I always enjoy your work, but I think this is one of your best pieces ever. We are not born hating and fearing each other. I have watched my elderly grandfather get sucked into the right wing echo chamber and turn from outgoing and gregarious to paranoid and angry. I do think age and the mental declines that go with it play a part. It makes him easier prey to all of that messaging like these older men.
I'm aging, and I find my compassion meter is off the charts. I cried when I read about Ralph Yarl.
I get angry at the entertainment channels that promote hate and violence and disrespect and lack of concern for humans of any kind. BUT, I have never, and will never own a gun. It has only one purpose; to harm and to kill.
We have ears to listen, mouths to talk. My son, who has an intellectual disability has more care for others than these bozos shooting without reason or cause.
We always fear "the other". It is where racism starts. We are at heart tribal, and our tribe is above others. Seeing yourself as a member of a larger tribe helps broaden horizons, and hopefully prevents actions like this.
I understood it before but this really drives the point home. Media outlets, like Fox, are driving paranoia to the extreme that just doesn't exist.
They are so concerned with keeping extreme conservative sin power that promoting the "other" as a giant pervasive enemy literally has old men holed up in their homes with guns at the ready.
Media like Fox are the problem.
More centrist media is also problematic when they try to balance the discourse ("Biden also won't negotiate the debt" uhh yeah, he has said he won't and is happy to negotiate the budget). Sorry guys, there is no balance to extremism. We need to call a spade a spade.
"Centrist," "leftist," and "right-wing" media have all gone under the hammer of what Carlin called their corporate overlords. These substack posts by Jay and others are incredibly valuable for just that reason.
Crap, I'm 67 and not old at all, but I would never pull a gun on someone knocking at the door, black, white or purple. The paranoia instilled as Jay so aptly describes is indeed a symptom of the rot in our society.
I'm 79 and neither would I. Perhaps in the case of purple, if the thing at the door had one eye, one horn, ate people and could fly I'd do something. Sic my dog, as I don't own a gun.
I have trouble expressing how upset and angry I am about these recent shootings. It's been 24 years, to the day, since the infamous shooting at Columbine High School. Twenty-four years, and the country still hasn't done jack-shit to address this problem that is constantly getting worse.
We have done plenty on the local and state level. Organizations like Giffords, March for Our Lives, Brady & Moms Demand Action have worked hard to enact gun safety legislation and block dangerous legislation, and have helped elect dozens of candidates who advocate for gun safety, including former Moms Demand volunteer Rep. Lucy McBath. The NRA has been drastically weakened. The problem is the gun lobby, resulting congressional inaction and a SCOTUS that reverses decades of legal precedent and makes us all less safe (Bruen, Heller etc.). Click here for more info: https://www.everytown.org/about-everytown/victories/
I'm not trying to anger anybody with my reply. BUT the reactions over the past few years have had piss-poor, if earnest, results. I *know* folks have been working hard, but the messaging isn't getting out to the places that can effect change. Electing candidates is good, but the real message lies in Money, with a capital M, and efforts should be directed towards that in order to counter the gun lobby. Get the money in hand to take the gun manufacturers to court (see, for example Fox/Newsmax/OAN vs. Dominion and Smartmatic. Get the money in hand to use the legal system to bring about real change.
The guy who wrote Parkland and a Vanity Fair article showcasing Gabby Giffords wrote a stack recently with a status check. He said that in 2019, McConnell told his folks that they had to pivot on guns or they would lose suburban voters. 15 people voted with him on the Bipartisan Community Safety bill. It was a pitiful enough set of safety measures, as you say, Christina. But the author argues that McConnell’s admonition, with 15 politicians changing tack immediately, is significant. Both Tillis and Burr, GOP Senators in NC, voted for the bill. Tillis consistently ranks in the top ten of funding recipients from the NRA.
That is happening, Everytown for Gun Safety (political arm of Moms Demand Action) has lawyers, believe me. Amicus briefs aplenty courtesy Bloomberg $$. The issue that I think you're driving at is holding manufacturers responsible financially, that has been worked on as well. It's a slow process, but state laws are vital. Challenging "stand your ground" laws, for example, and it would be a million times worse if even a fraction of all the open carry bills that get introduced were passed. Trust me when I say it would be MUCH worse without all the advocacy.
I am a female, non-straight, non-Christian, neurodivergent immigrant. I don't feel safe anywhere where there are people anymore. I live in the woods with bobcats, mountain lions, and bears - and find it to be loads safer than a populated area. At one point in my career, I have worked at Johnson C. Smith University (a historically black college) - felt safe there. Had to walk to my parking lot from the office past strip clubs and drag glubs - felt safe there. The one place I did not feel safe? The big shiny office building and garage, full of fancy cars with hot shot bankers and lawyers, most of whom were wealthy white men, who thought they were allowed anything.
It's not the people of color. It's not the immigrants. It's not the LGBTQ+. It's not drag queens. It's not books. It's not video games. It's not socialized medicine. It's not education. NONE of these things present any danger to this country. WHY don't people understand this? It's too many guns and too many lies.
This makes me sad on so many levels. 1) The senseless loss of life/injuries to these young people. 2) The fact that so many people are walking around full of fear. They are missing out on so much happiness and beauty in the world. 3) It seems that there is a general lack of respect for life itself. Life is an amazing gift, yet the shooters are willing to just take it away from people they don’t like or understand. 4) The total unwillingness of Republican politicians to do anything but make the problem worse. I don’t know how they sleep at night.
This is a great piece today, Jay. What particularly struck me is this line, “That lack of trust in fellow humans isn’t something that we’re born with; it’s something that is drilled into people, in many cases over and over by networks like Fox and OAN that feed off fear, anger and hatred.” How do we reach people that are so traumatized by the constant fear mongering they are subjected to because of their own personal choices? It feels like a huge part of our culture is so driven by power and greed, that human life is no longer respected or felt to be that important. Thank you for creating a community where people here are thinking and talking of these problems along with offering possible solutions.
The single biggest factor is too many guns. In Japan -- I know, everyone's heard this -- the number of people who die from gun violence is a year is less than our death rate in a single day. Gee, this isn't hard to figure out why, is it? The footnote to the sadness of all of Ken's pieces involving gun violence is how inured we have become. Reasonable people write this off to acceptable losses in a Wild West Society. How many people noticed that the last two mass shootings (in a single day) were run on P. A17 of The New York Times? Think about that. Try to imagine the front-page meeting of the editors. "Two today in Alabama and Kentucky," the national editor says. "What's new about that?" replies the Page One editor. "Run it somewhere in the back...." It has come to this people. Those who care are powerless. Those were in power do not.
The "isolated man" isn't anything new. 1991 a man that hated woman and anyone not like him, killed as many as he could at a Lubby's in Killeen Texas. Yes, Texas, again. Among the victims were the parents of Suzanna Hupp. Hupp stated she wished she had her gun with her so she could have shot back. With that, Hupp set out to change this country's landscape regarding gun control, meaning she made it her mission in life to do away with any kind of gun control. She was very successful at it too. No "good citizen" with a gun has prevented a mass shooting. Hupp's influence can be seen and felt in every legislation loosening or removing gun restrictions. The carnage she ignorantly tried to prevent, in actuality, she perpetuated. To this day she is very proud of her work, in spite of all the mass shootings that followed her full court efforts.
Very well said, as always, Jay. Your headers make a brilliant, if irregular, poem:
Everyday Mistakes, Turned Bloody and Deadly
We’ve lost our damn minds in gun mania
Angry, isolated men
Fear, mistrust, and guns
While I would repeat the last line for emphasis, one take away is that, for once, this is not entirely racial which does bring it to a whole new level. . Like the cheerleader who was shot, I've recently had someone get into my car by mistake (hers was dark grey, so is mine, and they were parked side by side). No gun violence ensued, but she did get two Irish setters in her face telling her she didn't belong there. She waited until I came out and told me what happened. I guess those days are gone.
Once, because of a rural emergency I happened across in up-state NY, I had to knock on doors. No one would open them. A utility worker had overturned his truck, he was hurt, no one had cell phones, so I kept knocking until someone opened the door and called 911. I guess those days are gone.
I (and I think a lot of us) have knocked on the wrong door by mistake, often. In the past the person who opened the door listened and directed me to my destination. I guess those days are gone.
Before retiring I was a home care nurse. I remember arriving at the wrong address. I was met by a very, very angry man who was in my face, screaming. Mind you, I was in scrubs with a medical bag. Guess I was lucky he didn’t have a gun!
Of course, every one of these acts of murder was committed by a member of a "well-regulated militia."
The United States of America is in fact turning into one great, big, UN-regulated militia.
We are already required by regulation to wear seatbelts and have operable airbags in our cars to protect us against mischance and crazy people. Since guns are now killing more people than cars, how long will it be before we are required by regulation to wear body armor in public? That would be yet another way for the gun lobby to make money, so they would probably get behind it.
A "good guy with a gun" will never eliminate the carnage occurring on our streets. In isolated circumstances, it MAY, and I repeat may, limit a prolonged shooting attack on a crowd, may also simply increase the number of victims when poorly trained lay-persons attempt to do that for which law enforcement constantly trains. Prevention, pre-emption are the only reasonable responses and these do not involve firearms. The problem is availability of assault weapons and large magazine-capacity handguns. If the only weapons widely available required that the assailant be within arms-length of the victim, we'd see these mass violence events drop by over 95%, without a doubt.
“Monahan “feels terrible that someone lost their life,” he added.”
Of course Monaghan blames the victim. But she didn’t “lose her life”, as if it were something SHE misplaced. HE violently stole it from her.
We need to make sure Monahan and reporters and anyone else who comments on this get called out whenever they try to downplay the violence in this way.
I always enjoy your work, but I think this is one of your best pieces ever. We are not born hating and fearing each other. I have watched my elderly grandfather get sucked into the right wing echo chamber and turn from outgoing and gregarious to paranoid and angry. I do think age and the mental declines that go with it play a part. It makes him easier prey to all of that messaging like these older men.
I'm aging, and I find my compassion meter is off the charts. I cried when I read about Ralph Yarl.
I get angry at the entertainment channels that promote hate and violence and disrespect and lack of concern for humans of any kind. BUT, I have never, and will never own a gun. It has only one purpose; to harm and to kill.
We have ears to listen, mouths to talk. My son, who has an intellectual disability has more care for others than these bozos shooting without reason or cause.
We always fear "the other". It is where racism starts. We are at heart tribal, and our tribe is above others. Seeing yourself as a member of a larger tribe helps broaden horizons, and hopefully prevents actions like this.
I understood it before but this really drives the point home. Media outlets, like Fox, are driving paranoia to the extreme that just doesn't exist.
They are so concerned with keeping extreme conservative sin power that promoting the "other" as a giant pervasive enemy literally has old men holed up in their homes with guns at the ready.
Media like Fox are the problem.
More centrist media is also problematic when they try to balance the discourse ("Biden also won't negotiate the debt" uhh yeah, he has said he won't and is happy to negotiate the budget). Sorry guys, there is no balance to extremism. We need to call a spade a spade.
"Centrist," "leftist," and "right-wing" media have all gone under the hammer of what Carlin called their corporate overlords. These substack posts by Jay and others are incredibly valuable for just that reason.
What criminal knocks first before coming in a house? Also, 65 is not elderly!
It makes zero sense...
Monahan an "elderly gentleman"? B*llsh*t.
65 is young but old enough to know better. He is definitely not elderly as described.
Crap, I'm 67 and not old at all, but I would never pull a gun on someone knocking at the door, black, white or purple. The paranoia instilled as Jay so aptly describes is indeed a symptom of the rot in our society.
I'm 79 and neither would I. Perhaps in the case of purple, if the thing at the door had one eye, one horn, ate people and could fly I'd do something. Sic my dog, as I don't own a gun.
I have two Irish setters who are very vocal when someone knocks, so they are already set back on their heels. :-)
so is my dachshund, but unfortunately the door is glass and people can see that despite all his aspirations, he isn't a Doberman.
I have trouble expressing how upset and angry I am about these recent shootings. It's been 24 years, to the day, since the infamous shooting at Columbine High School. Twenty-four years, and the country still hasn't done jack-shit to address this problem that is constantly getting worse.
We have done plenty on the local and state level. Organizations like Giffords, March for Our Lives, Brady & Moms Demand Action have worked hard to enact gun safety legislation and block dangerous legislation, and have helped elect dozens of candidates who advocate for gun safety, including former Moms Demand volunteer Rep. Lucy McBath. The NRA has been drastically weakened. The problem is the gun lobby, resulting congressional inaction and a SCOTUS that reverses decades of legal precedent and makes us all less safe (Bruen, Heller etc.). Click here for more info: https://www.everytown.org/about-everytown/victories/
I'm not trying to anger anybody with my reply. BUT the reactions over the past few years have had piss-poor, if earnest, results. I *know* folks have been working hard, but the messaging isn't getting out to the places that can effect change. Electing candidates is good, but the real message lies in Money, with a capital M, and efforts should be directed towards that in order to counter the gun lobby. Get the money in hand to take the gun manufacturers to court (see, for example Fox/Newsmax/OAN vs. Dominion and Smartmatic. Get the money in hand to use the legal system to bring about real change.
The guy who wrote Parkland and a Vanity Fair article showcasing Gabby Giffords wrote a stack recently with a status check. He said that in 2019, McConnell told his folks that they had to pivot on guns or they would lose suburban voters. 15 people voted with him on the Bipartisan Community Safety bill. It was a pitiful enough set of safety measures, as you say, Christina. But the author argues that McConnell’s admonition, with 15 politicians changing tack immediately, is significant. Both Tillis and Burr, GOP Senators in NC, voted for the bill. Tillis consistently ranks in the top ten of funding recipients from the NRA.
That is happening, Everytown for Gun Safety (political arm of Moms Demand Action) has lawyers, believe me. Amicus briefs aplenty courtesy Bloomberg $$. The issue that I think you're driving at is holding manufacturers responsible financially, that has been worked on as well. It's a slow process, but state laws are vital. Challenging "stand your ground" laws, for example, and it would be a million times worse if even a fraction of all the open carry bills that get introduced were passed. Trust me when I say it would be MUCH worse without all the advocacy.
They all need to play harder ball than they are.
I think they have done pretty well with countering the NRA. https://nrawatch.org/report/the-continued-decline-of-the-nra/
I am a female, non-straight, non-Christian, neurodivergent immigrant. I don't feel safe anywhere where there are people anymore. I live in the woods with bobcats, mountain lions, and bears - and find it to be loads safer than a populated area. At one point in my career, I have worked at Johnson C. Smith University (a historically black college) - felt safe there. Had to walk to my parking lot from the office past strip clubs and drag glubs - felt safe there. The one place I did not feel safe? The big shiny office building and garage, full of fancy cars with hot shot bankers and lawyers, most of whom were wealthy white men, who thought they were allowed anything.
It's not the people of color. It's not the immigrants. It's not the LGBTQ+. It's not drag queens. It's not books. It's not video games. It's not socialized medicine. It's not education. NONE of these things present any danger to this country. WHY don't people understand this? It's too many guns and too many lies.
I’m sharing lyrics to a song I wrote recently, “Daughters and Sons.” Reading this report just makes me weep.
Daughters and Sons
Well, it’s happened again, this time in Nashville
Armed and prepared and ready to kill
anyone in the path of the bullets’ spray
oh It’s just another day in the USofA
Your thoughts and your prayers and your phony tears
We get your messages loud and clear
you want more rights for your goddamn guns
than we have for our daughters and sons
You outlaw a drag show and transgender youth
Priorities twisted, denying the truth
It’s the guns, it’s the guns, it’s the guns, it’s the guns
Killing our daughters and sons.
[Bridge]
Now we’ve nowhere to go, no place that feels safe
not grade schools or dance halls, or houses of faith
The second amendment so misunderstood.
Now robbing our babies of childhood
<Keening>
The weapons they use are intended to slaughter
Innocent people served up as fodder
An AR15 in the hands of a teen
killing our sons and our daughters
Each time this happens we scream NOT ONE MORE
But you turn away, you choose to ignore
And it’s clear where you and the NRA stand
you have so much blood on your hands
[Bridge]
Now we’ve nowhere to go, no place that feels safe
not colleges, concerts, or houses of faith
You think the solution for our daughters and sons
is a good guy with a gun
It’s the guns, it’s the guns, it’s the guns, it’s the guns
Killing our daughters and sons.
It’s the guns, it’s the guns, it’s the goddamn guns
Killing our daughters and sons.
Killing your daughters and sons.
<keening> <fade —>
—March - April 2023
@Terri Grayum
Your lyrics are spot on. I was able to access the audio, but only able to listen once. Would love to listen to it again.
Thanks Carol. Where did you access the audio? I can post a link to the Sound Cloud....
https://soundcloud.com/user-77466276/daughters-and-sons?si=7c1e95e3f8904fb7826c1ace373b2cc9&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
OK, try this site instead. https://terrigrayum.bandcamp.com/track/daughters-and-sons
It worked! Thank you..
I clicked through different tabs and ended up at Sound Cloud.
Heartbreaking!
This makes me sad on so many levels. 1) The senseless loss of life/injuries to these young people. 2) The fact that so many people are walking around full of fear. They are missing out on so much happiness and beauty in the world. 3) It seems that there is a general lack of respect for life itself. Life is an amazing gift, yet the shooters are willing to just take it away from people they don’t like or understand. 4) The total unwillingness of Republican politicians to do anything but make the problem worse. I don’t know how they sleep at night.
