Good afternoon, gentlemen. You've been busy little beavers all over this politics tab, haven’t you? Whatever little Blue or little Red pills you are taking, they are obviously working. Remember, though, for an election lasting more than four years, please seek immediate medical attention!
Lots going on lately in the world of guns in America. Two recent high profile events (Texas & Las Vegas) have once again jump started a familiar ride. Predictable charged and passionate Pavlovian responses are currently playing out for the umpteenth time in our weaponized media, executive branch, legislative branch, lobbying industrial complex, and the public arenas dominated by social media. How does this ride play out? A criminal acts abhorrently. The key, always waiting patiently in the ignition, gets turned and the engine revs to life. We shift into first gear, and tear off the starting line “leading with emotional road rage”. Calls for immediate bans of a,b,c and x,y,z blare from the radio. Anyone who doesn’t agree to full civilian disarmament is accused of enabling and rejoicing when innocent lives are lost. Shifting into second gear we enter the “reason phase”, where tortured facts, guilt-shaming, and lobbying organizations are working overtime 24/7 to create “policy based evidence making” studies which prove they and thus their intended corrective actions/solutions are the only right which exists. Our leaders spout these “facts” from their soapboxes. The mainstream media circulates their quotes as facts. Validation by omission or commission occurs. Meanwhile, in ivy covered towers across the land, our esteemed academic minds with lots of letters after their names jump in to post how the 2A is intended to be a living, breathing, editable, and open to interpretation "non-right right". Politicians weaponize this intellectual delusion matrix in new ways into new bills, hoping that one will, finally, be the 20,001st law which gets right what the 20,000 existing federal, state and local gun laws couldn’t get right. The press prints, and more validation by omission or commission occurs. Now that we’re really rolling along, we floor the accelerator and upshift into the bully, badger, bash, name calling phase of this exhilarating ride - lead by the “grassroots seeming organizations” (funded by billionaire elitists), many populated by box Chardonnay swigging Moms Against Gun Anything (MAGAs - sorry, I couldn't resist
) singing along to their chosen cause’s Karaoke station at the top of their lungs. Eventually they run out of fuel (I can’t remember if they’re in a gas or electric vehicle), roll to a stop, call a tow truck, and eagerly await the next event just as the hangover subsides.
I know, you're wondering where we get to the point where I STFU and stop pointing fingers. My first post on this thread pointed out both my passion and frustration regarding how nearly every single mass public shooting event follows a predictable pattern which keeps us stuck, while the glaring missed opportunities to offramp these perpetrators before a single shot is fired goes unmentioned and ignored. A playbook of effective “We Should Do This” strategies, compiled by experts utilizing facts and data, IS available. It is what our politicians SHOULD be talking about at their press conferences, instead of brandishing pictures of scary black rifles and making threats to disarm the law abiding citizenry. I'm really ranty today. No more boxed afternoon Chardonnay, dammit!
Onward to Texas and Las Vegas. First off, sorry to disappoint, no AR-15’s were utilized in either event. Just plain old inanimate handguns with regular capacity magazines, which are utilized in the vast majority of gun homicides in general, as well as the mass public shooting event subset.
Cliffs Notes in Texas: Mentally ill. Dishonorable Discharge. Prescribed meds. Off meds the week before the event. Multiple police visits to home. Warrants not followed through upon - including a law enforcement visit to his parents home where he was barricaded in the bathroom. Police left, telling father to call them when he was out. Father never did. Domestic violence against family. Family had him arrested. OUT ON BAIL. And in a twist which came out just in the last few days, it has been learned that he was only out on bail because of his bail being supported and paid for by the Texas Organizing Project, a George Soros and Son super pac funded organization. The DA in that jurisdiction…well, you can connect the dots. “George Soros bailed this guy out for $400, Alex”. Once out on bail, the perpetrator cuts off his ankle monitor. Gains illegal possession of a pistol. Kill parents first. Kills four more during his moving spree rampage. Injures two law enforcement officers along the way. And is now back where he was before he was bailed out by Soros: behind bars. The only difference, there’s six dead bodies in his rear view mirror. The offramp playbook would have worked splendidly on this guy, but it sat gathering dust, while the band played on. Who should we blame?
Cliffs Notes in Vegas: 67 year old professor (last 17 years at UNC’s East Carolina) who on his personal website has a “Great minds of the Twentieth Century” section. George Soros is one of his selections (along with Tesla and Einstein). But I’m cherry picking. Lots of conspiracy theory stuff, obsessions left and right, love of Joni Mitchell, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin, deep deciphering of the “true meaning” of the movie “Inception”, obsession with globalist domination by likes of the Rothschilds and Bilderberg Group, and a whole bunch of other deep rabbit hole musings. Lots of great reviews from his students, including this one: “Dr. Polito teaches students about things that happen in the real world that we will be able to apply in our careers.” Let’s hope not! We’ll have to wait to learn more about this guy, but he certainly doesn’t appear to be a pencil d*cked incel MAGA compensating redneck Red state end of world prepper living in a defunct ICBM silo decorated with AR-15s. His chosen location to commit his criminal gun violence: A Gun Free Zone. And one which he had a grudge against: UNLV had recently turned down his job application.
Which brings me to today’s first “Quick Aside” (readers of my first post here will recall I used a bunch). Today we start with gun suicides counted as “gun violence”. Predictably, yesterday Biden’s bandwagon “do something” press conference in the aftermath of Texas and Vegas lumped suicides into padded “gun violence” numbers. Utilizing Texas and Vegas to further the "let's go after the law abiding gun owner's" pretty much sums up the dysfunction of America’s current gun violence discourse. Am I not seeing things clearly? Stop, don't answer that! America has lower suicide rates than heavily gun restricted "first world peer" nations including France, Switzerland, Hungary, Japan, Belgium, South Korea, Austria, Poland, India, and Finland, among others. Should these nations (and thus America) count “rope violence” and “plastic bag violence” for hanging/suffocation/asphyxiation deaths? “Pill violence” and “Poison violence” suicides? “Gravity violence” suicides for bridge and building jumpers? “Knife and razor blade violence” suicides? Hmmm. Back in America, per the CDC, women use suffocation and pills/poison in 66% of suicides. For men, 43% of suicides are via suffocation and poison. Suicide is not a crime in America. When politicians and lobbying groups single out suicide by gun and lump it into the “Gun Violence” tally they are being patently disingenuous and guilty of more policy based evidence making. How can we have serious discussions regarding serious issues in search of serious solutions when this is what our leadership is knowingly doing? For shame.
Please note, anyone thinking I am being callous regarding the epidemic of suicide in this country, please save your breath as such an accusation would be well off the mark. It is a sad and devastating public health crisis, and I doubt anyone here has not been affected directly or indirectly via family, friends, co-workers, classmates. Intervention, educational, and physical mitigation strategies exist which focus on the potential gun utilization segment of those wishing to commit suicide, which is of course important as guns are very good at making a suicide attempt lethal. Access/storage strategies and equipment, and programs facilitating the temporarily turning in of guns at qualified locations for safe keeping are proven effective. A valid fear preventing wider implementation of “self directed red flag relinquishment” is the possibility of punitive “if you’ve enacted this strategy you are a disqualified owner/purchaser moving forward” outcomes. Will policy makers guarantee those who do this good thing won't be punished? On a granular Mass Public Shooting level, the high incidence of suicide “telegraphing” as a present factor in the majority of Mass Public Shootings (iirc in K-12 and college shootings this exceeds 90%), coupled with other “early warning signs”, has been proven very effective in the off ramping interventions of high risk “future mass public killers”.
Quick (repeat) aside: How about a bipartisan bill to waive HIPPA rights of any living or dead mass public shooter (or better yet any murderer utilizing any weapon, but baby steps). You ever read a Black Box warning on the stuff big Pharma is introducing into the populace’s brain chemistry at an accelerated and alarming rate? “May cause hallucinations, violent and/or suicidal ideation, and homicidal thoughts”. Golly, I hope the benefits are worth the risks! A detailed study of the brain chemistry and utilization of pharmaceutical drugs by Mass Public Shooters would be an important and productive addition to the research canon seeking to stop these events, no? I’m sure Pfizer and Modena and the psychiatric professionals prescribing these pills in ever increasing numbers and our political leaders would support and welcome this research in the interest of public health, right?
Final quick aside of the day: You just gotta love the 12/5 Report dropped by the Johns Michael Bloomberg Hopkins Public Health Lobbying School regarding the threat to Democracy of armed insurrectionists. Gotta hand it to the authors, they are doing an excellent job of crafting new vectors aimed at mass disarmament through a novel fear mongering narrative. According to the report, which heavily references J6 and firearms together (thus tacitly suggesting they were bedfellows that day) we need to “Do More Something”. Two years ago NPR breathlessly reported on the weaponry brought to J6: “A review of the federal charges against the alleged rioters shows that they came armed with a variety of weapons: stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats and flagpoles wielded as clubs”. OMG! Run. Wait…no firearms? The report goes on to advise the following urgent policy approaches, including: Prohibit open and concealed carry. Increased enactment of ERPOs (our old friend the “needs a complete overhaul” Red Flag Laws). And, finally, the empowerment of local governments to repeal, or restrict, or create new laws based on…wait for it…their…feelings and desires and whims? At least that’s what I can extrapolate from the language. My goodness, these urgent and innovative policies that are needed stat to thwart a grave new threat to our Democracy seem so…familiar. Face palm. Predictably, on social media the past few days EveryBloomtown, Moms Against Guns Anything, and a bunch of hive thinking parrots roosting in similar organizations latched onto this scary sounding new threat to our weak Federal Government's military might - and thus our very way life! - by being…passionate, loud and emotional. Off in the distance, the Second amendment (a two fisted drinker) wearily shook its head and handed the First and Fourth amendment’s one of its beers, saying “I’ll be back in a bit”.
Be well.