The Importance of Waiting for Facts

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Leftwing journalists blame GOP for Q-Club shooting

Notice how quiet the news has gotten about the mass shooting at the Q-Club in Colorado?

The tragedy was immediately promoted as a hate crime, and the responsibility of Republicans in general and certain conservative commentators specifically, with MSNBC commentators suggesting civil liability.

Then it turned out that the shooter was himself a non-binary member of the LBGTQ community and that he had kidnapped his mother and threatened her and police with a bomb only a year ago, but never prosecuted by the liberal Colorado Springs DA.

Did the liberal press admit they jumped to conclusions and maligned conservatives unjustly based on their own prejudices?  Nope. They just dropped the matter.

So, in light of recent events in Chesapeake, waiting for facts might be a good alternative to eating crow tomorrow.

Published by Don Tabor

I am a former Chairman of the Tidewater Libertarian Party and was the 2007 LP candidate for the 14th district VA Senate. Previously, I was the Volunteer State Director for the FairTax. I am married 50 years with two grown children and 5 grandchildren.

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238 thoughts on “The Importance of Waiting for Facts”

  1. The party of hate sets itself up for this kind of reaction and – as a matter of fact – most hate crimes are committed by “deplorables” who – as a group – are the dominant force inside the GOP. The divisive rhetoric singled out may not have been the proximate cause of violence – this time. But it remains rhetoric that should be condemned.

    You can deny that the Republican Party is the “party of hate” until the cows come home, but its history of “wedge politics” goes back decades – up to and including Birtherism, Mexicans are criminals and rapists, CRT, bathroom safety, and “grooming.”

    As for the mass shooting in Chesapeake, yeah, we know. Too soon. It always is.

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    1. How utterly predictable.

      When presented with a cautionary tale about prejudices leading to wrong conclusions, you rush to defend those prejudices. It must be terrible living inside such a closed mind.

      Do you have evidence that hate crime perpetrators were disproportionately Republican? I seriously doubt that.

      Or is that just another prejudice you carry in your heart?

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      1. “How utterly predictable.”
        What is utterly predictable is you trying to spin yet another story of gun mayhem into something else. Don’t look at the real issue. Look at how quickly a couple of commentators jumped to a wrong conclusion. Oh my. We “conservatives” never catch a break.

        “I seriously doubt that.”
        You can seriously doubt that, but yours is the party of hate and guns.

        “Or is that just another prejudice you carry in your heart?”
        Is it a “prejudice” if it is factual? I think the GOP exploits hatred and exacerbates racial and sexuality differences for short-term political gain and that it has been doing this for decades. If, instead of having a mind open to that fact, you want to accuse me of “prejudice”, knock yourself out. You have become such a doctrinaire, partisan dolt on every subject that it does not sting even a tiny bit.

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        2. Again, because you say so?

          Living in Louisiana as a teen, I heard unabashed Klansmen and racists speak. In every case, their rants about wealth and corporations sounded very Democrat to me.

          I don’t think either party is outright racist today, but the lunatics who make up the Klan and neo-Nazi groups today have very populist economics.

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      2. You knew this mumbo jumbo was coming. His hate filled body and soul is under the control of a darker demon than just being a far left wing extremist to walk this path of despicable desparation.

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          2. First Amendment?

            Yes, a cheap shot.

            Actually, “His hate filled body and soul is under the control of a darker demon” has a poetic lilt to it, doncha think? Better than some I’ve read.

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          3. Yet Len and Mr. Roberts have both NOT exercised it for similar reasons: They don’t want to be called “censors”.

            Yet YOU have threatened both Paul and myself for (what you consider) uncivil posts, on numerous occasions, yet I have NEVER NEVER NEVER seen you call out Mr. Smith for his ALWAYS hateful commentary.

            Ooops. You dropped the consistency ball, didn’t you?

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          5. Insults? Describing one’s nefarious dark character is not an insult, it’s un f ortunate truth. And his constant insults go unchecked BTW. Does he feel privileged? We ird

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          6. Besides, it wasn’t me that referred to Doc as a doctr inaire partisan dolt. Are you sure you’re addressing the right person?

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          7. “Besides, it wasn’t me that referred to Doc as a doctrinaire partisan dolt. ”

            An appropriate response to the personal attacks leveled at me by “Doc” because he did not like my response to his posting. Like most of you people he cannot stand to have his views challenged and immediately attributes such differences to corrupt motives, character flaws, or intellectual deficiencies.

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          2. “Still playing I’m rubber and you’re glue at your age? Now that’s funny…”

            So, if pointing our your stupid incivility is not the right response, how should one respond to a retarded jackass who parachutes in with over-the-top insults on a regular basis? Inquiring minds want to know.

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  2. Ok, let’s put the blame where it belongs: the culture of guns and their glory saturate the American psyche.

    Forget whether the motives were political, sexual, religious, employment issues or noisy patrons…people are killed in what is one more effective act of terrorism. And the common denominator is the singularly pervasive availability of guns with few constraints.

    You seem to feel relieved about the Colorado shooter not being a right wing nut…for now. The dead, the injured and their families and friends should be notified how wonderful that news is.

    600 plus mass showing this year alone. Yeah, I know the right denigrates this. But the criteria for the stat makes sense and is based on actual police and media reports. 4 or more people injured or killed in a single event.

    Sure, some are gang related. Does that make the casualties any less real?

    Quick now, blame the gun control advocates for using this for agenda promotion. “No respect for the grieving”? Well we don’t have enough time between mass shootings to grieve.

    One thing we can rely on is an increase in gun sales…good for the economy, so there is that.

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      1. Seriously, we are shooting each other over employment problems, politics, religion, race, spilled drinks, sexual issues…

        That does not inspire me to put a positive spin on our gun culture. And we do have one that is killing us at a clip few, if any, industrial countries can match. If that is the “price of freedom”, we might consider another marketplace of ideas.

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          1. Blame is useful only to the extent it helps us spot the next one in time.

            Obsessing on 400 million guns in the hands of a 90 million Americans doesn’t narrow it down.

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          2. “ In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable. It was over.” Dan Hodges, 2015

            He was so correct. Your blanket “removing guns from America” is the proof. You don’t want to solve the problem, which is guns in the hands of people who would do us harm.

            Thorough background checks with local authorities, permitting required, training required and registration required. Then allow citizens to sue illegal gun owners, like the Texas abortion law.

            But, as you stipulate, it won’t happen. Killing children is more bearable than getting a permit.
            And that is a fact.

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          4. “That’ solving the problem isn’t it?”

            Band-aid on a cancer until every gun transaction has to go through it. And that will require a record of gun ownership similar to the way we trace the ownership and licensing of motor vehicles. Until you acknowledge that you are ready to accept this, you might as well STFU. You are not serious.

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          5. The objective Len stated was to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, not crush everyone’s rights.

            The NICS system, used as intended is a big step in that direction, but plea bargaining disqualifying offenses and not prosecuting felonies by crazy people undermine that process.

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          6. “The objective Len stated was to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, not crush everyone’s rights.”

            Registering guns and gun owners like we register cars and license drivers does not “crush” anyone’s rights. With all due respect, that is completely childish hyperbole. Right up there with killing millions in the third world if we increase our CAFE standards.

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          8. “Registration serves no purpose unless you intend later confiscation.”

            More nonsense. Bordering on paranoia and delusion.

            Registration is NECESSARY if we are ever going to do a background check on EVERY gun transaction. Our current system is an expensive exercise in futility when it is so easy to acquire guns without a background check.

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          9. Registration assigns responsibility for a weapon. If you cannot be responsible for your guns, perhaps you should not be permitted to own one.

            With rights come responsibilities. And in the case of deadly weapons, great responsibility.

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          15. “California Registered large magazine firearms, then banned them.”

            Are you sure about that?

