A Fact of Life

 

I don't know if referring to school shootings as a "fact of life" can be seen as anything but weird, but somehow, it made sense in the mouth of JD Vance. I grew up watching "Facts of Life" and I'm struggling to recall the episode where Mrs. Garrett lunged to put herself between a bullet and Tootie, but then again, when I was a kid we didn't have active shooter drills with the frequency we had fire drills. 

It's not a "fact of life" in any other country. Just this one. 

Now, a guy like Vance doesn't think it weird to be more concerned about kids having access to porn than guns. Republicans believe weird things. They believe in things like "post-birth abortion" which isn't happening and are concerned with that, not the school shootings which clearly are.  Then again, maybe folks like Vance have warm and fuzzy memories about unsecured firearms. 

Just like Mamaw used to have. 

And We Never Mention 1/6 Again?

 

Donald Trump was shot at. I guess. Luckily, he only got a bloody ear out of it. One Trump fan died protecting his children. It's a terrible thing. A 20-year-old registered Republican with an AR-15 climbed up to a shed roof, was not stopped by local law enforcement, and fired in the direction of the stage.

That's very certainly a terrible thing. We have a problem with gun violence in this country. Senseless deaths and horrific injuries occur all the time. 

The knee-jerk response of many Trump Republicans was to immediately blame "The Left", President Biden, DEI, CRT, the Jews and Ukraine, because all the money intended for the Secret Service apparently went to missiles and now they have to hire dumb girls, or something. That's right, before they even knew who the shooter was or had any idea why he was shooting (which we still don't know).

Oh, and one more thing: we better not criticize Fearless Leader or bring up January 6th ever again. 

Needless to say, that's not something I'm about to do. Donald Trump getting shot at isn't going to make him a better person and this shooting certainly doesn't cancel out what happened on January 6th. I still believe he has no business being president and the reckless lying about election fraud that led up to the massive violence of that day, the bloodshed, the Confederate flag being led through the Capitol, the violence intended to our political system. is something the Republican party must atone for--

Nothing New Under the Florida Sun

 

Ryan Christopher Palmeter, the white gunman who shot and killed three Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida was a 21-year-old who bought his guns legally and had no criminal history, local law enforcement said https://t.co/iXp0cIgwMo

— Reuters (@Reuters) August 28, 2023

The oft-repeated social media line is that Ron Desantis is coming back to Florida to address a tragedy that he doesn't want students to learn about the origins of in class. It's true, though. The slaying of 3 Dollar General patrons due to a racially-motivated murder spree, happened near to the anniversary of a race riot where white people went crazy in response to a lunch counter civil rights protest.* Like the Parkland shooter of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas HS, this young man painted swastikas on his rifle. It was meant to send a domestic terrorist message. 

Bleeding Texas

 

Mass Shootings in Texas
2023 Allen (9 dead)
2023 Cleveland (5 dead)
2022 Uvalde (22 dead)
2019 El Paso (23 dead)
2019 Odessa (8 dead)
2018 Santa Fe (10 dead)
2017 Sutherland Springs (27 dead)
2017 Plano (9 dead)
2015 Waco (9 dead)
2015 Houston (8 dead)
2009 Fort Hood (14 dead)

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) May 7, 2023

No, this is inadequate. Charles Whitman climbed the watchtower on the University of Texas campus in 1966 and the Luby Cafeteria shooting is infamous from 1991. This mass shooting thing in Texas is deep and makes the resolve of the elected officials there to just rely on "thoughts and prayers" to do anything at all while broadly supporting the NRA disgraceful. Of course, nice thoughts aren't fixing this. 

The culture is clearly fucked up. but the resort of fucked up people to utilize guns to manifest their fucked-upness is a critical problem. I don't want to criminalize folks just having guns, but figuring out who potential criminals are and not arming them would be great. 

