“Even after losing his own fingers as a result of his homemade explosive materials, [Brad Spafford] made the apparent remarkable decision to keep an extraordinarily dangerous explosive material in the home’s freezer next to food items that could be accessed by the entire family,” prosecutors said… [Spafford] acknowledged keeping a jar in his freezer of HMTD, an explosive material that is so unstable it can be exploded merely as a result of friction or temperature changes.” Investigators found the jar stored next to food items and labeled “dangerous” and “do not touch.”
Sometimes you wanna shoot
Where everybody else is gonna shoot
And they’re always glad you’re armed
You wanna be where you can see
The folks you shoot hey one two three
You wanna be where everybody knows you’re armed
James Madison, the principal author of the Bill of Rights, proposed two highly restrictive gun control bills in the Virginia legislature banning the carrying of guns outside of their owners’ property. They didn’t pass, but the effort indicates that Madison believed such laws were entirely allowed by the Constitution.
And this is not surprising. Madison was a smart guy, and regulating possession, sale, and use of deadly weapons is about the most legitimate activity imaginable for any state. For instance, Ancient Rome had strict rules about when and where weapons could be carried. Indeed, in Weberian terms, establishing control over the instruments of violence is part of what it means to be a state in the first place. The idea that a government scheme to, say, simply regulate the concealed carry of handguns is a priori illegitimate would have been regarded by all the drafters of the Constitution as staring madness. No idea so crazy would have even occurred to them.
… [T]he current American gun cult has little or nothing to do with either history, the Constitution, or plain common sense.
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Then what’s it got to do with? The writer doesn’t specify.
UD thinks that whenever America births yet another insane gun baby, the handiwork of insane gun parents, the country is afforded an opportunity to gain focus about what many observers term the gun death cult here.
You often see the simpler formulation, gun cult, as if what’s going on in the nation is tens of millions of super-enthusiastic hobbyists buying and futzing with gun collections. Indeed, while the author of this piece uses the shorter phrase throughout, he titles it THE GUN DEATH CULT, which is the correct formulation. The word death deserves pride of place because Americans both delectate death and realize that, on a practical level – as with the enthusiastically applauded assassination of a representative of a disliked insurance system – guns solve or help solve many, many problems. They are the magic wand which makes people and organizations you don’t like go poof.
If you don’t like yourself, they remove you. American rates of suicide, especially in gunny states, astound. The love of death, wedded to our famous American pragmatism, extends to a delight and fascination with your own debraining.
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We can’t get enough of the bloody pragmatics of the gun. When mass shooting isn’t really mass – see the timid Madison psychotic who gunned herself down when she heard police and therefore only had time to kill two (maybe more – two children are currently trying to survive) – we feel cheated; whereas the bold Vegas shooter who kept going until he murdered 58 and injured 500 is far more satisfying.
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Take a town like Jackson Miss. The state has by far America’s highest gun violence rate, and Jackson has the state’s highest rate of same. It’s all made possible by a fantastic synergy between white Republican politicians who don’t seem to mind an 85% black city killing itself with guns, and a black population willing to kill itself with guns. White and black may have their differences, but all embrace the cult.
An X account believed to belong to Rupnow included a post shared within minutes of the time she opened fire featuring a person flashing the “OK” sign with their hand, a gesture linked to other school shooters, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The account also shared video from the 2015 Trollhattan, Sweden, school stabbing attack, and another disturbing post days before the Madison slayings includes a video of somebody committing suicide at a gun range …
An account on social blogging platform Tumblr also believed to be connected to Rupnow features images of guns and other school shooting-related content, including a profile picture showing what appears to be a screenshot of surveillance footage from a shooting, authorities told ABC News.
The account also posted a picture of Parkland high school shooter Nicholas Cruz, and other posts mention a deadly 2007 school shooting in Jokela, Finland.
A CashApp account also reportedly linked to Rupnow features a picture of the Columbine shooters.
Her father, asked by a Facebook user if that was “Kiddo’’ in his shooting-range snapshot, replied, “sure is!!!!
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We have so many insane gun babies in this country that there’s no way we can really see them coming anymore. Most of their parents of course know all about them. But they don’t care.
… boasts a DA who learned everything she knows from Chesa Boudin. Durham’s DA doesn’t typically prosecute felons with violent pasts who are found with guns cuz it’s just so not nice.
It’s always good to remind ourselves that America’s daily butcher bill is brought to us courtesy of the political left as well as the political right.
O give your fucked up kid a gun, a gun
Let her practice neath the setting sun
And then when inner sounds command
She'll traverse o'er this gunny land.
Because she feels a little riled
She'll kill a teacher, kill a child
Tis what you raised her up to be
Your psychotic mini-me.
Little tyke w/ a handgun kills two and injures more than that at Abundant Life Christian School.
Wonder how the – what? – fifteen year old got the guns. She had two. Thinking it has to do with maw and paw. Who probably should be preparing themselves for their involuntary manslaughter trial.
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Female shooter.
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While her parents look for a defense lawyer, the school prepares itself for a big ol lawsuit from the parents of dead and injured students.
[C]ameras in the building [are] regularly monitored, but the school [does] not have metal detectors. [S]tudents who attend the school [are] “visually scanned” as they arrive on campus each day.
[S]cam culture thrives amid the insecurity our health care system creates! One thing alternative medicine does is make people feel like their needs are being seen and addressed, even if they’re being addressed in bogus ways. There’s a direct link between people’s disgust with the health care system and the dangerous rise of R.F.K. Jr.
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[S]ince when did a troubled young American man need a coherent political theory to start shooting?
[W]itnesses at the laundromat on Saturday said Coriz got into an argument with a male juvenile and two female juveniles over use of a washing machine, which escalated into a fight.
In America, you could have two opposing armies exchanging fire in a nightclub and no one would ever dream of revoking its license.
In England, just one wittle gunfight and BAM. Down comes the iron fist of the state!