            In 2ooo California legislature banned the sale of oversized (10 rounds or more) magazines (not the guns they were in) but they grandfathered in those already owned when the law took effect. Then in 2016 the voters in Proposition 63 (63% approved) fully banned them giving the owners 4 choices:
            1. Sell the magazine to a licensed gun dealer.
            2. Move the magazine to another state.
            3. Turn the magazine in to the police for destruction.
            4. Face a year in jail

            In NONE of this did registration play a part. Nor were any guns to be confiscated.

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          18. Yet the sheriff in Colorado declared his county a “Second Amendment Sanctuary”. And deflecting the blame onto the AG is disingenuous, at best. Red flag laws did NOT get applied and there is shared blame for that. The AG AND the Sheriff.

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          20. The problem with NICS is getting hundreds, if not thousands of entities to file reports in a timely fashion. Some places don’t keep great records or don’t have staff or are just lackadaisical. Then there is a maximum of 72 hour window to get info.

            Add in restrictions on the mentally ill person’s records. It does little to address people who are dropping hints of aberrant behavior everyday among peers, co-workers, teachers and neighbors.

            But if a civil war is in the offing according to right wing gangs, then of course we want easy access to weapons. That should be fun. We are not done fighting the last one yet.

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          22. And that is fine if the reporting agencies in every jurisdiction are beefed up to give real time data. Then allow enough time to take into consideration that there will be gaps. And use local background checks for the red flags.

            I said this already and you keep going back to NICS works.

            Do you want to solve the problem. I get the impression that it is better for the status quo and a few thousand dead than risk even a scintilla of data cross referencing for the history of the gun.

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    2. Well there you go again.

      Instead of looking at the facts and learning what can be done, just drag out one of your prejudices and stop thinking about how to prevent the next one,

      “Known to police” is one common denominator. Just a year ago, the Colorado shooter committed multiple violent felonies, yet was not prosecuted and the records were sealed by the liberal Prosecutor. The NICS system can’t work if violent crimes by dangerous people are swept under the rug.

      But instead of learning that lesson Gun, gun, gun, gun

      Regarding the motive, (speculation) this appears to be an internecine incident. Could it be that there are incels within the LGBTQ community too, and that they are just as dangerous as those in the heterosexual community? If we don’t consider that possibility we’ll never know and not be able to see the next one coming, But gun, gun, gun is all you can think of, so you’ll never consider the possibility.

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      1. Sorry.

        I said: “Forget whether the motives were political, sexual, religious, employment issues or noisy patrons…people are killed in what is one more effective act of terrorism. And the common denominator is the singularly pervasive availability of guns with few constraints.”

        Is that not true? Perhaps I should have said bullets instead of guns?

        We have a very strong gun culture is that not true either?

        You are saying things I did not say because you are convinced the right wing are victims.

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        1. Removing guns from America is not on the menu.

          So, how does diverting every discussion on these tragedies to guns accomplish anything?

          We can do something about making the best use of the NICS database.

          We can do something about getting dangerous lunatics off the streets.

          But no.. Guns gunes guns

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          2. “Guns, guns, guns…”

            Reminds me of Trump when he said “COVID, COVID, COVID” during the height of COVID before the 2020 election. He was upset that the subject was screwing up his image, never mind the thousands dying every week.

            BTW, the dead are not the only victims. Every mass shooting has a lot of wounded. Every victim has a lot of co-workers, friends, family as in husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, grandmothers, grandfathers, cousins, aunts, uncles, businesses, clients and neighbors. Add those in with the 30k plus gun victims, self inflicted or not, and we have maybe a million victims a year.

            The economic impacts are enormous. Just in this case, Walmart in Greenbrier will be shut for days, if not weeks. The biggest retail shopping days start Friday. But that is very bearable by Walmart. Lost income from family breadwinners, medical bills, psychological impacts for work and family, are just a few of the losses.

            Finally, the terrorist impact. Random killings are a favorite of terror organizations. Why? Because they wear down the sense of security of the citizenry. It leads to backlash and clampdowns with appeal to authoritarian responses. These “lone wolf” killings may have a myriad of motives, but they still create similar impacts.

            This is why “guns, guns, guns” will be the topic until cooler heads take a closer look at our gun culture and the love affair with a 250 year old amendment.

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    3. No real controls? Have you even bothered to review all of the gun laws in place that are being subverted by feel good liberal criminal justice? Almost every mass shooter in the past 10 years at least has had a prior crime and/or a mental event that was covered up by feel good liberal politics so red flag laws didn’t prevent them from obtaining firearms used in their crime.

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      1. And yet we still have mass shootings by the hundreds every year.

        My suggestions are that we have background checks that are thorough. Like background checks for working with classified material.
        And local input from police, courts, neighbors, schools, etc. It would need a reasonable renewal period to be even more effective.

        Pass that, then while you are waiting, get training so you are proficient and can safely handle and maintain the weapon.

        Finally, register the gun. And the owner is responsible for its safekeeping. No private sales without the same background checks, etc.

        Will this stop all crime tomorrow? Of course not, but it will over the coming years and decades. It will take that long for people to actually respect the rights and privileges of gun ownership.

        Bottom line is that the law abiding and sane will have no problem getting a firearm. It might just take a bit of effort and time.

        Really, this is not rocket science. Dumping 400 million guns, legally and illegally into a large population with anonymity as the goal is, as I have state, just nuts.

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        1. That’s a lot of burden for exercising a right.

          But OK, you go first, let’s have extensive background checks for voter registration, and have people prove they have not committed any felonies. And provide their medical records to prove they have no history of mental illness or addiction that would show them incompetent.

          Whil waiting for the registrar to check the claims, they can pass a test to show they understand the Constitution

          Fair is fair.

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          1. Come up with evidence of 35,000 fraudulent votes every year, and you might have a case. As it is, even the most partisan investigations have netted a handful, so you have some work to do.

            Speaking of history of mental illness, even when a person is receiving disability for mental incompetence and inability to handle their own affairs, we arm them. Changing that would indicate that you and the gun lobby are even remotely serious about reducing the shameful death and injury toll from guns. But you are not.

            I can understand. The talk of civil war is almost exclusively on the right and among the gangs you so cherish.

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          2. Really?

            How many shootings are attributable to elderly people whose children help them manage their finances? It’s a non-problem.

            But you miss the point. Adding hurdles and costs to exercising a right would bother you if it were about voting, and poll taxes are unconstitutional for that reason. Adding hurdles to exercising the right to self defense is every bit as wrong.

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          3. “ Adding hurdles and costs to exercising a right would bother you if it were about voting…”

            It does. Why do you think we have been trying to pass a voting rights bill? It is to counter the blatant attempts and successes to create barriers to voting. For example, “Targeting Blacks with surgical precision” as a judge noted in NC redistricting and voting law overhauls.

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          4. Do you have problems with Gerrymandering that targets Whites with surgical precision too?

            Virginia’s 3rd and 4th Congressional districts, for example, were created specifically to guarantee Balck majorities.

            I would agree that Gerrymandering is bad, but I don’t see any way of avoiding it. Every redistricting is crafted to manipulate outcome, including those done by courts.

            Districts should be contiguous, compact and neutral in nature. but how do we get there?

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          5. Actually I was not even concerned about the Gerrymandering. The quote from the judge was about the new election laws.

            But, gerrymandering is the result of letting election winners, the legislature majority, pick the districts in the first place. A Constitutional flaw.

            Non-partisan or bi-partisan commissions would be the preferred method in my view. It requires some cooperation, of course, and it less divided times should be fine. But even VA was able to redistricting through the Court, as stipulated in case of a deadlock. But it is new and will take some massaging.

            On voting regs, SCOTUS is supposed to rule on the Independent Legislature Theory. Another vague flaw in the Constitution. It can take the Court out of determining the Rules in cases of controversy. This effectively guts the balance of power, and the concept of voting, for that matter. This ILT was the basis for Eastman’s strategy to overturn the election in 2020.

