Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Friday, October 2, 2015

Because of Our Inaction



Addicting Info:


"Obama also took Congress to task for their cowardice regarding gun laws. The blood of thousands of victims are on their hands, because of their inability to stand up to the NRA and radical gun nuts in the Republican Party. 

 'This is a political choice that we make. To allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.'  

Obama was actually being too generous with the frequency. Mass shootings on the scale of Oregon may only happen every so often, but mass shootings more generally happen almost daily. As the Washington Post noted: 

'We’ve gone no more than eight days without one of these incidents this year. On six days in September, there were 3 mass shootings or more. If the initial casualty figures in Oregon hold up, that would bring the total of deaths by mass shooting this year to 380 so far, with well over one thousand injured.' 

 The president has shown time and again that he is willing to act on strong gun legislation. His repeated calls to address the rampant gun violence in the country have been repeatedly ignored by the legislative branch. 

Is it too soon to talk about gun control? 

The victims in Roseburg, Oregon. – And in Newtown, Aurora, Charleston, Chicago, Lafayette, the list goes on – would suggest that it wasn’t soon enough."


Oregon college shooting: Figures reveal Obama is right that guns kill more Americans than terrorism








22 comments:

Anonymous said...

You forgot to add the 10 just shot to the terrorist deaths

okjimm said...

guns doan kill folks...guns with people attached kill. Let's just detach the people from the guns and then guns will just be hunky dory. Or maybe detach the bullets from the guns from the people...and then the people will be ok.....oh, shit...let's just all get detached....from big Gun Money!

Jerry Critter said...

More American exceptionality on display. Thanks NRA and congress. You are killing innocent Americans. Follow Boenher's example. Do your job or go home.

Shaw Kenawe said...



"Anonymous said...
You forgot to add the 10 just shot to the terrorist deaths"

So Dylann Roof, who shot those people in their church in Charleston, SC, was a terrorist, too? And Adam Lanza? And Jared Loughner? And James Holmes? And Eric Harris and Derek Keibold? And on and on and on?

What stupid point are you trolling to make?

Mr. Mackey said...

"Oregon college shooting: father of survivor says gunman was 'targeting Christians'"

And Dylann Roof was targeting African-American Christians.

Adam Lanza was targeting grammar school kids. James Holmes was targeting people who go to movies, And the Tuscon shooter was targeting people who go to malls, The Ft. Hood shooter was targeting the militaary, Harris and Keibold were targeting high schoolers.

The result is the same: Americans are slaughtered by young American men and men with mental diseases. Why aren't the boneheads on the right calling for the "deportation" of all young American men and men with mental diseases, because they're responsible for so much slaughter? Of course that's insane, but that doesn't stop the crazies on the right from calling for deportations when a crazy Muslim commits murder and mayhem.

And no, Christians are NOT being singled out any more than grammar school kids were, or movie goers were, or mall shoppers were or military men and women were. We're a gun-f**king crazy country. NO other western civilization is as mad and insane as we are when it comes to guns. Don't let anyone tell you differenct, because they're lying to you if they do.

Mr. Mackey said...

PROFILE OF THE SHOOTER

Shaw Kenawe said...

Charlie Pierce @Esquire:

"The fact remains we only allow ourselves two political parties in this country. And one of our political parties is completely insane. [emphasis added] It's the party that when we have mine disasters, blocks mine regulations. It's the party that says when we want to fix our roads, you can't have an infrastructure bill. You can't raise the gas tax. It's the party that when some people have floods, like New Jersey, marks Chris Christie lousy because he accepted help from the federal government. And we have the same party who has somewhere between three and 600 people running for president, none of whom will do anything about the problem of mass shootings in America."

In an irony of ironies, the sheriff of the county where the massacre occurred, Douglas County, wrote a defiant letter to Vice President Biden after the Sandy Hook school massacre stating he would obey no gun control laws he deemed unconstitutional. When will Americans snap?"


We snapped a long, long time ago. The country, paralyzed by intransigent extremists in the TGOP, is now completely and utterly insane.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Ben Carson:

"Obviously, there are those who are going to be calling for gun control,” Carson told radio host Hugh Hewitt. "Obviously, that’s not the issue. The issue is the mentality of these people."

He said that the U.S. needs to look for "early warning clues" about potential shooters in order to prevent tragedies like the Thursday shooting.


"What I worry about is when we get to the point were we say we need to have every gun registered, we have to know where the people are, and where guns are, that’s very dangerous," he said. "And that I wouldn’t agree with at all."



Carson, as usual, shows how illogical he is: It would be dangerous to register guns (as dangerous as it has been to register cars?) but not dangerous to look for "early warning clues?" How? By knocking on every door in America to find out if there are any mentally unstable people living there?

What would those "early warning clues" be, Dr. Carson? Someone being a registered Tea Party nut? Or your statements?

I vote for your naive statements.

skudrunner said...

How many of those deaths are from gang violence and suicides. I doubt tighter gun regulations would curb either one.

This is all about assigning blame and politics. Obama's hometown, Chicago, has some of the toughest gun laws in the country and there are a few people killed by guns each year, like 300+ this year. I guess since Chicago is a democrat run city and BHO came from there, they should shoulder the blame.

Gun shows do require background checks if the gun is sold by a FFL dealer. Background checks are cursory at best even by them.

There are laws on the books but they are not enforced. Of course illegal immigration is "illegal" but we don't enforce that law either.

IOt is all about politics and optics.

Shaw Kenawe said...

skud: "How many of those deaths are from gang violence and suicides. I doubt tighter gun regulations would curb either one."

Again you don't deal in facts but rather your biased assumptions. In fact, the more guns in circulation, the more suicides and gun violence. Do us a favor and do your own research on this then get back to us. But here's a start. Scroll down to the chart on number of guns and suicides.

The rest of your comment is boilerplate partisan claptrap.

Dave Miller said...

Shaw, as usual, the right wing is deflecting into the mental health arena here. While many shooters have had mental issues, and it remains a valid issue, to fix this, all they have to do is appropriate the $$$ to make treatment available.

Skud, do you think the GOP will move to fund mental health care so as to treat these folks before they snap and kill people?

The answer of course, is no, not a chance. So what should we do to solve the continuance of the murderous events? Any suggestions?

The left has posited something, in the form of stronger gun control laws, decreased access and better registration. That may, or may not work, but it is at least an attempt to solve a problem. What have we heard, or will we hear from conservatives and the right?

skudrunner said...

Thanks for providing the link, it proves my point. Even the statistics you cited, most gun deaths are suicides. States with the lowest gun rates have the highest non firearm suicides.
Dave, lets just throw money at it, it has never worked in the past but you never know.
Our gun laws make no sense but neither do our voting laws, our immigration laws and our tax laws. All of these things are promoted by politicians who have only their interest in mind and that is to keep their job, spend our money and find out ways to get more.

I got it, ban knives and vehicles and watch the suicide rates drop.

Shaw Kenawe said...

skud, are you being deliberately obtuse? Here are the facts, not your fantasies.

Mapping the Overlap As these maps show, the correlation between guns and suicide is strong but inexact, since both are influenced by poverty, population density, and crime. The nine states that rank lowest in terms of gun prevalence are the very same nine that rank lowest for suicide rates. Similarly, the three states top-ranked for gun prevalence can be found among the four states ranking highest for suicide rates.

States with the highest gun ownership have the highest suicide rates.

Dave Miller said...

You see Skud, even when someone asks seriously for solutions, you just can't bring yourself to do it. Nor can other conservatives. Why the snark? The GOP said let's focus on the mental health angle... how should we do that?

I get you don;t want to throw money at the problem, so how about a reasonable solution? Is that a request that is out of bounds?

It seems to be for you and other conservatives.

A while back, Conservative Insurgent was banned from a specific conservative blog that allows no libs to comment, because he was critical of the constant carping with no solutions. The blog host felt it was good was to complain without offering any real world solutions, so he was asked to leave.

You are not much better here, offering nothing but criticism, and not a hint of an alternative.

You don't like lib and leftist ideas, fine, offer something else...

I guarantee you here, you'll get a fair hearing and won't be called a conservaturd, mentally ill, vermin, or anti American, all monikers everyone here has been called at the above referenced blog. And you'll be able to comment.

Anonymous said...

you know what? the american people don't give a shit about the deaths of these people. who cares about their prayers and thoughts? this will happen again and again and again because the americanpeople don't give a flying fuck, sorry shaw about the language, about this. And this will happen again. you asshole americans reading better hope its not your daughter or son who will be massacred by another fucking gun asshole who is mentally ill and able to buy agun and slaughter your daughter and son. I don't care about prayers and any of the fake emotion coming from the american people who make a choice to do nothing about this.

sorry shaw, but i'm disgusted by all of this.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anon, I let this through because I understand your frustration around this issue. I agree that right now it would appear that too many Americans don't care about the fact that massacres by gun are happening at an alarming rate. They've become inured to these slaughters. A quick look around the usual extreme right blogs show they don't care either, since none of them are reporting or writing about this. It appears those TGOPers have accepted massacres as part of American exceptionalism. Until it kills someone they know or love.

Merrily Rail said...

The far right extremists who are long time moronic assholes are vile disgusting pieces of merda who need to be flushed away as soon as they appear.

Shaw Kenawe said...

MR, why such anger? Is that helpful?

Jerry Critter said...

skud,
Sarcasm will not solve the gun violence problem.

Anonymous said...



If suicides and accidential gun deaths are subtracted what does it say?

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anon, but they're not. And what's the purpose of that comment?

Anonymous said...

"Or, hey, how about we treat every young man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion -- mandatory 48-hr waiting period, parental permission, a note from his doctor proving he understands what he's about to do, a video he has to watch about the effects of gun violence, an ultrasound wand up the ass (just because). Let's close down all but one gun shop in every state and make him travel hundreds of miles, take time off work, and stay overnight in a strange town to get a gun. Make him walk through a gauntlet of people holding photos of loved ones who were shot to death, people who call him a murderer and beg him not to buy a gun. It makes more sense to do this with young men and guns than with women and health care, right? I mean, no woman getting an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds, right?"