Now that the active incident is over, some reporting is stabilizing. The goodless bad news is that the initial reports of 20, and then 22, dead and 50 injured have been scaled back to 18 dead and 13 wounded. Perhaps the initial “injured” claims included folks hurt as they scrambled for cover, but not shot.
The weapon used has shifted from “AR-15” to .308 “battle rifle” or “sniper rifle.” In fact, it now appears to have been a recently purchased Ruger SFAR, which is an AR-pattern rifle chambered in 7.62 NATO/.308 Win. It is semiautomatic only, so it certainly isn’t a select-firebattle rifle. But some reasonably knowlegeable people do apply the “battle rifle” label to military semi-autos in full-power rifle chamberings, so I may let that one slide.
The “recently purchased” aspect brings us to a fuzzy point of confusion. Was the shooter a prohibited person or not? And if he was, how was he able to lawfully purchased the weapon?
Early reports mentioned that he had threatened to “shoot up” the military base at Saco, Maine, and that he had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks. Since then, Maine law enforcement have stated that the shooter had been taken in for a mental health evaluation that did not rise to the level of involuntary commitment. So it might appear that he was not a prohibited person (though it’s fair to wonder why the authorities failed to invoke Maine’s yellow flag law).
But was that Saco-area threat what got him the the two week “committal”? Other reports said his military commander had him committed, and that appears to have happened near West Point in New York, during a training exercise.
Are Maine authorities talking about the Maine or New York incident as the “non-committal” hold? Or were there two separate incidents of the shooter-to-be being involuntarily held?
It matters, because what the Maine police seem to be describing would not make him a prohibited person, while a two week committal in New York, by order of command, certainly would.
Updated, October 30, 12:20PM:This seems pretty clear.
Card, who killed 18 people and wounded an additional 13 at a bar and a bowling alley on Oct. 25, attempted to buy a silencer on Aug. 5, but was unable to complete the purchase after admitting on a federal form that he had previously been committed to a mental institution, according to ABC. The Army committed Card to a psychiatric care facility for several weeks in July after he reported hearing voices, behaved “erratically” and threatened the base where he was stationed at the time. (RELATED: Maine Mass Shooting Suspect Robert Card Found Dead, Police Confirm)
“He came in and filled out the form, he checked off a box that incriminated himself saying that he was in an institution,” Rick LaChapelle, who owns the Coastal Defense Firearms store where Card tried to purchase the silencer, told ABC News. “Our staff was fantastic, let him finish filling out the form, and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Card, we cannot give you this… at this point in time, we cannot release this silencer to you because of the answers that you’ve given us.’”
The person of interest behind the deadly mass shooting in Maine is reportedly a trained firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve, according to law enforcement sources in the state.
Robert Card, 40, was stationed out of Saco, Maine and reported “hearing voices” and threatened to shoot up the National Guard Base where he was stationed, the sources said.
Ignorant loudmouth Shannon Watts of Mom’s Demand Bloodshed naturally blames Maine’s allegedly lax gun laws; specifically a lack of a 72 hour waiting period to purchase a firearm, and a lack of a “red flag” law.
I blame something else. Card himself, of course; but…
According to law enforcement, CARD recently reported mental health issues to include hearing voices and threats to shoot up the National Guard Base in Saco, ME. CARD was also reported to have been committed to mental health facility for two weeks during summer 2023 and subsequently released.
So… they have a crazy guy threatening to kill people. He gets committed to a psych ward…
And then let loose. Maybe that last part was a mistake.
Card was reportedly a firearms instructor; my guess is that he probably already had firearms, and a 72 hour waiting period would not have prevented this. Keeping the dangerous guy locked up would.
So what if Maine lacks a n-due process “red flag” law? Anyone who had been threatened by Card — that is, anyone and everyone assigned to that base — could have requested a perfectly normal protective order and requested any firearm be removed .
And why would they be removed, aside from the death threats? “[H]ave been committed to mental health facility.
If he did have to buy his firearm for this slaughter, that wouldshould have prevented him from buying one from licensed dealer. (And likely from people who knew him and knew he’d gone nuts.)
Someone was supposed to report Card’s committal to NICS. If the military committed him, well, we know the military has a major reporting problem.
It’s a little early to be blaming a lack of gun laws for this.
Something else that I hope to hear more about is Card’s auditory hallucinations. That’s common in schizophrenia. But as a retired nurse mentioned, 40 years old is an odd time for schizophrenia to pop up. It usually shows up much earlier in life.
Other things can cause hallucinations: Lewy Body Dementia, brain tumors. But something I ran across recently came to mind.
One of the adverse effects of the ChinCOVID pseudo-vaccine that’s been showing up ishallucinations. Doctor’s have noted it, and it shows up in studies. As a reservist apparently on active status (assigned to the base), there’s a good chance that Card received the ChinCOVID inoculations.
But that’s just speculation. Card is not yet in custody. But once caught (or his body found), maybe we’ll learn more about what caused his break.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Mother’s day and family.
I’ve got to set the record straight about something though. In my last column G-d Bless Texas in what I can only say was a fit of naïve and utterly unsupported optimism I thought Gov Abbott was actually going to try to do everything he could to stop the country being invaded. One would think I should have known better by now. I can only say in my defense I still haven’t sent the Nigerian Prince the $500 that will net me a million. There was another posting by the wonderfully informed (and accurate) Michael Yon saying that the whole thing was what he calls a “Gate 42”.
In clear words, Gate 42 is a stage. A stage like BLM plaza in front of the White House. Created to draw cameras, disseminate propaganda, and provide the CNN-sorts the footage and sound bites they need to work within WEF-OGUS guidelines. Basically, the Gate 42s are like fascist-barbecues.
Yes, I feel stupid, I fell for it. I guess I just wanted to believe a politician somewhere was actually doing something useful. Again, I know. My apologies.
Now, housekeeping completed, back to my scheduled column, family.
I believe our traditional family, and family traditions have been under assault for a long time from the radical leftists. I think there are a couple of reasons for that, one is the radical left wants to eliminate the traditional family, and the close bonds that the group usually has with each other. The other is the left just wants to eliminate people. Period.
Most of these clips are under 2 minutes each, they all feature competent, experienced doctors that have spoke out against big pharma, using things like, you know, experience, data and studies. Therefore they are not “experts” hehehe, that word will forever be a punchline in my mind.
First up Dr. Robert Malone, one of the inventors of the mRNA technology.
Dr. Jessica Rose
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
That segue to RFK brings us ever closer to my first point, all of these doctors and RFK have been so heavily censored the last few years. Came as a big shock to some of them, they used to be on the political left. They were probably as shocked as the residents of Chicago that are now at losing out on government paid housing to the illegal aliens.
If the pharmaceutical and medical industrial complex don’t want something to come out in the open, it probably won’t. I’d say ask Tucker Carlson, but, well. You know.
But all these people now looking to eliminate humans have the experimental mRNA gene therapy injections, experiment mRNA in food without telling people and it will be a while yet before we know how many will die or be disabled from those things.
Now they are pushing children to become transgender, that will involve a lifetime of pharmaceutical drugs. The screening process may be a bit more rigorous than this, but it doesn’t sound like it.
One of the more vocal about what the transition process was like, has been Chloe Cole. The way she and others who want to de-transition have been treated has been appalling.
I heard an interview with Chloe one time, in it she talked about how her parents wanted to be supportive of her, they didn’t want her transition, feeling that if she would just wait till she was a bit older things might be more settled in her mind. But then the “counselors” told her parents that if they didn’t let her transition, she had something like a greater than 90% or so chance of killing herself. They were asked “do you want a live son or a dead daughter?” I can believe that, truth is not a value of the left. She said her parents were trying to do the best the could to be good parents but this was really uncharted waters for the family.
Chloe will not be bearing children. Neither will any of the other people who are having medical mutilation procedures done.
It’s not an unreasonable question when you consider this statement by RFK jr.
RFK Jr. Shakes Up Big Pharma With the Inconvenient Truth About Mass Shootings
This question isn’t particularly new. I had a mentor back in the early 2000s that pointed out to me that so many of the young committing egregious acts were on mind altering prescriptions. He saw the pattern back then. It hasn’t gotten better and now they are coming at the kids from a whole new direction.
