Today, survivors of the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado, testified before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Club Q is an LGBTQ club in the city of about 500,000 people. The shooter opened fire there on the night of November 19-20, during a dance party. He used an AR-15 style rifle, murdering five people and wounding 19 more. Six others were hurt in the chaos.
A classic HCR Letter today, presenting a fact-based historical narrative describing the path to where we find ourselves today – a country in which at any moment, in any venue, lives are ripped apart, a condition cultivated by a Republican party grounded in a soured ideology borne from decades of relying on the basest of appeals and bereft of principle beyond gaining and holding power at any cost.
I’ve always wanted to ask one of the idiots using that phrase - “What EXACTLY are your thoughts and prayers for these people? Do you pray that some miracle will happen that makes crazy people not shoot up the neighborhood? Do you think about ways to stop this from happening again? Do you pray that it never happens to your own family? What EXACTLY are the thoughts and prayers you think are going to help in these situations and will stop them from happening again?”
My thoughts and prayers are that the NRA's executives would be held personally responsible for the loss of each and every beloved human being whose life was stolen from and friends, and their families.
“Thoughts and prayers,” like “Originalism,” are concocted code words to justify and distract from a pre-ordained political position preserving power for white male “Conservatives” and their female allies displaying classic Freudian “identification with the aggressor.” Good examples are Kari Lake and Elise Stefanik.
I think you mean Vengeance, that was the B.J. Novak film, but I wanted to share that the film "Revenge" was INTENSE but very relevant to this conversation :D https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6738136/
How much $ have hostile foreign governments donated to the NRA PAC?
Our 2nd amendment is seen by some Americans as a “freedom”, when it was intended to be a well regulated privilege with duty and responsibility to serve the collective National defense. But to foreign governments, our 2nd Amendment is a vulnerability to exploit, to divide then destabilize with school, racial, and LGBT shootings, then political assassinations.
It’s not a coincidence that before the Rowanda, genocide, the guns and weapons flowed in. Preceding Every conflict the the world over, the guns flow in before the conflict starts. The Russians are masters at this destabilization tactic. One thing Congress should do is take a look at the NRA PAC and find out where all that money is actually coming from.
If assault rifles can't be handled responsibly in this country, they should be sent to Ukrainians to protect themselves against raping and pillaging Russian soldiers.
That sounds like a bad way to get even more Ukrainian civilians killed. Why would we send crazies killing our civilians to potentially go kill Ukrainian civilians. Our crazies need their weapons sent to Ukrainian civilians to defend themselves against invading, killing, raping, Russian soldiers.
Russians and Ukrainians are the same color and speak languages that to American ears sound the same. If we sent the owners of A-15’s to Ukraine, they wouldn’t be able to tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys”, would they? Better we deal with them here.
AR 17 type assault automatic weapons were specifically made for use in Vietnam because of their high velocity, "tumbling", bullets that literally ripped a body apart. The impact of these bullets are too horrible to show on the 11 o'clock news or your cell phone's "click me" screen.
There is a fictional depiction of the impact of these weapons in the 1999 George Clooney film, "THREE KINGS". Forget the movie & its plot but, there is a visual stunt showing a burst of such bullets striking the neck of a human target severing the head from the body. The head is fictionally propelled vertically from the impact of the bullets & the push of jugular pressure. That's an apt illustration.
US. Military photos of the carnage circa Vietnam War can probably be obtained by a well crafted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by a well funded private source.
It has been proposed the bodies shredded by these weapons be shown. Especially the children. Maybe that will provoke enough horror and outrage to spur action
If and only when the families decide to…What if every newspaper in the country published the crime scene photos of the carnage on the anniversary of a school shooting like Parkland, Sandy Hook, Columbine, etc etc. Sorry GOP Senators, Fox News Anchors, and Wayne LaPierre, & assorted gun nutz, “Do not look away! Look at what these guns have done to our children and how they have suffered in fear and terror!” It is unconscionable. Enough!
Ted, I have always looked for your comments. There is something unsettling to me about this suggestion. I do not have any answers only questions, but just now happened onto this excellent piece on vicarious trauma. Maybe you will find it worth reading. After a career as a public & maternal-child health nurse I have come to the conclusion that purposeful trauma has never served humanity well.
I am well aware of that C60 but, that decision must be made very, very brave & protected families. But, the evisceration of humans is part of the motive of the nihilistic Perps and sometimes the fear of police to rapidly attack. If you are hit head or torso you are dead.
Emmett Till's mother insisted on an open coffin so the world would see what had been done to her son made a difference. Seeing dogs and fire hoses turned on peaceful Black protestors, who were also being beaten by police made a difference. Seeing the little Vietnam girl screaming from the burns from US bombs made a difference. In this country, actions so egregious is too often what it takes to end outrages. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire is another example.
We are all being held hostage to the level of gun violence in the US--Walmart, shows, bars, theatres, and schools; even walking home with a bag of skittles. If showing a 5 year old's head exploded in a classroom full of dead children will finally, finally result in sensible gun laws and restrictions--scenes so horrific that even the 6 SCOTUS Justices cannot deny the results of striking down the gun laws that are passed--maybe, just maybe, the rest of us don't have to live under the constant threat of random weapons of war killing as many people in the shortest time possible.
Charlie Sykes is in France visiting his grandchildren. Meanwhile, Charlie has been republishing his most "notable" ( Charlie's word ) 2022 articles. See, "What an AR-15 Does to a Child's Body".
For two weeks after the Uvalde shooting, my Facebook profile pic was a pair of green high-top Converse shoes. It was how the identification of one of the victims was made, because other methods of identification were not available.
There may be alternatives such as properly autheticated post mortem (PM) reports which often contain detailed photographs. Such official records are often subject to laws & regulations of the Coroner's office or other regulatory bodies/ regimes.
Bryan, here is a link to an Atlantic article from the 1980's, and it also addressess some of the reasons you have friends on The Wall. I am too young (just barely) to have friends who died there, but I have a lot who served there. It also discuses the development of the AR-15 and its intended function.
James Fallows Work circa 1980's: "M-16 A Bureaucratic Horror Story." "Why the rifles jammed." Note the House Armed Services Committee 600 page Hearing record.
Sometimes these "automatic" weapons would jam & soldiers would be found after a "firefight" having tried to strip & clear their weapon ... not Walter Conkrite material in the "A block." I went to UCLA; kids I grew up with went to Vietnam. I never saw some of these kids again until I touched their engraved names on the Vietnam War Memorial in DC.
It IS, Zella. And not invested even a tiny fraction of resources - time, money, thought, effort, love, education, etc - in learning how to live peacefully with one another. Take care or and nurture one another... and WHO dominates these choices?? Not moms or grammas. That's for sure. :-(
David Shouldn’t the Supreme Court abide by its own rulings? If guns can be brought into schools and churches, why shouldn’t they be permitted at Supreme Court hearings?
Oophs, I forgot. While the Supreme Court has forbidden abortion clinics from constructing fenced areas to keep demonstrators at a safe distance, the Court recently has authorized a massive security fence around the Supreme Court Building.
Is it possible that the Supreme Court is hypocritical in abiding by its own convoluted rulings?
"Oophs, I forgot. While the Supreme Court has forbidden abortion clinics from constructing fenced areas to keep demonstrators at a safe distance, the Court recently has authorized a massive security fence around the Supreme Court Building."
This would be funny if it were not so starkly true.
There is probably is an origninalist argument for such. Though that there was a Supreme Court in the 1700s, but no chain link fences or Abortion Clinics probably goes to the literalist position take by the craven of crows. SCOTUS gets to have the new thing, called Chain Link Fence, for at least a century before precedent is established and, probably, a market created for this adornment in civil society. Note the capitalization. This conotes deiitific roots for CLF.
Fred Actually the initial Supreme Court was ineffective, though no way as despicable as our current Stench Court. In its first years the original SC was so irrelevant, that one chief justice resigned in disgust and it was difficult to get anyone to serve as justice.
It didn’t have a regular meeting place (court) and, thus, had no need for chain link fences.
It was only with Chief Justice John Marshall that the SC acquired distinction. Before him, there was a year when the SC failed to convene. (Hey, what a great idea for ‘originalists.’ Don’t meet for a year or more!)
"It began shortly after the shooting of Denzil Dowell. Easy Bay legislator Don Mulford introduced a bill to repeal the law that permitted citizens to carry loaded weapons in public places so long as the weapons were openly displayed [see link to California Penal Code, Sections 12031 and 171.c]. What the Mulford law sought to achieve was the elimination of the Black Panther Police Patrols, and it had been tagged "the Panther Bill" by the media.
The Police Patrols had become an integral part of BPP community policy. Members of the BPP would listen to police calls on a short wave radio, rush to the scene of the arrest with law books in hand and inform the person being arrested of their constitutional rights. BPP members also happened to carry loaded weapons, which were publicly displayed, but were careful to stand no closer than ten feet from the arrest so as not to interfere with the arrest.
Passage of the Mulford Bill would essentially end the Panther Police Patrols, so the BPP sent a group to Sacramento, California on May 2nd, 1967 to protest. The group carried loaded rifles and shotguns, publicly displayed and entered the State Capitol building to read aloud Executive Mandate Number 1, which was in opposition to the Mulford Bill. They tried to enter the Assembly Chamber but were forced out of this public place where they then read Executive Mandate Number 1 out on the lawn.
The legislature responded by passing the bill, thus creating the Mulford Act, which was signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan. This step by the Black Panther Party was enough to put them into national prominence and was a stimulus for growth of the party within the young Black population."
I hope political support for common sense gun control will continue to grow and finally overwhelm its opposition. That judge from. TX proves that we certainly grow 'em bigger here. Bigger Pendejos, I mean.
Hard to believe the nuttiness and nonsense around guns in the U.S. I read somewhere that the Second Amendment is a relic of slavery, included in the Bill of Rights to encourage southern states to ratify the Constitution by assuring them that the federal government it created could not disarm slave patrols (the famous ‘well regulated militia’).
We should rewrite the Second Amendment to read ‘The safety of its citizens being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to own and use arms shall be well regulated.’
How many of our children must die to gun violence for us to declare; “Enough”?? Schools or clubs or churches or sporting venues or restaurants or literally anywhere in our communities should be places safe from gun violence. The NRA has bought the GOP-they are one of the entities corrupting our democracy and the health and well-being of our communities.
25,000 doesn’t seem to be enough. It’s hard to say this but I think we have to learn from the courage of Emmitt Till’s mother. Remember a shooter shot up a GOP softball game, and still nothing.
The Young Republicans rally in NYC this past week espoused “Total War” with Democrats, and MTG encouraging guns and more violence, I think this worldview expects casualties.
I think that is 100% accurate, Ted. I also don't think that they are aware of just how many of us are armed as well. I've got a thought for a comment percolating that deals with what the psychological cost of killing another human being is, and I can guarantee that none of these gun humpers have given an iota of thought to that.
Compare the wording of the 2nd amendment (“...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed) with that of the fifth amendment (“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law....”) The 2nd amendment is a right of “the people,” whereas the 5th is a right of each and every person. The founders clearly knew there was a difference between a general right vs. a right pertaining to individual persons. That distinction seems to have evaded the “originalists” in the Heller decision. We are paying for their misconstrual in the blood of children and other innocents.
I can't imagine what feelings survivors of a mass shooting experience when they hear lawmakers saying that there is no need to regulate such firearms as have been used in so many mass shootings. I imagine gut-wrenching may describe what some feel. It is the guns. Too many, too powerful, too accessible.
They are angry and frustrated because their pleas fall on deaf ears. Why? Because the Pro-Rape Party is bought and paid for by the NRA and the Federalist Society!
I can't imagine either, Carmen. And 692 mass shooting incidents in 2021 alone?! That's just outrageous. Maybe the survivors and family members of the victims should form their own PAC.
I agree. I frankly don't think we will ever get this under control. Nothing seems to matter enough to start to stop this insanity. I think back to Big Tobacco and how helpless this death and sickness by tobacco seemed and then something was done. I am sickened by it all and wonder where it all will end?
It's not just guns, its the kind of guns. Forty years ago when Abercrombie and Fitch was something more than a clothing store, the guns they stocked, or for that matter, that any dealer stocked, were fine hunting pieces, prized for the fine craftsmanship of their walnut stocks and forearms. Price was driven by the quality of the grain pattern in the wood and the fine hand-carved checkering. Many had fancy gold inlays with hunting scenes in them. Try to find just one store that stocks such things today. even inexpensive guns were of this type, without the fancy detail work. Those sorts of firearms can still be had special order, but today, everything that is stocked, whether handgun or long gun, is designed for use against people. They have nothing to do with hunting. Even police weaponry was quite tame by today's standards. The right wing gun culture is only about killing people, for whatever reason the heat of the moment happens to be.
The Republican support for guns along with tacit or open approval of white supremacy surely reminds me of the KKK, armed and deadly, promoting their right to terrorize and demean their chosen enemies. President Wilson and Trump each extended Jim Crow for future generations.
I lost a close friend to an assassin with a handgun thirty years ago. Since then, the politics of guns has gotten far worse, not better, as HCR has well documented. I have yet to read anywhere that someone, or a group, has accused Rep politicians of being accessories to mass murder, but that is exactly what they are, in fact and perhaps also in law. Isn't it long past time to press charges against these people and also the NRA leadership? At the very least this could be an effective form of political action. In some cases, for example when a Rep says something particularly egregious preceeding or following a massacre, a judge might actually agree to hear "accessory" charges.
A classic HCR Letter today, presenting a fact-based historical narrative describing the path to where we find ourselves today – a country in which at any moment, in any venue, lives are ripped apart, a condition cultivated by a Republican party grounded in a soured ideology borne from decades of relying on the basest of appeals and bereft of principle beyond gaining and holding power at any cost.
So well said.
I can’t conceive of a more meaningless phrase than “thoughts and prayers.”
I’ve always wanted to ask one of the idiots using that phrase - “What EXACTLY are your thoughts and prayers for these people? Do you pray that some miracle will happen that makes crazy people not shoot up the neighborhood? Do you think about ways to stop this from happening again? Do you pray that it never happens to your own family? What EXACTLY are the thoughts and prayers you think are going to help in these situations and will stop them from happening again?”
"Thoughtless prayers" is much more accurate. There is no thinking involved.
Well said, sir!
They would give you a blank stare, while they waited for Fox to give them an answer
My thoughts and prayers are that the NRA's executives would be held personally responsible for the loss of each and every beloved human being whose life was stolen from and friends, and their families.
The interesting thing about "thoughts and prayers"?
They appear to be correlated with increased mass shootings.
The more we say that phrase, the more shootings there are.
"Thoughts and Prayers" means "I acknowledge that you are collateral damage but it's worth it so I can keep my job by indulging paranoid fantasies".
“Thoughts and prayers,” like “Originalism,” are concocted code words to justify and distract from a pre-ordained political position preserving power for white male “Conservatives” and their female allies displaying classic Freudian “identification with the aggressor.” Good examples are Kari Lake and Elise Stefanik.
So true; "thoughts and prayers" had acquired the implied meaning, "I'm not going to think about this anymore, and you know that."
They still think that has resonance, it is the equivalent to the meaningless “ bless your heart.”
I think you mean Vengeance, that was the B.J. Novak film, but I wanted to share that the film "Revenge" was INTENSE but very relevant to this conversation :D https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6738136/
Gag me with a spoon.
How much $ have hostile foreign governments donated to the NRA PAC?
Our 2nd amendment is seen by some Americans as a “freedom”, when it was intended to be a well regulated privilege with duty and responsibility to serve the collective National defense. But to foreign governments, our 2nd Amendment is a vulnerability to exploit, to divide then destabilize with school, racial, and LGBT shootings, then political assassinations.
It’s not a coincidence that before the Rowanda, genocide, the guns and weapons flowed in. Preceding Every conflict the the world over, the guns flow in before the conflict starts. The Russians are masters at this destabilization tactic. One thing Congress should do is take a look at the NRA PAC and find out where all that money is actually coming from.
Repub’s will surely do that, hahahaha
( I meant before the new congress.) They should publish a preliminary report before years end). Enough is enough.
If assault rifles can't be handled responsibly in this country, they should be sent to Ukrainians to protect themselves against raping and pillaging Russian soldiers.
Or better yet, send the testosterone-infused young crazies to Ukraine, where they can do something more useful than shooting up schools.
That sounds like a bad way to get even more Ukrainian civilians killed. Why would we send crazies killing our civilians to potentially go kill Ukrainian civilians. Our crazies need their weapons sent to Ukrainian civilians to defend themselves against invading, killing, raping, Russian soldiers.
I think she meant shooting up russkies.
Russians and Ukrainians are the same color and speak languages that to American ears sound the same. If we sent the owners of A-15’s to Ukraine, they wouldn’t be able to tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys”, would they? Better we deal with them here.
Worse, the gun nuts seem to think that Russia is the victim in Ukraine...
Spot on, Juanita.
I meant for the killing of so-called orcs (a. k. a. Russian invaders)
Kyle Rittenhouse comes to mind. Let’s send him...though he might join the Russians.
Great idea, an appropriate use of firearms
Great idea!
Ukrainian civilian women and youth could use AR-15s as defense against Russian soldiers. They are lighter and shorter to use.
AR 17 type assault automatic weapons were specifically made for use in Vietnam because of their high velocity, "tumbling", bullets that literally ripped a body apart. The impact of these bullets are too horrible to show on the 11 o'clock news or your cell phone's "click me" screen.
There is a fictional depiction of the impact of these weapons in the 1999 George Clooney film, "THREE KINGS". Forget the movie & its plot but, there is a visual stunt showing a burst of such bullets striking the neck of a human target severing the head from the body. The head is fictionally propelled vertically from the impact of the bullets & the push of jugular pressure. That's an apt illustration.
US. Military photos of the carnage circa Vietnam War can probably be obtained by a well crafted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by a well funded private source.
It has been proposed the bodies shredded by these weapons be shown. Especially the children. Maybe that will provoke enough horror and outrage to spur action
Emmitt Till. Why shouldn’t we all share the grief and trauma? It’s going to affect all of us eventually unless we do something to stop it.
If and only when the families decide to…What if every newspaper in the country published the crime scene photos of the carnage on the anniversary of a school shooting like Parkland, Sandy Hook, Columbine, etc etc. Sorry GOP Senators, Fox News Anchors, and Wayne LaPierre, & assorted gun nutz, “Do not look away! Look at what these guns have done to our children and how they have suffered in fear and terror!” It is unconscionable. Enough!
Ted, I have always looked for your comments. There is something unsettling to me about this suggestion. I do not have any answers only questions, but just now happened onto this excellent piece on vicarious trauma. Maybe you will find it worth reading. After a career as a public & maternal-child health nurse I have come to the conclusion that purposeful trauma has never served humanity well.
https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2022/11/23/how-to-maintain-mental-hygiene-as-an-open-source-researcher/
I am well aware of that C60 but, that decision must be made very, very brave & protected families. But, the evisceration of humans is part of the motive of the nihilistic Perps and sometimes the fear of police to rapidly attack. If you are hit head or torso you are dead.
Emmett Till's mother insisted on an open coffin so the world would see what had been done to her son made a difference. Seeing dogs and fire hoses turned on peaceful Black protestors, who were also being beaten by police made a difference. Seeing the little Vietnam girl screaming from the burns from US bombs made a difference. In this country, actions so egregious is too often what it takes to end outrages. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire is another example.
We are all being held hostage to the level of gun violence in the US--Walmart, shows, bars, theatres, and schools; even walking home with a bag of skittles. If showing a 5 year old's head exploded in a classroom full of dead children will finally, finally result in sensible gun laws and restrictions--scenes so horrific that even the 6 SCOTUS Justices cannot deny the results of striking down the gun laws that are passed--maybe, just maybe, the rest of us don't have to live under the constant threat of random weapons of war killing as many people in the shortest time possible.
Charlie Sykes is in France visiting his grandchildren. Meanwhile, Charlie has been republishing his most "notable" ( Charlie's word ) 2022 articles. See, "What an AR-15 Does to a Child's Body".
For two weeks after the Uvalde shooting, my Facebook profile pic was a pair of green high-top Converse shoes. It was how the identification of one of the victims was made, because other methods of identification were not available.
There may be alternatives such as properly autheticated post mortem (PM) reports which often contain detailed photographs. Such official records are often subject to laws & regulations of the Coroner's office or other regulatory bodies/ regimes.
It is sick to be making, having, promoting these weapons period.
Bryan, here is a link to an Atlantic article from the 1980's, and it also addressess some of the reasons you have friends on The Wall. I am too young (just barely) to have friends who died there, but I have a lot who served there. It also discuses the development of the AR-15 and its intended function.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/
Valuable citation! Thank you once again.
James Fallows Work circa 1980's: "M-16 A Bureaucratic Horror Story." "Why the rifles jammed." Note the House Armed Services Committee 600 page Hearing record.
Holy cow, and I thought I saw the worst of it on my tv while eating supper in the era of that horror
Sometimes these "automatic" weapons would jam & soldiers would be found after a "firefight" having tried to strip & clear their weapon ... not Walter Conkrite material in the "A block." I went to UCLA; kids I grew up with went to Vietnam. I never saw some of these kids again until I touched their engraved names on the Vietnam War Memorial in DC.
I linked an article for you from the Atlantic. You might want a fortifying beverage to hand.
It IS, Zella. And not invested even a tiny fraction of resources - time, money, thought, effort, love, education, etc - in learning how to live peacefully with one another. Take care or and nurture one another... and WHO dominates these choices?? Not moms or grammas. That's for sure. :-(
When it comes to guns, an obscene number of Americans have been seduced into buying guns - and a growing subset propagandized to use them.
It’s madness induced by interest groups, laden with cash, that bend lawmakers and judges to their will.
In this aspect of American life we aren’t free. We’re captives.
Hostages
modern slavery?
Should we sue the US Supreme Court to remove all restrictions to bringing our guns into the Court?
David Shouldn’t the Supreme Court abide by its own rulings? If guns can be brought into schools and churches, why shouldn’t they be permitted at Supreme Court hearings?
Oophs, I forgot. While the Supreme Court has forbidden abortion clinics from constructing fenced areas to keep demonstrators at a safe distance, the Court recently has authorized a massive security fence around the Supreme Court Building.
Is it possible that the Supreme Court is hypocritical in abiding by its own convoluted rulings?
The biggest and most powerful group of hypocrites in the land
"Oophs, I forgot. While the Supreme Court has forbidden abortion clinics from constructing fenced areas to keep demonstrators at a safe distance, the Court recently has authorized a massive security fence around the Supreme Court Building."
This would be funny if it were not so starkly true.
There is probably is an origninalist argument for such. Though that there was a Supreme Court in the 1700s, but no chain link fences or Abortion Clinics probably goes to the literalist position take by the craven of crows. SCOTUS gets to have the new thing, called Chain Link Fence, for at least a century before precedent is established and, probably, a market created for this adornment in civil society. Note the capitalization. This conotes deiitific roots for CLF.
Fred Actually the initial Supreme Court was ineffective, though no way as despicable as our current Stench Court. In its first years the original SC was so irrelevant, that one chief justice resigned in disgust and it was difficult to get anyone to serve as justice.
It didn’t have a regular meeting place (court) and, thus, had no need for chain link fences.
It was only with Chief Justice John Marshall that the SC acquired distinction. Before him, there was a year when the SC failed to convene. (Hey, what a great idea for ‘originalists.’ Don’t meet for a year or more!)
A second for that recommendation
Perish the thought! <sarcasm font>
Just like the Black Panthers did at the California state house in the ‘70s?
I don't know the historical reference. Can you enlighten?
"It began shortly after the shooting of Denzil Dowell. Easy Bay legislator Don Mulford introduced a bill to repeal the law that permitted citizens to carry loaded weapons in public places so long as the weapons were openly displayed [see link to California Penal Code, Sections 12031 and 171.c]. What the Mulford law sought to achieve was the elimination of the Black Panther Police Patrols, and it had been tagged "the Panther Bill" by the media.
The Police Patrols had become an integral part of BPP community policy. Members of the BPP would listen to police calls on a short wave radio, rush to the scene of the arrest with law books in hand and inform the person being arrested of their constitutional rights. BPP members also happened to carry loaded weapons, which were publicly displayed, but were careful to stand no closer than ten feet from the arrest so as not to interfere with the arrest.
Passage of the Mulford Bill would essentially end the Panther Police Patrols, so the BPP sent a group to Sacramento, California on May 2nd, 1967 to protest. The group carried loaded rifles and shotguns, publicly displayed and entered the State Capitol building to read aloud Executive Mandate Number 1, which was in opposition to the Mulford Bill. They tried to enter the Assembly Chamber but were forced out of this public place where they then read Executive Mandate Number 1 out on the lawn.
The legislature responded by passing the bill, thus creating the Mulford Act, which was signed into law by Governor Ronald Reagan. This step by the Black Panther Party was enough to put them into national prominence and was a stimulus for growth of the party within the young Black population."
https://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/actions/actions_capitolmarch.html
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug01/barillari/pantherprologue.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-panthers-california-1967_n_568accfce4b014efe0db2f40
Thank you for that, very much. You have decreased my ignorance another notch. Never knew this before.
Yes!
One heck of a great idea!
Were guns allowed into the courts around the time the Constitution was being written?
Nothing in the US Constitution prohibits the public or anyone from carrying guns into US courts, including the Supreme Court.
Excellent idea
Alito.
Is it possible?
I hope political support for common sense gun control will continue to grow and finally overwhelm its opposition. That judge from. TX proves that we certainly grow 'em bigger here. Bigger Pendejos, I mean.
We have more than our fair share of fools
Hard to believe the nuttiness and nonsense around guns in the U.S. I read somewhere that the Second Amendment is a relic of slavery, included in the Bill of Rights to encourage southern states to ratify the Constitution by assuring them that the federal government it created could not disarm slave patrols (the famous ‘well regulated militia’).
We should rewrite the Second Amendment to read ‘The safety of its citizens being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to own and use arms shall be well regulated.’
which is most likely its intended meaning
How many of our children must die to gun violence for us to declare; “Enough”?? Schools or clubs or churches or sporting venues or restaurants or literally anywhere in our communities should be places safe from gun violence. The NRA has bought the GOP-they are one of the entities corrupting our democracy and the health and well-being of our communities.
25,000 doesn’t seem to be enough. It’s hard to say this but I think we have to learn from the courage of Emmitt Till’s mother. Remember a shooter shot up a GOP softball game, and still nothing.