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          7. “Fair is fair.”

            There is nothing “fair” or even remotely sensible in your strained analogy. Nobody ever killed his wife, murdered a room full of colleagues, knocked over a convenience store, or blew his brains out with a vote. Never. Not even once. Guns, on the other hand, . . .

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          15. Yes, true. But even those were a few. The best way to steal elections In Gerrymandering and complicated rules. The GOP is better at the first and masters of the second.

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          16. “What, limiting voting to living citizens is an encumbrance?”

            Unnecessary requirements for the form of Voter ID. We have conducted elections for centuries without such laws and without in-person voter fraud.

            Voting times and restrictions on early and absentee voting that are a burden on the working poor.

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          2. “ Most of what gun control advocates label as mass shootings are gang warfare.”

            So?

            Most or some?

            Not all victims are gang members either. The ease of obtaining powerful guns, pistols and rifles both, flows down to the street. Anonymity works very well for that.

            What seems to be ignored is the impact of mass shootings on perceptions of public safety. Gathering places like supermarkets, nightclubs, houses of worship, schools are places both coveted, common and historically safe. They are communal areas critical to societies such as ours.

            Add in the impacts of victims, killed and injured, and their network of families, friends, and businesses. The effects are much greater than the casualty counts or frequency of events.

            Again, this is why terrorism is used globally to affect changes that extremists want. When it gets unbearable, crackdowns and loss of civil rights are not far behind.

            The gun lobby prefers anonymity to counter the non-existent threat of confiscation. But this same anonymity is both killing Americans and shaking our freedoms to the core.

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          3. Again, not the point.

            By lumping together domestic, workplace, gang and crazy multiple victim shootings, you can’t address the causes and means for prevention.

            The greatest fear comes from the unpredictable crazy shootings. The best way to control those is prosecution of “warning” crimes.

            Preventing gang shootings requires a different approach, though prosecution of earlier crimes and long sentences play a part there.

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          4. The Pulse, The Tree of Life Synagogue. Walmart in Chesapeake and Texas, VB Municipal Center … The list goes on. NONE of the were attributed to “gang warfare.” Just another attempt to deflect from the gun culture problem in this country.

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          5. Gang warfare?

            Oh, so those deaths don’t count. Even if a lot of the dead and injured were caught in the crossfire? Oh, well. “Urban” people. What can you say.

            You say most? Are you sure? An actual epidemiological study finds that domestic violence accounts for about 2/3 of mass murders. For example, this study of incidents where 4 or more people died (vs injured used in the 600 incident figure).

            https://efsgv.org/press/study-two-thirds-of-mass-shootings-linked-to-domestic-violence/

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          6. Read your cite more carefully.

            It includes mass shootings in which the shooter has a history of domestic violence even if the shooting in question is not domestic,

            Other sources attribute those same shootings to gang or other criminal activity.

            But again, the point it that preventing gang, domestic, and crazy shootings require different countermeasures and they should not be considered the same thing.

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          7. “But again, the point it that preventing gang, domestic, and crazy shootings require different countermeasures”

            My point is that you do not solve the gun violence problem by exaggerating the gang component and washing your hands.

            And all these categories of gun violence require the SAME countermeasure – serious background checks on EVERY gun transaction. And that requires that the ownership of every gun be on record.

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          8. That’s not going to happen. What would happen is to drive the second hand market underground.

            So long as liberal school, prosecutorial and court zealots relentlessly work the thwart the NICS database, background checks will not do much.

            I am not washing my hands of the gang problem, I just see a different way of approaching it,

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          9. “That’s not going to happen.”

            I think you are wrong about that. It is going to happen.

            And your blaming “zealots” for the poor functioning of a DELIBERATELY broken system is a dog that will not hunt.

            The legitimate second hand market would NOT be driven underground. Law abiding people obey the law.

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          10. A better idea is to find the source of weapons that gangs use. At some point from the manufacturer to the retailer to the buyer the gun got “lost” and ended up on the street. Anonymity is critical to that broken chain of legal custody.

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          14. OK, Man lies on form, gets denied and arrested. No gun sale.
            Man lies on form, gets denied, and does not get arrested. No gun sale.

            Man doesn’t lie on form, buys gun or guns, and sells them in NY, with no background checks. Does not get arrested. Gun on street, legitimate owner no longer in possession.

            In other words, the form makes no difference in the actual straw purchase or purchase for illegal resale. Without registration, tracing the original owner is tough.

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          15. Man. or woman, lies on 4473 to make a straw purchase for someone not allowed to buy. Gets caught. prosecuted and convicted. Has felony record and can no longer make straw purchases after he gets out of prison.

            Neighbor sees him go to prison for making straw purchase, and will not do the same thing.

            OR,

            Not prosecuted, and continues making straw purchases, as does neighbor.

            NICS works if we don’t sabotage it.

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          17. Not the point.

            If they get caught making a straw purchase but aren’t prosecuted, they can continue to do so, but if they are prosecuted, they are barred from doing so, And they serve as an example for others.

            Again, NICS can’t stop every shooting, but it can’t stop any if we sabotage it.

            The VA Tech and Parkland shootings, for example, should have been stopped but weren’t because authorities evaded NICS.

            I am mystified as to why you support sabotaging the system. It’s almost as though you fear it might work.

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          18. Sabotaging? I am offering suggestions to improve a flawed system with loopholes you can drive a howitzer through.

            So long as anonymity is the goal, we will never have a chance to eventually ensure that fewer dangerous people can access deadly weapons. NICS is aspirin treatment for brain cancer. Yes, it might mitigate the pain, but it is not an effective cure.

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          19. So, preventing VA Tech and Parkland, and other Crazy shootings isn’t enough?

            If you want to use cancer as a metaphor, OK, too much chemo can kill you, or worse, do nothing other than make your time left miserable.

            Criminals get their guns either by black market purchases of stolen guns or straw purchases, and increasingly, through the same cartels that smuggle drugs. Background checks no matter how thorough won’t stop smuggled guns or stolen guns.

            Less than 1 in 100 straw purchases caught by firearms dealers using NICS is ever prosecuted, and the few that do generally get plea bargained to probation. If they were going to prison that would deter girlfriends and friends of felons from supplying them.

            Limits on concealed carry contribute greatly to stolen uns.

            NICS is a great deal more than an aspirin when used as planned. It is deliberate sabotage by prosecutors and bureaucrats that hamstrings a good system.

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          20. Well if something is not working as planned then it might need some adjustments to allow for the data to be useful.

            We are a big country with thousands of jurisdictions. Some are modern some are not. Some have ideologues from both side to gum up the works. We have to set up a system that can bypass any obstacles.

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          21. What system would that be? Totalitarianism?

            How about our law enforcement employees just follow the existing law?

            Had the VA Tech police followed the law, Cho would not have been at VA tech, much less buy weapons.

            Had the Sheriff’s Dept in Parkland followed the law, no shooting there either, as Cruz would have been a felon.

            The list is very long if you want to waste a good day going over it. Almost every mass shooter was known to law enforcement before the final act. But prosecutors, educators and bureaucrats decided they knew better than what the law required of them.

            So how about we experiment with following the law for a little while and see what happens before passing laws that would result in those who got the NICS system passed into law decide to abandon the law too.

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          22. Humans are not automatons. The county sheriff in Eastern Kentucky has no secretary. The prosecutor in Boise is on sick leave. The court in Cleveland decided to not file charges against a teen who shoplifted on a dare, but otherwise clean record. Cases fall through the cracks.

            These are not excuses in the common sense of the word. They are life and reality. You can rant against these folks all you want, but if these reports are critical to making NICS work effectively, then the system is not the right one.

            So you can arrest the Kentucky sheriff for misfeasance, or you can see what he needs to make his reports timely and effective. You can impeach the judge in Cleveland, or find a system that protects the vast majority of teens who did stupid things from carrying a felony record for life, but still flags the serious ones.

