Damon Daniel: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019

09 Friday Aug 2019

Tags

gun violence, guns, Kansas City, MCC, missouri, NRA, Penn Valley, town hall

“…Raise your hand if you’ve lost a loved one to violence. Just raise your hand. Keep your hand up. Raise your hand if you know someone who’s lost a loved one. Keep your hand up. Look around. Just look around…” [almost everyone in the room of around 250 people had a raised hand]

Wednesday evening on the Penn Valley campus of the Metropolitan Community Colleges Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D) hosted a town hall of sorts on gun violence. The community event included elected officials, law enforcement officials, and leaders of community groups.

Damon Daniel, Ad-Hoc Group Against Crime.

Damon Daniel, Ad-Hoc Group Against Crime:

…I think it’s important for us to stop and recognize the fact that you don’t know what people are going through. And when you talk about the issue of violence people are walking around the city, next to you, they’re your neighbors, they’re the folks that wait on you at the cash register, these are the folks that teach in your classroom, these are the students in your classrooms, these are folks at your pharmacy, these are the folks that pull up at the light next to you that are hurting. And as some people say ‘hurt people sometimes hurt people.’ But healed people heal people as well…

…The vision that I have is a vision where people, especially young people can grow up with an understanding of the value of forgiveness. And that they know and understand how to resolve conflict without violence. I have a vision that one day Congress will pass common sense gun legislation that puts people before profits…

Previously:

On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker (D): On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D): Press Availability – On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 9, 2019)

Judy Sherry: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 9, 2019)

Rashid Junaid: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 9 2019)

Rashid Junaid: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019

09 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by Michael Bersin in Town Hall

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Aim 4Peace, gun violence, guns, Kansas City, MCC, missouri, NRA, Penn Valley, Rahid Junaid, town hall

“…I see so many mothers crying on crime scenes, ‘they killed my baby’. But we have to tell the truth, your baby didn’t know how to resolve conflicts. Your baby can’t jut hit somebody and expect their response to be, ‘okay, that’s okay’. We have to teach our young people conflict resolution…”

Rashid Junaid, Aim 4Peace.

Rashid Junaid, Aim 4Peace:

…You can’t run from it. You gotta deal with this. Today. [applause] So they first shot at experiences of the trauma that we see happening in our community, we gotta deal with it. We gotta make sure we get the proper help to these families…

…So I’m saying conflict resolution. I’m saying trauma informed care. And I’m saying the third thing, it ain’t free…

Previously:

On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker (D): On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D): Press Availability – On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 9, 2019)

Judy Sherry: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 9, 2019)

Judy Sherry: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019

09 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by Michael Bersin in Town Hall

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Grandparents Against Gun Violence, gun violence, guns, Judy Sherry, Kansas City, MCC, missouri, NRA, Penn Valley, town hall

“…After Sandy Hook we were all quite sure that something would be done. Now is the time. Something would be done. And nothing was done…”

Judy Sherry, Grandparents Against Gun Violence.

Judy Sherry, Grandparents Against Gun Violence:

…We’re already hearing the usual responses from those unwilling to face the facts about gun violence. Of course, mental health and video games ae to blame for these horrendous events. And background checks simply don’t work. But data tells us something different. What we know is just four percent of gun crimes are committed by people with known diagnosed mental illness. Now we would certainly say that anybody who commits one of these crimes is, at that moment, mentally unfit. But these, this is not an invasion, not an issue of people all over the country afflicted with mental health issues that are causing the gun violence. We know video games, they’re played the world over. Yet we know that Americans are twenty-two times more likely to be killed with a gun than people in any other developed nation. That’s a crime. I’m beginning to wonder if we get to say ‘developed nation’ too much longer. That is a crime. And background checks? No, they don’t always work. But speed limits don’t always work either. I’m here to tell you that. But we don’t say, ‘let’s not have speed limits anymore’ because some people break the law. You just do it…

Previously:

On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker (D): On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D): Press Availability – On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 9, 2019)

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas: On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019

09 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by Michael Bersin in Town Hall

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

gun violence, guns, Kansas City, Mayor, MCC, missouri, NRA, Penn Valley, Quinton Lucas, town hall

“…What they’re trying to do is tell you, stop worrying about guns. What they’re trying to do is tell you, nah, nah, you’re not empowered to make a difference…”

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.

Mayor Lucas:

…What you are seeing on the streets, and I know there are a lot of victims, there are a lot of people touched, but I know in the community I’m from you are seeing nothing less, nothing short of a mass genocide. Right? You are seeing nothing short of a devaluing of lives, particularly in black lives. And what we’re seeing in our community is consistently, year after year, is people that are trying to tell us that doesn’t matter. That it doesn’t need to change. What I’m saying right now is, no, it does. It does…

…You know what I want the next group of people to say [in the future]? To say, wow, it’s different now…

Previously:

On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker (D): On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D): Press Availability – On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019 (August 8, 2019)

On Gun Violence – Kansas City – August 7, 2019

08 Thursday Aug 2019

Posted by Michael Bersin in Town Hall

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

5th Congressional District, Emanuel Cleaver, gun violence, guns, Kansas City, MCC, missouri, NRA, Penn Valley, town hall

Yesterday evening on the Penn Valley campus of the Metropolitan Community Colleges Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D) hosted a town hall of sorts on gun violence. The community event included elected officials, law enforcement officials, and leaders of community groups. Approximately 250 individuals and members of activist groups from the Kansas City metropolitan area attended. Media from the Kansas City metropolitan area covered the two hour long town hall.

“Do something”

“We must stop killing each other”

Patty Lewis (left), a Democratic Party candidate in the 25th Legislative District.

Representative Ashley Bland Manlove (D).

Patty Lewis (left), a Democratic Party candidate in the 25th legislative District, and Elad Gross (right), a Democratic Party candidate for Missouri Attorney General.

Representative Richard Brown (D).

Kansas City, Missouri Police Department Chief Richard Smith (left), Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D) (center), and Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker (D) (right).

Speakers included Representative Cleaver (D), MCC Chancellor Dr. Kimberly Beatty, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, Kansas City Police Chief Richard Smith, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker, and the leadership (and members) of Moms Demand Action – Missouri, Grandparents against Gun Violence, Mothers in Charge, March for Our Lives – KC, Aim 4Peace, and the Ad-Hoc Group Against Crime.

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): try again

05 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

4th Congressional District, California, Dayton, El Paso, Gilroy, gun violence, missouri, NRA, Ohio, Texas, Vicky Hartzler

In 2017 Japan had one of the lowest rates of death by gun violence in the world, 0.04 per 100,000 people. In the same year the rate of death by gun violence in the United States was 4.43 per 100,000 people. The data excluded deaths in armed conflict and by self harm.

Japan, among several other countries, has a higher per capita spending rate on video games than the United States.

In 2012:

Ten-country comparison suggests there’s little or no link between video games and gun murders
By Max Fisher
December 17, 2012

…video game consumption, based on international data, does not seem to correlate at all with an increase in gun violence. That countries where video games are popular also tend to be some of the world’s safest (probably because these countries are stable and developed, not because they have video games). And we also have learned, once again, that America’s rate of firearm-related homicides is extremely high for the developed world…

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r) [2016 file photo].

A statement from Representative Vicky Hartzler (r):

Hartzler Statement on Weekend Shootings
August 5, 2019 Press Release

“The murders in Texas and Ohio this weekend are symptoms of a culture of violence and anger that is gripping America. From entertainment and video games that consume the attention of our young people to murder in our cities, violence is pervasive in America and must be addressed. We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the glorification of violence and murder in our society today, and our efforts to address mental health issues have just begun. My husband and I are deeply saddened at the loss of life and grieve for the families of the victims.”

“…From entertainment and video games that consume the attention of our young people to murder in our cities, violence is pervasive in America and must be addressed…”

Nope, it’s not video games. What could it be?

In a study published in 2000 (using data from 1993 and 1994):

Firearm Availability and Homicide Rates across 26 High Income Countries [pdf]
David Hemenway, PhD, and Matthew Miller, MD, MPH, ScD

Of all developed nations, the United States has the most privately owned guns, and the highest rates of homicide. Approximately two thirds of murder victims in the United States are killed with a gun.

[….]

Table 1 Homicide Rates for 26 High-Income Countries

Country Year Population (in thousands) Total Homicide Rate per 100,000 Suicides with a Firearm (%)

United States 1993 257,783 9.93 60.9
[….]
Japan 1994 124,069 0.62 0.2

[….]

…Results from our simple regressions of 26 developed nations show a highly significant positive correlation between total homicide rates and both proxies for gun availability…

…In our analysis, we find, for industrialized countries, a very strong and highly significant association between gun availability levels and total homicide rates. The relationship holds even though the number of observations is fairly small (n = 26) and the measures of gun availability are only proxies. The relationship does not seem to be attributable entirely to the United States—which has more guns and more homicides than other developed nations—because the results often hold when the United States is excluded from the analysis. More guns are associated with more homicides across industrialized countries.

“…We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the glorification of violence and murder in our society today…”

There’s glorification going on all right. Take a look at the NRA.

Try again.

Today was not a good day to be a stooge or useful idiot for Vladimir Putin

16 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

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Tags

Collusion, Department of Justice, Donald Trump, Maria Butina, NRA, Putin, Russia, Treason

When it rains it pours.

