Random absurdity strikes again, and this time it's very local to where I live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_High_School_shootingThis is about 6 or 7 miles from where I live. My former girlfriend's condo was about 3 miles east of the high shool this occurred at.
Hours and hours of national and local broadcast coverage, and they still barely have any details of what actually occurred.
I watched Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Rep Peter Deutch (D-FL), my two local elected leaders for my district.
Gee, what a shock, these liberal Democrats again called for gun control. The Fox News anchor pointed out that 10 years of ban on automatic weapons made no difference in gun deaths, and Sen. Nelson hummed and hawed "Umm, uhh, I'm not familiar with those statistics..." Regardless, he looked like an idiot, pushing his talking points, with no idea what the true facts are.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) spoke to the media yesterday when I was viewing. And while not calling for anything agenda-pushing, just expressed his sympathy for those attacked, and like the others, including reporters for the most part, offered no information beyond sympathy. I guess that's all most people expect, obligatory sympathy and an obligatory public appearance. Coverage on these kind of events just drag on hour after hour, and really provide no information or meaningful dialogue.
I often call these shootings, regardless of where they occur, as random absurdity, because they are not like an Al Qaida attack or other political/activist violence that are part of a larger campaign of intimidation.
But these shootings do seem to occur with increasing frequency, whether or not they actually occur more frequently. If the same kid bashed 30 people's heads in with a lead pipe, it likely would not get the same coverage as a guy with an AK-47.
So you mention one stat but also notice this seems to be happening more often. Does that make sense? We as a country now excel in letting our kids get shot.
Uh... more often than not, it's kids shooting other kids.
I haven't seen one of these incidents where any leftist call for gun control would have resulted in a different outcome. In the Sandy Hook, CT school incident, for example, the mother owned all the guns, and the shooter kid was fully trained in responsible use of them.
In the current high school incident here, the 19 year old kid purchased the gun he used over a year ago and passed, incredibly, a thorough background check.
A former assistant FBI director said this morning of all the missed opportunities and reported incidents with this kid, "he didn't just fall through the cracks, he fell through a canyon."
I don't see that gun control is the answer (and it's ironic that I'm a big 2nd amendment advocate, even though up to this point I haven't ever felt the need to own a gun). People have had guns in their homes for over 200 years. And yet something in the culture, not the guns themselves, are causing more such incidents.
Another statistic I saw is that 35% less homes have guns in them than in previous decades. It's not availability of guns that is the problem.
GUN STORE THAT SOLD THE AR-15 USED TO KILL 17 in PARKLAND HAS CLOSEDThe Florida gun shop that sold the AR-15 assault weapon used to kill 17 people in a Parkland high school last week has shut its doors.
The owners of Sunrise Tactical Supply, the Coral Springs shop that authorities said in November sold suspected shooter Nikolas Cruz the AR-15, has been ‘‘closed indefinitely,’’ according to the Miami Herald. Cruz was arrested after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which also left 14 people wounded.
The owners of the small business, located in a strip mall near the school, said they ensured that Cruz had filled out all of the required paperwork which included his driver’s license and assurances that he did not suffer from mental illness. The store owners said, through their attorney, that Cruz only purchased the semi-automatic rifle off the shelf and did not purchase any accessories, modifications, or ammunition so as not to raise eyebrows.
Both owners are, according to their attorney, distraught.
‘‘The tremendous sense of responsibility in this situation and just horribleness that they feel that one of their weapons fell into the hands of this maniac,’’ the attorney said in the Miami Herald report. ‘‘They are scared — not just for their safety — but more importantly about how the reaction is going to be for the rest of the community as they try to reenter it.’’
The Daily Mail also reported that Cruz apparently purchased other assault weapons from another local gun store — Gun World of South Florida — since 2016, but not the one used in the killing spree.
‘‘He was not a regular customer of ours,’’ Kim Waltuch the owner of Gun World told the Daily Mail. ‘‘We went through the process of the background checks which is the only way we release a firearm. He was immediately approved.’’ Waltuch said the store has been raising money for victims of the shooting.
I wonder if this was the one that might actually get people to want change in the gun control debate?
I think there's room to meet in the middle, but everyone's too entrenched to budge - and not even entrenched because of their attachment to a particular perspective on gun violence, entrenched simply because they don't dare move any closer to "the other side". One side's being manipulated by an organization which decades ago was all about reasonable legislation to reduce gun violence but is now only really concerned with padding manufacturers' profit margins. The other side is so swept up in old-media scaremongering over Scary Black Guns™ that they're willing to set dangerous precedents in the limitation of civil liberties for the sake of what barely even amounts to a Band-Aid of a solution. This isn't impossible to fix, it's just extremely complex and is a matter of "both-and" solutions, not "either-or". Lots of people will have to come at this from lots of angles to sensibly balance public safety against personal freedom.
We've had reasonable gun control laws before. What would fall into an unreasonable precedent?
We've had reasonable gun control laws before. What would fall into an unreasonable precedent?
What the Democrat leadership wants. Which, if they were honest, is a ban on ALL guns. Except, of course, the ones that belong to them (Senator Diane Feinstein for example) and to the men who guard them.
Some animals are more equal than others.
And by the way, the expired 10-year ban on automatic weapons had absolutely no effect on gun crime. According to the DOJ's own exhaustive study, much as they would have liked the study to affirm the effectiveness of the ban.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_gun_violence_protestsOngoing protests.
Does anyone really believe a bunch of high school students independently staged this "lie-in" in front of the White House in Washington DC?
Someone else, likely on the Left, organized these kids to do something they could never imagine doing on their own. The gun control agenda has been ongoing for decades, and this is just exploiting it. In the words of Rahm Emmanuel, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."
They're live on TV holding a Gun Control Rally in Tallahassee, FL right now, in what appears to be the state Capitol building.
This close to the school, and as amateur as it looks, I could believe the students organized this one themselves.
We've had reasonable gun control laws before. What would fall into an unreasonable precedent?
What the Democrat leadership wants. Which, if they were honest, is a ban on ALL guns. Except, of course, the ones that belong to them (Senator Diane Feinstein for example) and to the men who guard them.
Some animals are more equal than others.
I don't think that's what dem leadership really wants WB and it's certainly not what their asking for. Maybe instead of trying to position the other side to where you want them to be politically let's keep it to what they say, supported and have voted for.
We've had reasonable gun control laws before. What would fall into an unreasonable precedent?
Sorry, it's been a long day.
