Come Heller high water …
- Vox.com published a fantastic and eye-opening interactive map this week detailing all of the mass shootings in the United States since Sandy Hook. Remember Sandy Hook? That’s the one in 2012 where grade schoolers – little kids – were slaughtered. After it, we said, as the map’s headline points out, “Never again.” But of course our anger abated quickly. We’re Americans. We’ve got stuff to do, y’know? Plus, we really don’t care, unless it happens to someone we know or
love. And sure enough it has. Since Sandy Hook there have been 1,964 mass shootings (watch the naysayers come out and say, “Aw, c’mon, shooting just a couple people isn’t a mass shooting.”), 2,303 deaths and 8,133 injuries. Somehow, we find those casualties acceptable. And when good people don’t care, bad things have a funny way of continuing to happen. Is your town next? Probably. Look at the map. Is the NRA really this powerful? Do we really need assault weapons this bad? Is your weekend gun range bang-bang toy worth this? Do you really need anything for self-protection beyond a pistol or shotgun? What’s that massive magazine really for? Do you really hunt deer with an AR-15? Cars are regulated. Tobacco is regulated. Guns? Barely. This the biggest public health threat of our time. And we sit idle, trembling before the power of the shouters in the gun lobby and next door. Shame on us for our cowardice. - While I’m on my high horse, I posted a cartoon to my Facebook page this week of a teacher at her desk wearing a t-shirt bearing the words “I support merit pay for politicians” on it. That’s funny, of course. But I couldn’t resist adding this: “I agree. And while we’re at it, let’s give them a letter grade, too. And scold them for taking summers off. And require them to pay for regular skills training. And complain over and over again about how much they make. And lay them off. And expect them to fix our kids. And make them buy their own work materials. And blame them for most of society’s ills while paying them like crap. And expect them to come in early and stay late and grade papers at home.” A reader added: “And don’t forget – we have to arm them so they can be part-time commandos defending the schools.” A teacher added: “And have them stock food for kids who don’t have it at home because momma is working two jobs to be in a better neighborhood but makes too much for a Bridge card.”
- If you’re a teacher, thank you for putting up with all of that. And if you’re training to be one despite all that, you, my friend, are a saint.
- Johns, north of Lansing, is in the running to become the home of the first-ever eel farm in the nation. If they can also land sweetbreads, okra and liver farms, I may never drive through the city again. Not without barfing, anyway. How can anyone eat eels?
- As one of his final acts as governor, Rick Snyder pardoned a man described by a prosecutor as a “career drunk driver.” I won’t bother writing something critical about that. It speaks for itself.
- If chili didn’t exist, I’m not sure winter would be endurable. Mine is better than yours, by the way.
- Until I stopped commuting three hours a day for work, I didn’t realize what a physical and mental toll it had taken on me. So when I read stories about all the reasons America can’t possibly invest in high-speed commuter rail, I want to scream. Long distance commuting is a soul-sapper.
- Just wondering: Do you realize that most medium to large daily newspapers in Michigan have about two-thirds or even three-fourths fewer reporters, editors, copy editors, photographers, artists etc. than they had 10 years ago? So if you’re ever wondering why people seem stupider these days and no one knows what’s going on in their communities, well, now you know.
- Words I just like: balsam, zest, loquacious. If I don’t forget, this will be a weekly thing. I like words. I like the sound and feel of them. I especially love words that sound like what they mean, if you know what I mean. Happy to hear and print some of yours.
- I realize I’ve moaned and groaned for weeks about the new trend in baseball where a third of the teams tank before the season starts. And I know you’re probably sick of my whining about it, but I’m sorry, I can’t help it. This week a newspaper had a story about how the Tigers, who are in spring training, are saying they’re in it this year to win the World Series. Oh, please. They couldn’t win AA with that roster. And yet the Tigers will still charge MLB prices to watch it. That, my friends, is highway robbery. Worse, they’re violating the spirit of the sport. Up with this, we should not put!
