The Morning Sixpack is coming to an end…subscriber count is crap & growth is zero, so the only takeaway is that nobody likes it. I'd say it was a good run, but I'd be lying.
Tomorrow will be the last day I publish The Morning Sixpack. Happy Little Friday!
This is the “guns suck and the NRA is a criminal enterprise” edition.
Top of the News
- Police Narrative on Texas School Shooting in Question as New Details Emerge
- Guns Have Become the Leading Cause of Death for American Kids
- FUCK TEXAS REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS
- Texas Governor Greg Abbott Won’t Say Whether He Plans to Attend NRA Convention in Houston on Friday
- Daniel Defense, Maker of the Uvalde Shooter’s ‘Perfect Rifle,’ Abruptly Exits the NRA Convention
- FUCK GREG ABBOTT
Police Narrative on Texas School Shooting in Question as New Details Emerge
The official account of what happened during a shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, is under scrutiny following the reporting of new details.
At a press briefing Wednesday afternoon, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott praised police for their response to the massacre Tuesday that killed 19 kids and two teachers. A Border Patrol officer fatally shot the gunman, who authorities identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos.
“The reality is as horrible as what happened, it could have been worse,” Abbott said. “The reason it was not worse is because law enforcement officials did what they do. They showed amazing courage by running towards gunfire for the singular purpose of trying to save lives. And it is a fact that because of their quick response getting on the scene, being able to respond to the gunman and eliminate the gunman, they were able to save lives. Unfortunately, not enough.”
However, The Associated Press reported late Wednesday that police waited outside the school for at least 40 minutes while parents and onlookers urged them to do something.
“Let’s just rush in because the cops aren’t doing anything like they are supposed to,” Javier Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn was killed in the attack, told the AP. “More could have been done.”
“There were five or six of [us] fathers, hearing the gunshots, and [police officers] were telling us to move back,” Cazares told the Washington Post. “We didn’t care about us. We wanted to storm the building. We were saying, ‘Let’s go’ because that is how worried we were, and we wanted to get our babies out.”
A nearly seven-minute video posted to social media seems to support the AP’s story, showing police restraining parents outside of the school, including holding one person on the ground. Uvalde, a small city of about 16,000 people, spends roughly 40 percent of its annual city budget on police.
Police said the shooter had barricaded himself inside the school, but the AP reported that he barricaded himself by locking the door. Border Patrol had difficulty breaching the locked classroom door and had to get a staff member with a key to unlock it.
MSN
Reports suggest at least 40 minutes passed as law enforcement waited outside while the murderer was inside slaughtering little children.
I'm sick inside.
Guns Have Become the Leading Cause of Death for American Kids
Firearms were the leading cause of death for kids one and older for the first time in 2020, the most recent year for which CDC data is available.
Why it matters: The firearm death rate among children is steadily rising, as more kids are involved in gun-related homicides like Tuesday's mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, as well as suicides and accidents.
By the numbers: Nearly two-thirds of the 4,368 U.S. children up to age 19 who were killed by guns in 2020 were homicide victims, per the CDC. Motor vehicle crashes, formerly the leading cause of death for kids one and older, killed nearly 4,000 children.
- Another 30% of firearm-related child fatalities were suicides, 3% were accidental and 2% were of undetermined intent.
- Male youths were significantly more likely to be killed by guns, while vehicle crashes claimed more females.
- There were also stark racial disparities. The firearm death rate for Black children was more than 4 times that of white children, and white children were still more likely to be killed by motor vehicles than guns.
- D.C. had the highest firearm death rate, followed by Louisiana, Alaska and Mississippi.
Of note: Among children younger than one, congenital anomalies — or birth defects — were the leading cause of death in 2020, resulting in 4,043 fatalities, per the CDC.
What they're saying: “As the progress made in reducing deaths from motor vehicle crashes shows, we don’t have to accept the high rate of firearm-related deaths among U.S. children and adolescents,” researchers recently wrote in a New England Journal of Medicine article that highlighted the trend.
- The study noted that while the National Highway Safety Administration could take the lead addressing road-traffic fatalities, firearms are one of the few products whose safety isn’t regulated by a designated federal agency.
- It has taken 20 years to build a database of firearm-related deaths that includes data from all 50 states, the researchers wrote.
The bottom line: School shootings have become tragically common in the U.S., but constitute only a small fraction of gun deaths among children.
Source: Axios. This is so fucking sad.
FUCK TEXAS REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS
Beto won't win the governor race in Texas (because the majority of Texas voters are stupid), but damn, I love this dude. He's putting his political neck on the line and while he may not become governor, he may transcend that and become bigger than Texas.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott Won’t Say Whether He Plans to Attend NRA Convention in Houston on Friday
Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday he was not sure whether he would attend the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston this week, which will take place days after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at a Uvalde elementary school on Tuesday.
“As far as future plans are concerned, listen, I’m living moment-to-moment right now,” he said when asked about the convention during a news conference updating the public on the shooting. “My heart, my head and my body are in Uvalde right now, and I’m here to help the people who are hurting.”
Abbott, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick are scheduled to attend the event but none of their offices have commented on their attendance since the shooting unfolded on Tuesday. Former President Donald Trump, who is scheduled to speak, said Wednesday he still plans to attend.
“America needs real solutions and real leadership in this moment, not politicians and partisanship,” Trump said in a statement. “That’s why I will keep my longtime commitment to speak in Texas at the NRA Convention and deliver an important address to America. In the meantime, we all continue to pray for the victims, their families and our entire nation – we are all in this together.”
On Wednesday, the NRA issued a statement expressing its deepest sympathies for the victims of “this horrific and evil crime” and saluting the school officials and first responders who responded to the shooting.
“Although an investigation is underway and facts are still emerging, we recognize this was the act of a lone, deranged criminal,” the statement read. “As we gather in Houston, we will reflect on these events, pray for the victims, recognize our patriotic members, and pledge to redouble our commitment to making our schools secure.”
The group did not immediately respond to questions about whether it would alter plans for the meeting or if any more speakers had withdrawn from the event. After the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, the NRA opted to scale down its convention which was scheduled to happen days later and a few miles away.
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn was slated to speak at the convention but his team told news outlets on Tuesday the Republican had notified the NRA he would not be attending because of an “unexpected change in his schedule” that now required him to be in Washington for personal reasons.
U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, was also slated to speak but is now touring the reopened U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, which had shut its doors prior to the start of the Russian invasion of the country in February. Crenshaw plans to visit with members of the Ukrainian parliament to discuss the $40 billion in aid Congress approved for Ukraine. A spokesperson for Crenshaw’s office said the congressman will not be back in time to speak for the NRA convention.
Neither lawmaker cited the shooting as a reason for their withdrawal from the event, but gun control advocates and Democrats are calling on Texas lawmakers to withdraw from the convention.
“Governor [Greg] Abbott, if you have any decency, you will immediately withdraw from this weekend’s NRA convention and urge them to hold it anywhere but Texas,” Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee for governor said in a statement on social media Tuesday night.
The speaking engagement leaves Texas Republicans in a tricky political situation. The public is still reeling from the brutal killing at a small-town elementary school, the first major event of this kind in Texas since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020. But the Texas GOP is closely tied to the NRA and its advocacy for loose gun ownership policies.
After a shooting at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 that killed 23 people, Patrick, a staunch ally of the NRA, appeared ready to take on the gun rights group, saying he was “willing to take an arrow” to require background checks for stranger-to-stranger gun sales.
“I'm a solid NRA guy,” he told The Dallas Morning News at the time, “but not expanding the background check to eliminate the stranger to stranger sale makes no sense to me and … most folks.”
But when the opportunity to push the policy through came in the 2021 legislative session, Patrick abandoned any support for the plan, instead helping the Legislature loosen the requirements for carrying a handgun in public.
The state allows people with concealed handgun licenses to carry handguns into public university buildings in Texas. Last year, the Legislature passed a controversial law that allowed people to carry a handgun in public without a license or training. The bill had been beaten back many times before because of public safety concerns.
But gun advocates have exerted considerable pressure on GOP officials to loosen gun laws. And the relationship between state leaders and the NRA is symbiotic.
In 2021, the NRA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a bid to reorganize the nonprofit in gun-friendly Texas in what experts saw as a move to avoid an aggressive lawsuit being pursued by the attorney general in New York. Prosecutors there accused the NRA of fraudulently using the group’s funds for decades and aimed to put it out of business.
A bankruptcy judge ultimately dismissed the NRA’s case, but not before Abbott enthusiastically welcomed the group to move to Texas.
“Welcome to Texas — a state that safeguards the 2nd Amendment,” he tweeted.
Texas’ gun culture is rooted in many of the state’s responses to mass shootings. In 1991, a gunman killed 23 people at a Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen. Suzanna Hupp, one of the shooting’s survivors who lost both of her parents in the killing, later said she had left her .38 revolver in her car because she feared she would lose her chiropractor’s license if she was caught carrying it in a restaurant. Her testimony pushed the Legislature to pass a law that allowed Texans to carry concealed weapons. She was later elected to the Texas House in 1996.
