Join the "March for Our Lives – Pittsburgh" This Saturday!

Please join in with Pittsburgh’s children and youth on March 24th!

You can R.S.V.P. and keep up-to-date on the march at their Facebook event page here and the national website here.

Follow them on Twitter: @M4OL_PGH   Follow them on Instagram: @m4ol_pgh

You can also print out the above flyer or share it on social media.

Smoking rocks? Head full of rocks? Completely stoned?

Even after watching Blue Mountain School District, PA's Superintendent David Helsel on video, I still had to look for a reputable news account to make certain this wasn't some elaborate satire.

Via PublicSource:

In Schuylkill County’s Blue Mountain School District, Superintendent David Helsel told lawmakers that maintenance staff — currently only one employee due to a retirement — are also trained as armed security and have been carrying firearms for five years. 

The district does not plan to arm teachers, but Helsel said he believes each district should be able to make its own determination to have a trained and clearly identified armed staff. He also explained that each classroom has a five-gallon bucket of river stones to be thrown at an armed intruder that breaks through the door. 

“They will face a classroom full of rocks, and they will be stoned,” Helsel said.

No. The children will be shot. Multiple times.

Watch it and weep here:

Fixed it for you!

(Bonus: You can use this headline for pretty much every shooting story!)

Thank You Rep. Mike Doyle and the #NoBillNoBreak Sit-in House!

(Photo courtesy of Rep. Mike Doyle's Facebook page, pictured center.)

Who knew the Democrats in the US House of Representatives had this much cojones/huevos? 

When the Democrats in the Senate's filibuster ended in gun control votes that went down in flames, it seemed like the issue was over, maybe at least until the next horrific mass shooting occurs...say, next Tuesday or so. I mean, the House can't filibuster, right? Right! So the beautiful bastards are holding a sit-in instead!

Damn!

THANK YOU!

And thank you Rep. John Lewis for starting it and my own Rep. Mike Doyle for being down there (literally) on the floor.

#NoBillNoBreak 

Tell Congress

"...[T]he right of the people...to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

It's time to use your voice to tell Congress:

(House Floor Dissolves Into Chaos After Moment Of Silence For Orlando Victims)

#NoMoreThoughtsAndPrayers  #NoMoreMomentsOfSilence

Inside the Mind of Wendy Bell (UPDATE)

Pittsburgh's WTAE News anchor Wendy Bell majorly stepped in it when she decided to profile the yet unknown killers of the March 9 mass shooting in Wilkinsburg by stringing together a bunch of stereotypical racist insults on her Facebook page. She then contrasted them with a virtually tap-dancing Mr. Bojangles, Jr. version of a young man who happened to be busing tables at a restaurant where Miz Wendy was eating with her family. 

The post was so disgusting, that she received a great deal of push-back. Then came the inevitable blocking of people and removal of comments, and, eventually, some editing of the original post*. It's led to a "Demand WTAE Hold Wendy Bell Accountable" Facebook campaign and a Post-Gazette article. But the best analysis comes from Damon Young at verysmartbrothas.com. Here's a taste, but please, read the whole article:

There are so many layers and layers and layers to Bell’s abject obliviousness to how racist this is; all made clear by the fact that she thought it was fine to print it. She’s practically a White privilege lasagna caught in the throat of a White privilege turducken. 

[snip] 

Seriously, read this scribbled-on-some-toilet-paper-at-a-Hallmark-factory-bathroom bullshit again. And think about the state of mind that allows someone to juxtapose that awful tragedy with a night at the Cheesecake Factory. As if there’s any connection between the two besides the race of the server and the race of the victims. And, I don’t know, the fact that they’re both made out of space dust.

* To read her original version of the post, click on the arrow in the upper right corner and hit "View edit history."

UPDATE: In an AP story at ABC News (WTAE is an ABC affiliate), Wendy Bell gave a pro forma apology. The entire Facebook post has been removed.

US: More Mass Shootings Than Days in the Year

"That brings the total of mass shootings this year -- incidents where 4 or more people are killed or injured by gunfire -- to 294. 

There have been only 274 days this year."

