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David Mitchell

I just heard a video fo Ted Cruz' comments yesterday about the shooting and I am moved to add one more comment to my post above;

In my opinion, TED CRUZ IS AN IDIOT !

This brings to mind a comment I shared several years ago and bears repeating here. I was driving a man from the Weston Hotel on Hilton Head to the Savannah airport. These are routine trips, lasting about an hour, and we often get into conversations withour "guests" - but we are not supposed to touch on Religion or Politics. I admit, sometimes I have broken that rule.

This gentlmen in a suit and tie got in at the front door of the hotel and off we went. I often ask where are you headed today (or where are you from). In this case he said, "Texas". Note, It was some years ago, prior to Trumps first primary season. We were just getting to know the long list of political candidates.

I aksed him what he did, and he explained that he ran a political research firm - sort of a "think tank", "under contract to the Texas Republican Party".  

So I bit. I couldn't resist. I asked what he thought of this Ted Cruz guy? 

"Oh, he scares the hell out of us." I was caught completely off guard by that, and pressed the issue. What do you mean?  I asked. 

"Well, we dont think he's fit to gather trash along the highway." 

(so much for a Harvard law degree)

-----------------

Also posted a few years ago,

It so happens we used to have a regular "guest" who commuted often from his home on Hilton Head to his office in NYC - an executive of Blackrock - worlds largest Hedge Fund. This young guy (a Notre Dame grad) managed the entire "energy" sector at Blackrock. He would be on the phone while riding in the back seat - conversing with poeple llike the female Vice President of Argentina, or the finance minister of Quebec. He knew Oil, Gas, Turbo power, Hydro-electric, Solar, Wind - you name it. He funded huge projects all over the world in any of these fields

He mentioned once that he had met Ted Cruz, and gotten about 90 minutes of face to face alone with him. He explained his shcok as he realized this Senator from Texas knew "aboslutely nothing whatsoever about the oil business."

David Mitchell

Jim,

just remember,

"Guns Don't Kill People" but those damn little bullets that they fire sure make a hell of a mess. 

Nasty detail - sorry to be so gross, but;  Someone correct me if I am wrong, but don't guns like those AR -15's have "non-rifled" barrells, causing the bullets to tumble in flight instead of spin, and therefore riping much more lethal holes as they puncture the body. The rounds from "rifled barrells" make a "cleaner" entry, and are often able to be surgially removed in a cleaner way.

Not that it makes a huge difference but I think that is the case.  

James Hamilton, M. D.

David M., 

I did not know that!

So, is your point that, perhaps if a law be enacted that all firearms have rifled barrells it would help prevent these massacres?

Jim

Mary Ann Nolan (Thomas)

Jim opioids are self inflicted, these were innocent children killed because an 18 year old was allowed to walk in to a gun store and buy two AR15 like assault weapons and kill innocent children with no questions asked. 

James Hamilton, M. D.

Mary Ann, 

Point well taken.

But I put drug dealers and pushers who start children of various ages on the path to addiction - and often to death - right up there with the shooters. Pills, injectables, inhaleables and bullets all can be killers. The mass gun involved killings are obviously more dramatic and precipitate a larger and louder outcry but all of these deaths are a travesty for which laws have had an incomplete effect.

Jim

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

David Mitchell

Jim,

I should have been clearer with my point about "rifled" barrels.

My intended point was to emphasize that there is but one purpose for the design of the AR-15, (als CAR-15, MAC-10 and others like them - I think also the M-16). They are designed to kill humans - in great numbers and quickly. Yes, other guns can be used to kill, but these guns have one sole purpose in their design, and it is my opinion that they should not be sold to the general pubic - at all !  They are designed for military use and nothing else.

If the gun lobby claims that this is an unjust restriction, then why do they accept the restriction against "fully automatic" guns?  I think that is a very telling question. In other words, why can't the general public buy machine guns? Where does it stop? Can I buy rocket launchers to carry in my car, or a howitzer for my front yard?

While we're on the subject, I have another idea that I am sure will never get anywhere. Why are 18 year-olds allowed to buy guns anyway? Why not require gun owners to be 21? Or, even more complicated - why not require gun buyers between 18 and 21 be required to have a parent or guardian purchase the gun with them and sign a sort of co-ownreship document that holds the adult liable for the actions of the youynger buyer until he is 21?  Beleive me, I know how silly that may sound. My second wife grew up on a farm south of Circleville, and her father gave her a shotgun for her 16th birthday. She learned to hunt pheasant on her own porperty in a strict Catholic family and her father only let her use it when he took her out to hunt with him. Whole different set of circumstances.

Complicated? Hell yes. It will never fly. But think about how many of these shootings are done by young, angry, lonely, white men (boys)? Of course, that gets us into issues about our society, our schools, our moral training (which is absent in most pubic schools), and of course, social media - the latest curse of mankind.

I simply fail to grasp why we can't restrict gun ownership ages or certain types of weapons. Not a 100 solution, but I would argue that partial solutions are worth trying.

Michael McLeod

I can't say it any better than dave did.

The weapons he describes are weapons of mass destruction.

If you call a spade a spade and just use that phrase, which quite accurately describes them, it becomes a lot more difficult to rationalize allowing what is essentially wholesale availability to them rather than restricting them to anyone but the military or the police.

We will still have mass shootings. And people will still have their beloved right to bear arms. But it will save possibly hundreds of innocent lives on a yearly basis. 

And Jim, if I understand what I take as your rhetorical question comparing guns to drugs, I have to say I don't understand the point of your rhetorical question comparing guns to drugs. Are you saying:   "We can't stop the drugs so why even try to stop the guns?"

James Hamilton, M. D.

Mike,

My comparison of drugs and guns was that they both can cause death. My point was that more and more laws do not seem to be very effective in preventing those deaths.

I do not have all of the answers to these very complex problems but certainly both new and, perhaps old (morality, values and faith based beliefs being emphasized in schools, the media, etc.), approaches might be considered. 

I'll stop there and not get into all of the other influences that are prevalent in the lives of children today that our generation did not have to experience.

Jim

Janie Albright (Blank)

The Second Ammendment Didn’t Come Down from Mt. Sinai  

https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2022/05/25/cardinal-cupich-uvalde-shooting-gun-control-243057

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Rather than making this tragedy about the 2nd Amendment (pro or against), or making this tragedy about Republicans and Democrats, could we not just focus on what exactly is going on in our society that is different from the past? After all, guns were prevalent in our society when we were growing up and there were fewer gun laws and yet we did not have these tragic incidents occuring. So what is different?  I suggest that it's not the guns....it is we the people who have created a secular culture that has no regard for traditional institutions and has lost its moral compass. Why are our kids shooting kids, committing suicide, dying from fentanyl, joining gangs, and suffering from depression and loneliness?  Could it be that the vast majority of our generation grew up with a mother and a father in the home where our innocence was protected and the family unit was respected?  Could it be that the majority of us also grew up as members of a religious community where we acknowledged the presence of a God who provided us with a roadmap to living a virtuous life?  Have we as a nation forgotten that it is the family that is the basic unit of any society, and that the foundation of the family is the marriage between a man and a woman and the parent-child relationship? 

I would suggest that rather than focusing on the guns, we focus on the root causes that have resulted in such disregard for human life as America has recently experienced, such as the emotional health and spiritual vacuum of those young people who feel so disconnected from love of self and love of others.  Perhaps America might look to Hungary who has been taking steps to build a family- friendly country for the past 11 years.  For example, their Minister for Families. Katalin Novak, recently said this in an interview:  https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/families-are-the-basic-units-of-any-society-hungarian-minister-for-families/

“(Families) are the fabric of our society; if we undo this fabric, our societies as a whole will come apart,” she continued. 

“It is where children experience and learn love, solidarity, but also responsibility and the value of community. Not all children are lucky enough to grow up in a happy family, but it is the interest of society and therefore the duty of the state to help and defend families.”

I offer this post only as food for thought.  I well remember early in grade school at IC where I learned that the strength of any society depends upon the strength of its families. I believe that what we are witnessing today is how that fabric has been torn apart along with all of its repercussions. 