I feel really bad for parents, they are trying so hard to stand up for their children. To be strong, brave Moms and Dads and protect their offspring. Then they have doctors and schools and “experts” lying to them so they can’t even make an informed decision. Then if they stand up anyway, they face threats of physical violence from the lunatic left. For all the censoring of conservatives on FakeBook especially during the 2020 election, since things were labeled “hate speech” Fakebook is allowing a group called Loudon County Love Warriors to have a page. “I Would Shoot Him” – Radical Leftist Group with Ties to Elected Virginia Democrats Threatens Parents for Bravely Objecting to School Board’s Marxist Agenda
Their goal is to silence by threats of loss of livelihood or life, publicly, on Fakebook they make these threats. They openly state they plan to ruin these people’s lives or kill them. If this is “all about the children” how does growing up in poverty or without a parent who loved you help children? Merrick Garland’s DOJ? Oh no, they’re investigating the parents, not the terrorists. These parents know this, and yet they are still fighting upstream to protect their kids.
Our country is in deep trouble due to Biden voters, spineless Republicans and whoever has his hand up Biden’s rump and is controlling his mouth because we know Beijing Biden & his crime family aren’t really running things. They’re just profiting off the grift of betraying our country. But all we have to do is look around the world, almost all of the countries are under attack.
But you know what? There are still people like Todd Bensman, Ben Bergquam, Owen Shroyer, Oscar El Blue, and Michael Yon (who is everywhere) are still showing up on the border and trying to bring us information. People like Sen. Josh Hawley, John Kennedy, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, and some others have been speaking out and trying to hold criminals accountable.
If you watch nothing else, watch this short video. I know it’s elephants, but it has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with Mother’s day. I would say being a good Mom is one of the hardest jobs in America these days.
The Father came in at the end and the mother and father worked together relentlessly to save their little calf. Who put that desire there? Who put that knowledge, physical ability and stamina there? Who put that love there, created that bond? G-d.
This is how I think G-d created our families to be. And that’s why the left has tried so hard to disrupt the bonds of family, through so many methods and the covid lockdowns and experimental injections were very effective at tearing some families apart. You add in politics and the myriad of other things that can divide people and I suspect some splits will never be mended. But even then, G-d is still in charge, and he still has a plan. Never doubt that. We also still have free will and the ability to make choices. So for those that have families, hold them close, don’t let the globalist left sever those bonds. And some families aren’t made up of blood kin, but close friends, sometimes closer than blood kin. But those people become families. I heard something in a TV show “The lone wolf dies in winter, but the pack survives.” I wouldn’t say it’s 100% true, but I suspect there is a lot of truth in it. We need to buoy each other when we can. This spirit, the spirit of this elephant family, that’s real, that’s in most people. Despite all the crazy that swirls around us, U.S. we have this. G-d created us this way, it’s in our DNA. And us? Well, we are family.
Serbia requires a license to possess a firearm. The license requires a specific purpose; criminal, medical, and other background checks; three character references; and formal training and testing. Licenses are only good for five years, after which you have to go through the entire process again to renew. You must be at least eighteen years of age.
Serbians are limited to a total of 60 boxes of ammunition per year, and only ammunition for firearms they’re licensed to possess.
Serbia even has an “assault weapon” ban. Why, that’s almost a gun control paradise. No wonder these things don’t… oops.
All that, and this isn’t even an isolated Serbian mass shooting; plenty more.
But those killers were probably Trump supporters; right, Dims?
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Sometimes I see things as related, putting puzzle pieces together if you will, or perhaps its just a common thread, or threat as the case may be. You might want to grab some coffee, hopefully this won’t be boring, but it is long.
In this case, it’s the directions from which the left together with the pharmaceutical industry attacks the mind. In some cases they work together, in some separately, sometimes for a joint purpose, sometimes the purpose is different, but what it has in common is attacks on the mind.
Despite not having adequate data, Birx pushed ahead with her plans to convince Trump and his advisors to go along with her mitigation plans. She writes that in March 2020, she met with the President, and her plan was to obfuscate her intentions for economic shutdowns, knowing that Trump was wary of anything that would tank the economy he had worked so hard to build.
“I couldn’t do anything that would reveal my true intention,” she writes, “to use the travel ban as one brick in the construction of a larger wall of protective measures we needed to enact very soon.” Trump’s team was more concerned about the impacts and potential for loss of lives to Americans of shutting society down. She blasts the administration for their concerns over the economy, concerns which have played out in real time to the point where the country could be facing devastating impacts, as is the globe.
We use mandates because we don’t want to explain. And she lies some more. Doesn’t she come across kindly and sincere? I’ve got a lot of information on the effectiveness of masks and the harms they cause. She’s lying.
But she’s proud she lied, she writes about it in her book
From Deborah Birx’s own hand.
But this isn’t just about the WuFlu debacle and it’s villains, it’s about how they accomplished what they did. I know someone who every time you attempted to give them information, data from another country, or anything scientific would get angry and chirp back “That’s a FOX news talking point”. Which is of course silly, as I don’t have cable, and she never watches FOX. But the idiocy of this never crossed the mind. I mentioned it to my cousin’s wife when we were chatting one day and she nailed it in one. She’s brainwashed. When they can’t form an argument, and can only respond with a phrase it’s a sign of brainwashing. This is someone I wouldn’t have thought would be all that easy to control that way, and I would have been wrong. She still believes the shots are 100% safe and effective, and masking will keep you safe. Those are her sincerely held religious beliefs.
I recently heard a pretty knowledgeable man, Michael Yon, a war correspondant, give a few books he recommended for reading, by everyone. One of them was The Rape Of The Mind by Joost A.M. Merloo 1956. He said if more people had read that book they could never have gotten away with the Covid charade. People would have seen through it. He said if you read that book, it will be much harder to gain control over your mind. SOLD! I haven’t finished it yet, but as I started reading what hit me was January 6th POWs. I’ve written about January 6th before, WHEN A LIE IS THE FIB and the inhumane conditions our prisoners are being subjected to. I thought the Demoncrats and the prison officials were just sadistic asses, but nope, because nothing is too inhumane when it comes to their quest for power. This includes human examples of fecal matter Liz Cheney of the war monger clan and Adam Kinzinger.
From Merloo
The Enforced Confession
During the Korean War, an officer of the United States Marine Corps, Colonel Frank H. Schwable, was taken prisoner by the Chinese Communists. After months of intense psychological pressure and physical degradation, he signed a well-documented “confession” that the United States was carrying on bacteriological warfare against the enemy. The confession named names, cited missions, described meetings and strategy conferences. This was a tremendously valuable propaganda tool for the totalitarians. They cabled the news all over the world: “The United States of America is fighting the peace loving people of China by dropping bombs loaded with disease spreading bacteria, in violation of international law.”
After his repatriation, Colonel Schwable issued a sworn statement repudiating his confession, and describing his long months of imprisonment. Later, he was brought before a military court of inquiry. He testified in his own defense before that court: “I was never convinced in my own mind that we in the First Marine Air Wing had used bug warfare. I knew we hadn’t, but the rest of it was real to me the conferences, the planes, and how they would go about their missions.”
“The words were mine,” the Colonel continued, “but the thoughts were theirs. That is the hardest thing I have to explain: how a man can sit down and write something he knows is false, and yet, to sense it, to feel it, to make it seem real.”
This is the way Dr. Charles W. Mayo, a leading American physician and government representative, explained brainwashing in an official statement before the United Nations: “…the tortures used…although they include many brutal physical injuries, are not like the medieval torture of the rack and the thumb screw. They are subtler, more prolonged, and intended to be more terrible in their effect. They are calculated to disintegrate the mind of an intelligent victim, to distort his sense of values, to a point where he will not simply cry out ‘I did it!’ but will become a seemingly willing accomplice to the complete disintegration of his integrity and the production of an elaborate fiction.”
The Schwable case is but one example of a defenceless prisoner being compelled to tell a big lie. If we are to survive as free men, we must face up to this problem of politically inspired mental coercion, with all its ramifications.
….
As more and more cases of thought control, brainwashing, and mental coercion were disclosed – Cardinal Mindszenty, Colonel Schwable, Robert Vogeler, and others – his interest grew. It was Dr. Meerloo who coined the word menticide, the killing of the spirit, for this peculiar crime.
What they are doing in the DC gulag is the same as the N. Koreans, the N. Viet Nam, the nazis and the communists. It’s torture and it’s done in a certain way to get the results they wanted. Anthony Fauxci’s student Deborah Birx did the same thing to American citizens with her lockdowns using rigged data. People were kept in close to solitary confinement, denied support systems of religious services, family gatherings and often work, if their job was deemed not to be essential. While I grant these days family gatherings might fall under the heading of torture themselves, that too is a result of Fauxci and Birx and their lies and deceptions to President Trump and the American people. America’s very own little Mengele twins with their experiments.
“I had never been to a protest event before the 2020 presidential election,” one man told Klepper. “I had become completely consumed. It took over my life. For three months, I slept in my car. I traveled from rally to rally, from #StopTheSteal event to #StopTheSteal event, for three months, sleeping in my car, going to see the evidence. And then I had to recover. I had PTSD. So, it took me a long time to find myself again. I feel like I just got out of a cult.”
On Tuesday, Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louie Gohmert, Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar gave some insight into the horrific conditions Jan. 6 prisoners are allegedly being subjected to.
Greene said the prisoners are held in solitary confinement for 22 to 23 hours a day, according to the Post Millennial. She said prisoners with Celiac disease are getting sick because the only food they are offered contains gluten.
Other prisoners were forced to denounce former President Donald Trump and told that “their views are the views of cult members,” Greene said.
Apparently there are only four Republicans in all of the legislative branch.
But this gets really really ugly when you find out that there has been evidence all along exonerating the Proud Boys of any wrong doing. They’ve been in prison, being tortured and denied human rights when they were innocent.
And at this point, another useless piece of human fecal matter joins the list, Chris Wray who has known all along that these men were innocent from one of his own people, and yet he has said nothing. Wray needs to be removed at once. He needed to be removed a long time ago.
It took a tragedy on America’s birthday, and the death of seven people, to demonstrate once and for all that gun control doesn’t work. Shooter Bobby Crimo bought the murder weapon himself, legally, in Illinois, a state with some of the strongest gun control laws in the country. Red flag laws didn’t stop him. There’s no reason to think they would work anywhere else.
What’s more, the city of Highland Park passed a total ban on assault rifles in 2013. Around the time, Mayor Nancy Rotering bragged: “Banning assault weapons … is one common-sense action to reduce gun violence and protect our children and our communities from potential mass violence and grief.”
….
I saw the unmistakable signs of drug abuse. Crimo was a marijuana smoker—that was obvious. You can see how, over the years, heavily smoking weed turned his skin gray and hair dull. While marijuana use can ease anxiety, PTSD, and even perform miracles for epileptics, for others it can cause psychosis.
There was more to Bobby Crimo’s decline than just dope. In addition to self-medicating, it’s a safe bet that he was on prescription drugs. Crimo was a member of an online movement called the “Sad Boys,” men who defy stereotypes and share their mental health struggles online. Most have depression.
Crimo was known to police as they had been called to his family home multiple times after he made threats of suicide and murder. These are clear signs of depression.
27 per cent of teens aged 12 to 19 are on prescription drugs, most commonly something for ADD. Over 20 years old—the age range of many white male shooters—it switches to antidepressants. The numbers increase every year, as does the percentage of young people who say they’re depressed.
….
Our country is becoming fatherless and faithless, with a teaching workforce offended by masculinity and occasionally outright hostile to the sex and race of its students. Stir in decades of reflexive pill-popping culture, and we arrive at a dangerous moment in history: The tranquilization of the American male.
The whole article is fantastic, really. So this is pharmaceutical industry contributing, and leftist policies combined.
He links the mass shootings in 53 developed countries to boys and men who lacked a father figure, and he specifically mentioned six mass shootings that have occurred in the United States in the 21st century.
“All six of those mass school shootings that have killed more than 10 people have been done by boys, and all six of them have been done by boys who have been ‘dad deprived,’ from Sandy Hook right on through to the Texas shooting,” Farrell said during a recent interview for EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.
….
He said that girls are growing up in the same environment as boys, with access to the same media, video games, and guns and dealing with the same mental health issues, but they aren’t committing any of the shootings.
This is the result of leftist policies. Remember the Julia movie put out by Barry Sotero to showcase the wonder of the failed social/medical experiment called “obamacare”? Men aren’t needed. Fathers aren’t needed in the leftist world.
The boys that committed these mass shootings at schools suffered from not having a caring, strong male role model. In addition to that, boys are often told their feelings don’t matter, which leads to emotional toxicity, said Farrell.
“Boys who are fatherless, very frequently they are not likely to have that postponed gratification that emanates from boundary enforcement. Therefore they start not doing as well in school,” said Farrell.
He said he’s talked to boys in high school, and the boys said what they learn about in school when it comes to male–female issues is toxic masculinity, without any understanding of the sacrifices that males made that led to that toxicity, as well as the concept of “the patriarchy,” said Farrell.
Farrell said boys are suffering because they are being told that their masculinity is bad.
“The world was not dominated by a patriarchy. It was dominated by the need to survive, and in order to survive, both males and females were restricted in their roles,” said Farrell, adding that feminism blames men for societal problems and does not take into account the sacrifices they make for their families.
Darn skippy says the girl who,s Dad was John Wayne, Roy Rogers every other good hero all rolled into one Dad. He wasn’t perfect, but as I became an adult I realized what sacrifices both Dad and Mom made for us kids.
But the left denigrates families. Burn Loot and Murder lionized by the left originally had on their web site as one of their goals the destruction of the nuclear family. So this aspect is leftist policies as well.
Fact: At least 37 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 175 wounded and 82 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs). The most important fact about this list, is that these are only cases where the information about their psychiatric drug use was made public. (See full list below)
The below list includes individuals documented to have been under the influence of psychiatric drugs and not only includes mass shootings, but the use of knives, swords and bombs. 27 international drug regulatory agency warnings cite side effects including mania, violence, psychosis and even homicidal ideation.
In my opinion, this is the pharmaceutical industry, ever greedy for a buck, causing harm with their “safe and effective” medications with no regard to the adverse events resulting. The left happily goes along with it, I suspect partly for the big donations they get from the pharmaceutical industry and partly because it gives them fodder for their gun grabbing campaign aided by their ever willing accomplices in the corporate media.
Mass Shootings: “The Common Denominator Was Psychotropic Medication” A little over 1 minute.
While many have bought into the simplistic idea that availability of firearms is the cause of mass shootings, a number of experts have pointed out a more uncomfortable truth, which is that mass shootings are far more likely the result of how we’ve been mistreating mental illness, depression and behavioral problems
Gun control legislation has shown that law-abiding Americans who own guns are not the problem, because the more gun control laws that have been passed, the more mass shootings have occurred
97.8 percent of mass shootings occur in “gun-free zones,” as the perpetrators know legally armed citizens won’t be there to stop them
Depression per se rarely results in violence. Only after antidepressants became commonplace did mass shootings really take off, and many mass shooters have been shown to be on antidepressants
Antidepressants, especially selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), are well-known for their ability to cause suicidal and homicidal ideation and violence
This whole article makes it abundantly clear to me at least, that far more than guns being responsible for mass shootings, the pharmaceutical industry and their greed is.
As Jeff Snyder put it in The Washington Times: ‘But to ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow.’”
Who paid the largest criminal fine in the U.S.? Pfizer. And when the lawsuits start for the experimental gene therapy injections, I’m sure it will be again. I’m not sure that the defense of “You can’t sue us because the government was aware of the fraud” is solid when that amount of death results. So this in another example of the pharmaceutical industry working with the left. No, I don’t think they plan this as some plot, but I think it’s more of a symbiotic relationship with both profiting from the work of the other.
There have been plenty of clues, to the future mass killers, and usually after it happens the FIB is right there to say they knew about him. Perhaps if they weren’t so busy chasing down grandmas in wheelchairs and covering up evidence that doesn’t fit with Merrick Garland’s agenda and that of his weaponized agency they could actually, you know, do something about it. Unlike the do with Antifa which is just turn them lose to commit more crimes.
Standard FIB response
I would say not only is our way of life, and our country under attack from within so are our minds, they have to break us down. I think perhaps being aware of what’s going on, and how it works could be helpful The Rape of the Mind . Do what you can to protect yourself, keep in contact with loved ones. If you have a religious community, be there. If you have hobbies, make time for yourself to enjoy them. Consider adopting a shelter pet if you are fur childless, they will pay you back in more love than you can believe. We are made in the image of G-d, he blessed us with minds with the ability to see and reason. If you’re so inclined you could send a letter of encouragement to the January 6th political prisoners perhaps it will offset some of the mental torture they are being subjected to by the US government. Where you can, find gratitude, that helps often times. We are in uncharted waters, no doubt but I believe we are not in them alone.
In October 2019, a very interesting paper was published regarding mass public shootings in the United States.
DECONSTRUCTING MASS PUBLIC SHOOTINGS
When it comes to mass shootings, the United States is tragically in a class of its own. There are more mass public shootings in the US than in any other country in the world. By some estimates the United States has experienced 318 mass public shootings between 1966 and 2017.
It appears to be a scholarly attempt to rationalize more gunpeople control. Without a whole lot of interest, I idly skimmed over it, thinking maybe I’d do a full-scale fisking.
Then this virtually leapt off the page and grabbed me by the eyeballs.
Handguns are the weapon of choice in mass public shootings. At least one handgun was used in 75 percent of mass public shootings. Handguns are followed by semiautomatic rifles (24%), shotguns (21%) and automatic or “assault” rifles (10%). In addition to firearms, 15 percent of perpetrators obtained non-firearm weapons such as Improvised Explosive Devises (IEDs), knives, and blunt objects, among others.
This isn’t the commonly seen “assault weapon” misnomer. Authors Joel A. Capellan and Allan Y. Jiao differentiate between semiautomatic and automatic weapons. They claim to have found that 10% of 318 mass public shootings were committed with automatic weapons: 31 to 32 shootings depending on how they rounded off the decimal place.
I found that number astonishing. At that time, I had documented fewer than five criminals uses of machineguns as defined in 26 U.S. Code § 5845(b) since passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934. And none of those uses were mass public shootings as defined by Capellan and Jiao (“the killing of four or more individuals in one or more closely related locations within a 24-hour period”).
Currently, I have confirmed six criminal uses, three unconfirmed possibles, and I found numerous undocumented anecdotal references to 1980s Miami shootings. And still none were mass shootings.
In hopes of updating my machinegun information, I asked the authors for their source data for the “automatic or “assault” rifle” shootings. After two and a half weeks of reaching out to the Rockefeller Institute of Government, Rowan University, and the authors, lead author Capellan finally responded and promised to have the data sent to me.
That was five weeks ago. The data was never sent, and Capellan does not answer emails. Thus, I do not know what the alleged incidents were; when, where, who, nor the actual type of weapon.
I can, however, speculate; and I shall.
My first thought was that they encountered news accounts of weapons reported as “MAC-10,” “AR-15,” or “AK-47” and mistook them for automatic weapons. If such were the case, a review of their data would have revealed it, and I could quietly inform the authors so that they could quite professionally retract and revise their paper.
But the time-frame — 1966-2017 — they use is interesting, as is the number of shootings found.
I suspect Capellan and Jiao used Lankford’s list, and updated for US shootings up to 2017. I see that as a possibility because Lankford’s 292 mass shootings over a 46 year period is an average of 6.35 shootings per year. Adding in the extra five years, at the same rate, of Capellan’s and Jiao’s study period would be 323.7 shootings; that is a bare few more than the number they have: 318.
If they did so, that’s a rather large problem. Lankford’s debunked list of 292 shootings was worldwide, not just the US. Only 91 of Lankford’s shootings were in the US.