I see people out there decrying the folks mocking "thoughts and prayers" as being spiteful about god. Nope, these people are critical of prayers being used hypocritically, to be seen on the street corner doing conspicuous prayer, while being in private doing conspicuously nothing at all. While real humans suffer.  Being shot in innocent surroundings. Sometimes dying, sometimes living with a forever affected life. 

Do you have thoughts and prayers for the permanently maimed and terrorized? Do you consider that survivors have trauma and feel different in public spaces, maybe for a lifetime? 

Greg Abbott is Still Greg Abbotting

 

You can go ahead and click to embiggen the above screencap, but the main takeaway is that Greg Abbott, Christian, can't even acknowledge the victims of a senseless and horrendous crime without pointing out that they were "illegal aliens". The eight-year-old dead child. The two women who died covering their children to try to save them from bullets. This after his appalling failure to even recognize the mass shooting earlier. 

This is Greg Abbott, Abbotting. This is the guy who didn't understand why the federal government would go so far as to feed babies in US custody if there was a formula shortage and who wanted (or still wants--don't even know!) to pardon a man who drove into a crowd of BLM protesters and then conveniently shot one who was lawfully open-carrying. 

It once again looks like Greg Abbott feels like there are mitigating circumstances to murder--if he agrees with who the victims were. But also, too, the murderer was an "illegal," so. There's a reward for his capture. 

I have to wonder if they were shot up by a white guy, would he try and commission a medal? Because that's the vibe I'm getting. 

The War at Home

 

Tonight on ⁦@11thHour⁩ with ⁦@SRuhle⁩: Kansas City shooter was “…fully buying into the Fox News, OAN kind of line”. Grandson says Andrew Lester influenced by conservative media | The Kansas City Star ⁦@MSNBC⁩ https://t.co/IJivWs9Yxx

— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) April 21, 2023

A kid was shot because he knocked on the wrong door.  A girl got shot because she turned into the wrong driveway.  Cheerleaders were shot because they approached the wrong car. A little girl and her family were shot at because a ball rolled into the wrong lawn. 

I try to not just blame the guns--our violence problem is exacerbated by the availability of guns, but that isn't the whole problem. There is a synergy between some kind of overly defensive mindset, some kind of near-paranoia, and the access to weaponry, that is the problem. Something has gone terribly wrong with the basic American brain that it looks for enemies everywhere.

Our gun-related violence statistics are something to behold. The grandson of Andrew Lester talks about the viewpoint of his grandfather and you almost wonder how such shootings aren't more prevalent. 

Even while I understand how the AR-15 became a fetish for certain people, I don't blame the weapons--not entirely, even though I think we should keep them out of the hands of people who have previous assault charges, domestic violence, and restraining orders against them. That just seems logical to me. But we have a whole narrative, an NRA/gun lobby voice, saying having guns is your masculinity and your freedom. It's a solution to problems. The rhetoric isn't just home defense--it's payback and civil war. 

The fixation on violence as a front line tactic is disgraceful and damaging to civil peace. The gunhumpers who facilitated this POV need to understand their bullshit is why so many progressives want to ban various weapons. 

I get that the thing (any long gun, automated or not, any handgun, anything that goes boom and fires a projectile) is just a tool. But the rhetoric of gun nuts has weaponized the people for the sake of selling guns. 

And the people go off, hurting people and sometimes killing them. And that is not acceptable. 

60 Minutes: Ugly is as Ugly Does (UPDATED)

 

Still reputable CBS news program 60 Minutes did a spot on second term Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene, noting that she has amassed considerable political heft in a short time, and almost but not quite conveyed what is wrong about her. She is a conspiracy theorist who behaves in hostile and disruptive ways, often does not know what she is talking about, and simply does not care to do any better. But this is what they did: they let an extremist blow off her more radical statements (but by far, not the worst) and get soft-focused as she worked out and talked about her political journey. 

