Clips From Nasty Jack Buzz: Gun Violence

 

The night of Nov. 13, 2022, three people were shot and killed on the campus of the University of Virginia. Two others were injured. The three dead were football players. The shooter, Christopher Darnell Jones, is in custody. Yahoo!News says...

"A former student athlete accused of fatally shooting three University of Virginia football players was able to legally buy two guns after failing a background check last year and trying to get a handgun while underage four years ago, according to the gun shop that sold him the firearms."

And then only hours later, four University of Idaho students were found dead in an

off-campus house. CNN reports...

Moscow [Idaho] police said they are investigating the deaths as homicides, but did not provide any other information about what happened. As of midday Monday, no suspect was in custody. Anyone with information about the case has been asked to contact police.

Two gun violence murder scenes so close together, it was hard for the media to decide which to concentrate on. It is no doubt the Idaho killings that will receive the most focus until the shooter is caught. Authorities called it senseless killings but did not get into the basics that lead to this kind of brutality resulting in unlimited bloodshed. I looked at the Gun Violence Archive and this is the gun violence activity in only the last 72 hours. The list is almost endless with 10 pages.

The hard numbers are 39,005 gun violence deaths so far this year. There were 34,706 injuries from gun violence. Of these 285 children (age 0-11) were killed, 627 injured. Added to this teens (age 12-17), 1,194 dead, 3,354 injured. There are 390 million guns out on U.S. streets with a population of 329 million people. America rules the world as the Czar of guns and gun violence. This is not a reputation most citizens of this country want, but are comatose when it comes to action. 

I have selected a few posts done on gun violence, as follows:

This one actually came to pass in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection of the U.S. Capitol, "Gun violence bloodshed threatened if 2020 goes to Democrats." Here's an excerpt...

You would expect no less from Fox News and other conservative news outlets than to suggest gun violence bloodshed should the Democrats win big in 2020. It's looking likely that they will so these anarchistic terrorists are "threatening mass violence and a bloody people’s revolt in the streets."

And turning back to 2018, "American Medical Association asks for ban on assault weapons." It's about time the people who witness gun violence firsthand get in the act. Here's a startling clip...

The ban of assault weapons in the U.S. today should be a given based on the number of school children killed by one of these weapons in 2018 alone. Kids all over the country are expressing their fear of going to school because they are afraid they will be the next victim. Just a couple of years ago some youngsters were scared to face the school bully. That bully has now decided to arm himself and wipe out as many as 44 students.

Are COVID-19 deaths more relevant than gun deaths? Comparing gun deaths

to Covid deaths, I cite Donald Trump, then in the Oval Office, because of his reluctance to acknowledge the pandemic, as leading the American public into a state of apathy similar to the gun violence problem. Here's a selection from that post...

And here we go again says Charlie Warzel in the New York Times...

"The coronavirus scenario I can’t stop thinking about is the one where we simply get used to all the dying."

And therein rests the problem. The American public was tricked into indifference over the deaths from gun violence by Wayne LaPierre, the NRA head, and his minions. and once again when Donald Trump refused to address the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately both gun violence and the Covid virus continue to spread. 

Here are all my gun violence posts to read...

 

 

Gun violence is Moscow Mitch's speciality

THURSDAY September 6, 2019: NASTY JACK BUZZ NEWS BYTES

Moscow Mitch McConnell behind U.S. gun violence...  

Moscow Mitch-Gun violence perpetrator 

Moscow Mitch McConnell, the sub-slimeball heading up the U.S. Senate won't even allow the consideration of any new gun legislation. Could that result from the $1.26 million in NRA contributions he has received? Moscow Mitch has been a lowlife for years since he said, "my number one priority is making sure president Obama’s a one-term president." He didn't, and Barack Obama could have been a three-term president and beat Donald Trump if not limited to two terms.

Now, recognize these names? Rodolfo Julio Arco, 57; Kameron Karltess Brown, 30; Raul Garcia, 35; Mary Granados, 29; Joseph Griffith, 40; Leilah Hernandez, 15; Edwin Peregrino, 25. They were the seven massacred by a shooter in the West Texas cities of Midland and Odessa. This is beginning to happen too regularly, says the Editorial board of the Washington post. The Board asks...

"What if there was a mass shooting in the United States not once or twice or four or six times monthly, but every single day, a big one, the kind that electrifies social media and squats for days on Page 1 — would that be enough to move Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from his insistent inertia on gun safety? Would any volume of bloodshed convince the Kentucky Republican that Congress faces a moral imperative to act? Thirty-eight people were slain in three such shootings in August — in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, as well as West Texas — and still Senate Republicans and President Trump refuse to act."

