It’s another shooting in which the debunking of the NRA’s slogan about good guys and guns is debunked again amid more death at the hands of gun crazies.
Two police officers, aka, good guys with guns, were killed in a Las Vegas pizzeria by a bad guy and a bad woman with a gun. One of the police officers managed to fire back before he died.
After killing the good guys with guns who were eating lunch at the pizzeria, the man and the woman, jumped in their car to gun down more people at a Walmart. According to the LA Times, a witness heard the male murderer shouted “The revolution is about to start.”
One witness, said he heard three shots fired. One bullet killed a shopper, before the bad women with a gun shot and killed her male partner before turning the gun on herself.
Stories about bad people with guns killing people are happening with increasing frequency. It’s at the point that too many of us, probably just glaze over the story in a search for “real news.”
The first time I wrote about a shooting was Sandy Hook. At the time, I wrote through tears for the most innocent victims of what was, in reality, an avoidable tragedy. I hoped that Sandy Hook would bring even the hardest core Teabaggers to realize the need for sensible gun regulations a: are necessary b: are not a violation of the second amendment. Even the Tea Party’s best friend on the Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, recognized that sensible gun regulation is compatible with the second amendment. The tears still flowed as I wrote about a Nazi’s massacre at a Jewish Community Center and a Jewish Retirement home and as I read about the role of gun culture commbined with misogyny in the Santa Barbara massacre.
The naivety and hope have been replaced with the recognition that there is no reasoning with the unreasonable. As long as we give the NRA leadership a free pass by calling them a lobby group, we are giving them legitimacy. The reality is the NRA leadership promotes policies like open carry that enable domestic terrorists to terrorize people at restaurants, ball parks, schools, churches and anywhere else civilized people congregate. If the NRA’s leadership are not merely enablers, they are collaborators.
Yes, most members of the NRA are people who support sensible gun regulations. They recognize that factually speaking, more gun deaths occur in “stand your ground” states than in states that resisted jumping that shark. They recognize that instead of being number one in science, or in preserving a strong and vibrant middle class, we are left with being the number one country for per capita gun ownership.
The NRA leadership, makes a ton of money promoting a gun culture in which every man, woman and child is brandishing a gun, well except for “smart guns.” The NRA’s active lobbying against smart guns is a red flag that that their concerns are not with people having a right to defend their homes and families, but rather with advancing the wild west mentality espoused by gun crazed maniacs like Ted Nugent.
The NRA leadership initially said it recognized that brandishing guns in family restaurants is taking second amendment “rights” beyond even the broadest stretch of a sane imagination. But, it didn’t take long before the NRA backed down to the sociopathic terrorists who brandish those weapons. They do it because they want to instill a culture of fear among people who recognize that there is something off about a person who brandishes a semi-automatic weapon at a restaurant. These are the same people who freak out about policies to address domestic terrorism and view the constitution as a document of privileges that provide Teabaggers with the freedumb to impose their doctrine, their religion and their “values” on everyone else.
The second amendment is not a right to terrorize civilized Americans in every public place. People with a history of violence shouldn’t have guns. People who believe that terrorism is justifiable in the name of advancing a “conservative” utopia shouldn’t have guns either.
While we do need to address mental illness, teabaggers within the Republican Party are using mental illness as a shiny object to divert our attention from the need for responsible gun policy.
It’s also a form of stigmatizing people with mental illnesses who, in reality, are more likely to be victims of gun violence than perpetrators. Perhaps it’s possible that people who are emotionally dependent on guns to demonstrate their masculinity are mentally ill. If so, let’s have that discussion. However, even if we have that discussion and we address mental illness, that in isolation is not a substitute for sensible gun policies.
At what point, do we recognize that gun culture is a factor? When can we discuss the role that greed by gun manufacturers plays in the promotion of that culture, and efforts to obstruct responsible gun policy? At what point do we recognize the relationship between a high gun ownership and increased gun related violence?
The reality is this isn’t about “using or losing” the second amendment. The people who strap their semi-automatic weapons on their backs then go to a child’s baseball game, a restaurant or a church do so for one reason: to terrorize. It’s the same politics of terror that we rightfully condemn when used by people and organizations we call terrorists.
