SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — A gunman dressed in black tactical-style gear and armed with an assault rifle opened fire inside a small South Texas church, killing 26 people in an attack that claimed tight-knit neighbors and multiple family members ranging in age from 5 to 72 years old.Sadly, Sheriff Tackitt, it is not "unbelievable" any more. This sort of slaughter, where a white gunman shoots lots of people for no apparent reason, is becoming a common event. It's been about five weeks since the Asswipe of Las Vegas killed nearly sixty people, now we have another Asswipe killing two dozen-plus people.
Once the shooting started Sunday at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, there was likely “no way” for congregants to escape, said Wilson County Sheriff Joe D. Tackitt Jr. Officials said about 20 others were wounded.
“He just walked down the center aisle, turned around and my understanding was shooting on his way back out,” said Tackitt, who said the gunman also carried a handgun but that he didn’t know if it was fired. Tackitt described the scene as “terrible.”
“It’s unbelievable to see children, men and women, laying there. Defenseless people,” he said.
Apparently, this particular Asswipe had a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force for domestic violence. The BCD isn't disqualifying for owning a gun, but the domestic violence conviction should have been. The Air Force might want to figure out how those things get coded and reported to the Feds who run the background check system.
This can't keep going on before there will be a clamor to "do something, for G-d's sake." The politicians will do something. People can die in drips and drabs here and there and nobody gets excited. I don't have the time to find it this morning, but I've written before that the 9-11 death toll was about equivalent to five or six weeks' worth of road fatalities. The number of people killed yesterday in Sutherland Springs is about half the monthly murder toll in Chicago.
The two incidents you mention both hit the Secomd Amendent crowd hard. Country music fans and now rural church members, and we see in the responses from those involved some wavering on the Second. There will be the debate on both sides, both sides throwing unbelieveable bullshit out there and screaming that only their solution can work, but I suspect there was another imperceptible nudge toward the end of the Second as we know it.
ReplyDeleteThe move to this era of monthly or weekly mass shooting as a statement way to go out is likely to combine with a more urban/suburban demographic and a public that has literally begged to give up some rights in exchange for security to erode the Second. Just as Donnie got in with his authoritarian airs and paternalistic/strongman solutions, we will see some on the Right follow that path, and begin to consider if may it is better if they have guns and the people don't have (at first) quite so many guns. Unfortunately, the anti-Second crowd on the Left side will simply see this as a chance to do just that, rather than the warning sign it is, and will go too far with them.
It will begin like a gentle shower, but even a light rain becomes a threat when it continues for long enough, and a few more incidents may convert it to a deluge. Don't get me wrong, the time frame for this is 20-40 years plus, and given the things going on, this may not be what collapses America...but the train whistle is sounding, and we're tied to the tracks.
"This can't keep going on before there will be a clamor to "do something, for G-d's sake."
ReplyDeleteThen it will keep going on. That clamor started years ago, but the machinery for drowning it out is now fully funded and capable. This will go on while money exists.
It will end when the Constitution ends. 100,000 dead per year? 250,000? That will just make gun enthusiasts angrier and more thirsty for more deaths. Do American corporations care if the population starts disappearing? No. They can just raise prices and taxes on the survivors.
Sanity lost this war.
Hard to figure why nilism is rising unless it's overall lack of meaning in life or maybe 4th dimension demon possession.
ReplyDeleteI still fail to see how the 2nd amendment guarantees any 'right to carry' at all. To me it means if you are a government militia member you get to go down to the armory and practice shooting your service weapon under military discipline so you will be proficient when the militia is needed. Farmers, ranchers, hunters, etc.-people who actually need and use firearms would be trained, mentally profiled and watched for instability for the privilege of non-militia weapon use.
We must bring back the loyal, government militia, not to be confused with armed treasonous Nazi mobs of cracker racists in the woods of Oregon or Georgia who hate democracy. No gun ownership allowed outside of the militia except for proven need and under close government supervision. Don't know why the courts always ignore the militia/marksmanship requirement of the 2nd except that Americans love them some guns and the bloody NRA enables it.
Does it matter that he was a white, disaffected loser? Occasionally, random violence is perpetrated by black, disaffected losers, or Hispanic disaffected losers, or middle eastern, disaffected losers. Can we agree that maybe race isn't as important in this situation as being a disaffected loser. Also, early indications are that this particular disaffected loser might be a left leaning disaffected loser. I don't think that it's particularly important, but if we want to get specific an play identity politics, maybe we should say it was a white, left-leaning, anti-Christian, atheist disaffected loser.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I think we should all just say the guy was a loser asshole, and that there's a small number of them distributed randomly throughout the population, just as it has always been, which is why we need to have the right tools and skills to neutralize them quickly once they go off the rails. Any law that limits or reduces peoples' ability to counter such a threat is contributing to the problem. It's time to bring back the BBQ/Church/Sunday Gun - the nice one that you wear on formal or semi-formal occasions.
Nice, Ted. Government sponsored and approved paramilitary forces. That seems to work great in some places...
ReplyDeleteAmusingly, the only place that the asswipe has been painted as alt-left is on the far right sites and blogs so far. So here we have someone injecting false data into a discussion, hummmmmm. Was he such, perhaps or perhaps not, let's wait for solid data. For now it seems he was more likely anti his ex-in-laws, who didn't attend yesterday.