Hundreds rally against Moscow Mitch stand on gun legislation...

It is sheer lunacy that one of the biggest newspapers in this country has to pose the above question. Moscow Mitch is complicit with other gun terrorists like Wayne LaPierre and his National Rifle Assn. (NRA), and must be dealt with quickly to save the lives of innocent Americans. In a surprise move recently, San Francisco's board of supervisors passed a resolution officially labeling the NRA a domestic terrorist organization. District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani said...

the NRA "spreads propaganda that misinforms and aims to deceive the public about the dangers of gun violence."

The Daily Beast says, "The NRA Can Be Beaten—and Here’s How It Will Happen"...

"I’ve come to think it’s possible to beat the NRA within maybe three or four election cycles. Doing so requires three elements. One, some anti-NRA Democrats beating some pro-gun Republicans in some high-profile races. Two, some Republicans turning against the NRA and living to tell the tale." [Synopsized] Three, NRA continued propaganda will alienate pro-gun rights Republicans, flipping them on the issue.

Michael Tomasky of The Daily beast Beast thinks this could take a few election cycles. Well, I disagree in that we can't wait that long for more mass shootings and hundreds more deaths. Somehow...we must make it happen soon. NOW!

Repeal the 2nd Amendment NOW!

Twenty-two people were injured by gun violence in a shooting at a 24-hour art festival in Trenton, New Jersey, where two men are believed to be the shooters, with one of them killed by police. While there were no deaths, four people are in critical shape, one a teenager. It was an all-nighter that started at 3 PM featuring 1,500 pieces of art. There was an attempted carjacking near the festival but law enforcement hasn't been able to tie it in with the shooting. In other words, at this point there is minimum information available, but we do know it was another senseless shooting.

First, we need to know what the weapons were, how the assailants got them, and why they picked this particular event. Not that it will explain that with guns everywhere in the U.S., the fact of where the guns came from may no longer be relevant. In just 2018, there have been 26,570 incidents of gun violence, which have ended in 6,568 deaths, and with 12,359 more injuries. There have been 1,547 children killed or injured. And there have been 130 mass shootings like the one in Trenton. But the imbeciles that populate the U.S. Congress, because of the NRA, are scared to make a move.

Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Assn. head gun nut, has been spewing his 2nd Amendment crap for years, and apparently it has registered with congressional members, the general public, and most certainly with his gun nut membership. It is time to repeal the 2nd Amendment and start over. Gun permits should be radically limited and right to carry only for law enforcement or those with an absolute need. Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said in March of this year in a NY Times op-ed piece, "Repeal the 2nd Amendment." It, of course, got nowhere.

Stevens says this nonsense of the people arming themselves against a tyrannical government is, "a relic of the 18th century." Basically, that puts the 2nd Amendment and everything that comes from LaPierre and his NRA in the same category. In a reaction to the demonstrations of schoolchildren after the Parkland, Fla. gun massacre, "They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society." This should include...

"legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment."

And Judge Stevens explores history...

"In 1939 the Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a 'well regulated militia.'” 

The militia thing is there but at least the Supreme Court had the common sense, and, apparently, the legal foundation to say a sawed-off shotgun wasn't included in the intent of the Founding Fathers to represent protection. In keeping with that Stevens is implying that assault rifles are not a necessary weapon for protection, thus, they should be outlawed. You may not know this but in the "long-settled understanding of the Second Amendment’s limited reach by ruling, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that there was an individual right to bear arms. Stevens was one of four dissenters.

Many of you may also know about Arizona's loose gun laws and an unusually high rate of gun violence. It is in the top 16 in the country. Here are the stats...

• Firearm deaths per 100,000 people: 15.2 per 100,000
• Total firearm deaths 2016: 1094 (suicides: 755, homicides: 303)
• Violent crime rate: 470.1 per 100,000 (12th highest)
• Permit required to carry handgun: No (Citizens allowed to carry a concealed handgun with or without a permit.)
• Poverty rate: 16.4% (8th highest)

The reason I bring this up is an op-ed in the local Phoenix paper titled, "Control lacking in the Second Amendment." The writer was more concerned over the way the paper, conservative, had changed his title in the piece published earlier, which does not apply here. What is important is what Leon Gildin said at the end of his recent article. He exclaimed, "Control is what is lacking and the reason therefore is, with all due respect, the Second Amendment, as it was written, is not relevant to the issue of gun ownership or gun control in today's world."

Like former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said, the 2nd Amendment is a relic of the 18th century.

Read more: Gun Violence Archive 2018

                    

                    New Jersey art festival shooting suspect had just been released from prison, prosecutor says

                   John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment

                   States with the most (and least) gun violence. See where your state stacks up.

                  

WHAT SHOULD PRESIDENT OBAMA DO ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE?

President Obama

Barack Obama is the President of the United States, after all. He should be able to put a stop to American gun violence that is one of a kind in developed countries. The Brits wouldn't allow this kind of bloodshed to continue over a period of time like it has in the U.S. Neither would Canada or Australia where gun control is the law. Columbine was in April of 1999; that's fifteen years. And through all this it has been the National Rifle Assn., led by wacky Wayne LaPierre, that keeps blaming it on everything but the real cause. GUNS. And it is a sniveling U.S. Congress, scared to death of the NRA, that refuses to pass the gun laws necessary to quell this violence. All of this perpetrated on the American people so gun manufacturers can sell more guns to more gun nuts. Obama has spoken out again. Will he follow up?

China takes on U.S. gun violence as human rights violation

Tiananmen Square standoff

Here we have a country that is known for its severe human rights violations in the past, but all of a sudden China has finally decided to fight back against the United States, which has been one of its staunchest critics.  Most notable was probably the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, which ended in military suppression and a lone man challenging the tanks by standing firm in front of them.  There’s much more and Amnesty International documents it below:

“An estimated 500,000 people are currently enduring punitive detention without charge or trial, and millions are unable to access the legal system to seek redress for their grievances. Harassment, surveillance, house arrest, and imprisonment of human rights defenders are on the rise, and censorship of the Internet and other media has grown. Repression of minority groups, including Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongolians, and of Falun Gong practitioners and Christians who practice their religion outside state-sanctioned churches continues.”

So with a lineup like that, you’re going to come in with your best guns blasting away.  And what does the Chinese government decide to use as the first issue to confront the U.S. with?  Gun violence.  They could have chosen a multitude of arguments like past slavery, treatment of the poor, the anti-immigrant movement.  They picked none of these.  They chose gun violence.  This problem was already obvious to most of the world.  Now it’s official from a world power.

U.S. on China human rights video:

OK.  I can hear the gun bubbas right now question gun violence in China.  To start, China’s population is 1.3 billion; the U.S. 300.8 million.  The latest figures from 2008 show 14,811 gun homicides in China; the U.S. 9,484.  Now that’s 56 percent over the U.S. but then China’s population is 331 percent larger than the U.S.  However, the important number is that the U.S. has 2.98 gun homicides per year, per 100,000 population.  China has 1.1.

China human rights

I don’t care what you think about China; what I care about is the fact that one of the biggest human rights offenders in the world has exposed the stupid American gun culture.  The charges are in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011 issued by the US State Department on May 24.  You can see a summary and link to the full report here.  China report is here.  You’ve heard all of this said before but here it is again…from a foreign nation.

This is verbatim from the China Daily site which is their answer to the report:

“The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens' lives and personal security and exercises lax firearm possession control, causing rampant gun ownership, the {State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China} report said.

“The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011 was released by the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China in response to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011 issued by the US State Department on May 24.

“According to the online edition of the Foreign Policy on January 9, 2011, the US people hold between 35 percent and 50 percent of the world's civilian-owned guns, with every 100 people having 90 guns, the report said.

“According to a Gallup poll in October 2011, 47 percent of American adults reported that they had a gun. That was an increase of 6 percentage points from a year ago and the highest Gallup had recorded since 1993, the report indicated.

“According to the Foreign Policy report, over 30,000 Americans die every year from gun violence and another 200,000 Americans are estimated to be injured each year due to guns.

“Besides, according to statistics released by the US Department of Justice, among the 480,760 robbery cases and 188,380 rape and sexual assault cases in 2010, the rates of victimization involving firearms were 29 percent and 7 percent, respectively, the report said.

“The report pointed out that the United States has mighty strength in human, financial and material resources to exert effective control over violent crimes. However, its society is chronically suffering from violent crimes, and its citizens' lives, properties and personal security are in lack of proper protection.”



Your average NRA member

 It seems that the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) has now met one of its primary goals.  Shoving guns down the throats of so many Americans that the United States is now infamous for its gun nuts all over the world.  Nations now know us as a bunch of firearm freaks that care only about arrogantly waving our weapons around just to prove that we can; who cares about public safety.  And another disturbing fact, no U.S. answer yet to this report released by China in May.