More than 50 Dead in Las Vegas Mass Shooting

America's utterly insane gun laws have claimed more than 50 more lives in yet another mass shooting, this time in Las Vegas.  Once again it also appears that automatic weapons were involved, thereby increasing the death toll, plus over 200 injured.  The rest of the world must thing Americans are insane (not that Trump's election hasn't already proved that in the minds of much of the world).  The simple truth is that NO ONE needs to have an automatic assault rifle.  NO ONE.  That the NRA and its political whores, particularly in the Republican Party allow their easy purchase belies the myth that guns are used by Second Amendment loving hunters and sportsman.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at this latest carnage that sadly will recur again unless and until sane gun laws are enacted and automatic weapons confiscated.  Here are excerpts:

More than 50 people have been killed and over 200 injured in America's deadliest mass shooting after a single gunman positioned on the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel window opened fire on thousands of music fans attending a country-music festival shortly after 10pm on Sunday night local time.

The suspected shooter, a man who lived locally, is dead, according to Joseph Lombardo, the sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, who said the scene is now “static.”

It is now the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, surpassing the death toll of the Pulse nightclub massacre, which killed 49 people.

Police have identified the shooter as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, who lived in a retirement community. Lombardo said the shooter's companion, named as Marilou Danley, is being sought for questioning. She and Paddock have the same address. Country star Jason Aldean was performing one of the festival’s final sets when automatic gunfire broke out. “People went down on the Mandalay side of the stage,” one concertgoer, Joe Pitzel, told CNN. “I don’t know if people were ducking or if people were hit.”
Eyewitness Bryan Heifner spoke to CNN from a room in a hotel across from the Mandalay Bay, which he said he could see from his window.  “Mostly I heard the shots, just so many shots . . .

Concertgoers reported seeing muzzle flashes from the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino across Las Vegas Boulevard from the festival and the sound of what they described as automatic gunfire, according to the Associated Press.

It would be nice to think that perhaps the fact that it was country music fans who were murdered rather than gays that just maybe something will be done to bring sanity to America's gun laws, but that's likely a pipe dream.  The NRA and gun manufacturers for which it is a front organization have bought and paid for too many politicians.  Very, very sad. 

Army Veteran Was Lone Dallas Gunman

Officers killed in Dallas, Texas

The tragedy in Dallas ought to be a wake up call to America in a number of ways.  The first message, that we have received over and over again is that it ought to be impossible for civilians to purchase military style weapons.   Newtown, Orlando - the list is far too long - all have involve military grade weapons that have one purpose : killing numerous people quickly.  Despite this obvious threat to the majority of Americans and godsend to would be terrorists, thanks to the NRA and prostitute like politicians the sale of such weapons continues unabated, if not at a more rapid rate.  If Ronald Reagan could support a ban on assault rifles, why the Hell can't today's Republicans?  The Washington Post has these details on the Dallas shooter:

“At this time, there appears to have been one gunman with no known links to or inspiration from any international terrorist organization,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said Friday afternoon.

Police said Friday that Micah Xavier Johnson, a black 25-year-old believed to be from the Dallas area, was the attacker. Dallas Mayor S. Mike Rawlings told the Associated Press Johnson used an AR-15 assault weapon in the ambush.

Johnson, who had no criminal history, deployed to Afghanistan with the U.S. Army from November 2013 through July 2014 and was in the Army Reserve from 2009 until last year. Army records show that Johnson, whose home was listed as Mesquite, Tex., had served with an engineering brigade before he was sent to Afghanistan. He did not have a combat job and was listed as a carpentry and masonry specialist.

The Dallas Police Department said Friday that during a search of Johnson’s home, they found “bomb making materials, ballistic vests, rifles, ammunition, and a personal journal of combat tactics.” Authorities said they were still investigating the journal’s contents.

Texas law allows people to openly carry long firearms.

Johnson’s Facebook page, confirmed by a federal law enforcement official, shows that Johnson made his primary picture an image of himself raising a single fist in the air, a symbol associated with the Black Power movement of the 1960s. He also posted a similar image of a fist with the text, “Black Power.”

The profile also contains a picture of him and Richard Griffin, of the rap group Public Enemy — a point police noted in a statement they released Friday about the case. “The suspect’s Facebook account included the following names and information: Fahed Hassen, Richard GRIFFIN aka Professor Griff, GRIFFIN embraces a radical form of Afrocentrism, and GRIFFIN wrote a book A Warriors Tapestry,” police wrote. They also said others had told them Johnson was a “loner.”

An AR-15 and no criminal record.  The same story we hear over and over again, making it clear that background checks are not enough.  Such rifles need to be banned and those in circulation surrendered as was done in Australia.  No one needs to have such weapons.  For those who like to target shoot, get something else - which requires skill and not just a barrage of bullets.

The second message is that something must be done to address the excessive use of force by police - especially against black Americans.  I have black friends - one is even in law enforcement - who live in fear of being pulled over for something trivial and ending up dead.  Law abiding citizens should not have to live with that kind of constant fear. Yes, the majority of police are good people seeking to do their jobs.  But using arrests and court fees to fund city operations - locally, Norfolk is horrendous in this regard - which drives up the number of needless stops must stop.  Likewise, the "bad apples" need to be weeded out and, in my view, much more psychological screening done before individuals are hired by police forces.  Bullies, authoritarians, and racists have no place on police departments.  Over my life time I have met too many police who were brutish assholes.  If I white attorney can have such experiences, imagine what a young black male experiences.  It needs to stop!!!

To me a third message is that America needs to do more for its military veterans, especially in the area of mental health.  Republicans are always only too quick to send men and women to war, but then don't want to properly fund and equip the troops - making me want to vomit when I hear them lie and claim that they "support our troops.  But the abuse continues once these men and women leave active duty.  Funding is far to low for medical and other care for veterans, especially in the mental health realm in the wake of horrible wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan.   If GOP blowhards in Congress will not properly fund all aspects of the wars they love to launch, then they need to shut up and never mutter a word about wanting "boots on the ground."  They need a boot of their asses and, ideally, a defeat in the next election cycle.

OK, my rant is over.

Trump Delegate Indicted on Weapons and Child Porn Charges

As Bernie Sanders continues his ego driven campaign, we are again being offered a look at the type of people supporting Donald Trump and his fascist agenda.  In addition to white supremacy groups and ignorance embracing Christofascists, it turns out that one of Trump's Maryland delegates has been indicted on federal weapons charges and for child pornography.  Yet, Sanders seems intent on helping to put Trump and his ugly agenda in the White House.  Mother Jones looks at this latest expose of the ugly underbelly of the Trump army of supporters.  Here are story highlights:

A Maryland delegate selected by Donald Trump's presidential campaign for the Republican National Convention was indicted on Wednesday on federal weapons and child pornography charges.

The federal indictment alleges that Caleb Andrew Bailey, 30, of Waldorf, Maryland, illegally mailed a cache of ammunition and explosives through the US Postal Service and illegally possessed a machine gun and child pornography. The indictment also further alleges that Bailey "attempted to use and did use a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct to produce child pornography."

Joe Cluster, the executive director for the Maryland Republican Party, confirmed to Mother Jones that Bailey was approved by the Trump campaign as a delegate to the GOP convention from Maryland's 5th Congressional District. Bailey could not immediately be reached for comment.

Questions remain as to how the Trump campaign has vetted its delegates for the GOP national convention. Earlier this month, Mother Jones reported that the Trump campaign approved a white nationalist leader as one of its delegates from California. That prompted the delegate, William Johnson, to resign. The Trump campaign blamed Johnson's inclusion on a "database error."

Daily Gun Violence Cannot Become the New Normal

Another week and another mass shooting spree killing innocent Americans simply going about their daily lives.  The irony is that across America every week more people die due to gun violence than all of those killed  or wounded in the Paris terror attack, yet no meaningful changes is made to America's insane gun laws that facilitate such carnage.  No other developed nation in the world sees such routine deaths from gun violence.  Yet, what do we get from Republicans who are complete political prostitutes to the NRA and gun nuts?  Platitudes about "praying for" and "thinking about" those needlessly killed due to political cowardice and a refusal to get assault rifles and other weapons off the street that have but one purpose: killing as many as possible in a short period of time.  Were one of my friends or family members the victim of such violence, I would take such inane statements as the highest insult.  The Los Angeles Times is reporting that two of the guns used in yesterday's slaughter in  San Bernardino, California, were legally purchased.  Here are highlights: 

Meredith Davis, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said officials had "successfully traced" the four guns recovered in connection with the San Bernardino shooting and determined that two of the weapons were purchased legally.

The guns were bought by an individual associated with the investigation, Davis said but declined to name the person.

"Agents continue to investigate leads concerning the two additional firearms," Davis said.

Police officials said that two suspects, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, were armed with two assault rifles and two semiautomatic handguns.

The New York Times quotes President Obama as to what needs to be done:

“We should come together in a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal,” he said in a previously scheduled interview with CBS News. He added, “The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world, and there’s some steps we could take, not to eliminate every one of these mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don’t happen as frequently.”

The Times also has this frightening data:

More than one a day.  That is how often, on average, shootings that left four or more people wounded or dead occurred in the United States this year, according to compilations of episodes derived from news reports.

Including the worst mass shooting of the year, which unfolded horrifically on Wednesday in San Bernardino, Calif., a total of 462 people have died and 1,314 have been wounded in such attacks this year, many of which occurred on streets or in public settings, the databases indicate.

Regardless of the shooters' motivation, if automatic weapons were off of the streets and not easily obtainable, these events would be far less frequent.  As for statements about God, etc., they are nothing more that abject idiocy and are utterly meaningless.

Father of Santa Barbara Shooting Victim Pins Blame on Politicians and NRA

In the mass murder at Santa Barbara we saw yet again a familiar pattern: a mentally unstable individual was able to easily acquire guns and ammunition despite supposed gun control laws.  The take away?  We need to get quick firing guns out of the hands of non-police and non-military personnel.  Sportsmen and hunters do not need the types of weapons that time and time again are the choice of those out to commit mayhem.  The father of one of the shooting victims puts the ultimate blame where it belongs: on the NRA - a front organization for gun manufacturers - and the politicians who prostitute themselves to it.  Here are highlights from a piece in The Raw Story:

Addressing the media, the heartbroken father of one of the victims of Eliott Rodgers’ shooting rampage in Santa Barbara blamed “craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA” for being complicit in his son’s death.

Richard Martinez, father of 20-year-old Chris Martinez, said he was speaking for the family and told the assembled reporters, “Our son, Christopher Martinez, and six others are dead. Our family has a message for every family out there: You don’t think it will happen to your child until it does.”

“Why did Chris die,” Martinez continued, his voice rising. “Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’s right to live?”

“When will this insanity stop,” he said. “When will enough people say ‘stop this madness, we don’t have to live like this.’”

Martinez said he spoke with his son by phone 45 minutes before he was shot inside the IV Deli Mart by Rodgers.

Police say that Rodgers owned three legally purchased 9MM semi-automatic handguns and over 400 rounds of unused ammunition was found in the car after Rodgers shot himself following a police chase.

As is increasingly the case on many issues, on "gun rights" the Republican Party supports the rights of the selfish few, in this case gun nuts, over the rights of the majority.  Be it the selfish, self-centered Christofascists, the irate angry white supremacists, or NRA supporters, the GOP is  always on the wrong side of the issues.  