In 2017, another gunman killed 27 people at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs. After the shooting, Stephen Willeford, a resident and former NRA firearms instructor, engaged the shooter in a firefight and pursuit, which ended with the shooter crashing his vehicle. Police eventually found the shooter with three gunshot wounds, including a self-inflicted one to the head.
In recent years, the Legislature has responded to mass shootings by providing money to research mental health problems, which they say is a key factor in the killings. They’ve also pushed to arm more teachers and school officials with weapons to respond to shootings.
Texas Tribune
#TFG is scheduled to speak there, too. Guess what? There won't be any guns allowed at the event. Pathetic pussies…
Speaking of pussies, this company pulled out of the NRA convention because its owner is a weak, scared imbecile who cums when he shoots a rifle.
Daniel Defense, Maker of the Uvalde Shooter’s ‘Perfect Rifle,’ Abruptly Exits the NRA Convention
On a Memorial Day weekend when we honor those who died in service to our country, the company that manufactured a weapon of war used to kill 19 children and two adults in a Texas elementary school had planned to hawk its wares at the gun industry’s annual collective disgrace.
But in the aftermath of Tuesday’s slaughter in Uvalde, Daniel Defense, is no longer slated to join all the other profiteers of violent death at this weekend’s NRA convention in Houston.
Up until Wednesday afternoon, the company was to have occupied Booth 4839, conveniently close to the cafe at the George R. Brown Convention Center, amid what the NRA terms “14 acres of guns and gear.”
“GIVEAWAYS, DEMOS, CELEBRITY APPEARANCES & MORE!” Daniel Defense had promised online.
The items on display would have included the DDM4 V7 rifle, the model used with such horrific effect at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.
“A perfect rifle for everybody,” a Daniel Defense promotional video says.
The roster of exhibitors indicates that Booth 4839 has been taken over by the NRA itself. The offerings there will now include, “Membership programs and services, commission-based dealer programs, manufacturer programs, legislative initiatives and awareness, firearms training, education and safety programs, NRA Advancement, Foundation, Friends of NRA and NRA Publications.”
Daniel Defense may still benefit from Tuesday’s horror. The company reported that the 2012 slaughter of 20 kids and six adults at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut boosted sales to folks fearing an assault weapons ban.
The now $100-million-a-year company was founded by 59-year-old Marty Daniel of Georgia. He started out making garage doors after flunking out of Georgia Southern University twice before finally graduating. A company history on its website suggests he might not have gone into guns if he had been a better golfer.
“Daniel Defense got its start because Marty’s golf game sucked. He would spend most of his free time unwinding on the golf course, until the day a friend invited him to shoot his AR,” the story says. “Every shot he fired filled him with a satisfaction he’d never before experienced. Marty would purchase his first AR this same year.” Editor: This dude got off shooting a rifle more than he got off with an orgasm. What a fucking weirdo.
That was in 1999. He manufactured his first gun a decade later. It was the DDM4 V1. The M4 indicates a kinship to the military M4 that Colt produced for the U.S. armed forces. Daniel joined Bushmaster and Smith & Wesson and other companies in selling variations on a weapon of war to civilians.
“FREEDOM. PASSION. PRECISION,” his trademarked advertising mantra read.
He was soon doing well enough to film a commercial he hoped to air during the 2014 Super Bowl. It featured a fictional former Marine at home with his wife, gazing down at their baby.
“My family’s safety is my highest priority,” a narrator says. “I am responsible for their protection and no one has the right to tell me how to defend them. So I’ve chosen the most effective tool for the job… Daniel Defense.”
The Daily Beast
What a bunch of sick bastards.
FUCK GREG ABBOTT
Amid a spate of mass shootings in recent years, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) responded by focusing on promoting mental health services and convening a task force that produced a 40-point plan centered on “hardening” school campuses and identifying threats.
But in the wake of the worst school attack in state history, Abbott is facing mounting criticism that his administration’s response has been inadequate and failed to deal with the most urgent problem: easy access to guns, including powerful assault rifles.
The massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on Tuesday that left 19 students and two teachers dead was the fourth mass shooting in Texas with 10 or more fatalities since 2017. Yet as Abbott sought to reassure the public Wednesday that his administration is doing all it can to respond to the crisis, he sought to deflect blame for not doing enough to keep students safe.
WaPo (gift article)
Do me a favor: Read the whole article. It's worth your time & effort. We have a sick populace, half of whom believe in God & Guns.
Hug your children & loved ones today and every day; you never know whether it will be your last time.
Bill
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