Why Aren't All These Guns Making Us Safer?

It was a deadly weekend. On Saturday, a gunman in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, shot and killed 22 people, and wounded 26 more. Early Sunday morning, a gunman killed 9 people in a nightlife district in Dayton, Ohio. 

The weekend before, a gunman shot and killed 4 people and wounded 13 others at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, CA. 

I thought all these guns were supposed to be making us safer?

Meanwhile, here in NH, three gun safety bills languish in limbo, waiting for the attention of our governor. On Monday, August 5, there was a rally  at the Legislative Office Building in Concord, where members of gun safety groups and other concerned citizens called upon the governor to sign the bills. The room was packed with people. 

Not everyone in the room was heartbroken about the slaughter of their fellow humans. Some attendees were so dickhurt by the idea that some people were talking about gun safety, that they showed up with their guns. The guy with the long gun in the photo is Brennan Robinson, a member of the Free State Project, who very obviously came in with the intention of turning the media's attention to him. 

He succeeded admirably. Both WMUR and NHPR gave him the last word in their stories. 

This is emblematic of the NH media, which operates with GOP as their default setting. I expect  it from WMUR - hell, I've seen it in the past, from the same reporter.

I cannot wrap my head around the shoddiness of this reporting. Not a single reporter who covered this event thought to ask, "Hey, pal - these folks are all here because of gun violence - do you think it's really a good idea to bring GUNS into a room crowded with people - especially since you fit the visual profile of a domestic terrorist?" 

These are men who get up in the morning in the safest state in the country, and put on their strapons before they dare leave their houses. And we are all supposed to bow and scrape before their freedumb, because their right to play GI Joe is more important than our right to live. 

I don't expect Governor Sununu to sign those gun bills. His first act in office was to sign a bill that repealed the concealed carry license process. Gundamentalists are his base. 

I don't have any confidence that there will ever be a legislative solution to the wholesale slaughter, either at the state or national level. 

What I do know is this - people are going to stop going out. They won't go to fairs, festivals, concerts, or movies. They won't go shopping in brick and mortar stores. They won't go to bars and restaurants. And brother, when it starts to hit the bottom lines of business - then we'll see some change. Capitalism may be what changes our gun laws. 

To help along the process, I suggest that before you go to a store, a venue, a bar or restaurant that you call ahead and ask if they allow guns inside. NH is an open carry state - BUT - there's a provision built into the law:

"Businesses have the to right to ban firearms from their property, Merrigan said, and can ask customers who are carrying firearms, openly or concealed, to leave.

Customers who don’t leave a business when requested can be charged with criminal trespassing."

So call and ask, and decide for yourself whether you want to go there or not. If you see a person with a gun in a business - call the police. There is no way for you to know if he is one of the mythical "good guys with guns" or a domestic terrorist. Complaint to the management. Leave your shopping cart and walk out of the store. 

Enough is enough. And dammit, NH media - do a better job. 

Pick a Side

It’s official. The Trump presidency went so far off the rails this week that the rails will never be seen again. The press conference held this past Tuesday was proof that Trump is completely unfit for office. All of you who said he’d “grow into the office?” You were wrong. Really wrong.

Voters loved him because he “tells is like it is,” which means he spouted a lot of incomprehensible nonsense, punctuated with insults and bravado. Republicans loved him because he claimed to be one of them, they march in lockstep, and because ideology is more important to them than integrity. The GOP didn’t just ignore his twitter wars, inciting of violence, and boasts of grabbing women by the genitalia. They defended him.   

They loved Trump because he was about as far from Obama as you could get. The Republican Party was furious that a black guy spent 8 years in the White House. When Donald Trump became a big public birther, they ate it up.

Don’t dare tell me you’re surprised by his conduct this week. The warning signs were a mile high and flashing. We’ve all been pretending that presidenting by Twitter is perfectly normal; even though we know it is not. 

A bunch of white supremacists were miffed about the removal of confederate statuary in Charlottesville, VA, so they decided to have a rally. They publicized the rally, and made a big deal out of it.  Richard Spencer, the new David Duke was going to be there. The old David Duke was going to be there. Chris Cantwell, a NH Free State Project mover turned white supremacist was going to be there. (Sidebar: have any of these guys who think of themselves as the master race ever looked in a mirror?)

Hundreds of white supremacists marched through the UVA campus last Friday night with tiki torches, yelling, “Jews will not replace us,” and “white lives matter.” The next day, the white supremacists showed up with shields, clubs, and guns for their peaceful demonstration. Naturally, counter-protesters showed up, too. There were violent clashes. The police mostly turned their back on the protesters. One of the neo-Nazis drove his car into a crowd of people, killing one person and injuring 19 others. Two state troopers were killed in a helicopter crash.

Trump was laboring selflessly at his golf club, where he found time to tweet about how we must all be united. He emerged later in the day to attend a news conference. He said “we” condemn the violence on many sides. He liked “many sides” so much he said it twice. He switched to talking about what a great job he’s doing, and how when he watches Charlottesville it makes him very sad. He didn’t acknowledge the white supremacists were responsible for the violence. He didn’t mention their domestic terrorism. How could he? They’re his base.

There was a lot of national outrage over what Trump didn’t say. It turns out a lot of Americans disapprove strongly of white supremacists. After 24 hours of bad press, back in Washington, some adult forced Trump to read a prepared speech, where he denounced the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists, and finally mentioned the two troopers, and the young woman who were killed. He was furious at the negative coverage and furious at being forced to read an adult speech.

The next day, after several CEO’s from his manufacturing council bailed out on him, he went from simmer to full boil, and hijacked his own press conference. He babbled insensibly about a young woman, a fine young woman, whom I assume is the one who was killed, but he never provided any context, so it just came across as disconnected nonsense. He said David Duke’s statement was beautiful. He kept braying about facts, and how he waited because he needed to know the facts. Clearly he was resentful about the facts he was forced to recite the day before, because he started blathering about two sides again, and how there were some “very fine people” on both sides.

How many of you know “fine” people who grab tiki torches and Nazi flags and march through college campuses bellowing about Jews? There are not two sides to neo-Nazis engaging in domestic terrorism. Our fathers and grandfathers fought a war against this.   

Trump has never been able to elevate himself to the kind of behavior the office demands, but this press event was a whole new frontier. This is a man who is the exact opposite of a statesman. He is the antithesis of gravitas. He is seriously, dangerously, unfit for office. He is incapable of being a world leader.

He should have been in Charlottesville, speaking seriously about violence and paying homage to the dead.  He should have been grave and presidential. Instead he was conducting a petty war with the media and petulantly presenting himself as the victim in the situation. Seriously, dangerously unfit for office.

What are we going to do about it? 

 

Published as an op-ed in the August 18, 2017 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Cantwell Puts on His Cop Killing Cheerleader Uniform - Again

You remember Chris Cantwell. He's the guy who was kicked out of the Free State Project around this time last year. Cantwell was getting loud about how cops should be killed, and poor Carla Gericke, the president of the Free State Project was busy shrieking about how bad it was that the Concord Police Dept. considered the possibility that Free Staters could be potential domestic terrorists. The last thing Carla needed was for that to be proven true by Chris Cantwell, so he was ousted. 

Since then, he's aired his views on how cops should die on a number of occasions. He blamed  Brentwood Police Officer Steve Arkell for his own death. Officer Arkell was killed in the line of duty. When Justin Bourque went on a RCMP  killing spree in New Brunswick, Cantwell cheered him on, as he applauded Jerad and Amanda Miller for killing cops in Las Vegas. This led to him getting kicked off CopBlock, but that was purely cosmetic. CopBlock wants to keep their memes popular amongst "the slaves." 

Cantwell may have been kicked out of the FSP in a big public attempt to whitewash their public image, but it was all for show.  Cantwell lives across the street from the Church of the Free Load in Keene. Free Keene cult leader Ian Bernard begged Cantwell to come back to Keene.

He's still cheering on murder, as you can see here at his latest blog diatribe: Chris Cantwell - PA Troopers Got Off Easy:

Every traffic stop he engaged in was a death threat. Every arrest a kidnapping. Every fine a theft. He was paid through taxation, a global system of coercion that presently enslaves the entire human race. He was an active participant and willing co-conspirator in the system of oppression that makes wars possible. Should Dickson have pulled you over on the highway, and you attempted to evade him, he would use whatever level of force was necessary to stop you, up to and including running your car off the road and shooting you in the face, with a gun you were forced to pay for.

And

If his death prevented a single traffic stop, then his killer is a hero. If it saved the taxpayers of Pennsylvania a single penny, then his killer is a freer of slaves. If it makes one young adult think twice about becoming a cop, then his killer saved an immeasurable number of people from theft, assault, imprisonment, and death.

Our Free Stater wannabe overlords love to natter on about how they're all about peace and love, and claim adherence to something they call the non-aggression principle. 

It's all a bunch of road apples. Scratch that facade of peace and love and what you get is far, far beyond the mainstream. 



Update - it seems Cantwell has taken a cult name.

From his Facebook page:

While we're on the topic of Free Staters....

NH GOP Chair Jennifer Horn :

Horn said the group’s philosophy is “something that’s right in line with the Republican Party.”   

"For the most part," explained Horn, "the Free State Project has been very much a movement with character that I think has probably been a positive thing in our state.”

Is cop killing right in line with the GOP philosophy, Jennifer?