It's The Guns

70 million Americans report having personal experience with a shooting, or have family or friends and acquaintances who were directly involved in a shooting.

70-FUCKING-MILLION

22%

One out of every five Americans

Opinion

Only the Republican Party can end our mass shootings epidemic

LOUISVILLE — The only path out of America’s cycle of gun violence is for the Republican Party to change course and join Democrats in backing far-reaching gun control. Otherwise, Americans will continue to be victims of gun violence, see friends or relatives shot, or be haunted by those possibilities.

I joined the third group this week.

On Monday, a man fired shots at a downtown building in Louisville, killing at least four people and injuring numerous others. I had been at the building, which housed a bank branch as well as office space, for a news conference in December, as Mayor-elect Craig Greenberg announced top aides in his administration.

The ongoing national wave of these shootings has made me increasingly leery of attending large events or visiting schools or other venues where mass carnage is all-to-easy to imagine. Five years ago, a high school friend of mine was shot (but thankfully survived) in a mass shooting in nearby Cincinnati. Monday’s shooting makes me even more nervous — I had been in this physical space before.

Because these shootings just keep happening, so many Americans now know someone affected. Twenty-one percent say that either they or a family member or friend has had personal experience with gun violence, according to a 2022 poll conducted by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That statistic now includes Gov. Andy Beshear (D) of Kentucky, who said two friends died in Monday’s shooting.

Each year, more than 20,000 Americans are killed in non-suicide incidents (mostly homicides) involving guns in the United States. Several hundred times a year, four or more people are shot and either killed or injured in a single event, which is how the Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting.

But, of course, this is not inevitable. Countries such as Australia and Canada have dramatically lower gun-related death rates than the United States. California and Massachusetts have substantially lower rates than many other states, including Kentucky.

It’s no mystery why. Australia, Canada and other nations have stringent gun regulations. States with higher rates of gun violence are largely Republican-dominated, with looser regulations, while those with lower rates are often blue states with greater gun control.

The solutions aren’t simple, but we can fix this problem. By some estimates, there are nearly 400 million guns in circulation in the United States, meaning we have more guns than people. A good incremental step would be for Kentucky to embrace gun laws similar to California’s. But ultimately, we need the United States to have gun laws more like Australia’s.

If the United States severely restricted AR-15’s and other such weapons, there would be fewer mass killings in which one person shoots dozens. But to truly reduce the number of homicides, we have to restrict handguns, too.

So we need Americans to voluntarily give up their guns en masse — or be required to do so. That would require numerous, aggressive pieces of gun-control legislation, judges upholding those laws in court — and potentially a constitutional amendment stating that the Second Amendment does not provide an individual right to gun ownership.

I don’t think that’s impossible. Australia did something similar in the 1990s after a mass shooting there.

But we all know the problem. Such massive policy changes would require Republican politicians, powerful right-wing institutions such as Fox News and many hard-line conservative voters to stop acting as though radical gun freedoms are essential to a free society. In our current political environment, Fox and other conservative entities regularly suggest that conservatives are under mortal threat and that owning a gun is both good and necessary. Republican politicians also whip up pro-gun sentiment. And many rank-and-file Republicans both have fairly extreme views on guns and are pushed even further right by party leaders.

This makes for a self-reinforcing cycle of fervent opposition to gun control. Just last month here in Kentucky, for example, the GOP-dominated legislature adopted a provision declaring the state a “Second Amendment sanctuary” barring local law enforcement officials from enforcing some federal gun laws.

For the United States to make progress on guns, the Republican Party has to change direction. That would require powerful parts of the Republican coalition, such as former president Donald Trump and Fox News, to start telling Republican voters that conservatism doesn’t require opposition to gun regulations. But it would take even more than that: You would also need some agreement among candidates to not outdo one another in demagoguing gun control during Republican primaries, and some major donors and groups to spend money boosting pro-gun-control candidates.

I know how far-fetched that sounds. But ultimately, that’s the only solution. The Democratic Party can’t impose gun control on its own, particularly in GOP-dominated states such as Kentucky. Nor can it push aggressive legislation if Republicans are loudly suggesting Democrats want to put conservative voters in bondage.

We have become a nation of mass-shooting victims and people like me are traumatized by hearing about so many mass shootings. This is a terrible problem, but it is one we can solve. Slavery was abolished. Jim Crow was outlawed. Mass shootings and gun violence can be dramatically reduced, if not eradicated.

But we need some Lincolns and Kings to emerge in the Republican Party to push it in the right direction. I am not optimistic, but I am not fatalistic, either.

The Once-upon-A-Time GOP

Republicans shit all over LGBTQ, and women, and POC, and they refuse to do anything about gun violence, and now in Tennessee they're making it very clear they have no intention of honoring their oath to protect and defend.

Almost every American under about 30 has been taught to play fair and treat people with respect. They grew up with brown friends, and with gay friends - and the young women grew up believing they'd eventually step into an adult world where they'd be free to make their own decisions on when (or if) to become moms.

Kids who've survived mass shootings - sometimes at their own schools - are growing up knowing Republicans will never do anything about the gun violence that took the lives of some of their friends, and made them live in fear every day. It's reasonable to believe a very large majority of those "kids" will never vote for a Republican. Ever.

It's very sad, and regrettable, and kinda gratifying, all at the same time.

Today's Tweet

Go get 'em, Mr Bowman.

Republicans won't do SHIT when it comes to gun violence, but try to tell me to calm down.

NO.

We can't calm down. People are dying everyday while we wait. pic.twitter.com/38mYYW9cgs

— Congressman Jamaal Bowman (@RepBowman) March 29, 2023

Let's Review

Ayman al-Zawahri had access to more than a few assault rifles - in fact, he was surrounded by guys with assault rifles and RPGs.

A drone, operated from a thousand miles away, blew him to bits as he stood on his balcony in Kabul - and left his wife and kids unharmed.

And your punky little ass is gonna take on the US military with your AR?

It's Not Just The Gun

...but yeah - it's the gun.

The Post’s investigative series on the AR-15’s dominant place in the United States’ marketplace and psyche sat atop the Post website on Monday, the day of its release — until, hours later, breaking news replaced it. Three adults and three children had been killed in a Nashville school shooting by a 28-year-old assailant with three guns, including at least one AR-15-style rifle.

These attacks are always heart-wrenching. But they’re not surprising anymore — neither the massacres themselves nor the weapons used to carry them out. Ten of the 17 deadliest mass killings in the United States since 2012 involved AR-15s. The names of the towns and cities where these tragedies took place have become familiar: Newtown, San Bernardino, Las Vegas, Parkland, Uvalde and beyond. The Post chronicles the journey this now-iconic rifle took from military-issued firearm to off-the-shelf bestseller, and underscores the danger in the public’s embrace of a weapon the Defense Department once lauded for its “phenomenal lethality.”

“I don’t know why anyone needs an AR-15,” President Donald Trump reportedly told aides in August 2019 after back-to-back mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso. There’s no good answer. The AR-15 was designed for soldiers, yet its associations with warfare eventually became a selling point for everyday buyers. “Use what they use,” exhorted one ad displaying professionals wielding tactical rifles. Now, about 1 in 20 U.S. adults own at least one AR-15. That’s roughly 16 million people, storing roughly 20 million guns designed to mow down enemies on the battlefield with brutal efficiency. Two-thirds of these were crafted in the past decade — and when more people die, popularity doesn’t fall. Instead, it rises.

The AR-15, The Post explains, is materially different from traditional handguns. The rifle fires very small bullets at very fast speeds. The projectiles don’t move straight and smooth through human targets like those from a traditional handgun. Their velocity turns them unstable upon penetration, so that they tumble through flesh and vital organs. This so-called blast effect literally tears people apart. A trauma surgeon notes, “you don’t see the muscle … just bone and skin and missing parts.” Another mentions tissue that “crumbled into your hands.”
A Texas Ranger speaks of bullets that “disintegrated” a toddler’s skull.

This explains the lead poisoning that plagues survivors of the shooting in Sutherland Springs, Tex.; David Colbath, 61, can scarcely stand or use his hands without pain, and 25-year-old Morgan Workman probably can’t have a baby. It explains the evisceration of small bodies such as that of Noah Pozner, 6, murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, and Peter Wang, 15, killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. The Post examined the way bullets broke inside of them — obliterating Noah’s jaw and Peter’s skull, filling their chests with blood and leaving behind gaping exit wounds.

Even thinking about these injuries is horrifying, so much so that crime scene photos are often kept confidential. But the gruesome reality of what an AR-15 can wreak poses an argument in itself: There is no excuse for the widespread availability of these weapons of war.

No single action will stop mass shootings, much less gun violence more generally. The Post’s reporting is only more evidence of the need for a ban on assault rifles. It’s evidence, too, of the need for a ban on high-capacity magazines. Rules restricting how many rounds a gun can fire before a shooter has to reload are more difficult to skirt than flat-out assault rifle bans, which sometimes prompt manufacturers to make cosmetic changes that will reclassify their products. A number is a number. These prohibitions might face legal challenges, but lawmakers in four states have recently added caps. More should follow.

Think of Sutherland Springs, where the shooter, armed with a Ruger AR-556, got off 450 military-grade bullets within minutes, killing 25 people including a pregnant woman. Think of Dayton, where the gunman needed only 32 seconds to hit more than two dozen people with 41 bullets. That’s because he was equipped with a 100-round drum magazine. Even a 30-round magazine — the industry standard these days — would have forced him to reload at least once. A 15-round magazine would have forced him to reload twice. The Post’s analysis of the time this would have taken reveals the lives it could have saved: potentially six of the nine who were killed, in the case of a 15-round magazine.

Think, in contrast, of Poway, Calif., where a gunman killed one person at a synagogue and injured three others with a 10-round magazine before running out of bullets. Members of the congregation moved to confront him as he fumbled with another magazine, and he fled. Children who survived Sandy Hook told their parents they ran away while the assailant was “playing with his gun.” What they’d seen was plain enough. The shooter had stopped to reload.

