………….
Our Congress has done nothing.
Thanks NRA.
And meanwhile, closer to to the present as the families of the Aurora shooting try to honor their loved ones’ deaths and both remember and try to forget what happened that day, the NRA is still at it. I assume you have read or heard the news about the arrested Russian spy and her connections to the NRA and Republicans.
Amid the sprawling scandal over Russian interference with the 2016 election, there’s long been an odd subplot over Russian ties to, of all groups, the National Rifle Association — ties that, according to McClatchy, have been investigated by the FBI.
Now the arrest of 29-year-old Russian national Maria Butina on charges of conspiracy and acting as an agent of a foreign government has put those questions about the famous gun rights group on center stage.
But despite the new indictment (which is not part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe), the full extent of what happened here remains mysterious.
Odd subplot is right. It’s not normal and it’s more than odd. But the Russians knew that the NRA would be helpful… because that’s the kind of organization it has become.
Ted Nugent dedicated a song during his concert on Tuesday in Virginia to “dumb f***” protesters like Andy Parker, who is the father of a gun violence victim.
The outspoken Republican rocker, who’s no stranger to controversy, said to the audience, according to the Roanoke Times, “If I get too political, f*** you.”
Nugent also dedicated his set to “everybody, including those dumb motherf*****s that were protesting me because they’re still grieving. When you lose a loved one, we pray for you when you lose a loved one. We all prayed for him, didn’t we? How the f*** do you hate the Nugent family when we’re praying for you? You dumb f****.”
Yes. It’s true. That is what he said. I know Andy and Barbara Parker. Their daughter Alison was shot and killed on live TV almost 3 years ago now. Why would Nugent attack the father of a young woman so brutally murdered by someone who should not have had a gun? The NRA must sanction this kind of totally offensive and crude rhetoric because they have not denounced it. What you don’t say is as important as what you do. The true agenda of the NRA is out there in plain site for all of us to see.
Sixty-nine percent of NRA members expressed support for comprehensive background checks. A proposal to implement universal background checks would apply to all gun sales, rather than just purchases made at licensed retailers, according to the Giffords Law Center, a gun control advocacy group.
Or maybe some of the irresponsible gun owners who, on a regular basis, “accidentally” fire their guns and hurt or kill someone? Like this father? He shot and killed his 6 year old daughter while cleaning his gun. There are no accidents with guns. They are lethal weapons designed to kill. Everyone needs to
There is really no question that Russia has been involved in our last Presidential election. Trump is having trouble publicly admitting it but he knows about it and has since before he was inaugurated our 45th President. Not sure what to call this but many words come to mind.
The NRA was also involved in the Presidential election in ways that we should all question. Answers need to come forth. We know that the NRA spent $30 million to get Donald Trump elected. But now it seems like more than just money was spent on the election:
The F.B.I. and special counsel Robert Mueller are investigating meetings between N.R.A. officials and powerful Russian operatives, trying to determine if those contacts had anything to do with the gun group spending $30 million to help elect Donald Trump—triple what it invested on behalf of Mitt Romneyin 2012. The use of foreign money in American political campaigns is illegal. One encounter of particular interest to investigators is between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian banker at an N.R.A. dinner.
The Russian wooing of N.R.A. executives goes back to at least 2011, when that same banker and politician, Alexander Torshin, befriended David Keene, who was then president of the gun-rights organization. Torshin soon became a “life member,” attending the N.R.A.’s annual conventions and introducing comrades to other gun-group officials. In 2015, Torshin welcomed an N.R.A. delegation to Moscow that included Keene and Joe Gregory, then head of the “Ring of Freedom” program, which is reserved for top donors to the N.R.A. Among the other hosts were Dmitry Rogozin, who until last month was the deputy prime minister overseeing Russia’s defense industry, and Sergei Rudov, head of the Saint Basil the Great Charitable Foundation, one of Russia’s wealthiest philanthropies.
It worked. And now she is behind bars without bail.
It’s hard to fathom this intrigue. It reads like a spy novel but it’s happening in real life. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
The NRA is not your father’s NRA. The NRA is not an organization to support gun owners and hunters. It is an organization that is an arm of the Republican party and its’ intentions are to elect people who will support their agenda to loosen gun laws, to nominate Supreme Court justices who will help loosen gun laws and to make sure the country’s majority does not get what they want and need to be safe in their communities.
