One of Dallas' top leaders has urged the National Rifle Association on Monday to find another city to host its annual convention, taking a stand against gun violence in the wake of last week's deadly mass shooting in Florida.
Dwaine Caraway, mayor pro tem of Dallas, said that the NRA, the nation's largest gun lobby, would be met with "marches and demonstrations" if it went ahead with plans to host the three-day meeting scheduled for May 4-6.
"It is a tough call when you ask the NRA to reconsider coming to Dallas, but it is putting all citizens first, and getting them to come to the table and elected officials to come to the table and to address this madness now," Caraway told reporters on Monday. "At the end of the day, we need to connect the dots. The NRA needs to step up to the plate, and they need to show leadership."
"I am saddened the fact that every time that we turn around is some type of gun violence," he added.
If the NRA moved its event, that could cost Dallas as much as $40 million, according to some estimates.
Caraway, a self-proclaimed strong "believer" in the second amendment, said the NRA has a national responsibility "to address this madness now" as he called on the group to help establish better gun laws.
"We should not allow people to possess assault rifles and weapons," he said. "While we are worrying about terrorists, we're living in a terrorist society amongst us Americans today."
A city in Texas asking the NRA to stay the hell away from them?
I am not a Biblical scholar but I am pretty sure that is a sign of the End of Days.
Well for gun owners at least.
Go ahead, somebody tell me again that these students in Florida are just kids, and that they will never have a real impact on the gun debate.
As soon as I saw the title for this article, I knew you would use it to take a cheap swipe at Texas, a state you know NOTHING about. Worry about the problems in your own back yard instead of using this blog to trash other places. There are several very blue pockets in Texas and Dallas happens to be one of them. Kudos to Mayor Caraway.
ReplyDeleteTed Cruz is the senator from where again?
DeleteWho gave us G. W. Bush?
Rick Perry?
Isn't Texas a state that has drive-thrus for beer and ammo and both from the same drive-thru?
Sometimes the money isn't worth it, and I commend Mayor Caraway for his stance.
ReplyDeleteThe lives we’ve lost in mass shootings — again
ReplyDeleteTHREE MONTHS ago, after 25 people were gunned down in a church in the Texas countryside, we republished a list of some of the other victims of mass shootings in the United States. We thought it important to remember the names and honor the lives of those killed. We believed it necessary to ask — again: “When will we decide it’s enough?” We hoped, without much hope, for action from President Trump and Republicans in Congress.
Sadly — infuriatingly — they did not act. Sadly — infuriatingly — the list of lives lost in mass shootings has grown. Again.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-list-was-already-too-long/2018/02/19/3abc5fba-134c-11e8-8ea1-c1d91fcec3fe_story.html
Some Conservatives Are Trying To Discredit Outspoken Florida Shooting Survivors
ReplyDeleteThey’re dismissing arguments in favor of gun control by targeting the students themselves.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/florida-shooting-survivors-parkland_us_5a8c54dce4b0273053a52821
fucking despicable.
Well, gee, let's see here....what have those kids been called so far? Poisoned by the left, the left met with them and gave them their talking points because they're just kids, child actors, etc.
ReplyDeleteYES because WTH do kids know? Let the big boys handle it, and they did today. Assault weaponry again will not be addressed in this session congress (WTF), but big bad asshole is asking to ban bump stocks. Oh good for YOU, dotard dumb@ss.
No one but NO one needs an assault weapon. PERIOD. Thank you SO much, Dubya.
Florida Republicans Vote Down Assault Weapons Ban After Parkland Shooting
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politicususa.com/2018/02/20/florida-republicans-vote-assault-weapons-ban-parkland-shooting.html
Parkland Students Warn Trump And The NRA That They Won’t Stop Until Change Is Made
...Parkland student Arvind Geer was asked what the students want from lawmakers. He answered, ” We want lawmakers to make this change with gunfire — gun reform, school safety, and not want this to happen again. Everyone knows that we’re resilient. We would not stop for this. Like, this will be going and going and going, until we see change happen. So this will — this will be big.”
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/02/20/parkland-students-warn-trump-and-the-nra-that-they-won.html
They pushed this through fast before the students could get there. Do they really think that is the solution?
DeleteBecause these students are not going away. They are not going to forget and they are not going to give up.
Every politician that takes money from the NRA is going to be a target. As soon as these students are old enough to qualify, they are going to start running against those asshats. They will start winning. Eventually the NRA toadies will be out. Then laws can be changed.
They not only have delayed the inevitable, they have ensure their own political demise. They've also accelerated that conclusion.
These are now one issue voters and their issue will be gun regulations. You're for them or your out. They won't stop until they've won. And they have a lifetime to accomplish their goals.
WATCH: Liberal redneck Trae Crowder tells ‘NRA to f*ck all the way completely off’
ReplyDelete...“You really want armed civilians in rural schools?” he asks. “Let me ask you think: What’s the over-under on the number of weeks before some black kid gets blown away for trying to reach for a Butterfinger in his backpack.”
