Joe Scarborough said on Monday that the massacre in Newtown had forced him to rethink his "long-held" belief about gun rights.
In a lengthy monologue, Scarborough talked about how shaken up he had been by the killing of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday. He noted that his children's ages averaged that of some of the murdered victims.
"From this day forward, nothing can ever be the same again," he said. "... Let this be our true landmark ... politicians can no longer be allowed to defend the status quo.
He said that he was a "conservative Republican" who had been solidly aligned with the NRA during his time in Congress, and had previously held libertarian views on the Second Amendment. But he added that Friday "changed everything":
"I knew that day that the ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant to the future that I want, that I demand for my children. Friday changed everything. It must change everything. We all must begin anew and demand that Washington's old way of doing business is no longer acceptable. Entertainment moguls don't have an absolute right to glorify murder while spreading mayhem in young minds across America. And our Bill of Rights does not guarantee gun manufacturers the absolute right to sell military-style, high-caliber, semi-automatic combat assault rifles with high-capacity magazines to whoever the hell they want.
It is time for Congress to put children before deadly dogmas. It's time for politicians to start focusing more on protecting our schoolyards than putting together their next fundraiser. It's time for Washington to stop trying to win endless wars overseas when we're losing the war at home ... For the sake of my four children and yours, I choose life and I choose change."
President Obama offered words of solace to a heartbroken and inconsolable community Sunday, meeting with loved ones of the dead from Sandy Hook Elementary School and lamenting at a nationally televised memorial service that the United States has failed in its duty “to keep our children, all of them,” safe from harm.
Two days after the massacre of 20 children and six adults by a young man firing a military-style semiautomatic weapon in a hallway and classrooms at Sandy Hook Elementary, Obama, apparently alluding to gun-control laws, vowed to “use whatever power this office holds . . . in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.”
“No single law, no set of laws, can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society,” he said. “But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.”
The president’s visit to this community of 27,000 people, about 30 miles west of New Haven, came as the debate over gun control raged anew and as investigators continued the laborious job of sorting out precisely what happened Friday morning at Sandy Hook, and why.
Earlier Sunday, authorities disclosed that the 20-year-old gunman, Adam P. Lanza, stormed into the elementary school with “numerous” high-capacity ammunition magazines for the .223-caliber Bushmaster assault rifle that he used to carry out the carnage.
The specifics of Adam Lanza’s weaponry, publicly disclosed by police, raised questions about how he had obtained so many magazines. And it suggested that the attack could have been even worse. When he died, Lanza still had numerous rounds of unspent ammo, and authorities later found a shotgun in the car he used.
Each of the Newtown victims, ages 6 to 56, was shot at least twice and some were hit by as many as 11 bullets, authorities said.
Take that nigger off the tv, we wanna watch football! @Hester52 @Ty_CoolerThanU - Bradley Patterson@2A_HogOfTheYear
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Friday’s rampage in Newtown, Conn., could be a tipping point in a national debate over gun rights that has faded in recent years. Advocates pointed to three reasons why this shooting may change the climate in Washington in a way that the one at a Colorado movie theater and the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) did not.
The almost unimaginable killing of so many 6- and 7-year-olds has sparked an outpouring of public emotion; Obama is on stronger footing to champion gun-control measures now that he has been reelected and will never again face voters, and the National Rifle Association has been weakened after spending millions of dollars backing candidates who lost.
The scale and frequency of mass shootings has grown so extreme that gun-control advocates believe they now have a strong case to make to enact strict restrictions on automatic weapons. Their challenge, though, will be turning the latest wrenching moment into a winning legislative strategy. That, they say, requires presidential leadership.
Obama, in his statement Friday responding to the Connecticut shooting, sounded angry and resolved as he recounted a string of recent incidents of gun violence.
“If having dozens of people gunned down in an elementary school doesn’t motivate Washington to do even the easy things they can do, it’s not clear what will,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group chaired by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) that represents 750 mayors across the country.
Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control advocacy group, said she senses a change in the political atmosphere. “The general public is reaching the point of being fed up, and I think this will push it over the edge,” she said.
Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) said in a statement Saturday that “to do nothing in the face of continuous assaults on our children is to be complicit in those assaults.” . . . . Among the measures that Larson and other Democratic lawmakers have suggested are requiring background checks for all gun sales, closing the terrorist watch-list loopholes, banning
high-capacity ammunition magazines and reinstating the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), the fourth-ranking House Republican, said Congress should be “careful” about suggesting new gun laws.