We ought to be better than this. The corruption is palpable and increasingly dangerous for our democracy. We just cannot let this be our country. We are the model of democracy for the world. If we become an autocracy and just another country beholden to corrupt leaders at the top and big money, we can expect to see bad things happen.
I, for one, am going to continue pushing for common sense and protesting the influence of Russians and the big money NRA in our politics.
Let’s make the Parkland shooting the last school shooting said one of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school students interviewed after 17 of his school classmates were slaughtered.
The last school shooting took the lives of 17 Parkland, Florida students and educators and traumatized the entire nation. The injured will recover, some with life long debilitating injuries, others left with only the trauma. We are all traumatized.
The thing is, Columbine should have been the last school shooting. Virginia Tech should have been the last school shooting. Sandy Hook for sure should have been the last school shooting. Our kids are sitting ducks. But ducks are better protected from bullets than kids given that duck hunters must use a plug to prevent a hunter from using more than 3 shots at a time. It’s to sustain the duck population for future hunters.
Who is sustaining the population of our children?
Something is different this time. Teachers, students, parents, law enforcement and the media- all speaking out in stronger and more urgent voices asking the “adults” in Congress to act on behalf of our children.
Insanity is the word that comes to mind.
We are all exhausted but we are not numb and we are not stupid. We understand what is going on here. We get that our loose gun laws are killing our precious human resources and snuffing out the potential of dozens of kids to live a productive life with their friends and family.
Speaking of the NRA, I can’t even begin to add up the media articles and stories about how much that organization has contributed to the mayhem and carnage. The time has come to turn on the corporate gun lobby, whose profit motive has become the main reason for existence. It is not your father’s or your grandfather’s NRA any more.
Don’t tell me teachers should be carrying weapons in the classroom — we’re not police.
It’s our job to assign books, create lessons and lead discussions that make students think critically and help them see the world a little differently: I want them to read “The Outsiders” in my class and remember it when they’re adults and their kids are reading it.
Don’t tell me there’s nothing we can do about guns. Yes, Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms — but it’s not limitless. And we all have the right to live.
““If you’re an elected official, and you want to keep things the way they are ― if you want to keep gun laws as they are now ― you will not get re-elected in Broward County,” Israel told a crowd that erupted in cheers.”
Listen to the students. They are our future. They are being massacred in every more frequent mass shootings. But they are fighting back:
“Please, this is the 18th one this year. That’s unacceptable. We’re children. You guys are the adults,” David Hogg said during an interview on CNN.
And well they should. Read this frightening article about real and not so real threats made by students after the Parkland shooting. My God. What is going on? Where are the adults in the room?
Remember that every gun in the hands of a child must first pass through the hands of an adult.
Equally important for a gunman looking to do a lot of damage in a hurry: AR-15-style weapons are fed with box magazines that can be swapped out quickly. The standard magazine holds 30 rounds. Equipped in this way, a gunman can fire more than a hundred rounds in minutes.
The Parkland shooter had “countless magazines” for his AR-15, the local sheriff said. And there is still one more reason the weapons are so popular in states like Florida: They are easy to buy — and for Nikolas Cruz, 19, the shooting suspect, far easier to obtain than a handgun.
He calls the results “staggering.” Compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths. (…)
On a scale of effectiveness ranging from 1 (not effective) to 10 (highly effective), the expert panel gave an average score of 6.8 to both an assault weapons ban and a ban on high-capacity magazines, the highest ratings among the nearly 30 policies surveyed. (…) More strikingly, substantial numbers of gun owners supported the measures as well: 48 percent of gun owners in that poll said they would support a ban on assault style weapons, and 44 percent said they favored a ban on high-capacity magazines. A Quinnipiac poll conducted later in the year showed similar numbers.
Talk about research on the causes and effects of gun violence.
Ideally we would also rethink the Second Amendment in an age where firearms are far more lethal than in the 18th century and where we no longer require minutemen to protect our liberties from the redcoats. But it’s not necessary to repeal the Second Amendment. The courts have consistently upheld gun regulations in the past, including a federal assault-weapon ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004 and a Maryland ban that went into effect in 2013.
