GUN CONTROL 3
SEE FOUR 8 23
start 819
bak 3 23
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see assault weapons, mass shooter
see school shoot columbine
see red flag laws
2 22 2a = 2nd civil war
see 2nd amendment (vice signal) god term
see john lott hackademic
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tucker no time to give up ar15
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Firearms are leading cause of death in Tennessee kids: report
#1 cause kid death
https://www.alternet.org/tennessee-gun-laws/
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rww 1 24
Ben Zeisloft claims that “the Second Amendment is a Christian proposition”: “The right to protect your life from evildoers flows directly from the inalienable right to life you have from your Creator.”
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#1 cause kid death
https://www.alternet.org/tennessee-gun-laws/
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an 8 23 no lnx vid
'Not what democracy looks like': TN GOP lawmakers order police to oust silent protestor from pro-gun hearing
Two protestors holding up signs during Tennessee GOP lawmakers' pro-guns hearing (August 22, 2023), Image via screengrab/News Channel 5 chief Investigative reporter Phil Williams.
David Badashand The New Civil Rights Movement August 22, 2023
Tennessee House Republicans holding a hearing on legislation to allow guns in schools ordered state troopers to physically remove a woman who was silently protesting by holding a small sign. She was among a group of people in the gallery opposing the bill, a few of them were holding signs. Among them was at least one parent of children who attend Nashville’s Covenant Elementary School, where six people including three children were killed in a mass shooting earlier this year.
“And deny our First Amendment rights? I am not leaving,” the protestor, identified as Allison Polidor, said while still seated before she was removed, according to video (below) posted by NewsChannel 5’s Phil Williams. “We have rights to hold a sign. If you have to drag me out, so be it.
As state troopers grabbed her and removed her from the room she shouted, “This isn’t what democracy looks like.”
The protestors in the House Judiciary Committee’s Civil Justice subcommittee hearing sat quietly holding signs that read, “1 kid > all the guns,” (one kid is greater than all the guns).
READ MORE: Suspect in Killing of Storeowner Over LGBTQ Flag Was Far-Right Conspiracist Who Promoted Christian Nationalism: Report
Lawmakers had convened for a special session on public safety to respond to the March school mass shooting that left three children and three adults dead.
Before Polidor was removed, off-camera a voice could be heard saying if anyone is holding a sign, “we’ll just clear the whole room.” Ultimately, NewsChannel 5 reports, the entire room was cleared.
Later, Polidor told NewsChannel 5, “It’s an attack on First Amendment rights.”
“I mean, I am here for my kids — everyone’s kids. They are making these laws or lack of laws. I am here representing everyone’s kids. No one should worry if their kids are going to come home from school or not. I feel like you can’t sit by. When we’ve come to the point you can’t hold up a sign, it’s not OK.”
Sarah Shoop Neumann, whose bio reads, “Grounded in faith, fierce advocate for the oppressed, proudCovenant School mama,” through tears told reporters, “I don’t think these people get what this means. We’re here for six people who were killed in our school. We’re just trying to do something.”
READ MORE: Fox News Tells Viewers ‘They’ Let Tropical Storm Hilary Into the US ‘Because It’s Biden’s America’
“It’s hard to be here,” she continued, noting the presence of the Proud Boys and the Tennessee Firearms Association, according to WKRN.
“And I’m just trying to sit quiet. I already got told I can’t have my sign that says, ‘I’m a Covenant mom.’ That dignity’s been taken away,” she continued. “This is life or death for people.”
WKRN reports Chairman Lowell Russell made the decision to have state troopers remove the protestors holding signs.
Tennessee House Democratic Minority Leader Karen Camper via social media said, “People are at the TN Capitol in 100 degree heat & paying to park to be thrown out of committee rooms for sitting QUIETLY?! What are we doing?! This is not how it works. This is shameful & an abuse of power! No chanting, no yelling: sitting quietly. Give me a break!”
Tennessee Senate Democrats, also Tuesday afternoon, accused Republicans of blocking 20 gun safety bills, refusing to even allow debate.
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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gun debate so
https://www.alternet.org/you-cant-be-serious-newsom/
no lnx
'You can’t be serious': Gavin Newsom mocks Mississippi GOP gov for challenging him to a gun 'debate'
Brandon Gage June 08, 2023
California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Thursday unveiled his proposal for a constitutional amendment to address gun violence.
"I'm proposing the 28th Amendmentto the United States Constitution to help end our nation's gun violence crisis," Newsom posted on Twitter along with a video address. "The American people are sick of Congress' inaction. The 28th will enshrine 4 widely supported gun safety freedoms -- while leaving the 2nd Amendment intact: 1) Raising the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21 2) Universal background checks 3) A reasonable waiting period for gun purchases 4) Banning the civilian purchase of assault weapons."
Newsom said in the two-minute spot:
Every time it's the same. They tell us we can't stop these massacres. They tell us we have to stand by and watch tragedy after tragedy unfold in our communities. They say we can't stop domestic terrorism without violating the Second Amendment, and thoughts and prayers are the best we can do. I'm here to say that's a lie in this country. We do have the power, the power to change things, to reclaim our freedom from fear. Her ability to make a more perfect union is literally written into the Constitution. So today I'm proposing the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution to do just that.
The 28th Amendment permanently enshrines four additions to the laws of our land. It raises the minimum age to purchase a firearm from eighteen to twenty-one because we can't buy a beer. You shouldn't be able to buy a gun.
It mandates universal background checks to prevent truly dangerous people from purchasing a gun that can be used in a crime, and institutes reasonable waiting periods for all gun purchases, and it bans civilians from buying assault rifles, those weapons of war our Founding Fathers never foresaw. This will guarantee states as well the ability to enact common sense gun safety laws while leaving the Second Amendment intact and respecting America's gun-owning tradition.
The 28th locks in the common sense constitutional protections that Democrats, Republicans, independents, and gun owners overwhelmingly support. And it ensures NRA-owned politicians can never strip those protections away.
This fight won't be easy, and it certainly won't be fast. Convening a constitutional convention requires two-thirds of the states to call for this. California will be the first, but that's just the beginning. Join us by going to campaign for democracy.com and signing the petition to protect our communities and protect our freedom. Support the 28th.
READ MORE: 'Humiliated': Mississippi girl 'forced to miss their graduation' after judge’s anti-trans decision
A few hours later, and although not mentioned personally, Republican Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves challenged Newsom to an exchange of ideas.According to the Violence Policy Center, Mississippi boasts the highest rate of gun deaths per capita of any state.
"Gov. Newsom, I am willing to debate you on this in Mississippi any time. So on your next trip to our state to campaign for my opponent, give me a call," Reeves tweeted on Thursday afternoon.
Newsom fired right back.
"Can't wait for you to defend the fact that Mississippi has the highest gun violence death rate in the nation…. (377% higher than California’s, by the way)," Newsom wrote. "You can't be serious."
READ MORE: Mississippi Gov. slammed for re-election bid launch of 'cosplaying' clip of him 'shooting' people of color
Watch Newsom's announcement below or at this link.
READ MORE: Ex-US attorney explains why this NFL star is a critical piece in the Mississippi welfare investigation
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red flag
https://www.alternet.org/tennessee-republican-taking-dangerous-people/
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ca is officially a devil term/ verb 2nd amend is god term
no lnx twit vid
'So we’re legislating nothing': Texas Democrat stumps GOP sponsor of anti-'tyrannical government' bill
Brandon Gage
May 07, 2023
Texas State Representative Jarvis Johnson [AA] (D-Houston) stumped State Representative Carrie Isaac (R-Dripping Springs) during last Thursday's debate over a proposal that Isaac sponsored to supposedly shield Texans from California's "tyrannical government."
Chron explained on Friday that "House Bill 3137 stops a municipality from instituting regulations surrounding the transfer, possession, wearing, carrying, ownership, storage, transportation, licensing, or registration of firearms, air guns, knives, ammunition, or firearm-related gun supplies or accessories. At the same time, the bill prohibits local governments from requiring gun owners to get liability insurance for damages resulting from negligent or willful acts involving firearms."
The outlet also noted that "according to a February report by Reuters, the San Jose bill passed in January 2022 with an ordinance requiring gun owners to obtain liability insurance to cover negligence or accidents from using firearms. The San Jose bill also requires gun owners to pay a yearly fee to gun violence prevention organizations the city manager picks. Due to pending litigation, the bill hasn't been enforced in the city yet."
READ MORE: 'Now it’s God’s fault': Texas Republican slammed for claiming 'the almighty' controls shootings
Bit by bit, Johnson poked holes in Isaac's assertions.
"What does your bill specifically do?" Johnson asked Isaac.
"It will not allow municipalities to require insurance on firearms," Isaac replied.
"So otherwise, other words, does your bill prohibit mayors, city councils, and county commissioners from legally governing themselves when it comes to guns?" Johnson wondered.
READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene blames Texas mall shooting on 'mental illness' and 'evil forces'
"They do not have this right," Isaac declared.
"They don't have the right to do what?" Johnson followed up.
"To infringe upon our second amendment," Isaac said.
"Who — you mean again, cities, mayors," Johnson clarified.
"Correct," Isaac confirmed.
"Do mayors, city councils, and county commissioners have a right to pass laws that protect the citizens of their community?" Johnson posited.
"As long as it doesn't infringe on our constitutional rights," Isaac responded as her comrades began surrounding her.
"The constitutional right to do what?" Johnson pressed.
"To protect ourselves with our Second Amendment," Isaac proclaimed.
"From what?" Johnson continued.
"From a tyrannical government," Isaac reiterated.
"A tyrannical government. Which government currently is being tyrannical?" Johnson asked.
"Say that again, I'm sorry," Isaac requested.
"Which government is currently being tyrannical?" Johnson repeated.
Isaac struggled to provide a coherent answer.
"Yeah. It would prevent any tyrannical gun, any tyrannical," she said amid whispers from her colleagues.
"Is there a municipality currently that this law is in place?" Johnson asked.
:{:{}:
}:
"That's not what this is about," a male voice grumbles.
:{:{}:
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"Yes, actually there is," Isaac stated.
:{:{}:
}:
"Where?" asked Johnson.
:{:{}:
}:
"San Jose, California," Isaac said.
"Oh, I, I didn't know we were California. I'm asking in Texas..." Johnson quipped.
"I'm sorry, say that again," Isaac requested again.
:{:{}:
}:
"Is there a city in Texas?" Johnson asked more forcefully.
:{:{}:
}:
At this point, Isaac was being fed answers.
"Answer every question. Keep saying what you want us say," Isaac was told.
"Um, no, there is not, and that's the, and this still will prevent that from happening here in Texas," Isaac insisted.
"So then that means we're legislating nothing?" Johnson pointed out.
"We're preventing it from happening here in Texas," Isaac shot back.
"So it hasn't happened yet," Johnson said.
"That's correct," Isaac agreed.
"So, again, we're legislating nothing," Johnson added.
"Don't California my Texas," Isaac snapped.
"Are we legislating nothing?" Johnson asked one last time, albeit in vain. "So we're legislating nothing."
Watch below or at this link.
READ MORE: 'Uvalde would like a word': Texas Republican scolded for blaming Friday’s mass shooting on 'the migrants'
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https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-right-leaning-pages-lead-discussion-about-home-invasions-right-wing-media-and-nra
mma 4 23
no pix lnx
On Facebook, right-leaning pages lead discussion about home invasions, with right-wing media and the NRA praising homeowners who shoot suspected intruders
Right-leaning Facebook pages earned 65% of total interactions on posts about home invasions, despite sharing only 25% of them
Special PROGRAMS
GUNS & PUBLIC SAFETY
WRITTEN BY NATALIE MATHES
RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CARLY EVANS
PUBLISHED 04/26/23
On Facebook in the last year, right-wing media outlets have amplified sensational posts that praise people who have shot, and in some instances killed, alleged home intruders.
In a new study, Media Matters compiled and analyzed Facebook posts about home invasions from news and politics pages in the last year and found that right-leaning pages earned 65% of total interactions on posts about home invasions, despite sharing only 25% of them. Among these right-leaning pages are right-wing media outlets and the National Rifle Association.
A series of recent shootings have refocused the nation’s attention on so-called “castle doctrine” — the idea that a person doesn’t have a “duty to retreat” before using deadly force to defend themselves when in their home — and “stand your ground” laws that apply this idea outside the home, using what critics call a “shoot first, ask questions later” model that allows “anyone who believes their life to be in danger to use lethal force in an act of self-defense, without any duty to retreat.”
On April 13, an elderly man in Kansas City, Missouri, shot teenager Ralph Yarl in the head after Yarl mistakenly rang the home's doorbell while he was trying to pick up his siblings. On April 15, a homeowner in rural New York shot and killed 20-year-old Kaylin Gillis when a car she was riding in pulled into his driveway by accident while searching for a friend’s house. On April 18, a man in Florida shot a 6-year-old girl, her parents, and another neighbor after a basketball accidentally rolled onto his property. The next day, a man in Texas shot two high school cheerleaders who had mistaken his car for their own after a late-night practice.
According to an April 22 report by Insider, gun violence experts say that these recent shootings are “a larger symptom of a distinctly American culture that empowers people to open fire, even when there's no real threat.” This violent culture stems from the NRA’s decades-long campaign pushing “stand your ground” laws across the nation.
Most Americans are not satisfied with existing gun laws, but right-wing media continue to defend the role guns play in America. For example, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed in January that assault weapons “are not a threat to anybody,” and the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said that guns had “nothing to do with” a recent mass shooting in Nashville. Salem Media Group’s Dennis Prager has falsely insisted that “there's no way to stop the ubiquity of guns” in America, and Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk has claimed, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”
By defending the role guns play in America and working to convince Americans that there is no real possibility of passing stronger gun control measures in the U.S., right-wing media encourage the false belief that the only way to make ourselves safer is to take matters into our own hands and further arm ourselves. This provides cover for politicians who work with the NRA and, conveniently, creates bigger business for gun sellers.
In the last year — from April 20, 2022, through April 20, 2023 — Facebook has enabled the NRA and right-wing media outlets to sensationalize and amplify stories about alleged home invasions across its platform. Several of these stories pushed the narrative that people need to own guns in order to defend their families, and even praised people who shoot and kill alleged home intruders.
In the last year, right-leaning Facebook pages shared only 25% of posts about home invasions but earned 65% of total interactions
In the last year, Facebook pages that regularly post about U.S. news and politics shared at least 8,100 posts about home invasions, earning over 6.5 million total interactions. Right-leaning pages shared only 25% of these posts (about 2,000) but earned 65% of total interactions, amounting to over 4.2 million.
Several of these posts praised elderly homeowners in particular for shooting, and in some instances killing, alleged home intruders, with Rumble’s Steven Crowder captioning one such post “nice shot.” Others celebrated instances when it was revealed that homeowners would not be charged for shooting and killing people who trespassed on their property.
Home invasion Facebook posts praising elderly
Home invasion Facebook posts celebrating no charges
Ideologically nonaligned Facebook pages shared 72% of posts (nearly 6,000), but earned only 30% of total interactions (nearly 2 million). Left-leaning pages shared only 3% of posts (about 200) and earned 5% of total interactions, amounting to 294,000.
Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled a list of 1,773 Facebook pages that frequently posted about U.S. politics from January 1 to August 25, 2020. For an explanation of how we compiled pages and identified them as right-leaning, left-leaning, or ideologically nonaligned, see the methodology here. The resulting list consisted of 771 right-leaning pages, 497 ideologically nonaligned pages, and 505 left-leaning pages. Using CrowdTangle, Media Matters compiled all posts about home invasions from the pages
The NRA earned 17% of total interactions on Facebook posts about home invasions in the last year, despite sharing just 0.1% of them
The NRA's official Facebook page earned the most total interactions on posts about home invasions during the time frame studied. The page earned over 1.1 million total interactions on just 9 such posts, meaning the NRA shared just 0.1% of Facebook posts about home invasions from U.S. news and politics pages over the last year, but earned 17% of total interactions.
After the NRA, the 6 Facebook pages that earned the most total interactions on posts about home invasions were pages for right-wing outlets, organizations, and personalities. In order, they include Blue Lives Matter, Fox News, Breitbart, Ben Shapiro, Colion Noir, and TheBlaze.
home invasion other top 6 collage
The top 6 posts that earned the most total interactions were from the NRA, and all featured headlines praising homeowners for shooting alleged intruders.
NRA Facebook posts about home invasions
The NRA has also run at least 115 ads on Meta platforms over the last year on an additional Facebook page. These ads endorsed midterm candidates it claimed would defend your “right to protect your home and family” and attacked candidates it claimed would “leave your family defenseless.” Facebook earned at least $500,000 on these ads, which reached an estimated audience of up to 60.9 million users.
NRA Meta Ads home invasion
Networks of Facebook pages operated by right-wing outlets amplified numerous stories praising homeowners for shooting, and in some instances killing, alleged home intruders
Facebook has a history of profiting from networks of right-wing pages that exploit its platform to amplify various right-wing talking points — including conservative narratives around gun ownership.
The Western Journal shared nearly 350 posts about home invasions in the last year across 19 Facebook pages, collectively earning nearly 160,000 total interactions. Some of these posts featured an article praising a resident for sending suspects “running for their lives,” while others claimed, “You know what they say — real gun control means hitting your target. And this homeowner did just that.”
Western Journal home invasion collage
TheBlaze shared 195 posts about home invasions in the last year across 10 Facebook pages, collectively earning more than 300,000 total interactions. Some of these posts featured an article claiming that “armed home invaders wearing ski masks” shot a homeowner, but that homeowner also had a gun and shot “both crooks dead.” Others featured an article headlined, “Video: It’s all smiles before crooks invade home; seconds later it’s all backsides as they run for their lives from homeowner firing ‘AK-47-style’ gun at them.”
TheBlaze collage of home invasion posts
The Daily Wire’s network shared 160 posts about home invasions in the last year across 7 Facebook pages, collectively earning at least 285,000 total interactions on these posts — some of which cited “castle doctrine” as protecting a woman in Texas who fatally shot an alleged home invader.
The Daily Wire home invasion collage
Fox News shared 24 posts about home invasions in the last year across 3 Facebook pages, collectively earning more than 200,000 total interactions. Some of these posts praised elderly homeowners for turning the tables on suspected home invaders.
Fox News home invasion collage
Methodology...
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pence booed at nra in indiana?!
https://www.alternet.org/our-hearts-go-out-but/ kid at door etc shot
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xmas card w assault weapons common?!
https://www.alternet.org/insensitive-creepy-and-ghoulish-republicans-are-doing-gunowners-more-harm-than-good-conservative/
an 4 23
no linx
:{:{}:
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daily Beast opinion columnist and Never Trump conservative Matt Lewis has his share of disagreements with liberals and progressives where gun control is concerned. Lewis considers himself staunchly pro-2nd Amendment, and he isn't shy about saying that he grew up around a "gun culture."
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But in a scathing column published on April 17, Lewis takes issue with the "insensitive, creepy, and ghoulish" way in which many "Republican politicians" address the gun control issue. And he believes that the theatrics of Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and other MAGA Republicans are doing the 2nd Amendment more harm than good.
"When I was around ten," Lewis recalls, "my grandfather gave me a real shotgun. My dad intervened to make sure that I did not have unfettered access to it, and that I could only shoot it with his direct supervision. My dad was a prison guard and an avid hunter. He took gun ownership seriously. All this to say, I'm not a gun-grabbing city slicker — though I do think there are common sense reforms we should consider, including red flag laws and background checks."
READ MORE: Guns don't kill Americans, Republicans do
Lewis continues, "I’m not offended by law-abiding Americans who have guns for hunting and protection. What I am offended by are weirdos who want to go out of their way to constantly remind you that they are armed to the teeth."
The conservative columnist has no problem with conservatives debating liberals and progressives vigorously on gun control; what he objects to are the "bizarre" and "weird" theatrics — especially when they follow a mass shooting.
"In the wake of all the violence we have seen in recent decades," Lewis laments, "I would expect 2nd Amendment advocates to go out of their way to demonstrate responsible gun ownership. Remember the Party of Personal Responsibility? Instead, it seems like Republican politicians are going out of their way to fetishize guns. They are more than just for protection or sport. They are a way of life, a religion, a culture."
:{:{}:
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Even Republicans with strong pro-2nd Amendment voting records, Lewis argues, risk being attacked as "squishy RINOs" by MAGA Republicans if they aren't "performative" enough.
READ MORE: How the gun-loving South dominates these United States
"Clearly, what we are seeing is some sort of vice signaling, presumably because the demand to be perceived as a performatively tough Second Amendment advocate is so intense that mere words and past votes are no longer persuasive enough," Lewis observes. "In addition to supporting the right to bear arms, you now also have to demonstrate that you are a gun fanatic."
READ MORE: Students across the country walk out of school to protest gun violence
Read Matt Lewis' full Daily Beast column at this link (subscription required).
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new rep
no lnx
Every Republican running or rumored to be running for president is speaking to the National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, beginning on Friday. The convention is taking place on the anniversary of one of the deadliest mass shootings in the city’s history and follows two major mass shootings in the last month.
On March 27, a shooter killed three children and three adults at a private Christian grade school in Nashville, Tennessee. The shooting spurred thousands of residents to protest for days on end in support of gun safety measures and the Democratic lawmakers who were expelled for joining their protests. Two weeks later, on April 10, a shooter killed five people and left another eight injured in Louisville, Kentucky. These are just two of the more than 150 mass shootings in America this year.
Saturday, April 15 also marks two years since one of the deadliest mass shootings in state history, when a shooter killed nine people and injured another seven at a FedEx facility in the same city where the NRA is hosting its weekend convention.
Meanwhile, every Republican likely vying to lead this country is openly dishonoring the people killed, their families and friends, and every single person in America frustrated by government inaction on gun violence.
By video, the NRA convention will warmly welcome Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. Donald Trump, Mike Pence, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and Vivek Ramaswamy will all be appearing in person, alongside other shameless Republicans.
It’s not a matter of whether it’s surprising that Republicans are tripping over themselves to satisfy the NRA. Sometimes the most stirring and instructive conclusions can be found in simplicity: Every single potential presidential candidate of a major political party is bowing down to the NRA in the wake of yet another pair of devastating mass shootings.
To call it depraved would be generous. The subservience that the Republican Party has to a group that insists upon making it as easy as possible for anyone to access tools used for killing is unworldly. The phrase “dodging a bullet” is becoming less a plain colloquial metaphor, and more guiding advice for anyone trying to do anything in public in the United States.
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some progress post nashville (2 in 1 hour 2 mi apart) mayor had been grazed yr before?
assault ban WA? red flag sev states try?
rubber glue projection
sometimes retaliation FAILs even backfires
// tucker
an 4 23
no lnx vid etc
'The worst case of blackface': Matt Walsh's racist attack on Justin Pearson
Brandon Gage April 12, 2023
Right-wing Daily Wire host Matt Walsh called Tennessee State Representative Justin Pearson (D-86th District) a "gutless fraud" and accused Pearson of "doing blackface" as Nashville officials were voting to reinstate him to his office on Wednesday afternoon.
Pearson and State Representative Justin Jones (D-52nd District) – both of whom are Black – were expelled from the chamber last week by Republicans because they protested the GOP's lack of action to prevent gun violence following the deadly mass shooting at the Covenant School in late March.
A third legislator, State Representative Gloria Johnson (D-90th District), who is white, was spared. Jones was reinstated on Tuesday.
READ MORE: 'Miscarriage of justice': Metro Nashville council reappoints Justin Jones
On Easter Sunday, Pearson delivered a Resurrection-themed sermon at the Church of the River in Memphis in which he blasted his right-wing colleagues for their unprecedented assault on the democratic process.
"The Republican-led supermajority of the Tennessee assembly sought to have a political lynching of three of its members because we spoke out of turn against the status quo of the government after the tragic deaths of six people at the Covenant school in Nashville," Pearson said. "The movement for democracy lives or dies in Memphis. The movement to end gun violence lives or dies in Memphis. We’ve seen those who want to kill the movement in the Republican-led supermajority."
Pearson compared Governor Bill Lee to Pontius Pilate, the biblical Roman official who condemned Jesus Christ to crucifixion.
"Because we walked to the well of the house out of turn, resolutions were unjustly and undemocratically filed against us on these trumped-up charges," Pearson stated. "Because we spoke out against the empire of the NRA of the gun lobbyists; because we demanded an end to gun violence, an end to the proliferation of weapons on our streets, an end to the funerals we attend day after day and week after week and month after month and year after year — because we did that, the Republican-led General Assembly with the support of folks even in this district like Mark White, from our own community, thought it better to get rid of our democratic representation in District 86 than to actually solve the problem."
READ MORE: Tennessee lawmaker: 'Partisan' GOP efforts to oust him were a 'gross miscalculation'
Pearson also penned a blistering CNN editorial on Wednesday in which he admonished Republicans for their "gross miscalculation" in having him removed.
"The spectacle was a gross miscalculation by Republicans in the chamber," Pearson argued. "It turns out that most Americans care deeply about democracy. Most people care about equality and progress. And over two-thirds of Americans — including four out of 10 Republicans — support the kind of common-sense gun safety laws that Rep. Jones, Rep. Johnson and I were protesting in favor of, in the wake of the senseless March 27 Covenant School massacre."
Pearson's powerful oratory triggered a vengeful reaction from Walsh, who launched a racist attack against Pearson:
You know, he doesn't, he, he doesn't really sound like a 1960s civil rights figure, which is what he is trying to sound like and look like. Uh, he sounds like he's doing a parody of one. You know, this is, this is the worst case of blackface that we've seen since Justin Trudeau, except that Pearson's actually Black and he's still doing blackface. Nevertheless, he, he is performing and we know he is performing because now we know what he sounded like before theperformance. It's not at all a convincing performance, of course, in fact, I didn't think I'd see a performance less convincing than Bill and Mulvaney's portrayal of womanhood until Pearson came along. Pearson's really given him a run for his money. This is what the left promotes and encourages – empty performance taken to comical, almost surreal extremes. You know, they give us heroes and leaders who are cartoons. Who are hollow and paper thin, who are, it always turns out conniving, cowards, gutless frauds, and self-aggrandizing performance artists.
Watch below or at this link.
READ MORE: Judges axe Tennessee GOP's halving of Nashville Metropolitan Council: report
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6-8 all gop prz cand went 3? or sent video msgs
nikki noemi?? said diverse then brutal pan of aud by cnn
https://www.alternet.org/south-dakota-governor-nra-white/
https://www.alternet.org/oscar-winning-edit-nra-audience/
https://www.alternet.org/mike-pence-nra/
booed?
hard to beleive he is still prz
https://www.alternet.org/nra-ceo-threatening-political-careers/
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4 23
expell 2 AA young guns justins, 1 wht woman spared by 1 vote
https://www.alternet.org/tennessee-house-defined-by-partisan-vitriol-pique-scandal-racism-and-olympic-level-pettiness-for-years-beat-reporter-2659757170/
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fla say gay
https://www.alternet.org/usa-now-majority-permitless-carry/
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big natl protests post nashville, he has to spox?
https://www.alternet.org/its-worth-it-charlie-kirk/ for 2a
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rww 4 23
no twt
Levin appeared on Fox & Friends March 31, 2023 to denounce the indictment of Donald Trump (and plug his book).
When news broke Thursday that a Manhattan grand jury had voted to indict former President Donald Trump, Trump and his supporters were quick to portray him as an innocent victim and to suggest that his prosecution spelled the end of democracy in America.
The charges follow an investigation into a hush money payment made to former adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. With the indictment under seal, the exact charges have not yet been made public, though some news reports suggest Trump faces about 30 charges and that he is expected to be charged with falsifying business records to cover up the payment.
Trump himself displayed his trademark narcissism Thursday, writing in one of many urgent emails, “We are living through the darkest chapter of American history.”