“We need to look at what drives a crazy person to do these kind of actions and make sure that we’re enforcing the laws that are currently on the books.
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Twenty children and seven adults are dead in Newtown, Connecticut. This time, the cowardice, the fear, the evasion and the political convenience must end.A second op-ed underscores the ridiculousness and cowardice of politicians' refusal to stand up to the gun lobby so as to protect children and innocent citizens. Here are the money quotes|:
We have had enough. American politics is plagued by timidity and paralyzed by opportunism whenever we even consider talking action to curb gun violence. No other developed country in the world has these massacres on such a regular basis. In no comparable nation do citizens have such easy access to guns. On no public question other than gun violence are those who demand solutions after an ungodly episode accused of “politicizing tragedy.”
It is time to insist that such craven propaganda will no longer be taken seriously. If our political system does not act this time, we can deem it as totally bought and paid for by the representatives of gun manufacturers, gun dealers, and their very well-compensated lobbyists and mouthpieces.
"Regardless of politics.” That is what it will take. A president who no longer has to run for election is in a good position to say this, but he and the rest of us must change the politics of guns for those who will face the voters again. We cannot just be sad. We must be angry. We cannot just shake our heads. We must shake our fists, and wield our votes. We cannot just say that curbing gun violence is one issue among many. It is a paramount concern for our country.
And we will have to avoid the paralysis created by those who insists that every mass shooting is the work of one deranged individual and never, ever the result of flawed policies.
[W]e already know that it is far too easy to obtain guns in America. We already know that it is far too difficult to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them. And we already know that weapons are available that should not even be sold. We must act now to curb gun violence, or we never will.
We live in a society that makes it very, very easy to kill kids, although we want to pretend that isn’t true. The 20 young children gunned down inside Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday were swaddled in federally regulated, fire-retardant blankets, rode in elaborate car seats plastered with safety stickers, and learned to ride bikes with elbow pads, knee guards and safety helmets. Some of them may never have had a Twinkie pass their lips.But nothing will change when it comes to guns in America. That is something rotten and infected in our culture. And it breaks my heart, at least 27 different ways.
We worry about the hormones in their milk, the violence in “Spongebob Squarepants,” and yet this country tolerates the existence of a military-style assault weapon built for no purpose other than killing lots of people on a battlefield — fast.
People will continue to say that the right to bear arms is written into our Constitution. It’s a sticker on a truck, a political statement swathed in red, white and blue, a stand on tradition, individualism and a huge gun lobby soaked in cash and merciless about winning, winning, winning.
Michael, it is nearly impossible - as soon as a weapon is outlawed, it gets manufactured with an altered design, which no longer makes it the outlawed gun. Don't politicize this most horrific tragedy - it is not a "Republican" moment for you.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Republicans have strengthened the pro-gun-rights portion of their party platform, including a new call for unlimited bullet capacities in guns, in a defiant response to criticism that followed recent mass shootings at a Colorado cinema and an Arizona congresswoman's gathering.The 2012 platform, approved this week by GOP convention-goers who nominated Mitt Romney for president, also endorses "stand your ground" rights for gun owners. That legal concept, which says gun bearers don't have to retreat if they feel threatened in a public place, drew national attention after February's fatal shooting of an unarmed Florida teenager by a neighborhood watch volunteer.
"We invite Americans to consider this platform, a call for dramatic change in government," Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said in his convention speech Tuesday.
"With all the carnage from gun violence in our country, it's still almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. It has come to that. Not even kindergarteners learning their A,B,Cs are safe. We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again. For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of them were five-year olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for 'meaningful action' is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership - not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today. This is a national tragedy and it demands a national response. My deepest sympathies are with the families of all those affected, and my determination to stop this madness is stronger than ever."
Eleven days ago—since when two mass shootings have taken place, this one in Newtown and another earlier this week at a shopping mall in Oregon—the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) president, referring to yet another shooting, bemoaned the media “[seizing] on the back of this national tragedy to try to piggyback their anti-Second Amendment national agenda right on top of the back of the national tragedy and try to force it on Americans all over the country.” Mr LaPierre, like the NRA’s Twitter page, has been silent today.