Newtown Shooter Had NRA Certificates and Virtual Arsenal

As the NRA continues its campaign of lies and disinformation against rational gun control  - because its financial backers, the gun manufacturers want to restrictions whatsoever - new information is coming out about Adam Lanza, the shooter in the Newtown, Connecticut massacre last December.   Among the new details is information on the extent of the weapons arsenal in his home, the insane amount of ammunition in the home, and the presence of NRA certificates.   Thanks to the high volume magazines so loved by the NRA, Lanza was able to fire 154 bullets in less roughly five minutes.  The NRA may try to disclaim Lanza, but the evidence puts him and his at best foolish (I would argue criminally negligent) mother right in the NRA camp.   The Hartford Courant has details.  Here are excerpts:

Newtown shooter Adam Lanza's home contained an arsenal of guns, more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, samurai swords, a bayonet and knives, search warrants released Thursday show.
The warrants show that police found the items after searching Lanza's home and car following the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where Lanza killed 20 first-graders and six women.

The warrants state that investigators found two rifles, a BB gun and a starter pistol in the house, including the .22-caliber rifle that he used to kill his mother, Nancy Lanza, before going on his killing spree. Lanza had taken four additional guns with him to the school.

A gun safe, where some weapons were stored, was in Adam Lanza's bedroom, a warrant indicates. The list of more ammunition filled nearly two pages. Investigators found full boxes of shotgun shells with buckshot, hundreds of rounds for the .22-caliber rifle, numerous boxes of ammunition for handguns as well as the instruction manual for the Bushmaster AR-15 used in the shooting.
Investigators found 12 knives, three samurai swords, a bayonet, eye protection, ear muffs for a gun range, Simmons binoculars, paper targets and Lanza's National Rifle Association certificate.

Police found three photographs of a dead person covered in plastic and blood. The warrants do not indicate whether authorities know the identity of the person.

They also found a bank check to Lanza from his mother for "the purchase of a C183 (firearm)," one of the warrants states. Although investigators identified the "C183" as a firearm, it is unclear if any such weapon with that designation is made. Police confiscated a military-style uniform from Lanza's bedroom, a warrant indicates.

Families of the victims were briefed late Wednesday night about what details were going to be released in the search warrants.

Sedensky said in his report that police recovered from Lanza's body three, 30-round magazines for the Bushmaster, each containing 30 rounds. They also located in the area of the shootings six additional 30-round magazines, three of which were empty and the others containing 10, 11 and 13 live rounds. There was one 30-round magazine on the gun.

Lanza blasted his way into the school by shooting out the front glass and then proceeded to two classrooms, firing 154 bullets in less than five minutes. He killed himself with one final shot as police were closing in.

Lanza killed 17 people in Lauren Rousseau's classroom, including 15 children, shooting most of them at point-blank range as they tried to hide in a bathroom in the back of the classroom. One girl survived by playing dead.

He then backtracked into the classroom of Victoria Soto and killed seven more, including five children. All were shot multiple times.

The NRA and politicians that do its bidding literally have blood on their hands.  One can only hope that members of Congress will remember the faces of those murdered when it comes time to vote on gun control rather than the dollars the NRA and its lobbyists pay to them

Family Research Council Shooter Planned Shooting Spree

Family Research Council is a registered anti-gay hate group that devotes much of its efforts and funding to disseminating lies and untruths about LGBT individuals.  Indeed, if FRC were to have its way, all gays would be viewed as diseased vermin out to destroy America.  FRC also does all in its power to block anti-gay bullying legislation.  Personally, I suspect that every time news of another gay teen suicide hits the news media, there is rejoicing at FRC headquarters.  And for newer readers not familiar with FRC president Tony Perkins, the man has a history of working with white supremacists.  Gays are not the only people that Perkins and company hate and despise.  Last summer, however, FRC received a surprise.  Rather than turning a gun on himself in suicide, Floyd Lee Corkins II showed up at FRC headquarters intending to shoot as many people as possible.  Fortunately, Corkins was not successful and only one security guard was non-fatally injured.  The situation is ironic in two ways.  First, FRC's agenda of making life a living Hell for gays nearly backfired in a major way.  Second, Corkins took advantage of Virginia's ridiculously lax gun laws - something that both FRC and it's evil affiliate, The Family Foundation support - to purchase the guns used in his planned shooting spree. The Washington Post looks at Corkins' plea deal entered into yesterday.  Here are some story highlights:

The shooter of an unarmed security guard at the Family Research Council headquarters last summer was on a mission to target organizations he viewed as anti-gay, and he obtained a gun days before he tried to carry out a plan to kill “as many people as possible,” according to newly disclosed court documents.

New details about Floyd Lee Corkins II emerged Wednesday in federal court, where he admitted to the politically motivated shooting at the conservative think tank in downtown Washington. Corkins, 28, pleaded guilty to three felony charges: a federal charge of transporting a firearm and ammunition across state lines and D.C. charges of assault with intent to kill and committing an act of terrorism while armed.

He drew up a list of four conservative groups and loaded a backpack with a 9mm SIG Sauer pistol, two magazine clips and 50 rounds of ammunition.

“Were it not for the heroic guard who tackled Floyd Corkins, he could have succeeded in perpetrating a mass killing spree in the nation’s capital,” U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen said in a statement. “This case highlights the dangers of access to high-capacity magazines that allow killers to inflict carnage on a mass scale in the blink of an eye.”

Corkins, who told the judge Wednesday that he is taking medication and being treated for “severe depression,” was so angry at the anti-gay-marriage positions of the Family Research Council and the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A that he devised a scheme involving both.  .  .  .  .  his goal was to target people opposed to same-sex marriage and “smother Chick-fil-A sandwiches in their faces,” according to a plea agreement he signed in December.

The court documents show how Corkins methodically tried to carry out his plan. For years, he told FBI agents, he had been thinking about “perpetrating similar violence.” “He initially wanted to make a bomb, but did not have the patience to do it.”

Six days before the shooting, Corkins purchased the pistol from Blue Ridge Arsenal in Chantilly. While there, the French television station France 2 happened to interview Corkins as he held and pointed the pistol as part of a story on how easily firearms can be bought in the United States.

I in no way condone what Corkins attempted to do.  However, his attempt shows that once in a while those who disseminate hate may much to their own surprise reap what they sow when victims of their hatred decide to strike back in a lethal manner.  It also underscores the need for serious gun control laws in this country.. 

