… rides the wave of the state’s future:

According to quarterly crime data provided by Fayetteville police, homicides in the city are up 366% so far this year compared to the previous one, with 14 incidents reported so far this year.

For comparison, Raleigh has reported 11 incidents this period, up 22% from 2024 over the same time period.

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At the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival on April 26, attendees were shocked as they heard gunfire nearby and were swiftly evacuated by police, who discovered a car just yards from the festival grounds with gunshots through it. 

The only thing shocking is the shock.

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With Fayetteville their role model, Raleigh and the rest of the state will find their own gun footing, and can expect similar, if not superior, carnage.

More than 31,000 Americans died by firearms in 2024. Among the victims, 250 were children younger than 11. More than 1,000 were between 12 and 17.

Seventy-five were police officers.

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The guy citing these numbers points out – uncontroversially, obviously – that almost no one in this country gives a shit. But UD has been proposing something else: Americans like it. They like watching it. They like doing it. As a country, we say: This is how we do it.

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And if you don’t let us do it – the way Hawaii isn’t letting us do it – we are gonna gang up on you and fucking FORCE you to let us do it. We’re gonna put you in legal HELL and make you pay to try to defend your low murder rate until you are fucking bankrupt.

For Show Kindness week at her elementary school, he gave her this hat to wear —

— and when the school told her to take it off (gun massacre at a nearby school not long ago) he filed free speech court cases all over the place! His appeals keep getting unanimously rejected, but I’m sure he’s planning to take it to the Supreme Court. What a dad!

Zippity doo dah
Zippity day
My oh my 
What a fine Houston day
Sixteen are injured, one passed away
Zippity doo dah
Zippity day

Guns represent many things. In the first quarter of the twenty-first century they are emerging as emblematic of the end of public events.

Festive parades and civic gatherings die when there’s always a respectable chance someone will shoot at the people gathered, or (just as demoralizing) a group of people nearby will be shooting at each other. The headlines are reserved for American parades where happy families are mowed down by nuts with guns, but you’re no doubt missing the smaller, quite frequent, stories of gatherings suddenly reduced to panicked stampedes by multiple gunshots. Something along these lines happens many weekend nights all over the country, the most recent last Friday in Tallahassee.

A large crowd gathered in the FAMU Way Playground near Railroad Square became a scene of chaos and gunfire the night of May 2.

It happened less than an hour after the conclusion of the Square’s monthly “First Friday” event, which celebrates the arts at the opening of each month.

Lt. Robin Abney, a watch commander for the Tallahassee Police Department, told the Democrat that the department was called to the area at about 9:50 p.m. with reports of shots fired. 

… One video of the scene circulating on social media shows a large crowd running after the sound of five rapid-fire gunshots. Another video shows a large fight in the crowd spilling into the street before the shooting, when people start screaming and running for cover.

The gunfire came after the close of the First Friday celebration that draws crowds to the arts district between 6 and 9 p.m.… [T]he incident took place in [a] city playground …

Yes, where kiddies play…

The shooting is at least the 22nd serious shooting this year in the capital city and county. 

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At least the 22nd… serious shooting… The number is much higher, but shooting is so common a lot of it isn’t called in. And how serious is serious these days? Does serious mean at least three people hit? More? Does someone have to be in at least critical condition, though not all the way to dead?

And consider the thinking some local arts enthusiast experiences now.

OOH the arts, the arts… What a fucking loser I am to get all excited about THE ARTS when all I get for showing up for THE ARTS is a barrage of bullets. Fuck the arts.

Read the whole thing.

New Mexico: Land of Drunk Heavily Armed Idiots

Are you kidding? Now I’ve heard everything.

You're never too deranged
To get firepower at a range.
Even if you're totally off
You'll still get a Kalashnikov.

• 18 firearms that included assault rifles and handguns
• 1 Taser
• Over 12,000 rounds of ammunition
• 15 Airsoft guns
• Two-way radio
• Law enforcement-issued police laptop
• An assortment of law enforcement, military, FBI, Army Ranger and Marine uniforms
• Ballistic vest and helmets
• Law enforcement credentials
• Active-duty Army credentials
• FBI credentials
• Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office badges
• 3-D printed body camera
• Self-made Army-training certificate
• Material with Nazi insignia

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He’s planning to kill us all, but today the authorities arrested him before he could do it. Which is great, but even if he gets jail time, he’ll be freed at some point and then he can start accumulating for his killing spree again.

Props to Vermont for going after a notorious nutcase and making it less likely (but not impossible) that he’ll be the next Robert Card.

It’s crucial for fried-brain gunfuckers to know that the state knows who they are, is watching, and, in the case of this particular guntard, is litigating.

A previously self-professed white nationalist, [a person who played] a central role in the racial harassment of a former Bennington representative, [this POS] has faced several charges in the past, including aggravated domestic assault, a hate crime charge of disorderly conduct and repeated violations of his conditions of release. 

Jury took all of ten minutes to convict him of illegal possession of high-capacity firearm magazines. He probably won’t get jail time, so he still walks among us, I’m afraid. There should be a way for my country to protect itself from armed-to-the-teeth madmen.

So far it’s just middling spring stuff – Saturday night fights/shootings, killing one or two, injuring ten or twenty – but come July the gunfire’s gonna be SIZZLING.

Not just on the weekends, and much more productive body bag work – that’s what I’m talking about.

Bring the kids, bring granny – you’re never too old or too young to run screaming for your life and the lives of your loved ones while hundreds of gunshots pierce the balmy air. Get ready.

WASHINGTON—In a dramatic reversal of recent polls showing a decline in the president’s approval ratings during his first 100 days in office, new surveys confirmed Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s support was surging after he pointed a gun at all 340 million Americans. “Ever since Trump pulled out a loaded handgun and menacingly swept its muzzle across the entire American populace, he’s seen a massive bump in favorability on everything from his handling of the economy to his views on immigration,” said Gallup polling analyst Eric Waltman, adding that Trump’s numbers had seen a particularly sharp spike after he fired a shot into the air to show that “he means business.”

“Just seeing people hit the ground and taking cover and, I took cover and balled up like a hamster, so fearing for my safety but thankful I’m still alive and okay,” [a beachgoer] said.

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The reasons why.

Read my blog’s intermittent coverage of bloody Myrtle Beach to get a sense of its astounding gun violence. Even if it doesn’t end in your curling up like a hamster, the action on the beachfront features lots of large, dangerous, fights.

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Some people like a challenge:

“There’s trouble all over the world, we can’t control that. So we just have to come and not let fear spoil our vacation. We still come here to enjoy the sights, enjoy the views, so I don’t feel threatened at all,” [one visitor] said. “I’ve been coming here for years. I’ll still come.”

Hey, if that’s how he feels, he should vacation in Haiti – much cheaper, and spectacular scenery.

We hear also from a local politician:

“It’s very unfortunate that people feel they need to solve their problems with guns but it’s an isolated incident and not indicative of the reality that most Myrtle Beach visitors encounter.”

Hon, ‘isolated’ don’t earn you Fifth Deadliest Beach …

It does this old Baltimorean’s heart good to read articles touting the reemergence of the city of her birth (Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1953), and here’s hoping it’s true and holds true. It was always a great city underneath its gun violence, and apparently having serious gun control laws that make your bangbang shit increasingly unlikely/unpleasant has made a real difference.

If you want to continue to participate in armed warfare, there are many fun alternatives to Baltimore. I’d recommend New Orleans.

Myrtle Beach SC. SC! Murdaughland! Guns à Gogo!

[M]ultiple people were injured and one … killed [last night on a main boardwalk thoroughfare]. … [P]eople described taking shelter in their hotel rooms and inside businesses during the shooting and after.

Myrtle Beach Police observed a disturbance involving multiple people in the 900 block of North Ocean Boulevard … During the altercation, one person began firing a weapon. [A police officer] responded by discharging their firearm…

Exchange of fire! Rumble! Melee in Myrtle! Run for your life!

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This is how you get “one of the highest rates of gun homicides in the nation.”