Friday, June 03, 2022

Guns & gods & a modest mass shooting in Iowa

We'll learn more during a morning news conference today in Ames about the shooting in a megachurch parking lot there yesterday evening that left three dead, including the shooter.

But whatever the details of this incident may be, lessons learned elsewhere demonstrate the usefulness of some measures in the effort to reduce gun-related violence --- ban the sale to civilians of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; complicate the purchase process to ensure that angry men (and boys) --- shooters almost always are angry men (and boys) --- can't walk into a retail shop, buy a gun of any sort and walk out unchallenged with it.

What to do about the culture of death that permeates today's Republican party and its fundamentalist Christian allies? I'm not sure. Never under any circumstance casting a vote for a Republican candidate for anything is a reasonable rule that I've always followed. Take what you need from religion --- if you find something useful there --- but leave the rest alone is another.


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