In Pennsylvania this morning four people were shot dead and multiple law enforcement agents were injured, in a mass shooting event that occurred during the same time as an NRA press conference was taking place at the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC. (HT: Jeff Simmermon)

  • mbaren

    Sorry – how many people were shot dead?

  • nvlady

    Wow. Would that be a sign from god or something?

    • Boundegar

      I don’t believe God sends crazed gunmen as a form of communication.  Some people disagree.

      • nvlady

        I was referring to the irony of the timing of the shooting. I can see the mixup.

      • Zippy

         Mike Huckabee would disagree

        • Boundegar

          I know that, and said so in another thread.

  • http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin

    gah. numbers corrected. was in flux at time of blog post.

  • Jonathan Donald

    If there were only some way to get the guns out of the hands of the bad people. Only good people should have access to guns.

    • ZikZak

      There is a way, liberals call it “gun control”.  Basically bad people are civilians, and good people are soldiers and police.  Soldiers and police only kill brown people, and we don’t have to hear about it on the news, so it’s cool.

      The military kills far more innocents than all these shooting sprees combined.  You want to stop gun violence?  Start with the military.

      • http://twitter.com/sfrazer Scott Frazer

        You may have a point in there, but I really can’t see it. Are you saying that people in favor of gun control aren’t also in favor of reducing our military footprint? Because I don’t think that’s the case.

        • ZikZak

          The reason it’s difficult to see my point is that it isn’t one of the pre-packaged political stances which are cynically peddled by mainstream pundits.  Also maybe because I mixed sarcasm in.  I’ll try to avoid that.

          My point is this: people are not hysterical over shooting sprees because they consider it tragic when someone is killed.  People are killed all the time, usually by military and police forces.  And, partly because the victims are overwhelmingly poor and non-white, there is nowhere near this much commotion about any of it.

          People are hysterical over shooting sprees because they are scared for themselves.  They realize that they personally could be affected by a shooting spree.  They aren’t afraid of being killed by the military or the police, so they have no problem with those folks having guns.  In fact, relatively speaking they have remarkably little objection to those folks killing innocents with those guns.  They don’t want to stop gun violence in general, they want the whole conversation to be about keeping their privileged cocoon safe, no matter how it affects anyone else.

          I consider that selfish and hypocritical, and it’s especially vexing when it’s pitched as the morally superior position.

          • wysinwyg

            Since there is no shortage of anti-war gun control advocates, you’re making an overly-broad generalization and rightfully being called on it.

            The idea that we have to choose between opposing military adventurism and instituting effective gun control policies is not based on anything.  They’re simply not mutually exclusive in any sense. You don’t really have a point.

          • benenglish

            I *strongly* oppose military adventurism and am deeply ashamed of many of the actions taken by my country.  However, as much as I’d love to start a conversation about this with you, if you’ll refer back to our earlier conversation today in a story for which comments are now closed, I think you’ll find that I’d just be wasting my time.  I want to thank you for your civility and patience in helping me express myself better, even though the effort was ultimately wasted.  I really appreciated it.  Thanks again.

          • Antinous / Moderator

            I looked at your comments in that other thread three times to try to figure out what to do with them, and I couldn’t get beyond them being a list of NRA talking points. It seems to me that when you first walked into a gun store, you didn’t just come out with guns and ammo, you came out with a brand identity.

          • benenglish

            For Antinous – Even the last one?  Even the one that joked about the current run on guns and ammo?  One was heartfelt, moderate in tone, and acknowledged by the recipient as the hopeful beginning of a useful conversation between people with different viewpoints.  The other was simple humor that got a number of likes.

            I agree that if you’re not steeped in gun culture, at least some of the content of all other posts I made could be dismissed as NRA talking points or, worse, the parroting of cliche comebacks.  But the removal of every single one of my posts after comments were closed smacks of lazy moderation.  It was like “If it’s from him, it must be crap so it goes without me even bothering to read it.”

            I’ve placed a great deal of value on BB over the years.  I’ve read it faithfully and found a huge cache of useful and fun stuff.  I’ve bought books because I read about them here and introduced ideas into conversations after being exposed to them here.  I really value the place.  Further, I realize that I have no standing to question moderation or editorial decisions.

            In this case, though, even posts that agreed with just parts of my posts got summarily whacked despite the fact that they stood on their own merits.  I don’t think the way moderation is being handled on this issue encourages useful discourse and I find that more disappointing than I expected I would.

            Funny – On pro-gun forums I catch hell for being too liberal and too willing to listen to the other side.

            I stayed off BB (and all other forums and television and news.google.com) for days after the shooting because I was seriously depressed.  I mean seriously, as in morphine-and-Everclear depressed.  As I said in one of my posts (that I assume was removed), this one hit me hard and I just went fetal for several days.  At the urging of a family member, I started posting to that last thread in an attempt to begin re-engaging with the world.

            Obviously, it didn’t work out so well.  I think it would be best if I wandered elsewhere in the ether for a while.  I won’t take BB out of my Firefox start tabs and I’ll skim it; I can always use another cute kitten or puppy video link to forward to my sister.  I won’t, however, be posting for a while.