Via Wonkblog @ The Washington Post 

Nailed it

A list of things the Founding Fathers thought you should have the right to own: 1. guns 2. literal human beings

— Heather Hogan (@hhoagie) October 1, 2015

Ho-hum

Just another mass shooting in the U.S. with over a dozen dead and many more injured. But, hey! What did the Pope say to Kim Davis? And, what's the latest on Trump? And, damn it, keep those dangerous Syrian refugees out of my town!!!

("This is the 45th shooting at a school in 2015 and the 142nd shooting since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut." - ThinkProgress)

Call it what it is

We already knew Wednesday night shortly after the killings at the historic African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, SC--the oldest AME church in the south--that the act was committed by a young white man against nine African Americans. Only someone who hadn't lived in this country for more than five minutes wouldn't have had it cross their mind that the attack was racially motivated. Later that same evening, it was already being labeled a "hate crime" by authorities. And yet, by the next morning, Fox & Friends was already pushing the idea that the crime was an attack on Christians and Christianity (and the solution was more guns in churches--but more about that later).

Still later that morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on "The View" said, "There are people out there looking for Christians to kill them." Another GOP presidential hopeful, Rick Santorum, jumped on the bandwagon, calling it part of a broader assault on "religious liberty" in America. And, Congressman Mark Sanford (R-SC) was all over the TV as slippery as a greased pig refusing to say the new R-word (racism)--alternately describing the attack as the Devil's work or trying to get out of explaining why the Confederate flag still flies in front of South Carolina state capitol.

Meanwhile, America had long heard the words uttered by shooting suspect Dylann Roof:

When a man pleaded with him to stop, the shooter replied, "You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go," she said. 

A law enforcement official says witnesses told authorities the gunman stood up and said he was there "to shoot black people."

But it wasn't just politicians pushing this anything-but-race "alternative" theory of the crime. Comment after comment on articles and Facebook posts and other social media had average Joe's and Jane's--well, white ones anyway--earnestly insisting that the murders were due solely to mental illness, or attacks on religion, or incredibly whining "why was it being made about race" or "why am I being called a racist" when nobody had called them that in the first place.

The sheer will it must take to wonder "why this happened," or to subscribe alternate motives, or to gloss over the racial aspect of this when the POS who did it was absolutely clear why he murdered nine black people is astounding.

(The usually smart Amy Poehler's Smart Girls initially being pretty clueless which

they thankfully rethought here by linking to Charles P. Pierce's great article in "Esquire.")

Besides what he said himself, this is the same man who proudly displayed Rhodesia and apartheid-era South Africa flags on his jacket, a Confederate flag license plate on his car, whose friends admitted he was a racist, and whose racist views were apparently spilled all over his social media postings, and who drove hundreds of miles to go to an historic black church to murder black people.

This was first and foremost about race (so stop "wondering"). It was a deliberate attack on black bodies. And, yes, while it did occur in a church, it was not about religion:

It was also an act of terror. As Crooks & Liars pointed out, "The New York Times" tried to warn us just one day before this attack:

The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right-wing extremists. Just ask the police. 

... 

An officer from a large metropolitan area said that “militias, neo-Nazis and sovereign citizens” are the biggest threat we face in regard to extremism. One officer explained that he ranked the right-wing threat higher because “it is an emerging threat that we don’t have as good of a grip on, even with our intelligence unit, as we do with the Al Shabab/Al Qaeda issue, which we have been dealing with for some time.” An officer on the West Coast explained that the “sovereign citizen” anti-government threat has “really taken off,” whereas terrorism by American Muslim is something “we just haven’t experienced yet.”

And, while this was about race, the accessory to these murders--to this act of terrorism--was our twisted gun culture and our refusal to stand up to it. From President Obama's statement:

I've had to make statements like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times. 

We don't have all the facts, but we do know that once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hand on a gun. 

Now is the time for mourning and for healing. But let's be clear. At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency.

And, from the "Washington Post":

Dylann Roof, the man accused of a shooting spree that left nine people dead at a historic black church in Charleston on Wednesday night, should not have been able to get a gun. 

