Four killed as semi-nude man shoots up Tennessee Waffle House with AR-15.

BREAKING: Travis Reinking, 29, of Morton, IL, is person of interest in Waffle House shooting. Vehicle the gunman arrived in is registered to him. Gunman last seen walking south on Murfreesboro Pike. He shed is coat and is nude. See Reinking? Pls call 615-862-8600 immediately. pic.twitter.com/duoWCo5fC0

— Metro Nashville PD (@MNPDNashville) April 22, 2018

Courtesy of CNN: 

Police are asking for the public's help in finding suspect 29-year-old Travis Reinking of Morton, Illinois. 

Authorities said the gunman arrived in a vehicle registered to Reinking, though he walked away from the restaurant naked.

The melee started around 3:23 a.m. (4:23 a.m. ET) in Antioch, southeast of Nashville. After sitting in the truck for a few minutes, the gunman came out wielding an "assault-type rifle" and fatally shot two people outside the Waffle House, police said.

"He then went inside the restaurant (and) continued firing," Aaron said.

The carnage stopped only because of the heroics of a customer who heard the gunshots and hid near the restaurant's bathrooms.

 Police said the customer monitored the gunman's moves from afar and jumped into action when he saw an opportunity. 

"He saw the gunman looking at his rifle. At that point, the shots had stopped. So he decided to rush the gunman, actually wrestled that assault rifle away, tossed it over the counter. At that point, the gunman then fled," Aaron said.

Wait, so this bad guy with a gun was stopped by a good guy WITHOUT a gun?

And this happened in the NRA's America?

Well that's going to confuse some people.

On a more serious note, this is yet ANOTHER mass shooting carried out with this country's favorite go to weapon for mass shootings.

And STILL nobody is doing anything definitive to stop all of this.

How many more Americans must die before it is finally enough?

If this were a disease we would be inundated with fundraising emails to stop it.

There would be telethons for fuck's sake!

But for this epidemic all we typically get are excuses from the Ammosexuals and politicians telling us it is still too early to talk about new gun laws.

80 percent of mass shooters showed no interest in video games.

Courtesy of CBS News: 

President Trump met with video game industry representatives Thursday, after saying last month violent video games may play a role in mass shootings. 

The president met with parents like Melissa Henson. "The kind of messages and images that they are putting in their minds, I think they're nightly dress rehearsals for huge acts of violence," she said. 

But psychologist Patrick Markey's research shows 80 percent of mass shooters did not show an interest in violent video games.

"It seems like something that should make us safer so it's a totally understandable reaction," Markey said. "The problem is just the science, the data, does not back up that they actually have an effect."

Keep in mind that video games are popular all over the world, including first person shooters.

And yet the ONLY industrialized country that has to subject their children to school shooter drills, or seriously talks about arming teachers in the classroom, is America.

This is not a video game problem, this is a gun problem.

And until that is recognized and addressed with stringent gun control laws, this violence simply will not stop.

Another mass shooting, this one in a veteran's home in California.

Courtesy of SF Gate:  

A military veteran who had been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder burst into a veterans home in the North Bay town of Yountville on Friday with a rifle, killed three women connected with the treatment program and then killed himself, authorities and program officials said. 

Law enforcement officers found the bodies of the victims and the killer at the Veterans Home of California-Yountville shortly before 6 p.m., more than seven hours after the incident began, said Chris Childs, an assistant chief of the California Highway Patrol. 

Authorities had earlier said the gunman was holding staff members of the Pathway Home, a program on the Veterans Home campus that had been treating him for PTSD until he was asked to leave several days ago. 

One of those killed was the program’s executive director, Christine Loeber, the Pathway Home said in a statement. Also killed were Dr. Jen Golick, a therapist with the program, and Dr. Jennifer Gonzales, a psychologist with the Department of Veterans Affairs in San Francisco, the statement said.

The killer's name was Albert Wong, a man suffering from PTSD after serving overseas and fighting in the unnecessary wars started by the Bush Administration.

There are hundreds of similar afflicted veterans in this country, and virtually all of them continue to have access to firearms.

