The tree of liberty must be refreshed from...

by Ugh

...time to time with the blood of patriots and, uh *check notes* elementary school children.  And teachers.  My God.  

Get ur Canadian real estate before EOD November 5, 2024.

Fuck

Comments

[wj]

Expect Gov Abbott to announce shortly a program to provide all elementary school students with semiautomatic weapons.** Because, you know, if they'd had those, the shooter could have been stopped sooner.

** Actual training in how to use them (even how to use them safely) may be added later. But strictly as an option, lest it give people ideas about requiring the same of adult gun owners.

[JanieM]

Fuck indeed.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Well, what do you expect in the Ungovernable Tribal Regions of Shithole Outer Dumbfuckistan?

Needz moar DRONE STRIKES.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

A photo of one of the one hundred million genocidal conservative movement republican party movement active shooters in America, who, while they await THEIR turn to murder Americans in cold blood, supplied the weapons, the ammo, and the political hate speech to the fully-groomed republican Texas child killer, as if there is any other kind of Texan:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/05/your-deadly-massacre-of-the-day

I hope murderer vermin Christian Abbott is having his fascist forces search that school for BLM, Civil War and LGBT teaching materials, any pandemic-preventing masks or other medical supplies, and subjecting all of the female staff and the still living female 5th and 6th graders to digital pregnancy tests and notifying his Christian pig fucking attorneys to track any detected fetuses until the latter are born and thus then fully qualified targets for mass murder by fully Constitutional, God-given means.

Finding evidence in the actual murder case can wait until FOX News catches its breath and is ready to blame Joe Biden and liberals for these murders.

Beto O'Rourke will be indicted for the murders by noon tomorrow, despite the fact that these murders were given to America by the murderous gun-running, but deeply thoughtful God of the stinking fascist Christian Republican Party.

Abbott and his subhuman Christian lieutenants can celebrate these murders as the day America put the pandemic behind us and got down to the usual American business of goddamned shooting anyone who decides to congregate anywhere.

Forcing schools to stay open was ordered by these animals, these reptilian conservative governors, because the gun lobby claimed it was just too inconvenient and time-consuming for shooters to go door to door thru neighborhoods while lugging their Bibles and pocket Constitutions and their ammo to shoot and kill children one at a time.

It's too soon to talk about how fucking dead America is to me, except to say it is not nearly dead enough.

Nothing will be done.

Except the America-ending murderous apocalypse of killing fury on the near horizon.

I spit on all of it.

[Girl from the North Country]

Oh dear God.

I had to look up how old these children were (I don't know US grade ages). All under 11, it seems. Jesus Christ.

[Michael Cain]

The count may, unfortunately, go higher. At least some victims are in critical condition at University Hospital in San Antonio, the nearest level one trauma center.

[Tony P.]

Beau of the Fifth Column is a YouTuber who, aside from the bushy beard, reminds me of russell in many ways. He posted this last week, after the Buffalo massacre I think. See what you think of his prediction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBuFeSz9AnI

--TP

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/

Biden was good today.

Lincoln was good too about an hour before he attended the theater in racist subhuman pig fucking conservative America.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Janie, it was very clear and transparent, but thanks for explaining.

I have no issue with you. You're fine.

I would point out that I was the one several iterations ago of mass gun murder who thought to recite the names of the victims here, I think, but it doesn't matter enough to matter at all.

[JakeB]

This fucking country

[Nigel]

I'm in Ukraine, a warzone. Russian attacks are constant, airstrikes hit Ukrainian cities overnight. But the first two Ukrainians I saw when I woke up today asked me about the Texas elementary school shooting where a gunman killed 19 children. "Why? How?
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1529322736367063042

Will it even register the ghouls on the bench ?
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/new-york-shooting-supreme-courts-gun-madness.html

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Finally, the English language is unleashed on the vermin:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/25/2100101/-Ruben-Gallego-unloads-on-Krysten-Sinema-and-others-for-inaction-on-guns-A-sign

Gallego is from Arizona. His next election will be stolen from him and his constituents in that fascist shit hole chock full of hateful slithering subhuman cowards.

I sure hope he is careful NOT to "bring politics" into his next political campaign.

That would be so impolitic.

[Hartmut]

The reaction from the usual Texan suspects (Paxton in this case) was of course completely predictable: The problem is not enough guns at school.
Strangely, he forgot to add that the perpetrator wore body armor and that therefore guns are not enough. Armor piercing ammo is obviously the new minimum requirement. Are there any concealed carry capable anti tank rifles on the market currently? And, if not, how can the Dems be blamed for that?
May I propose that in the future next to any fire extinguisher in any public building in the South an emergency bazooka should be placed to deal with armoured armed bad guys.
The fire extinguisher will come in handy since the backblast of the bazooka is likely to set a lot (including people) behind the user on fire.
On the other hand: fire extinguishers are a clear symptom of the nanny state, so they could be rare in public buildings in the South.

[bob sykes]

Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain are much worse police states than the US. Ironically, Russia is probably where you want to go. I won't. I stay here in rural northcentral Ohio.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Aye, Bill Sikes, does that dog hunt?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYTUtOTYEb0

[russell]

See what you think of his prediction.

Beau of the Fifth Column seems like a reasonable guy, and I am more than happy that he calls me to mind.

All of that said, I don't think the availability of an even more powerful (like, twice as powerful) rifle is going to change the debate at all. All the people that now have AR-15's are just gonna go buy one (or several), as soon as they can afford one. All the people who fantasize about murdering their neighbors and random bystanders will be right at the front of the line.

Janie closed the other thread, but I'll offer the comment here that I intended for that thread.

Politics will not fix this. It will not even make a dent.

We live in a profoundly violent culture, where the idea of deadly violence as a way of settling disputes has a long, long, long history. "Some people just need killing" is not something you might expect to hear in most places, but it's a sentiment familiar to us.

The guns just make it easy.

It's hard for me to imagine what it will take to change that. If the random murder of school kids on a semi-regular basis doesn't get it done, I'm not sure what will.

But I think we're gonna find out. The pro-gun assholes appear to be more than willing to push things as far as they can. And "as far as they can" appears to be pretty damned far.

There are a shitload of folks out there who are gonna watch Beau's video about the new rifles coming out and respond by saying "Hell yeah!! Where can I get one of those?!?".

We live in a country and a culture where the random murder of school kids on a regular basis is seen as a perhaps regrettable but fair and necessary price to pay for the ability of any random yahoo to own whatever private arsenal tickles his or her fancy.

Nothing is gonna change until that does.

Thoughts and prayers, y'all.

[russell]

no guns allowed.

hypocritical fuckers.

pardon my language.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Well, they don't need the weapons in their cold dead hands at the meeting as there will no school children nor public school teachers, nor gay party revelers, nor black men driving or kneeling while ablacking, nor Soros' asorcering ajewly, nor freshly minted immigrants aseeking, nor pregnant women ahemorrhaging, nor socialists socializing, nor Ukrainians ukrainianing, nor liberals aliberalizing, nor Bidens abiding, nor Betos aRourcking, nor Faucis ajabbing, nor gooks agooking, nor pickled peppers apiping partridges in a pear tree of liberty whose bodies require automatic ariddling with bullets acheneying.

Maybe like the Mafia, some enterprising soul among the murderers will hide an automatic weapon behind the toilet for demonstration purposes only.

[Girl from the North Country]

I don't know if bob sykes is a real person, or just a not-so-brilliant parody of a rural American who knows nothing about the rest of the world. I incline towards the latter theory.

It's hard for me to imagine what it will take to change that. If the random murder of school kids on a semi-regular basis doesn't get it done, I'm not sure what will.

Amen. And meanwhile, the rest of the world, including places which are being bombed on a daily basis, watches your children being killed, aghast.

pardon my language.

Your language is inadequate to reflect the true horror and absurdity of US firearm laws.

[russell]

what I think might actually make a change is if folks start shunning the hard core gun fetishists.

make them unwelcome. palpably so. make it clear that no, it's not OK to hold the freaking barbaric attitudes that they embrace.

not welcome in your house, not welcome at family events, not welcome to neighborhood events, not welcome.

their point of view is abhorrent. abhor them.

politics will not get it done. being on the receiving end of shame might, assuming they give a crap about how they are viewed.

these are people who are willing to accept the random murder of basically anybody, in large numbers, so that they can enjoy their hobby and indulge their fantasies of power and revenge.

make it clear exactly how fucked up you think that point of view is.

maybe it will help, maybe it won't. I have no idea. but at least it will be clear that at least some people in this freaking country are willing to draw a line in the sand.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Well an armed society is a polite, though noisy, society, or so rude conservatives tell us while carrying, so tell you what, I'll hide and you approach the armed guys and gals and very politely tell them that we are now shunning the lot of them, and we'll see if politeness or battlefield decibel-level noisiness ensues.

Actually, never mind. You wait in the car.

I'll tell them. Keep the engine running. I'll be right back.

[hairshirthedonist]

A childhood friend of mine posted on a social media platform yesterday - his immediate public reaction - something along the lines of "Gun grab in ...3...2...1. They say never let a tragedy go to waste."

I foolishly commented with "This shouldn't be you first thought after a bunch of little kids are murdered."

I was met with responses from different people mentioning socialist democrats and their one world order and something about violating the 1st amendment and a strange reference to white shooters getting more attention that black shooters. It's just bizarre.

I don't know what he's worried about. Nothing's going to change.

[wj]

Beau of the Fifth Column . . . See what you think of his prediction.

Sounds spot on. Including the prediction that something horriffic is going to happen first, involving the new weapon, and then the whole gun control debate hits an inflection point.

[wj]

It's hard for me to imagine what it will take to change that. If the random murder of school kids on a semi-regular basis doesn't get it done, I'm not sure what will.

But I think we're gonna find out.

I can think of one thing: make firearms manufacturers liable for the results of misuse of their product. (Currently, they actually have an explicit exception to the liability laws.) Not just real damages (e.g. projected lifetime earnings) but exemplary damages. If supporting the NRA as their marketing arm was a seriously hit tio the bottom line, they'd stop -- the bottom line is all.

And, while we're at it, anyone whose gun was stolen (maybe excepting explosive opening of a gun safe to steal it) and used in a crime could also be liable.

None of that is nanny state stuff. Just other private citizens acting in their own private interests.

[russell]

This shouldn't be you first thought after a bunch of little kids are murdered.

not strong enough. my plan is lead with "sorry, but that is fucking nuts".

socialist democrats and their one world order and something about violating the 1st amendment and a strange reference to white shooters getting more attention that black shooters

I plan to lead with "excuse me, but are you insane?".

followed by "if you're gonna keep talking that crap, you're gonna have to leave".

followed by "my kids are not allowed to go in your house anymore".

some stuff is worth losing friends over.

then the whole gun control debate hits an inflection point.

I do not share your optimism. More than that, I see nothing - nothing whatsoever - that gives me any reason to share your optimism.

My own prediction is that anyone who can afford to buy the civilian version of the newer, higher-powered rifle is gonna go do exactly that, as soon as is humanly possible.

They will complain about the fact that it only has a 20 round magazine, and they'll complain that they can only get it in semi-auto.

And that will spawn a cottage industry in after-market magazines with expanded capacity, and a blizzard of hacks to let folks work around the semi-auto limitation.

If you can find anything in our experience over the last couple of decades that indicates I'm wrong, I'd love to see it.

The fact that the newer rifle has greater kinetic force will be seen as a feature, not a bug.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

I'll bet if we relabeled the murders of the 21 and counting innocents what it is: 21 very late-term abortions, murderer Cornyn would find time away from his "personal business" (keeping one's mealy-mouthed ass out of the line of fire IS highly personal) to step up to the mic:

'Personal reasons: A spokesperson for Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), another slated NRA convention speaker, said the lawmaker had already notified the gun group he would not be attending. “Prior to the tragedy today in Uvalde we had already informed the NRA he would not be able to speak due to [an] unexpected change in his schedule,” Cornyn spokesperson Drew Brandewie said. “He now has to be in D.C. for personal reasons on Friday.”'

Why would a jackass who conceal carries be so afraid of his own first amendment rights as to fail to appear and publicly lie his filthy conservative ass off.

Too bad the 19 dead fucking kids didn't think to commit truancy and the 2 fucking dead adults didn't call call in sick to avoid the limelight that conservative vermin America got all over them.

Well, at least blood-soaked conservatives won't have to pay that teacher for her way-too generous socialist summmer vacation time.

She almost made it.

I hate.

Susan Collins is not available for comment because the two feet she would put in her dishonest lying mouth have a pedicure appointment.

Ten living toes to paint blood red.

Precisely 200 fewer than the now murdered toes now pointing up on coroner's slabs, which were going about their own innocent business a few hours ago in that northern province of Mexico that unfortunately infests America on the wrong side of the Rio Grande.