As it happens, halfway around the world, on the same day, a deranged man attacked primary-school students at a school in China’s Henan province. He had a knife. Twenty-two students were wounded. None died. Adam Lanza had a pair of handguns, and a .223 semi-automatic Bushmaster rifle, which looks like this:
When we first collected much of this data, it was after the Aurora, Colo. shootings, and the air was thick with calls to avoid “politicizing” the tragedy. That is code, essentially, for “don’t talk about reforming our gun control laws.”
Let’s be clear: That is a form of politicization. When political actors construct a political argument that threatens political consequences if other political actors pursue a certain political outcome, that is, almost by definition, a politicization of the issue. It’s just a form of politicization favoring those who prefer the status quo to stricter gun control laws.
Since then, there have been more horrible, high-profile shootings. Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, took his girlfriend’s life and then his own. In Oregon, Jacob Tyler Roberts entered a mall holding a semi-automatic rifle and yelling “I am the shooter.” And, in Connecticut, at least 27 are dead — including 18 children — after a man opened fire at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
If roads were collapsing all across the United States, killing dozens of drivers, we would surely see that as a moment to talk about what we could do to keep roads from collapsing. If terrorists were detonating bombs in port after port, you can be sure Congress would be working to upgrade the nation’s security measures. If a plague was ripping through communities, public-health officials would be working feverishly to contain it.
Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. “Too soon,” howl supporters of loose gun laws. But as others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn’t “too soon.” It’s much too late.
Almost uniquely in the world, the United States suffers massacre after massacre after massacre: in schools, in workplaces, in movie theaters, on city streets. And after each such massacre, there follows a great hushing: don't you dare mention the most obvious reason for this unique American horror.
I experienced a small portion of this reaction personally today.
Earlier this week, the Seventh Circuit opened the way to a concealed-carry law in Illinois, the one remaining state not to allow citizens to carry weapons on their persons. The event moved me to revisit some writing I did this summer about the folly of imagining that law-abiding citizens make themselves more safe by owning weapons. The pieces can be read here, here and here.
Reposting them elicited angry reaction, as writing about guns so often does. There is a small but vocal community that fancies it can protect itself against the millions of illicit guns on American streets by carrying weapons itself. The evidence for this point of view is highly dubious, but it's not a view that rests on evidence.
When the news of the school shooting first surfaced, my first reaction was anger. Again? Again?! I ventilated that anger in a bitter Tweet. . . . .
A permissive gun regime is not the only reason that the United States suffers so many atrocities like the one in Connecticut. An inadequate mental health system is surely at least as important a part of the answer, as are half a dozen other factors arising from some of the deepest wellsprings of American culture.
Gun killings do occur even in countries that restrict guns with maximum severity. But we can say that if the United States worked harder to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be many, many fewer atrocities like the one in Connecticut.
And I'll say: I'll accept no lectures about "sensitivity" on days of tragedy like today from people who work the other 364 days of the year against any attempt to prevent such tragedies.
It's bad enough to have a gun lobby. It's the last straw when that lobby also sets up itself as the civility police. It may not be politically possible to do anything about the prevalence of weapons of mass murder. But it damn well ought to be possible to complain about them - and about the people who condone them.
The hubris and moral bankruptcy of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy is breath taking at times. One has to wonder what planet these nasty douche bags come from. A glaring case in point is Cardinal Edward Egan, former Archbishop of New York, and further back in his clerical career, one of Cardinal Bernard Law's enforcers who intimidated victims and their families in the Boston archdiocese from speaking out about sexual abuse by priest. In short, in my view, Egan is nothing less than an accessory to the sexual abuse of children and youth. Yet the pompous bastard now has had the audacity to withdraw the apology he once made for the sex abuse scandal. I ask again, how can anyone with a shred of moral decency support the Church hierarchy and financially support these foul men? The Business Insider has details on Egan's arrogant action. Here are some highlights:St. John Chrysostom, once said "The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops." Here's proof that he was right.
In an interview this week with Connecticut Magazine, Cardinal Edward Egan, withdrew his 2002 apology for the Church's handling of the sex-abuse scandal, which was once read in all New York parishes.
A decade after that letter, the former archbishop of New York, and former bishop of Bridgeport, now describes the handling of the priest-abuse crisis under his watch as “incredibly good.” He said of the letter, "I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”
“I never had one of these sex abuse cases.” he said, before adding pompously, “If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.” He also claimed that the Church had no obligation to report abuse to the civil authorities. These are lies, strutting around with pride.