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          23. We really aren’t talking about oversights. We are taking about willful refusal to follow the law.

            Cho should not have been at VA Tech, He had been caught repeatedly taking upskirt photos of classmates and had stalked 2 women who made complaints to the VA Tech police. Both were persuaded to leave it to school counseling. Had he been prosecuted, his parents would have known how troubled he was and he would not have been able to pass a background check.

            Police had been called to Nicholas Cruz’s house 49 times, on one occasion holding a gun to his foster brother’s head in the presence of the police, But he was never charged, because the local prosecutor and school board had entered into an agreement to avoid prosecutions of dangerous teens. A conviction for assault with a deadly weapon would have barred him from buying firearms.

            Fewer than 1 in 100 people reported for straw purchase attempts by firearms dealers are ever prosecuted, and the few who are generally get plea bargained to non-disqualifying crimes.

            The Q-club shooter kidnapped his mother and threatened her and the police with a bomb, charges were never brought and the case has been sealed.

            These are not oversights, or staffing issues. These are willful refusals to enforce the law, with catastrophic consequences.

            But you’ll excuse that because if we really used NICS, it might work and you’d lose the issue.

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          24. “We really aren’t talking about oversights Blah Blah Blah”

            Anecdotes showing with hindsight that existing law could have been enforced more effectively do not change the fact that it is very easy to get a dangerous weapon without ANY kind of background check. This is not an either or choice. We can do both.

            And maybe we can start by FINALLY using 21st century technology instead of paper records in cardboard boxes in thousands of shops.

            All your blather is meaningless since you oppose such measures for very silly reasons.

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          26. “And yet Cho and Cruz were able to get weapons . . .”

            Yes, so?

            Is it surprising that a deliberately handicapped system is less than perfect? Unless every gun transaction includes a background check against a national, on-line database the effort is nearly pointless.

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          27. Nope,

            Merely following the law as it exists would have stopped both Cho and Cruz. It was the choice to not prosecute crimes against persons that allowed them to avoid the NICS database.

            You simply don’t want the NICS system to succeed, as that success will reduce the perceived need for eventual confiscation.

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          28. “Nope”

            Deliberately missing the point.

            Even if NICS was perfect and every official always did exactly the right thing, it would still leave the door wide open for people to get guns who should not have them. The reason is obvious – not every transaction has to go through a background check. And every transaction should. And there is no GOOD reason why they should not.

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          29. If every transaction could be background checked that would not be a problem as long as there was no tracking unless the gun was used in a crime.

            But with 400million guns in the US, how do you accomplish that?

            Criminals can rely on stolen guns (made more common by concealed carry restrictions) but do you think someone like Cho could have availed himself of the stolen gun black market?

            NICS might not stop every dangerous sale, but a lot of those mass shootings use legally purchased guns sold to someone who should have been on the NICS list.

            Why do you not want to stop those?

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          30. “But with 400million guns in the US, how do you accomplish that?”

            A relatively easy data management problem. Provide an internet tool for adding weapons to the national dataset. Law abiding people would do so. After a grace period it would be illegal to own, purchase, sell, loan, or gift a weapon not in the dataset.

            Liked by 1 person

          31. Quite being so accusatory. I have listed what I think are reasons problems for a massive database of 330 million people in 50 states and thousands of jurisdictions run my hundreds of thousands of law enforcement personnel, judges, social workers, school counselor, etc.

            Undoubtedly there are screw ups and probably lots of them. My point is that NICS does not take these into account since there are obvious failures. You say clamp down. How? Who is going to follow up? When will this all take place? who is paying for the new scrutiny?

            The Devil is in the details. We don’t even like to fund Public Defenders, more judges, more police, and definitely we suck at medical coverage for mental illnesses.

            You want to saturate the country with guns? Then you must be willing to pay for quality background checks at every level, every day in every juridication/

            Liked by 2 people

          35. “Registration is not a miniscule burden, it is a necessary prelude to confiscation.”

            Just plain dumb. It is not necessary for that at all. But more to the point, your childish fantasies and fears are not a good reason for ANYONE to die.

            Liked by 1 person

          37. “Your fantasies of a self-defense free world are why people die.
            A reminder of why we need the 2nd Amendment.”

            Registering your weapons does not decrease your ability to defend yourself with them. Duh!

            Liked by 1 person

          38. Registering your weapons allows the Gestapo to go house to house and demand the surrender of the weapons they know you have.

            You know damned well that’s your endpoint. Registration is just a step.

            Could I be wrong? Maybe, but if I am right, there is no do-over.

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          39. Gestapo? Really?
            “You know damned well that’s your endpoint.”

            Actually, I know no such thing.
            I am tempted to reply to your childish insults in kind, but I will simply note that your professed worry about “the Gestapo” while supporting the closest thing we have ever had to an out and out fascist in high office makes you a joke – a real lightweight incapable of rational discussion on this and many other subjects.

            Liked by 1 person

          41. Gestapo? First to bring up Nazis in a discussion…you know the rest.

            Interestingly enough, the Gestapo was comprised of ex-police. Just like our own Oathkeepers. You are a big fan of the gangs I believe.

            “Your papers please…”. 😇

            Liked by 2 people

          43. Trying to confiscate 400 million guns is a non-starter. We can agree on that.

            My point is to change the gun culture obsession we have. Evolving a permitting and registration system over time can garner respect for the right to own deadly weapons. We have little of that now.

            Permits allow a longer time period to do effective background checks, review arrest records and even mental health status. In other words, rather than a quick phone call to access a database that is poorly kept for a variety of reasons that may not be repairable, all that approval process would be in advance and the permit holder just buys what he wants.

            And this would not keep the law abiding and sane from buying a weapon.

            Liked by 2 people

          44. Evolving a permitting and registration system would have me and about 5 million other guys burying caches of firearms and ammo in the woods and perparing for resistance.

            Like

          45. Ah, the threat of violence from the right is never far below the surface.

            It didn’t go well in 1860, but maybe it will be better this time.

            Congress is how we are supposed to settle our issues, not from behind a tree in Idaho. Or Chesapeake.

            Liked by 2 people

          47. And what violence are you defending against?

            5 million retreating to the woods for arms caches is a plan for violence in most people’s thinking.

            Not long ago gangs stored arms and ammunition in Virginia to use for the insurrection in DC when the president ordered it. That kind of storing and retrieving?

            Armed rebellions were what the militias were defending against in Washington’s day. You want to recreate the Whiskey Rebellion? That did not work out well for the insurrectionists.

            Recall the violence in the 60’s by the Weathermen and others. How effective were they?

            Do you think Civil War is going to be a viable option? Years of terror, clampdowns of civil rights, vigilante murders and to what end? So you don’t have to wait for a permit to buy guns.

            Liked by 2 people

          49. What right are you thinking about? I don’t advocate confiscation. Just trying to keep guns in the hands of the law abiding, just like you say.

            Are you advocating civil war?

            Liked by 2 people

          50. A civil war would be the result of a failure to maintain deterrence.

            It doesn’t matter if you personally advocate confiscation, you are advocating providing those that do with the tool that makes it possible

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          51. Do you have any clue about the catastrophic effects of a civil war? Years, if not decades, of slaughter. Suspects, real or not, are rounded up and killed by both sides. Economy in shambles. Constitutional rights evaporated.

            Fortunately because our nation is so huge, the government as well, that a take over by well armed zealots is probably impossible. All you would accomplish is making whatever government we have more autocratic to clamp down on the insurrection.

            But wait, there is more.

            The majority of the country would not be happy with the gangs picking off perceived enemies. So not only would you be fighting the government, you would be making enemies of most Americans.

            Time to go back to the drawing board, IMO.

            Liked by 2 people

          52. That’s how deterrence works.

            Remember Mutually Assured Destruction?

            It wasn’t necessary for the US or the USSR to prove it could “win” a nuclear war, the peace was kept for 50 years because the cost of WINNING a nuclear war was too high.

            Even if we would fail to overthrow an oppressive government, if we make the cost of defeating us prohibitively high, oppression is held in check.

            But to be effective, a deterrent must be credible. In largely disarmed countries, the government can do pretty much anything it wants and the cost to the oppressors would be acceptably low.

            Not so here.

            In order for the ideal of government by the consent of the governed to be maintained, we must retain the ability to withdraw that consent.

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          53. Then since you hold the guns and feel that it
            would make a government more compliant, what keeps us safe from gangs that are unhappy with some policies.

            Look what 1/6 was about. That was not about oppression, just the results of an election and a Big Lie by losers. Ironically, the gangs like Oathkeepers, who say they are upholding the Constitution per their oaths while in the service, attacked out of loyalty to a man, not the Constitution.

            You may feel like the expert on deciding what constitutes unbearable oppression, but others may have differing flash points based on false and conspiratorial messaging.

            Essentially you are declaring that the 2nd gives you extralegal veto power through fear, intimidation and ultimately violence.

            What makes you any better than those miscreants who plotted to kidnap the Michigan governor over masking and other pandemic policies?

            Liked by 2 people

          54. It would not be feasible to take on the government over an issue that did not also motivate enough other Americans to make it successful.

            I know you are obsessed with Trump. I am not. If he had succeeded in getting Pence to do his bidding, and the courts were unable to muster for force to evict him. that would be a cause I would take up arms over.

            I would expect most of the Oath Keepers would look at it the same way.

            The Oath is to the Constitution, not a person.

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          55. “ In order for the ideal of government by the consent of the governed to be maintained, we must retain the ability to withdraw that consent.”

            Exactly what I said. And yet, those same gang members violently attacked because of loyalty to Trump.

            So how would you “take up arms” in your scenario? How would you evict the president?

            Devil and details…always a game changer.

            Liked by 1 person

          57. “I would expect most of the Oath Keepers would look at it the same way.”

            Really? That’s why they planned and attacked the Capitol to force the VP to illegally turn over the election?

            Liked by 2 people

          59. Whew. I am sure they have been kicked out of the gang. Except they were leaders. Or at least one was, and he is on trial now.

            “The founder of the far-right Oath Keepers was recorded days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol saying his “only regret” about that day is that the group “should have brought rifles,” federal prosecutors revealed in federal court Monday.”

            https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/oath-keepers-leader-regretted-not-guns-jan-6-prosecutors-say-seditious-rcna50244

            But keep excusing the gangs. They will be the recruiting pool for future secret police. That is right, the same ones you praise for their loyalty to our Constitution.

            Liked by 2 people

          60. “ In order for the ideal of government by the consent of the governed to be maintained, we must retain the ability to withdraw that consent.”

            And how specifically would you do that with a gun?

            Consent of the governed is what voting is all about. This is why the right wing is trying so hard to discredit the vote. That leaves the guns.

            Liked by 2 people

          61. You’re projecting.

            Republicans are not planning to replace the ballot with gunfire.

            But you are wrong that the consent of the governed is all about voting. My consent is to be governed under the limited powers the Constitution allows government, not the tyranny of the majority. .

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          62. Your consent is expressed through the ballot. And supporting candidates you believe support your position. Your consent includes abiding by the courts as well.

            Republicans have been changing voting rules after the last two elections. And in AZ right now they are demanding a new election because they did not win.

            Are you not paying attention?

            Liked by 2 people

          63. What does that have to do with anything?

            Of course the courts are the first step.

            But why would you expect a rogue President to obey the courts?

            Absent the ultimate authority of the people themselves expressed through their refusal to accept an illegitimate President there is no backstop.

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          64. “But why would you expect a rogue President to obey the courts?”

            The irony is so obvious. 60 attempts did not deter the last president. Nor did extortion of state officials. Nor did false slates of electors. Finally, a planned attack.

            Yet, you did not voice any concern nor check your ammo stocks, did you?

            Liked by 2 people

          65. Nope. I fully expected the process to play out as it did. I never expected there would be any need for citizen action once the courts ruled, and it didn’t even get that far.

            The process was delayed a couple of hours, hardly something to go to war over.

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          66. Once the courts ruled was not the end of the scheme. As we have learned, it was just the beginning gambit to sow doubt. We were lucky that many of the Republicans in position to nullify the voters didn’t do so. That includes the VP.

            Back to the subject, our annual gun violence deaths and injuries are a hell of a price to pay for a loose interpretation of the 2nd. How much more the populace will tolerate this nonsensical slaughter is the question. The goal of only law abiding citizens having access to high powered weapons is doable, but requires a realization that what we have now is abominable.

            Yes we have gangs. Newsflash here: so does just about every other industrial country. We have drug wars, like everyone else. What we do have is a gun injury and death toll that is the shame of the industrial globe, IMO.

            What has kept us secure for 250 years is geography and a clever system of legislative, judicial and administrative balance. Not without hiccups, of course. But in those 250 years, the only times guns determined our fate was the Civil War, and that was a catastrophe that lingers today.

            We even got through the civil rights conflicts with minimal violence in part because arms were not revered and as pervasive. It would have been a lot worse with Black and White armed militias. And you better believe that the Black population had more than a just cause to rise up in places like Mississippi and Alabama. More than mask rules and other whiney reasons today’s violence feeds off of.

            That quote regarding our acceptance of gunning down children being the death knell of gun control may be correct. For now. At some point, I hope we mature as a nation and return to the Constitutional systems of representation and debate backed by a judiciary to resolve the impasses and, like smoking, make guns less glamorous.

            Liked by 2 people

          67. “A civil war would be the result of a failure to maintain deterrence.”

            You have just posted that it would be the result of the government requiring universal background checks with 5 million of you people stashing your weapons in the woods and preparing for “resistance.” Sounds like civil war to me.

            Liked by 1 person

          68. You really see preparation for self defense as aggression?

            Any thought of resistance to a government that oppresses people the way you want them oppressed is a threat to your agenda.

            That is the thinking that requires me to be prepared to deter it.

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          69. “It is truly sad that you think rights are such trivial things.”

            Uh, no what is truly sad and ridiculous is that you think a trivial right is worth countless deaths and injuries. Every year. The trivial “right” we are discussing is your trivial “right” to own your weapons anonymously.

            Liked by 2 people

          70. Anonymously is the only way to be certain we will continue to own them peacefully.

            Keep in mind that governments kill more of their own citizens than all crimes and wars combined.

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          73. ” . . . those who still need to be remain unseen.”

            Oh, you speak for them – the five million potential criminals in your fantasy world who would rather die in a civil war than have their gun purchases and sales be a matter of record. Because, you know, the Gestapo.

            Okay, thanks for sharing. But just so you know, you really speak for the criminals, wife beaters, gangsters, and sickos who cannot pass background checks.

            Liked by 1 person

          74. If that were so, why am I the only one here speaking for making the NICS system work?

            Your side seems intent in letting the “criminals, wife beaters, gangsters, and sickos” remain hidden and able to buy firearms so you don’t lose the carnage they cause to drive your agenda.

            You are the one standing in the way of stopping the next Parkland or VA Tech.

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          75. “If that were so, why am I the only one here speaking for making the NICS system work?”

            Uh, nobody is arguing against making the NICS system work. It would be great if it functioned perfectly, as far as it goes.

            But it is not the solution to the problem. The problem is that it is far too easy for a gun transaction to avoid ANY kind of background check.

            Liked by 1 person

          76. Well, there are 400 million of them in private hands so there will be a post retail market.

            If you want to do something positive, arrange for civilian access to the NICS database.

            Few gun owners I know would want to sell a gun to a criminal or lunatic, but the only way to avoid that is to have a licensed dealer run the NICS check, at up to $50 which on a second hand sale is too big a bite.

            Make NICS access free and I would use it, and everyone I know would.

