blood dancing

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Shouldn’t The Killers Be The Ones Held Accountable?

March 29, 2023 by 2 Comments

I received the expected blood-dancing email from Everytown, the Demanding Moms, and their Young Pioneers (aka Students Demand Action) this afternoon. They are calling for accountability. And donations. Mostly donations.

We must hold the people who continue to enable gun violence accountable: The lawmakers who choose to exacerbate this crisis with only thoughts, prayers, and deadly legislation to further weaken our gun laws. The gun industry executives and gun traffickers who have flooded our communities with guns. The extremists who have pushed forward a violent agenda that we—and our children—are paying for with our lives.

I agree with accountability.

Accountability for those who demand gun free zones that make our children and grandchildren targets for killers. The killer chose the Covenant School as the backup after passing on a better defended location.

Accountability for those who decided a private school shouldn’t be assigned an armed school resource officer yet who would object to trained armed school staff.

Accountability for those politicians who veto bills that would allow churches with private schools to protect their congregations.

Accountability for prosecutors who give violent people a slap on the wrist or even a pass as opposed to prosecuting them. Perhaps three students at Michigan State would have been alive if a prosecutor had done his or her job.

Accountability for those in the media whose spin on anything involving guns and crime would make Josef Goebbels proud with its half-truths and lies.

It is the gun control industry and their allies in both media and politics who raise money off of tragedy who are the real villains in this story. While they have their own personal armed security, they will continue to fight to keep us, our children, and families defenseless. That is what is unforgiveable.

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Not Even 24 Hours

August 4, 2019 by 1 Comment

Do we have all the facts – the real facts and not just suppositions – on the murders in El Paso or Dayton yesterday?

Of course the answer is no.

But does that stop the gun prohibitionists from dancing in the blood of the victims and from raising money?

Again, a big no.

This email was received less than 24 hours before the murderer started his rampage in El Paso.
Our
chapters are the heart and soul of our efforts and the ‘boots on the
ground’ in this battle against the epidemic of gun violence. If you’re
already involved, please forward this to a friend and ask them to join.

I am reminded of the response that attorney Joseph Welch gave to Sen. Joe McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings.

Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

The answer for the Brady Campaign and others of their ilk is a resounding NO!

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Proud Gabby – With Apologies To John Fogarty

October 10, 2017 by

I’m reading yet another email asking for money from Americans for Responsible Solutions. They are criticizing the NRA for being respectfully quiet following the Las Vegas mass casualty event. As I continued to read, a jingle started playing in my head to the tune of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Proud Mary. All I could hear was “rollin’ in the blood”.

This led me to rewrite a bit of the first few stanzas of Proud Mary.

Left a good job in the Congress
Workin’ for the Left ev’ry night and day
And I never lost one minute of sleepin’
Worryin’ ’bout the way things should have been


Big money keep on commin’
Proud Gabby keep on beggin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ in the blood


Cleared a lot of checks in the District
Pumped a lot of hands down in Tucson
But I never saw the good side of the city
‘Til I hitched a ride as the anti-gun queen


Big money keep on commin’
Proud Gabby keep on beggin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ in the blood

 This is probably not the most respectful thing to say about a former member of Congress and I am truly sorry that she got shot by a mentally disturbed young man who had passed all background checks. Nonetheless, I get sick and tired of how the gun prohibitionists roll in the blood of the victims before the blood is even dry.

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Just Like Clockwork

November 28, 2016 by 7 Comments

The saying that the only two sure things in this world are death and taxes needs a revision. The revision would be to add that in a (purported) campus active shooter situation where little or nothing is known, Shannon Watts of Mommies Demanding Illegal Mayors will be tweeting about it and asking for more gun control.

The first report of an active shooter at Ohio State came in just before 10am EST. The above tweet was made at just a bit after 11am EST. I’d like to be able to say it was her first tweet but it wasn’t. Shannon was tweeting within minutes of the first report.