Lesley Stahl, a veteran interviewer, should have understood that 60 Minutes is a platform in this instance, a megaphone (or a MAGAphone), not the actual lab where a political character like Greene should be properly examined. She did bring up Greene's shameful ambush and stalking of James Hogg and staggering claim that the Parkwood shooting was a false flag, but she also allowed it to be blown off. She expressed wonderment at MTG's insistence that liberals are pedophiles, which she should have fucking expected, and had a follow-up for.  She also had nothing to say re: MTG's insistence that the 2020 election was stolen.

By not being able to press back, she let MTG air those lies in a way that lets them be validated for her fanbase. They see her say those things without pushback, and assume it is Stahl who tried a "gotcha" and failed. And the reason Stahl is unable is because she doesn't understand what Greene is: not a person guided by facts and reason, graced with the solemnity of a political office for merits we have yet to understand. 

Nothing New Under the Sun

There has been some discussion about whether there is a post-Rittenhouse embrace of violence on the right, as evidenced by the folks who want to now claim that Club Q patrons got something they deserved. I note that Trump attorney and sometime fart-snuffer, Jenna Ellis, wants to let us know that the real tragedy isn't so much that they were murdered, but that they probably died without the grace of Jesus entering into their hearts. They are just burning away in hell, and you know what?

Jenna Ellis does not mind that. She is sure enough of her own salvation that she doesn't think judging is a bad look for her--even if she has born false witness regarding an election. She wouldn't know how to start the day if she didn't know who she wanted to watch burn if she was given an all-access seat up yonder, to you know. Watch folks burn.

What other reward is there? 

Tim Pool was accusing everyone at Club Q as being "groomers" because that word is nearly as beat to hell as "woke". Instead of meaning a single individual who courts and isolates victims for their own gratification, it in his usage is "anybody who lets kids know queer people exist" which is really weird, because queer people do exist and knowing that isn't harmful. 

Sure--why don't you go storm a Southern Baptist church, tough guy Tim?  Go talk to some folks at the Vatican. Speak out about why the words "GOP politico" and "child porn" go together like peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. (Look, you go search some links yourself and get as sick as you need to be. But let me suggest Ruben Verastegui, Ralph Shorty, Charles Young, and Dennis Hastert for a start.) 

Nearly Speechless

 

It's the reason that lies behind what everyone will call a "senseless act" that leaves me beggared for words. I mean: a troubled young man with a history of violent activity shows reg flags, goes on to commit an act of horrific violence with an AR-15. 

I have written so many words following this very outline.

That the young man in question has a political connection doesn't shock me, either--after all, recall the July 4th parade shooting? His father had been a candidate for mayor, and believed he raised his son with "good morals".  That the Colorado Springs shooter's grandfather was pro-insurrection? 

There's nothing I can say about that. Was this violent fool under the impression he was firing shots in a cultural war? Was he a part of the recent violent threats facing LGBT communities? 

Of course. 

I am heartbroken for this community and the victims and the families of the victims. There is too much hate and too many guns in the hands of the hateful. I feel like I keep saying it and saying it and saying it...

Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Scumbag

 

SCOOP from me and @swin24: January 6th committee is planning to request Alex Jones' text messages and emails from the Sandy Hook attorneys after his lawyer accidentally sent years worth of comms to the plaintiffs. https://t.co/nJbn0x3Ldy

— Adam Rawnsley (@arawnsley) August 3, 2022

Ok, it's delightful that Alex Jones' lawyers "accidentally" dropped the contents of Jones' phones for the last couple years into the laps of the opposing counsel which Jones clearly didn't want to do even though he kinda shoulda. and while I really want to stand around and bask in the idea that maybe after being exposed to the toxic little ass-breathing amphibious waste product Jones is, his lawyers decided their client was too stupid to give their full unalloyed support to and decided to sabotage him by just letting him go out and do him, but I guess I should put my serious face on and say "my word how sad it is his personal data got so badly mishandled."

BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! 

They knew opposing counsel had access to proof their client was perjuring himself right there because they gave it to them, and their client apparently was clueless. I need to believe they told him to shut up instead of lying his ass off umpteen times already and they already recognized he could not do that. And instead of letting him know they oopsed his lifestory out into the world, they just said, "This manchild will receive a lesson." And they will I guess fall back on maybe since their best strategy was a mistrial, maybe their backup was incompetent counsel. (Whoops, this is civil right? For now. Heh heh, they still are getting paid.) 

I am not a lawyer. And maybe that helps me truly appreciate the idea that Jones will try to get this thrown out or appealed or whatever, and pretend his financial statements didn't disclose how much serious bank he made from depraved indifference to other people's safety and welfare, but he has already put himself in such crazy personal jeopardy by associating with the events of 1/6, for example, touting his (family-owned) possibly not FDA approved supplements and boasting in texts that he could sell his little sheepies dick pills if he liked, and fucking about with declaring bankruptcy when he has money, he just doesn't care to part with.

Oh and family court. He's also got an issue too with family court because his ex lost custody of their children but he's got some potential criminal issues now. 

So no matter what happens with this case, which after so much running of his mouth regarding the plaintiffs, the judge and the jury (WHY!!!???) is gonna be like, "take all his recess nickels and flay his hide for mites", he will still be in deep shit for the foreseeable. 

I guess that makes today a pretty good day, schadenfreude-wise. It really truly does. 

(And yet this dirty little shitbrick still has fans. Rabid ones. Amazeballs.)

UPDATE: And the dirty little shitbrick is paying close to $50 million based on this trial, which is just the first of a handful of trials he has upcoming. It looks like he'll get his flaying in full measure and at an uncomfortable pace, which sounds about right. 

We Can't Look Away from Uvalde

 

This past week, we were able to see a surveillance video of the multiple, highly armed law enforcement officials in the hallway of Robb Elementary School doing not hardly enough while words about redacted screams were seen, encouraging a fearsome sound in the mind.  It's horrific and the release of it is fraught because in some ways, it feels like it is a desecration for people to ogle a tragedy, and in another way, it is necessary for people to understand what went wrong and to view this clinically. 

All in all, nearly 400 law enforcement officers arrived at the scene of this particular mass shooting. And somehow, one extremely damaged teenager who somehow despite a troubled history easily acquired weapons was not stopped before committing a deadly atrocity. It was because no one wanted to take leadership. 

I'm not trying to say this is a metaphor for anything, but just not wanting to take leadership, or being confused about what is absolutely necessary to do, feels like an instructive point. There has to be one, after all. Tragedies should be able to be stopped by people who understand what needs to be done. What matters is if and how they act. 

And right here, there was so much crucial inaction. I am so angry on behalf of these families, that they were not better served. We have to learn from this. We have to dispel the myth of the good guys with guns. 

I just can't see a better way for all this destruction of life and hope to be prevented than for this shooter to have never been armed. It isn't enough for him to be stopped eventually. It is ideal he never have the opportunity to start. There needed to be a strong red flag law here, I think. This was a kid whose acquaintances thought he had the attributes of a potential school shooter.

And I curse with utmost sincerity people who think an active shooter alert system is somehow a bridge too far. Just as with weather alerts or AMBER alerts, shouldn't communities be informed so that they can take action to potentially save lives? It really feels important, and like some people don't even understand that saving lives is something that people actually should want to do. It even seems like some people want to minimize active shooter reports because they feel like it defames, somehow, the gun culture. 

This is depressing, and only too likely. People who privilege the reputation of inanimate objects over the lives of human beings are sketchy. We need to have people who do hold firearms to be responsible people--that is a minimum request. I'm not for gun-grabbing, but accountability, and I think folks who want to misrepresent facts are causing actual harm by making inaction a default. And inaction gets people killed, see all the above. 

UPDATE: Sen. Cruz believes more cops will help with mass shootings, because knowing that 376 cops inside and outside of one elementary school isn't apparently failure of proof of concept enough for him. 

UPDATE: Just this:

In that report, Arredondo said that his approach was "responding as a police officer." 

"I didn't title myself. But once I got in there and we took that fire, back then, I realized we need some things. We've got to get in that door. We need an extraction tool. We need those keys ... As far as I'm talking about the command part...the people that went in, there was a big group of them outside the door. I have no idea who they were and how they walked in or anything kind of -- I wasn't given that direction," the chief said in the report.

Uvalde doesn't want to admit their guy made a crucial mistake for whatever reason. He didn't even have anyone try the unlocked door. He didn't know who was supposed to take point. He wasn't given direction, but understanding what was happening, he also never took initiative. It is an astonishing view of how things fail--when no one is in charge or takes charge, when no one can even take responsibility.

People die because no one wants to be responsible for people dying. How fucked up is that? 

The Devil's Lettuce Made Them Do It!

 

Fox's Laura Ingraham blames mass shootings on “regular pot use”https://t.co/bDkOQVbxix

— Media Matters (@mmfa) July 6, 2022

I wonder a bit at Ingraham's rant that pot use is behind the mass shooting phenomenon in the US--is she trying to excuse mass murderers with moral trolling or will any opportunity to moral troll do? I'm skeptical that there's a path from Cheech and Chong to Klebold and Harris, myself. Also, I presume that Laura Ingraham does not herself partake of the jazz cigarettes, so what exactly accounts for her dead-eyed sociopathy?

Ha, I kid. (Do I?) Her fellow Fox News talker, Tucker Carlson. blames taking psychiatric meds and mean mommies, and the latter might be a bit of a personal issue. I have to question that, too--knowing how many mass shootings have begun with family abuse and violence against women, it seems to me Carlson is really just on-board with misogyny. Also, once again, just as with hosting COVID-19 disinfo, Carlson is making medical pronouncements he's highly unqualified to make. 

My own theory is that young men stew in a nihilistic environment in which they are baited into a vague sense of outrage and hopelessness by people who don't give a shit about right or wrong, whether in terms of truth and morality. They are told by soul-less media figures that they are put-upon, and that violence is a solution. They are even given plenty of hints at who to blame for their problems. 

It's just a theory.

Thoughts and Prayers, Our National Pastime

 

Today, at an Independence Day parade about a half hour north of Chicago in Highland Park, Il., a scion of the town's good folk is alleged to have fired into the festivities, killing six and wounding dozens, and causing the shut-down of other holiday celebrations in the vicinity while the manhunt for the shooter was underway. Robert "Bobby" Crimo, III was later taken in "without incident." 

The alleged shooter apparently provided a lot of internet content, which is in the process of being scrubbed and I guess there are reasons not to publicize his little cartoons and lyrics and all. But apparently, red flags existed as to what was on this young man's mind about thinking of doing damage to other people. The above screenshot is from a video he did that depicted himself as a school shooter. The flag symbolism is just something to ruminate over--for now. 

But I want to short-circuit the idea that this kid was antifa because of random dress-up photos or the idea that scrawny little pencil-neck betas are a libtard thing. Waldo over here was signifying badass MAGA wannabe, and that apparently meant embracing the gun--the symbol of dominance and cleansing for an American kid who has gone off the rails and wants to signify his badassery. By shooting innocent folks and causing terror for no clear reason at all. 

So, we can offer up our thoughts and prayers now, our numb-skulled thoughts and broken-hearted prayers, that this kind of monstrosity which happens here more than anywhere else, happened here, on this day we celebrate our nation's uniqueness and history. These offerings are our national pastime after all. 

