Note: I knew that yesterday’s essay would result in lots of discussion and debate. I strongly encourage that within The Warning community. You may not agree with my views — or those of others within this community — all of the time, but I appreciate the respect and civility that the majority demonstrate when expressing dissenting views. There were some people, however, who were less than graceful in their commentary. I ask you to please consider how your comment(s) will be received before publishing them.
If only one newspaper would have the courage to show pictures of what AR-15s do to human bodies, and to children’s bodies, maybe then we could pass a ban. Emmett Till’s mother and Jackie Kennedy knew the power of photos. People need to SEE the consequences of how they vote.
I tend to agree, however those photos didn't stop the carnage. They may have generated disgust and sympathy (thoughts and prayers?) but it was fleeting. My inner cynic fears that after a while, the images would be "normalized" and lose their shock value.
From what Ben Collins said last night, there are pictures on twitter of the child that was shot. I am not looking. I don’t need to see this. But I agree with you however it would HAVE to be with parents permission.
Dianne Feinstein, in her effective days, was responsible for this ban after a gunman ran through a San Francisco law office shooting people indiscriminately. I remember the fear I felt that day, as a lawyer in the vicinity of the shootings. It is unconscionable that Congress allowed the bill to lapse.
That was a great article Steve. Thank you for doing the work you do. We need to get angry, stand together, and use our voices to stop this complete madness. When I think of the crowds of people that supported the Tennessee 3 I have hope.
I have little to say because I am numb in my heart and soul. Numb from seeing and hearing about people gunned down by crazy human beings who are or must be sick in their heads. Sick but perfectly capable of going in to a gun store and purchase weapons of mass destruction. Buying assault weapons mind you NOT buying a hunting weapon or a target rifle.
I have offered up my ideas to help close this murderous loop on Substack in previous commentaries but the main idea, the real reason that we are here now burying innocent people on a daily basis is the worship of the money that the gun manufacturers and lobbyists hand out to a very small select few cowards in our political system.
Until we get politicians in office that will eliminate the power of the money, we will never stop this senseless violence surrounding the hate from the radicalized right wing political party.
Gentle words today and get rid of the lobbying dark money and years ago the government people would have been accused of insider trading making investments into
Areas they know deals are already
About to happen ..they’d be kicked out and lose their licenses forever!
If we could get big money out of our politics, we could begin to solve a lot of our problems. Unfortunately, it takes the people receiving that money to vote on the laws to do away with it.
Sometimes I feel like even though I volunteer and vote, I don't really have a say in my government; and with gerrymandering, it gets worse, not better.
It's difficult to comprehend that half of the country- or at least half of the people who vote - are willing to continue to support Republicans that will perpetuate this situation.
It's difficult to get keep HOPE alive...but we must! I will stay informed and involved because I'm frightened what could happen in the next election!
I also don't understand why more Americans don't believe that fascism is coming to America!
Carol McMahan .. I also don’t understand why more Americans don’t believe that fascism is coming to America and I’m also frightened about what could happen in the next election in 2024 if DJT isn’t jailed…BUT I know that the
My father and his 2 brothers fought the axis powers in WWII and defeated them at great risk to themselves. The idea that anti-semite fascists are close enough to power to be able to smell it, and are murdering innocent lives all over our nation without a burning rage erupting at the monstrosity of it, is sickening. “Thoughts and prayers” is bullshit, they might as well say “fuck you”, because that’s what they mean. Sure Joe Biden is old, and he walks stiffly, but the most important thing is that his mind is in the right place, he’s done more for all Americans than any president since FDR. The idea that close to half of our fellow citizens would prefer a serial rapist over Joe Biden is hard to comprehend. The idiot for a governor of Texas when faced with 2 separate mass killings on the same day had zero to say that truly addressed the problem that he helped foster. How did the nation that our fathers handed us to nurture devolve into this? Maybe the flaws generated by our many original sins are finally flowering, and we are experiencing what our ancestors did to so many others, there seems to be no escape from this madness, just as there was none for those enslaved here in the Deep South or the original Native Americans who inhabited this entire continent. What goes around comes around and the price we are paying for what we owe is frightening.
@Susan Mackey .. A timely "Thoughts and Prayers" translation. .. Such hollow words to find refuge in the midst of a mass shooting. .. Time for a bumper sticker campaign. ..
.. Thoughts and Prayers = I Don't Give a Chit .. Cheers
I would love to post an eloquent response in support of your efforts, Steve. I can only muster appreciation and affirmation - I’m all out of shock, I’m no longer surprised and I’ve got no more words on this topic. 😞
I have a Clockwork Orange fantasy that these NRA nuts and Republican politicians who support them (and vice-versa) be obliged to watch the results of the carnage they wreak, like the hoodlum in the movie - eyes forced open, no way to avoid the images - for days on end. Maybe that would cure them.
I’ve thought about this also. Where is the line for respect for the family and victims vs the desired wake up call for America: these are not weapons for hunting or sport, just for murder. Perhaps the families will offer permission for this cause but it would have to be done only with their permission.
Tony. If a victim’s family agrees to publish photos I am all for it. ESP from Sandy Hook, Uvalde and other “sites” where children have been shredded by assault weapons
Where are these killers getting the money to buy these weapons? No one is investigating that one detail. Yes, the media jumps on the social profiles to find these losers cannot string words together to make sense, nor can they spell.
This tells me they cannot hold a job, so how does the money mysteriously appear in their hands? They cannot be in possession of a credit card, so they must have cash.
This loser was on a Russian internet site. Putin/Russia has been attempting to rip our society apart from within.
The NRA has admitted receiving money from Russians.
Could Russian agents be “grooming” these creatures using the right wing insanity to get them fired up and then getting the cash to them?
There are multiple methods of transmitting cash that are easy to hide. Why isn’t the FBI looking into the funding.
Body armor, patches, weapons, ammunition- I sure don’t keep that amount of walking around money on me. Where is it coming from?
My husband manages a retail store in an outside shopping mall in our community. Last year one of the larger stores closed & in its place there's now a Sportsman's Warehouse. The entire feel of that center changed after that store opened. Now, instead of people with their fishing gear & Guy Harvey shirts, there are tons of 'in your face' Trumpsters & Maganuts. That place sends out weekly ads in the paper with pages of guns. So, every month when we have our First Friday gatherings with great food, music, families with happy children running around...I sit home with a pit in my stomach. I break out in a sweat when I hear the sirens screaming down the road until my husband texts me that everything is fine.
Living in the Land of Lunatics isn't fun anymore. It changed a lot when Rick Scott took over and it's gotten worse every year since. We only have a few more years until he retires & we can decide if the beauty of the Gulf of Mexico is worth the risk.
The MAGAGOP has precisely zero inclination to offer anything meaningful other than useless thoughts-n-prayers (and lip service about mental illness). The frenzy of mass shootings create precisely the kind of "American carnage" and free-floating anxiety that shores up support for their "I alone can fix it" fascism. Oh, and also sells more guns (keeping those NRA donations flowing).
It is madness and it Must stop! When the gun advocates say it is people and not guns doing the killing, I think about Babe Ruth--without his bat, he would have hit very few homers...
A nation who refuses to protect its children from senseless murder has failed. This is on the GOP, who is beholden to the NRA, who's been enmeshed with the Russian death cult regime for decades. We have failed and this must end.
Many of us can agree that this carnage needs to stop, but how? I would say outlaw assault-style weapons, but my husband (a staunch Democrat after his misspent youth as a Republican) says there are too many already out there. I say too bad, outlaw and confiscate the guns, like they did in Australia. But I know it will never happen. Americans are overwhelmed by the destruction being caused to our society, politics, economy and environment. I hate thinking about what my children and grandchildren have ahead of them. This is what causes decent people to leave their home countries.
Good article. We are seeing the consequences of our idolatry of the 2nd Amendment. How sad it is that white evangelicals are typically on the front pew of this worship.
I do not believe it is a coincidence that the Proud Boys leader was found guilty and "death squads" took to the streets targeting and killing anyone who doesn't look or pray like them.
