Judge Endorses Teenage Murder

Last week Federal Judge Robert E. Payne in Richmond, Va., ruled that age requirements on sales of semiautomatic handguns like Glock pistols are unconstitutional, allowing kids as young as 18 years old to buy these weapons and pack heat. Such weapons can fire as many as 15 or 22 rounds without reloading.

This comes at a time when gun violence is the number one cause of death for children and teens.

More:

“Judge in Virginia Strikes Down Federal Limit on Age of Handgun Buyers,” Glenn Thrush, New York Times

“18-to-20-year-olds can’t be barred from buying handguns, judge rules,” Salvador Rizzo, Washington Post

“Children and teens are more likely to die by guns than anything else,” Annette Choi, CNN

“Child and Teen Firearm Mortality in the U.S. and Peer Countries,” Matt McGough, Krutika Amin, Nirmita Panchal, and Cynthia Cox, KFF Global Health Policy

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Image (“Blood Sacrifice”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Supreme Court Requires Blood Sacrifice

The Supreme Court of the United States thinks you should be able to carry a concealed handgun in public just because you think it’s cool and want to feel like a big shot. For over a century, New York had required gun owners to have a reason to carry a concealed weapon. Police issued concealed carry permits to business owners who carry bags of cash to a bank’s night deposit facility, those who had a demonstrable proper cause to be concerned for their personal safety, and so on. Now any dumb schmuck who hasn’t been caught committing a crime — yet — will be enabled to do so, with deadly consequences, thanks to six SCOTUS conservative ideologues. That doesn’t sound like a “well-regulated militia” to us.

What can you expect?

• More gunshot deaths, murders and suicides.
• More civilians killed by police, who will be more likely to assume that anyone they come into contact with is armed with a concealed deadly weapon.

More:

“Supreme Court strikes down New York’s concealed carry gun law,” Oriana Gonzalez, Axios

“U.S. Supreme Court expands gun rights, strikes down New York law,” Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley, Reuters

“Supreme Court strikes N.Y. law, finds right to carry guns outside home,” Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow, Washington Post

“SCOTUS Strikes Down New York Gun Control Law, Expanding Gun Rights In Wake Of Mass Shootings,” Kate Riga, Talking Points Memo 

 

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Image (“Blood Sacrifice”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

San Jose Requires Liability Insurance for Gun Owners

On Tuesday, the City Council of San José, California voted to require gun owners to carry liability insurance and pay an annual $25 fee for each weapon they own. The ordinance was drafted last year after a mass shooting at a transit station in the city.

“While the Second Amendment protects every citizen’s right to own a gun, it does not require taxpayers to subsidize that right,” said San José mayor Sam Liccardo in a statement.

U.S. states and DC require automobile drivers to obtain liability insurance or post cash bonds against liability, and motor vehicles, unlike firearms, aren’t even designed to be killing machines. Nowhere does the Second Amendment forbid a well-regulated program to ensure firearms responsiblity.

More:

“San Jose passes first U.S. law requiring gun owners to get liability insurance and pay annual fee,” CBS News

“A city will require gun owners to have liability insurance in an effort to incentivize safety,” Timothy Bella, Washington Post

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Image (“America’s Blood Sacrifice”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Suicide Gunman Kills Nine Americans

A gunman fatally shot nine co-workers in San Jose California on Wednesday before killing himself. According to police, the American firearms enthusiast had two semi-automatic handguns and 11 full magazines of ammunition. The American citizens he shot to death are: Paul Delacruz Megia, 42; Taptejdeep Singh, 36; Adrian Balleza, 29; Jose Dejesus Hernandez III, 35; Timothy Michael Romo, 49; Michael Joseph Rudometkin, 40; Alex Ward Fritch, 49; Abdolvahab Alaghmandan, 63; and Lars Kepler Lane, 63.

So far this year, the United States has experienced 15 mass murders (four or more people killed in each instance) and 232 mass shootings (four or more people injured or killed), and it’s not even Memorial Day.

More:

“Ten dead, including gunman, in San Jose rail yard mass shooting; victims identified,” Hayley Smith, Richard Winton, Maura Dolan, and Leila Miller, Los Angeles Times

“‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens,” The Onion

Updates:

“Heroic San Jose Victim ‘Ran Around Building’ Warning Colleagues to Hide From Shooter,” Jamie Ross, Daily Beast

“Molotov cocktails, guns and 25,000 rounds of ammo found in VTA shooter’s home: sheriff,” KTVU-TV News

“San Jose gunman had cans of gasoline, 22K rounds of ammo at home, officials say: What we know,” Christine Fernando, Christal Hayes, and Grace Hauck, USA Today

“San Jose mourns after deadliest shooting in region’s history: ‘We can’t sweep this under the rug,’” Abené Clayton, The Guardian

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Image (“Blood Sacrifice”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Gilroy. El Paso. Dayton. How many more?

On Sunday morning, Dayton, Ohio suffered the 251st U.S. mass shooting this year. 9 people were killed and 27 injured. The day before, in a shooting at an El Paso shopping mall, 20 people were killed and 26 injured. The preceding Monday, in Gilroy California, a gunman killed 3 people and injured 15. 3 gunmen perpetrated 32 gunshot homicides and 68 gunshot casualties in one week.

Three people were able to commit that human carnage because they used variants of assault rifles designed for the battlefield and equipped with high-capacity magazines. The gun industry has cynically re-branded these military-style firearms as “modern sporting rifles,” though they are designed to tumble when they hit a target and would shred game animals and blast 6-inch exit holes. That’s what happened to this week’s victims. It’s true that most of America’s yearly 40,000 gunshot fatalities are committed with handguns, but you don’t have mass shootings without weapons capable of mass shootings. Reinstituting the assault weapons ban is a good place to start.