After all if you listen to the conservatives that was one of the rights they were fighting for over there. Which of course makes no sense.

"I was over there in Iraq shooting the enemy so that I could return back here and shoot a couple of doctors as is my God given right as an American."

Well I guess we have no choice but to install some bullet proof glass, add some reinforced doors, and post a couple of cops at all of the veteran's homes in the country.

I mean what other solution could there possibly be, right?

Samantha Bee identifies the connection between numerous mass killers and the Alt-Right movement.

So how is this movement NOT officially identified as a terrorist organization?

Oh that's right, they're white.

Here is the SPLC article that Bee mentions in her story.

And here is an NPR article which reports that three recent murders were connected to a Neo-Nazi organization called the Atomwaffen Division.

Notice the pattern?

The Dutch have created a parody of gun violence in America. It's actually pretty good.

Courtesy of Vox: 

Sunday with Lubach, which is sort of like the Dutch version of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, looked at guns — specifically, the US’s love of firearms. And it’s very telling. 

For one, the satirical Dutch video describes America’s love of guns as so bad that it is an illness: Nonsensical Rifle Addiction, or NRA — a reference to the biggest gun lobby group in the country. 

“Dear fellow Europeans,” the video’s narrator begins, “a devastating humanitarian crisis is threatening a small country on the coast of North America: the United States of America.” 

The video goes on to list some of the statistics related to America’s gun homicides and accidents from Gun Violence Archive: 24,000 injuries and 11,000 deaths so far this year, culminating to roughly 40 deaths a day. The video pins this on “a terrible epidemic.” 

“NRA is a constitutional disorder caused by a dysfunction of the prefrontal Second Amendment in the nonsensical cortex, causing patients to shoot people,” the narrator explains. “It starts with an innocent Colt, but soon patients will show signs of shotguns, sniper rifles, and M16s even. Often, patients use silencers to hide their condition.”

This is certainly not the first time that Americans have been mocked for our ridiculous obsession with guns, but it is one of the more creative attempts.

The take away for us is the realization that the whole world sees our problem, as well as its solution, but we remain incapable of doing anything about it.

Yet another school shooting, this time in Florida, which left at least 17 dead. It just never stops.

That is footage from inside a classroom in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

These are sombody's babies hiding behind desks and screaming in terror as they listen to their schoolmates being slaughtered right outside their room.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

At least 17 people were killed when a teen opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle at a high school in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday afternoon, officials said. 

Fourteen others were wounded, five of whom suffering life-threatening injuries, hospital officials said. 

Authorities said the suspect, identified as 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, concealed himself in the crowd fleeing Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He was arrested in nearby Coral Springs and later charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Cruz had recently been expelled from Douglas for disciplinary reasons and was enrolled elsewhere in the district, Broward County schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said. He took an Uber to campus on Wednesday, Runcie told NBC News.

The gunman was believed to have been armed with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle and multiple magazines, said Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel. It was unclear whether he had any other weapons, Israel said.

It's always an AR-15 in these school shootings, isn't it? 

That seems to be the weapon of choice for those who want to gun down innocent children in a school.

This is the eighteenth school shooting this year, and it is only February!

As was pointed out earlier THIS ONLY HAPPENS IN AMERICA.

We are the only place in the world where this happens with any kind of frequency, if at all.

And yet we refuse to do what is clearly necessary to stop all of this, and protect our citizens.

We cannot EVER call ourselves the greatest nation on earth if we cannot even protect our children while they are in school. Period!

After church shooting military adds more than 4,000 names of domestic abusers to FBI's background checklist.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:  

More than 4,000 names have been added to the country's list of ex-military members banned from owning firearms since the Sutherland Springs massacre last November, a CNN report has found. 

In the aftermath of the tragedy, the US Air Force came under fire after admitting it failed to submit the gunman's name to the FBI's background check system - even though he had been kicked out of the military for assaulting his wife, which should have prevented him from owning a firearm under federal law. 

Still, the ex-airman was able to purchase a semiautomatic rifle that he used to kill 26 people and injure 20 others at the First Baptist Church church in Texas, exposing a massive hole in the nation's background check system. 

