For years now, after one massacre or another, I have written some version of the same article, explaining that the nation’s current gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of the takeover of our nation by a radical extremist minority. The idea that massacres are “the price of freedom,” as right-wing personality Bill O’Reilly said in 2017 after the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history.
Guns are the #1 killer of children between 5 - 18 years old in this country. Not accidents, not cancer, guns.
We have a well-regulated militia - the National Guard. We have lots of sports enthusiasts that own rifles and shotguns - have at it. Hunting is legal even in our National parks. I'm fine with that as long as folks eat whatever they harvest (which tends to leave out wolves and bears, guys. Don't argue with me on that. Might be dangerous as my Irish is up.)
I only was successful in bearing one child - seven years, two surgeries (to correct genetic anomalies) and I bore a daughter, now 30. She is a delivery driver for a living and delivers medicines all over the Upper Midwest.
What happens if she turns down the wrong driveway?
Let's all call bullsh*t on the NRA, GOP and gun manufacturers greed.
Let's regulate the guns. The militia is already well-armed.
I'd bet that if police officers had to wear "thoughts and prayers" as their body armor instead of the real stuff, we'd see some pretty quick action on controlling the spread of at least military-grade firearms. And I say this as a former police officer, both civilian and commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps.
Once again with the news from Texass: "If my thought dreams could be seen, they'd put my head in a guillotine." God please damn the NRA and GOP all to hell!
Do I feel safer when a state representative swaggers around the State Fair with his gun on his hip to make the point that he can, when previously innocuous occasions such as school board meetings become impassioned shouting matches, when motorists shoot at fellow drivers when in the past an immature flip off was as violent as the reaction of angry drivers got? Nope. The purpose is to intimidate, not protect.
The "shooting du jour" happened in Allen, Texas, and once again those who had the stomach to watch it, saw what has become the "normal" routine that follows a mass shooting: videos of panicked people fleeing the scene; stunned eye witnesses describing the mayhem; ambulances lined-up in the street; a press conference giving the number of dead and wounded etc.
Nobody is safe in our country these days - and even if your chances of being shot are slim - you still feel that your children and grandchildren are in danger. I don't recognize my country any longer.
Wayne LaPierre (NRA) and Leonard Leo (Federalist Society). To these two men we owe much of the credit for the disastrous public policies on guns and our corrupted judiciary. Their hands drip with the blood of shame.
I didn’t know that when the Constitution was drafted, “bear arms” meant only carrying arms in a militia. So much for textualism. Or originalism. They’re just another couple of sophistic scams foisted on us by movement conservatives.
The founders never imagined bullets as we know them today.
We MUST do everything in our power to elect democrats in state legislatures….that is where the power is. State legislatures make the gun rules….we must stop republicans in the states. Please join a giving circle thru States Project- Vote Forward and local organizations working to elect local democrats.
Another mass shooting in Texas in Allen Premium Outlet Mall: 8-9 dead victims with others hospitalized. The “ thoughts and prayers” Abbott and his party are out in full force! But it is never the guns!
I have a different take on why the NRA became so intent on people owning guns, lots of guns.
In Oakland, CA, in the late '60's & early '70's the Black Panthers formed to help patrol the streets of their neighborhoods since the police did not appear to be doing a good job in black neighborhoods. They also provided some much needed services to the community. But I'm sure the reason that gun ownerdship was encouraged was because of the pictures in the papers of young, strong black men with their black berets & uniforms & their rifles slung over their shoulders, that scared the white folks. I"ll note that to my knowledge & memory there were no mass shootings attibuted to the Black Panthers. As far as I'm concerned it was just racism & now that I think of it, white supremecy, that has caused these tremedous purchases of guns by the many white people, & those militias own a bunch so it's not going to get any better any time soon.
Time to make those damn representitives & senators both state & federal be made to clean up those crime scenes. Let them sop up brain tisssue, blood pools, body parts. Then have them tell the survivors that their loved one was killed in a mass shooting! Make them walk the walk, then they can have thoughts & prayers to a so-called merciful god that permits things like this to happen. AND please dont' lecture me about the bull pucky about god gave people free will. I always counter that pitiful excuse with what about the free will of the victims. Pretty sure getting shot & killed is not on their collective bucket lists!
Allen, Texas is 35 miles from where I live (I live in the downtown Dallas area). I have a friend who lives in Allen and my son lives in the neighboring city of Plano.
It’s not as if I thought if couldn’t happen near me because I knew it was just a matter of time.
What a f-ed up country we live in. And oh btw, I know a lot of people, “former” friends that still hold tight their “rights” to carry. DISGUSTING AND SICKENING they are to me.
2024, November, can’t come soon enough and we better do everything we can to win!
May 6, 2023
Ronald Reagan was very destructive to our America. I will never understand those who worship him.