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          77. “Make NICS access free and I would use it, and everyone I know would.”

            You don’t value the right to bear arms enough to cover a background check?

            This is why a permit issued beforehand, with a few years of expiration, would be so much more reliable and simple. It gives time to check with local officials, schools, neighbors while also allowing training to maintain, fire and secure the weapon.

            Liked by 2 people

          79. “It also denies those who cannot afford the process the exercise of the right. Sort of like a poll tax.”

            Laughable. A fee for a needed service triggered by a decision you make is nothing like a poll tax.

            Liked by 1 person

          81. “Buying a gun is a right, voting is a right. a fee for either is unconstitutional”

            Nope. A poll tax is unconstitutional because it was explicitly made so by the 24th Amendment. There is no comparable Amendment concerning what you call the “right” to buy a gun.

            A reasonable fee to cover the expenses incurred by the government when you acquire a gun would not be unconstitutional. The fee would have to be prohibitive relative to the cost of the gun before a case could be made for the right to bear arms being “infringed.”

            Liked by 1 person

          82. Never run out of excuses do you?

            You need a permit, fees for security and often insurance to exercise First Amendment rights of assembly and speech depending on the size and location.

            I guess if you cannot afford a gun, you can get it free too.

            Liked by 2 people

          83. “Evolving a permitting and registration system would have me and about 5 million other guys burying caches of firearms and ammo in the woods and perparing for resistance.”

            Then you would be both a damned fool AND a criminal.

            Liked by 1 person

          85. “I know of no Republicans who have suggested disarming the people.”

            And I know of no Democrats advocating the establishment of secret police.

            Of course, the real point here is that doctrinaire gun-humpers equate any improvement in our regulation of fire arms and the people who can have access with “confiscation.” You are not one of those are you?

            Liked by 1 person

          87. “People who trust governments wind up in ovens.”

            Not too bizarre.

            I would add that such irrational and extremist public statements and promises to prepare for resistance would – and definitely should – trigger any “red flag” law whose purpose would be to limit gun ownership to rational, law-abiding people who can be trusted with them.

            Liked by 1 person

          89. “A knowledge of history is a red flag?”

            Knowledge?
            You flatter yourself.
            For the record, again. Gun controls had NOTHING to do with the rise of the Third Reich. It was more the lack of them because easily armed thugs became a political force.

            The red flags on display are you threats of violence, your over-the-top paranoia about persecution, your hatred of democracy, and your exaggerated sense of your own self-importance and potential as a “freedom fighter.” None of these is healthy. IMHO.

            Liked by 2 people

          91. And there is the problem. For the gun lobby, the threat of violence is more important than debate.

            It is the “debate”.

            You disparage tech and social media for editing hate speech and threats of violence, and yet contrary opinions to yours calls for arms rather than the marketplace of ideas.

            Mass shootings, gang shootings, domestic shootings and suicide by gun all have a similar “goal”: solving a problem or disagreement with bullets. You want to run to the forest and retrieve your caches to solve the gun violence issue we have with more gun violence.

            The irony would be comedic except for the continuing tragedy of Americans shooting Americans or themselves at roughly 100 per day.

            Liked by 2 people

          92. So, in your mind, is being prepared to defend myself is an act of aggression???

            I didn’t write anything about marching on Washington, or shooting the mailman, I wrote about making it difficult to disarm me as a deterrent to government oppression.

            How is it that being prepared to resist oppression makes me the bad guy, and not the oppressor?

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          93. “How is it that being prepared to resist oppression makes me the bad guy, and not the oppressor?”

            When the “oppression” is delusional. You and your ilk become the “bad guys” when your delusions lead you to block effective gun regulations that impose only minor burdens on law-abiding people.

            Liked by 1 person

          97. “You need remedial history”
            Uh, my knowledge of history is just fine.
            I will match it with yours any day of the week.

            But unlike you, I do not project the crimes of illegal fascist governments which came to power through violence onto our Constitutional democracy.

            Liked by 1 person

          100. “Your opinion is not a reason to limit my rights”

            What are red flag laws for if not irrational, self-important, delusional people threatening gun violence over political developments?

            Liked by 1 person

          101. Well, yes but how do you apply red flag laws to those who use the government as their tool of oppression?

            After, it is you, not me, who is threatening violence, through the surrogate of government, against me.

            I am not seeking to deny you any of your rights, that is your way of thinking, not mine.

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          102. “I am not seeking to deny you any of your rights. . .”

            Tell that to the people who die every day because people like you block every sort of attempt to keep how powered, military weapons out of the hands of criminals, wife beaters and lunatics.

            Liked by 1 person

          103. The “fine people” who marched with torches in Charlottesville and chanted “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us” are your oven minder wannabes. European chauvinists can expect preferential hiring should the need arise. Oathkeepers are ex-police and military, just like the Gestapo.

            Hint: it is not the Democrats these folks are supporting.

            Liked by 2 people

          105. The “fine people” lie again?

            Laughable. Leaving aside birtherism and Mexican bashing, Trump showed his true colors with his unwillingness to condemn the fascist marchers for days and then trying to equate them with the decent people defending the right of Charlottesville to make its own decisions about whom to honor with public monuments. He showed his true colors again in the 2020 debates with his “stand back and stand by” comment instead of condemning white supremacists. And now he is dining with Nick Fuentes and the avowed anti-Semite”Ye.”

            Do you really not understand that “fine people” do not travel to another city, march through their streets with torches, swastikas, rebel flags, and hate chants over an issue that is none of their business. If an actual “fine person” found himself with such a group, he would immediately absent himself.

            Liked by 1 person

          108. So if the local police, social workers and school officials had been interviewed for background checks instead of just a call to a national database, those red flags would have popped up immediately.

            Liked by 2 people

          109. “So if the local police . . .”

            In the UK – which has about 1/4oth of our level of gun violence you – need to be licensed to acquire guns. The licensing process includes background checks, proof of basic competence, proof of ownership of secure storage, character references from local people, and approval by the local constabulary. Of course, British people are not “free.” So there is that.

            Liked by 1 person

          112. So, you tell me that the local police don’t have the time or resources to send a report to NICS, but they have the time to be interviewed every time one of thousands of purchases are made?

            Ok, which local police? The ones where someone just arrived 6 months ago or the three places he lived over the las 10 years?

            Which social worker? There are thousands in Hampton roads, which might have dealt with the buyer? Any of them?

            There aren’t enough bureaucrats t handle the volume for that kind of check,

            I bought a suppressor so my target shooting would be less of an annoyance to the neighbors. The background check for that was not nearly so difficult as what you describe and it took 8 months and cost $200.

            A lot of things sound simple until you try to do them.

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          113. Simple? No, but only if instant approval is the goal. Yes, it would be more costly, but red flags are not being caught now.

            Random mass shooting may only account for a percentage of gun deaths, but the impact of fear and insecurity can have long reaching effects. Our tolerance for these events is astounding, but I don’t think there is no tipping point. At some point I believe the 2nd may be challenged or changed. People do get tired of looking over their shoulders at work, shopping, concerts, schools, houses of worship and we may reach the “enough is enough” status. That’s when the argument shifts from protecting us against the government to protecting ourselves from each other. And realizing that one of government’s main roles is the safety and security of its citizens from threats foreign and domestic. “Security of a free state” doncha know.

            Liked by 2 people

          115. “Until then, the kind of background check you want is unworkable.”

            No, it is not unworkable.

            There is no violation of the Second Amendment in requiring records of proficiency and ownership. None of the guaranteed rights of the Constitution is as absolute as you seem to think the Second Amendment right is.

            Liked by 2 people

          116. And the amount of police and investigator time required to make it work would displace everything else they do. How many dangerous people would be stopped from purchasing a firearm with all that cost that would not be stopped by a well run NICS system at a fraction of the cost?

            And what level of proficiency are you going to require? Most self-defense shootings are at 7 feet or less. Are you going to deny the woman with a dangerous stalker a means to defend herself because she can’t shoot as well as I do?

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          117. “And what level of proficiency are you going to require?”
            The issues is not skill in shooting, it is safety training that should be required. NRA used to focus on that. They could do so again.

            As for police time and effort to provide clearances, it would not be a major burden. They would not need to interview the applicant – just check their records. A clerk could do it.

            Liked by 1 person

          118. Really?

            Which jurisdiction are you going to contact. How about a military family member who has moved every 2 to 3 years all his life?

            A single, national database, properly maintained, solves that.

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          120. So if he moved there 6 months ago but three moves before that he threatened a woman with a gun, that slips by?

            Or will the local police contact a national database that you don’t want to work?

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          121. “Or will the local police contact a national database that you don’t want to work?

            I do not know why you say that anyone wants the national database not to work. But, I will say that I do not want every school yard fight to result in felony charges.

            Liked by 1 person

          123. “An unarmed schoolyard fight is not disqualifying nor is it a felony.”

            Well, it should not be disqualifying but it CAN be charged as a felony. Which is precisely the reason that the Obama DOJ issued guidance about being racially consistent.

            Liked by 1 person

          128. “A lot of things sound simple until you try to do them.”

            And yet other countries manage.

            Take your pick : effective background checks or more dead people.
            Never mind. We already know which you prefer.

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          130. “NICS is effective when the law is complied with by law enforcement. it only fails because liberal prosecutors and educators sabotage it.”

            It is NOT as effective as it could be because it is not difficult to legally bypass it. That is the point. Duh!

            As for “liberal prosecutors and educators” sabotaging it, that is baloney. Your “solution” is to turn every school yard scuffle into a felony. Your cure would be far worse than the disease.

            Liked by 1 person

          131. Schoolyard scuffles are not disqualifying offenses.

            Assault with a deadly weapon is. Parkland shooter Cruz did that in the presence of the police but was never prosecuted due to Obama’s leniency program. Had he been prosecuted he could not have purchased the weapons he used.

            Stalking is a disqualifying offense, VA Tech shooter Cho did that twice, but the women were persuaded not to press charges in favor of counseling by the school.

            Neither of them had the connections to buy black market guns.

            Would not have preventing those shootings been worthwhile, or is the issue more important than the lives?

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          132. “Obama’s leniency program”

            Lying liars gotta lie, I guess. Obama did not have a “leniency program.”

            What he DID have was guidance that whatever policies schools chose to follow with regard to discipline problems (lenient or not) they should be followed without regard to race. That guidance was required because black youth were ending up in the justice system at several times the rates of white youth for the same school offenses.

            Liked by 1 person

          133. And yet in practical application, that policy prevented Cruz from being prosecuted for assault with a deadly weapon, which would have disqualified him from legal firearm purchases.

            Good intentions do not change bad results.

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          134. “And yet in practical application . . .”

            Which had NOTHING to do with Obama who did NOT have a “leniency program.” I would add that it was not just the schools that under-reacted to the warning signs that are clear in hindsight. It was also the police and they had received no guidance from the Obama Department of Education one way or another.

            Your taking a single case where hindsight shows that mistakes were made, FALSELY attributing those mistakes to President Obama, and generalizing from that single case to indict police and educators everywhere is a good example of the kind of thinking that is endemic with you people.

            Liked by 1 person

          136. “Parkland had a cooperative diversion program between the sheriff and the school, funded by the Obama administration.”

            Yes, so? According to you, the police answered 49 911 calls on Cruz at his home that had nothing to do with the school system. The gun waving incident was also at his home. The program you are trying to blame involved ON CAMPUS behavior.

            The National Review refers to the program as being an “Obama-era program.” Well, yes. He was the President at the time but he had NOTHING to do with the actual policies in place nor with supervising the police who were supposed to carry them out.

            You still get Four Pinocchios. Dragging Obama into your screed was not honest.

            Liked by 1 person

          137. I don’t really care if Obama had the idea, he allowed it to spread on his watch.

            Cruz had also been in trouble at school, to the extent the cops were called to take him home, the school district had an agreement with the sheriff to avoid incarceration of dangerous youths.

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          138. “I don’t really care if Obama had the idea, he allowed it to spread on his watch.”

            You really don’t care about the truth. This is now your fall back position.

            It is very unclear what the “it” is that Obama “allowed” to spread. If the idea that bums you out is the idea of treating all races equally when enforcing the law then sure, he allowed that idea to spread.

            Liked by 1 person

          139. Yes, Obama is responsible for the policies of his administration.

            And it has nothing to do with treating races equally. It is about equality of outcome.

            Because, for whatever reason, Black kids were committing more assaults serious enough to draw jail time, they elected to not put anyone in jail for those assaults.

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          140. “Yes, Obama is responsible for the policies of his administration.”

            His administration did NOT set local policy in ANY jurisdiction. And the general guidance given was NOT about anything but the need to be even-handed in applying whatever policy decided upon.

            Your bigotry is showing because you assume the disparity in treatment between white and non-white kids in trouble was absolutely fair and objective when there is no reason to believe that it was and plenty of reason to believe that it wasn’t.

            Liked by 1 person

          142. “Do you have proof the unequal outcome was a result of bias by educators and police, and not a cultural lack of respect for authority?”

            It is white people and their ingrained sense of white privilege that lack respect for authority relative to others. Your “thinking” is almost pure racial stereotyping. “The talk” that black parents have with their sons is a real thing.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_talk_(racism_in_the_United_States)

            The people who study such matters are well aware that to be meaningful the conclusions must be based on responses by authorities to the SAME OFFENSES.

            https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1808307116

            https://www.brookings.edu/research/disproportionality-in-student-discipline-connecting-policy-to-research/

            It is not just in the schools. Everywhere that non-white people come into contact with the authority of the state, they are treated more harshly than white people. This is a FACT and it is a PROBLEM. Leave it to the party of deplorables to assert that it is just a function of superior white culture.

            Liked by 1 person

          143. Again, just more woke whining.

            I don’t doubt there is a disparity between disciplinary outcomes between races, but that does not prove bias.

            Neither of your cites, as best I can determine, controls for past history. The discipline level for a first offense is naturally different than for repeat offenders. Also when a student goes before the administrators, it makes a great deal of difference if the student is contrite or defiant. I can’t see any adjustment for that either,

            That doesn’t eliminate the possibility of bias, but neither do those cites establish that as the cause.

            Like

          144. “I don’t doubt there is a disparity between disciplinary outcomes between races, but that does not prove bias.”

            The Hell it doesn’t.
            If non-white kids were getting pass after pass for bad behavior as you speculate then it would be the white students who would show up in the statistics being unfavorably treated. They don’t. Do you every try actually thinking about your claims? Do you ever stop blaming the victims of injustice – in this case – defiant (read uppity) black kids who bring severe treatment on themselves.

            “woke whining”
            woke : alert to injustice in society, especially racism.
            You really think that your whining about “woke whining” is the right response to injustice in our society? No wonder you are a diehard defender of white nationalist gangs and MAGA-Republicans.

            Liked by 1 person

          145. How cute, A woke definition of woke. It’s a wonder you guys don’t all have dislocated shoulders from patting yourselves on the back so much.

            Woke is a cognitive virus in which the desire for the approval of others supersedes reason. It is spread by virtue signaling and mass delusion.

            Yours is the worst form of racism, the soft bigotry of lowered expectations. You infantilize minorities, robbing them of free will by denying them the responsibility for their own choices.

            I could easily see you in your white seersucker suit, sitting on the veranda of your plantation house saying “You can’t blame them for what they do, they’re born that way.”

            How about we treat minorities as adults, which requires we hold them responsible for their choices.

            Like

          146. “How cute, A woke definition of woke.”

            Uh, that is the definition of “woke.” You do not get your own.
            https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woke

            You can accuse me of racism until you turn blue. You are full of shit. I expect everybody to be treated the same by the authorities without regard to their race. That is not racism.