Since then, 4,284 names have been added to the FBI's list of dishonorably discharged military personnel banned from owning firearms - an increase of 38 per cent. 

It is the law that anyone who receives a dishonorable or misconduct discharge should automatically get banned from owning a firearm. 

The number of banned servicemen once stood at 11,000 but has now jumped to 15,583.

That certainly seems like a significant portion of the ex-military members don't you think?

Of course Track Palin supposedly received an honorable discharge so one would not think that this list would have effected him, however I am certain that his actions since leaving the military have put him on a number of lists. 

The horrific injuries of those who survived the Las Vegas shooting. Guns don't just kill. Update!

(Warning this video can be quite disturbing, prepare yourself to be upset by what you will see.)

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

Rachel Sheppard's scar runs from her chest to below her waist. 

"When I see it, it's just a constant reminder," she says. The 27-year-old is one of nearly 500 people recovering after she was shot in last October's Las Vegas massacre that left 58 concertgoers dead. 

Natalie Grumet felt her jaw explode. 

"I was shot in the face," she said. 

Chelsea Romo was shot in the eye. 

"My vision was taken right away," she said. She was in the front row at the Route 91 Harvest Festival outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino when the shooting began. "My girlfriend said, 'Duck.' At this point, I was holding my face and she said, 'Chelsea, your face.' And I said, 'Oh no, I can't see.'" 

At first, she was completely blind, but surgeons were able to save one of her eyes by removing pieces of shrapnel. 

When I was a boy I was brought to see the body of a friend who had been shot by a shotgun through a door.

It was supposed to shock me into volunteering who might have shot the boy, but I didn't know so the only thing it succeeded in doing is shocking me into realizing that guns in television westerns, which only knocked the actors bloodlessly to the ground, and the ones in real life, which tore flesh to pieces and turned human beings into hamburger, were in no way the same things.

That image has haunted me my entire life, and after seeing these images from Inside Edition my nightmares have even more fuel with which to wake me in a cold sweat each night.

But it is still something that all of us should recognize.

Guns are designed to tear people's bodies up, and damage them enough to snuff out their life.

Guns are not made to shoot paper targets or to serve as a force field to magically protect us from harm.

When Todd Palin pointed that gun at Track, he was threatening to tear his body to shreds and possibly kill him. Just let that sink in for a second.

Rational people do not want instruments of death and bodily destruction in the hands of more people walking around our streets.

Because even when they are not purposefully seeking to do harm, harm can be done.

Courtesy of the LA Times: 

A 12-year-old girl was booked on suspicion of negligent discharge of a firearm Thursday after a shooting at Sal Castro Middle School left four students injured, authorities said. 

Los Angeles police do not believe that the shooting was intentional, spokesman Josh Rubenstein said Thursday evening. 

"At this time, the information suggests that this was an isolated incident, involving the negligent discharge of a firearm, where innocent children and a staff member were unfortunately injured," the LAPD said in a statement. 

I wonder how badly those children's bodies are damaged.

Perhaps those still fresh wounds should be broadcast on national TV as well. So that people can really see what the 2nd Amendment means in everyday life. 

Update: The man who sold the Las Vegas shooter armor piercing bullets has been arrested.

There is no reason in the world that everyday citizens should have access to armor piercing bullets.

None.

This is America so you could not close out 2017 without yet another mass shooting. This one cost the life of a Colorado police officer.

Douglas County Coroner confirms shooting suspect in #CopperCanyonOIS as Matthew Riehl DOB 9/09/80 (pictured). Investigation still ongoing and being investigated by @DA18th Critical Response Team. pic.twitter.com/H6wT0klSQv

— DC Sheriff (@dcsheriff) January 1, 2018

Courtesy of the LA Times:

In a year racked by mass shootings, including the deadliest in U.S. history, a spasm of violence here on the last day of 2017 added one more to the grim tally. 

Four Douglas Country sheriff's deputies responding to a noise complaint were ambushed by a gunman who sprayed them with more than 100 bullets. 

All four were hit. Those who could crawled away. But Deputy Zackari Parrish, 29, was shot repeatedly and killed. 

Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said at a news conference that the officers were responding to a complaint about raised voices at the Copper Canyon Apartments in Highlands Ranch, about 12 miles south of Denver, at about 5:15 a.m.

One of the occupants of the building opened the door and let the officers inside.

However the other occupant, a Matthew Riehl, opened fire on the cops from his bedroom.

This led to a standoff lasting about an hour and a half, before SWAT entered the building and after an exchange of gunfire killed the shooter. (One of the SWAT officers was also wounded in the exchange.)

As it turns out the gunman was an Iraq war veteran with a grudge against the sheriff.

The Sheriff's name is Tony Spurlock, and Riehl even threatened to run against him in the next election: 

He is seen wearing an Iraq combat veteran hat in a Dec. 13 YouTube video in which he called Spurlock a “clown” and a deputy a pimp. 

“You know who’s going flub big time next election, Spurlock,” Riehl said in the video called “Fire Sheriff Spurlock.”

He said he was running against Spurlock as a libertarian. 

A video posted on Nov. 28 showed a traffic stop by a police officer in the city of Lone Tree — apparently taken inside the officer's car — that Riehl said was done illegally. He claimed the officer clocked the wrong driver, identifying the officer by name in the video and calling him "dirty."

"S---bag, dirtbag, liar," he says as the officer questioned the driver. "He's the boss, huh? He's the Nazi in charge with the stripes on his shoulder and the fake badge."

Yeah, nothing unhinged about that. 

I don't think he has officially been identified as such, but this Riehl guy sounds like a sovereign citizen type to me.

That would explain his lack of respect for law enforcement, and self identifying as a Libertarian.

For the record there were over 15,000 gun deaths in 2017, 344 mass shootings, and 316 incidents where a police officer was shot or killed.

I expect the numbers to be much the same in 2018.

California Congressman Ted Lieu walks out of moment of silence on the House floor to protest their do nothing approach to mass shootings. Sarah Palin smells blood in the water.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

“I am heartbroken about the children and adults that were killed in the worst mass shooting in Texas history this Sunday," Lieu said. "My colleagues right now are doing a moment of silence in the House of Representatives chambers. I respect their right to do that, and I myself have participated in many of them, but I can’t do this again. I’ve been to too many moments of silence." 

At least 26 people were killed at the church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Sunday after a gunman opened fire. Lieu said since he has been a congressman, three of the worst mass shootings in United States history have occurred. 

“I will not be silent,” he said. “What we need, is we need action, we need to pass gun safety legislation now.”

When I first read about this yesterday, which I consider an act of courage by the way, I knew that Lieu was going to be dinged by the conservatives.

And when it comes to dings, who better to provide those than the former head conservative dingbat herself?

What a disgrace.

This Rep. should be ashamed of himself. You're a member of Congress, for crying out loud. https://t.co/1NMTFo1Bc4

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) November 7, 2017

Oh my God, can you smell the indignation?

This is low hanging fruit for Palin so of course she is going to chime in.

Of course the translation of this tweet is "Please, please will somebody please pay attention to me? I use to BE somebody in this country, and now nobody even bothers to mock me anymore."

Rep. Lieu is a nice man, so he took a little time to give Palin a few nanoseconds of relevance.

Dear @SarahPalinUSA: Feel free to call me names because I'm cool like that. But I will keep fighting for gun safety. Unlike you I don't quit https://t.co/aUral2ohJz

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 7, 2017

By mocking her.

There you go Sarah. Now you can relax knowing that a sitting member of Congress cares enough to ridicule you for criticizing him.

Now that we have that our of the way let me just say that Rep. Lieu is exactly right.

Congress does NOT need yet another fucking moment of silence, or another fucking call for our prayers.

What they need to do is flip the NRA the bird and tell them that they can keep their campaign donations because the American people are dying in the streets by the hundreds and it is the job of Congress to protect them. 

It turns out the Las Vegas shooter was a Trump fan.