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, July 16, 2018

Russian National Charged in Conspiracy to Act as an Agent of the Russian Federation Within the United States

A criminal complaint was unsealed today in the District of Columbia charging a Russian national with conspiracy to act as an agent of the Russian Federation within the United States without prior notification to the Attorney General.
The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jessie K. Liu, and Nancy McNamara, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office.
Maria Butina, 29, a Russian citizen residing in Washington D.C., was arrested on July 15, 2018, in Washington, D.C., and made her initial appearance this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was ordered held pending a hearing set for July 18, 2018.
According to the affidavit in support of the complaint, from as early as 2015 and continuing through at least February 2017, Butina worked at the direction of a high-level official in the Russian government who was previously a member of the legislature of the Russian Federation and later became a top official at the Russian Central Bank. This Russian official was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control in April 2018.
The court filings detail the Russian official’s and Butina’s efforts for Butina to act as an agent of Russia inside the United States by developing relationships with U.S. persons and infiltrating organizations having influence in American politics, for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation. The filings also describe certain actions taken by Butina to further this effort during multiple visits from Russia and, later, when she entered and resided in the United States on a student visa. The filings allege that she undertook her activities without officially disclosing the fact that she was acting as an agent of Russian government, as required by law.
The charges in criminal complaints are merely allegations and every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The maximum penalty for conspiracy is five years. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. If convicted of any offense, a defendant’s sentence will be determined by the court based on the advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The investigation into this matter was conducted by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. The case is being prosecuted by the National Security Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

There’s some very interesting stuff in the affidavit:

[….]
7. U.S. Person 1 is a United States citizen and an American political operative. BUTINA established contact with U.S. Person 1 in Moscow in or around 2013. U.S. person 1 worked with Butina to jointly arrange introductions to U.S. persons having influence in American politics, including an organization promoting gun rights (hereinafter “GUN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION”), for the purpose of advancing the agenda of the Russian Federation.
[….]

I can’t wait for the explanation from the “gun rights organization”.

Pass the popcorn.

There but for the grace of…

26 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by Michael Bersin in Resist

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

#resist, gun violence, guns, Kansas City, March for Our Lives, missouri, NRA, protest

“We stand with Parkland”

Saturday in Kansas City. Theis Park.

Previously:

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – in Theis Park on Saturday, March 24, 2018 (March 20, 2018)

Another sign for the times (March 23, 2018)

March for Our Lives – Warrensburg, Missouri – March 24, 2018 (March 24, 2017)

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – Theis Park – March 24, 2018 – signs (March 24, 2018)

Are we tired of 2nd Amendment overkill (and I do mean kill) yet? (March 24, 2018)

Until this changes… (March 25, 2018)

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – Theis Park – March 24, 2018 – more signs (March 25, 2018)

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – Theis Park – March 24, 2018 – getting there (March 25, 2018)

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – Theis Park – March 24, 2018 – getting there

25 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by Michael Bersin in Resist

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#resist, gun violence, guns, Kansas City, March for Our Lives, missouri, NRA

5,000? 6,000? 7,000? 10,000? A media consensus appears to be around 6,000. Who knows?

There where a lot of people at yesterday’s Kansas City March for Our Lives in Theis Park. With limited or no nearby parking those attending had to find something on the Plaza, at UMKC, or in adjacent neigborhoods and then walk to the park.

And so they did, from all four corners:

“Why are your guns more important than our kids?”

“Marching so my 2 year old won’t need active shooter drills.”

“Bullets are not school supplies.”

“Every vote counts.”

“Thank you, young Americans.”

“Protect people, not guns.”

Previously:

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – in Theis Park on Saturday, March 24, 2018 (March 20, 2018)

Another sign for the times (March 23, 2018)

March for Our Lives – Warrensburg, Missouri – March 24, 2018 (March 24, 2017)

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – Theis Park – March 24, 2018 – signs (March 24, 2018)

Are we tired of 2nd Amendment overkill (and I do mean kill) yet? (March 24, 2018)

Until this changes… (March 25, 2018)

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – Theis Park – March 24, 2018 – more signs (March 25, 2018)

March for Our Lives – Kansas City – Theis Park – March 24, 2018 – more signs

25 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by Michael Bersin in Resist, Roy Blunt, US Senate

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

#resist, gun violence, guns, Kansas City, March for Our Lives, missouri, NRA, protest, signs, U.S. Senate

More signs from yesterday’s March for Our lives in Kansas City at Theis Park.

5,000? 7,000? 10,000? There appears to be a media consensus estimate of 6,000. Who could tell? It was a lot of people. At a protest event organized by kids.

A badass mom: