A brilliant, horrifying essay, but might I suggest one change? Today’s murdered children aren’t being “drafted;” draftees did have some choices, some options other than serving in Vietnam. The child victims of gun violence today have absolutely NO choices. What is happening to them is more like being “press-ganged”— the brutal old British custom of providing their navy with cannon fodder by snatching young men and boys off the streets, then forcing them onto ships from which there was no escape.
Those of us who tweet should send this to our most passionate Congressional members in the House and the Senate with that recommendation. I would suggest Representative Eric Swalwell and Senator Chris Murphy for starters. I'll do it right now!
I no longer understand the world I am living in. A world where money and power become an all consuming desire to the detriment of an entire society. I just heard that bills addressing the gun “issue” we have in America have passed in the House WITHOUT ONE SINGLE REPUBLICAN VOTING FOR THEM. This is disgraceful.
Thank you. When one goes out to shop, now we all wonder if we'll get home alive.
This is no way to live.
Guns have become our national tragedy, perpetuated by soulless, mindless people who send innocent people to their deaths because they want to score political points and get more campaign money for the next election.
As someone asked me today-"Why are we banning abortion when the children we have will only end up dead from a school shooting?"
Because the Republican party does not care about anything or anyone but money and power. Children and other human beings are not part of their agenda.
I'd make that money and *male* power, but other than that -- yeah. Women aren't part of their agenda either. I don't think they even much care about the 53% of white women who voted for the former guy.
Indeed they do not-as witness their joy at writing anti-abortion bills, with no exceptions for age, rape or incest. The evil they perpetuate is eternal.
The undisguised GLEE of those GOP representatives reveals their true agenda: To punish and humiliate women with unwanted pregnancies: to ruin their lives by forcing them to have a child they don’t want, or to cause the woman’s death by an illegal abortion. Both are desired outcomes for these GOP MONSTERS!
The Democrats should make this THE issue for the mid-terms ... if 90% of Americans want gun control, this could be the pivotal issue for a blue salvation.
Republicans in Congress will do nothing. Their pipeline of blood money from the NRA and gunmakers is too important to them, not to mention the rabid support from the MAGA crowd. They're accelerating the already rapid deterioration of the country.
The Democrats should make this THE issue for the mid-terms ... if 90% of Americans want gun control, this could be the pivotal issue for a blue salvation.
Yes, sacrificial lambs: Florida GOP Congressman Greg Steube was flashing his guns today in front of the other House legislators on Zoom: Here is what he said followed by my tweet: :Representative Greg Steube pulled out several guns as he took part in a debate on gun violence via Zoom.
The House Judiciary Committee was discussing a package of gun control measures following a series of mass shootings across the US.
The Florida lawmaker was taking part via video call when he showed off his firearms while arguing against limits on magazines.
“I hope to God that gun isn’t loaded,” Texas” Texas Democrat Sheila Lee said.
“I’m at my house. I can do whatever I want with my guns,” Mr Steube responded."
My Tweet to him read "So in other words sir, you are willing to sacrifice hundreds of our children annually so you can own high powered automatic weapons? Yes or no?"
This was followed by a link to the statistics from The Nation's Health web site: "Gun deaths among America’s school-age children are reaching alarming levels, a new study finds.
Published in March in the American Journal of Medicine, the study found that between 1999 and 2017, nearly 39,000 gun-related deaths occurred among children and young people ages 5 to 18, including nearly 6,500 deaths among children ages 5 to 14 and nearly 32,500 deaths among those ages 15 to 18.
Among the causes of death, 61% were due to assault, 32% due to suicide, 5% were considered unintentional and 2% were undetermined. Significant increases in gun-related deaths began in 2009, with the first wave among ages 5 to 14, followed by a second wave that began in 2014 among ages 15 to 18.
Black children accounted for 41% of the gun-related deaths, with 86% of those among boys. Between 2013 and 2017, according to researchers, racial inequalities in gun deaths between blacks and whites increased significantly. The study is based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics’ Multiple Causes of Death Files from 1999 to 2017.
“It is sobering that in 2017, there were 144 police officers who died in the line of duty and about 1,000 active-duty military throughout the world who died, whereas 2,462 school-age children were killed by firearms,” said study co-author Charles Hennekens, MD, a professor in Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine, in a news release."
Time was, (small kid time); ‘2nd amendment was entry into “A well ordered militia”. Boy Scouts, Knights of Columbus, pre Mason et.al. ; we were taught Safety, Accountability and Service to Our Nation. The NRA was there to educate and train; be it hunting safety or Olympic Competition there was Accountability to a well ordered militia. ‘Not so much a right as a responsibility.
As the Nouveau Reich began it’s influence in our Military Industrial Institution; media has been subtly employed in the dumbification and gunification of the national mentality.
‘With the installation of trumpian white entitlement we can now witness the perfect blend of organized white collar crime and racial fascism. They can finally drop the robe. The innocent are simply target practice…
In 1969, I was marching with friends down Pennsylvania Ave. in DC to protest the Vietnam War. Did not know that my future husband was already in Nam at that time. He had dropped out of college and knew he would get drafted so he enlisted in the Army. Needless to say, 53 years later, he has never touched a gun or rifle since getting out in 1970. He had achieved “excellent marksmanship”. An honor he wished he never had. The Republican (Pro-Rape) party are nothing but liars and thieves who are owned by the extremely wealthy and the NRA. It’s way past time to make certain LaPierre and his gang serve time in prison for perpetuating violence. Out of the 400 million guns you said we have in this country, 20 million are AR-15’s! 20 MILLION!
Biden’s pleas for timid gun regulations will go nowhere.
Even if a liberal wish-list of gun regulations were enacted, the impact would be minimal.
If the past six decades are indicative of the future, absolutely nothing meaningful will happen.
If anything, restrictions will be further loosened, as the Trumps, Abbotts, Cruz’s, DeSantises, Hawleys, et al., ad nauseam dance obediently to the NRA’s tune.
There are 400 million+ guns in private hands in the US.
After every highly-publicized atrocity, or election of a Democratic president, or speech like Biden’s, gun sales zoom.
Your children and grandchildren will continue to practice “active-shooter” drills at school.
In coming years, hundreds, perhaps thousands, will be shot to pieces by young males who “exercised their cherished freedoms” by legally purchasing arsenals of military- grade weapons, no questions asked.
The Republican lock on the Senate, plus the filibuster, will ensure no action will be taken.
The minority continues to dictate to the majority.
The blue states must construct some form of political organization/ civil disobedience that has meaningful impact.
Withholding federal tax payments may be the way forward — red states benefit disproportionately from federal tax revenues paid by blue states.
Very disproportionately… this is our leverage.
“No taxation without representation!”
California, New York, and Massachusetts alone could grind the federal money pipeline to red states to a halt, demand abolition of the Electoral College and the filibuster, and a Senate proportional to each state’s population.
The power of the Republican Party would become irrelevant. Majority rule — Democracy — would be restored.
We are held hostage on a daily basis by a minority of authoritarian right-wingers, with an ever-increasing body count of innocents slaughtered by gun violence*.
The question is what can be done — ideally without provoking mass bloodshed and civil war, see, e.g.:
* Not to mention the regime of state-mandated forced births unfolding daily, the willful refusal to address climate change, and the globe-leading body count of one million+ covid deaths fueled by refusal to get vaccinated and follow public health advice, to name but a few examples of the damage we suffer due to the right-wing authoritarians.
it has to be a three-step process: First, elect enough Democrats to kill the Senate filibuster; second, add four seats to the Supreme Court, and third, pass all the desperately needed federal laws. Omitting any of the steps makes the whole effort pointless.
i was a small boy that summer, but the older boys clustered around a transistor radio on the beach, listening for their number in the lottery draw, remains a vivid memory.