Courtesy of Newsweek:  

Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock was quite the fan of President Donald Trump before he killed 58 people and left another 500 injured—the worst mass shooting in recent U.S. history. 

Paddock, a millionaire who reportedly would gamble up to $1 million a night in casinos, was attracted to the president's politics because of the boost the stock market has enjoyed since Trump took office, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo told KLAS, a local CBS affiliate in Las Vegas, during a two-hour interview. 

Paddock said "he was happy with Trump because the stock market was doing well," Lombardo said.

Lombardo said he didn't know offhand who Paddock was talking to when he was talking about Trump, adding that it's the "only thing that we have seen that references politics." Authorities do not believe it correlates to a motive in the shooting. 

To be clear the man behind the largest mass shooting spree in American history has NO ties to any terrorist organizations, and the only hint we have about his politics is that he was happy with Donald Trump.

Does it mean that his mass murder has anything to do with his political point of view?

Probably not, but if this guy were a Muslim Hillary Clinton supporter would that make any difference to the right wing media?

Nope. 

Today was the day the largest church shooting in the history of the United States took place. Just in case you were wondering. Update!

At least 27 dead in Texas church shooting, @BBCBarbaraPlett provides updates on events in Sutherland Springs https://t.co/bQ52Gn8sSw pic.twitter.com/G5uXhJu54E

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) November 5, 2017

I think that 27 number might well change, but it will definitely not be going down.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

At least 20 people are dead after a gunman opened fire inside a Texas church on Sunday morning, officials say. The shooting occurred at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, approximately 30 miles from San Antonio, around 11:30 a.m. 

The shooter, who is believed to have acted alone, fled the church on foot and was killed by police, officials said. Two county commissioners said at least 20 people were dead; a police commissioner told the BBC that 27 had died. 

Whatever the final toll, it is already the deadliest shooting at a place of worship in modern American history, surpassing the nine killed at Emanuel AME Baptist Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. 

At least six helicopters transported injured people to hospitals, the Dallas Morning News reported, and a two-year-old child is among the wounded.

Here is more from the New York Times:

Albert Gamez Jr., another Wilson County commissioner, told CNN that he was told by the police that the gunman was chased into the next county and was killed, but it was not clear whether the police shot him or he killed himself. 

Mr. Gamez said he was told by an emergency medical technician that 27 people were dead and 24 others were injured. 

We do not yet know much about this, but what we do know is that it is tragic, unnecessary, and ultimately preventable if only we wanted to take the steps to keep it from happening again.

Update: Now we know why the Right Wing has not said much. It's probably a white guy.

NEW: Authorities have preliminarily identified TX church shooter as white male in his mid-20s from outside San Antonio, sources tell @ABC.

— ABC News (@ABC) November 5, 2017

If true we need to quickly expand that travel ban.

No more white men allowed in this country dammit.

Update 2: Yep, white guy. 

BREAKING: Texas church shooter identified as 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, law enforcement officials say https://t.co/TkbmGRdByn

— NBCWashington (@nbcwashington) November 5, 2017

Update 3: From the killer's Instagram page.

 The gunman was also dressed in all black and wearing a bullet proof vest.

Following in Vladimir Putin's steps the NRA has released a new ad condemning those criticizing Donald Trump.

“We are witnesses to the most ruthless attack on a president & the people who voted for him...in American history." -@DLoesch #NRA pic.twitter.com/rcPAKMVJI0

— NRATV (@NRATV) October 20, 2017

Courtesy of Salon:

NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch has returned from her self-imposed exodus to star in another outrageously political advertisement on behalf of the president. 

"We are witnesses to the most ruthless attack on a president, and the people who voted for him, and the free system that allowed it to happen in American history," Loesch begins in the advertisement. "From the highest levels of government to their media, universities, and billionaires, their hateful defiance of his legitimacy is an insult to each of us." 

As is the common theme of most NRA ads, this one doesn't particularly have any message or theme besides to anger its liberal opponents. 

Loesch continued, "But the ultimate insult is that they think we’re so stupid that we’ll let them get away with it. These saboteurs, slashing away with their leaks and sneers, their phony accusations and gagging sanctimony, drive their daggers through the heart of our future, poisoning our belief that honest custody of our institutions will ever again be possible." 

"So they can then build their utopia from the ashes of what they burned down. No, their fate will be failure and they will perish in the political flames of their own fires. We are the National Rifle Association of America. And we are Freedom's Safest Place," Loesch added.

Is it just me or is it getting increasingly difficult to separate the NRA, right wing trolls, and Russian operatives these days? 

As you may have noticed the NRA has been very quiet lately after the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

However I guess now they feel enough time has gone by that we have all forgotten that their constant lobbying for ever looser gun laws has now resulted in the death of 59 innocent Americans.

Fat chance.

Just another reminder that Australia solved the problem of mass shootings.

In 1996, Australia enacted strict gun laws. It hasn't had a mass shooting since. https://t.co/KzqngxRzjI pic.twitter.com/qSU2hiUURQ

— Slate (@Slate) October 3, 2017

And this means it is once again time to remember Jim Jefferies amazing bit on gun control.

Part one.

Part two.

It can be done.

We've seen it.

The question is whether or not the American people have the courage to do it.

Las Vegas mass shooting completely changes band member's stance on guns.

pic.twitter.com/0NFjHf3PW2

— Caleb Keeter (@Calebkeeter) October 2, 2017

Courtesy of WaPo:

“I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd amendment my entire life. Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was. We actually have members of our crew with [Concealed Handgun Licenses], and legal firearms on the bus,” Keeter wrote. “They were useless.” He continued: 

We couldn’t touch them for fear police might think we were part of the massacre and shoot us. A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city with dedicated, fearless police officers desperately trying to help, because of access to an insane amount of fire power. 

Enough is enough. 

Writing my parents and the love of my life a goodbye last night and a living will because I felt like I wasn’t going to live through the night was enough for me to realize that this is completely and totally out of hand. These rounds were just powerful enough that my crew guys just standing in close proximity of a victim shot by this f—ing coward received shrapnel wounds. 

We need gun control RIGHT. NOW. My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it until my brothers on the road and myself were threatened by it. We are unbelievably fortunate to not be among the number of victims killed or seriously wounded by this maniac.

(Keeter is the lead guitarist for the Josh Abbott Band)

Yes, of course we need gun control, but the Republicans are still saying that it is wrong to talk about it in the wake of this most recent shooting, because it would be "insensitive" to politicize it.

The problem of course is that after a couple of weeks everybody's nerves will calm down, and nobody will feel compelled to talk about it at all. That wouldn't be goal would it?

rhetorical question, of course it is.

That's why the NRA is delaying TV ads in Virginia. 

Gotta wait for the dust to settle.

According to Quartz this is the 338th mass shooting in 2017.

That is more than one mass shooting a day.

So this one band member's position on the 2nd Amendment has been changed, but for the rest of the country, who were NOT ducking bullets while people around them were murdered, this is still an academic argument.

So do we need to wait until EVERY American barely survives a mass shooting in order to see a change to our gun laws?

Because sadly even then that may not prove enough of an incentive.

Simply put, you cannot call yourself the greatest nation on earth if your citizens are being gunned down in random shootings every day.

Why is that so damn hard to understand?

Estranged husband in Texas murders his wife and seven of her friends with handgun. Update!

Spencer Hight

Courtesy of the New York Daily News:  

The mother of a woman who was shot dead by her estranged husband in a mass shooting in Texas said he was upset that she was moving on after she filed for divorce. 

Meredith Hight, 27, was hosting a cookout for her friends and colleagues at her home in Plano on Sunday when Spencer James Hight crashed the party and opened fire, killing a total of eight people, police said. Meredith Hight filed for divorce in July and while her husband had moved out months ago, he collected his belongings from the home just days before the shooting, her mother Debbie Lane told WFAA. 

"I think he saw our comfort, ease and happiness and her embracing new life and resented it to the maximum and responded the way he did,” Lane told the local news station.

Hight was killed by the police officer who responded to the call of a shooting.

As you can probably guess Hight had been violent toward his former ex-wife, though she did not report this to the police, and he had a problem with alcohol.