Yet instead of instituting such common-sense safeguards, Congress is moving in the opposite direction. Early in 2017, Congress passed and President Trump signed a bill that revoked an Obama-era regulation that would have made it harder for mentally ill people to buy guns. Toward the end of the year, the House passed legislation that would force every state to honor concealed-carry permits — meaning that a resident of Oklahoma could pack heat in the District of Columbia or New York City.
And talk about all of these things with common sense conversations and actions.
Do we love our children as much as we love our guns? That is a very important question that needs an answer.
Make this the last school shooting. Because the last one has started a movement and a conversation that is not going away. The accumulation of bodies and inaction by Congress and state legislatures if finally just too much for a nation that sees more gun violence than any other democratized country not at war. Our kids are the victims of knock-off military style weapons used in war. As one friend said, our children have become war correspondents, live streaming a shooter killing their friends and texting parents as the shooting occurs.
We shouldn’t have to do this. This is an American tragedy.
Listen up Mr. President. Spend more than 6 minutes “listening” to the victims of the shooting at the Parkland hospital. Your tone deaf anemic, robotic statement a day after the shooting did not even mention the word guns or gun violence. Your lack of passion and empathy was disheartening and disturbing. Have a nice week-end on the golf course at Mar-a-Lago.
Wendell said when he saw Bonge outside on Tuesday, Dec. 26, he made the decision to kill her. He told police he grabbed a gun from his home and went out to the driveway easement in front of his home where she was snowblowing, the affidavit shows.
Wendell said he went up behind Bonge, shot her in the back of the head and disposed of her body behind his residence on the 14000 block of 104th Avenue, according to the affidavit.
Seriously. This is the problem with guns in so many hands. They might just get used to kill someone in a moment of anger, frustration, craziness or whatever gets into the heads of people like this guy.
In my neck of the woods, I’m very familiar with snow blowers. They are not dangerous unless you put your hand into the machine which most people with any common sense understand. And often people help out their neighbors by snow blowing their driveways or sidewalks. My husband has done this many times and our neighbors have done the same for us. Snowblowers can be noisy. But so what? The idea that someone could get shot for this is insanity itself.
The gun extremists will tell us ( and they do tell me in comments) that these are just irresponsible people with guns. The thing is, people are responsible and/or legal until suddenly they are not. With a gun in hand, split second decisions to use it can and are deadly. There are far too many irresponsible gun owners out there. That is our problem.
Guns are deadly weapons designed to kill people. And kill they do- every day in large numbers.
This is not normal nor is it inevitable. But it is happening every day. And it is only happening every day in America where guns are abundant, gun rights seem to be supreme and politicians refuse to do the right thing.
Last night I met my new Senator Tina Smith. While there I spoke with many people in a roomful of about 200 folks about the gun issue. One woman had run for office and lost her election for a seat in the state legislature. She talked to me about the difficulty of the gun issue in her district. She said it is a district full of gun owners. Most Minnesota districts are full of gun owners. And she also said they were against common sense legislation on Brady background checks, for example. My answer was that even the gun owners in her district most likely represented the average American who time after time after time after time have agreed in polling that background checks are a good idea. The people she was hearing from were the minority of people and candidates need to be able to speak that truth. When elected while favoring reasonable gun measures a leader will represent the overwhelming majority of Americana and gun owners.
Cornish openly carried a gun around while at work in the Capitol and frankly intimidated people who did not agree with him. He also supported loosening conceal and carry laws, permitless carry and stand your ground legislation. He saw no problems with just about anybody owning and carrying guns.
This letter from former Representative Tony Cornish was found on a Twitter feed:
He is imploring other Representatives not to pass any “gun control” bills or “anti-cop” bills. He also admits that a pretty influential group representing gun owners has disbanded (GOCRA). Not sad about that one. This group has tried hard to wield their influence but they have not succeeded at much other than intimidating law makers. They did manage to sink gun bills that would have actually strengthened gun laws and saved lives in 2013 after the Sandy Hook shooting. I don’t think that is anything about which to be proud.
Three-in-ten U.S. adults say they currently own a gun, and of that group, 19% say they belong to the National Rifle Association. While the demographic profile of NRA members is similar to that of other gun owners, their political views, the way they use their firearms and their attitudes about gun policy differ significantly from gun owners who are not members of the organization.
19% of 30% = 5.7%. And for this, we are allowing an influential lobby group to make gun policy? Real people are losing their lives every day and we are afraid of 6% of Americans?
Sigh.
The sooner our leaders and candidates recognize this we will be in a safer place in our country.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
There are many reasons not to like the National Rifle Association’s leaders and lobbyists. Many Americans have chosen to join the NRA for different reasons. As I have written before in this blog, the NRA has changed a lot over the last decades and even over just the last few years. Once it was an organization that supported shooting sports and those who enjoyed hunting and recreational shooting. Many gun owners and hunters have taken training classes and sent their children to classes to learn how to handle a hunting gun properly before going out into the woods with the gun. This is not a bad thing.
Following Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, Chuck Holton, an NRATV correspondent who is a daily guest on the gun group’s programming, wrote on Twitter that the “party’s over” and it’s time to scrub “Obama’s mocacchino stain off of America!” using a term for a chocolate coffee drink.
In 2016, Holton claimed on an NRA program that white privilege is “just simply the culture that we have created, that our fathers and grandfathers have worked hard to create,” before saying that it would be nice if blacks joined whites in “respecting authority and taking responsibility for your own actions.”
In July, Holton warned on NRATV about the prospect of Black Lives Matter members committing mass murder and rape against whites in the United States.
Blatant racism, fear mongering, hatred of others, and outright intolerance have become the messaging by the current leadership of the NRA. Do we have to talk about Ted Nugent again to make my point? There is as much common sense amongst this crowd as fits on the head of a pin.
Similarly, extremism has been profitable for the NRA. But as the GOP is learning, there is no easy route back from the fringe.
First, the NRA’s political power and fundraising depend on maintaining paranoia at a screaming pitch.
Second, the NRA has its own tea party problem. Gun groups that are even more extreme are ever eager to label the NRA a sellout — too willing to appease liberals or compromise freedom or indulge the girly-man politics of the mainstream. (…)
Extremism, of course, is a tricky game. If you don’t convert the country to your cause, you risk being marginalized. That’s already happening to the NRA in liberal states. The trend may expand.
Like open carry, NRA ideology doesn’t hold up well in real life. “Good guys with guns” too often turn out to be bad guys who kill. And what are the chances that a very stupid, very reckless “good guy” will eventually shoot an innocent person while trying to be a hero? I’d guess the chances are quite high. Meanwhile, social media readily spreads news stories of foolish gun owners leaving senseless destruction in their wake.
On a recent flight to Washington D.C. I sat next to a woman from South Dakota who asked why I was going to D.C. When I told her about my involvement with gun violence prevention, she absolutely agreed with me. And what’s more, she told me that she had family members and friends who were ranchers and owned guns for hunting and self protection. These people have mentioned to her that they do not like the extremism of the NRA and they are not in favor of assault rifles for common use understanding that they are not needed for hunting or self protection.
I’m sure everyone remembers when President Trump suggested that he could step out onto 5th Avenue and shoot someone and his supporters would stick with him. He’s right. A certain number of people believe that this kind of behavior is fine for a President of the United States and leader of the free world. I believe it is totally dumbing down the office of the Presidency and gives license for bad behavior by others.
The bold, brash and bullying style of our very own President gives leave for others to act the same. We have an example of an increasingly corrupt man at the top who is surrounded by swamp monsters. What could possibly go wrong? And do they think we can’t see what they are doing in plain sight and even under the cover of darkness? Thanks goodness for the media who are reporting on the non fake news and revealing the truth along with evidence.
Where is the empathy and sensitivity towards the families and friends of the 33,000 victims of gun violence every year? Not there.
Evidence matters. Facts matter. The truth matters. People matter. Civility matters.
Most of this research—and there have been several dozen peer-reviewed studies—punctures the idea that guns stop violence. In a 2015 study using data from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University reported that firearm assaults were 6.8 times more common in the states with the most guns versus those with the least. Also in 2015 a combined analysis of 15 different studies found that people who had access to firearms at home were nearly twice as likely to be murdered as people who did not.
Lack of evidence = ignorance= myths = more power for NRA and corporate gun lobby + fear of gun lobby = lack of courage by elected leaders =more gun deaths and injuries.
Thanks NRA.
Even gun owners can see through the sham of the corporate gun lobby.
“We’re considered weirdos,” said George Legeros, a longtime Virginia gun owner who also supports universal background checks and limits on how many guns people may buy. “Anybody who tries to take guns away is a bad man. That’s why the NRA doesn’t represent me. For lack of a better word, they are too whacked-out. It’s one thing to be pro-gun. It’s another thing to have no common sense.”
Nearly 1 in 3 Americans own a gun. But only 5 million belong to the NRA, which is often portrayed as the voice of hunters, skeet shooters and other gun owners. The squelched majority could emerge as a powerful force in the gun control debate, gun control advocates say, if they ever gain traction — emphasis on if.
Most hunters and gun owners are law abiding and understand that they have a responsibility to be safe with their guns. They also understand that people like me are not about taking away guns or rights. They are not afraid of this. But the NRA leaders and lobbyists have scared a certain percentage of people into believing in lies, myths and misperceptions. And people are dying every day as a result.
This is not leading to a safer America. In fact, some recent figures show the opposite.
Gun suicides take the lives of many Americans but somehow the corporate gun lobby is in denial about the risks of guns in the home. Check out this evidence from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violencethat what I am writing is fact:
Though we are living in a time of rising suicide rates, many Americans, including our lawmakers, buy into the pervasive myth that suicides are inevitable. Confronting the Inevitability Myth thoroughly debunks this misconception by arming readers with data and research from across the field showing how gun access drives suicide risk in this country and, consequently, how effective gun policy and intervention programs can save more lives. A data supplement within the report takes an even deeper dive to show just how significantly guns contribute to state suicide rates: compared to all other variables, including race, gender, rurality, substance abuse, and severe mental illness, gun access correlates the most with suicide death.
Suicide is the leading cause of gun deaths in America. It is not inevitable and it is not inevitable that if a gun is not available another method will be used. Myths are leading to inadequate solutions to our nation’s gun violence epidemic.
The study found that nationwide, 93 percent of women killed by men were murdered by someone they knew and that the most common weapon used was a gun.
“Women killed by men are most often killed by someone they know and more than half were killed by an intimate partner,” says Legislative Director Kristen Rand. “Much more must be done to identify and implement strategies to prevent these tragedies. More resources are needed at the federal, state, and local levels to help keep women safe.”
Though the rate of domestic murders has decreased, 1600 women are 1600 too many. We know that guns are the weapon of choice. They are easy and they are deadly and quick. I know this because of the murder of my sister. These are facts. These are real people with families who grieve for them. Why wouldn’t we agree that reducing this number should be a priority?
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I will be thinking of the many women who senselessly and avoidably lose their lives when a husband, partner, boyfriend takes out a gun and shoots them out of anger.
Where is common sense when it comes to reducing gun deaths and injuries and protecting us all from devastating gun violence?
There is a wide gulf between the perception of the two sides. I believe it can be bridged. But we need to be dealing with facts, evidence, the truth and common sense.
In his blog, LaPierre harkens back to a time when the NRA was an organization that valued responsible gun ownership, advocated for gun violence prevention legislation, and supported reasonable regulations on firearms.
But Wayne LaPierre’s NRA is not the NRA he references throughout most of his article. Today’s NRA is one that has made a calculated decision to stoke fear in order to sell guns — the fear of “inner city thugs,” “radical Muslims,” and “illegal aliens.” They have told their overwhelmingly white base that they should be afraid of people of color and need to buy guns to protect themselves.
For decades, NRA board members, leaders, and spokespeople have fanned the flames of hatred and racism. Sometimes their comments have been thinly veiled. Other times, they have been shockingly overt.
Horwitz then makes his own list of NRA racist comments and/or behavior.
And further, Horwitz ends with this:
The NRA is gaslighting us. They use slurs, race-bait, disparage people of color, and support racist politicians. Then they insist that they are the “safest place” for the same people they’ve degraded so openly.
They try to push guns into communities of color, claiming guns will help protect the people who live there. Then, they tell their members they need to buy guns because people of color are armed, dangerous “thugs.” It’s a transparent, disgraceful farce.
It’s disgraceful and shameful and also very dangerous. We see what they are doing. It’s hard to hide racism when it’s in plain sight.
I have written many times about Stand Your Ground laws. As more states are now passing these laws more people will be in danger of being shot and injured or killed senselessly. Not that any shooting makes much sense. This story from The Trace, highlights an example of the first “Stand Your Ground” case in Missouri after their new law passed:
Missouri was the first state to pass a “stand your ground” law since the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida brought notoriety to such legislation in 2013. Before taking that step, Missouri law followed the “castle doctrine,” which says that a person may shoot an intruder to his home, if perceiving the situation as life-threatening.
Schoeneberg, for his part, is worried about gun owners understanding that the new, more permissive “stand your ground” law still has limits. “I think that people think this is a license to do more than they’re really allowed,” he says.
This is the story of so many other similar cases. Can you shoot someone because of a cell phone robbery? If you can, should you? Can you shoot someone who is sitting drunk in the car in your garage? Should you? Can you shoot someone who has broken into your house and is taking a shower in your very own shower? Should you?
The answer is yes if you want to face the consequences. If someone else’s life is worth so little that you would take it over things like this we have a serious public health and safety problem and a problem with the morality of taking human lives. Some people think this is OK.
Some legislators in Minnesota are lapdogs for the gun lobby and will get a floor vote in the House on Stand Your Ground in the next few days. Why? Because rights…….Because ALEC…… Because the corporate gun lobby agenda…..
It’s that simple but it’s really that complicated.
Minnesota nice? Not so much. Because once you have the idea in your head that you can now shoot someone who you perceive to be a danger ( even if they really aren’t) you can shoot first and ask questions later.There is nothing about Stand Your Ground laws that are good for public safety and the health of our communities. In fact, the laws make our communities and families less safe.
But common sense about these things does not exist in the minds of those who have decided that laws like this are OK.
The gun extremists have been standing their ground as they push ludicrous and dangerous bills through our state legislatures and Congress. Consider permitless carry which did not make it far in the Minnesota House. From this article in The Trace:
The concept, rooted in constitutional originalism, assumes that the authors of the Second Amendment envisioned an unfettered right to wield a gun for personal defense. In this view, any limitation on an individual’s right to carry guns, however small, is unjust. Full stop. As such, passing constitutional-carry legislation is seen by proponents as a restoration, not an expansion, of gun freedoms.
As with the “campus carry” movement, the push for permitless carry has come from the grassroots more than from the National Rifle Association. While the nation’s largest gun lobby champions the latest bills in its press releases, local lobbyists who take the NRA’s absolutist rhetoric at face value find themselves chafing at its corporate model of working hand-in-glove with establishment politicians.
The resulting friction has fed into the upheaval taking place within gun politics (and American conservatism as a whole) since the rise of the Tea Party, which has left the NRA frequently following, rather than steering, the emboldened extremes of its coalition. Activists in several states told The Trace that the NRA — which did not respond to requests for comment for this story — has not helped their cause. In one state, they point to direct evidence that the NRA has undercut their proposals.
Hmmm. Even the NRA does not like these bills? It looks like Stand Your Ground is dead in the Minnesota legislature for this session. I wonder why? Many of us have sent post cards, sent emails and made phone calls. We have visited offices, held rallies against these dangerous bills, and held up signs outside of the House chambers. It is not a popular bill but again, pushed by extremists.