This is a great piece today, Jay. What particularly struck me is this line, “That lack of trust in fellow humans isn’t something that we’re born with; it’s something that is drilled into people, in many cases over and over by networks like Fox and OAN that feed off fear, anger and hatred.” How do we reach people that are so traumatized by the constant fear mongering they are subjected to because of their own personal choices? It feels like a huge part of our culture is so driven by power and greed, that human life is no longer respected or felt to be that important. Thank you for creating a community where people here are thinking and talking of these problems along with offering possible solutions.
This is the work ahead for all of us.
Indeed!
The single biggest factor is too many guns. In Japan -- I know, everyone's heard this -- the number of people who die from gun violence is a year is less than our death rate in a single day. Gee, this isn't hard to figure out why, is it? The footnote to the sadness of all of Ken's pieces involving gun violence is how inured we have become. Reasonable people write this off to acceptable losses in a Wild West Society. How many people noticed that the last two mass shootings (in a single day) were run on P. A17 of The New York Times? Think about that. Try to imagine the front-page meeting of the editors. "Two today in Alabama and Kentucky," the national editor says. "What's new about that?" replies the Page One editor. "Run it somewhere in the back...." It has come to this people. Those who care are powerless. Those were in power do not.
The "isolated man" isn't anything new. 1991 a man that hated woman and anyone not like him, killed as many as he could at a Lubby's in Killeen Texas. Yes, Texas, again. Among the victims were the parents of Suzanna Hupp. Hupp stated she wished she had her gun with her so she could have shot back. With that, Hupp set out to change this country's landscape regarding gun control, meaning she made it her mission in life to do away with any kind of gun control. She was very successful at it too. No "good citizen" with a gun has prevented a mass shooting. Hupp's influence can be seen and felt in every legislation loosening or removing gun restrictions. The carnage she ignorantly tried to prevent, in actuality, she perpetuated. To this day she is very proud of her work, in spite of all the mass shootings that followed her full court efforts.
Very well said, as always, Jay. Your headers make a brilliant, if irregular, poem:
Everyday Mistakes, Turned Bloody and Deadly
We’ve lost our damn minds in gun mania
Angry, isolated men
Fear, mistrust, and guns
While I would repeat the last line for emphasis, one take away is that, for once, this is not entirely racial which does bring it to a whole new level. . Like the cheerleader who was shot, I've recently had someone get into my car by mistake (hers was dark grey, so is mine, and they were parked side by side). No gun violence ensued, but she did get two Irish setters in her face telling her she didn't belong there. She waited until I came out and told me what happened. I guess those days are gone.
Once, because of a rural emergency I happened across in up-state NY, I had to knock on doors. No one would open them. A utility worker had overturned his truck, he was hurt, no one had cell phones, so I kept knocking until someone opened the door and called 911. I guess those days are gone.
I (and I think a lot of us) have knocked on the wrong door by mistake, often. In the past the person who opened the door listened and directed me to my destination. I guess those days are gone.
These incidents happed to chill me to the bone.
Before retiring I was a home care nurse. I remember arriving at the wrong address. I was met by a very, very angry man who was in my face, screaming. Mind you, I was in scrubs with a medical bag. Guess I was lucky he didn’t have a gun!
You were, but bless you for what you did. I care for an elderly person and it is not easy. I am an admitted amateur. Your job was hard and under sung.
thanks!
Of course, every one of these acts of murder was committed by a member of a "well-regulated militia."
The United States of America is in fact turning into one great, big, UN-regulated militia.
We are already required by regulation to wear seatbelts and have operable airbags in our cars to protect us against mischance and crazy people. Since guns are now killing more people than cars, how long will it be before we are required by regulation to wear body armor in public? That would be yet another way for the gun lobby to make money, so they would probably get behind it.
I like that you showed the ugly faces of the killers and delved into their (frightening) personalities. The poor child victims.
A "good guy with a gun" will never eliminate the carnage occurring on our streets. In isolated circumstances, it MAY, and I repeat may, limit a prolonged shooting attack on a crowd, may also simply increase the number of victims when poorly trained lay-persons attempt to do that for which law enforcement constantly trains. Prevention, pre-emption are the only reasonable responses and these do not involve firearms. The problem is availability of assault weapons and large magazine-capacity handguns. If the only weapons widely available required that the assailant be within arms-length of the victim, we'd see these mass violence events drop by over 95%, without a doubt.