mass shootings & guns … including Trump getting shot at

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  • July 5, 2022 at 9:22 am #139539
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    Qasim Rashid, Esq.@QasimRashid
    Remember. If the shooter is:
    •Black: He’s a thug
    •Immigrant: He’s an illegal
    •Muslim: He’s a terrorist
    •White: He’s had a rough childhood & was bullied & girls never gave him a chance & he kept to himself & loved puppies & we must spend more on mental health.
    July 5, 2022 at 6:50 pm #139549
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    Z ☭ Lavrovian response@squirrelpalooza
    CBS is reporting that over the July 4 holiday weekend, 220 people were killed and over 570 were wounded in mass shootings.
    July 5, 2022 at 8:09 pm #139552
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    July 4 weekend marred by more than a dozen mass shootings

    https://www.axios.com/2022/07/05/mass-shootings-july-4-weekend

    July 6, 2022 at 9:29 am #139559
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    Ahmed Baba@AhmedBaba_
    These stories out of Highland Park about kids knowing exactly what to do when the shooting began, and guiding parents based on their active shooting drills, embody the burden of violence this next generation of kids endure because of the inaction of their elders
    July 6, 2022 at 9:50 am #139560
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    July 7, 2022 at 9:33 pm #139575
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    July 8, 2022 at 9:26 am #139578
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    July 8, 2022 at 9:29 am #139579
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    August 10, 2022 at 11:19 pm #140036
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    August 20, 2022 at 6:24 pm #140199
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    Andrew Weinstein@Weinsteinlaw
    A 3-year-old boy shot his 10-month-old brother with a gun he found in his grandmother’s purse in Missouri on Tuesday, but you might not have heard about it because it’s the sort of thing that happens every single day in America.
    November 20, 2022 at 10:18 pm #141768
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    Gunman kills 5 at gay club, is subdued by patrons

    https://apnews.com/article/shootings-colorado-springs-e098d88261db6bcfc0774434abbb7a8f

    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A 22-year-old gunman opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle inside a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing five people and leaving 25 injured before he was subdued by “heroic” patrons and arrested by police who arrived within minutes, authorities said Sunday.

    The suspect in the Saturday night shooting at Club Q used an AR-15-style semiautomatic weapon, a law enforcement official said. A handgun and additional ammunition magazines also were recovered, according to the official, who could not discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

    The attack ended when a patron grabbed a handgun from the suspect and hit him with it, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers told The Associated Press. The person who hit the gunman had him pinned down when police arrived, Suthers said.

    “Had that individual not intervened this could have been exponentially more tragic,” Suthers said.

    On its Facebook page, the club called it a “hate attack.” Investigators were still determining a motive and whether to prosecute it as a hate crime, said El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen. Charges against the suspect will likely include first-degree murder, he said.

    Police identified the alleged gunman as Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was in custody and being treated for injuries.

    Aldrich was arrested in 2021 after his mother reported he threatened her with a homemade bomb and other weapons, authorities said. They declined to elaborate on that arrest. No explosives were found, authorities said at the time, and The Gazette in Colorado Springs reported that prosecutors did not pursue any charges and that records were sealed.

    Of the 25 injured, at least seven were in critical condition, authorities said. Some were hurt trying to flee, and it was unclear if all of the victims were shot, a police spokesperson said.

    Suthers said there was “reason to hope” that all of those hospitalized would recover.

    The shooting rekindled memories of the 2016 massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people. Colorado has experienced several mass killings, including at Columbine High School in 1999, a movie theater in suburban Denver in 2012 and at a Boulder supermarket last year.

    It was the sixth mass killing this month and came in a year when the nation was shaken by the deaths of 21 in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

    Authorities were called to Club Q at 11:57 p.m. Saturday with a report of a shooting, and the first officer arrived at midnight.

    Joshua Thurman said he was in the club with about two dozen other people and was dancing when the shots began. He initially thought it was part of the music, until he heard another shot and said he saw the flash of a gun muzzle.

    Thurman, 34, said he ran with another person to a dressing room where someone already was hiding. They locked the door, turned off the lights and got on the floor but could hear the violence unfolding, including the gunman getting beaten up, he added.

    “I could have lost my life — over what? What was the purpose?” he said as tears ran down his cheeks. “We were just enjoying ourselves. We weren’t out harming anyone. We were in our space, our community, our home, enjoying ourselves like everybody else does.”

    Detectives also were examining whether anyone had helped Aldrich before the attack, Police Chief Adrian Vasquez said. He said patrons who intervened during the attack were “heroic” and owed a debt of gratitude for preventing more deaths.

    Club Q is a gay and lesbian nightclub that features a drag show on Saturdays, according to its website. Club Q’s Facebook page said planned entertainment included a “punk and alternative show” preceding a birthday dance party, with a Sunday all-ages drag brunch.

    Suthers noted that the club had operated for 21 years and had not reported any threats before Saturday’s attack.

    Drag events have become a focus of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and protests recently as opponents, including politicians, have proposed banning children from them, falsely claiming they’re used to “groom” children.

    Attorney General Merrick Garland was briefed on the shooting and the FBI was assisting police with the investigation.

    To substantiate a hate-crime charge against Aldrich, prosecutors would have to prove he was motivated by the victims’ actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. So far, the suspect has not been cooperative in interviews with investigators and has not given them clear insight yet about the motivation for the attack, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    President Joe Biden said that while the motive for the shootings was not yet clear, “we know that the LGBTQI+ community has been subjected to horrific hate violence in recent years.”

    “Places that are supposed to be safe spaces of acceptance and celebration should never be turned into places of terror and violence,” he said. “We cannot and must not tolerate hate.”

    Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who became the first openly gay man in the United States to be elected governor in 2018, called the shooting “sickening.”

    “My heart breaks for the family and friends of those lost, injured and traumatized,” Polis said. “Colorado stands with our LGTBQ community and everyone impacted by this tragedy as we mourn.”

    A makeshift memorial sprang up Sunday near the club, with flowers, a stuffed animal and candles and a sign saying “Love over hate” next to a rainbow-colored heart.

    Seth Stang was buying flowers for the memorial when he was told that two of the dead were his friends. The 34-year-old transgender man said it was like having “a bucket of hot water getting dumped on you. … I’m just tired of running out of places where we can exist safely.”

    Ryan Johnson, who lives near the club and was there last month, said it was one of only two nightspots for the LGBTQ community in conservative-leaning Colorado Springs. “It’s kind of the go-to for pride,” the 26-year-old said of the club, which is tucked behind other businesses, including a bowling alley and a sandwich shop.

    Colorado Springs, a city of about 480,000 located 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Denver, is home to the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Olympic Training Center, as well as Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical Christian ministry that lobbies against LGBTQ rights. The group condemned the shooting and said it “exposes the evil and wickedness inside the human heart.”

    In November 2015, three people were killed and eight wounded at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the city when authorities say a gunman targeted the clinic because it performed abortions.

    “Club Q is devastated by the senseless attack on our community,” the club posted on Facebook. “We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack.”

    The CEO of a national LGBTQ-rights organization, Kevin Jennings of Lambda Legal, pleaded for tighter restrictions on guns.

    “America’s toxic mix of bigotry and absurdly easy access to firearms means that such events are all too common and LGBTQ+ people, BIPOC communities, the Jewish community and other vulnerable populations pay the price again and again for our political leadership’s failure to act,” he said in a statement.

    The shooting came during Transgender Awareness Week and just at the start of Sunday’s International Transgender Day of Remembrance, when events around the world are held to mourn and remember transgender people lost to violence.

    In June, 31 members of the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and charged with conspiracy to riot at a Pride event. Experts warned that extremist groups could see anti-gay rhetoric as a call to action.

