And another day of ‘send the police now,’ research showing our reality, ample security plans that failed, unshaken NRA speakers, ecofascism and mass shootings, the return of preventable diseases, suffocating in virtual reality, and the Hunger Games at the NRA convention comes to a close:
“If 19 armed police inside PLUS 150 police outside, were afraid to engage ONE 18 year-old with an AR-15, the only solution is to ban AR-15 style rifles, period!” -- Amy Siskind
“The NRA has made clear with their convention today they don’t think enough children have been murdered.” -- Adam Parkhomenko
Editorial: We have tried it the Republican way, many times. It clearly doesn’t work. To keep doing the same thing over again expecting a different result is insane. It’s time to try it another way.
“When are they going to update the pledge of allegiance to ‘One nation, under guns, completely divided, with liberty and justice for rich white males.’” -- David Leavitt
Deaths
US: 1,031,218 (+443)
World: 6,309,638 (+1857)
Cases
US: 85,699,847 (+129,092)
World: 530,920,131 (+606,837)
Research shows that mass shootings typically don’t lead to more gun control. If anything, it’s the opposite. Recent research finds that this seemingly perverse response — the use of a mass shooting as a justification for loosening gun laws and calling for more guns — is actually the norm in the United States. One study, published in the Journal of Public Economics in 2020, examined state legislatures’ policy responses in the wake of mass shootings — and found that they were heavily tilted toward lax regulation. “In states with Republican-controlled legislatures, a mass shooting roughly doubles the number of laws enacted that loosen gun restrictions in the year following the incident,” the authors write. “We find no significant effect of mass shootings on laws enacted when there is a Democrat-controlled legislature. We also find no significant effect of mass shootings on the number of enacted laws that tighten gun restrictions.” Research by Kristin Goss, a political scientist at Duke University, helps explain why this happens. In two recent publications, Goss compares the political activities of pro-gun rights citizens and activists to those who favor gun regulations. She finds strong evidence that pro-gun rights citizens are consistently more engaged in the political process, both after mass shootings and otherwise (though the gap has been narrowing). -- So people who vote Democrat are apathetic when it comes time to vote, and people who vote Republican are passionate about casting theirs. And you wonder why things don’t change, or even get worse. -- Though polling shows strong public support for enhanced gun control policies like background checks, the most likely outcome is not any kind of breakthrough on these issues. Instead, the strongly held beliefs and superior organization of pro-gun citizens — together with a political system structurally biased in the GOP’s favor — make the opposite more likely: a future where the intense efforts of a radically pro-gun minority continue to expand the availability of firearms and their presence in everyday American life...But in an intensely polarized society where legislation faces many political veto points — like the Senate filibuster and extremely pro-gun Supreme Court majority — it’s hard to make significant changes at the federal level or in Republican-controlled states. Gun control advocates aren’t just at an organizational disadvantage; they’re at a structural one. They’d have to outcompete the NRA and its allies not just a little, but dramatically, to really transform the way American responds to mass shootings. As a result, the most likely outcome in the short and medium term at least is that things continue the way they’ve gone after Uvalde. Republican-controlled state legislatures will expand gun rights or at the very least preserve the status quo, entrenching the hegemony of the gun over American civic life. -- Read the rest. The research part was as depressing as it was interesting.
Official: Girl told 911 ‘send the police now’ as cops waited. Students trapped inside a classroom with a gunman repeatedly called 911 during this week’s attack on a Texas elementary school, including one who pleaded, “Please send the police now,” as officers waited in the hallway for more than 45 minutes, authorities said Friday. -- “Good guys with a gun.” Well that’s all bullshit.
Officials call it the 'wrong decision' to delay confronting the Uvalde school shooter. McCraw said that 911 recordings showed that a child in one of the locked classrooms was on the phone with 911 for an extended period — and requested police to be sent in several minutes before the officers obtained keys from a janitor. At that point, they entered the room and shot the suspect, McCraw said. He said there were "plenty of officers" inside the school from the earliest minutes of the shootout. He said as many as 19 officers from local and federal forces were in the hallway most of the time.
Despite ample school security plan, Texas shooter found gaps. Robb Elementary School had measures in place to prevent this kind of violence. A fence lined the school property. Teachers were ordered to keep classroom doors closed and locked. Students faced regular lockdown and evacuation drills. But when an 18-year-old man arrived Tuesday at the school in Uvalde, Texas, intent on killing children, none of it stopped him. -- Hmmm. Seems “more security” is not the answer. Maybe we should try making it more difficult to obtain firearms, like background checks, and, yes, banning assault rifles.
“Republicans have worked very hard for decades to erode funding for higher learning, undercut safety net programs, and in general not delivering the promise of the American dream.” — D3nT0N_G33k
At the NRA terrorist convention: Trump reads the names of the Uvalde shooting victims, with a bell ringing after each of them. -- Literally, the fucking Hunger Games.
NRA speakers unshaken on gun rights after school massacre. One by one, they took the stage at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention and denounced the massacre of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school across the state. And one by one, they insisted that changing U.S. gun laws or further restricting access to firearms was not the answer. -- Because they have learned from all the previous massacres that if they wait out the initial storm, then they’ll be fine. The only way to change this cycle of death is to stop voting Republicans into office.
Less than 450km from where a gunman killed 21 people at a primary school in Uvalde, Texas, former US President Donald Trump has headlined a defiant conference of the pro-gun lobby group. -- The NRA and its supporters want Americans to kill each other. They use fear to make themselves richer and more powerful. Until Americans stand up to this terrorist organization, this will continue, and many more people will be murdered.
“Shout out to all the other countries that solved their gun problems by not having video games, fatherlessness, rap music, mental health issues or doors.” -- Kashana
Gun company hides online, drops out of NRA convention after being linked to Uvalde, Texas shooting. The firearm Ramos used is reportedly made by Georgia-based gun manufacturer Daniel Defense, authorities and the company each confirmed..."Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it," the post said, in reference to a Biblical proverb, followed by a prayer emoji. The post included a photo of a toddler sitting with an AR-15-style assault rifle on its lap. Daniel Defense also reportedly posted the same image and text on Instagram that day, which included the hashtag #childrenarethefuture. Both posts have since been deleted after the gun company faced an onslaught of backlash from social media users. Daniel Defense has limited comments on its Instagram posts and also went private on Twitter in the aftermath. However, screenshots of the posts are still being circulated online. -- If you haven’t yet seen the photo, I encourage you to do so. It’s on the page.
Tale of two senators: Cruz doubles down against gun regulation while Cornyn leads GOP in negotiations. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has a history of working across the aisle to advance small gun policy bills after mass shootings. Both Cornyn and Cruz are top Senate recipients of gun industry political donations, per OpenSecrets.org…But the last time the Democrat-controlled Senate went big on gun policy with legislation to require universal background checks in the aftermath of the Newtown school shooting, the entire legislative push expired at the hands of a mostly Republican bloc that included Cruz and Cornyn. It fell apart in such a painful way for Democrats that many on the Hill began to accept it was impossible to change gun policy without winning the 60 seats needed to override a filibuster. — If you want change, stop voting Republicans into office.
How Mass Shootings, Ecofascism and Climate Change Got Tied Together. Once relegated to the fringes of society, ecofascism has found its way into mainstream discourse in recent years. Its origins, in many ways, trace back to the Tanton network, a collection of more than a dozen anti-immigration groups founded or funded by John Tanton, a wealthy ophthalmologist from Michigan. Tanton, who was once a leader of the Sierra Club, believed that the root cause of environmental destruction is overpopulation by the “wrong” sorts of people.
Yes, there were more children killed in school shootings this year than on-duty law enforcement officers killed by gunfire. As of May 25, 24 children have been killed in school shootings and between 17 and 21 on-duty law enforcement officers have died from gunfire.
42 States Have Considered or Passed Anti-Abortion or Anti-Trans Laws This Year. More than half of the people who live in the United States likely will not be able to make critical healthcare decisions by the November midterms. Twenty-six states will likely ban abortion and millions will not be able to access reproductive care, including but not limited to abortion. In some states, thousands of transgender and non-binary people under 18 may not be able to get healthcare like hormone replacement therapies and puberty blockers.
Sen. Ron Johnson uses tax dollars to travel between Florida family home and the U.S. Capitol. Democrats say the expenditures by the multimillionaire Republican are a waste of public money because they say the trips have nothing to do with his official job representing Wisconsin at the U.S. Capitol.
Mitt Romney and fellow Republicans introduce bill that would stop Biden from canceling student-loan debt. The Student Loan Accountability Act would prohibit Biden's Education, Justice, and Treasury Departments from taking any action that would cancel or forgive student-loan borrowers' outstanding balances or even portions of those balances, a Wednesday press release said. — Republicans want poor people to always be in life-long debt. The system is set up to keep poor people poor.
Brazil once wiped away preventable diseases. Why are they coming back? In 2020 alone, the global health crisis left at least 23 million children worldwide unvaccinated, according to World Health Organization figures. And in Latin America and the Caribbean, one in four children has been exposed to a disease that can be prevented by vaccination. It’s a backslide that health experts say could take decades to undo.
Star Wars bosses warned Obi-Wan Kenobi star Moses Ingram to expect racism from fans. Star Wars has long faced criticism for its lack of diversity, and Moses Ingram, best-known for starring in The Queen’s Gambit, noted the absurdity of it having so few BIPOC characters. — The criticism is warranted. The racism from fans is fucking bulllshit. Fuck racists.
Mattel's first transgender Barbie designed after Laverne Cox. Barbie said the doll is part of its commitment to continue to increase diversity and celebrates the impact she has had as an advocate for LGBTQ rights.
Researchers Turn Up the Horror With a Mask That Simulates Suffocation in Virtual Reality. In an ideal world, virtual reality brings with it the exciting potential to make unique and entertaining experiences easily accessible to the masses. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and instead we’ve got researchers leveraging virtual reality hardware to simulate the horrifying experience of suffocating in a fire. This isn’t the first time researchers have explored ways to upgrade virtual reality hardware to make simulated experiences straight-up horrifying. Last month, a team from Carnegie Mellon University’s Future Interfaces Group revealed an off-the-shelf VR headset enhanced with ultrasonic transducers that could recreate the sensation of touch in and around the wearer’s mouth, but one application of the research featured a gigantic virtual spider dripping with poison that users could feel splashing across their lips. That is not the future we signed up for.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment