Orlando: American Shoots Other Americans

A heavily armed native-born American walked into an Orlando gay bar Sunday morning and killed at least 49 other Americans before he was shot by police. Actually, some people may say the perpetrator was not a real American because he was born in New York.

50 49 victims are known dead and about an equal number have been hospitalized, many in critical condition. At this time investigators have not established and reported other facts, but this has not kept commentators and politicians from recklessly flapping their gums. We await the NRA’s inevitable pronouncements that the shooter was mentally ill and that the bar patrons should have been armed.

More:

“The gun used in the Orlando shooting is becoming mass shooters’ weapon of choice,” Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post

“Ex-CIA Chief: It’s Way Past Time for an Assault Weapons Ban,” John McLaughlin, OZY

“Orlando nightclub shooting suspect bought guns within week of attack,” Mary Shanklin, Orlando Sentinel

“Assault weapons remain legal and easy to purchase in US,” Ryan J. Foley, Associated Press

“Ban on Weapon Used in Orlando More Distant Than Ever, Even If Clinton Wins,” Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine

“Florida Nightclub Attack Just the Latest US Mass Shooting,” AP via NBC News

“Orlando shooting: The key things to know about about guns and mass shootings in America,” Max Ehrenfreund, Washington Post

“Orlando Shooting, 16 Front Pages From Newspapers Around The World,” Helene Snyder, Worldcrunch

Related:

“U.S. Gun Policy: Global Comparisons,” Jonathan Masters, Council on Foreign Relations

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Image (“Old Glory”) 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.

NFL Makes Arizona Do The Right Thing

The National Football League pressured Arizona Governor Jan Brewer into doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Mrs. Brewer vetoed the ill-conceived “Religious Freedom for Bigots” bill, the separate-but-equal homophobic-apartheid measure passed by her state’s legislature. The NFL, itself still learning tolerance for sexual minorities, threatened to relocate the next Superbowl from the University of Phoenix Stadium to a more inclusive state. Other huge corporations said they were reconsidering doing business in the Grand Canyon State, and the convention and business meeting forecast started to look cloudy.

Concepts like “equal access to places of public accommodation” likely mean nothing to Mrs. Brewer, but she surely remembers her state’s loss of business when Arizona passed a racist immigration law and earlier when it refused to recognize the King Holiday.

Harvard Prof Apologizes to Dead Economist

“Niall Ferguson, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, on Saturday released an apology for comments he made about John Maynard Keynes. Ferguson said that Keynes didn’t care about future generations because he was gay and did not have children. In a statement posted on his blog, Ferguson said that his comments were off-the-cuff and ‘as stupid as they were insensitive.'”

 –“Harvard Prof Apologizes for Comments on Keynes,” Inside Higher Ed

Rush Limbaugh’s Traditional Marriage

Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh believes in traditional marriage so much that he’s had four of them. The staunch defender of marriage celebrated his fourth nuptials in Palm Beach on June 5th with music by Elton John. We do not know if Sir Elton’s partner David Furnish was in attendance.

 

Image 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.

Traditional Marriage, Part-Time Adultery

Congressman Mark Souder (R, IN-3) thinks your bedroom behavior may be a threat to the Republic, but is careful to note that his own admitted adultery was only with a part-time staff member. Since his subordinate was only part-time, perhaps that makes it “adultery lite.”

It was traditional adultery, of course, the heterosexual kind. Mr. Souder and his staffer are married, just not to each other.