This is a quintessentially American headline

Spotted in the Chicago Tribune

List of school shootings in the United States

New Zealand bans assault and military-style weapons

Excerpts from an article in New Zealand's Stuff:

The banning of a range of rifles will become law less than a month after the massacre that prompted the swift change.

In parliament on Wednesday night MPs of all political persuasions overwhelmingly voted in favour of The Arms (Prohibited Firearms, Magazines and parts) Amendment Bill after its crucial third reading.

The law, which needs Royal Assent, will become law by the end of the week. It will mean there will be a ban on all semi-automatic and military-style weapons, such as those used during the Christchurch terrorist attack that killed 50 and injured dozens...

"There are good people in all of our communities who will find themselves in possession of banned firearms, parts and magazines.

"This is because we are changing the law, not because these people have done anything wrong."..

She told the House the weapons used in the Christchurch terror attack were designed to kill. When she visited the hospital, not one victim had just one gunshot wound, she said.

"I struggle to recall any single gunshot wounds. In every case they spoke of multiple injuries, multiple debilitating injuries that deemed it impossible for them to recover in days, let alone weeks. They will carry disabilities for a lifetime and that's before you consider the psychological impact. We are here for them."

"I could not fathom how weapons that could cause such destruction and large scale death, could be obtained legally in this country."

She also acknowledged the buyback scheme for compensation, which would be worked up over the next few weeks.

"We will operate fairly."

A mass murderer speaks through Instagram

"... the gunman who killed 12 people at a country music bar, posted on social media during the deadly rampage, according to law enforcement officials.

The first call to law enforcement came in at 11:19 p.m. Wednesday, officials said. The authorities arrived at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, three minutes later. They entered the building at 11:25 p.m.

[redacted], 28, first posted on Instagram at 11:24 p.m: "It's too bad I won't get to see all the illogical and pathetic reasons people will put in my mouth as to why I did it," the military veteran said in the post. 

"Fact is I had no reason to do it, and I just thought.... life is boring so why not?" [redacted] posted, according to ABC News and Buzzfeed.

Three minutes later [he] posted, "I hope people call me insane (two smiley face emojiis) would that just be a big ball of irony? Yeah... I'm insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is 'hopes and prayers'...or 'keep you in my thoughts'."

He added, "Every time...and wonder why these keep happening... --(two smiley face emojis)."

Groundhog day

Jeffersontown, Kentucky earlier this week and Pittsburgh yesterday.

Addendum:  Marine combat veteran kills 12 in California bar.  And there is still No Way To Prevent This.

Unfortunate product name

"Schelde Sports is a Dutch manufacturer of basketballs and volleyballs. Europe is their main market. Outside of the US, mass shootings at schools are not an issue, few people would make the connection with those instead of ‘shooting hoops’... Schelde Sports has since stopped printing ‘shooter’ on their basketballs. Now the label on the balls simply reads ‘School’, ‘Pro’, ‘Club’, etc."

Why he needs an AR-15

Via.

So far in June...

A two-year-old boy died after being shot by his 13-year-old brother in Ohio;

a four-year-old boy was shot in South Carolina after playing with a gun he found under a mattress; 

a 10-year-old boy was shot while playing in his yard in Mississippi;

a two-year-old boy was shot in the head

and a nine-year-old boy was shot in the stomach while shooting targets in Tennessee;

a four-year-old boy was shot at a gas station in Missouri;

a five-year-old boy was shot while sitting on a porch in Louisiana;

a five-year-old boy was shot in Pennsylvania;

a six-year-old boy in Kentucky died when a gun he was playing with went off;

a 12-year-old girl died after being shot by two teenagers in Georgia;

five-year-old boy was shot by his eight-year-old brother and seven people were shot at a child’s birthday party in Illinois;

and a ten-year-old boy was shot in the head at a birthday party in Virginia.



That's for approximately the first two weeks in June, for fox ache.

(no headline)

Sign at an Australian church

The victims:

Trenchant commentary:

Onion commentary:

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

PARKLAND, FL—In the hours following a violent rampage in Florida in which a lone attacker killed 17 individuals and seriously injured over a dozen others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Wednesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Indiana resident Harold Turner, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”

I'm closing this post to comments.  Send your comments to your legislators.

Top photo via.
Victims photo via.
Cartoon via.

Trigger warning

From a list of objects that were mistaken for guns during shootings of civilians by police in the United States since 2001.

Wrench

Cordless drill

Water-hose nozzle

Flashlight

Shower rod

Cane

Broomstick

Hairbrush

Sunglasses

Bottle of cologne

Underwear

Tinfoil

Bottle of beer...

The list continues at Harper's.

"No way to prevent this"

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens 

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, TX—In the hours following a violent rampage in Texas in which a lone attacker killed 27 individuals and seriously injured several others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Sunday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place.

“This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Kansas resident Britt Mulvanos, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.” 

Reposted in its entirety from The Onion, which has been reposting this same story repeatedly after mass killings since 2014, changing only names and dates.

Donald Trump's opinion:  "“We have a lot of mental health problems in our country, as do other countries, but this isn’t a guns situation … we could go into it but it’s a little bit soon to go into it. Fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was, it would have been much worse.

I'll close the comments here.  If you have comments, please forward them to your congressman.

Related:

In February, just weeks into his presidency, Trump signed a bill eliminating an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun. The rule, which had been finalized in December 2016, added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background gun-check database. Had the rule fully taken effect, the Obama administration predicted it would have added about 75,000 names to the database.

The National Rifle Association applauded Trump for signing the bill. Chris Cox, the group's chief lobbyist, said at the time that it marked "a new era for law-abiding gun owners, as we now have a president who respects and supports our arms.”