The argument can be made that this man could have killed his wife with a number of weapons that would not have included a gun, but to kill eight people, five of them grown men, that requires an instrument specifically designed to take multiple lives.

Once again these weapons are advertised as tools with which to protect yourself and your family, but in the vast majority of the cases, if used at all it is to cause harm to yourself, your family, or other innocent people.

Update: Almost missed this. There was also a school shooting in Washington yesterday with one fatality.

After suggesting for years that mass shootings were a mental health problem, and not a gun problem, the Republicans decide to rescind law keeping guns away from the mentally ill.

Courtesy of Bloomberg: 

Republicans in Congress began a process Thursday of rescinding a federal rule aimed at preventing people with serious mental-health problems from buying guns, one of the earliest targets in a long list of Obama administration regulations lawmakers plan to reverse. 

Gun-rights groups and some mental-health advocates say the rule, approved in December, was overly broad, established a flawed standard and violated peoples’ due-process rights. 

The House voted 235-180 to disapprove the rule. Republicans are using a special procedure under the Congressional Review Act to undo regulations put in place during the last six months of a previous administration using expedited procedures. The mechanism allows the Senate to circumvent the 60-vote threshold, which means it can be passed without Democratic support.

No, it makes perfect sense if you think about it.

After all with a law on the books to keep guns out of the hand of the mentally ill how would Trump voters ever be able to get a gun?

Just your daily reminder that every argument that conservatives use to protect gun manufacturers from suffering a loss of profit, is pure bullshit.

Trump supporting shooter kills six in Quebec mosque. Fox News assumes it was a Muslim.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

A shooting at a mosque in Quebec, Canada on Sunday night left six people dead and eight others injured. Following the shooting, many politicians and media outlets were quick to link the incident to Islam, noting falsely that the gunman was of Moroccan origin. 

However, on Monday, the suspect in the shooting was identified as Alexandre Bissonnette, a 27-year-old white French Canadian nationalist, who was described in a local outlet as “an anti-immigrant far-right ‘troll.'”

"A 27 year-old white French Canadian."

However this is how Fox News reported on the shooting initially. 

Suspect in Quebec mosque terror attack was of Moroccan origin, reports show https://t.co/oRzxGHEXDm pic.twitter.com/aEsEtccMvi

— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 30, 2017

Now to be fair there is always a lot of initial confusion during shootings and often there are reports of multiple shooters when it usually turns out to be only one.

In this case there was a Moroccan man detained as well, but he turned out to be a witness, not a gunman.

However Fox jumped to the conclusion IMMEDIATELY that the Moroccan guy was the shooter and seemed to completely ignore the white guy in custody.

And they were not the only ones to assume the shooter was an immigrant with ties to Islam.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Sean Spicer offered an eyebrow-raising take on the attack, seeming to cite it as further justification for President Trump's crackdown on refugees and immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries. Spicer first noted that in a call on Monday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump had agreed that the motive remained unclear, and had condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms." But then Spicer continued with this statement: "It's a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant and why the president is taking steps to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to our nation's safety and security." 

Oops.

As it turned out the actual shooter was exactly the kind of guy that Fox News and the White House hoped he would not be.

Courtesy of Heavy:

But another former classmate, Jean-Michel Allard-Prus, who studied politics with him, at Université Laval and has kept in touch with him, told Le Journal de Quebec that Bissonnette, “has right-wing political ideas, pro-Israel, anti-immigration. I had many debates with him about Trump. He was obviously pro-Trump.”

And a third university classmate, Vincent Boissoneault, who grew up with Bissonnette, was friends with him on Facebook, told the Globe and Mail, “I can tell you he was certainly no Muslim convert. I wrote him off as a xenophobe. I didn’t even think of him as totally racist, but he was enthralled by a borderline racist nationalist movement.” 

Acquaintances said he became interested in the far right movement when Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front in France, spoke in Quebec City in March 2016, the Globe and Mail reports. He began speaking out about politics on Facebook and became estranged from some friends, according to the newspaper.