I have noticed an uptick in shooting reports in the media in the past week (but it will fade). I immediately thought, "what if every single gun death was reported by all major ( and minor) news organizations?" The time is long past for that level of consistent, factual reporting and blogging.
Thank you for this post, Lucian. And I,ask...Could this be something we can all DO? Collect stats and confront news orgs as to why they are not covering these stories? Doesn't need a political bias. Just the facts.
Could make a difference. Police, sheriff, and state police info should be public to at least some degree. Then it's just time on the phone with every single news org in the country. Could we DO this?
The killers want the notoriety. The events could be reported, leaving the killer’s name out, perhaps just including a general description: “An 18-year old male with an AR-15 killed 19 children and two teachers today....”
Exactly! Just the stats. I think this is one reason people are not rising up: we get hit with astronomical figures of gun involved murder and suicide and just gasp. No power there. No recourse. But if every single gun killing was posted/reported on day after day...I think that might have a different effect.
I don't have the computer skills to organize a nation-wide database of gun killings, but perhaps there is one already? One that is updated daily?
A brilliant, horrifying essay, but might I suggest one change? Today’s murdered children aren’t being “drafted;” draftees did have some choices, some options other than serving in Vietnam. The child victims of gun violence today have absolutely NO choices. What is happening to them is more like being “press-ganged”— the brutal old British custom of providing their navy with cannon fodder by snatching young men and boys off the streets, then forcing them onto ships from which there was no escape.
Bravo for writing this essay. Do you know someone who will read it into the record in Congress?
Yes. Read into the record.
Those of us who tweet should send this to our most passionate Congressional members in the House and the Senate with that recommendation. I would suggest Representative Eric Swalwell and Senator Chris Murphy for starters. I'll do it right now!
I no longer understand the world I am living in. A world where money and power become an all consuming desire to the detriment of an entire society. I just heard that bills addressing the gun “issue” we have in America have passed in the House WITHOUT ONE SINGLE REPUBLICAN VOTING FOR THEM. This is disgraceful.
Thank you. When one goes out to shop, now we all wonder if we'll get home alive.
This is no way to live.
Guns have become our national tragedy, perpetuated by soulless, mindless people who send innocent people to their deaths because they want to score political points and get more campaign money for the next election.
As someone asked me today-"Why are we banning abortion when the children we have will only end up dead from a school shooting?"
Because the Republican party does not care about anything or anyone but money and power. Children and other human beings are not part of their agenda.
Indeed, money & power are the Repugnants ONLY agenda. They'll let nothing, absolutely nothing, interfere with that agenda.
I'd make that money and *male* power, but other than that -- yeah. Women aren't part of their agenda either. I don't think they even much care about the 53% of white women who voted for the former guy.
Indeed they do not-as witness their joy at writing anti-abortion bills, with no exceptions for age, rape or incest. The evil they perpetuate is eternal.
The undisguised GLEE of those GOP representatives reveals their true agenda: To punish and humiliate women with unwanted pregnancies: to ruin their lives by forcing them to have a child they don’t want, or to cause the woman’s death by an illegal abortion. Both are desired outcomes for these GOP MONSTERS!
The Democrats should make this THE issue for the mid-terms ... if 90% of Americans want gun control, this could be the pivotal issue for a blue salvation.
Republicans in Congress will do nothing. Their pipeline of blood money from the NRA and gunmakers is too important to them, not to mention the rabid support from the MAGA crowd. They're accelerating the already rapid deterioration of the country.
Guns, anti choice and white power drives the hideous Republican Party.
And must drive voters to the polls to elect Democrats.
The Democrats should make this THE issue for the mid-terms ... if 90% of Americans want gun control, this could be the pivotal issue for a blue salvation.
Yes, sacrificial lambs: Florida GOP Congressman Greg Steube was flashing his guns today in front of the other House legislators on Zoom: Here is what he said followed by my tweet: :Representative Greg Steube pulled out several guns as he took part in a debate on gun violence via Zoom.