- “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” – Seneca
I wish that I had an answer for the loss of newspapers. I subscribe to NYT and WP digital and pay for both. I also subscribe to the local paper (Grand Rapids Press) but it is mostly loyalty and for the little bit of local news. The print paper itself will just about fit in my shirt pocket and most of it is stuff which I have read several days ago in other sources. It is reprints of WP and AP articles. I think that if more folks were actually willing to pay for coverage we could get at least better coverage. I will admit that even in the local print edition I remove all of the ads without even looking at them and I block many of the ads in the digital edition.
I believe the majority of print newspapers revenue is from advertising. I know many people quit subscribing to the Flint Journal because of the price. I still subscribe but have seen the quality of the paper go down. Everything from the weekly editions is compiled in the Sunday edition. Don’t know how this would work but give the paper to everyone for free. Circulation would go up and the advertisers would be reaching more people, thus more advertising dollars taken in from more advertising.
Pretty darn thoughtful and realistic, Jims.
“Cars are regulated. Tobacco is regulated. Guns Barely?” – This is a complete lie. Between federal, state and local firearms laws, we literally have tens of thousands of pages. We do not need any new gun laws.
“Do you really hunt deer with an AR-15?” – You barely can use an AR-15 for deer hunting. It is such a small caliber that in Michigan it is literally the smallest legal, regularly produced caliber allowed for deer hunting. I deer hunt with a much more powerful .308 rifle. My AR-15 is too underpowered for deer hunting in my opinion.
You can have lots of regulations that amount to nothing, Abner. If the problem is assault weapons, it does society little good to regulate that they can’t be fully automatic instead of able to fire 100 bullets a minute or as fast as your little trigger finger can yank it. Don’t be intentionally obtuse. Or is it unintentional?
This is why the focus needs to be on regulating magazine and tube capacity. Without the magazine, the scary looking rifle is just a scary looking object that won’t hurt anyone unless they get clubbed with it. I would ask Abner(working-dad) why he needs 30, 50 or 100 round capacity magazines. Why won’t just 5 or 6 be sufficient for self defense? But, I know he won’t answer.
The AR-15 club and NRA will claim that they are our safeguards from a tyrannical government. How ironic. They are the biggest Trump fans.
I believe that they are safeguards against a tyrannical government, and think that the reason that sounds so loony today is because of how successful its been. People lack perspective on what a tyrannical government even looks like and therefore doubt that it is even possible. Sort of how our success at eradicating measles and polio have allowed people to think it wasn’t that bad before Jonas Salk came along.
As to being a Trump fan, no. I’m a conservative that thinks he’s a historic abomination. He’s completely eradicated the Republican party and replaced it’s ideology, the very reason for a party’s existence, with …well, they never know what they believe until he wakes up and tells them each day. Seriously, the invisible hand of the market party of fiscal responsibility is now in favor of trillion dollar deficits and tariffs, which are simultaneously new taxes on American’s and the government using its official power to interfere with the decisions of private businesses. What the ever loving hell??
To my point, I think Trump is a great example on how this nice comfortable republic we have can veer toward totalitarianism in ways that we would’t have believed if someone warned us about them just five years ago. Seriously, an American president was just talking about “retribution” against NBC because they have a comedy show that makes fun of him, and a third of the electorate supports that.
I have said many times that conservatives and Trump supporters are not the same thing. I can disagree with a conservative across the board, but still respect him and I respect you for this well thought out reply that makes good points. It’s clear that you care about the country, while I don’t get that impression from die-hard Trump supporters. They only care about sticking it to the liberals.
However this begs the question; if you believe the 2nd Amendment is a safeguard against a tyrannical government and you admit that Trump is an example of how this country can veer towards totalitarianism, then why aren’t more 2nd Amendment supporters stepping up and demanding he resign, because he is a threat the nation?
Because they don’t see it as that bad. They see the conservative judges and think that this Trump thing is just an unpleasant aberration that will pass. Its unfortunately a Faustian bargain that has taken a long time to draw up.
Trump is actually the culmination of 50 years of the Republican party soliciting into it, election after election, groups of rather nasty people with ideas at odds with traditional conservative values, but willing to vote Republican. It started with the Southern Strategy in the seventies and continued through the 80’s and 90’s when healthy conservative skepticism of government was weaponized into sympathy for criminals like David Koresh and Randy Weaver because it was a useful bludgeon against Bill Clinton. Suddenly you had extreme fringes identifying as conservative that were sympathetic to Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh’s grievances, if not their methods. A startling transformation from the Law and Order party of previous days.
Bush was actually a decent conservative, plus the country had just legitimately been attacked, so defending him and his objectives became its own virtue. We were clearly fighting the bad guys that were sympathetic to the enemies of America. This influence was so strong that Hillary, ever the political animal, made that vote for the Iraq War that almost strangled her later. But when you believe you’re fighting legitimate evil, then concession can only be viewed as enabling it, and winning becomes a virtue unto itself, losing a vice. Suddenly Reagan working with Tip O’Neil like he did would render him a RINO in the 2000’s Republican party. Gerrymandering becomes not something underhanded you deny, but rather something that anybody would do if given the chance, because winning is the most important thing because our opponents are actually evil.
Then that brown guy getting elected pissed off A LOT of rather nasty people that had been laying low for quite a while. These weren’t necessarily the kind of people that you yourself would associate with mind you, but they could be useful as voters if they could be brought out and pandered to. So you got the situation in which Donald Trump’s birther nonsense wasn’t addressed because it energized voters that wanted to believe it, plus it entertained to traditional republicans because it irritated democrats.
The Republican party’s amused tolerance of Trump resulted in his empowerment by all the nasty people they’d been letting in to the party over the last 50 years, the aggrieved whites of the Southern Strategy, the extreme Evangelical’s that thought hurricanes were sent from God because we were letting gay people adopt, the militia members, the anarchists that took over the later Tea Party movement, the tinfoil hat whacko fringes (see: Karen Spranger)
All those people had been brought in and their misbehavior tolerated (ie: “No pregnancy results from Legitimate Rape”) for so long that they have now taken over the party, and the last few vestiges of the conservative movement, the old guard of actual conservative ideology are left trying to not get immolated by a party they no longer recognize.
Heck, consider this, the Republican party, the 20th century bastion of free markets and anti-socialism now supports Trumps plan for the government to buy farmer’s soybeans, grain and such, and provide them a government subsidy due to the trade war. The government will then sell the grain overseas. Stalin and Mao can only wish they had the spending power that the US government is now dedicating to its flirtation with command economy.
So to answer your question, the answer is they don’t recognize him as a threat, and if they do, they’re set upon by those that don’t. There is 50 years of noise out there.
Sorry for the wall of text, but this is not a short story.
I appreciate this wall of text. I agree the Republican Party has been infiltrated by the Alt. Right and the Tea Party, and most respectful conservatives are doing little or nothing to take their party back. I mean look at Lindsey Graham. He used to be one of the more respectful reliable conservatives, then John McCain died. Now he seems to be vying for a cabinet position.
You make it clear that you believe the 2nd Amendment is to protect us from a tyrannical government, unless that tyrannical government is appointing conservative judges. That kind of defeats the purpose don’t you think? Never mind that an armed militia is not and never will be a match for the U.S. military if government decides to order them on the people. Maybe a 100 years ago they were, but today, nope. Besides the way things are going today, it sounds like most of those armed militia will be on the side of that tyrannical government to help them round up brown people. Many already headed to the southern border as if they were needed in the fake national emergency.
I am sure you can recognize that we have a gun problem in America and nothing is being done about it. It is ridiculously easy to obtain firearms in this country and we lead in gun related deaths by huge margins over any other developed country on earth. I used to be in firearm sales. I know it is not hard to buy one. I got out because I just couldn’t be part of it anymore.
Many thriving countries have strict gun laws, low crime rates and hardly any gun related deaths, and they are not countries of oppressed people. Australia, Every European country, New Zealand, and Canada are examples. Are they are risk of being taken over by tyrants? No.
Non-violent actions have shown better results in forcing changes in government than violent actions in recent history. A few years ago the citizens of Ukraine took to the streets and refused to leave until their president resigned. Some Americans simply just love having guns and are afraid of change. So they dig in and refuse to budge . When all they have to defend their position is “when the tyrants come.” you know they are out of touch.
Semiautomatic and fully automatic are completely different firearms no matter how much liberals try to equate them. The AR-15 sporting rifle has been around since the 1950s. It is not some newfangled, boogyman technology. It dates back 70ish years.
Like so many ignorant liberals who demand to deny law abiding citizens of their second amendment rights, I sincerely doubt you have much (if any) knowledge about firearms.
We law abiding citizens will keep all of our firearms. We make society safer by being armed. What we really need in this country is a nationwide, reciprocal carry law. That should be a major priority.
“100 bullets a minute”
Roughly 1.7 rounds per second – This can be done with a bolt action rifle if one desires to do so.
Please.
So you can chamber each load and reload a bolt action to produce a 100 rounds a minute? Tell me how that is possible Abner!! I bet you were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize too. Come on already. What happened to reality with the Republican Party????
Abner, you are a dipstick. You did the division upside down. 100 rounds per minute is a round every .6 seconds. Like, every half-second.
Go back and try to read again. You failed.
I said 1.7 rounds per second. Sorry you couldn’t keep up.
Can you do that with a bolt action? You never answered my question.
So!.. Why the heck do you need an AR 15?????!
ahahahaha. exactly. Likely answer: Because his toy needs are more important than the lives of people he doesn’t know.
Sometimes they have an inferior complexion. Nothing like a big powerful weapon to make them feel like big men. I am talking about you Abner(working-dad).
I agree with you on a vast amount of topics including most in today’s column, however, my chili is extraordinary and until I try yours I’ll believe mine is the best!
Poor you. So delusional.
OK, let’s see your recipes and then we’ll decide. Have a chili cook-off on line!
I remember going to Tiger stadium in the sixties,and sitting in the bleachers. I think it was less than five dollars to get in, have a pop and hot dog, and maybe even buy a Tiger pennant I know, those days are long gone!
Yup. Sports have been priced out of the range of middle class folks.
More people need to adopt year round chili consumption practices. We should absolutely not limit ourselves to primarily consuming this blessing during the cold months.
Independence Day – eat chili
Memorial Day – eat chili
St. Patrick’s Day – eat chili
Random Tuesday at 80 degrees – eat chili
I certainly practice that.
Thank you again, Andy.
May the love affair with guns eventually pass as did with cigarettes.
For your readers who may have missed Trump Jr’s reference to teachers, I am linking Valerie Strauss’ article.
Sorry – apparently I need to copy the link the this comment box.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/02/16/why-donald-trump-jr-loser-teachers-comment-was-a-chilling-moment-educators-around-world/
Sandy Hook still haunts me, especially around Christmas time. I have a feeling it will haunt me forever. Of all the mass shooters, this was the one who brought an image to my mind of what pure evil looks like. I am getting tired of hearing “Never again” or “the gun issue needs to be addressed” and then nothing is done. Maybe the government is waiting for 3,000 more. Woe to those lawmakers who sweep it under the rug because of the money they get at election time from the NRA. It must be about money in some way.
Some of my favorite words are:
Awesome. It seems to be the perfect word for an accomplishment. There aren’t a lot of other choices that work as well as “awesome”.
Eloquent: Awesome with a sophisticated touch.
Voracious: As in a voracious reader, one who loves to read so much that they “tear into a book.”
My chili: not too hot, not too bland, just right for any taste.
Newspaper: paper, or on-line, it’s a very important part of my day.
Hitting the ol’ nail on the head again, I see. Amen to the high speed rail and drunk driver comments. On the subject of newspapers–my editor currently is charged with not only writing copy for his paper but one other in the group, PLUS trying to edit copy for three other writers. And people wonder why we have typos. Speaking of which I lost the T key on my work laptop before Christmas. My employer graciously fixed it last week, but it was too late because I had already used the word BUTT Instead of but in the the first paragraph of a story. Sigh. See note about editor above. On gun violence and Teachers vs Legislators–spot on. Have a good one, sir!
ooops. Forgot to mention you might like this Facebook site. https://www.facebook.com/GrandiloquentWords/
Good riddance to the slanted newspapers and writers. They aren’t even trying to present themselves as fair or objective in content, and readers are voting with cancelled subscriptions and alternative news sources. Heller claims we’re dumber for this situation, which is 180 degrees from the truth. Ingesting the mainstream news pablum is the expressway to liberal stupidity. Let the slanted socialist media and it’s ‘journalists’ die a slow death……. pass the popcorn because it’s fun to watch industry/career suicide while they chase the far left siren song. My advice for the progressive penner putz without a job? Learn to CODE.