            Take care; I know you’re doing what you feel is best.

          • Selena60

            You’re right, I watch “The First 48″.

      • SamSam

        Yup, BoingBoing, which is clearly for gun control, is also just as clearly totally into giving more guns to cops, and never publishes stories about cops abusing power.

        Oh, wait, no. You seem to have pinned the label “liberal” on some bizarre strawman.

        How did you get the idea that liberals were into more wars?

      • Navin_Johnson

        Soldiers and police only kill brown people, and we don’t have to hear about it on the news, so it’s cool.

        I really buy your concern for brown people….you sold that well…

        That seems to be a thing now, we can’t have sensible limits on militarized assault weapons coz…..drones….Obama….

      • EH

        Well, we can take guns away from police and reduce military excursions, too. It’s not like weapon control is a one-dimensional concept.

  • PathosBill

    I was eating at that exact moment!

    • Jellodyne

       God hates you eating.

  • Michael Curran

    Sad…

    No chance PA only hires unarmed women as police officers, right?

  • millie fink

    Well then, let’s have armed police officers not only in every single school, but also on every single street corner!

    • kaellinn18

      Clearly, we need to have armed police officers guarding our armed police officers. It’s the only way to be sure.

    • millie fink

      On second thought, I’m not feeling real good joking about all this…

      :-/

    • http://www.kmoser.com kmoser

      Only on the corners? That leaves people completely vulnerable who are in the middle of the block.

      • Ipo

         They could have Disney backpacks. 

    • Ipo

       In every church.  The first victim was fatally shot while decorating for a children’s Christmas program at the Juniata Valley Gospel Church. 
      We ask why there is violence in our churches, but we have systematically removed God from our churches. 
      Am I doing it right, Mike Huckabee? 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000444450214 Genre Slur

    Drones flying 24/7, covering the skies, with armed TAC-teams being directed by information coming from the drones. That will fix it all.

  • willi0000000

    as usual, the nra continues to be (a large) part of the problem.  they claim to have sympathy for the victims but it is obviously a sham.  if they had real sympathy for the victims they would suggest real measures to help solve the problem or, at least, admit that they have no clue how to stop these acts.

    until now, after every one of these mass shootings they have had the same comment “it’s too soon to talk about it. we need time to mourn.”  and then *crickets*.  this time the outrage is so great that they figured that they had to respond and they did exactly as expected.

    “it’s not the guns, it’s the crazies.”  and they offer no suggestions to help keep the guns out of the hands of the crazies.

    “gun free zones just give the crazies places to hunt.”  and their solution – more guns.  no place where someone can feel it’s safe for themselves or their children.

    their solution – armed guards in every school in the nation and hardened schoolhouses.

    they want children to go to schools with thick, high walls all around and patrolling armed guards!  what, no guard towers with 50cal’s and barbed wire?  this is not a solution.  in the race between guns and armor, the armor always loses.  what next, underground schools?

    in the short term i think that uniform gun registration, control and permitting for the entire country is necessary.  this would stop people from buying guns in a state with lax laws and carrying them to other states with strict laws.  this will help keep many unregistered and illegal guns off the streets.

    strict background checks and waiting periods for all gun sales should be implemented.  this eliminates “gun show” sales.

    mandatory firearms safety courses and psychological testing with provisions to require annual renewal of permits would help.  evaluation of the entire household where a gun will be kept should be part of the permitting and registering process.

    the argument “there are too many illegal guns out there to do any real good” is just an excuse to do nothing, ever.  if guns are strictly regulated (and there are fewer requirements in many places to own a gun than an automobile) the number of illegal weapons will slowly but surely be reduced.

    doing nothing is not an option.  not when so many children’s lives are lost every year.

    • Boundegar

      Underground hardened school with guard towers…  I am totally going to build that in Minecraft!

    • Ipo

       It really is the crazies that are the problem. 
      But how can we keep guns out of the hands of all NRA members? 

    • Selena60

      If the NRA were really serious about their idiotic proposal, they’d offer to help fund the “guards”

    • Robert

      Well, it all makes sense if you realize that the NRA is the advertising arm of gun manufacturers.

  • Fef

    A CBS affiliate reported it happened in a church. I have yet to see that confirmed. But if so, it’s clearly because the liberals took God out of the churches.

  • Green Ghost

    There is obviously only one true solution. Everyone in America must own a gun. Then we all stand in a circle and point our gun towards the person on our right. (Sorry left-handers). Nobody will dare shoot anyone, right?

  • http://twitter.com/pickledbeatnik pickledbeatnik

    So, we put out a fire by throwing more fire at the fire, right? An inferno definitely will not ensue, will it? Christ.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Tay-Oleson/1038819308 Tay Oleson

    I’ve never understood why they choose to include the shooter in the victim tally. A bad man killed some people, then he killed himself (or suicided by cop). He’s not a victim, he’s an asshole.