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Christianists and Gun Rights

In the alternate universe of far right Republican and Christofascist where increasingly black is white and up is down it should have been obvious that sooner or later the Bible and Christianity would be used to justify opposition to gun control and the use of violence in general.  A piece in the National Review makes this case in any event even as William F. Buckley must be spinning in his grave.    Here's a sampling of the batshitery that now passes for intellectual discourse on the right:

What does all this mean? Essentially that gun control represents not merely a limitation on a constitutional right but a limitation on a God-given right of man that has existed throughout the history of civil society. All rights — of course — are subject to some limits (the right of free speech is not unlimited, for example), and there is much room for debate on the extent of those limits, but state action against the right of self-defense is by default a violation of the natural rights of man, and the state’s political judgment about the limitations of that right should be viewed with extreme skepticism and must overcome a heavy burden of justification.

 There you have it.  Keeping automatic assault weapons out of the hands of civilians and restrictions on gun ownership are unBiblical.  It is, of course insane, unless one throws away the New Testament - something the Christofascists seem wont to do, especially when it comes to the command to love others.   Andrew Sullivan says it well on how the far right and the Christofacists have transformed Christianity into something truly foul:

This man [Jesus] is now a symbol for "pro-family" and "pro-gun" Republicanism. And yet he had no property to defend, no wife to protect, no children to keep safe, no house to live in. He never carried a weapon and rebuked his friends when they used one against a mob armed with clubs and swords about to arrest and torture him to death. He was homeless, completely dependent on the good will, shelter and food of others. He was, as today's Republicans would say, a "taker". But of course, it is in giving that you receive in Christianity. Jesus inverted the entire maker-taker paradigm. So no, congressman Ryan, you cannot be a disciple of Ayn Rand and Jesus of Nazareth. In any way whatsoever.

The sickness of the far right and the Republican Party just seems to be intensifying.  It is indeed frightening to watch. 

Obama Takes on Gun Extremists

It will be interesting to see if Barack Obama holds his resolve to push through meaningful control measured that should have the support of all but the most extreme gun fanatics and the political prostitutes of the NRA in Congress.  It will likewise be interesting to see whether moderates will get off their asses and make it clear to members of Congress that they need to enact gun control legislation or else facing the wrath of the NRA will be the least of the politicos' worries.  This needs to be a real come to Jesus moment for Republicans who are only too happy to regulation the womb and police the bedroom, but who prostitute themselves all too readily to the NRA and the gun manufacturers who finance it.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the coming political fight.  Here are excerpts:

President Obama went big in offering a remarkably comprehensive plan to curb gun violence, and good for him. But his announcement Wednesday is only the beginning of a protracted struggle for national sanity on firearms. Extremists have controlled the debate on guns for many years. They will do all they can to preserve a bloody status quo. The irrationality of their approach must be exposed and their power broken.

Far from acting as if his work was now done, the president made clear that he is fully invested in seeing his agenda realized — and fully prepared to lead a national movement to loosen the grip of resignation and cynicism in the face of brutality and carnage. Gun violence is not some “boutique” issue, as it is occasionally called. We are in danger of having mass shootings define us as a nation. As a people, we must rise up against this obscenity.

This fight is especially challenging for many who view themselves as “moderates” or “centrists.” Moderation is a thoroughly honorable disposition, and Obama’s proposals are moderation incarnate. By international standards, they are very cautious. The president did not call for registering all guns or confiscating assault weapons. He strongly endorsed the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. He is operating within a broad consensus about what is possible and what can work. 

An assault-weapons ban received 38 Republican votes in the House in 1994 and is backed by 58 percent of Americans, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll. Were those Republicans outside the mainstream? And what about that 58 percent of Americans? The poll also found that 65 percent favored a ban on high-capacity magazines, another part of the Obama plan, and 86 percent favored closing the gun-show loophole, part of the effort to make sure there are background checks for all gun purchases.

But the lobbies that purport to speak for gun owners (while actually representing the interests of gun manufacturers) don’t care what the public thinks.

Too often, moderation has become a synonym for cowardice. Too often, moderates lack the guts to define the sensible middle of the road themselves — as Obama has done on the gun issue — and then to defend it. Instead, they yield to the temptation to calibrate where everyone else stands before deciding what they believe. This allows extremists who lack any shame to drag our discourse off the road entirely, into a ditch of unreason, fear and invective.

[T]he NRA’s vile new advertisement that uses Secret Service protection for the president’s daughters to make a small-minded political point .  .  .  .  .  tells us all we need to know, that the gun lobby is deeply afraid of the facts and the evidence. This is why one of the most important actions the president took was to end the ban on research into gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

He [Obama] acknowledged that the battle ahead would be difficult. He predicted he would have to fight the lie that his plan constituted “a tyrannical assault on liberty.” And he sought to mobilize a new effort to counteract the entrenched power of those who have dictated submissiveness in the face of bloodshed. “Enough,” Obama declared, insisting that change would come only “if the American people demand it.” Will we?

I hope readers will contact their members of Congress and make it clear that they need to support the President's proposals or face the consequences in 2014.

Kathleen Parker: Gun Control Proposals Not Draconian

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker is apparently back on the wagon and not drinking the GOP Kool-Aid - at least that's what her new Washington Post column on gun control suggests.  We can readily expect Parker to be slammed and decried by the Christofascist/Tea Party/NRA base of the GOP as a traitor and effete liberal.   In the column Parker looks at the history of gun control and reminds us that once militant black activists supported a no limits approach to gun control - something that would horrify the angry white males who comprise the loudest opponents of rational gun control laws.  As is usually the case, objective facts and an understanding of history cut the far right's arguments off at the knee caps.  Here are highlights from Parker's column:

Unlike many who recently have joined the debate about gun rights, I have a long history with guns, which I proffer only in the interest of preempting the “elitist, liberal, swine, prostitute, blahblahblah” charge.

I grew up in a home with guns, lots of them, and was taught early how to shoot, care for firearms and treat them respectfully. My father’s rules were simple: Never point a gun at someone unless you intend to shoot them; if you intend to shoot, aim to kill.

By today’s standards my father would be considered a gun nut, but his sentiments were understandable in the context of his time. Like others of his generation, he had witnessed Germany’s disarming of its citizenry and the consequences thereafter. Thus, the slippery slope of which gun-rights advocates speak is not without precedent or reason.

But the history of gun-control laws is not without contradictions and ironies that belie the current insistence that guns-without-controls is the ipso facto of originalist America. In fact, the federal government of our Founders made gun ownership mandatory for white males, while denying others — slaves and later freedmen — the privilege.

Today, the most vociferous defenders of gun rights tend to be white, rural males who oppose any regulation. But theirs was once the ardently held position of radical African Americans. Notably, in the 1960s, Black Panthers Bobby Seale and Huey Newton toted guns wherever they went to make a point: Blacks needed guns to protect themselves in a country that wasn’t quite ready to enforce civil rights.

In one remarkable incident in May 1967, as recounted in The Atlantic by UCLA law professor Adam Winkler, 24 men and six women, all armed, ascended the California capitol steps, read a proclamation about gun rights and proceeded inside — with their guns, which was legal at the time.  Needless to say, conservatives, including then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, were suddenly very, very interested in gun control. That afternoon, Reagan told reporters there was “no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”

The degree of one’s allegiance to principle apparently depends mainly on who is holding the gun.

[T]he call meanwhile to ban assault weapons or limit magazines in the wake of the horrific mass murder of children and others at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut is hardly draconian. It won’t solve the problem of mentally disturbed people exacting weird justice from innocents, but it might limit the toll.

One also imagines that the old Reagan would say there’s no reason a citizen needs an assault weapon or a magazine that can destroy dozens of people in minutes. He would certainly be correct and, in a sane world, possibly even electable.

The bottom line is that we need reasonable gun control laws and automatic weapons and large ammunition clips need to be banned now.  And that's only the beginning of what needs to be done.

Israel Debunks NRA Lunacy On Guns in Schools

As seems to be the norm with the far right in America - and the NRA in particular - the truth and objective reality are never allowed to stand in the way of the right wing talking points.  A case in point: claims that Israel has a very low incidence of school shootings because all schools have armed personnel on site as evidenced by the image above.  This sound bite sounds good at first, but under examination, Israeli authorities quickly demonstrate that the claim is untrue.  Moreover, Israel has very strict gun laws - including limits on quantities of ammunition - that would drive the NRA and 2nd Amendment nut cases absolutely apoplectic.  A piece in Daily Kos looks at the real truth of why Israel has very few school shootings.  Here are excerpts:

In the wake of Sandy Hook now we see this from the Israelis: Israelis shoot down NRA's claim that the Jewish State uses more weapons to keep schools safe

Appearing on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, NRA honcho LaPierre said: “Israel had a whole lot of school shootings, until they did one thing. They said we’re going to stop it and they put armed security in every school and they have not had a problem since then.” But Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said the situation in Israel was “fundamentally different” from that in the United States.

“We didn’t have a series of school shootings, and they had nothing to do with the issue at hand in the United States. We had to deal with terrorism,” said Palmor.

“What removed the danger was not the armed guards but an overall anti-terror policy and anti-terror operations which brought street terrorism down to nearly zero over a number of years,” he said. “It would be better not to drag Israel into what is an internal American discussion,” he added.

“There is no comparison between maniacs with psychological problems opening fire at random to kill innocent people and trained terrorists trying to murder Israeli children,” said Reuven Berko, a retired Israeli Army colonel and senior police officer.

Having lived in Israel and trained in courses in Israeli Tactical Point Shooting, I can say that this is very true. There is a very strict emphasis in Israel on gun safety and much less of a "cowboy mentality". Guns are highly regulated and the only people that are out there "carrying" are Soldiers and others connected to Security.
Here are Israeli Gun Control Statistics and Regulations. A sampling of that is here:

Gun Owner Licensing
Genuine Reason Required for Firearm License: Applicants for a gun owner’s license in Israel are required to prove genuine reason to possess a firearm, for example, self-defence, hunting and sport.

Minimum Age for Firearm Possession:  The minimum age for gun ownership in Israel is 27 years and 21 years if served in the military30

Gun Owner Background Checks:  An applicant for a firearm licence in Israel must pass background checks which consider health, mental and criminal30 records

Gun Owner Licensing Period:  In Israel gun owners must re-apply and re-qualify for their firearm license every 3 years

Licensing Records:  In Israel, authorities maintain a record of individual civilians licensed to acquire, possess, sell or transfer a firearm or ammunition

Limit on Quantity, Type of Ammunition:  A licensed firearm owner in Israel is permitted to possess a limited quantity of ammunition.

As one can see... It is not quite the picture that the Right and the NRA like to push.  .  .  .  .  I strongly believe the adage "Guns don't kill people, People kill people - But GUN'S Sure make it a lot easier". They do, and it is time, as Americans, that we understand this and begin a rational discussion around just this issue so that incidents like Sandy Hook, Aurora, and the horror of daily events in our urban areas that go unreported don't ever happen again.

Even Right Wing New York Post Slams NRA and LaPierre - As Do Connecticut Authorities

You know things are bad PR wise for the NRA when even the far right New York Posts describes the NRA's LaPierre as a nut case.   One can only hope that by making its insane statements yesterday the NRA has finally succeeded in repulsing even many Republican political whore who in the past sold their integrity for NRA money.  Meanwhile, officials in Connecticut are piling on to condemn the NRA:

An article in Think Progress looks at the condemnation hitting the NRA from all sides in Connecticut.   Here are highlights:

Teachers, school superintendents, mayors and police chiefs in Connecticut are rejecting the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) response to the shooting in Newtown, describing the gun lobby’s proposal to equip schools with armed guards and more guns as too simplistic, shameful, and opportunistic.