Categorical weapons bans are a thorny problem because, in principle, they represent a 'foot in the door' for the state's limitation of further categories, citing prior bans as precedent. There were several rulings (I don't have the case numbers handy at the moment) where district courts and even SCOTUS narrowly blocked total firearms bans in several jurisdictions, and those measures were largely built upon the precedent set by the Assault Weapons Ban from the Clinton administration. (This might also be a good time to point out that semi-automatic rifles of the sort used in several recent mass shootings are only responsible for
maybe one percent of gun deaths nationwide; the overwhelming majority are inflicted by handguns.) Truthfully, that legal precedent is the only substantial purpose another assault-weapons ban would serve, considering how many provisions of such proposals focus on the aesthetic characteristics of a weapon and have little bearing on its lethality. But getting back to the point I was attempting to make, it only becomes easier for the state to block access to each subsequent category of firearms once they deem them an adequate threat to public safety. More practical and less Constitutionally risky measures exist - the limitation of magazine capacities, mandatory minimum waiting periods on anything beyond a revolver, and the elimination of waiting-period and background-check loopholes and exemptions for gun shows come to mind - that don't involve feel-good Band-Aid fixes, meaningless political footballs, or old-media fearmongering over Scary Black Guns™.
My assurance that Democrats want to take away ALL guns is the way they do precisely that in any state or city where Democrats have a monopoly on the system. It is near impossible for a person in New York to buy guns, certainly very difficult for someone who is not wealthy.
Cities like Philadelphia (gang members and criminals cross the river to Camden to buy guns that are difficult to get in Philadelphia, which explains why Camden at one point was the murder capital of the United States.)
Cities like Chicago (a city that by gun deaths and shootings, is more dangerous than Beirut or Baghdad. And was more dangerous at the peak of the Iraq war!)
I would love to see a study that specifies how most gun murders occur. I doubt many deaths are by AR-15 type automatic/machine gun weapons.
Liberals at every turn use deceit to sell their gun-banning agenda. They inflate the numbers by including gun SUICIDES in with "gun deaths", that are clearly not shootings. Women commit suicide more often with sleeping pills, men more often with guns. But I wonder if there is ANY statistical basis for the kind of bans that liberals want. Most shootings with automatic weapons are by Islamic terrorists. The number of shootings at schools in the last 6 years or so are less than 10 that I can recall. Sandy Hook, CT. Parkland, FL. The only other I recall offhand was the psycho kid in Aurora, CO, and that wasn't a school. If somebody had just stopped this kid in Parkland for being on property when he wasn't supposed to, before he got his gun out and started firing, problem solved.
It seems to me the EXISTING laws would be adequate, if they were consistently enforced. A criminal background check that is done correctly, a psychological assessment if it had been done correctly, would have prevented this kid from having guns.
The kid at Sandy Hook had guns, and up till the Sandy Hook shooting incident had no flags that would have prevented him access to guns, that his mother purchased, and that he was trained in the safe use of. Likewise the kid in Aurora, CO (who had a number of pipe bombs and booby traps set too, by the way). None of the proposed gun bans/restrictions proposed would have prevented any of these incidents. Or would prevent any similar future incidents. Which leads me to believe Democrat calls for gun bans are in truth advocacy for authoritarian state control that prevents citizens protecting themselves, not about solving the actual problem. Which is the standard deceitful radical-left Saul Alinsky way.
Categorical weapons bans are a thorny problem because, in principle, they represent a 'foot in the door' for the state's limitation of further categories, citing prior bans as precedent.
Exactly my point, although better than I made it myself. The slippery slope that sets a precedent, and then keeps on sliding from that precedent, until a total gun ban is reached.
There were several rulings (I don't have the case numbers handy at the moment) where district courts and even SCOTUS narrowly blocked total firearms bans in several jurisdictions, and those measures were largely built upon the precedent set by the Assault Weapons Ban from the Clinton administration. (This might also be a good time to point out that semi-automatic rifles of the sort used in several recent mass shootings are only responsible for maybe one percent of gun deaths nationwide; the overwhelming majority are inflicted by handguns.)
Another great point (among several here). The push for banning rifles/assault weapons, despite that they clearly are not the guns that are causing the overwhelming majority of deaths.
Truthfully, that legal precedent is the only substantial purpose another assault-weapons ban would serve, considering how many provisions of such proposals focus on the aesthetic characteristics of a weapon and have little bearing on its lethality.
Yes.
And that's a point I often see made by pro-gun advocates and NRA types interviewed. That those proposing a ban of semi-automatic weapons don't understand that "semi-automatic" almost never means machine gun. But the push to ban something they don't even understand. Or deceitfully push it in pursuit of another agenda, a move toward ban of all weapons.
But getting back to the point I was attempting to make, it only becomes easier for the state to block access to each subsequent category of firearms once they deem them an adequate threat to public safety.
Again, the hidden agenda of a complete ban, that is the actual goal.
More practical and less Constitutionally risky measures exist - the limitation of magazine capacities, mandatory minimum waiting periods on anything beyond a revolver, and the elimination of waiting-period and background-check loopholes and exemptions for gun shows come to mind - that don't involve feel-good Band-Aid fixes, meaningless political footballs, or old-media fearmongering over Scary Black Guns™.
Again, I'm for the enforcement of existing laws, rather than expansion to new restrictions. But eliminating loopholes would be an enforcement of existing laws.
I'm only unclear about your last point of "old-media fearmongering over Scary Black Guns™". Could you give an example? I'm not clear if you're referring to white conservatives whipping up a false spectre of blacks with guns, or referring to media liberals bemoaning an unfair characterization of blacks as scary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_related_to_secondary_schoolsWow. A Wikipedia list of school assaults and deaths, worldwide, since the 1850's. A very long list.
You can see a few things from this:
1) School assaults happen worldwide, and are not a problem isolated to the United States. Places like Germany, China, Russia, Malaysia, Austria, some of which surprised me.
2) These assaults are not limited to gun assaults, including knives, pipe bombs, molotov cocktails, and one interesting one, a flamethrower. Sometimes weapons found later, that the assailant did not use.
3) In every decade, there are more such incidents. And increasing worldwide, not just in the United States. Some of the increase might be because of wider reporting and shared information, but unquestionably increasing.
4) I'm surprised how often the chosen victims are teachers and not other students! Although in many cases, the teacher was targeted for attempting to stop the attack on someone else.
That's at least some barometer of whether these attacks are increasing, and what ratio of them are gun attacks. I notice in many cases the guns used are not the student's, but belonging to family members, and I don't know how you could legislate that away.
Another narrower list of "rampage killers", "that occurred at kindergartens, schools and universities, as well as their affiliated buildings":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers_(school_massacres)
The Tallahassee rally yesterday was about an hour, and it was followed the hour after in Washington by a meeting of survivors with Trump in the White House that ran about an hour too
Courtesy of YouTube, the full meeting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GVISsXd9mUThis is what I like about Trump, that beyond the demagoguery hurled at him, he listens to all sides, is open to new directions, and is results oriented rather than just offering feel-good rhetoric. Although the proof is in what happens from this point forward. But over and over, during the campaign and presently, Trump puts himself at risk, giving interviews and "going into the lion's den" in places like MSNBC and CNN, in a way that W. Bush, Obama, and Frau Hitlery would never do. Trump likewise did so in this meeting. It was a risk that many presidents would never take. A lot of raw and unfiltered opinion.
We'll see where it leads.
I caught the tail end of a CPAC speech this morning by head of the NRA LaPierre that was a nice counterpoint to the above, and when it's available on YouTube I'll link it. He provided some surprising information. Such as the NRA was influential in starting the process of requiring background checks.
Polar opposite what the Democrat/Left says about the NRA advocating unlimited and irresponsible proliferation of guns, I've repeatedly seen NRA advocates and commercials stress their goals of responsible ownership, training, and safety in the use of guns.
___________________
NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, today at CPAC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LJlD8O1YxM
PARKLAND, FL SHOOTING SURVIVOR'S MOTHER: WE HAVE RECEIVED DEATH THREATSThe mother of a student who survived the deadly Florida high school shooting said her family has received death threats in the wake of the tragedy.
Student David Hogg and other survivors of the Florida shooting have made frequent media appearances in recent days to call for renewed action on gun violence. They have since become the subject of conspiracy theories falsely claiming they are actors who were coached ahead of their television appearances.
Hogg's mother, Rebecca Boldrick, told The Washington Post her family has received death threats online since the conspiracy theories surfaced.
Hogg has spoken out in recent days against the conspiracy theories against him, saying he is not a "crisis actor" but is someone who had to live through this tragedy.
Earlier this week, a Florida state lawmaker's aide was fired hours after claiming two survivors of the Florida shooting -- including Hogg -- who had appeared on television were actors.
Benjamin Kelly, an aide to state Rep. Shawn Harrison (R), emailed a Tampa Bay Times reporter after Hogg and Emma Gonzalez called for legislation to stop gun violence in an appearance on CNN.
According to Tampa Bay Times reporter Alex Leary, the staffer said, "Both kids in the picture are not students here but actors that travel to various crisis when they happen."
Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran (R) later tweeted that he fired Kelly.
Survivors of the shooting have spoken out in multiple interviews against gun violence. Some appeared Wednesday night during a CNN town hall, in which residents of Parkland, Fla. were given the chance to question Florida lawmakers and a National Rifle Association (NRA) spokeswoman.
Students in schools across the country this week have also staged walkouts and marches to demand action on gun control.
Well, it's not the first time.
Witnesses, for example, in Ferguson Missouri who testified in defense of officer Darren Wilson were threatened by their neighbors for telling a truth they didn't like. And Darren Wilson, who was completely exonerated, even by the black-centric leftists at Holder's DOJ, likewise exonerated Wilson, and he STILL got death threats, to the point that the Ferguson police dept had to fire him.
Likewise witnesses in defense of George Zimmerman. And as I cited at the time, dozens who white Americans were attacked nationwide by angry blacks immediately after the George Zimmerman acquittal, people who just happened to be racially white, in some cases black attackers saying to the white victims, "This is for Trayvon."
Likewise, the delegates who were to vote in the electoral college in Nov-Dec 2016 for Trump were also threatened. Just for doing their jobs as prescribed by law, according to the majority popular vote of their districts.
So, not unheard of. But still insane.
I actually agree somewhat with the haters, that at least some of these massive high school protests nationwide were organized dupes of the Left, manipulated as pawns to advocate gun control.
Ever since the 9-11 widows and Cindy Sheehan, the Left likes to pick advocates who it is deems a mortal sin to criticize or disagree with.
But,
very important difference between me and the haters, I don't advocate threatening or hurting anyone. It's enough to simply voice my dissent. And that should be enough for anyone. I think it's cruel to threaten and further traumatize people who just days ago had a gun to their heads, and are still trying to cope in the aftermath.
Man!
BROWARD COUNTY SHERIFF ASSIGNED TO CAMPUS AND ON GROUNDS, BUT JUST STOOD OUTSIDE DURING SHOOTING
MIAMI — Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said Thursday the school resource officer stationed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas was suspended without pay after he learned the deputy never went into the building when the shooting began.
Scot Peterson chose to resign and retire Thursday morning Israel said.
“I am devastated,” Israel said. “Sick to my stomach. He never went in.”
In addition, the department released records that show that multiple agencies had warning signs that Nikolas Cruz was troubled.
Israel said two other deputies, Edward Eason and Guntis Treijs are also under investigation and have been put on “restrictive duty.”
According to Israel, Peterson remained outside Building 12 for about four minutes. The shooting lasted about six minutes, he said. When the shooting began the deputy was inside the school handling a matter with a female student.
A review of surveillance video showed that the deputy was in position and armed but never entered the building. He remained stationed outside the building while the shooting went on.
Israel said Peterson should have “Went in. Addressed the killer. Killed the killer.”
He said the video was part of the investigation and Israel said it may never be released.
On Feb. 14, deputies say Cruz, 19 walked into his former school and opened fire with an AR-15 killing 14 students and three teachers.
Some parents will be talking to an attorney after reading this!
The RNA is very organized and has lots of bought and paid for dupes. I agree death threats are wrong period. These are being aimed at kids who just survived a horrible event. And it shouldn't matter even if they get help being heard. Unlike the guy from the NRA you gushed about they're not getting paid millions to lobby against any type of gun control. If you're on a no fly list you can still own a gun thanks to him and the NRA. And background checks were something they used to support. They're part of the problem
I'm only unclear about your last point of "old-media fearmongering over Scary Black Guns™". Could you give an example? I'm not clear if you're referring to white conservatives whipping up a false spectre of blacks with guns, or referring to media liberals bemoaning an unfair characterization of blacks as scary.
"assault weapons" = Scary Black Guns. The AR-15 is functionally identical to innumerable nondescript hunting rifles of equivalent lethality, but because it has a composite stock and rubberized grips rather than the wood furniture associated with "civilian" guns (because nobody knows shit about guns outside of what they see on TV and in movies), it's inherently scarier simply because it looks more like what a military weapon is supposed to look like. There's nothing about an AR-15 that makes it one iota deadlier than, say, the Ruger Mini-14 Anders Breivik used in a mass shooting years ago, but the Ruger looks like a hunting implement and the AR-15 looks like the M-16 the media has associated with the utmost of human evil all the way back to Vietnam. Assault weapons bans inevitably get bogged down looking at cosmetic features of guns because they're floated by well-intentioned imbeciles with no influx of information on firearms outside of mass media.
Wow. That's one of the best answers you ever gave me!
You certainly know more about guns than I do. In an effort to develop an understanding, I found this article:
http://www.businessinsider.com/ar-15-semi-automatic-history-why-used-mass-shootings-2018-2It was just getting to the interesting part when they concluded the article. In another news story I saw, they said that an assault rifle bullet travels at 3 times the velocity of a handgun bullet, and does much more damage, blows a much larger hole in the body as it passes through, shatters bones, and does much more damage to internal organs. This article touches on that as well, but the previous story I saw gave a much clearer detailing of that.
I understand, though, that assault weapons, or even rifles in general, are only used in 2% of shootings. While it may be the weapon of choice in events like the Parkland shooting, and while they do occur, and with increasing frequency, they are a tiny fraction of shootings as opposed to other gun crimes. While bans or restrictions of assault weapons might make a difference in 300 or less shootings a year, that ignores that the overwhelming majority of shootings are with handguns. And I suspect even if a ban of either were to actually happen, it wouldn't make the slightest difference. They're criminals, they don't purchase weapons legally. The majority of guns are borrowed or stolen from relatives, borrowed or stolen from burglarized homes, or traded for drugs. Less than 25% of guns used in crimes are purchased in a retail way that would subject the user to a background check.
One of my favorite redneck phrases: "If all guns are outlawed, only outlaws'll have 'em."
It's very true that lawful constraints constrain the lawful. Another thing to consider is - and this gets brought up often but still not often enough - that the expedient gun-violence narrative is 'mentally ill white kid with a semi-automatic rifle', but based on what data we have (which, again, isn't as much as we'd like to have) the single most likely shooter/weapon combination to kill me is myself, with a handgun. Nearly two-thirds of annual gun deaths in the US are self-inflicted, and the vast majority of annual gun deaths in the US are at the business end of semi-automatic handguns. So yeah, banning whatever old media wants to call "assault weapons" this week will cause a statistically significant reduction in whatever old media wants to call "mass shootings" this week. But it'll be a fart in a tornado when it comes to putting a dent in gun violence in America.
Verily and Amen. The overwhelming majority of gun shooting deaths are with handguns.
And that bears separation, as you clearly said, between 1) suicide deaths (which are 66% of gun deaths) and 2) gun assaults, where 80% or more are with handguns, and only a fraction of the remaining 20% are with assault rifles. I wonder how many are accidental shootings, where someone handling a weapon either shoots themselves or someone else. I personally know of two such incidents.
One was a retired police officer in mid 40's I knew, a big bodybuilder guy who was well into his second career as a personal trainer, and even he, with his lifetime of training, accidentally fired a bullet through his left thigh while holstering his gun. No permanent damage, it was healing when I met him, but I'm sure it hurt like hell.
The second was the upstairs neighbor of my brother's apartment in Deerfield Beach. A few 18-20 year olds, and one of them was showing off a new gun to his friends, and accidentally fired a bullet, killing his friend.
My point just being, I don't know if that's a category of shooting that is statistically tracked, or if it is just swept into the categories of "suicide" or "shootings".
My point also being that accidental shootings resulting in suicide or homicide are not ones that would warrant restrictions based on mental illness or crime, they are simply accidents.
But the gun-control Nazis could manipulate those statistics to inflate statistics that support their position of gun control. It annoys me that they manipulate the suicide statistics, ambiguously grouping them with gun crimes to inflate the numbers, just calling them "gun deaths". But that masks that the overwhelming number of "gun deaths" by that statistic are self-inflicted and not gun crimes or homicides.
I'm also concerned that if they tighten laws on mental health preventing gun ownership, that these can be manipulated to keep responsible people from owning guns. If a wife or neighbor wants to hurt a mentally healthy guy, they could maliciously report him as looking crazy or unstable and have his guns taken away.
Or even more scary, if someone in state or federal government like a James Comey or a Lois Lerner or Peter Strzok or Lisa Page wanted to take guns away from a political group they don't like, they could also manipulate the system to sweepingly categorize them as dangerous and take away their guns.
It would be nice if political leaders would refrain from virtual non-issues like assault weapon bans, and instead make a real effort to stop gun crime in places we know it is statistically prevalent year after year, such as Chicago, Baltimore, Washington DC, Philadelphia/Camden, or close to me, Miami.
You're right that this is just a show for the TV cameras, and even if they pass an assault weapons ban, that is a diversion from the real issue, which is handgun crimes and violence in the inner cities.
If only.
DEMS INTRODUCE BILL BANNING ASSAULT WEAPONSReps. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) formally introduced a bill on Monday to ban assault weapons.
The legislation, called the "Assault Weapons Ban of 2018," was introduced less than two weeks after the mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school that left 17 people dead. The gunman used an AR-15 assault rifle during the shooting, one of the many firearms that would be banned under the bill.
The legislation would make it "unlawful for a person to import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, a semiautomatic assault weapon."
Deutch had promised to introduce such a ban during a CNN town hall event last week.
The new legislation is the latest attempt by Democrats to implement a ban on the guns since the Federal Assault Weapons ban expired in 2004.
The White House has already come out against such a ban, which is strongly opposed by the National Rifle Association (NRA).
"[President Trump] campaigned for president and was opposed to the assault weapons ban, and his position hasn't changed on that," a spokesman said.
Gee, what a shock. Who would have seen this one coming.
Rep Ted Deutch is the liberal-progressive sack of excrement who represents my district.
You don't need them for hunting or defense. I think people are sick of seeing these mass shootings with nothing actually being done to try to stop them. The GOP just might have to either figure out a way that will cut down on these mass shootings or get voted out.
AGAIN: How many shootings of schools actually are there?
The majority of shootings are Islamic attacks and other assorted lone nuts, not schools shot up. Even military bases have been attacked! And the more I hear, the reason the bodies pile up is because people on the scene are unarmed, NOT because there are assault weapons.
There were four armed cops with bulletproof vests and guns who just sat outside and did nothing while this kid shot 17 people, including 3 teachers who clearly were a lot braver than the Broward County sheriffs on the scene. If those cops had simply done their job, it's possible no one would have been killed.
If you read above what both Sammitch and I both just posted, only a tiny fraction of crimes are done with assault rifles. And in the case of Sandy Hook elementary, Aurora, CO shooting, San Bernadino, or the Parkland high school, all these people went through a background check and purchased their guns legally. I don't see that banning them will make one bit of difference.
I read an article recently that as a ratio of population, there is currently the lowest ratio of gun ownership in U.S. history. Polls vary, but somewhere between 25 to 30%.
So... is it GUNS that are the problem?
Or the people who own them?
That because of social factors in the modern era, people are somehow more damaged in greater numbers, less compassionate to other human beings, more numbed to violence, and therefore more prone to gun violence. You can outlaw guns, but you can't outlaw the people who remain damaged. Look at the Wikipedia list I cited a few posts ago. A lot of those crimes are with knives, or explosives, sometimes stored elsewhere in reserve and not used. I don't know what you think outlawing guns, or more narrowly assault rifles, will actually accomplish. The DOJ already showed that a 10 year ban made no difference whatsoever.
Tucker Carlson had a fantastic commentary in the opening minutes of his show tonight, on the shooting and on the Sheriff involved. Especially good was his editorial 15 minutes in.
Where the Democrats REALLY DON'T CARE about the kids killed or offering any real solutions that would prevent similar acts. That they know gun control will change nothing, but that the NRA supports their Republican opponents, and therefore it's just pure cynical politics that they are attacking the NRA, while refusing to support mental health options and other solutions that would really make a difference.
You don't need them for hunting or defense. I think people are sick of seeing these mass shootings with nothing actually being done to try to stop them...
Hey man, not interested in starting a fight over this, since there are a lot of opportunities for compromise. That said, I really have a problem with the "Does anyone really need ________ for ________?" argument which seems to be the go-to of people advocating categorical banning of firearms by type. A better question would be "Will the removal of citizens' access to this previously permitted thing yield a net positive shift in public safety which is both quantifiably demonstrable and of sufficient magnitude to justify the curtailment of civil liberties as well as the precedent it sets for subsequent curtailment of civil liberties?" Which most folks don't wanna tackle because hey, who has the time for rational investigation when THE CHILDREN?!?!? You can call me whatever you think is relevant for this, but since our Constitution and its amendments don't actually
give anyone rights but acknowledge and protect the freedoms which already exist, I shouldn't have to defend my
need for something in order to justify my
right to it. I'm not even that attached to what guns I own (they were inherited so their only real value for me is memories), and I'm actually very heavily informed by pacifism - it just so happens to be
anarcho-pacifism, so I have a real problem with any state intervention into others' personal freedoms unless there's a damn good justification for it.
I don't want to fight either, it's a waste of both our times. And if it didn't make any difference I wouldn't care on banning certain guns but what constitutes "sufficient magnitude " for people when that is measured in human life?
Any of these proposed restrictions or bans, would they change ANY of the school shootings or other shootings that have occurred.
I'll help you out. Here's the
2018 school shootings so far:
(1) January 9, 2018 Forest City, Iowa, 0 killed, 0 wounded. A man shot a pellet gun at a school bus full of children, shattering a window. No one was injured.[541]
(2) January 20, 2018 Winston-Salem, North Carolina 1 killed, 0 wounded. A student was fatally shot at a party at 1 a.m. on the campus of Wake Forest University.[541]
(3) January 22, 2018 Italy, Texas, 0 killed, 1 wounded. A 16-year-old male student fired at a 15-year-old female classmate that he had briefly dated in the cafeteria of Italy High School. The gunman left the school immediately after opening fire and was arrested.[542][543][544]
(4) January 22, 2018 New Orleans, Louisiana, 0 killed, 1 wounded. Shots were fired from a truck in the parking lot of NET Charter High School, targeting a crowd of students during lunch time. One student was slightly injured, apparently from injuries unrelated to gunfire. One person was arrested in connection with the shooting.[541]
(5) January 23, 2018 Marshall County, Kentucky, 2 killed, 18 wounded. Marshall County High School shooting: A 15-year-old male student shot 16 people in the lobby at Marshall County High School and caused non-gunshot injuries to 4 others. Two 15-year-old students died: one killed at the scene, another died of wounds at Vanderbilt Medical Center. [545][546][547]
(6) February 1, 2018 Los Angeles, California, 0 killed, 5 wounded. Two 15-year-old students, a boy and a girl, were shot and injured inside a classroom at Sal Castro Middle School, which shares a campus with Belmont High School. Three other people suffered injuries unrelated to gunfire. A 12-year-old girl was arrested and charged with negligent discharge of a firearm.[548]
(7) February 5, 2018 Oxon Hill, Maryland, 0 killed, 1 wounded. A student was taken to hospital after exiting Oxon Hill High School and going to speak to individuals in a vehicle who then attempted to rob, and subsequently shot and wounded him in the school's parking lot. Two other students were arrested and charged with attempted murder and robbery.[549]
(8) February 14, 2018 Parkland, Florida 17 killed, 14 injured. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting: A 19-year-old former student who had been expelled began shooting students and staff members with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after pulling a fire alarm. 17 people were killed, and fourteen others were injured. The suspect, Nikolas Cruz, blended in with the crowd of fleeing students and was arrested in a residential area of neighboring Coral Springs after walking away from the school.[550] He is facing charges of murder and attempted murder.[551]
[NOTE: the school knew he was dangerous in advance, and expelled him but did not notify law enforcement.
Local police/sheriffs were warned with over 40 calls to visit the house and about Cruz.
The FBI was given 2 tips they did not follow up on or warn the Broward Sheriffs office, or the Douglas High School officials.
Cruz obtained all these weapons legally, after passing a background check on each weapon.]
I don't see how the proposed restrictions would have prevented even one of these incidents.
The most similar incident is the
Sandy Hook, CT elementary school shooting. And that was 6 years ago, back in 2012. (Not exactly hundreds of similar cases, and so far as I know, Nikolas Cruz is the lone case with an assault weapon.) In the Adam Lanza case, the guns did not belong to Adam Lanza, so again, no background check or potential seizure of guns for mental illness problems would have changed the outcome, because he did not own or have clear access to weapons. And unlike Nikolas Cruz, there were no calls to the school, local police or FBI warning Lanza had any advance possibility of shooting up a school.
So far, the push for better background checks doesn't bother me, because it's just pushing for enforcement of laws that were already on the books, and were not being adequately done as they were created to.
I also don't have a problem with assault weapons being restricted to people over 21. My only concern is that this is a slow push toward greater and more restrictive bans. If someone shoots up a school or military base or university or work office with either an assault weapon or some other weapon, then there will be pushes for more restrictions beyond the present ones. So these current proposals are only a feel-good exercise for political show.