After the Santa Barbara killing, the gun nuts declared war on sanity, civility and freedom by stating what we already know. They believe their “right” to own and brandish their guns trumps our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but hey, they’re really sorry for your loss.
It’s presented to us as an absolute right to defend home and family – except if you’re a women, as Marissa Alexander can attest or a young black man as Trayvon Martin’s family wishes he was around to attest. It’s an absolute right reserved to white men who feel threatened by young black men, whether they are wearing hoodies or listening to music.
It’s way past time for sensible gun regulation, but it’s also past time that we recognize the difference between conservative politics and fascist style terrorism.
Image: SF Gate
Former contributor.
Seriously, these people are probably ALL sitting on a stockpile of guns, ammo and MRE’s. And probably shouldn’t: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzKg5FkO4ug
Lets put this in perspective. According to reports hung out at the Bundys. They believe in white supremacy. They ambushed two police officers and murdered a innocent bystander before they committed suicide. First couldn’t they just committed the suicide part first? Second why are not the MSM covering this wall to wall? And third when will sane gun owners in the NRA start speaking out against this lunacy and now we have the KKK opening up combat training camps Inside The Ku Klux Klan: KKK Explain Their Plan For Expansion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D10Y_35p98
Its is time to put a end to this madness
While the NRA are a party to this tragedy, we must also lay blame on right wing media like Fox News. Fox has showcased these anti-government white supremacists on every show they air. This ends up perpetuating the growth of the movement and the vitriolic rhetoric that motivates these gun nuts to act. Both the NRA and Fox News have a lot of blood on their hands today. When will it stop?
Well, they were tea partiers after all, what can you expect.
I see there are a lot of downvotes but nothing to refute what anyone is saying. Just like those criminals you people are cowards. Go slink back down the hole you came from. Sooner or later the American will get fed up and then you will know what gun grabbing really is about.
Where’s the outrage from the right? Where’s the condemnation? They broke their collective necks rushing to judge a soldier, one single soldier who…while fighting a real war..evidently became overwhelmed. This fake war on rights is just this side of the threshold of revolution, being encouraged by the far right, even applauded in some circles, and yet not one of them will speak out against it. Not until one of them cowers in fear in a Walmart will it become real.
That is the point we have to make over and over. Fox News and company are presenting an alternative reality over and over until some of these uneducated/ undereducated people believe absolutely in this reality. The Fox reality is a very scary place. Fear generates anger because they are unable to change this scary reality. Anger leads to the violence we are seeing. The “gun nuts” truly believe that Mr. Obama is going to take their guns away in the face of zero evidence. If they allow even the mildest of gun control measures, their guns will be taken away.
They thought Clinton was going to take them too. They were convinced Clinton would take them, and now once again they are convinced Obama will take them.
This shows the intelligence level of the gun nut. When bamboozeled during the clinton years by the nra, they now bow down and ask for it to happen again
They always say the good guy with the gun will stop the bad guy with a gun. Well there were two good guys with guns, having lunch, and now they are dead. So what’s the next theory from the NRA?
The government needs to start rounding up these tea party clowns with their “Don’t tread on me flags.” Bundy ranch would be a good place to start.
Yet there 2nd Amendment lovers are the very first people who are yelling and screaming about how everyone in jails and prisons should live standing in piles of poop and not be fed. They’re the first ones who want to “shoot all criminals” or love the death penalty.
I personally think that if they don’t want to follow the 8th amendment they shouldn’t be able to have the 2nd amendment. They seem to think that because they think all criminals, no matter if they just had a small amount of drugs or didn’t pay traffic fines, deserve to be treated like subhumans “because they broke the law”, so I think that if they’re so ready to just toss out the 8th amendment they don’t deserve to carry on and on about their right to own guns.
That’s It. I Am Coming Home.
The NRA has made mass killings normal in this country. I’m coming home from years of serving my country overseas to help stop it.
This is too much. We have Tea Party political activists shooting cops from behind, in the head, then covering their dead bodies with the Tea Party “Gadsden” flag and shouting, “The Revolution begins now!”
No. I am coming home. I need to be there and be part of the solution. Moms Demand Action is getting some traction, but they can use the lean-in of a few U.S. Army Airborne Infantry Rangers. I am only sorry that I did not stand up to this threat to our nation before. I am sorry. I was busy.
Read More
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/i-am-coming-home
I heard a guy insist yesterday that when the “revolution” comes, the military will be on their side. Delusional fantasies.
Better of without ’em.
I was just reading that when the police went to shooters house and began talking to the neighbors, the neighbors confirmed that they were radicals. That they seen them with a grocery cart full of weapons. That they told the neighbors they were looking to kills police officers. So none of these neighbors had the brains, guts, something to call the police?
If my neighbor is pushing a cart load of weapons down the street saying they want to kill people I am dialing 911. I find that absolutely incredible.
Las Vegas shooter confirmed to be participant in Bundy Ranch standoff
confirmed-to-be-participant-in-Bundy-Ranch-standoff
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/09/1305609/-Las-Vegas-shooter-confirmed-to-be-participant-in-Bundy-Ranch-standoff
The shooters were both from Lafayette Indiana.
Way to go Indiana. My home state. The place I will more than likely never visit again. The place where 90% of my friends left.
You flipping a$$holes!!!!
Remember Sheriff Doug Gillespie ? The sheriff that stood by Bundy’s side giggling and thinking these are my kind of folks. Well he is also the sheriff of Las Vegas. He has a whole lot of explaining to do right now. I don’t want to hear you are in mourning. You were there and knew the potential of the damage these cowards could do
They are flipping insane.
Once again, I post the following link. I hope before too many more people die we start thinking about what kind of law we can actually pass with the congress we have, not the congeress we wish we had, and the Supreme Court we have, not the Supreme Court we wish we had.
http://occupyyourbrain.tumblr.com/post/38030211666/get-the-tar-and-feathers-ready-im-going-to-talk-about
What scarces me is the appearance our Government shows little to no response to all these incidents, maybe they think it will just go away, this isn’t going away, it’s about to EXPLODE all due to the NRA, Fuks news, that includes Billo, Hankie and Beckie boy all chickhawks and all the racist teaparty members in Washington all of them just want to stand on the sidelines and watch this country crumble, you can’t wish this away it has to be stopped physically, this is “domestic terrorism” these people are at war with our country, more people will die, if the Government doesn’t act NOW. This is an enemy from within created by racist.
46,000 Americans dead from guns since Sandy Hook
Indeed, if today is typical, based on average numbers, some 277 Americans will be shot by a gun. And 84 of those shot will die (source: http://www.bradycampaign.org).
That means, since Sandy Hook, over 150,000 of us were shot by a gun and about 46,000 of those shot have died.
From 1959 to 1973 58,209 were killed in Vietnam. In 18 months we are almost there here in our own country. When will the madness stop
This is very interesting and I am just as guilty
This Video Needs to Be Seen in the Las Vegas Shooting’s Wake
Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe 25/03/09
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PezlFNTGWv4
sooner or later is here and now my friend. We are fed up NOW!!!!!
You are absolutely right!! These neighbors need to be held the way an unknowing person driving with someone who commits a crime is held. An accessory to a crime, but in this case they weren’t unknowing. They knew!! Sorry but that is the damn truth!!
Now law enforcement can’t even have lunch without a threat to them. What a sad nation we have become. The right wing nuts deserve to have the tables turned on them and start suffering from the acts they have created. She worked for Hobby Lobby who are right wing religious fanatics,they play religious music in their stores. Church and state cannot mix. Too many different ideas. But the worst is the NRA. When you have people on your board like Ted Poopy pants Nugent you know they are not all there mentally. Wayne”Funeral Director” LaPierre deserves to have them turn the violence against them. They incite the people who cannot think for themselves in a human manner. Shame on those people who saw them leave with a careful of weapons and never called for help. They too have blood on their hands for 3 people loosing their lives. This is the America the right wing has created and it isn’t pretty or nice. Wait,their turn will come.