No, Donald, It’s a GUN Problem
Today in Tokyo, Trump said that the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs Texas yesterday was “a mental health problem” and “not a guns situation”. As we’ve pointed out before, every country has mental health issues, but the ONLY country that has a mass shooting problem is the United States. The difference between us and other developed countries? Guns. Hundreds of millions of guns.
The Sutherland Springs shooter was 26 and had received a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force in 2014 after serving a year in a military jail for assaulting his wife and his child. He bought his assault rifle at an Academy in San Antonio. How in the hell can an individual with this kind of criminal record? Answer – The background check system in this country SUCKS. Many records are still paper. Not all criminal records make it into the system. NO mental health data gets into the system unless a court adjudicates a person incompetent.
In short, any idiot, criminal, and weirdo can easily put his hands on a weapon(s) with a high capacity magazine and all the ammo he can afford. This is not a mental health problem, Donald, it’s a GUN problem. Hundreds of millions of guns.
So clearly the results of court-martial proceedings should be entered in NCIC so they are available to local police. It makes my head explode that a New Braunfels officer might have contacted this military felon and not known. This is a major officer safety issue.
1Yes trump IT IS A GUN ISSUE….sorry could not help but shout, sorry you had to hear that. Mental health issues are different than having access to automatic rifles issue!
2Si, El Jefe, our streets are super saturated with guns. I know people who congregate in parking lots after church and brag about how many rounds of ammunition they have stored.
Anymore, one must assume everyone else in the room is packing heat, ready for a fast draw and a shoot-out.
Ken Paxton is a fool. You can’t legislate against guns unless the second amendment is amended.
Please note: I have heard of no Dem introducing any proposed legislation to control guns. No dem dares force the hand of the Speaker or the Majority Leader. Dare them to sit on attempts to control the slaughter.
Somebody stand for something.
3I agree Daniel, why are politicians so afraid if the gun lobby, stand up for that 5 year old child that was killed at church. There has to be someone with the courage to do that!
4On Feb 28, 2017, POTUS Trump signed a law allowing people with mental health issues to purchase guns.
He signed a law allowing people with mental health issues to purchase guns. This reversed a law signed by POTUS Obama after the Sandy Hook mass killings.
He needs to be held accountable for His actions.
He can’t have it both ways. He can’t call it a mental health problem and cut funds for mental health insurance, for signing a law allowing troubled individuals to own guns.
He admitted in a speech we have mental health problem in this country. He also mentioned other countries have the same problem.
Logic dictates that the reason other countries don’t have mass shooting is because the citizens of those countries are not armed.
But, I no longer believe that the republicans can distinguish between reality and fantasy, logic and magical thinking. Very, very sad.
And I wonder what God is thinking when all these people pray to him after these mass shootings. Is he wondering why Americans are so stupid they can’t figure out that guns really do kill people????
5Hair Drumpf has a mental problem. America has a gun problem.
6Trump said it himself: “This is a mental health problem at the highest level.”
7If absolutely forced to make a choice, Republicans would sooner say it’s a church problem, people gathering in a church, rather than admit it’s a gun problem.
Politicians, there were plenty of prayers in that church yesterday as the shooting took place. Your “thoughts and prayers” after the fact won’t prevent the next mass shooting.
8All gun purchase records are on paper, by statute. Searches are done by hand, by statute. Thanks NRA, republicans, and 63 million moron-Americans.
https://www.gq.com/story/inside-federal-bureau-of-way-too-many-guns
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/10/27/firearms-national-tracing-center-atf/74401060/
9What Larry from Colorado said.
What will cure Drumph’s problem, I don’t know; what will cure America’s problem is a lot more stringent regulation of firearms.
10Both seem to be a lost cause, for now (I was going to say “until one of their own gets shot; but that already happened, and made no difference at all).
Add Kellyanne Conway to the list of eligible candidates for a scolds bridle! Yes she actually said what she said! That old canard about disrespecting the victims by calling for action against guns! Her brain has been totally bleached of all actual substance!
11I am in agreement with everything El Jefe has posted here. For a change.
There are quite a few ideas on how to combat the NRA and tRumpatistas and I wish we would start hearing from some of those in power about them.
Alas, I will wish in vain.
