Once Again: El Paso police report Multiple shooters at Mall

Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform. We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!”

Michelle and I grieve with all the families in El Paso and Dayton who endured these latest mass shootings. Even if details are still emerging, there are a few things we already know to be true.

First, no other nation on Earth comes close to experiencing the frequency of mass shootings that we see in the United States. No other developed nation tolerates the levels of gun violence that we do. Every time this happens, we’re told that tougher gun laws won’t stop all murders; that they won’t stop every deranged individual from getting a weapon and shooting innocent people in public places. But the evidence shows that they can stop some killings. They can save some families from heartbreak. We are not helpless here. And until all of us stand up and insist on holding public officials accountable for changing our gun laws, these tragedies will keep happening.

Second, while the motivations behind these shootings may not yet be fully known, there are indications that the El Paso shooting follows a dangerous trend: troubled individuals who embrace racist ideologies and see themselves obligated to act violently to preserve white supremacy. Like the followers of ISIS and other foreign terrorist organizations, these individuals may act alone, but they’ve been radicalized by white nationalist websites that proliferate on the internet. That means that both law enforcement agencies and internet platforms need to come up with better strategies to reduce the influence of these hate groups.

But just as important, all of us have to send a clarion call and behave with the values of tolerance and diversity that should be the hallmark of our democracy. We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments; leaders who demonize those who don’t look like us, or suggest that other people, including immigrants, threaten our way of life, or refer to other people as sub-human, or imply that America belongs to just one certain type of people. Such language isn’t new – it’s been at the root of most human tragedy throughout history, here in America and around the world. It is at the root of slavery and Jim Crow, the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. It has no place in our politics and our public life. And it’s time for the overwhelming majority of Americans of goodwill, of every race and faith and political party, to say as much – clearly and unequivocally.

A University of Alabama law professor made this point about Trump's morning tweet suggesting that a background checks bill should be linked to immigration reform:

Quote:

What kind of "background check" is going to be able to look inside a prospective gun-buyer's head and determine that in six months this person will enter a depression and end up committing a mass shooting? How many times have we been told that no one had any idea that a particular mass murderer could do something so horrendous? Sociopaths can lie low for years nursing their grievances before they are moved to act. Background checks will only turn up people with records of prior criminal activity or -- possibly -- a documented history of clinical depression or pyschopathology.

In a tweet, Trump wrote:

Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform. We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!”

The massacre in El Paso had nothing to do with immigration. The people killed in El Paso were not immigrants, they were US citizens, six were Mexican nationals. They came over from Mexico to shop in El Paso. They didn't come over to emigrate.

As long as a preponderance of right wing politicians keeps getting elected and reelected, the situation will never be allowed to change.

David Frum
@davidfrum
Every country has mentally ill. Every country has video games. Every country has people who don’t pray. Every country has racists. Only America has near-daily mass shootings. It’s the guns

Maggie Haberman
@maggieNYT
"Shortly before the shooting began in El Paso on Saturday, Mr. Trump retweeted Katie Hopkins, a right-wing British political commentator who has said Islam 'disgusts' her and urged her fellow citizens to 'arm ourselves' ... against foreign infiltration."

@davidfrum wrote:

Every country has mentally ill. Every country has video games. Every country has people who don’t pray. Every country has racists. Only America has near-daily mass shootings. It’s the guns

Not complicated.

Is someone somehow "more dead" if they are killed with a gun instead of with a knife?

What kind of "background check" is going to be able to look inside a prospective gun-buyer's head.......

If you are a White Supremacist or a White Supremacist apologist - you don't get a gun! It not free speech, it is hate speech!

and, I gotta add, you don't get an assault weapon of any kind. You can go to the gun range and rent one, they are fun to shoot! You can't take it home with you.