If that’s what you think you are a moron. The Free Press is a badly needed mirror to our country. My advice is to shut up and read more.
Like so many, you confuse news coverage with commentary. Intentionally and predictably.
Confused, like The NY Times headline saying the Virginia Democrat wore ‘dark makeup’? You know damn well ANY member of the opposing party would be described as wearing BLACKFACE!!! You’ve referenced the NYT on this tiny site, so just admit the bias.
Yeah confused. For example your lie about the NY Times headline saying Northam wore “dark makeup”. Please link that up for us. Here are a few NY Times actual headlines, “Few Americans Say They’ve Worn
Blackface. But Many Have Seen It,” “Second Virginia Democrat Says He Wore Blackface, Throwing Party Into Turmoil,” “When We’re Surrounded By Blackface,” “Virginia Republican Was Top Editor of Yearbook That Included Blackface Photos and Racist Slurs.” “Blackface Scandal Prompts Others to Confront Their Memories,” and “Why Won’t Blackface Go Away? It’s Part of America’s Troubled Cultural Legacy.” A search of the NY Times reveals no “dark makeup” headline. This is the difference between NEWS and OPINION that you are confused about Brad. You are very welcome in this journalistic lesson I just gave you.
No lesson from you skippy. Go to NY Post, Reddit or Twitter and search for ‘ NYTimes and ‘dark makeup’. I’ll expect your apology in a prompt manner. You can thank me for the journalistic lesson, and in the spirit of true socialism, You got an education on MY dime.
That’s some funny shit right there Brad. I think we have discovered the problem. You think NY Post, Reddit, Twitter, Breitbart and The Daily Caller are news sites. Well, you can’t educate some folks. So it goes.
Afraid to look up the facts and so it never happened? You’re the little kid who covers his ears and says “ la la la la la, I cant hear you”. I don’t blame you for being afraid to look up the NYT headlines of the FIRST VA Democrat . You wear your cowardice well.
Triggered eh? Even your own sites said it was THE 2ND VA Democrat, the Attorney General. Here is the actual NY Times headline: “Second Virginia Democrat Says He Wore Blackface, Throwing Party Into Turmoil
Attorney General Mark Herring, like Gov. Ralph Northam, said he dressed in blackface years ago. This was from Feb. 6th.
Your reading comprehension is poor. I gave you numerous RECENT headlines from the actual NY Times (not their Twitter) and you must not have read them. You put out a FAKE NEWS site as your response.
You are entitled to your own opinions, just not your own facts. The fact is I stand by each and every prior response as factual. Have a nice day and hopefully you have learned some critical thinking skills and research skills today, but probably not.
Hey coward, speaking of funny shit, word on liberal lane is that Jussie Smollett, the homosexual, African-American, Trump hating D-list actor was attacked by BigFoot and the Loch Ness Monster while each wore a MAGA hat. In the socialist universe, it’s within the realm of possibility, yes?
So why am I a coward, exactly? And what does Smollett have to do with anything?
Its called “whataboutism”.
Its an attempt to divert the conversation when you don’t want to talk about or have others talking about something .
Its also a tacit but clear concession that they have no viable refutation of what you’re saying.
Trump has over 8000 documented lies since taking office and you want to talk to us about “truth”?
IF as you say they are slanted, please tell me how many board meetings of your local municipality and sub committee/commissions meetings you have attended since you discovered this fact? I would assume you would want the truth yourself so you’ve been attending those meetings right?
1. My bride and I have four (4!) great chili recipes. We challenge you, Andrew. Would it not be fun, somehow, to arrange a Heller Blog Chili Cookoff?!
2. My employer closed the Grand Rapids office last year. Now, I have a grueling 66-foot commute from my bed to my desk, working online. I can work in my PJs, with a snowmobile suit over, wearing a Russian-style fur hat, and furry slippers.