Mark Schweickart

An artist acquaintance of mine, Rich Wilkie, has done a series of portraits based on photographs of Ukranian refugee children. If you're interested, you can purchase these as original oils, or as prints, on his website, www.richwilkie.com, and most of the proceeds go to the International Committee of the Red Cross. I bought this one, which I thought conveyed beautifully the coldness, the confusion, the sadness, and perhaps even the anger of this child caught in the chaos:

Here are others he has done so far, equally haunting in my opinion:

David Mitchell

Janie,

Great point! And you quote a great source to back it up. The elements of the constirution are "sacred" only because we made them that. 

Mary Margaret,

I would have been ready to jump on board with almost all of what you said  - all the family unit and moral aspects, which I agree with - until you mentioned Hungary.

REALLY? What a strange example to make your point.

A country that is being led by Viktor Ormond, who is gradually becoming the Hitler of Eastern Europe. I have two good friends who are hungarian (the brother, now living in Germany, and his sister in Buda Pest). They were excited to see Ormond come into office and applauded his restrictions on refugees from the Middle East (I disagreed with them on that). But now they are faced with a country where their individaul rights are gradualy being taken away. My good friend, the brother is quite worried for his sister and brother in law in Buda Pest. She is a registerd nurse, but thier economy is so bad she makes more as a retail shop clerk. She speaks four or five languages and wants to leave, but her husband is too uneducated to live elswhere.

They are originally ethnic-Hungarian Romanians (as are most Romanians from the Transylvania region - yes, home of "Vlad the Impaler") He was in my men's group at church years ago, then I helped pay part of his way though medical school back in Romania (The Medical College of Targu Mujres) years ago. He came back each summer to live with me and make. a bit more  "American cash" for school. He has had a hard life but it quite a well-informed young man. He says most Hungarians are quite woried about their future. 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Dave, I do not know of rights being taken away from Hungarians, I was referencing an article which I linked to which shared the ways families were being supported in their country. I stand by the points being made in the article which supported my belief regarding the root cause of the violence in our culture which stems from a disregard for the value of human life and the devaluing of the traditional family in America. 

Frank Ganley

To arm or  not to arm that is the question. The second amendment was out there to protect us from government, ask a person who grew up in Germany when hitler took away all the guns, hitler then had complete control and the populists could not fight back.  let's look at some cities or states with the toughest gun laws but for the sheer sake of brevity e will only use chicago , they have the most stringent laws concerning guns, more laws than any city or state in the country, they also are number one in murder. More laws are not the answer, you will get all the guns from law abiding citizens but do you think that a gangrene or criminal will surrender his? One answer is to have God back into our lives, and make families the priority. Gang thrive because these children have no sense of belonging. Daddy is gone off to another woman or to prison. Mom is gone off to work to try to keep her children fed or she is off finding a new man and have more babies to get more welfare. So these children have no home life where there is a sense of belonging, rules to live by. So where do they go, gangs! Why , to belong to something. To have some kind of order. Gangs have rules and once your in your stay in. Leave you die! This is the root of the problem. The kid who did all the killing has no home life, has no school due to COVID and withdrawn and he has no family life other than grandma who if she could tell us most likely was trying to give him rules to live by. W know the rest of the story. W need places to have fun and direction. I live in tampa florida , formerly a hot bed for baseball, steve Garvey, Lou pinella, wage Boggs, and the list goes on . Why no more? We're up and made baseball fields in our back yard, e went to the park and there were baseball Diamonds at everyone of them and kids playing on them. Almost every school has a Diamond but they are fenced in !!!  No back fields at any of the parks but there is basketball but only 10 can play and the rest sit and watch waiting to play.  With us skid shows up and immediately he goes on a team! Todays kids don't have that. Our heros were the stars of whatever sort e we're playing, theirs is the drug dealer in the community who has a wad of money, cool clothes, a hot car with great wheels, and women falling all over them! So what happens, here comes a new family of thugs. We need more places to play to occupy their minds, we need more after school activities, more guidance counselors and more schools that attract kids to go to. Sure we need more reading, righting, and rithmatic but for some it's boring so introduce more trade schools. Without this being a joke. E we need more plumbers, electricians and carpenters. Try and get one into your home and they are all out a month or two before they have time for you. Too much free money coming to them more to even then to work. Every fast food place has a sign out not for what on special but help wanted $15 an hour and they can't find workers for that kind of money, why too much free money. We need God in our lives, we need two parent homes, we need more activities for them to join in on and we need to make schools relevant to maintain their interest and give them a chance for the American dream.

