Just this past week, there were two mass murders by gun: one at Club Q in Colorado Springs, another at a Walmart in Virginia. There have been more than 600 this year. When will enough be enough? When will our leaders—especially in Congress—stop the carnage? When they are personally affected? Maybe not even then. After all, a mob ransacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and most Republican members of Congress thought it was a group of excited tourists.
But “only” five people died. So the GOP did not mind.
Would they draw the line at carnage? Now, I think that Trump’s grim Inaugural Address, where he spoke of “American carnage,” was a prediction, not a reflection.
When, if ever, will enough be enough?
The Council on Foreign Relations published an important international study of gun ownership and gun deaths. The U.S. is far ahead of its peers in both categories. Thanks to Lloyd Lofthouse for sharing this study.
The study begins:
The debate over gun control in the United States has waxed and waned over the years, stirred by frequent mass shootings in civilian settings. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and young adults in the United States. In particular, the ready availability of assault weapons and ammunition has provoked national discussion after multiple mass shootings of school children, most recently in Uvalde, Texas. However, Congress has repeatedly been unable to pass meaningful gun legislation in the wake of these tragedies despite broad public support for new restrictions.
Recent years have seen some of the worst gun violence in U.S. history. In 2021, guns killed more than forty-five thousand Americans, the highest toll in decades; and the upward trend is on track to continue.
Many gun control advocates say the United States should look to the experiences of wealthy democratic peers that have instituted tighter restrictions to curb gun violence.
What’s the chance of Congress enacting gun control?
Republicans are adamantly opposed to any limits on access to guns.
Republican governors enact laws to allow anyone to carry a weapon, whether concealed or in open view. Texas passed a law eliminating the need to have a permit to buy a gun.
Two relatives of mine in Texas used a gun to commit suicide. Neither should have had access to a gun.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Advanced Democratic Nation”
Advanced decay
Media is getting better at real time fact checking. Yesterday, in an interview, a GOP politician said the states with fewer gun law restrictions had fewer gun deaths. Chuck Todd countered immediately that the statistic was untrue in terms of per capita data. The Republican stuttered before attempting to make his next argument.
When will enough be enough for the GOP? Never, the GOP vomits up the same garbage after each massacre: a good guy with a gun will stop the bad guy (baloney), the 2nd amendment is holy writ directly from the mouth of G_D (so G_D is armed and dangerous?), bad guys will always be able to get guns, so do nothing. The GOP has a twisted view of the 2nd amendment and worships guns as if they are some kind of religious relic. For the GOP, it’s let’s keep doing stupid, let the bloodbaths continue because we don’t ban knives after a stabbing massacre. Well, some knives are indeed banned and knife mass killings are a lot rarer than gun mass shootings; but the gun lovers claim that more people are killed by knives, hands, feet or clubs than guns. The GOP gun promoters are shameless and without a trace of a conscience.
And, obscenely, gun supports point out that the majority of gun deaths are suicides, as if those somehow don’t count. (They don’t count as a death by another, but a death is a death.) Studies show that people who do not have guns available find it harder to commit suicide. Imagine giving a suicidal person a long sharp knife. How many would use it? Pulling a trigger is almost antiseptic.
As a friend said at the memorial service for my brother:
“Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”
Guns make it easy to act on an impulse.
And require the least “bravery” to enact. I forgot about your loss and maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it. If it caused you pain, I do apologize.
Most Americans support some form of gun control. Yet, we continue to see the courts uphold limited to no restrictions on access to guns. What this shows is the extreme amount of influence special interests have on our laws. Our so-called representatives are owned by lobbyists that represent “big money,” instead of the interests of those they supposedly serve.
The Sociopathic Continuum Of The United States (SCOTUS) stretches down from the highest court of the land to the schoolyard, shopping mall, and street. It will not be cured by any amount of salving the symptoms, however much we try. The massacres will continue until we root out the cause at the top.
It’s a waste of breath talking about anything else.
It’s a waste of time pointing in any other direction.
“When will our “leaders”
stop the carnage?”
When the blind can see
and the deaf can hear,
that’s when.
Other countries have more
laws, so we need more
laws.
OK, do you imagine lawbreakers
select laws to abide by
and ignore other laws?
Mass murders are against
the law right now.
What leads you to
“think” a new law
could or would restrict
the behavior of a
lawbreaker?
We need more laws.
Do you think laws
are the answer to
irrational behavior,
AKA mental health issues?
There you go with the
typical nra-gop bs.
And there you go
sidestepping the issue.
We need more laws…
Countries and states with restrictive gun laws have less gun violence. By far. So, yes, laws work. Not completely, but to some extent.
The Warren Buffett/ Bill Gates’ “Giving Pledge” initiative could extend to fighting the gun lobby but, where’s the profits in that?
Chuck Collins (Institute for Policy Studies) wrote at CNN today about 62 of the living initial pledgers to the Buffett/Gates initiative. Since the pledge, they have fortunes that have not diminished at all and when adjusted for inflation, their fortunes had doubled.
For every dollar given by billionaires to charity, taxpayers chip in 74 cents in lost federal tax revenue.
1.5 million between 1968 and 2022 (not yet finished). Rounding that down to a human figure of 3 per hour would reduce the number 1,419,120; sadly decimals of percentages insist otherwise.
Is all that worth some twisted version of ‘Liberty’?
freedumb
Good one. That about sums the mindset.
There is one thing that might get the Republican Party behind real firearms limitations and controls.
The killers have to start shooting up MAGA RINOs and their elected leaders, wherever two or more are gathered, with a focus on Traitor Trump’s hate rallies.
So far, most of the children and adults getting murdered are almost never MAGA RINOs.
The problem, it’s almost impossible to find a shooter like that who is a liberal, progressive, moderate, or even traditionally conservative.
“The U.S. Has the Most Guns and the Most Gun Deaths of Any Advanced Democratic Nation” — but are we a democracy? We have gerrymandered minority rule that prevents restrictions on guns, when the majority of Americans want them, according to polls.
The US is not a democracy.
A denotcracy.
NRA’s answer: Your point being?
A day of posts about gun control — today? An amazing coincidence for me, as one of my students threatened on social media over the weekend to shoot me and a bunch of his classmates, and we all found out about it today. What a wonderful day! What a wonderful world!
I see trees of green,
Red roses too;
I see them bloom
For me and you,
And I think to myself:
What a wonderful world…
Seriously, all glibness aside, everything is going to be okay. Not great again, not American again, not America Great Again, just okay again. I believe that. And I am not afraid. I am hopeful. Today.