They do cite Lankford for their numbers; but if they only used his 91 US shootings, then they also found 227 mass shootings in the next five years; an average of 45.4 per year. Time Magazine found a small fraction of that for the 2013-2017 period: 33 total; and average of 6.6 per year (note the similarity to Lankford’s 6.35 average). That includes shootings which would be excluded by the Capellan/Jiao definition, which yields a total of 21, averaging 4.2 per year.
Without being able to see the Capellan/Jiao data, it very much seems as though they mistakenly used Lankford’s complete worldwide shooting list.
If this is the case, it could also explain how they might have found actual machinegun shootings; Lankford’s data includes shootings committed by foreign military personnel, an example being the Rwandan soldier who went on a rampage, killing 14 people and wounding another 19. But you might expect the authors to notice that was in Rwanda and not the United States.
Perhaps someday Capellan will provide the promised data and I will know for sure. Perhaps it prove accurate, and my knowledge (and list) will be expanded.
While this is not a complete deconstruction of the paper, I think one more thing about the mass shooting weapons is notable.
Handguns are the weapon of choice in mass public shootings. At least one handgun was used in 75 percent of mass public shootings. Handguns are followed by semiautomatic rifles (24%), shotguns (21%) and automatic or “assault” rifles (10%)
Handguns, semiautomatic rifles, shotguns, and assault rifles. But what of other rifles, such as the bolt-action Remington 700 ADL used by the 1966 University of Texas tower shooter? Or the 1974 Olean High School shooting? The 2006 West Nickel Mines School shooting with a Ruger M77 bolt-action? And the Skagit County shooting spree; Winchester lever-action rifle?
Capellan/Jiao took the time to note the use of non-firearm weapons, but omitted bolt and lever guns?
In truth, while I was primarily hoping to see the machinegun list, I really think all of their data needs to be vetted.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited, and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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Thomas Gabor, a Canadian pontificating on US policy, thinks we can solve all our firearms crime problems by registering, taxing, folding, stamping, spindling, and mutilating gun honest gun owners. Sort of.
Point of View: U.S. needs a more comprehensive licensing system to curtail mass shootings
A central theme of gun rights advocates is that gun laws are futile as “bad guys” will simply get around any background check system by buying their guns on the illicit market. However, in many recent mass shootings — Thousand Oaks, Pittsburgh, Parkland, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs (Texas), Orlando, Charleston — the shooters obtained their weapons legally from licensed firearms dealers after passing the FBI’s background check system (NICS). They either had no criminal records or had run-ins with the law that were not recorded in the FBI’s databases.
This “criminologist” proceeds to explain that comprehensive, universal, and astonishingly arbitrary firearm owner licensing will solve everything“mass shootings”.
Note the immediate bait and switch: When rights advocates suggest criminals will just break more laws, Gabor suddenly points and exclaims, “Look! Over there! Mass shooting!” And pretends the issue was never more general.
By suddenly shifting the discussion to “recent mass shootings,” he deflects attention from the simple facts that 63% of murderers using firearms had prior felony convictions, and that over 93% of firearms used in crimes are obtained through unlawful channels bypassing background checks. By focusing on a few high profile crimes (and ignoring shootings such as Sante Fe where the firearms were obtained illegally; and mischaracterizing the Sutherland Springs and Charleston shooters who did not obtain their weapons legally), he rationalizes licensing that cannot and will not deter the overwhelming majority of gun-armed criminals already ignoring laws.
His proposed licensing system is quite general though. Besides universal background checkspreemptively-prove-your-innocence prior restraint on all sales, he wants:
I recommend a comprehensive licensing system that would identify signs of troubling behavior beyond criminal records. Law enforcement would interview license applicants, consult references, and examine criminal, military, and mental health records. Spouses or ex-spouses would be notified of the application and could inform authorities of disturbing behavior.
Applicants would receive police training and testing in the proper use of force, safe handling of firearms and marksmanship. A 15-day waiting period would preclude gun purchases by those in the midst of a crisis. The license would apply for five years and a fee would support the licensing process.
We already know none of that will deter the vast majority of killers, but maybe it will work on those inclined to commit massacres.
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