Yesterday, perhaps like you, I watched segments of the journalistic disaster of CNN, The Trump Townhall. I couldn’t watch all of it. Wrong idea, wrong interviewer, wrong audience. Wrong questions. CNN was played by Trump like an out of tune piccolo. It was humiliating for CNN to watch Trump tell us his stock lies to the cheers of his MAGAts. It made it clear that even major media outlets don’t understand how to deal with Trump and the portion of the population he commands.
As the mass murders continue to occur in the United States, more such mass murders than days in the year so far in 2023, with most murders being committed by MAGAts armed with AR-15s or AK-47s, the Supreme Court is on the verge of handing down a decision that could legalize assault weapons and high capacity magazines in all 50 states, as this article describes. If the court does rule in favor of assault rifles, I can predict with great confidence that the murder rate, which already has made violent gun death the leading cause of death of children in the U.S., will significantly increase.
AR-15 build kits seen for sale at the Durkin Tactical display during the National Rifle Association’s Annual Meetings & Exhibits at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis on April 15, 2023. Credit: Jeremy Hogan / SOPA Images / LightRocket / Getty
The case challenges a Naperville, Illinois, ordinance and a similar Illinois state law, both of which ban assault weapons, which the state law defines to include certain semiautomatic rifles such as AR-15s and AK-47s. Additionally, the state law prohibits the sale of a “large capacity ammunition feeding device,” which the statute defines as long gun magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, or handgun magazines that hold more than 15 bullets.
The plaintiffs, which include a gun shop owner and a gun rights group, claim the two statutes violate the Second Amendment.
JAMELLE BOUIE, Opinion Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan:
I do so agree with Jamelle Bouie. We are becoming a society where it, particularly in Red states, can be dangerous to go to the mall to shop. A democracy cannot survive in that environment, and I think that is what the MAGAts are trying to achieve.
School friends console each other after a mass killing. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty
Another week, another shooting.
This one was in Allen, Texas — a city about 25 miles north of Dallas — where a gunman killed at least eight people and injured at least seven others before he was killed by a police officer. He used, as is standard these days, an AR-15-style rifle. Some of the victims were children.
The frequency of mass shootings in the United States means there is a ritual, of sorts, associated with each occurrence. Republican politicians offer “thoughts and prayers,” Democratic politicians condemn those offering only “thoughts and prayers,” and their respective allies in the media trade barbs over gun control.
On Twitter, Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News anchor, took part in the ritual with a series of tweets castigating gun control proponents for focusing on, well, gun control. “Serious q for gun control advocates: you’ve failed to effect change,” she said. “Pls face it. You can’t do it, thx to the 2A. We’re all well aware […]
Gregg Abbott, the Viktor Orban of Texas, has degraded the social wellbeing of Texas in every way he can, from the electrical grid, to healthcare, to womens’ rights, to library censorship, to mass murders. It amazes me that the people of Texas have supported and voted for this vulgar nasty man. But they have, and are now reaping what their voting choice has produced.
MAGAt Republican Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. Credit: Joe Raedle / Getty
At least seven mass shootings have occurred in Texas during Greg Abbott’s tenure as governor, including the Allen mall shooting.
By the numbers: Texas had more firearm deaths than any other state in 2021, but not the highest rate per 100,000 people, according to the most recent CDC data.
There were 4,613 deaths from guns in Texas in 2021, a rate of 15.6 deaths per 100,000 people.
California, which has a larger population, had the second most gun deaths. There were 3,576 — a rate of nine deaths per 100,000 people.
Talia Richman and Allie Morris, Staff Writer | Austin Bureau Correspondent - The Dallas Morning News
Stephan:
Gregg Abbott and the state legislature are trying to turn Texas into Viktor Orban’s Hungary. They are gutting the public education system so that instead of giving children a fact-based education it promotes and indoctrinates children in Texas into Male dominant Christian Nationalism. The people of Texas voted for this, I wonder if they are happy with what they have done.
Construction workers move material for a roof restoration project at the Texas Capitol as the first day of the 88th Texas Legislative Session begins in Austin, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. Credit: AP Photo / Eric Gay / AP
In kindergarten classrooms across Texas, 5-year-olds coming to school for the first time could soon be greeted by picture books, colorful blocks and the words, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.”
As those children grow up in the state’s public schools, they could get dedicated time in the day to read the Bible or pray. And if they are going through a hard time, they could turn to a chaplain — rather than a licensed school counselor — for help on campus.
What critics see as an assault on the separation of church and state, supporters argue is a step forward for religious liberty after a major Supreme Court decision last year.