The always-blustery right-wing pundit Mark Levin ranted on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning, “We have crossed the Rubicon. This is atyrannynow.”
Right-wing youth leader Charlie Kirk, who heads Turning Point USA, claimed that the indictment of Trump is a “designed campaign” by the left to provoke right-wing violence “to justify the next phase of their takeover of the country.”
Ali Alexander, a leader of the “Stop the Steal” effort to keep Trump in power after his 2020 loss, wrote on his Telegram account, “TRUMP INDICTMENT refocuses some things. We’re approaching Luciferian-triggered civil war. We must fight Them.May God bless and forgive us where we fall short.”
Far-right broadcaster Pete Santilli—who last week said that if Trump were arrested, the military and law enforcement should round up and execute former President Barack Obama and other members of the “criminal cabal”—reacted to the news by telling his viewers that “these leftist, gun-grabbing Maoists, you will never have a peaceful resolution with. They’re going to come and kill you.:
amid reports that New York law enforcement officials are preparing for possible violence, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted, “I’m going to New York on Tuesday. We MUST protest the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!”
Although details of the indictment haven’t been made public,Sen. Ted Cruzused his “Verdict” podcast to denounce the indictment as “utter and complete garbage,” describing himself as angry and “heartbroken” over what he called a “devastating” blow to the rule of law. Cruz claimed that the Manhattan investigation was an effort by “radical Democrats” to “steal” the 2024 presidential election.
Cruz said the indictment would boost Trump’s election campaign, a sentiment echoed by other far-right followers of the twice-impeached former president. The Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody said the indictment had made Trump a “political martyr.”
On “FlashPoint,” a show that appears on evangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel that was a steady source of misinformation about the 2020 election and Jan. 6 insurrection, failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate and election denier Kari Lake denounced what she called “false, phony charges.” Trump’s supporters, she said, are “tried and true” and will stay with him “all the way.”
Trump’s religious-right backers also rallied around him, with Franklin Graham calling it a “shameful day for America.”
As noted by religion scholar Diana Butler Bass in her latest newsletter, Trump has been using increasingly messianic and apocalyptic languagein reference to his legal troubles in an effort to maintain religious-right support.Trump followers who believe he is anointed by God and is being persecuted like Jesus by the legions of Satan is “a theo-political wild card we’ve got to pay attention to,”Bass writes. She points to the biblical story of Jesus’ arrest in which one of his disciples attacked one of the soldiers. While Jesus insisted, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword,” Bass warns, “Do not expect the same from Trump.”
Tags: Charlie Kirk David Brody Donald Trump Franklin Graham Kari Lake Marjorie Taylor Greene Mark Levin Pete Santilli Donald Trump Election 2024 Rule of LawTrump Indictment
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https://www.alternet.org/trump-jim-jordan-insurrection-committee/
badash no twt vid?
This is about one client. Donald Trump': Jim Jordan hammered over 'Insurrection LLC' committee
David Badashand The New Civil Rights Movement March 29, 2023
:{:{U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) unleashed massive criticism of Jim Jordan Wednesday afternoon, accusing the House Judiciary Committee Chairman of working solely for Donald Trump.}:
In his opening remarks of a Judiciary subcommittee hearing Swalwell, the Ranking Member, slammed Jordan for refusing to comply with a legal subpoena issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, and criticized the subcommittee for holding a hearing – not on gun violence and mass shootings – but on what the California Democrat said was issues to help the ex-president.
}:
Congressman Swalwell blasted Jordan and his “Committee to Obstruct Justice” on a wide range of issues, including obstructing justice, ordering a district attorney to commit a felony, and lying that Attorney General Merrick Garland labeled parents “domestic terrorists.”
:{:{“Well, here we are. Another partners’ meeting of Insurrection, LLC,”Swalwell said as he began his remarks. “That’s what this is. This is the newly formed largest law firm in Washington, D.C. Only has one client, maybe a second client that we’re going to learn about today, but that client is former president Donald Trump.”}:
“Their job,” he said, referring to Jordan’s Judiciary Committee, subcommittees, and his controversial Subcommittee of the Weaponization of the Federal Government, “is to litigate every one of [Trump’s] petty, petty, petty grievances.”}:
READ MORE: Watch: House Dem Mocks Republicans by Thanking Them for Taking Time Away From ‘Trump’s Memorial Service to David Koresh’
“It’s now 321 days since this subpoena was sent to Jim Jordan, that he did not comply with,” Swalwell said, pointing to a large blown-up copy of the subpoena, with the word “subpoena” enlarged exponentially.
“So it’s comical that we are here today, under Jim Jordan’s leadership, asking people why they don’t want to comply with subpoenas. The guy won’t comply with the one that was sent to him 321 days ago, witness to a crime, the crime that has led to more arrests than any investigation in America,” Swalwell observed, referring to the January 6 prosecutions.
“He’s a witness being asked to do his patriotic duty and respond to a subpoena 321 days later, refuses. Also, since the last hearing of this Committee to Obstruct Justice, Chairman Jordan is now in interfering in an independent criminal prosecution. There’s an investigation in Manhattan, also in Atlanta, also at the Department of Justice, into the former president and Jim Jordan has sent a letter to the independently elected District Attorney Alvin Bragg of Manhattan. He is asking Alvin Bragg to commit a felony.”
“Why is he asking Alvin Bragg to commit a felony? To help Donald Trump. Why is it a felony? Because if Alvin Bragg were to turn over what Jim Jordan is asking of him, Bragg would be violating New York law that says you cannot turn over grand jury proceedings, but that’s what they’re asking them to do. Again, the law doesn’t matter if your client is Donald Trump.”
“The other day Jim Jordan was asked, ‘Well, what do you think of the former president who put out on Truth Social the other day, essentially an another call to action? A January 6-like post when the former president said this posting, Jim Jordan was presented with this post by the former president that calls for ‘death and destruction.’ And Mr. Jordan said that he would ‘need his glasses.’ He was looking the other way. Jim Jordan looking the other way.”
READ MORE: Here’s How Five Republicans in Congress Are Responding to the Mass Shooting of 3 Children and 3 Adults in Nashville (Video)
“Well, we have blown up on the screen and we’ve put it right here and I’ll leave it for Jim Jordan. This is what Donald Trump said, Mr. Jordan,” Swalwell said, reading the e-president’s social media post:
“‘What kind of person can charge another person? In this case it former president of the United States who got more votes than any sitting president in history and leading candidate by far for the Republican Party nomination with the crime when it is known by all that? No crime has been committed and also known that potential death and destruction and such a false charge can be catastrophic for our country. Why and who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truly hates the USA?'”
“Again, I’m gonna leave this up here in probably 200 font. So Mr. Jordan doesn’t need his glasses to read it,” Swalwell added, referring to news that Jordan recently refused to comment on a Trump social media post claiming he first hadn’t read it, then when a reporter showed it to him, Jordan said he couldn’t read it because he didn’t have his glasses.
:{:{}:
“The same individual who posted this also posted this photo. There you go, Donald. Trump. Real tough guy holding a baseball bat, next to a picture of that independent prosecutor that Jim Jordan wants to commit a felony, Alvin Bragg.”}:
“But you won’t hear from this Committee to Obstruct Justice, any condemnation of what Donald Trump posted. They can’t condemn him. They can’t. So in their silence, they condone it. And in these posts from Donald Trump, he incites more and more Americans to commit violence like a woman who was arrested yesterday, near Times Square with a knife seeking to carry out an act of violence in Donald Trump’s name.”
Swalwell blasted Chairman Jordan for repeatedly falsely claiming that Attorney General Merrick Garland had labeled parents speaking at school board meetings “domestic terrorists,” a lie made by many Republicans and conservatives.
READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies
“No parent has a right to threaten a school board volunteer. If a threat is brought to the FBI, it’s their duty to investigate those threats. We’ve also learned from all the document production from DOJ and the FBI in the Department of Education, that there is not one instance where the Department of Justice called any parent or a group of parents, ‘domestic terrorists,’ as has been claimed by Jim Jordan.”
:{:{And he criticized House Republicans, who, under Jim Jordan, had posted a tweet in support of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Kanye West.}:
“It’s also about a tweet that Jim Jordan posted back in the fall. ‘Kanye. Elon. Trump.’ Now after that tweet was posted, Kanye said he’s going to declare ‘DEF CON three on the Jews.’ The tweet stayed up for months. Everyone was like, ‘Hey guys, turns out your hero Kanye West hates the Jews. We all stand with Israel. Please take down the tweet.’ They didn’t take down the tweet. They kept the tweet up. Day after day. Jewish community they’re hurting, they say, ‘Please don’t take, please don’t put this tweet up.’ It stays up.”}:
He also blasted the GOP for holding hearings with witnesses they invited who are anti-police, despite their motto of “backing the blue.”
“Last week, we had a hearing where you could call anyone in America when you have the majority, the power of a subpoena. We had a hearing about the ATF. These guys brought a witness who had just recently tweeted, ‘fuck cops.’ Cops. That’s what this guy tweeted. Anyone on Earth could have come to that hearing and they brought someone that said, ‘fuck cops.’ Then one of their colleagues, this is what she’s selling on her social media: ‘defund the FBI.’ So we went from backing the blue to backing the coup.”
Swalwell concluded his remarks by slamming the committee for doing nothing to reduce gun violence in the wake of Monday’s school mass shooting.
“So we’ll waste our time today on this exercise on behalf of Donald Trump and perhaps Elon Musk, but everyone on their side is going to have to go home this weekend to their constituents and their constituents are going to ask them one question: Three little babies died this week in a school in Nashville. No other committee in Congress has jurisdiction to do something about that except this committee. So you’re on the Judiciary Committee. Three kids are dead. They’re gonna be buried this week. What did you do about it? Did you show up to the Judiciary Committee and fight for those kids? Or did you show up and fight for Donald Trump? They showed up to the first hearing after Nashville and they’re fighting for Donald Trump.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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https://www.alternet.org/guns-dont-kill-americans-republicans/
yet another tpusa pix
no lnx
Guns don't kill Americans, Republicans do
Thom Hartmann andRaw Story March 28, 2023
Yesterday a 28-year-old graduate of a Christian school shot up the place, killing three 9-year-old students and three adults. This was almost 2 years to the day that Republican Governor Bill Lee signed a wide-ranging gun deregulation bill allowing Tennesseans to carry guns — open or concealed — without a permit or any other government interference.
Republicans are trying to distract America from the easy access Audrey Hale had to weapons of war by discussing Hale’s personal life, but the availability of guns and the Republican embrace of death as a political weapon are the only real issues here.
We’re the only developed country in the world that unconditionally allows civilians to own military-style assault weapons, that allows “open carry,” and that lets gun manufacturers openly buy politicians (thanks, Republicans on the Supreme Court).
As a consequence, we’re also the only country in the world where the leading cause of death for children is being blown apart by bullets.
:{:{}:
Today is the 87th day of the year. So far, we’ve had over 130 mass shootings. Yesterday’s was the 33rd school shooting. This is not happening in any other developed country in the world.}:
The last time there was a school shooting in the United Kingdom, for example, was 26 years ago.
These guns have been put into American’s hands by Republicans. Bill Clinton passed an assault weapons ban in 1994, but Republican President George W. Bush led the charge to refuse to renew it. It died in 2004.
The result is clear from the graphic Hillary Clinton posted here.
There are two simple reasons why Republicans want America drenched in guns and the deaths they bring.
The first is that they’ve been taking piles of money from explicit peddlers of death: the NRA and gun manufacturers.This form of corrupt political bribery was legalized by 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court in 1978 and doubled down on with Citizens United: it’s not just corrupting politics in America, it is killing our children.
The second is that there’s a substantial part of the violent white racist GOP base that is actively arming in preparation for a civil racial war in America, egged on by multiple Republican members of Congress.
These America-hating legislators — these sick, twisted bastards — delight in posing their white families with military assault weapons and posting the pictures on social media, their way of telling Black people and “liberals” what’s coming.
Last weekend in Waco, Donald Trump ran clips on a giant screen of his January 6th mob assaulting and killing people, producing three dead police officers, as he and his followers stood with their hands over their hearts singing a version of the national anthem that was interspersed with quotes from Trump himself.
:{:{The leading Republican candidate for president and his followers were literally celebrating the deaths they had caused, while calling for an end to our form of democratic republican government.}:
If that bloody mass murderer Vladimir Putin wanted to kill a few hundred thousand Americans, for example, he couldn’t have done better. We’ve lost more Americans to guns in just the past three years than Putin has lost on the battlefield in Ukraine.}:
Which reminds me of the September 17, 2019 article from National Public Radio (NPR):
“The National Rifle Association acted as a ‘foreign asset’ for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation...”
Or the April 11, 2018 piece in Politico that opened with:
“The National Rifle Association reported this week that it received more money from people with Russian ties than it has previously acknowledged, and announced that it was officially done cooperating with a congressional inquiry exploring whether illicit Kremlin-linked funding passed through the NRA and into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign…”
The Republican-controlled congressional committee and the Republican-blocked Federal Elections Commission that learned about this both failed to issue or enforce a subpoena to learn more.
Nothing to see here but thousands of dead children. Republicans will use them as an excuse to ban books or harass drag performers, but they don’t really give a damn if our kids die from bullets.
Setting aside the Putin theory — regardless of how we got over 400 million guns in this country, the majority of them since the Reagan Revolution, earning hundreds of billions for the weapons industry — we are experiencing an orgy of death unparalleled in the rest of the developed world. Brought to us by the GOP.
:{:{}:
America has just a bit more than 4 percent of the world’s population, but, with more guns than people in our country, we have more than 40 percent of all the civilian guns in the world.}:
:{:{Specifically, as a Swiss-based research group found, there are “approximately 857 million civilian-held firearms in the world’s 230 countries and territories” and, as ABC News points out, in America there are “over 393 million firearms in civilian possession” as of 2017.}:
About fifteenth million more have been sold in the US since then: we are the only nation in the world with more guns than people.}:
For every 100 people in America, there are 120 guns. Among developed nations, next highest on the list is Canada, at 34 per 100 people, and all other developed countries are lower down the list than that: South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, for example, all clock in at fewer than one gun per 100 people.
This is entirely a recent phenomenon. Before the Reagan Revolution, gun ownership numbers in America resembled Canada’s and school shootings had not yet become a thing.
Today, however, America not only leads the world in gun ownership but we also lead the world in gun deaths. As an exhaustive study of gun deaths in the world’s 23 wealthiest countriespublished in The American Journal of Medicine found:
“US homicide rates were 7.0 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25.2 times higher. For 15- to 24-year-olds, the gun homicide rate in the United States was 49.0 times higher. Firearm-related suicide rates were 8.0 times higher in the United States... Unintentional firearm deaths were 6.2 times higher in the United States. The overall firearm death rate in the United States from all causes was 10.0 times higher.”
Astonishingly, they added, ninety percent of all women murdered by firearms in those 23 countries were killed here in the United States, as well as 91 percent of all children killed by firearms.
Thanks to the Republican Party, fully 82 percent of all the human beings living in the world’s wealthy countries killed by firearms lived in the USA.
Only ten percent of the wealthy world’s firearms deaths occurred in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland combined.
Other countries have gotten their gun violence under control by simply reducing the number of guns in circulation and requiring gun owners to do two of the three things we do across America for car owners: be licensed and register your weapon.
I’d add that we should include mandatory liability insurance, like we do for cars: the insurance companies would then sniff out the “high risk” gun owners and refuse to insure them, thus preventing them from easily and legally owning a gun. (San Jose, CA just put this into law!)
Gallup found last year that Americans are si ck and tired of seeing our children slaughtered by guns just to satisfy fanatics and on-the-take politicians in the GOP: 57 percent of Americans and 85 percent of Democrats want stricter gun laws in America.
Giving American voters a giant middle finger, Republican politicians are moving in the opposite direction, endorsing gun violence and terror: then-Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn said after the Rittenhouse verdict that Republicans should “be armed and dangerous” while Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “[G]un rights are the only thing holding back the Communist Revolution the Democrats are waging.”
Because death-promoting fascists like these in the GOP continue to try to push America toward armed civil war, opposition to gun control appears to be an issue that animates the hard-core white supremacist Republican base who are openly enthusiastic about seeing Democrats and people of color die at the hands of vigilantes.
It used to be that Republicans promoted guns because of the NRA’s money, but the NRA is now a shell of its former self. Today, it appears they’re opposing rational gun control measures because so many of them are openly promoting gun-based rightwing terrorism and the death it brings to America’s streets.
Killer Kyle Rittenhouse, for example, is lionized by the GOP, embraced by the House Sedition Caucus, a popular speaker at Republican political events, and feted on Fox News and rightwing hate radio.
America is caught in a crossfire between gun manufacturers bribing politicians with the blessing of 5 corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court, and a fascist movement fed by billionaire-owned media machines that has seized control of the GOP.
Mass shooters, rightwing terrorists, and child-killers are celebrating. Meanwhile Republican politicians vow to protect us and our kids from — wait for it — librarians, drag queens, and history teachers.
Every developed country in the world has guns, and most have lots of them. But only America has a crisis of mass slaughter of our children.
Republicans and their sociopathic policies and rhetoric are causing people to use those guns to murder others.
It’s the Republican promotion of violence as an acceptable part of American politics — indisputably on display in Waco last weekend — that has led rightwing terrorists to commit virtually every act of political murder in the past 20 years.
:{:{}:
It’s Republican austerity and tax-cut policies that have gutted the middle class, led to an epidemic of homelessness, and destroyed our system for treating mental illness.}:
:{:{}:
And then those same Republican politicians cynically tell formerly middle-class white men that their economic crisis was caused by women, Black people, teachers, immigrants, and “radical” Democrats rather than themorbidly rich and massive corporations who are actually funding the corruption of our government.}:
They promote the language of dehumanization and victimhood, demonize immigrants and queer people, and encourage antisemitism and racial hate with their Great Replacement Theory, which has made it all the way to Fox “News” and has recently been cited by multiple mass murderers.
Even during the worst pandemic in a century, Republicans chose to politicize a virus, leading the British medical journal The Lancet to conclude that a half-million Americans died unnecessarily, the majority of them followers of conservative media.
All while GOP politicians condone the slaughter of our children with their silence, hypocritical “prayers,” and refusal to do anything about over 400 million guns.
The rest of the world is watching us, boggled. It’s way past time to wake the hell up and do something about the Republican-led slaughter of Americans and our children.
The number to call your members of Congress and demand immediate action is 202-224-3121.
And double-check your voter registration every few months: since 5 Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that Red states could throw you off the voting rolls without even letting you know, GOP governors and secretaries of state have already purged millions.===
https://www.alternet.org/menacing-wickedness-marjorie-taylor-greene/
no lnx twt
:{:{on June 22nd, 2021, then-freshman United States Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) filed House Resolution 3960 to abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, alleging that the agency was in cahoots with President Joe Biden to strip American citizens of their right to bear arms.}:
"The ATF's ongoing, unconstutional [sic] attacks on the Second Amendment must end," Greene's office stated of the Brian A. Terry Memorial Eliminate the ATF Act, which went nowhere because Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. The typo still appears on Greene's website.
Like most right-wing lawmakers, Greene is steadfastly opposed to any form of sensible gun control, even as thousands of Americans are killed by bullets every year. But Monday's mass shooting at the private Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee that claimed the lives of at least six people marked an escalation in Greene's rhetoric and actions aimed at thwarting efforts to save lives.}:
READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene garners few sympathizers after claiming she was 'attacked' in a restaurant
:{:{At around the same time that Greene baselessly blamed Biden for the slaughter, Greene and other members of their state's Capitol Hill delegation were obstructing a routine ATF inspection of a weapons retailer in Smyrna, Georgia.}:
Footage of the confrontation was posted to Twitter along with a screenshot of Greene boastfully writing that the ATF abandoned its assignment "after we questioned their motives."
In the video, Greene flexed her power.
"We're members of Congress," she said, adding that "I serve on the Oversight Committee."}:
READ MORE: Watch: Jamie Raskin shreds Marjorie Taylor Greene at hearing for sympathizing with insurrectionists
:{:{Greene also complained to the ATF officer that the "government has been weaponized," that "people feel like their gun rights are threatened," and that "gun dealers feel like their businesses are threatened."}:
Given the day's events, social media users tore into Greene with exasperated disgust.}:
Jayme Ruimveld: "Is this today? Is she running her mouth about guns while children have been murdered by guns at their preschool? Not a shred of decency. Not an ounce of respect or concern for the grieving families. Absolutely soulless."
Kat: "And they're worried about gun vendors, feeling threatened!"
Judy Miron: "There are 7 more people dead, 3 of them children today in Nashville.. and she complains about ATF inspections!! Time to get rid of her. Vote her out!!"
Michelle: "Marge is nothing but a heartless hateful little troll."
Leon: "Meanwhile children died today at a Christian School, but hey as long as your precious 2nd Amendment that was written for Flintlock rifles is protected right."
Cathy Coleman: "There is something very wrong with MTG and the Republican members of Congress who hover around her & follow her lead. Something beyond dirty politics or unbridled ambition - there is a menacing wickedness and cruelty about them all."
ZoëbethC-MeidasMighty: "Just as another shooter shows up in Tennessee to kill elementary school kids. They got their priorities straight. I bet after lunch it's more bills to ban Drag Shows on a federal level."
Marcus Flowers: "As America grieves over yet another school shooting, this time in Nashville, Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to prevent the ATF from doing their job. Common Sense Gun Legislation is necessary. We must do something to protect our children."
Seth Abramson: "Marjorie Taylor Greene is all about 'good guys with guns' until a violent insurrectionist smashes the window of the Speaker's Lobby inside a closed-to-the-public United States Capitol so a military veteran can leap into the breach and kidnap or kill a sitting member of Congress."
Watch the encounter below or at this link.
READ MORE: 'Performative disgrace': Marjorie Taylor Greene ridiculed for defending Ashli Babbitt while misspelling her name
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an 2 23
Although David Hogg lives in a state that finds itself dominated by Republicans in 2023, the 22-year-old Floridian has become one of the United States' best-known gun control activists. Hogg is a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre that occurred in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's Day 2018, and he has often used social media to speak out about gun control and the mass shootings that are so common in the United States.
Hogg addressed gun control once again in a Twitter thread posted on February 26, noting what the U.S. Constitution has to say about militias. And it didn't take right-wing Republicans long to become enraged by his comments.
Hogg posted,"You have no right to a gun. You are not a militia. When you're talking about your second amendment rights, you're talking about a state’s right to have what is today the National Guard. The modern interpretation of 2A is a ridiculous fraud pushed for decades by the gun lobby."
READ MORE: Pro-gun GOP Rep compares Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg to insurrectionists
By "2A," Hogg is referring to the Second Amendment, which, he argues, Republicans have been misinterpreting.
"We need to stop using the NRA's talking points and the false interpretation of 2A they have been pushing for decades," Hogg argued. "Their version of 2A is younger than I am…. The future the gun lobby is pushing for is one with absolutely no gun regulation whatsoever where anyone can get a gun. That is the path we are going down right now. They want bad guys to have guns so they can use the rise in gun violence to sell more guns to scared people."
Republican attorney **Jenna Ellis, famous for promoting former President Donald Trump's false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, was quick to slam Hogg and tweeted, "So the Constitution is a living, breathing, fluid document, except for THIS ONE ISSUE ONLY ALWAYS because it suits your (false) narrative."
Twitter user David Benjamin wrote that Hogg is a "paid shill for the [George] Soros crew."
Far-right talk radio host Lori Mills responded by posting, "Considering my state Government puts criminal rights above victims rights, my 2nd amendment right is and always will be mine. Don't break into my home, don't threaten my family and my gun will leave you alone."
Hogg's thread was mostly attacked by Republicans, but some Libertarians weighed in as well. @LPNational tweeted, "Our rights aren't subject to what you or any tyrant think we need."
READ MORE: Gun control activists pressure POTUS to act on anniversary of Parkland shooting
Read David Hogg’s Twitter thread at this link.
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comm dr an
dem orig?!
Legal experts said Friday that a federal judge's ruling in West Virginia illustrates the danger posed by the U.S. Supreme Court's right wing majority, which ruled this year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruenthat restrictions on firearms must fall within the so-called "historical tradition" of gun laws.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, who was appointed to the Southern District of West Virginia by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, ruledagainst a federal law prohibiting people from possessing firearms with serial numbers that have been "altered, obliterated, or removed."
"Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons."
Serial numbers have been required for guns since the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and are intended to prevent the illegal sale of guns and to allowing law enforcement to trace firearms.
But basing his ruling on the majority Supreme Court opinionwritten by Justice Clarence Thomas in June, Goodwin said Wednesday that requiring serial numbers is not part of the "historical tradition of firearm regulation" and therefore runs afoul of the Second Amendment.
In his majority opinion in Bruen, which overturned New York's state law restricting the concealed carry of firearms in public, Thomas wrote that for a gun control law to stand, the federal, state, or local government "must affirmatively prove that its firearm regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms."
Goodwin's opinion, said Demand Justice, which advocates for Supreme Court reform, demonstrates the far-reaching impact the Bruen ruling could have on gun laws across the country.
"That radical ruling is impacting measures as basic as a requirement that guns have serial numbers," said the group.
The case heard by Goodwin originated with a traffic stop in Charleston, West Virginia during which police found a gun with the serial number removed. The driver, Randy Price, had also been convicted of a felony.
Price argued in court that he had a constitutional right to have the firearm, while lawyers for the federal government said the law regarding serial numbers was a "commercial regulation" that did not violate the Second Amendment.
On Thursday, Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern wrote that while Goodwin's ruling "might sound bizarre... his analysis closely follows Thomas' test" that requires the government to prove a gun regulation had a historical "analogue" in 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified, or 1868, when it was imposed throughout the U.S.:
The only remaining question is whether the government could find an analogous regulation from 1791 or 1868 that restricted the possession of guns with an altered serial number. It could not, for a fairly obvious reason: Serial numbers only became common following the mass production of firearms, which took off in the decades after the Civil War.
Serial numbers were largely unknown to the Framers, Goodwin wrote. And so the Second Amendment confers a right to remove them from modern weapons.
When Bruen was handed down in June, Stern called the ruling "a revolution in Second Amendment law" which would ultimately go "so, so far beyond concealed carry."
Goodwin noted in his opinion on Wednesday that firearms that can't be traced using a serial number "are likely to be used in violent crime and therefore a prohibition on their possession is desirable," but said that argument "is the exact type of means-end reasoning the Supreme Court has forbidden me from considering."
Stern suggested that parts of Goodwin's opinion read "as if the judge is desperate to show readers just how dangerous and radical [the Bruen] ruling is."
According to the Supreme Court, Stern wrote, "all that counts is that serial number laws arose over the last century, so they are too modern to comport with the Second Amendment. Goodwin made this point over and over again; it almost sounded like he was quietly protesting the extreme and dangerous results demanded by the Bruen test."
"His decision thus doubled as a warning," he added. "The Supreme Court's Second Amendment jurisprudence has grown so radical that it now shields criminals trying to conceal their involvement in a violent crime."
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kentucky State Representative Josie Raymond (D-31st District) delivered an impassioned floor speech on Wednesday in opposition to legislation that would nullify federal firearm restrictions across The Bluegrass State.
Assemblyman Josh Bray's (R-71st District) House Bill 153 "would make Kentucky a Second Amendment sanctuary" and "is a duplicate bill filed last year that would essentially prevent a federal ban on firearms — were it to happen — from applying inKentucky," where "115 out of 120 counties already have Second Amendment sanctuaries in place," Link nky reported on Tuesday.
After the measure was approved by the Republican-dominated House Veterans, Military, and Public Protection Committee, the proposal advanced for debate by the full chamber, at which point Raymond stood up and excoriated her GOP colleagues for prioritizing weapons of mass death over human lives.