They Never Tried the Door? (UPDATE)

 

Another stunning Uvalde development: The door to the classroom where a gunman killed the students and teachers was probably unlocked all along. Footage shows officers didn't try to open it until SWAT arrived.@bchasnoff https://t.co/YYPhrbxB9Q

— David Sheppard (@Sheppard_David) June 18, 2022

This has to be the grimmest example of a police force doing the very least imaginable. I was trying to keep up with the changing stories just post-the tragedy, but my initial post that "I thought they knew" about the 911 calls (the Uvalde police chief now says he never had his police radio, as it would have slowed him down (?) and he didn't exactly know who was supposed to take the lead on the affray) never anticipated that weeks later, the local PD would be fighting very hard against any evidence being made available. 

Weeks later, we are finding out that they never tried the door. We were told they were fucking about in the hallway with no one immediately going to look for keys when to my mind, if they had even a glimmer of a hope any kids were alive, they should have been looking for a prybar--anything! to try and end the shooter's spree. 

The idea that they didn't even try the door at all is just madness. Why in the hell not? Because they really would have had to do something? And now I'm only more certain than ever that when they finally did breech the premises, they must have fucked it up worse. Maybe even caught victims in the crossfire. Because they've given us absolutely no reason to believe otherwise based on all the other paucity of evidence we've got. 

Grief might be forever, and peace of mind is hard to come by, but in lieu of that, the families and the community deserve the truth so they can get accountability and action. They deserve it! How can their elected officials think anything but? 

Well, CYA. But that impulse is a damned disgrace. And I don't know how they would live with themselves.

UPDATE: They had ballistic shields and long guns. They could still hear the gunshots. And at least a few of the officers on the scene did want to go in at once. They should have indeed had some kind of prybar for this type of situation. They didn't lack for anything but the decision to move. 

UPDATE: The school can no longer stand, because the situation is too painful for the community to endure. Asking anyone to stay teaching or trying to learn where so much tragedy took place is just an awful lot. One day we will salt the earth with places that we can't revisit owing to the violence that once was there. I don't think this is how a healthy society does anything. We must unlearn violence. We must desanctify the gun as a part of our national religion. 

I Thought They Knew (Uvalde updates)

 

Video obtained by @ABC News appears to capture a 911 dispatcher alerting officers on scene that they were receiving calls from children who were alive inside the classroom that the gunman had entered. https://t.co/jo2cGVyMjC

— ABC News (@ABC) May 31, 2022

The question for me isn't how they sleep at night with this on their conscience but what anyone does about it. I can't imagine what it would have felt like for those children--an eternity? I think about how they will survive their trauma. But if those officers knew about those desperate calls and did nothing, the shame of it shouldn't leave them.

UPDATE:  Every time some new detail comes out, it appears that the Uvalde PD tried to create a self-serving narrative. The initial claim that the door that the shooter gained entrance to had been propped open turned out to be more complicated than that--the door was also then shut but had not locked properly. But regardless--doors do open and shut, nothing about that detail stopped the cops from getting as far as the hallway to do nothing. They have now stopped cooperating with the Texas Department of Public Safety's investigation into the shooting.

UPDATE:  The Uvalde police chief says that he will have more to say after the funerals when the families stop grieving. Suffering is endless, but closure is a blessing. There is no perfect time, but there is also no "when the families stop grieving." There is only doing one's duty and being transparent. 

UPDATE: Chief Arredondo did not have a radio on the scene and made up his mind about not gaining entry early on. The tragic 911 phone calls from inside the classroom might not have been conveyed to him right away.  This tragedy seems to have been such a communications clusterfuck. 

UPDATE: I do not know if the Guardians of the Children bikers in Uvalde are meant to shield the families from journalists (kind of understandable, actually) or the cops (whose performance has earned serious criticism). I get that journalists are feeling intimidated by the evasive measures the local PD are taking, but I also think the families need to be left alone unless they volunteer that they have something to say to the press. 