    The previous month, a fundamentalist Idaho pastor told his small Boise congregation that gay, lesbian and transgender people should be executed by the government, which lined up with similar sermons from a Texas fundamentalist pastor.

    Since 2006, there have been 523 mass killings and 2,727 deaths as of Nov. 19, according to The Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S.

    November 27, 2022 at 3:26 am #141837
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    Porn-Star Dad of LGBT Club Massacre Suspect Spews Homophobia in First Interview

    Aaron Franklin Brink, who has appeared in such films as “I Wanna Get Titty Fucked” and “Latina Slut Academy,” said he was just happy his kid isn’t gay.

    Justin Rohrlich

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/aaron-brink-pornstar-dad-of-colorado-club-q-shooting-suspect-anderson-lee-aldrich-spews-homophobia

    MMA-fighter-turned-porn-actor Aaron Franklin Brink had an immediate reaction when he learned his 22-year-old son had been accused of slaughtering five people and injuring 18 others last weekend in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs nightspot catering to the LGBTQ community.

    A defense attorney called Sunday night and told Brink, who lives in Southern California, that Anderson Lee Aldrich was under arrest for the massacre at Club Q.

    “They started telling me about the incident, a shooting involving multiple people,” Brink said Tuesday in an interview outside his San Diego home with CBS 8. “And then I go on to find out it’s a gay bar. I said, ‘God, is he gay?’ I got scared, ‘Shit, is he gay?’ And he’s not gay, so I said, ‘Phhhewww…’”

    Brink, who has appeared in such films as My MILF Boss 8, I Wanna Get Titty Fucked, and Latina Slut Academy, told CBS 8, “You know Mormons don’t do gay. We don’t do gay. There’s no gays in the Mormon church. We don’t do gay.” (The Mormon Church has confirmed that Aldrich was a member but had not been active in some time.)

    In a court filing late Tuesday, lawyers for Aldrich, who in 2016 changed his name from Nicholas Franklin Brink to escape his father’s sordid past, said Aldrich is non-binary, saying “they use they/them pronouns.”

    However, booking records list Aldrich’s gender as male. Additionally, in text messages from the day of the shooting, which were shown to The Daily Beast by a source close to Aldrich, Aldrich’s mother referred to her son as he and him.

    The Daily Beast was unable to reach Brink for comment. A call Wednesday morning to a number in Brink’s wife’s name was answered by a woman who declined to give her name but said she was a “relative.”

    “We’re just taking it one day at a time,” she told The Daily Beast. “There is nothing really to do, after everything’s said and done.”

    Aldrich allegedly opened fire at Club Q shortly before midnight on Nov. 19 before being subdued by two bystanders. Aldrich was initially hospitalized with unspecified injuries but was transferred to the El Paso County jail on Tuesday, according to authorities.

    Anderson Lee Aldrich appeared in court Wednesday, via video link.

    Aldrich, Brink, and Aldrich’s mother, Laura Voepel, have long raised red flags among others in the family, a relative told The Daily Beast shortly after Aldrich’s arrest.

    “I don’t want anything to do with that part of the family,” the relative said, asking that their name not be used to avoid becoming tangled up with them again. “They’ve always had issues, a lot of problems… I’m totally disgusted by that side of the family right now.”

    In Brink’s interview with CBS 8, he apologized for Aldrich’s alleged actions, saying there’s “no excuse for going and killing people. If you’re killing people, there’s something wrong. It’s not the answer.”

    At the same time, Brink, a recovering methamphetamine user who once appeared on the reality show Intervention, said he “praised [Aldrich] for violent behavior really early. I told him it works. It is instant and you’ll get immediate results.”

    Brink also said he didn’t realize Aldrich was still alive, telling CBS 8 that Voepel called him in 2016 and said their son had changed their name to Anderson Lee Aldrich, then died by suicide.

    “I thought he was dead,” Brink said. “I mourned his loss. I had gone through a meltdown and thought I had lost my son… His mother told me he changed his name because I was in Intervention and I had been a porno actor.”

    A notarized affidavit filed in a Texas court almost exactly a month before Aldrich, still Nicholas Brink, turned 16, states, “Minor wishes to protect himself + his future from his birth father + his criminal history. Father has had no contact with minor for several years.”

    Six months ago, Brink said a very-much-alive Aldrich called him out of the blue. The two hadn’t spoken in six years, but the conversation quickly devolved into a sparring match, according to Brink.

    “He’s pissed off,” Brink, who described himself in the interview as a conservative Republican, told CBS 8. “He’s pissed off at me. He wants to poke at the old man.”

    Even before the Club Q shooting, Aldrich had been accused of using violence.

    Last year, Aldrich was arrested after cops said they threatened to blow up the Colorado Springs house where Voepel was living. The charges were later dropped, and Colorado’s red flag laws, which would have allowed cops to seize Aldrich’s guns, were apparently not triggered. (The rifle used in the Club Q shooting was bought legally, according to reports.)

    Brink, who did federal time in the late 1990s for marijuana importation, said he still loves Aldrich in light of the accusations, and offered an apology to the victims.

    “I’m sorry for your loss,” he told CBS 8. “Life is so fragile and it’s valuable. Those people’s lives were valuable. You know, they’re valuable. They’re good people, probably. It’s not something you kill somebody over. I’m sorry I let my son down.”

    Aldrich made his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon. He was ordered held without bail

    December 5, 2022 at 4:13 am #141945
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    January 9, 2023 at 5:50 pm #142502
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    February 15, 2023 at 5:34 am #142945
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    February 15, 2023 at 10:42 am #142947
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    Important recent book on the subject, by Paul Auster:

     

    https://bookshop.org/p/books/bloodbath-nation-paul-auster/18539643

    It’s very short, direct, to the point, loaded with stats, and the photos are stunning, running parallel with the text.

    So many important takeaways, but one sticks out for me. The truly “originalist” view of The Second Amendment would be that it refers solely to gun use in well-regulated militias. “Bear arms,” for instance, only referred to the military at the time. Private citizens did not “bear arms.” It’s a military-only term. Auster says that linguistic experts can’t find any use of that term outside a military context. It doesn’t exist in reference to private citizens.

    GOP-appointed judges went against 200 years of precedent in Heller to change it from a collective “right” to an individual one, and far too many Dems were/are complicit.

     

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    February 16, 2023 at 10:58 am #142951
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    Billy_T wrote:

    it refers solely to gun use in well-regulated militias.

    I’ve never understood how this part has just “disappeared” from the issue.

    It seems pretty obvious to me that this amendment is talking about something like the National Guard. And that’s it. That’s the end of it.

    February 16, 2023 at 4:10 pm #142952
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    Zooey wrote:
    Billy_T wrote:

    it refers solely to gun use in well-regulated militias.

    I’ve never understood how this part has just “disappeared” from the issue. It seems pretty obvious to me that this amendment is talking about something like the National Guard. And that’s it. That’s the end of it.

     

    Agreed, Zooey. It’s never made sense. But I’d take it a step further from the National Guard. The 2nd was written to protect state militias, whose main mission was to put down domestic rebellion, especially slave revolts. The Constitution places control of those militias at the Federal level. We didn’t have a standing army at the time of the BOR, and a lot of the “founders” hoped we could avoid that with the continued support of state forces, but they became obsolete after the standing army was formed.

    I think it can be argued that the 2nd Amendment became null and void once those state militias were abandoned. But, yeah, at the very least, it doesn’t apply to anyone outside the National Guard, which is under Federal control. The Federal government has the legal right to regulate firearms in America, and if the Supreme Court actually followed the Constitution — they rarely do — they wouldn’t have ruled against regulations.

    February 16, 2023 at 4:17 pm #142953
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    Oh, and as you guys know, we’re just one of two nations in the entire world with such an amendment. The other is Yemen. It’s never been necessary in order to purchase weaponry. We obviously did that long before the BOR, and virtually every nation without one allows the regulated purchase and usage of guns, etc.