The House Judiciary Committee was discussing a package of gun control measures following a series of mass shootings across the US.
The Florida lawmaker was taking part via video call when he showed off his firearms while arguing against limits on magazines.
“I hope to God that gun isn’t loaded,” Texas” Texas Democrat Sheila Lee said.
“I’m at my house. I can do whatever I want with my guns,” Mr Steube responded."
My Tweet to him read "So in other words sir, you are willing to sacrifice hundreds of our children annually so you can own high powered automatic weapons? Yes or no?"
This was followed by a link to the statistics from The Nation's Health web site: "Gun deaths among America’s school-age children are reaching alarming levels, a new study finds.
Published in March in the American Journal of Medicine, the study found that between 1999 and 2017, nearly 39,000 gun-related deaths occurred among children and young people ages 5 to 18, including nearly 6,500 deaths among children ages 5 to 14 and nearly 32,500 deaths among those ages 15 to 18.
Among the causes of death, 61% were due to assault, 32% due to suicide, 5% were considered unintentional and 2% were undetermined. Significant increases in gun-related deaths began in 2009, with the first wave among ages 5 to 14, followed by a second wave that began in 2014 among ages 15 to 18.
Black children accounted for 41% of the gun-related deaths, with 86% of those among boys. Between 2013 and 2017, according to researchers, racial inequalities in gun deaths between blacks and whites increased significantly. The study is based on data from the National Center for Health Statistics’ Multiple Causes of Death Files from 1999 to 2017.
“It is sobering that in 2017, there were 144 police officers who died in the line of duty and about 1,000 active-duty military throughout the world who died, whereas 2,462 school-age children were killed by firearms,” said study co-author Charles Hennekens, MD, a professor in Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine, in a news release."
I saw that on last night’s MSNBC show. What a total jackass! For that alone, he should be removed from Congress.
Yes, for sure, Marlene.
Time was, (small kid time); ‘2nd amendment was entry into “A well ordered militia”. Boy Scouts, Knights of Columbus, pre Mason et.al. ; we were taught Safety, Accountability and Service to Our Nation. The NRA was there to educate and train; be it hunting safety or Olympic Competition there was Accountability to a well ordered militia. ‘Not so much a right as a responsibility.
As the Nouveau Reich began it’s influence in our Military Industrial Institution; media has been subtly employed in the dumbification and gunification of the national mentality.
‘With the installation of trumpian white entitlement we can now witness the perfect blend of organized white collar crime and racial fascism. They can finally drop the robe. The innocent are simply target practice…
‘Too harsh?
"Nouveau Reich" for sure.
No. Not too harsh.
In 1969, I was marching with friends down Pennsylvania Ave. in DC to protest the Vietnam War. Did not know that my future husband was already in Nam at that time. He had dropped out of college and knew he would get drafted so he enlisted in the Army. Needless to say, 53 years later, he has never touched a gun or rifle since getting out in 1970. He had achieved “excellent marksmanship”. An honor he wished he never had. The Republican (Pro-Rape) party are nothing but liars and thieves who are owned by the extremely wealthy and the NRA. It’s way past time to make certain LaPierre and his gang serve time in prison for perpetuating violence. Out of the 400 million guns you said we have in this country, 20 million are AR-15’s! 20 MILLION!
Thank you for continuing to write about the horror of guns and war .Tragic that the USA has become a leader in that wrong direction
Time for a Blue State Tea Party.
Biden’s pleas for timid gun regulations will go nowhere.
Even if a liberal wish-list of gun regulations were enacted, the impact would be minimal.
If the past six decades are indicative of the future, absolutely nothing meaningful will happen.
If anything, restrictions will be further loosened, as the Trumps, Abbotts, Cruz’s, DeSantises, Hawleys, et al., ad nauseam dance obediently to the NRA’s tune.
There are 400 million+ guns in private hands in the US.
After every highly-publicized atrocity, or election of a Democratic president, or speech like Biden’s, gun sales zoom.
