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I’m just going to repost my post from 14 June 2017, the day that the Republican congressional softball practice was shot up, as it pretty much covers my take on these things.
I’ve done a technical post on mass shootings before. Specifically what simulations and simulated recreations can tell us in terms of potential outcomes. And as the author of the US Army report on Soldiers who commit mass shootings (authorized by the Office of the Provost Marshall General and US Army Corrections Command via my former office at USAWC), I’ll most likely have another technical post on the subject in a few days. And I’ve done numerous posts here on stochastic violence and terrorism – domestic, international, right wing extremist, religious, etc. And it is the stochastic element that I want to talk about right now.
As numerous others have referenced today there is a lot to unpack behind today’s events. Both the shooting targeting Republican members of Congress in Alexandria and the active shooter/mass shooting in San Francisco. And we’ve seen a variety of calls for comity and a reduction in heated and divisive political rhetoric and pointing of fingers as to who is responsible for what. I’m not linking to all of it as I don’t feel like going to dig up the different reporting, but we’ve seen it all day. All of it misses the point.
The real reason we see so much stochastic violence and terrorism in the US is because it is part of our foundational myths and ethos. We rightly, as a point of pride, celebrate our revolutionary success against the British. We turned the first verse of a hard to sing song based on a poem about a slightly obscure battle against the British in a subsequent war into our national anthem. And we have carried through the decades a mistaken belief that citizen militias, still often considered or referred to as the hallmark of American civic pride and engagement, were actually an effective force during the American revolution. As opposed to the actual professional army that General Washington required his aides and lieutenants create – two of whom weren’t even American, because the militia was absolutely useless for his needs in stopping the British forces.
We have a deep seated tradition of civic engagement that refers back to and is rooted in political violence. The first use of stand your ground as a defense was from the 1790s in Philadelphia. It was related to and rooted in this tradition. In this case a radical localist – an extreme, minority offshoot of the anti-Federalists – member of a citizen militia decide to use his firearm in self defense while posting political handbills. His defense argument – that he had an enumerated right to self defense through using his firearm – was rejected by the court. The actual coverage of the event and trial from one of the local Philadelphia papers at the time is attached as a pdf at the bottom of the post.
The reason we have so much stochastic violence and terrorism is because we’re Americans. We have a civic inheritance that includes the justifications for it. Including that of the radical localist offshoot of the anti-Federalists that teach us that all government above the municipal level is always potentially tyrannical and the purpose of the armed citizen, as part of the citizen militia, is to provide a check on tyrannical government. We are the inheritors of a revolutionary state and society. And the inheritors of political traditions that are rooted in the revolutionary politics of the Founding – the Federalists, the anti-Federalists, and the radical localists. Each had different understandings and views of the citizen militia, of the proper role for an armed citizenry, but each were reflections of and responses to the revolutionary ethos that led to the split with Britain and the founding of the US.
And we have stochastic violence and terrorism because Americans just aren’t joiners. Despite Putnam’s argument in Bowling Alone, where he makes the mistake of understanding American social interactions solely through the forty to fifty year window between the end of WW II and the late 90s/early 00s, and ignores everything that came before the 1940s, Americans just don’t like to belong to groups. We self atomize. We don’t like to associate. And while modern technology has made it easier to form new associations, it also makes it easier to isolate ourselves into groups that are insular and insulating.
What happened today, and what will happen next week with the next mass shooting or terrorist attack or hate crime, isn’t an aberration. It is pure Americana. It is at our core of who we are as a people. If you spend enough time promoting the idea that one’s political opponents aren’t really even human or that the 2nd Amendment exists to prevent governmental tyranny, then you’re going to get what happened today in both Alexandria and San Francisco. It doesn’t matter if the people making the assertions were just being hyperbolic or really didn’t mean it. Nor does it matter if you were actually and only messaging to the people who you identify as your side. All that matters is that someone hears the message over and over and over again, internalizes it, and then acts on it.
