RUMPOLE NOTES: Thank you Captain. We've been thinking since yesterday that we should write something, and yet there are really no words. Parents send their child off to school, and she is murdered. In the United States. In 2020. And it's happening over and over again. And a large percentage of this country, would scream and yell in ecstasy at the top of their lungs if at a rally a politician said "all we need is more guns and more prayer." It is madness. We have lost our mind as a country. We were thinking of things like "Guns don't kill people, but they kill children at school"; and "Our adults are the Russians and our children at school are the Ukrainians."
Nothing really captures the sadness and horror of this. Other than to say we are broken as a country. Broken to bits when a parent cannot safely send their child to school. If we cannot do that, then nothing else matters. The Constitution, our courts, our political bodies...nothing matters if we cannot protect innocent children. We are broken and we do not see a fix on the horizon. Maybe it's time to call this experiment a day. Break up the union into a country that love guns and prayer and reject science, and a country with gun control that respects education and reason and science and healthcare and logic. Maybe it is time for that. Nothing else seems to work.
Rumpole.
THE CAPTAIN REPORTS:
OUR “WELL REGULATED MILITIA” HAS STRUCK AGAIN .......
On Tuesday, an 18 year old male wearing body armor walked into Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, pulled out a firearm, and slaughtered 21 human beings including 19 children who were there attending the second through fourth grades. It was two days before the end of the school year.
The attack evoked memories of one of the worst days in recent US history when, our “well regulated militia” struck almost ten years ago, as a young man walked into Sandy Hook Elementary, in Newton, Connecticut, and murdered 20 children and six adults.
Following the attack at Sandy Hook, President Obama and Vice-President Biden led the effort to get Congress to enact significant firearms legislation. Despite bipartisan support, led by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin (D) (yes that Joe Manchin) and Senator Pat Toomey (R) of Pennsylvania, and in the face of the grieving parents of 20 elementary school children, legislation never made it to President Obama’s desk with the bill failing in the Senate by a vote of 54-46.
Since Sandy Hook, there have been no less than 3,500 mass shootings (defined as a shooting incident in which four or more people are killed or injured) in our country.
Our “well regulated militia” struck again when in 2015, it was at a Black church in Charleston, S.C., and then again at a government-funded nonprofit center in San Bernardino, Calif. They struck again in 2016, at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Again in 2017, at a country music festival in Las Vegas, and again, in 2018, when it happened in our own back yard at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
A week after the MSD shooting, President Trump met at the White House with the families of the murdered students. He famously clutched a note card that read: “What can we do to help you feel safe?” and “I hear you.”. The next week, Trump stood up to the NRA by calling for comprehensive gun legislation and warned his fellow Republicans not to be petrified of the powerful gun lobby. But, the next day, Trump hosted the NRA’s top lobbyist in the Oval Office, and suddenly, all of the momentum for a post MSD rally to pass any gun legislation quietly faded away.
Our “well regulated militia” was not done. In 2018, they struck again at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. In 2019, on the same day, they struck twice, first at a Walmart in majority-Hispanic El Paso, followed just hours later by a shooting in a popular nightlife corridor in Dayton, Ohio. In 2021, it was at Asian American massage businesses in Atlanta.
And just last week they struck again at a supermarket in a black neighborhood in Buffalo, NY that left ten dead.
American Exceptionalism
America is exceptional at leading the civilized world in mass shootings.
America is exceptional at having more guns per person than any other country on earth. In fact, the estimate of civilian firearms per 100 persons in the United States is 121. The next closest country is Yemen at 53 firearms for every 100 persons.
America is exceptional in not requiring the registration of firearms. There are an estimated 393,347,000 firearms in the United States as of 2017. Of those, only 1,073,743 are registered. The rest are not.
America is exceptional for having over 200 mass shooting having taken place already in 2022. That number works out to ten per week for the first 20 weeks of the year. There were a total of 693 mass shootings that took place in 2021.
America is exceptional for having already experienced 27 school shootings this year where someone has been injured or killed. In 2021, there were 34 such incidents of violence.
Today, before Game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Final between the Warriors and the Mavs, Golden State Coach Steve Kerr took to the podium and refused to discuss basketball. Here is what Kerr had to say:
“I'm not going to talk about basketball. Nothing's happened with our team in the last six hours. We're going to start the same way tonight. Any basketball questions don't matter.
Since we left shootaround, 14 children were killed 400 miles from here. And a teacher. In the last 10 days, we've had elderly Black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo, we've had Asian churchgoers killed in Southern California. Now we have children murdered at school.
When are we going to do something? I'm tired. I'm so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there. I'm so tired. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm tired of the moments of silence. Enough!
There's 50 senators right now who refuse to vote on HR8, which is a background check rule that the House passed a couple years ago. It's been sitting there for two years. And there's a reason they won't vote on it: to hold onto power.
So I ask you, Mitch McConnell, I ask all of you senators who refuse to do anything about the violence and school shootings and supermarket shootings. I ask you: Are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children and our elderly and our churchgoers? Because that's what it looks like. It's what we do every week.
So I'm fed up. I've had enough. We're going to play the game tonight. But I want every person here, every person listening to this, to think about your own child or grandchild, or mother or father, sister, brother. How would you feel if this happened to you today?
We can't get numb to this. We can't sit here and just read about it and go, well, let's have a moment of silence -- yea, Go Dubs. C'mon, Mavs, let's go. That's what we're going to do. We're going to go play a basketball game.