I would bet May 8th is just as significant to these terrorists as their failed coup on January 6th.
Perhaps it was our media and those pearl clutching representatives non response to the "American Carnage" speech by a President of the United States on his Inauguration Day that kick started this unholy campaign of lawless terror.
Donald Trump and all those in his orbit are domestic terrorists and they are meeting in Florida this week.
Edit - if ran a political campaign, I'd use sound bites from his Inauguration speech over a montage of mass shootings and his campaign of terror.
Thanks to all of you. I can’t imagine what it would take to get effective gun legislation passed. If the killing of children doesn’t affect the GOP, what are they?
Bring back the assault weapons ban.
If only one newspaper would have the courage to show pictures of what AR-15s do to human bodies, and to children’s bodies, maybe then we could pass a ban. Emmett Till’s mother and Jackie Kennedy knew the power of photos. People need to SEE the consequences of how they vote.
I tend to agree, however those photos didn't stop the carnage. They may have generated disgust and sympathy (thoughts and prayers?) but it was fleeting. My inner cynic fears that after a while, the images would be "normalized" and lose their shock value.
Read Michael Moore this week (no paywall!) on the power of visuals to change peoples’ minds.
From what Ben Collins said last night, there are pictures on twitter of the child that was shot. I am not looking. I don’t need to see this. But I agree with you however it would HAVE to be with parents permission.
Absolutely, with parents’ consent. But I understand, that is a huge ask.
@Chris Myatt .. +1. .. Agreed, and to the power of ten. .. Get Out and Vote. .. Cheers
Dianne Feinstein, in her effective days, was responsible for this ban after a gunman ran through a San Francisco law office shooting people indiscriminately. I remember the fear I felt that day, as a lawyer in the vicinity of the shootings. It is unconscionable that Congress allowed the bill to lapse.
Yes, this, 1,000%.
YES!!
That was a great article Steve. Thank you for doing the work you do. We need to get angry, stand together, and use our voices to stop this complete madness. When I think of the crowds of people that supported the Tennessee 3 I have hope.
Lynn ..bless you for your words
I have little to say because I am numb in my heart and soul. Numb from seeing and hearing about people gunned down by crazy human beings who are or must be sick in their heads. Sick but perfectly capable of going in to a gun store and purchase weapons of mass destruction. Buying assault weapons mind you NOT buying a hunting weapon or a target rifle.
I have offered up my ideas to help close this murderous loop on Substack in previous commentaries but the main idea, the real reason that we are here now burying innocent people on a daily basis is the worship of the money that the gun manufacturers and lobbyists hand out to a very small select few cowards in our political system.
Until we get politicians in office that will eliminate the power of the money, we will never stop this senseless violence surrounding the hate from the radicalized right wing political party.
The "Grand Old Party"
Al Ross I’m numb in my heart and soul also but I’ll work to get Biden
A second term and get a Blue
Senate and Blue House and hope
The Supreme Court will get more justices added and filibuster gone
💙lots to do but together we can !
By gosh we certainly can and Will Marsha!
Al Ross … read your response
“By gosh we certainly can and
Will Marsha! And each day brings
Me a heart hug from you…feeling
You care ..you’re kind💛Marsha
Caroline Edwards you’re an Angel to respond to my comments Ty…
BIDEN to me has accomplished
Unbelievably Amazing Tasks…
BIDEN gets My VOTE 2024 !!!!
Every Democrat we can get Voted
Into office will be Needed to save
Our Democracy Save Our Country
SAVE OUR LIVES ✅ Marsha
Al Ross III thank you for your kind
Gentle words today and get rid of the lobbying dark money and years ago the government people would have been accused of insider trading making investments into
Areas they know deals are already
About to happen ..they’d be kicked out and lose their licenses forever!
If we could get big money out of our politics, we could begin to solve a lot of our problems. Unfortunately, it takes the people receiving that money to vote on the laws to do away with it.
Sometimes I feel like even though I volunteer and vote, I don't really have a say in my government; and with gerrymandering, it gets worse, not better.