Watch the full video below.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/watch-liberal-redneck-trae-crowder-tells-nra-fck-way-completely-off/
Oprah Follows in George and Amal Clooney's Footsteps, Donates $500k to Gun Control Rally
ReplyDelete...“March For Our Lives is created by, inspired by, and led by students across the country who will no longer risk their lives waiting for someone else to take action to stop the epidemic of mass school shootings that has become all too familiar,” the rally’s website reads. “In the tragic wake of the seventeen lives brutally cut short in Florida, politicians are telling us that now is not the time to talk about guns. March For Our Lives believes the time is now.”
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2018/02/oprah-matches-george-clooney-500-thousand-dollar-donation-march-our-lives
Now is not the time to talk or march or bitch and moan.
DeleteIt's the time to find candidates and put them up in the primaries to defeat the NRAsuckers that currently hold office. Take that those millions and start finding and running your candidates. Take one office at a time. That's where the change is going to happen. Start there. Then when you've got your guys in office you can start to lobby the public's opinion towards your side. But get your guys in place first because they'll be writing the laws and they'll be voting on them.
Give up trying to persuade those already in office. That dog will never hunt.
Replace them.
That goes for every other issue to. The only way to move forward is to eliminate the obstacles. Congressional incumbants are the obstacles, House and Senate, GOP and in some cases Democrat. Primary them out or run an opponent that will take them out. That may mean going against the DNC but that's OK. They don't spend money at the local and state levels much anyway. And they completely ignore the rural areas and the middle of the continent.
Why not hold the convention in congress,that is where they buy off their stooges or ask traitor trump i am sure he has some convention center to rent out.
ReplyDeleteActually the city of Dallas proper is much more liberal than you think. It's the rural areas and the suburbs where most of the redneck conservative live. They're the problem. Anyone that supports Trump is a blind fool and the NRA is a dangerous organization. they also funneled a lot of money from Russia to Trump. They are traitors.
ReplyDeleteStudents who survived massacre refuse to pose for photo op with Trump
ReplyDeleteThe students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, refuse to be props for Trump’s agenda.
On Monday, survivors of last week’s deadly shooting Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg told CNN’s “New Day” they will not be attending Trump’s “listening session” this week.
“I believe we’ve been invited, but neither of us are going,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez, who made national news for her barn burner of a speech at a gun control rally this weekend, said they have a prior town hall meeting with Jake Tapper.
But the refusal is also a rebuke to Trump, who conducted himself with shocking insensitivity in the wake of the shooting.
...Asked if she had any words for the NRA, Gonzalez said, “Disband, dismantle … don’t make another organization under a different name. Don’t you dare come back here.”
In response to the point that the NRA gives millions to politicians to vote their way, Gonzalez had a blunt response.
“If they accept this blood money, they are against the children. They are against the people who are dying,” she said. “There’s no other way to put it at this point. You’re either funding the killers, or you’re standing with the children. The children who have no money. We don’t have jobs. So we can’t pay for your campaign. We would hope that you have the decent morality to support us at this point.”
“If you can’t get elected without taking money from child murderers,” added Hogg, “why are you running?”
https://shareblue.com/students-who-survived-massacre-refuse-to-pose-for-photo-op-with-trump/
Hundreds of Florida students are standing with Parkland for gun control
On Tuesday, students from at least four other schools staged actions in support of gun control.
Up to a thousand students from West Boca High School made national news when they walked out of class Tuesday, and trekked 11 miles to Stoneman Douglas.
https://shareblue.com/florida-lawmakers-horrified-backlash-blocking-vote-guns/
Florida lawmakers face horrified backlash for blocking vote on guns
As students all around Florida and throughout the country stand with the teenagers who survived the Parkland school shooting, the survivors themselves trekked hundreds of miles by bus to the state capitol in Tallahassee to lobby their legislators for change.
But no sooner had the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High arrived than the GOP-controlled Florida House of Representatives, by a vote of 71 to 36, blocked debate of a bill to prohibit assault weapons.
Photographs revealed several students looking on from the galleries in horror and disgust as their lawmakers failed them.
https://shareblue.com/florida-lawmakers-horrified-backlash-blocking-vote-guns/
Even 97 percent of Republicans want tougher gun laws
...In just two years, public support for tougher gun laws has catapulted by 19 points, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll taken in the wake of the massacre at a Florida high school.
Most notably, the poll found that a stunning 97 percent of Republican voters now support passing a tougher background check bill for all gun purchases.
...By a margin of 70 percent to 20 percent, Americans say that mass killings by U.S. citizens is a bigger problem than mass killings by people from other countries. Nearly 70 percent of respondents, including 79 of women, support a complete ban on the sale of assault weapons in the U.S.
And 67 percent say it’s just too easy to buy guns in this country.
Meanwhile, the GOP is trying to make it even easier.
https://shareblue.com/97-percent-republicans-tougher-gun-laws/
They're horrified by the backlash? Really? They had their heads so far up the NRA's ass they couldn't see that coming?
DeleteStudents from four other schools are banding with Parkland.
This isn't going to stop. It won't just be area schools or Florida schools.
