Want to rant about these shootings in TX and OH?

This is part of the Trump reelection campaign. It works for him. He has white men with guns shooting people of color. It fits his narrative.

Don’t kid yourself. These shootings are directly connected to Trump’s hatred of the four liberal congresswomen and his criticisms of Baltimore and the neighborhoods there.

This is all Trumps’ doing.

Eh.

The Texas shootings seem to have been a hate crime I’m not sure yet about the Ohio attacks. Words have consequences and when Trump describes immigrants as drug dealers, criminals, rapists or as animals he is setting the tone and giving encouragement to extremists. Mass shootings are sensational events but there are probably thousands of incidents of abuse that go unreported or are never prosecuted.

From Wikipedia:

“List of mass shootings in the United States in 2019 – Wikipedia
Date Location Dead Injured
August 4, 2019 Dayton, Ohio 10 16
August 3, 2019 El Paso, Texas 20 26
August 2, 2019 Pomfret, Maryl… 3 1
View 250 more rows”

Two hundred fifty…

I’m not kidding myself, I’m saying a lot of Trump supporters who are not racist, or at minimum don’t see themselves as racist, who haven’t understood that they have become the collective narrative of WS’s need to wake up. They need to say something now. We have to stop talking about mental illness when these mass shooting happen, as much as I care about the mental health of our nation, and talk about why this is happening. Stop blaming Trump, and blame everyone feeding into the narrative.

People defending the term white supremacist as benign, remember that Q? That it’s ok to say white culture is better? That Nationalism isn’t a loaded term.

I can’t take it anymore.

If the masses who support Trump denounce this sort of hate speech he will stop. He wants the power however he can get it.

Want to hear a rant? A fair amount of the blame falls on the left wing here also. I have watched them teach their children to be so hopelessly ideological that it has spawned this counter reaction in other young people who are off the rails a bit already. It’s our own damn fault that we allowed our children to be this way. I have never seen so much hate in this country and from every angle. We have taught our children that it’s ok to hate as long as they are on the “right side.” So many of us have thought it is ok to view the political landscape as a battlefield. Well, you have it now and it is not ok.

I’m completely tired of this shit. Most of these mass killers, know that they will die. It speaks greatly to the state of our country, that people decide to go out this way. I think Trump is definitely not helping, but we can’t hang it all on him.

I’m a gun enthusiast. But I’m starting to change my views on this. These killers. If they’re SO unhappy with life, should just kill themselves.

It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even keep track of the mass killings. Sometimes, there are two in a week. It’s fucking ridiculous. I read an article the other day, where they are starting to train teachers, to basically learn battlefield care. Most schools are now equipped with gear to deal with mass casualties. That’s pathetic.

There’s not a realistic strategy, for stopping this. But it’s bullshit. The government has to do something. It’s remarkable, that we spend so much money on our military, when domestic terrorists, are really our main threat. We aren’t realistically going to have a nuclear exchange with Russia, or China. We need to put some of that money into stopping this shit.

I almost threw up, when I read about the attack in Ohio. And I HATE Ohio. There simply aren’t enough resources going into stopping these killings. It’s far past time, to start trying to stop them. Make America Great Again? Lol… Let’s start, by reducing these mass killings.

An 18 year old, can’t buy alcohol. But they can buy a bunch of guns, and body armor? Are you fucking kidding me?

I went out to a dinner last night with friends and our kids and had a really nice time. Got home to find out about the Walmart shooting. Woke up this morning to learn about the Ohio shooting. It’s so out of hand that there are so many, you can’t even keep track of what’s what and who’s who and what their reasons were and the circumstances. Now the Walmart shooter was captured alive, which means thousands will be spent on his housing and defense.

I kept saying we’re all going to watch the world burn, everyone just keep denying ‘their’side adds to it, it will continue.

If you dont take a good hard look at your own thoughts, your own posts, the people you root for, what you want the US to be, you’re just part of the problem.

No, this isnt Trumps fault or his supporters, its both major parties feeding hate by the spoonfull every day, you eating it up and sharing it.

@KNOWITALL with all respect, bullshit.

This most recent set of killings is directly tied to Trump and his acolytes saying “send them back” to American citizens of a different color or ethnicity.

No amount of apologist fake equivalency bullshit can cover that.

@Elbandit Then maybe the left can admit there are criminal illegals that do commit heinous crimes. When I posted actual crimes with source, it was crickets.Talk about denial.

You cussing to me is further disrespect, again so very typical of the left.

These shootings didn’t start with Trump nor will they end by by calling him a racist. Something is wrong when everyone is retreating into their ideologies hating anyone they disagree with. This problem is not a left or right issue and it certainly won’t be solved by demonizing each other and won’t be solved by restricting our freedoms. There are as many shooters that are liberal as there are conservative (frankly I would say more are liberal). We don’t have a dialog anymore but only personal attacks blaming one group or another for all our problems. Blame the whites, or the blacks, or the men, hell someone’s got to be the culprit so just get rid of them and all our problems will be solved. Why are people, young people with their whole life in front of them, willing to die to make a point? Too much hate and it’s continuing to build.

@Jaxk Exactly. They dont see each parties hate as a cause, sad.

^^^ It’s actually worse than that. They see it as the solution.

An ideological structure crumbles when there is no big bad wolf and nobody leading the charge pointing a finger at said wolf. In the absence of that people are required to reason things out for themselves. The most ideological can’t stomach this, they need that wolf. They feel powerful and in control when they hate that wolf. They have a roadmap to follow because it is there for them to hate. Does not matter how unreasonable it becomes, they will forge ahead and in doing so often they actually manifest a real wolf.

Ironic how people in this thread are blaming one side for what’s happening while calling out those who blame one side for what’s happening.

This country is so mired in bullshit it’s astounding.

But go on with the excuses and the false equivalencies.

Other countries have mentally ill young white men; why aren’t they grabbing guns and killing people at the rate they are here?

I agree that the country is divided. So what? As much as I think the division is toxic, I don’t think it’s causing mass shootings. These shooters aren’t killing people because the Dems and Repubs hate each other. There were mass shootings long before this division, long before Trump. The country was extremely divided in the late 1960s: a lot of assassinations and riots, but not a lot of mass shootings. So what’s the difference between then and now? Why didn’t the division and hate cause a string of mass shootings then, if that’s what’s causing it now?

What the division is doing is ensuring we never address the problem of mass shootings effectively. Whenever there’s a mass shooting, the respective “sides” race to find out what “side” the shooter belonged to so they can blame the right people for it, pat themselves on the back, and go on giving “thoughts and prayers” the next time it happens. Meanwhile it keeps. fucking. happening.

No. Going on about it continuously probably enhances the occurrences. Ignoring them may help them go away.

@Demosthenes I disagree, these shootings are right in step with the level of division. It’s probably not the division itself but what it allows to fester that would have been stamped out before it was there. I think both are a symptom of more fundamental problems.

I’m thinking these idiots who go on shooting sprees really just want someone to end their lives for them since they don’t have the nerve to just do it to themselves. Other people are nothing so what’s the harm in shooting them? (That last bit was a rhetorical comment.)

@ARE_you_kidding_me Sure, that could account for some of the shootings that are ideologically motivated. I would fault that kind of division internationally (Christchurch being an obvious example). But it doesn’t account for them all. Is it that people have more violent urges now than they did before? I do think the question of whether the attention mass shootings get inspires more of them is an important one. That may be a difference between the past and now. People know a mass shooting is a way to potentially achieve life-long notoriety. To tie in what @kritiper says, suicide by cop is another way a person who has a death wish can go, but it won’t bring the fame that a mass shooting will.

” but it won’t bring the fame that a mass shooting will.”

Bingo. Then ask yourself why and how it brings that fame. That’s also a good part of the reason we are so divided here in the US. Again, symptoms of larger problems.

At the same time, if a shooting is ideologically motivated, then we should be talking about that ideology. If a shooting is a result of Islamic extremism, then we should be talking about Islamic extremism. If a shooting is a result of hatred of Hispanics, then we should be talking about that. No, that doesn’t mean blaming all Muslims or blaming Trump supporters. But it also doesn’t mean plugging ears, saying “both sides”, “what about”, etc. There are ways to discuss ideological violence without blaming a huge demographic for said violence.

Being honest about where the blame comes from is in no way plugging your ears. You can pick and choose which variation of extremism is at play for any particular instance but that does little to address why people have a susceptibility for it to begin with. That’s the real issue.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Sometimes the variation of extremism isn’t relevant. But sometimes it is. In a place like France, where so much of the recent mass attacks have been motivated by Islamic extremism, I think the variety of extremism is worth discussing, especially if it’s related to the effort to stamp out the extremism and prevent further attacks. In the case of the Gilroy shooter, he seemed to be fascinated by extremism itself and the ideology wasn’t important. I agree that what makes people, especially angry, frustrated young men, so susceptible to radicalization and extremism is key and more important than the particular variety of extremism they latch onto.

I would agree with @Demosthenes and @ARE_you_kidding_me. If these shootings are the result of multiple ideologies, multiple racial issues, multiple religions, then maybe there is a broader issue at work. Maybe we need to look at why we are condoning hatred, why we are condoning dehumanizing our opponents, and why we care so little about human life that we’re will to die for these abstract ideas. There is a common thread and that’s what we need to address.

Sorry a big part of this is Trump and his fucking rhetoric talking points, he attacks his opponents personally,instead of their views and policies, even a lot of Rep/cons says he does it wrong, example the congress women.
And his base just eats it up, and the extremists take it further hence all these shootings.
Not saying the left is pure as snow.
Let’s stop blaming the other side for everything and start working together to find solid solutions that work.
With that who am I kidding? The wealthy could care less about these mass shooting it get peoples attention off on how bad they are screwing the working slob.
Even the Governments take the advantage of it to get things passed while the publics attention is directed else where.
These mass shooting are just going to get worse, as your country gets more divided .
Wont be surprised to find u.s Wal-Marts selling body armour very soon.

Body armour, kevlar backpacks with ceramic plates, child sized ballistic school helmets, patriotism themed “he died valiantly on the battlefield” child funerals.
So much commercial potential!

Repeal the Second Amendment.

That is simply a knee jerk reaction^^ Think extremists care if their gun is bought legally?

Remember when bump-stocks were banned, and all those “law abiding gun owners” refused to hand them in?
So much for “law abiding”.

@SQUEEKY2 You just gave me the NRA’s knee jerk response to attempt any gun control at all. The operative word is jerk.

These incidents clearly will become ever more routine and their frequency is destined only to rise. They should be recognized for what they are. The shootings are merely the reflection of the number of guns loose in the country. It’s just that simple, and the sooner we accept that fact, the better we will be prepared for the levels of carnage in store for us. The trend is inevitable, and is disguised only by the lag time between the glut of weaponry which is STILL accelerating and the frightful consequences resulting down the line. As guns become more common than dirt, just what sort of consequences should you expect? When it becomes easier to shoot up a playground than to graffiti a wall, what should YOU anticipate?

Hardly Stanley. You know as well as I that’s a cop out. This country has been flooded with guns since we ran the British off over 200 years ago. Why now are we seeing mass shootings. Other factors are at play.

Do you believe we have fewer or even the same number of guns per capita then as now? Or do you believe that it doesn’t matter that a single weapon in the hands of a
12 year old today might stand up to a platoon of musket laden Continental soldiers? Do you think that the fact that it is easier to kill people has nothing to do with the rise in fatalities? And finally, do you believe that the trend is leveling off or declining? What would YOU predict as the number of guns continues to expand?

Fuck it. Guns aren’t the problem. Americans are the problem, rotten to the core and it shows everywhere and dates back to our earliest years. Manifest Destiny, smallpox blankets, slavery, and maximizing shareholders profits. Americans simply don’t give a fuck about anyone that isn’t sharing the ribs with you at a family reunion.

Look at our healthcare system, I got mine so fuck you. When you lose your job your didn’t work hard enough, when I lose mine I was unlucky. Shit, it is even evident when you go to a restaurant. Instead of paying the waitress a fair wage you would rather wield your wealth over the modern day slave and demand admiration for tossing her a few of your scraps.

Empathy is dead in the fifty, and as a result you have CNN covering a mass shooting and a BREAKING NEWS banner pops up announcing another mass shooting. A Russian nesting doll of mass shootings.

Shithole country indeed.

If I may include the Gilroy incident…
I was surprised this morning to see the Gilroy shooter killed himself.
One of the narratives from this story was the police responded immediately, and they killed the shooter. The coroner disagrees.

Allowing americans such easy access to guns is like giving a bunch of cut throat razors to chimps & hiring them as barbers…total fucking carnage.

I have to wonder how much of the gun violence is a way for someone to gain fame or notoriety. About 7 years ago, there was a school shooting in Chardon Ohio. Several students were killed and several more were injured. Know what the reaction of the people in that area was? They specifically requested that the news NOT highlight the name of the shooter. Yes, it’s out there, but it didn’t get aired every 10 minutes on the news updates. The news reported on the shooting and the victims, but not the shooter or the ideology.

@stanleybmanly you used to be able to buy a fully automatic machine gun from the sears catalog a hundred years ago. I’m not saying some of the gun culture is not sideways but it’s not the weapons themselves. They really have not changed much. Gun laws are more stringent now too, so much so that fewer and fewer people actually carry them around. It’s really people who have changed.

I’ve always wondered if believing in an afterlife had anything to do with it. Like they believed they could look back on their life’s mischief and revel in the chaos/sadness they created.

Yes stricter gun laws should come into it, but a repeal the 2nd amendment ,or scream ban them all will do nothing but make the black market soar.

Something is very wrong. The GOP is losing its only black House member. The number of GOP women in the House is lower than it has been in years. It is not just Trump. He is a part of something larger. I have listed some of the symptoms, but I am not sure specifically what the problem is.

@seawulf575 I think so. One thing that’s different now is social media, which makes gaining fame much more easy. Information also permeates quickly. Mass shooters will go “viral” within seconds of their name being released. Something has to be different about the current era to lead to so many mass shootings, so this could be one.

Why would fame or notoriety be so important to these people that it is worth killing innocent people and throwing their own life away?
I thought life under Trump was wonderful for the states everyone was doing great, or is that not the case?

@SQUEEKY2 There are many, many people, especially younger people, that feel insignificant, unimportant, unnoticed, unloved, but who crave attention. They want to be somebody. They want people to know who they are. We still talk about Dahmer, Manson, Gacy, and Bundy. With the advent of mass shootings, we know Dylann Roof, Dylan Klebold, James Holmes, Adam Lanza, Nikolas Cruz, and Omar Mateen…all of whom have had their names plastered across the media for weeks following their crimes. Some were killed and some weren’t while performing their crimes. But people definitely know who they are and they certainly caught the attention of the nation.

Ok, then how do you as a nation reach out to these attention starved young people and convince them mass shootings isn’t the answer for them?
They want attention so bad they will kill for it?
Hurt innocent people for it?
That alone should be the biggest wake up call for the u.s that universal health care has to happen for everyone including mental health care these people need help so they don’t go on mass shooting attacks.
Screaming ban guns isn’t going to stop these shootings.
And if they can’t get their hands on a gun, plowing through a crowd of pedestrians with a truck works well too.

The idea that it is the people who have changed and that the easy availability of automatic weapons is irrelevant ignores the actual history of our country and its firearms. Let’s begin with the fact that you could buy a machine gun from Sears 100 years ago. That might well have been true, but you would have to sell your house to afford one. But the actual proof for what you should expect when guns are plentiful & everyone carries them is our own wild west. Once again, we are paying the price for our woefully truncated memory. It is incredible how short our memories actually are. Even when I was in my 30s it was generally recognized in this country that the degree to which a place was recognized as civilized was correlated to the restrictions on the availability of guns. Towns and settlements raced one another to enact laws prohibiting the carrying of guns to demonstrate (appropriately) that is they were fit places for women, children, and what passes for normal commerce. You can’t name a Western in which the sheriff cleans up the town without first mandating the elimination of gun toting citizens within the town’s borders. So which was it J P? Did the dispositions of the people shift toward more civil behavior, or did the stringent gun laws eliminate the opportunities. What I am saying is that at this point the number of guns loose in this country pales by orders of magnitude the firepower available to the wildest town in this country in the 1880s. Laws restricting firearms today are about as effective as those restricting outdoor urination. Mass shootings are on the upswing BECAUSE IT IS EASY. Why is it easy? What is required? Do we have a surplus of crazy people exceeding our percentage wise 1880s nut count? Is it tougher today for a kid, particularly an urban kid to put his hands on a gun?

The availability of guns is part of the problem, but there is more to it than that. Another part of the problem is that we have lost our sense of community. How much does anyone know about their neighborhood? Do you know who your neighbors are? Without a sense of place, where so many are like strangers, it is easier to become disconnected and to commit violence.

All of that is true and if other statistics, knifing deaths, death by strangulation, intentional poisoning, vehicular homicides, homicide rates in general were rising in proportion to automatic weapons ambushes, you might convince me that our basic inherent evil is the primary reason for the epidemic. There was and will always be unhappy and maladjusted individuals among us. But the numbers of those people is almost meaningless as a factor in comparison to the OPPORTUNITIES available for them to acquire the necessary means. There is no epidemic of mass knifings, beatings, decapitations, etc.

@stanleybmanly Ok then, go back just 20 years ago, before Columbine. Guns were not any less ubiquitous than they are now. What’s changed? Hell, go back just ten years. The failure to search out the real reasons will only ensure that it continues in some form or another. Take all the guns away and it may stop this instance but rest assured it will come back as something else.

Here is what I wrote a friend on Facebook where I posted something very similar to my Q here. He took issue with my calling on White Christian religious and political leaders to speak out. He said he does of course condemn these mass shootings, and talked about some other things including some problems he sees on the left. See my response below:

I condemned Antifa also, and resented people putting them together with progressives and liberals and Democrats, but I also see why people were doing it seeing them as “extreme left.”

I also agree that all people should be condemning violence of all kinds.

However, it’s also important to know that WS, the KKK, and other similar groups still (I say still because it’s from the original days of the KKK) still use Christianity as a tool. This has nothing to do with good Christians, I am not blaming Christianity at all in any way shape or form, I blame the bad people who use the religion as a tool. Al Qaeda used the religion in their region, the Muslim religion, as a tool to control people also. Any religion can be used this way.

Right now the chanting voices of the right wing are encouraging the bad people to feel empowered to act. I am not saying all Republicans or all people who identify with the Religious right, I did not even mention Trump in my statement.

I have defended over and over again my Christian conservative friends who I know are not racist, I have fought with liberals who are painting Republicans and Trump supporters with one brush. I have defended to the point that my Democrat friends who I agree with on most issues get angry and fight with me.

I condemned Antifa, I condemned protests without permits blocking traffic (I am for protesting though) BUT I do have acquaintances and friends who have tried to explain to me why Nationalism is ok, and I am telling you, as a Jew, that is code for hate the way I perceive the word Nationalism. I am extremely patriotic. I was raised by a father who would say America is paradise. The gratitude and patriotism I have for the USA could not be any deeper, but Nationalism to me means following blindly to anything the state wants to do. That is NOT American! I also have acquaintances who have tried to say White Supremacy can simply be people who like their white culture and want to preserve it. Well, just no! It doesn’t work that way. WS is the call of the Nazis. I was raised by a sociologist, I am the first to agree there are many cultures, and subcultures in America, there always has been, and there most likely always will be. WS is a label used by NeoNazis and other hate groups, there is no way to try to make it benign.

America is the best country in the world when it comes to assimilation, that won’t change if we don’t screw it up…

When 9/11 happened I was one of the voices saying I hope Muslim leaders come out and condemn it. I had Muslim friends and coworkers who did right away, but I wanted to hear it from the people with larger reach and who represent. This is no different.

It was here on fluther that some jellies defended WS’s. It was eye opening to me that Q. It was here on fluther and also one friend of mine in real life who thought Nationalism is an ok word.

@JLeslie I think if you looked into it, you would find that white Christians (all Christians for that matter) do speak out about these shootings. I know we discuss them in my church and friends of mine have mentioned they are discussed in their churches also. So they do speak out about these things. I have seen Christian leaders speaking out on TV even. Not on these recent ones, but in the past. A common theme at my church is that we are all flawed people. We may not agree with people or their choices, but we don’t have to hate them. We can resist without violence.
But I am concerned that while you are calling out for people to not use words like nationalism or white supremacy because they are loaded words, you miss those that call everyone racist. You miss those that call others traitors. You miss those that stir hate at every turn. The real point is that it isn’t just white people doing the killing. It isn’t just Muslims. It isn’t just Blacks or Hispanics or any other faction. And when you point fingers at one group, you help keep those divisions alive and the seeds of hatred continue to grow.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I don’t understand what you are saying. Clearly you don’t mean that there would be mass shootings without guns. And I disagree with your premise that It was just as difficult to obtain a gun 10 or 20 years ago as it is today. My argument is that as a practical matter, the levels of maladjustment in the society, or laws against firearms, prohibitions against murder, etc.—-none of those matter. It isn’t the murder or homicide rate that is rising. It is the incidencts of mass shootings which are climbing. Your position that if these events are eliminated, some other aberration must replace them is fatuous and irrelevant to WHY gun deaths are on the rise, or more significantly, why guns overwhelmingly rival motor vehicle accidents in cause of death statistics in America. It’s EXACTLY what you must expect and predict as the number of both cars and guns is considered. The Interesting fact is that vehicular deaths are declining as the number of vehicles increases. The gun lobby has managed to outlaw the compiling of shooting statistics (for obvious reasons) but there is no disguising our cimbing rate of crazy shoot ups. My contention is that it can ONLY get worse as the numbers of guns increases. And my other contention is that the expansion in shootings requires some lag time between the introduction of these weapons and the increase in these events. But there is no getting around what is not only painfully obvious but rationally undeniable.

Did anyone see that 65 year old woman get tasered? Yeah. Not only did she think it was ok to disrespect the police but the police were just fine with kicking her to the dirt and tazing her. That could have killed her. We have deep problems here.
@stanleybmanly These incidents are not a result of more access to guns. Access to guns has been more or less the same for half a century or longer. What I mean is the motivation behind mass shootings will turn into something else if you remove the firearms. I cannot predict what that will be but it won’t be good. Removing firearms does not “fix” the issue, it just turns it into something else because we have not addressed what motivates shooters to begin with. You can say those people were always here but I disagree, they have not been here in the numbers we see now. McVeigh used a fertilizer bomb, the Boston Maraton bombers used pressure cookers. We’ll just see more of that until we address the real problem which is cultural.

Yes we have troubled people and their numbers may be growing or shrinking. But the numbers of crazy people has NOTHING to do with the ability of these people to kill 50 people at a time. What would YOU factor as the single requirement to achieve such a goal?

@stanleybmanly Suppose you take every gun away, what do you think these people will do then.

@seawulf575 Do you actually suppose (as the NRA contends) that the solution to reducing these incidents is to suppress the reporting of them and prohibiting the compilation of statistics reflecting the climb in the epidemic? The truth is that there is no need to worry about the sensationalism the right fears these episodes generate. These things become ever less spectacular and more commonplace with each repitition. It’s like the homeless. We will quickly get used to it and accept it as another norm in the aspects of “living in America.”

@ARE_you_kidding_me I don’t know what they might do. But try to imagine OTHER easy ways to massacre 50 people at random on a whim at a distance. Let me know what you come up with. How much thinking, creativity, and effort is required to drive the current trend?

None. It takes no creativity. Mowing down pedestrians with cars/trucks, sabotage of public transportation, utilities and infrastructure, planting IEDs… until you address the motivation you have not solved shit. Lets be honest, guns are the easy mark for these people. Removing them takes the low hanging fruit off the table that they will use when they are young and unsophisticated. Imagine what some of those people could do when they grow older, more bitter and have had years to plan.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I think you are missing one very important and very true fact.
When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

But you keep missing the point. If killing people is the goal, the death rate MUST climb in relation to the ease with which it can be achieved. Whether or not, OTHER mass killings would increase without guns is peripheral to the fact that you would have an extremely tough time devising a more efficient method of mass murder. Can you think of one.

@stanleybmanly I just named several. Can you think of an easier way than getting into a vehicle and running over crowds of people? I can, they are numerous. There is nothing “extremely tough” about it but you keep missing the point here. You seem to refuse to come to terms with the fact that we need to address the motivation and not the means.

@kritiper that truly tired cliche assumes the other equally stupid assertion that we are all better off when EVERYONE has a gun, criminals, lunatics, toddlers, the adults piping such nonsense thereby revealing the intellect of toddlers….

@stanleybmanly And yet the fact remains, like it or not.

No you are wrong. THIS IS THE FACT. When guns are outlawed ANYONE can have one whether they are legal or not provided there are more of them available than people to own them. If you live in a society where the guns outnumber the jobs 10 to 1, if there are enough guns in your neighborhood to arm the residents AND the pets, the HOMICIDE RATE WILL INCREASE. How difficult is THAT to understand.

It’s bound to happen anyway. By UN estimates, the population of the Earth will level out at about 11 billion people at some point just past the end of this century. With the current population growth rate at about 95 million people a year, when that time comes there will be about 95 million more deaths per year than there are now. So what difference does it make?

@ARE_you_kidding_me Again, it is YOU who is missing the point. I AM addressing the motivation. The motivation is THAT IT IS EASY TO KILL PEOPLE WITH AN AUTOMATIC WEAPON. Which is why there is no comparable rate of vehicular or any other mass killings. And my take is with the numbers of EASY options available, there will be no containing the current trend. Do you foresee any possible mental health adjustments capable of going up against a total of 300 million guns (and climbing)?

@seawulf575 If you think I miss calling out people who use the word racist loosely then you have not been reading my posts for the last ten years, or you have the beginnings of dementia and need to get checked.

@kritiper the question isn’t about whether or not the death rate is going to climb. The reasons folks are dying from gunshot wounds at exponential rates however should not be pinned on crooks and lunatics. I am not arguing that it is the guns that are responsible for these people being crooks or lunatics. I am arguing that these people use guns for EXACTLY the reason the cops forced to kill them choose those guns. If those guns are available to ANYONE and EVERYONE, the risks of getting shot are going up. The question of how far those risks will increase is NOT a reflection of some accumulating number of crooks and loonies. Look at the 3, the crooks, loonies and guns. Pay attention to which of the 3 rises exponentially and draw the proper conclusion.

Yes people with mental health issues seem to be able to get their hands on a gun pretty easily in the u.s.
So what is the answer??
I am all for stricter gun laws you should see the hoops I have to jump through up here just to keep my guns.
Do you think for a minute that if the Government would ban guns tomorrow everyone would surrender theirs without a blink, good luck with that.
Some of these firearms are worth a lot of money,others are family heirlooms , think people are going to say sure take em?
Bet the thugs will be first in line because they are such law abiding citizens.
Yes these mass shooting no matter what country they happen in are horrific and truly sad, but lets focus on the person behind the trigger and see why they do it and help them instead of just focusing on the gun and putting all the blame there.

“America Is A Gun”

England is a cup of tea.
France, a wheel of ripened brie.
Greece, a short, squat olive tree.
America is a gun.

Brazil is football on the sand.
Argentina, Maradona’s hand.
Germany, an oompah band.
America is a gun.

Holland is a wooden shoe.
Hungary, a goulash stew.
Australia, a kangaroo.
America is a gun.

Japan is a thermal spring.
Scotland is a highland fling.
Oh, better to be anything
than America as a gun.”

― Brian Bilston

Pretty sure trump and all his psycho voters, supporters and defenders are happy now. They’re on a roll. Putting kids in cages….killers ran amuck…these demonic trump worshipers pray for more no doubt.

@stanleybmanly I suggest that when a shooting happens like this, we don’t report on the shooter’s name. Take away the fame piece of it.
As for the idea that if guns were outlawed it would stop mass shootings is the truly unrealistic outlook. Murder is already outlawed. It doesn’t stop the shootings. Carrying a gun in many areas is outlawed. It doesn’t stop the shootings. Drive-by shootings are outlawed. Armed robbery is outlawed. The list goes on. Just because something is outlawed doesn’t mean people obey that law. Also, making claims that the gun death rates are climbing exponentially is fiction. Or at least deceptive. Again, the left tries to include statistics that don’t hold up. Gun deaths have gone up….but mainly because of the number of suicides. Suicide by gun has gone up about 30%. But suicide by other methods has gone up closer to 50%. So, again, to blame the gun is not realistic. We are back to dealing with the reason for the death instead of the method of the death as being the issue.

I agree completely that it is too
late to outlaw guns, because the numbers by now render regulation little more than symbolic. But in mass shootings, the reasons for the deaths are inextricable from the method. They are mass SHOOTINGS! The argument that guns are peripheral to the discussion is ludicrous on its face. It doesn’t matter if the killers are the police, the army or lunatics, the weapon of choice is the one DESIGNED FOR THE JOB. Find the flaws with the following reasoning: A. It is a relatively simple matter to slaughter people with automatic weapons. B. There will never be any shortage of people prepared to demonstrate A provided they can C. obtain the automatic weapons. If those three statements hold true, the reasons for B are immaterial to the conclusion that the shooting toll MUST rise in proportion to the ease with which C can be achieved. To stipulate that the ease with which an assault rifle can be obtained is irrelevant to the numbers of such weapons circulating in the society is ridiculous on its face. In fact the only choke point in the ABCs of mass shootings is at C. We will ALWAYS have the “volunteers”. As the ease of acquiring an AR-15 diminishes to mail ordering the thing for the price of a cheap bicycle, the results must be both predictable and expected. The “reason” for the deaths in mass shootings is simply that somebody wants to shoot others. The answer to “why?” is simply because “it is convenient and effective.” Do you actually require MORE proof of this.

Look. We all want answers as to “why they do it?” But my thinking is that the key to rising episodes lies in an honest answer to the questions “can they continue to do it?” and “will they do it more frequently?” Those are the questions most urgently requiring honest answers as to “why?”

9/11 was executed by people with box cutters. Guns, are indeed the low hanging fruit, but it just takes innovation, and execution, to pull off a mass killing. Most people genocided in Africa, are killed by machetes.

Plus, gun sales go through the roof, after each one of these shootings. The majority of those guns end up in safes. Not the streets. In fact, the vast majority of gun deaths, are committed with handguns.

I have read multiple stories, about nurses killing dozens of people under their care.

The problem, is indeed with American society itself. There is also simply a statistical probability that there will be mass murderers on a planet with so many of us. Religion, and politics, don’t help…

I’m sorry, I do believe guns are perpipheral to the discussion. Addressing guns does nothing to remedy the motivation behind using them in the first place. I do think that there need to be changes in our gun laws and I have written pages of what I think about this here before. Again, take all the guns away the same things are going to happen, it just won’t be shootings. It will be something else. Shootings are a symptom of larger problems.

Trump’s recent statement about the shootings. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cincinnati.com/amp/1920116001

No mention of his chanting crowds, wrong city in Ohio, and to be honest, when he talks about changing gun laws it isn’t very comforting to me.

I think part of the gun law changes, should be to have someone research a potential buyer’s social media before they are allowed to make a purchase. Some of these killers have been ranting about violence, before they act.
I’d also like purchasers of large quantities of guns, and ammo, to be thoroughly investigated. Right now, you can buy a dozen guns, and thousands of rounds, and nobody even looks into it.

They may as well keep track of serial numbers too. As far as who owns what….

Buying body armor should also bring up some red flags.

There should be the same requirements for buying ammo, as there are for buying a gun too.

We need to start somewhere….

Oh, and Trump talking about the video games and the violence people watch also made me uncomfortable, because it sounded a lot like censorship, and giving more control to the government, but I also hate all the violence in video games, movies, and in TV, so I have no idea what to want.

@JLeslie . I watched the link. I think Trump was just reading someone else’s speech. But… I have to say, if he means even half of what he said, he gained some respect points, from me. Actions, obviously, speak louder than words. So. We’ll see what actually gets done. I suspect Trump is under a lot of pressure from the NRA.
I do find it ridiculous, that someone who himself spreads hate, is preaching unity. Trump himself, could slow his own role in this, by changing his rhetoric. I will give him that opportunity. I’d love for him to change his vilification, of minorities, and immigrants. That might keep some of these things from happening.
He has a HUGE responsibility to help this country. Maybe he will start to take this seriously…

The bump stocks ban, was not really going to change anything. But, it showed a small amount of his willingness to help.

Uugh. I’m rooting for you Don. Change your rhetoric, and make some serious changes, in the gun laws… That will stop, at least some of this shit.

I think the violent video games etc, are actually a outlet, for some, to not do it in real life. So. I don’t fully agree with him there. But, we’re all searching for some solutions.

@MrGrimm888 Then there are the red states….we don’t even have to register our guns, at all.

Texas or Iowa either if you were curious.

@JLeslie Isn’t it funny that when the gun rights folks say they are uncomfortable with some of the “solutions” given to the “gun problem”, that they are worried about giving more control to the government, they are kooks? But when someone wants to control violence in video games and on visual entertainment, suddenly government control is an issue.
I don’t think there is a direct tie to violence in video games or on TV or in music, but I do think it impacts people. Like many things, it becomes okay to play games where you can kill or beat others. We see it in movies and on tv. We hear it in music. At some point, I believe it “alters” the attitudes of those exposed to it. Like you, I don’t want to turn control of these things over to the government. But then, I want our government to be far more removed from things than they are. Our government…at all levels…have demonstrated incompetence, corruption, and greed for power and money. These are not the people I want to continue to give control over my life.