It's difficult to comprehend that half of the country- or at least half of the people who vote - are willing to continue to support Republicans that will perpetuate this situation.
It's difficult to get keep HOPE alive...but we must! I will stay informed and involved because I'm frightened what could happen in the next election!
I also don't understand why more Americans don't believe that fascism is coming to America!
Carol McMahan .. I also don’t understand why more Americans don’t believe that fascism is coming to America and I’m also frightened about what could happen in the next election in 2024 if DJT isn’t jailed…BUT I know that the
ANSWER IS VOTING …BLUE
In everything for Democracy!
and or "Guns Over People"
Better yet!
Thanks!
100% this
We need to be fierce and confrontational and exacting and call it out
My father and his 2 brothers fought the axis powers in WWII and defeated them at great risk to themselves. The idea that anti-semite fascists are close enough to power to be able to smell it, and are murdering innocent lives all over our nation without a burning rage erupting at the monstrosity of it, is sickening. “Thoughts and prayers” is bullshit, they might as well say “fuck you”, because that’s what they mean. Sure Joe Biden is old, and he walks stiffly, but the most important thing is that his mind is in the right place, he’s done more for all Americans than any president since FDR. The idea that close to half of our fellow citizens would prefer a serial rapist over Joe Biden is hard to comprehend. The idiot for a governor of Texas when faced with 2 separate mass killings on the same day had zero to say that truly addressed the problem that he helped foster. How did the nation that our fathers handed us to nurture devolve into this? Maybe the flaws generated by our many original sins are finally flowering, and we are experiencing what our ancestors did to so many others, there seems to be no escape from this madness, just as there was none for those enslaved here in the Deep South or the original Native Americans who inhabited this entire continent. What goes around comes around and the price we are paying for what we owe is frightening.
Someone tweeted yesterday; Thoughts and prayers translates to I don’t give a shit. I think it is a correct comment. Good comments, Dick.
@Susan Mackey .. A timely "Thoughts and Prayers" translation. .. Such hollow words to find refuge in the midst of a mass shooting. .. Time for a bumper sticker campaign. ..
.. Thoughts and Prayers = I Don't Give a Chit .. Cheers
🙏💙thank you Dick for sharing your thoughts about what terrors we are experiencing from within our
Country.. there was no escape for the enslaved people of the south or the original indigenous native tribes
In America who inhabited this entire continent…. And yes the price
We are paying for what we owe is beyond frightening … Joe Biden
Has done more & aaccomplished
Heroic unification and dignity with NATO and other international
Countries..yes he is old BUT Biden
Has done more than any previous
President in two years other than
FDR …I trust Biden’s leadership and his team and Biden has my VOTE !!!
Dick God Bless Your Patriotism and
Your respectful response! Marsha
Sherri Mayer as I just finished athe hospice Hospital doing grief work with a family .. I’m home reading
Your response and sending you
Hugs and gratitude, Marsha 🌹
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
Make it a disgraced, twice impeached, serial rapist, bigot and grifting criminal.
Spectacular observations thank you
Since when does “well-regulated militia” mean “unregulated free-for-all?”
Marlene your comment / Honest
it made me smile You are correct “unregulated free-for-all”
Is what we have 💙well-regulated
militia is what DeSantis has his own
In dystopian Florida book burning!
I would love to post an eloquent response in support of your efforts, Steve. I can only muster appreciation and affirmation - I’m all out of shock, I’m no longer surprised and I’ve got no more words on this topic. 😞
I'm with you.
The mass shootings have become the norm. Just like hearing the upcoming weeks weather forecast.
Time to start publishing the photos of the gruesome “American Carnage” each day.
I have a Clockwork Orange fantasy that these NRA nuts and Republican politicians who support them (and vice-versa) be obliged to watch the results of the carnage they wreak, like the hoodlum in the movie - eyes forced open, no way to avoid the images - for days on end. Maybe that would cure them.
I’ve thought about this also. Where is the line for respect for the family and victims vs the desired wake up call for America: these are not weapons for hunting or sport, just for murder. Perhaps the families will offer permission for this cause but it would have to be done only with their permission.
Remember the photo of one child burned by Napalm bomb
A young girl I’ll never forget her
Maybe photos are the reality!
God Bless you for remembering
Hugs and kindnesses, Marsha 🌹
Tony. If a victim’s family agrees to publish photos I am all for it. ESP from Sandy Hook, Uvalde and other “sites” where children have been shredded by assault weapons
Where are these killers getting the money to buy these weapons? No one is investigating that one detail. Yes, the media jumps on the social profiles to find these losers cannot string words together to make sense, nor can they spell.
This tells me they cannot hold a job, so how does the money mysteriously appear in their hands? They cannot be in possession of a credit card, so they must have cash.
This loser was on a Russian internet site. Putin/Russia has been attempting to rip our society apart from within.
The NRA has admitted receiving money from Russians.
Could Russian agents be “grooming” these creatures using the right wing insanity to get them fired up and then getting the cash to them?
There are multiple methods of transmitting cash that are easy to hide. Why isn’t the FBI looking into the funding.
Body armor, patches, weapons, ammunition- I sure don’t keep that amount of walking around money on me. Where is it coming from?
Anything and everyting is possible Jack
My husband manages a retail store in an outside shopping mall in our community. Last year one of the larger stores closed & in its place there's now a Sportsman's Warehouse. The entire feel of that center changed after that store opened. Now, instead of people with their fishing gear & Guy Harvey shirts, there are tons of 'in your face' Trumpsters & Maganuts. That place sends out weekly ads in the paper with pages of guns. So, every month when we have our First Friday gatherings with great food, music, families with happy children running around...I sit home with a pit in my stomach. I break out in a sweat when I hear the sirens screaming down the road until my husband texts me that everything is fine.
Living in the Land of Lunatics isn't fun anymore. It changed a lot when Rick Scott took over and it's gotten worse every year since. We only have a few more years until he retires & we can decide if the beauty of the Gulf of Mexico is worth the risk.
The MAGAGOP has precisely zero inclination to offer anything meaningful other than useless thoughts-n-prayers (and lip service about mental illness). The frenzy of mass shootings create precisely the kind of "American carnage" and free-floating anxiety that shores up support for their "I alone can fix it" fascism. Oh, and also sells more guns (keeping those NRA donations flowing).
It is madness and it Must stop! When the gun advocates say it is people and not guns doing the killing, I think about Babe Ruth--without his bat, he would have hit very few homers...
Great analogy David!!
A nation who refuses to protect its children from senseless murder has failed. This is on the GOP, who is beholden to the NRA, who's been enmeshed with the Russian death cult regime for decades. We have failed and this must end.
Many of us can agree that this carnage needs to stop, but how? I would say outlaw assault-style weapons, but my husband (a staunch Democrat after his misspent youth as a Republican) says there are too many already out there. I say too bad, outlaw and confiscate the guns, like they did in Australia. But I know it will never happen. Americans are overwhelmed by the destruction being caused to our society, politics, economy and environment. I hate thinking about what my children and grandchildren have ahead of them. This is what causes decent people to leave their home countries.
Good article. We are seeing the consequences of our idolatry of the 2nd Amendment. How sad it is that white evangelicals are typically on the front pew of this worship.
@Michael Anderson .. +1. .. Agreed. .. Lemmings... Cheers
I do not believe it is a coincidence that the Proud Boys leader was found guilty and "death squads" took to the streets targeting and killing anyone who doesn't look or pray like them.
I would bet May 8th is just as significant to these terrorists as their failed coup on January 6th.
Perhaps it was our media and those pearl clutching representatives non response to the "American Carnage" speech by a President of the United States on his Inauguration Day that kick started this unholy campaign of lawless terror.
Donald Trump and all those in his orbit are domestic terrorists and they are meeting in Florida this week.
Edit - if ran a political campaign, I'd use sound bites from his Inauguration speech over a montage of mass shootings and his campaign of terror.
Thanks to all of you. I can’t imagine what it would take to get effective gun legislation passed. If the killing of children doesn’t affect the GOP, what are they?