Your children and grandchildren will continue to practice “active-shooter” drills at school.
In coming years, hundreds, perhaps thousands, will be shot to pieces by young males who “exercised their cherished freedoms” by legally purchasing arsenals of military- grade weapons, no questions asked.
The Republican lock on the Senate, plus the filibuster, will ensure no action will be taken.
The current Supreme Court is likely to further open the floodgates of guns in private hands with its anticipated ruling: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-court-verge-expanding-second-amendment-gun-rights
The minority continues to dictate to the majority.
The blue states must construct some form of political organization/ civil disobedience that has meaningful impact.
Withholding federal tax payments may be the way forward — red states benefit disproportionately from federal tax revenues paid by blue states.
Very disproportionately… this is our leverage.
“No taxation without representation!”
California, New York, and Massachusetts alone could grind the federal money pipeline to red states to a halt, demand abolition of the Electoral College and the filibuster, and a Senate proportional to each state’s population.
The power of the Republican Party would become irrelevant. Majority rule — Democracy — would be restored.
We are held hostage on a daily basis by a minority of authoritarian right-wingers, with an ever-increasing body count of innocents slaughtered by gun violence*.
The question is what can be done — ideally without provoking mass bloodshed and civil war, see, e.g.:
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Next-Civil-War/Stephen-Marche/9781982123215
* Not to mention the regime of state-mandated forced births unfolding daily, the willful refusal to address climate change, and the globe-leading body count of one million+ covid deaths fueled by refusal to get vaccinated and follow public health advice, to name but a few examples of the damage we suffer due to the right-wing authoritarians.
Signed,
Current visitor to Paris
2022 Gun massacre count in France: zero
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-us-gun-violence-world-comparison/
it has to be a three-step process: First, elect enough Democrats to kill the Senate filibuster; second, add four seats to the Supreme Court, and third, pass all the desperately needed federal laws. Omitting any of the steps makes the whole effort pointless.
Graduated college the first Saturday in June 1969. Got the notice to report for my draft physical the following Monday.
i was a small boy that summer, but the older boys clustered around a transistor radio on the beach, listening for their number in the lottery draw, remains a vivid memory.
Damnit!
This sickness we are experiencing is a failure of our politics and a failure of self-governance.
I have noticed an uptick in shooting reports in the media in the past week (but it will fade). I immediately thought, "what if every single gun death was reported by all major ( and minor) news organizations?" The time is long past for that level of consistent, factual reporting and blogging.
Thank you for this post, Lucian. And I,ask...Could this be something we can all DO? Collect stats and confront news orgs as to why they are not covering these stories? Doesn't need a political bias. Just the facts.
Could make a difference. Police, sheriff, and state police info should be public to at least some degree. Then it's just time on the phone with every single news org in the country. Could we DO this?
The killers want the notoriety. The events could be reported, leaving the killer’s name out, perhaps just including a general description: “An 18-year old male with an AR-15 killed 19 children and two teachers today....”
Exactly! Just the stats. I think this is one reason people are not rising up: we get hit with astronomical figures of gun involved murder and suicide and just gasp. No power there. No recourse. But if every single gun killing was posted/reported on day after day...I think that might have a different effect.
I don't have the computer skills to organize a nation-wide database of gun killings, but perhaps there is one already? One that is updated daily?
I'm going to look into this.
Thanks for your response, shee-rah.
That's a great idea, make sure the news organizations keep this in the news. I agree, I noticed much more coverage this week.
I actually know of a way we could do this. Was discussing this with a national group leader this morning.
Yes! Please tell! I do not have the resources or computer skills to start this from the ground up, but I do have the time and will...
In fact... I have trouble finding portions of these threads 😣 so I will keep looking around the substack for more of this conversation!
How? Please inform us!
Email me Jenny@PhotoArtByJennyAltshuler.com. I can also post here when it’s ready to go (which it isn’t yet).
Our group is MarkersForDemocracy.org
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pewresearch.org has some statistics on gun deaths.