Janie Albright (Blank)

MM, I don't think you will get disagreement on the importance of a religious home and strong family upbringing.  But here we are and that's a different problem to be solved.  Right now we have the products of these dysfunctional families and it is proven time and time again that young people with Assault rifles are not using them for the protection of their families but rather to wipe out others.  I'm in favor of a .38 caliber like Dennis (who was taught to respect guns and was an army officer in viet nam) had locked in the house for personal safety. Maybe a hunting rifle to be kept in a gun locker and stored for hunting season but beyond that there is no justification that can possibly be used to offset these horrific tragedies.  I want you to explain to me why you think anyone should be able to go in and buy assault rifles.  And don't give me the freedom argument because that works the same way for a woman's body and right to abortion as it does to say you are taking away someone's freedom if they can't buy an assault rifle. 
 

David Mitchell

Certainly there is a comon theme of truth to what you all have said - kids need family and friends for support, love, and safe recreation. This takes me back to a post I made about the economic incentives we attach to home ownership and the indirect force it places on both paretns to work in order to qualify for a larger mortage and thus, a nicer neighborhood.

But there is a thread emerging among many (not all) of these young "shooters", and that seems to be "bullying".

Bullying has been around since the beginning of time. I expereincd it my neighborhood with one older neighbor. By the way, it was a neighborhood with many good guys, and me with a large front yard for us all to gather and play in. There were probably hundreds of touchdowns and thousands of home runs scored on that proprety in the 50's and 60's.

But bullying is so common today, there are even school "experts" trained to prevent it - - in some schools. But not nearly enough if I read the situation correctly. Two of my grandkids go to a school where the boys are so rude and the teachesr do nothing about it. This clearly is an area to focus more atttention to.

Never the less, as we see countries all over the world who have the clear correlation between lack of gun ownership and absnece of these shootings, it's hard for me to grasp why we can't see it for what it is. Switzerland is an intersting case.Almost everyone there does own a gun, but they are kept at the local armory for the owners to check out for taget practice at the local range or for hunting. Yes, I am certain that would never fly here, but the statistics don't lie. Canada, England, Switzerland, and most others simply have nowhere near the rate of gun homiciides as we do.

And finally, nobody can convince me that any old citizen should be allowed to posses a miitary "semi-automatic" weapon, and keep it in their home. I know all the gun restrictios in the world will not totaly wipe out the problem, but any reduction at all would be progress.

I beleive doing nothing to to limit access or to improve background checks is unacceptable.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Janie, I have never advocated against common sense gun laws that attempt to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.  We already have many such laws in place in every state in the nation.  I would point out that the city of Chicago has the most restrictive gun laws of any state, but you would never know that based on the death count due to shootings there every weekend. .https://news.wttw.com/2022/03/14/24-people-shot-over-weekend-chicagoincluding-7-mass-shooting-sunday  But who is addressng this carnage? 

Which of the many types of semi-automatic rifles and guns with their varying range and velocity should be banned?  Should there be a mandatory gun-buyback law passed as Austrailia has done?  Trudeau is pushing for the same legislation in Canada and wants to include handguns as well. Should we go that far? Frankly with the respsonse of the governments in China, Canada and Australia to the pandemic the past two years, I am grateful that we have the 2nd Amendment, as the history of the world has proven that an armed citizenry is the greatest deterrent against tyranny.  As we are now learning more about the tragedy in Texas, it appears that the first tresponders arrived within 3 minutes of the gunman entering the unlocked school, initially engaged the shooter, but then after they were injured, they backed off and set up a perimeter and waited 30-40 minutes for back-up to arrive.  Could this scenario have played out differently?  We will never know.  In the end, I refer back to addressing the root causes of our national ills, put forth in my previous post as the best way to restore the brokenness in our society.