I suppose Manchin is indisposed because of a schedule conflict between sucking off Mitt Romney and cleaning the barnacles off of his klepotcrat yacht.

The great replacement can't happen soon or fast enough.

Let's pick up the pace.

I wish a Comanche attack on the lot of them.

A noisy one.

[GftNC]

I don't know who this guy is, or who the Golden State Warriors are, but he speaks for all sane people:

https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1529258911349489664

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://digbysblog.net/2022/05/25/why-not-arm-the-children/

Yes, there will be a hardening of targets. The right ones.

Make public the names and addresses of all conservative and libertarian vermin across the country, (don't leave out the liberal ones; I am a fair-minded citizen), who suck gun cock and own weapons and ammo and place round the clock seven days a week massively armed security surrounding their homes and workplaces and strip search the fuckers and confiscate the weapons every time they set a single foot outside their doors to terrorize America in the name of freedom.

That way, our public spaces can be assured of their formerly free range ways.

To help the Lieutenant Governor of Texas along with his armed Christian victimhood, hard crucify him in his front yard, just to punish him for that martyr's lilt in his voice and that beatific murderous visage on his face.

As he has virally pointed out for his fellow death cultists, he's about at the age to give up this mortal coil for freedom's sake.

[Girl from the North Country]

I hate.

Hmm, you don't say.

[JakeB]

Thank you for giving me my first laugh of the day with your 1:37 GftNC

[Nooneithinkisinmytree]

I laughed too.

[Girl from the North Country]

So I guess that spokesman for the sane is Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors. People are strongly advising him to run for office. Meanwhile, someone called Ally Sammarco has tweeted the persuasive:

The U.S. has the highest firearm per capita ratio.

If guns made us safer, we would be the safest country on earth.

[Tony P.]

russell: some stuff is worth losing friends over.

I have been saying that for a long time, and not just here. I have been chagrined at the pushback from friends and family.

To be fair, I have pushed the point farther than russell does. Nothing will change, I keep telling my liberal friends and family, until sane people start shunning MAGAts -- not just hardcore gun fetishists. Refuse to socialize with MAGAts, don't do business with MAGAts, don't let their MAGA talking points go unanswered so as to avoid unpleasantness in casual conversation.

"But we've been neighbors a long time," or "but they're my wife's parents", or "but I can't go asking my handyman what his politics are" -- these are the typical objections I hear. To which I can only reply: "Well, then don't keep telling ME how deplorable MAGAts are."

The Culture cannot change if sane people can't be bothered to change it. The Culture is made of people.

Many gun massacres ago, long before MAGAt was a word even, I pissed off Slarti in these pages by declaring that sane people shunning gun owners as they would shun pedophiles is the only way The Culture will change. Slarti took much umbrage at that. I also said, back then, that my contempt for gun owners would grow with each new atrocity, and that I expected it would keep growing for a while. It has.

This Beau of the Fifth Column character is no doubt (and perhaps avowedly) a gun owner himself. But he seems to get the "guns as prosthetic cocks" aspect of "the gun crowd". His thesis seems to be that the "military-style cocks are the manliest cocks" fetish will lead the gun crowd to switch its brand preference to the newest and deadliest military weapon. And he warns them that when even wishy-washy politics-averse people see what a twice-as-powerful bullet does to the bodies of the inevitable next batch of 11-year-olds, The Culture is likely to turn against them. Tasteful bullet holes are one thing; torsos blown apart is another. Beau is not optimistic, exactly: he seems to expect that more-awful carnage WILL happen before The Culture revolts because of the greater gruesomeness of it.

As a gun owner (probably) this Beau guy would likely agree with russell in this sense: shunning gun fetishists is what "sane" gun owners have to start doing. Even Slarti might agree with that. When the "sane" ones prevail, the rest of us may no longer need to shun gun owners any more than we shun drill-press owners. That would be fine, if it ever happens.

--TP

[Girl from the North Country]

Channel 4 News tonight:

The biggest killer of children in America now is not cars, and not cancer, it is guns.

[Girl from the North Country]

I pissed off Slarti in these pages by declaring that sane people shunning gun owners as they would shun pedophiles is the only way The Culture will change. Slarti took much umbrage at that

One of my earliest interactions on ObWi was with Slarti. I had made what I considered an obvious remark, in any sane company, about gun ownership, and he took great offence. It was a lesson to me. I didn't quite realise how the possession of guns in the US had been normalised to the point that decent people like a regular ObWi stalwart would totally assume that anybody should have the right to own a gun. It is really hard to convey to Americans how very mad this sounds in the rest of the world.

[nous]

This Beau of the Fifth Column character is no doubt (and perhaps avowedly) a gun owner himself. But he seems to get the "guns as prosthetic cocks" aspect of "the gun crowd". His thesis seems to be that the "military-style cocks are the manliest cocks" fetish will lead the gun crowd to switch its brand preference to the newest and deadliest military weapon. And he warns them that when even wishy-washy politics-averse people see what a twice-as-powerful bullet does to the bodies of the inevitable next batch of 11-year-olds, The Culture is likely to turn against them. Tasteful bullet holes are one thing; torsos blown apart is another. Beau is not optimistic, exactly: he seems to expect that more-awful carnage WILL happen before The Culture revolts because of the greater gruesomeness of it.

I agree for the most part with Beau, but feel that his piece needs a bit of unpacking and some detail added in for people with a pop culture level understanding of the firearms.

The new Next Gen Squad rifle is different from the AR15 in that it's throwing a bigger bullet at a higher speed. The bigger bullet part is nothing new. The AR10 is basically an AR15 with a bullet that is larger than the new round. The AR15 is an "assault rifle" because it fires an "intermediate" round that is lighter and has less recoil than a full size hunting round, so it is easier to shoot and you can carry more ammo for the same weight. The AR10 is a "battle rifle" because it fires a "full size" bullet big enough to take down large game reliably with a single well-aimed shot. The AR15 round is capable of taking large game, but not efficiently enough to qualify as what most hunters consider a humane kill.

So in terms of potential carnage, the AR10 is already a bigger, badder AR with more deadly potential and greater range.

The new round used in the Next Gen Squad Rifle is smaller than the one used in the AR10, but it is fired from a new bullet case that is lighter and stronger than the case for the AR10 bullet, and loaded to higher pressure, which means more velocity, longer range, more accuracy, and more power on impact, and there are design features for the rifle that reduce the amount of recoil so that the rifle remains easy to handle despite its power.

This last part is important because it means that you can't just stick a different barrel on an AR10 and fire the new round. It's going to kick way to hard in an AR for the average shooter.