One Connecticut school superintendent dismissed the NRA’s suggestion as “an ill-conceived reaction from an organization that does not have any credibility or expertise with respect to addressing school violence” and said that the idea “is an excuse for not addressing the need to enact meaningful safe gun legislation in conjunction with an investment in mental health services.” Putnam Police Chief Rick Hayes called the proposal “scary,” noting that teachers can’t possibly have the kind of training necessary to safely handle large weapons.

Senate Minority Leader John McKinney (R), whose district includes Sandy Hook Elementary School, called the proposal “ill-timed.” “I also don’t think his idea of undoing or repealing gun-free school zones is a good idea at all,” he said. “I’ve always understood, and believe, that our Second Amendment is an integral part of our Constitution, and people should have the right to bear arms … but I think we should have a fair conversation in this country about what the limits to those rights are.”

Tom Moore, assistant superintendent for administration for West Hartford schools, told the Hartford Courant that his district “won’t be taking our advice on how to keep kids safe from the president of the NRA.” He added, “I come from a family of hunters; I have four brothers who are hunters and members of the NRA. All I’ll be asking for for Christmas, after hearing Wayne LaPierre essentially blame school officials for the shootings, is for [my brothers] to resign from the NRA.”

In fact, newspaper headlines across the state flatly rejected militarizing Connecticut schools.

NRA Proves It's A Front for Gun Manufacturers

I previously did a post on who funds the National Rifle Association ("NRA") here which has garnered a good deal of traffic.  In the post, the data documented that the real financial backers of the NRA are gun manufacturers, not individual NRA members who are trotted out like simpleton puppets whenever the utterly dishonest leadership of the organization senses an increased demand for rational gun control laws.  Yesterday, in a bizarre press conference National Rifle Association spokesman Wayne LaPierre made it crystal clear that (i) the NRA only represents gun manufacturers who want o limits of any kind on the deadly products and (ii) the NRA doesn't give a damn about the lives lost or damaged by the nation's lunatic gun laws.  It is all about the gun manufacturer's bottom line.  That's why the NRA's solution to school shooting is placing armed police - at tax payer expense, of course - in every school as opposed to any limits on assault weapons.  No mention was made of shopping malls, theaters and the growing number of other venues where got toting lunatics have used automatic weapons to commit mass murder.  The irony is that just shortly before LaPierre's deranged press conference a killing spree took place in rural Pennsylvania that left three people dead, including a woman decorating a church for a Christmas party for children, and several state police officers wounded before the shooter was killed by police.  For a demonstration of how insane gun ownership has become in America, this chart is illuminating. A column in the Washington Post looks at the insanity that the NRA represents.  Here are excerpts:

Absurd, unbelievable, tragic, obscene — I grope for words to describe the National Rifle Association’s proposal for how the nation should respond to last week’s slaughter in Newtown: More guns in the schools.

The idea is so insane that as far as I’m concerned — and, I hope, as far as a still-grieving nation is concerned — the NRA has forfeited the right to be taken seriously on matters of public policy. Newtown is still burying six-year-olds and Wayne LaPierre, the organization’s chief, wants more freaking guns in the schools. Wow.

Where to begin? Let’s assume, for the moment, that we decide to pay the multi-billion-dollar cost of placing one gun-toting officer in every school. What would the officer’s orders be? Shoot anyone who looks suspicious? If not, the officer would wait until an assailant — someone like Adam Lanza — displayed a gun or started firing. What sort of arsenal, and itchy trigger finger, would the officer need to be certain of shooting the assailant before the assailant shot the officer?

Now consider the profile of these mass shooters, such as Adam Lanza. These disturbed young men are meticulous in planning their unspeakable crimes. Does it occur to the NRA that if a would-be shooter knew there would be armed police officers at the school (or movie theater, or grocery store), he might be sure to wear body armor? So will the school cops wear body armor, too? Do we require students to wear uniforms of Kevlar too?

The NRA will never, ever admit that the problem is too many guns, not too few. As Post columnist Fareed Zakaria pointed out so eloquently in his recent column, there is mental illness in all industrialized countries. There are violent video games in all those countries, too. But we’re the only country that makes guns, including military-style assault weapons, available to anyone who wants to buy them. This is not freedom. It is a tyranny of death and destruction — a tyranny of which the National Rifle Association is proud. This may be the word I’ve been looking for: evil.

The Washington Post's editorial board ended its main page editorial that ripped Mr LaPierre as new asshole with this summation of the problem:

Indeed, Mr. LaPierre dodged the really big question: When will we muster the common sense to prohibit the sale of military-style assault weapons to civilians? President Obama has promised rapid action to revive the ban on semiautomatic rifles that expired in 2004 and still makes sense. These guns, such as the Bushmaster that Mr. Lanza used to kill 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School, are modeled on military weapons. They load and shoot rapidly. Mr. La­Pierre asked, “Since when did ‘gun’ automatically become a bad word?” We would respond: Why do we allow weapons designed for war to be bought and sold on our streets?

 The New York Daily News editorial was equally blunt in its condemnation of LaPierre and the NRA:

Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association will forever now be known as America’s maddest gunman.  In style and substance, his performance Friday in delivering his organization’s response to the Newtown massacre revealed the obsessive, lunatic paranoia behind its worship of firearms.

A week after a gunman armed with an assault rifle murdered 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, and ever so shortly after the bells there tolled for the dead, LaPierre lashed out at everyone and everything but the weapons that were used to kill.

 

The Post's editorial board is correct.  The real solution that is obvious to anyone not on the de facto payroll of the gun manufacturers: ban assault weapons, limit the availability of automatic pistols, and leave hunting rifles and simple hand guns as the only type of guns available to hunters and those who in their delusions believe having a hand gun in their home makes them safer.  As for the gun manufacturers and Mr. LaPierre, they can go to Hell in my view.

