An official from a Mississippi gun group flatly states that restrictive laws have no effect on injuries and deaths from firearms. She doesn’t give a shit that states with gun control rank highest on safety, while states like hers, Mississippi, with virtually no gun control, rate – er – dead last (except for White Power Wonderland Idaho).
I think when your state, for decades, ranks last or almost last on all measures of education, health, and welfare, a weird inversion sets in, and your abject failure becomes a point of pride. Ole Miss did it again! No other state has our sweet synergy of ignorance, paranoia, and hoplophilia. Y’all come down, y’hear?
In the wake of New Mexico’s latest bloodbath, the governor notes that the “legislature will adjourn today without having a passed a single bill to address juvenile crime or ban assault weapons. Their inaction is appalling and unacceptable.”
The mayor of Las Cruces NM gets points for honesty, as one of those obviously mass murder generating events generates mass murder in her crime-ridden city. Collect a crowd of very young idiots at some idiotic illegal event involving cars and alcohol, and watch the bullets fly.
The violent crime rate [in NM] was twice the national average in 2023, according to the Council of State Governments Justice Center… By August of 2024, violent crime in [Las Cruces] was up 46 percent compared to the same period in 2023.
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Sure you want the skinny on America’s dumbest, grungiest, state? Go here if you dare.
Of course guns are all over every level of America’s schools, but most are in the hands of individual students.
UD has for years said on this blog that the inevitable progression will be toward the Columbine model – guns in the hands oftwo or more students in a conspiracy to take down the school.
Battery Creek High School was under lockdown for several hours Wednesday after two students were found with handguns. Beaufort County [SC] school officials said there was “no direct threat” made to students or faculty.
‘No direct threat.’ Right.
Police searched [one] student after receiving an anonymous tip about possible suspicious activity. Information from the first student prompted police to question another Battery Creek student, who was also found with a handgun about an hour later.
Take a bow, SC. You’ve got just about the weakest gun laws in the country, with particular liberality toward minors, who can buy all the guns they want without any parental oversight. No need to feel threatened.
... proposed legislation: SB 84 requires all performers
within the state to open carry guns on stage. Failure to do so
will result in penalties up to and including closure of
shows.
The writer – a native South Dakotan – seems to think there’s something noteworthy about a man openly carrying this
(that’s a Dad picking up his kid at the airport) in the sweet idle setting of a summer fair. Massive overt personal weaponry seems wrong, somehow, in places like summer fairs, airports, churches, hospitals, schools…
But steely-eyed thin-lipped SD Sen. Mykala Voita
presses hard and successfully on the legislature to arm South Dakotans everywhere – in particular, on college campuses and in bars.
Instead of letting any student keep a handgun in their dorm room and carry it to class if they wish (as the original bill, unbelievably, would have done and as Voita made clear she still prefers), SB 100 now allows only gun owners who have qualified for an enhanced concealed carry permit to have a pistol on campus.
Now, see, again, that “unbelievably” – this is from the same SD’an who thinks it’s really something to see a man openly toting an AR15 at a summer fair – tips you off that this writer is out of step with her state and should probably be living in godless gunless Garrett Park with UD. As should Republican Senator Steve Duffy (Rapid City), who not only voted against arming bar patrons but said, “This is crazy. When you mix booze and guns I don’t know how you can expect anything good to happen. Sooner or later, there’s going to be trouble.”
But hey this is fuckin Deadwood South Dakota! Sure there’s gonna be trouble, and Voita knows that, but it’s the wild fuckin west so let ‘er rip. Nihilism, ho!
‘[John] Adamo was known for being “very obnoxious,” and frequently sat in his garage blasting heavy metal at extremely high volumes.
“There were definitely arguments [with his closest neighbors] that led up to this,” [a neighbor] said.
Adamo was a “combative alcoholic” who ripped down a surveillance camera mounted on [his neighbors’] home before squeezing off the first round [of gunfire that practically killed the husband and wife who made him angry]…
[T]he dispute [has] been simmering for years, and … it involved multiple cameras pointed at Adamo’s home, as well as a sign out front, reading, “PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING,” with the words, “Mr. and Ms. Adamo!!!!” handwritten underneath.
“It’s been a running feud,” another neighbor told the Post. “And John’s a nut. There was always friction… This has been going on for years.”
Adamo, too, had cameras pointed at [his neighbors’] house…
Adamo, a Brooklyn native who used to work on Wall Street but was reportedly doing construction work in recent times, was estranged from his family due to his drinking and friction involving his late father’s estate…‘
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After a standoff with police, Adamo was found in his bedroom, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Of course a man like John Adamo had guns.
You’ll be relieved to hear that although strictly speaking the fight started inside the terminal – at a crowded baggage claim – they moved it outside when the AK47s started up. Admittedly, if you’d been at the airport window that their guns blew out, you’d have been killed, but as it happened no one was standing by that window.
As our country argues the advantages of American colonization to various of the world’s nations, it shouldn’t forget to mention a way of life which rivals only Haiti.
This story is the quintessence of America, mes petites. UD‘s telling you: It don’t get no more American than this.
Start with baseball. Gotta be baseball, right? A varsity softball game between two high schools where?
Where else? So okay baseball and Texas. Let’s do motherhood and apple pie! Loving mom Elysia Quinn Klatt was in attendance, cheering on her kid. Also loving dad, from whom Elysia is divorced.
Let’s do free speech! While Junior was out there slugging, mom and dad and their new spouses started shouting about child custody issues.
Last but not least:
During the argument, police said 30-year-old Elysia Quinn Klatt grabbed a firearm from a vehicle and allegedly pointed it at her ex-husband before being immediately disarmed by another male involved in the altercation. No shots were fired.
Klatt and [her current husband] then reportedly left the area in their Dodge Mega Cab RAM 3500, traveling south on FM 462 before the Medina County Sheriff’s Office located Klatt and took her into custody.
Okay, I made up the Dodge Mega. But it must have been some sort of pickup.
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Plus the story’s like what did Dreiser call it An American Tragedy cuz Elysia can’t even lie to get out of her charges (aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful carrying of a weapon in a prohibited place and terroristic threat against family/household member – aggravated assault) cuz she did it in front of a packed softball game.
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“Okay so I made up the Dodge Mega but I wonder how much one costs.”
“I’ll guess,” said Mr UD, “$80,000.”
“I’ll guess $50,000. [Checks online.] Yikes. High end model starts at $90,930. But if you only want a few bells and whistles it’ll cost you $70,000 plus.”
Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam. New York Times
George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days. The Electron Pencil
It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading. Professor Mondo
There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life. AcademicPub
You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics. truffula, commenting at Historiann
Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption. Dagblog
University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings. Dissent: The Blog
[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho... The Wall Street Journal
Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo. Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education
[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile. Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University
Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure. Roland Greene, Stanford University
The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan... Carlat Psychiatry Blog
Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant... Perplexed with Narrow Passages
Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here... Outside the Beltway
From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip... Money Law
University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it. Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association
The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ... Medical Humanities Blog
I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic... Ducks and Drakes
As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ... The Bitch Girls
Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard. Tenured Radical
University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know. Mary Beard, A Don's Life
[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter. More magazine, Canada
If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot. Notes of a Neophyte
