I visited Bill O’Reilly’s website so you don’t have to. That’s what we’re left with – Bill O’Reilly is no longer on Fox News, a fact which still shocks me when I think about it. He’s sort of persona non grata at most legitimate media outlets. So he’s been left to write his own “hot takes” on the daily news on his personal blog/website. Bill O’Reilly: blogger. So, O’Reilly had some thoughts about the Las Vegas shooting. These thoughts were bad.
Once again, the big downside of American freedom is on gruesome display. A psychotic gunman in Las Vegas has committed the worst mass murder in U. S. history. 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, who lived in Nevada, began firing from a hotel window about 10pm Pacific time last night. His targets were folks attending a music festival below him. When it was all over, more than 50 human beings lay dead, 400 plus wounded. Paddock apparently killed himself as police closed in on him.
The murderer had a number of deadly weapons in his room and you can count on the gun control debate to ramp up. But having covered scores of gun-related crimes over the years, I can tell you that government restrictions will not stop psychopaths from harming people. They will find a way.
Public safety demands logical gun laws but the issue is so polarizing and emotional that little will be accomplished as there is no common ground. The NRA and its supporters want easy access to weapons, while the left wants them banned. This is the price of freedom. Violent nuts are allowed to roam free until they do damage, no matter how threatening they are. The Second Amendment is clear that Americans have a right to arm themselves for protection. Even the loons.
A lot of people are pouring scorn on O’Reilly for saying “this is the price of freedom.” But what offends me is that O’Reilly is setting up a false dichotomy, the same black-and-white bullsh-t that the NRA and gun manufacturers use to get those loons to buy more f–king guns. “The NRA and its supporters want easy access to weapons, while the left wants them banned.” The left does not want to f–king ban guns. If a Democratic presidential candidate came out and said “we need to destroy all of the guns in America and never let private citizens own guns from here on out,” that candidate would be laughed out of town. If a Republican candidate went up there and said “there should be no restrictions on gun ownership whatsoever, we need to arm babies with semiautomatic weapons and silencers,” that candidate would become president of the United States.
As for O’Reilly’s “price of freedom” remark… I took the comment as a grim, factual statement. He’s not saying this should be the price of freedom, he’s saying it IS the price of freedom. And he’s not wrong. We talk about gun control until we’re blue in the face, after every mass shooting, after every tragedy. And nothing gets done. Because this is the price of freedom and we’re complicit in it. Millions of people in this country are perfectly willing to temporarily mourn victims of mass shootings and then move on to something else, because freedom and ‘Murica. This is the price we’re willing to pay as a country, to see children murdered in schools, to see young adults slaughtered in movie theaters and nightclubs, to see music fans picked off by a madman in a makeshift eagle’s nest in Las Vegas. This is our tacit agreement with ourselves, to justify our “freedom.” And the price is astronomical.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
F*CK OFF.
It is NOT the price of freedom. Carnage, over and over again, is NOT the price of freedom.
We don’t have sanity and we don’t have freedom. We have sacrificed both.
This twisted narrative being slavishly sold and worshiped into this country’s fabric is why we’re doomed to this over and over again.
F*ck this guy for using ANOTHER tragedy to push this shit. And these are the assholes that constantly whine that the left politicizes everything.
Heartless, bloodthirsty f*ckers, the lot of them. It isn’t their loved ones that need burying. Any rat bastard that says this sh*t out loud should be forced to go to evey funeral his f*cking “freedom” necessitates. Every g*damn one.
It will keep ’em too busy to spout off hateful f*cking rhetoric, to be sure.
G*damn real life Death Eaters.
Jimmy Kimmel said it best:
It IS a public safety issue
!!!!!!!!
This level of terror is not only horrific to contemplate and crushing on the soul
It’s also detrimental to our collective humanity.
This guy brought evil to the masses in a way that should scare even the most ardent Second Ammendment supporter bc this isn’t about bearing arms
This is about mass murder.
You can keep your guns- no one is “taking them away” but why do we need this semi and automatic weapons of mass destruction???????? Why are these part of the equation? Where is the logic???
I’m so angry. We should not have to factor this kind of risk into everyday life in America. That’s not freedom that is terror.
Keep your hunting rifles; keep your pistols.
If you say we need automatic weapons of mass destruction I say you are treading on me and my constitutional rights.
It is about public safety!!!!!!!!!
You need a special license to drive a truck. To drive a motorcycle. To operate heavy machinery like cranes.
But these WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION are just the price we pay for freedom?!
Fuck no!!!!!!!! I’m sick of it!!!!!!!
To quote “The Onion,” these mass shootings are just the price we pay to protect people’s freedom to commit mass shootings.
And yet once they realized Sudafed could be used as starting material to synthesize meth, they restricted its sales and replaced it with the much less effective Sudafed PE.
(Which kind of backfired, actually, since it turned out that the best indicator of a meth lab in the vicinity was a run on Sudafed. They announced that they were finding fewer meth labs, of course, not mentioning that they had become so much harder to find….)
Regardless, it’s common to pursue restrictions or outright bans on anything that is causing deaths or maiming or being used for nefarious purposes. All sorts of consumer products are affected. Why do you think we have seatbelt laws now, while my generation was free to fall out of a car moving at 65 mph with wild abandon? (Almost happened to me at the age of six, actually.) Or childproof caps? Or seals on medicines and other things that could be contaminated by the nefarious? Or laws against leaving an infant or small child unsupervised and locked in a car?
The only exception seems to be these mass murders by guns. Any hint that we need to alter laws concerning guns after such a tragedy is shouted down as anti-freedom.
I said this on the Jimmy Kimmel post – O’Rielly is right. This IS the price of ‘freedom’ (gag gag gag for agreeing with this POS), as defined by the NRA. And American’s accepted this price when we looked the other way post-Sandy Hook. If American’s can stomach a bunch of little white kids being shot at school and STILL defend the idea of fing automatic weapons being sold in walmart…well, I mean…what is there left to say.
@clare
I’m terrified that you are right. If Sandy Hook couldn’t change things what can? The NRA has bought so many politicians I feel hopeless. If anyone hasn’t seen Jim Jeffries’ gun control piece on YouTube I highly recommend it.
The NRA is the largest corporation funding American terrorism and each representative that takes money from them is complicit. Blood is on their hands.
Blood is also on the hands of each and every member of the NRA, especially those who dutifully trotted out to vote on NRA orders for Donald Trump in key swing states and targeted districts.
The birth of this tragedy (and Sandy Hook, and Columbine, and every other mass shooting) lies in the fact that while, like so many things that go horribly awry, the NRA started sensibly as a pro-hunting/conservation group. But in the late 70s, the fundamental, loopy, downright psychotic gun nuts (middle-aged, white, racist males) got a hold of control of the NRA and through their terrifying effective fundraising and donating to political campaigns and have effectively made our streets a battle zone. I don’t want to be afraid for my life walking past a high rise building, like a foot soldier trying to avoid snipers. And this is coming from someone who grew up with a healthy respect for what guns can do, and happens to own a handgun (inherited from my grandfather, who is most likely rotating in his grave and half way to the liquid core of the planet by now on account of the state of this country).
I’m legitimately scared. For myself, for people I love, for total strangers. Just scared.
Yeah I’m with you. The only thing I’ll disagree with Kaiser on is while I may have been for reasonable common sense restrictions and laws years ago, I’m all for a ban on guns now. The time for being reasonable is long past.
Me too, I *do* want to f–king ban guns.
Oh, same. What the actual F do we need guns for, if not to hurt other people? Seriously what the hell else are you going to do with an assault rifle?
You must live in a city or well populated area.. guns DO have utility. In my hometown many use guns to hunt deer for food, which they eat in the winter. Truly. But SOME guns have no purpose but to kill. I do not think civilians need AR-15s or even semi automatics.
@Anabelle, I believe you. In the UK, where I currently live, people use guns for shooting/hunting, too. But they are bought and sold in a highly controlled manner (or at least they should be). You can’t walk into walmart and pick up 30 handguns the day you turn 18. I’d argue that MOST guns have no purpose in civilian hands and that SOME guns, may have value to SOME parts of the population. If we must have guns to hunt, then we can regulate, can’t we.
I’m also for a ban on guns. I think it’s time to match their extremism.
I am all for a ban. It will never happen but there is no point to them, and I hate hunting with every fiber of my being, so I couldn’t care less about hunters. It is not a necessity to kill defenseless animals in their habitats in 2017 just for the sport of it.
This is the price of unchecked freedom. No entity except the military and SWAT teams need the kind of weaponry that was used in this attack. I believe in the 2nd Amendment but it needs limits. No private citizens (especially not a single private citizen) should have access to the kinds and amount of weaponry involved in this attack.
Same Va Va Kaboom. It is unchecked freedom. I’m a believer in the 2nd Amendment as well, but weapons like that should NEVER be privately owned. Ever. Period.
I said the same thing on the Kimmel thread. Couldn’t agree more.
You are so right! If they don’t care about a$$holes killing THEIR kids, they don’t care about the rest of America. Sad but true.
“I can tell you that government restrictions will not stop psychopaths from harming people. They will find a way.”
Really? Come and visit a little country called Australia. About the only thing I ever supported the then-prime minister on was gun control after the Port Arthur massacre, and Australia hasn’t had a mass-shooting since. If people can’t get guns, they can’t use them. They can use other things, like knives, but they won’t kill as many people. This isn’t complicated.
This.
Right? Works in the UK, too. I mean, evil people still do evil shit, but a guy with a knife or machete or even a car is, by nature, less deadly than a dude with 32 fing automatic weapons. God, I know how cold those words sound, but I think this shit has been sugar coated for so long…and we need to end this conversation with either a big big change, or collective acceptance that this is reality in America in 2017. That a guy can buy dozens of weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition and carry it around Las Vega completely LEGALLY, on his way to kill dozens of people.
He certainly wouldn’t have been able to kill several dozen people and wound hundreds more from his hotel room in a few minutes with a pocket knife.
Totally agree. Hated Howard but he did one simple and quite brave thing. Basically he outlawed guns. No more mass murders. And Howard was a conservative prime minister who is currently trying to stop marriage equality in Australia. But he did one effective thing.
I agree. Absolutely loathe Howard but I did respect him and all our pollies at the time for passing our strict gun laws. We are relatively free and safe.
Canada here. We have psychopaths here too, but they can do a lot less damage without guns.
Amen. Someone mentioned on Twitter the difference guns make: Edmonton attack, 5 wounded. LV attack, 50 dead and hundreds wounded. Yes, gun laws matter. We are not traveling to the US while Cheeto is 45 but frankly for the last few years we have gone less and less because the level of insanity in terms of gun use has gone through the roof.
To put it in perspective – we travel yearly to Turkey (skipped last year as we were supposed to fly two days after the Istanbul airport attack)., but… We won’t go to the States anymore. I miss people, museums and restaurants but I am not willing to risk my child’s life – any idiot with a grudge and a machine gun can open fire in a theatre, mall, park, museum etc.
I used to live in the US a long time ago and when I came back home post divorce I was sad to leave. I used to be mad at my father for choosing Canada over US 30 years ago, but not anymore. For the last year I have made it a point to thank him every time we talk. I am immensely grateful for all the decencies we manage to preserve as a country in a world gone mad. Hopefully enough of us here are sane and will continue to keep the conservatives out in the next election.
To Bill and the rest of the idiots who went crazy over Clark Gregg’s FB posts yesterday advocating gun control (and btw, can we please get some love for him here on CB??? He is awesome!) – you are a bunch of lying SOBs. Price of freedom my ass. Given the level of technology the military currently has, if any of you ever wants to fight the “gubmint” your guns won’t do jack sh*t. One targeted missile is all it takes. They don’t even need to send a tank or interrupt their coffee break. The only reason to own a machine gun is paranoia and evil intent.
Word.
Compare the number of mass shootings (let alone deaths by firearm) in every country per capita and the US is far and away the highest and the numbers correlate with the strictness of gun control laws.
The willful blindness on this topic is shocking.
I disagree with comparing terrorist attacks from other countries. Canada is dealing with a terrorist attack, that is just fact.
Downplaying the seriousness of the terrorist attack in Edmonton because no one died? No. It was a terrorist attack.
I was very upset to read that the terrorist attack in Edmonton was being compared, as something to be grateful for? that no one died? to the domestic terrorist attack in Las Vegas.
You simply do not need to downplay the terrorist attack in another country to make the point that the US has a horrifying gun problem. That in itself is very telling of the US mindset, and as a Canadian, I reject it.
/endrant
I don’t think anyone meant to downplay the seriousness of intent in the attack in Edmonton, but instead to point out that with severely restricted access to military-grade weapons, there were – thankfully – no deaths, and 1/100th the wounded.
Of course we in Canada must confront terrorism just the same, it has the same pernicious motivation. The mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec City showed that hate + weapons have terrible consequences. That was terrorism, too.
I don’t want to down play the seriousness of what happened in my city, but as someone from Edmonton I’d like to weigh in and say that many of my neighbors, friends and family have been saying “thank God the guy didn’t have a gun, it could have been so much worse”. Yes, people were injured, yes it’s terrifying when it happens 10 mins away from where you live, but in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting we realize how much worse it could have been.
Yes people will still find ways to kill other people but I think the difference between the attacks in these 2 cities really highlights how ridiculous American gun laws are. Our brave police officer is still alive because he was able to fight off a knige wielding lunatic, if the guy had a gun he and many of his fellow officers wouldnt have survived. Why does any private citizen need dozens of semi automatic weapons? The only answer can be to kill as many as possible.
Yep! We actually tried to change things after we experienced mass shootings. Things aren’t perfect of course, even after the Polytechnique massacre, we still had mass shootings, and Montreal still holds the record of school shootings (Poly, Concordia and Dawson College; being a woman working in a university, I can’t forget that fact) despite tougher gun laws. But we try to do better every time to limit the death toll, to prevent murders before they happen. And it certainly works since I’m pretty much able to list all mass murders events that happen in Canada in the past 30 years. And I love my freedom of not being shot at and my freedom to stay alive very, very much!
I hate that argument too because this is the same government who spends billions of dollars on the “War on Drugs.” Where’s the argument there? Yes, there will still be murder and shootings, but for gods sake, at least make it illegal for people to own weapons designed to inflict the most horror in the shortest time.
Come visit Singapore too!
Thanks, Emma. I came on to say the same thing. I still loathe John Howard, but am glad we have such strict gun laws. However, we didn’t and don’t have a gun culture like the USA does, so I’d imagine change for America would be strongly resisted. What America needs to realise is that gun restriction does work, changes aren’t painful or hard to get used to, and why wouldn’t everyone want to live in a safer environment? What other choice is there? Every horrific event, like this – the worst in US history – will eventually be surpassed by the next “worst in US history” event. I don’t know what the solution is, but the NRA is a very powerful and influential force, so perhaps they need to be dealt with first, and go from there. Sure, we still have our loonies here, but I’m grateful to live in a country that bit the bullet, so to speak, and introduced strict laws for gun ownership.
I agree that it’s the gun culture that is the big difference. Howard did face opposition (there is that famous photo of him speaking at a gun rally where you can see his protective vest under his shirt), but the gun lobby in Australia is so small and has so little political or economic clout that it couldn’t do a lot. Also, Australians were just so shocked at the massacre that they didn’t care what the gun lobby wanted. It was a single event that just galvanized the whole country into action.
You would think that Sandy Hook would have been that single event for the US, but unfortunately it wasn’t. It is just so, so tragic.
PREACH!
The f*ck it’s not
Perfectly said Kaiser. The rest of the world does not accept this. Why, why why, is it accepted to have a handgun to defend yourself? Why don’t Americans ask why do we think that is normal? It is not normal. It is simply not normal to have a gun in your drawer.
I agree. I got into a fight on FB with an acquaintance who was promoting a concealed carry class on a local chatter page. She’s a lawyer and she disingenuously said that while she “loved me,” she thought it was common knowledge that most attorneys “carry” because they need to be able to defend themselves from disgruntled defendants. It was insane. She is insane.
esmom i’m all over your posts today! my mom is a nurse and her opinion is that every person who is so convinced they need to carry guns to defend themselves should have to volunteer on cleanup crew at a major shock trauma for a day without passing out or puking before they get a carry permit. she contends that even though people are so sure they could pull a trigger to defend themselves, they could never live with the reality of the carnage they inflicted or that they took a life. i think there is something to that.
That is so bizarre esmom. I’m starting to understand that it is perfectly normal to carry in the USA. How can you live in a world where life is reduced to kill or be killed? Do what you can to change the gun laws. If you can. Again I say it’s just not normal.
Lizzie, I think there’s something to that, definitely. I also think that people are WAY overconfident about their abilities to react and would likely end up doing more damage than if they didn’t have a weapon. If someone starts shooting in self defense on a train or in a movie theater or at a concert, nothing can convince me that there won’t be more casualties, not fewer.
Kali, Other than the woman on FB, I don’t personally know anyone who carries a gun. Most reasonable people I know think it’s not normal, either. My dad, who fled for his life as a child during WWII, offered to get me a gun for protection once I was an adult living on my own. I was dumbfounded and horrified. As I said above, I think it would do more harm than good in a fraught situation.
Most attorneys do NOT carry. Just like regular folk, we’re not supposed to bring guns into a courthouse either, although in many places, we get to bypass the search. Many district attorneys do because some have been killed and I suspect some family law attorneys may but not all. This attorney doesn’t carry and neither do my co-workers.
This is going to sound awful but does it surprise you that a country that doesn’t care enough about its citizens to provide them with access to healthcare also doesn’t care enough to protect them from terrorism
It’s so heartbreaking that this is what is becoming normal in the states. Your soldiers should the ones that paying the price for freedom as they are brave enough to willingly accept that honor. Your citizens should not have to pay that price.
No it isn’t awful. It is the truth. Life means nothing in America anymore. Greed has overtaken compassion and common sense. How else could Tangerine 45 get elected?
I have to disagree here. I’m liberal, always vote Democrat, and agree that reasonable restrictions on firearms like assault rifles are absolutely vital. However, I don’t believe all guns should be banned. I would love to live in a society where people were respectful, nonviolent and kind, where you didn’t need to worry about someone assaulting you for the most minor things. But that’s not the society we live in unfortunately. Like in Florida when a girl and her stepmom dragged a young mom out of her car and beat her unconscious in the middle of traffic while her little boy screamed at them yo “stop hurting my mom”. The woman’s offense? She honked her horn when the two women cut her off in traffic. There’s a case of a young guy who was beat to death by a group of guys who followed him in their car because of some minor road incident. Or the family who was beat by 9 teenagers at an amusement park…the teens sucker punched the 12 yr kid before starting in on his parents. Or the woman who had her nose and cheekbone broken by a young woman because she dared to ask her and her teenage friends to quiet down in a movie theater. People are out of control these days. I cannot imagine hurting someone because of some trivial b-llsh-t. THAT is insane. Notice that none of those examples involved guns.
My dad was a 25 yr veteran of the army and in the last several years he taught a conceal carry class for women only. He taught me, my mom, his pastor and the other church deacons, his neighbors, etc. And he was not “insane” or violent. For everyone he taught, he relentlessly covered the legal issues AND the moral issues involved. He always said the last thing he ever wanted to have to do was fire his weapon at someone, and he passed that on to those he taught. He was a wonderful, loving person who taught his kids to treat all people with the upmost kindness, politeness and respect. He was conservative and very religious…but unlike many, he truly strived to live a moral, loving live. My point is…just because someone believes that they need to be able to defend themselves doesn’t make them insane or a horrible person. That kind of thinking is no better than someone thinking all black men are criminals. I don’t carry a gun on a regular basis because it is a huge responsibility. And no, I’m not “insane” and don’t assume there’s a need for a gun around every corner. I don’t think or act like the world’s out to get me, most gun owners don’t; I go about my day assuming like most that nothing bad is going to happen. I do carry pepper spray on the regular and though I haven’t had to spray a person yet, I have had to pull it out as a threat to stop crazy people. Eg a woman, who was walking her pitbulls with a lead pipe in her hand beating them when they pulled her, as she started coming towards me screaming…because I told her I was calling the police as she was beating her dogs. She was armed with a lead pipe and two pitbulls and chasing me…literally. The police dispatcher was on the phone with me and started yelling “run, RUN!”. It took the cops 20 mins to get there. That woman could’ve killed me or put me in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. For those of you who feel guns should be banned, what is your advice in that situation? If the pepper spray didn’t discourage her, what would you do, just let her beat me with pipe? Or should I have just kept my mouth shut and let 2 dogs be beaten?
The world isn’t safe. There are people out there who don’t have respect for others and who would hurt somebody with or without a gun. Believing that banning guns would remove any need for self-defense is a false assumption.
“I don’t think or act like the world’s out to get me, most gun owners don’t.”
Then why do so many people feel the need to amass an arsenal of high powered weapons? The fact is we have more than 300 million guns in the US and that’s not because most people have one gun each, it’s because gun owners have multiple guns. And you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth — you say you need a gun to defend yourself but you also say you don’t carry it because it’s a big responsibility. Why isn’t your pepper spray enough? How would a gun have helped you in the situation with the dogs — it sounds like you avoided injury without one. I guess I’m not following you.
“Believing that banning guns would remove any need for self-defense is a false assumption.”
I don’t think anyone believes that banning guns would remove any need for self-defense. There will always be people wanting to hurt or kill people. But without guns it will be a heck of a lot harder for them to do so.
Well you didn’t have a gun, right? Just pepper spray? And she WAS dissuaded by just pepper spray so a gun was obviously completely unnecessary in that situation.
In fact, if you DID have a gun on you, who’s to say that she wouldn’t have grabbed the gun from your hand?
Who’s to say that she wouldn’t have had her own gun and shot you first?
The point is, adding a gun to that scenario doesn’t somehow guarantee your safety or the safety of her dogs.
But a gun NOT being in that situation definitely ensures that neither you nor her nor her dogs would end up getting shot.
And if you DID have a gun and ended up shooting her or accidentally shooting one of her dogs, how would you feel about that, about the fact that you killed someone or that you killed the dogs that you wanted to protect?
I have to admit that I find your logic really faulty. You name a number of examples where people used physical violence to hurt others and then go on to say “notice none of these examples involved guns” but what is lost on you is that those examples you used actually support the idea that people should NOT have guns.
Because those beatings you described that ended in a broken nose or a hospital visit could have and likely WOULD have ended in death had any one of those people involved had access to a gun. A CHILD could have ended up shot or watched his mother get shot. It’s precisely because some people (like the ones you described) are often unpredictable, temperamental. impetuous and reactive that they should NOT have easy access to a killing machine.
ETA: Esmom- sorry I see that you addressed the peppers spray example already.
@Esmom and kitten
I agree with both of you. The answer is simple, but the twisty logic to support gun ownership is not.
well if i saw a violent person with a lead pipe and two aggressive dogs i would have kept my damn mouth shut and went around the corner or into a public place to call the police. turns out you can do the right thing and keep yourself safe. your logic is flawed beyond belief but it seems like you are jonesing to use that pepper spray. just be careful b/c if someone gets it away from you – you’re going to get sprayed too. same goes for guns.
FU O’Reilly and every single ignorant, war mongering, gun toting, immigrant hating, POS that in any way supports this regime I salute you too with the middle finger. They go to sleep singing happiness is a warm gun, but sadly not in the way the Beatles intended. Literally they love guns.
As a non-American living in America – i will never understand it. What is freeing about knowing that your kids hold school shooting drills at school or hearing the sound of gunfire around you and seeing people get picked off one by one? This narrative really does not hold when you consider the fact that “the deadliest mass shooting in America” happened in June 2016. That’s a little over a year from yesterday’s tragedy. If that or Sandy Hook did not bring these enabling a-holes out from their slumber, then i do not know what ever will.
I know. I teach preschoolers and the lockdown drills we do are heartbreaking. To have to tell them we need to learn to hide in the bathroom and be quiet so that people think our room is empty just kills me. Seeing their innocent, sweet little faces filled with confusion and fear (not because we tell them someone might shoot them but simply because it’s scary to be in a dark bathroom) just kills me.
that literally made me cry.
Horrible. When we moved to Canada there were no more gun drills, just fire drills. The biggest evacuation from school was to check on a gas line. For children to have to accept this as normal. ..it changes them.
Oh, Esmom, I know exactly what you mean. I’m Australian, and we haven’t had a gun massacre since 1996, but the first time I had to do a lockdown drill – I had a Year 1 class – was heartbreaking. To have to calmly explain to little children about people who might come into our school to do us harm, about pulling the blinds down and keeping absolutely silent in the dark, or crowded into the storeroom, was truly awful. Some children took it in their stride, but several cried softly and had to be comforted for a long time afterwards. It’s always horrible, and I hate doing them.
In the 80’s and 90’s, we only had fire drills. It’s really sad and scary that things have gotten so bad that they actually need shooting and lock down drills
Same in the 60’s and 70’s. My son had earthquake drills added in the mid-90’s.
Fire and tornado drills here. So sad to think kids now have to practice hiding from madness.
Right? Freedom from fear is the greatest freedom of all in my books.
@Bill: even though it seems hard to be human let’s not turn into monsters.
I said this earlier too. The second amendment is about the right for a “well armed militia” to bear arms, 2008 Supreme Court with Scalia writing the decision (thanks person who noted that) reinterpreted the meaning. So help me understand why any one individual needs 40 military grade weapons, and in this case to protect his 2 bedroom home in a senior community?
And have to love that Trump and company rage against free speech but think it’s ok to loosen legislation on silencers and armor piercing weapons?!
Does that mean that essentially one has the right to protest? That is the meaning of 2nd emedment?
The First Amendment includes the rights of speech and peaceful assembly, including protest.
The Second Amendment was just ambiguous enough for the gun makers to twist. It was written to support the rights of local people to develop “well-regulated militias” in case of the need to defend against a tyrannical government. Individual gun ownership has nothing to do with being in a well-regulated militia, though a certain idiotic, delusional minority of gun-owners do organize themselves into what they dub militia groups and jack off playing with their military weapons.
They’re lucky the federal government doesn’t come after them nearly as much as it should.
Thanks, WATP, for clarifying. That’s the way I understood it, after a very wise professor of American history explained it to me. I just don’t understand the need to arm oneself to the eyeballs like these people who form these militia groups. When it’s all said and done, they are gangs. Armed gangs. Armed gangs of thugs. That loophole in he second amendment needs to be closed. Amended. And pronto.
I need to ask a question that seems stupid but as a Canadian, I genuinely don’t know this.
“t was written to support the rights of local people to develop “well-regulated militias” in case of the need to defend against a tyrannical government.”
So what happens in the event of a tyrannical government? (afaic, if your current government isn’t already tyrannical, it’s well on its way…. And I’m not entirely joking) Does the 2nd amendment give gun owning citizens the right to armed mutiny? Do they have the right to threaten or shoot their representatives or the President? Is this an actual thing that people think of as a potentially real occurrence?
I’ve never really had the 2nd amendment fully explained to me so I’m genuinely asking.
Disclaimer: Not an attorney or constitutional scholar. The 2nd Amendment was (I think) intended to clarify language in the original Constitution about when/how an armed militia could be raised and who controlled it – the federal government, or the individual states.
Keep in mind at the time there was no standing army in the US – the entire concept was distrusted by the early Americans. If there was a threat that required an armed response, a citizen militia was organized by individual states to repel the threat. Since most states had few central resources, the militia members were required to bring their own weapons to the fight. Hence the clause about a “well-regulated militia” and the “right to bear arms shall not be infringed”.
After some debate and actual armed conflict (ie the Civil War) it was decided armed insurrection is bad – either by an individual, or by a group of states, so no, it’s not legal for the citizenry to take to the streets armed to the teeth with the intention of overthrowing the established system.
Aside from that, we’ve been arguing ever since about what all this means in a modern society. Now that we have professional armed services, local and state law enforcement, and a country-wide National Guard system that can be called up in emergencies, it seems archaic to make allowances for a citizen militia, but it’s still on the books.
I should add that when I say militia, I mean a legal body sanctioned, organized and governed by the state government – not the gun-toting, para-military yahoos that have organized into their own self-declared “citizen’s militias”. Some states look the other way while those groups run through the woods playing soldier or show up armed to the teeth during political protests, but in my opinion those groups have no place in a modern, civilized society.
@jetlagged: Thank you so much for your explanation! I have to admit, when I saw my question written out I thought, “God that is such an idiotic read on the 2nd amendment! It cannot possibly be right.” I had to force myself to click ‘post’. But it was either look silly once or be silly forever.
While I am loathe to repeal rights once they’ve been granted (it just seems like such a slippery slope especially in light of recently granted rights coupled with my suspicion that a certain right-leaning section of society would have them rescinded if they could) it seems that the right to bear arms is kind of moot since the initial threat no longer exists.
And thanks for also explaining the whole militia thing. I was reading other posters and thinking, “Militia? But you have a legit army? And if the Confederates were exercising their constitutional rights, how could they be treasonous? They’re slavery loving a-holes, sure, but …. And surely taking literal shots against those in government is punishable by law so ….. maybe there are special circumstances where you can, or … something?” Yes, I realise how dumb that all sounds.
I’m just so glad and grateful for the knowledgeable posters here at Celebitchy. Thanks for all the education and helping me go to my eventual grave less stupid than I was upon my arrival!
@MeleeOfSloths (cool name btw): You are most welcome. I almost didn’t answer since I wasn’t sure about a lot of my supposed knowledge on the subject, and I’m sure I missed a lot of the nuance and legal precedent, but I figured at the very least it would make for some interesting lunchtime Googling while I tried make sense of it for myself too. We both learned something today, which is also why I love spending time on CB.
I wish I knew where along the way the “right to bear arms” became inviolate, it just seems so obvious that in the 21st century it is not necessary for every Joe Patriot walking down the street to have an arsenal at his disposal.
Every Bill O’Reilly article should start with “Today, sexual harasser Bill O’Reilly . . . ” because that’s all anyone should think when they see his creepy face. Everything about this man is disgusting.
no – the fact that we have to accept the reality of craven blowhard sexually deviant conspiracy theoriests desperate for attention and money get public forums, tv shows and book deals is the price of freedom…
I live in Norway. I am free. We have strict gun laws. I spent this morning reading them. It isnt impossible, but I can only remember one mass shooting in our history and that man planned it for a long time. You have to be a licensed hunter or be approved by a licensed gun range over a period of 24 months to buy either a hunting rifle or a target competing weapon. I dont know a single person who has touched one.
Yes mentally ill people will always exist. No, they wouldnt just “find another way”. They often act rashly, and their kill count would be SO much smaller if they couldnt so easily buy guns.
Whenever somebody mentions “America’s Freedom” I always think about countries such as yours, who are not bombing or killing others, and yet have a life full of freedom and opportunities.
@Emma33 -THANK YOU!!!! Australia, Canada, and the England are examples of “free” countries that do not have the same levels of gun violence!!! And those are just three countries!!! Japan, doesn’t have this level of gun violence, nor does Italy, or Sweden, or Germany. This is is a particularly US problem. I am not saying that these countries are perfect, no place is, but the don’t seem to have the same sort of ongoing, systemic incidents of violence. Entire mindsets and cultural values towards MANY corms of violence will have to shift, a d I don’t see that happening any time soon.
If someone really wants to hurt someone, they will find another way but it isn’t the right logic for people who are pro-guns. As we have seen people use knives to stab people, vehicles to mow people down, make explosives to bomb a place up etc. which pop up every couple of weeks at this point. But I agree that stricter gun laws would greatly reduce the number of these kinds of shooting in the US.
This is not the price of freedom, it’s the price of clinging to the delusion that US gun laws/regulations are working.
“If a Democratic presidential candidate came out and said “we need to destroy all of the guns in America and never let private citizens own guns from here on out,” that candidate would be laughed out of town.”
As someone not from the US, what I can’t get my head round is ‘why’ – why would a sensible, life-saving suggestion like that be so abhorrent to some? I guess this is a rhetorical question as I understand the interpretation of the 2ns Amendment and also how the NRA are intertwined with politics, but that doesn’t make it any less nonsensical to me.
ETA, in the UK it’s just been announced that carrying acid without ‘good reason’ will be banned now after a rise in acid attacks. While there’s plenty I could criticise politicians in my country for, they seem to act when something like this happens.
The right to bear arms is in the Second Amendment to our Constitution. Rebels that they were, the framers wanted the people to be able to rise up against an overbearing, tyrant federal government. Of course there were thinking of rifles that took 15 minutes to reload after one shot, not automatics that fire 9 rounds per second.
Unfortunately America still has a “frontier” mentality. A historian named Frederick Jackson Turner wrote an interesting scholarly paper in 1893 called the “Frontier Thesis”. It states that “as the United States moved west, it brought freedom and democracy to the previously savage and inhospitable lands. Along the way, the frontiersman needed to be stripped of his European attitudes and re-built as a true American – a task usually achieved by taming the land (and people) through violence. Whether this came in the form of hunting or fighting indigenous people, the frontiersman’s identity came from his ability to assert his dominance on his surroundings. What is essential to point out, however, is that the violence was not forced on the frontiersman, but rather sought out as a means to redeem himself and declare his authority.” In other words, it’s in America’s DNA to uphold the use of weapons as a valued way of life.
Australia started as much the same way yet we moved past it.
And sexual harassment is the price of being a woman in the workplace, right Bill?
Hey how are your kids Bill? Oh that’s right, the court helped them get free of you.
““I can tell you that government restrictions will not stop psychopaths from harming people. They will find a way.”
This is such BS. This isn’t about fairy tales of zero violence. It’s about risk minimizing. It’s about not making it easy for a psychopath to injure over 500 people (!!!!!!!!!!!). How many would have died if he’d had one shotgun and minimal ammo? How many? FU, Bill, even your children hate you.
No, moron, this is the price of a disintegrating culture where angry, depressed people fall through the cracks and one day wake up and say, “Well, they won’t be able to ignore me NOW!”
As Willy Loman said in “Death of a Salesman” – “Attention must be paid.”
You know, the gun laws in Vermont are nearly as lax as those in Nevada and Texas. Vermont, however, has never had a shooting like this. The reason is, the gun culture there, as Bernie Sanders well knows, which is why he has had to be careful about coming down on the gun industry, is linked to very poor communities that hunt for food in the winter. This is particularly true in that peculiar area called “the Northeast Kingdom”. This may be dying out at this point, but these were poor, very close communities many of whom had livestock and slaughtered them in-house, and who supplemented their larders with deer and other game in the long hard winters.
My point being, what “gun culture” means in Vermont is different from what “gun culture” means in Nevada or Texas.
I’m not excusing the government’s craven crawling to the NRA, but this stuff wasn’t happening in 1940 or 1925 or 1950, and the Second Amendment was in full force then, too.
Culture has something to do with this.
Military style weapons like these were not happening in 1940 or 1950, nor were they available to any schmuck off the street with no background checks.
Culture has something to do with it, but laws can change the culture.
And Bernie Sanders doesn’t have to “be careful,” he has to think long and hard about his role in not passing laws that hold gun makers accountable.
@Who ARE These People – fair points, I grant you. The thing is, though, it’s not just the military grade stuff – this is the way people solve their personal problems now, and it’s not divorced from the simply incredible levels of violence that are now folded into our entertainment and everything else.
I keep hearing journalists say, “Authorities are still looking for a motive,” and I want to start screaming at the TV, “What do you bloody THINK is a motive for killing 60 strangers in ten minutes?!” Rage, depression, feelings of worthlessness and/or hopelessness, feeling invisible – if he wasn’t hooked up with the KKK or ISIS or any other politico/religious belief system, what else is there?!
Sanders came in for a lot of flak about the gun laws thing – but he IS the Senator from Vermont and as they say, all politics is local, and in Vermont they have a low crime rate, great health care, low rates of gun crime, and the gun culture is rooted in something besides people screeching about “freedom”.
And another thing that drives me crazy is the way people like O’Reilly ignore that clause after the comma in the Second Amendment, “, that the State shall have a well-armed militia.” The Second Amendment was to ensure the state could form an armed militia at need, not so every Tom, Dick, and Harry could go around shooting at will in a post-industrial society or because it makes him feel powerful in a cultural and political environment that increasingly makes people feel powerless and that their voices don’t matter.
There I’m done I’ll stop.
Sanders needs to amend his view on guns as VT becomes more and more yuppified. It’s already changed so much in the thirty-five years that I’ve been visiting in that a large faction of its inhabitants are no longer third or fourth generation mountain peeps but city folk who migrated from NYC.
They don’t want guns, they don’t care about guns. They’re eating a wood-fired pizza made with organic tomato sauce and covered in grass-fed beef over at American Flatbread, they’re not out shooting moose for dinner.
And even the (most astoundingly beautiful) Northeast Kingdom is becoming more of a hipster utopia with lots of restaurants that use locally-sourced ingredients and craft breweries popping up. According to Wiki NEK is comprised of three counties: Essex, Orleans and Caledonia, with a total population of almost 65,000. That’s not nothing–definitely more densely populated than parts or rural Wisconsin, Idaho, North Dakota, Alaska and other states with very lax gun laws.
I think Bill O Reilly should contact each of the victim’s relatives to thank them for our freedom. This is how people like Bill O’Reilly talk until it happens to them . This “price of freedom” schtick is rediculous to me.
Maybe instead of banning guns, there should be a ban on owning or possessing ammunition?
Pretty sure they have some sort of freedom in Australia. And Luxembourg. And Ireland. And Switzerland. So fed up with this stupid argument. This is not the price of freedom. This is the price of the love of the ability to kill at will.
I would say they have more freedom, because they’re free to walk around without the fear of getting killed.
I would love to live in a place like that.
Wonder how much stock he has in gun manufacturing? A-hole.
We must have different definitions of freedom. If I can’t send my child to school, or to a concert, or even to a friends house without worrying that he will be shot, I don’t feel free. I feel like a cornered mama bear who is ready to ACT.
Hey, mama bear, this one’s for you!
https://momsdemandaction.org/
Over 33,000 people are fatally shot in the U.S. every year. Ask their mothers if their bodies are an acceptable price of freedom. To make this kind of a claim is sheer insanity–it rends the fabric of a civilization. These destruction forces must be stopped.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/
So according to Bill and his ilk, people dying is the price for continuing to express your second amendment rights, but expressing your first amendment right by taking a knee is unpatriotic and unacceptable?
I’m so f**king tired of this country and it’s bulls**t.