READ MORE: 'This is the second mass shooting': MSU and Sandy Hook survivor's video goes viral
"So I think I speak for a lot of people watching when I say, what are y'all doing? Why are we wasting time and resources passing unnecessary, unwise, unconstitutional legislation to pledge allegiance to hunks of metal that are being used to kill our children?" Raymond asked. "Sometimes in public policy, you know that it takes a tragedy to force policy change to force action from elected representatives. Unfortunately, when it comes to gun violence, we know better."
Raymond recalled that "when children were killed at Marshall County High School, this body did not act to keep guns out of the hands of children. Instead, this body said that newspapers could not publish pictures of the mutilated little bodies of our children after they've been shot and killed at school."
Raymond noted that "against the wishes of police,this body passed legislation to allow the carrying of guns – concealed guns – without any permit or training. Practical or merely symbolic, mere posturing, when we pass legislation that salutes guns over the lives of Kentuckians, we're making it known who we really serve."
Concluding her remarks, Raymond exclaimed that "this is lunacy, Mr. Speaker! This is idiocy. And I vote no."
Watch below or at this link.
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During a conversation about the mass shooting in Los Angles that took place late Saturday night and claimed at least ten lives, CNN "State of the Union" host Dana Bash called out at GOP lawmaker who attempted to brush off the need for new gun laws by pointing out gun violence in Chicago -- a favorite rightwing talking point.
Sitting down with McCaul to discuss what to expect now that Republicans have majority control of the House, Bash first asked about the latest gun-related bloodshed in California.
"I was a counter-terrorism federal prosecutor and I was chair of Homeland Security," the Texas Republican replied. "Chicago has probably some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, yet the highest murder rate. The way I look at it is we need the intelligence, we need information sharing, we need to connect the dots."
"Every one of these cases, and I guarantee you'll see it in this one as well, the shooter had warning signs along the way," he continued. "We just didn't respond or pick it up. In my judgment we can create a system. I introduced a bill that we can take published information on the internet, have an algorithm to stop the threat before it happens. That is a smart approach rather than violating Second Amendment rights. So, look, I hope we can get that passed -- we're seeing this movie way too many times."
"What about a red flag law? A federal red flag law?" Bash asked.
"In a way what i'm talking about are red flags," McCaul replied before adding, "Chicago, Illinois has red flags --"
"You keep bringing up Chicago, which I understand," the CNN host interjected before adding, "But the guns in Chicago come in from other places because there is a patchwork of laws across the country, there's no federal law."
'Right. Again, we stopped ---," he backtracked. "I saw it when I chaired Homeland, so many terror attacks because we got the threat information in advance and we stopped it. We can use the same formula here domestically, although it's a little different.The Constitution didn't apply overseas, but we can do that here and stop these threats before they happen."
Watch below or at this link:
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A small faction of sheriffs in the state of Illinois is pushing back against the state's ban on assault rifles, an initiative being enforced by Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker's (D) office.
According to NBC Chicago, a legal battle is brewing in the state as some believe the newly passed piece of legislation —House-Bill 5471, also referred to as the Protect Illinois Communities Act— violates Second Amendment rights.
Per the news outlet, a number of law enforcement officials in the state have weighed in with their assessments of the bill offering relatively critical opinions of it.
McHenry County, Ill. Sheriff Robb Tadelman took to social media with his concerns following the passing of the bill. “Neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state, nor will we be arresting or housing law-abiding individuals that have been charged solely with non-compliance with this act,” he said.
Other Illinois law enforcement officials in various counties also weighed in with similar concerns, namely Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey, Sheriff Jack Harlan in Boone County, and Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana, according to NBC Chicago.
In fact, Downey released a statement on the sheriff department's Facebook page addressing the new bill. Some Republican lawmakers have also echoed law enforcement officials' concerns.
“We will not comply with this legislation because we don’t have to,” said former Illinois State Rep and Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey “Our Constitution protects us. The sponsors of this bill may have won a temporary victory today, but they will lose because they cannot get around the rights we have guaranteed in our Constitution.”
READ MORE: Why the power grid is an 'attractive target' for domestic terrorists and white supremacists: report
Despite the critical takes on the new law, Pritzker and his office are standing firm in support of it.
“Anybody who doesn’t comply, there are consequences for that,” Pritzker said. “You don’t get to choose which laws you comply with in the state of Illinois. The State Police is responsible for enforcement, as are all law enforcement all across this state. They will, in fact, do their job or they won’t be in their job.”
Per the news outlet, the governor's office also described the pushback as "'political grandstanding at its worst,' and said that sheriffs and departments that refuse to enforce the ban are 'in violation of their oath of office.'"
“The assault weapons ban is the law of Illinois. The General Assembly passed the bill and the governor signed it into law to protect children in schools, worshippers at church and families at parades from the fear of sudden mass murder,” a spokesperson said. “Sheriffs have a constitutional duty to uphold the laws of the state, not pick and choose which laws they support and when.”
Pritzker’s spokesperson also said, “We’re confident that this law will hold up to any future legal challenges."
READ MORE: Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse's Mom receives standing ovation at GOP event in Wisconsin
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eduardo bolso credit drop in crime to less gun control (vs pandemic)
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house Republicans remove metal detectors from the Capitol
Rodric Hurdle-Bradford Raw Story
January 03, 2023
According to Axios, one of the first actions of the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives was to remove metal detectors outside of the House chambers.
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an 10 22
no lnx twt
'Macabre': Texas schools send out DNA kits after Greg Abbott signed law following Uvalde massacre
David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement October 17, 2022
Texas school districts have begun distribution of DNA kits to parents after GOP Governor Greg Abbott signed a law mandating they be made available in the wake of the horrific mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, where 19 students and two teachers were slaughtered in May.
“The state Legislature passed a law in spring 2021 requiring the Texas Education Agency to give inkless in-home fingerprint and DNA identification cards to each public school system in Texas,” The Houston Chronicle reports. “The kits will be made available at each primary-level campus. The cards are intended to be kept by guardians who can give them to law enforcement in order to potentially help find missing or trafficked children.”
The kits are available to any parent or guardian who requests them. They can be used to identify the bodies of their children in the event of another school mass shooting, or other event where it is difficult to ID a child.
READ MORE: ‘Ghoulish’ Greg Abbott Slammed as a ‘Monster’ for ‘Inhumane’ Response to Deaths of 50 People Locked in Tractor-Trailer
Brandi Smith, an Emmy award-winning anchor and reporter at KHOU responded to the news, saying on social media that a “follower forwarded me the email about the DNA kits he received from Clear Creek ISD last week. He identified himself as retired Army and added these kits were used prior to soldiers deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan. Let that sink in.”
Gun violence prevention activist Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, blasted the move.
“Texas Gov Greg Abbott is choosing to send DNA kits to schools that parents can use to identify their children’s bodies AFTER they’ve been murdered rather than pass gun safety laws to proactively protect their lives,” she wrote, urging Texans to vote for Democrat Beto O’Rourke in the gubernatorial race.
Last month Everytown, the grassroots “movement of parents, students, survivors, educators, gun owners & concerned citizens fighting to end gun violence and build safer communities,” posted a chart showing the relationship between strong gun laws and lower gun violence.
READ MORE: ‘Taking Us All for Fools’: Critics Decimate Greg Abbott’s Claims and Defense of His Actions in Wake of School Shooting
“The states with the strongest gun laws—like California—have the lowest gun death rates. That’s not a coincidence,” the group, which includes Moms Demand Action, writes.
California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, believed to be mulling a potential 2024 presidential run, also criticized prioritizing DNA test kits over changing gun laws.
“Greg Abbott’s solution to gun violence? Send DNA kits to schools so parents can identify their kids’ bodies AFTER they’ve been shot and killed.”
On its website, Everytown ranks the Lone Star State 34th in the country for “Gun Law Strength,” adds, “Texas has weak gun laws. The state does not require a person to pass a criminal background check before purchasing a firearm from an unlicensed seller. Texas also allows people with carry licenses to carry concealed firearms on college and university campuses. Texas even allows some staff and teachers to carry firearms in K-12 schools.”
“In an average year, 3,647 people die by guns in Texas,” the group notes.
READ MORE: ‘I Apologize for Interrupting Your Press Conference’: Tearful Texas Democrat Urges Greg Abbott to ‘Do Something’ on Guns
Incumbent Governor Abbott is running for re-election against Democrat Beto O’Rourke. FiveThirtyEight reports the Texas Republican is polling about seven points higher than the former U.S. Congressman.
“Some families have found the [DNA test kits] program chilling, considering that police asked parents waiting to find out if their children were slaughtered at Robb Elementary on May 24 to provide DNA samples to help identify the dead,” The Houston Chronicle reports.
“When you put it in the light of Uvalde, it’s one of the most macabre things you could think about,” Bob Sanborn, president of the nonprofit Children at Risk, told The Chronicle.
“Among the countless chilling details to emerge from the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas,” The New York Times reported back in May, “was this: The authorities had asked parents waiting in agony for news about their children to give DNA samples.”
“The request suggests that some of the 19 children who were killed may have been so severely wounded and grouped so closely together that they were difficult to identify, according to experts in medical forensics.”
Confirming the Times’ suggestion, NBC News also reported in May, after the Uvalde mass shooting – the deadliest shooting ever at a Texas public school – that, “Many of the bodies were in bad shape.”
Eulalio Diaz Jr., a justice of the peace forced to act as a medical examiner in Uvalde, “tried to spare the parents as much pain as possible, hoping to positively identify the murdered children through descriptions their parents gave of clothing they wore to school that day, of photos parents showed him.”
“But it wasn’t enough,” NBC added. “The bodies were too shot up. The Texas Rangers ordered DNA swabs of family members.”
Earlier this month Uvalde families joined together, saying, “Greg Abbott has abandoned us.”
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House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) has proposed two pieces of legislation aiming to incorporate more accountability measures for the firearm industry.
According to NBC News, the two bills seek to create penalties for gun manufacturers that sell "weapons of war" to civilian customers. The two measures focus on imposing tax increases and the creation of a criminal tracking system.
The first measure, the Firearm Industry Fairness Act, would "impose a 20% tax on the total revenue earned by manufacturers who produce assault weapons and high-capacity magazines."
READ MORE: New analysis explains why GOP believes the 'ideal' gun bill is no bill at all
The Democratic lawmaker explained that the money generated from the newly-imposed tax would be utilized for "gun violence prevention efforts and to support shooting victims."
The second piece of legislation, which is the Firearm Industry Crime and Trafficking Accountability Act, per the news outlet "would require every company that manufactures guns to create a system that tracks crimes committed with firearms they've sold, using data collected by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives."
"This summer, my Committee heard from those touched by gun violence in this country, including parents who lost their child, a doctor who lost his patients, and the mother of a young boy who lost his father," Maloney said in a statement. "These Americans, along with so many others from Uvalde, Buffalo, and Highland Park, urged Congress to take action to stop gun violence."
She added, "House Democrats have already passed a ban on assault weapons, but as we wait for the Senate to act, we must pursue other crucial reforms."
READ MORE: 'Quit filibustering it!': Angry constituents challenge Chuck Grassley over inaction on gun control
Per the House Oversight Committee, the proposed legislation would "mandate that those manufacturers cease distributing weapons to a retailer when they have reason to believe that the guns sold by that retailer are being trafficked or used for criminal purposes."
The latest follows a letter Maloney penned to executives from a number of gun manufacturers including Daniel Defense, Smith & Wesson Sturm, and Ruger & Co.
She noted that the information obtained from firearm manufaturers “has heightened the committee’s concern that your company is continuing to profit from the sale and marketing of weapons of war to civilians despite the harm these weapons cause."
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see john lott hackademic
94% gun free zone BS --> okafor oversight
More Good Guys with Concealed Guns = More Violent Crime
Analyzing 37 years of data, a Stanford team finds no basis for a theory at the heart of the modern gun-rights movement.
By Alex Yablon Jun 29, 2017
The Trace
In the four decades that the modern, militant gun rights movement has been around, one of its most significant victories occurred not at the ballot box, on a president’s special signing desk, or in the courtroom. Rather, one of the biggest battles pro-gun partisans have ever won took place in the minds of millions of Americans.
Since the late 1970’s, the National Rifle Association and other firearm advocates have successfully fought to make armed self defense increasingly acceptable in everyday life. A wealth of survey data — the most recent of which came via a major Pew poll released last week — shows that Americans have grown more comfortable with the toting of concealed guns in public. Self defense is now the most common reason cited for owning a firearm, leading handguns to become the most popular kind of weapon in the American arsenal. Those attitudes and behaviors mark major shifts: In the mid 1990s, Americans primarily owned guns for recreation, and as recently as 2005, a strong plurality thought only police officers should carry guns in public.
At the heart of this campaign for the hearts, minds, and holsters of America has been an article of faith that the NRA and its allies have preached since at least the 1990s: that people enhance public safety by carrying guns to defend themselves. Economist John Lott first developed this “More Guns, Less Crime” theory in his 1998 book of the same title, and has since popularized it via frequent legislative testimony and op-eds. The NRA has deployed Lott’s work to beat back calls for new curbs on guns and their use. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, when NRA leader Wayne LaPierre made his infamous assertion that the “only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he was tapping into the already well-seeded notion that hidden guns at arm’s reach of their private owners increase public safety.
It’s a powerful, seductive idea, particularly to Americans who favor personal liberty over communitarian ideals. It’s also completely wrong, according to a new analysis of nearly 40 years’ worth of crime data.
“For years, the question has been, is there any public safety benefit to right to carry laws? That is now settled. The answer is no.”
John Donohue, Stanford Law School
In a new working paper published on June 21 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, academics at Stanford Law School ran that data through four different statistical models — including one developed by Lott for More Guns, Less Crime — and came back with an unambiguous conclusion: states that made it easier for their citizens to go armed in public had higher levels of non-fatal violent crime than those states that restricted the right to carry. The exception was the narrower category of murder; there, the researchers determined that any effect on homicide rates by expanded gun-carry policies is statistically insignificant.
While other studies conducted since 1994 have undermined Lott’s thesis, the new paper is the most comprehensive and assertive debunking of the more-guns-less-crime formula.
“For years, the question has been, is there any public safety benefit to right to carry laws? That is now settled,” said paper’s lead author, John Donohue. “The answer is no.”
More guns, more crime
Donohue and his co-authors looked at crime data from 1977 to 2014, both nationally and in 33 states that implemented “Shall Issue” concealed-carry laws during that period. The statutes are the handiwork of the NRA, which has by now successfully lobbied politicians in all but a sliver of state capitols to relax their standards for issuing permits to carry concealed guns. “Shall Issue” states, which Donohue refers to as right to carry (RTC), require that concealed-carry licenses be granted to anyone who meets basic criteria. Unsurprisingly, they accept permit applications at a higher rate than “May Issue” states, where authorities have greater discretion to decide who is fit to go about the world armed.
Since lowering the bar for concealed-carry licenses gradually leads more people to get those licenses (Florida alone has nearly 1.8 million people permitted to carry concealed guns, and Pennsylvania and Texas each have around one million), and because more guns in public is supposed to reduce crimes, then we should expect states to see less crime as “Shall Issue” laws kick in.
The Stanford team found precisely the opposite: “Ten years after the adoption of RTC laws,” they write, “violent crime is estimated to be 13-15 percent higher than it would have been without the RTC law.”
Prior assessments of right-to-carry statutes came earlier in the waves of “Shall Issue” laws that first swept states in the 1980s and mid-1990s. One of those was a well-known 2004 report from the National Research Council that also poked holes in Lott’s conclusion — but could not say definitively which way right to carry tilted crime rates, because there weren’t yet enough years of data to sift. Because the Stanford team was able to look at what was happening in states where expanded carry had been in place for a decade or more, it reached much stronger estimates of the effect of “Shall Issue” laws on crime.
The Stanford team suggested that the increased carrying of guns could have contributed to rising crime through several means.As more law-abiding residents arm themselves, so might the criminals in the same communities — rather than the other way around. Lawful gun-permit holders, the researchers theorize, could contribute to a street-level arms race by bringing more weapons into public, where they are more likely to be lost or stolen, making their way to the black market. The more that people become aware that their environs are filling with guns, their perceptions of society could become colored by fear and anger, thus leading them to more readily become violent.
“I wasn’t surprised to find violent crime went up,” Donohue said. “You’d expect guns to contribute to violent crime.”
Higher crime — no matter where you look
The Stanford findings fly in the face of not just the NRA’s message, but common understandings of crime trends over the last two decades. By national measures, violent crime has fallen dramatically after peaking in the early 1990s, and that drop has largely coincided with the expansion of the freedom to carry concealed guns. Lott and others are eager to point to declining national crime numbers as evidence for their theory, or at least to blunt concerns that more guns in public would lead to widespread bloodshed.
The problem with drawing a connection between the rise of concealed carry and the drop in the national crime rate, as Donohue and his co-authors point out, is that crime has not fallen equally in all parts of the country. Instead, the decline in violent crime has been most pronounced in states that maintained strict control over the right to carry guns, like New York and California. When other states decided to make it easier for residents to pack firearms, they appear to have missed out on reductions in crime of the same magnitude. Yes, in raw terms, crime declined in those right-to-carry states as well — but not nearly as much as it could have.
Examining statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting data, the authors estimate that states with stricter concealed-carry laws saw crime fall by 42 percent from 1977 to 2014. That drop is more than four times greater than the 9 percent decrease seen in right-to-carry states.
In conducting their analysis, the Stanford researchers wanted to make sure that it was differences in concealed-gun laws, and not some other factor — diverging economic fortunes or police staffing, for example — that sent crime plunging in some places but not others.
To find out, the team projected what would have happened in right-to-carry states had they not relaxed concealed-carry standards, accounting for differences in demographics, policing, and economic growth.
Here, too, the team was able to run calculations that were not possible in the 90’s and mid-2000’s, when the academics who first subjected Lott’s theory to scrutiny had significantly fewer years’ worth of data to crunch.
The Stanford findings rest on two statistical methods with obscure-sounding technical names: panel data analysis and synthetic controls analysis. Panel data essentially tries to break down complex social phenomena — crime being very much one of those — by studying their smaller, more easily measurable components, like incarceration rates, police staffing levels, poverty, income, and population density.
Synthetic control analysis allows researchers to compare data recorded after the introduction of a change — like a right-to-carry law — with projections based on what might have happened had the change never occurred. The synthetic controls projection is based on demographic data and outcomes in demographically similar places.
Different researchers make different judgments about which factors have the most power to drive crime up or down. Rather than rest their analysis on a single set of variables, the Stanford team ran their 37 years of crime data through four different panels: their favorite, called DAW; one developed by the nonpartisan Brennan Center; the panel John Lott used in “More Guns, Less Crime,” and a fourth favored by a pair of pro-gun researchers named Carlisle Moody and Thomas Marvell.
Projections made with all four panels showed that states with right-to-carry laws would have had even greater decreases in violent crime had those places not loosened their gun laws.
“The panel data gave no hint that anything good was coming from the right to carry,” Donohue said.
Take Texas, for example. Donohue’s projections found that 10 years after the Lone Star State put right to carry into effect, violent crime was more than 16 percent higher than it would have been without that law, as laid out in the graph below The dotted line, labeled “synthetic control unit,” is a projection of what might have happened to Texas’ violent crime rate had it not loosened its concealed-carry statute, based on a composite of demographically similar states.
The only difference between projections using the pro-gun scholars’ preferred variables and the other two panels came when singling out murder. The highest purpose of the armed citizen, in the rationale of the NRA and gun sellers, is to subdue or incapacitate marauding psychopaths before the killers can take innocent lives. But when the Stanford team ran the pro-gun researchers’ formulas, the graphs showed that right-to-carry laws actually propped up homicide rates.
The DAW and Brennan Center panels, on the other hand, showed only that non-fatal violent crime would be lower if states had never opted for the “Shall Issue” route. And they showed that in all 33 states where they ran the simulation, with no exceptions.
Better research, same real-world outcome?
For that question, Donohue relies not on sophisticated math, but his years of experience studying the gun issue. “Many people have such strongly fixed ideas about guns,” he conceded. “It’s hard to influence their thinking.”
Donohue may be understating the challenge that he and other scholars confront. Sociological and anthropological research suggests that Americans’ feelings about firearms and whether to carry them for self defense are driven by elemental notions like identity and masculinity, rather than empirical measures of safety gained or lost.
The NRA has gone to great lengths to foment the idea that the right to carry guns is the bedrock of American citizenship, and the option of lethal self defense is “the first freedom.” Gun companies market firearms to appeal to consumers’ need to see themselves as powerful and, often, hyper-masculine protectors. It’s hard for an academic paper to break through those kinds of beliefs.
But policymakers and judges are a different kind of audience than gun buyers or voters. Donohue hopes his findings make it in front of those influential eyes.
“The Supreme Court is eventually going to have to decide if there’s a right to carry,” he said, speaking the day after the justices declined to hear a challenge to California’s restrictive right-to-carry law. “What will they make of this evidence?”
Alex Yablon was a reporter at The Trace.
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/ar-15-manufacturer-mass-shootings/
AR-15 manufacturer: Mass shootings are 'evil,' but what about the welfare of guns?
David Edwards and Raw Story July 27, 2022
The CEO of an AR-15 manufacturing company testified on Wednesday that mass shootings are "pure evil" -- but he said that it was the future of assault-style rifles that really "concerned" him.
In his opening remarks to the House Oversight Committee, Daniel Defense CEO Marty Daniel began by acknowledging that mass shootings like the one at a school in Uvalde, Texas were "evil acts."
"I am concerned, however, that the stated implied purpose of this hearing is to vilify, blame and try to ban over 24 million sporting rifles already in circulation that are lawfully possessed and commonly used by millions of Americans to protect their homes and loved ones," the CEO said, "to safely sport shoot with family and friends and to put food on the table as licensed hunters."
He added: "I believe in God and my faith guides me and my family. Fundamentally, I also believe there is good and evil in our lives and what we saw in Uvalde, Buffalo and Highland Park was pure evil."
Daniel asserted that the assault-style rifles sold today are "substantially the same as those [firearms] manufactured over 100 years ago."
"I believe that our nation's response needs not to focus on the type of gun but the type of persons who would commit mass shootings," he said.
Watch the video below or at this link.
more
8 Preposterous NRA Defenses of the AR-15 - Alternet.org ›
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no lnx
INVESTIGATIONS
Gunmaker’s Super Bowl stunt sheds light on marketing of ‘America’s rifle’
Sales soared in the past decade at Daniel Defense, the maker of the gun used in the Uvalde shooting, as the firm employed aggressive marketing tactics to sell AR-style rifles
By Shawn Boburg and Jon Swaine
July 25, 2022
AR-style rifles manufactured by Daniel Defense, seen in 2017 at its headquarters in Black Creek, Ga. (Lisa Marie Pane/AP)
A rapidly growing manufacturer of AR-15-style rifles tried to run an ad during the Super Bowl in 2014, knowing that the NFL typically does not allow gun commercials during its marquee event.
But Daniel Defense — the maker of the semiautomatic rifle used in the Uvalde school shooting — privately had in place a plan to generate publicity whether the ad aired or not, according to previously unreported court documents that shed light on the gunmaker’s marketing strategies.
...
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lesko misspoke shoot grandkids
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ingram also pot --> psychosis?
strict fr vs
https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/watch-tucker-carlson-finds-a-way-to-blamewomen-and-marijuana-for-the-most-recent-mass-shooting/
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/marjorie-taylor-greene-highland-park/
false flag
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==
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) is facing deep scrutiny after insisting that the United States could see an uptick in mass shootings with arrows if guns are banned. During a recent news interview, CNN's Pamela Brown asked Davidson if he could admit "that mass shooting could not happen" without guns.
The Republican lawmaker dismissed Brown's argument and, instead, focused on a different hypothetical scenario. He pondered the possibility of mass shootings occurring with arrows if guns end up being banned. As the clip of the interview began circulating on Twitter, social media users quickly chimed in to share their criticism of Davidson.
"Yeah, no such thing as an 'assault crossbow,' though," one Twitter user pointed out. "So it kinda takes a lot longer to kill as many people..."
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an 7 22
there was another shooting massacre over the weekend, this one in Highland Park, a picturesque, affluent and majority-white suburb of Chicago, where mass violence of the kind experienced during a Fourth of July parade isn’t supposed to happen on account of Highland Park being picturesque, affluent and majority white.
Mass violence of this kind is supposed to happen in places like Philadelphia, which did experience a shooting during a fireworks display, sending hundreds of spectators fleeing, but that has gotten none of the attention that the Highland Park shooting has gotten on account of Philadelphia, which is majority Black, being where violence is supposed to happen on account of being majority Black.
Evidently, Robert E. Crimo III doesn’t get it.
READ MORE: How SCOTUS wiped away progress in a single term
The 22-year-old, who appears to be white, perched himself atop a building along the holiday parade route with a “high-powered rifle” to shoot into the crowd, killing six and wounding 40. Per the *Post*: “At least two long bursts of rapid gunfire left five people dead at the scene and sent hundreds of people fleeing in panic, leaving a wake of overturned lawn chairs, coolers and strollers. … One spectator, a father, put his young son in a dumpster for safety as he scrambled to find and shield other family members while bullets rained down.”
I’ll talk more about the shooter after the story has been reported out, although we learned on Tuesday that Crimo had planned the attack for weeks, USA Today reported. The details of his case don’t matter, however, as much as the larger contours they fit in. As I’ve said, all shooting massacres, in one way or another, are a violent reaction to the politics of liberal democracy making it possible to elect the first Black president, who then ceased being subject to the law and became instead the enforcer of it.
That’s impossible for people who see “the law” as the same as white.
So impossible, they feel crazy.
READ MORE: The Supreme Court’s illegitimacy is accelerating
Shooting massacres are the result of “the natural order of things” being turned upside down in a country where “the law” is not the law so much as the law is a white man with a gun. In such an upside-down world, it’s only “natural” for some Americans (ie, usually white men who cannot and will not tolerate “their country” turned upside down) to seek “justice” by “taking the law into their own hands.”
This pattern has held steady since at least 2012, after the Sandy Hook massacre, when the Republicans made a permanent choice. They could do the truly conservative thing – enacting laws that would regulate the distribution of firearms for the purpose of promoting the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty for all. Or they could recognize the obvious – that liberal democracy and the rule of law in the hands of a Black man had become the enemy.
The writer David Frum once famously said that "if conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”
That’s close, but more precisely: if the champions of white power become convinced that they cannot win democratically, theywill notabandon white power, nor will theyonly reject democracy.
They will go to war with it, replacing law and orderwith anarchy and chaos so that respectable white people doubt democracy, too.
Since 2012, the GOP has built on the structures of white power already in place in police departments around the country. (These structures are why cops can arrest Robert Crimo without incident, but shoot Jayland Walker 60 times, killing him, for no crime at all.)
They radically expanded the number of people with the authority to enforce the law by deputizing every white man willing to wield a gun. They got around the old constraints on law enforcement that were acceptable to respectable white people by resorting to vigilantism.
With easy access to guns, and permission to carry them virtually anywhere, Republicans created conditions for wave after wave of mass death that has for years been tearing apart civil society.
READ MORE: Our freedoms have already been revoked
I don’t think the respectable white people who populate places like Highland Park are champions of white power. If choosing between a liberal Democrat and a fascist Republican, I’m confident they’d make the right choice. But respectable white people, who determine so much of the direction and scope of our national politics, are nonetheless the principal beneficiaries of white power. They are the property owners, the bourgeoisie, the social class elected officials turn to when charting a respectable position on any given issue.
As the principal beneficiaries of white power, respectable white people are more often than not insulated from or immune to the consequences of a political party’s decision to go to war with democracy. (It’s a one-sided war that involves “soft targets” like parades.) They are, that is, all the way up to when they are not.
