Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists

There’s an article in the Washington Post in which Christopher Ingraham claims that there have been at least one mass shooting every day of 2015. You’d think that you would have heard about that somewhere before now, wouldn’t you?

Well, you haven’t because those “figures” (247 “mass shootings” for 2015) comes from a subReddit group (don’t get me started on Reddit members) which has changed the parameters of what constitutes a “mass shooting”. The FBI classifies a mass shooting as one in which at least three people are killed. The GunsAreCool subreddit groups counts those incidents in which four people are shot (not killed) including the gunman.

Ingraham likes these measures much more, because he can count a mass shooting every day for this year.

But the broader definition is nonetheless a useful one, because it captures many high-profile instances of violence — like the recent Lafayette theater shootings — that don’t meet the FBI’s criteria.

[…]

A more expansive definition of “mass shooting” underscores the extent to which firearms make it relatively easy to hurt large numbers of people in a very short time. With a gun, you’re able to inflict bodily harm on a person once they’re in your line of sight. With something like a knife or your hands, you need to get right up close to a person.

Yeah, well, the whole point of keeping track of the numbers is to craft legislation that will prevent gun violence. The Reddit method doesn’t help in that regard. Take, for example, the shooting the other day in a home invasion in Minnesota where four people were shot by criminals. All of the victims all have non-life-threatening wounds. But they make the Reddit group’s list. It was a random crime, not an intentional plan to murder large groups of people and cause shock in the community like a typical mass shooting, it was just to make a getaway.

Of course, the new parameters of “mass shootings” includes the shooting earlier this week of a news crew because the total of people shot was four, if you include the gunman and the wounded woman. You know, even though the gunman only intended to shoot the two who died, and, presumably, himself. Not your typical mass shooting scenario.

Here’s another one – a Tuskegee student shot four people at a party after a verbal altercation, back in January, none of the victims died. The Reddit robots counted that one.

In January, at a Chris Brown concert, in San Jose, California, five were shot, none died. It was probably the first time anyone decided to shoot-up a rap concert, huh? Reddit counted that one, too.

In Syracuse, New York, six people were shot by 22-year-old Michael Morris a recent parolee who kidnapped his ex-girlfriend and then went and shot up a birthday party at a local tavern and sent six people to the hospital. None died. So how does that case help in the gun control conversation? He was a parolee and forbidden to possess a gun, so we should write more laws forbidding parolees from having guns?

Four people were shot in Chicago, a 23-year-old man and his friends were hanging out at a playground with his friends when he was killed. I wonder what a 23-year-old was doing at a playground just hanging out at 10:30 in the morning with 15 or 20 of his friends (according to witnesses). He was just one of ten shooting victims in Chicago on Wednesday night. You know, the gun free zone of the Mid-West. Reddit counted that one, too.

Here’s one with four victims in Pine Hills, Florida, all survived, but the story was one of our feel good stories earlier and the four wounded people had all tried to rob a homeowner who blasted away at them until they ran down to the local gas station looking for medical help. Reddit counted that one as a mass shooting.

Anyone scrolling through our Feel Good Stories would get a better sense of the fact that firearms in this country do a lot more good than harm. We have had at least one incident everyday for the last three years that we’ve been keeping track of homeowners and store clerks who protect themselves from murderous criminals.

The Reddit headline readers and the Washington Post are trying to scare Americans into backing more useless legislation that won’t impact violent crime a whit. Their ultimate goal, of course, is to make us all defenseless victims dependent on an unresponsive government. The problem isn’t with the volumes of laws, it’s a government which doesn’t enforce the laws that they’ve already written – because it’s easier to write more laws, strip rights away from law-abiding citizens, than it is to enforce the laws they’ve already written.

In order to capitalize on Vester Flanagan’s murderous rampage yesterday, Hillary Clinton, the presidential candidate, promised supporters that she will be the President to end gun violence yesterday while she was on the campaign trail, according to the Washington Times;

“We have got to do something about gun violence in America — and I will take it on,” Mrs. Clinton said in an on-camera statement to reports while on campaign trail in Iowa.

[…]

Mrs. Clinton said that there was evidence that tougher gun laws would stop the gun violence, but gun-rights advocates dispute those claims.

[…]

“It happens every day and there is so much evidence that if guns were not so readily available, if we had universal background checks, if we could put some timeout between the person who is upset because he got fired or the domestic abuse or whatever other motivation may be working on someone who does this — that maybe we could prevent this kind of carnage,” Mrs. Clinton said.

“Tougher gun laws” translates to gun-bans. That’s how her husband did it. There are universal background checks, the three gun dealers from whom I bought firearms at gun shows all required that I go through background checks. The FBI admits that their interviews with criminals found that less than one percent had bought their firearms at gun shows. Has there ever been a mass-shooting incident where the gunman used a gun he bought at a gun show? It’s more likely that a criminal would buy their gun by lying on their federal form like the fellow in South Carolina earlier this year. Or from a guy in a dark parking lot.

