Someone is cashing in on his 15 minutes of fame and those minutes are rapidly running out. Kyle Rittenhouse was a student at Arizona State University. Well that turned out to be false. This week he came out and said he was attending Texas A&M University. Apparently, that is news to them. So, he quickly retracted and said he would be attending Blinn Junior College for a year and then transferring to the big school in 2023. Well, as you might have guessed, Rittenhouse is zero for three.

I suppose there is a clown college up the road he can try if he continues to strike out at all of these fine institutions. I really don’t want to cast aspersions upon Blinn College and any other community college. They have a lot of terrific programs that give our students a chance to gain further certifications in the career pathway they chose. For those going onto a four year degree, they offer a very affordable way to get your basics out of the way. One thing they are not is selective. Every kid that applies at our school gets in. So, a failure to get into Blinn is really saying something.

Unfortunately, the end of my high school career was robbed from me. I didn't have the time other students get to properly prepare for the future.

I look forward to attending Blinn College District this year, a feeder school for Texas A&M.

I'm excited to join Texas A&M in 2023!

— Kyle Rittenhouse (@ThisIsKyleR) June 6, 2022

Geez, you can’t help but feel sorry for the kid. I mean, he goes across state lines with a semi-automatic weapon to guard property that’s not his. He subsequently shoots three people where two of them are dead. It could have happened to anyone really. Maybe we could all pause for a moment of silence to ponder the unfortunate future of Rittenhouse’s life. If only he had the time in between a murder trial, numerous guest appearances on conservative television and radio, and whatever speaking engagements he’s had then maybe he would have gotten into at least one of those schools.

Then again, and I’m just spit balling here, maybe those schools would rather not have a kid that’s already killed two people on their campus. Oh heck, who am I kidding? He just didn’t have time to fill out all of the paperwork to get in. I’m sure that must be it. What’s really unfortunate is that no one in his life has bothered to tell him he shouldn’t be bragging about these things. None of this is something to be proud of and really none of us care where he goes. We just like to have a quick laugh at his expense. It’s the very least that he can give us after all he’s done.

The problem of gun violence, especially mass shootings, is not all that complicated.  The solution for it has been figured out by every other industrialized nation on the planet.  The US has CHOSEN to not solve it.  Those reasons are also simple – power.  As long as the gun culture has an outsized voice with the electorate, namely the Senate, nothing will happen.  That doesn’t mean the answer is complicated, but money and power wont allow it.  To avoid talking about the real solution to gun violence, politicians and the gun lobby repeat bullshit every time there is a mass shooting, which is now a weekly occurrence.

Let’s review said bullshit:

1. Good guy with a gun – the most common, yet one of the most false.  Almost no mass shootings are stopped by an armed citizen, and in fact, armed citizens are generally killed or wounded trying to help, like the security guard at the Tops Grocery in Buffalo New York a few weeks ago.
2. An armed society is a polite society” – this one is as stupid as it sounds.  Name me an Open Carry Texas member who is a polite member of society and I’ll show you a fictional character.
3. More guns equals more safety – if that were true, we’d be the safest society on the planet.  As it is, our gun violence death rate is 4 times that of industrialized nations.
4. Crime decreased as we loosened gun laws – which equals, “I ate ice cream yesterday, then it rained.  Eating ice cream causes rain.”  Correlation does not equal causality, but I can say now that the states with looser gun laws have greater per capita gun deaths than those with strict gun laws.
5. What about “shall not be infringed” do you not understand – which is one of the silliest arguments.  All historic documents, including James Madison’s own notes, showed that the Founders were terrified of standing armies, (especially the British) and decided to defend the new US government with citizen militias under local authorities federalized during times of war.  That history is well documented and easily studied for those who read past the NRA’s propaganda.  In the early days, firearms were kept at home, but ammunition and gun powder were kept in local armories for safety.  Our founding generation was not populated by idiots.
6. Criminals don’t follow the law – again, an idiotic argument which supports the notion that, if this is true, we shouldn’t have stop signs, traffic lights, or speed limits.  Laws aren’t written for people to obey, since responsible citizens do that.  Laws are written to establish a framework of enforcement and punishment for those who don’t follow the law.
7. We should harden our schools and have armed law enforcement guarding the schools – again a stupid argument.  First, making every school in the nation a fortress is impossible.  Second it doesn’t work.  Case in point, just YESTERDAY, there were armed police at the school in Uvalde when the shooter got there.  They shot at him, but he was wearing body armor and was returning fire with an AR-15.  Even though there were armed officers at the school, he got in anyway, then killed 19 children and two teachers.  The cops got him only after SWAT arrived and blew him away with comparable weapons to what he was using.
8. We should arm the teachers – Ted Cruz made this idiotic statement many times including yesterday. This is the dumbest goddam suggestion of all.  See number 7 above.  If police couldn’t stop him, how the fuck is little Ms. Perrywinkle, the second grade arithmetic teacher two years out of college going to do it?

