"The Tree of Liberty"

But, "now is not the time to talk about firearms regulation..."

U.S. Safety Checklist

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"USA, USA, USA..."

 

Madness. First 25 days of 2023, at least 39 mass shootings, at least 69 dead, many additional wounded. It's obscenely crazy.

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The kids head back to school this week;

 If you see something, say something.

Sorry to even bring it up. I cannot help but worry, given our chronic and elevating nutcase environment. See something, say something.

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Yet another whacko young man with an assault weapon

Yet another gruesome mass murder

July 4th, 2022. Highland Park, Illinois. Seven victims now dead, 39 hospitalized with wounds from his assault weapon. Innocent citizens attending their annual July 4th parade.

 

I have the depressing feeling that nothing will change. Who and where will be next? I'd say it's a safe bet we won't have to wait long to find out.

 

Real piece of work, this 21 yr old. Reports are that he bought his weapons and ammo legally.

 

Robert E. "Bobby" Crimo III

TOM NICHOLS

...In the first few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, I traveled to London and New York. That’s when I realized that the terrorists had succeeded in making an ordinary citizen—me—think about terrorism constantly. I wondered, on my first trips back to those cities and during almost every visit to any metropolis for a few more years: Am I here on the wrong day? Is this the site of the next attack? The terrorists had, for a time, taken away my complacency and my ability to enjoy a simple stroll in a big city. Americans now have to feel this way all the time, in their own country, at almost any mass gathering, in even the quiet towns and suburbs that people once thought of as relatively immune to such terrifying events.

Such feelings are corrosive and depressing. They undermine our faith in our system of government. (This is often the goal of terrorist violence.) Worse, mass shootings undermine our faith in one another. And that loss of faith leads me to a thought I cannot escape: There is nothing we can do about such events. They will keep happening.

This is not because I am a pessimist. Despite my sometimes-grumpy views on any number of things, I think most people are good and that engaged citizens can find workable solutions to most things. But when it comes to this particular kind of violence—a lone shooter attacking a community with a powerful weapon—all of the foundations for another disaster are already in place. A bizarre gun culture created the demand for millions of guns; an extremist lobby has attacked almost every measure to place any restrictions on those guns. (And the Supreme Court seems determined to roll back any limits on the ability of states to control access to these weapons.)...

AND, FROM THE U.S. DUHPARTMENT OF DROOL

 

 

SUSPECT'S CONFESSION

 

News reports have it that Crimo promptly confessed, and further added that he'd considered also shooting up a July 4th gathering in Madison WI, where he'd fled after his Highland Park mass murder spree. 

JULY 4TH, 2022 ERRATUM

On Sunday I took my wife, son, daughter-in-law, and young grandson Calvin to the Orioles game at Camden Yards. We had a great time, and arrived home thereafter safely and unremarkably.

 

On Sunday, Irina and Kevin McCarthy took their only child, 2 yr old Aiden, to the July 4th parade in their town of Highland Park, IL.

Aiden is now an orphan.

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Will civilian gun violence simply continue unabated?

Sadly, it would not surprise me.

Interesting comment at the Naked Capitalism Blog this morning by one of the commentariat regulars:

 

 

Curiously: it disappeared. Ya think? Being from one of the long-resident commenters, this comment escaped moderation. Had it been a comment by a newbie or lurker, it'd never have gotten posted. I'm as horrified and outraged as anyone (and I advocate banning assault weapons in the civilian sector), but advocating that we escalate to vigilante violence—"targeted assassination"—just brings us down to the gun nuts' levels, and would likely only materially worsen things.

 

Saw this (below) on Twitter this morning.

 

I'm not a Beto contributor, but this is worth posting.

 

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Family Values

It's crazy.

 

This KY GOP Representative thought this appropriate to tweet in the wake of the Oxford High School mass shooting. Conservative commentator Charlie Sykes, on MSNBC, called it a "dick pic."

Tell it.

 

LET'S CUT THE CRAP, SHALL WE?

 

The civil law tort principle of "inherently dangerous instrumentality" is what finally brought Big Tobacco to regulatory and compensatory damages heel. Habitually used as intended, tobacco products disproportionately sicken or kill those who partake of them. They are inherently dangerous, and, as such—while still not outlawed—they are heavily regulated in reflection of the threat they pose (however inadequately).

A firearm, absent its fitted calibre projectile, is just an expensive piece of pipe. The intended function of the bullet, however, is to damage or destroy that which it impacts—be it a beer bottle or can, a paper target, or an animal or human. There is no other purpose (while the addictive "purpose" of smoking tobacco products, from the customer's perspective, is the ensuing psycho/physiological "relaxation" it accords).

And yes, firearms can be “used safely" (while providing end-user "pleasure"). That is not in dispute. But neither can there be any rational dispute about the purpose of bullets. People who buy them intend to use them to hit things. And the necessary vehicles for doing so are the firearms. Locked and loaded, you get inherently dangerous instrumentalities.

It's not a perfect analogy, and, tobacco products are not protected by the constitution. But it's damn close enough functionally to justify rational firearms restriction (I am not arguing prohibition here). The relative risk associated with the smoking of a single cigarette pales in comparison with that posed by the firing of a single bullet.

Let's get real.

"REGULATED?" HMMM... WHERE HAVE WE ENCOUNTERED THAT WORD?

Again, let's get real.

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