Tag: gun control

Mar 24 2016

It’s Not Achievable

What Atrios said   I get trying to stop people from blowing up planes, but you can’t realistically stop them from blowing up the parking lot. But despite a series of episodes in recent years that have targeted transportation hubs worldwide, security experts predict that the latest attacks will revive — but not resolve — …

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Nov 30 2015

Managing Anger

I’ve been really much too angry to talk about many of recent events both here in the US and overseas. Since the bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctor Without Borders) hospital by the US military in Kunduz, Afghanistan to Friday’s mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, trying to remain objective …

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Dec 06 2013

Newtown

Next Saturday marks the first anniversary of the school shooting that took 26 beautiful lives for no reason. The families and people of Newtown have requested that everyone, including the news media stay away and let them mark this sad day within the community. Rachel Maddow reports on Newtown’s request to be left alone on the Sandy Hook tragedy anniversary, and slams the playing of the 911 tapes from that day.

Since Newtown there have been 26 more school shootings. The gun control group Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America wants to know “is silence what America needs right now?”

The following commercial is an effort by the group to bring attention to the need to tighten gun control in a country obsessed with guns as we all mourn with Newtown

Blessed Be

Sep 18 2013

A Plea From a Trauma Surgeon: Put My Trauma Center Out of Business

In the aftermath of another mass shooting that took the lives of 12 people and the gunman in the heart of the nation’s capital at the Washington Naval Yard, Washington Hospital Center Chief Medical Officer Janis Orlowsi, a trauma surgeon spoke to the press. After reporting on the status of the victims who were being treated at her hospital, Dr. Orlowsi made a powerful plea for gun control.

You know what, we see a lot of trauma. And you know, sometimes it’s just, you know – accidents that occur that we get to help people with, because they’re accidents. And then you see what I call senseless trauma. And there is – there’s something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate.

   I – I have to say, I may see this everyday, I may, you know, be the Chief Medical Officer of a very large trauma center. But there’s something wrong here when we have these multiple shootings, these multiple injuries. There is something wrong. and the only thing that I can say is we have to work together to get rid of it.

   I would like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots and not to be an expert on this. We are – we do it well. Very experienced surgeons. But, quite frankly, I would rather they were doing their surgery on other things. And you know, it’s a great city. It’s a great country. And we have to work together to get rid of this. Because we just cannot have, you know, one more shooting with, you know, so many people killed.

   We’ve got to figure this out. We’ve got to be able to help each other. We’re dealing right now with three innocent people. But my prayers and my thoughts go out to those people who have died as a result of today. And, you know, their families and what they’re going to have to go through. So I have to say, you know, it’s a challenge to all of us. Let’s get rid of this. This is not America. This is not Washington D.C. This is not good. So we have got to work to get rid of this.

Jun 17 2013

Sunday June 16, 2013: FINAL Up With Steve Kornacki Tweets

This is the final #Uppers. It's just not worth my time and Lord knows I tried. They had Rick Perlstein on and didn't go into what I prepared for, via his BS attacks and misrepresentations of Glenn Greenwald's articles on PRISM. It was immigration reform, gun control, and more election demographic crap. It's not policy.

It's all inside Congress baseball and isn't that cool? No it's not. Elections without serious reforms to the process, million dollar campaigns and primaries, reform of all our government on all levels from the filibuster to the SCOTUS. It's just not worth staying up. Steve Kornacki doesn't get it.

I may try to tweet All IN a few nights and post that, but I have had enough. I am not alone either, if you check the feed. I have tired to make it interesting, but I can't do it anymore. I need to go to bed earlier. Enjoy the final #Uppers.

Thank you for everyone who read this series. I wish Chris Hayes was still doing it. Maybe part of me is getting tired of politics and cable news, anyway.

May 04 2013

Saturday May 4, 2013: Up with Steve Kornacki Tweets

Today was about gun control and the power of the presidency and a lot of BS about how Obama is the knight in shining armor held down by the evil opposing army in the Senate. Pretending that any mention of the bully pulpit or real legislative history is having liberal fantasies like on the West Wing. Same crap I have debunked forever. I am going to be a thorn in Steve Kornacki’s side if this keeps up. Also there was marriage equality and Jason Collins coming out in the NBA.

Now #Uppers.

This was my point of the day.

Thank you for reading.

Apr 22 2013

Sunday April 21, 2013: Up with Steve Kornacki Tweets

As you know MSNBC deicded to do disaster porn instead of #Uppers yesterday for whatever stupid reason after everything was over. Just for fun since the #Uppers stream was as pissed as I was, I am going to share some of my tweets about that in addition to today's tweets. Yesterday's tweets first.

Thank you for reading and commenting.

Apr 21 2013

Violence v Terrorism: Is There a Difference?

In the aftermath of the bombing at the Boston Marathon and the failure of the Senate to pass a gun control bill that would tighten loop holes in the background check laws, the question of the difference between violence and terrorism has been raised . After the Aurora, CO shooting in a movie theater that killed 12 and injured 58, Andrew Cohen asked in an Atlantic article why there is a 1,000 to 1 spending gap on terrorism and gun violence:

My question now is simple: Why do we spend at least 1,000 times more money protecting ourselves from terrorism than we do protecting ourselves from gun violence? I’m not necessarily suggesting that we spend less on anti-terrorism programs. Like everyone else, I am grateful there have been no mass casualty terror events since 9/11. I’m just wondering, instead, what possible justification there could be for spending so relatively little to try to reduce the casualties of gun violence.

Surely the Second Amendment alone — and the United States Supreme Court’s recent rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago — cannot explain this contrast. Our government has asked us consistently since 9/11 to sacrifice individual liberties and freedom, constitutional rights to privacy for example, in the name of national security. And we have ceded these liberties. Yet that same government in that same time hasn’t asked anyone to sacrifice some Second Amendment rights to help protect innocent victims from gun violence.

If we can reduce the impact of terrorism to a trickle — good for us! — why aren’t we doing more to save some of those 31,000 people who die each year from gun violence? This is not a question for the advocates to spin. It’s not a question for the media to ponder. It’s a question for elected officials to answer. And it’s not apples and oranges, either. Those poor people in Aurora were plenty terrorized. And if they somehow some way don’t merit the same proactive government response that victims of traditional terrorism have received since 9/11, then at least they deserve an explanation why.

Yes, the people of Aurora were terrorized, so were the people of Tuscon, Newtown and Ft. Hood. Despite the greater loss of life none of these incidents were called an act of terror.

So what is the difference between an act of violence and an act of terrorism? Is there a difference?

Incidents like the Boston Marathon bombings, that appear to  be driven by unfettered hatred, shake us to our collective core. They make us think twice about entering public spaces: going out for a meal, taking public transportation, taking a dog for a walk. There is no doubt that the intended consequence of an act like the bombings at the Boston Marathon is to scare. But how should we characterize and define that fear? And what does this fear drive us to do? Does it drive us to suspend rule of law?

According to a Reuters poll taken two day after the bombings in Boston, “most Americans see the biggest threat to public safety coming from random acts of violence committed by other Americans, rather than foreign terrorism”.

Asked which events pose the biggest threat to the safety of average Americans, 56 percent of respondents said random acts of violence, such as mass shootings, committed by Americans; 32 percent said foreign terrorism committed by non-Americans; and 13 percent said politically or religiously motivated domestic terrorism committed by Americans.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they believed an incident like the Boston Marathon attack could happen in their area. A minority of respondents, 42 percent, said the Boston incident had left them more fearful for the safety of themselves and their families.

So what is the difference? Why are terrorist acts, which are far fewer in this country, treated so differently than every day random acts of violence that takes 31,000 lives every year in the US?  

Mar 27 2013

“You Need Something Bigger For Your Hairpin Trigger”

Actor and comedian Jim Carrey took on the right win gun nuts and the gun lobbyist organization, the National Rifle Assosciation.

Jim Carrey’s ‘Cold Dead Hand’ Music Video Spoofs Gun Enthusiasts Like Charlton Heston

The late Charlton Heston might be rolling in his grave today thanks to Jim Carrey, who debuted a new satirical song about gun enthusiasts appropriately titled, “Cold Dead Hand.”

The Funny Or Die music video features Carrey and alt-rock band Eels as “Lonesome Earl And The Clutterbusters,” a country band on a TV show set inspired by the classic variety show, “Hee Haw.” Carrey also portrays the aforementioned Heston, who is continuously mocked throughout the song for his NRA spokesman-ship. Carrey even implies that Heston and all other gun enthusiasts buy weapons to compensate for having, um, “diminished” sexual organs.

Carrey, who has openly supported gun control, said in a release: “I find the gun problem frustrating and ‘Cold Dead Hand’ is my fun little way of expressing that frustration.”

I think Jim Carrey says it all in this Tweet

And here is the video that set them off.

Priceless.

Mar 17 2013

Rant of the Week: Rachel Maddow

Warning: Contents of this video may be disturbing for many.

Gun Control and the Newtown Tragedy

Rachel Maddow reports on how much easier high capacity magazines made it for the Newtown shooter to maximize the slaughter he could commit, and shores the video from the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting today in which Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) dealt with the naivete of freshman Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) before the committee passed an assault weapons ban.

152 bullets, 4 magazines, less than 5 minutes

Adam Lanza Researched Mass Murderers, Sources Say

by Dave Altimari, Edmund H. Mahony and Jon Lender

Before carrying out the Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Adam Lanza conducted research on several mass murders, sources close to the investigation into the shooting have told The Courant.

The Courant had previously reported that investigators found news articles about Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik at Lanza’s Newtown home. Sources now say that investigators found articles and other documents related to other mass murders in one of two bedrooms he used in the house that he shared with his mother, Nancy.

Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 first-graders, on the morning of Dec. 14 before taking his own life as police closed in. Lanza had first shot and killed his mother at their house.

State police gave the victims’ families, Sandy Hook teachers and first-responders an update on the investigation last week in which, sources said, they discussed the theory that Lanza was trying to outdo other killers.

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