Obama's Blood Ballet, Plus Things that Make Me Wonder

Obama uses grieving mothers as props. 

Also, I would like to remind the NRA AGAIN that they did not help take out Harry Reid in 2010.  This should not even come to a vote.

Eighty or ninety percent of Americans believe there should be background checks?  Probably ninety percent (or more) of gun sales have background checks.  Every firearm sold by a licensed dealer already requires a background check.

The question should be what percentage supports requiring background checks for selling your old shotgun to your brother-in-law?  What percentage of Americans believes you need to run a background check on your daughter before giving her a revolver to keep in her nightstand?  What is the percentage who support universal background checks?  And, of those who do, what percentage understands that such a process requires a universal firearms registry?

How many people understand that they will be criminals if this law is passed, and they refuse to register their firearms?  We are not talking slippery slopes.  Universal background checks are simply unenforceable without registration, and, to be meaningful, such registration would have to include every firearm in America.

Meanwhile, the late and unlamented murderer of children in Newtown and the excuse for this nonsense '' ... had accumulated an arsenal that included pistols, rifles, revolvers, shotguns, swords, knives and other "cutting instruments."

The malicious murderer of unarmed and undefended schoolchildren

... shot his way into the building and killed 20 children and six adults with a Bushmaster .223 caliber model XM15 rifle. The Bushmaster was loaded with a 30-round capacity magazine. Fourteen rounds were in the magazine when the Bushmaster was recovered by police. There was one round in the chamber.

The shooter took his own life with a single shot from a Glock 10 mm handgun. He also had a loaded 9mm Sig Sauer P226 handgun with him. He also had three magazines for the Bushmaster, each containing 30 rounds, and additional ammo for the handguns.

When the carnage was over, police counted 154 spent bullet casings.

Emphasis is mine.

Something is interesting here:  ... [The murderer's] deadly rampage took no longer than five minutes from the time [the murderer] forced his way into the school to when he turned a gun on himself ...

How many magazine changes in five minutes?  Even if the punk emptied three 30-round magazines and half of a fourth, that is 105 shell casings.  However, it doesn't actually say that the other three magazines were emptied, it just gives details on the magazine in the Bushmaster.  He killed himself with the Glock 10mm.  Did he kill any of the victims with handgun rounds?  Also, though I take it to mean he had three mags in addition to the one in the gun, you could read that as three total.  In fact, assuming that the journalist here is a native English speaker, it kind of sounds like those three additional magazines still had 30 rounds in them.  That would be ... different.

Read the article and see what you think.

No matter what, at minimum, roughly a third of those shell casings would had to have come from handguns.  I would guess that it was probably more than that.  In any case, I suspect that it is inaccurate to say that he killed 26 people with a .223 rifle.  He probably used the rifle mainly for entry and for shooting the adults at longer ranges.  This was not a strong, healthy young man.  His picture reminds me of H.P. Lovecraft -- except less robust.  He was depending on the Bushmaster to keep the adults away.  (Murderer's image from Yahoo story link above.  Lovecraft image from www.listal.com)

Once he had brutally gunned down the teacher who tried to keep him out of her classroom, he had access to a huddled mass of shocked, terrified, and immobile little children who had, tragically, been herded by the teacher into a confined space.  It was too convenient.  The range was too short.  The punk would have pulled the handguns and begun firing at almost point-blank range. 

Consider the time frame.  The punk forces his way into a building.  He starts shooting while still in the halls.  The administrators call the police.  He had to get down the halls and past the teachers.  I can't see that taking less that a minute and a half.  After that, even averaging a round per second with magazine changes which had to have taken place, three minutes minimum, and our time is almost up.

Assuming the very best possible response from the police and patrol cars in the immediate vicinity, there are no officers in the building at this point.  Are the sirens audible yet?  They won't be to the punk.  He has been firing non-stop for three solid minutes in a closed room.  He couldn't hear thunder.  Was he wearing plugs?  That would be bizarre, but it wouldn't change the fact that he wouldn't be able to hear.  Maybe he was wearing high-end electronic hearing protection.  This was a trained shooter and wearing hearing protection would be a habit with him.  But, if he wasn't using electronic muffs which suppress the louder sounds and can amplify quieter ones, there's no way he stopped because he heard the sirens.  He clearly wasn't out of ammunition.

Were all the babies he could see dead at that point?  Perhaps he had expended his frustration and anger.  Perhaps the reality of what he had done, the unutterable horror of it broke through to whatever ephemeral humanity remained in his vile soul.