But the AR10 would already do most of what the new rifle does, and I could go down to the local rifle shop and buy one today and have it in my hands in 10 days.

What makes the ARs so prevalent and popular is that they use the same bullets that NATO uses, held in the same box magazine that NATO uses. The ammo manufacturers will always need to produce those bullets for the military and law enforcement, so they will continue to be available even in an ammo shortage like we currently have. And if civil order breaks down (as the ammosexuals fantasize) and force is necessary to protect property, the AR crowd figures that they will either have access to the ammo used by the police, or will be able to scavenge it from the "bad" troops using NATO equipment.

It's the interchangeability of, parts, magazines and ammo that keep the gun nuts buying the same type of guns that the military uses. I don't see that changing in the short term just for the new gun. We are a generation away from the new gun becoming as ubiquitous as the ARs.

[russell]

a generation or so ago, it was not unusual to hear people talking about how they got drunk at a bar or party and drove home. not just talking, but more or less bragging.

nowadays, nobody does that. because it's become shameful to drive drunk. because it kills people. you don't get to put other people's lives at risk to indulge your own personal pleasures.

I don't really care if responsible people own guns for hunting, sport, or reasonable personal protection. That said, I have no patience anymore for people who keep guns out of some weird fantasy that they are going to overthrow the government or generally kill their neighbors if their pet policies don't prevail.

a lot of people embrace what can only be characterized as delusional paranoid fantasies. about being "replaced", about secret cabals of one world government plotters, about pedophile rings operating in the basements of pizza joints that don't have basements.

the correct response to that stuff is "that is fucking nuts".

a lot of people embrace the idea that they are entitled to own firearms designed to prevail in a combat firefight, and to carry those firearms any and every place they like. including to public gatherings, where they threaten the rest of us with Second Amendment Solutions if they don't get their way on one topic or other.

the correct response to that is "fuck you". or, if it's someone you don't want to address in quite that way due to their being a friend or family member, "get away from me and stay away until you regain your sanity" will do.

we've all put up with this bullshit long enough. people are murdered on a regular basis. people kill themselves on an even more regular basis. tens of thousands a year, every year. and what we hear from gun aficionados is that that is the price we have to pay for the sacred freedom of everyone to own and carry a gun.

living around people who threaten to kill you is not freedom. hoarding guns and ammunition because you think some weird cabal is out to get you is not freedom. living such a desperate and hopeless life that you can think of no option other than shooting yourself - or someone else, or 10 or 12 or 20 someone elses, or all of the above - is not freedom.

it's hell.

it's time to stop putting up with this crap as if it were just another point of view. it's not just another point of view. it's toxic horrifying fearful insanity.

let's stop making room for it.

if that means some relationships go by the wayside, so be it. if that's the price of moving the needle one tiny inch in the direction of sanity, so be it.

[nous]

I truly hope that what you seek to accomplish with shame works, russell, but I fear that the other side has already cut those ties in their hearts and look forward to your rejection as a sort of validation.

[wj]

What you're saying, nous, is that there's actually no cost to your relationships for cutting ties to those crazies. Because, even if they are family or people you regard as friends, they have already broken any and all but the most superficial of their ties to you. I can only agree.

[nous]

I would not have thought this two years ago, but in the wake of a failed political coup and a successful judicial coup, the only thing to which I can compare the driving faction in the GOP is to the Westboro Baptists.

I'm sure that my family members would feel sad for my absence in their lives, but they would see that as a sign of *me* being the heretic and them as holding fast, whatever the cost, to the righteous path.

Much like the Phelpses.

[CharlesWT]

The gun nuts may be nuts but they're largely not the ones killing being killed with guns.

[Girl from the North Country]

a generation or so ago, it was not unusual to hear people talking about how they got drunk at a bar or party and drove home.

I am ashamed to say that this, occasionally, was me. Not often, and certainly never bragging. But every New Year's Eve in the mid to late 70s we used to go to Ronnie Scott's, where George Melly and the Feetwarmers did the regular NYE gig, and I distinctly remember driving back from Soho to Hampstead, where I was staying with a friend, fairly out of my brains (and not just because George Melly had rather astonishingly said to me "Fancy a fuck?") and crashing into the parked car behind me while I was trying to parallel park. I left a note on their windscreen with my details, much to my friend's bemusement.

I tell this story not only to (maybe inappropriately) lighten the sombre mood, but also to illustrate that what russell says is absolutely true, even of a scrupulous law-abiding type such as myself. We just didn't have the brains, or maybe the maturity, and certainly not the societal consensus, to think of how very dangerous this behaviour was. But the difference is, as russell says, this would be regarded with horror now, and by the very same people.

[wj]

But the difference is, as russell says, this would be regarded with horror now, and by the very same people.

So, change is possible. Even if we currently have no good idea how to make it happen on this issue.

[hairshirthedonist]

Well … we have elected officials posing with their families in Christmas photos with everyone holding a gun. (The Christ child is born!) I don’t know if there was an equivalent to that for driving drunk (or whatever) at any point. We seem to moving the other way on guns.

[russell]

the other side has already cut those ties in their hearts and look forward to your rejection as a sort of validation.

so be it.

[Nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/05/theyve-never-believed-their-own-bullshit

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-25/texas-forces-companies-to-be-neutral-on-guns-or-lose-business

They are 12 steps ahead of any our shunning and our voting and our goddamned useless good will.

They and Putin will murder us and our kids and we will like the sublime originalism of it.

[Tony P.]

CharlesWT: The gun nuts may be nuts but they're largely not the ones killing [or]? being killed with guns.

I don't know how CharlesWT defines "gun nuts". The way I define them is "the assholes who enable the shooters by insisting that guns have to be widely available and unrestricted, because Liberty(TM)!!"

Paranoid sociopaths who feel entitled to rule the country and would take pride in being shunned by sane people don't have to own guns to be assholes. But they often do. Because Liberty(TM)!!

Fuck'em all. Satan will recognize his own.

--TP

[JakeB]

@Russell--

On the one hand I agree that a world where gun nuts were truly shunned might actually lead some of them back towards acting like decent human beings. On the other hand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcocrzC-CrE

I wondered if this guy was carrying a concealed weapon in the back of his shorts and was just looking for justification to use it. I expect that telling heavily-armed paranoid nihilists (I see nihilists! They're everywhere I look! They don't even know that they're nihilists!) that as they are constituted they are too repulsive to be welcome among civilized people is going to lead to even more of the kind of horrors we've been seeing. Understand, I'm not criticizing your point of view. I feel the same kind of despair that you do. I don't know what to do either.