It *Was* Worse

 

Gov. Abbott is livid that he was misinformed about the police response and that so many things he said in his comments following the tragedy and later on Wednesday turned out to be entirely wrong. The shooter had an AR-15, not a handgun. There was no resource officer on campus. The local cops were on the scene but waited nearly an hour, even stopping other officials and parents from breaching the classroom due to the wrong idea that the shooter was barricaded and no longer an active shooter--when he was locked in a classroom actively still killing children. And the children in the room were still calling 911. 

It could have been worse--but it is glaringly obvious that it should have been better. (It should not have happened at all. That young man had warning signs including animal abuse and misogyny, made threats and previously tried to get his sister to obtain a weapon for him. A red flag law may have stopped him,) 

If the governor is livid, I'm going to suggest that Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin (who was calling Beto O'Rourke a "sick son of a bitch" for interrupting the solemn lying because of politics) probably helped him get misinformed. The chief of police has his share of the blame. But to some extent, the worst kind of misinformation a man in a position of responsibility allows is the kind he invites. 

The "good guys with a gun stopping the bad guy with a gun" story was the narrative he wanted. It was more complicated than that. It always is. 

The Good Guys with Guns

 

Ted Cruz proposes armed cops in elementary schools to deter school shootings pic.twitter.com/sJ8B6cf9Xd

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 25, 2022

The cops engaged Salvador Ramos when he crashed his vehicle outside of the elementary school where he murdered 18 children and one teacher--they were good guys with guns, and he was wearing tactical armor. They failed to stop him. The good guy with guns thing fails again and again. There was an armed resource officer at Columbine High School. There was an armed resource officer at Mary Stoneman Douglas High School. Officers were on the scene at Sandy Hook within minutes of Adam Lanza entering the school. The good guy with a gun in Buffalo died because the shooter wore body armor, and he didn't. 

The good guys with guns don't prevent the tragedy, even if they can cut it shorter. It's astonishing to hear the same things, the same untrue things, again and again. The good guy with a gun doesn't come in time. The odds are against it. It's lazy to say something so frequently proven untrue. Isn't Cruz supposed to be some kind of smart person? 

He mentions deterrence. Deterrence. What the fuck? Meanwhile the incumbent TX AG who was indicted for securities fraud like years ago, who just won his recent primary says, man, outlawing guns won't do shit. "You can't stop bad people from doing bad things?"  Deterrence isn't even a real thing. 

And since an indicted MF is the top lawman in Texas, this really feels probable, and also, I don't understand why they outlawed abortion in Texas since obviously, that's still going to happen, not that I think getting abortions are bad, but laws are apparently useless, am I right? So like, why does Paxton even have a job? Since clearly law enforcement is some weird shit that never works. I MEAN, IT OBVIOUSLY DOESN'T IN HIS CASE. 

Did that sound like I'm frustrated with Republicans regarding their dependence on the NRA teat and the not-especially well-regulated militia and militia-curious voting demographic? Well, exactly. 

Where Did He Learn GRT?

 

The high concentration of Black residents on Buffalo’s East Side, which the suspect in Saturday’s mass shooting said was his reason for targeting the area, is a direct result of decades of segregation and systemic racism, according to decades of research. https://t.co/ylYrIj9SO3

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 15, 2022

The young man who killed 10 people in Buffalo singled them out demographically--he did homework in order to take human lives. This young man was handed coursework for a tragic and fatal assignment by people with no conscience. He was basically groomed for white supremacy and violence, in a society where guns and fantasized violence and casual racism are given a pass by a particular party. And what about his parents? Were they concerned about his mental diet? Did they wonder why their gun-loving son got body armor (as if deer ever shot back)? 

I don't think the GOP will denounce great replacement theory after they just called for starving brown babies in immigration detention. They have excused everything else, so why not double-down on their rhetoric even after tragedy? I mean, after a brief pause for thoughts and prayers, of course. It will be turned around--why are poor conservative victims being called racists!? The infamy of being called out like that!

