Every 15 hours

I don’t have any news about America’s gun problem. No doubt there was another mass shooting or three in the last few days. Even so, I have several posters and cartoons to share. I’ll let you figure out whether this is an indication that the nation is now trying to shut out the carnage. An Associated Press story posted on Daily Kos discussed the gunman who had recently shot people in a Texas Mall. The title says the Army booted the guy over mental health. I’m including this one because of the photo at the top showing a woman holding a sign, which says:

If guns aren’t the problem and people are the problem, then why do you want the problem to have a gun?

Jess Poper tweeted a cartoon by Nick Anderson. It shows an elephant dumping a pipeline of guns onto a blood spattered city while saying, “Repeat after me: Liberals are responsible for crime in our cities.” A Blue View gathered together several cartoons that combine guns with another topic, a “twofer.” An example: A Christian cross pictured against a sunset with the words, “Why not just use thoughts and prayers to secure the Southern border? That’s what we use to secure our schools from mass shootings.” Along with a cartoon RJH included a quote in a tweet from last Sunday.

"People who think prayers aren't cutting it" as a solution to gun violence "don't believe in an almighty god who is absolutely in control of our lives" - Rep Keith Self (R) 9 people dead in mass shooting in his district today

The cartoon shows two angels at the gates of heaven:

They keep sending us their “thoughts and prayers...” “...And their kids.”

Qasim Rashid, host of the Qasim Rashid Show on Sirius, tweeted:

I was about to post a video about how we've had 199 mass shootings in 2023 & before I could hit publish, we had our 200th mass shooting of 2023. This in St. Louis. It's day 127. We're averaging a mass shooting every 15 hours. And GOP still refuses gun reform. Vote every GOP out.

Dennis Gorlis responded with a cartoon of a news woman before a camera for Gun News Network and she asks, “Wait...Which shooting is this?” Gavin Newsom, governor of California, tweeted a reminder that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas cut $211 million from mental health funding. That brought this response from Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who studies authoritarian regimes:

Engineered stress on population to make violence first recourse and cause collapse social norms, leading to the kind of chaos and terror that builds conditions for acceptance of authoritarian rule.

Every Thursday Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quotes something from Molly Ivins. Here’s a bit of this week’s quote:

"A well-regulated militia" surely implies both long training and long discipline. That is the least, the very least, that should be required of those who are permitted to have guns, because a gun is literally the power to kill. Letting the noisy minority in the National Rifle Association force us to allow this carnage to continue is just plain insane. I do think gun nuts have a power hang-up. I don't know what is missing in their psyches that they need to feel they have to power to kill. But no sane society would allow this to continue.

Kos of Kos discussed a big difference between liberals and conservatives. He quoted an article in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology that reviewed scientific literature and concluded:

[There is] a general consensus that liberals tend to be more open to social change, less religious, more egalitarian, less authoritarian, less punitive, more tolerant of out-groups, less concerned with in-group unity, and look less favorably upon hierarchical social structures than conservatives.

And “Empathy is positively correlated to liberalism.” To expand on that a bit...

We’re overtly the party that tries to help everyone achieve success, while they’re overtly the party of selfishness, individualism, and nativism. We want to open doors, they want to slam them shut. Conservatives try to find nicer ways to frame that, talking about “individual freedom” and whatnot, but the reality is they want to punish undocumented immigrants, push transgender people toward self-harm, ban knowledge about past injustices like slavery and current ones like racism, and destroy educational institutions.

Liberals see a bit of hypocrisy when conservatives talk about a high ideals, then lash out when the issue affects them directly. Or they have a bit of empathy when the issue affects them directly. Kos uses the example of Darth Cheney who was as monstrously conservative as they come – except for gay rights and gay marriage. His message was quite different there because his daughter Mary is lesbian. He was better on that issue than Democrats (this was in 2004). Conservative women are having a big change of opinion on abortion availability as they become personally affected by abortions bans. However a white, male conservative will never experience pregnancy or the need for an abortion. And...

A white, male conservative will never experience the kind of discrimination suffered by Black and brown communities, or be on the other side of wage discrimination. Wealthy conservatives won’t suffer the indignities and struggles faced by poor people, or those with challenging disabilities. It is unfortunate that so many people subscribe to an ideology that says, “We don’t care unless it affects us directly.” But there is one more trend that dramatically impacts where this is all heading: Cities are more liberal because residents are in contact with more people from different backgrounds, abilities, and socioeconomic levels. They are more aware of each other’s challenges and struggles.