What happened today has happened many times before in the US. The ideas and messaging that promote and produce it have a long lineage in the US. And it will all happen again. The saying that “G-d made man, Samuel Colt made all men equal” doesn’t just apply to people that look like you, vote like you, worship like you, and behave like you. And, as a result, you get what happened on both the east and west coast today.
And all of this is why you get this type of paradox. Senator Paul in June 2016:
.@Judgenap: Why do we have a Second Amendment? It's not to shoot deer. It's to shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical!
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 23, 2016
Versus Senator Paul today as quoted by NBC:
“We’re just like normal people, I go to the grocery store like a normal person. I buy my groceries. I go to the gas station. We practice out there and we just … we live in a country where we hope there’s not such hatred or craziness and, I don’t know, disappointing, sad.”
Here’s the pdf:
Duane 1799 – Report of extraordinary transactions at Philadelphia (1)
Open thread!
lamh36
Corner Stone
I wish Rand Paul’s neighbor had used 2nd Amendment remedies to settle their dispute, instead of just busting up some ribs.
Corner Stone
@lamh36: That’s the best decision he has made in maybe his whole life.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: Knock it off.
efgoldman
Weasel words understatement of the millennium (and the last one)
Fuckem
Corner Stone
How in the fuck does the WH Counsel have that job without having a clearance?
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
CS is not wrong. Anything Ferret Head says would/could only make it worse.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: Knock what off? Eh, nevermind.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: I do not know.
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: We really don’t need to hear from Trump about anything. He can keep playing golf.
Patricia Kayden
@efgoldman: I don’t even understand what Rand was getting at. Mumble jumble argle bargle THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS.
Adam L Silverman
Omnes Omnibus
I lived in Newtown, CT, during my middle school years. I couldn’t bear to watch any of the coverage. My mom and my brother (who went to Middle Gate elementary school and played basketball against kids from Sandy Hook) were glued to their TVs. I am sure that I knew someone whose child died there. I can’t believe that Newtown didn’t change the discourse. If it didn’t, what will?
PhoenixRising
“18 dead soldiers made us leave Somalia.”
It’s haunting because it’s true.
Mothra
We’ve changed many things since the founding, we better change this, too.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: But shooting ferret head is going to help how exactly?
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Rand Paul, maybe?
JPL
Tomorrow Trump will go to FL to offer thoughts and prayers and then spend a long weekend at Mar lago amirite
Major Major Major Major
So you’re doing what the Onion does and just re-running the old story.
Corner Stone
Violence is only condoned or legitimate by the right wing in this country. It’s valuable, admirable and to be aspired to.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Well, this is especially interesting to me, after my Google dive into Jared and Ivanka’s security status last night. Link for anyone interested.
It’s slightly amazing to me that all of this is coming out only now, after a full year.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
There was a time when I thought we’d do something about this shit sooner or later. That time ended about five years ago in Connecticut. We aren’t going to do anything about this. We never are. We’re happy enough to have this keep happening because Freedom!™.
Corner Stone
Rick Scott can’t even say a 19 year old civilian should not have an AR-15 style weapon.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: As if.
sukabi
@Corner Stone: well, if WH Counsel doesn’t have one, it explains why the other fuckers weren’t flagged and asked to leave.
Doesn’t that info pass from the FBI to the WH security office and through the WH Counsel?
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack: If Farenthold could find out the facts about charitable donations, just by picking up the phone and crossing off a list. What was stopping the entire media from finding out who did or did not have the right clearance to work in this WH?
Litlebritdifrnt
Like I said downstairs I am never more glad to have decided to move back to the UK than I am today. We Brits decided guns were a menace in 1996 and basically told people if you want them to hunt then they have to be locked up in a gun club when you aren’t hunting and not accessible any other time. The “right to bear arms” bullshit is just that bullshit. If everyone is happy for their kids to go to school worried every day that they might be the victim of a mass shooter then so be it, but as far as I am concerned the only things kids should be worried about at school is that they have a zit on their nose and their crush might notice.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone:
Repatriated
@Corner Stone: Inability to conceive that the admin could actually be that maliciously incompetent?
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Inorite. Or, if reporters got stonewalled when they asked those questions, that would be a story.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: The government does not disclose that information. The information that a specific individual holds a clearance is not in and of itself classified, but the government divulging the information is generally covered under not disclosing personal identifying information.
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: I wish you hadn’t assigned such good reading last year.
I used to say we have the second amendment to force white guys to do escaped slave patrols, so lets get rid of it.
Your reading assignment suggests it’s more complicated. New England and the Brits(Canadians) and all that. Also hostile Native Americans on frontier defending their turf as my ancestors tried to settle.
I still think we don’t have any of those problems any more, so why are my grandkids having to do safety drills in schools?
Canadians have really strict gun laws, but if you aren’t nuts and need a gun to hunt, or to fend off wild bears or wolves you can still get one. Why isn’t this enough? When I was a youngster we had a Second Amendment and also gun control.
I am so glad Antonin Scalia died from the overstimulation preceding a pointless gun outing. Not protecting anything. Just blasting hapless wildlife when his family already had plenty of food.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
But I just saw her say on TV that the state will pay for the victims’ funerals, so it’s all good.
Steeplejack
@Repatriated:
That was no longer a valid excuse after about three weeks into the Trump administration.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: And yet we now all know it, somehow.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: Igor Volsky is shrill.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Patriotic.
GregB
This is the polite society the NRA has been telling us all about.
Corner Stone
I am just beyond tired of treating this admin and its enablers by the rules none of them are bothering to give a shit about.
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: I’m sorry?
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: The economy size receptacle.
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: Saul Cornell on Second Amendment.
Good book, so I bet you aren’t a bit sorry.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
I saw the hands of the kid on the right who could barely hold them up because she was shaking so hard and I started to cry.
That’s what our country is now — a place where it’s normal for schoolkids to sit in a classroom wondering if the next armed person who comes through the door is going to kill them or rescue them.
Corner Stone
A retired four star general sits in a WH with 130 people who can’t get cleared for a perm security clearance. I guess that’s normal?
SFBayAreaGal
Here’s my thought, let’s from now on call a mass shooter a terrorist. I am tired of the word shooter. The word shooter downplays what happened to the victims. The mass shooter is a terrorist.
Patricia Kayden
@Litlebritdifrnt: Canada is similar to the UK. Won’t be moving back there but it’s fascinating to see how the U.S. insists on interpreting a segment of its constitution to favor guns over human beings. And nothing is going to change unless Americans wake up and vote out the politicians who are controlled by the NRA.
Repatriated
@Steeplejack: WE know that. Denial is a hell of a drug, though.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Has anyone called this “terrorism”?
Patricia Kayden
@Corner Stone: Nope. And yet Republicans hounded Secretary Clinton about her email server supposedly because it was unsecured. Now they have scores of Yahoos running the White House without security clearances.
Not normal. How do they keep getting away with such nonsense?
Adam L Silverman
@Sab: Have you read his other one? It is an edited volume. https://www.amazon.com/Second-Amendment-Trial-Critical-District/dp/1558499954/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518666962&sr=1-1&keywords=the+second+amendment+on+trial
Also, this one looks good, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. And it’ll be a while till I do:
https://www.amazon.com/Other-Founders-Anti-Federalism-Dissenting-University/dp/0807847860/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518666855&sr=1-3&keywords=saul+cornell
Aleta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Saw one mention, a quote from a student, that he would post to Instagram about killing animals.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
And yet the corporate media freaks out if a Dem says “terrorism” and not “radical islamic terrorism”
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Looks a lot like how I was taught to clear a room in a cordon and knock situation.
Ocean dude
This is the first time I am seeing video footage from the vantage point of children. Its much more horrifying, the booming shots, the children screaming. There is another vid of a classroom with gunshots seemingly coming from right outside the door. The police in the vid that Adam embedded are re-traumatizing the children. The tactical way they enter the room, the first words are “hands”, barked out by multiple officers, then “police”, then “put away your phones”. It seems to me that the teacher and children were fairly calm. This after the most terrifying moment of their lives, then the police come in, you can hear the terror level sky rocket again. There has got to be a better way to balance establish security and terrifying civilians with sharp commands while holding an assault rifle. Why are they being told to put away their phones? I am hoping the teacher encouraged the children to film. Any parent watching this..Its ludicrous. Children cowering, teacher standing vigil, swat team comes in like its a war zone.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: “I’m sorry” followed by a question mark is way of saying I don’t understand what you are saying. Isn’t it?
Mike J
The second amendment is shit. The US constitution allowed people to own other human beings, and while it did, it was evil. There should be zero debate about that. Allowing people to own mass murder devices is equally evil.
Mike J
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Probably. I hope I explained in my comment. He had recommemded a book I really like although I find it unsettling, because it challenged many of my prior opinions. I still hate guns in most situations, but book made it more complex.
Steeplejack
@Patricia Kayden:
Because the Republicans in Congress just engineered a $1.5 trillion payday based on keeping the Trumpistas in power.
Sab
@Adam L Silverman: Not yet but I will in the next few months.
John S.
My wife and I both graduated from that high school back in the early 90s. We still live nearby. This is definitely going to rock our community to its foundations – yet nothing will be done.
F*ck Republicans and f*ck the NRA.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
That’s the point of the video, yes. Those kids are lucky that the rescuers weren’t too trigger-happy today.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
I see the point you’re making, but that’s a year old.
Jay
@Sab:
Different guns, different mentality.
Most Canadians view guns as tools for hunting or “varmint” control. We buy shotguns and rifles, usually bolt action.
We don’t buy “personal defense weapons” or have Rambo fantasies.
The Dangerman
I remember, after Las Vegas, how we were, at least, gonna make bump stocks illegal. 58 dead, 500 or so wounded.
They ARE illegal now, right?
Point being, anything sniffing of gun control is a nonstarter right now, sad to say. There has to be a different solution.
trollhattan
@Adam L Silverman:
Holy hell. LEOs work in my office building and I hate even being in an elevator with somebody packing a sidearm, uniform or no. Having one enter my space with an assault rifle loaded and one in the chamber, no thank you. This is the world we’re gifting to our children?
Mnemosyne
@Ocean dude:
This. There’s a reason the person who tweeted that video thought it looked like a war video shot in hostile territory.
But any fear felt by armed cops in body armor must be prioritized over the fear felt by unarmed children. Don’t you know those cops were scared when they went into that room? //
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: That is how normal people who own guns in the US function as well. I have a double barrel 12 that I inherited from a grandfather who bought it in 1921, a single barrel 20 that was a gift from an uncle, and a bolt action 1898 Mauser from the same uncle. I’ve done bird hunting with the shotguns on occasion. I’ve never used the Mauser. I liked the uncle so i won’t get rid of the Mauser.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: @Sab: I knew what she was referring to. I was sarcastically apologizing for recommending a good book that changed her point of reference.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I will update your file.
GregB
Wayne LaPierre and the NRA’s board should be made to walk through these crime scenes the way the towns people in Germany were.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: I’m not sure it’s the point of the video. Tactical entry into an unknown environment can only be done in a limited number of ways. By limited I’m thinking under 5. Most like 3 tops.
Gex
@Patricia Kayden: I think it will take generational change. Greatest Gen/Boomers/Xers will need to be gone and out of power. Millennials and younger grew up in the post Columbine era and hopefully (regardless of race) will be more interested in addressing something their elders horrifyingly refuse to address.
Plenty of people want different gun policies but still vote GOP. Plenty of Dems don’t *really* prioritize it. The people for whom this was a reality of their K-12 years will hopefully feel strongly enough to do something.
At least I have to hope. It so hard to see this intransigence and dread that it will never change.
Adam L Silverman
@trollhattan: I can appreciate your apprehension.
chris
For anyone interested this article lays out Canadian gun law quite well. Ignore the last third or so, it’s the usual auto vs. semiauto, magazine vs. clip bull.