Yeah you can certainly see why they were hoping it was the Moroccan dude.

Kind of hard to sell the idea that you are keeping your country safe by banning Muslims with some white guy up north shooting holes in them. 

And no wonder Donald Trump identifies Fox News as the only reliable media outlet. Their prejudices line up quite neatly.

Sarah Palin pissed off that Washington shooter was not identified as an immigrant, because being an immigrant makes the killings worse?

Courtesy of Anti-Immigrant Barbie's Facebook page:

He's NOT Hispanic, and YES - He Terrorized... Shame On Media 

We share such sadness for lives lost in Washington State. Please offer heartfelt prayers for those impacted forever by Friday's heinous attack. 

In reporting this, once again the media got it wrong - why? It's appalling they made sure to announce the murderer was Hispanic. (Early eyewitness reports suggested the shooter was Hispanic.)  Ironically, my Hispanic family friend and I watched the unfolding coverage that night and both commented that media was terrible in making that racial pronouncement. (She does actually have one Hispanic friend, Juanita Fuller, but I have no idea if they actually watch TV together.) It was glaringly obvious they could NOT know this otherwise unidentified dark-skinned male was Hispanic - in fact he didn't look "exclusively" Hispanic to many of us - so why did media lie? 

As per usual, after capturing this evil man who struck such terror, media THEN feigns caution and holds off as long as possible to reveal the killer's background as a Muslim immigrant. We don't even have to ask "why?". (To make sure they go the facts right? To delay folks like you from jumping on the Muslim terrorism bandwagon? Could be a lot of reasons.)

And where's your apology, media? You give us no reason whatsoever to trust you. It's a good thing there are more of us than there are of you - and we know where to put our trust, faith and reliance for wisdom and strength to victoriously plow through these coming days... Proverbs 3:5-6. (Perfect, a Bible quote about not trusting your critical thinking skills and instead trusting in God. Good choice in this situation.)

- Sarah Palin

Okay so what we know so far is that the shooter, Arcan Cetin, killed four women and a man in with a rifle in a Macy's store at the Cascade Mall in Burlington, Washington.

Right now there is no identified motive, though apparently he did recently break up with a girlfriend who worked at a Macy's store.

Cetin has a history of inappropriately touching women, and he was arrested on assault charges back in 2015.

He posted this about Hillary Clinton, though to my ear it sounds a little sarcastic.

However there is also online evidence that he suggested that President Obama's liberalism was a lot like communism.

Though Cetin came from the predominantly Muslim country of Turkey there is little known about his own religious beliefs, and no evidence as of yet that he was connected to terrorist groups.

Cetin came to this country as a young child and attended public schools in Washington.

So considering the fact that he immigrated to this country many years ago as a child, does not seem connected to any radical Islamic groups, and has no known ties to terrorists, just why does his nationality seem like such a big deal to Sarah Palin that she is demanding an apology from the media for not getting it right?

Oh I think we all know the answer to that question.

Here's what I know.

This is once again a case of a mass shooting by a guy with a gun in America.

Why he did it, where he is from, and what religion he practices, do not change that fundamental fact.

Survivors of Charleston church shooting sue FBI over background checks.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

The FBI is being sued by survivors of the Charleston church shooting, who say federal negligence enabled Dylann Roof to buy the .45-caliber handgun he used. 

Lawyers for three people who survived the attack and the estates of five who were slain inside the Emanuel AME Church say the FBI negligently failed to thoroughly check Roof's background before he bought the gun last year. 

If the agency had done its job, Roof's prior drug arrest would have shown up, and the bureau would have denied his purchase, the lawsuits filed Thursday allege. 

Attorney Andy Savage said Friday that his clients hope the litigation will lead to improvements in gun safety. 

"In this case, you had an unqualified purchaser that slipped through the cracks," Savage told The Associated Press. "And the result is what happened on June 17."

Well the pro-gun crowd is always arguing that we don't need any more gun restrictions we simply need to enforce the ones that we already have, so they should have no problem with this.

Of course if the case leads to a strengthening of enforcement procedures for those background checks I am sure they will find plenty of reason to bitch about it.