The AR-15 has become a cultural symbol. But what kind of culture tolerates death after death after 10 murders — or after 27, or 49, or 60? Respect for the Second Amendment doesn’t require standing by while 6-year-olds are torn to shreds. The nation needs to act on guns. The AR-15 and weapons like it are a good place to start.

And of course, the Asshole Chorus goes immediately for the smoke screen, trying to make it about anything other than our fucked up American Gun Fetish.

People can be disgusting.

Today's Reddit

Why are so many Republicans such assholes about all this?

“We’re not gonna fix it” - Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) in regards to school shootings
by u/samfrench_ in facepalm

Today's Eternal Sadness

"Conservatives" have often tried to blame "kicking Jesus out of the classroom" for the gun violence that plagues American schools.

6 people dead at a Christian school - in a Presbyterian church - killed by a former student. I guess maybe we can shit-can the No-Jesus-Allowed Theory. Again. 

No word yet on how, or whether, the shooter's trans-gender-ness factors in. We'll have to wait and see if the manifesto explains anything.

Nashville school shooter who killed 6 was heavily armed, left ‘manifesto’

NASHVILLE — A shooter armed with two AR-style weapons and a handgun killed three students and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville on Monday, the latest deadly rampage in a nation anguished by the regularity of mass killings but deeply divided over how to stop them.

Police identified the shooter as Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, of Nashville. Hale was shot and killed by police who responded to the Covenant School, a small academy housed within a Presbyterian church that served about 200 students from preschool to sixth grade.

John Drake, chief of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, said law enforcement officials were working to determine a motive but said Hale had attended the school. During a search of Hale’s home, he said, officers recovered a “manifesto” and maps that appeared to include entry points for the school. Police later said they recovered additional material in a car Hale drove to the scene.

Drake said Hale was transgender. Asked if that had played a role in what he described as a “targeted attack,” Drake said it was part of the police investigation.

“There is some theory to that,” Drake said. But, he added, “We’re investigating all the leads, and once we know exactly, we will let you know.”

Don Aaron, a police spokesman, later clarified the chief’s remarks. “Audrey Hale is a biological woman who, on a social media profile, used male pronouns,” Aaron said in an email.

Police identified the victims as students Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, all 9; and staff members Cynthia Peak, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Mike Hill, 61.

Koonce was the longtime head of Covenant, according to the school’s website. Peak was a substitute teacher, while Hill was a custodian, police said.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper, speaking at one of several news conferences Monday, called it the “worst day” and a “dark hour” for the city, but he praised first responders including police officers who ran toward the gunfire to try to stop it.

“Even in a remarkably fast response, there was not enough time. And those guns stole precious lives from us today,” Cooper said.

The incident unfolded over less than 15 minutes in a leafy suburban area about 10 miles south of central Nashville. Police said they received a 911 call about a shooter at the school at 10:13 a.m. Dozens of emergency vehicles arrived at the scene, and officers entering on the first floor of the school heard gunfire coming from the second floor, police said.

Five officers proceeded upstairs into a lobby-type area where they confronted Hale, who fired at them, police said. Two officers fired back, fatally shooting Hale, who was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m.

Police initially described Hale as appearing to be a teenager before revising the age upward to 28.

According to police, Hale gained access to the school by firing through a first-floor side door before opening fire inside the building. It was not immediately clear what security procedures were in place at the school or whether, like schools across the nation in a siege of shootings, it had fortified itself against attack.

Unlike public schools in Nashville, the private school did not have a public safety officer on-site, according to police.

Police later released photos of the scene, including images showing a shattered glass door with bullet holes where they said Hale gained entry into the building. The department also shared photos of police cars with bullet holes and shattered glass, saying Hale fired on responding officers as they arrived.

The shooting was captured on surveillance video, a portion of which was made public late Monday. The footage showed a person the police identified as Hale arriving at the school, dressed partially in camouflage. The video then showed the shooter firing on the glass door, entering the building and going through the hallways while holding an assault rifle.

A police spokesman declined to say where the victims were found, including whether a specific classroom had been targeted. But in a Monday afternoon news conference, Drake said police found material that suggested Hale had considered an attack at another location but ruled it out because there was “too much security.”

Police said Hale was armed with two semiautomatic weapons — an AR-15-style rifle, an “AR-style pistol” and a handgun. At least two of the weapons were purchased legally, according to Drake, who did not give the status of the third. He said Hale had “multiple rounds of ammunition prepared for confrontation with law enforcement” and was “prepared to do more harm.”

The department late Monday released images of the weapons, adding that Hale had “significant ammunition.”

Tennessee’s gun laws, like those in many conservative states, are comparatively loose. The state allows people to own automatic assault weapons and does not have a law banning high-capacity magazines.

In 2022, Guns & Ammo — a magazine dedicated to firearms and ammunitions — ranked Tennessee as the 12th-best state in the country for gun owners. The state recently allowed residents to carry handguns in public without a permit. State officials are considering lowering the age to carry handguns without a permit from 21 to 18, according to the Associated Press.