Unless... the whole point is actually to establish a beachhead, to expand from and to rationalize further restrictions when future random shooting incidents occur. The restrictions proposed presently will change absolutely nothing, except laying the first cornerstone for further gun restrictions later. The deceitful pattern the Left uses to advance everything, whether campaign finance reform, encouraging illegal immigration, motor-voter laws that allow illegals to lie about their illegal status and vote (vote DEMOCRAT!), Obamacare, environmental restrictions, or other authoritarian encroachments on freedom.
Always for Democrat progressives, the goal is consolidating their power, not actually helping people.
And going through the last decade...
2010: 11 incidents nationwide.
2011: 7 incidents
2012: 11
2013: 25
2014: 37
2015: 21
2016: 15
2017: 9
It seems to me that the years to be most alarmed and outraged were 2013 and 2014. But of course, the liberal media wouldn't want to draw attention to this more than doubling of school shootings while Obama was president.
Or the far higher spike in deaths in Obama's hometown of Chicago. And Obama's callousness to it, never drawing attention to the problem, let alone solving it, where there were several years where more shootings occurred in Chicago than in Baghdad.
Why do I 'need' to own an AR-15? - Why did Rosa Parks 'need' to sit in the front of the bus?
In a free nation, there is no requirement to show 'need' to exercise a constitutional right.
Flawed comparison, you are no Rosa Parks. The kids that got slaughtered were the victims not you.
So only those directly impacted by the limitation of their civil liberties are able to advocate for them? With all due respect, bro, I'm very glad for you that so many straight folks with prominent voices (especially within mainline Protestantism) felt compelled to fight for rights they didn't plan on exercising.
...and especially when you consider sodomy, unlike the right to bear arms, isn't even explicity mentioned anywhere in the constitution.
Did those kids that were slaughtered have a lesser right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness than those that want (not need) an ar-15? And I'm very grateful for those principled people that advocated for my rights but g was not one of them. He was doing the whole slippery slope argument that granting gays rights would expand into pedo rights. I don't wish g any ill will or to take his right to a weapon away but just like box cutters on planes, grenades and machine guns, some guns just cross over into another category.
The kids have been impressive!
I'm really upset by the multitude of adults who should know better than to shamelessly blast kids for being kids. Let's not kid ourselves: we're seven months out from a midterm election, and calling so many neatly-organized synchronous 'demonstrations' in so many cities (with permits and march routes and guest speakers and stages with pretty professional-level sound design) a spontaneous youth movement would be naïve to the point of absurdity. Of course there are opportunistic politicians circling these kids like vultures, hellbent on appropriating their voices for their own campaigns. That's what politicians do, and why damn near all of them should fuck right off. But while much of the 'movement' around these kids is being punched up and reframed by national media and special interests, that doesn't take away that at the core of this are a bunch of scared kids who are shockingly good at getting their shit together, by the standards of scared kids. No, they don't appear to have the best grasp of constitutional law. Yeah, they seem especially uninformed on the subject of firearms legislation - though I honestly wouldn't place them below the mean on a national level when it comes to either of those. But I find I need to remind people that these are high-school kids, many of whom probably haven't even had a chance to take the relevant social-studies classes yet! And some out there want to hold them to a standard of expertise on con-law - not to mention a standard of dispassionate objectivity - that's far beyond the schlubs they voted into office. And for any of us to dismiss the fears they're voicing as irrational, when so many of them have literally watched their friends die, is simply ridiculous. Is this 'movement' rooted in a knee-jerk panic response? Absolutely. But these kids aren't tilting at windmills here. The least we can do is encourage our legislators to actually have some constructive dialogue about this for once. If I have an issue with their "agenda", I'm going to politely point out that no, that's not what an 'assault rifle' is, no, you can't legally do that right now, no, these sorts of incidents - and those sorts of weapons - don't actually account for a very big statistical slice of gun violence at all, and you really should keep in mind the ripple effect of legislative precedent represented by the 'common-sense changes' you're demanding. I'm not going to throw a tantrum and spew venom at a bunch of kids who are scared because they have a reason to be scared, and who feel like nobody is listening to them or talking about the very real problem they want to discuss. That's reprehensible. But maybe that's just me speaking as a parent.
I'm really upset by the multitude of adults who should know better than to shamelessly blast kids for being kids. Let's not kid ourselves: we're seven months out from a midterm election, and calling so many neatly-organized synchronous 'demonstrations' in so many cities (with permits and march routes and guest speakers and stages with pretty professional-level sound design) a spontaneous youth movement would be naïve to the point of absurdity. Of course there are opportunistic politicians circling these kids like vultures, hellbent on appropriating their voices for their own campaigns. That's what politicians do, and why damn near all of them should fuck right off. But while much of the 'movement' around these kids is being punched up and reframed by national media and special interests, that doesn't take away that at the core of this are a bunch of scared kids who are shockingly good at getting their shit together, by the standards of scared kids. No, they don't appear to have the best grasp of constitutional law. Yeah, they seem especially uninformed on the subject of firearms legislation - though I honestly wouldn't place them below the mean on a national level when it comes to either of those. But I find I need to remind people that these are high-school kids, many of whom probably haven't even had a chance to take the relevant social-studies classes yet! And some out there want to hold them to a standard of expertise on con-law - not to mention a standard of dispassionate objectivity - that's far beyond the schlubs they voted into office. And for any of us to dismiss the fears they're voicing as irrational, when so many of them have literally watched their friends die, is simply ridiculous. Is this 'movement' rooted in a knee-jerk panic response? Absolutely. But these kids aren't tilting at windmills here. The least we can do is encourage our legislators to actually have some constructive dialogue about this for once. If I have an issue with their "agenda", I'm going to politely point out that no, that's not what an 'assault rifle' is, no, you can't legally do that right now, no, these sorts of incidents - and those sorts of weapons - don't actually account for a very big statistical slice of gun violence at all, and you really should keep in mind the ripple effect of legislative precedent represented by the 'common-sense changes' you're demanding. I'm not going to throw a tantrum and spew venom at a bunch of kids who are scared because they have a reason to be scared, and who feel like nobody is listening to them or talking about the very real problem they want to discuss. That's reprehensible. But maybe that's just me speaking as a parent.
Except that... as you pointed out yourself, these high school kids, COULDN'T have possibly organized simultaneous protests in cities nationwide. They WOULDN'T know how to organize boycotts of companies that give discounts to NRA cardholders. These high school kids were hijacked by groups like MoveOn.org and Center For American Progress, and just coincidentally are using precisely the tactics of targeting and isolation that these far Left groups HAVE A LONG HISTORY of doing!
If I was a kid in a high school that was shot up, I would dismiss it for what it is, an isolated incident like Sandy Hook or Columbine that is a once-in-a-decade event. They don't have a reason to be angry or outraged because it is such an incredibly rare event, that will obviously never happen again at their high school. Were "assault rifles" used at Sandy Hook or Columbine? NO! They used more conventional weapons. So that makes it an even more rare event.
I seriously question whether their voiced outrage is even real. At that age, my attention would quickly have moved to something else. If you polled 200 students, most are no doubt disturbed by the event, but not "angry" and lashing out at the NRA and politicians like these wind-up-toy leftist-indoctrinated and coached handful of kids. Who are, as Ann Coulter described the 9-11 widows 15 years ago, perfect front faces for the Left, that can scold the public, but to challenge what they say and attempt a dialogue is to unforgiveably challenge and confront the grieved. They are front-faces we are not allowed to challenge or engage in dialogue.
There are PLENTY of other people to blame, and "assault rifles" only incidentally qualifies for blame. For example:
1) The school ( forget the exact name for the program) is one of many schools nationwide that has vastly reduced the criminal incidents they report to the police. To make the school look better and not as violent as it truly is, and also (liberal championed) to reduce the number of statistical incidents of minority crime in high schools. Laura Ingraham discussed this in several of her programs (don't look to CNN or MSNBC to report it).
2) Incidents where Broward police came to the shooter's home for violent attacks, and didn't follow up or write full reports on the incidents.
3) Incidents of the shooter (Cruz) making threats online of wanting to shoot up a school were reported TWICE to the FBI and not followed up on. Nor did FBI notify the local Broward Sheriff's Department.
3) BECAUSE OF 1) and 2) above, AND 3) NOT REPORTING, Cruz was
able to purchase guns, including an assault rifle. Because of not reporting, local police never got any heads up,
even after Cruz already had possession of these weapons,
even after he was known to have them and continued making threats.
Further:
4) The on-location school security guard stood outside even after the shooting began, even knowing Cruz was firing on kids in the building. Even after several other sheriffs arrived, they "secured the building" waiting outside, while Cruz continued shooting students. It really burns me that the jerk "retired" with a full pension a few days later, for NOT doing his job.
5) The Broward Sheriff's office did its damnedest to cover up what actually happened for as long as they could. And even after exposed, the head Broward Sheriff responsible (surprise!) BLAMED THE NRA AND ASSAULT WEAPONS LAWS, instead of accepting the blame that obviously rests on him. And incredibly, still has a job!
THAT is where blame lies, not with "assault weapons". There is a clear massive valley of cracks this case fell through, and the ball was dropped at every stage. It's not about assault rifles, if these people had simply done their jobs, Cruz would have had a red flag that would have prevented him from having ANY weapon, not just an assault rifle.
And the fact that these kids, spokes-front-faces for the Left don't account at all for these facts, lays exposed their falseness. This is not legitimate outrage, it is a stage platform for the Left's anti-gun agenda.
I frankly don't know how anyone can't see that. The fact that the shithead Broward County cops, and the FBI, and Stoneman Douglas school administrators sat on their hands and just let it happen tells me law enforcement can't be trusted to protect any of us. Quite the opposite of the Left's talking points, it encourages me to go out and buy several weapons to protect myself and my family.
ILLINOIS TOWN BANS ASSAULT RIFLES AND HIGH CAPACITY MAGAZINESWith fines of $1,000 a day for people who don't turn in their guns. Just like Australia, who many gun control advocates cite as the model they want to follow.
The same day 3 major banks (VISA, WELLS FARGO and PNC Bank) ban the use of their credit cards to purchase guns. Taking their marching orders from the
New York Times.
Anyone want to tell me again this ISN'T the goal of gun rights advocates, rather than just the fronted "reasonable" compromises that leave the Second Amendment intact?
Add to that airlines and so forth that suddenly no longer accept NRA member-card discounts that they have for 50 years. Those are airlines I won't be flying on.
I don't think it is. I'm for gun control but it falls into the stuff most people actually support. Furthermore I come from a liberal state and know guns are not going away.
So you would agree then that it is unreasonable to ban "assault" guns in Deerfield, IL, and to intimidate residents into giving up their guns by fining them $1,000 a day?
If they did that where I live, I might burn down city hall. Under the circumstances, I would certainly cheer if someone else did.
I don't own guns, but that is an infuriating abuse of power, and state intimidation, that prevents citizens from owning guns to protect themselves, both from criminals, and from an authoritarian state that would impose such laws.
A few weeks ago, Tucker Carlson showed footage from an anti-gun protest rally in New York state, where Governor Cuomo and other local political officials were there with heavily armed security details, who had automatic weapons, and magazine clips that exceeded what the state law allows for the little people.
And again, all the rhetoric at rallies, all the laws passed by the Democrat/Left, push not just for restricting certain guns, but as stepping stones toward a complete ban. And again, only for regular people, while the elites hold a different standard for themselves. The Left likes to ram their own ideological controls on the rest of us in a way akin to that of Lenin, Stalin or Mao. Whether it's smoking, or what sodas we can drink, what foods we can eat, restrictions on (conservative) free speech they shout down and often physically attack as "hate speech". How much more so if the people they would oppress are disarmed of their guns?
So you would agree then that it is unreasonable to ban "assault" guns in Deerfield, IL, and to intimidate residents into giving up their guns by fining them $1,000 a day?
If they did that where I live, I might burn down city hall. Under the circumstances, I would certainly cheer if someone else did.
I don't own guns, but that is an infuriating abuse of power, and state intimidation, that prevents citizens from owning guns to protect themselves, both from criminals, and from an authoritarian state that would impose such laws.
It's a ban on owning certain types of guns though, not all guns. Wasn't Trump proposing pretty much that back when he was also saying the politicians shouldn't fear the NRA. Couldn't imagine all the conservatives that would have shit their pants if Obama had said that. And arson is a pretty serious threat. You might want to think really hard about talking about burning things down.
A ban on certain guns that represent only 2% of guns purchased, that weren't even used in the school shootings that solicited the ban: Columbine, Sandy Hook and the others on the list I linked of school shootings worldwide.
The REAL issues are:
1) mental illness
2) background checks not up to standards required by law
3) the school not reporting previous crimes by Cruz and other students (and similarly at other schools nationwide) to artificially reduce numbers of black and hispanic crimes, and to make their schools look safer than they truly are, police not acting or reporting prior crimes by Cruz, and FBI not acting or reporting prior crimes by Cruz.
4) with failure of 2) and 3) above, Cruz was able to buy guns
5) more broadly, handguns, not "assault rifles" are used in the overwhelming majority of crimes, so banning assault rifles won't make the slightest dent in crime, as the 1980's ban proved over a 10-year period, as the Justice Department's statistics prove.
6) 78% of guns used in crimes are not purchased or obtained through gun retailers, or subject to background checks. They are borrowed, stolen, traded for drugs, or purchased illegally on the black market.
And my comment about city hall was very hypothetical, meant to express a level of outrage at such a level of state over-reach, not that I would actually do it. When Madonna burns down the White House, or all these celebrity liberals kill President Trump as they've verbalized, get back to me. They mean it more than I do.
Police currently have an APB manhunt for some
29-year-old guy named Travis Reinking in the Memphis, Tennessee area, who shot 4 people in a Waffle House. He is reportedly still armed with a hunting rifle and a handgun. Neither of which are an assault weapon.
There's at least half aa dozen other school or business shootings done in the last two months or so. And none of those were done with "assault rifles" either. So the legislation, while feel-good for the Left, is arguably having no actual effect of gun crime.
Except for the true purpose, which is to form a beach-head toward the ban of ALL guns. Which even then would have no effect on actual crime.
Only about 25% of U.S. citizens own guns.
Even with the most stringent of background checks, gun restrictions would have virtually no effect on gun crime.
Because as said above, 78% of guns used in crimes are borrowed from friends, borrowed from family (with or without permission), are traded for drugs, or purchased on the black market. So what does gun legislation actually do, it disarms and restricts the honest people who go through the retail process, and NOTHING to the ones who actually commit crimes.
At 7:30 AM this morning, there was another shooting at Santa Fe High school in Santa Fe, Texas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_High_School_shooting10 killed, 10 wounded, this is the largest school shooting since the Parkland, FL shooting, and the 4th this year. As of this writing, the motive for the shooting is still not disclosed, and perhaps not known yet. I think we can safely guess the kid was pissed off about something.
But the two weapons used belonged to the kid's father, and were legally purchased through a background check. So again, the laws passed on assault weapons in the wake of the Parkland shooting are irrelevant, and there was no negligence in the gun purchasing process.
The kid from Parkland High school, David Hogg, really pisses me off with how he blames the NRA and pushes through Facebook and other media for boycotts of the NRA and various other businesses who give NRA discounts. He's a Leftist-funded mouthpiece for the gun-ban agenda, and what he advocates against the NRA and others has no relevance to any of these shootings. "Never let a crisis go to waste", I guess.
Not to mention the two weapons were a revolver and a shotgun, i.e., "hunting guns"
78% of guns used in crimes are borrowed from friends, borrowed from family (with or without permission), are traded for drugs, or purchased on the black market. So what does gun legislation actually do, it disarms and restricts the honest people who go through the retail process, and NOTHING to the ones who actually commit crimes.
This one cracked me up.
Handguns account for about 80% of all shootings (although I saw a lot of stats that left 25 to 30% of guns in statisstics as "unidentified gun type" that could throw a wrench in those stats).
Back around 1995, the ex husband of my stepsister (a very violent guy) killed his new girlfriend with a hammer. In her parents' home, after they'd broken up. He'll be in a penitentiary the rest of his life.
And as I've cited before, auto vehicular deaths are about double the number of gun deaths. Maybe we can ban those too.
.
Man, over 4 years later, and this case is
still moving through the process.
Ever so slowly.
And...
WOMAN SAYS SHE CAN'T SERVE ON JURY BECAUSE SHE HAS TO SEE HER SUGAR DADDY DAILY A prospective juror for the sentencing of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz told the judge she wouldn’t have time for the civic duty — because she’s both married and has a “sugar daddy.”
Parkland gunman Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in connection with the massacre.
But the death-penalty trial was delayed after prosecutors said they needed more time to interview the mental health experts who are expected to testify on behalf of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killer.
The three-step jury selection process, which began Monday, is expected to last two months, followed by a four-month trial to determine if Cruz receives the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
During the proceeding, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer asked whether she had missed anyone with concerns or questions, courtroom video shows.
“Did you have a question?” she asks one of the prospective jurors, whom she identified as “Miss Bristol.”
“This is a whole entire month,” the woman replies. “First of all let me clarify myself, July 2nd is my birthday, July 4th is my son, and the 18th is my other son.”
Scherer tells her to slow down.
“Don’t talk too fast, we have to be able to understand … so you said that the July, there’s dates in July that you’re not available? What are those dates?” the judge asks.
“July 7th, July 4th, and July 18th … And again, I need to figure out something. I have my sugar daddy that I see every day,” Bristol answers.
“I’m sorry?” Scherer asks in a deadpan manner as she cocks her head.
“My sugar daddy,” Bristol repeats.
“OK, I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about but we’ll …,” the judge interjects.
“I’m married, and I have my sugar daddy. I see him every day,” Bristol says.
“OK. All right. Ma’am, we’ll come back to you, OK? Thank you,” Scherer responds.
More than 120 of the first 160 prospective jurors were dismissed — including Bristol, Fox News reported.
Meanwhile, the judge has ruled that the jury will tour the bloodstained, bullet-pocked building where Cruz murdered 17 people on Valentine’s Day in 2018.
Scherer rejected a defense argument that a jury tour of the three-story building is not necessary because there are videos and photos of the crime scene and would only serve to inflame the jurors’ passions.
“The Court finds that a jury view of the crime scene remains useful and proper, even in light of the current posture of the case,” Scherer wrote in a ruling posted Monday.
“The purpose of a jury view is to assist the jury in analyzing and applying the evidence presented at trial,” she added.
Once again proving that truth is stranger than fiction. Or at least as strange.
I can picture the two sons in school with the other kids: "Hey isn't your birthday on July 2nd... ?"
And the husband at this point has to be aware of the sugar daddy too. There's a million stories in the big city.
I find it amazing that a lawyer could argue it is "prejudicial" to simply have jurors see what is objectively the crime scene.
.
![[Linked Image from nypost.com]](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/04/parkland-shooter-juror-sugar-daddy-11.jpg)
A moment for the victims themselves, all too often forgotten.
My local congressman,
Rep. Ted "Doucebag" Deutch (R-FL, district 22)...
![[Linked Image from browardbeat.com]](http://www.browardbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Ted-Deutch.jpg)
...has exploited this issue for his personal gain, wrapped himself in the diversion issue of gun control, and posed in photos with some of the more vocal-leftist students who pose as "survivors" but suffered no actual injuries, including David Hogg and some feminazi butch lesbian.
But Rep. Deutch, I'm elated to say, has already announced he will not be running for re-election. Because like so many Biden-era Democrats, the polls show he/they have no chance of being re-elected because their policies (for which he was a zealous partisan and rubber stamp) have done so much damage to the country. He announced he'll be leaving to head some Jewish organization after his term ends in Jan 2023.
