Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Children aren’t safe in elementary schools. They can be shot. But nowhere in America is safe from death by bullet. Meanwhile the Supreme Court codified into law the horror of death by bullet in American daily life.


If a beef stew is too salty adding potatoes can take away the salty taste. I think Justice Clarence Thomas would reason that more salt is needed to make the soup less salty. 



“Those bullets eviscerated people,” Baum said.

For those who managed to escape, there was a rush to account for friends and family. Even inside their homes, the fear lingered. The gunman had stopped shooting once police arrived. Then he got away.

Into Monday evening, hours after the first shots were fired, the shooter remained at large. Authorities were telling Highland Park residents to stay indoors, unsure whether he remained within the city. Police identified 22-year-old Robert E. Crimo III as a “person of interest” in the attack, and took him into custody Monday night after he led them on a brief chase.

Brad Schneider, 35, and his family huddled in their home, on edge, ready to run if they spotted “anyone sketchy going down the street.” He and his wife had already sprinted a half-mile from the parade to their car, their young children in their arms.

“My daughter is screaming and asking is there a fire, or is there a bad guy?” Schneider said. “My daughter is asking questions, and I don’t know what to say or what to do.”

They had thought the area was so safe.

Martinez-Vicencio thought so, too. In the aftermath of the May mass shooting at a Texas elementary school, her biggest fear had been sending her daughter back to class this fall.

But after hiding from the shooter at the parade, and then having to avert her eyes from the carnage as she and her daughter fled, she had a sudden realization.

“Nowhere is safe,” she said.”

MORE AT:

The Washington Post

As gunfire explodes in Chicago suburb, ‘nowhere is safe’

By Mark Guarino, Brittany ShammasHolly Bailey and Susan Berger 

Updated July 4, 2022 at 8:02 p.m. EDT|Published July 4, 2022 at 7:52 p.m. EDT



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CODIFYING INTO LAW ALLOWING LOADED GUNS TO BE CARRIED NEARLY EVERYWHERE, USED BY UNTRAINED PEOPLE WHO MIGHT BE MENTALLY ILL OR PRONE TO VIOLENCE PUTS MORE DOLLARS INTO THE POCKETS OF GUN & AMMO MANUFACTURES, POLITICIANS, AND SUPREME COURT POLITICIANS.


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"In part of his 63-page opinion, Thomas focused on the Reconstruction era and explained how the right to bear arms was crucial for the self-protection of African Americans in the South.

He noted that Congress in 1868 “reaffirmed that freedmen were entitled to the ‘full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty [and] personal security ... including the constitutional right to keep and bear arms…’”

“The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self defense is not ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees,’” he wrote.

“Thomas focused on the Reconstruction era and explained how the right to bear arms was crucial for the self-protection of African Americans in the South. He noted that Congress in 1868 “reaffirmed that freedmen were entitled to the ‘full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty [and] personal security ... including the constitutional right to keep and bear arms…’”


MORE AT:

LaTimes

Supreme Court bolsters gun owners’ right to carry a weapon in public

By David G. Savage Staff Writer WASHINGTON  


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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ argument is actually grounded in the history of Black people in the South just after Reconstruction.


There was a need for Blacks in the South to have firearms at ready in their homes in the period after Reconstruction. 


"The end of Reconstruction opened the period some would call the nadir of the black experience in America. The political outlook was dim. Black political aspirations had been quashed by a program of violence, fraud, and federal abdication. Many have chronicled this story, but one of the best summaries comes from a black man of the times. In 1884, black publisher T. Thomas Fortune said this.
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It is sufficient to know that anarchy prevailed in every southern state; that a black man’s life was not worth the having; that armed bodies of men openly defied the Constitution of the United States and nullified each and every one of its guaran­tees of citizenship to the colored man. Thousands of black men were shot down like sheep and not one of the assassins was ever hung by the neck until he was dead.

With the diminishing promises of citizenship came greater personal exposure to violence. This posed a profound dilemma. State and local governments would grow increasingly hostile to Negroes. The notion of relying on the state for personal security or anything else would seem increasingly absurd against the rise of convict-labor schemes, state-sponsored Jim Crow rules, and lynch law.

It was an important moment in the black tradition of arms. After 1877, there were growing reasons to believe that whatever blacks now had in the political arena was all they would get. But even as it became impractical for black Americans to advance their rights through political violence, gun ownership could provide them an essential means of private self-defense. In the dangerous times to come, black Americans pushed to the wall by violent threats would be very much on their own. They would have to decide whether to just crumple or to stand and fight.

Adapted from Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms by Nicholas Johnson (Prometheus Books, 2014). Reprinted with permission from the publisher."


MORE AT:

SLATE

The Arming and Disarming of Black America

When black Americans finally won their Second Amendment rights, white Southerners wielded their own more anarchically than ever before.

Nicholas Johnson Feb 10, 20187:00 AM



MOREOVER THERE ARE PRACTICAL REASONS FOR BLACK PEOPLE TO HAVE FIREARMS AT READY IN THEIR HOMES AND ON THEIR PERSONS IN 21 ST CENTURY AMERICA



“A tactical police squad arrived at the front door calling out “Medics” and burst into the home of an elderly black woman with a heart condition who walks with a cane and held several guns to her head causing her to fall backward.


The police were acting on unverified information from a relative of the suspect.They did not have a "Search Warrant" and entered illegally expecting to find a person they had a “body warrant” for.  It was the wrong house and the suspect had nothing at all to do with the house or anyone that ever lived at that address.”


“Good evening everyone my name is John Robinson Jr. I reside at Foundry Street in Carver Court. First I'd like to thank Commissioner Chambers for your response to our complaint. And I would like to thank Chief Byerly for the information you've provided for our complaint. Thank you very much.


This police incursion we consider to be a grave matter of public safety in Carver Court.


I start by saying that we the members of Carver Court Association strongly encourage the actions of the police department to search out and apprehend criminals and fugitives. We have no problem with that at all. However we do not condone when the information that they gather in order to find this fugitive is in error and that they fail to verify that information. When this failure results in an endangerment to one of our citizens it’s an endangerment to the community as a whole.


Now you have my narrative that had been forwarded to you and I read a statement from that:


It must be recognized that had this event happened at any of certain other residences in Carver Court the result could have been catastrophic. Had this happened at my home and my 86 year old mother had been confronted by this crew or up the street from where we live at my 88 year old aunt’s house or two doors, three doors from where the event took place at the mother of the resident at that location I dare to say that any of them would not have survived this event.


Had I been been the one who confronted this force, my background is; I’m an Army Veteran of two tours of combat in Vietnam as a First Lieutenant Infantry Platoon Leader. I do not know what my reaction would have been had I had several weapons aimed at my head. If I were the one confronted I could probably say that I wouldn't be standing here talking to you right now.


This is a very serious matter as far as public safety is concerned, and we the citizens of Carver Court and Carver Court Association have some questions.”


MORE AT:

Coatesville Dems Blog

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

"What happens when the police were doing this to you; who do you call?" Caln Township, PA 2011



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AMERICANS LIVE IN A COUNTRY WITH MORE FIREARMS THAN PEOPLE.



Europe


"The European Union's 513 million inhabitants owned a collective 79.8 million firearms in 2017. That figure grows to 93.2 million when including countries outside the EU, like Russia and Iceland.

The most guns were concentrated in Russia (17.6m), Germany (15.8m) and France (12.7m), while the rate of firearms owned per 100 people was highest in Montenegro (39.1), Serbia (39.1) and Cyprus (34). In comparison, there were around 120 firearms for every 100 US residents.

A 2013 report by the European Commission found that nine out of ten EU citizens had never owned a gun.

Among those who did own a firearm at the time of the survey, or who used to own one, over a third (35%) reported hunting as the reason for being armed; another 29% did so for professional reasons such as service in the police or the military; and a further 23% owned a firearm for use in sports such as target shooting.

Less common reasons given for possessing a firearm included personal protection (14%), other personal reasons (10%), and an interest in firearms as a collector (5%).

Between 2000 and 2012, the annual rate of all gun deaths per 100,000 population in the EU stood at 1.34 with 87,000 people losing their life, according to GunPolicy.org, an online resource for published evidence on armed violence, firearm law and gun control from the University of Sydney.

In the aftermath of deadly terror attacks in Paris and Brussels in 2015 and 2016, the EU tightened its Firearms Directive to ban converted semi-automatic firearms and standard capacity magazines of more than 21 rounds for pistols and 11 rounds for rifles. The European Parliament approved the measure in a March 2017 vote with 491 in favour and 178 against.


US

Aaron Karp, the SAS survey author told reporters last year that "the biggest force pushing up gun ownership around the world is civilian ownership in the United States. Ordinary American people buy approximately 14 million new and imported guns every year."

"Why are they buying them? That’s another debate. Above all, they are buying them probably because they can. The American market is extraordinarily permissive," he added.

The United States is one of the few countries where the right to bear arms is protected by the state constitution. The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

According to the US-based Pew Research Centre, protection tops the list of reasons given for owning a firearm with 67% of gun owners saying so. Hunting (38%), sport shooting (30%) and gun collecting (13%) came next.

Most (44%) of the Pew survey's respondents stated that they personally know someone who has been shot, either accidentally or intentionally and a majority (57%) say gun laws should be more strict.

According to Brady, a US gun violence prevention group, 310 people are shot in the United States every day. Among those, 100 are killed and another 61 die from suicide.

Mass shootings are also incredibly common in the US with 340 recorded in 2018, according to Gun Violence Archive, an online resource compiling data from law enforcement. In 2017 and 2016, the group recorded 346 and 382 such events.

Still, respondents of the Pew survey were divided over whether stricter gun ownership rules would lead to fewer mass shootings with 47% believing that to be the case and 46% saying it would make no difference.

Former President Barack Obama announced plans for stricter gun laws in an emotional 2016 speech referencing the Sandy Hook shooting, which saw the mass shooting of children and teachers in 2012.

His attempts to pass stricter rules were criticised by the powerful National Rifle Association lobby group and were ultimately unsuccessful.

In February 2017, President Donald Trump signed a bill into law rolling back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun.

Want more news?


EURONEWS

How does Europe compare with the US on gun ownership?

By Sallyann Nicholls  & Alice Tidey, Emma Beswick  •  Updated: 06/08/2019



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IN AMERICA POLICE LIVE IN CONSTANT FEAR OF BEING SHOT. AND A VERY POPULAR EASY TO CARRY RIFLE CAN PENETRATE THE PROTECTIVE VESTS MOST POLICE WEAR. 


IN AMERICA  YOU CAN BE SHOT BECAUSE A POLICEMAN FEELS THREATENED BECAUSE YOU MIGHT BE CARRYING A FIREARM.



BY INTERPRETING THE SECOND AMENDMENT AS A RIGHT OF ALL CITIZENS TO CARRY FIREARMS NEARLY EVERYWHERE IT APPEARS THAT JUSTICE THOMAS HAS MADE LIVING IN AMERICA MORE DANGEROUS.



AMERICANS NEED FIREARMS FOR PROTECTION BECAUSE SO MANY AMERICANS ARE ARMED WITH FIREARMS. ADDING MORE GUNS TO THE POT MAKES IT MORE DANGEROUS. 

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