The Least We Can Do

If we're not going to strengthen background checks or even keep guns out of the hands of people who are on the terror watch list, then can we do this?

Even before today's tragic shooting in San Bernardino, pressure was building in Washington to overturn an amendment, backed by the National Rifle Association, that has barred federal research on gun violence for nearly 20 years. More than 2,000 physicians, dozens of Democratic lawmakers, and even the author of the amendment have all called on Congress to once again allow gun violence to be investigated as a public health issue.

It's a rhetorical question. I know the answer.

 "We dedicate $240 million a year on traffic safety research, more than $233 million a year on food safety, and $331 million a year on the effects of tobacco, but almost nothing on firearms that kill 33,000 Americans annually,"

From my new go-to source of info on all things gun related:

Guns kill 32,000 Americans a year, but not one penny is given to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to find out why.

Victims of gun violence can thank the National Rifle Association for squeezing off that funding.

The NRA began lobbying Congress in the 1990s to limit the CDC’s funding after the agency gave financial backing to an independent study that found that keeping a gun in the home was strongly associated with an increased risk of homicide.

Update on the search for Jihadi Wayne: it's day 24.

 

Mark Rosenberg, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, didn’t mince words about the NRA’s bullying in a 2012 interview with an Atlanta paper.

“The scientific community has been terrorized by the NRA,” Rosenberg told the Journal-Constitution.

Give Me the Syrian Refugees

I know, I've probably used that title before. The 3 percenters are a new one on me, though. Not following SPLC as closely as I should.

They are known as "Three Percenters," followers of a movement that has rallied against gun control efforts nationwide, patrolled the U.S. border with Mexico and recently begun confronting Muslim Americans.

Followers describe themselves as armed "patriots." But some of their leaders have been blamed for threats and vandalism against lawmakers, police and Muslims. One prominent member from Phoenix prompted an FBI alert in November after posting an expletive-filled Facebook video saying he was headed to upstate New York with guns to challenge a Muslim group. A Three Percenter in suburban Dallas led a mosque protest by armed, masked men that same month.

Hopefully, Homeland Security has time to follow these guys as well as the potential Muslim bad guys.

"We will interfere with every move they (Muslims) make towards taking over our country," Dallas protest organizer David Wright said in response to questions the Associated Press sent to his personal Facebook page. "We are ready to fight back if they come at us violently."

What a hero he is.

Followers appear to consist mainly of white, male, conservative gun owners who believe the nation has been pushed to a tipping point by socialists in government aiming to disarm them, strip their constitutional rights and take their property, according to groups that track anti-government movements.

Glens Falls Liberal Media vs. The Donald

Who's your money on? Anyway the Post Star decided today was a good day to give Trump an extra 5 percentage points among local wingnuts.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if our warring political parties settled their differences and came to together to save the country from a billionaire businessman who made it clear this week his views are “un-American?”

The answer is no because the rest of the party is just as vile as he is, only in different ways. 

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said that Trump’s proposal to ban Muslim immigrants “goes against everything we stand for and believe in as a country.”

You know like torture and not granting the right of habeas corpus.

In news of other NY State media: credit where credit is due to the Daily News. I probably disagree with them on 90 plus per cent of what they write. But when you're right, you're right.

A New York City tabloid is continuing its battle with the National Rifle Association, calling NRA honcho Wayne LaPierre “Jihadi Wayne” on the cover of Monday morning’s edition for opposing sensible gun laws that could prevent terrorists from purchasing high-powered weapons.

The New York Daily News screaming headline “Nowhere To Hide, Jihadhi Wayne” on Monday morning comes on the heels of a similar headline last Wednesday reading: “NRA’s Sick Jihad.”

At issue is the NRA using their overwhelming influence with lawmakers to block a law that would ban anyone on the terrorist watch list from purchasing a gun.

Hometown Rifles

Glens Falls and the surrounding towns are pretty small, so we take our gun excitement where we can find it.

Police swarmed an area in front of Jackson Heights Elementary School on Thursday afternoon after someone spotted two guns in a car parked in front of the school. The driver of the car was later charged.

She was not charged with driving while stupid which would have been probably the most appropriate charge. A confession here: I was young and stupid at one time as well and did way stupider things.

She was identified as Gracie M. Guilder, 23, of Glens Falls, and was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, and having a loaded gun in a vehicle, a violation.

Glens Falls Police Detective Lt. Peter Casertino said the guns -- a .22-caliber rifle and muzzleloader -- were being moved from the back seat to the front to make room for a child who was being picked up from school, as two younger children sat in the back seat.

At least none of the kids shot her. I am offering to represent her in court. I believe she was just following the advice of local sheriffs and going armed everywhere. What good does it do to have a gun if it's not loaded? 

Thank you, Gracie Guilder for the excuse to play the most excellent genius of Paul Weller. 

Plants That Are for the Birds

Gonna just say no to guns today. Been avoiding Trump mostly anyway. Besides, Shaw has that covered pretty well. Happy Trump Hump Day? Bring on the plants.

Once insects and other summer foods are gone, birds begin eating more fruit. That explains the flocks of robins now gorging on the small fruits still hanging from my flowering crab apple and mountain ash trees. Both have persistent fruits, fruits that last into fall and winter. They will lure a horde of varied birds, including marauding bands of cedar waxwings, with their Zorro-like black masks and wings tipped with red. 

Depending on your location and the availability of berries – by “berry” I mean any small, fleshy fruit – you may entice dozens of bird species. Bluebirds, blue jays, catbirds, chickadees, finches, grosbeaks, mockingbirds, northern cardinals, orioles, phoebes, tanagers, vireos, warblers, and woodpeckers are just a few of the birds that turn to eating fruit when the mercury drops. 

I have my own fruit trees and shrubs: 3 apple, 2 pear, 2 blueberry, 2 raspberry, 3 aronia and 2 cherry. No partridge in any of them. Yet. For the birds I have a crab apple and june berry that they are welcome to. There are also many varied perennials. I had planned to add some Lonicera this year to attract hummingbirds. I have a Trumpet vine that is still a year or so away from producing, hopefully, copious trumpets. Reading this article, I've decided, at least, to also add an arrowwood viburnum. 

 

Most birds eat an array of berries, and most plants attract an array of birds. Dogwoods alone attract nearly 100 bird species, as do sumacs.

Yes, probably another dogwood or two as well. Have a small one now. 

The experts at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in New York (www.birds.cornell.edu) recommend choosing native plants, which have coevolved with native wildlife. They are the most appealing to the birds living in and migrating through your neighborhood.

Shout out to Fiddlehead Creek Nursery if anyone local stumbles in here. 

Cornell link.

Better look for some Mountain Ash, too.

You can’t add too many fruiting plants to your garden, but birds can eat too much fruit, it seems. Drunken birds are an oft-reported sight in winter when fruits may ferment. It’s common enough that in 2014 officials in Canada’s Yukon had to set up “drunk tanks” for waxwings that overindulged on the red berries of mountain ashes.

Should Have Gone to the US, Bruv

So, if this guy had been here he could have done some real damage.

The stabbing of a man in the London metro in what police described as a terrorist attack provoked a defiant riposte from a bystander that has struck a chord in Britain: "You ain't no Muslim, bruv".

The 29 year old assailant shouted "This is for Syria" as he attacked a 56 year old man and threatened others before being detained by police who used a stun gun, witnesses said.

I realize the people who were wounded likely consider it to have been serious and I am concerned for them. England has annual gun deaths in the hundreds, though. I'm sure the NRA would love to propagandize them into arming up to combat incidents like this. 

BTW, if the bruv had been in our fair land, the majority party in Congress would have been more than glad to allow him to have been armed. 

Senate Republicans voted against barring suspected terrorists, felons and the mentally ill from getting guns on Thursday afternoon, parroting National Rifle Association arguments that doing so would strip some innocent people of their constitutional rights to gun access just a day after yet another massacre on U.S. soil.

Yeeha! Land of the free and the home of the armed. 

Some Ideas for Stopping the Insanity

Just want to put a link up to a piece at CSM.

While it often is left out of political rhetoric, America has seen dramatic successes in quelling violent crime in the past century – from the elimination of lynchings to decreases in domestic violence and child abuse, from declines in cop shootings and gun homicides, which have dropped 49 percent since a peak in 1993, according to Pew. Considering progress made in reducing other forms of violence, Americans and their institutions aren’t quite as powerless as it may sometimes seem to, if not eliminate, dramatically curb what’s become a numbing kind of new normal.

At the same time, it’s clear that any broad-based attempt to address mass shootings as a societal ill will have to involve several factors. Chief among them is compromise among political partisans and a greater willingness to accept advances in science, forensics, mental health screening, and gun safety features.

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