These kids are digital natives. They have never known a life without social media. This is going to spread across the nation. Other schools that have been the sites of shootings. Other students that have had a family member, loved one or just some kid they knew at their school gunned down. A friend of a friend of a friend. It will spread like a plague. A giant, NRA-hating plague. It will infect not only those in school but their family and friends. And the younger students not yet in high school. They won't stop and they won't shut up.
They'll get those single issue abortion voters to embrace their single issue gun regulation stance. If you're pro-life (like you claim you are) then you are pro gun regulation. You're either for life or against it.
Anti-abortion is anti-gun.
Or you are a fucking hypocrite.
One of the students said it today quite simply. You're for us or you're against us.
These assholes shouldn't be horrified. They should be shit in their pants afraid. Because the next time they are up for re-election, they may be running against one of them. And they'll lose.
National Gun Reform Group Gains 75,000 New Volunteers After Florida Shooting
ReplyDelete...Since a gunman killed 17 students and adults in Parkland, Florida, last Wednesday, gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action has seen in a surge in new volunteers ― and it’s eager to mobilize them to support the new student-led movement for gun reform.
Moms Demand Action, the grassroots arm of Everytown For Gun Safety, was founded after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The group says more than 75,000 people have reached out online or by text to volunteer in the last week.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/moms-demand-action-volunteers_us_5a8cc24ee4b03414379b4744
https://everytown.org/who-we-are/
Add Teens For Gun Reform and March for our Lives.
Delete"George and Amal Clooney, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg, and Oprah Winfrey will donate to the March for Our Lives, a demonstration to advocate for gun control in the wake of Wednesday’s tragic shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla. The Clooneys, Spielbergs, Katzenbergs, and Winfrey each vowed $500,000. The Clooneys and Katzenbergs will also participate in the march on Washington, D.C."
That's $2 million dollars and celebrities people pay attention to.
"The March 24 rally is organized by five teenagers who survived Wednesday’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — Jacqueline Coren, Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, David Hogg, and Alex Wind — in collaboration with the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety. Rallies will also be organized in cities throughout the U.S."
How quickly did these five organize and get results?
Yeah, those politicians in Florida that blocked debate on the assault rifles ban should be peeing their pants. If any of these young people decide to run against them, they can kiss their re-election goodbye.
Texas has started to look much more habitable than Florida lately. Florida’s always seemed odd to me politically. Their laws tend to be more conservative than you’d expect from a state that thrives on the tourism their beached & climate provide.
ReplyDeleteAnd its police force and justice system? Ugh... Trayvon Martin, Casey Anthony, need I say more?
Pro tem.
ReplyDeleteMay 4-6.
What do you want to bet the NRA holds their convention and Dallas has a new mayor, pro tem or not, in May?
As blue as they might be, there are businessmen that will get rid of the Mayor before they'll lose $40 million in revenue.
Supreme Court refuses to challenges California's waiting period. Of course, Clarence Thomas is the only one to dissent.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/supreme-court-california-gun-waiting-period_us_5a8c8565e4b00a30a25036d8
"In a blow to gun rights activists, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away a challenge to California’s 10-day waiting period for firearms purchases that is intended to guard against impulsive violence and suicides.
The court’s action underscored its continued reluctance to step into a national debate over gun control roiled by a series of mass shootings including one at a Florida school last week. One of the court’s staunchest conservatives, Justice Clarence Thomas, dissented from the decision to reject the case and accused his colleagues of showing contempt toward constitutional protections for gun rights.
The justices also declined to take up a separate gun case involving a National Rifle Association challenge to California’s refusal to lower fees on firearms sales and instead use some of the fee money to track down weapons owned illegally."
Media coverage usually fades a week after a shooting. Not this time.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/21/17033308/florida-shooting-media-gun-control
Dallas City Councilman, Dwayne Caroway, held a press conference Monday in front of city hall. He called on the city of Dallas to stop the National Rifle Association from coming to Dallas for its national convention. Strange, seems I heard those words before. Oh, I got it! Caroway was parroting the exact words I told the city council at an open mike on January 24, 2018, about a month ago.
ReplyDeleteWhen I spoke to the Dallas City Council at the time, many members of the council were up talking to each other, and otherwise too preoccupied with other things to pay attention to what I was saying. After all, I am just a regular citizen.
And there lies the problem.
When I spoke I spoke as just a regular citizen and podcast host.(SoMetro Talk. Google SoMetro Radio, hear me Thursdays at noon.) When millions have been speaking across the country, their loud cries have been drowned out by something speaking louder: money. Sadly our politicians are so busy actually LISTENING to the fat cats that we, the citizens, might as well be mute. Why does it take people dying to finally get them to pay attention to us? The people. Why do the people we elect turn a deaf ear until blood is running in the streets?
I am happy that a month later, after 17 children and teachers were gunned down in Florida, that one of our elected officials decided to speak. When the cameras come out ALL of them want to speak. When they are stuffing their pockets with money from fat cats ( see Dwayne Caroway NBC 5 Dallas took money) so fast that they can't even count it, we, the people are the last things on their minds.
Welcome to the table, Mr. Caroway. Dinner is cold. Dead cold.
James Dunn
SoMetro Talk
SoMetro Radio