As far as a “timeout” goes, didn’t Flanagan get fired from the TV station in February of 2013? So how much of a timeout are we looking at here, Hil? The Guardian reports that the TV station told Flanagan to seek mental health care in order to save his job. He didn’t, so there was no mental health flag on his NICS background check. You know, despite the fact that he wrote that he was a “powder keg” and about to “blow”.

Hillary had better check her demographics map – a third of American families have guns in their homes. There are enough privately-owned guns in the country to arm every American. Those kinds of stats are going to be tough to beat at the polls. Guess what? The majority of those guns are used legally every day in the country. Legal and law-abiding gun owners have done a great job of not shooting people…every day.

By the way, the number of women who own guns in the US has been climbing steadily in the past few years.

AFP reports that the first words out of the White House after the mindless murder by some disgruntled employee of a TV news team of two former co-workers yesterday, is an equally mindless call for more gun control.

“This is another example of gun violence that is becoming all too common in communities large and small all across the United States,” said spokesman Josh Earnest.

“There are some common sense things that only Congress can do that we know would have a tangible impact on reducing gun violence in this country,” he said.

“Congress could take those steps in a way that would not infringe on the constitutional rights of law abiding Americans.”

Yeah, so what would those steps be? Every commercial purchase of firearms in this country is bolstered by background checks, so what could be different and make the country safer? You know, and still not infringe on the constitutional rights of law abiding Americans? Just give an answer. this is a discussion, right? So. Let’s discuss.

AFP quotes past Obama comments on the subject.

He described the United States as the “one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense, gun-safety laws.”

You know, like France and Belgium that have laws against gun ownership to protect their citizens. Like those laws protected the French employees of Charlie Hebdo and the customers in the deli the next day. Like the gun laws that protected the museum goers at the Holocaust Museum in Brussels last Spring. Not to mention the fellow who smuggled weapons on the train last weekend in Brussels on his way to Paris.

Vester Flanagan, the shooter in yesterday’s tragedy, whose name was Bryce Williams when he was on the air, wasn’t balanced properly, according to people who knew him at the TV station in Virginia. From CNN;

Larell Reynolds, a former WDBJ employee, told CNN Williams was “not the best co-worker.”

“He couldn’t take criticism and he took it personally,” Reynolds said, adding that when Williams was let go he “threw a huge tantrum.”

“We were in a lockdown the day that he was fired, and a few days later we had police detail that kind of watched over the station,” he said.

[…]

According to [Orlando] Salinas, on Williams’ last day at the station, he created a “ruckus” and other employees moved to another room while police escorted him out of the building.

So, I guess that means that the new legislation should bar angry, black gays from purchasing firearms. That would have prevented Flanagan from purchasing a weapon, certainly, but what about the other angry, black gays who have no intention of ever going on a shooting spree. Or they could prevent people who purchase GoPro cameras from buying guns, because Flanagan used one during his shooting to film himself murdering people and he posted the video to his Facebook and Twitter accounts.

So we should ban angry, black, gay men who own GoPro cameras and have Facebook and Twitter accounts. But, we’re having a discussion here, right?

Pinto Nag sends us a link from CNN which reports that the Seattle, Washington city council has passed what they call a “gun violence tax” on the sales of guns and ammunition in the city;

The new law will impose a $25 tax on guns and a 5-cent tax on bullets sold within the city limits….The law is based on a similar $25 gun tax that passed in Cook County, Illinois, in 2013. The Seattle budget office estimates the law will raise $300,000 to $500,000 a year.

Funny thing about those projected tax revenue calculations – they never come to pass because lawmakers don’t understand how those taxes inhibit sales. Especially in a city, where prospective gun buyers can just drive a few extra miles and avoid paying the tax outside the jurisdiction of the city council.

I’m sure that the folks who sell guns in dark parking lots will voluntarily pay the tax, you know even though they won’t conduct background checks. Like most of these tax schemes, it punishes low income inner city residents who need the protection of a firearm more than most of us – forcing them to purchase their guns illegally without any oversight. Not to mention how this tax will punish legal gun dealers in the city limits who will suffer from reduced sales. But, other than all of those reasons, it’s a good idea /sarcasm.

This fellow, David Hemenway, a Harvard professor, writes in the LA Times about how statistically guns don’t make you safer in your home. He drags out the old canard that households with guns are more likely to have a suicide committed by someone with a gun and that households with guns keep the criminals supplied with firearms.

He claims that women aren’t necessarily safer with a gun because he could only find one woman who defended herself from an attacker with a gun out of 1100 cases he looked at…more than five years ago.

In terms of deterrence, a recent study found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership have higher levels of firearm crime and do not have lower levels of other types of crime.

Another study, in 2003, found that counties with higher levels of household gun ownership have higher rates of household burglary, not lower. Burglars like to steal not only cash and jewelry but also guns. A homeowner with a collection of firearms may not want to advertise that fact.

As for thwarting crime, gun advocates claim that guns are commonly used in self-defense, and that without a firearm, one is essentially at the mercy of a criminal. Yet, again, that is not what the data show.

Yeah, well, I troll through the news everyday looking for articles for our “feel good stories”. These stories are getting fewer and further between. But you know what hasn’t changed? Stories about families being tortured, tied up, and murdered because they don’t have a gun to protect themselves. Don’t believe me? Google “home invasion” and look at the “news” in the last 24 hours. There are more than 80 local stories about 93-year-olds knocked from their wheel chairs and beaten with a cane. Women who were tied up and raped in their own homes. A father shot in the head in front of his children. These stories come from across the country, but you don’t read about them, unless you’re looking for them.

We’ve been running these “feel good stories” about legal gun owners who successfully defended themselves and their families from criminals for more than three years, we’ve had at least one story everyday. That’s about 1100 stories, and probably 1099 more stories than David Hemenway read.

Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.

An Associated Press article reports that which most of us already suspected in regards to John Russell Houser’s possession of a handgun that he used last week in a Lafayette, Louisiana theater to murder two women and injure nine others before offing himself.

Houser was denied a concealed weapon permit by the local sheriff in 2006 because of charges against him about arson and domestic violence, even though he hadn’t been convicted of those charges. In 2008, he was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility by a judge, but it appears that information was never entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, upon which rests the safety and security of the American public.

Looking back at the shootings that have been in the media lately, it seems that the people who are the gatekeepers between nuts and their ability to purchase guns are failing us.

Jared Louchner, the fellow who shot Congresswoman Gabriella Giffords along with several others had numerous encounters with local authorities, but they never bothered to arrest him for his behavior, so when he went to buy a pistol, he sailed through the NICS process.

In Aurora, Colorado, James Holmes was being treated for his disorders by a professional who didn’t bother to tell anyone else that he was a public danger, so he was able to purchase several firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition without even a peep from the NICS folks.

At Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho had been treated since his junior high school days for anxiety disorders, he was ordered by a judge to treatment when he was caught stalking two girls at Virginia Tech, but because he wasn’t institutionalized, his disorders weren’t reported to the NICS folks.

At Sandy Hook, Adam Lanza had been treated for his mental illnesses for years, but again it was unreported to NICS and if he hadn’t been too impatient to wait out his three-day cooling off period, he probably would have been able to buy a gun instead of murdering his mother and stealing hers.

In Charleston, South Carolina, Dylann Roof lied on his federal firearms form, and because the report of his arrest for drug abuse and drug possession hadn’t yet made it to the folks at NICS, his purchase of a firearm was delayed only one day.

So, we now have people in Congress and local legislators calling for more extensive background checks for folks who buy firearms, you know, even though it is the system is broken, so we have to make sure that people who are legally allowed to buy guns must jump through more hoops, while the folks with evil intents won’t bother themselves with that process.

If I was a legislator, I’d find a way to force the healthcare and law enforcement communities do their jobs before I heap more restrictions on Americans. But, I’m not.

A couple of folks have sent us a link to the LA Times about the latest attempt by the White House to disarm Americans. Most of us know how they’ve disarmed some veterans that the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has determined are unable to manage their financial affairs. The Obama Administration now plans to do the same with Social Security recipients, entering the names of folks who aren’t particularly adept at paying their bills;

If Social Security, which has never participated in the background check system, uses the same standard as the VA, millions of its beneficiaries would be affected. About 4.2 million adults receive monthly benefits that are managed by “representative payees.”

The move is part of a concerted effort by the Obama administration after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., to strengthen gun control, including by plugging holes in the background check system.

But critics — including gun rights activists, mental health experts and advocates for the disabled — say that expanding the list of prohibited gun owners based on financial competence is wrongheaded.

Though such a ban would keep at least some people who pose a danger to themselves or others from owning guns, the strategy undoubtedly would also include numerous people who may just have a bad memory or difficulty balancing a checkbook, the critics argue.

“Someone can be incapable of managing their funds but not be dangerous, violent or unsafe,” said Dr. Marc Rosen, a Yale psychiatrist who has studied how veterans with mental health problems manage their money. “They are very different determinations.”

Well, since this crowd considers all gun owners to be dangerous, common sense won’t apply. The standard that the VA used to weed out veterans that they could place a flag on in the NICS background check system would be applied to Social Security recipients;

More than half of the names on the VA list are of people 80 or older, often suffering from dementia, a reasonable criterion for prohibiting gun ownership.

But the category also includes anybody found by a “court, board, commission or other lawful authority” to be lacking “the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs” for a wide variety of reasons.

Dementia, I can understand, along with folks who have contemplated suicide, but not people who can’t pay their bills, for Pete’s sake. I’ve heard from folks who tell me that having some bills on “auto-pay” has put them in that category. The example of a veteran whose wife has been put in charge of his financial affairs had his guns taken away by the VA is in the LA Times article.

But, I guess when your end game is to disarm the American People, any excuse will do just fine.