@SQUEEKY2 ”....I am all for stricter gun laws you should see the hoops I have to jump through up here just to keep my guns.

The SCOTUS has made it clear that many stricter gun laws are unconstitutional because of the 2nd amendment. That is why it needs to be repealed. Repealing it doesn’t mean all guns are illegal, but it means sensible gun laws can be enacted.

Again, gun enthusiasts have nothing to worry about. If there actually are upwards of 300 million guns floating around the United States, and that number is still climbing, no laws or regulations are going to put a dent in the ratcheting up of our mass shooting episodes. It’s time to face the sobering fact that our gun factories are churning out products that are in the main immune to obsolescence. Gun stocks rival tech stocks as investment opportunities. Those weapons flow relentlessly from our factories and disappear into our society. Does anyone here believe for a moment that gun production is merely keeping pace with replacement of older damaged or lost weapons? If laws were passed today rendering possession of an assault rifle a crime subject to the death penalty, the mass murder rate in the country would continue to climb for decades. It might pay to remember that our assault rifles have been proliferating here since their heyday in VietNam. That’s some 50 years of saturation into this society. These killings amount to the delayed effects of that saturation which is STILL IN PROGRESS. This brings up the question “at what point will the maximum number of guns be obtainable in the United States?” And more importantly, what does it portend for the rest of the world which now views our country in consternation? Where will our surplus wind up? What will we do when mass shootings become more commonplace than 50s era liquor store hold ups (which have actually been declining for decades) ? Any epidemiologist would look at this situation and tell all of you flat out that this one is about the numbers, plain and simple.

@seawulf575 I’d be ok with rating the games. Maybe they do that already? Like movies? Cant by an R game unless you’re 17. Something like that makes sense to me.

I’m also really ok with a campaign that talks up the possible dangers of the violent games, and making it socially unacceptable to play them.

I think the amount of violence in our culture, including games, is disgusting.

A friend of mine years ago talked about wanting to buy a gun and go practice at the range near her. She said basically, “it’s American to have a gun, our country started that way.” I flashed to that Michael Moore movie that begins with a cartoon talking about our gun culture and how Americans have always been gun happy. Such irony. The same statement viewed two completely different ways.

I would really rather have a peaceful country rather than one with bullet holes. In real life, and even on a cartoon.

@JLeslie They all have ratings on the back of the games already, like violence, blood, etc… Parents usually don’t helicopter as much as they should after Grand Theft Auto and other games came out.

@KNOWITALL Can any age buy any game?

Restricting video game content smacks up against freedom of speech issues.

@JLeslie Yes. There are no Federal laws preventing them from doing so.

BUT all parents should be familiar enough with the content by reading the box before purchasing.

It’s kind of like Two Live Crew tapes back in the 80’s, they put labels on them and some stores quit selling them, but anyone could still purchase from a store that sold them.

@KNOWITALL Do they still have age restrictions to see movies at the theater? When I was a kid I think you had to be 17 to see an R rated movie, unless you were with an adult.

@stanleybmanly Right. That’s the problem. Always very tricky and sticky. America has always been loathe to restrict this sort of thing. We probably are the most liberal country when it comes to freedom of speech in the world.

@JLeslie I’m not that sure, since I don’t have kids, I never paid attention.

Video games are not the problem, no more than comic books were in the 1950s. That is just one more distraction to get people from looking at the real problems:

1. Hateful intolerant language and policies led by the White House.

2. Easily available guns, especially assault rifles with large capacity magazines.

Video games have been studied for over 25 years, and never shown to actually increase violence, or inure people to violence , or encourage it. People see more violence in a Quentin Tarantino Film than ina video game.

@zenvelo Or could it possibly be many people are sick of the hatred, intolerance and culture of constant outrage in Dems? Or Dems allowing sanctuary to violent criminals in sanctuary cities? Or even disturbing people in restaurants and outings with families?
Attacking anyone in a MAGA hat or at Trump rallies? Are the American people allowed to be sick and outraged at all those things too?

I think neither party is innocent in this. Don’t be naive.

“Or Dems allowing sanctuary to violent criminals in sanctuary cities?”
See, when you repeat Agent Orange’s rhetoric of immigrants being rapists and drug dealers, to smear normal people wanting to live in peace as “violent criminals”, you lose any credibility to talk about the “outrage in dems”.

@KNOWITALL But what of those who hate the haters, are intolerant of intolerance and are outraged by the outrageous. Don’t you think this a natural and civilised reaction to some of Trump’s rhetoric?

@flutherother No, i think that is a natural and civilized reaction to the rhetoric the liberal media attributes to Trump. What isn’t natural or civilized is that the media does that in the first place and that no one on the left has the wit to call them on it.

@seawulf575 I don’t believe much Trump says but at least I believe he says it. Trump can try deleting the word “invasion” from his Twitter feed history but that doesn’t mean he never said the word or that the “liberal media” made it up.

Again. ALL of Trump’s problems, come from his own mouth. They’re recorded. Not manufactured by liberal media. ALL STRAIGHT FROM HIS MOUTH. Denying it, is beyond foolish.

@ragingloli First, I dont give much credence to the opinions of foreigners in regards to US politics because I dont believe you understand the cultural nuances.

Second, its a fact, I’ve posted links to Border Patrol and other sites. If yoy choose to believe Dem rhetoric, thats your choice. I live here, I’ve seen it. A couple illegalskidnapped and repeatedly raped a mentally challenged woman one city over. It pisses me off when I keep hearing about these poor sweet people, they arent all harmless.

Lastly, Trump is who he is, he’s actually done more for gun control than most andif he loses because of that, with red states, then so be it.

@flutherother Negatvity breeds negativity. Just because you have chosen a side, doesnt mean your spewing vitriol doesnt affect other people. Both parties are guilty of it imo.

Spare me the “cultural nuances” nonsense.
You insinuated that “sanctuary cities” are about protecting violent criminals, when you damn well know that is not true, and then you try to hide behind pointing to isolated incidents to justify it.
Talk about “spewing vitriol”.

I have to say.If I thought Loli was full of shit. I’d call her out on it. I think she’s got her points of being wrong. But, she damn sure isn’t completely ignorant of the US. I’m actually not sure she’s not American sometimes.

Sometimes, an outsider, can tell us all what we really need to hear….

@flutherother Yeah, and he said Baltimore was a rat and rodent infested mess. How racist!!!! At least that’s what the liberal media says. They create the narrative, attach it to Trump and call it his rhetoric. As for the “Invasion”, that’s probably not a bad word for it. It was a concerted effort to bring mass quantities of people to our nation to cross the borders illegally. What do you call it?

I call it immigration…. They weren’t exactly riding tanks, with South American flags….

@ragingloli so when a sanctuary city apprehends an illegal alien (entering the country illegally is a crime) for some violent crime (another crime) and then they release that illegal alien rather than call ICE…what would you call it? I call it protecting criminals.

@KNOWITALL if you aren’t outraged by the hateful behavior of a man who called white supremacists “very fine people”; who mocks disabled people at campaign rallies, who laughed at the suggestion of shooting asylum seekers, then you are just as complicit. If you are not outraged over two mass shootings in less than 24 hours, then you are complicit.

It isn’t video games that cause people to be used to violence, it is 250+ mass shootings since the start of the year that seem to just be another episode of “liberals being outraged”. And the right saying iit is Democrat’s fault for wanting to do something concrete.

Obama, and Hillary made this happen. To smear Trump, of course…. The media, and millions more, are all part of the conspiracy…...

@zenvelo I am so tired of hearing that crap about “He said white supremacists were very fine people”. Here is the excerpt from his interview

REPORTER: Mr. President, are you putting what you’re calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?

TRUMP: I am not putting anybody on a moral plane, what I’m saying is this: you had a group on one side and a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch, but there is another side. There was a group on this side, you can call them the left. You’ve just called them the left, that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that’s the way it is.

REPORTER: You said there was hatred and violence on both sides?

TRUMP:I do think there is blame – yes, I think there is blame on both sides. You look at, you look at both sides. I think there’s blame on both sides, and I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it either. And, and, and, and if you reported it accurately, you would say.

REPORTER: The neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville.

TRUMP: Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.

REPORTER: George Washington and Robert E. Lee are not the same.

TRUMP: Oh no, George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down – excuse me. Are we going to take down, are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? Okay, good. Are we going to take down his statue? He was a major slave owner. Are we going to take down his statue? You know what? It’s fine, you’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people – and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats – you had a lot of bad people in the other group too.

REPORTER: I just didn’t understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?

TRUMP: No, no. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, they were people protesting very quietly, the taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones. The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call ‘em. But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest, because you know, I don’t know if you know, but they had a permit. The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this: there are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country, a horrible moment. But there are two sides to the country. Does anybody have a final – does anybody have a final question? You have an infrastructure question.

Let’s see…he condemned the violence, he didn’t say the neo-Nazis were great…he condemned them, he didn’t support the white supremacists…he condemned them as well. Several times on each of them. But you make my point perfectly. The liberal media and the crazy left took words out of context, called it Trump’s rhetoric, and went crazy with it. Why don’t you denounce the lies from the liberal media?

This mass shooting epidemic should not be a left right issue. There is an exception to that in the premise from the ARA that this will be a safer place when everyone can choose to arm themselves with whatever weapon they choose. We are actually approaching a situation where anyone with the wherewithal to tie their shoes can find a gun. Uu
Now those who stipulate that the problem with mass shootings has nothing to do with the nature of the weaponry or the availability of that weaponry take the position that it’s the crazies not the tools. To which my reply is that particularly in this country there isn’t a chance in hell of even reducing let alone eliminating the crazies. This is a place where “every man for himself” bootstrap existence is preached ad no auseum. Meanwhile, the tools grow ever more plentiful with their sheer numbers driving down prices. It is actually too late to effectively regulate the tools or their distribution. It’s like trying to oversee the commerce of rocks in a playground. Like the other scourges which beset us, this is one more case of the horse having left the barn or if you prefer that other metaphor, the genie is out of the bottle. Welcome to the age of the mass shooting lottery, where we are once again in for what we deserve.

For the life of me I don’t understand this idea that sanctuary cities let criminals free? If someone commits a crime they get arrested! They get tried in a court. If they get convicted they pay the penalty the court prescribes. If they committed a felony, I assume they get reported to ICE. Sanctuary cities don’t protect felons as far as I know. Even if they did (can someone answer that for me) if they commit a heinous crime they go to jail. People are making it sound like immigrant without papers who commit felonies get set free while citizens are in jail. Felons are felons.

@seawulf575 Trump called Maryland’s seventh congressional district “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” not because he takes a particular interest in that district but as a way of attacking Elijah Cummings. It wasn’t the media that labelled this attack as racist but House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the media were just doing their jobs in reporting what she said.

Interestingly, last year, the Trump Tower Grille in Trump’s prestigious Manhattan property was reported for live mice and other health code violations. The inspectors found the restaurant was “conducive to attracting vermin”.