Federal law prohibits people with pending felony charges from obtaining firearms. In February, Roof was arrested and later charged with felony possession of Suboxone, a narcotic prescription drug. He was released, and the case is pending. 

Because of his criminal record, Roof would not have been able to buy a gun from a store. Federally licensed gun dealers are required to run background checks on gun purchasers, and Roof’s pending charges should have turned up as a red flag. 

But Roof didn’t need to go to a dealership. According to his uncle, Roof received a .45-caliber pistol from his father in April for his birthday, Reuters reports.

And, lastly, this: 

In case you can't tell, that sticker on the newspaper is an ad for a gun shop...

Urgent: Bad Gun Bills HB 921 and HB 2011

Via Rob Conroy (Western PA Regional Director at CeaseFirePA):

Friends of CeaseFirePA: This is a BEYOND URGENT request. Please read and ACT between now and Tuesday morning.  

WE DESPERATELY NEED YOUR HELP. There has been a MAJOR development in the legislature that is designed to seriously undermine our safety as Pennsylvanians. IT IS UP TO YOU TO ACT NOW.  

Our state House Judiciary Committee just released a surprise agenda for this coming Tuesday (March 18) and it’s a doozy. The legislators controlled by the gun lobby are trying to railroad five firearms related bills—at least two of which are extremely dangerous for Pennsylvania—through the legislature without giving the public time to weigh in on them. These dangerous Bills are:  

-HB 921, which would eliminate Pennsylvania's background check system —a system that our state police swear by and that contains thousands of records, particularly mental health records, that are not included in the National Instant Check System (NICS);  

-HB 2011, which would—for the first time EVER in Pennsylvania history—allow a special interest group (in this case, the gun lobby and groups like the NRA) and the interest group’s entire membership base special, automatic standing to sue towns and cities because the group does not like the ordinances that these towns have passed to increase the safety of their citizens, even if the ordinance has not been enforced against any member of that group.  

WE NEED YOU TO ACT NOW. If there were ever a time to do something for us, NOW would be the time. 

We need you to call and/or write your legislator to tell him/her that you oppose these bills and that these Bills threaten the safety of every Pennsylvanian. Since I cannot import links to that information in this format, if you want to call and do not know who your state legislator is (or what their phone number might be) please take 3 seconds to message me privately with your e-mail address and I'll get you the information. 

Perhaps even more importantly, we need to let the Judiciary Committee know that they can’t operate like this. Tell them you know what’s going on and it’s wrong—eliminating PICS and passing the “punish towns” Bill would be disastrous for Pennsylvania. 

If Harrisburg is finally going to consider gun-related policies, it’s time to get to work on the measures that will keep us safer—background checks and “lost or stolen” reporting—instead of measures that will erode our safety. 

Tell your legislator to it’s time to protect Pennsylvanians and take a stand against gun violence. 

As always, thanks for your help and support. Only together can we eliminate gun violence.

You can find your legislator here.

March & Vigil Against Domestic Violence (In Honor of Ka'Sandra Wade) This Friday!

WHAT: March & Vigil Against Domestic Violence (In Honor of Ka'Sandra Wade)
WHEN: Friday, February 14, 2014, 10:00 AM
WHERE: City-County Building, 414 Grant Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219
RSVP: Please RSVP on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/events/573131796114198)

10:30 AM: Press Conference at the City-County Building (Led by Ka'Sandra's Family Members).  

11:00 AM: After the speeches, we will proceed down Grant to Forbes, cross Forbes, and enter the Courtyard at the Courthouse.  

11:10 AM: We will conduct the visual dramatization of 110 Murdered Women and Children in the Courtyard. 

11:15 AM: From there, we will exit the Courtyard on the Fifth Ave side, and take Fifth Ave Back to Grant. 

11:20 AM: The March will continue down Grant to the DoubleTree, where we will join One Billion Rising 

11:30 AM: Vigil for Victims of Domestic Violence

12:00 PM: One Billion Rising Program will Commence!(https://www.facebook.com/events/619090258127854/)

When Ka'Sandra Wade was murdered by her ex one year ago, there was more attention paid by the media than for most victims of domestic violence. Her story stayed in the news because it exposed problems within police policies on responding to 911 calls for "unknown trouble." Her family and advocates for women worked tirelessly to change those policies.

