There’s been another school shooting, this time in Maryland.
Domestic terrorists are blowing people up in Texas, initially targeting black people, but now progressing to random explosions.
Our government will do nothing.
Situation normal. This is America now.
Not to worry. As soon as the first white man gets injured by a bomb federal, state and local law enforcement will be all over this like scratches on eyeglasses. Or if a sliver of evidence shows up suggesting the bomber is a a person of colour or might follow Islam. And this just shows how vitally important it is to make sure that firearms are available to anyone and everyone (well, except blacks, Latinos, anyone with a non-European name). If any of the bombing victims had been armed, they could have shot the bomb and made it blow up near someone else. Just think how many kids would be killed or injured by bombs if they couldn’t bring guns to school!
I worry we get a copycat shooting here.
Meanwhile, the American people sit by like brainless golems as the country goes to hell, led by President Trump, the sycophant Republican Party and the NRA. Any chance for a 1789-style revolution? Doesn’t look like it.
NRA-“That’s awful. Is the gun okay?”
This time around, it appears as if the “good guy with a gun” was able to stop the shooter before he killed anyone. Watch the NRA, Drumpf and others start crowing about this in 3, 2, 1 …..
Sigh!
– RM
rgmani, #5
It wasn’t a “good guy with a gun”; it was an actual law enforcement officer. But you’re right. That won’t stop the proponents of child murder from crowing. And why shouldn’t they? They know a huge portion of the public will believe their bullshit.
weylguy, #3
It will take way, way more than this. The offenses against us would have to be greater than the inconvenience it would cause us to revolt (i.e. missing work, little Billy not being able to make it to soccer practice, missing the Bachelor finale, etc).
#1 Oggie
I totally ugly-laughed at this! Please don’t give these people any more idears, though!
This case
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/officer-who-fatally-shot-justine-damond-charged-murder-n831206
is also sad but illuminating. While the officer seems to be a screw-up who has no business wearing a badge, the interesting thing is the people coming out of the woodwork to attack him. Let’s see…
Black cop shoots white woman for no reason = bad cop
White cop shoots black man for no reason = heroic cop
What could possibly be the unifying thread here? What? What?
In the meantime, in France we have an ex president in custody for allegedly accepting a bribe from Gaddafi a few year before helping to start a war to depose/kill him.
That’s another kind of evil
euclide@10,
Sarkozy is and always was a repulsive shit, but what did he have to do with the war against Gaddafi? Even if he expressed his support, surely that made no difference? Hollande was President.
KG@10, From Gaddafi relations haunt Sarkozy in 2007 campaign financing case (my emboldening):
me@12, Sorry, I clicked the wrong button, so my final paragraph got dropped: “The article goes on to note Sarkoführer ‘was in the vanguard of advocacy for NATO-led air strikes in support of the rebellion that would ultimately end Gaddafi’s 42-year rule’. All this was in 2011, Hollande didn’t take office until 2012. The rebellion started in 2011 (and is apparently known as the ‘17 February Revolution‘, referring to its 2011 start).”
brucegee1962 @ 9: While I completely see where you’re coming from, I’d say that there are two unifying threads here, Yes, racism. But also: two bad cops.
Or, maybe more broadly: a systemic insanity in our country that allows — even encourages — all cops to kill whomever they want.
I’m from Minneapolis (though no longer live there) so have kept up with this story. This cop’s lawyer is claiming that the cop followed his training, and that no charges should have been filed. If anyone not a cop had done what this man did, they’d have been immediately arrested. Of course they would have. When it happened, I thought, cynically but I thought realistically, that this would have been one time when a cop would have finally been in trouble for shooting someone unarmed: black cop, Australian white woman in a well-to-do neighborhood. No crime committed by the victim even being suggested. Shot for just slapping the back of the police car. But even in this case it took months of pushing and finally a grand-jury investigation, to get anywhere. Will he be convicted? I doubt it. If he is, will it suck because of the racism. Absolutely.
But all bad cops need to be stopped.
I know that pretty much everyone here does not need to be told any of what I’ve written. I also know nothing much good will come of this. It’s all so fucking discouraging.
@Oggie, #1: white men have already been injured. From the linked article:
The first three explosives all detonated in eastern Austin, affecting areas where black and Hispanic residents live, leading to suggestions that they might have been motivated by racial bias. The explosion Sunday night detonated in an affluent, predominantly white neighborhood and injured two white men in their 20s.
Genuinely curious here, definitely not taking the piss. Because I’m an Aussie and this shit (the whole guns thing, not just this particular incident) baffles me. I ask: What is the general NRA/gunfondler position on bombs for all? Does a bomb count under the right to bear arms thing?
Turns out it wasn’t a terrorist afterall.
Just a white man who used bombs to kill people and himself.
Okay, I fucking apologize that I was too opaque in my comment #1. I was trying (obviously I was pretty damn unsuccessful) to inject some humour into an uncomfortable, dangerous and horrific situation. I apologize profusely. Sorry. Really.
I can’t tell you how much fun it was yesterday trying to get in touch with all the folks I went to high school with to see if they still had kids at Great Mills. I’ll be wearing my old letter jacket at the protests this weekend.
And yeah, I’m really looking forward to gun humpers calling a situation with a dead child, two severely injured children, and a cop who’s going to have to live with having killed a child a ‘success.’
These things are obviously horrible, but it isn’t a change. The way this is phrased makes it sound like something has fundamentally changed abt America. Columbine was over 20 years ago, and think of all the bombings of black churches in the 1960s. The change isn’t that these things didn’t used to happen, it is that we receive the news of them in a different way.