Maybe Trump should get together with Elijah Cummings to try to sort out their mutual vermin problem rather than tweeting insults.

@JLeslie Again, I have posted links to several official sites, that none of you apparently cared enough to read. Border Patrol, FBI, eve ICE. They have to go in, get the criminal illegal, to arrest.

I get that this is your blind spot, but its reality.

@zenvelo Dont put words in my mouth, I didnt say any of that. Dems and Reps can share the blame, yes, absolutely.

@ragingloli You people just love to lie here dont you?

Fact is, you dont care about who’s raped or killed by illegals or guns as long as you can use it to beat Trump.

@MrGrimm I like loli most of the time, but when she’s here and exposed to liberal media narratives, I dont think she sees the whole picture.
If anyone here admitted some illegals commit heinous crimes, I’d feel much respect for that jelly, since its a fact.

@flutherother Remember we dont get to use the ‘your guy did this’ argument here. Tsk tsk. Even if its true. Right @seawulf?!

Ya’ll sure do forget to use the ‘rules’a lot, even ones you’ve made up.

@KNOWITALL Elijah Cummings isn’t “my guy”. I know next to nothing about him. I just thought Trump’s attack on him was unfair.

PS I wouldn’t eat too much of the food in the Trump Tower Grille. It can make you ill.

@KNOWITALL , One more time, though probably not the last time, the crime rate of immigrants is lower than that of native born citizens Yes, the article is from the left leaning Washington Post, but the first study they show is from the Cato Institute, which is no bastion of progressivism. To lower the crime rate we should allow more immigrants to enter.

@KNOWITAL Ok, but if they commit a crime they are still processed by local police. If they kill someone and are convicted they go to jail. In some cases jail is better than deporting. I’m not defending not going to ICE, I think felons should be reported to ICE, but the example I’ve given before, deporting a criminal 2,3,4 times means deporting him isn’t working. If he is hurting people then it’s better to lock him up.

When my ex boyfriend’s cousin was killed by her ex-boyfriend (who was also another cousins exhusband) we all hoped he would not be deported and would rot in jail here. He has a green card. Thankfully, he is still locked up in one of our prisons.

In AZ several years ago they wanted the law to be local police could function like ICE, and that makes people more unsafe because they won’t report crimes or be witnesses. I don’t understand being at either extreme.

@JLeslie I’m not going to debate this issue with you, because I think you lack objectivity in this area, but I will provide the links for you to read or not read, as you wish.

…sanctuary cities—defined as cities that expressly forbid city officials or police departments from inquiring into an individual’s immigration status—are associated with post hoc increases in crime.

(Six Criminal Consequences)
When ICE determines an illegal immigrant accused of a criminal offense is in police custody, the agency issues a detainer. The paperwork is supposed to ensure the alleged offender will be transferred to federal authorities at the conclusion of his or her time in the local jail, instead of being released.

But sanctuary jurisdictions—as a matter of policy—ignore the detainers, which in some cases means the criminal illegal immigrants are released and able to commit new crimes rather than be deported.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/07/16/murder-rape-assault-burglary-6-examples-of-californias-sanctuary-policies-leading-to-more-crimes/

Known to immigration advocates as a “sanctuary city,” San Francisco barred local police from helping federal authorities kick out any immigrants that came to the U.S. illegally.

http://www.msnbc.com/specials/migrant-crisis/sanctuary-cities

The Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities Act allows for victims of any crimes up until 10 years ago to file a lawsuit with a sanctuary city. Illegal immigrants with past criminal convictions made up about 74% of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2018, according to Pew Research Center.

“I’ve found that sanctuary cities’ failure to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E) is reckless and has had a real cost on society, both economically and in terms of human lives,” Budd said in a press release Thursday.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/proposed-law-would-allow-victims-crimes-illegal-immigrants-sue-sanctuary-cities-69112

@KNOWITALL I said ok. I believed you when you told me the first time that ICE isn’t brought in. I’ll read your links because I am interested in the topic, but even without reading them, I’m saying if a criminal is put in jail or goes free, it’s the same whether they are here without papers or with papers on the local level. Isn’t that what you are saying? I’m not arguing with you.

@JLeslie I’m not trying to argue with you either, but I’m very concerned about the group denial permeating the liberal mentality. My point was that a lot of American people are angry, and getting angrier, about Dems denying the illegal immigrant crime that we see in our cities. There are good and bad people of any race, religion or creed, but no one usually denies that to the extent I and others perceive the Dems doing now.

I specifically mentioned one instance of a kidnap and rape of a mentally handicapped person and @ragingloli calls it an “isolated incident” with no condemnation of the crime and it’s heinousness. It’s NOT isolated at all.

Yes, I do admit that statistically illegal immigrant crime is slightly less than native crime, which is logical, due to population.

Not isolated incidents (There are far too many, but many are quite heinous):
On April 12, 2019, illegal Honduran alien Carlos Zuniga-Aviles kicked his girlfriend’s four-month-old son to death in Memphis, Tennessee. Zuniga-Aviles reportedly killed the infant, Alexander Lizondro-Chacon, because the boy was fathered by another man. The illegal alien had been deported from the U.S. five times (in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, and December 2016).
Luis Pacheco, a 27-year-old illegal, was arrested for beating his two-week-old son to potential death in Texas.
A court in northern Texas sentenced 37-year-old illegal alien, Roli Lopez-Sanchez, to 60 years in prison – with no possibility of parole – for raping and impregnating an 11-year-old girl.
https://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-immigration/examples-serious-crimes-illegal-aliens

This: With the motivation for the terror in El Paso attributed to one of these online communities, it is more than just talk at stake now. The continued existence of this online community requires them to become more entrenched in these hate-filled beliefs at the same time that more people are searching for these online communities than ever before. If journalists are not careful, more could be radicalized to believe violence is a means to an end.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/el-paso-shooter-wasn-t-lone-wolf-his-so-called-ncna1039201

@KNOWITALL – Illegal immigrants with past criminal convictions made up about 74% of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2018, according to Pew Research Center.
A meaningless statistic without comparing that 74% to the percentage of arrests of non-immigrants who have prior convictions, which I suspect to also be high. More importantly, it says nothing about the overall crime rate of immigrants which, as I showed above, is lower than the crime rate of non-immigrants.

@LostInParadise And once again, that’s not the issue I’m concerned with. I’m concerned that the denial of criminal immigrants crimes is going to continue pushing people over the edge.

Listen, a lot of Americans have dealt with immigrants their whole lives. We know there are good and bad people, but we keep hearing about crimes from Reps and Trump, not Dems. That’s not smart. You guys should be denouncing those crimes and as @JLeslie says, prosecuting and jailing them. Not denying they happen or minimalizing them as @ragingloli did. To the people they hurt, including children, these are criminals-who cares about color or race or even immigration status, criminals are criminals.

I think the message a divided country sends out is dangerous for all of us.

If a person is here illegally, they are technically a criminal. It doesn’t mean that they are a menace to society. All illegal immigrants, are technically criminals. Because they entered the country illegally.

Have you ever done 56 mph, in a 55mph zone? Well. You’re a criminal….

@MrGrimm888 That’s not the point and you know it. We aren’t talking minor infractions.

@KNOWITALL , Repeat after me: Immigrants have a lower crime rate than non-immigrants. Why the heck should we focus on those with the lower crime rates? We should instead see what we can do to prevent crime among those groups with the highest crime rates, which (yet again) does not coincide with immigrants.

@LostInParadise I’ve said twice you’re correct, but have no idea what you’re trying to prove with such obvious data.

In 2010 74% of the population was white, so obviously they’ll produce more criminals.
This isn’t rocket science.

By 2050 the population should be 47% white, so get back to me then.

@KNOWITALL . No. YOU are being deliberately obtuse. When it comes to the law, there is NO grey area. Documented, or not, the right claims these people are criminals. When you break the laws, you are a criminal. It’s just that simple. So… Most legal citizens, are ALSO criminals. But I don’t hear you calling for them to be deported. If the LAW is SO important, you should be including most of us. But you aren’t. I wouldn’t have brought it up, if I felt it was irrelevant to the thread. Our country, is filled with “criminals,” but the right only cares when they’re brown.

If you disagree, please explain your logic….

@MrGrimm888 Wrong, the Right claims that legal immigrants are FINE.

How many times do we have to say it? If we know they aren’t criminals back in their own country, good for them, come on in. We have immigrant limits each year, for a reason.

If you’re comparing me speeding to someone, anyone of any color or race, stomping a 4 yr old to death, this conversation is pointless.

The fact remains that I have yet to hear one person here admit that illegals do commit crimes. Because they can’t or they’d be agreeing with Trump. So childish.

@KNOWITALL I know that some illegal immigrants commit crimes, sometimes serious crimes. Even those of us that live in sanctuary jurisdictions know that, and understand that.

But those aren’t the people that are getting sanctuary. The people that are not being turned over to ICE for immediate deportation are people who commit misdemeanors and infractions.

Our county had to tell ICE to leave the courthouse because they were camping out to pick up people handling traffic tickets.

The serious felons are not being released; they are being held in jail for prosecution and state prison upon conviction.

@zenvelo Okay, I believe you, I’ve seen some of those reports on the news. With tons of white neighbors making a circle around the vehicle so ICE couldn’t get to their good friends and neighbors. Their words.

So why is ICE going after them, is it because they commit minor crimes, like traffic incidents, or because they are in this country illegally?

@zenvelo Here’s another church congregation who were fine being arrested trying to protect their immigrant friend and congregant.

Of course, ICE doesn’t comment on any specific case, so i won’t speculate as to why they wanted this particular person.

https://www.courier-tribune.com/news/20181126/singing-8216amazing-grace8217-church-surrounds-ice-van-to-stop-arrest-27-jailed

@KNOWITALL ICE was moving to deport them despite their cases being in process through the immigration courts, for being in strict violation of the immigration laws.

Immigration laws in the US allow for zero tolerance or understanding for matters as minor as misspelled names and addresses, or even for using the wrong color ink, And the administration has repeatedly “tightened up” on rejecting forms for the smallest of errors.

@zenvelo It’s a tough situation, I don’t have the answers except like Obama said, we need to fix the broken immigration system.

@flutherother “It wasn’t the media that labelled this attack as racist but House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the media were just doing their jobs in reporting what she said.” Interesting choice of words. I always thought it was the job of the media to be impartial and report the news, not push the opinions of one party. But as we all know, today’s liberal media is everything but fair and impartial.

@MrGrimm888 “If a person is here illegally, they are technically a criminal. It doesn’t mean that they are a menace to society. All illegal immigrants, are technically criminals. Because they entered the country illegally.

Have you ever done 56 mph, in a 55mph zone? Well. You’re a criminal….”

Let’s look at the differences with that analogy. I am indeed a criminal if I speed, whether I am caught or not. But if I get pulled over, the cops already know who I am by my driver’s license. They already know what my driving history looks like. They know if I have a history of crime. They know if I have warrants out for me. There is a lot they already know about me. Now…illegal alien….what is their name? Who knows. What is their criminal past? Who knows. How many times have they entered this country? Who knows. Now…why the difference? Oh yeah…BECAUSE I’M AN AMERICAN CITIZEN!!!!

