Now is not the time to talk about gun control (1 Viewer)

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    Gunned-down children don’t seem to change the political equation on guns. Neither do dead teachers. Are parents petrified to send their sons and daughters to school? Tough. I expect the next new slogan on right-wing T-shirts will be: “Arm the Kids!”


    Speaking to the National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis on Friday, former president Donald Trump didn’t go quite that far. But he did suggest that we “arm some of these teachers.” Former vice president Mike Pence similarly pledged to place “armed resource officers in every public and private school in America.” There’s big government for you.


    That the Republican Party is now wholly owned by the gun lobby was witnessed not only by the eagerness of Pence, Trump and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson to pander in person at the gathering self-described as “14 acres of guns & gear.”

    Other would-be 2024 GOP nominees — among them, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) — felt obligated to bow before the gun worshipers by video.

    The nonsense floated in Indianapolis — based on the idea that our national addiction to high-powered weaponry has nothing to do with America’s unique mass shooting problem — speaks to a deep ailment in our democracy. It has both partisan and (perverse) philosophical roots.


    The GOP’s conversion to gun absolutism is the heart of the problem. But politics doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It often follows from cultural and moral innovations.


    For roughly four decades, American conservatism has identified firearms as a marker of a manly rejection of urban cosmopolitanism and gun ownership as a right more important than any other.

    As DeSantis said in his video, the right to bear arms is “the foundation on which all our other rights rest” and essential to Americans’ “ability to rule themselves.”

    “Why do Joe Biden and the liberals want our guns?” asked Gov. Kristi L. Noem of South Dakota, another speaker. “Because it will make it easier for them to violate all our other rights.”


    It comes down to a variant of the old Maoist slogan: All liberty grows out of the barrel of a gun.

    When Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told a White House rally before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, “Let’s have trial by combat,” he was speaking for a sentiment that runs deep in the gun rights movement.


    A particularly dramatic example of how opposition to gun regulation is increasingly linked to efforts to undermine democracy itself: the Tennessee House Republicans’ recent vote to expel two duly elected legislators for protesting against the body’s inaction on guns after the Nashville school massacre………

     
    Optimus Prime said:
    Gunned-down children don’t seem to change the political equation on guns. Neither do dead teachers. Are parents petrified to send their sons and daughters to school? Tough. I expect the next new slogan on right-wing T-shirts will be: “Arm the Kids!”


    Speaking to the National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis on Friday, former president Donald Trump didn’t go quite that far. But he did suggest that we “arm some of these teachers.” Former vice president Mike Pence similarly pledged to place “armed resource officers in every public and private school in America.” There’s big government for you.


    That the Republican Party is now wholly owned by the gun lobby was witnessed not only by the eagerness of Pence, Trump and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson to pander in person at the gathering self-described as “14 acres of guns & gear.”

    Other would-be 2024 GOP nominees — among them, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) — felt obligated to bow before the gun worshipers by video.

    The nonsense floated in Indianapolis — based on the idea that our national addiction to high-powered weaponry has nothing to do with America’s unique mass shooting problem — speaks to a deep ailment in our democracy. It has both partisan and (perverse) philosophical roots.


    The GOP’s conversion to gun absolutism is the heart of the problem. But politics doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It often follows from cultural and moral innovations.


    For roughly four decades, American conservatism has identified firearms as a marker of a manly rejection of urban cosmopolitanism and gun ownership as a right more important than any other.

    As DeSantis said in his video, the right to bear arms is “the foundation on which all our other rights rest” and essential to Americans’ “ability to rule themselves.”

    “Why do Joe Biden and the liberals want our guns?” asked Gov. Kristi L. Noem of South Dakota, another speaker. “Because it will make it easier for them to violate all our other rights.”


    It comes down to a variant of the old Maoist slogan: All liberty grows out of the barrel of a gun.

    When Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani told a White House rally before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, “Let’s have trial by combat,” he was speaking for a sentiment that runs deep in the gun rights movement.


    A particularly dramatic example of how opposition to gun regulation is increasingly linked to efforts to undermine democracy itself: the Tennessee House Republicans’ recent vote to expel two duly elected legislators for protesting against the body’s inaction on guns after the Nashville school massacre………

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    The Republicans better do something or they'll continue to lose elections. Sending thoughts and prayers are obviously
    not working. I say that as a religious man.
     
    The scene of victims after a mass shooting mimics that of a battlefield, except that battlefields don’t usually include children — and shootings often do. Suffice it to say the impact of an AR-15 on a human body is too gruesomely graphic to describe in detail in this piece. Bones explode and soft tissue simply disappears.

    Yet while most of us live in fear of school and other mass shootings, some members of Congress have chosen to pose for their holiday cards bearing the same weapons used in those shootings, their children holding such guns while dressed in their Sunday best.

    For a party so fired up about liberals supposedly “grooming” children, this has got to take the cake. Imagine if a Black family proudly flaunted assault weapons in their holiday cards — some busybody would have Child Protective Services summoned in no time. Imagine if the card depicted Ilhan Omar’s family — some Republican members of Congress would be agitating to have her ousted the next day!

    The GOP has its share of actual groomers. They also have their own “influencers” in the form of the AR-15 lapel pins many Republican members of Congress have chosen to wear in the Capitol. Perhaps, next, training in the use of these weapons will turn up in those school board meetings the GOP is so eager to politicize.

    There is absolutely no reason for these weapons to exist outside of the military.

    We will not stop mass shootings until we ban assault weapons.

    Mass shootings have become almost normal, and the gun lobby response is now predictable: After a few public expressions of “thoughts and prayers” for the victims, the GOP immediately redirects the outrage from cries for gun control to mental health or any other handy bogeyman. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who can be counted on to find a new low when one seems unimaginable, actually suggested that marijuana might have been the cause of 2022 shooting in Highland Park, Ill.

    We need to better deal with the pervasive mental health crisis that exists in this country — but the out-of-control gun crisis needs to be dealt with as well. And it is being ignored by the far right. It is not, however, being ignored by the younger generation that has grown up practicing shelter-in-place drills..............


     
    Optimus Prime said:
    The scene of victims after a mass shooting mimics that of a battlefield, except that battlefields don’t usually include children — and shootings often do. Suffice it to say the impact of an AR-15 on a human body is too gruesomely graphic to describe in detail in this piece. Bones explode and soft tissue simply disappears.

    Yet while most of us live in fear of school and other mass shootings, some members of Congress have chosen to pose for their holiday cards bearing the same weapons used in those shootings, their children holding such guns while dressed in their Sunday best.

    For a party so fired up about liberals supposedly “grooming” children, this has got to take the cake. Imagine if a Black family proudly flaunted assault weapons in their holiday cards — some busybody would have Child Protective Services summoned in no time. Imagine if the card depicted Ilhan Omar’s family — some Republican members of Congress would be agitating to have her ousted the next day!

    The GOP has its share of actual groomers. They also have their own “influencers” in the form of the AR-15 lapel pins many Republican members of Congress have chosen to wear in the Capitol. Perhaps, next, training in the use of these weapons will turn up in those school board meetings the GOP is so eager to politicize.

    There is absolutely no reason for these weapons to exist outside of the military.

    We will not stop mass shootings until we ban assault weapons.

    Mass shootings have become almost normal, and the gun lobby response is now predictable: After a few public expressions of “thoughts and prayers” for the victims, the GOP immediately redirects the outrage from cries for gun control to mental health or any other handy bogeyman. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who can be counted on to find a new low when one seems unimaginable, actually suggested that marijuana might have been the cause of 2022 shooting in Highland Park, Ill.

    We need to better deal with the pervasive mental health crisis that exists in this country — but the out-of-control gun crisis needs to be dealt with as well. And it is being ignored by the far right. It is not, however, being ignored by the younger generation that has grown up practicing shelter-in-place drills..............


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    Black and POC Congresscritters ought to do exactly that. Pose with AR15's and go heavily armed all the time. See how the GOP reacts.
     
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    And yet, these state legislatures plow ahead with bills nobody wants except for the gun cult members.

     
    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — In the wake of a deadly school shooting last month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee awarded final passage Tuesday to a proposal that would further protect gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers against lawsuits.

    The Senate's 19-9 vote sends the bill to Republican Gov. Bill Lee, despite pushback from Democratic lawmakers saying their GOP counterparts are trying to shield gun companies just weeks after the Nashville school shooting that killed six people, including three 9-year-olds.

    The final vote came as Lee's administration was still trying to drum up enough support among lawmakers in his party to pass legislation to keep firearms away from people who could harm themselves or others. The fate of that kind of measure remains uncertain.

    Lawmakers are hurrying to finish a legislative session as soon as this week while receiving national scrutiny over the expulsion of two young Black lawmakers — who are now reinstated — over a House floor gun control protest. Students, parents and others have also applied pressure for weeks to pass gun safety measures.

    Democratic Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis lawmaker, said it's “disrespectful timing” to push through protections for gun companies while people continue to march at the Capitol for gun control changes. The civil liabilities bill passed just ahead of a protest in which people formed a human chain through Nashville to the Capitol in support of gun control measures.

    “I am challenging you not to pass this bill because we need to do more to protect citizens from gun violence than the people making the guns that people can use to kill more people," Lamar had said........

     
    Incumbent said:
    A high school girl was shot in a grocery store parking lot outside of Austin after she and her friends mistakenly tried to get in the wrong car. She and her friends were returning from a cheerleading gym in The Woodlands and carpool together.



    www.kxan.com

    Father of teen cheerleader injured after shooting at Elgin H-E-B parking lot says she’s stable

    A well-known Central Texas cheerleader is in the hospital Tuesday night after a shooting in Elgin.
    www.kxan.com www.kxan.com
    Click to expand...

    This article doesn't include the most important fact. Was anyone involved in this shooting trans?
     

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