[JakeB]

In the spirit of noone... -- and he might well have thought of this but I usually don't have the energy to wade all the way through his rants -- I suppose the reason for so many strict abortion bans among Republicans is to make sure that there are enough mobile targets for everybody who wants to go on a shooting spree.

[nous]

Been following up on the round that the Next Gen Squad Rifle fires and it appears that the round doesn't kick any harder than the .308 round fired by the AR10. So really, we already have rifles as lethal as the ones in Beau's video commercially available. The AR10 won't be quite as lethal at 400 yards and greater, but not many of these mass shootings are happening at that range.

$1500 at the local gun store, even in California.

But I'd bet that the mass shooter continues with the AR15. It's less expensive and easier to shoot quickly, and their priority is on spectacle and mayhem, not on efficient kills. Their real target is media attention. The bodies are just a means to an end.

[Hartmut]

Just this morning I read a troll comment on a youtube video concerning the Uvalde shooting complaining about how unfair it is to put limits on alcohol for all drivers just because of some idiots running people over with their cars while being drunk.
I was almost surprised that he did not try to also draw an analogy to the failure of prohibition in the US. "Criminals don't obey the laws so (gun) laws are useless and discriminate against non-criminals." is very commonly said in this context.
That drunk driving is currently shunned does not mean that we cannot return to an era where it is not. Compare also the return of open racism in the last few years in so-called polite society. Give people the licence to act like digestive rear exits and far too many will jump to it.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Things won't change until the guns are pointed at GOPers, and having a NRA membership card is treated like having an Al Qaeda membership card, in terms of the holders life expectancy.

[hairshirthedonist]

Baseless anti-trans theory about Uvalde shooting spreads online, touted by U.S. congressman

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trans-womans-photo-used-spread-200849248.html

Sam, a transgender woman who lives in Georgia, said that on Tuesday evening, Reddit users started commenting on a photo of her that she had shared on the platform three months ago.

They told her the photo was being shared on 4chan, a forum website with little moderation, and people were saying that it showed the shooter who killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday. The shooter, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was killed on the scene by police.

(...)

The claims were spread by some prominent conservatives on Tuesday.

Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican, said of the shooter in a since-deleted tweet, “It’s a transsexual leftist illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos.” Gosar has not returned a request for comment.

One of Sam’s photos was shared by the Young Conservatives of Southern Indiana Facebook page, which has more than 4,000 followers.

Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who was successfully sued for defamation for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a hoax, also echoed the misinformation that the Uvalde shooting suspect was trans. Representatives for Jones’ website did not immediately respond for comment.

Conservative personality Candace Owens joined in on Wednesday, referencing “cross-dressing” photos she said she’d seen of the suspect. Owens has previously shared misinformation in her feeds and unsuccessfully sued Facebook in 2021 after the company added a fact-checking warning to one of her posts.

The state of our political discourse is beyond parody, satire, and ridicule.

[Ugh]

We must arm the CRT indoctrinating grooming teachers!!!!

[Girl from the North Country]

The state of our political discourse is beyond parody, satire, and ridicule.

Yes, it is.

[wj]

Just because this week really could use some good news, note this. In Georgia, the incumbants for Governor and Secretary of State both beat out a couple of Trumpist Big Lie enthusiasts. It wasn't even close, in spite of Trump's vigorous and vindictive efforts to "punish" them for not breaking the law on his behalf.

On most issues, including voter suppression, Kemp and Raffensperger are no prizes. But in today's GOP, someone who just commits to reality and following the law is a treasure.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"The state of our political discourse is beyond parody, satire, and ridicule."

And yet the malignant genocidal right wing in Deathmerica is doing its bestworst to promote murderous gunfire out ahead of parody, satire, and ridicule as the linqua franca, the engine of the state of our political discourse.

Now, let's deconstruct, no, detonate and demolish those cited paragraphs to learn how our "journalism" persists in using archaic and laughably, politically correct language to describe these purveyors of the "discourse.

"The 'CLAIMS' were spread." Izzat what they are?

Claims?

Hitler claimed all over the joint. He built death camps to house the objects of his role as claimant. Pol Pot was a champion claimer. Charles Manson claimed a Beatles song as a soundtrack for mass murder.

That can't be the right word, can it? CLAIMS? Come on!

"One of Sam's photos was "SHARED" by the Young Conservatives ...."

Is this what "SHARING" consists of, now? Kind of like I share my lobster bisque with my son? Or is it more akin to Hitler "sharing" his "claims" about the Jewish people in "Mein Kampf", like maybe he was nudging you in a movie theater and offering to "share" his almond M&Ms with you, but please take only the brown ones cause he's allergic to those.

"Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist ... echoed..."

So, Jones is kind of like the late David Susskind, I guess, introducing, say, the late physicist and theorist Richard Feynman, both smoking pipes as they sit in overstuffed armchairs on a late-night TV set, "ECHOING" the difficult theories put forth by physicists since the Enlightenment regarding the elegant physical nature of the conspiring universe?

On our next show, we'll introduce Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein who will share and echo their fleshing out of the claims and theories of early 18th century slave traders and their descendants in mid-20th Century Southern American statehouses and corroborate these findings with those of early Nazi theorists who posited that Candace Owen would become ...

.... Jesse Owens ... no, I mean, a conservative "PERSONALITY"? A what? Ya mean like Danny Kaye became a personality of the stage and screen who elevated side-splitting silliness to an art form?

Was Herman Goehring a Nazi PERSONALITY, known predominantly for his soft shoe routine in Weimar vaudeville?

As a Jewish woman remarked just before being guided to the most unfortunate queue by the guard greeting her as she disembarked: "Young man, I don't necessarily agree with this decision, but you do possess quite the PERSONALITY and you will go far, unless the Russians get here first! Now, this way to the egress, you CLAIM?"

And what did OWENS do? She "REFERENCED" the photos? What is she, a bespectacled researcher bent over musty manuscripts deep in the stacks of an academic library, croaking out a "EUREKA!" for no one to hear? Well, I'll give this, that is one step below "SHARING" .... hold yer horses, wait, she did "SHARE' misinformation, previously. Like how .. like the protagonist murderer in Conan Doyle's "The Speckled Band" sent his poisonous snake down the servant pull cord each night to the bedroom below to SHARE its venom with the sleeping victim?

I know.

I do go on and on, using the most unacceptable and hateful language. Perhaps if I shut up great golden palomino ponies will jump out of America's ass and I will be proved alarmist, but still annoying as I call a Joker a spade.

I theorize that the photo that claims the innocent trans posing youth is the mass murderer, is actually a prancing Rod Dreher sharing his new wardrobe choices as he prepares to echo a conservative Christian bullet-sharing spree, for "SPREE" is the go to Stalinist NRA term as they shop their conservative death cult motley.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"On most issues, including voter suppression, Kemp and Raffensperger are no prizes."

So, THIS is where we are?

In the end, Mussolini wasn't THAT bad either. No prize, to be sure, but they did put a ribbon around his dead upside-down ankle, as commendation for his failure to achieve the olympian heights of genocide of one or two other professionals within 500 miles of Rome.

So this:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/texas-school-daggett-elementary-sorry-for-showing-kids-images-of-ar-15s-day-after-uvalde-massacre?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition

I don't know what to say, except that however you perceive it to be fucked up elides the other 10 ways it is inside out upside down even more fucked up.

Perhaps Ted Cruz will cave and ban deadly photographs of wesponry.

And the photos aren't even noisy like the real item, noisy being the worst feature by far of these solely utilitarian instruments of human body aeration and providing a means of letting blood escape its proper location.

[wj]

So, THIS is where we are?

Yup, I'm afraid that this is exactly where we are. At this point, much as we might like to see the GOP return to something like sane conservatism (so we could have vigorous arguments about the actual merits of various actual policy proposals), just getting back to the real world (at least in places) is a stretch goal.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/05/40-minutes

By all means, let's put cops in schools, should they decide among themselves to enter at their leisure.

Maybe Secret Servive agents in schools in lieu, since they are so effective at keeping guns out of the Supreme Court and NRA meetings and away from those who have no problem with selling guns to murderers and enabling guns in schools, surrounding schools, and being driven to schools.

I mean the tree of liberty is kept in a pot at the Supreme Court and we are not permitted to water it ourselves.

Apparently Clarence Thomas waters it three times a day, but secretly .. no leaks permitted, except when he urinates on it.

How is an American elementary school, every single day, exactly like United Flight 93 on 9/11, except that alcohol is not served in the former?

Let's too ban all doors in schools, except one, so the next shooter, you know who you are, can put a quick bullet into the cop inside the entrance, then lock and barricade the one door preventing all egress for the predator's victims and simultaneously blocking further entry by SWAT teams who really aren't sure they even want to charge that beachhead on Guadalcanal, because how did Guadalcanal happen to end up in every city and town on the American mainland.

The Constitution sez nothing.

Let me start again. The Constitution sez nothing about doors in schools.

Nadda about doors, as Constituional expert Ted Cruz will tell you. Removing doors from schools is not a taking.

Removing military grade weaponry and ammo from schools, or anywhere near schools, is a taking.

What if a guy showed up at an elementary school with the tools of the carpentry trade and began installing another door in a school and the cops showed up with their own doors and beat him to death with those doors, as a police action.

Would Ted Cruz have a problem with banning doors? I think not because the Constitution does not protect doors, and the Supreme Court would uphold that position because architectural drawings which include the positioning of doors in schools are overruled by permanant originalist language in the founding document.

I think John Jay used the term "door" in the Federalist Pickwick Papers, but only in the sense of "We shall shut the door to banning any type of gun in perpetuity (yes, "perps" too may possess guns), including the ones we already possess but also any that God invents and distributes via Santa's workshop.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

12-year-old possessing excess physicality and who has threatened excess violent physicality against the entire elite liberal establishment shoots himself in both of his spermless testicles:

https://www.mediamatters.org/dan-bongino/dan-bongino-blames-left-young-boys-who-dont-understand-penalities-excess-physicality

He doesn't crossdress, but he is known to crossundress.

[russell]

we've got a generation of young boys who don't understand the penalties of excess physicality to the point of murder?

Maybe it's just me, but I have no freaking idea what this means. It has something to do with "dads roughhousing", but I'm at a loss to make sense of it.

What is he trying to say?

Overall, the response to Uvalde from conservatives is "it's not about the guns". Which seems to elide an important aspect of shooting school kids to death.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Ray Liotta is dead.

With so many armed conservative Goodfellas rampant across the national landscape, who needs him?

But seriously, if you want to see an actor communicate sheer clenched menace, watch him in "Something Wild".

He was so much better at it than Babyface Bongino.

[Pro Bono]

If you're interested in the UK perspective on this, you can get most of what you want by looking at these two web pages:

US school shootings this millennium.

UK school shootings ever.

[nous]

The entirety of his implied argument is muscular pacifism. Children need to learn that dad *could* beat the crap out of them, but *chooses* not to. And that choice not to do it constitutes love.

Liberal dads, effin' soyboys, don't project enough threat to show love.

Insert homily here about that fine line of how much pain dad needs to inflict in order to show the limits of suffering a child is allowed to inflict in the name of physicality, and how hard it is as a dad to hurt a child *just enough* that they learn their place.

But don't ever contemplate the far side of that equation where the formula tips precipitously in the other direction.

[wj]

"it's not about the guns"

Of course not. Guns don't kill people; bullets kill people. (Hey, it makes as much sense as any of their other bullshit arguments.)

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Whatever you do, don't politicize gun violence, you sick fuck, Beto O'Rourke:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/26/2100458/-Ted-Cruz-bolts-from-reporters-confronting-him-on-his-paltry-and-pissy-answers-on-gun-reform

Marinate it, cure it, bread it, broil it, bake it, fricassee it, barbecue it, pickle it, add it as a dessert topping, serve it up as an amuse bouche, fry it up, chew it, eat it, swallow it, digest it, shit it out, puke it back up and lick it up for a second helping, it's never too soon to write a recipe book about it, serve it up raw, pray over it, think over it, but never speak about it while governing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaZGaJrd3x8

hat tip Daily Kos.

Yes, I do hate those who deserve it.

[Hartmut]

It's primarily the kinetic energy of the bullets transfered into the body of the victim. The same could come from a supersonic pebble. Even grains of wheat can become lethal projectiles with sufficient speed (I remember photos of a sheet metal street sign dented and even perforated by such in a tornado.).
SCOTUS closed the bullet loophole long ago anyway. You cannot legally make guns useless* by inhibiting access to ammo.

*I mean apart from use as clubs or fitted with bayonets.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

I've mentioned on another website that I'm way way behind on my plan to build a hypersonic infant-formula-can projector to use for bombarding gun shows.

So, of course, NOW there's a damned ammo shortage. SHEESH!

[Hartmut]

Hey, for (handheld) auto fire short cartridges are far more practical. Less recoil, less rising of the barrel, less ammo weight...

[russell]

Children need to learn that dad *could* beat the crap out of them, but *chooses* not to. And that choice not to do it constitutes love.

Liberal dads, effin' soyboys, don't project enough threat to show love.

Dude is one seriously damaged individual.

[wj]

Children need to learn that dad *could* beat the crap out of them, but *chooses* not to. And that choice not to do it constitutes love.

So the fact that anybody here *could* fire a bazooka into the home of, for example, Senator Cruz or Senator McConnell, but we (so far) *choose* not to means we love them? And the fact that they could do the same to the members of The Squad, but choose not to, mean there's love there, too?

Not just damaged, but totally lost to reality.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

This is a legitimate natural human reaction to despicable and preventable human misery:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/05/casualties-of-war-3

Compare that to the subhuman reactions of the sadistic cold-blooded Christian conservative republicans who have been holding forth during the last 48 hours.

Abbott and his savage hitmen and hitwomen are counting this latest death as a win win, as now they don't have to figure out a way to steal the poor man's vote, since the guy's fucking dead, like his wife.

My brother texted me today that his father-in-law, 85 years old, was rushed to the ICU today in critical condition from the Covid-19 virus. He had to be forcibly admitted against his will as he cannot breath on his own.

He has refused all vaccination, refused to wear a mask or isolate, including in my presence (from way across the fucking room, believe me) a couple of times, when suffering flu-like symptoms, showing up coughing and sneezing from time to time over the past two years and counting, believing, along with tens of million of his fellow subhuman death cultists, Covid-19 to be a hoax. He deliberately exposed his entire family and those left among his elderly friends to this deadly killer.

His death certificate ... he's not expected to make it ... will accurately but nominally say his body succumbed to the virus. Suicide is more like it, if America was place where truth any longer has any fucking purchase whatsoever, it's not, it's a bullshit death cult, an alien body-snatching infestation to which his brain succumbed, and Christian conservative attempted MURDERER would be on the money.

But Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, and Rupert Murdoch murdered him as well. It took tens of thousands of prominent conservatives to murder him, in spite of his willingness to be murdered.

Personal responsibility, some will whine. Keep telling yourselves that if it helps you sleep you fucking guilty government-hating conservatives.

I need to save some bile to summon when I fucking kill this country, which has been converted into the lowest several depths of Dante's burning Hell by genocidal vermin pig fucking conservatives.

Russia and China would do us a favor by launching every nuclear warhead in their arsenals at us, and saving a few more to incinerate the few rat fucking conservatives who apparently had human mothers but would find a way to survive in their fascist hidey holes.

They must be killed, regardless of the cost.

I'm done for the time being. I'm existentially sick to the death.

Be safe, but I don't know how or where to advise in this deliberately blighted piece of shit land mass.

[Priest]

Add one to the death toll, the husband of one of the killed teachers has died of a heart attack.

[Nigel]

And they have four kids.

Meanwhile.

.
Literally.

https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/1529974140765077506
Company that made weapons used in Uvalde massacre offers “thoughts and prayers.”

[Pro Bono]

It seems that semi-automatic rifles are protected by the original intent of the framers of the Second Amendment, as divined by the far-right nutters who have seized control of the US Supreme Court.

However, no one can possibly imagine the framers wanted children to be shot. The only explanation is that their original intent was that children should not go to school once arms became sufficiently lethal. Close down the schools now - the constitution demands it.

[Donald]

The Onion

https://www.theonion.com/

[Girl from the North Country]

Alas, that familiar headline from the Onion is evergreen, which is of course the point.

[GftNC]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/may/27/the-onion-gun-violence-texas-shooting

In which we learn that the Onion's Editor in Chief is called Chad Nackers. (It is possible that this will only be of interest to UK readers.)

[Hartmut]

Pro Bono, unfortunately the argument that public schools should be abolished because of school shootings is used in all seriousness by parts of the right. It also seems to be a prepared talking point for lots of trolls at the moment. The only other option proposed is to turn schools into the equivalent of maximum security prisons.

[russell]

FWIW, I have friends who home-school at least partly because they don't want their kids to be shot. The odds of it happening are slim, but non-zero, and they'd rather not take the chance.

These are reasonable people. Not paranoid, not crazy preppers. Just regular folks doing the calculus and deciding they aren't going to put their kids at risk.

Wrote a long-ish post, a screed really, but who needs that kind of negativity. The tl;dr version is basically that this country has become ungovernable at the national level.

We are in thrall to madness, and there appears to be damned little we can do about it. The institutions we have created with which to govern ourselves have not failed, so much as they have been co-opted for other purposes.

And so the madmen win the day.

[wj]

The tl;dr version is basically that this country has become ungovernable at the national level.

At the state level, some have become not so much ungovernable as ungoverned. That is, a significant part of the state government is devoted, not to governing, but to providing a venue for performance art.** And/or a stage for auditioning for higher office.

** I confess my taste in art is rather different. But then, I don't like absteact impressionism either. YMMV After all, clearly some people are entranced.

[nous]

It for all the world looks to me as if the alt-right took Guy Debord's critique of late capitalism in The Society of the Spectacle and just decided to embrace it without any sense of irony.

12.
The spectacle presents itself as something enormously positive, indisputable and inaccessible. It says nothing more than “that which appears is good, that which is good appears. The attitude which it demands in principle is passive acceptance which in fact it already obtained by its manner of appearing without reply, by its monopoly of appearance.

13.
The basically tautological character of the spectacle flows from the simple fact that its means are simultaneously its ends. It is the sun which never sets over the empire of modern passivity. It covers the entire surface of the world and bathes endlessly in its own glory.

14.
The society which rests on modern industry is not accidentally or superficially spectacular, it is fundamentally spectaclist. In the spectacle, which is the image of the ruling economy, the goal is nothing, development everything. The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself.

I'm tired of cosplaying Yeats' "The Second Coming."

[wj]

Here's a fascination column, arguing that the US military needs more immigrants.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/25/military-recruitment-immigrants-green-card/

Why?

...there’s the quality-candidate issue. Increasingly, Americans who do apply are rejected. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even if they wanted to join, 71 percent of young people cannot meet military requirements. One in four is overweight. Others either fail to meet the education requirements necessary to serve in a high-tech 21st-century military or have mental health challenges or a drug abuse or criminal record. [Emphasis added]

Including, obviously, the scum who shoot up elementary schools in pursuit of their macho fantasies. And yet some Congressmen argue that we can't raise the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21. In deference to the memory of the young men who served in the military in the past, we cannot restrict those who can't even qualify to join today. Daft.

[Hartmut]

Under Rumsfeld there were serious attempts to recruit psychopaths into the armed forces for the glorious Iraq adventure, people that would have no qualms about killing and not suffer PTSD. It took some time and effort until Rummy could be made to understand that such people would have as little or even less problems with killing their superior officers as with killing designated enemies. And then there was the problem with candidates that saw it primarily as the training ground for the future race war (people hating Arabs and Muslims were also high on the list of desired recruits).
That kind of shortsightedness has some tradition in the US and the armed forces of the same.

[Michael Cain]

If all the public schools are replaced with private schools -- hundreds of thousands of them, with playgrounds and all the other accoutrements -- why won't the mass shooters just go there?

[CharlesWT]

It may depend on how much the one-size-fits-some public schools do/don't contribute to someone becoming a shooter.

Plus the Parkland shooter had been a participant in active shooter drills which he may have used to his advantage.

[JakeB]

I think you're overgeneralizing here, Charles, with that first point. That could be true of Parkland or Columbine, but is very unlikely to be relevant to what happened this week.

[nous]

Every school - every classroom - is one-size-fits-some. Anyone who thinks differently has never been a teacher.

And I note that this line of reasoning blames the public school personnel and administrators for creating the shooter. Thanks for that. Good to know that we are bringing all these troubles on ourselves by some unknown mechanism being hinted at but not spelled out.

It's an anti-public-education madlib. Pick your own favorite grievance against your schooling and fill in the blank.

The "teachers union" blank is a freebie.

I'll be sure to ponder my own complicity next time I get an alert email asking us all to shelter in place. Again.

[Girl from the North Country]

Every school - every classroom - is one-size-fits-some.

Of course. I have to say, Charles, I think that was a pretty absurd thing to say. You might more usefully say "it all depends on how dysfunctional a home life needs to be to create a shooter". Because God knows there are lots of dysfunctional homes - although plenty here too, with (as Pro Bono notes) a grand total of one school shooting ever, and that in 1996.

But if you stopped people having easy access to guns, from any kind of school or home, whatever contributes to making someone become a shooter would be irrelevant - there'd be fewer (or no) shooters.

I'm tired of cosplaying Yeats' "The Second Coming."

I could not agree more.

[russell]

It may depend on how much the one-size-fits-some public schools do/don't contribute to someone becoming a shooter.

It's an anti-public-education madlib.

It's an anti-public-anything madlib.

Plus the Parkland shooter had been a participant in active shooter drills which he may have used to his advantage.

I could be mistaken, but my best guess is that the Parkland shooter's advantage was probably his gun.

Lots of places have public schools. There are public schools all over the world.

The only place - the only place on the fucking planet - where school shootings are a recurring and persistent phenomenon is here.

Only here.

Public schools are not the problem.

[wj]

Public schools are not the problem.

Public schools are not the cause of our public school shooting epidemic. But for Charles, and those of similar philosophical bent, public anything is a problem in itself. One of these shootings is just a means to the end of getting rid of something (NOT the shootings) which he sees as a problem.

[CharlesWT]

The US isn't the only country where schoolchildren get attacked. But the attacks are generally more deadly in the US as other countries have fewer civilian guns. Attackers in other countries just substitute knives and other weapons. Granted, the US is much worse than the countries it's normally compared to and a number of other countries as well.

Public schools are not the problem.

They are some part of the problem. Most students have only one choice of school to go to. No matter how badly they are being treated they have to keep going to that school. The police come looking for them and their parents if they don't.

"Among the topmost motives of attackers were: bullying/persecution/threatened (75%) and revenge (61%), while 54% reported having numerous reasons. The remaining motives included an attempt to solve a problem (34%), suicide or depression (27%), and seeking attention or recognition (24%)."
School Shooting

Any shooting is a tragedy and mass shootings are horrendous. But things are better than they have been. Admittedly, a low bar.

"School shootings are a "modern phenomenon". There were scattered instances of gunmen or bombers attacking schools in the years before the Frontier Middle School shooting in Moses Lake, Washington in 1996, "but they were lower profile", according to journalist Malcolm Gladwell in 2015. Beginning in the late 1990s, there has been a steep increase in the frequency of school shootings across the globe. In the United States specifically, the most recent trend has been downward following the spikes of the 1990s, yet at the same time, they are trending towards a higher likelihood of being premeditated and executed with a strict plan in mind.

A study by Northeastern University found that "four times the number of children were killed in schools in the early 1990s than today"."
School Shooting: Frequency Trends

[CharlesWT]

One of these shootings is just a means to the end of getting rid of something (NOT the shootings) which he sees as a problem.

Mind reading?

Besides, it looks like the pandemic is going to have a far greater impact on public school attendance than all the shootings have had. There's been a big dropoff in attendance that's likely to not recover very much. And there's also been enough political pressure that a number of states are increasing school choice.

[wj]

One of these shootings is just a means to the end of getting rid of something (NOT the shootings) which he sees as a problem.

Mind reading?

Nope. Memory.

[CharlesWT]

I've never advocated school shootings as a way to reduce the size and number of, to be more precise, government schools. And I certainly don't wish it to happen that way.

[nous]

They are some part of the problem. Most students have only one choice of school to go to. No matter how badly they are being treated they have to keep going to that school. The police come looking for them and their parents if they don't.

And this differs from every other developed country how?

Children in the US are considering revenge against their bullies in the US in different ways from in other developed countries how?

Ever seen Let the Right One In? For that matter, now would be a great moment for Lurker to come by and offer the Finnish perspective on the speculation about this being a problem of compulsory public schooling.

All the foreign TV I watch suggests that teens face all these things in other countries as well. Good thing that those places have functional firearm regulations in place.

[russell]

Kids in private schools aren’t bullied or hazed? Don’t have difficulty fitting in? Don’t feel alienated or angry?

[Hartmut]

Well, the private schools will simply kick these 'troublemakers' (the bullied, not the bullies) out and take care that they do not enter school premises again.

[Nooneithinkisinmytree]

Grocery stores are private entities.

Churches and synagogues are private entities.

Road rage shootings are done in private vehicles.

There’s only one reason any shootings occur and it is beside any tendentious points about public versus private.

It’s the same reason there was so much gunfire at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Iwo Jima, Beirut, and that Syrian city no one of importance can locate or identify.

Shootings ranges experience gunfire continuously during business hours. Why do ya spose?

Fucking Stop this!