Fifty senators in Washington are going to hold us hostage. Do you realize that 90 percent of Americans, regardless of political party, want background checks -- universal background checks? Ninety percent of us. We are being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we, the American people, want.
They won't vote on it because they want to hold onto their own power. It's pathetic! I've had enough!”
Have you had enough?!
Could it be that the NRA is a major contributor to the GOP? Could it be that a politician might sell his or her soul to the devil to get elected or re-elected? Could it be that the NRA is the devil?
ReplyDeleteThere is a present base of gun regulation. Regulation is something the government can control. Regulations can make it easier or harder for people to get guns. The real question is whether the regulations reduce preventable homicides to a minimum. I believe that the regulations have a long way to go to safeguard against disasters. In the old days, a leader from one of the parties would reach over to a leader in the other party, and they'd hammer out a bipartisan bill that benefitted the most Americans. Oh, how I long for the good old days.
Narcissism has eclipsed altruism and decency ; we are absolutely in the decline of the Roman Empire
ReplyDeleteLet's take a moment to honor the sacrifices of those brave elementary children who laid down their lives to protect our right to bear arms.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that's what the founding fathers intended.
6:27 Just name a single Republican leader open to common sense gun legislation or reform.
ReplyDeleteThey all shill for the NRA.
No one, not even police officers, should have handguns. Manufacture and importation of handguns and handgun ammunition should be immediately banned.
ReplyDeleteCops should be allowed an appropriate long gun in the trunk of their squad car.
The rest of us shouldn't have anything more than double barrelled shotguns and single action (bolt) hunting rifles.
There should be a generous amnesty and buy back for handguns and semiautomatic long guns. Thereafter, simple possession should be a felony. End of story.
There should be just one door leading in and out of any school. The door should be locked during school hours with a guard standing next to it. No gun control law could ever be as effective as that. No realistic gun law would have prevented this shooting. The guy was an adult and had no priors and no Baker act type issues on his background. You cannot get into any govt building or any high rise apt building as easily as you can our schools. That needs to change and can be changed now. We are not getting rid of individual firearm ownership. It's not going to happen ever. Over half the homes in the USA have guns so forget about that.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens if there is a fire in this hypothetical schoolhouse with a single entrance?
DeleteThis question has a simple answer, but one that needs to be addressed non the less. The multiple OTHER doors in the building open from the inside out, but not from the outside in. Most modern school buildings here already have this feature.
DeleteYou are right as rain on this. I would add a meaningful Red Flag law on the federal level, tied in directly to a mandatory criminal and mental background check. Your guns would be confiscated based on reasonable preponderance of circumstances. The onus would be on you to convince a court that you are competent to possess firearms going forward.
DeleteMandatory 6 round max capacity on all magazines manufactured going forward .
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/the-right-wing-lie-thats-killing-our-children-1358161/#recipient_hashed=66271fa0f98a2391edeca1632225b1d530087818c9f02ab0de56ceb0062501f4
ReplyDelete1:27
ReplyDeleteI was a member of the USMC outta high school, put myself through college with assistance of the GI bill and school loans while I was a law enforcement officer in Dade County 74-83. During that time I also got into law school, put myself through law school while working the street. Have you ever chased a burglary or a robber down a dark alley at zero dark thirty in the morning, I think NOT. A sidearm (handgun) is easier to handle while chasing the bad person in the dark. While working the street I was shot at, beat a number of times and but for the survival skills I learned as a Marine I may not have survived. I've been prosecuting murders since 1989 and there are some people that are just EVIL. Yes, there's a need for state legislatures and congress to address the gun issue but unfortunately they haven't because they only want to get re-elected. Thanks...............SAO5
127 any politician that proposed such a law would be obliterated by the voters. Not because of the NRA but because over 100 million private individuals own guns and they won't vote to criminalize themselves and be defenseless against criminals who do not care about your laws. I'm sure you don't like to hear that but it is true .
ReplyDeleteGuns and rifles should not and cannot be as easy to purchase as a gallon of milk at Publix. If we can’t ban them, then make them more difficult to acquire. Please.
ReplyDelete6:27 am, gun control groups, specially those funded by Michael Bloomberg heavily outspent the NRA in the 2020 election cycle.
ReplyDeleteLooks like 2:47, 9:40 and 9:57 are the only ones with common sense here.
ReplyDeleteThe present Republican Party will fight to the death for the right of lunatics and terrorist to bear arms. They are arming these murderers. Not only will they not consider common sense legislation, every year they remove laws constraining crazies. What’s next , arming good toddlers so they can kill bad toddlers?
ReplyDeleteYea we get it. But the alternative is the democrat party, sadly.
DeleteThe solution is simple: more guns. give every student in America a gun in order to protect themselves! clearly the only solution is less regulation and more ammunition! kids deserve guns too!
ReplyDeleteWaiting for Alito to leak his opinion that the Second Amendment only protects your right to 18th century muskets, and hatchets maybe. Otherwise, it is all based on the kind of whole cloth judicial policy-making that he pretends not to like.
ReplyDeleteTwo things to remember: (1) anybody who says "democrat party," instead of democratic party, is a rush-room addled insurrectionist dog-whistling to his fellow racists. (2) If you want to carry an assault rifle, you'd better learn to hump a forty pound pack for twenty miles, and show up every third Saturday for two hours of close order drill. If you are not willing to drill with the militia we will be taking that firearm away.
ReplyDelete