Then who are these extremists? They are in the minority when it comes to support for sensible gun laws. They are not members of your grandfather’s or even your father’s NRA. They are anti-Obama, anti government, anti immigration fanatics pushing for laws that they believe would allow them to protect themselves from zombies and “the other”. Scary stuff if you ask me. They are the “don’t tread on me” guys. They carry the Gadsden Flag for effect and as a symbol understood by other extremists. Take a look in case you don’t know about it:
A local gun owner and now former NRA member wrote this great piece the other day in my local paper. He understands common sense and extremism and he has chosen the former. From his opinion piece:
The measure was supported by the NRA and its favored legislators. For decades I was a member of the National Rifle Association and had its conspicuous round insignia on my cars and trucks. I was even enrolled into the “National Rifle Association of America Millennium Honor Roll.” It wasn’t that I thought the NRA and its members had some ill intent when I decided to discontinue my membership; it was because of the evermore unlikeable image of the NRA to many people. An organization that used to mostly represented hunters and sport shooters, and even wildlife conservation has become a spokesperson for the manufacturers and marketers of military-like assault weapons. If you want to see this trend, just go to a gun show and see all the black and camouflaged semi-automatics that are replacing the aesthetically appealing guns with contoured fine wooden stocks and elegant inlays and engraving. These new quasi-machine guns have all sorts of unusual configurations and often are collapsible to be more easily concealed. The guns displayed at shows more and more like those in news photos of confiscated gang weapons.
Another sad aspect with the NRA: after every major shooting tragedy, out comes its leader, Wayne LaPierre, to warn us that the Constitution will be in jeopardy if some sensible legislation to reduce gun violence is passed.
The NRA does not represent gun owners any more and they are beginning to wise up as more and more extreme bills are pushed in our legislatures and Congress.
And the writer sums up the culture of gun extremism nicely as he says:
The stated purpose of the permitless carry bill in St. Paul is public safety. But this will not be achieved by having even more gun carriers who won’t bother with gun-safety training or the permitting process or who may be mentally ill.
Statistics notwithstanding, even an occasional widely reported “accident” — such as the Target shopper wounded when another customer’s gun went off or the horror of the Walmart shopper whose child got the pistol out of her purse and killed himself — has even more of us deciding we would prefer not to have guns casually carried around by the firearms-inept. It also defies logic to pretend that evermore pervasive guns will reduce the incidence of bar and road-rage shootings and urban gunfights.
The proposed law in Minnesota would have other adverse effects: Even more of those annoying, black-and-white “guns not allowed” signs would crop up. More potential visitors might think Minnesota is returning to gunslinging Wild-West days. The perception could grow stronger that we gun owners aren’t satisfied to have our guns safely at home, out with us hunting, or at a safe shooting range. And it certainly would not enhance our image of “Minnesota Nice.”
( The political cartoon at the top accompanied this opinion piece and certainly does express the truth of the permitless carry bills).
How will we know “good guys” with guns from “bad guys” with guns if everyone is armed and no one has training or a permit. Further they can “stand their ground” and shoot someone without consequence. ( Or so they are led to believe).
The shooters made a terrible mistake and their mistaken ideas or perceptions turned deadly costing lives and sending them to prison. If you are prepared to go to prison over your deadly mistake, then by all means, carry a gun with no training or permit and stand your ground over perceived fear. Try to explain it to a jury and live with what you did.
For the right-winger who wants to feel tough on terrorism but soft on guns, this tension has long been difficult to resolve. It became a lot harder at the beginning of May, when ISIS openly praised the U.S.’ lack of gun control. In response, the NRA released a video trotting out a wild conspiracy theory, claiming that ISIS is praising lax gun laws in an effort to dupe gullible Americans into supporting gun control.
Ludicrous. Dangerous. Stupid. You can’t make this stuff up.
More than 60 guns were found in the home of a man who fatally shot his former girlfriend, her co-worker and a newly appointed police chief before turning a gun on himself, authorities said.
The guns were found Friday at the home of 43-year-old Thomas Hartless by sheriff’s deputies and investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation hours after the killings at a nursing home in Kirkersville, The Newark Advocate reported.
Kirkersville Police Chief Steven Eric DiSario died from a shotgun wound outside the nursing home. Nurse Marlina Medrano, who had previously sought protective orders against Hartless in connection with domestic violence cases, was shot multiple times with a handgun and a shotgun. Nurse’s aide Cindy Krantz was killed with a shotgun.
More than 60 guns. Domestic violence and protective orders. Police chief shot and killed and 2 others and then himself.
Extremism. Good guy with a gun?
