From a video on the scene, the shots (if I'm hearing them correctly) sound like they are coming from a semi-automatic weapon[1].
Given that the mayor has stated that the weapon was acquired legally[2], I wouldn't be quick to rule out an AR-15 or similar kind of "assault" weapon. This certainly wasn't a bolt-action rifle (again, if I'm hearing the right things from the video).
1. After Uvalde, it's refreshing to see public safety officers running toward the danger instead of away from it.
2. As for blaming the media for not reporting the weapon type, have you ruled out the police themselves not yet releasing that information? The police spokesman is under no obligation to answer every question posed about an active investigation completely or at all.
3. Note that this wasn't even the FIRST mass shooting in Chicago yesterday. We kicked off the day just after midnight with one on the South Side[1]. If you want to talk about negative space in (national) reporting, that's probably a more fruitful avenue than the weapon type used by the Highland Park shooter.
#2: I have not ruled it out. I find it difficult to believe that the media would not ask and that if the police responded with “high-powered rifle” and nothing else that the reporter would not ask for clarification and report that the police are not saying. I may be wrong (as I wrote) but it would be a break from previous reporting.
Why even try Chris? Two take a ways, from the article (leaving the "monkey washing" out of the discussion. 1). It's the media's fault (with the rejoinder, "i could be wrong"). 2). More guns, if only we could get more guns on the streets we would all be safer. (Sorry, just my take on how the right sees solving the problem).
On a related point, apparently this jackass shooter has been on websites for years who delve and dabble in maniacs nattering about mass shootings. Who even knew they existed? And now that we do know, what are we going to do about them. Free speech isn't free when it results in dead people at the hands of those playing keyboard cowboys.
Nobody has the right to commit violence. Then again, if everyone who does memes on Discord (or 4chan or Twitter) was a serial killer in training, we’d have thousands of killers. We don’t, so picking through the haystack for needles is hard. It’s easy to say in hindsight “we should have known. The signs are all there.” But the signs are there for tens of thousands who don’t go out and kill people. How can we tell the difference? Either we limit actual free speech because it’s asinine or hateful or disagreeable, or we take guns from anyone whose rhetoric is “janky.” IF we can identify who is behind the keyboard. It’s hard.
Jul 5, 2022·edited Jul 5, 2022Liked by Chris J. Karr
I hate the word hindsight Steve, literally. Here's why; there is no hindsight, in the next weeks and months we'll hear and see more mass murders across the country. More families will wake one day and their lives will either be lost or ruined forevermore. We know this...and yet we do nothing.
What was most disturbing in this mornings article was this; does it really make a rat's ass worth of difference what the gun was that left 6 people dead in the streets of Highland Park? The simple reality is they are dead.
It has become terrifyingly apparent, this is now just business as usual. There are so many analogies that could be drawn about how we would respond if people were slaughtered week in and week out, and how we would take action to find solutions. In the case of gun violence, we point to the first or second amendment and say "oh well, that's just the price of freedom." One hell of a price tag.
I guess as long as its not one of your family members it's easy to be so cavalier. Nope, i haven' lost anyone to gun violence, i'm just, like so many. tired of hearing about thoughts and prayers. They don't bring anyone back, they just have to learn to live with the misery our "freedom" brings us.
That's exactly my point. It makes no difference at all what gun was used. The fact is someone was plotting mass murder for weeks, assembling an arsenal to carry it out, and despite many signs of mental illness, his family and our toxic online culture stood by and ignored it. Government can't police our lives or our loved ones lives. Anyone who tells you that is selling lies. We need to fix broken things at a very fundamental level. Perhaps total gun controllers are right. The generation we've raised doesn't deserve the freedoms of the Bill of Rights. They don't know how to safeguard it. They can't be trusted with guns, social media, or running a government. We need to start over, or we will be forced to when society crumbles in bloodshed. Or maybe we should start paying attention to what our kids (and grown kids) are doing with their time.
"It makes no difference at all what gun was used."
If that's true, then gun owners who argue that they need all sorts of new kinds of firearms that are innovations since the Founding should be content with basic weapons for hunting, self defense, and sport. If the kind of gun is irrelevant in light of the shooter's intent, why argue so strenuously for access to handguns released after the six-shooter and semi-automatic rifles after the classic bolt loaders?
That's because the type of gun DOES matter. Maybe not so much in terms of preventing someone from being killed in a situation like this, but more so in keeping the the number of killed or injured someoneS down in an already tragic circumstance. We may be unable to keep someone with the intent to kill from shooting six people with basic weapons, but we can keep them from shooting thirty people by limiting the numbers and kinds of weapons available to them.
By pretending that there's no real difference between the 22-caliber rifle used for shooting squirrels and targets and whatever the killer used in Highland Park (and the AR-15s that school shooter used in Uvalde), we're just lowering the barrier to being able to commit these atrocities significantly. There's a reason why these murderers are choosing these weapons, regardless of whether we want to admit it or not.
(And I'm still looking into the specific type of weapon used. My wife managed to break bones in both of her ankles this weekend, so my evening was spent in and around the local urgent care center yesterday.)
It's not my job to figure it out, but here is where hindsight is helpful. We know the crime bill from 1994 changed the dynamic in the country. With it's sunset in 2004, the massive number of gun sales exploded. There is debate over the actual impact of the bill., but clearly it made a difference, especially in the number of AR type weapons out there.
What we also know is this: The right harangues about if only there were more guns, we would be stopping the bad guys before it happens. You know, open carry and all. If the solution is, more guns, why are we going in the wrong direction? You can look at the stats as well as i. Since 2004 , when the bill sunset, the number of guns in this country has grown, not by a little, but staggeringly in number and scope of what types of weapons. And, there have been more mass shootings.
I guess i could come out of retirement and try and fix the problem, said with a smirk. Much like the vane your question was asked in Jay. Sorry, because we both know there are no easy answers. I would hope we both could admit doing nothing isn't a solution. The reality is the bill being passed will simply be a pimple on an elephants ass.
Gun manufacturers and the NRA own too many politicians to ever get serious about actions that will make any difference. Personally i would love to see dark money (on both sides of aisle) go away and elections be funded by tax dollars. caps on expenditures and strictly adhering to time lines on campaigns and elections would be a great starting place.
But hell, we'll never get there because raising money is big business for these guys, Normal people hate begging for dollars, but the folks in office these days are often there because of their ability to raise money. The problem isn't just about guns, but more about a system that doesn't work very well any longer.
Until then, articles like Steve's today and a thousand others across the country will just be the norm. If i have learned nothing else in life, when you do nothing, nothing gets done. Change is incremental and slow. The question really becomes, when is enough enough?
Steve, looks like it was an AR-15 style rifle. According to police, the gun that was used to shoot dozens of people on the Fourth of July was a Smith & Wesson M&P15 semiautomatic rifle.
From a video on the scene, the shots (if I'm hearing them correctly) sound like they are coming from a semi-automatic weapon[1].
Given that the mayor has stated that the weapon was acquired legally[2], I wouldn't be quick to rule out an AR-15 or similar kind of "assault" weapon. This certainly wasn't a bolt-action rifle (again, if I'm hearing the right things from the video).
[1] https://youtu.be/-lj8mMk-3pw?t=69
[2] https://www.foxnews.com/us/highland-park-mayor-robert-crimo-weapon-shooting
Could also be an SKS or other magazine-fed semi automatic.
I may be late to the party here, but it was a Smith & Wesson M&P15 AR-15-style rifle.[1]
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/7/6/23197100/highland-park-mass-shooting-gun-mith-wesson-mp15-semiautomatic-rifle-fourth-july-parade-robert-crimo
Or dozens of other semi-automatics.
Three other thoughts:
1. After Uvalde, it's refreshing to see public safety officers running toward the danger instead of away from it.
2. As for blaming the media for not reporting the weapon type, have you ruled out the police themselves not yet releasing that information? The police spokesman is under no obligation to answer every question posed about an active investigation completely or at all.
3. Note that this wasn't even the FIRST mass shooting in Chicago yesterday. We kicked off the day just after midnight with one on the South Side[1]. If you want to talk about negative space in (national) reporting, that's probably a more fruitful avenue than the weapon type used by the Highland Park shooter.
[1] https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/teen-17-among-5-wounded-in-mass-shooting-in-chicagos-parkway-gardens/2872706/
#2: I have not ruled it out. I find it difficult to believe that the media would not ask and that if the police responded with “high-powered rifle” and nothing else that the reporter would not ask for clarification and report that the police are not saying. I may be wrong (as I wrote) but it would be a break from previous reporting.
When I get a chance after my calls (and job) today, I'll see if anything useful was said in any of the press briefings.
Why even try Chris? Two take a ways, from the article (leaving the "monkey washing" out of the discussion. 1). It's the media's fault (with the rejoinder, "i could be wrong"). 2). More guns, if only we could get more guns on the streets we would all be safer. (Sorry, just my take on how the right sees solving the problem).
On a related point, apparently this jackass shooter has been on websites for years who delve and dabble in maniacs nattering about mass shootings. Who even knew they existed? And now that we do know, what are we going to do about them. Free speech isn't free when it results in dead people at the hands of those playing keyboard cowboys.
Nobody has the right to commit violence. Then again, if everyone who does memes on Discord (or 4chan or Twitter) was a serial killer in training, we’d have thousands of killers. We don’t, so picking through the haystack for needles is hard. It’s easy to say in hindsight “we should have known. The signs are all there.” But the signs are there for tens of thousands who don’t go out and kill people. How can we tell the difference? Either we limit actual free speech because it’s asinine or hateful or disagreeable, or we take guns from anyone whose rhetoric is “janky.” IF we can identify who is behind the keyboard. It’s hard.
