Stat Of The Day

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More Americans were shot to death by March 6 this year than died on D-Day https://t.co/JrGF4XKPvk pic.twitter.com/7epXWESF6Y

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 6, 2019

Time For A Gun Debate Now, Giant Toddler?

You may have seen this part of Giant Toddler Donald "Rump" Trump's inane tweetstorm on the terror attack in London Saturday, in which 7 were killed and dozens injured:

Do you notice we are not having a gun debate right now? That's because they used knives and a truck!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2017

Then this morning in Orlando, Florida an all- too- familiar scene:

A 45-year-old man shot and killed five people at his former workplace in an industrial area near Orlando Monday morning before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide, authorities said. 

At a press conference later Monday, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said the suspect worked for Fiamma Inc., an RV accessory company where the incident took place, until he was fired in April. 

“He was a disgruntled employee that came back to this business this morning,” Demings told reporters, adding that there was no indication the shooter had any links to terrorism. 

“This is likely a workplace violence incident. We will get more into the details of the investigation as it unfolds,” Demings said. 

Demings identified the shooter as John Robert Neumann Jr., a white 45-year-old U.S. Army veteran who was discharged in 1999. He lived alone and has no family in the area, he said.

We await the Giant Toddler's tiny fingers pounding out a tweet initiating a debate on gun violence any moment now.

(Image: Some use guns, some use knives and a truck; the Giant Toddler has his own means/ via Wonkette)

President Obama Takes Executive Action To Curb Gun Violence

Here's an emotional excerpt from President Obama's remarks today on executive actions to curb gun violence:



For the White House fact sheet on specific actions being taken, go here.

"The Gun Epidemic"

The New York Times publishes its first front page editorial in nearly 100 years, and it's about gun violence in America and those who foster it.  Here's an excerpt:

All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.  (our emphasis)

Let's pause to note that those "elected leaders... who place a higher premium" on campaign donations and stoking voter turnout than our safety are, with a few grotesque exceptions, Republicans.  Let's also pause to note the "industry dedicated to profiting" from the carnage is not about hunters, sportsmen or collectors - it's about the gun manufacturing industry and their spokestoadies, the National Rifle Gun Manufacturers Association.

Unfortunately, politicians who want to take on the gun terrorist lobby are seeing the effects of a decades- long campaign of lies and distortions ("the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun", ergo buy a gun!) by the gun terrorist lobby and their Republican stooges that's making their task more difficult than ever:

About half [52%] of all Americans oppose stricter gun control laws, a larger segment of the population than those who support tighter controls on guns, according to a new CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday.  (our emphasis)

Let's note that poll was taken three weeks after the mass shootings in Roseburg, Oregon, in October that left 9 people dead.  The epidemic is on us and it's spreading because, instead of tackling the problem head on, a majority of us are coming up with the wrong answers.

Today's Cartoon - Another Moment Of Silence, Please

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(Steve Benson, via gocomics.com)

See also post below.

It Wasn't Always Like This

Remember when this happened in 1994?

... a United States federal law [was enacted] that included a prohibition on the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms it defined as assault weapons, as well as certain ammunition magazines it defined as "large capacity."

The ten-year ban was passed by the U.S. Congress on September 13, 1994, and signed into law by President Bill Clinton the same day. The ban only applied to weapons manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment, and it expired on September 13, 2004, in accordance with its sunset provision.

Several constitutional challenges were filed against provisions of the ban, but all were rejected by reviewing courts. There were multiple attempts to renew the ban, but none succeeded.

During the decade since the ban expired, Congress has become all the more beholden to/ afraid of the National Rifle Gun Manufacturers Association, perhaps the single most evil advocacy organization in the world.  The N.R.A.'s Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid/ Shooter's Party has a lock on the House of Representatives that may last another generation.  So what are the odds even the most minimal, common sense legislation -- on background checks or limiting assault weapons or magazine capacity -- will emerge from Congress?

It's all the more frustrating and bittersweet knowing we had something reasonable and good, and it slipped away.

Politicizing Gun Deaths - Speaker Boehner's Admission

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(Clay Jones, www.claytoonz.com)

From the New York Times, via Daily Kos:

Senior Republican officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing confidential conversations, said that Mr. Boehner had long been suspicious of the administration’s handling of the attacks and that Mrs. Clinton’s emails gave him a way to keep the issue alive and to cause political problems for her campaign. But he thought that the task was too delicate to entrust to others and that it should remain with Mr. Gowdy, the former prosecutor.

Of course, just as this and this didn't do it, this nugget buried deep in the Times article won't stop the Republicans' politicization of the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi!!! or cause this on- going fiasco to be righteously hammered in the media.  No, Republicans are too invested, and there are too many Republican- wired folks in the media who are also depending on it to continue.  Exhibit A is the ever- awful Chris Cillizza, political horse race tout of the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle, who is positively goading Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley or somebody, please! to bring up the email "controversy" =cough= bullshit =cough= in tomorrow night's Democratic candidate debate:

The important question in this debate is one that is out of her hands. How hard do any of her opponents go after her, and on what? Does the controversy over her e-mail server come up? If so, who does the attacking, and how negative (if at all) does Clinton go in return?

This fool, emblematic of our puerile, superficial media, will be watching for attacks on Hillary Clinton, who'll "go after her, and on what." Yes, that's truly the "important question in this debate."  Hopefully the cast of Democratic debaters will disappoint him and the other shit- stirrers in the media and their Republican Party handlers by refusing to be sidetracked by this concocted "controversy."

Meanwhile, the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and tens of thousands of others due to gun violence every year in America continues to be dishonored by these despicable, amoral clowns.

American Gun Violence In One Chart

This chart was prepared as part of a report by the Center for American Progress, and shows the deaths from all wars America has been engaged in since 1776 and deaths from gun violence just since the end of the Reagan Administration (h/t Mother Jones).

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Are we a civilized nation?  This chart argues that we're not.

Popping Off

First, two related news items, via Raw Story:

• Four wedding guests at New York's Waldorf Astoria were injured when a gun carried by another guest accidentally discharged, spraying shards from the floor.  A gun at a wedding?  Maybe the families don't get along.
• Colorado resident Adam Hirtle is a curious man (in more ways than one).  He was curious about what it felt like to shoot oneself in the foot…so he did.  The NRA needs to create a special award for him.

Finally, yesterday's shooting at Dallas Police Headquarters by a deranged man driving an armored van ended in his death.  The man had a history of delusion and criminal charges, including assaults on family members.  His access to weapons begs the question of why we allow the deranged and the felons that access.

UPDATE:  Then there's this murderous open-carry dimwit whose only mark in life will be that he took another's in cold blood.

Another Day, Another Gun Massacre

This time the massacre occurred in Hialeah, Florida where a gunman took hostages and ended up killing 6 before being shot by a S.W.A.T. team. It wasn't that long ago when multiple killings were front page news for days.  Now, thanks to a cynical numbness promoted by the National Rifle Rampage Association and their paid political shills, it's become a mundane story.  It barely makes a wave.

After the Sandy Hook massacre, the consensus was that now, finally, there would be some common sense reforms including background checks and limits on gun magazines.  Not so.  Clearly, the NRA thinks they've won, and perhaps they've won the last battle, but the tide has turned and the new generation won't abide this sanctioned murder, any more than they abide racial or gender discrimination.

Today's Headlines

Assembled by the Huffington Post this afternoon:

GUNS IN AMERICA: Indiana Man Arrested With 47 Guns After Threatening Local School... Gunman Kills 3 In Alabama... Shooter Opens Fire In California Mall Parking Lot... HOTEL HORROR: Murder-Suicide On Vegas Strip... Man Accidentally Shoots Himself While Playing With Gun... Chicago Man Shot Dead... North Carolina Man Fatally Shoots Wife, Elderly Mother-In-Law...