John Jackson

Jim and MM, this isn’t difficult - we are a nation infatuated with guns and we pay the price.  No other advanced nation comes close to the level of gun violence we have in this country:. 

I’ve never understood the gun mindset but if you feel better if you have a gun with a reasonable capacity (six rounds?) in your home for self defense, then I’m OK with that.  But it shouldn’t be an assault rifle and the gun should be licensed  - are you opposed to drivers’ licenses that ensure that you know how to handle a car or mandatory car insurance in case you hurt someone with your driving?

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Can someone please provide an explanation for the gun violence and killings in some of our major cities who have the strictest gun regulations?

David Mitchell

Maybe they need to be stricter.

David Mitchell

I just heard something I didn't know from today's opening speeches at a convention in Houston. Spoken first by the esteemed Junior US Senator from Texas, and later repeatd by an ex-President (who was voted out of offfice) - both of whom were brave enough to appear on behalf of that great American institution, the (corrupt and nearly bankrupt) NRA. They both confirmed this wise observation;

"The way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun."   

Ahh, brilliant!  But it leaves me with one little question - what if the good guys show up too late?

---------------

Note: It is extremely gratifying to realize that while the ex-President and other speakers spoke today at the convention - (an exhibit with 13 acres of gun displays) - firearms were forbidden in the auditorium. 

David Mitchell

I would loove to pose three questions for these gun lobby politicians;

1) How much lobby money had they received from those 19 dead children in Uvalde?

2) How much lobby money have they received from the deceased children's parents? 

3) How much lobby money have they received from the NRA?

Michael McLeod

MM: Here’s a fact check you requested. I have more if needed. They are all in line with this one, which is from an extensive piece in today's ny times challenging some of the distortions that were paraded at the nra convention yesterday. Bear in mind there are many such distortions out there, and they are being promulgated by gun manufacturers and the politicians they buy off..Please - and I have said this before - consider the source of information, and whether it's being promulgated by organizations with money at  stake 

WHAT WAS SAID

“Gun bans do not work. Look at Chicago. If they worked, Chicago wouldn’t be the murder hellhole that it has been for far too long.” — Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas

This is misleading. Opponents of firearm restrictions frequently cite Chicago as a case study of why tough gun laws do little to prevent homicides. This argument, however, relies on faulty assumptions about the city’s gun laws and gun violence.

There were more gun murders in Chicago than in any other U.S. city in 2020, fueling the perception that it is the gun violence capital of the country. But Chicago is also the third-largest city in the country. Adjusted by population, the gun homicide rate was 25.2 per 100,000, the 26th highest in the country in 2020, according to data compiled by the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

The three cities with the highest gun homicide rates — Jackson, Miss.; Gary, Ind.; and St. Louis — had rates double that of Chicago’s or more. All are in states with more permissive gun laws than Illinois.

Chicago’s reputation for having the strictest gun control measures in the country is outdated. Mr. Cruz cited the city’s handgun ban — without noting that the Supreme Court nullified the ban in 2010. An appeals court also struck down a ban on carrying concealed weapons in Illinois in 2012, and the state began allowing possession of concealed guns in 2013 as part of the court decision.

Today, Illinois has tougher restrictions than most states, but it does not lead the pack, ranking No. 6 in Everytown’s assessment of the strength of state gun control laws, and No. 8 in a report card released by the Giffords Law Center, another gun control group. Conversely, the state ranked No. 41 in an assessment on gun rights from the libertarian Cato Institute.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Thanks Mike, but somehow it is hard to get past the numbers I see....218 have been killed in Chicago so far this year....does not include self-defense killings & last year there were 797 killed up 25 from the year before. Each life matters, but you could legislate away every gun & if the root causes are not addressed, you are still left with a society that does not value human life & for me that is where our nation needs to have the discussion. I will just add one thing that concerns me & others....the real worry is the stated desire from many is that only the government, the military & the police should be permitted under the 2nd Amendment to own firearms & that gun confiscation is the only way to achieve that goal. This would be disastrous for a freedom loving people. Signing off for now as I am sitting in Watterson's gym to watch my granddaughter & grandson graduate from our alma mater!