I hate the word hindsight Steve, literally. Here's why; there is no hindsight, in the next weeks and months we'll hear and see more mass murders across the country. More families will wake one day and their lives will either be lost or ruined forevermore. We know this...and yet we do nothing.
What was most disturbing in this mornings article was this; does it really make a rat's ass worth of difference what the gun was that left 6 people dead in the streets of Highland Park? The simple reality is they are dead.
It has become terrifyingly apparent, this is now just business as usual. There are so many analogies that could be drawn about how we would respond if people were slaughtered week in and week out, and how we would take action to find solutions. In the case of gun violence, we point to the first or second amendment and say "oh well, that's just the price of freedom." One hell of a price tag.
I guess as long as its not one of your family members it's easy to be so cavalier. Nope, i haven' lost anyone to gun violence, i'm just, like so many. tired of hearing about thoughts and prayers. They don't bring anyone back, they just have to learn to live with the misery our "freedom" brings us.
That's exactly my point. It makes no difference at all what gun was used. The fact is someone was plotting mass murder for weeks, assembling an arsenal to carry it out, and despite many signs of mental illness, his family and our toxic online culture stood by and ignored it. Government can't police our lives or our loved ones lives. Anyone who tells you that is selling lies. We need to fix broken things at a very fundamental level. Perhaps total gun controllers are right. The generation we've raised doesn't deserve the freedoms of the Bill of Rights. They don't know how to safeguard it. They can't be trusted with guns, social media, or running a government. We need to start over, or we will be forced to when society crumbles in bloodshed. Or maybe we should start paying attention to what our kids (and grown kids) are doing with their time.
"It makes no difference at all what gun was used."
If that's true, then gun owners who argue that they need all sorts of new kinds of firearms that are innovations since the Founding should be content with basic weapons for hunting, self defense, and sport. If the kind of gun is irrelevant in light of the shooter's intent, why argue so strenuously for access to handguns released after the six-shooter and semi-automatic rifles after the classic bolt loaders?
That's because the type of gun DOES matter. Maybe not so much in terms of preventing someone from being killed in a situation like this, but more so in keeping the the number of killed or injured someoneS down in an already tragic circumstance. We may be unable to keep someone with the intent to kill from shooting six people with basic weapons, but we can keep them from shooting thirty people by limiting the numbers and kinds of weapons available to them.
By pretending that there's no real difference between the 22-caliber rifle used for shooting squirrels and targets and whatever the killer used in Highland Park (and the AR-15s that school shooter used in Uvalde), we're just lowering the barrier to being able to commit these atrocities significantly. There's a reason why these murderers are choosing these weapons, regardless of whether we want to admit it or not.
(And I'm still looking into the specific type of weapon used. My wife managed to break bones in both of her ankles this weekend, so my evening was spent in and around the local urgent care center yesterday.)
Since hindsight is not helpful, what is your suggestion moving forward to remedy these mass murders?
It's not my job to figure it out, but here is where hindsight is helpful. We know the crime bill from 1994 changed the dynamic in the country. With it's sunset in 2004, the massive number of gun sales exploded. There is debate over the actual impact of the bill., but clearly it made a difference, especially in the number of AR type weapons out there.
What we also know is this: The right harangues about if only there were more guns, we would be stopping the bad guys before it happens. You know, open carry and all. If the solution is, more guns, why are we going in the wrong direction? You can look at the stats as well as i. Since 2004 , when the bill sunset, the number of guns in this country has grown, not by a little, but staggeringly in number and scope of what types of weapons. And, there have been more mass shootings.
I guess i could come out of retirement and try and fix the problem, said with a smirk. Much like the vane your question was asked in Jay. Sorry, because we both know there are no easy answers. I would hope we both could admit doing nothing isn't a solution. The reality is the bill being passed will simply be a pimple on an elephants ass.
Gun manufacturers and the NRA own too many politicians to ever get serious about actions that will make any difference. Personally i would love to see dark money (on both sides of aisle) go away and elections be funded by tax dollars. caps on expenditures and strictly adhering to time lines on campaigns and elections would be a great starting place.
But hell, we'll never get there because raising money is big business for these guys, Normal people hate begging for dollars, but the folks in office these days are often there because of their ability to raise money. The problem isn't just about guns, but more about a system that doesn't work very well any longer.
Until then, articles like Steve's today and a thousand others across the country will just be the norm. If i have learned nothing else in life, when you do nothing, nothing gets done. Change is incremental and slow. The question really becomes, when is enough enough?
"God is great, beer is good, people are crazy." Country music is right again.
Steve, looks like it was an AR-15 style rifle. According to police, the gun that was used to shoot dozens of people on the Fourth of July was a Smith & Wesson M&P15 semiautomatic rifle.