I'm not feeling eloquent about the thing I keep writing about--how demagoguery and gun worship are priming the US for increased violence.  

Alex Jones and the Horrific Lie

 

Breaking: Right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been found guilty by default in all of the Sandy Hook defamation suits — granting the families of 10 Sandy Hook shooting victims four sweeping victories.https://t.co/nBSFLNwuul

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 15, 2021

The Sandy Hook mass murder took place December 14, 2012.  It doesn't even feel that long ago. I remember the thing that broke me about it was thinking about all those little kids that close to Christmas and how that was going to be the anniversary for some families--thinking about their little kids and the presents they never got to open. Just every damn year. It should be unthinkable, but it wasn't unbelievable, because post-Columbine, mass shootings just kept happening. West Nickel Mines. Red Lake. Virginia Tech. 

But Alex Jones told a horrific lie about the Sandy Hook families. He said that the mass shooting never took place and they were crisis actors. What these families have gone through was extraordinary.  They suffered a horrific tragedy, and were persecuted for it on the basis of absolute liars and scoundrels saying their tragedy was a lie. 

Their loss of their children was called a lie. Can you imagine the horror? Wishing your kid was alive and you could hold them and being called a fake and threatened by online assholes who just didn't want to believe the objective truth of your life? 

Like me, like a normal person, the US president at the time, Barack Obama, cried talking about that loss, and was pilloried by conservatives for having normal human feelings. Alex Jones lied about that event and was rewarded by interviews with 2016 GOP candidate Trump and a continued listenership of extremely dumb people who never noticed that he was always wrong and also selling them stuff. He's a chubby little dude in his forties who looks sixty and sells vitamins because obviously. Look at him! Such vigor! Such angry abusive ex-husband who shouldn't have custody energy! Such eventually gonna help do an insurrection for clicks and clout kind of guy. Sure. Who doesn't want that? 

Yet he still has fans. He's a disgusting caricature of the worst kind of bloodsucker--but he's been made a mostly acceptable part of conservative media because of the Trump connection and because no one over on that side seems to give a shit about right and wrong anymore. They can't stake their vampires, stop their zombies, even acknowledge the monsters on their side are monsters. 

What Alex Jones has used his platform to do has been monstrous. He demonized people suffering a great loss, the kind that stays with one for life. Whatever financial price he pays (it won't ever be right) isn't enough. Had he decency, he would stop broadcasting lies. Had his listeners decency, they would stop wanting to hear them. 

But we don't live in the world where the people who like Alex Jones get why he's a scumbag, and we don't live in a world where scumbags naturally repent. So I hope he loses his ability to do his stupid show because it's a financial hardship and his followers go do something else. Fucking snort bathsalts and wrestle alligators. I don't know if I even care. 

I do, though. How did anyone get so warped as to call the families of murder victims out as liars and treat them so horrifically because of lies any critical thinking would have easily disposed of? This inability to think first, this lulling by platformed liars--we need to tell the people they must truly think about the things they think about. But like leading a horse to water--how do we make them think? 

What Else Do They Want?

 

Remington, the gunmaker being sued by families of Sandy Hook victims, has subpoenaed the academic, attendance and disciplinary records of five children killed that day.

The school records of four educators killed have also been subpoenaed.https://t.co/uQXiraj328

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) September 3, 2021

Do they want color copies of the crayon drawings from the fridge?

Do they want pictures of the Christmas presents the kids never opened?

Do they want pictures of their little bodies broken in pieces in death?

 Do they want copies of all of the hate mail and death threats these families received from crazies who think their school was full of crisis actors, and that this was a lie, because they love guns more than children?

Do they still even want to be human anymore?

They don't want to find guilt in these victims--they won't. They want the families to suffer too much to continue with the suit.

I don't think they understand what they've already lost, and how hard that would be for the suffering of this indignity to be anything but flavoring.