Right there with you Marty. I feel like the twilight zone and bizarro world have melded together and half the people in the country have gone completely off the deep end. Cognitive dissonance is on steroids. And it is EXHAUSTING.
Jimmy Kimmel put it best, IMO: “It’s like a window to hell has been opened.”
But so far all signs point to this guy not being a loon so that make O’Reilly’s statement false.
@M.A.F. I would argue that this guy is a “loon” just by virtue of what he did on Sunday. His behavior up until then doesn’t absolve him of being batshit crazy. He must have just been good at hiding it, or had a psychotic break.
It’s still early. More information will likely come out. The guy supposedly had several ‘good’ short-term jobs (in the 1980s, when job hopping wasn’t quite so common), two somewhat short marriages, big dollar gambling, etc.
At least he’s honest and consistent about his position on the value of human life, I’ll give him that. It’s only precious if it can be used to control women’s bodies.
Haven’t read all of the comments, so if I’m being repetitive, please forgive. Here’s the problem and solution: The NRA has too much money for Americans to do anything about this in a sane amount of time (it might take a couple of generations to flip that centuries-long conditioning). Yes, we can vote, and then our elected members get inside and the money starts talking. Ergo, the solution rests NOT in Americans, but rather the rest of the world. Our global politicians will always privately back each other regardless of their publicly stated stance. The one thing that has WAY more money than the NRA is foreign tourism. If ALL foreigners boycotted the U.S., things would change quickly. It is the almighty dollar that rules, not the NRA. It’s merely that right now, the NRA has the most to offer; or so they think. Don’t come here! It’s not safe! Please, for the love of all things sacred, STAY AWAY UNTIL WE ARE A SANE COUNTRY AGAIN!!! Foreigners often complain about having no vote in elections that affect the world. Well guess what? YES YOU DO! In the United States of America, money will ALWAYS reign so spend yours elsewhere until the NRA is dethroned!
It’s a good idea but obviously it needs to be an organized, concerted effort. I don’t buy that it won’t change, people thought the same thing about big tobacco and look where we are now.
I wish I could agree with you, Annabelle, but if a classroom full of dead white first graders won’t do it, I fail to conceive what could possibly change here.
Still waiting for the general strike. WHERE IS THE GENERAL STRIKE?
I think it’s a good idea too, Honeybee. The nuts who crow, ‘good, stay away’ don’t understand what no tourism will do to their country. They would lose billions. Within five years, the States would be on their knees, with a third of the population out of work. When you add in the masses that won’t have health care, it paints a picture of a bleak future for Americans.
For the record, I am utterly staggered at how fast the future of the States has changed in the past 10 months. I’m really sorry that you kind and decent Americans have to live this. Never did I dream of such a scenario for the country that led the free world when Obama was in charge. Where the hell did all the hope, excitement and anticipation for the future go?
Correction, Lady D: the States would be on their knees in one fiscal quarter, and votes would start changing. Profit, profit, profit is the American way! So, I am BEGGING YOU ALL, please don’t come here. The sooner this happens, the sooner we can begin the march toward a sane country. Just remember: $$$$ will ALWAYS reign here. In this issue, I’m sorry to say, Americans have no voice. But the rest of the world does. We have to spend our money here; you don’t, so please don’t until we have safe and reasonable gun control laws.
Honeybee Blues – we actually are boycotting the US right now. My husband and I usually travel down 6 – 8 times per year. After 45 started banning people and inciting violence by encouraging the alt-right, we elected to cancel any current trips and make no more until the madness ends. When we called the hotel to cancel, we made sure to explain why. We don’t feel safe in your country anymore and we are white. I cannot imagine how POC must feel.
The USA policies effect the entire world. The entire world should start influencing USA policies. So, Nicole, thank you for your efforts on behalf of us, and hopefully more people will follow suit until the economic strain forces sane gun control laws.
It’s not the price of freedom, it’s the price of self interest over communal good.
It’s the choice Reilly makes consistently, I’m surprised he doesn’t recognize it.
Politics is difficult, because the choices should be made with logic, effectiveness and public safety as long term goals; what sells is emotional rhetoric, the complete opposite.
What a dumb ass. Ok, so it won’t stop crazy people from killing,but ban on guns will greatly cut down on the amount of victims… Banning machine guns is a good idea. America is fcuked if this doesn’t stop. Women’s rights, racism, gun violence, just, fcuk.
What about being free to go to a concert without worrying about catching a bullet in the head hmmmmmm?
A guitarist for the Josh Abbot Band that performed earlier and were there at the concert has changed his mind about gun legislation, He acknowledges how wrong he has been.
http://uproxx.com/music/josh-abbott-band-changes-his-mind-gun-control/
“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 CHL licenses, and legal firearms on the bus. They were useless. We couldn’t touch them for fear police might think that we were part of the massacre and shoot us. A small group (or one man) laid waste to a city of 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 powerful enough that my crew guys just standing in a close proximity of a victim shot by this fucking coward received shrapnel wounds.
We need gun control RIGHT. NOW.
My biggest regret is that I stubbornly didn’t realize it unil my brother son the rod 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.’
After someone else shared his statement, Keeter again noted he believes his past stance was wrong and selfish:
“I was wrong, stupid, and selfish for thinking otherwise.”
I was glad to see a gun toting American finally come to his senses. I am so sick of all these regular citizens that insist they need to be able to carry guns as a solution to the increase in gun violence. Every damn concert goer there could have been packing a gun and it would not have made any difference in the outcome except to possibly make the body count even higher and make the police investigation virtually impossible. Carrying a gun is not the solution to gun violence. The average person however well intentioned is not going to be able to help in an instance like this.
Glad, yes, but it also confirms the truth about so many Americans: it’s irrelevant until it happens to me or mine. Glad he’s stepping up, but still…If a classroom full of dead first graders didn’t do it for him…I’ll reserve my applause for those who’ve long been sane.
There WERE tons of cops and armed security chaperoning the concert and this STILL happened so yeah, that theory is complete BS.
Funny how after Pulse, he actually agreed there needed to be some type of gun control legislation. I guess he forgot about that because he’s so busy trying to get back in Fox’s good graces again and get on the air.
Oh, he blamed libs for stuff and talked a lot of big talk playing to the base in the article after Pulse, but he did say:
“There is too much gun crime in the USA, and high-powered weaponry is too easy to get,” he said. “That’s the fact. So let’s deal with it.”
I’m offended by the fact that the same group of people who are saying “now is not the time to talk about gun laws “ are THE SAME F*CKING PEOPLE who are going out of their way to say “Try and take my guns, just try, it won’t help anything or stop anyone from killing people.” Without any prompting, these people make sure you know this is their opinion. It’s not the time to talk about gun laws, but THIS is the time to make sure the world knows you’re pro-gun no matter how many people die???? I find it heinous and disgusting and depressing and infuriating. Unless what you have to say is “I’m so devastated for the victims” or “we need to take real action about the gun violence epidemic in this country,” just shut the f*ck up. Seriously. People are dead, for God’s sake.
Prayers and tears aren’t enough and it’s so utterly frustrating to see another shooting, particularly of this magnitude. Why on god’s earth should any citizen be allowed to have, not only one but several, weapons that can kill (or be jiggered to kill) hundreds in seconds. Insanity, willful stupidity, greed and propaganda about first amendment rights by manufacturers of guns and those who want to destroy America.
I thought we got rid of that blowhard.
All of these people who say, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people” are so out of their minds with their bad logic. They should immediately legalize all drugs then, too, because the logic follows that “Drugs don’t kill people. People with drugs kill people.” Or “Abortion doesn’t kill babies. People kill babies.” So legalize every damn thing! Don’t cherry pick. These people. I just cannot.
So freedom equals “the right to buy a shitload of assault guns” and is more important than the lives of all these people?
Nothing changed after the politicians were shot at during their baseball game in VA where the Republican whip Steve Scalise was critically injured (also Gabrielle Giffords, also a politician but in a separate incident a few years earlier). Nothing changed after Newtown after 1st graders were murdered. Why would anything change after the US’s worst mass shooting ever? It’s effed up and it’s not fair the NRA has so much political clout. What do they even do apart from having meetings talking about how much they love guns?
He can seriously go to the families of the dead and tell them ‘your son/daughter/father/mother/sister/brother/spouse died for freedom.’?
Well they do it with soldiers, which is horrifying.
Perhaps, but soldiers are fighting (for freedom, money etc), while being aware of what they’re facing. This is really just an unnecessary, false, stupid, insensitive and cowardly rhetoric for civilians going to a concert. But eh that’s all he seems to be capable of.
A monster and a yuuge hypocrite, like his fellow Rethugs. Guess what? My country is as free as it gets, and yet we have strict gun control, free and universal healthcare, free universities, mandatory paid vacation for every employee, labor laws that, while imperfect, protect employees, equal rights for women enshrined in our constitution, 2 year paid maternity leave, etc, etc. What disgusts me most is that we grew up thinking US was a paradise on earth, while in reality it’s pretty much hell for everyone who’s not rich or white. I’m heartbroken for the decent people who have to live under this monsters.
Ok..look I appreciate the support but the US is not “hell” for anyone who isn’t rich or white nor was it ever “paradise on earth”, for that matter. And most of us had it pretty damn good for 8 years under Obama. Sure, our country was a work in progress but we WERE progressing–we were headed in the right direction. Now Trump is changing all of that, rolling back any positive changes that we accomplished.
But I live in Boston, Mass and I can tell you that my life is pretty damn good. We DO have decent healthcare here as RomneyCare was drafted into our state legislation. We also have a handful of the best hospitals in the country as well so people are pretty healthy. The median income is $76,000 in Boston and there are plenty of lovely (and outrageously expensive lol) neighborhoods to live in. We have Warren, Moulton, Markey, Kennedy and a host of other Dem politicians representing us and fighting for our ideals. We are a sanctuary city that is culturally diverse, creative, progressive and thriving in science, finance and tech.
Our city is beautiful and clean, full of lovely parks and green spaces and beautiful walkways along the river and ocean. We have amazing restaurants, a great craft beer scene and legalized marijuana.
It is NOT hell for me and while I am white, I am far from rich.
I know you mean well but some of the comments from people who don’t live here painting the country like a bastion of despair and hopelessness kind of get to me because I absolutely LOVE where I live, despite the fact that I cannot stand the direction our country is going in. Sorry if I’m being snappy….admittedly I probably get a bit defensive on this subject.
There are people who are literally living in hellish circumstances–Syria? NK? Somalia? South Sudan?
and we are not even remotely comparable to that.
That’s not to downplay how horrific our current government is, just to say that there are people that have it far FAR worse than Americans.
Well stated. My area of the country is more red than blue politically, but generally there are decent people around. The landscape is beautiful, and I choose to do what I can to bring positivity and compassion to those I encounter each day. I focus on planting a tree, or adding a flower to the world when I can. It helps now more than ever, to think of things I CAN control.
A routine call with a vendor today turned into a thinly veiled reference to our current events. Yes, there is divisiveness and negativity, but there is also a lot to be thankful for. This life is short, and we have to step back and figure out what matters to us individually (our pets, family, good friends, etc.). Life can change in a minute, as becomes clear as we lose people we love.
We definitely have it better than some other areas of the world. Maybe movies and TV have painted a false image of perfection, because I don’t believe there is true perfection anywhere in the world. It’s always a list of pros and cons.
Why do so many Americans apparently not know that most developed countries already have universal healthcare and gun control and that it works very well? Sure, there were terrorist attacks in Europe, too, but they didn’t kill 59 people and wounded 500, because they only could get their hands on knives and vans.
It’s not that we don’t “know” it’s just that a portion of us simply don’t care because we refuse to view our country within a global context. These are the flag-worshipping jingoistic idiots who think America is “number one” and doesn’t need to change/progress and they are called REPUBLICANS.
This^^
They have freedom in other countries too, Bill. Just heard someone on TV say that Americans need to stop treating mass shootings like natural disasters and stop acting like there’s nothing they can do about it.
I.JUST.CAN’T.WITH.THIS.BULLSHIT.
No, this is not what is expected from freedom. Freedom doesn’t mean slaughtering your fellow man just because you can get access to whatever you can. The Second Amendment was written when it was a musket. A musket. Wadding and explosive. NOT a gun that can that shoot 500 people in minutes. THAT is NOT a needed protectant, a safeguard on your own homestead; THAT is a killing machine. A.killing.machine. Designed to wound, to kill, to decimate; NOT to protect.
I defy anyone to say otherwise. And if they do? F…them.
Humanity sucks right now; actually, leadership (?) sucks beyond belief.
I am beyond sad and appalled; prayers and comfort (like that means anything) to the victims and their loved ones.)-:
Silly bloody yanks. We have freedom in the UK but laws don’t allow us to own guns. Why the hell would I own I gun for?
Bill O’Reilly’s reaction to a six-car pileup that killed 12 people, caused by a drunk unlicensed 15 year old not wearing his glasses and trying to send a text:
“This is the price of freedom.”