Ted Cruz, pull your head out of your ass.

Nobody goes to Washington completely selfless. Oh sure, everyone loves to talk about how they want to be a service to the people. Some will put on the humble pie act. Others will speak longingly about how they want to do the people’s business and make the lives of their constituents better. I’m sure a large part of them actually believes that.

At some point, they realize they have to gain more power to do the things they want to do. There are multiple ways to do this. The less ambitious bide their time. They actually work day to day for their constituents. They figure it will get them reelected and with every passing election they will gain more power. Such thoughts are so quaint.

A second kind comes in with big ideas. They gain notoriety quickly with those big ideas and it can be somewhat difficult to distinguish them from the glory hounds. Obviously, most people immediately think of AOC, but Bernie Sanders fits under that category as well. They usually don’t get what they want but they help steer the conversation in a productive way.

Then, there are the Thomas Massie’s of the world. John Pavlovitz already covered serious ground on the picture above. I’ve enjoyed his writing for some time, but I suspect he knows he has been used in this instance. Underneath the picture read the caption, “Santa, please bring ammo.” I suppose Massie could love his guns that much, but I suspect that John knows perfectly well that a love of guns wasn’t the point of this Christmas card.

This picture was about performative politics. It was about the fact that Matt Gaetz, Majorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert are getting all the headlines. How do you get yourself in there? Well, you take a picture days after a school shooting with timing so crass you can’t help but get your fifteen minutes of fame. Or should we say infamy? As Martin Short’s character in the Three Amigos said, “infamous means more than famous.” Well, Massie certainly qualifies. Except he’s bringing a butter knife to a gun fight. Greene, Gaetz, and Boebert are pros at this. They’ve made a living of getting people to know who they are without actually accomplishing anything.

That’s the difference between performative politics and what people like AOC do. They become famous and powerful and yet no one can name a single thing they’ve actually done or actually proposed. The idea is to own the liberals. Massie certainly won this round. He’s provoked outrage. He’s inspired a number of writers to condemn his stupidity. He’s dumb, but he’s not so dumb.

Today, Dan Patrick (who I regard as a lunatic) announced that he didn’t have enough votes to pass the Unqualified Carry Law that allows any idiot to openly (or concealed) carry a handgun in public without ANY licensing requirement.  He did say that if he got enough votes, he would advance the bill, and was looking for advice from the NRA and other gun advocacy organizations. Swell.  Thankfully, law enforcement is opposed to this bill for obvious reasons.

Gun nuts in Texas have been pushing the notion of Unqualified Carry for about 7 or 8 years now, even coining the term “Constitutional Carry” which doesn’t exist.  What it really is is Unqualified Carry, that is, the ability of anyone to carry a handgun openly without a permit and with no mechanism for law enforcement to examine a carrier’s qualifications.  The one successful thing the gun lobby, lead by the NRA, has done is to rewrite the Second Amendment over the last 5 decades pushing the notion that the Founders envisioned a society where guns are omnipresent; nothing could be farther from the truth, but it took decades of junk law based on manipulated and faked data to finally get this rewriting incorporated into caselaw. This rewrite culminated in the Heller decision, written by Antonin Scalia, who overturned two centuries of caselaw declaring the the Second Amendment was all about guns for everyone which it wasn’t. The Second Amendment was established to enable the new government to defend itself from 1) foreign enemies, and 2) insurrection.  All this bullshit being peddled about an armed citizenry being able to overthrow the US government for “tyranny” is just that: bullshit.  We saw the logical result of such bullshit on January 6th when brainwashed morons stormed the US Capitol to stop democracy from functioning and to force their own will on 300 million Americans.

Back to the present effort to undo remaining gun laws in Texas, and let’s be blunt; there is one reason, and one reason only for gun nuts and their various organizations to push Unqualified Carry, and that is to allow criminals and other unqualified individuals easy access to firearms so manufacturers can sell more firearms.  That’s it, period, end of sentence.  Gun nuts, lead by really crazy gun nuts, have been brainwashed by decades of bullshit published by the gun lobby that society must be the omnipresence of deadly firearms because society is evil and everyone must protect themselves and their families from scary dark people, socialist politicians, and government tyranny that they can’t define.

To make matters worse, Texas allows unregulated private sales and internet sales of ammunition and gun parts including 80% receivers which allow criminals who can’t put their hands on a firearm to just build one.  To take away the permitting requirement for handgun carry opens the floodgates for criminals, many of whom who have pushed for Unqualified Carry because they can’t get a license due to their past criminal records.

When a law is being considered, the question needs to be asked: Will this law make citizens lives better or safer?  Because this law puts more guns in unqualified hands, the answer is a resounding no.  The Unqualified Carry law won’t improve any lives (except criminals).  Because it will put more guns on the street, it will make law enforcement more difficult, risk law abiding citizens’ lives, AND enable criminals to carry guns without being challenged.  It will greatly complicate police officers’ jobs while a crime is being committed, and will slow their response.  In short, there is no good reason, no great need, and no problem that will be solved by allowing Unqualified Carry.   It’s already proven that the presence of guns increases violence, increases crime, and increases deaths.  This law will do no good, and cause a lot of grief for Texans, as if we needed that.

The Washington Post is reporting that at least 5 of the terrorists who have been charged with planning the kidnapping and murder of Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer played prominent roles in the April protests where the capital was swarmed by heavily armed gun nuts.  Three of said nuts are in the now famous photo standing menacing people in the capitol building.

At least 5 of those charged played active roles in these protests that shut down the state government and were active in 7 other protests around the state until they were arrested.  It’s also come to light that these terrorists identified themselves with the Boogaloos Bois movement which is spreading a violent ideology.  After we witnessed Trumpists stopping traffic and even threatening Biden campaign busses over the weekend, it’s clear now that Republican leaders, through decades of gross negligence and radical ideology, have unleashed evil forces in the US not see since the Kennedy assassination in the early 60s and the American Nazi movement in the 30s.

We must pull back from the brink shine the light on these criminals.  Enough of this is enough.

Yesterday, a 17 year old boy was arrested in Illinois for the shooting of three people, two fatally, at the protests in Kenosha Wisconsin over police shooting Jacob Blake in the back.  He used an assault rifle. The boy has appeared in several videos in altercations with protestors and people chasing him after the shootings, shouting at police that he was the shooter, which they ignored. In a video shot earlier that evening, the shooter claimed to be there to protect a car dealership with other armed vigilantes.  His  social media pages are full of gun videos and pro-police posts, as well of one of him with a ringside seat at a Trump rally in January.  Of course.

Where a goddam kid put his hands on an assault rifle is as yet unknown.  It’s illegal for a 17 year old to possess or open carry an assault rifle in Wisconsin or Illinois.  Unregulated private gun sales are legal in Wisconsin and open carry is legal for those 18 and over.  The Gifford’s Law Center rates Wisconsin gun laws at a C-.  In Illinois, rated A- by the Giffords Law Center, it is illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to purchase or own a long gun, even with parental consent.  We’ll likely find out that the assault weapon the shooter used in these murders either belonged to the shooter’s parents OR was purchased in Wisconsin in an unregulated sale.  This is a textbook example of why state and local gun laws simply don’t work.  Common sense, strict gun laws at the federal level is the only way we can even hope to reduce widespread gun violence.

On the other side of the country, armed radical right wing gun nuts pushed past Idaho state police officers at the state capitol in Boise, broke down the state house gallery door and stormed into the chamber to protest common sense public health policy.  Fearing violence, the police and the house majority leader allowed said gun nuts to fill the entire gallery ignoring social distancing rules and essentially commandeering state property that had been cordoned off to allow the senators to social distance as they debated health policy legislation. They also filled committee rooms and an auditorium.  There were only a few arrests, but one included Ammon Bundy, son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who has successfully commandeered federal land for his own private use for grazing his cattle.  It appears the younger Bundy was the leader of the Idaho protest.  One other note – this incident happened in the very same building where, in 2014, state police arrested dozens of protestors standing silently in the hallways to protest for LGBTQ rights.

The lessons here aren’t complicated.  The simple truth is that white guys carrying assault rifles literally get away with murder, violence, and threats of violence when other people, including lawmakers, are doing anything they hate.  Put even more simply, armed white guys have more rights than disarmed peaceful black people.  Carrying of weapons emboldens people to violate our laws and destroy societal norms.  Police allow, and sometimes even condone, such behavior, and the presence of guns during protests always confuses the situation and increases violence.  Self appointed “militia”, which are illegal, commandeer public property, and insert themselves into protests to  “protect” private property, but their effect is universally destabilizing. We have seen that many times, including the violence at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, and at other protests from New Mexico to Dallas.

Allowing guns anywhere near political speech is nothing short of terrible public policy, period.  State and local gun laws don’t work, period.  Gun safety laws must be federal.  Guns in state capitols and municipal buildings threatens to destroy what’s left of our political system in America.  NO OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRY HAS THIS PROBLEM.  The rest of the world understands that guns increase violence and death all the time, every time.  Only strong federal laws have a prayer of reducing the violence and threat of violence that now permeates our society.