            Since we are being blunt, it is my opinion that you are the lead racist on this forum. You prove that on every subject where race has any bearing. On this subject, your attempt to spin away widely documented facts about the unequal disciplinary treatment of non-white students as being the result of inferior black culture is only the latest example. Let’s look in our way back machine for other examples of the racist attitudes at the the core of your opinions. . .

            1. Birtherism is not racist, just legitimate questions.
            2. Every black victim of police or vigilante aggression brought it on themselves but the black police officer who shot Ashli Babbit as she invaded the Capitol is a murderer.
            3. DC juries are never going to render justice to a Republican.
            4. Gun violence is not really a problem because it is all about “urban” people.
            5. President Obama is a liar, arrogant, and deliberately divisive.
            6. Critical race theory permeates our schools and needs to be stopped.
            7. The racial genocide at the foundation of our country was the inevitable outcome of superior European culture.

            And these are just from the top of my head from memory.

            Liked by 1 person

          147. Of course I get to define Woke.

            I am uninterested in what the mutual back-patters want to think it is, I am speaking to what I observe.

            And that is just a bunch of insecure deletants telling each other how morally superior they are to everyone else. Much like the Puritans of 400 years ago.

            Your list of straw men is proof enough. You can’t meet me in the marketplace of ideas on any of them so you distort my positions into something I have never said.

            Like

          148. “Of course I get to define Woke.”

            You can have any ugly opinion you want of people who are “alert to injustice in society, especially racism.” But you do not get to define words to mean something they don’t.

            Your blather about not meeting you in the marketplace of ideas is a joke. Len, Adam, Lois, and I try to meet you there all the time. With facts. And reason. You are not interested. You spread lies, slanders, grotesque opinions and completely ignore any evidence that contravenes what you want to believe. You hate just about everybody – young people, urban people, woke people. You name it. You even hate the idea of democracy itself. And in that “marketplace of ideas” you again and again revert to personal insults when someone does not buy into your drooling hatreds.

            As for “straw men,” each of the numbered items I listed are things that you HAVE said. Repeatedly. I invite you to re-visit the list and think back.

            Like

          149. For example, I have never said that gang shootings were unimportant because they were urban people, I have said that they were different in cause from other multiple victim shootings and thus needed different countermeasures.

            But filtered through your delusion of moral superiority you heard what supported your delusion.

            You choose policy because it makes you feel superior, not because it is effective, and in fact the policies you support trap generations in poverty. And then you cast aspersions at those who advocate policies that sound harsh but will, in time, alleviate the problems.

            Like

          150. “For example, I have never said that gang shootings were unimportant . . .”

            You have repeatedly pooh poohed the seriousness of the gun violence in this country compared to other countries and the need to do more about it with the “argument” that if you eliminate it from the data where it is bad it is not so bad.

            As for the rest, I suggest you actually reflect on what you have been saying around here.

            Like

          151. We don’t hold minorities responsible for their actions?

            “ Black Americans are incarcerated in state prisons at nearly 5 times the rate of white Americans. Latinx Americans are incarcerated at 1.3 times the rate of white Americans.”

            Click to access the-color-of-justice-racial-and-ethnic-disparity-in-state-prisons.pdf

            You prefer 10 times perhaps?

            One might consider that we don’t hold the non-minority populations responsible.

            Or, the more shameful scenario, is that we incarcerate everyone way more than the rest of the world. And Blacks are the scapegoat ethnic group.

            Lack of respect for authority is cultural alright. American culture.

            Liked by 1 person

          152. And what leads to that disproportionate incarceration rate?

            Do you think defiant behavior at 10 years old that meets no consequences might lead to lawless behavior at 18?

            Our high incarceration rate is a consequence of our war on drugs and the number of matriarchal single parent families we have,

            Like

          153. But it defies your accusation that Blacks don’t
            suffer the consequences of their actions.

            They do, and then some.

            If a Black parent teaches his children to not trust authority and fear police in the 1950’s and 60’s, that child will pass that warning on to his children in the 1970’s and 80’s. And the saga continues.

            Our society is complicated by the simple fact that we have yet to reconcile our relationship with the descendants of slaves. In not doing so, we made sure that no progress for social and economic advancement would be without great pain, violence and anguish until we passed Civil Rights Acts and then add another generation or two to just let the cultural catch up to the legal.

            In our immigrant heavy history, few, if any, ethnic groups from Irish to Italian to Chinese were accepted for several generations after their arrival. The less White looking, the longer it took.

            Emancipation should have been the starting point for acceptance of freed slaves…essentially new immigrants in their own nation.

            But we could not handle that for another century. How many generations is that? So the new starting point is 1965 when full citizenship was accorded Blacks.

            That is a lot of catching up to do with a population reviled by large numbers of Americans. More than any other ethnic immigrants have ever had to endure.

            Yes, mistakes were made and will continue to be made. We are experiencing a setback in the progress thanks to the legitimacy given racists by the last president. “He is one of us” was not just an idle boast.

            Yet, society is changing. Have you noticed that advertising has a lot of Black couples and more importantly, mixed race couples? The market is working its magic. Money talks if integrity won’t.

            Liked by 1 person

          154. “What system would that be? Totalitarianism?”

            Silly hyperbole. There are multiple democratic countries with very strict regulations controlling access to guns that are much further from totalitarianism than we are.

            Liked by 1 person

          159. If you don’t have freedom of ugly speech, you do not have freedom of speech.

            Remember that our own government has colluded with social media to suppress contrary opinion on climate and medicine.

            Liberty is kind of an all or nothing thing.

            Like

          160. So, you are not “free” unless you can publicly abuse, threaten and harass other people based on their race, religion, or ethnicity with impunity. Like I said, you have an odd idea of what it means to be free.

            Liked by 1 person

          161. So, to you freedom is behaving in a manner you approve of.

            For me, freedom is you being able to do as you please so long as you do not pick my pocket or break my leg.

            You need not have my approval of your choices so long as you do me no harm.

            Like

  3. Removing guns is impossible. Your gun lobby has managed to saturate our country with guns and little or no accountability.

    You won’t even agree to restricting arms to the mentally incompetent, so what do we do?

    My point is that we have a gun culture that is very strong. And it refuses to address the obvious. That with this culture, we are killing each other with guns more than other comparable nations. 600 mass shootings, children wiped out in schools, worshippers in services and we, as a nation, don’t give a sh*t so long as money is made and ideologues get to march in the woods to train for insurrections.

    I am voicing my opinion that this is nuts. We are excusing domestic terrorism as the “price” so you can shoot the mailman when the signal goes down and feel good about it.

    Here is the thing. It may take decades, but I would like to see our attitude towards gun violence shift from thoughts, prayers, gun sales and phony patriotism. I would like to see people respect lives more than revere high powered rifles and pistols.
    I would like to see this obsession with guns tempered. I would like for people to understand that we have lost more Americans to domestic gun violence than all our wars combined.

    If none of those goals appeal to you, then in my opinion, you are part of the problem.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  4. “Then it turned out that the shooter was himself a non-binary member of the LBGTQ community…”

    That is not the reason the story has “gone silent.”

    First of all, the story has not gone silent. It’s just being drowned out by so many mass shootings it’s no longer news.

    Second of all, this man grew up in a society that told him over and over and over to hate himself. Colorado Springs is a hotbed of theocracy. Focus on the Family is headquartered there. I know you don’t care what the Bible says but Focus on the Family and their minions do.

    Leviticus 20:13 says: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death…”

    The gay community in Colorado Springs gets bombarded with how they are “abominations” and should be put to death daily. Is it any wonder that a gay person might try to hide their sexual orientation? Might hate themselves? Might hate gay people enough to “put them to death?”

    So don’t go blaming the media for “going silent” when they found out the shooter was gay. That’s not what happened.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

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