The incident was the latest tragedy in a country spinning on an endless carousel of mass violence, including bloodshed in schools, hospitals and virtually every gathering place. At the scene, in the Green Hills section of Nashville, cameras captured views eerily similar to those that have played out in other cities that have dealt with mass violence, including Uvalde, Tex., and Newtown, Conn., including footage of children holding hands and being led away from school under heavy guard.

Scores of police cars and ambulances went to the scene as officers in body armor and carrying long guns checked a wooded area next to the school. Local television reported that some of the children had run into the woods to escape the gunfire.

Frantic parents were seen abandoning their cars and running toward the scene in search of their children.

John Wilkinson, 45, was at his chiropractor across the street when he saw a single police car crest the hill near the school. Within seconds, five other police cars had arrived. Within five minutes, there were at least 50 police cars at the scene, he said, as officers entered the building.

“They were showing unbelievable courage,” Wilkinson said.

An officer then entered the building Wilkinson was visiting and told those inside to lock the doors, he said.

After 20 minutes, he said, the first of six ambulances left the scene under police escort. About 20 to 30 minutes after that, he said, other ambulances left, unaccompanied.

Dozens of public school buses eventually ferried children to a reunification point at nearby Woodmont Baptist Church, where parents waited and others went to check on friends who worked at the school. Many of the children inside were crying.

James Jardin, a campus minister at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, was in a meeting when he heard about the shooting at Covenant, where his friend is a minister who teaches music. He left his meeting and drove to Nashville.

Jardin said his friend assured him he was all right — he texted, “I’m OK, please pray for me” — at about 10:30 a.m. local time. Jardin tried to enter the reunification center but was turned away. “There is nothing I can do,” the minister said.

Gillian Stewart said that her friend has a kindergartner who attends Covenant and that the friend described to her the chaos of parents trying to pick up their children. “It was a mad rush to pick up their kids. Cars were abandoned everywhere,” Stewart said.

She was still looking for her friend. “I haven’t seen her yet,” Stewart, outside the reunification center, said through tears.

The Nashville attack drew anguished responses from across the nation, including in Washington, where President Biden called Monday’s shooting “a family’s worst nightmare” and repeated his call for Congress to pass gun-control legislation that includes a ban on assault rifles. He ordered all American flags displayed at government buildings to be flown at half-staff.

“We have to do more to stop gun violence — it’s ripping our communities apart, ripping the soul of this nation,” Biden said during a White House event on women in business. “We have to do more to protect our schools, so they aren’t turned into prisons.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), of nearby Brentwood, said in a Twitter message that she was “heartbroken” about the killings.

“Please join us in prayer for those affected,” Blackburn wrote. Her message drew the ire of gun-control activists and musicians with Nashville ties, including singer Sheryl Crow, who responded to Blackburn’s tweet.

“If you are ready to assist, please pass sensible gun laws so that the children of Tennessee and America at large might attend school without risk of being gunned down,” Crow wrote.

Fire these assholes

Today's Tweet

Jon Stewart says it better than I can.

It’s pick-a-side time, and it’s pretty obvious which side is for the American people.
pic.twitter.com/QLYoxqo2KY

— Ryan Shead (@RyanShead) March 25, 2023

Today's Eternal Sadness

3-year-old boy fatally shoots himself, sister makes heartbreaking call to 911

A 3-year-old boy fatally shot himself when he found a 9 mm handgun in a nightstand in his Florida home, according to authorities.

The tragedy unfolded Wednesday evening at a home in DeLand, about 40 miles north of Orlando.

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office called it "one of the worst calls imaginable" to respond to.

The shooting occurred as the 3-year-old and a 7-year-old were being watched by their 16-year-old sister while the parents were grocery shopping, Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said at a news conference Thursday.

He shot himself in the face, according to the sheriff's office incident report.

Chitwood called the 16-year-old's 911 call "heartbreaking."

In her frantic call, the girl told the dispatcher, "My little brother shot himself!"

"There is blood everywhere!" she said, screaming and crying.

Chitwood said the gun was usually kept in a safe, which was not working.

The family had a second gun on top of the fridge, he said.

The boy's father is a state corrections officer, Chitwood said, adding that the guns were not department-issued.

"This should never have happened," he said.

No charges have been filed. The sheriff's office noted that, per Florida law, when a child is accidentally shot, "no arrest shall be made prior to 7 days after the date of the shooting."

The sheriff pleaded with gun owners to keep them in safes.

"If you have little ones, even if you have teenagers, you gotta lock them up," he said.

Today's Tweet

A survivor of the Sandy Hook School mass shooting in 2012 is a student at Michigan State University: “I am 21-years-old and this is the second mass shooting I’ve lived through. We can no longer allow this to happen. We can no longer be complacent.” pic.twitter.com/Jcafl57tmZ

— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) February 14, 2023

Suspect identified in Michigan State University shooting: 3 dead, 5 in critical condition

Morning dawned Tuesday on East Lansing to a rattled Michigan State University campus hours after a mass shooting left three dead and five others critically injured.

An alert was sent at 8:31 p.m. Monday, telling students to "run, hide, fight" with a report of shots fired at Berkey Hall and at the MSU Union.

Two people were killed at Berkey Hall, said university Interim Deputy Police Chief Chris Rozman. The gunman then moved to the MSU Union, where another was killed.

Students were told to shelter in place as authorities searched for the gunman. The 43-year-old suspect was Anthony McRae, Rozman said at a news conference Tuesday. McRae was found off campus early Tuesday before he could be arrested; he had died from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

PS) Fuck your thoughts and prayers.

Hypocrisy Much?

Too typical. DeSantis needs to thread a very tight needle (and he's not doing all that well with it). So he demands a gun-free venue, but looks to blame it on local ordinances.

Maybe we should look a tiny bit closer. DeSantis is playing that usual double-sided game authoritarians play all the time. ie: "I'm in charge, and I'm the power, and I'm the government - but these hold-out weasels in the bureaucracy are preventing me from allowing you from expressing your true patriotism and blah blah blah."

Coupla things

• "Give me total control over all levels of government so I can crush the extraordinarily powerful and dangerous enemy within."
• "I'm the victim - which means you're the victims - and these namby pamby nobodies are too weak and incompetent to stand in our way. Let me vanquish them for you."

Umberto Eco's 14 Characteristics of Fascism

8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”

DeSantis wanted to ban guns at event, but not to be blamed, emails show

As Gov. Ron DeSantis prepared for an election night party in downtown Tampa last year, city officials received a surprising — and politically sensitive — request.

The Republican governor’s campaign wanted weapons banned from his victory celebration at the city-run Tampa Convention Center, a city official said in emails obtained by The Washington Post. And the campaign suggested that the city take responsibility for the firearms ban, the official said — not the governor, who has been a vocal supporter of gun rights.

“DeSantis/his campaign will not tell their attendees they are not permitted to carry because of the political optics,” Chase Finch, the convention center’s safety and security manager, said in an Oct. 28 email to other city officials about the request, which was conveyed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), a state police agency led by a DeSantis appointee.

Finch further explained that because of “Republicans largely being in support of 2A,” referring to the Second Amendment, “Basically it sounds like they want us to say it’s our policy to disallow firearms within the event space if anyone asks.”

In a statement sent after this story published, FDLE said the agency determines on its own whether to prohibit weapons at events. “FDLE did not request the venue restrict weapons at the direction of the Governor or campaign. Security decisions are made by FDLE,” agency spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said.

Tampa Convention Center officials ultimately rejected the request to ban weapons. State law allows concealed firearms to be brought inside the public facility unless the renter insists on a gun-free event. On election night, the campaign did require guests to pass through metal detectors, Finch said.

The previously unreported request to Tampa officials illuminates a touchy issue for DeSantis as he weighs a potential bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Even as DeSantis has earned the highest rating from the National Rifle Association’s political arm, gun owners are balking at his recent appearances at events where firearms were prohibited, according to interviews and online posts.

Tim Marden, now the chairman of Florida’s Alachua County GOP, said he skipped a fundraiser featuring DeSantis in October after he was told the governor’s team insisted on metal detectors. A gun rights protester was arrested outside the event.

“In my thinking, it was a little hypocritical to have this measure in place for law-abiding citizens at a time when a lot of folks in the gun community will condemn a Democratic politician for having a security force,” Marden said.

In response to questions from The Post about gun bans at DeSantis events, the governor’s deputy press secretary, Jeremy Redfern, said in an email, “We do not comment on speculation and hearsay. The Governor is strongly in support of individuals’ constitutional right to bear arms.”

Lindsey Curnutte, a spokeswoman for the governor’s political team, said: “We follow the guidance of the FDLE and local law enforcement to keep the governor and his family safe during events.”

FDLE, which reports to the governor and three other statewide elected officials, values “the rights of our citizens to legally bear arms,” Plessinger said, and makes decisions based on “security threats.” She added in an email: “FDLE encourages private and public venues to limit weapons when hosting the Governor and First Family at large events. Doing so enhances the ability of law enforcement officers and FDLE Protective Operations agents to work proficiently and quickly in the event of an emergency.”

Plessinger noted that “security decisions are made solely by FDLE without consultation or input from any other agency or entity.”

DeSantis’s stance on gun rights is expected to draw attention in the coming weeks as the legislature debates a closely watched bill to legalize carrying concealed weapons without permits. The measure cleared its first committee this week but drew blowback from gun activists, who argue it does not go far enough. Redfern said the governor “has repeatedly stated publicly that he hopes to sign Constitutional Carry legislation this year.”

As DeSantis considers a 2024 presidential bid, potential GOP opponents who have put gun rights at the center of their agendas, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, could seek to capitalize on the issue, said Luis Valdes, Florida state director of Gun Owners of America. Former president Donald Trump, who is running for another term, was credited by the NRA’s political arm in 2020 with doing “more than any president to protect the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.”

“DeSantis continually pays lip service to the Second Amendment as he positions himself for a nationwide run, and yet what I am seeing as a constituent of his and as a Floridian is that his events are gun-free zones,” Valdes said. “His primary rivals will clean his clock on guns.”

The DeSantis campaign’s sensitivity to the issue was described in the correspondence between FDLE and Tampa officials in the days before the Nov. 8 election. The city officials who received the campaign’s request quickly agreed that they had no flexibility on the issue; Florida law gives the legislature the power to regulate firearms and generally prohibits local governments from doing so. Under a 1987 law, the state has granted more than 2.6 million licenses to carry concealed weapons in many public places.

Excerpt from email. (Public records from the city of Tampa)

“I’m certainly not signing this without any sort of guidance,” Finch wrote to city officials.

Less than half an hour later, he received an emailed response from Nicole Travis, the city’s administrator of development and economic opportunity: “We are not saying anything about concealed carry. That is the responsibility of the renter. We follow State Statute that permits concealed carry.”

Excerpt from email (Public records/The city of Tampa)

In Finch’s response to FDLE officials, he said banning concealed weapons at the Tampa Convention Center could put the city in a “legal quagmire.” He added: “I understand the campaign does not wish to ‘restrict’ 2A for their event because of the optics, but if any guests asks, we will not say it’s TCC’s policy to disallow legal carry.”

Diana Hunter, FDLE special agent supervisor, did not object to Finch’s assertion about the campaign’s position and thanked him for explaining the city’s policy in her response.

Days before the FDLE made its request of the Tampa Convention Center, gun advocates raised concerns about a weapons ban at the Alachua County Republican Party’s annual fundraiser, where DeSantis was scheduled to be the keynote speaker.

In the days leading up to the Oct. 20 event at a public building owned by the city of Alachua, a town near Gainesville, Fla., gun rights advocates warned in online posts that ticket holders would have to pass through metal detectors.

Jared Yanis, host of the Guns & Gadgets YouTube channel, which has over 600,000 subscribers, posted a 13-minute video about the no-guns policy at the event, saying: “Ron DeSantis is saying Florida is a Second Amendment state — except if you want to hear me talk, you have to give up your Second Amendment.” Lee Williams of the Second Amendment Foundation, a national group based in Washington state, wrote that he was told by Alachua GOP Treasurer Ann Stone that the governor would not attend unless guns were banned.

Stone could not be reached for comment. The governor’s representatives did not respond to questions about the Alachua event.

After receiving an email alert about the no-weapons policy from a gun rights group called Florida Carry, Chris Rose decided to protest outside the Alachua fundraiser. Carrying a neon yellow “I WILL NOT BE DISARMED BY DESANTIS” sign, he said he stood on the sidewalk about 30 yards from the entrance to the fundraiser. He was asked to leave by a private security guard for the event, according to his arrest report. When he refused, the security guard asked the police to “remove” him, the report says.

note: It appears the logical extreme is fast approaching. "Shall not be infringed" comes to mean, "Nobody can impose any restrictions on my gun-love for any reason, at any time. I get to do whatever I want with my precious gun."

Rose was arrested for trespassing, but the charge was dropped last month, records show. “I can’t consider DeSantis a defender of the fundamental human right to self-defense,” he said. “It’s just talk.”

Valdes of Gun Owners of America, who also warned supporters about the no-weapons policy before the event, said he was shocked to see Rose get arrested as he handed out literature opposing gun-free zones. “It’s a very delicate balancing act because there are credible threats against public officials, but we also have to respect the public’s civil rights” to carry guns, he said.

Valdes had attended a DeSantis campaign event one month earlier, in September, where guns also were prohibited. “All attendees must undergo security screening prior to entering the event,” read a notice from the governor’s campaign about the event in Dover, Fla., where DeSantis received an endorsement from the Florida Farm Bureau Federation’s political action committee.

Representatives of the farm bureau and the site that hosted the event said they were not in charge of security.

“I wasn’t happy about it, but I secured my firearm in my vehicle,” Valdes said. “It was a public event in a field and in no way would a bad guy with ill intentions have been stopped.”

Concealed weapons were also forbidden at Unite & Win rallies in August where DeSantis stumped alongside Republican candidates in Arizona, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Business Insider reported. The events were organized by Turning Point Action, a conservative advocacy group. Turning Point Action spokesman Andrew Kolvet said it is not the organization’s policy to ban firearms at its events, though some venues prohibit weapons. “Just like we’ve done in the past with the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies, we coordinated with Florida Department of Law Enforcement and followed FDLE’s direction,” he said.

Valdes and other gun rights advocates say they are reluctant to criticize DeSantis because of his pro-gun rights record as governor and a former U.S. House member.

When DeSantis was serving in Congress in 2018, Florida’s GOP-controlled government passed a gun-control law following the massacre of 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Fla. The legislation raised the minimum age for buying firearms from 18 to 21. As a candidate for governor that spring, DeSantis said he was “disappointed that the Florida Legislature is rushing to restrict the rights of law-abiding citizens.” He added, “Better to focus on denying firearms to dangerous individuals, which avoids infringing on constitutional rights and is also more likely to be effective.”

In 2021, DeSantis signed a bill that allows concealed weapon permit holders to carry their guns into churches or other religious institutions even if they share property with schools.

After 10 people were gunned down at a Buffalo grocery store in May, DeSantis said of mass shooters, “They are not dumb, because they pick their targets and they know — and the Buffalo guy said he wanted to go where he knew there wouldn’t be blowback from people being armed, and so he tried to find a gun-free zone.” The governor added, “What you do is, you focus on the criminal. You focus on the lunatic. You don’t kneecap the rights of law-abiding citizens.”

The next month, DeSantis praised a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down a New York law requiring people who want to carry handguns to show they have a special need to defend themselves. “What you don’t want is to have a government bureaucrat stymie your ability to exercise your constitutional rights,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis also has pledged to sign a permitless concealed carry law, though he has not directly endorsed a bill in the Florida legislature that drew criticism at its first committee hearing this week, with gun-control advocates saying it will lead to violence and pro-gun activists arguing that it should allow them to openly carry weapons. Representatives of the governor did not respond to questions from The Post about whether he would support an “open carry” provision in the bill.

“Constitutional carry — I’ve been in favor of the whole time,” DeSantis said in August. “And so we think we will be able to do that, but that really requires the legislature to get it to my desk. I’m not the issue. I will sign it. That will be an easy thing to do.”

Today's Gun Nut

Andrew Clyde owns a gun store in Georgia that sells a shitload of AR15s, body armor and ammo.

Seems like when he hands out lapel pins shaped like assault weapons, it's not just another opportunity for Republicans to spit in our face (this is Nat'l Gun Violence Survivors Week for fuck's sake) but also a pretty blatant abuse of his office in order to further his own commercial interests.

THERE IS NO HONOR

IN THE GOP

GOP Rep. Responsible for AR-15 Pins Permeating Capitol Reveals Himself

Georgia congressman Andrew Clyde made no apologies for the obvious troll—and said he even had more to share.

The man responsible for handing out pins in the shape of assault weapons that have been adopted by right-wing Republicans in Congress has revealed himself—as clashes between the political parties grow over the controversial accessory.

Earlier this week, the pins appeared on the lapels of Rep. George Santos (R-NY) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) in committee meetings and on the House floor.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), who has worn the pin for years, was also seen parading it on Wednesday as he delivered remarks critical of gun restrictions.

The pins did not go unnoticed, with Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) tweeting out photos asking: “Where are these assault weapon pins coming from?”

It now appears we have an answer.

Turns out Clyde, who Business Insider revealed last year owns Georgia's No. 4-ranked firearms store, is responsible for dishing out the pins. He even says he has “plenty more to give out.”

“I’m Congressman Andrew Clyde for Georgia’s 9th District,” Rep. Clyde says in a video posted to Twitter on Thursday night claiming credit for the stunt.

“I hear that this little pin I’ve been giving out on the House floor has been triggering some of my Democrat colleagues,” he continues, no doubt referencing Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), who described them as “despicable and an insult to all of the victims of assault weapons,” and Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), who asked simply, “What is wrong with you?”

Clyde then explains his decision to hand out the pins and urges those who want one to visit his office.

“I give it out to remind people of the Second Amendment of the Constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties.

“If I missed you on the House floor, please stop by my office in Cannon, I have plenty more to give out.”

The news was greeted by Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL), who tweeted in reply: “Save a pin for me!”

It came on the same day Rep. Clyde said he filed a measure to overturn two bills passed by the D.C. Council: one that would allow non-citizens the right to vote in local elections and another that would update the city’s outdated criminal code.

It is also National Gun Violence Survivors’ Week.

 (from May, 2022)

A Republican member of Congress owns a gun store and makes millions selling military-style rifles, body armor, ammunition, and other weapon accessories

Members of Congress come from all sorts of backgrounds, but most don't own a gun store.
Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia's 9th Congressional District is the owner of Clyde Armory in Athens.

According to Clyde's financial disclosure, the store is worth up to $25 million.
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Support for Second Amendment rights and firearm ownership are conservative staples in Congress.

But as lawmakers again debate firearm restrictions in the aftermath of an elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, a member Congress actually owns a gun store: Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia's 9th Congressional District.

When not working in Washington, DC, Clyde leads the No. 4-ranked firearm store in Athens, Georgia, according to Yelp: Clyde Armory.

According to Clyde's 2021 federal financial disclosure, the congressman's stake in the store is worth anywhere between $5 million and $25 million, and it earned him between $1 million and $5 million in income in 2020 alone.

In addition to being a retail gun store, the armory also acts as "law enforcement supply," per the disclosure.

The store's website shows it sells a multitude of firearms and accessories, including military-style semiautomatic rifles, weapon silencers, and ballistic helmets.

Among the items for sale at Clyde Armory: a Colt-manufactured AR-15 rifle for $1,349.95 and a .50 caliber semi-automatic rifle for $11,384.95.

Clyde is supported by the National Rifle Association — the organization's political action committee donated $1,000 to Clyde's campaign in 2020, according to nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets.

Representatives from Clyde's office did not respond to Insider's questions and request for comment.

But according to Clyde's campaign website, he's got big plans for firearm rights in Congress. He wants to:

• Repeal several taxes on firearms and ammunition
• Deregulate weapon silencers, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns
• Eliminate the Brady background check system

In December 2020, Clyde told Fox News that the nation's current gun background check system is flawed and "puts the federal government between the Constitution and the individual in a way that denies the person their individual constitutional right. That's not right."

The congressman also spoke out in March against firearm records kept by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

"As a steadfast supporter of the Second Amendment and a Federal Firearms Licensee by trade, I find the ATF's egregious abuse of power deeply unsettling and in need of swift action from Congress in order to protect law-abiding gun owners' privacy and Second Amendment rights," Clyde said alongside members of the House Second Amendment Caucus.

Clyde, a freshman representative, may be best known for equating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to "a normal tourist visit."

He sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Homeland Security Committee. He's also a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

Clyde coasted to victory in his Republican primary Tuesday night, easily defeating his GOP challengers.

Being in a "Safe R" district, he's likely to win re-election in November, according to Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Today's Eternal Sadness

Maybe the nation's pets are just rising up and rebelling against their oppressors.

Dog steps on trigger of rifle, shoots man dead, Kansas sheriff says

A dog stepped on a loaded rifle, fatally shooting a passenger in his owner’s car during a hunting trip in Geuda Springs, Kan., sheriff’s deputies said.

Joseph Austin Smith, 30, of Wichita was sitting in the front passenger seat of a pickup truck when he was shot in the back, the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

“The back seat contained hunting gear and a rifle,” the statement said. “A canine belonging to the owner of the pickup stepped on the rifle causing the weapon to discharge. The fired round struck the passenger who died of his injuries on scene.”

The sheriff’s office added that it considers the shooting an accident and has closed the case.

Responders were dispatched to the scene shortly before 9:50 a.m. Saturday after receiving a 911 call, the sheriff’s office said. The authorities did not say who placed the 911 call or disclose the name of the person who owns the dog or vehicle. It was not immediately clear what happened to the dog.

A GoFundMe page created by a group of people identified as Smith’s colleagues at Browns Plumbing Services in Wichita remembered him to be “kind, funny, smart, and very loving.” The campaign has raised more than $10,000 as of Wednesday morning. GoFundMe confirmed the validity of the fundraising page. Browns Plumbing Services did not immediately respond to a Washington Post request Wednesday morning for comment.

Your cat could burn your house down, Korean officials warn after 107 fires sparked by felines

Saturday’s shooting is not the first involving a dog and a loaded weapon.

Many people across the United States have been injured or fatally shot by canines discharging firearms in recent years, intensifying calls for better gun control and safety measures.

Although federal data indicates that the vast majority of gun deaths in the United States are suicides or homicides, the latest data shows that more than 500 people were killed unintentionally with guns in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. Firearm purchases rose to record levels in the United States in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been purchased in that period, The Washington Post reported in July.

In 2004, a shepherd-mix puppy in Florida discharged a gun, striking a man in the wrist, NBC News reported. At the time of the shooting, Jerry Allen Bradford had been preparing to shoot seven puppies because he was unable to find them a home, NBC News reported, citing the local sheriff’s office.

In 2015, a Labrador retriever named Trigger accidentally shot a woman in the foot in Indiana, the Guardian reported. The woman’s loaded shotgun had been left on the ground with the safety off, causing her to be shot at close range and requiring medical treatment to her foot and toes.

“When you have a country with as many people, guns and dogs as we do, this type of thing is going to happen from time to time,” an analysis in The Post said that year.

In 2018, a pit bull-Labrador named Balew accidentally shot his owner when the pair were playing inside a house in Iowa. The dog’s owner, Richard Remme, told officials he was sitting on the sofa when he pushed the dog off his lap. Balew jumped up, disabling the safety on the gun in his holster and pressing the trigger.

Remme, who was injured in the leg, said that Balew — whom his owner described as “a big wuss” — cried after the shooting because he thought he did something wrong, the Guardian reported.

A hunting trip ended in bloodshed in New Mexico in 2018 when a 120-pound Rottweiler mix named Charlie caught a paw in the trigger of a gun while sitting in the back of his owner’s vehicle. Tex Harold Gilligan told ABC News that he was driving at the time he was shot and initially thought he had been hit by a sniper in the desert.

Gilligan was hospitalized with lung damage and broken bones but later defended his furry friend. “He didn’t mean to do it. He’s a good dog,” he said.

Most reports of dogs injuring humans with firearms have been documented in the United States, but such incidents also have occurred in other countries.

In November, a 32-year-old Turkish man from the city of Samsun was shot dead by a dog during a hunting trip. Ozgur Gevrekogulu was packing equipment into his vehicle when his dog stepped on the trigger of a shotgun, discharging a blast into the man’s abdomen, the Middle East Eye reported, citing local media.

I Did A Thing - guns and robot dogs

About The Guns

Ann Telnaes, WaPo