It would but then everyone who entered would hate me for beating them.
But one of you can share your chili recipe right here just for the heck of it. I want to try it.
Fred, yes. 2X2 Chili. This is the simplest, My dad and my wife have extremely similar recipes:
1 lb. ground beef or ground turkey, browned in a frying pan
In a soup pot:
1 large can Brooks Hot Chili Beans
1 large can stewed tomatoes
2 16-oz, cans dark red kidney beans
1 2.5 oz. bottle of chili powder
Put all the bean and tomato liquid in the pot. Add the cooked meat to the pot. Warm it. The way we do it involves a few extra secret ingredients, but this recipe will produce an excellent, easy chili. When you want to re-heat leftovers, add water or wine.
Thank you. I am copying that and will make it before winter is over.
Here is something different. A disconcerting cable TV commercial. We are looking at a Frazier rerun on the COZI network.
A commercial says 35% of Americans are entitled to free cell-phones and dental care and other things. I am sure this is not true. The commercial has no obvious sponsor, nor any contact info.
Is this a Russian disruption commercial?
More Americans are murdered by illegal aliens than by AR-15’s.
Here is breakdown by year from 2012 to 2016 killed each year by someone using an AR-15:
2012 –298/ 2013–285/ 2014–258/–2015–258/ 2016–274.
On average 456 illegal aliens are arrested each year for homicide .
This is from an Snopes article. Snopes is not a site/magazine that is pro 2nd Amendment and
they are in favor of illegal aliens.
On average 161 Americans are murdered in the United States by illegal aliens than are shot to death by with rifles like the AR-15’s. An increase of 35%.
That number gets even bigger when include Americans killed by illegal aliens driving drunk or dying using internationally smuggled drugs.
Democrats/socialists/liberals are not concerned about these deaths by illegal aliens but they are concerned by deaths by an inanimate object.
One commentator that I read commented that if a police officer is murdered by an illegal alien who murders him with a gun, the democrats/socialists/liberals will not blame the illegal alien, they will blame the gun. In fact all we will hear is crickets, maybe.
Democrat politicians view illegal aliens as potential voters that will vote democrat.
As for high speed rail, I view it as a pie in sky baked by a unicorn that is issuing rainbows and toots out of its butt. High speed rail will barely work in real urban areas. It is not feasible in low population areas in the mid-west.
California just canceled its high speed rail project in the past week.
You show how tone-deaf and racist you are when you equate an object “AR-15s” to human beings “illegal aliens”. We know you mean those brown illegal aliens.
The statistics are from the Department of Justice/ FBI statistics gun violence list over the past few years. Go ahead and check the DOJ and the FBI for having these numbers in their files. You can find this information online.
Only a true liberal racist like you drags the skin colour into this argument. If it does not fit your narrative, then it must be racist kin some sort of fashion..
Americans kill each other with great frequency. The preferred method of killing is with guns. Let’s face it, a Glock, a shotgun, and AR-15, a .22 cal, a derringer are all preferred killing weapons to knives, bats and other weapons. You gotta get real personal with those other weapons. but pick up a gun you can shoot someone lickity-split. You can shoot people from a tower, a hotel window, or you can come guns a blazing into a school, theater, mall, church, or workplace. You get into a fight with your wife or kid while drunk, oops, bang bang. That’s our America. More guns, bigger magazines, hollow point shells, bump stocks, gun show loopholes, people careless with gun security. When will it stop?
Saturday Night Special
Lynyrd Skynyrd
“Two feet they come a creepin’
Like a black cat do
And two bodies are layin’ naked
A creeper think he got nothin’ to lose
So he creeps into this house, yeah
And unlocks the door
And as a man’s reaching for his trousers
Shoots him full of thirty-eight holes
Mr. Saturday night special
Got a barrel that’s blue and cold
Ain’t good for nothin’
But put a man six feet in a hole
Big Jim’s been drinkin’ whiskey
And playin’ poker on a losin’ night
And pretty soon ol’ Jim starts a thinkin’
Somebody been cheatin’ and lyin’
So Big Jim commence to fightin’
I wouldn’t tell you no lie
Big Jim done pulled his pistol
Shot his friend right between the eyes
Mr. Saturday night special
Got a barrel that’s blue and cold
Ain’t good for nothin’
But put a man six feet in a hole”
Yep. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. But they really like killing people with guns.
Jim, c’mon. Here’s the snopes article you reference, I think. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/have-undocumented-killed-63000-us-9-11/
I don’t think you read it. There were that many arrested, not necessarily convicted. Also, in that same article, there’s this about the rate of murderers in Texas: “There were 951 total homicide convictions in Texas in 2015. Of those, native-born Americans were convicted of 885 homicides, illegal immigrants were convicted of 51 homicides, and legal immigrants were convicted of 15 homicides. The homicide conviction rate for native-born Americans was 3.88 per 100,000, 2.9 per 100,000 for illegal immigrants, and 0.51 per 100,000 for legal immigrants (Figure 2). In 2015, homicide conviction rates for illegal and legal immigrants were 25 percent and 87 percent below those of natives, respectively. Illegal immigrants made up about 6.4 percent of the Texas population in 2015 but only accounted for 5.4 percent of all homicide convictions. Legal immigrants made up 10.4 percent of the Texas population but accounted for only 1.6 percent of homicide convictions. native-born Americans made up 83 percent of the Texas population but accounted for 93 percent of all homicide convictions.
So you’re miles away from having a good point.
Jim the Third, you are not just a ninny. You are an evil dopey ninny. Please clam up and crawl away. You are wrong and your wrongness might cause a problem. Cringe, please, and stop writing.
I was just thinking about words I like: lavender, miscellaneous, lovely, splendid, groundling, effervescent, cumin. One of those kids who used to read the dictionary for fun. (Thanks for the rest of the column, too!)
Hey Heller and cowardly lyin’ Tommy, here’s a little “inside” dope on the NYT and your delusions of objectivity. Enjoy.
https://www.mediaite.com/online/former-ny-times-editor-jill-abramson-accuses-paper-of-biased-coverage-unmistakably-anti-trump/
Jill Abramson is in big trouble right now for plagiarism and other major journalistic problems. Do not cite her anymore.
Here you go “Fake News Brad” your inside story author has some problems with truth in her book writing about truth. She also got fired from the NYT for being a loser.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/jill-abramson-jake-malooley-plagiarism-interview-794257/
Something different: Catholic priests who molest children are back in the news. Pope Francis is getting criticism. How about a simple solution?
Maybe, allow priests to date and fall in love and marry. Orthodox priests do it, and the Orthodox Church has no big problem with pederasty. Protestant ministers do it, and they only have normal rates of sexual problems. If some Catholic priests want to try to be celibate, okay. But, obviously, that is impossible for some priests.
Nuns, too, I suppose.
To the Roman Catholic Church: Just do it!
I work in a field that gives me more than a passing familiarity with this.
Celibacy is not the problem. There are arguments to made against celibacy, but this isn’t one of them. As indicated in statistics cited elsewhere in this discussion, there are lots and lots…and lots, of non-celibate people that commit sex crimes against children. More than a few of them are fathers, step-fathers and boyfriends of the mother of victim with whom they reside.
Make no mistake, the Catholic Church has a huge problem with sexual victimization by its clergy, but more probably its related to the historical yet corrupting deference to local religious leaders coupled with the century(s?) long culture of cover-up that has heretofore has been ridiculously successful. Consider for instance the Southern Baptist Church which has no vow of celibacy and yet is just now starting to face its own public reckoning.
And, here’s another one… The US government has humanitarian aid supplies waiting on the Venezuelan border, and they say they want to force them into Venezuela.
The last time the USA did something like this, the USA took supplies to Somalia, and invaded at the the same time. That did not work out. Does, “Blackhawk Down,” ring a bell?
We need better leaders with better plans.
Want to get rid of drunk drivers? Outlaw sober drivers.
This is literally how gun control operates.
What a stupid and tone deaf comment you made there working-dad. Think harder about the nonsense you just said. I am sure that even you will see how idiotic it is all by yourself.