Tennis balls are a no-no at the GOP convention…

…but guns are OK.

Wha?

The Official Event Zone Permit Regulations for the Republican convention in Cleveland explicitly prohibit carrying tennis balls and cans of tuna fish (and lots of other stuff) into the 1.7-square-mile event zone.

Guns? Different story.

Illegal firearms are prohibited. Check.

Legal guns can be carried at will except in the actual convention arena controlled by the Secret Service. So, delegates and protestors will be allowed to pack heat in the areas where public confrontations are likely to occur.

An official of the Cleveland police union is publicly asking Gov. John Kasich to do an executive order to suspend Ohio’s “open carry” law in Cuyahoga County (including Cleveland) for the duration of the convention.

1968 Democratic Convention violence in Chicago

It’s the least thing Kasich should do.

Right now, we need to do everything to keep the Republican Convention from being a “gunfight at the O. K. corral” kind of thing. It’ll be bad enough without violence.

The meteor thing....

Trump actually appeals to "losers"

Trump's paying himself to campaign

The unnecessary wall: "for" and "against"

Maybe Trump isn't hustling "new voters"

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Orlando massacre: frank talk about the issues

The terrorist murders in Orlando were a horrific crime. The victims and all of us suffer.

The shooter is dead, so there isn’t going to be any retribution against him.

The shooter was born in the United States 29 years ago—he was as much an American citizen as you and me, so this particular case has nothing to do with immigration.

The shooter legally bought a semi-automatic pistol and a high-capacity assault rifle a few days before he used them to kill and wound more than 100 people.

The shooter was on an FBI terrorist watch list twice—the Terrorist Screening Database, in 2013 and in 2014—but he was removed from the watch list after FBI agents questioned him and determined that he hadn’t broken any laws with his public statements and contact with an American who died in a suicide bombing in Syria.

Even if he had remained on the watch list, that by itself wouldn’t have prevented him from legally buying guns.

Why is anyone legally selling guns to anyone who is on or has been on an FBI terrorist watch list?

We have too many guns in America.

Too many dead people.

Four people shot dead or wounded—every day

Cops kill someone almost every day

With guns, it's not civil disobedience

Gotta say it

Deadly

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Four people shot dead or wounded—every day

We have too many guns in America.

Last year, there was a single shooting incident that killed or wounded at least four people, on average EVERY DAY.

The New York Times tallied 358 of these shoot-em-ups, with a total of 462 people dead and 1,330 wounded.

“The typical victim was a man between 18 and 30, but more than 1 in 10 were 17 or younger. Less is known about those who pulled the triggers because nearly half of the cases remain unsolved. But of those arrested or identified as suspects, the average age was 27.”

You and I didn’t hear about most of these shootings. Nearly 3 out of 4 victims were black.

Do you think the news coverage would have been different if three quarters of the victims were white?

We have too many guns in America.

Too many dead people.

Cops kill someone almost every day

With guns, it's not civil disobedience

Gotta say it

Deadly

Too many guns in America

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Cops killed someone almost every day last year

There were only 14 days last year when no civilian was killed by police in America.

Here’s the total: at least 1,280 people were killed by policemen in every state.

Vox.com says “a huge majority” of the victims were killed by gunshots.

Eric Garner died

Yes, yes, of course the total includes crazy folks who committed “suicide by cop,” and folks who were incidental victims of police car crashes, and deaths that occurred during arrests, routine or otherwise.

My point is that civilian deaths at the hands of police occur more or less every day. This is a startling reality that should be deplored, and investigated.

p.s. yes, the death total given above is wrong. The real number is higher. This reported total only includes the deaths that could be verified from news accounts available online.

Mr. Kite et al.

British algae: the full story

With guns, it's not civil disobedience

Book review: Shantung Compound

Social Security....not for everyone

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

With guns, it's not civil disobedience....

Looks like the authorities are going to make sure the crazy guys with guns in a National Wildlife Refuge building in Oregon are going to get cold, hungry and lonely. Violence isn’t necessary—after a while, they’re going to have to get out of the building and face appropriate charges.

The only reason I am mentioning this obscurely wacky episode in the Wild West is that I noticed a compelling pertinent point in a column today by Dana Milbank on WashingtonPost.com.

