Gun Control Debate

[N.E. Brigand]

I saw some far right social media accounts, posting on the subject of last night's mass murder in Lewiston, Maine, sharing what appeared to be screenshots of a CNN program that included the chyron: "Investigation: Shooter Was Factually Arabic, But Morally White."

Setting aside the fact that the U.S. government has long considered Arabs (and Jews) to be White when recording race, I was puzzled by this screenshot because the appearance and name of the suspect, reportedly a mentally ill Army Reservist trained as a firearms instructor who was said flagged by his commanding officers earlier this year because he was hearaing voices, both suggest he is White and of European ancestry.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that the screenshot is a fake, and that it has been around since 2021. It refers to the shooter in a Colorado mass murder. Right-wingers, deliberately or because they don't know any better, have shared it since then as proof of the mainstream media's supposed "woke" nature.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Robert Card, the alleged Lewiston shooter, himself has shared extreme Right Wing social media posts, a fact that has not seemed to have gotten much attention thus far. And, to be clear, at this point, I haven't seen any indication of what motivation he had other than that he recently has been suffering from mental illness (though apparently he does not have a long history of mental illness.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Baby steps

[N.E. Brigand]

Baby steps

Just yesterday, hours before the mass murder in Maine, the U.S. Senate voted 53-35 to prevent the Dept. of Veterans' Affairs from reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System that a beneficiary has been fuond "mentally incapacitated, mentally incompetent, [or] a person who has been adjudicated as a mental defective."

Three Democrats and two independents joined Republicans in voting for this amendment. The Democrats were Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, and Jon Tester of Montana. The independents were Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona...

...and Angus King of Maine.

Now yesterday's shooter is a reservist not a veteran, so this specific amendment wouldn't have directly prevented those 18 deaths. But still.

[RoseMorninStar]

There was an incident in a nearby town on Monday. A man, (who turned out to be a 32 year old veteran from Illinois who served 2 terms in Afghanistan) stopped in the area because his car broke down. He took his car in for repair & for some reason went to the nearby middle school and proceeded to act erratically in the parking lot, removing the handicap signs to prop them up against the school building along with a bike rack. He proceeded to climb onto the roof of the school. Police were called. The man had a gun on him and fired at police and police shot him. He died at the scene. I don't think anyone else was injured. This happened in the evening when the school had fewer students/some were there for extra curricular activities. His family has said he struggled with mental health issues. Our veterans should be getting mental health help/evaluations.

[Maria]

Kennedy will be closed for the foreseeable future and it remains to be seen where the Kennedy Middle students will learn.

Why would they shut the school down?

[RoseMorninStar]

Kennedy will be closed for the foreseeable future and it remains to be seen where the Kennedy Middle students will learn.

Why would they shut the school down?

No clue. Maybe because at the time they made the decision they didn't know who the guy was or what he was doing and wanted some investigation first?

[N.E. Brigand]

Some version of this picture has probably been shared here before:



The red vertical line marks the point at which "Republicans ended the national assault weapons ban."

Remember when mass shootings were so unusual that "going Postal" referred to a rare event?

Remember when mass shootings were so unusual that you could title a movie Bowling for Columbine and everyone would know what it was about? If a movie were titled "Bowling for Santa Fe," would you have any clue that it was about a 2018 school shooting that was nearly as deadly?

[RoseMorninStar]

Heartbreaking.

[Frelga]

Uvalde would be a recognizable title. But I doubt anyone would make that movie, given how badly real life cops performed in that tragedy.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Sandy Hook.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Card's body has found in the woods near the recycling center from which he had been recently fired.

[Sunsilver]

So, that may be what triggered him - being fired, plus already having serious mental health issues.

[narya]

And easy access to guns.

[RoseMorninStar]

And that (sadly, horrifically) guns seem to have become a part a go-to 'solution' in our culture. In other words.. acceptable because those in power don't do a meaningful damn thing to put an end to it.

[N.E. Brigand]

Memphis: "Report of armed man near school causes stir in Midtown."

Schools locked down because a man with a long gun was walking through the neighborhood. But police could do nothing because Tennessee is an open-carry state.

[N.E. Brigand]

Big new story from ProPublica:

""In Uvalde, Students Followed Active Shooter Protocol. The Cops Did Not."

Apparently kids are better trained than police.

“I’m watching that door. No screams. No nothing. No nothing. You know. Things you would think you would hear if there had been kids in there,” Cpl. Gregory Villa, who had been with the Uvalde Police Department for 11 years, told an investigator days after the attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

If there were children inside, Villa said, officers would have probably heard the shooter saying, “‘Hey, everybody shut up,’ and then kids are like, ‘Oh no, I gotta, I want my mommy.’”