@zenvelo “But those aren’t the people that are getting sanctuary. The people that are not being turned over to ICE for immediate deportation are people who commit misdemeanors and infractions.”
Tell that to Kate Steinle’s family. Her killer had 7 prior felony convictions and had been deported 5 times. He was in San Francisco because it is a sanctuary city…if he gets arrested, they won’t turn him over to ICE for deportation. And it works.

@seawulf575 In the end, all that seems to matter to Dems are the poor immigrants, not the American victims of their or legal immigrants that went thru hell coming here to be safe.

@seawulf575 Reporting what politicians say is what the media does in a democracy. It helps people make an informed choice at election time. Reporting on the words politicians say is not the same as agreeing with them.

Oh, how I don’t wish upon some of you to ever come in the situation that you yourself become a “poor immigrant”, and that you have to look to/depend on your neighbor for help….

The case in San Francisco was a bureaucratic screwup which the city quickly admitted. What matters to ME and should to you is the blanket vilification of an entire class of people seeking nothing more than what the majority of us or our ancestors received. The Federal government is indeed tasked with the job of controlling and deporting the undocumented. State and local governments are under no such obligation.

@rebbel Judging a strangers compassion? One thing I’ll promise- no matter how bad my country gets, I’ll stay and help fix it or die trying.

Ok wait. If you are counting just crossing the border as criminal activity that’s just ridiculous for this discussion regarding immigrant commuting heinous crimes. If you (not talking to anyone in particular here) if you want Democrats to agree that yes there is some percentage of really dangerous illegal immigrants here, then you also have to not be including men and women who just want to come to America for opportunity and safety. You get to choose one or the other. Lumping in someone who overstays their tourist or student visa is just not anything close to MS13.

If everyone can stop calling illegal immigrants criminals, so the conversation doesn’t go off onto meaningless and confusing tangents, then possibly we can talk about true felons committing horrific crimes.

Personally, I don’t think the politicians should be talking about illegal immigrants being murderers and rapists and drug dealers, because all murderers and rapists we want caught and locked away, maybe sent back to their country if they aren’t citizens, it depends on the country and the crime.

If anything short of a citizen commits a felony, they are supposed to lose their ability to stay in the country.

See, this whole discussion of illegal immigrants is bullshit. A person with a Green Card has to follow our laws. If they commit a felony they are up for being stripped of their green card status and deported. The immigration judge can decide based on the amount of time they have been here and the exact crime what to do, but as long as you are not a citizen your right to be in America can be taken away if you don’t follow our rules.

The whole argument on both sides is a sham to divide people, just like everything else in politics lately.

@flutherother you are absolutely correct. So why does the liberal media never accurately report what Trump says? In fact, if a liberal outlet dares to honestly report something about Trump instead of skewing it into something bad, the left goes crazy and starts threatening an berating them. I give you the recent actions by and against the NY Times. After Trump’s speech yesterday, they ran an article with the headline “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS RACISM”. The Dems went nuts. They threatened to cancel their subscriptions and berated the NYT until they NYT finally capitulated and changed the headline to ”‘Assailing hate but not guns” and sub-headline changed to “Trump, in speech, says little on curbing weapons.”. If you listened to Trump’s speech, the first headline captured it perfectly. Yet because the left roared, they changed it to something that would make it look like a fault by Trump.
So given your description of what a journalist is supposed to do and the reality of what they really do, your statement really is bogus. Are you really naive or too witless to recognize that you are being lied to or do you believe that lies by the media is acceptable?

@JLeslie I give you Kate Steinle as the proof of the fault in your logic. When you fight to allow illegals into this country, you fight to allow criminals in as well. The fool that killed Miss Kate had been deported 5 times. He was a repeat offender of felon offenses. And eventually he killed an innocent woman. So while you are trying to tell us how great it is that anyone should be allowed into our country, you need to think about the down side. You are supporting criminals with your rhetoric.
I fully support legal immigration. I have stated that repeatedly. I have also stated that it is cheaper and safer for these people in El Salvador or Guatamala or wherever to apply for a visa for them and their families. Instead, you have these people being screwed for excessive fees by “coyotes” to help smuggle them into this country. They are getting robbed, beaten, killed, raped, sold into slavery and all sorts of other things on that trek. Your rhetoric about making it okay for people to enter this country illegally feeds that horror show as well. It isn’t your intent, but it is an effect of your actions.

@JLeslie I never included all immigrants, I clearly stated ‘illegal’ in my posts.

Why is it so hard to admit some illegals commit heinous crimes? I admit its mostly middle-aged white guys committing mass shootings. I dont get it.

If just crossing a border illegally is okay, why dont you try it anywhere in the world. Its not okay. In Mexico I saw more AK’s than any redneck stockpile greeting my entry to their beautiful country. How ridiculous for Pres Fox to flip off Trump over deportations and the dollars not coming back to Mexico. He said it, its a big part of their cash flow.

To expect less security in your own country is a stance I cant support.

@KNOWITALL I am including all immigrants. That’s the law now. All people who are not citizens risk deportation under federal law if they commit a felony. If it doesn’t happen at the time of conviction, it will happen when they try to renew their green card. The fed runs the fingerprints on file against the databases. It’s not automatic that you get denied renewal and deported, it can be fought in court to stay.

I’m not talking about crossing a border. Do you want to talk about crimes of men killing children and raping women? Or, do you want to talk about crossing borders? I won’t talk about both as if they are the same. Making them the same is why you can’t get anywhere with Democrats on either issue. Not just you personally, but Republicans in general.

Just to add, I do see the problem that if sanctuary cities don’t report felons to ICE they can be released from jail and just go back into society. I hate that too, I’m not in favor of it, but the other extreme of allowing police to ID people just walking down the street is a horrible idea. The actual laws under the fed as I understand them make more sense. Local cops don’t act as ICE, and felons get turned into ICE.

@JLeslie I’m waiting for you to admit SOME illegal immigrants commit heinous crimes in the States. Just like Trump said, and that is a proven fact.

Until Dems admit it, you have no credibility with Reps.

I think you are more concerned about immigrants and their plight than you are of legal immigrants already here, as well as your fellow Americans safety.

You and I have respectfully discussed so many issues for the last decade, that I am taken aback as your prevarication on this issue, truly.

Fact is, neither major party has adequately fixed the problem. Reps may go overboard, but Dems are too lenient. Imo.

I’m sure you know more about the in’s and out’s of immigration, as I only know my group of Vietnamese friends saga’s, but they did it legally. That I support, for anyone or any race. I would love it if you agreed on that issue at least.

@seawulf575 Glad to see we are in broad agreement. I too don’t believe that lies by the media (or the President) are acceptable.

@KNOWITALL I am admitting it, I even added to it that even legal immigrants commit crimes, I want both the legal and illegals to be dealt with if they commit a felony. As far as I know they are just like anyone else on a local level if they get arrested and prosecuted. If the cops and the DA don’t know their legal status then it is irrelevant on a local level and they are processed like anyone else. Are you arguing that?

We have a shitload of crime in this country. The majority of it done by our citizens. We need to figure out how to curb that most of all. Whether it’s curbing underlying problems or how we “rehabilitate” criminals. If we help our communities overall with crime it will help the crime rate among illegal immigrants too. Gangs won’t be happening, people won’t be buying drugs. I think your focus is in the wrong place. Politicians are distracting us with this, and using immigration as a wedge issue and as a scare tactic.

I’m with you about the sanctuary cities going too far, I’m just not at the opposite other end either.

Maybe you are talking about people coming across the border already as hardened criminals? I don’t only think that way. I think about kids being here in America and becoming part of gangs and violence because the societal structure here is inadequate too often for new immigrants and the poor.

@JLeslie Then we agree on that, I’m glad.

And yes, everyone should be dealt with the same, to a degree. But if the cops and DA don’t know their legal status, they should be referred to the dept that figures that out, and if it’s still in question, I’m fine with deportation. We have to know who’s here, it’s a security issue.

Yes, most crime is done by our own citizens, but my point was that this political divide, as evidenced by El Paso, is a bipartisan issue. We all need to recognize that all the negativity has an affect on our citizens, and usually NOT in a good way. In my opinion, if we are constantly bickering and outraged, we are adding to the mental illness problem and adding anger and resentment to that. Add in a country full of guns, and we get mass shootings. Just my opinion. What’s more important, being right, or winning an election, or stopping mass shootings?

Oh yes, facts show that many hardened criminals do come through illegally, as well as being helped through illegally. That’s why all the military guys were arrested week before last, they got paid by cartels to get those people across, I believe. Sad and they’ll all be prosecuted or dishonorably discharged now, but whatever or whomever they brought thru, will still be here, doing whatever they’re doing.

@KNOWITALL We just need to keep it all in perspective I think. It’s still a small group of people coming across to do no good. Some Republicans make it sound like all these people trying to cross are scary scary people. That’s a problem.

If they are running rackets and committing crimes, the local police or FBI will be chasing them just like all people who commit crimes. I still don’t quite think I understand where your upset is specifically. If an illegal immigrant commits a rape do you want him deported when our border isn’t very secure? He’ll just come back if he wants too.

My ex boyfriends cousin’s situation, he was from Kuwait, and we felt if he was deported he would go free with no punishment. We wanted him in jail here.

I realize we can’t be jailing everyone, it’s expensive for one thing, but if a person has proven they will cross illegally once, they might do it again.

@JLeslie So why is the wall so wrong? You clearly said they just come back.
I mean, El Chapo and tunnels and drugs actually do exist.

That is another thing (regarding this issue) we should agree on, but is being used to divide us.

And one reason I believe El Paso happened based on what I read.

@KNOWITALL This is just my take, but one thing very wrong about the wall idea was the chanting. Chanting mobs of people saying, “BUILD THE WALL” and “LOCK HER UP” and add in Trump talking about immigrants and Hispanics as rapists and murderers. He didn’t calmly say he wants to address immigration policy and tighten our borders, he, and parts of the Republican Party, turned it into a battle cry. A scary mob of people shouting and told they can use violence to shut people up.

Moreover, the cost is high, so people want the money spent wisely. If Obama supporters were shouting “BUILD THE WALL” the tea party and many republicans would have been complaining about the national deficit, and that we don’t need a wall across the entire border, and the immigrants build tunnels anyway.

I do believe in securing our borders, but if people are turning themselves in to authorities then the border is secure. I’m not against building more barriers in places if I makes sense based on research. Even Trump admits it won’t be a wall necessarily, and it won’t be across the whole border. He says that now, but not back in the beginning. The wall was a nice simple word for his three word chant.

“You get what you give” an old expression. Trump says something extreme like “Build the wall,” and so he gets an extreme reaction in the opposite direction. But, it got him elected, he gets credit for that.

Also, because if Trump’s rhetoric I believe we have more immigration. Just like when the Democrats start heating up the discussion of gun control more guns are sold. You better go buy your guns, because if the Democrats get in office you won’t be able to buy one anymore. ~

Believe me, lots of Latin Americans have applied for their citizenship who were being lazy about it in fear that with Trump in office they might be vulnerable if they weren’t citizens. Moreover, I wouldn’t be surprised if it triggered more people coming in across the border before “the wall” gets built.

@JLeslie While I understand HOW you say something is important, I think many of us know of illegal crime. The next city over has had multiple instances here in Mo. So while I agree chanting and things are weird, I dont think the sentiment is-was.