Milbank points out with obvious dismay that too many Republican representatives in Washington are actually supporting or taking the side of the misguided ranchers.

Milbank also cuts sharply to the quick when he debunks the claim some are making about the “civil disobedience” in this little shack in the Oregon woods.

“Civil disobedience is when people break laws they think [are] unjust and then peacefully face the legal consequences. The takeover of a federal wildlife facility in Oregon by armed men is sedition.”

My dictionary says civil disobedience is “refusal to comply with laws as a peaceful form of political process,” and sedition is “conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of the state.”

Civil disobedience happens when folks deliberately break laws and then get arrested and go to jail and stuff like that to make a political point and get publicity. Folks who are doing civil disobedience don’t carry guns.

If the ranchers in Oregon hadn’t carried guns with them there wouldn’t be much of a fuss. They’d be a wacky one-time story on the nightly news. With guns, they’re dangerous and they’re criminals. 

They can’t be allowed to get what they want.

That’s all, folks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gops-sympathy-for-sedition/2016/01/06/9e9f61da-b4c1-11e5-9388-466021d971de_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_opinions

Social Security....not for everyone

Dance  in the night

"...all thy might..."

Doing the right thing....

"See the [segregated] USA, in your Chevrolet..."

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2016 All rights reserved.

Gotta say it

Yesterday people were killed and wounded on two college campuses.

A freshman at Northern Arizona University killed one fellow student and wounded three others.

One student was killed and another person was wounded at Texas Southern University (THIRD SHOOTING at TSU this week!)

Count ‘em up: 144 school shootings since the disaster at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.

That’s just about one shooting on a school campus every week for almost three years.

Nearly all of our state and federal legislators aren’t doing anything to stop it.

We don’t have a Second Amendment problem in America.

We have a gun problem.

We have a killing problem.

We have an apathy problem.

Why aren’t we having an outrage-let’s-really-do-something-about-it problem?

Uncle Sam was born in 1813

The history that didn't happen

Deadly

Too many guns in America

I guess I believe it....

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.

Deadly

The crazy man in Oregon shot and killed nine people at Umpqua Community College, and wounded nine more.

He had 13 guns—pistols, rifles, a shotgun—all purchased legally.

We don’t have a Second Amendment problem in America.

We have a gun problem.

The problem is: if a guy is crazy and he owns  13 guns, he might decide some Thursday morning to take six of them to a community college.

And he might decide to take lots of bullets.

Too many guns in America

I guess I believe it....

Murders in Charleston

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.

Too many guns in America

Bloomberg reported this week that 145 Americans were killed by guns on the Labor Day weekend.

That’s one dead person every 30 minutes.

Another report from the Gun Violence Archive said that, year-to-date, 507 children under the age of 12 have been killed by guns.

We have too many guns in America.

Too many dead people.

The Six Grandfathers

Book review: The Bartender's Tale

I guess I believe it....

Murders in Charleston

Police have killed 385 people so far this year

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.

Murders in Charleston

Let’s move the grieving to the next level.

President Obama got it right:

“I refuse to act as if this is the new normal, or to pretend that it’s simply sufficient to grieve, and that any mention of us doing something to stop it is somehow politicizing the problem.”

We have too many guns in America.

Too many dead people.

Police have killed 385 people so far this year

Who needs armor-piercing bullets?

Remember Sandy Hook Elementary School?

Really not too disgusting for words....

More than 33,000 dead....

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.

Police have killed 385 people so far this year

WashingtonPost.com reports that at least 385 people have been shot and killed by police during the first five months of 2015. That’s more than two shooting deaths each day since January 1.

Of course the circumstances of the shootings vary widely.

Of course about 25% of the victims had mental problems.

Of course about 80% of the victims were armed with a gun or other potentially deadly weapon.

Of course some of them were actually threatening a police officer.

Of course some of the shootings were justified.

Of course about half of the victims were minorities.

Of course dozens of the victims were actually running away from the cops when they were shot.

Of course charges have been filed against a police officer in only 3 shooting incidents so far this year.

Of course 385 citizens killed by police is way too many.

Who needs armor-piercing bullets?

Remember Sandy Hook Elementary School?

Really not too disgusting for words....

More than 33,000 dead....

Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.