But since Ka'Sandra's death one year ago, 110 more women in Pennsylvania have died from domestic violence! We must all come together to stop the death of the next Ka'Sandra.

We need 110 women to help visualize the 110 women murdered in our state -- please be one of them and help us to bring attention to this issue and to bring an end to the violence!

You can also learn more about this tragedy at the http://zairebrowntrustfund.wordpress.com/ website. Donations for Ka'Sandra's young son can be sent to: The Ka’Sandra Wade for Zaire Brown Trust Fund, c/o PNC Bank, 5932 PENN CIRCLE SOUTH PITTSBURGH, PA 15206

ANEW Rising Women's Collective and New Voices Pittsburgh are co-sponsors of this event.

_______________________________________________________________________

Please spread the word about this event! Feel free to use any of the following graphics:

Congressman Mike Doyle Knows His Internet Memes!

And puts them to great use -- good on him!

Can I burn down your house? No Just the 2nd floor? No Garage? No Let's talk about what I can burn down. No YOU AREN'T COMPROMISING!
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 2, 2013

UPDATE: And Congress just went into recess because of reports of shots fired near/around the Capitol--so much for a lighthearted post...

The Brainstrust Dazzles Us With Its Command Of The Facts. Again.

We'll start with what they published today:

Speaking of guns, a new Harvard study concludes that more gun control does not necessarily lead to lower death rates (homicide and suicide) or violent crime. “(T)hose correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared around the world,” the study says. Translation: That dog won't hunt. [Bolding in original.]

Do you see the fifth word in that? It's the word "new" and its meaning should be obvious to everyone even remotely conversant in English.

Now let's go to the "study" they call "new"  Here it is.  It's volume 30 of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and according to the HJLPP's website, this article was published in the Spring of 2007.

How, exactly, is that "new"?

And is this really a Harvard study (new or otherwise)?  Depends on how you define "Harvard study" I guess.  As stated above, it's from the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (www.harvard-jlpp.com) - but what is that, exactly?

First, you'll note that the URL ends with a ".com" rather than a ".edu" like say where the Harvard School of Public Health publishes its Firearms data (www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/). See the .edu?  That means it's from Harvard University.

On the other hand, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy describes itself as:

[A]n organization of Harvard Law School students. The Journal is one of the most widely circulated student-edited law reviews and the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.

So we're not exactly talking peer-reviewed social science here, are we?  From there you can decide for yourself whether that constitutes or subverts the notion of this paper being a study from Harvard.

And so are there any actual studies published in the peer-reviewed Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy that look at whatever connection that may exist between the number of firearms and homicide?

I am so glad you asked.  Take a look at what's available on this page:

Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40. [Bolding and italics in original.]

But let's look at some of the facts presented by the paper being touted by Scaife's braintrust.

On page 652, there's a table titled:

Table 1: European Gun Ownership and Murder Rates

And this table tells us that the tiny country of Luxembourg had, in 2002, a murder rate of about 9 per 100,000 people. That means that given a population of about 500,000 there were would have been about 45 homicides in 2002, right?  It's such a prominent "fact" that it's presented prominently in the text:

These countries, however, have murder rates as low or lower than many developed nations in which gun ownership is much rarer. For example, Luxembourg, where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002.

This must've come as a surprise to the researchers who compiled the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.  Their Eighth Survey covered the years 2001-2002 and their data shows that Luxembourg had a total number of 4 homicides in 2002 or a rate of .9 per 100,000 inhabitants.

4 not 45.  0.9 not 9.01.  (It's on page 185 of this document if you want to check my work.)

Shabby work.  Old(ish) shabby work, too!

Now go back and look at what Scaife's braintrust wrote.  How valid do YOU think it is?

#PghBlog4Justice - Trayvon Martin's Murder & George Zimmerman's Acquittal: It's About Race & Politics

I'm not a racist, but... 

The President is making this about race...  

The media is stirring up trouble and making this about race...  

It can't be about race because Zimmerman isn't white...  

What about black-on-black crime...  

You dress like a thug, people are going to treat you like a thug...  

They always get away...

Yes, it's about race. It was about race when this country was built on the backs of slaves. It was about race when there was a one-drop rule. It was about race when there were Jim Crow laws. It was about race when the first African American president had to show his birth certificate to prove he is a real American. It was about race when Acorn was attacked and destroyed. It's about race when states pass laws to try to suppress voting. It's about race when the NRA doesn't say that Trayvon Martin would be alive today if only he had a gun (like they do in every other newsworthy case where an unarmed victim is killed). And, it's about race when, "Only in America can a dead black boy go on trial for his own murder" (SyreetaMcFadden).

Trayvon Martin is dead because George Zimmerman saw black skin and assumed the worse. It all springs from that same ugly well of racism.

And George Zimmerman is not in jail today largely because of politics. First, because the NRA's answer to gun violence is "more guns." And, second, because Florida has a "Stand Your Ground" law which can make prosecution absurdly difficult when someone claims self-defense -- especially when their victim is not alive to give their side.

And, Stand Your Ground was most certainly used in this case. It's one of the reasons that the police didn't initially charge Zimmerman (even though he did not evoke it by name). It was written into the jury instructions. And, it was a reason given by one of the jurors for Zimmerman's acquittal. Not surprisingly, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) adopted Stand Your Ground as a model for other states in early just months after the NRA pushed it through Florida's legislature.

Race and Politics is why the man with the gun is alive and free and the teen with the Skittles is dead and buried.

Thankfully, many Pittsburghers -- of all races -- recognize this intersection of race and politics. There were two protests the day after the verdict (Thank you Commander Rashall Brackney for your cool head). The group, Pittsburgh for Trayvon, had a rally turned into a sit-in, turned into a sleep-in, turned into a visit to the missing mayor's home. They have issued a list of demands to city officials. You can see it here. And, on Saturday there was a rally Downtown.

I'll leave you with an amazing poem by Paradise Gray which was performed at some of the above events. It somehow manages to hit every damn mark:

On being terrorized

Just a reminder that between the carnage caused by the terrorists in Boston and from the horrible industrial accident in Texas in a substandard plant located right by a school and nursing home this week, it's actually the 'NO' vote from the fucking cowards in the Senate which will have the longest lasting impact and lead by far to the most deaths and grave injuries.

Tweet of the Day

In 5yrs when you can't buy a gun b/c a doctor says ur crazy for believing in a resurrected Jesus, thank @sentoomey
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) April 11, 2013

(h/t to Spork)

Video of the Day

They're coming to get you, Barbara!

  I don't know where some of these gun zealots live, but I suspect that they didn't get the memo from the CDC that we aren't actually facing a zombie apocalypse.

The way this women talks about needing to defend screaming babies at home from "three, four, five violent attackers," you'd think she was living in Zombie Central. And, not in the world of the shambling slow pokes of "Night of the Living Dead" either, but the manic speed demons of a "28 Days Later" for that matter.

Sadly, the fact is that if a woman is going to be killed in her home, it's most likely going to be by her intimate partner who, no doubt, knows where the gun is and is turning it against her. No outsiders -- zombie or otherwise -- needed!

 

Vs.

John Lott on Mike Pintek's KDKA Airspace

Discredited firearms "researcher" is now being interviewed in Mike Pintek's show on KDKA.

He just said that there's been a lot of research that "confirmed" his "more guns = less crime" thesis.

Too bad this is wrong.

The National Academy of Science published in 2004 a bood called "Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review" and Chapter 6 is devoted to Lott's thesis.  And what did they find?  From the Executive Summary we learn that:

...no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws decreases or increases violent crime.

And then there's this from Johns Hopkins this year:

A large body of research has been conducted to investigate the effect of RTC laws on violence. Most notably, research led by John Lott, Jr. suggests that RTC laws have led to significant reductions in violent crime.  But the research showing crime-reducing effects of RTC laws, including Lott’s, has been carefully reviewed by a National Council of Research panel of experts, and others, and has been found to have serious flaws.

And yet he got on Pintek's air today.

Tells you alot about Pintek, doesn't it?