12And then Paxton had an article in today’s Dallas Morning News to the effect that if everyone here in Texas just had more guns and more concealed carry permits, we could keep this kind of thing from happening ! Seriously? The lunatics are definitely in charge of the state of Texas. And this year the Texas Department of Public Safety awarded the Sutherland Springs shooter a Security Guard license/permit. Not to mention that he has apparently been practicing with all kinds of guns at his family’s big spread in New Braunfels. The paper said that he and his father had had a falling out some time ago, and interestingly enough, no one has seen his father.
13Have to wait for the next episode.
This nation is going to implode from the idiocracy that is controlling it. True mental health issues, in my opinion, have less to do with this than a total lack of an individual and collective moral compass and no impulse control at all. Much of the citizenry seems to be developmentally stalled in adolescence
I just saw the pastor from this church on tv. He said..right into the camera..that the reason someone shot up his congregation is that “we pay too much attention to the world and not enough attention to god”. I’m completely dumbfounded. If God didn’t protect his congregation while they’re sitting in his church praying, maybe we ought to try something else.
And our governor basically said the same damn thing. “Pray harder.” Yes our nation has a mental health problem. And fixing it starts with addressing this expectation that magic will happen if we all just pray enough. This is crazy on so many levels that I don’t even know where to start..with the victim blaming (oh they didn’t pray right), or the justification for inaction (all we have to do is let god sort it out). All pretty words, sure. The stuff we all grew up with and find it almost impossible to argue with. But it isn’t working.
14This was a wanna be domestic. The guy’s ex-wife and kiddo attended this church now and then with her folks. I’ll bet that poor woman doesn’t sleep for a month AND has a bad case of survivors’ guilt as well!
15Ellen Childress says:
And then Paxton had an article in today’s Dallas Morning News … if everyone here in Texas just had more guns and more concealed carry permits…
Why not more thoughts and prayers? That’s in-effectively all Texas Republican politicians offer.
A Texas Prayer:
16Please God, in your infinite mercy, protect us from our governor and on down the line, so that I may not be killed in a mass, or minor, shooting today. Amen.
This atrocity happened because this country is the way the NRA wants it to be.
It is illegal to store gun ownership records not on paper. Therefor how can records be quickly and effectively searched: they can’t.
17Persons with a criminal history of domestic abuse should be banned from gun ownership (for a period or permanently?), but no…
It’s both; mental illness and access to firearms.
During my commissioned service in the military I was instructed to never BRI g a weapon into the chapel, but to leave them in a secure place in the (apse?) area just outside. This applied to religious services, and not to armed patrols, of course.
If someone wishes to carry a weapon off their premises, their home, they should be able to demonstrate a certain level of proficiency. What they do within the boundaries of their property is up to them.
And nobody really needs a highcapacity high-powered semiautomatic weapon, either. If your aim isn’t good enough to do the job with a couple of rounds you shouldn’t be shooting anywhere but the firing range.
And remember to have your blood lead level tested. Exposure to lead is a cause of violence.
18Oh yes, everyone should carry concealed. I’d like to see more shoot-outs in church, in WalMart, in McDonalds, in Home Depot, rolling down the highways, everywhere! Good old American fun! And so good for the economy with all those jobs for EMTs, ambulance drivers, ER personnel, undertakers, and rehab therapists.
19America’s domestic terrorism problem is caused by the proliferation of guns (NRA/GOP) and white American Christian male terrorists.
I don’t think that toxic masculinity/testosterone poisoning is a problem in the majority of white American males, but it is in the ones who become terrorists. I don’t think this high level of masculine insecurity is a problem in other countries. Nations with high levels of female participation in prominent, powerful roles of government and economy don’t have the problem.
Why does America have this very troubled, violent, large subset of males? I feel this is a problem males must dig into, understand, and halt- perhaps not in that order.
Healthy males need to take a bigger role in calling out and schooling aggressive, violent, abusive males. Several non-participating males were aware of, or even witnessed examples of males acting out in recent news stories from entertainment, state houses of government, etc. Silence implies assent. Forceful objection is required!
Men. You must change your culture. I don’t think it can be changed from outside.
20I would hasten to point out that the NRA is actively lobbying to eliminate the domestic abuse disqualification which would have qualified this shooter.
21Aggieland Liz,
Per noon news statements, it was triggered by a domestic issue, the killer had divorce/custody problems with his mother-in-law and possibly other family, his goal appeared to have been to target the M-i-L.
She wasn’t even in the church Sunday.
So this diseased vermin killed a bunch of strangers. Including an 18 month old toddler and several other children.
The killer also had been charged with cruelty to animals and other things not long ago. Surely his parents, whose property he lived on, should have done something…
Nearby people interviewed spoke of gunfire and explosions from the property, even at night.
My take on that is that he was baiting nocturnal critters like raccoons and slaughtering them, for ‘kicks’.
(Raccoons are suckers for catfood. I made the mistake yesterday of leaving a large new (Chewy shipped) 31lb sack of it right outside my front door, I forgot to put it in the shed. When I went outside ~1130P the sack had a big, D-shaped hole neatly cut in it about 16″ from the bottom (like the rascal used a scissors or knife), and a bunch was gone, with not a bit wasted on the porch. The hole was way above any barncat.)
.
Debbo, RE: The ‘testosterone-machoman’ mental stuff:
This killer vermin strikes me as being as a very focked up, insecure, unstable momma’s boy. Not some kind of supercharged Type A-T take-charge overcompensator.
He was an inhibited underachiever to outward appearances, underneath a seething cauldron of failure.
Even his enlisted assigned USAF MOS, logistics, implies that the service selection process shunted him into a nothingburger slot; which even that he couldn’t handle, and knew it.
That said, our ‘Murikan Kulture– vid games, movies, tv, etc., enhances all this crap, IMO.
No charges for Dr. Strangluv Sandridge’s semi-expert diagnosis.
22@Sandridge—We used to hear automatic gunfire from a neighbor down the road from us at our last house out in the country. He would “target” practice every weekend. We had about five acres between us, but still, it was unnerving. We weren’t sure just where the shooter was, but we suspected it was he.
One day my police officer son-in-law phoned me and told me to stay inside. The neighbor had called them and said he’d just shot and killed his wife and her little dog. When the sheriffs got there they found her dead of a gunshot wound to the chest and the neighbor was on the couch with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. He died later that day.
Never heard automatic gunfire again, needless to say.
23Try this on for size-(hint absolutely mind boggling detecting)
It was not immediately clear whether Kelley died from the self-inflicted gunshot wound or from the shot by the resident. “However, investigators found evidence at the scene that indicates the subject may have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Martin said.
Me, I’m thinking if he is dead already, why would he waste a perfectly good bullet to the head. But that is just me.
24Not sure of her source but Samantha Bee says over half of mass shooters had domestic violence issues first. So that’s the #2 reason why the NRA should not be putting guns back in the hands of domestic violence perps, #1 of course being that that would tend to lead to more dead women and kids. Gee, how could I possibly assume that the NRA loves gun sales more than they don’t want dead women and kids…. Because I think the NRA is run by a bunch of sociopaths? Why yes, I think that’s it.
25Here’s Samantha Bee’s video on that. Not sure, but it’s a safe bet Mama shouldn’t watch; Samantha’s kids outspoken on this sort of thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBuKbe40uWM
26e platypus onion,
Most of these guys are not the smoothest speakers and I’ve seen them get all tanglefooted, with omissions, misstatements, and extraneous bull.
If you want to watch the real “master”, look at Gov. Abbott, he can twist and kite more slippery bullsh!t than about anyone I’ve seen.
The top DPS guy made an unequivocal statement that the killer, upon ME autopsy, had three gunshot wounds:
one to his leg,
one to his abdomen,
and a head wound consistent with it being self-inflicted.
The leg and body gunshots were imparted by the good guy rifleman (a Mr. Willeford), who engaged the killer outside the church. Severity unknown, but apparently enough to finally incapacitate the killer.
The mystery I’ve been wondering about:
1st part– is why (or did) the killer park some distance away at the gas station on Hwy 87 (the church is on FM 539), as stated multiple times,
and then walk across US Hwy 87, and ~200’+ down FM539 to the church, dressed up ‘tactically’ and carrying the AR rifle; instead of simply driving to the church itself? Parking might be scarce then, but somebody that determined wouldn’t care IMO.
2nd part– of the mystery is how did the killer, presumably severely wounded, get ~400′ back to his vehicle, crossing the highway again too?
The neighbor rifleman could easily have also shot the killer again during this walk back, I would guess; perhaps he had taken cover for a few moments, not knowing the killer was wounded or possibly unarmed at that time (having dropped his AR at the church).
Plus, that gas station, some distance from the church, is where the rifleman enlisted Johnnie L., the pursuit driver most interviewed (there was one interview of Mr. Willeford, he was still shaken).
It’s still a little sketchy to me.
Also announced, the killer left behind qty-15, 30 round (capacity) AR magazines (likely .223Rem, a very potent cartridge), all empty.
He expended at least 450 rounds of ammunition in a few minutes inside that little church with perhaps 50-60 people in there… 450 goddamned bullets… that’s 8-9 each person…
How many of y’all have seen gunshot wounds? Or inflicted them, and seen what the ‘shows’ never actually show in the depictions?
27This is a sick sick country.
.
.
I want us to stop assuming mental health issues, at least the sort that are acknowledged and treatable.
Being an angry asshole is not a mental health issue. Being an angry asshole with a semi-automatic rifle is a PUBLIC health issue, but apparently we’re not to talk about that. Even the CDC isn’t allowed to talk about that.
As the Onion headline says, “Nothing can be done about mass shootings, says the only nation where mass shootings happen.”
28TexasTrailerParkTrash ,
Gunfire here used to be very common, now there has been a lot (well, ~4, on acreage) of new $500K homes constructed nearby. I often shot target and varmit myself in the yard.
I don’t think these new effete cityfolk hereabouts would appreciate it, so I’ve pretty well quit firing.
There are still a lot of dayhunting bird and hog hunters active close by though, it can get a bit noisy.
That incident you remarked, might dimly remember it, or there was a similar one in Bandera.
29Sandridge—We lived out in the country (both in California and here in Texas) for over 30 years on parcels varying in size from 3 acres to 79 acres before we finally moved into town. We often heard shooting from hunters and learned to tolerate it. But the rapid firing of the automatic weapon practice from the nut down the road was chilling. The incident I mentioned was in July of 2010.
I’m glad you asked if anyone has seen the actual results of a gunshot wound, especially from an automatic weapon. I have not, but I was told that if the photos of the children who were murdered at Sandy Hook were released, it might change some people’s minds about allowing those types of weapons. One little boy’s jaw was blown off, just as an example. But then, there are fools like Alex Jones who think it was all a false flag operation to take guns away. Yes, it is a sick nation.
30The gunman who massacred 26 people should never have been able to purchased either firearms or body armor. Why was he able to? The Air Force neglected to inform the FBI of his discharge type and the details. There are no Air Force prisons. Kelley spent his sentence in a Navy brig and those records, fingerprints were not forwarded. Gen Mattis is “looking into” this failure to follow established procedures.
31The second amendment was written about the same time as the 3/5 person compromise of slave counting. Both needed revisiting. It took the Civil war to get rid of that stupid 3/5’s compromise (are you paying attention, Gen. Kelly?) and we still need to rework the second amendment. That’s not a bad target for all those leftover “repeal and replace” signs.
32Start sending a couple of these photo’s to your NRA “bought and paid for” Congressman/Senator!
Rent a billboard where you live with a few of these photo’s on one side and the face of your NRA lackey of a representative/senator on the other side!
https://www.pinterest.com/micktan_us/gunshot-wounds-graphic/
33I worked the emergency rooms where males regularly shot each other over a parking place at fast food joints. Yeah, it was all guys. Women used guns usually for domestics. You don’t want to ever see what bullets do to the human body. So more guns would just mean more parking lot arguments. The IRONY of this is that those doing the shooting are inevitably poor and mostly needing life flight services to a real trauma center. Our county didn’t have one. At $45,000 a trip to a trauma center with an indigent on board; just who do you think was picking up the tab for this? It sure won’t be the republicans if they have their way.
34TexasTrailerParkTrash,
RE: gunfire wounds (these killers also generally use hollowpoint bullets too, which do much more damage than a FMJ) —
I was struck by the images of President Obama we saw on the news shortly after that Sandy Hook massacre, you could tell he was badly shaken. I doubt that he had ever seen the result of gunfire, or any thing like it before, especially involving children.
(y’all know I like the guy, but as a ‘leader’ he wasn’t, and had a large part in bringing about the sorry state of affairs the Democrats are in now.)
.
SOBOTUS had a few more words on the Sutherland Springs shooting today, at least 80% of them were absolutely wrong, incorrect, bullchit, or deceptive. DPOS…
And Mikey Pence is coming down here tomorrow to visit Sutherland Springs, so the bullchit will be deep.
35I’d also bet that he combines the trip with some major fundraising for the Rethugs, of course that would be by stopping in the big cities like San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, or Houston; no point in wasting a whole long trip just on the proles.