Villa, who received active shooter training four years earlier, was among several officers who told investigators that they didn’t believe children were in the classrooms because they were so quiet. The children’s strict adherence to remaining silent was, in fact, part of their training. Officers’ own training instructs them to confront a shooter if there is reason to believe someone is hurt.

“I just honestly thought that they were in the cafeteria because it seemed like all the lights were off and it seemed like it was really quiet. I didn’t hear any screaming, any yelling. I literally didn’t hear anything at all,” Uvalde police Staff Sgt. Eduardo Canales recalled to an investigator. “You would think kids would be yelling and screaming.”

Cops are great at beating up protesters on the street. Not so great at the more important part of their job.

[N.E. Brigand]

Is that LaPierre who's accused of embezzling the NRA funds?

LaPierre has been accused of some sort of self-dealing. I can't remember what exactly it was and I really don't care to look it up. The whole upper level of that organization have been accusing each other of all kinds of things.

I didn't realize that Wayne LaPierre is the Executive Vice President rather than the President of the National Rifle Association. Not having followed the group's history at all before the recent scandals, the only two leaders I'd heard of over the past few decades were LaPierre and the NRA's president from 1989 to 2003, the late actor Charlton Heston. I had assumed that LaPierre was Heston's successor, and that Heston had been doing a real job outside of his acting career (like Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, and Ronald Reagan in their elected offices). But no, the NRA's President is just a figurehead, like Jules was in the N.I.C.E. The real power, as with Wither in C.S. Lewis's book, is vested in the V.P. position, which LaPierre has held since 1991.

Anyway, LaPierre announced today that he's stepping down effective January 31. In February, his New York state civil trial starts for his alleged misappropriation of the organization's funds for lavish personal expenses.

[N.E. Brigand]

Is that LaPierre who's accused of embezzling the NRA funds?

LaPierre has been accused of some sort of self-dealing. I can't remember what exactly it was and I really don't care to look it up. The whole upper level of that organization have been accusing each other of all kinds of things.

I didn't realize that Wayne LaPierre is the Executive Vice President rather than the President of the National Rifle Association. ... the NRA's President is just a figurehead, [and the] real power .., is vested in the V.P. position, which LaPierre has held since 1991.

Anyway, LaPierre announced today that he's stepping down effective January 31. In February, his New York state civil trial starts for his alleged misappropriation of the organization's funds for lavish personal expenses.

News: "At a meeting in June 2009, the treasurer of the National Rifle Association worked out a plan to conceal luxury expenses involving its chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, according to audio of the meeting obtained by The Trace and ProPublica. The recording was unknown to New York’s attorney general, who is pursuing the NRA and LaPierre over a range of alleged financial misdeeds. It shows, in real time, the NRA’s treasurer enlisting the group’s longtime public relations firm to obfuscate the extravagant costs."

[N.E. Brigand]

LaPierre has been accused of some sort of self-dealing. I can't remember what exactly it was and I really don't care to look it up. The whole upper level of that organization have been accusing each other of all kinds of things.

I didn't realize that Wayne LaPierre is the Executive Vice President rather than the President of the National Rifle Association. ... the NRA's President is just a figurehead, [and the] real power .., is vested in the V.P. position, which LaPierre has held since 1991. Anyway, LaPierre announced today that he's stepping down effective January 31. In February, his New York state civil trial starts for his alleged misappropriation of the organization's funds for lavish personal expenses.

News: "At a meeting in June 2009, the treasurer of the National Rifle Association worked out a plan to conceal luxury expenses involving its chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, according to audio of the meeting obtained by The Trace and ProPublica. The recording was unknown to New York’s attorney general, who is pursuing the NRA and LaPierre over a range of alleged financial misdeeds. It shows, in real time, the NRA’s treasurer enlisting the group’s longtime public relations firm to obfuscate the extravagant costs."

NBC: "Jury finds NRA and Wayne LaPierre liable in civil corruption trial."

In 2020, Letitia James, New York's attorney general, sued the National Rifle Association, its leader Wayne LaPierre, and other NRA executives for "flouting state laws and internal policies to enrich themselves." The trial started in early January, and after five days of deliberations, the "jury ruled largely in favor of James, finding that the National Rifle Association failed to properly run its nonprofit and its assets at any time between March 20, 2014 and May 2, 2022" and that LaPierre, NRA corporate secretary John Frazer, and NRA general counsel, Wilson "Woody" Phillips, "violated their statutory obligation to discharge the duties of their position in good faith." The jury recommended that LaPierre repay $4.4 million to the NRA and be removed from his position (as noted above, he already stepped down) and that Phillips pay the NRA $2 million. The judge will have the final say. Originally this suit sought to dissolve the NRA, but the judge ruled last year that was excessive.