If you have a clean record getting a license for rifles and shotguns is fairly easy. If you feel the need for more firepower be prepared to jump through a bunch more hoops. AR-15s and the like and handguns are “restricted firearms” here, you need special licenses for them. Once you have them you can’t take them anywhere without a permit and you certainly can’t get strapped and stroll down to Timmy’s for a coffee. Kinda takes the fun out of it, no?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Much obliged.
Gretchen
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I felt the same, that if Sandy Hook didn’t change things, nothing would. But the Sandy Hook parents say that they are the beginning, not the end, of the movement. They’re starting the grass-roots movement that we don’t have to do this forever. I heard an interview today with Congresswoman Jackie Rosen, who is running against Dean Heller for the Senate seat in Nevada. She was in Las Vegas when that shooting happened, and is firm that this needs to stop. She was scathing about “thoughts and prayers”. The conversation is changing. Someone is running for Senate unapologetically calling for a change in our gun laws. That hasn’t happened before. It gives me hope.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: “Put your phones away” is an issue for me.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
JFK didn’t. RFK didn’t. MLK didn’t. Columbine didn’t. Aurora didn’t. Orlando didn’t. All the others didn’t.
I said in the other thread: I’ve given up. The people that reprcsent me are all on the correct side of this issue. I think they’ve given up, too.
Maybe when my granddaughter is my age this fucking country will come to its senses, but I am not optimistic
Sab
Twenty years ago when I married my husband and his kids, we had interesting discussions. A couple of the stepkids had issues at the time that led to counselling. Columbine shooting had just happened. The psychologists all thought that the scarier schools were the big suburban/exurban schools, all white, with extreme class mix and tolerated/encouraged bullying.
That has pretty much nailed it as far as school shootings as far as I can tell.
Just this week we had a potential incident in a local city school, mostly black. Kid took gun to school. Parents noticed gun was gone and called school. School searched lockers and found gun. Kid is in juvey and nobody is dead. Issue still is how he got gun into school, but urban family treated whole gun issue differently from from the suburban parents.
eemom
@GregB:
No. They should be shot in the face with their precious semis and blown to bits. And the rags used to clean up their blood, brains, and guts should be shoved down the throats of their republican whores until they choke to death. I would pay money to see that. And I don’t give a shit if I shouldn’t say it.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Actually, CS was referring hyperbolically to the lesser Paul
Omnes Omnibus
@Gretchen:
I hope you are right, but, on this one, I am cynical. Because of Newtown and the lack of action. Please be right.
Adam L Silverman
@chris: What if I need to stand my ground over my donut choice?
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m sure. And I’m pretty sure I know why.
Gretchen
@Ocean dude: Exactly! The frightened children in the classroom are waiting for the police to come save them. The police arrive, and rather than saying “You’re safe now! We have everything under control!” They f*cking point guns at the children! Why? And put your phones away? The only possible reason for that is “we’re going to do something we don’t want to be held accountable for so don’t film us.” Retraining urgently needed.
efgoldman
@Repatriated:
Anybody who paid the least little attention knew that before the biggest inauguration ever.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: In general, I am not a despair person. I get shouty about it at times. On this issue, I don’t know what can be done.
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think it will take all the branches (WH, both houses, SCOTUS) in Democratic control. Don’t see that in my lifetime, particularly if Orange Crush gets another nomination with an RWNJ senate.
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: I was pretty sure that Adam would know what I was referring to, but rude on my part to not clue everyone else to it. He would probably remember a comment exchange we had a year ago, but the rest of you have outside lives and don’t have total recall of other peoples comments.
chris
@Adam L Silverman: Just stand your ground, your opponent will give up in disgust at your manners but you will win. Most of the time.
ArchTeryx
In the end, this is what happens when we let the Right basically run herd over a republic for 40+ years. Nothing is sacred. Everything exists only to be torn down. People only exist as human sacrifices to their twin gods of Mammon and Moloch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: The two of you seem cool with the exchange. That is good enough for me.
Adam L Silverman
So Nick Cruz is an alias for Stephen Miller?
Sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for pointing out that I was being opaque in a public forum. Rude of me.
Adam L Silverman
@chris: I have very good manners. Thank you very much.
Gretchen
The Florida shooter was a Trump fan. OK.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Depends. Are you a raised guy or a cake guy?
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Custard-filled for me.
chris
@Adam L Silverman: Of course you do. One of you will get the last chocolate maple with sprinkles and you’ll both have a chuckle and maybe make a new friend over coffee.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
You can hear the fear those kids are feeling. I’m back to crying.
Timurid
It’s a pet peeve for me, but the debate about gun violence is wrongly centered on mass shootings and assault weapons. Those things account for a small fraction of gun deaths and injuries. We fixate on mass shootings (and the tools used to inflict them) because they’re spectacular… and because they can happen to people who matter, people who are like us, people who are innocent. We don’t worry as much about the many more people who perish in more mundane shootings… street crime, domestic violence, suicides… because we assume those victims are somehow complicit in their demise. They were criminals. They were losers. They were weak. We assume (wrongly in most cases) that such things can’t happen to us. But a lunatic or a terrorist with an assault rifle? Those guys don’t respect boundaries of class, privilege or race. So we… and especially the white elites who dominate the MSM… hold them in superstitious awe. Stopping mass shootings is damned near impossible because we’re trying to deter people (whether they’re motivated by ideology or insanity) who have no fear of the law and who are willing to die to achieve their goals. We should worry more about people who can be deterred… people who are law abiding for every moment of their lives until that one moment when they do something stupid and irrevocable… and even professional criminals, people who still understand risk, reward and consequences. And if and when we are finally willing to impose draconian gun control, we will save many more lives by banning handguns than by banning assault rifles. Handguns are the weapon of choice for criminals, abusers and suicides (who greatly outnumber the victims of gun homicide). They are the people doing the real killing. Yes, they… or their victims… could be us too one day. In fact, that’s actually much more likely.
Omnes Omnibus
@Timurid: You do know that the density of your text makes it less than likely that anyone will read it, right?
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus:
‘Round these parts, those are know as Boston Cream (or “Boston Kreme”)
efgoldman
@Omnes Omnibus: @Timurid:
Doesn’t matter. Stats don’t matter. Science doesn’t matter. Facts (known to have a liberal bias) don’t matter. Nothing’s gonna’ happen.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Usually a chocolate cake. But I also like a vanilla cream filled maple glazed raised long john. Depends on what kind of mood I’m in.
Fine, I’ll come clean. I have the donut gene. I can tell you every time a Krispy Kreme turns on the neon “hot fresh donut” sign. It is a terrible burden.
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: Unfortunately. MacDonald’s Lament is appropriate.
OldDave
@Adam L Silverman:
It’s hell forcing oneself to ignore an illuminated ‘Hot / Now’ sign.
Matt McIrvin
@Gretchen: If I’d heard that “put your phones away” I’d probably assume, at least for a moment, that they were going to kill everyone in the room.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman:
Jesus Christ.
Corner Stone
@Matt McIrvin: Or maybe clear any detonation devices.
Citizen_X
@Omnes Omnibus:
Or what?
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I just can’t read that much anymore. Scroll.
PIGL
@eemom: that would be a good start. I like your thinking and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Adam L Silverman
@OldDave: Strangely enough the Krispy Kreme closest to me closed and someone put a non chain donut shop in the space. I’ve been in there once. The donuts were excellent. But I got spoiled when I was at USAWC and living in Carlisle with the Maple Donuts.
http://www.mapledonuts.com/
Fortunately there wasn’t one in Carlisle. You had to drive about 30 minutes to get to the closest one.
Corner Stone
@eemom: Damn. Adam?
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: @Corner Stone: They wanted to see empty hands. Anything in the hand could be a gun, so the instructions to put whatever you might be holding away or down is given.
MomSense
@Adam L Silverman:
You’ll have to come to Maine for Maple Sugar weekend. We love our maple donuts. Cake donuts with a light maple glaze made at a farm with its own sugar shack – amazing.
Adam L Silverman
@Corner Stone: I actually didn’t see that one. Also, she’s not a repeat offender. Also, I’m very tired.
Corner Stone
@MomSense: Mmmm. I love a good cake donut. I get to eat about 2 a year so I take it seriously.
Adam L Silverman
@eemom: How bout we dial it back about seven or eight notches?
Adam L Silverman
@MomSense: Last time I was in Maine I was six. Family road trip vacation.
Corner Stone
@Adam L Silverman: eemom? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA
Whatever. How about you not try and pull my chain and it will all work out.
Sab
@Timurid: My medium sized city had about 50 murders last year. Most of them were nice young men in the wrong place at the wrong time. My Dad’s nurse’s aide lost her barber in his barbershop to a robber. My neighborhood lost a really nice young man in early college (go to local college for credit in high school) because he made the mistake of befriending a mentally deranged sociopath.
Just in my small city, 52 families lost loved ones last year because we can’t get our shit together on gun control.
GregB
@MomSense:
I was up in the resort town of Rumford last weekend.
efgoldman
@Adam L Silverman:
Me too, but I overcame it. Not ass hard as quitting smoking or soda, but I did it
efgoldman
@OldDave:
Krispy Kreme failed in New England. Probably just as well.
barb 2
@Adam L Silverman:
That will give many of the kids nightmares. To have the Gestapo Storm Troopers point loaded guns at kids — sorry there are other ways to handle this.
I was in college when RayGun closed the campus and ordered cops to point rifles at any students who tried to go to their classes. No notice just a bunch of sh*t head pigs with guns calling college students names. I still get nightmares and I grew up on military bases. Assholes.
eemom
@Adam L Silverman:
Oh, fuck off. I don’t own any fucking guns, have never shot a gun in my life, and never will. I have a right to say what I would LIKE to see happen.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
Well, whaddaya know. After all this time and all these personality transformations, you’re still a little kindergarten tattle tale. Adorable.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
They’re shouting instructions at crime victims while waving guns in their faces.
Florida is not Fallujah. Police responding to a crime scene should not be treating crime victims as a hostile population.
remima
@Mnemosyne: Yep, and I feel disgusted that I had to explain to my Black grandchild why it’s important to put his hands in the air during a school shooting (so the police don’t accidentally shoot him). He had not been taught that in his school drills, but wondered why the kids he saw on TV had their hands up. My own son (hispanic but very white) goes to the same school, and on days like this I just feel despair for this country. Surely we can make this better, right?
Aleta
@Timurid: Well said. Certainly true for my family.
SH121
@Adam L Silverman:
I am thankful for your analytical and dispassionate comments and more so your in-depth explanations from a professional reasoned viewpoint. I read this post when you first published it and it makes so much sense and still does but this time CS is right and not just right but morally and ethically right.
I understand your ties and loyalty not to mention accurate assessments of what is taking place in this world.
I do not wish to read into CS statement something that is not there and he did not mean but I am going to say I have lived through the Fifty’s and Sixties not to mention the tawdry decades that followed and this I will say.
Yes, I watched Haig and McNamara, lived, loved and lost under their aegis. Then and now I recognized the failure of both the military and the political, and the political includes the irresponsible voters. Both are worse today than in the sixties and seventies. I won’t bother with a recap of history but the problems of the Fifty’s onward remain the same and I have to say it is the incompetence of a military leadership as dumb, read stupid, as their political money givers. Given the hypothetical’s and “if only this happens”, do not reflect, much less understand the world as it is. America has been without leadership (probably a fortuitous happenstance (considering our national zeitgeist) since WWII and as time goes on it is beginning to look more and more like an accident or if we are honest, the ability and know how of our allies to bail us out. D Day is remembered as a lucky fluke and the on the ground a diverse military fighting and determined to keep a way of life and belief. Their inspiration was not political they had witnessed it’s failure. They did what all men do.. it’s me or them and I’m not ready to give in.
Exceptionalism the Generals and Politicos screamed, it is not you, worm, it is us!
Somehow they made us believe, and in a generation the violent genie was out of the bottle spreading mayhem and aggression as the Word of God.
No Adam, if you are to maintain your validity as the finest calling we know….a teacher and sage you have to speak from conviction. Won’t be easy but I remain an optimist. My grand kids future is at stake. It is a very thin line between freedom and it’s alternative isn’t it?
Zach
It’s time for an organization with a single goal: a constitutional convention to amend the 2nd amendment.
The organization would be single minded just like the NRA with its goal of maximal gun ownership rights. Like the NRA, it’d also have a pool of experts for discussions on smaller changes to gun laws, gun safety regs, etc.
I think the ideal amendment possible would be to limit Federal regulation to the post-Heller reality but to explicitly allow states and municipalities to impose unlimited restrictions on top of that… supersede the 14th amendment.
As far as I know there’s no organization like this… I looked before. It’s not a super realistic goal now and it’s depressing to even imagine any reform ever since sandy hook, but eventually a majority in many states will get fed up enough that something like this could pass and get the ball rolling.
Lee
@Zach: At this point I don’t think just talking about amending will fix the issue since the gun nuts have so thoroughly won on this. We need to start talking about repealing the 2nd.
Booger
@Mnemosyne: I hate to defend the indefensible, but the logic is that the shooter may be hiding among the crowd…no one can be assumed to be harmless until proved. This has been learned from previous incidents, long ago. Also, what if the mythical ‘good guy with a gun’ was in there? A thoughtless innocent move could unleash a fresh disaster.
TerryC
@Mnemosyne: “But any fear felt by armed cops in body armor must be prioritized over the fear felt by unarmed children. Don’t you know those cops were scared when they went into that room?”
This! The procedures are ALL about keeping the cops safe, because THEY are scared. Fuck that, just like Fuck always aiming at the center of mass.
ChrisS
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfLm0owAJAB/?hl=en
This is an optics company. This culture of assault rifles as fun toys needs to go.
Danton
Prior to the ratification of the Constitution, you could own a gun if you could afford one. Possession was an “ancient custom” of the sort J.G.A. Pocock has described. So what exactly was the purpose of the 2nd Amendment? To the extent that the Federalist Papers are a kind of gloss on the Constitution, nowhere–repeat, nowhere–does that work mention “arms.” In fact, the only sections that are relevant to the 2nd Amendment are numbers 27 and 28, where Hamilton explains the need for militias or “force.” And as Hamilton writes, the nation may need a militia to protect the state from insurrection a mob or invasion from without. Rand Paul is full of shit, as are tens of thousands of gun humpers.
DHD
I’ll take the opportunity to reiterate what I commented the last time you posted this. Just over the border I live in Québec, a place that is exceptionally peaceful – significantly less violent crime than even the rest of Canada. And yet, we still have horrific mass shootings: Polytechnique, Assemblée Nationale, Dawson, Concordia, Grande Mosquée de Québec…
But it’s not really a paradox, and I kind of feel like your article, although it explains this situation perfectly, could lead people to the wrong conclusion. Because: it’s the guns, stupid. We also have an intractably divided political culture and significant fraction of the population that glorifies armed rebellion. But we have a lot less guns, and the ones we have are less lethal, and all of them are now tracked in a central registry. We might have mass shootings but they happen every 10 years and not every 10 hours.
America’s political culture doesn’t doom it to the current level of carnage. You guys can keep waving your Gadsden flags and playing army games in the woods. But fewer, less powerful guns means fewer people will die.
Daddio7
@eemom: Dude, i notice you want to watch, not be on the receiving end when a gun nut gives you his ammunition first, at 2700 feet per second. These guys have tens of millions of these guns and billions of rounds of 5.56 mm just because they fear people like you. These guns are not the problem, banning the sell or transfer of new guns will stop over 99% of mass shootings. The Southern border will have to be locked down to prevent smuggling in of new guns but sacrifices will have to be made. Deal?
WaterGirl
@Mnemosyne: That got to me, too. She was terrified of the storm troopers. And they are supposed to be the good guys.