You would think this would be 24/7 headline news, but it isn’t. The terrorist takeover began Sunday morning, but the regular news outlets barely covered it. Only on Twitter was it discussed at any length, thanks to the hashtag #OregonUnderAttack. Now that it is a regular non-holiday workday, the media is starting to report it. Before then, the only real … Read More
What The Tamir Rice Incident Reveals About Open Carry Gun Laws
So much yes from Charles Pierce in Esquire: There certainly is no point in emphasizing the damn irony that Ohio is an “open carry” state so, even if the cops assumed Rice was 18, and they also assumed his gun was real, they had no cause even to stop him, let alone open fire. Listen to the spiel that Wayne … Read More
All We Are Saaaaaaying… Is Give Mass Shootings A Chance.
LOLwut? Open-carry activists plan to stage a mock mass shooting Saturday at the University of Texas at Austin to protest gun-free zones on campus. The Open Carry Walk and Crisis Performance Event will have actors “shot” by fake shooters with cardboard weapons and the sounds of gunshots via a bullhorn, according to the Austin American-Statesman. A walk down a street … Read More
Thoughts and Prayers
There seems to be a backlash to this almost reflexive (and increasingly meaningless) response to mass shootings, best exemplified by the cover of today’s New York Daily News: There has also been a backlash to the backlash. Christians got offended at what is being called “thoughts and prayers shaming”. The Weekly Standard offered a headline that blared,“Liberal Outrage Over Prayers … Read More
The San Bernadino Shootings: Terrorism Or Not?
Here’s what we know about the shooters: They have been identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27. Farook was an environmental specialist who had worked for the county health department for five years. Farook attended a holiday party for county employees earlier that day. Farook left the party under circumstances that were decribed by witnesses as “angry” … Read More
Today’s Mass Shooting: San Bernadino, California
Breaking news 2:46 pm EST: 12 reported dead, many injured. Some reports include a second and even third shooter. Related: 2:55 pm: The building where the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., was reported provides services for developmentally disabled people, according to its website Dozens of civilians being evacuated right now. Hands up… #PD being very cautious and still searching for suspects. … Read More
Breaking: Armed Gunman AT UNC – Chapel Hill [UPDATE: All Clear]
Multiple reports but still unconfirmed: ALERT CAROLINA TIMELY WARNING: Unconfirmed report of armed person near ROTC Building / Venable Hall 12/02/2015, 8:57 a.m. Unconfirmed report of armed person near ROTC Building / Venable Hall ALERT CAROLINA TIMELY WARNING: Unconfirmed report of armed person near ROTC Building / Venable Hall UNC Chapel Hill Police are investigating the report of an armed … Read More
Planned Parenthood Shooting Is Domestic Terrorism
I’ve been vacationing and the holidays and yada yada, so there’s been light blogging lately. The big news that I missed was a terrorist attack here on the United States, although whether to call it a “terrorist attack” seems to be arguable. I’m talking of course about the shooter at Planned Parenthood. On Saturday, November 27, a shooting and five-hour … Read More
Thank You, Gun Nuts
Did you hear the one about the guy in Colorado walking around a quiet neighborhood with a rifle in plain sight, and an observant woman called 911 and was told by the 911 dispatcher that Colorado had an open carry law so they couldn’t stop him? And then he shot and killed three people, all of which might have been prevented if … Read More
Kids And Guns
This is Sean Smith when he was 10. Hes with his little sister Erin, age eight. This photo was taken the day before he unintentionally shot and killed her. There are around 110 fatal shootings involving children under 14 each year, according to a new study. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that at least another 1,000 are shot … Read More
A Tweet From 2009 Could Haunt Rubio
I’ve always seen Marco Rubio as one of the few “serious” GOP candidates and one who could pose an actual challenge to HRC. But this tweet of his from 2009 is very… uh… Carsonesque. What a dumb thing to tweet. It originally was published in the midst of the June 2009 protests stemming from allegations of elections fraud and the violent … Read More
Fox News Moron Doubles Down With Dr. Carson: Stupid Jews Could Have Taken The Nazis
Yes, the European Jews were just a bunch of pants-wetting pansies back in the thirties: Dr. Ben Carson recently asserted that if guns had not been confiscated from Jews then Hitler would have had more trouble orchestrating the Holocaust. Jonathan Greenblatt, National Director of the Anti-Defamation Leauge, quickly objected, stating that there were few firearms available to Jews in Germany … Read More
Today In Campus Mass Shootings
(1) One dead, three wounded at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. (2) Two people shot (UPDATE: one killed, one wounded) at Texas Southern University – happening now — school on lockdown; shooter on the loose. (UPDATE: 2 now in custody; 1 still being sought) Arizona and Texas have very lax gun laws. Just sayin’ Two campus shootings today, and we’re at the … Read More
Megan McArdle Should Stop Thinking… And Writing
Daily Beast columnist Megan McArdle has figured it out. The mass shooting problem. We don’t have to debate it anymore. In a long screed at the Daily Beast entitled “There’s Little We Can Do to Prevent Another Massacre”, McArdle goes through all the proposals out there — banning certain guns, taxing or banning ammunition, greater checks on the mentally ill, etc. … Read More
The Ones You Don’t Hear About
It’s only dumb luck, rather than laws, that prevents more mass shootings: A day before a gunman in Oregon killed eight classmates and his college writing teacher, Tuolumne County sheriff’s detectives foiled a plot by students to go on a shooting rampage at their high school near Yosemite National Park, authorities said. The Summerville Union High School students, all male, … Read More