Thats why I feel Dems kind of blew it a bit, focusing on Trump instead of the issue, that many Americans are frustrated because it is so overwhelming a situation.

Trump may be an ass, but he is hitting some important issues that even Obama acknowledged, as you know.

So what I’m hearing from you is that securing the border is great, if we dont call it a wall and is discussed respectfully, even when the crimes are often heinous?

For me, that feels hypocritical due to the Dems constant outrage.

I can tell you honestly that when I see the stories in the news, all over the US, like the 4yr old getting stomped to death, I get pissed. And I think every person here should help combat the criminal acts instead of worrying about words or Trump.

The wall is irrelevant if theres another solution, but fighting amongst ourselves instead of preventing horrible crimes or jailing criminals. There for awhile, even here, it appeared many on the left denied that illegals even committed crime. That lost a lot of respect with people like me who could care less about Trump, but care a lot about that four year old and other victims.

@KNOWITALL There is hypocrisy on both sides. There have been congressmen now, and I’m pretty sure some of the democrats running for president who say we need to secure our borders, we can’t have everyone and anyone coming across our borders. Both parties are neglectful over the years in addressing immigration policy. There is already barriers across our southern border in many places, so it’s not like building a barrier is Trump’s great invention.

I think the Republicans blew it by sounding like hateful children chanting like there were witches among them that needed to be burned at the stake. When you are dealing with minorities who have been abused by society or the government, or have a family history of it, those people (we people) tend to be nervous that that shit is about to happen again. White Protestant Christian Americans living in very white Christian communities, tend to have no concept of what that fear is like. When people are afraid their adrenaline is up. So, as I’ve said before minorities and people very sympathetic to minorities are terrified, and white Christians are terrified too, because of everything we hear in the media and our leaders both political and religious. Not all people in these groups, I really want to emphasize that there are politicians that do try to calm things down and many religious leader preach nonviolence and loving thy neighbor, but others do heat up the fear that America will not be a Christian nation anymore. That it will no longer be under God, no longer be a capitalist system, which for them is the Godly system.

My mom, who is a Democrat her whole life, votes on the local level for candidates who address the immigrant crime where she lives. The gangs and violence are really bad. She lives in what is coined as the most diverse city in the country in many articles year after year, it’s where I grew up. Her friends are from every part of the world, and every race and religion, and that has been true my entire life. I’m married to a Mexican, and that was never a problem for her, or my grandparents for that matter. My mom really wants the crime addressed, and especially if it’s new immigrants, legal or illegal, she thinks get rid of them, out of the country, but she is very specific about talking about the criminals, and not talking about immigrants in general like the masses of immigrants are mostly bad people, she knows they aren’t. Her grandparents weren’t, her FIL wasn’t, her son in law isn’t, and the very many immigrants she interacts with every day aren’t.

In fact, on my block I grew up on it was the “white trash” couple that one day the husband pulled a gun on his wife. And, the white single mom who worked in DC for a politician who left her 12 and 14 year old alone all weekend and got in trouble with the law when they caused some trouble. Another white neighbor, her elementary age boys were out of control when out of their parents’ sight, causing fights, being mean to other kids. I don’t remember any trouble from my black neighbors or Indian neighbors or my British neighbor. There were more “white” people in my community than minorities and new immigrants back then, but it was only the white people that I remember causing some problems back then.

Don’t get me wrong, there was trouble in all groups in the big picture, I’m just talking about the 4 square blocks I grew up in.

The media helps you feel like there are more criminals in minority groups then there really are. If your city addresses crime, it will be getting all of the criminals, isn’t that what you want? If right now the fed is having trouble with the border, then at least at the local levels let’s do things to address crime.

Aren’t you in an area of the country with a lot of drug abuse also? Is that a minority issue? A lot of the drugs killing our young people are home made drugs and legal prescription drugs. Why are they taking drugs to begin with? I realize some get hooked very young not realizing the consequence, but many do know the possible consequences before taking their first try.

Back to where I started at the top of this post. Neither side trusts the other. That’s the biggest problem. As long as Southerners still want to wave a confederate flag and defend or be silent about WS, minorities aren’t going to feel safe enough to negotiate policy. They’re afraid for their lives! As long as Democrats try to say ALL immigrants are good people it might be a problem for republicans, I don’t know. Maybe as long as Democrats talk about the importance of a secular government a lot of the evangelicals won’t be able to trust enough to negotiate policy? That fight is never going away if the evangelicals want to stick with that to divide people.

@JLeslie Okay, I don’t think based on portions of your post, we’re ever going to see eye to eye. So we’ll each continue to do our part in different ways. Thanks for the respectful conversation.

(Just fyi, if you had just once focused on the 4 year old that got stomped to death or any of the other heinous crimes instead of saying “we” have no concept of the fear of of illegal immigrants, I would have been willing to discuss further.)

@KNOWITALL I don’t think we need to discuss it further, but I do think I agreed with you about the child who was killed. I agreed there are ilegal immigrants who are murderers, rapists, gang members, I don’t know how that doesn’t include the child? He was murdered right? I didn’t know I had to address your very specific example, I include your example as a horrific crime.

If you can’t see that I’m closer to you on this topic than most Democrats then there probably is no hope of both sides finding compromise.

@JLeslie You seem to have far more sympathy for immigrants, legal or not, than you do the victims of illegal crimes. At least that’s how it comes across to me.

While I have many legal immigrant friends, they feel exactly like I do, and have no sympathy for those who come here illegally and go on to brutalize members of society. I don’t think you fully comprehend the anger towards Dems on this subject, but hopefully if nothing else, El Paso showed you that for some people, it’s becoming an intolerable situation.

And no, you don’t need to address my example, but a little more empathy for that four year old (or any other victim), rather than the poor immigrants, would have been a more appropriate response imo.

@KNOWITALL I must not be wording things how you need to hear them. I feel like we are talking past each other somewhat. I do appreciate your stamina in the conversation, because I think I understand better now what republicans are looking for when the topic is discussed.

Of course I have empathy for the victims of these crimes. Of course I care about that child. I’m not trying to protect the people committing those crimes, like I said put them in jail or deport them. Whichever is the best decision. I don’t think I could be more clear. I told you the story of my ex boyfriend whose cousin was shot and killed and we didn’t want the killer deported because we wanted a guarantee that he was punished. I cried at that funeral, I knew that cousin for 4 years and saw her frequently at family get togethers before she was shot in her apartment and her boyfriend at the time was shot 4 times and lived.

At the border we need to process the people wanting to come in. We need more judges and more hands to do the work to make the process faster so if they don’t meet asylum requirements they are turned back before they are released into our country. They aren’t always going back for their appointments with the immigration judge if they are released into the US, and then they are basically just in our country undocumented.

On other Q’s I have said that many Hispanic Americans resent that Cubans can just put their toe on the sand and get asylum while Other immigrants had to go through a long process of paperwork and worry about being approved at every step.

You mentioned your Vietnamese friends, I don’t know their specific story, but after the Nam war we allowed a lot of Vietnamese in with a fast track, we brought them into America, and we set aside many millions of dollars to resettle Vietnamese refugees in America, because we screwed up their country. They received a bigotry from plenty of people also, but our government at the time stood with the immigrants. I’m sure our government was imperfect with how they handled it all, but the basic idea of what could be called reparations was the idea. There are illegal immigrants here who are Vietnamese also, but most are legal coming in when the US had open doors for them.

I feel like you think there is something magical about being here with papers or without. Like if someone is willing to cross without papers they are already willing to commit crimes, but many of them, as you said, are told lies by the coyotes, and they are often poor and uneducated and they think America is the promised land by what they are told.

I think it just clicked with me. Showing empathy for other victims by showing that violence by an immigrant has actually touched my life in more ways than one doesn’t come across as I intend. I remember a Q that some jellies think that’s some sort of competition like my loss is worse than theirs, instead of understanding I mean I understand their loss.

When people have stories similar to my own tragedies it makes me feel better that they understand, but some people just feel those stories are being selfish.

@JLeslie I think we perhaps could do better face to face, it is a little more difficult through a keyboard. So my apologies if I came across judgemental.

My prevailing sentiment is that we owe it to those already here to protect them. And that we have immigration limits for a reason.

All my Vietnamese friends came legally. Some had to wait it out in Rome or elsewhere, but many of them helped Americans during the war and were literally about to be killed as traitors. Like embassy workers.

You say that many of them coming over illegally are lied to by the coyotes, poor and uneducated, but that picture is not the picture in my mind based on RL stories of the raping of children, the raping of women, killings, etc… So I believe our pictures just aren’t lining up, but perhaps both are correct, Lord knows there are good and bad people everywhere.

I don’t think you and I, or fluther, can solve immigration reform, if the govt can’t or Obama couldn’t, but thank you for your pov, I do appreciate it. You have helped me understand some things to, and I’ll try to keep that in mind moving forward.

@seawulf575 . You have repeatedly stated that one of your biggest concerns about immigration, is that it is about the LAW. So I stand solidly, by my analogy. But again, you have proven that you don’t really care about the law.

@KNOWITALL . The 4 year old being murdered, is an atrocity. What about the 4 year olds, who were separated from their parents? You don’t seem to have compassion for them… If you have posted otherwise, I apologize, but don’t recall a word about it…

As far as the stupid wall, I’ve repeatedly said that I would support it, IF it would be effective. But it won’t be. It’s a moronic idea, and a YUGE waste of money…

Almost 700 undocumented people were arrested at a factory recently. Those people had children. Legal, as they were born here. AND before the first day of school. I have not heard of your opposition to this either. I can’t provide a source. I think it was CNN. The story is something that you should read.

The implication, is obvious. Just like with the wulf. I KNOW you have compassion, for children. But your rhetoric implies that you don’t care about them, unless they meet certain criteria.

And I can’t speak for everyone here, but if a person has been living here for years, THEY ARE AMERICAN.

@MrGrimm888 Children are never to blame, so of course I have compassion for them.

And please don’t use that poor 4 yr old child to win an argument point. That child deserved YOUR protection and all you care about seemingly is getting more in, whether its legal or not, or whether our law enforcement can handle it or not, or whether detention centers are bursting at the seems or not.

Rather than get into another conversation or be flippant about a serious subject, I’ll need to postpone for a day I’m less busy. Thanks.

(But I will never call an illegal immigrant from any country an American.)

”..please don’t use that poor 4 year old child, to win an argument point.” I’m not trying to be snide ,but. Well. You brought it up…

@MrGrimm888 No, I brought multiple instances in to the conversation because Democrats and many here said Trump was a liar, that criminal illegals didn’t committed crimes here. I proved my case in three different threads and not one person would acknowledge it until Zen and JLeslie, this week.

I don’t want to score points, or win an argument, I want the truth.

Without the truth being acknowledged by both sides, nothing changes.

I have never, said illegals don’t ever commit crimes. But Trump is a proven liar, and he vastly over represents the criminal element of the immigrants. I think you’re smart enough to know that….Maybe I’m wrong about you….

@MrGrimm He’s not all right, by any means. But he’s not all wrong.

Dude, I been checking on you for a year, be cool.

@MrGrimm888 I find it funny that I point out the laws and the effects of ignoring them and you can somehow get to saying I don’t care about the law. Isn’t it all the people that are making excuses for breaking the law the ones that don’t care? You know…people such as yourself? The laws are there for a reason. We have immigration laws to help control who enters our nation. I know the left wants to scream about how that means keeping out brown people…but that is a cop out and you know it. If you don’t enforce the laws about who enters, you are saying you are okay with allowing drugs, criminals, human trafficking and all sorts of other evils into our nation. You are saying you are okay with citizens dying or having their lives ruined by these elements. You are saying you are okay with the human predators that feed on the “good” immigrants that travel here.

@seawulf575 It’s just that the way you word it, it’s like your saying legal immigrants are good people and illegal immigrants are bad people. I know you put good in quotes, but I’m not sure what you mean by that. I wrote above that Latin Americans here in our country that have done everything right regarding being legal here, often they resent people who just walk right in an get asylum when they are not actually under duress from a government, but crossing the border without papers, overstaying a visa, working on a tourist visa, doesn’t mean that person is going to go and commit violent crimes. You wrote it like it’s some sort of guarantee. Most immigrants just want to be in the US for the opportunity to work and so their children have an education.

In Mexico the average education level is 8th grade. I don’t know about El Salvador and Guatamala (the countries that seem to be coming in in large numbers now). MX doesn’t have rules that children must attend, not unless they have added education laws since my husband was a kid. If they had them then they weren’t enforced in any way. Probably, in the small towns in many of the Central American countries the education is very inadequate. That’s partly why they migrate to their own large cities, like Mexico City, just like in America people from rural MS might go to Memphis or Nashville hoping for better schools and trying to find work.

One guy I worked with in Memphis said growing up in Louisiana most kids didn’t go past 16 years old in their education. I don’t remember exactly how he phrased it, but it simply was commonplace, he was born in the late 40’s I would guess. My parents were born in the early 40’s and all of their friends going back to childhood have college educations. I’m sure there were people in their K-12 who didn’t go to college, but a lot did. Male and female. My mom and her sister and my dad’s sister. Straight out of high school they went to college. It wasn’t like they went back at age 40. They grew up in NYC, and the educational opportunities I guess were better there than in Louisiana back then. They were just lucky to be born in NYC at that time in history. Some of it is just birthplace luck. Born in the country that can give you the opportunity so you can fulfill what you know you are capable of, or so your children can.

People want the right to pursue happiness and fulfillment. Even our founders a couple hundred years ago understood that.

@JLeslie I used “good” as a way to show that immigration isn’t bad. Legal immigration can be a great thing. And even with those coming here to try entering illegally, not all of them are bad people. Probably most are decent people. I get that. But coming here illegally is not the proper, nor even the safe, way to do it.
And I hate to break it to you, but if you are suggesting they might be coming here to let their kids get a good education, they are probably barking up the wrong tree. I saw an article recently that reported that in 2017, Baltimore had 13 schools with zero students proficient in math. Zero. None. If you look around this country, you find many school districts that are graduating students that cannot pass proficiency testing and can barely pass math or English.

@seawulf575 They do not acknowledge that illegal immigrants are criminals, even though they know they are breaking the law on day 1. You can’t make them acknowledge that fact.

Illegal immigrants, are ALL, technically criminals. What else is there to acknowledge?

Most legal citizens, are also technically criminals. That’s where your argument loses. Like I’ve said, the law has NO grey area. We’re all just people.

Of course they’re criminals. They’re criminals like jaywalkers, or kids selling lemonade without permits. They commit their crime of coming here to escape their more nagging crimes of poverty & hunger. Nothing would make such people happier than if they could remain at home immune to those latter 2 crimes

Agreed.

Illegal immigrants are here illegally but that is the extent of their criminality. It is unfair and unjust to treat them as if they were drug dealers, rapists and murderers because of Trump’s inflammatory language. That’s what I object to.

Yep. He’s got a lot of stupid people, afraid of them ALL…

So, if we are all in agreement that illegal immigrants are, in fact, breaking the law, why is it wrong to enforce the laws?

Because laws, aren’t necessarily a benefit to humanity. Some are obviously needed, others, are just not…

This country, has more people incarcerated, or that have been, than ANY other 1st world country. So…. We can infer, that we have more criminals here, than almost anywhere, OR that our law system, is severely flawed. I opine the latter.

It’s a matter of opinion.

@MrGrimm Do you think I’m afraid of immigrants (of any kind) or just pissed off that diabled people are being kidnapped and raped by illegals in Missouri?

What I am afraid of, I’ll admit, is that your sympathy will add to the cesspit we already have, no room in jails, just out in a day.

Good people who try to handle their business are always welcome, but also within the prescribed amount that we can handle. Most other countries also have limits. Is that wrong to you?

@seawulf575 The problem with enforcing the law on illegal immigrants is the scale of the issue. There are an estimated 12 million of them and it would be a huge human catastrophe to uproot them all.

In addition, like it or not, they make up almost 5% of the working population of the United States. If they were removed en masse you can expect a big impact on the US economy especially in the farming and construction industries.

The cases that @KNOWITALL brings up are the few that have been dealt with by the courts. Those that have committed these heinous offences have been through the legal process and have been dealt wuth accordingly.

@flutherother Let’s take the ones already here out of the equation for a moment. Why is it such a battle just to stop the influx of new illegal immigrants? Why, every time someone makes a suggestion on stopping, or at least slowing, the influx of illegals into this country, there is a huge battle and that person is branded as a racist? We see it even on these pages.

@KNOWITALL . Remember, I don’t vote. My opinions will not change anything…

MrGrimm Doesnt matter, this is about Americans coming together in understanding as much as helping immigrants. :)

^I agree. But as long as a portion of our nation, views ALL immigrants as criminals, there is no hope of bringing us together.

@MrGrimm And its hard for me to believe a former cop is so comfortable with anything goes in regards to any security concerns with illegals. Thats messed up imo. You swore to defend and protect us right?!

We will eventually figure this issue out so we are all safe in a controlled process. At least to the degree its possible.

So just what job did you have as a LEO?

^I was mainly a SLED officer. I worked both armed, and unarmed. Usually, I was a bouncer. Well. A bouncer, with the powers of a deputy sherif. I have too many problems with the law, to have been a cop. Although I worked with narcotics, SWAT, and other agencies, I never had a ideological match, with what most cops do. So. I’m not fit, for the job…

I’ve worked some really rough spots. I was promoted to HOS (head of security,) at multiple large venues. I was VERY good, at what I did. I was offered multiple police officer jobs, and declined them all. I don’t think I have the right, to do, what some cops do. I actually have a problem, with a lot of our nation’s laws. And I don’t think that I (or many others) should be allowed to kill people. Not without, a jury hearing.

I still train LEOs, and still do some odd jobs, here and there.
I took an oath, yes. But I usually did things “my way.” That’s a lot harder to explain.

@KNOWITALL . I did protect hundreds of people. My biggest problem, was with domestic violence. I put my life on the line, for hundreds of females, who were beaten by their male partner. Sometimes, they would attack me, for hurting the man, who hurt them. I have no.moral issues, with the amount of people who I protected. There are countless times, when I essentially did the work for the cops, and then, they show up, when the smoke is cleared, and it was up to me, how to proceed with legal charges. Typically, because I was assaulted, stabbed, or shot at. I typically, let people off. Regardless of what they did. I had the power, to arrest, or have many people arrested. I have sent dozens of people to jail, and made arrests. But they were extreme cases. Plus, I hated court, and paperwork.

I’m no hero. But there are dozens of people who are alive, because I put myself between them, and danger. THAT I can promise anyone. And my bosses know that. I still have a sterling reputation as a LEO. But, I’m burnt out. I am sick of being hurt, and hurting others.

As I’ve said before, my talents are like a curse. I am an expert in hand to hand combat, and actually really good at diffusing a lot of situations. But, I’m sick of it. And frankly, sick of people who need a person like me.

I’ve come to the conclusion that we are all just people. And as an atheist, I don’t feel that ANYONE should be able to chose a person’s fate, based on a system of laws, that I don’t necessarily agree with…

I will gladly explain further, if someone has more questions about my former line of work. Otherwise, I feel like I am just rambling.

I still dream of , hurting people. I can feel their bones, and ligaments breaking. And the reality that, they may have just had a bad night. It sickens me. I am ashamed of it. Yes. Some deserved it. But who really appointmented ME, to judge whether they deserved it?.. They were just people, like me. No better. No worse….

@MrGrimm
So illegal immigration a crime you condone. Thats the crux of the issue. You, even as a former LEO, condone crime. I have a major problem with that.

Also, thank you for serving. I’m sorry the residual PTSD or whatever is affecting you. Maybe get a diagnosis and therapy?

I’ve stated on multiple threads, that I don’t condone illegal immigrants. I just know these people need help. And we CAN help them. Some of them…

@MrGrimm What if we cant? What if the numbers are simply too great?

That’s not logical. The US, has plenty of land, and a need for at least 1 million workers.

Yet we already have 20 million illegals in this country.

*300 million.

@MrGrimm Get in legally and go buy the land. Thats fine! Why are we fighting if we have the same goal?

You truly think @wulfie or I have a problem with good people coming to make a life? We never once said that or felt that way. You are all simply fighting to defend illegal behavior, coming in or not following up. That is not okay!

Best answer of the day @ragingloli

@KNOWITALL . Neither you, nor wulf, have made many comments, suggesting that you are supporting ANY immigration. I concede, that both of you have had some rhetoric supporting “legal immigrants.” But the majorityof your posts, infer that you don’t. That’s my opinion, and it could be wrong… But I am simply going off of observation.

@MrGrimm Thats bs, we repeatedly say legal immigrants are welcome. Cant get much clearer.

Can also not get much clearer than telling them to “go back where they came from”.

@raging I never uttered those words, dont lie.

Never saw wulfie either.

No, but your Leader did. You did not denounce him. In fact, you defended him.

@KNOWITALL . I know wear your hear is. But, I’ll still bust your balls, if I think you’re wrong. Remember, it’s just my opinion, that really doesn’t matter….

@ragingloli No actually Trump feels the same way.

If you really want positive change, in this country. Don’t vote Trump. Dems are shitty too. But they wouldn’t lead us down this path….

@ragingloli I think you need to go back and re-read the threads where we talked about that. I DID say it was a foolish thing to say. But I understand that, as a liberal, facts don’t matter to you. Just what you feel and whatever hatred you want to spew. That is all the facts you really care about. Very Nazi of you.

@KNOWITALL
We had a whole thread about Drumpf’s “go back where you came from” outburst, where you spent most of your time trying to justify his behaviour.
And then there is this recent gem.
Claim one thing, and then contradict it with your actions.
It is stuff like this that gives me trust issues, and why I can not take you at your word.

@ragingloli Explaining Trumps statement is not agreeing with him.

Come to think of it, didn’t the Russian used to control almost half of Germany? Wasn’t it mainly socialistic at that point? And @ragingloli is from Germany. And she is pushing anti-Trump rhetoric. So maybe the Russians are trying to influence the 2020 election again? At a bare minimum we have a foreign entity trying to influence our nation through the expansion of propaganda. Sort of how Goebbels did it. I’m really starting to understand @ragingloli better!

You’ll never “understand ” Loli.