I think that’s the case with the Highland Park massacre. White-power violence first came for immigrants, then Black Lives Matter, then LGBT-plus people. And now, those who had least expected it. “If this can happen here, I promise it can happen anywhere. This is the last place I would ever imagine something like this happening.”
Will respectable white people understand that the Republicans are responsible for the chaos and anarchy, for the upheaval of the established order? Or will they turn to the Republicans to protect them from the chaos and anarchy that the Republicans created?
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Adam Winkler on Thomas's Historical Cherry-Picking on Gun Rights | History News Network
clarence
a 6–3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a New York law restricting the ability to carry a gun in public violated the Second Amendment. The majority opinion, from which the three liberal Justices dissented, raises questions about how cities and states can regulate firearms going forward. It also casts doubt on the constitutional viability of the bipartisan gun bill that passed a procedural vote in the Senate a few hours after the decision was announced. (That bill, which came about largely in response to recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, would, if enacted, become the most substantial federal gun-safety law in more than two decades.) To talk about the decision, and what it may mean for future gun-control efforts, I spoke by phone with Adam Winkler, a professor at the U.C.L.A. School of Law and the author of “Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America.” During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion cherry-picks history, how states might try to comply with the decision while still regulating firearms, and the meaning of a concurring opinion from Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh.
What’s your biggest takeaway from this decision?
This decision calls into question a wide variety of gun laws, including several key provisions of the Senate gun bill.
What was New York’s law, and what types of gun laws do you think are most at risk?
New York’s gun law restricted concealed-carry permits to those who could show a special need to have a firearm in public, which the Court said is too onerous a restriction given the Second Amendment. And, in terms of what this will call into question, I think the Court’s ruling will lead to laws in a number of other states being struck down, including California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Hawaii, which also have so-called may-issue permitting. Any state that has may-issue permitting will have to rewrite its laws and allow people to carry guns on the street.
Can you describe the differences between may-issue permitting and another kind, which is still allowed, called shall-issue permitting?
May-issue permitting limits concealed-carry permits to people who can show a special individualized need to have a firearm. A general fear of being a victim of crime is not good enough. But if you have had your life threatened, are maybe being stalked, or carry a large amount of cash or jewelry around as part of your job, then you might be eligible for a concealed-carry permit. So a may-issue regime gives the state a lot of discretion over who gets the permit.
A shall-issue-permitting rule is one in which, as the name suggests, the state shall issue a permit to any law-abiding citizen who meets the basic training or educational requirements, and you do not have to show an individualized need
[ see nyer mag]
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the conv
https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/american-gun-culture-frontier-mythology/
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/stephen-breyer-gun-control-dissent/
no lnx
Stephen Breyer delivers a scathing and ‘ominous’ dissent in Supreme Court gun control ruling
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer with President Joe Biden in January 2022 (Wikimedia Commons).
Alex Henderson June 23, 2022
On Thursday, June 23, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 decision in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen — striking down the “proper cause” part of the Sullivan Act of 1911 as unconstitutional. And Justice Stephen Breyer, was especially vehement in his dissent.
The Sullivan Act, passed 111 years ago and named after State Sen. Timothy Sullivan — a Tammany Hall Democrat — has limited licenses for concealed-carry handgun permits to those with specific defense needs. Under the Sullivan Act, a New York State law, anyone applying for a permit to carry a concealed handgun has had to show “proper cause.” And the High Court has ruled that the “proper cause” requirement is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 2nd Amendment.
Attorney Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama and often appears on MSNBC, described the warning that opened Breyer’s dissent as “ominous.”
The 83-year-old Breyer, who is retiring from the High Court and will be replaced by President Joe Biden’s nominee, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, later this year, wrote, “In 2020, 45,222 Americans were killed by firearms.... Since the start of this year (2022), there have been277 reported mass shootings — an average of more than one per day.... Gun violence has now surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents.”
Breyer continued, “Many states have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence just described by passing laws that limit, in various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of different kinds. The Court today severely burdens States' efforts to do so. It invokes the Second Amendment to strike down a New York law regulating the public carriage of concealed handguns. In my view, that decision rests upon several serious mistakes.”
All three of the dissenters in the High Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen were appointed by Democratic presidents: Breyer, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan. After Jackson — who will be the first African-American woman on the Court — replaces Breyer, it will still have a 6-3 right-wing supermajority. And none of the GOP-appointed justices in that supermajority voted with the Democratic-appointed justices in the New York State ruling.
The majority opinion in the case was written by Justice Clarence Thomas, who was joined by three Donald Trump appointees (Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Neil Gorsuch) as well as two George W. Bush appointees: Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.
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an 6 22
D.C. — The bipartisan Senate group was finally able to agree on the text of a gun safety bill together and a vote was held on Wednesday ahead of the two-week break during the Independence Day holiday.
The bill passed 64 to 34less than two hours after the final text was published. When asked why so many Republicans voted against the bill if it was bipartisan, Sen. John Cornyn told Raw Story it was because people were miffed they didn't have enough time to see the final text before voting on it.
"Some people felt like they were being crunched," said Cornyn.
Republicans have been negotiating for the past several weeks with Democrats over the top issues, so anyone casually monitoring the discussions would know what was in the legislation. Senators also could have asked colleagues for any specifics.
The bill wasn't what Democrats wanted, leaving out a number of items on their list like increasing the age to buy a gun to 21 or increasing the age to by an automatic weapon to 21 years old.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who has pushed gun safety legislation since the Sandy Hook massacrein his home state asked not to let the "perfect be the enemy of good." While the bill isn't what Democrats want it makes some minor changes that will help in the future.
Cornyn previously called the joint billa "loss" for President Joe Biden.
One of the top issues linking mass shootings is domestic violence. The existing laws only considered firearms restrictions on people who abused their partners if they were married, lived together or had children together. So, other intimate partners, like anyone who was abused by someone they dated became a loophole. The bill sought to close that.
Cornyn wouldn't say whether he was getting calls from the state about the bill. He was booed over the weekend for his willingness to work on the legislation.
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/uvalde-mom-says-police-harassing/
she rescue dtr
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omg yikes
an 6 22
Sewell Chan and Eric Neugeboren, The Texas Tribune
June 18, 2022
"Texas Republican Convention calls Biden win illegitimate and rebukes Cornyn over gun talks" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
HOUSTON — Meeting at their first in-person convention since 2018, Texas Republicans on Saturday acted on a raft of resolutions and proposed platform changes to move their party even further to the right. They approved measures declaring that President Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected” and rebuking Sen. John Cornyn for taking part in bipartisan gun talks. They also voted on a platform that declares homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and calls for Texas schoolchildren “to learn about the humanity of the preborn child.”
The actions capped a convention that highlighted how adamantly opposed the party’s most active and vocal members are to compromising with Democrats or moderating on social positions, even as the state has grown more diverse and Republicans’ margins in statewide elections have shrunk slightly in recent years.
Votes on the platform were collected at the end of the party's three-day convention in which party activists moved to add multiple items to the official Texas GOP platform. As the convention closed, two separate sets of ballots — one allowing delegates to choose eight of 15 legislative priorities and another allowing delegates to vote on the 275 platform planks — were gathered. Those will now need to be tallied and certified in Austin, but it is rare for a plank to be rejected, according to party spokesperson James Wesolek.
The convention reinforced the extent to which former President Donald J. Trump’s unfounded claims of a stolen election continue to resound among the party faithful — even though his claims have repeatedly been debunked, including by many of his own former aides, and after a week of televised hearings about the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The denunciation of Cornyn represented a remarkable rebuke to a Republican who has served in the Senate since 2002. The hall at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston filled with boos on Friday as he tried to explain the legislation, which would allow juvenile records to be incorporated into background checks for gun buyers younger than 21 and encourage “red flag” laws that would make it easier to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, along with more funding for school safety and mental health.
Meanwhile, the party platform vote on Saturday by roughly 5,100 convention delegates would argue that those under 21 are “most likely to need to defend themselves” and may need to quickly buy guns“in emergencies such as riots.” It also would say that red flag laws violate the due process rights of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime.
About 9,600 delegates and alternates were eligible to attend; organizers said turnout was a bit more than half that.
The new platform would call for:
- Requiring Texas students “to learn about the humanity of the preborn child,” including teaching that life begins at fertilization and requiring students to listen to live ultrasounds of gestating fetuses.
- Amending the Texas Constitution to remove the Legislature’s power “to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”
- :{:{}:
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- Treating homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” language that was not included in the 2018 or 2020 party platforms.
- Deeming gender identity disorder “a genuine and extremely rare mental health condition,” requiring official documents to adhere to “biological gender,” and allowing civil penalties and monetary compensation to “de-transitioners” who have received gender-affirming surgery, which the platform calls a form of medical malpractice.
- Changing the U.S. Constitution to cement the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and repeal the 16th Amendment of 1913, which created the federal income tax.
- Ensuring “freedom to travel” by opposing Biden’s Clean Energy Planand “California-style, anti-driver policies,” including efforts to turn traffic lanes over for use by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.
- Declaring “all businesses and jobs as essential and a fundamental right,” a response to COVID-19 mandates by Texas cities that required customers to wear masks and limited business hours.
- Abolishing the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, and guaranteeing the right to use alternatives to cash, including cryptocurrencies.
Not every far-right proposal was advanced. The party chair, Matt Rinaldi, ruled that a motion to defend the due process rights of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and to “reject the narrative” that the riot was an insurrection was out of order and could not be voted on.
Taken together, the new provisions would represent a shift even further rightward for the Republican Party of Texas, once known as the party of Presidents George Bush and his son George W. Bush. Land Commissioner George P. Bush, a grandson and nephew of the two presidents, was defeated handily in May in his runoff race against Attorney General Ken Paxton, an arch-conservative who sued to challenge the 2020 election outcome and convinced voters that he was the truer Trump loyalist.
Party platforms are mission statements rather than legal doctrines and, in Texas, they have long reflected the opinions of the most activist wings of the parties. Republican elected officials are not bound to adhere to the platform, and party activists at times have expressed frustration that some parts of their platform and legislative priorities have not become law, despite complete Republican control of the state Legislature.
But the platforms are broad indicators of the sentiments of the most active Republican voters — those who dominate party primaries. Republicans have controlled every statewide elected office in Texas since 1999 and both houses of the Legislature since 2003, so the wishes of the party’s populist, pro-Trump base inevitably affect actions taken in Austin.
“The platform is largely symbolic but important as a measure of ideological drift,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. “Party platforms are often used as a cudgel in party primaries. A more muscular ideological platform eventually leads to a more conservative legislature as challengers knock off more moderate members.”
The convention was noteworthy for the relatively low profile of top officeholders. Gov. Greg Abbott, who is seeking a third term in the November election, only appeared at a reception on Thursday on the sidelines of the convention. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who effectively controls the state Senate, addressed the convention, but House Speaker Dade Phelan only spoke at a luncheon, not to the main body of delegates.
Tensions within the party at times got personal. Video posted online showed far-right activists physically accosting U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, calling the conservative Republican “eye-patch McCain” over his criticism of Russia. The group included self-identified Proud Boys and Alex Stein, a social media activist from North Texas. A Navy SEAL veteran, Crenshaw lost his right eye to a bomb in Afghanistan.
“A more aggressive party platform sends a clear message to politicians about where the base is going,” Rottinghaus said. “Donald Trump radicalized the party and accelerated the demands from the base. There simply aren’t limits now on what the base might ask for.”
Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston, said the 2022 platform indicated how emboldened hard-right party activists now feel — a far cry from 2020. Significant gains by Texas Democrats in state House elections in 2018 raised the prospect of the Republican Party losing its dominant status in Texas, making it moderate its platform in 2020 to focus on bread-and-butter issues. Texas Republicans did well in the 2020 elections — even though Biden won 46.5% of the Texas vote, the highest proportion for a Democrat since 1976 — and this year, culture-war issues were once again at front and center.
Jones said that Republican redistricting has made incumbents safer and less inclined to appeal to moderates. Moreover, inflation, the risk of a recession, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and growing acrimony over race, gender and sexuality make it seem increasingly likely that Democrats will lose the U.S. House in the November midterm elections.
“As a result, the 2022 GOP feels free to veer to the right to its heart’s content, confident that it won’t come back to haunt the party in November, except perhaps in a half dozen races,” Jones said. “And even the party’s pragmatic center right conservatives lack the ability to argue, as they did successfully in 2020, that an ultra conservative platform could cost the GOP its majority status in the Lone Star State. This year, even the absolute worst case scenario has the GOP winning statewide, increasing its number of U.S. House seats, boosting its Texas Senate majority by a seat, and maintaining the 83 seats it held in the 2021 Texas House.”
Before delegates voted on the platform, party activists delivered fiery speeches attacking Democrats.
“They want to destroy the racial progress we have made by saying that we are a racist nation,” said Robin Armstrong, a Black doctor in Texas City who treated COVID patients with unapproved drug therapies touted by Trump, including hydroxychloroquine. “The Democratic Party are now a party of chaos. They benefit from causing us to question the foundations that this country was built upon. The misery, the crime, the drug abuse, the high gas prices are all by design, so that the Democratic Party can permanently transform society. We Texans cannot and we will not allow this to happen.”
The Republican-dominated Legislature last year passed new voting restrictions that prompted Democratic lawmakers to flee to Washington to break quorum in an ultimately futile protest. However, Republican leaders said repeatedly on Saturday that it was the other side that was a threat to fair elections.
“The Democrats wants three things: Their goals are to steal elections, suppress Republican votes and federalize elections,”said Cindy Siegel, the chairperson of the Harris County GOP and a former mayor of Bellaire.
Immigration continued to be a major theme, with delegates lamenting Biden’s reversal of Trump-era border policies. U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, of Lubbock, described an “unprecedented, unmitigated, self-inflicted disaster that is creating the worst humanitarian and national security threat to the American people in the history of our southern border,” adding, “this is an invasion, folks.”
“President Biden has ceded control of our borders to paramilitary, narco-terrorist cartels,” Arrington told delegates.
The mood of this convention was not hopeful. The themes ran dark, and activists spoke in apocalyptic, even cataclysmic, terms about the state of the country.
“Everything is topsy-turvy. What’s right is wrong and what’s wrong is right,” said state Sen. Donna Campbell, an emergency room doctor in New Braunfels, reflecting a state of uncertainty that is shared by Americans of many political backgrounds, even if they don’t agree on the causes. “Our country is on a trajectory to self-destruct, unless we change the direction.”
Campbell and other activists frequently spoke of their Christian faith.
“I believe that in the sovereignty of God, you and I were purposely born into this moment, into this confusing time that we face,“ Campbell said. “We’re meant to be alive, at this time, right now, and here in this state.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/manchin/
strategic use / weaponization of polarization // filibuster minority rule
kos
no lnx twt
Republicans delay everything in order to destroy Democratic agenda — with an assist from Manchin
Joan McCarter and Daily Kos June 19, 2022
Senate Republicans have been playing a transparent game for months now, using their willing tool of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) to drag out negotiations on any number of issues to keep him away from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden. To prevent Democrats from moving any significant policies that can help the American people and give Democrats a win.
They’ve done it on voting rights and election reforms. They’ve done it on climate and energy. It’s just one tactic—and a very successful one—Republicans are using to keep the Democratic majority tied up and unable to accomplish anything.
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Case in point: additional funding for the federal COVID-19 effort. Manchin’s good friend and frequent negotiating partner Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) all but killed it this week when he alleged that the Biden administration lied about the government’s ability to secure additional vaccines, treatments, and supplies. That’s because the White House recently announced it was taking money from other priorities to pay for the most pressing needs.
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“Washington operates on a relationship of trust between the respective parties,” Romney said Thursday,. “I hope that there’s an appreciation that for the administration to say they could not purchase these things, and then after several months, divert some funds and then purchase them is unacceptable, and makes our ability to work together … very much shaken to the core.” The pearls are tightly clutched.
The White House, not surprisingly, has a different interpretation on how discussions have been going. “We’ve tried to meet Republicans on their requests, and they keep moving the goal posts,” one official told the Washington Post. Another, spokesperson Kevin Munoz, went on the record. “Going back to January, we’ve been working with members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, on the funding needs for the covid response,” he said in a statement. “We’ve also been crystal clear about the consequences of a lack of funding … including the very real possibility that we would have to reevaluate the planned uses of existing funds.”
There’s one more potential win for the White House—not to mention all the people at risk of catching COVID-19 in the coming weeks and months—Republicans are cynically blocking. It’s nearly as egregious as what they’ve been doing on guns.
:{:{}:
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All of that puts this in a “we’ll believe when we sit it” mood. “Senate Democrats are preparing for possible summer action on their still-elusive climate, tax reform and prescription drugs bill, grinding behind the scenes on a new version during high-profile gun safety talks.” Because it’s Manchin, once again, that all this is hinging on andRepublicans are on the verge of declaring that partisan Democrats have destroyed any hope of gun safety regulation with their unreasonable demands that guns be kept out of the hands of people who have been convicted of violence.
:{:{}:
}:
That sets up Manchin to declare that the Democrats have been horrible partisans and he just can’t continue to work with them. He’s used far flimsier excuses before, like the fact that the White House included his name in a statement about Build Back Better. That’s what blew up the whole package last December, supposedly. It likely wouldn’t take anything more for Manchin to do it again.
Republicans are counting on that.
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an 6 22
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said recently that he would tell parents of young children killed in the Uvalde school shooting that "God has a plan."
Paxton, who took the leading role in a failed Supreme Court case aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 election, went on a media blitz to fight calls for gun restrictions shortly after an 18-year-old shooter killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in the West Texas town of Uvalde.
In an interview with right-wing radio host Trey Graham, Paxton acknowledged that it is "difficult to give comfort" to families who lost their kids. "If I lost one of my children I'd be pretty devastated, especially in a way that is so senseless and seemingly has no purpose," he continued. "I think ... I would just have to say, if I had the opportunity to talk to the people I'd have to say, look, there's always a plan. I believe God always has a plan. Life is short no matter what it is. And certainly, we're not going to make sense of, you know, a young child being shot and killed way before their life expectancy."
Paxton's comments last week came ahead of emotional testimony by parents of Uvalde victims in the House last week. Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the attack, pleaded for Congress to take action on gun safety in response to the massacre.
"We understand that for some reason, to some people — to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns — that guns are more important than children,"
while testifying with her husband, Felix. "Somewhere out there, there is a mom listening to our testimony thinking, 'I can't even imagine their pain,' not knowing that our reality will someday be hers. Unless we act now."
Dr. Roy Guerrero, a Uvalde pediatrician who treated some of the victims, made a similar plea as he described how children's bodies were "pulverized" and "decapitated" by the bullets from the AR-15-style rifle used by the gunman, to the point that "the only clue as to their identities were the blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them."
"Making sure our children are safe from guns, that's the job of our politicians and leaders," Guerrero said. "In this case, you are the doctors and our country is the patient. We are lying on the operating table, riddled with bullets like the children of Robb Elementary and so many other schools. We are bleeding out, and you are not there. My oath as a doctor means that I signed up to save lives. I do my job, and I guess it turns out that I am here to plead, to beg, to please, please do yours."
But after the heart-wrenching testimony, all but five Republicans in the House voted against a package that would raise the age to buy an AR-15 from 18 to 21 and toughen existing gun laws. Senate Republicans have already ruled out any new gun restrictions, as have Republican state leaders in Texas.
Paxton's immediate response to the shooting was to call for arming teachers, which some schools in Texas already do despite strong pushback from teachers.
"We can't stop bad people from doing bad things. We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. That, in my opinion, is the best answer," Paxton said following the shooting.
Other Texas Republicans have also tried to blame anything but widespread easy access to guns. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called for "door control" in schools and Gov. Greg Abbott pushed an emphasis on mental health — despite slashing funds for mental health treatment.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, after Wednesday's hearing suggested that the answer is more "prayer."
"Look, maybe if we heard more prayers from leaders of this country instead of taking God's name in vain, we wouldn't have the mass killings like we didn't have before prayer was eliminated from school," he said.
Paxton in particular has a long history of opposing gun restrictions in response to mass shootings in Uvalde, El Paso and Sutherland Springs, arguing that mass shooters are "not going to follow a single gun law" even though gun laws prevented the shooter from getting a gun until he turned 18 — the legal age to purchase an AR-15, but not a handgun — just days before the attack.
Paxton has a close relationship with the gun lobby.The NRA, the Texas State Rifle Association and the Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fundhave all contributed heavily to his campaigns. Paxton also signed an amicus brief backing the NRA's petition asking the Supreme Court to strike down California's ban on high-capacity magazines. He even "welcomed" the NRA to Texas after the group tried and failed to file for bankruptcy to dodge a corruption investigation by New York's attorney general.
After a gunman killed 26 people in the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting, Paxton argued that the only answer to gun violence was more guns.
"In Texas at least we have the opportunity to have concealed carry," he told Fox News. "And so if it's a place where somebody has the ability to carry, there's always the opportunity that gunman will be taken out before he has the opportunity to kill very many."
After another gunman killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart, Paxton again argued that more guns were the answer rather than fewer guns.
"The best way is to be prepared to defend yourself," he told CBS News.
Ironically, Paxton himself cannot buy a gun under federal law, because he has been under indictment since 2015 for breaking state securities law.
Researchers have found no evidence that arming teachers or other school personnel has any effect on school shootings. A review of 89 journal publications and media reports by researchers at the University of Toledo and Ball State University similarly found that armed school resource officers, restrictions on the number of school exits and active-shooter drills do not help either.
The "ideal method for eliminating school firearm violence by youths is to prevent them from ever gaining access to firearms," the researchers concluded, adding that "unfortunately, studies have found an alarming rate of firearms accessible to youths."
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gun control sen framewk, mcc backs
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-attacks-red-flag-laws-meant-address-mass-shootings
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an tom D 6 22 robert l
...I was done with guns and felt like a fool for ever thinking differently. But because of my experience I do understand why, in this thoroughly over-armed land of ours, so many others consider such weaponry (and far more powerful and deadly versions) so important to who they are. Having experienced a sense of that identity myself, I don’t look down on them for it. And I understand that behind the mostly male pleasure in being armed can lie complex feelings. As historian Adam Hochschild noted in the New York Review of Books several years ago:
The passion for guns felt by tens of millions of Americans also has deep social and economic roots. The fervor with which they believe liberals are trying to take all their guns away is so intense because so much else has been taken away.
Even more troubling is that many of them believe they will need those guns for defense against the rampaging gangs (calling themselves militias?) that would rise after the possible collapse of American democracy as we’ve known it, which any number of armed men don’t trust to protect them anyway. (Thank you, Donald Trump, most Republicans, and, alas, my old benefactor the NRA!)
Is stocking up on AR-15s and thousands of rounds of ammunition paranoia or preparation? While a Beretta would never be enough, it turns out that such lesser guns have done most of the damage to Americans. Mass murders with military-style automatic rifles, especially school shootings, have reaped so much of the attention, but it’s been handguns that have killed far more Americans every year, most often via suicide (which is why it’s so sad to see so many of us increasingly arming ourselves to the teeth).
More than half of the 45,222 gun-related deaths in 2020, the last year for which we have solid statistics, were suicides, while “only” (yes, put that in scare quotes) 513 of them were thanks to mass shootings, defined as an incident in which four or more people are shot, even if no one is killed.
Handguns, not long guns, were involved in 59% of the 13,620 deaths classified as murders that year as well, while assault rifles were involved only 3% of the time. So banning those military-grade weapons, manufactured to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible, while distinctly a sane idea amid this mounting firearms insanity of ours, would probably have little real effect on our proliferating gun culture. Given the politics right now, it’s hard to imagine any administration attempting to begin the disarming of America....
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/steve-scalise-banning-airplaines-911/
so no ban gun after uvalde; interesting, he has to spk b/c he got shot? ecosys niche? also gop #3?
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girl blood of pal
https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/andy-biggs/
Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the former chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, announced he is boycotting Wednesday’s House hearing on gun violence, claiming it exploits children.
The hearing, which is currently being held, is focused on the victims and survivors of the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, in which 29 people in total, including 19 elementary school children, were killed.
“I will not be physically attending the first panel of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s hearing on gun violence today,” said Congressman Biggs, who sits on that committee. “I object strongly to the Democrats’ exploitation of children who have been victimized so recently in Uvalde.”
In a statement, Rep. Biggs accused House Democrats of exploiting “children who have been victimized so recently in Uvalde.”
USA Today reports the child who is testifying is “Miah Cerrillo, an 11-year-old who smeared herself with her slain friend’s blood to play dead during the May 24 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.”
Her father, Miguel, told USA TODAY this week that Miah is sharing her survival story to “make safer schools.”
Biggs claims he has “no objection to holding a congressional hearing that considers crime, violence, and guns in America,” but the “child who is being brought to testify before the Committee this morning was recently victimized and traumatized. The Chair of this committee is re-victimizing and re-traumatizing this child for political purposes,” Biggs says.
No one is being forced to appear before the House Committee, those testifying are appearing of their own free will.
In 2019 Biggs called a Democratic-sponsored gun control bill “unconstitutional.” Earlier this year Biggs bragged he was leading the effort to “curb” the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) “assault on Second Amendment rights.”
Last year at the far right Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Biggs declared his opposition to the Biden administration’s nominee to head the ATF: “The first thing you’ve got to do is stop the guy that’s going to enforce the laws.”
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bazooka squirrel hunt ar-15
https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/john-thune-prairie-dogs-ar15/
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/right-wing-keeps-suggesting-country/
no lnx vid
The right wing keeps suggesting that most of the country just doesn’t count
Former President Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2022 in Orlando, Florida on February 27, 2022, Wikimedia Commons]
Alex Henderson June 03, 2022
When Joe Biden was hitting the campaign trail in 2020, he bragged about how — during his decades in the U.S. Senate — he was able to work with right-wing Republicans, find common ground and get productive legislation passed. Many of today’s MAGA Republicans, in contrast, brag about refusing to compromise with Democrats and act as though millions of Democratic voters simply don’t exist or don’t matter.
That mindset was evident when Gavin Wax, president of the New York Young Republican Club, made a June 2 appearance on One America News — a cable news outlet that’s known for promoting far-right conspiracy theories and prides itself on being to the right of Fox News and Fox Business. OAN’s Kara McKinney brought Wax on the show “Tipping Point,” which she hosts, to discuss gun control, and Wax’s comments went beyond the usual gun lobby and National Rifle Association (NRA) talking points.
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Wax told McKinney, “We certainly have a lower rate of mass shooting from many other countries across the world, and if you take out some of the big cities in the U.S. and the gang and drug-related instances of mass shootings, the United States is actually one of the safest places in the world. But of course, you know, the Democrats and the media are going to politicize and weaponize this issue because their end goal is to disarm law-abiding U.S. citizens and make us a less free country as a result.”
Watch below via Media Matters for America:
First, the U.S. is much more violent than countries in Europe are known for being. Residents of the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Sweden and many other European countries are horrified by how common mass shootings are in the U.S., where a May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas left 19 children and two teachers dead. It came less than two weeks after a May 14 mass shooting in Buffalo, New York that claimed ten lives.
Second, Wax’s comments showed total indifference to residents of major urban areas, many of whom vote Democrat. Those comments reflect a MAGA mindset that the concerns of voters don’t count if they live in large cities.
But Wax is hardly the only Republican who thinks that way. Just as Wax implied that voters who are worried about violence don’t count if they are urban dwellers, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana recently commented that his state’s high rate of maternal mortality isn’t bad if you don’t focus too heavily on African-American women.
Cassidy, in May, told Politico that when it comes to pregnancy-related deaths, “If you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear.”
Journalist Tat Bellamy-Walker, reporting on Cassidy for NBC News, explained, “Louisiana has some of the highest Black maternal death rates in the country. A report from the state’s health department shows that four Black mothers die for every White mother and two Black babies die for every one White baby. In the United States, Black mothers are three times more likely to die in childbirth than White mothers.”
The fact that so many of the maternal deaths in Louisiana involve African-American women doesn’t mean that Louisiana doesn’t have a major problem with maternal deaths; in fact, it underscores the problem.
Following the 2020 presidential election, far-right Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit seeking to throw out millions of votes in four states that Biden won: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. The fact that Biden was the clear favorite in Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Atlanta — all of which have a lot of Black voters — didn’t matter to Paxton, who couldn’t have cared less about the will of voters in those cities. And he wanted their votes invalidated.
In a op-ed/essay published by the New York Times on June 3, journalist Mimi Swartz — executive editor of the Texas Monthly — expresses her extreme frustration with Gov. Greg Abbott, arguing that he is totally indifferent to millions of Texans who aren’t “hard-right culture warriors.”
During his June 2 appearance on OAN, Wax angrily railed against “RINOs” (Republican in Name Only) who are willing to work with Democrats on gun control legislation. Wax’s mindset is very much an us-versus-them mentality, and in today’s Republican Party, it isn’t at all uncommon.
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an 6 22 uvalde
Matt Gaetz thinks voters going to the polls should be able to carry guns to protect themselves from “intimidation.” The Florida Republican repeatedly delivered extreme opposition to legislation the House Judiciary Committee debated on Thursday, with every Republican opposing the “Protecting Our Kids Act.”
The bill would raise the minimum age to purchase certain firearms from 18 to 21, require firearms to be stored in a lockbox or other safe storage, and help prevent gun trafficking.
In response to an amendment proposed by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, as The Hill reported, Gaetz casually declared:
“I sort of like Massie’s legislation that maybe everyone who’s a voter or on their way to vote ought to have the opportunity to carry a firearm to ensure that they’re not subject to any intimidation.”
Watch (clip begins at the 3:07 mark):
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false flag BS
https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/qanons-influence-trumpified-radicalized-gop/
no lnx twt
QAnon’s influence continues to grow and expand in 2022's Trumpified, radicalized GOP
A QAnon flag on display in Richmond, Virginia on January 20, 2020, Wikimedia Commons
Alex Henderson June 03, 2022
QAnon conspiracy theorists suffered a major disappointment when Donald Trump was voted out of the White House in 2020, but their presence in the Republican Party and the MAGA movement didn’t go away. QAnon’s ideas have been promoted by far-right members of the U.S. House of Representatives such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado — and QAnon devotee Lauren Witzke, who lost to Democratic Sen. Chris Coons in Delaware’s 2020 U.S. Senate race, is a pundit in Christian nationalist media broadcasts.
Moreover, QAnon’s influence in the GOP has grown to the point that a QAnon activist — Wayne Willott, a.k.a. Juan O. Savin — is trying to get MAGA Republicans elected to secretary of state positions so that they will play key roles in the administration of elections.Journalist Will Sommer, in an article published by the Daily Beast on June 1, takes a disturbing look at Willott’s “growing influence” both inside and outside the QAnon cult.
According to Sommer, Willott is doing a lot more than promoting conspiracy theories online. He is the co-founder of a group called the America First Secretary of State Coalition, and his candidates have been running in GOP primaries in the 2022 midterms.
“While the 65-year-old Willott remains all but unknown outside of QAnon,” Sommer reports, “he’s a figure with growing influence in both the conspiracy-theory universe and the broader conservative movement…. The America First Secretary of State Coalition now stands poised to have its candidates win offices in key battleground states. One of the group’s candidates, Kristina Karamo, has already won the Republican nomination for the position in Michigan.”
Sommer adds, “Another candidate, 2020 election denier and Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem, has won Trump’s endorsement and looks set to win his state’s primary as well. If victorious in the general election, both candidates could play a key role in how electoral votes from their states are allotted in 2024.”
Alex Kaplan, a researcher for Media Matters, warns that Willott’s extremism should not be taken lightly.
Kaplan told the Beast, “If one of these candidates in the future gets elected, there is a QAnon influencer that could help lead to a constitutional crisis.”
QAnon conspiracy theorists have no problem believing ludicrous things. Supporters of QAnon claim that the United States’ federal government has been hijacked by an international cabal of child sex traffickers, Satanists, pedophiles and cannibals and that Trump was elected president in 2016 to fight the cabal. And some QAnon extremists, according to Sommer, believe that Willott is really John F. Kennedy, Jr.
“Thanks to his ties throughout the conspiracy theorist community and rumors that he’s JFK Jr.,” Sommer reports, “Willott’s star shot up on the right in 2020 and 2021. Signed copies of his book promoting QAnon have sold for hundreds of dollars on eBay. With Q, the originator of QAnon, silent since December 2020, Willott quickly became one of the leading sources of QAnon information.”
Sommer adds, “Willott’s rise to the top of the QAnon heap was abetted by the other QAnon promoters’ refusal to take the coronavirus vaccine. In the course of just a few months, two anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists who had promoted Willott, Robert David Steele and Cirsten Weldon, both died of COVID-19.”
A recurring theme with QAnon is that Democrats, including teachers, are “groomers” who are trying to harm children by promoting homosexuality and bisexuality in schools and pushing a transgender agenda. In 2022, anti-trans bills sponsored by far-right Republicans have been plentiful in state legislatures.
Journalist Kristi Pahr, reporting for Fatherly.com in late April, noted that at least 150 anti-trans bills had been introduced in state legislatures in 2022 — many of which were passed and signed into law.
“Given the onslaught of hundreds of bills that are under consideration, it can be hard for parents of trans kids or parents who are transgender themselves to know what’s happening where they live — and how to press lawmakers to fight against anti-trans laws,” Pahr reported. “That’s why one group, the Trans Formations Project, developed a tool for tracking discriminatory legislation so the public can find out what’s happening in their states. The project also lists contact information for state legislators and provides descriptions of any proposed legislation in easy-to-understand language, without all the legal jargon and vagueness that tends to obfuscate what passed laws would actually do to our kids.”
Pahr cited Texas, Utah, West Virginia, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Montana, Arkansas and Mississippi as examples of red states where anti-trans bills have become law. And Florida, a swing state, is the home of what has been widely criticized as the “Don’t Say Gay” law. Pahr describes it as the “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law, reminding Fatherly readers that the law is not only anti-gay, but also, anti-trans.
The anti-trans laws being introduced by far-right Republicans in state legislatures don’t mention QAnon specifically, but they underscore QAnon’s influence on the Republican Party. When Republicans talk about “groomers” in defense of anti-trans bills, it is right out of QAnon’s Democrats-want-to-harm-your-children playbook.
Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee in Pennsylvania’s 2022 gubernatorial race, is among the far-right MAGA Republicans and conspiracy theorists who hasn’t been the least bit shy about promoting QAnon. In July 2021, Media Matters’ Eric Hananoki reported that Mastriano had promoted QAnon in more than 50 tweets.
Christian nationalist Witzke has been another outspoken QAnon promoter. When Witzke ran for the U.S. Senate seat in Delaware that was once held by now-President Joe Biden, she lost badly: In 2020, Democratic incumbent Coons defeated her by 22%.
But the fact that Delaware Republicans nominated someone as extreme as Witzke in the first place is a frightening example of the GOP’s radicalization. And Witzke hasn’t grown any less extreme or any less kooky since 2020.
These days, Witzke is making her presence felt in Christian nationalist broadcasts. Witzke praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a symbol of Christian piety in February and applauded the invasion of Ukraine. And now, she is implying that Democrats in the federal government and their "RINO" (Republicans In Name Only) allies are behind a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas on May 24 that left 19 children and two teachers dead. Witzke believes that Democrats targeted Robb Elementary School not only to promote gun control, but also, because they are worried about Latinos voting Republican.
Witzke said, “I think about the conspiracy behind all of it. I’m like, OK, what do they gain from it besides the gun control push? But also, Hispanics are starting to vote Republican and conservative. They specifically targeted a school in an area that is majority Hispanic. It’s essentially Mexico is what it is.”
Witzke went on to say, “They’re watching as Hispanics are starting to lean more conservative, and these people are crazy. Midterms are coming up. And there’s no limit to how far they’ll go to change the public narrative on things. So, I think it was multi-faceted. Of course, it was a federal operation in order to implement gun control…. All this stuff is organized and operated.”
The claim that Democrats in the federal government are orchestrating mass shootings of schoolchildren because they believe it will help them politically is exactly the type of ludicrous conspiracy theory QAnon supporters are coming up with. And this type of thinking has become mainstream in the Trumpified, radicalized GOP.
From Willott and Witzke to Mastriano, Boebert and Greene, QAnon is more than a movement of fringe conspiracy theorists who make wacky claims online. It is now a prominent influence in the Republican Party, even influencing anti-trans, anti-gay laws they are passing. And if Republicans enjoy a major red wave in the 2022 midterms, QAnon’s influence will only grow.
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https://www.alternet.org/**2022/05**/scotus-blood-on-its-hands/
the court is about to take Second Amendment fundamentalism to a new and even more dangerous level.
If you're looking for someone or something to blame for the mass shootings that have left our schools, streets and communities soaked in blood, don't just point your finger at the deranged punks who pull the triggers, or the NRA and their lackeys in the Republican Party. Save at least some of your ire for the Supreme Court.
In 2008, the Supreme Court sold its soul to the gun lobby. In a 5-4 majority opinion written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in District of Columbia v. Heller, the court held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms.[cruz?]
Prior to Heller, the great weight of academic scholarship as well as the court’s 1939 decision in United States v. Miller had construed the Second Amendment, in keeping with the actual debates of the Constitutional Convention, asprotecting gun ownership only in connection with service in long-since antiquated state militias.
In 2010, the court again genuflected to the gun lobby. In another 5-4 opinion in McDonald v. Chicago, this time written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court extended Heller, holding that the individual right to keep and bear arms is “incorporated” by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause and is therefore applicable to the states and local governments.
The Second Amendment, as interpreted by Scalia and Alito, thus became the law of the land. The amendment has since been elevated in right-wing circles to the status of holy writ.
Both Heller and McDonald were based on the implausible and perverse judicial philosophy known as "originalism."
Originalism has led the court to enter a legal fantasy world in which the answers to contemporary questions about such matters as voting rights and gerrymandering, union organizing, the death penalty, abortion and gun control are to be found solely in the meaning that the Constitution had for the Founding Fathers in the late 18th Century.For originalists, the meaning of the Constitution is forever fixed, and can only be altered by constitutional amendments.
As a tool of judicial decision-making, originalism has been around a long time.One of its earliest expressions came in the Dred Scott case of 1857, perhaps the most odious decision ever issued by the Supreme Court, which held that Black Americans of African descent could never be U.S. Citizens. Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation even after the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, is another originalist landmark.
But as an explicit judicial theory, originalism came into its own in the early 1980s. Initially, as popularized by Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese and the late failed-Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, the doctrine asserted that the most important terms and provisions that appear in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights should be understood according to the “original intent” of the Founding Fathers, rather than as broad concepts that acquire depth, content and more complete meaning over time in response to changing social conditions.
When critics noted that the framers of the Constitution were a diverse group and that their actual intentions were varied and often ambiguous, proponents of the doctrine refined their approach. The current version—call it “new originalism”— focuses on the “original public meaning” of Constitutional provisions, which, they contend, can be ascertained from the recorded debates of the founding era and from such sources as late eighteenth-century dictionaries.
All originalists—whether of the old or new iteration—believe that their approach limits the subjectivity of judges and acts as a restraint on judicial activism.
In fact, originalism does nothing of the sort. As Fordham University history professor Saul Cornell, one of the foremost authorities on the history of the Second Amendment, noted in a scathing critique published in 2011 in Dissent magazine:
“[I]f one looks carefully at the murky methodology and dubious practices of new originalism, it is clear that its historical foundations are even shakier than that of old originalism. The new theory is little more than an intellectual shell game in which contemporary political preferences are shuffled around and made to appear part of the Constitution’s original meaning.”
The actual history of the Second Amendment is quite different from the fantasy versions advanced by Scalia and Alito. As the late Justice John Paul Stevens, joined by three of his colleagues, wrote for the minority in Heller:
“The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. It was a response to concerns raised during the ratification of the Constitution that thepower of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several States.Neither the text of the Amendment nor the arguments advanced by its proponents evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature’s authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms.”
Although Heller and McDonald were the products of extreme rightwing judicial activism, they were technically limited in scope, as they dealt with the right to keep guns in the home. Ever since those cases were decided, however, the gun lobby has worked to bring a new test case to the Supreme Court to extend the right to bear arms beyond the home.
The lobby has finally found its vehicle in a new case--New York State Pistol Association v. Bruen-- that will be decided by the end of June, when the court completes its current term.
Bruenwas brought by two individuals and the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association to overturn a New York law that places limits on the issuance of concealed weapons permits to carry guns outside the home. Under New York’s regulatory scheme, people seeking such permits are required to demonstrate a special need for protection — “proper cause” in the words of the statute—to qualify. The NRA contends the law is unconstitutional.
After losing in the lower courts, the Bruen plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court, where they are likely to prevail. With the addition of three Trump appointees—Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—conservatives now hold a solid 6-3 majority on the bench. No longer constrained by the need for caution and compromise, they are set to dramatically extend gun rights under the Second Amendment.
Originalism was front and center during the oral arguments the court heard in the case last November.
During the arguments, the Justices paid scant attention to the dire consequences of unleashing more guns on the streets and subways of present-day New York City. They instead peppered the attorneys for both sides with questions about the origins under Anglo-American law of the right to carry arms in public places. At several points in the two-hour session, the attorneys were asked to share their thoughts on whether the Statute of Northampton, an act of the English Parliament passed in 1328, banned the carrying of weapons other than by the king’s servants in fairs and markets.
The questioning would have made for an amusing Saturday Night Live or Monty Python skit, but this was no stand-up bit. Commenting on the oral arguments, Professor Cornell told the BBC it was “beyond ironic” that anyone would look to Medieval England for resolution of the case. "It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever to anyone who really understands the complexity of English history. Obviously, that doesn't include many people in the gun rights community or many people sitting on some courts in America."
Should the New York statute be declared unconstitutional, similar measures in California, New Jersey, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and elsewhere will likely fall, with dire and deadly consequences for public safety. Worse still, depending on the scope of the court's ruling, other gun-control laws on background checks and the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines could become vulnerable to constitutional challenges.
The gun homicide rate in the United States is nearly eight times higher than the rate in Canada, and a whopping 100 times higher than in Britain. This year is shaping up to be particularly horrific. As of May 30, the United States had recorded 17,817 deaths from firearms, counting both suicides and unlawful killings, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Gun Violence Archive. We also had recorded 228 mass shootings (defined as an event involving four or more victims).
In any sane democracy, one might expect the highest court in the land to step in and do something to uphold sensible gun-control regulations when given the opportunity. But in fact, our Supreme Court is poised to do just the opposite. Keep that in mind when the next mass shooting inevitably occurs, perhaps in a neighborhood close to your own.
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an 5 22
Last week 19 children and two teachers were murdered by an 18-year-old who legally bought two semiautomatic rifles. The week before, 10 Black people visiting the supermarket were murdered by an 18-year-old who legally bought a semiautomatic rifle.
Seventy-seven percentof mass shootings are committed with legally bought guns. Seventy percent of school shooters have been under 18. The Sandy Hook shooter was 20. The Parkland shooter was 19.
The radicalization of young men and permissive gun laws for teenagers is fueling a crisis of mass shootings and violence.
In the United States, gun culture and white supremacy go hand in hand.
While gun control laws were common in American history, the right to own a gun was only protected for white men. The first gun-control law passed in the British colonies was to prevent a British colonist from providing a gun to any Native American in 1619 in Virginia. Race or enslavement was a common justification to restrict gun ownership until 1867, as slave owners were terrified of slave rebellions.
It was also particularly important for white men on the frontier to have access to firearms to aid in stealing land from Native Americans. Land colonization was so important that early colonies actually armed enslaved Black men and enrolled them in militias to defend against indigenous tribes.
However, as the frontier moved West and slave rebellion became a larger worry, this practice lessened and laws were passed to bar the use of guns by enslaved people or to restrict their usage to only when supervised.
Historian Carol Anderson argues that not only were guns restricted based on race, but that the Second Amendment was in large part motivated to protect the rights of slave owners to have guns to put down slave rebellions.
After the Civil War, southern states passed Black Codes to make it illegal for free Black people to carry guns and the KKK confiscated them, but Reconstruction ended these laws.
Access to guns has remained racialized since the Civil War, even if the explicitly discriminatory laws ended. Self-defense and “Stand Your Ground laws” have only provided white men with protection because police and juries see Black men as the perpetrators of violence, not the victims.
Even women are rarely successful in legally justifying their right to use a gun in self-defense. “Stand Your Ground laws” don’t apply to domestic violence victims. Women often resort to killing their abusers when they have an opportune moment, not when there is “imminent” danger.
The NRA’s history is deeply racist while promoting an extreme image of the Second Amendment and the need for guns. The NRA was initially formed in 1871 to promote gun training and safety. It didn’t start promoting unfettered access to guns until the 1960s.
In the 1920s and 1930s, NRA president Karl T. Frederick supported gun-control measures, like requiring state licenses and only granting them to “suitable” people. His framework left the discretion for licenses in the hands of local law enforcement, which allowed Black people to be systematically denied access to firearms while ensuring “suitable” white people could buy them.
The 1960s saw a new wave of gun control measures that began the NRA’s transformation. However, while some members were threatened by new gun-control measures, many in the NRA simultaneously wanted such laws to take guns away from the Black Panthers.
While the NRA would never publicly endorse any gun-control measures today, it has been reluctant to support people of color availing themselves of their Second Amendment rights, and even ignored the Philando Castilecase.
Between 2012 and 2019, there were 11 mass shootings with ties to white supremacy. Everytown for Gun Safety estimates over 10,000 hate crimes are committed every year with a firearm. Of those, 63 percent are based on race. Fifteen percent on religion (religious hate crimes particularly against Jews are also a result of white supremacy).
In 2021, 21-year-old Robert Long murdered eight women, six of Asian descent in Atlanta. Two weeks ago 18-year-old Payton Gendron murdered 10 Black people after posting a manifesto about Great Replacement Theory. The shooter in the Poway Synagogue shooting believed in white genocide conspiracy theories. He was only 19. The Charleston church shooter, Dylann Roof was 21.
All these shootings were committed with legally purchased guns.
All of them could have been prevented by raising the age to buy a rifle to 21, enforcing universal background checks and passing red-flag laws that would enable confiscating someone’s guns if they show signs of radicalized white supremacist thinking or a propensity for violence.
The NRA and gun manufacturers not only oppose all these very reasonable reforms, but they target young men vulnerable to radicalization with advertising.
Gun companies post images of teens using weapons, market guns in different colors and appeal to teens possibly interested in law enforcement. [JR-15, urban sniper]
Companies skirt rules about advertising disclosure by using paid influencers to pose with guns on Instagram and social media sites. Instagram has a policy that “branded content” promoting weapons isn’t allowed on the site, but that doesn’t stop influencers from promoting weapons and hiding financial connections.
White supremacists and gun manufacturers are targeting young men online.
The predictable result is tragic mass shootings.
States are making it impossible to teach these young men about racism, which might combat their radicalization, while making it easier for them to buy guns.
Young mass shooters are buying guns legally because federal law allows automatic rifles to be bought at 18 and they pass their background checks with no red flag law recourse.
Closing the universal background check loophole could have stopped the Charleston shooting, raising the minimum age for rifle purchases could have stopped the Sandy Hook, Parkland, Poway, Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings as well as the vast majority of school shootings.
Red-flag laws that took white supremacy seriously could have stopped almost all of these shootings. These are also three of the most popular gun reform measures.
Fifty-four percent of Republicans and 83 percent of Democrats support raising the age to buy any type of gun to 21. Eighty-three percent of Americans support universal background checks. Seventy-two percent support a national red-flag law and requiring a license.
Democrats have introduced bills to raise the age, enforce universal background checks and pass red flag laws as well as a host of other gun-reform measures.
The only thing standing in the way is the NRA and the politicians they’ve bought.
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an 5 22
following the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas — an attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead — Fox News and other right-wing media outlets have been pushing a Democrats-want-to-take-your-guns narrative. But Fox News host Arthel Neville had a different tone when, on Sunday, May 29, she covered President Joe Biden’s visit to Uvalde and called for gun law reform.
“As we’ve said before, prayers are not enough,” Neville told her guest Griff Jenkins. “We have to do something. We’ve got to get the lawmakers to do something. Now, the president is, you know, the commander in chief. This is happening on his watch, but he needs the help of Congress to get something done.”
Jenkins argued that Biden, following the Uvalde attack, was failing to unite the country — and Neville responded, “Excuse me. It’s not just about the president uniting, OK? It’s more than that.”
Neville continued, “It’s lawmakers who are stopping the unification. So, let’s be clear about that. Yes, this is happening on his watch. Yes, he is responsible. Yes, he campaigned on a united America. And, yes, he needs to do something about it, but he can’t do it alone.”
Neville is the daughter of veteran New Orleans R&B singer Art Neville of the Neville Brothers and the niece of singer Aaron Neville, who is famous for 1966 hit “Tell It Like It Is”
The Uvalde attack came only ten days after a mass shooting in a Buffalo, New York supermarket on May 10. That attack left ten people dead. In both attacks, the gunmen used AR-15-style semiautomatic assault weapons that they had purchased legally.
HuffPost reporter Josephine Harvey explains, “Republicans have been quick to blame everything from school architecture to mental health, lack of security, and even ‘wokeness’ for the country’s mass shooting issue, refusing to acknowledge that the one variable that sets the U.S. apart from its developed peers is its astronomical number of guns and the ease with which people can obtain them.”
Harvey adds, “Many Fox News hosts and pundits have offered similar explanations for the crisis. Last week, media watchdog Media Matters cut together a montage of at least 50 different solutions the conservative network’s personalities proposed in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. None of them were gun control.”...
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gop excuses
https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/republicans-bizarre-excuses-mass-shootings/
Here are some of the excuses that Republicans are using to explain the recent mass shootings
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in February 2018 (Wikimedia Commons).
Meaghan Ellis May 27, 2022
While most of the world is well aware of the fact that the United States' lenient gun control laws have contributed to the number of disturbing mass shootings, Republican leaders and lawmakers are attempting to make excuses to divert attention from the firearm discussions.
As the days progress, the excuses are becoming more outlandish.According to HuffPost, Republicans have blamed everything from liberal teachers to ADHD medications for shootings that have taken place across the country. Then, there are bizarre remarks from far-right conservatives like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). While Greene believes there's not enough "God" in schools, Paxton and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) believe there aren't enough guns in school.
“The reality is, we don’t have the resources to have law enforcement at every school,” he said. “It takes time for law enforcement, no matter how prepared, no matter how good they are to get there. So, having the right training for some of these people at the school is the best hope.”
Boebert, meanwhile, shares on Thursday night that she wants "teachers that can protect themselves and their students."
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) even attempted to blame the shootings on "fatherlessness" as he discussed the "root cause" of the shootings. “Questions involving things like, why is our culture suddenly producing so many young men who want to murder innocent people?” he said. “It raises questions like, you know, could things like fatherlessness, the breakdown of families, isolation from civil society or the glorification of violence be contributing factors?”
Like most Republican lawmakers, Lee failed to offer any suggestions to combat that would ensure troubled individuals are unable to obtain access to firearms.
Speaking to HuffPost, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) believes ADHD medication is to blame. "Kids have changed over the years, the drugs they’re taking for attention deficit just to focus on what they’re doing. It’s mind-boggling to me,” Tuberville said.
There have also been instances of right-wing internet trolls having "spread photos of a random trans woman who bears a passing resemblance to the actual shooter, Salvador Ramos, whom police said they killed responding to the massacre. ... The woman in the widely disseminated photos has come and out said that she’s not the shooter — and that she doesn’t even live in Texas — and asked people to stop sharing the pictures of her apparently taken without her consent from Reddit.”
Another vexing argument actually centers on gun control. However, Erich Pratt, the senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, believes gun control is actually the problem.
“Killers love gun control, and that’s what enabled this killer in Texas,” he said.
Despite all of the endless arguments, the vast majority of Republicans still refuse to acknowledge the real problem. no lnx twt many
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/ulvade-2657408378/
no lnx
A gun and a prayer: How the far right took control of Texas’ response to mass shootings
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott delivers a speech to the graduating class of Airmen at the Basic Military Training parade June 5, 2015 at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas. Gov. Abbott was a distinguished visitor at the BMT parade, and addressed the graduating Airmen. (U.S. Air Force photo by Benjamin Faske)]
The Texas Tribune May 29, 2022
By Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune
May 29, 2022
"A gun and a prayer: How the far right took control of Texas’ response to mass shootings" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
As the gunman approached her family cowering in the corner of the restaurant, Suzanna Hupp wanted nothing more than a gun in her hand.
But Texas law in 1991 didn't allow that, leaving her defenseless. Her parents died holding each other on the floor of that Luby’s restaurant in Killeen. Twenty-one other diners and the gunman also died that day.
The Luby’s shooting, as it became known, shocked the nation and galvanized Hupp, who escaped through a window. She spent the next 30 years, including 10 in the state legislature, fighting to give others the option she did not have.
Workers remove debris from Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen the day after a gunman shot and killed 23 people on Oct. 16, 1991.]
Unlike other mass shooting survivors who advocate for gun restrictions – the parents of Sandy Hook students or the teenagers who watched their classmates die at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School – Hupp’s goal has been eliminating gun regulations.
For all the conversation about common sense and compromise, these are the two fundamental choices — the answer to preventing future tragedy is either fewer guns, or more.
At their core, these philosophies are not a Venn diagram. They are ideologically distinct and incompatible worldviews.
While there will be discussions in the coming weeks about incremental steps and public support for tightening gun regulations, the political reality is that three decades of Republican dominance have erased the middle ground. In Texas, the chosen response to mass shootings is a gun and a prayer.
The state's elected officials, influenced by an ultra-conservative religious movement and profit-driven gun companies, have chosen the path of least regulation, elevating firearms into a referendum on faith and freedom.
Addressing the state Wednesday after a gunman massacred 19 students and two teachers, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made it clear how the state should respond to mass shootings.
“In these other shootings — Sutherland Springs, El Paso, Odessa, Santa Fe — it’s God that brings a community together. It’s God that heals a community,” Patrick said. “If we don’t turn back as a nation to understanding what we were founded uponand what we were taught by our parents and what we believe in, then these situations will only get worse.”
Texas is on a path that may not reflect public opinion, but absolutely reflects the larger political forces sweeping the state. And it’s not just Texas:Republican state legislatures, data shows, are 115% more likely to pass legislation loosening gun laws in response to mass shootings.
Texas remains among the more heavily armed states in the country — more than a third of Texas households have a gun, and while the rate of household gun ownership has declined nationally since the 1980s, it has not declined as quickly or consistently in Texas.
More than 1.7 million Texans have an active state firearm license, and Texas has more federally registered guns than any other state. Nationally, data shows two-thirds of gun owners own more than one gun, and nearly a third own five or more guns.
“If the states are laboratories of democracy, where we figure out what policies work, you might think over time we’d converge on a set of policies,” said Chris Poliquin, who researches gun laws at the University of California - Los Angeles. “But you don't actually see that on gun policy.”
From sport to self-defense
When the pickup truck crashed through the plate glass window of the Luby’s, Suzanna Hupp assumed it was an accident.
When the driver pulled out a gun, she assumed it was a robbery.
It wasn’t until he started shooting — picking off patrons, one by one — that she realized what was happening.
“It took me a good 45 seconds, which is an eternity during something like that,” she said. “Now, it would be the first thing your mind goes to, but back then, we hadn’t had anything like that before.”
It was 1991, long before the era of active shooter drills and school lockdowns. It would be another eight years until the shooting at Columbine High School, and three decades before a man walked into an elementary school in Uvalde and massacred 19 students and two teachers.
It was also an era of much tighter gun laws in Texas. Hupp’s handgun was in the glove compartment of her car. She feared losing her chiropractor's license if caught violating the state’s prohibition on carrying a concealed weapon.
“I realized we were just sitting ducks,” she said. “That is just the most sickening feeling in the world to just wait for it to be your turn.”
Hupp emerged from that shooting with a new mission, and the gun rights movement had a new crusader.
“I testified in, I don’t know, 25 different states, some of them a couple of times,” she said. “And they all have concealed carry now.”
Her argument has been simple but effective: stricter gun laws would not have stopped the gunman who killed her parents. A gun would have. She believes the key to preventing more gun deaths is more guns — mental health treatment and better risk assessment, too, but most importantly, more guns in more places.
Former state Rep. Suzanna Hupp, R-Lampasas, speaks at the Bexar County Courthouse with then-Gov. Rick Perry looking on in San Antonio on Jan. 6, 2005.
“Here’s the truth of the matter that no one can argue with,” she said. “If I’d had my gun that day, even if I had screwed it up somehow, it would have changed the odds, wouldn’t it?”
When Hupp first got involved in the gun rights movement, many states banned concealed carry and the United States was on the verge of passing a federal assault weapons ban.
But a change had been building for some time. Since the 1960s, the country had been in the process of shifting from what Wake Forest University researcher David Yamane calls “gun culture 1.0” — guns for sport or recreation — to 2.0 — guns for self-defense.
“A lot of people in developed, suburbanized parts of the country who maybe previously thought they didn’t need a gun anymore, because they’re not on the frontier, start to develop the notion that they might have to defend themselves,” Yamane said. “That link has become much more prominent these days.”
Hupp’s story capitalized on a previously unimaginable idea that a man might come into the restaurant where you’re eating and just start shooting. This free-floating fear has morphed in recent years depending on the moment — gun sales spiked during the original COVID lockdowns, and amid the 2020 racial justice protests, and they tend to rise after mass shootings like the one in Uvalde.
“In the 90s and 2000s, people really do start to see guns increasingly as a viable option to face down crime, uncertainty and unrest,” said Yamane. “There's an element of defensive gun ownership that looks at the gun as a tool of last resort for when the worst possible thing is happening.”
At the same time, the National Rifle Association began bringing more of its lobbying firepower to state legislatures, fomenting the idea that the world was full of things that needed defending against.
“The NRA built this identity around gun ownership, and then it portrayed that identity as being threatened,” said Matthew Lacombe, the author of Firepower: How the NRA Turned Gun Owners into a Political Force. “So the minority of Americans who oppose gun control are historically more politically active than the majority that support.”
In Texas, like other red states, the NRA slid sideways into the newfound alliance between evangelical Christians and the Republican Party, aligning gun rights with the religious right.
[Former President Donald Trump greets Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the NRA during the National Rifle Association annual convention in Houston on May 27, 2022.
Gun ownership became a symbolic weapon in fighting the culture wars.
“I am not really here to talk about the Second Amendment or the NRA, but the gun issue clearly brings into focus the war that's going on,” said then-NRA President Charlton Heston in a 1997 speech. “Mainstream America is depending on you … to draw your sword and fight for them.”
And Texas did fight. In 1994, George W. Bush beat Ann Richards for the governorship after she vetoed a concealed carry law. In the decades since, Texas passed open carry, allowed guns on college campuses and in churches, prohibited cities from passing stricter gun laws and deemed the state a “Second Amendment sanctuary.”
Hupp left the Legislature in 2007. In the years since, she's watched ideas she said her colleagues once dismissed as “nuts” pass into law — like permitless carry and allowing teachers to carry guns.
As the Texas Legislature has steadily embarked on a conservative crusade, gun rights hasn’t just been on the list of priorities. In many ways, it’s the linchpin of the whole thing.
"God-given" guns
In 2018, after a gunman killed 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre spoke to a conservative convention.
“There is no greater personal, individual freedom than the right to keep and bear arms, the right to protect yourself, and the right to survive,” LaPierre said. “It is not bestowed by man, but granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright.”
The idea that God has granted Americans a fundamental right to bear arms is not a new one, but it’s become an article of faith.
True believers derive the inherent right to self-defense by drawing a line from the Declaration of Independence – that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – to the 2nd Amendment as the legal representation of God’s will.
This is the cross that some gun owners have chosen to bear — that their defense of gun rights is not just about firearms, but about ensuring the continued manifestation of God’s will on Earth.
Andrew Whitehead, author of Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States, said equating gun rights with the “will of the sacred” essentially erases any hope of finding a middle ground.
"If we do anything about gun control, we are turning our backs on God's desire and plan for this country and the Founding Fathers and all of those things,” Whitehead said. “It’s so strongly ingrained and has become so central to that identity, so to float the idea of gun control is almost to attack, in their view, their Christian identity.”
Christian nationalism is an effort to more closely intertwine evangelical Christian morality and American civic identity. It’s associated with a slate of other conservative political agenda items, all framed around bringing America and its citizen’s hearts back to God.
Modern Christian nationalism tightly defines a “true American” and a “true Christian” in largely white, evangelical, conservative terms, emphasizing capitalism, traditional gender roles and parents' rights.
Not all evangelical Christians subscribe to Christian nationalist ideas. But some of those ideas have taken hold in the Texas Legislature in recent years.
In 2019, after the second mass shooting in Texas in a month, state Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, tweeted that he was “NOT going to use theevil acts of a handful of people to diminish the God-given rights of my fellow Texans. Period.”
[State Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, at his desk on the House floor on Aug. 12, 2021.
Schaeffer’s tweet thread went on to say he opposed gun reform measures, including universal background checks, bans on assault weapons and mandatory gun buybacks. Instead, he said he would support praying for the victims, for protection and for hoping “God would transform the hearts of people with evil intent.”
He also endorsed the idea of “giving every law-abiding single mom the right to carry a handgun to protect her and her kids without permission from the state, and the same for all other law-abiding Texans of age.”
Schaeffer did not respond to request for comment.
By citing Texans’ “God-given rights,” Schaeffer and his fellowstate legislators transform a gun into a symbol of morality, piety, and identity.
“The ability to craft and create that narrative gets politicians who might not even be that interested in Christian nationalism in touch with people who are activated by that rhetoric,” said Whitehead. “And that can be very powerful.”
It’s not just gun control: support for Christian nationalist ideas is a predictor for support for a slew of other political agenda items, Whitehead said, including the most high-profile right now: ending abortion.
Gun rights and abortion occupy the same philosophical space in the Texas Legislature, where the conversation is centered more around morality and theology than facts and science. Government has a responsibility to defend life in the womb, the argument goes, and individuals a right to defend themselves.
“There is more of an entrenchment with the gun issue than almost any other issue,” said state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin. “There’s little room for any kind of discussion, any kind of debate, any willingness to look at compromises … even with abortion, there was more room to negotiate a few things.”
What comes next
[Students are evacuated out of Robb Elementary School during a mass shooting in Uvalde on Tuesday. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in Texas’ deadliest school shooting.
After 10 people were killed in a school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, in 2018, Gov. Greg Abbott suggested considering a “red flag” law. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick nixed it.
After 23 people were killed at a Walmart in El Paso and seven people were killed in Midland-Odessa in 2019, Patrick discussed expanding background checks. Instead, the Legislature passed permitless carry.
But after Uvalde, neither Patrick nor Abbott indicated any interest in reforming the state’s gun laws. On Fox News, Attorney General Ken Paxton said it’s unreasonable to think we can “stop bad people from doing bad things.”
“We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly,” he said. “That, in my opinion, is the best answer.”
While Democrats expressed their outrage — some more immediately than others — none of this came as any surprise to people who study gun issues.
Poliquin’s research shows that Republican-dominated states tend to pass legislation in the wake of mass shootings that make guns more readily accessible. Democrat-led states don’t see a statistically significant increase in gun laws of any kind after these events, in part, Poliquin hypothesized, because they already have strong gun control laws.
Republicans in Texas are acting on their party’s ideology around guns, which emphasizes more guns in more places as a deterrent to acts of violence. And even if that doesn’t reflect public opinion, they have no reason to anticipate backlash in the voting booth.
[Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a press conference at Uvalde High School on Wednesday, May 25, 2022 in Uvalde. Twenty one people were killed after a gunman after a high school student opened fire inside Robb Elementary School on Tuesday where two teachers and 19 students were killed.
Even conversations about compromise are enough to rile up the faithful, and in a polarized and gerrymandered state like Texas, the political fringes are where a politician's career can be made or lost.
“The more the gun control advocates try to put in place what they euphemistically call common sense gun laws … those of us that believe in the Second Amendment and everything it was set in place to protect tend to hold much tighter,” Hupp said. “We recognize what their ultimate goal is, which is to completely disarm citizens.”
Donna Howard, one of a minority of Democrats in the state Legislature, said Texas’ approach to gun policy reminds her of the bumper stickers she would see in the 1960s: “America: Love it or leave it.”
It feels like her fellow legislators are telling her — and any Texans who want gun control — “if you don't like it, you can just leave,” she said.
“That’s not something I have felt until recent years,” she said. “This is my home, and the fact that what I believe and people like me believe, and the way we would like to have society structured, is just totally discounted, it feels like we don't matter.”
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/29/texas-mass-shootings-self-defense-gun-ownership/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
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some neglect uvalde, fundraiser, video to nra conf, parents ref to meet w/ him
https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/greg-abbott-is-a-murderer/
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she and manchin prefer dead kids to loss of filibuster
https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/kyrsten-sinema/
DC now demon term]
U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), one of two major roadblocks to Democrats passing President Joe Biden’s top agenda items including gun control, just one day after an 18-year old gunman massacred 21 people in Texas including 19 elementary school children, offered to be open to discussion but made clear she does not believe in a federal solution to the gun violence that plagues America.
The United States is the only country in the world with a gun crisis of this magnitude. The leading cause of death for children and teens is now a gun.
Republicans allowed the 1994 federal ban on semi-automatic weapons to expire in 2004. A 2019 study found “Mass-shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur during the federal ban period.”
Senator Sinema appeared to disagree with that study in remarks to reporters late Wednesday morning.
“I asked her if she was willing to set aside the filibuster,” Punchbowl News co-founder Jake Sherman reports. “She said she didn’t believe ‘that DC solutions are realistic here.'”
The federal assault weapons ban was a “DC solution.”
Sinema also told Sherman that “despite the fact that there is always heated rhetoric here in DC, I do think there’s an opportunity for us to actually have real conversations and try and do something. I think the conversation across America is very different than it is here.”
90 percent of Americans want Congress to pass a background check bill, which the House already has but Senate Republicans refuse to allow. Eliminating the 60-vote threshold in the filibuster might allow that legislation to pass, as it almost did under President Barack Obama, with 54 votes.
“People at home all across America are just, they’re scared,” Sinema added, suggesting that is no reason to make changes to the way the Senate works, or to pass gun control legislation. “They want us to do something.”
Sinema committed to no action other than “to start having conversations again with colleagues on both sides of the aisleto determine whether or not there’s something we can actually do to help increase safety and protect kids across the country.”
The House has already passed multiple bills the Senate could take up and pass — or at least get Senators on the record.
Sen. Sinema’s reluctance to do anything substantive stands in clear contrast to her Arizonan Democratic colleague in the House. U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, long rumored to be a potential primary opponent when Sinema is up for re-election, on Tuesday night blasted Sinema and others, like “baby killer” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), standing in the way of gun control
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GA concealed carry w/o permit?! TX? (after el paso)
Biden XO ghost guns
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if all armed, no problem!
https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/majorie-taylor-greene-subway-shooting/
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5 22
Liberals still take right-wing propaganda too literally. This is partly because we are liberal. We are often annoying pedants. If there’s an error in one’s thinking, liberals can be trusted to rush in and correct it.
That’s usually as far as it goes, alas.
Consider the reaction among liberals to the latest bit of incoherence by the Republican National Committee. It tweeted: “11,007 pounds of methamphetamine was seized at the southern border in April alone!”
It’s a variation on a familiar theme. “Joe Biden has created the WORST border crisis on record,” the account said last month. Also: “234,088 illegal immigrants were encountered crossing the border in April.”
The RNC says these facts are evidence of a “border crisis” that the president – as well as the vice president – are ignoring. We are not told, but expected to understand, that this “border crisis” is part of a leftwing “open border policy” that’s bent on “replacing Americans.”
What was the reaction among liberals?
Pretty typical.
Rightwing word-power
If immigrants are being apprehended and detained at the border, that means they didn’t get away with breaking federal immigration law.
The law is working as it’s supposed to.
Ergo, there is no border crisis.
If the border patrol is seizing drugs and contraband at the border, then law enforcement officers are doing what they should. So … what crisis?
Among liberals, the question appears to be: Why do Republican propagandists keep saying there’s a crisis at the border when the evidence they present to prove a border crisis proves the opposite?
I don’t think anyone is satisfied, because virtually no one has gone beyond the fact that claims of a border crisis are self-evidently bunk.
Worse is when liberals are content with pointing out the flaws in logic. Liberals, as is their wont, confuse liberal virtue for liberal politics.
And liberals lose.
To the rightwingers, language is about power. It’s not about meaning or coherence or sense-making or freedom of speech or thought.
Why would they use language everyone understands when such a social, democratic and equitable approach to language undermines their goal of protecting and defending the natural order of things?
Instead, they use words that everyone else thinks they understand fully but that only the natural and chosen in-group fully understands.
Liberals should presume their word-power is a fetish.
Fetish? Yes, fetish
I do not mean an obsession.
That’s a common understanding of the meaning of the word “fetish.” To be sure, a fetish can be an obsession, but it’s not only that.By “fetish,” I mean a thing that’s really a stand-in for another thing. It’s a blank line that Republican propagandists know rightwingers will gladly fill in.
I mean there’s no there there.
The principle there is the one that isn’t there.
A man with a foot fetish isn’t not aroused sexually by feet or the visual representation of feet. Feet are a stand-in for something else. Feet are a vessel into which fetishists pour associations with sexual pleasure.
Once liberals see the there that isn’t there, they can react effectively. Instead of meeting righting politics with liberal virtue, as they usually do, they can meet it with equal and opposite liberal politics.
Abortion isn’t about abortion. Immigration isn’t about immigration. Gun rights are not about guns. I have explained all this before.
What I haven’t explained is that laws at the center of these “hot button issues” is not the right-winger’s principal concern. It can’t be.
The closer you look, the clearer it is that “the law,” “lawlessness,” “law-abiding” and “the rule of law” are not what they seem to be.
The law is supposed to apply equally to a people created equally. When right-wingers say “the law,” they can’t mean equal treatment under law.
Equal treatment undermines their goal.
“The law” is, therefore, a fetish, a blank line, an empty vessel.
“The law” is a stand-in for “white power.”
Rightwing politics, liberal virtue
A Senate subcommittee held a hearing last week about a proposed federal law similar to a Connecticut statute permitting police to seize guns owned by perpetrators of domestic abuse and violence before they have a chance to murder women fleeing their abuse and violence.
US Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, is on the panel. He said:
If the objective is to stop violent crime, what is effective is targeting actual violent criminals. The approach of today’s Senate Democrats is to try to go after the firearms of law-abiding citizens instead of targeting the violent criminals that are the real threat. Firearms, yes, are used by violent criminals but they are also used over and over and over again by victims of violent crimes to defend themselves.
In response, US Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said:
Congress … should have eliminated the loopholes that leave women in the crosshairs of violent spouses and partners with guns a long time ago. What we’re talking about, I say to my colleague from Texas, is not going to take away gun rights for law-abiding citizens.
Wyden is correct. No law-abiding citizen would be affected by a federal version of Connecticut’s “Lori’s Law.” It would instead affect citizens who have committed criminal acts of domestic violence.
But Wyden did what most liberals do when confronted by statements that are not intended to make sense. He took them literally. Cruz’s words are mistaken, he said, before “correcting” Cruz’s word-power.
Wyden met rightwing politics with liberal virtue.
He failed to see the there that isn’t there.
White is the law is a gun
When Cruz talks about “law-abiding citizens,” he’s not talking about law-abiding citizens. That’s a fetish, a blank line, an empty vessel.
It’s a stand-in for white men, for white power.
White men are “the law” by dint of being white men. No one else can be the law. If nonwhite people try to enforce the law equally, white men are under no obligation to respect their effects, because the law, when it’s prosecuted by nonwhite people, isn’t legitimate. It’s lawless.
Cruz accused President Barack Obama of being “the most lawless president in the history of the United States.” He said it was because the former president refused to enforce federal immigration law.
What he really meant was that “the law” and “a Black man” are incompatible terms in America. A Black man is subject to “the law” – to white power, yes. He is not, however, enforcer of “the law” – of white power. That can’t be. That would be a perversion of the natural order.
Indeed, “the rule of law” was seen as “rule by a Black man.”
After the reelection of the first Black president, and after 20 school children were shot to pieces at Sandy Hook, the GOP made sure to right the wrong of “rule by a Black man.” They passed laws allowing white men to take “the law” into their own hands – with a gun.
Legal is white, illegal is not white
The Senate subcommittee hearing occurred the week after a law-abiding citizen legally purchased a semi-automatic rifle, drove 200 miles to the East side of Buffalo and shot to pieces 10 Black people.
The Democrats wasted a chance to see the there that’s not there – that “law-abiding” is a stand-in for white power, that it’s an empty vessel into which a white-power terrorist by the name of Payton Gendron poured meaning in order to take “the law” into his own hands.
Liberals should pay less attention to what right-wingers say and more attention to what they mean. Liberals should presume the principle there is the one that isn’t there. And they should spell it out for normal people in order to ask if this is the kind of country they want to live in.
You can’t beat right-wing politics with liberal virtue.
You can with liberal politics.
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https://democracychronicles.org/lawsuit-nra/
from the Campaign Legal Center:
Today, Campaign Legal Center Action (CLC Action) filed suit on behalf of Giffords against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for failing to announce any action against the National Rifle Association (NRA) for using shell corporations to coordinate campaign spending with seven federal candidates spanning three election cycles from 2014-2018. The lawsuit was filed two days before President Trump addresses the NRA’s annual convention for the third year in a row – the only time in American history a president has done so.
The NRA’s complicated scheme had the effect of evading campaign contribution limits and shielding millions of dollars of political spending – including up to $25 million coordinated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign – from public scrutiny. The Trace first reported on the NRA’s scheme.
Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Giffords filed four complaints with the FEC to address these violations. The FEC is the independent regulatory agency tasked with enforcing campaign finance laws in federal elections, the agency routinely deadlocks and fails to reach the required four votes necessary to open an investigation. Today, Giffords is asserting its right of action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the 120-day period expired in which the FEC was legally required to respond.
“Our elections are awash in secret cash, and the federal agency charged with enforcing our nation’s election laws is asleep on the job,” said Trevor Potter, president of CLC, and a former Republican Chairman of the FEC. “Campaign finance laws are supposed to limit the influence of money in our politics. For our system to function properly, the FEC needs to enforce the laws that preserve the independence of campaigns and limit the influence of well-funded special interests.”
“When the FEC doesn’t do its job, groups like the NRA are able to get around the rules designed to limit the influence of money on our democracy,” said Brendan Fischer, director, federal reform at CLC. “The FEC’s failure to enforce the law sends a message to wealthy special interests that they can push the legal envelope and get away with it.”
“The FEC is supposed to be the nation’s election watchdog, but in this case it didn’t bite, bark, or even whimper,” said Adam Skaggs, Chief Counsel, Giffords Law Center. “Instead, it turned a blind eye while the NRA’s leadership made clear it’s more interested in handing bags of cash to candidates who will carry its water than following American laws or looking out for the interests of gun owners. In a desperate attempt to hold onto power and influence, NRA executives have flagrantly ignored our campaign finance laws and undermined the integrity of our election system. The FEC must bring illegal campaign conduct into the light of day and we are proud to join with CLC in calling on it to uphold the laws that protect the legitimacy of our democracy.”
, which explains the underlying story behind the NRA’s scheme.
Campaign finance law allows outside groups like the NRA to make unlimited expenditures supporting candidates only if the expenditures are completely independent of those candidates. To protect this independence, the FEC has rules prohibiting coordination between outside groups and campaigns, which include restrictions on how a vendor may work for both a candidate and an outside group supporting that candidate. Otherwise, the common vendor can act as a conduit to funnel strategic information to the outside group, and then that group’s expenditures are no longer independent.
The lawsuit implicates the NRA’s spending in support of the following seven candidates:
- Matt Rosendale (2018 campaign for U.S. Senate in Montana)
- Josh Hawley (2018 campaign for U.S. Senate in Missouri)
- Donald Trump (2016 campaign for President of the United States)
- Ron Johnson (2016 campaign for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin)
- Thom Tillis (2014 campaign for U.S. Senate in North Carolina)
- Cory Gardner (2014 campaign for U.S. Senate in Colorado)
- Tom Cotton (2014 campaign for U.S. Senate in Arkansas)
You can see the full video here:
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/tennessee-enhanced-gun-carrry-permit/
cand self deputize 100$
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https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/03/new-report-destroys-gop-talking-points-blaming-dems-for-crime-trump-states-have-8-out-of-the-10-highest-murder-rates/
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New Report Destroys GOP Talking Points Blaming Dems for Crime: Trump States Have 8 Out of the 10 Highest Murder Rates
Published on March 16, 2022 By David Badash
Consider these explosive headlines from Fox News over the past several months: “Democrat-run cities overwhelmed by crime surge,” “Murder and crime rates spike in Democrat-run cities – is it a control play?” or, “Democrat-run cities experience record breaking homicide rates.”
Ten days before Christmas last year House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy falsely blamed Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a “crime wave” that’s “spreading across the country.”
“Speaker Pelosi should look in the mirror to see what caused the ‘attitude of lawlessness’ spreading across the country,” he wrote. “Democrat politicians defunded police, raised money for rioters, and pushed policies that are soft on crime. They own this crime wave.”
And here’s McCarthy just days ago, again lying, claiming crime is “created by Democrats.”
A new report from Third Way destroys all these GOP talking points – and points out that “murder rates are far higher in Trump-voting red states than Biden-voting blue states. And sometimes, murder rates are highest in cities with Republican mayors.”
About that claim Leader McCarthy made? He should look in the mirror – and at his own district before pointing fingers.
The report notes that “the homicide rate in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco was half that of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield, a city with a Republican mayor that overwhelmingly voted for Trump.”
In fact, in all of 2020, “per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden.”
It gets worse for the GOP.
“8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century,” the report reveals.
The actual facts blow away what an average Fox News watching die-hard Republican voter would think.
“We found that murder rates are, on average, 40% higher in the 25 states Donald Trump won in the last presidential election compared to those that voted for Joe Biden. In addition, murder rates in many of these red states dwarf those in blue states like New York, California, and Massachusetts.”
“Mississippi had the highest homicide rate at 20.50 murders per 100,000 residents,” Third Way reports, “followed by Louisiana at 15.79, Kentucky at 14.32, Alabama at 14.2, and Missouri at 14. The national average was 6.5 per 100,000 residents, but the top five states had rates more than twice that high.”
These red states are not generating “murder is out of control” national headlines. They seem to generate no headlines at all. The rest of the top ten were filled out by South Carolina, New Mexico, Georgia, Arkansas, and Tennessee—all states rarely talked about in breathless media reports about rampant crime in Democratic strongholds.
The report does not even mention guns, which are a massive part of the problem, exacerbated by red state gun free-for-all policies.
And for those Fox News watching die-hard Republican voters who may say Third Way is a left-wing think tank, it’s actually been criticized by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. And former bank regulator William K. Black has accused Third Way of being a “group that pretends sometimes to be center-left but is actually completely a creation of Wall Street.”
Read the full report here. https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem
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ca mfg end-around ar 15 busted?
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/parkland-shooting/
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NRA BANKRUPT 86'D $270k SILK ITAL SUITS BEVERLY HILLS
but praised kyle?
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1/22 san jose req insurance and small? fee
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refs EU but UN by extension? blue hull navy? ~ arms exports?
gee never connected UN to satan:
[brexit] What they got was discussion ranging from the allegation that the seat 666 is kept empty in the European Parliament chamber in both Brussels and Strasbourg (it isn’t), to whether the EU is a political tool of Antichrist in advance of the second coming of Christ.
My friends were astonished at this. I wasn’t. During the previous month I had contributed a guest blog for a Christian news platform, challenging these same accusations. During that month (it went live on May 25, 2016) it had become, from my calculations, one of the most visited blogs on this website.
It can still be read online but, unfortunately, the huge string of comments and conversations under it can no longer be accessed. That is a pity because they would have provided interesting source material for future students of theology and the sociology of religion. Like the meeting I organized later, in June of that year, the online discussion got lively. In fact, it got very lively indeed! Some might say “heated.”
Eschatological turbulence on both sides of “the pond”My experience in the UK was not the only turbulent event of 2016 that had end-times features to it. In November, something even more extraordinary occurred in the USA: the election of Donald Trump.
Somewhere in the region of 33 million white evangelicals voted for Trump and huge numbers of these see contemporary events through the same eschatological lens that had informed the outlook of those with whom I had debated in the UK about the European Union. In the US, this support has had significant effects on foreign policy.
President Trump’s decisions to move the US embassy to Jerusalem (announced in 2018) and to support Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights (announced in 2019) were designed to appeal to American evangelical Christians. Polling in the US in 2017 revealed that 80% of evangelicals believe that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfilment of biblical prophecy that will bring about Christ’s second coming.
In addition, Trump’s decision to leave the Paris climate agreement in 2017 (the decision was implemented in 2020) sat easily with a group which contains many who deny the reality of climate change caused by human action, or do not consider it a threat which can be averted by human agency.
Whatever one feels about these geopolitical and environmental issues, it is undeniable that huge numbers of voters in the USA see these decisions through an end-times lens....
https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/end-times/
The continued impact of end-times beliefs today
Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to claims that it has eschatological significance. It should be noted that the same thing was said about the fourteenth-century Black Death. Anti-vaxxers and those unhappy with mask-wearing have included some who loudly identify these as aspects of an emerging international order associated with the Antichrist. This has resonated with – and been amplified by – conspiracy-theory-culture and the effects of social-media algorithms.
Some of the most extreme supporters of gun rights in the USA see them as weapons to be used in resisting the forces of the Antichrist in the last days.
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posts weekly list paywall?
11 21 mass shooter update mostly so but 3 of 15 CA?!
there were 15 separate mass shooting incidents in the US last week, where thirteen people were killed and 60 were injured. I document all mass shootings every Sunday, along with a recap of all the week's biggest events, so be sure to check it out: https://shero.substack.com/p/what-happene...
SHERO is on Substack – the place for independent writing
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11 21
Political violence is on people's minds now that Kyle Rittenhouse has been acquitted. According to USA Today, far-right groups celebrated last week's unsurprising verdict. "Kyle Rittenhouse is the hero we've been waiting for" was posted on the Gab profile for VDare, a self-consciously fascist organization headquartered in the foothills of Washington, Conn. The takeaway appears to be that it's now OK to shoot anti-racists as long as the shooting can be credibly characterized as "self-defense."
Protests broke out in Kenosha, Wis., where Rittenhouse traveled two summers ago to"protect" propertywhile demonstrators, including some violent looters, protested the police murder of George Floyd. These newest protests were accompanied by a father-daughter duo carrying the same long gun Rittenhouse did. Instead of being white, though, they were Black. Instead of protecting property, they were protecting "anti-Rittenhouse protesters," said the New York Post.