    Our judicial system works largely on “interpretation.” The ideological leanings of individual judges are far more important than they should be under our system. A single judge can effectively screw over large portions of our population, and they often do. It goes without saying that they tend to side with the rich and powerful . . . That includes gun manufacturers.

    February 18, 2023 at 3:33 pm #142972
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    February 22, 2023 at 10:47 am #142998
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    February 22, 2023 at 7:44 pm #143003
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    March 27, 2023 at 9:18 am #143299
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    March 27, 2023 at 10:08 pm #143314
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    .

    April 2, 2023 at 9:08 pm #143389
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    April 4, 2023 at 9:49 am #143410
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    April 29, 2023 at 8:27 pm #143792
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    May 7, 2023 at 6:39 pm #144071
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    May 8, 2023 at 10:08 pm #144089
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    October 26, 2023 at 8:32 am #146458
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    [Situation in Lewiston, Maine as of this morning.] 

    …

    What do we know about the Maine shooting suspect Robert Card?

    https://news.sky.com/story/maine-shooting-suspect-at-large-is-firearms-instructor-who-heard-voices-12992915

    The authorities in Lewiston are investigating “two active shooter events” and have warned people to stay inside with doors locked.

    Police have launched a manhunt as up to 20 people are feared dead after a shooting in the US state of Maine.

    The authorities in Lewiston have released images of a man with a military-style assault rifle in a bowling alley and say they are looking for “armed and dangerous” Robert Card.

    Here’s what we know.

    Card, 40, worked as an army firearms instructor according to an internal police notice, and has 20 years of military service.

    Image:Police have released images of the suspect. Pic: Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office
    Image:Pic: Lewiston Maine Police Department

    The notice said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this summer.

    It also said Card had reported hearing voices and had threatened to carry out a shooting at the military training base in Saco, Maine.

    It did not provide specific details about his treatment or condition.

    ‘A nightmare scenario’

    Card’s background makes the situation “a nightmare scenario for police trying to prevent more killings”, says Sky News US correspondent Martha Kelner.

    “I’m sure attention will turn to how Robert Card was able to maintain ownership of such a powerful weapon. He looks very clearly to be holding a military-style assault rifle.”

    Image:Pic: Lewiston Maine Police Department

    What happened?

    Police say the shootings happened at about 7pm on Wednesday at Schemengees Bar and Grille and Sparetime Recreation, a bowling alley – which are situated about four miles apart.

    Police sources told our US partner network NBC News “between 15 and 20 people” were killed in the shooting.

    Moments after mass shooting in Maine

    As many as 50 people are also said to have been injured, not all of whom were shot. Some reportedly had injuries from a stampede.

    The owner of the bowling alley said it was packed at the time with at least 100 people, including about 20 children.

    One witness, who only identified himself by first name, Brandon, said the first shot came from “about 15 feet” behind him.

    “Out of nowhere, he just came in and there was a loud pop”, he told Sky News.

    “I was bowling so had my back turned to the door. And as soon as I turned I saw it was not a balloon – he was holding a weapon.

    “I heard the first one – it was probably about 15 feet behind me. He was close. Very close.”

    Brandon said he heard 10 shots ring out in total as he ran down the length of the bowling alley and climbed behind where the pins are kept for shelter.

    ‘My son was at the bar and we’ve heard nothing’

    What’s happening now?

    There’s a heavy police presence at the bowling alley and bar where the gunman opened fire as officers continue to scour Maine for Card and nearby roads have been cordoned off.

    All town offices will be closed today in Lisbon, a nearby town of 9,700 people, where a vehicle that was being looked for has been found.

    Residents in Lewiston have been ordered to stay indoors.

    Kelner says there will be an “agonising wait” for people at a reunification centre in Lewiston who are waiting for news on their loved ones.

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