By Danny Haiphong for Black Agenda Report – Mass casualty, civilian-led shootings are a uniquely US phenomenon. The most recent headline shooting in Las Vegas took over fifty lives and injured many more. Since the War on Terror was declared in 2001, mass shootings have served as a barometer of the profound confusion and fear that exists in the US. Corporate media outlets and their allies in the US military state have shown little interest in finding actual policy solutions to the problem beyond more state repression. That’s because any real investigation of the causes of these events would expose how Malcolm’s chickens have roosted across the blood-soaked nation. Mainstream discourse has once again failed to ask the right questions. Sympathetic accounts of white assailants have also served to place attention on individual suspects rather than systemic causes. Sympathetic accounts have been absent for Arab, Muslim, and other oppressed peoples who are instead deemed “terrorists” whenever they commit acts of mass violence on US soil, which isn’t often. Then there is the superficial discussion about mental health and mass shootings, leading to few conclusions other than the stigmatization of the mentally ill. And of course, gun control lobbyists and weapons manufacturers have rehashed their superficial conflict to forward their particular political agendas.
By Rebecca Peters for The Guardian – The mass murder in Newtown Connecticut a year ago caused shock and sorrow all around the world. In Australia it also revived memories of our own horror on a similar scale, when dozens of people innocently going about their day were gunned down by a disturbed young man. Our tragedy occurred in 1996 at the Port Arthur historic site in Tasmania, one of Australia’s most popular tourist destinations. The dead numbered 35, with more than 20 others injured. The victims ranged in age from 3 to 72. They included children, teens, adults and seniors; tourists and local workers; several couples, a pair of brothers, a mother and her two little daughters, and members of a retirees’ club on an outing. This was not the first shooting massacre we had suffered, but it was the largest in living memory. The tragedy ignited an explosion of public outrage, soul-searching and demands for better regulation of guns. We changed our laws. As a result, gun deaths in Australia have dropped by two-thirds, and we have never had another mass shooting. Every country is unique, but Australia is more similar to the US than is, say, Japan or England. We have a frontier history and a strong gun culture. Each state and territory has its own gun laws, and in 1996 these varied widely between the jurisdictions.
By Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern for Slate – When U.S. District Judge Glen E. Conrad rejected Charlottesville, Virginia’s attempt to relocate Saturday’s white nationalist rally, he wrote that “merely moving [the] demonstration to another park will not avoid a clash of ideologies” between demonstrators and counter-protesters. He also acknowledged that “a change in the location of the demonstration would not eliminate the need for members of the City’s law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services personnel to appear at Emancipation Park. Instead, it would necessitate having personnel present at two locations in the City.” As it turned out, the nightmare that unfolded on Saturday in this small college town involved a great deal more than an ideological clash and demanded far more police protection than was available. Dozens of white nationalists showed up toting semi-automatic weapons, as did some counter-protesters, making it all but impossible for police to intervene when violence erupted. In short order, peaceful protesters were forced to hide as armed rioters attacked one another with clubs, smoke bombs, and pepper spray.
By Jon Herskovitz for Reuters – To protest a new state law that makes the carrying of concealed handguns legal in college classrooms, students at the University of Texas on Wednesday openly displayed sex toys, an act considered illegal under local indecency laws. “We are fighting absurdity with absurdity,” said Jessica Jin, leader of the protest called “Cocks Not Glocks: Campus (Dildo) Carry,” where hundreds of sex toys were given away at the rally on Wednesday that coincided with a return to classes at university’s flagship campus.
By Rupert Neate for The Guardian – Dozens of gay activists began a campaign of civil disobedience against gun companies and their investors on Monday by holding a “die-in” at the headquarters of BlackRock, one of the largest corporate shareholders of gun companies’ stock. Holding placards bearing photos of some of the victims of gun violence, protesters occupied the lobby of BlackRock’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan for almost an hour on Monday afternoon demanding that the investment firm divest from gun stocks.
By Arun Gupta for Raw Story – Shouts and yells erupted on the fringe of a Black Lives Matter rally in downtown Portland. A local right-wing agitator, Michael Strickland, was backing down the street away from a few dozen people, including masked anarchists clad in black. Strickland is involved with a YouTube channel, Laughing at Liberals, which shows up at leftist protests to film people and put them online. Strickland held a tripod-mounted video camera in his left hand. His right hand grabbed near his waistband. Seconds later, facing the crowd, he pulled a Glock 27 from a holster on his right side.
By Eleanor Goldfield for Act Out! – Meet the people making a killing off of death plus the how and why gun owners are pro gun control and WHY gun control is the only common sense policy available. Next up, the stand against fracked gas and oil pipelines is a national fight, being fought on local levels by activists all over the political and social spectrum — and here’s how you can get involved. But first – shots fired.
By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams – At least 16 people were arrested during a peace vigil outside the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Tuesday, as activists staged a “die-in” to demand gun reform in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando earlier this month. The demonstration, organized by the peace group CODEPINK, began Monday night and lasted into Tuesday morning as activists blocked the entrance to the NRA’s headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia and lay down on the ground to symbolize victims of gun violence.
By Associated Press. Bidding in an online auction for the pistol former neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman used to kill Trayvon Martin appeared to have been hijacked by fake accounts posting astronomically high bids. At one point early Friday, the bidding surpassed $65 million with the leading bidder using the screen name “Racist McShootFace.” The site later showed that account had been deleted. Other screen names of bidders on the site included “Donald Trump,” ”shaniqua bonifa” and “Tamir Rice,” the name of a black 12-year-old who was shot and killed by Cleveland police in 2014 while playing with a pellet gun. Bidding on the 9 mm Kel-Tec PF-9 pistol began at $5,000. Critics called the auction an insensitive move to profit from the slaying. Zimmerman’s listing said a portion of the proceeds would go toward fighting what Zimmerman calls violence by the Black Lives Matter movement against law enforcement officers, combating anti-gun rhetoric of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and ending the career of state attorney Angela Corey, who led Zimmerman’s prosecution.
By Sarah Aziza for Waging Nonviolence – On March 15, 2016, chalk outlines of human bodies appeared on sidewalks near Capitol Hill. The silent but striking display represented a “symbolic takeover” of the nation’s capital and the launch of #GhostVote, a grassroots project headed by a coalition of advocates for “common sense gun laws.” The campaign, led by States United to Prevent Gun Violence and the Newtown Action Alliance, aims to elevate the issue of gun violence as a political priority, with an eye toward upcoming elections.
By Jessica Jin for Campus (DILDO) Carry – “On June 1, 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott signed S.B. 11, also known as the “campus carry” law. S.B. 11 provides that license holders may carry a concealed handgun throughout university campuses, starting Aug. 1, 2016. The law gives public universities some discretion to regulate campus carry.” The State of Texas has decided that it is not at all obnoxious to allow deadly concealed weapons in classrooms, however it DOES have strict rules about free sexual expression, to protect your innocence. You would receive a citation for taking a DILDO to class before you would get in trouble for taking a gun to class. Heaven forbid the penis.
By Billy Briggs in Mint Press News – Thousands of activists are expected to gather at the United Kingdom’s largest international arms fair in London next month. Attended by hundreds of arms companies with exhibits representing over 1,500 arms firms, the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) Exhibition brings representatives from the world’s most oppressive regimes together in one place to sell military weapons, including those from Israel, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. DSEI is a bi-annual event held at ExCel Exhibition Centre in London’s Docklands, one of the largest of its kind anywhere in the world with 32,000 visitors expected including 150 delegations from over 60 countries.
School districts across Texas have had a rough go of things in the last couple years, starting with the Legislature’s $5.4 billion cut to public education funding in 2011. A lot of the state’s schools went on a starvation diet. Chronic underfunding of public education seems to be the state’s new norm. Which has left a lot of schools in Texas scrambling to find ways to pay for the bare necessities themselves. Take tiny Childress and Shamrock ISDs, two districts in the Panhandle that shelled out quite a bit of money—on guns. Childress ISD spent $150,000. The money’s for more than just guns, of course—it’s for guns, and a support system for the guns, reports the Amarillo Globe-News. The nearby town of Shamrock, with a population of 2,000 and a school district enrollment of about 430, paved the way for regional innovation with the installation of gun safes in classrooms, which would let staff members access heat in a hurry. Childress, with a population of a little over 6,100 and a school district enrollment of about 1,100, knew they were on to something good. Childress ISD’s board approved a similar measure last year that allows certain school employees to access firearms kept in safes, [Superintendent Rick] Teran said. The school district devoted $150,000 to the purchase of firearms, safes, practice ammunition, a panic system and training, he said.
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