Political violence is on people's minds. The right to petition the government for redress of grievances enshrined in the First Amendment seems to be running against the grain of the right to bear arms enshrined in the Second Amendment. After Rittenhouse's acquittal, anti-racists may feel it's too dangerous to petition. (The fascists are taking it to mean they can shoot first and often.) But some won't let the Second Amendment nullify the First. They'll arm up.
When racists with guns meet anti-racists with guns, it's likely the results will be bad, bad, very bad. USA Today, citing a study by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, said "armed protests are six times more likely to turn violent compared to protests where no guns are present." That study examined more than 30,000 public demonstrations over 18 months between January 2020 to June 2021.
READ: [The dark Trumptopia we inhabit is the world science fiction warned us about]
Lead researcher Roudabeh Kishi told USA Today: "Oftentimes guns can kind of play a role with just increasing tensions. They're used as intimidation and kind of makes a tense environment even more tense. And so sometimes we'll see other types of violence breakout, not necessarily always a shooting," she said. "So it's like an indirect way arms can actually contribute to violence and destruction."
Political violence is on people's minds. Lee Drutman, a political scientist and New America fellow, said today that "violence is the alternative to politics. By normalizing violence, we undermine politics."
But what if political violence is normal? What if it should always be on people's mind. And what if our democratic politics is always already being undermined in some way by political violence. I suggest Rittenhouse's acquittal will not be the cause of future political violence. It is the effect of past political violence always already at work. We don't see it, though. Political violence is so normal it's practically invisible.
Political violence is the predictable consequence of democratic politics seeking to advance the cause of liberty, equality and justice for all coming into conflict with conservative politics seeking to maintain a social order in which white men rule American society with impunity.
READ: Charlottesville defendants found liable for civil conspiracy and ordered to pay millions in damages]
Because democracy won't stop, and conservative politics won't stop, that means political violence is always already there. It's better to see Rittenhouse's acquittal not as a cause of future violence but, I think, as an inflection point after which private political violence goes public.
Private political violence? What we are seeing now, in the potential for armed racists to silence free speech through intimidation or murder, didn't come from no where. It started at home, in the family, especially between husband and wife. When women challenge "authority," when children challenge "authority," conservative politics does not turn to democracy as a means of resolving conflict. It turns to violence.
It also covers it up. When a husband hits his wife, when a father hits his kids, our discourse almost never calls it political violence though the maintenance of the man's authority over his wife and children is almost always the reason he hits his wife and children. We call it "domestic violence." We call it "child abuse." *These terms are accurate but incomplete.Suffering is a political problem in democratic politics. Suffering is a political goal in conservative politics. Without suffering — without punishment for those people who deserve to feel their pain — anything can happen. Even liberty, equality and justice for all.*
Political violence has been growing acutely since we elected a Black president. The violence was enabled by Republicans loosening gun laws after Barack Obama's reelection. The Supreme Court is considering whether to make carrying a firearm openly a constitutional right. The NRA never gloried in mass murders. It did after Rittenhouse's acquittal. The private political violence that inspired the nation's worst shooting massacres is inspiring the institutionalization of public political violence. Where that leaves democratic politics, God only knows.
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11 21 an
no lnx
Noam Chomsky: Why Americans Are Paranoid About Everything (Including Zombies)
Noam Chomsky , AlterNet and Noam Chomsky February 19, 2014
The following is a transcript of a part of an interview Noam Chomsky recently did with a group of students via Skype. Towards the end, a student asks the linguist and critic the quirky question why zombies figure so prominently in American popular culture. He replied with a brilliant analysis of the history of fear in America.
Question: This might sound kind of random, but I would really like to ask your opinion of why you think there's this preoccupation with the apocolypse and with zombies right now in our culture.
Noam Chomsky: I've never seen a real study, but my guess is that it's a reflection of fear and desperation. It's a very frightened country. The United States is an unusually frightened country. And in such circumstances, people concoct either for escape or maybe out of relief, fears that terrible things happen.
Actually, the fear of the United States is a pretty interesting cultural phenomenon. It actually goes back to the colonies. There are some good studies out there. A very interesting book by a literary critic, Bruce Franklin. It's called War Stars. You might want to take a look at it. It's a study of popular literature, the kind of literature that most people read from the earliest days to the present. When it gets to the present it switches to television, things like that. Just kind of popular culture.
There are a couple of themes that run through it that are pretty striking. For one thing, one major theme in popular literature is that we are about to face destruction from some terrible, awesome enemy. And at the last minute we are saved by a superhero or a super weapon, or in recent years high school kids going to the hills to chase away the Russians, things like that. That's one theme that runs through constantly. And there's a sub-theme. It turns out this enemy, this horrible enemy that's about to destroy us, is somebody we're crushing.
So you go back to the early years, the terrible enemy was the Indians, who were going to destroy us. The colonists were, of course, invaders. They were invading the continent. Whatever you think about the Indians, they were defending their own territory. There's a scene in the Declaration of Independence, people read it every July 4th, but not many people pay attention to what they're reading. It's kind of like a prayer book, you move on somewhere else. But if you read it and pay attention, there are some pretty remarkable passages. So one passage is a list of a bill of indictment against King George the Third of England explaining why the colonists were revolting. One of them is “He unleashed against us the merciless Indian savages, whose known way of warfare is torture and destruction” and so on. Well, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that and is a very great thinker of the Enlightenment, knew perfectly well that it was the merciless English savages whose known way of warfare was destruction and murder and were taking over the country and driving out or exterminating the natives. But it's switched in the Declaration of Independence and nobody comments on it for years. That's another sign of the same concern.
After that it became the slaves. There was going to be a slave revolt, a terrible slave revolt, and the slave population, the black population was going to rise up and kill all the men, rape all the women, destroy the country, something like that. Then it goes on through the centuries. It becomes modern times, Hispanic narco-traffickers are going to come in and destroy the society. One thing after another. And these are real fears.
That's a lot of what lies behind the extremely unusual gun culture in the United States. It's quite unique. Homicides, deaths by guns in the United States are way outside—there's a kind of hysteria about having guns. A large part of the population believes they just have to have them to protect themselves. From who? From the United Nations. Or from the federal government. From aliens. Maybe from zombies. Whoever it is. We just have to have guns to protect ourselves. That's not known elsewhere in the world. Maybe in, say, Syria, a country that's warring you might find something like that. But in a country that's not only at peace but has an unusual security and a great degree of freedom, that's quite remarkable.
I suspect that what you're bringing up is part of that. I think it's, much of it is kind of just a recognition, at some level of the psyche, that if you've got your boot on somebody's neck, there's something wrong. And that the people you're oppressing may rise up and defend themselves, and then you're in trouble. And another is strange properties the country has always had of fear of invented dangers. There is a kind of paranoid streak in the culture that's pretty unusual.
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atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/to-stop-gun-violence-we-need-to-remember-we-can-regulate-corporate-speech-and-advertising/272494/
There's a big difference between the free speech rights of individuals under the First Amendment and socially destructive marketing by corporations of products that kill.
- JANUARY 25, 2013
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/ted-cruz-walks-out-of-gun-violence-hearing-when-democratic-senator-refuses-to-let-him-change-the-subject/
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RECORD SALES PANDEMIC?!
sick cops vs looters = gun
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aha: strict father: must protect my home castle woman froM them dark ppl criminals
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an 421 no lnx
Guns apocalypse': Legal experts deliver warnings after Supreme Court decides to take up big 2A case
David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement April 26, 2021
Legal experts are issuing warnings after the U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it will take up a major Second Amendment case, its first in a decade – and warning of a "guns apocalypse" given the extremely conservative makeup of the Court.
"This case is likely to pave the way to the Supreme Court declaring a constitutional right to concealed public carry, overriding many state and local restrictions on the ability to bear concealed arms in public," Slate's Mark Joseph Stern writes.
In theory what that might mean is not only an explosion of people carrying guns, but people carrying guns that you cannot see – until it's too late. It quite literally is the Republican Party's dream.
Vox's Ian Millhiser warns "The Supreme Court guns apocalypse is now upon us."
The case is New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Corlett. Millhiser says the Supreme Court's ruling in the case, which would come in about a year from now, "could transform the judiciary's understanding of the Second Amendment and lay waste to many of the nation's gun laws."
In short, he says, it "could make the NRA's dreams come true."
The case, as Millhiser describes it, focuses on a 108-year old New York State law that requires anyone who wants a gun to obtain a permit, and to show "proper cause," in other words, to prove they have a need for it. Someone "who merely wants to carry a gun, because of a general belief that it would be useful if they are ever the victim of a violent crime, cannot obtain a license."
The Second Amendment has just 27 words: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The 6-3 "Trump Court" is more than likely to strike down the New York law.
"Indeed," Millhiser writes, "Corlett could potentially dismantle more than a decade of judicial decisions interpreting the Second Amendment, imposing prohibitive limits on lawmakers' ability to reduce gun violence."
To paraphrase Oprah, "And you get a gun, and you get a gun, and you get a gun."
Here's what some other legal experts are saying:
Former DOJ prosecutor:
Get ready to see exactly what a 6-3 Republican stacked supreme court means in this case that will decide whether or… https://t.co/Catx3bm4yN
— Michael J. Stern (@Michael J. Stern)1619447157.0
Law professor, Georgia State Law:...
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/gop-guns/
In New York City alone about 100,000 students walk through metal detectors every day before being allowed to enter their classrooms, but for two Republican members of Congress that simple act was too much to ask.
Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, a former state judge, and Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, a gun shop owner, refused to use the magnetometers before entering the Capitol building on Friday, almost one month to the day of a violent insurrection that led to the deaths of more than five people.
The House this week passed a rule requiring all members of Congress walk through the metal detectors before entering the House chamber or face graduating fines, starting at $5000 for the first offense. [already one?]
CNN's Kristin Wilson reports the Congressmen have been fined $5000 each. The fines are automatically deducted from their paychecks.
Some Republicans have been suspected of bringing a gun onto the House floor, including Republican Congressman Andy Harris of Maryland, CBS News reported. GOP Congressman Madison Cawthorn claimed he was armed with a gun the day of the insurrection.
Reps Louie Gohmert of Texas and Andrew Clyde of Georgia have both received notices of $5000 fine for skipping past… https://t.co/SoXqjzI5qE
— Kristin Wilson (@Kristin Wilson)1612559158.0
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dingdong?
https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/nra/
"Thoughts and prayers."
*"The NRA's claimed financial status has finally met its moral status: bankrupt."
—NY Attorney General Letitia James*
That is what many opponents of the National Rifle Association wryly stated in response to news that the pro-gun lobby group had officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday in the United States.
In a statement on its website, the NRA—which promotes the interests of the gun industry and gun owners unbothered by the unparalleled level of gun violence seen in the country—said it was leaving New York state, where it is currently registered, to restructure in Texas as part of a "new strategic plan" it is implementing.
"Thoughts and prayers to the NRA fanatical fiends who bear the blood of tens of thousands on their paws," said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) in response. "The world will be a better place when the NRA is finally destroyed. Looks like that day is closer."
While the NRA claims in the statement that it is "in its strongest financial condition in years," it said the strategic plan "involves utilizing the protection of the bankruptcy court" and "dumping New York" so that it can reincorporate in Texas to continue its activities without such a "corrupt political and regulatory environment."
Brady United, which has called for the NRA's dissolution for decades, said Friday that "news of the NRA filing for bankruptcy is just the latest proof that the NRA has cheated its members and American taxpayers in pursuit of an extremist agenda that has made our country markedly less safe."
*They told us the @NRA was too powerful, that the politics were too difficult. They were wrong. Today, the @NRA fi… https://t.co/DirmJAZAay***
— Peter Ambler (@Peter Ambler)1610746222.0
David Hogg—one of the survivors of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida who later became a vocal gun control advocate—was among those who welcomed the news late Friday afternoon and thanked all the tireless activism over the years focused on the NRA's deadly brand of influence peddling.
*Thoughts and prayers https://t.co/bEkZ29n3WU***
— David Hogg (@David Hogg )1610745956.0
"Don't read this as the NRA is going away," Hogg added. "They are not yet," he said, "but this is one step closer."
*NRA fleeing New York, filing for bankruptcy, due to NY AG lawsuit (via @KLBKNews) https://t.co/xKtFWMVspi***
— Violence Policy Center (@Violence Policy Center)1610749230.0
In August, as Common Dreams reported at the time, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against the NRA which sought to dissolve the organization based on widespread evidence of corruption and financial self-dealing that violated the state's requirements for nonprofit status.
In a tweet on Friday responding to the NRA's move to divorce itself from New York, James said: "The NRA's claimed financial status has finally met its moral status: bankrupt."
"While we review its bankruptcy filing," she added, "we will not allow the NRA to use this or any other tactic to evade accountability and my office's oversight."
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proud boy tarrio arrest burn blm banner blk church, hi cap mags
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an 121
i will take my glock to congress b/c i walk in DC alone
another user also tweeted arguments suggesting Boebert is not exactly the epitome of a law-abiding citizen. That user said, "Lauren Boebert has been arrested four times and is under investigation for "unlawfully providing a handgun to a juvenile" who worked at her Colorado restaurant. She was with her husband when he was arrested for exposing his penis to a minor. Not exactly a law-abiding gun owner."
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1120 an
why Ron DeSantis' new stand-your-ground proposal is so disturbing
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see poll watcher (Roberts scotus ~ NJ law? MI wolverine kidnap murder gov Whitmer, SoS had to put in a rule no guns closer than 100 ft (?!) ct struck down?! of polls, 2 states legis taken over by armed goons w/ assault rifles? kty? some reps wear armour.
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No governor or mayor has ever suggested suspending the 2nd Amendment, confiscating guns, or imposing martial law. Yet, in March, more guns were bought in the United States than ever before: around two million, roughly, sadly, the same amount as were purchased in the wake of the Sandy Hook murders and President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2008.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/why-americans-are-buying-more-guns-than-ever/
Aimee Huff, Oregon State University and Michelle Barnhart, Oregon State University
Americans have been on a record gun-buying spree in recent months.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and protests for racial justice, the gun industry’s trade association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, estimates that gun sales from March through July were 8.5 million. This is 94% higher the same period in 2019.
Firearms industry consultants estimate July sales alone were 2.0 million units, an increase of 136% over July 2019.
AD REMOVED FOR SUBSCRIBED USER
These estimates are based on the number of background checks conducted by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The FBI reported that eight of the weeks in this period are in the top 10 highest weeks since the agency began collecting data in 1998.
Gun sales typically have seasonal cycles, with more guns being sold in winter months, and increase in presidential election years and after high-profile mass shootings. However, the 2020 pandemic spurred a record-setting surge in demand for firearms.
Gun sales first spiked in March, when lockdown orders began in the U.S. The figures jumped again in June following nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd.
Our research examines American gun culture and offers insights into the complex relationship between Americans and guns. We believe there are three general reasons why people are purchasing firearms now.
1. Independence and security
A study we presented in 2019 shows that Americans feel buying a gun is a way of asserting and maintaining independence. Independence is threatened during the pandemic, when a concern for public health may curtail some individual freedoms, including the freedom to travel, operate some businesses, assemble in large groups or visit the elderly.
Gun ownership can be motivated by the belief that having guns helps to ensure freedom to do and live as one chooses, particularly for individuals concerned with protection and defense.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates that 40% of recent gun buyers are doing so for the first time, partly driven by citizens’ perceived need to protect themselves in a period of uncertainty and civil unrest, as well as calls to defund the police.
This idea is supported by data showing that more than 99% of recent sales are handguns, which are typically used for self-defense, and by research showing that buying a gun for self-defense can be motivated by feelings that the world is generally dangerous.
Gun owners also find comfort and security in routines. This means existing gun owners may purchase additional guns in an effort to maintain a sense of normalcy.
2. Market signals and forces
Another reason relates to market conditions. Governors chose to include gun retailers as “essential businesses,” allowing them to remain open during many statewide closures in March and April.
This reinforced the legitimacy of guns and gun retailers in the U.S., by strengthening perceptions of gun purchases as appropriate and necessary.
Meanwhile, gun retailers have struggled to keep firearms, ammunition and accessories in stock. When consumers face scarcity, they may experience a sense of urgency to purchase, and they may be willing to travel further, pay more or purchase a different item than they had initially sought.
3. Social connection and recreation
Finally, guns can provide a tangible basis for social connection. Social bonding through consumption is a well-established phenomenon in consumer research.
Retailers facilitate this by serving as a social hub and providing expertise on specific products. Visiting a firearms retailer and buying a gun can also enable consumers to feel socially connected to like-minded others.
According to our research, going to shooting ranges and hunting are lower-risk activities in terms of accidental shootings. We speculate that because these activities can be done outdoors, while wearing masks and with distance between people, they may also involve lower risk for COVID-19 transmission.
Americans who haven’t joined the buying frenzy may question the use of a gun against a virus or rioters in faraway cities. During a time of crisis, citizens want to feel connected, secure and independent. For some Americans, buying guns may help them do so.
Aimee Huff, Assistant Professor, Marketing, Oregon State University and Michelle Barnhart, Associate Professor, Marketing, Oregon State University
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/bill-barr-has-done-this-before/
no lnx
Barr has done this before
Written by ProPublica July 31, 2020
As violent crime continued to climb in Chicago and other cities across the country, Attorney General William P. Barr announced that the U.S. Department of Justice was mobilizing to help: Dozens of federal agents would be sent to work with local police to combat gangs and illegal guns.
“Our message to gangs, gang leaders and gang members is this: When we throw the federal book at you, it will be a knockout blow,” Barr said.
That was in 1992, during Barr’s first stint leading the Justice Department, under former President George H.W. Bush.
If it sounds too recent or familiar to have happened nearly three decades ago, that’s because Barr, now attorney general under President Donald Trump, made a strikingly similar announcement on July 22.
Some of the details were different, of course. In 1992, Barr said the FBI was shifting about 300 agents from monitoring spies from the recently collapsed Soviet Union to taking on gangs and violent crime in American cities. Eighteen of the agents would be redeployed to Chicago.
This month, Barr stood next to Trump as he announced a Chicago “surge” of more than 100 agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and other agencies, along with staffing increases in other cities where gun casualties were making headlines.
Residents of Chicago could be forgiven for concluding that they’ve heard this before, since, of course, they essentially have. Barr even acknowledged that federal law enforcement agencies have carried out such operations “for decades.” Every presidential administration in the last 30 years has announced it was sending more federal agents to Chicago to try to stem violent crime.
But this time the circumstances are different — the politics are shifting. After 3 ½ years of Trump’s inflammatory comments and tweets, some thinly coded and others overtly racist, his administration’s announcement is widely seen in Chicago as a political move to use the troubles of a majority-nonwhite city to fire up his supporters.
And it’s happening as a growing number of people are demanding that their governments send something into their communities other than more guys with guns.
Chicago has a long, ugly history of violence. As in other cities, violent crime surged in Chicago in the 1960s and ’70s, dropped and leveled off, then spiked again during the 1990s. But since then, as murder and shooting totals plummeted in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere, Chicago’s numbers didn’t fall as far or as fast, and they’ve climbed again during several devastating stretches in the last 10 years.
The reasons have long been debated and are probably more complex than most would acknowledge. But politicians, law enforcement leaders and many residents have repeatedly blamed Chicago’s gang culture and open-air drug markets, then called for policing strategies to attack them.
The fact that most of the hardest-hit neighborhoods have also been shelled out by segregation, business closures and job losses — including thousands of layoffs from government agencies and shuttered schools — is well known. Yet the need for immediate responses to the bloodshed, rather than those that tackle the deeper problems, always seems to consume political and financial capital in Chicago.
In 1992, the city banned loitering by people deemed to be gang members until the measure was ruled unconstitutional. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley led an effort to sue gun manufacturers for creating a public nuisance in Chicago and other cities; the case was tossed out of court. Speed bumps and cul-de-sacs were built on dozens of side streets to thwart drive-by shootings, though as police and paramedics discovered, such obstacles also made it harder for them to respond to emergencies.
Far more common have been announcements that more police will be deployed in high-crime areas, often under the banner of a new task force, program or initiative. That’s where the feds often come in — literally.
Soon after Trump took office in 2017, he called Chicago a “war zone” and blamed local leaders for being “politically correct.” He also threatened, via Twitter, “I will send in the Feds!”
Rahm Emanuel, then Chicago’s mayor and a frequent Trump sparring partner, rejected the idea of troops in the city. “I’m against it, straight up,” he told reporters. But Emanuel added that he welcomed additional resources to fight gun crimes. Within two weeks, CNN reported that 20 more ATF agents were being sent to Chicago.
Since Lori Lightfoot was elected mayor last year, she has repeatedly blasted Trump for racism and disrespect for civil rights — even as she’s been attacked in Chicago for not yet delivering on promises to reform the Police Department and drive up investment in underserved neighborhoods.
On July 20, after another weekend of appalling violence in Chicago — dozens of people were reportedly wounded in shootings and at least 12 people killed — Trump suggested at a press conference that he was again ready to send in federal agents. Lightfoot responded with a letter that criticized his administration’s “incendiary rhetoric” as well as the tactics of Department of Homeland Security agents who had seized people off the street in Portland, Oregon.
Yet Lightfoot also said the city could use other kinds of federal help, including “more federal prosecution or investigatory resources” to pursue violent crime and gun cases. She added that the government could help Chicago invest in underserved neighborhoods. “The violence our city is confronting is symptomatic of a larger public health and economic crisis.”
Trump and Barr announced the latest “surge” of federal agents to Chicago that week, describing it as part of a national crime-reduction initiative called Operation Legend. The FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service and Homeland Security would together send dozens of investigators and agents to the city, with the U.S. attorney in Chicago, John Lausch Jr., overseeing the operation.
Underneath the politics and symbolism, the announcement signaled that federal and local officials were returning to their old strategy: send in more cops.
Shifting federal agents to cities under fire is “commonly done, and as a matter of fact, when I was the special agent-in-charge there, I asked for it,” said Jack Riley, who formerly served as the top agent in the DEA’s Chicago office. “It’s been called 20 different things in the past. [Operation Legend] is just the newest version of it.”
This federal surge may involve more agents than previous efforts, and Riley believes it could help tamp down violence in Chicago if it is carefully coordinated and sustained. Operations on the street should be carried out by agents who know the city, with those from out of town used in support roles. And as agents are conducting investigations and making arrests, the U.S. attorney’s office needs enough staff to prosecute the increased caseload, said Riley, who went on to serve as the No. 2 official in the DEA, overseeing global operations, before retiring.
“Are there going to be additional prosecutors?” he said. “That’s been an issue before.”
The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago received a staffing boost in 2018, but no additional prosecutors are included in the latest operation. A spokesman for the office declined to comment.
Plus, the agent surge is only likely to last until fall, when the city’s usual spike in violence typically recedes along with the warm weather. So, like previous efforts, the surge is temporary.
If those earlier short-term operations worked to reduce gun violence, it’s hard for city residents to see as shootings spike again.
Over the last three years, the U.S. attorney’s office here has prosecuted more than 500 defendants on weapons charges, records show. Some of the defendants are traffickers or leaders of other criminal enterprises. But many tend to be lower-level players caught with illegal guns that have traded hands multiple times. Law enforcement officials argue that prosecutions for illegal possession help deter others. Still, the approach hasn’t shut down the gun marketplace, as firearms continue to flow into the city from suburbs and neighboring states.
So far Operation Legend appears to be following the playbook of those earlier initiatives. The first three arrests made as part of the Chicago surge were all for illegal gun possession, according to court filings.
On July 23, the day after the latest federal deployments were announced, Black Lives Matter Chicago and 10 other organizations sued Barr and other administration officials. The groups, seeing no reason to trust the Trump administration, asked for a federal court order to protect their right to protest in the event of any Portland-style tactics. In addition, they made what amounted to a defund-the-federal-police argument, claiming federal resources would be better spent on investing in their communities than flooding them with more law enforcement officers.
“We should take their money and use it to help people facing eviction, use those resources for people who need access to food,” Amika Tendaji, an organizer with Black Lives Matter, said in an interview. “The police haven’t been able to do anything [about the violence]. We need to actually address the root causes.”
More and more leaders are signing on to this approach. Over the last week, advocacy groups, churches and more than 30 state and local elected officials added their names to a letter urging Lightfoot and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart not to cooperate with the federal operation.
“Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated both his callous disregard for Black, indigenous, and immigrant lives, and his increasing inclination towards fascism and authoritarianism,” the letter said. “We grieve deeply the lives lost to gun violence in Chicago. … At the same time, we are clear that we cannot police ourselves out of this terrible situation.”
Chicago is now on a pace to record one of its highest annual murder totals in two decades. It’s hard to argue that the old strategies have worked.
==
==
mma 720
As is the case in most cities across the United States, protests against police brutality have taken place in St. Louis, Missouri, for the past several weeks. In a since deleted video, Lyda Krewson, the Democratic mayor of St. Louis announced the names and home addresses of some residents who had contacted the mayor’s office about defunding the police. In response, last weekend, protesters took to the streets to demand the resignation of the mayor and continue protests against police brutality. In the midst of the protest, two people emerged from a nearby mansion and pointed guns at the peaceful protesters. A man pointed an AR-15-style rifle directly at protesters, while a woman pointed a handgun with her finger directly on the trigger.
This week, many right-wing media figures took the opportunity to defend the couple. Some figures praised the couple for defending their homes, while others asserted that the couple’s actions were justified because of panic caused by the recent coverage of protests and left-wing demonstrators around the country.
Here are just a few examples of right-wing media figures defending the couple::
- Far-right commentator Cassandra Fairbanks tweeted: “I am absolutely in love with them. These people are the American dream.” In another tweet, Fairbanks attacked the peaceful protesters for entering the gated community, calling them a “black lives matter mob.”
- The View’s Meghan McCain complained the media reaction revealed an “elitist disdain” for “gun culture in red states.”
- Conservative radio host and former NRATV personality Dana Loesch tweeted in defense of the couple, writing, “Considering the broadcasts, violence, fire, and weeks of angry mobs, of course they’re scared.”
- Right-wing commentator Jesse Kelly tweeted that the couple was “trying to protect their property from the zoo animals.”
==
Right-wing media irresponsibly cheered the coronavirus-related gun buying surge
05/20/20 11:06 AM EDT
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roberts says 2nd time state legis closed by guns, 1st Oregon]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-14/michigan-cancels-legislative-session-to-avoid-armed-protesters?sref=Zd9D2evu
may 14
Michigan closed down its capitol in Lansing on Thursday and canceled its legislative session rather than face the possibility of an armed protest and death threats against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
The gathering, meant to advocate opening the state for business despite the coronavirus pandemic, followed one April 30 that resulted in pictures of protesters clad in military-style gear and carrying long guns crowding the statehouse. They confronted police and taunted lawmakers.
The shutdown was done with little fanfare at the end of Wednesday’s State Senate session. About 4:30 p.m., lawmakers in the Republican-majority chamber simply adjourned until Tuesday rather than call the next previously scheduled meeting for Thursday morning at 10 a.m. The Michigan State Police are closing the buildings due to the coronavirus, said spokesman Lieutenant Brian Oleksyk.
For the past week, lawmakers have been debating how to safely enable lawmakers to work and vote in session while the state’s laws allow people to bring firearms into the capitol building. The debate grew more tense in recent days as some lawmakers read about threats to the governor’s life on social media, which were published in the Detroit Metro Times.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel issued an opinion on May 11 saying that the State Capitol Commission -- a body of six lawmakers who oversee the building and its grounds -- could ban firearms. The commission voted to study a ban this week, but took no action.
Thursday’s protest, billed as “Judgment Day,” was organized by the right-wing group Michigan United for Liberty, which is protesting the state’s extended stay-at-home order. Whitmer pushed the order to the end of May while giving automakers, their suppliers and other manufacturers the green light to go back to work. On its Facebook page, the group posted a memo asking that protesters remain peaceful.
[pix: Protesters gather outside the doors of the chamber room at the Michigan Capitol Building on April 30.