If a different member of Congress was shot every week or so, maybe something would be done.
The Young Republicans rally in NYC this past week espoused “Total War” with Democrats, and MTG encouraging guns and more violence, I think this worldview expects casualties.
I think that is 100% accurate, Ted. I also don't think that they are aware of just how many of us are armed as well. I've got a thought for a comment percolating that deals with what the psychological cost of killing another human being is, and I can guarantee that none of these gun humpers have given an iota of thought to that.
Is it any different from nazi rally in Madison Square Garden in 1930s?
Nope! 100% & His daddy Fred was at that one.
Careful there. You could be accused of inciting violence.
I doubt it, even then.
And Ronald Reagan himself.
Thanks for once again pointing out the hypocrisy of the Republican party.
Compare the wording of the 2nd amendment (“...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed) with that of the fifth amendment (“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law....”) The 2nd amendment is a right of “the people,” whereas the 5th is a right of each and every person. The founders clearly knew there was a difference between a general right vs. a right pertaining to individual persons. That distinction seems to have evaded the “originalists” in the Heller decision. We are paying for their misconstrual in the blood of children and other innocents.
Good analysis. Nuance dies in the corner.
Exactly right!
I can't imagine what feelings survivors of a mass shooting experience when they hear lawmakers saying that there is no need to regulate such firearms as have been used in so many mass shootings. I imagine gut-wrenching may describe what some feel. It is the guns. Too many, too powerful, too accessible.
They are angry and frustrated because their pleas fall on deaf ears. Why? Because the Pro-Rape Party is bought and paid for by the NRA and the Federalist Society!
I can't imagine either, Carmen. And 692 mass shooting incidents in 2021 alone?! That's just outrageous. Maybe the survivors and family members of the victims should form their own PAC.
I agree. I frankly don't think we will ever get this under control. Nothing seems to matter enough to start to stop this insanity. I think back to Big Tobacco and how helpless this death and sickness by tobacco seemed and then something was done. I am sickened by it all and wonder where it all will end?
This obsession is killing us!
it sure is killing us, you are right.
Between guns and the trumplican position on masking & vaccines, not to mention wanting to destroy democracy and those of us who believe in it….
The cult of death, bring back the refrigerated morgues
It's not just guns, its the kind of guns. Forty years ago when Abercrombie and Fitch was something more than a clothing store, the guns they stocked, or for that matter, that any dealer stocked, were fine hunting pieces, prized for the fine craftsmanship of their walnut stocks and forearms. Price was driven by the quality of the grain pattern in the wood and the fine hand-carved checkering. Many had fancy gold inlays with hunting scenes in them. Try to find just one store that stocks such things today. even inexpensive guns were of this type, without the fancy detail work. Those sorts of firearms can still be had special order, but today, everything that is stocked, whether handgun or long gun, is designed for use against people. They have nothing to do with hunting. Even police weaponry was quite tame by today's standards. The right wing gun culture is only about killing people, for whatever reason the heat of the moment happens to be.
Force and violence is their language.
Disinformation, division, destabilization. They work for that NRA PAC money that comes from …?
The Republican support for guns along with tacit or open approval of white supremacy surely reminds me of the KKK, armed and deadly, promoting their right to terrorize and demean their chosen enemies. President Wilson and Trump each extended Jim Crow for future generations.
I lost a close friend to an assassin with a handgun thirty years ago. Since then, the politics of guns has gotten far worse, not better, as HCR has well documented. I have yet to read anywhere that someone, or a group, has accused Rep politicians of being accessories to mass murder, but that is exactly what they are, in fact and perhaps also in law. Isn't it long past time to press charges against these people and also the NRA leadership? At the very least this could be an effective form of political action. In some cases, for example when a Rep says something particularly egregious preceeding or following a massacre, a judge might actually agree to hear "accessory" charges.
long past time