And speaking of extremists, Donald Trump is actually considering appointing one of them (Sheriff David Clarke) to a high position in the Department of Homeland Security according to this article from The Trace:
Clarke’s resume as a public safety official is riddled with scandals and accusations of serious abuse. In May, a grand jury recommended that Clarke face criminal charges for his role in the death of a mentally ill inmate at the county jail after guards withheld water from the man for a week. In 2013, a woman falsely accused of drunken driving by one of Clarke’s deputies — the officer had crashed into her while watching a movie in his car — sued Clarke for civil rights violations. The outspoken sheriff, an avid Dallas Cowboys fan, also drew criticism after he had deputies detain a man who asked why he didn’t support Wisconsin’s own Green Bay Packers. After 15 years in office, he was headed toward a possible 2018 re-election campaign with two-thirds of local voters disapproving of his performance.
But as a right-wing firebrand, Clarke’s star has been steadily rising. He owes that in no small part to the National Rifle Association. Clarke, a regular Fox News contributor and public speaker, is part of a stable of public figures tapped by the NRA as the group has expanded its purview beyond gun rights and claimed for itself a role as a conservative vanguard that eagerly jumps into many of the nation’s most divisive cultural and ideological fights. (…)
Riding the NRA’s platform to national prominence, Clarke has used his turn in the spotlight to compare Black Lives Matter to ISIS (he called people protesting police shootings, “subhuman creeps”) and echo the NRA in dubiously linking immigration to violent crime. At a mid-October 2016 campaign rally, when Trump’s poll numbers were sinking, Clarke warned that the election would be rigged. “It’s pitchfork and torches times,” he said.
In the wake of Trump’s victory, reports emerged that Clarke had travelled to Russia and Israel in late 2015 with a delegation of gun-rights A-listers, including the former NRA president David Keene. In Russia, the group met with representatives of the much smaller Russian gun-rights community, including Dmitry Rogozin, a Russian deputy prime minister who supervises the defense industry and is under sanctions from the United States for his role in the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Clarke’s expenses for the trip, estimated at nearly $40,000, were paid for with funds from the NRA’s top tier of donors, the Ring of Freedom, and the Right to Bear Arms, a Russian gun-rights organization.
What are they thinking? If this is the kind of law enforcement officer running things in Milwaukee and then possibly at a national level, or public safety is in serious trouble. We don’t need these kinds of extremists getting away with running important institutions and departments anywhere.
It would be a travesty if Clarke is appointed and doesn’t need Senate confirmation. The Trump administration is in enough hot water over their failure to properly and thoroughly vet at least one high level official ( General Michael Flynn). This carelessness and obedience to power and money is absolutely not draining the swamp. It is overflowing what we already have and leading to cynicism and decision making based on power, control and money.
Who’s in charge? Where is common sense? What kind of communities do we want for our children and families?
If the Trump administration stands their ground about Clarke, we will know exactly why their is potential corruption and total lack of decorum and concern for our country’s security. Trump himself has potentially compromised our national security by allegedly giving classified information to the Russians. What could possibly go wrong with Sheriff Clarke in town?
It’s absolutely necessary that we have qualified, serious and ethical people running our country. Homeland security is serious business. Putting a gun extremist in a high level position is ludicrous. Is this a payback for support of the NRA? Just asking.
Our safety and democracy depend on it and we must demand that our safety comes first before adherence to the agenda of an extremist group.
The majority of gun owners and the majority of Americans don’t want extreme and dangerous gun bills.
It’s time to stand up and stand against extremism wherever it rears its’ head.
Join groups like Protect Minnesota, working to end gun violence in my state. And the Brady Campaign, a chapter of which I lead in Minnesota and sit on the national board. The Brady Center’s new Disarm Hate and Arm People with Facts crowdrise campaign. The facts are that guns in homes and on our streets are causing risk to our families and communities. This crowdrise campaign is in part in memory of the 49 people shot and killed at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando last June 11th. As we approach the first anniversary of that shooting, it’s important to remember how easily one hateful extremist could snuff out so many lives.
I want to start this post by recognizing that today is the day before the anniversary of the tragic 
Let’s make the Parkland shooting the last school shooting said one of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school students interviewed after 17 of his school classmates were slaughtered.
You really can’t make this stuff up. 
Really Paul Ryan? 
There are many reasons not to like the 
commongunsense 