Too many people are dependent on their guns, to give themselves a sense of purpose, of freedom, of manhood, whatever.
Just in the last 48 hours:
* A person described as a young white man, 18 to 20, shot and killed 6 people today, wounding at least 24 others, at a 4th of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois. As of this writing, the suspect is still at large.
* About 35 miles to the south, on the South Side of Chicago, 5 people were shot in a mass shooting. All are expected to survive.
* There were 6 people shot in a mass shooting in Richmond, Virginia. All are expected to survive.
* A man shot 2 men, including an off-duty New York City Department of Corrections officer, at a pre-4th of July party in the neighborhood of Queens Village last night. That officer managed to return fire, and put the shooter in the hospital. All are expected to survive.
* Yesterday, 4 people were shot in a mass shooting in Mullins, South Carolina. All are expected to survive.
* Yesterday, 4 people were shot in a mass shooting in Tacoma, Washington. All are expected to survive.
* Yesterday, 4 people were shot in a mass shooting in Manassas, Virginia, site of the Civil War's First and Second Battles of Bull Run. All are expected to survive.
* A 19-year-old man was shot and killed on Saturday night, while riding his scooter in the Melrose section of The Bronx. He was caught in the crossfire between 2 gangs shooting at each other, who apparently didn't hit anyone else.
* And 3 people died, with 4 others wounded, in a mass shooting on Saturday night, outside Dallas in Haltom City, Texas.
I don't want to hear one single word about how Chicago is run by a liberal Mayor that can't control the city. Texas has a right-wing fanatic Governor in thrall to the National Rifle Association, and he can't control his State.
The reason there is a proliferation of guns in Chicago is because it's right next-door to the State of Indiana, who had a Governor a few years ago who drastically loosened that State's gun laws, as a gift to the NRA. That Governor's name was Mike Pence. You can be damned sure that, when the traitors of January 6, 2021 were chanting to hang Mike Pence, this gift to the NRA was not one of the reasons.
I don't want to hear one single word about how New York, or any other city, has a liberal Mayor that can't control the city. You want to control the cities? Control the damned guns!
For half a century, conservatives have said that liberals want to confiscate the guns. Jimmy Carter never tried it. Bill Clinton never tried it. Barack Obama never tried it. Joe Biden hasn't tried it. Democratic Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives, Carl Albert, Tip O"Neill, Jim Wright, Tom Foley, Nancy Pelosi? None of them has ever allowed a bill allowing the confiscation of guns to be entered into the House. Nor has any Democratic Senate Majority Leader allowed such a bill to be entered into the U.S. Senate: Not Robert Byrd, not George Mitchell, not Harry Reid, not Chuck Schumer.
So, conservatives are lying. Again.
So, bring back the death penalty, right? That will deter these shooters, right? Wrong: These bastards usually go into it thinking they have nothing to live for, so, "If I'm going down, I'm taking as many MFers as I can with me." Getting shot by "a good guy with a gun" is not a deterrent. Going to prison is not a deterrent. The death penalty is not a deterrent.
You know what the deterrent is? I think you know what the deterrent is. But I'm going to be the one to say what the deterrent is.
The deterrent is failure. It's not being able to do it. It's not being able to get your hands on the weapon that will allow you to do it. The deterrent is not having a gun. Prevent these men from having guns, and they won't shoot places up. Simple as that.
And I don't want to hear, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Yes, the off-duty officer in Queens returned fire and stopped the bad guy with the gun. He is a well-training member of, as the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States would put it, a well-regulated militia. He is the kind of person who should be allowed to have a firearm. Most people do not have that kind of training, and do not belong to a well-regulated anything.
A recent New York Times article studied the 433 mass shootings in America from 2000 to 2021:
* 113 times, the attacker left the scene, with no one stopping him.
* 98 times, the police shot the attacker.
* 72 times, the attacker killed himself at the scene, with no one stopping him.
* 42 times, a civilian subdued the attacker.
* 38 times, the attacker killed himself at the scene, rather than let the police, who were by then on the scene, take him alive.
* 33 times, the police subdued the attacker.
* 22 times, a civilian shot the attacker.
* 15 times, the attacker surrendered.
Therefore:
* 26 percent of the time, 1 out of 4, nobody stopped the bad guy with the gun, not even the bad guy with the gun.
* 25 percent of the time, 1 out of 4, the bad guy with a gun was stopped by himself, not letting his own death be a deterrent.
* 48 percent of the time, nearly 1 out of 2, a good guy, either with or without a gun, stopped the bad guy with the gun.
So there's slightly less than a 50-50 chance that a good guy, with or without a gun, will stop the bad guy with a gun. And better than a 50-50 chance that he won't.
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people." No shit, Sherlock. That's why we want background checks for the people, not the guns.
All these people who think they would be the "good guy with a gun" think they would be John Wayne, blowing away Liberty Valance and saving Jimmy Stewart and the rest of the town. Would they, hell. More likely, they would be like Fredo Corleone in The Godfather, too scared to do it right, fumbling with the gun.
And you know what? It didn't matter. Even if Fredo had handled the situation as well as was possible in that moment, and blown away both shooters, it wouldn't have mattered at all: His father, Don Vito Corleone, had already been shot. His life was already in the balance. He might have recovered sooner, but there was no way to know that at the time.
It wouldn't have mattered if Fredo had properly handled his gun, because it was too late. Who knows, one of the gunmen might have turned the gun on him, and then Fredo would be dead, years before his brother Michael had to take matters into his own hands.
Because, and I want you to read this very carefully: You cannot outdraw a man who has already drawn his gun.
A high school classmate of mine asked what I would do if a man with a gun invaded my home. I told the truth: I would die. And so would you. You're not going to defend yourself. Not successfully, anyway. You got a gun? That gun will not help you one damned bit. He sees your gun, he fires his, and you are dead. You get off a shot that kills him, too? What difference does that make? You still end up dead.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is stopping him from getting a gun.
The 4th of July. Independence Day. When is America going to declare its independence from guns? On this day when we celebrate our freedom from a tyranny, when are we going to be free from the tyranny of the NRA?
UPDATE: A 7th victim died in Highland Park. Before nightfall, Robert E. Crimo III, 22, who identifies himself as "Awake the Rapper," and actually had a minor hit song in 2018, was arrested.
But before the night ended, a celebration in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is also where Philly has the end of its Thanksgiving Day Parade, was broken up when a man shot 2 officers, one from Philadelphia and one brought in for assistance from suburban Montgomery County. They are expected to recover. But there were hundreds of police and security officers on hand, and none of those "good guys with guns" stopped the "bad guy with a gun."
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