Gun Shit Getting Stupider By the Day

No one knows how to fight anymore. You know, throw a punch. Knock somebody upside the head. Kick 'em in the balls.

Why bother? Just shoot 'em.

A man who opened fire on the crowded streets outside the Empire State Building, shooting indiscriminately and hitting multiple people, appears to have been motivated by a workplace dispute, not terrorism, according to an FBI official who received the initial reports from police on the scene.

“The preliminary indication is that there is no nexus to terrorism,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Early reports said the gunman and at least one other person were dead.

No, not terrorism. Too bad we can't say the same about two dead deputies in Louisiana.

David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars:

Ho hum. It's becoming routine now:

Police say at least two of the seven suspects arrested for the fatal shooting of two Louisiana sheriffs deputies last Thursday are connected to the anti-government “sovereign citizen” movement.

According to WBRZ-TV, 28-year-old Kyle Joekel and 44-year-old Terry Smith had identified themselves as part of the movement, which was classified as a domestic terror group last year by the FBI.

Joekel and Smith, along with several members of Smith’s family and other associates, were arrested following an ambush on authorities in LaPlace, Louisiana, about 25 miles west of New Orleans. Deputies Brandon Nielsen and Jeremy Triche were killed in the ensuing shootout. Two more deputies were wounded.

We've been writing about -- and warning about -- the sovereign citizens movement for a long time now, but now it seems it's just part of the American woodwork. ABC News picked up on this story, but so far, that's been the reach.

Katha Pollitt at The Nation

Why am I even bothering to write about gun control? That was going to be my opening sentence when this column was to be focused on the Aurora, Colorado, movie-theater massacre: twelve people murdered and fifty-eight wounded, some very severely, by James Holmes, demented neuroscience graduate student. Then came the massacre at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin: six killed and three wounded by Wade Michael Page, 40-year-old white supremacist and leader of a racist hardcore band called End Apathy. And even after this horrific crime, which the FBI is calling “domestic terrorism,” my opening is the same: Why am I even bothering to write about gun control? End apathy? Fat chance. If even the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, one of Congress’s own, by Jared Loughner, another hyperarmed madman, didn’t move her pro-gun colleagues or their constituents, nothing will.

SNIP
 
In the absence of leadership at the national level, big-city police chiefs and mayors like Michael Bloomberg have tried to step into the breach. But with little support from the top and lacking an impassioned mass movement, to say nothing of money to combat the NRA’s huge war chest, it’s no wonder that gun control has shriveled into a Worthy Cause. According to Gallup, in 2011 only 26 percent of Americans favored a ban on handguns, down from a high of 60 percent way back in the dark ages of 1959. (Other polls show the country evenly divided but still unchanged by the recent mass murders.) Membership in the NRA has been increasing for decades and now stands at 4.3 million. As for the 30,000 annual gun deaths, 70,000 injuries and almost twenty mass murders a year? The ninety guns for every 100 Americans? It’s something to wring your hands about, like sexting or obesity or plastic bags. Just another weird American thing.

Between the cops who treat sass as a capital offense, the militia nuts and the victims of cuts in mental health care, it's clearer than ever that the bad guys are the ones with the guns.