Republicans called for prayers
The Times is live-updating the latest Random Explosion of Carnage:
• Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said he would meet with state lawmakers to secure more funding for school safety and the treatment of mental illness. “If we have somebody that’s mentally ill, they can’t have access to a gun,” Mr. Scott said.
• The authorities said the AR-15 rifle that Mr. Cruz used in the attack was purchased legally. “No laws were violated in the procurement of this weapon,” said Peter J. Forcelli, the special agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Miami. In Florida, an AR-15 is easier to buy than a handgun.
It’s not about “mental illness,” it’s about horrifyingly easy access to weapons that should be reserved to the military.
• With the Parkland shooting, three of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern United States history have come in the last five months. Here is a graphic that records the grim toll of school shootings across the nation.
Three of the ten worst in just the last five months. Is it unreasonable to suspect that Trump’s encouragement of open expressions of hatred and contempt has a lot to do with it?
Democrats are repeating their calls for tougher gun legislation.
“At some point, we’ve got to say enough is enough,” Senator Bill Nelson of Florida said on the Senate floor. “Let’s talk about that 19-year-old carrying an AR-15. Let’s do what needs to be done, and let’s get these assault weapons off our streets. Let’s accomplish something on background checks.”
…
But in an interview on WIBC radio on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that public policymakers “shouldn’t just knee-jerk before we even have all the facts and the data.” He added, “We need to think less about taking sides and fighting each other politically, and just pulling together.”
But we do have the facts – unless there’s a huge fraud going on – that an assault rifle was used and that 17 people were killed. We also have relevant facts about previous shootings. I think those are relevant facts when we point out that without that kind of gun, an angry ex-student can’t kill as many people as easily. All these school shootings are school shootings – they involve guns, so yes, we do get to say that guns should not be so easy to get, especially the rapid-fire kinds of guns.
Some of the survivors implored Congress to finally take action. Republicans called for prayers, but argued that no single fix to the nation’s gun laws would deter a shooting like the one on Wednesday.
In what universe? If Cruz had been unable to get his hands on an AR-15 he would not have been able to shoot so many people.
Calling for prayers to halt mental illness calls to mind Author’s latest installment, on Irony Meters.
Well they hit the nail right on the head there. What is definitely needed is more bothering of God, who has been clearly asleep at the wheel. Like ‘Our Father, get your act together. Where the hell were you when all this was happening? You could have headed that kid off at the pass, but you didn’t.!
WHY NOT, FOR CHRISSAKE???’
Actually, it is open for Trump to set up a Federal Gun Victims’ Compensation Fund, financed by heavy taxes on firearms and ammunition. If you want the freedom to tote whatever, open carry or otherwise, then you help pay ALL of the real human cost of it.
Worth a try, surely.
“no single fix to the nation’s gun laws woud deter a shooting like the one on Wednesday”
Bullshit. The single fix would be the banning of not just the so-called ‘assault rifles’ but all semi-automatic and pump action firearms. These policies have been introduced successfully in other countries.
Sh!t RJW, your comment almost scared my pants dirty. “on Wednesday” was marked with a dotted underline, offering to add it to my calendar. No more such incidents, thanks! :-/
Hmmm, not having data being used as an excuse. Hasn’t the CDC been banned from collecting data about gun related violence. I certainly recall their was a move to do so.
A repeated pattern by right-wing and conservative groups is to:
Deny there is a problem
Admit there is a problem, but claim that there is no evidence linking X to the problem
Admit there is evidence linking X to the problem, but to claim it is controversial
Force government agencies to stop collecting and analysing data related to X
Claim there is a lack of evidence linking X to the problem.
Add to that the attacks on education (if you have an uneducated population, it’s much easier to blind them to reality) and on the media and you have a dangerous combination. Throw in the current attacks we see in the US on the rule of law, gerrymandering of political and judicial appointments and the contempt for the rule of law generally and it looks to me like you’re past the beginning of the breakdown of a civil society and well into a soft coup or the build up to a civil war.
Sad.
RJW @3, yes indeed. Australia is in fact a prime example of exactly that approach. No mass shootings since 1996 gun control laws were passed. Doesn’t ensure that there will never be mass shootings in the future, but it’s certainly telling. Theft of guns has also declined as a result of them now being locked away and few hand guns in circulation anyway.
Also the fact that other countries that have more restrictive gun laws don’t have as much problem with mass shootings – Rob’s comment re: Australia is, of course, a case in point.
But in this administration, well, it isn’t American evidence, so ignore, ignore, ignore.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/1816505358367917/?type=3&theater
Rob@6
Yes, and although the the NRA claims that Australians have been disarmed, that also is nonsense. The prohibition is on the type of weapon, not firearms. The gun control laws were promoted by a rather conservative PM against the objections of some rural rednecks and even more conservative state politicians.
As with the US, the states are the weak link.
iknklast,
“….it isn’t American evidence” indeed. It’s a similar situation to reform of the US health system, foreign evidence is irrelevant to many Americans.
Yet another tweet re: foreign health service. 3 days in hospital. The bill: 9 euro.
Rrr@10
I can top that. I have a blood cancer that requires regular, expensive hospital treatments. So far, after 3 years, the total bill is zero. Presumably in the US, I would be dead or bankrupt.
Vive l’Australie.
Rrr – clearly that must be a mistake. Fox News tells me that the average European has a horrible health experience, and can’t even get to go into the hospital, because…well, because Fox News says so, right? And they found one person in some country somewhere who was refused treatment for some reason that is never made clear to us (so they make one up), and that person gets trotted out over and over again to show how many people are unhappy with the European system, trusting that we won’t notice it’s usually the same people (sort of like the same 3-4 “scientists” they always call on for global warming denial).
Would Fox News lie to me? Oh, horrors!
/s
A couple retorts I use in these debates:
I suspect that argument was used 30 years ago. We could be done by now. Better late then never. Let’s get started now. That way, 30 years from now, people won’t still be having the same asinine argument.
Yes! Absolutely! Another way to say the same thing is: “But if you outlaw guns, then possessing a gun will make you an outlaw.” Today, discerning outlaws from law-abiding citizens amounts to, “let’s wait to see who starts killing a bunch of people.” Today, law enforcement officers are powerless to do anything but wait for, and react to, this kind of bloodshed. Today, Nicholas Cruz was a law-abiding citizen, right up to the moment these high schoolers started dying.
If guns are outlawed, at least there’s some possibility of catching & disarming the outlaws without using the “are they shooting a bunch of kids?” litmus test.
My daughter and I were talking this afternoon and came to the conclusion that those who want to keep their 2nd. amendment rights should be allowed to do so, on the condition that they can only bear arms of the type available to the writers of the constitution.
RJW, despite our problems it has to be said that living in Australia and NZ really is paradise. Well, maybe not quite in Australia where everything that moves is poisonous and /or wants to eat you. Our politicians are mostly sensible and some of them are decent humans. You can own a gun and go hunting or target shooting and no-one lives in fear of being shot (and very few live in fear of the gummint coming to get them). Major health care is to all intents and purposes free and in New Zealand if you have an accident, medical expenses and a percentage of income is met from near universal insurance paid for by levies on personal income and direct from businesses. Hell, we can’t even sue for compensatory damages in NZ where you are eligible for cover under the accident compensation scheme.
AoS, I think they should all be shipped to a desert island where there is enough food and water for 10% of their number. Unlimited ammo of course.
Actually, I don’t think that, but I’m allowed the odd uncharitable thought right?
Rob @15
Agreed, except for the offensive remark about Australian wildlife. You’re just envious because NZ doesn’t have any wildlife, except for a few birds.
It’s not a wise policy to be complacent, conservative governments here in Oz still try to sabotage our social democratic institutions.
Eternal vigilance is required comrade.
“… I think they should all be shipped to a desert island where there is enough food and water for 10% of their number. Unlimited ammo of course.”