Bishop Egan ran a diocese that was notoriously dangerous for children. Contrary to his claim, during his twelve-year enthronement at Bridgeport, Egan repeatedly failed to investigate priests where there were obvious signs of abuse, according to The Hartford Courant. His diocese had to settle the cases and awarded victims some $12-15 million in damages.
In short: Egan coddled child-abusers, and persecuted decent priests during his ignominious reign as a Prince of the Church. His entire interview reeks of a narcissism and self-regard that is so palpable it makes your eyes water.
Again, speaking as a Catholic, God is merciful with those who repent and do penance.
It is time for Egan to repent before his victims and before God.
Having won its lawsuit at the district court level in Massachusetts - the Liar -in-Chief's DOJ is appealing the ruling - GLAD has filed a second lawsuit challenging DOMA and its discrimination against same sex couples legally married in their home state. DOMA represents an unconscionable intertwining of Christianist religious belief in the CIVIL laws and (1) seeks to lealizes religious based discrimination and (2) deprives lawfully married same sex couples of equal protection under the law - something supposedly guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution. It is far past time that the deference and special status given to conservative Christian beliefs afforded in the CIVIL laws be ended. The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit are a lesbian couple who have been barred from receiving federal employee benefits simply because they don't conform to the Christianist view of marriage. Here are highlights from GLAD's announcement:
My, my! It seems the George "Rentboy" Rekers is not the only one who does not practice the anti-gay mantra that he preaches. Or the only closeted homophobe who likes to hire rent boys. As the Hartford Courant is reporting, Rev. Kevin J. Gray (pictured at left), an apparently well-known Roman Catholic priest, has been arrested for embezzling $1.475 million from his parish over the last 6 to 7 years. And what were some of these stolen monies used for? To hire male escorts, of course. Admittedly, I guess stealing and hiring rent boys is preferable to raping children, but the hypocrisy factor is still over the top. We have to also wonder how that much money could be misappropriated and no one noticed. It's mind boggling, but all too typical of those who make careers preaching one thing and doing something very different. Here are highlights from the Courant:
Click image to enlarge.The chart above from The Economist summarizes the current legal recognition - or lack thereof - of same sex couples in the United States. It's ironic that of the states with full gay marriage, the majority have fewer gays per thousand residents than New York City which will only recognize your marriage if you get married in another state that allows gay marriage.
There has been a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth among the Christianists and Kool-Aid drinking Catholics about a bill introduced into the Connecticut Legislature which would have modified the laws allowing Catholic parishes to incorporate. A draft of the bill can be found here. While the bill would have restricted the ability of diocesan bishops to control parish property and activities, the bill would also have provided shelter to protect parish facilities owned by an incorporated parish to avoid liability for debts of the diocese which would be a separate legal entity - particularly large monetary debts arising from sex abuse lawsuits resulting from lax supervision and cover ups by the Church hierarchy. 
There are some days when the lunacy and disingenuousness of the Roman Catholic Church just simply goes off the charts. Here we have an institution that has (i) a worldwide problem with the sexual abuse of who knows how many thousands of minors, (ii) paid out literally billions of dollars in damages to abuse victims with no end of finacial hemmoraging in sight, and (iii) to date still failed to discipline any of its hierarchy that enabled and/or covered up the abuse of minors. But what are the Catholic Bishops in Connecticut worried about? Oh the horror! That with same sex marriage now legal in that state that florists might be forced to sell flowers to same sex couples getting married. I kid you not. Here are highlights from the Hartford Courant:.jpg)
In yet another case where a state supreme court must consider the meaning of full civil equality under the law, the Connecticut Supreme ruled today that civil unions are discriminatory against gay and lesbian couples. It appears that the state legislature is poised to also pass legislation in favor of full marriage equality for gays. If one remembers that we are talking about the CIVIL laws, it should be a no brainer that this is the only possible result if one is applying the state constitution to provide equal CIVIL rights. Of course, this simple reasoning and logic is beyond the mental capabilities of Christianists who cannot separate their religious fanaticism from civil government and civil laws. Needless to say, the will be spittle flying and teeth gnashing among the demented Christianist crowd. The Court's decision can be found here. Here are some highlights from the Hartford Courant:
