Pretty sad. Went to school there, worked there, my wife and in-laws live there. Been to that King Soopers many times.
Just never ends
Yeah, the “false flag” stuff started right back up. There are a lot of shitty tweets about it.
Especially now that the first name of the shooter is supposedly something like “Ahmad” per what I heard on NPR just now.
Doesn’t that first name change the whole thing from False Flag to Terrorism? Because with a name like that, it sure sounds like Terrorism, if it had been a Jack or George, much likely just someone having a bad day…
Oh, now it won’t be a false flag, silly goose.
As Darth just posted, with that name this is now extremist terrorism.
Menzo
7569
Yup - at least now we’ll be spared the “his friends say he’s a nice boy,” “he was a devout church goer,” and “he had a bad day” quotes from the cops.
Trump World is crowing this morning because the shooter wasn’t a Trumpist and therefore Liberals won’t be able to push for more gun laws. They have no souls so they don’t understand that we don’t care what the guy’s political affiliation is.
Well, I meant in the sense that they’ll be like, “See, his Muslim name proves he was really ‘Other’!”
But I also take your point. Now he’s no doubt Islamic State or something, in their eyes.
Yeah, that “bad day” shit was pretty surreal about the Atlanta shooter.
KevinC
7572
He wasn’t just having a bad day, he was fed up! Just had to blow off a little steam, I’m sure.
I felt like yelling at the radio, “not as bad a day as those people this idiot killed!”
I wonder if the NRA bankruptcy will give more room for reforms this time? Probably not, which is depressing.
Menzo
7575
Highly doubtful. It’s not even about the NRA - gun control isn’t a huge priority when Dems just used budget reconciliation for the COVID relief plan, have a $3 trillion infrastructure plan in the works, and are trying to get a voting rights measure passed.
There is no way a single Republican votes for any gun control measure, no matter how tame, so it’s a dead issue and I’d be surprised if they even take it up.
ShivaX
7576
And at least a few Dems would vote against most measures as well.
Houngan
7577
True, there’s never been as high an appetite for guns, anecdotally, from all sides than right now. Any red state Dem would think hard before supporting anything of substance. Even during the 94-04 ban the scarcity of guns and ammo wasn’t a fraction of what it is now.
So, Boulder had some restrictions in place on purchasing AR style weapons. That was overturned by a judge 10 days ago. This guy - who has a history of mentally illness and some criminal mischief history - strolled in and bought this weapon 6 days ago.
And now 10 people are dead because they were working or stopped in to the store to grab some chips.
This is just fucking horrific. The gun industry has Congress by the short hairs, so it won’t do a GOD DAMNED THING about this. We’re going to keep having this shit happen on a regular basis thanks to that.
One silver lining to the pandemic is I’d almost forgotten what it was like to live in a country where mass shootings are completely routine.
Can’t dispute that the gun industry is part of the problem, but they are not the real issue. The real issue is America’s love affair with guns. Or, rather, with what gun’s signify. Over the years, partly due to deliberate policies from the right, and partly due to broader social currents, the whole idea of gun ownership has been funneled down and concentrated into an identity marker. The majority of people who own guns are not going to use them in a crime. Heck, I bet many people buy guns and never shoot them, or shoot them like once or something. Owning a gun for many people is their way of staking out their significance in a world that increasingly they find doesn’t recognize them.
It’s why I think that so-called gun control legislation is doomed to fail. Even if you pass laws that restrict gun ownership, enforcing them effectively will be nigh-on impossible, and the sheer quantity of guns in circulation will work against any such laws. But mostly, until the culture shifts and people stop thinking about guns as indicators of independence, virility, freedom, etc. nothing is going to improve.
And the chance of that happening is like, well, nearly zero.