Reports in the Columbus Dispatch about the incident are relatively sketchy. Some people are in the hospital reportedly with non-life threatening injuries. One of the attackers is reported dead. There is not identification of the attacker. There is no word on whether police killed the attacker or whether it was self-inflicted. There is no word on motive. There is no word on what type of weapon. The list goes on.

The bottom line is that Shannon Watts will use any attack or incident as a reason to push gun control regardless of the circumstances. Her blood dancing is really getting rather old.


UPDATE: More details of this “mass shooting” are coming out. The “shooter” actually hit a number of pedestrians with his car and then started stabbing them with a butcher knife. There were no firearms involved other than that of the OSU police officer who shot and killed the attacker approximately a minute after the attack began. The unnamed attacker is reported in another story to be a Somali refugee with permanent legal residence who was a student. Unlike earlier reports, there appears to have only been this one attacker. The motive for the attack is unknown at this time.

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Virginia Delegate Doesn’t Let A Tragedy Go To Waste

August 27, 2015 by 5 Comments

I got an email sent at 9:36pm Wednesday by Virginia Delegate Patrick Hope (D-Arlington) asking me to sign a Change.org petition asking for universal background checks in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Not only does this come less than 15 hours after a TV reporter and cameraman were murdered in Virginia but it explicitly ties the appeal to that.

The crime scene is still fresh and this blood dancer is reveling in it. Because the killer doesn’t fit the usual constructs, instead of blaming the person or even a broken mental health system, Del. Hope blames the gun. That is, the totally inanimate object that the killer appears to have purchased at retail after a FBI background check. While neither the killer nor the method in which he purchased the gun fits the narrative, this doesn’t stop Del. Hope from conflating this tragedy into a call for universal background checks.

Mr. Hope seems to be a person willing to abandon principles for political gain. According to his biography, he grew up in San Antonio, Texas, attended a Baptist high school, attended Catholic-run St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, and then moved to the DC area seeking fame and fortune. Along the way, he picked up a Masters and law degree from Catholic University while working on Capitol Hill. In the latest news from his website, he is proudly proclaiming he was given a major award from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Pardon me if I am suffering from a little bit of cognitive dissonance. Less surprising is that he is also an Adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health where much of the so-called scientific gun control research originates.

Rather than blaming the object used, I humbly suggest that Del. Hope look at both the role that the media played in setting this man off and the broken mental health system. Either one or both of these are more at fault here than the inanimate object that seems to have been legally purchased.

John –

You probably woke up this morning and saw the news just like I did: another terrible shooting occurred – this time in my home state of Virginia. From Newtown to Aurora to Charleston and now Moneta, Virginia, horrific acts of gun violence are becoming the norm in local communities across the nation.

We lost Alison Parker and Adam Ward today – two young journalists who were gunned down on live television. Their heartbreaking story mirrors so many others nationwide, where people who’ve been going about their lives – attending church, going to school, watching a movie, or just doing their jobs – have lost their lives to senseless acts of gun violence.

The time for change in my state is now. That’s why I started a petition on Change.org to call for comprehensive background checks for all gun purchases in Virginia. Will you please sign it?

As a Virginia State Delegate, I’ve supported common sense gun safety measures like background checks in the legislature – only to see them stall because of political gridlock, undue influence from the gun lobby, or just sheer apathy. We’ve seen tragedy in our backyards before with shootings like in Virginia Tech, and now again today in Moneta, but haven’t acted. We can’t let another one pass without collective action.

Polling shows that more than 92 percent of voters in Virginia support background checks for all gun purchases. And in the wake of today’s shooting, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe reaffirmed his commitment to pass universal background checks because he knows how important it is for my colleagues and I to pass this measure if we are truly going to call ourselves “public servants.”

Many people feel powerless in these situations because of the political climate that holds us back from real change. I’m asking my colleagues to put people first to get this done once and for all. I know we can’t end all acts of gun violence, but that doesn’t need to stop us from advancing common sense solutions like background checks that can help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.

Please, sign my petition, and let’s try to take a small but important step forward in addressing the epidemic of gun violence in our country.

Thank you,

Del. Patrick Hope
Arlington, VA
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Well, That Didn’t Take Long

February 8, 2015 by 5 Comments

When it comes to dancing in the blood of victims and using their tragedy for her own purpose, Shannon Watts has few equals. Like a vulture attracted to carrion, she is attracted to any shooting that she can twist for her own purposes.

Yesterday, in Douglasville, Georgia, a disturbed man shot his ex-wife and children before killing himself. He reportedly killed five including himself and wounded two others. The earliest reports that I can find of this very sad tragedy was about 4:25pm.

So how long did Shannon wait until racing to Twitter to make light of this tragedy in her efforts to push gun control? How about 329 minutes or just under 5 1/2 hours. Blood takes from one to two hours to dry after being exposed to air. Thus, the blood had barely dried before she took to Twitter.

The mom and children killed are just props for Shannon. That’s sad, it’s pathetic, and it’s repugnant. However, that is just par for the course for Shannon Watts, Mike Bloomberg, and the rest of the gun prohibitionists in Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors.

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You Want Craven, I’ll Give You Craven

May 27, 2014 by 4 Comments

If you have listened to the news any in the last few days, you have seen an orgy of media reporting devoted to the murders in Santa Barbara. I say murders because while three of the killings by the narcissistic individual  involved a firearm, the other three involved a machete and a hammer. Nonetheless, one of the parents of the victims in his grief blamed the killings on “craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA”.

This post isn’t meant to go into all the legal niceties that the killer observed in obtaining his firearms or how stringent a process the California DOJ’s DROS (Dealer’s Record of Sale) imposes on firearm sales but rather the blood dancing coming from the Brady Campaign. I would go so far as to call it “craven”.

Below is an email I received from the Brady Campaign at noon today. I don’t know why I’m supposed to call Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) as I live in North Carolina and not Arizona. Nonetheless, I’m sure millions of these emails are going out today aimed at senators who voted against Manchin-Toomey last year.

Dear (redacted),

This Memorial Day weekend, while Americans across the nation were honoring our fallen soldiers, we were also overwhelmed by another tragedy – a murderous rampage by a gunman at the University of California-Santa Barbara that claimed six lives and left eight others wounded.

One of those killed was Chris Martinez, whose father Richard had this to say about his devastating loss:

“Chris died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the NRA. They talk about gun rights. What about Chris’ right to live?”

The Brady Campaign stands firmly with Mr. Martinez. He got it exactly right. Politicians continually ignore the will and the well-being of the American public and, instead, take their marching orders and money from the corporate gun lobby.

Shamefully, these politicians do not care who is buying guns – convicted felons, domestic abusers, rapists – just as long as the corporate gun lobby is happily making the biggest possible profit.

Now more than ever, it is essential that we Americans rise up and call out the corporate gun lobby and the ‘craven’ politicians who do their bidding.

Call Senator Flake at 1-866-383-3901

Tell him that you haven’t forgotten when he voted against the amendment to expand Brady background checks and chose to stand with the corporate gun lobby instead of representing the overwhelming majority of his constituents who support background checks.

The gun lobby has millions of dollars from big gun corporations. We have the truth and the voice of every decent American who wants and deserves a nation safe from gun violence.

Thanks to Americans like Richard Martinez, that voice of truth is starting to be heard. Let’s show Mr. Martinez that we are right there beside him. Call Senator Flake today and remind him that he works for the American public and not the corporate gun lobby.

Dan Gross
President
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

P.S. You can make a difference by joining Brady supporters from around the country at the 2014 Brady National Summit in D.C. from June 9 – 10.

Given that Dan Gross began his career in the advertising industry, I’m not surprised that he cherry-picks his “facts” and doesn’t let the truth get in the way of his agenda.

Does the National Rifle Association get substantial donations from firearms manufacturers? Yes but the amount is dwarfed by the amount of money that memberships and individual donations bring in. The gun lobby is you and me and not some amorphous big corporation where big-wigs sit around lighting their cigars with $100 bills.

Would the universal background checks for private sales mandated by Manchin-Toomey have prevented the tragedy in Santa Barbara? No. The killer purchased his firearms legally, underwent the California DOJ’s background checks, was limited to one handgun purchase within a 30 day period, had to wait 10 days (or more) before taking possession of his handgun as required by law, and only had California-compliant magazines in his possession. It should be pointed out that the DROS system is available on-line to any law enforcement officer to check on purchases and is linked to mental health reports including whether a person had been hospitalized or has been prescribed anti-anxiety medications.

And that link at the bottom of Gross’ email?  If you want to attend their so-called summit, you have to pay and they take all major credit cards including Amex and Discover.

If you want to see craven behavior, just go to any of the gun prohibitionists’ websites. Whether it is the Brady Campaign trying to raise money, the Violence Policy Center trying to push their “research”, or Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors trying to build their email list, you are going to see craven behavior – or what I’d call blood dancing – at its worst.

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Nothing Like A Little Blood Dancing On A Friday Afternoon

May 17, 2013 by 2 Comments

You have to hand it to the gun prohibitionists – they do love their blood dancing.

They are linking to a story about a negligent discharge by a woman in Colorado. It involved an intoxicated young woman who slipped and fell while returning to a party to show off her new AK. Unfortunately, the firearm was loaded, a round was chambered, and it seems obvious to me that she had her finger on the trigger. The end result was that she died.

While the Violence Policy Center is keying in on the “new assault rifle” (sic), the story in and of itself is a warning not to handle dangerous objects while intoxicated. It could have just as easily been a kitchen knife or an ice pick. We have all been warned to not run with scissors. This is just an extension of that old warning.

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Vile Opportunist(s)

December 15, 2012 by 3 Comments

On a day that should have been reserved for thought, reflection, and praying for the repose of the souls of those killed in that school in Connecticut, certain gun prohibitionists just couldn’t resist the temptation to call for more gun control. Never mind that gun control has never stopped any madman in a officially gun-free zone, the siren call proved too great for some of them.

In proof of the saying that money can’t buy class comes this statement from Mayor Bloomberg:

“With all the carnage from gun violence in our country, it’s still
almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten
class could happen. It has come to that. Not even kindergarteners
learning their A,B,Cs are safe. We heard after Columbine that it was too
soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After
Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again. For
every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of
them were five-year olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt
condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to
send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for ‘meaningful
action’ is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the
rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership – not from the
White House and not from Congress. That must end today. This is a
national tragedy and it demands a national response. My deepest
sympathies are with the families of all those affected, and my
determination to stop this madness is stronger than ever.”

His erstwhile colleague in the Illegal Mayors, Boston’s Thomas Menino joined in the fray and included automatic weapons in his call for more gun control:

“As a parent and grandparent, I am overcome with both grief and outrage
by the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. This unspeakable act of violence
will forever imprint this day in our hearts and minds. My heart goes
out to the families impacted by this senseless tragedy and the many
others we have recently witnessed across the United States. As a Mayor
who has witnessed too many lives forever altered by gun violence, it is
my responsibility to fight for action. Today’s tragedy reminds us that
now is the time for action. Innocent children will now never attend a
prom, never play in a big game, never step foot on a college campus. Now
is the time for a national policy on guns that takes the loopholes out
of the laws, the automatic weapons out of our neighborhoods and the
tragedies like today out of our future.” 

Josh and Ladd were not to be outdone at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic):

THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ARE NOT ENOUGH

Washington, DC—We can only imagine the scale of the human tragedy that has unfolded in Newtown, Connecticut as reports continue to emerge about the massacre committed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. There are many parents, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, and others who will now never see their loved ones again, never again know the warmth of their presence, never see their potential realized over the course of their natural lives. While shockingly familiar, the nature of this tragedy has left those of us at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence feeling shaken to our core, physically and spiritually sick that this could happen in a civilized society in a place of learning for children.

Our elected leaders, in the coming hours, will issue the typical platitudes to those who have seen their loved ones gunned down in cold blood, telling them, “Our thoughts and prayers with you.” Then, if the pattern holds, they will immediately retreat into silence and refuse to engage in any meaningful debate about America’s catastrophically flawed gun laws, which directly facilitate one gun massacre after the next.

To people of conscience, this should not be acceptable. After today’s horror, Americans must demand immediate action by our President and Congress to reform our gun laws. This must include legislation requiring background checks on all gun sales, strengthening those background checks (particularly in terms of mental health and substance abuse screening), and renewing the ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. We expect President Obama—as a man who has seen first-hand the devastation that gun violence inflicts on families and communities during his time as a volunteer in Chicago—to be a leader in this process and to speak out boldly and directly.

If we’ve reached a point where our children cannot attend school without fear of being gunned down by a homicidal maniac who has obtained easy access to firearms, then the freedom we cherish as citizens of the world’s greatest democracy is at risk of extinction.

More than a dozen children were massacred in a kindergarten classroom today. If elected officials cannot find their voices now and call for change—if NRA campaign contributions and threats continue to dictate their decision-making, taking priority over the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—what will it say about them?

Moreover, if we allow them to remain silent, what will it say about us?

Dan Gross of the Brady Campaign was more reserved on the surface though I have heard reports that fund-raising e-mails went out yesterday.


Like all Americans, our hearts are broken by this terrible tragedy. We send our thoughts and prayers to all those directly affected. Across the country, we will be giving extra strong hugs to our kids when they come home safely from school. But in the name of those who didn’t and in the name of the eight children and teens that die from guns every day in our nation, we cannot let it end there. We have to take terrible moments like this and use it as a catalyst to demand the sensible change in our nation that is too long overdue. We are better than this.

Please go to WeAreBetterThanThis.org and sign the letter of condolence to the families of the victims in Connecticut We all just want to live in a safer nation.

One wonders how soon after sending the “letter of condolence” will you be put on a mailing list for fund-raising purposes. I’d wage sooner than later.

The Violence Policy Center seems to have no official release on the matter. Nonetheless, on their links to the stories about the tragedy, they can’t resist noting that Newtown, CT is also home to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. How subtle.

LCAV or the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence as they are now known had not one but two posts calling for more gun control.

It would be too much to expect that Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) remain silent and I was right.

GARDEN CITY, NY – Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY4) issued the following statement on today’s school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut:

“Our hearts go out to the victims and families from this horrific tragedy, especially during the holidays when kids should be thinking about presents and having fun with their families and friends, not America’s deadly problem with gun violence.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions right now, but one thing is clear – there’s too much gun violence in our country. These shootings are becoming all too common, and it’s too easy for dangerous people to get the weapons that help them perform mass executions like today’s.

“Leaders in Washington from both parties, and groups like the NRA, all say that now is not the time to talk about how gun safety laws can save lives in America. I agree, now is not the time to talk about gun laws – the time for that conversation was long before all those kids in Connecticut died today.

“We owe it to our children to work harder to reduce gun violence. The Second Amendment is the law of the land but it was never intended to allow murderers to take the lives of innocent kids. It’s our moral obligation as policymakers and as parents to do more to save lives.

“I hope the President’s words about taking ‘meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this regardless of the politics’ stay true as we continue down this road again.”

I’m sure there are more statements such as these but I can stand only so much. It goes without saying that there will be more calls for gun control and “meaningful action” in the coming days. The Newtown tragedy is, and I hate to say it, tailor-made for the gun prohibitionists’ purposes. It reads like something out of a Matthew Bracken novel in terms of its utility for more gun control legislation. We need to be prepared for it and get ready to act to stop any of this misguided legislation.