Screw the ammo; let them have pointed sticks. Why make it easy on/for them?
RJW @ 15. Heeey, we have animals. Well, we have some lizards. And bugs, definitely bugs, plus spiders, only one of which is poisonous, but it keeps to its self instead of moving in and eating your children.
You’re quite right about politicians. One of the happier days of my life was when Barnaby Joyce was ruled to be no longer a New Zealander.
Vigilance indeed! See you on the barricades [raised fist salute]
My son has been arguing online with people who believe the answer is to arm teachers. He has tried to discuss it rationally, but they shoot him down with emotional arguments, like “don’t you want your kids to be safe if they are in school?” I’ve decided that, if you want your kid to be safe in school, move to a sane country.
The problem isn’t just the amount of guns. That’s huge, but the problem is deeper than that. It is a gun culture. It is a culture that believes that what they see in the movies is the way things really work. When John Wayne or Clint Eastwood whips out a gun and utterly destroys a group of gun and knife-wielding bad guys, blows on the barrel, and puts the gun away, it looks so easy, and so cool. The lone hero motif is so common here, and it is nearly always a lone hero who has a gun and is up against a person or persons who are more heavily armed. A few well placed shots, they fall, he pulls a tourniquet around the arm bearing the single gunshot wound he received from all those flying bullets, and the credits roll. “A good guy with a gun”. This is a stupid, fact-free view of the world, and it shocks me how many people believe the story. Oh, they don’t think movies are literally real, but they believe that the underlying truth is there – the west was totally filled with guns, everyone kept shooting everyone else, and then some big silent hero rode in and saved everyone. That isn’t true, it was never true, it was a much more complicated story than that, but we were all raised on it, and most of us drank that Kool-Aid. I hated Westerns and movies of that sort from the earliest point I can remember, and I never really thought that the good guy was all that good. He was usually an obnoxious sort who treated women badly, refused to partake of the social life of the region, and just went around shooting anyone he disagreed with. That seemed a bad sort of guy to me, not a good guy. But I was utterly alone in my family in thinking that, and I still am.
If we are going to solve this problem, we have to get rid of the guns, but we also have to change the narrative. It’s the same damn narrative that drives the myth of the alpha male and misogynistic men who drag women by their hair back to their man-cave and force her to be their sex slave and their cook. It’s a narrative that is strangely appealing to people, and I suspect it’s like the God narrative. There is somewhere a being of immense power who will save us, no matter how horrifying the situation, no matter how stupid we’ve been, no matter how big the mess. For too many, that immense power now means having a gun near by.
It’s time to write a new story. Then maybe we won’t have to write so many obituaries for kids who have barely started living yet.
Rob@19
More exaggeration. We have a simple rule-of-thumb with spiders, if the cat disappears, there’s a problem.
As to ‘Barnaby beetroot” another pious hypocritical bible basher has been outed.
From Mendelsohn’s Elijah:
‘Call first upon your god, your numbers are many. I, even I only, remain one prophet of the Lord. Invoke your forest gods, and mountain deities.’
[…]
‘Call him louder, for he is a god! He talketh, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey; or, peradventure, he sleepeth: so awaken him! Call him louder, call him louder!’
[…]
‘Call him louder! He heareth not. With knives and lancets cut yourselves after your manner. Leap upon the altar ye have made, call him and prophesy! Not a voice will answer you: none will listen, none heed you.’
Several stories I read described the school in the aftermath of the shooting as “a war zone.” That might suggest the results of an actual battle between two opposing armed forces exchanging gunfire (which is what the NRA would would recommend). In this instance, and in most school shootings, I believe the more appropriate analogy would be “slaughterhouse.”
Sorry to be an utter cynic, but I don’t think there is any solution to this.
Forget about Bibles, red-necks and Charleton Heston a moment .
Canada has severe restriction on gun ownership, but that didn’t stop Gamil Gharbi ( *Marc Lepine*) from shooting 14 women. His gun was illegal then, still is and always will be.
The high powered guns used to kill nealy a hundred at The Bataclan in Paris were illegal as well.
That guy in Dunblaine Scotland killed 20 some kids a few years back armed only with a butcher knife.
And the jihadist on the Promenade des Anglais didn’t have a gun at all, but still killed some 80 people by just promenading them over with a big, dumb ole truck.
On 911 nihilist jihadists flew airplanes into tall buildings killing thousands. Should we have called for a ban on jihadists, airplanes, tall buildings, or perhaps just nihilists as a response?
A gun is a weapon. Many, MANY anodine objects can easily be transformed into very, VERY deadly weapons. Violent psychopaths, hell-bent on committing mass murder, can get extremely creative when it comes to improvising weapons.
The only reasonable thing to do would be to intensify the registration of legal firearms AND those who buy them…naturally…and to go after the flouishing black market in high-powered weapons.
That and keeping much tighter tabs on the mentally ill.
John,
Wow, that’s quite the … uh… interesting argument you’ve got there.
Some people break laws, therefore laws are pointless? Sure, and while we’re at it, John, let’s repeal the laws against drunk driving, because some people continue to break them. And restaurants violate the health codes all the time, so might as well dispense with those as well.
It also takes a special kind of disingenuity to draw international comparisons in this area without noting the big ugly fact that America has a disproportionately high number of these mass killings on a per capita basis. Yep, you can find a couple in Canada, Scotland, France, Australia, etc., but in those countries such things are huge aberrations, not so common that there’s a standard song-and-dance we all know and mock. (“Thoughts and prayers.” “Too soon — can’t make a knee-jerk reaction.” “If only there’d been a good guy with a gun there!”) And what explains this glaring difference between America and other countries when it comes to mass killings? Well, just maybe it’s the dramatic difference in gun laws?
And bonus points for referring to Marc Lepine by the name he hadn’t used since he had it legally changed at age 14. Especially since you go on to refer to the Scottish murderer as just “that guy.” I guess “Thomas Hamilton” isn’t scary-sounding enough.
John, we have registration laws for people flying airplanes. We have registration laws for cars. You could even kill someone with an attack dog; we have registration laws for dogs. In some places, they have outlawed certain types of dogs (pit bulls, usually). When someone is killed or even harmed by a dog, they will hunt down the dog and destroy it. When someone is killed, harmed, or often even scared by a wild animal, say a bear, they will often hunt down and kill all animals of that type they can find. Obtaining certain poisons requires filling out paperwork.
Yes, people can turn anything into a weapon. Some people turn their fists into weapons, or their bare hands. Their feet. Mushrooms. But…the easiest weapon for killing a lot of people in a short amount of time, while minimizing your own risk, is to pick up a gun, preferably semi-automatic to maximize killing potential, hide somewhere, and start shooting. Shoot from windows. From trees. From the tops of buildings. From anywhere or everywhere that there are lots of people. Short of bombs, there are no other weapons that can have the same potential.
Running a car through a crowd will have some horrifying effects, but you have to get close to the people, you have to see their faces, you have to experience the feel of them hitting your car or driving over them or something else. It cannot be impersonal. A knife attack cannot be impersonal. Fists cannot be impersonal. Poisons maybe, but their efficacy is limited. You can only poison someone if you can get access to something they will consume, or are able to give them an injection.
Guns can depersonalize the experience, and remove the reality of the common humanity of your victim, in a way nothing else can, except bombs.
Yet we register most of the other things you talk about. We license their users. And no one says that we should have the right to drive without such licensing (well, almost no one – there are the Ammon Bundy’s of the world, a man who felt he needed no license, no registration, nothing). People don’t suggest that everyone has a right to fly an airplane no matter what. They are quite accepting of laws that prohibit the keeping of wild animals in your house, and will often be quite outraged at the person who violates that law.
Your argument is disingenuous and fatuous.
John you should watch this bit of video from a student’s phone:
https://twitter.com/ycriii/status/964273116716421120
That way you can see what a lot of slaughter Cruze was able to cause with his AR-15, and the effect it had on a few of the surviving students.
Warning for everyone else: it’s wrenching. I watched it twice, because I feel as if it’s a sort of duty to try to see a tiny bit of what it was like, but that’s just me.
Rrr,
The horrors of socialized medicine. Medications are usually subsidised by the Ferderal government.
I’ve just been supplied with a drug to counter the side effects of treatment.
3 months supply of the medication cost me $6.40. Unsubsidised the cost is $5850. Naturally I need another drug to counter the side effects of that drug—-another $6.40
RJW – I think I hate you – I have medicine that is covered by what is considered extremely good insurance here in the states – I am paying over $125 a month for just one of the 7 medicines it requires right now to keep me alive. (others range in price from $5 to $80). I am so glad I don’t have to deal with the horrors of subsidized medicines! :-(
After the Christchurch earthquake we put up an elderly American couple for the night. They had only the clothes they stood in. As soon as the doctors opened the next day I had them in there to get all their prescription medicines replaced. Between the two of them they left the pharmacy with a shopping bag full to the brim of everything they needed. NZ$50 for the doctors visit and I think it was about another NZ$40 for the whole bag of drugs. They said the equivalent prescription in the US would have had a co-pay of US$900. I’ll keep my socialised medicine thank you very much. Especially as we have a longer life expectancy than the US. Not sure whether that’s because we don’t have as much gun violence, more effective and accessible health care or the absence of death panels.
iknklast @29
I didn’t realise you’re in a similar situation to me, good luck.
I understand and I’m sure you hate your country’s health system as well. I mentioned that I was comparing the relative advantages of health systems and Australia’s PBS with Americans and asked the pharmacist who dispensed the drug what its true cost is.
iknklast,
I forgot to mention that Australia has reciprocal agreements with other socialized medicine countries. This usually means that citizens of one country don’t pay the full cost of medical treatment when they’re visiting another country that’s party to the agreement.
#19 Rob
Wait wait wait wait WAIT a MINNIT. Barnaby Joyce is a Noo Zullunda? I knew there was something fishy about him!
#24 John
I really don’t understand the point of your post. No one here would dispute that non-weapons can become improvised weapons, and no one would dispute that banning something doesn’t prevent 100% of crimes involving that something. I think, maybe, you are arguing against a total gun ban, but I do not see anyone arguing for that here, and none of the nations held up as examples for USA to follow have implemented that.
Who or what are you arguing against?
Just this Thursday in Vermont the authorities arrested an 18 year old male who’d expessed a burning desire to shoot up the local highschool in order to kill the maximum of people.
The shooting in Florida was what prompted the local police to take immediate action, and in doing so they no doubt nixed what would have been a carbon copie crime
Turns out the kid had been institutionalised for 18 months because of mental health issues and had only recently been released.
He had gone off his meds.
.
You can pass all the gun laws you want (Canada has) but when it comes to shooting up a high school in Florida, an army base at Fort Hood or a mosque in Québec City, people who are psycho don’t pay much attention to those laws.
The mental issues of the chap in Florida had been signaled to authorities umpteen douzen times, but nothing was done and 17 died.
Ditto for the guy in Vermont, but in his case authorities DID act and no one was killed.
The gun laws in both Florida and Vermont are basically the same.
@27
No thanks. I’ve seen videos of the aftermath at Bataclan,
Holmes @33, Nothing to do with us mate. He was born in Aussie, but entitles to NZ citizenship by decent. He’s since formally renounced that. It’s great to see an anti-immigrant family values wanker exposed as such a raving hypocrite. Sone of immigrants and having an affair, all while preaching marriage is sacred and keep immigrants (including New Zealanders) out.
John @34, sure, the sad, mad and the bad don’t respect or think much of the law. That’s universal. However, if laws restrict the availability of guns generally, and in particular hand guns and military style weapons, they are effective regardless. You can witter on as much as you like, the empirical evidence is in. Effective gun laws work. They also lead to a diminishment of gun culture generally. I suspect that’s what the NRA is really afraid of.