The Obvious Solution to Gun Violence

I never cease to find it ironic that among the loudest voices calling for unlimited access to guns in America are the far conservatives who time and time again equate to conservative Christians.  People who, if they took the Gospel message seriously, would eschew violence and the guns that are so intertwined with violence in America.  Instead they demonstrate a level of hatred of others, extremism and paranoia that in and of themselves  suggest that just maybe these folks ought not to have ready access to guns.  Common sense ought to suggest that assault style weapons do not belong freely accessible to anyone who wants them.  What is likewise disturbing is the refusal of conservatives in particular to ever learn from the successful policies of other nations.  A piece in the Washington Post puts the problem of gun violence in perspective and reveals how simple it would be to reduce the gun related carnage in this country if only politicians had a shred of courage.  Here are excerpts:

Announcing Wednesday that he would send proposals on reducing gun violence in America to Congress, President Obama mentioned a number of sensible gun-control measures. But he also paid homage to the Washington conventional wisdom about the many and varied causes of this calamity — from mental health issues to school safety.

In fact, the problem is not complex, and the solution is blindingly obvious.

What we should be trying to understand is not one single event but why we have so many of them. The number of deaths by firearms in the United States was 32,000 last year. Around 11,000 were gun homicides.

To understand how staggeringly high this number is, compare it to the rate in other rich countries. England and Wales have about 50 gun homicides a year — 3 percent of our rate per 100,000 people. Many people believe that America is simply a more violent, individualistic society. But again, the data clarify. For most crimes — theft, burglary, robbery, assault — the United States is within the range of other advanced countries. The category in which the U.S. rate is magnitudes higher is gun homicides.

The U.S. gun homicide rate is 30 times that of France or Australia, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and 12 times higher than the average for other developed countries.

The data in social science are rarely this clear. They strongly suggest that we have so much more gun violence than other countries because we have far more permissive laws than others regarding the sale and possession of guns. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 50 percent of the guns. 

There is clear evidence that tightening laws — even in highly individualistic countries with long traditions of gun ownership — can reduce gun violence. In Australia, after a 1996 ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons — a real ban, not like the one we enacted in 1994 with 600-plus exceptions — gun-related homicides dropped 59 percent over the next decade. The rate of suicide by firearm plummeted 65 percent. (Almost 20,000 Americans die each year using guns to commit suicide — a method that is much more successful than other forms of suicide.)

[W]hy not have government do something much simpler and that has proven successful: limit access to guns. And not another toothless ban, riddled with exceptions, which the gun lobby would use to “prove” that such bans don’t reduce violence. 

The problems that produced the Newtown massacre are not complex, nor are the solutions. We do not lack for answers.  What we lack in America today is courage.

 In the wake of the Newtown massacre last week, the Virginian Pilot is reporting that gun sales in Virginia have soared to record numbers.  It's a pretty safe bet that it is not the liberals and liberal minded Christians who are flocking to buy guns.  It's likely largely the "godly Christian" set and their equally mentally disturbed Tea Party cousins.

Ken Cuccinelli Opposes All Meaningful Gun Control

This blog - and my December column in VEER Magazine (click on the images below to enlarge)  - has made the case that Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli poses a clear and present danger to the rights and freedoms of all Virginians other than perhaps angry white evangelical Christians who want to keep Virginia dominated by white conservative Christian.  Gays, women, blacks, Hispanics, non-Christians and others are all targeted by Kookinelli's toxic policies and his religious extremism.  But in the wake of the massacre of school children in Newtown, Connecticut, last Friday there is another way in which Kookinelli constitutes a danger to Virginians that needs to be called to the attention of Virginia voters he opposes any restrictions on gun ownership.  Don't believe me?  Here is what Kookinelli is disseminating on his campaign website:  

The 2nd Amendment is one of those key issues that define the differences between conservatives and liberals. Some (especially those on the left) believe that no one — with the exception of law enforcement and the military — should have the ability to possess firearms. While this seems unrealistic, the left has for years followed through with a "legislative war of attrition" on the 2nd Amendment — seeking to ban incrementally, specific types of firearms, ammunition and sales.
Ken has:

• Worked for the repeal of unreasonable restrictions on law-abiding concealed carry permit holders and worked with other states for reciprocity between states that issue concealed carry permits (for example, a concealed carry holder in Virginia would be allowed to carry and conceal in any other state with similar laws).
• Drafted and successfully passed legislation that stopped some liberal county governments from requiring duplicate background checks via the U.S. Mail when purchasing a firearm, resulting — as they intended — in a waiting period. While Ken supports the current process of instant background checks at the point of sale, his legislation eliminated local governments' attempts to impose waiting periods with the additional, duplicative check.
• Worked to expand locations where law abiding citizens with concealed carry permits can carry, including state parks.

Ken Cuccinelli's support of our rights are not born from politics, but rather from a deeply held belief that Constitutional rights as preserved by our Founding Fathers are sacrosanct — and we should fight on all levels to protect those fundamental rights guaranteed under the US Constitution.

As your next Governor, Ken will continue the fight to protect the 2nd Amendment rights of law abiding citizens and any attempts from liberals in Washington, or in Virginia, to restrict those rights.

 There you have it.  Cuccinelli supports the Wild West atmosphere that gun manufacturers, high capacity ammunition clip manufacturers and their minions in the National Rifle Association ("NRA") lobby for on a daily basis.   In keeping with this dangerous mindset, Cuccinelli has opposed the efforts of universities to limit concealed weapons on college and university campuses.   In addition, both in the Virginia General Assembly and as Attorney General Cuccinelli supported the repeal of Virginia's 17 year ban on multiple gun purchases in any given month.   For such advocacy Cuccinelli at the February 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in D.C., NRA President David Keene presented right-wing Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli with the NRA’s “Defender of Freedom Award” on behalf of the NRA.  And in 2009 during his campaign for attorney general Cuccinelli was endorsed as the darling of the NRA.

Any Virginian concerned about the proliferation of gun violence needs to understand that Ken Cuccinelli cannot be allowed to win the governorship of Virginia in 2013.  I can think of few things on the Virginia level more frightening than Ken Cuccinelli in the Governor's Mansion. 

Quote of the Day: The Ass Backward Values of Pro-Gun Conservatives

Growing up through high school my family had 50 acres of land and we had horses and rode often on our property - except during hunting season when hunters ignored the "No Trespass" and "Posted" signs that we diligently placed around the perimeter of the property.  During that portion of the year it was not safe to be on one's own property and we kept the horses in the front pastures in order to minimize the chances that they would be shot.  And on the few occasions when I challenged hunters trespassing on our property I was greeted by arrogance and surliness.  It was obvious that these men did not give a damn about the rights of others.  Perhaps those experiences forever colored my view of gun owners.  But I believe it is symptomatic of the mind set of those who want unfettered access to guns regardless of the danger poised to others.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the misplaced views of the pro-gun crowd which in my view boils down to extreme selfishness - a pervasive trait it seems among conservatives.  Their perceived rights always trump the rights of other citizens.  Here are excerpts:

How many children have to die, how many innocents have to be lost in a mall or a theater or on a neighborhood street, how many presidents or political leaders or prophets like Dr. King have to be shot down in a fusillade that wounds history itself, before America protects the first of our founding inalienable rights—to “life”—which surely comes before the “liberty” of carrying a cache of weapons. And that demands gun control—and I’m not using a politically convenient phrase like “gun safety legislation.” Some guns are outright unsafe—assault weapons—and all guns are unsafe in the hands of some people.

Republicans who claim to defend the “right to life” profit politically by defending the moral wrong of a wholesale arsenal of death inflicted on the already living. The religious right that has allied itself with the gun lobby defies Christ’s warning that those who harm the children would be better off thrown into the sea with a millstone around their necks. Shouldn’t the protection of life begin not with a fertilized egg, but with human beings who are truly and fully alive?

[W]e should have the courage to do something for our country, too. We should look into the anguished faces of parents outside that Connecticut elementary school—faces now tragically incised on our national consciousness. We should recall events from that darkness at noon in Dallas nearly 60 years ago to the carnage at Columbine and Aurora. Those faces and events matter more than the scorecard of the National Rampage Association.

Let us stand against the odds so that countless others who otherwise would never even know the cause of their slaying or the name of their executioner may instead live, laugh, and find love and not hate.

Will Connecticut Massacre Finally Lead to Meaningful Gun Control?

The horrific massacre in Connecticut on Friday (three of the young victims are pictured above) underscores the need for federal legislation on gun control.  Piece meal state by state reform - assuming backward states like Virginia with Republican controlled legislatures would even pass stricter controls - will not do what is needed because guns purchased in lax states like Virginia simply cross state lines and end up in states like New York where much more  sane gun laws already exist.  The fix must be at the national level.  The question is whether Barack Obama and other politicians will have the spine to defy the madmen in the GOP base and the NRA and finally say no more to a continuation of Old West style carnage.  No other developed nation has the regular carnage seen in America for a simple reason: civilians are not allowed to have military style weapons such as these:

Click image to enlarge

Remember this - all of the guns used in Friday's massacre were purchased legally.  Just as has been the case with every other mass shooting spree.  So please, do not repeat the NRA mantra about "law abiding citizens" being deprived of gun rights.  And no more whining about "politicizing" tragedies like the one on Friday.  These tragedies continue to occur because of political cowardice plain and simple.  A piece in the Washington Post is hopefully is accurate and just perhaps there will be enough public outrage to kick the NRA and its political whore (mostly in the GOP) to the curb and strict, sane controls that respect hunting rights (no one needs a Bushmaster rifle to hunt) will be implemented.  And whether or not gun apologists care to admit it or not, anyone who opposes new restricts is complicit in the next massacres that will surely occur if nothing is done.Here are article highlights:

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.

The article goes on to quote the typical gun apologist bullshit dished out by Republicans in particular:

 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. 

I'm sorry, but I have more respect for the most tawdry whore than I do for Ms. Rodgers and her similarly spineless cohorts in the GOP and Democrats who accept NRA money like Harry Reid.  They dance around and refuse to accept the simple proposition that NO ONE needs assault weapons and, if one is crazy enough to be buying them to "plan for the worst" like Adam Lanza's mother is alleged to have done, then they are likely too crazy to be allowed to have such weapons. 

And those of us in the LGBT community need to acknowledge that the vast majority of the nuts in the NRA and the circles of their political supporters are the same folks who hate us and want us criminalized.  There's a reason why the GOP adopts positions on "God, guns and gays."

Quotes of the Day: Ezra Klein and David Frum on Today's Mass Murder

I will admit that diplomacy and tack are not always my strongest suit.  Especially on days like to day when the backward, knuckle dragging mindset of far right conservatives is once again responsible for enabling the murder of innocents as we witnessed today in Connecticut.   As noted in an earlier post, there is absolutely no legitimate reason for ordinary citizens to possess semi-automatic and automatic weaponry that by any common sense standard ought to be limited to appropriate police and military personnel.  Yet, time and time again we see politicians, especially Republicans, prostrating and prostituting themselves to the NRA and other organizations best known for a a racist and bigoted agenda.  In the aftermath of today's slaughter of 20 elementary school students that was enabled by gutless politicians who would rather kiss the ass of the NRA and other extremist groups rather than look out for the best interest of rank and file Americans, two pundits called it like it is and demanded that meaningful gun control and related legislative  be commenced.  The first is Ezra Klein of the Washington Post:

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.

On the other end of the political spectrum we find David Frum stating as follows:
 

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.

Oh, and while it is ostensibly an unrelated issue, uncrowned GOP candidate for Governor here in Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, supports almost unrestricted gun purchases.   Under the GOP controlled Virginia General Assembly, Virginia is once again the gun sales capital of the East Coast.  Please remember that reality when you cast your vote in November, 2013.  Children dies today because individuals like Cuccinelli prostitute themselves to the NRA and the gun lobby.  In my opinion, they have blood on their hands.