I really wish that those who publish personal information about family members not involved in a newsworthy situation would operate with a sense of ethics and morality. Alas, that does not seem to be possible. Sure, anyone can find that information online if they try hard enough - but would they? Why dig it up & publicize it? Is there any valid reason to do so?
In the grand scheme of things – mass murder & terrorizing the community being just two of the grand scheme of them – the above is a small thing to focus your worry about. Just my opinion, of course.
I just caught up to reading Rosanne Cash’s outstanding Op Ed page on Wednesday’s NY TIMES. She has been a longstanding gun control advocate and performed at last year’s Concert Across America to End Gun Violence. She and the other performers including Eddie Vedder, Jackson Browne, Marc Cohn and the Harlem Gospel Choir received numerous death threats including from those who invoked her father’s name and said how ashamed he would be regarding her stand on this issue. Now I cannot assume that those who called and wrote death threats are in regular communication with Johnny Cash from the great beyond or had extensive communication with him prior to his passing but perhaps he might have been proud of her standing up. In any event, it is a strong piece of writing and she sums up by calling the NRA out for what it is .a sponsor of domestic terrorism.
Fivethirtyeight’s write-up on gun deaths stats: [Fivethirtyeight](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mass-shootings-are-a-bad-way-to-understand-gun-violence/)
They also did a sub-story from last year on mass killings: [Mass-killings538](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths-mass-shootings/)
Re: bump stocks, serious target shooters or hunters would not use these due to obvious loss of accuracy, rather those looking for “fun”. If congress can’t get a ban on these, it would be very difficult to explain to voters come mid-term elections.
I think that’s why the NRA is attempting to persuade Congress to pass it off to the ATF.
For those journalists who tracked down distant relatives of the shooter, how about this?
Research every board member and lobbyist of the NRA and publish a list of their names, photo and personal contact information, including their home addresses? Some of us would like to get on their social media and write them some letters
Then publish personal contact info for the executives of the top 10 companies that benefit from payments from gun companies or the NRA so the public can boycott, if we are so inclined.
And then use some kind of investigative journalism (you have my permission to hack into their computer just this once if you have to) to find the internal annual budget of the NRA and/or gun manufacturers and highlight how much is spent on congressional lobbying and to whom. And any other financial tidbits the public should know about
The NPR interview is a very interesting read. I had no idea the NRA was focusing so heavily on state level legislatures
“Research every board member and lobbyist of the NRA and publish a list of their names, photo and personal contact information, including their home addresses?”
ANd how about publishing a list of how much money each Senator and each Congressman has received from the NRA and gun companies. Let us see how much our Senator’s think our lives are worth.
@lololu
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/gun-lobbying-spending-in-america-congress/?cmpid=sf
Can’t really say but I doubt that’s going to swing the votes of gun owners away from an organization they may or may not even belong to. And it’s believers in the Second amendment, not the NRA brass, you need to sway.
Heck, if they even notice some NRA board member has been publicly shamed, they’ll most likely make a mental note to vote for whoever believes they have a right to own a firearm until they misuse it.
The NRA brass are the ones who control the organization’s purse strings and thus members of Congress.
Unlike the NRA and many politicians, I’m personally against putting innocent people (in this case, any children or grandchildren of these politicians) at risk (in this case, putting out their addresses).
Who gets money and how much is public record.
http://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/gun-lobbying-spending-in-america-congress/
I was just venting. I just want to focus my attention on where the money and power is that’s keeping our nation from tightening down.
Follow the money
Thanks for the links on the political donations. Now we just have to find the state level
Back to the shooter- a family of one of the victims has asked that his assets be frozen. Good. Maybe they can recover the $100k+ he sent overseas just before the rampage
My daughter just texted me to say she loves me. She’s heading into a concert venue and felt she should tell me now in case something happens. So sad.
We just came from a concert where there were thousands of people for the concert and other events taking place at the same location/venue. No one searched, scanned, poked, prodded, or fondled us. It was actually somewhat alarming, considering the usual security measures. Sad that we would find it alarming, actually.
Today was the annual Zombie Walk in Asbury Park, NJ. It draws big crowds. The requirement this year was that no one could take real or fake weapons as part of their costume.Sorry that they had to make the restriction, and even sorrier that there were people who objected to the restriction and called everyone else “snowflakes.”
^I know a lot of AP zombie walkers. That sounds pretty reasonable to me!
So the timeline has changed dramatically. The security guard was shot by Paddock 6 minutes before Paddock started shooting at the crowd.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/10/09/las-vegas-gunman-shot-security-guard-minutes-before-massacre-police-say/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_vegas-timeline-750pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.f6b5c726044d#comments
The security guard was shot in the leg. Paddock reportedly shot many, many rounds through the door. This brings up so many questions. Didn’t the security guard radio someone that he had been shot? Why did he go up there in the first place? Didn’t anyone hear all that shooting on that floor of the hotel? Why haven’t we seen or heard from the guard?
If the guard had no radio, or if the radio wasn’t working or if he radioed to Mandalay security and they didn’t immediately call police or the guard didn’t radio at all (unless his wounds prevented it)…now I can smell liability on the part of Mandalay, owned by MGM.