Guns are the #1 killer of children between 5 - 18 years old in this country. Not accidents, not cancer, guns.
We have a well-regulated militia - the National Guard. We have lots of sports enthusiasts that own rifles and shotguns - have at it. Hunting is legal even in our National parks. I'm fine with that as long as folks eat whatever they harvest (which tends to leave out wolves and bears, guys. Don't argue with me on that. Might be dangerous as my Irish is up.)
I only was successful in bearing one child - seven years, two surgeries (to correct genetic anomalies) and I bore a daughter, now 30. She is a delivery driver for a living and delivers medicines all over the Upper Midwest.
What happens if she turns down the wrong driveway?
Let's all call bullsh*t on the NRA, GOP and gun manufacturers greed.
Let's regulate the guns. The militia is already well-armed.
I'd bet that if police officers had to wear "thoughts and prayers" as their body armor instead of the real stuff, we'd see some pretty quick action on controlling the spread of at least military-grade firearms. And I say this as a former police officer, both civilian and commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Military Police Corps.
Once again with the news from Texass: "If my thought dreams could be seen, they'd put my head in a guillotine." God please damn the NRA and GOP all to hell!
Do I feel safer when a state representative swaggers around the State Fair with his gun on his hip to make the point that he can, when previously innocuous occasions such as school board meetings become impassioned shouting matches, when motorists shoot at fellow drivers when in the past an immature flip off was as violent as the reaction of angry drivers got? Nope. The purpose is to intimidate, not protect.
The "shooting du jour" happened in Allen, Texas, and once again those who had the stomach to watch it, saw what has become the "normal" routine that follows a mass shooting: videos of panicked people fleeing the scene; stunned eye witnesses describing the mayhem; ambulances lined-up in the street; a press conference giving the number of dead and wounded etc.
Nobody is safe in our country these days - and even if your chances of being shot are slim - you still feel that your children and grandchildren are in danger. I don't recognize my country any longer.
Wayne LaPierre (NRA) and Leonard Leo (Federalist Society). To these two men we owe much of the credit for the disastrous public policies on guns and our corrupted judiciary. Their hands drip with the blood of shame.
I didn’t know that when the Constitution was drafted, “bear arms” meant only carrying arms in a militia. So much for textualism. Or originalism. They’re just another couple of sophistic scams foisted on us by movement conservatives.
The founders never imagined bullets as we know them today.
We MUST do everything in our power to elect democrats in state legislatures….that is where the power is. State legislatures make the gun rules….we must stop republicans in the states. Please join a giving circle thru States Project- Vote Forward and local organizations working to elect local democrats.
Another mass shooting in Texas in Allen Premium Outlet Mall: 8-9 dead victims with others hospitalized. The “ thoughts and prayers” Abbott and his party are out in full force! But it is never the guns!
I have a different take on why the NRA became so intent on people owning guns, lots of guns.
In Oakland, CA, in the late '60's & early '70's the Black Panthers formed to help patrol the streets of their neighborhoods since the police did not appear to be doing a good job in black neighborhoods. They also provided some much needed services to the community. But I'm sure the reason that gun ownerdship was encouraged was because of the pictures in the papers of young, strong black men with their black berets & uniforms & their rifles slung over their shoulders, that scared the white folks. I"ll note that to my knowledge & memory there were no mass shootings attibuted to the Black Panthers. As far as I'm concerned it was just racism & now that I think of it, white supremecy, that has caused these tremedous purchases of guns by the many white people, & those militias own a bunch so it's not going to get any better any time soon.
Time to make those damn representitives & senators both state & federal be made to clean up those crime scenes. Let them sop up brain tisssue, blood pools, body parts. Then have them tell the survivors that their loved one was killed in a mass shooting! Make them walk the walk, then they can have thoughts & prayers to a so-called merciful god that permits things like this to happen. AND please dont' lecture me about the bull pucky about god gave people free will. I always counter that pitiful excuse with what about the free will of the victims. Pretty sure getting shot & killed is not on their collective bucket lists!
The Grand Old Party of God, Guns, and Greed
Thank you for this enlightening historical recap. You can’t tell it too many times.
Allen, Texas is 35 miles from where I live (I live in the downtown Dallas area). I have a friend who lives in Allen and my son lives in the neighboring city of Plano.
It’s not as if I thought if couldn’t happen near me because I knew it was just a matter of time.
What a f-ed up country we live in. And oh btw, I know a lot of people, “former” friends that still hold tight their “rights” to carry. DISGUSTING AND SICKENING they are to me.
2024, November, can’t come soon enough and we better do everything we can to win!
I wonder if there is a breaking point for the US when it will finally come to its senses. Wherever the line is, it seems we are still far from it.
Enough! 😢