Photographer: Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg]
Still, lawmakers feared a repeat of April 30, when armed protesters entered the Senate Chamber and stood above them in a visitors gallery during the session.
State Senator Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat, on Tuesday proposed a bill to ban firearms in the capitol building. The bill has heavy support from her party.
==
===
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/reopen-protests-stir-up-the-far-right
right-wing protest events against states’ stay-at-home orders and nonessential business closures have sprouted up across the country, attracting far-right activists who see a friendly avenue for their own extreme messages.
Protesters rallied in at least six states last week in opposition to measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, including orders to avoid public spaces, cancel social events, and close businesses deemed nonessential. The ”Reopen” events are the manifestation of a push by a powerful coalition of right-wing groups, including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and the Heritage Foundation, to advance the reopening of the U.S. economy.
The Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ family, is helping organize the state events on Facebook, and NBC News found that a family-run network of pro-gun Facebook groups is responsible for some of the largest protest pages.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the protests have received glowing coverage in right-wing media. Fox News has advertised the protests while the network’s hosts have spoken favorably about participants. The sudden spark of big-donor groups, state organizing, and right-wing media coverage invokes strong parallels to the astroturf origins of the Tea Party movement.
Minutes after a Fox News segment Friday about the protests, President Donald Trump tweeted, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!,” “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!,” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” All three states are led by Democratic governors.
[twt]
NBC News reported that Trump’s tweets led right-wing extremists online “to speculate whether the president was advocating for armed conflict,” which extremists have spent decades claiming is inevitable in the United States. According to NBC News, the Network Contagion Research Institute recorded a major spike in the term “boogaloo,” which is a phrase popular with far-right extremists online to refer to a supposedly inevitable modern civil war.
In Michigan, protests reportedly attracted members of the violent hate groups, anti-government militias, anti-vaccination groups, and religious-right fundamentalists. The Guardian reports GUK that members of the Michigan Proud Boys hate group participated in a vehicle convoy, and an activist from Michigan Liberty Militia whose Facebook page “features pictures of firearms, warnings of civil war, celebrations of Norse paganism and memes ultimately sourced from white nationalist groups like Patriot Front” was interviewed by local radio.
At the Texas state capitol in Austin last weekend, members of the Infowars entourage including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reportedly attracted hundreds of protesters for a rally called “You Can’t Close America” organized by Infowars host Owen Shroyer. As Right Wing Watch reported earlier this month, Shroyer had threatened to encourage the Infowars audience into “revolting” against social distancing measures if they were not lifted in a week. After protests in Michigan last Wednesday, Shroyer followed through on the promise and announced the Texas rally, which anti-vaccine activists attended.
[A QAnon supporter is seen protesting at an anti-quarantine rally in Olympia, Washington, on April 19, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Troy Schulz)]
The Colorado Times Recorder reported that “anti-vaccination activists, conspiracy theory advocates (including a Q-Anon supporter) and members of the Proud Boys hate group” were present at a “ReOpen Colorado” rally Sunday. Nathan Bernard reported that a “ReOpen Maine” rally Monday was organized in part by a state representative who “is known locally for spreading white nationalist conspiracy theories,” such as the claim that abortion and immigration are part of a plot to eliminate white people.
Protesting against stay-at-home orders has become a common cause for those among the far-right ranks. By calling COVID-19 a big hoax, asserting that the threat is overblown for political reasons,and advancing conspiracy theories about the search for a coronavirus vaccine, right-wing activists and media figures have created an environment for these protests to take hold. Meanwhile, unabashed extremists see the “Reopen” protest movement as fertile ground for their agendas–whether it be fomenting a rebellion against the government or targeting minority groups for hate.
===
===
https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/conservative-supreme-court-justices-tortured-reasoning-in-the-disastrous-wisconsin-case-is-a-thin-excuse-for-their-true-purpose/
==
https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/the-supreme-court-is-poised-to-extend-gun-rights-at-the-worst-possible-time/
no lnx
The Supreme Court is poised to extend gun rights at the worst possible time
Supreme Court of the United States
Written by Bill Blum / Independent Media Institute April 8, 2020
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” —Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
As the deadly COVID-19 contagion sweeps across the country, gun sales are surging, spurred in many regions by panic buying and purchases by first-time firearm owners. Fearful and insecure Americans are taking advantage of weak and ineffective gun-control laws and stocking up, as President Trump might say, “like never before.”
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is poised to issue its first major Second Amendment opinion in more than a decade in a case that originated, fittingly, in New York City, now the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. The case—New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. City of New York—has the potential to vastly extend the rights of gun owners, and not just in New York, but throughout the entire nation.
At issue is a New York City “rule” (the term the city uses for its local ordinances) that was adopted in 2001 to prohibit residents from transporting licensed handguns beyond municipal limits. The rule was challenged in a federal lawsuit filed in 2013 by the NRA’s New York affiliate and three individuals. A district court judge ruled in the city’s favor in 2015, as did the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018. The Supreme Court, however, agreed to review the case at the NRA’s request in January 2019, and heard oral arguments in December.
The plaintiffs contend that the city’s handgun transportation ban should be declared unconstitutional because it conflicts with the Supreme Court’s landmark 2008 decision on the Second Amendment, District of Columbia v. Heller.
In Heller, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on handgun possession in the nation’s capital, ruling for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to gun ownership. Deeply controversial and hotly contested, Heller split the Supreme Court along strict ideological lines, and was resolved on the basis of a 5-4 vote of the justices. The late Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion stood the prior judicial consensus on the Second Amendment on its head, rejecting the great weight of prior scholarship and earlier court opinions, including the Supreme Court’s 1939 decision in United States v. Miller, that had construed the amendment as protecting gun ownership only in connection with service in long-antiquated state militias.
Scalia’s opinion was met by a blistering dissent written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired from the bench in 2010 and passed away last year. Drawing on a wide array of historical sources, Stevens chided Scalia for ignoring the actual debates that took place during the founding era on the ratification of the Constitution and the drafting of the Second Amendment. Those debates, in Stevens’ view, demonstrated the amendment’s purpose was not to safeguard individual gun rights, but to guarantee the survival of the militias as a “collective right” of the citizenry as an alternative to the creation of a large federal standing army.
Stevens lost the battle of persuasion in Heller, and in 2010, in another 5-4 decision that also featured a Stevens dissent—McDonald v. Chicago—the Supreme Court extended Heller, holding that the individual right to keep and bear arms was incorporated by the 14th Amendment’s due process clause and hence was applicable to the states and local governments. The Second Amendment, as interpreted by Scalia, thus became the law of the land.
Although Scalia and Stevens are no longer with us, the ideological divisions they represented remain on the Supreme Court today. Indeed, when it comes to gun rights, the current court is even more conservative than it was in 2008. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both appointed by Trump, are outspoken proponents of Scalia’s vision of the Second Amendment. And the tribunal’s remaining conservatives—Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—participated in Heller and joined Scalia’s majority opinion.
Still, Heller by no means precluded all measures of gun control. As the Second Circuit noted in its evaluation of the New York handgun transportation ban that is now before the court, Heller was technically limited to possession of guns in the home, and established no clear limits on legislation aimed at regulating gun rights outside of the home.
“Like most rights,” Scalia wrote in Heller, “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited… [N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
And in an enigmatic footnote to the above paragraph, Scalia added: “We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.”
Adhering to Scalia’s reasoning, in the years following Heller, lower courts have upheld a broad range of state and local gun-control regulations, a dynamic that has prompted the NRA and other gun-lobby groups to urge the Supreme Court to take up another Second Amendment appeal to reaffirm the amendment’s importance and place stricter limits on gun control. They may have found the perfect test case in the New York transportation ban. Like Heller, the New York ban concerns an outright prohibition, which will be hard, if not impossible, to justify before the court’s conservative majority.
Realizing it would likely lose the case, New York City amended its transportation rule in June to permit residents to take their handguns to second homes, businesses or shooting ranges outside city limits. And in July, the city filed a formal motion with the Supreme Court, requesting that the case be dismissed as moot. The court denied the motion in October, setting the stage for another Second Amendment showdown.
In December’s oral arguments, the city again asked the court to moot the case. The city made no attempt to defend the transportation ban.
Unfortunately, given the city’s capitulation and the Supreme Court’s right-wing orientation, the only real remaining question is the scope of the NRA’s inevitable victory. Even if the court reconsiders the city’s request and enters a dismissal order, the NRA will walk away with a significant win, having forced the city to rescind one of the most stringent gun-control laws in the country. On the other hand, a decision on the merits on constitutional grounds in the NRA’s favor would reward the organization with an even bigger triumph, endangering gun-control laws everywhere.
A nation awash in firearms in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic awaits the court’s decision, which is expected by the end of June.
Bill Blum is a retired judge and a lawyer in Los Angeles. He is a lecturer at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. He writes regularly on law and politics and is the author of three widely acclaimed legal thrillers: Prejudicial Error, The Last Appeal, and The Face of Justice.
This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/neo-nazis-virginia-gun-rally_n_5e221a24c5b63211761391ad
no lnx pix vid
6 Suspected Neo-Nazis Have Now Been Arrested In Lead-Up To Virginia Gun Rally
The men are all alleged members of The Base, a white supremacist group that hopes to start a race war.
By Sebastian Murdock
George Bush Praises ImmigrationGeorge Bush Praises Immigration
Six neo-Nazis have been arrested just days before a gun rally in Virginia is expected to draw thousands, including far-right extremists.
Three Georgia men were arrested Friday on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and participating in a criminal street gang as members of The Base, a white supremacist group that seeks to start a race war. The suspects are Luke Austin, Michael Helterbrand and Jacob Kaderli, The Associated Press reported.
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*}:
The men are accused of seeking out antifascists to kill, and were planning to “overthrow the government and murder a Bartow County couple,” the Floyd County Police Department said in a statement.
Left to right: Luke Austin Lane, Jacob Kaderli and Michael Helterbrand are all suspected neo-Nazis who allegedly planned to t
FLOYD COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT]
Left to right: Luke Austin Lane, Jacob Kaderli and Michael Helterbrand are all suspected neo-Nazis who allegedly planned to target and kill antifascists.
Atlanta Antifascists, a group that works to confront and expose fascists throughout Georgia, told HuffPost the news of the arrests “underscores that organized white supremacists remain a threat to our communities.”
“Targeting people as members of our group has become a favorite pastime of violent white supremacists,” Atlanta Antifascists said. “Many of these people are not even connected to organized antifascism at all — they simply have become caught in the crosshairs. This is part of a concerted attempt by fascists to create a general attitude of terror and paranoia. We extend our solidarity to all members of the community targeted by white supremacy and fascism and encourage everyone to watch out for each other and keep each other safe.”
The arrests came a day after three other suspected neo-Nazis affiliated with The Base were arrested in Maryland. One of the men, Patrik Mathews, fled Canada earlier last year after his white supremacy ties were discovered. A former reservist in the Canadian Army, Mathews trained as a combat engineer and is an explosives expert.
Patrik Mathews fled Canada after his white supremacy ties were discovered.
RCMP
Patrik Mathews fled Canada after his white supremacy ties were discovered.]
Authorities said Mathews is a top recruiter for the terrorist group and was allegedly planning to start violence at Monday’s gun rally in Virginia along with accomplices Brian Lemley and William Bilbrough IV. Police found guns and more than 1,500 rounds of ammunition during the arrests.
Monday’s rally in Richmond is expected to draw thousands of people who oppose recent gun control bills introduced in the state legislature, including one that would require universal background checks for firearm purchase and another that would limit people from buying more than one handgun per month.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) declared a temporary state of emergency on Wednesday banning all guns from the state Capitol grounds amid threats of violence from far-right extremists.
“We have received credible intelligence from our law enforcement agencies of threats of violence surrounding the demonstration planned for Monday, January 20,” Northam said in a tweet. “This includes extremist rhetoric similar to what has been seen before major incidents, such as Charlottesville in 2017.”
Organizers of the rally, anti-gun control group Virginia Citizens Defense League, falsely accused Democratic leaders of inviting violent groups to the rally following the temporary ban on guns.
“[Democrats] would love for it to degenerate to ‘violence, rioting, and insurrection’ in order to smear gun owners,” the group said in a statement. “Has the Democrat leadership actually invited violent groups to attend for the purpose of disrupting our peaceful assembly?”
Hours after the statement, three of the suspected neo-Nazis were arrested. The VCDL did not respond to a request for comment.
==
==
Cop goes viral after calmly shutting down Trump-loving ‘Gun Girl’ with some simple logic
Kaitlin Bennett is a right-wing pro-gun, pro-Trump activist who first came to fame when her college graduation photos showing her sporting an assault rifle went viral.
==
mma 1219
Media Matters' Alex Kaplan passed this along: "Trump on Friday went on a spree amplifying nearly 20 times accounts supporting the insane and dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory, which involves an anonymous user on a far-right message board claiming to have inside information on a secret plot by Trump against the “deep state” and pedophiles, has been tiedto multiple acts of violence and warned about in an FBI memo as a potential domestic terror threat. It comes as Trump has already amplified dozens of accounts supporting the conspiracy theory over the past two years."
Also: A noted white nationalist fabricated a claim about guns and Virginia’s Democratic governor that has spread in the past week throughout social media and on far-right message boards. The hoax has drawn tens of thousands of engagements and views, and some have issued calls to violence in response.
https://www.mediamatters.org/fake-news/white-nationalist-created-hoax-about-gun-confiscation-leading-calls-violence
Finally: A pro-Trump subreddit is full of calls for violence in response to proposed Virginia gun safety laws.
===
ref
https://www.mediamatters.org/fake-news/white-nationalist-created-hoax-about-gun-confiscation-leading-calls-violence
semiotic?
no lnx graf twt
A white nationalist created a hoax about gun confiscation that is leading to calls for violence on social media and message boards
Special PROGRAMS
GUNS & PUBLIC SAFETY
WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN
PUBLISHED 12/18/19 10:17 AM EST
A noted white nationalist fabricated a claim about guns and Virginia’s governor that has spread in the past week throughout social media and on far-right message boards. The hoax has drawn tens of thousands of engagements and views, and some have issued calls to violence in response.
Following the Democratic takeover of the Virginia state legislature in November’s elections, the state’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, said he would reintroduce multiple gun safety bills. In response, multiple counties in the state declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries,” adopting largely symbolic resolutions that say they will not enforce what they deem to be unconstitutional gun laws.
On December 13, Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA) suggested that Northam use the state’s National Guard to enforce the bills if they become law. That same day, the Twitter account for the Virginia National Guard tweeted that it had “not received any requests from the Governor, or anyone on his staff, about serving in a law enforcement role related to any proposed legislation” and encouraging residents to “be patient while we allow our elected officials to work through the legislative process.” Northam himself a day earlier had said that there would be “consequences” if localities did not enforce the law, but he said only that he would “cross that bridge if and when we get to it.”
Also on December 13, Hal Turner, a white nationalist radio host who has a history of spreading false claims and hoaxes, posted on his website that Northam had “allegedly ordered a small cadre of staffers to begin the process for determining how to cut off electricity, telephones/ FAXES, Cellular phones AND DATA, as well as the Internet, in areas where he plans to send Virginia National Guard Troops to forcibly seize guns when the Democrat legislature convenes in January.” Turner further claimed that the order “was allegedly given to a very small and trusted group of staffers, some of whom it turns out, do not agree (at all) with this idea.”
Hal Turner Virginia hoax
Over the next few days, the hoax spread on multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, Instagram accounts, and multiple YouTube channels, some of which are proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Users claimed Northam’s supposed response was “why the founding fathers put in the 2nd amendment,” calling for “patriots around the country” to “go after [these] anti-gunners with extreme prejudice,” and calling for “troops [to] remove this traitor from his position.” According to the tracking tool BuzzSumo, posts linking to the hoax article received more than 25,000 engagements on Facebook and Twitter combined.
Twitter Virginia hoax1
Facebook Virginia hoax1
Facebook Virginia hoax4
YouTube Virginia hoax2
Additionally, the hoax circulated throughout multiple message boards, including pro-gun forum AR15.com, where a user asked if there was “any truth” to the hoax and users said it could cause a “civil war.” Another message board that saw traffic on the hoax was the backup site for the subreddit “r/The_Donald,” where users called the “new rumor” a reason to “plan, act, purchase, train appropriately” and an “absolute necessary step to guarantee full scale revolution in the state ending in executions for all government officials.”
The Donald subreddit backup site Virginia hoax
The hoax was also repeatedly mentioned on 4chan’s “/pol/” message board, where multiple users posted images of the headline or the text of Turner’s article and responded by writing that they were “glad to be fighting age” and urging others to “take care of this faggot” because “americans killed a president for much less.”
4chan Virginia hoax1
By December 17, multiple white nationalist channels on Telegram were also posting the hoax, via text from Turner’s site or from another radio host and QAnon supporter, John B. Wells, who had cited Turner and posted the same text on his site on December 15. One of those Telegram channels was that of Paul Nehlen, a former congressional candidate who ran against former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and who has openly expressed white nationalist views and issued calls to violence.
Telegram Virginia hoax2
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1219 dn
Supreme Court to Hear First Major Gun Case in Nearly a Decade
some city? rolled back concealed carry to head off?
==
mma 919
ppearing Friday on Fox Business to discuss the Democratic debate the night before, Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren suggested that Americans may have to shoot immigrants, saying “The people in the middle of this country, we are going to be armed and ready, because we have to have a means to defend ourselves from — who knows who's coming in?”
Guns were a main topic in right-wing media after former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) called for a mandatory buyback of AR-15s and AK-47s. Shortly after, a Texas state rep. tweeted that "My AR is ready for you Robert Francis.” Many right-wing media figures defended the obvious death threat, and the representative was even feted on Dana Loesch's radio show and on Fox News.
Elsewhere on Fox News, Fox host Jesse Watters suggested that a buyback program, similar to what Australia has done, would result in gun owners in America murdering police officers. Others on Fox have made similar remarks.
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mma 919
no lnx
Right-wing media lash out after Walmart announces newest firearm policy
Special PROGRAMS
GUNS & PUBLIC SAFETY
WRITTEN BY CYDNEY HARGIS
PUBLISHED 09/03/19 4:23 PM EDT
Following the mass shooting inside a Walmart in El Paso, TX, the retailer announced several changes to its firearm policy, including banning the sale of certain types of assault weapon ammunition and asking customers not to open carry inside the store. Though customers can still carry concealed firearms in the stores, right-wing media figures quickly took to Twitter to claim the retailer wants people defenseless when another gunman “shoots up a Walmart.”
Walmart announces new gun policy after a string of mass shootings
Walmart says it will no longer be selling handgun ammunition, among other new policies. After the El Paso shooting that took place in a Texas Walmart store earlier this month, the retailer announced it will stop selling ammunition that is used in certain types of assault weapons, including the AR-15, as well as handgun ammunition. In a statement announcing the policy change, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said, “We believe these actions will reduce our market share of ammunition from around 20% to a range of approximately 6 to 9%.” McMillion also requested that “customers no longer openly carry firearms” inside the store in “states where ‘open carry’ is permitted.” [Walmart, 9/3/19]
Though Walmart still allows customers to concealed carry weapons in its stores, conservative media figures slam the retail giant for leaving people “defenseless”
Dana Loesch: Walmart is eliminating ammunition for guns that are the “most popular for women who own rifles.”
[Twitter, 9/3/19]
The Federalist’s Sean Davis: “Walmart wants its law-abiding customers and employees to be defenseless.”
[Twitter, 9/3/19]
The Federalist’s Jesse Kelly: Next mass shooter will be able to gun “down twenty of their customers who are no longer allowed to defend themselves.”
[Twitter, 9/3/19]
Conservative radio host Antonia Okafor: “Why? Because killers have a habit of listening to your gun control policies in the first place?”
[Twitter, 9/3/19]
Pro-gun researcher John Lott: “Great, so poorer people are less able to defend their families.”
[Twitter, 9/3/19]
Conservative radio host Brandon Morse: Walmart thinks it would be “great” if “no one would be able to defend themselves.”
[Twitter, 9/3/19]
Fox News’ Katie Pavlich: “Translation: If you support the Second Amendment and self defense, don’t shop at our stores.”
[Twitter, 9/3/19]
Conservative comedian Tim Young: Walmart’s new policy “will unfortunately stop a total of ZERO psychopaths from killing if they want to kill.”
[Twitter, 9/3/19]
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Dana Loesch
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/trumps-disturbing-plan-to-address-mass-shooting-has-nothing-to-do-with-gun-safety-its-a-sign-of-his-authoritarianism/
no lnx
Trump’s disturbing plan to address mass shooting has nothing to do with gun safety — it’s a sign of his authoritarianism
Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly September 3, 2019
Less than an hour after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold started shooting people at Columbine High School, they killed themselves. The same is true for Adam Lanza, who killed himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School after his shooting rampage.
That is not an uncommon end for mass shooters, according to research done by the Associated Press.
More than half the perpetrators of mass shootings since 2006 have ended up dead at the scene of their crimes, either killed by others or dying by suicide, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University…Of the 82 public mass shootings since 2006, 30 gunmen killed themselves and 16 were killed.
While the specifics can be controversial, of the 16 who were killed at the scene, it is possible that many of them would fit the description of “suicide by cop,” which is “a method of suicide that occurs when a subject engages in threatening behavior in an attempt to be killed by law enforcement.
We can assume that a gunman who engages in a mass shooting expects (or wants) to die. At a minimum, he is not concerned with the consequences of his behavior. But that kind of basic logic has escaped this administration.
The Justice Department has drafted legislation to expedite the death penalty for those convicted of mass murder and the provision will be included in a larger White House package designed to address recent incidents of gun violence, a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence said Monday.
Pence has been directly involved in conversations with Attorney General William Barr about the death penalty initiative, Marc Short, the vice president’s chief of staff, told reporters traveling with Pence between Poland and Ireland on Monday.
Since imposing the death penalty happens only after a gunman has taken lives and spread terror, the only possible justification for it is deterrence. But as Matt Stein explains, the administration is once again ignoring the evidence.
One study from 2009 found that 88 percent of criminologists did not consider the threat of execution as a deterrent, a level of consensus that matched the scientific consensus on human involvement in global warming.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is ignoring research about policies that could actually save lives.
Children living in states with strict firearm laws are less likely to die from gun violence than those in states with more lax restrictions, according to a study in Pediatrics published Monday. The more rigorous the rules, the lower the risk, the researchers showed.
Given the involvement of Donald Trump and William Barr in this decision to push for the death penalty in response to mass shootings, it should come as no surprise that they have ignored the facts. After all, it was the president who called for the reinstatement of the death penalty against the Central Park Five before they even stepped foot in a courtroom. He has also referred to our criminal justice system as a “laughingstock” because it isn’t strong enough. Similarly, the attorney general doesn’t seem to know the difference between justice and revenge, suggesting that because our system is a process, it doesn’t achieve justice very often.
Confirming what we would expect, studies have shown that “authoritarianism is a leading predictor of death penalty support.” Perhaps that is why, prior to this move by the Trump administration, the United States already “ranked in the top five countries in terms of state killings, along with Saudi Arabia, China, Iraq, and Iran.” Additionally, “the vast majority of executions in America (81 percent) have been carried out by Southern states,” with Texas—where two mass shootings recently took place—leading the way. It is clear that Trump and Barr want to inflict the death penalty more often because they are authoritarians, not because it works.
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walmart asks no conceral carry and limit aMMO?
Walmart asks gun owners not to open-carry and announces plan to limit ammunition sales
David Badash / The New Civil Rights MovementSeptember 3, 2019
In response to two in-store shootings at its stores and the subsequent strong social media campaigns Walmart has just announced it will cease selling handgun and military assault rifle ammunition.…
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santorum cnn assault 919
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el paso and odessa same month?
Texas eases gun laws one day after Odessa massacre leaves 7 dead, 22 injured
A gunman killed seven people and injured 22 others on Saturday, including a 17-month-old girl. Police have identified the shooter as 36-year-old Seth Ator.
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mma
- In the latest attempt to blame anything but guns, Tucker Carlson suggested a link between mass shootings and marijuana use.
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/do-conservatives-believe-there-are-more-bad-people-in-america-than-elsewhere/
no lnx
Do conservatives believe there are more bad people in America than elsewhere?
Written by David Atkins / Washington Monthly September 2, 2019
After every mass shooting in America comes the same refrain from gun-loving conservatives: guns don’t kill people, people kill people. The causes of gun violence are always presumed to be something other than the guns themselves: mental illness, video games, parenting, et cetera, despite no correlation ever being found. What we do know is that the vast majority of mass shooter are men, that the looser a state’s gun laws the more mass shootings it has, and that America has far, far more gun violence and mass shootings than other developed countries.
What’s most curious about conservative arguments on guns is how easy they are to disprove. Economic and social theory will always have an air of mystery about them because it’s practically impossible to run complex enough models and experiments to definitively prove one ideological framework over another. But with gun it’s astonishingly simple just to look at the experience of other countries. Do the Japanese play a lot of violent video games? Yes. Do they have high rates of gun violence? No. Is there just as much mental illness in England as in the United States? Certainly. Is there as much gun violence? Certainly not. Literally the only possible correlating factor for American gun violence is American access to guns.
But one of the most amazing conservative arguments is that we should not enact stronger gun control measures because the problem is innate human evil. This notion comes up frequently among evangelical conservatives, including just this evening by Texas 6th district representative Matt Schaefer who embarrassed himself with a revolting twitter thread that included the following:
Matt Schaefer
@RepMattSchaefer
· Aug 31, 2019
“Do something!” is the statement we keep hearing. As an elected official with a vote in Austin, let me tell you what I am NOT going to do. 1/6
I am NOT going to use the evil acts of a handful of people to diminish the God-given rights of my fellow Texans. Period. None of these so-called gun-control solutions will work to stop a person with evil intent. 2/6
Let’s leave aside the fact that no divine entity or precept of natural law gives anyone the right to own an assault weapon. Let’s also ignore the fact that it’s entirely likely that gun control solutions would have denied the Odessa shooter easy access to the firearms with which he carried out his killings.
The most interesting question here is about evil intent. If human evil is the ultimate cause of gun violence–rather than the shocking ease with which modern firearms allow tense situations to escalate into deadly violence and unbalanced individuals to become mass murderers in a matter of seconds–then presumably there must be more bad people in America than anywhere else in the world.
It’s not clear to me if American evangelicals who tout this line about “evil” in the context of gun violence have spent even a few seconds thinking it through. Perhaps they haven’t stopped to consider why evil doesn’t seem to manifest this way in other developed countries. Perhaps they haven’t asked themselves why America seems to be beset by so much more human evil despite being much more religious than most other developed countries. Are the bodies of murdered children just part of God’s benevolent plan in divinely inspiring the 2nd Amendment, or are Americans unique in being especially susceptible to the wiles of the Devil? And why should that be?
[evangelists have long and routinely said whatever evil that befalss the US eg 911 is punishment for our sins, but not mass shootings?]
It hardly matters, of course. The pro-gun crowd isn’t motivated by honest argument, but by motivated reasoning. There is no amount of evidence, no amount of logic, no number of dead and injured children that will convince them that the guns themselves are the danger, not the people wielding them. All that decent and good people can do is defeat this evil at the ballot box.
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/carnage-that-could-have-been-prevented-west-texas-mass-shooting-provokes-fresh-calls-for-stricter-gun-laws/
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amazing news about corruption of lapierre had no effect; must be that guns are fundamental to base? tho big %even of NRA rank and file ok w/ bkgd checks?
CNN’s Anderson Cooper rips Trump for cowering in fear of the NRA — after he slammed Republicans for doing exactly that
President Donald Trump is backing down from his support of bulked-up firearm background check legislation, clearly fearful of backlash from the National Rifle Association. And according to The Atlantic, Trump…
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