ReplyDeleteThis white-on-white violence is sad, don't these people have any pride? But he's not a terrorist because white. They dare not say the word.
ReplyDeleteScore:
Nilists With Easy Guns-187,978
Good Guy With Gun-1 (this holocaust only-maybe). Cops really hate, hate, hate pain-in-the-ass innocent bystanders waving guns around in a shooting, for obvious reasons.
Anon, too bad all the CW music fans in Vegas weren't packing heat, all those good guys could have mowed down that bad guy (are we all 2.5 years old now?) from 500 meters away with their. 38 Specials and 40 caliber handguns.
Anon, I agree this suicidal nilist's race has little to do with his acts.
2nd anon-same anon? Hard to tell with anons: read my post-armed paramilitary forces already exist and they are dangerous traitors pushing Nazi idiology and they are heavily armed. You think our loyal, trained militia, under police and military control are going to start killing nuns or something? We might well need a non-treasonous militia if the cracker militias get marching orders from Dear Leader.
Amid all of the usual responses to a mass shooting, that all seem to react out of one fear or another, I did notice something about this one that seems to be a trend: domestic violence.
ReplyDeleteApparently this asswipe was in an "ongoing domestic dispute" with his mother in law, who attended the church.
So perhaps it wasn't so much of a politically exploitable situation after all, and more of a "we have a problem with men who shoot up their families and the people around them" situation.
How do we fix that?
I don't know. But I do know that we're less likely to figure anything out as long as the CDC is prohibited from studying it.
I still stand by my conclusion that the black market renders most prohibition laws ineffective, and guns are no exception, so the lack of any studies on the subject out of fear that they will justify prohibition laws is counterproductive for everyone.
Then there's the $1.35 billion that the gun industries make annually, which I'm not saying is bad, but I am saying that it influences the kind of action that can be taken politically.
The way I see it, we either grow the fuck up as a society, or we keep mourning the victims and their families over and over.
I don't know how you would legislate that, so I guess we have to go with the latter for the time being.
-Doug in Oakland
Sooooo...is it too soon to talk about the white male domestic terrorism that is claiming more American lives than "radical Islamist terrorist"!
ReplyDeleteHummmm ...too soon???
dinthebeast, regarding the inability of any single law to stop all shootings forever...
ReplyDeleteI'll listen to such arguments when Republicans agree that no law or restriction or budget fuckery will ever stop all abortions and therefore Republicans will never seek to interfere with abortions again.
When that happens, then I'll stop thinking about ways to keep guns away from crazy motherfuckers.
Respect for each other, people. Disagee without being disagreeable.
ReplyDeleteNot saying it's an issue, but it is tending that way.
This AW, like most, wasn't even a terrorist by definition-what cause was he promoting, shredding your mother-in-law and anybody else in range? He was another nihilist who wanted to kill the world and then himself. You can live without a lot in life, but you can't live without meaning.
ReplyDeleteBut to reduce massacre body counts we must focus on opportunity, not motive, beserkers and amok has always been around. The rural people in Australia and England still have legal firearms. And our 2nd amendment guarantees you access to firearms if you are in the government militia. So all gun lovers should agitate for and join the New Model Loyal US Militia, because the courts could rule some day in a strict interpretation that only militia members may shoot off their deadly fear/security/macho fetish objects. Don't be left out.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the increased social media use, which has been tied to increasing depression in teens, has other knockons.
ReplyDeleteEasier to stalk or find someone and/or their relatives...easier to harass...easier, easier, easier...
Maybe Zuck has even more to answer from, but as Doug says, until we study it...
Tod, the 2nd Amendment is an individual right. If you disagree with that, take it up with the Supreme Court. Not with me.
ReplyDeleteDoug, the shooter had a court-martial conviction for domestic violence. Either one should have made him ineligible to buy or possess a gun. Those should have been entered by the AF into the FBI's background check database. The AF dropped the ball on this one.
Comrade, I see that the press is adopting your recommendation to leave Asswipe's name out of the coverage as much as possible...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cbc.ca/news/world/texas-shootings-killer-not-named-1.4390751
Brian
@ Comrade Misfit (and any lawyers who might be reading these) - I wonder if the survivors and family of the dead have a civil case to file against the Air Force for NOT properly notifying the FBI of that domestic abuse conviction?
ReplyDeleteAdrian, as I understand it, a claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) would have to be made within two years, and approved. The approval is never certain, and at least one of the 13 exceptions could certainly apply here. Without the FTCA approval, you cannot sue the Federal Government under the doctorine of sovereign immunity. After you get approval, if you do, then you then usually have to wait 6 months before you can proceed. I would assume the case would be alleging negligence on the part of the Air Force, but that's a pretty tall hurdle in and of itself. My $0.02, informed by the fact that I've been covered by that umbrellla since 1988.
ReplyDeleteAdrian, I don't know the FTCA. I would argue that the claim didn't become ripe until the day of the shooting.
ReplyDeleteIf I was a tort lawyer in TX, I'd be signing up every one I could and be making preparations to try this in the press.
The sad thing is, with Texas legalizing churchs arming parishioners, some lawyer (I'd call them a leech, but why insult leeches) will probably try suing the church too.
ReplyDelete