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Neal Stiffelman's avatar

Thanks, man. I’m too angry to add anything more. Too sad.

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Kit Gruelle's avatar

Let's be crystal clear about Nikki Haley: When she was the governor of SC, her state, year in and year out, had the highest rate of domestic violence homicides in the country. Five years in a row. She called violence against women a "special interest issue" and wouldn't address it until SC got lots of negative press. Now she's running for president, and this one of her campaign photographs? I'm not at all surprised.

In July of 2002, Alan Gates went to the home of his ESTRANGED wife, Janet (she'd done the "right thing" and filed an order of protection against him) and waited for her to return home. His daughter Valerie and her friend Cordae stopped by with Cordae's 2-year old son. They were on their way to take him to a movie.

Gates herded them into the back bedroom and executed them one by one with his beloved .357. He then went into the bedroom, laid down, and went to sleep.

When Janet returned home, she saw his vehicle and called the sheriffs department. They sent deputies to her home to escort her inside. When they got in there, they found Gates and placed him under arrest for the restraining order violation. Janet walked into the back bedroom and found her daughter, Cordae and little Kendall, murdered in cold blood by Alan Gates. Obscene brutality.

At the sentencing hearing (Gates got 3 life sentences). the judge asked him if he had anything to say. He said, "You never can tell what one woman can drive a man to do."

A year later, one of Kendall's grandmothers, Fran Bumgarner, asked me to go with her to the DAs office to look at the crime scene photographs. She wanted to make sure Kendall was with his mom when he died.

I looked at them first. Fran wanted me to determine what photos she saw. She didn't see many of them. A two-year old doesn't stand a chance against a madman with a gun, but hey, according to the NRA/Republicans, I guess Kendall should have been packing heat on his way to the children's movie. I wonder what kind of gun they would recommend for a 2-year old?

We are way off the cliff. The bodies of people victimized by gun violence pile up day in and day out. Maniacs who have nothing to rely on intellectually, but who are told by the pro-gun freaks to just let their guns do the talking for them, are slaughtering people across the country every day.

The Republicans don't give two shits about the carnage, the suffering, and the heartache. They fetishize--in the extreme--guns and refuse to hear FACTS. Gun violence is much worse in red states. It's not even close.

The issue I've devoted my life to--addressing and trying to stop violence against women and children--is very overrepresented in the gun violence nightmare. In fact, domestic violence is the core issue in the majority of mass shootings/murders, but that connection is often not made.

Ask any "pro-life" politician which means more to them: the 2nd Amendment or keeping women and children safe. They'll ALWAYS wax rhapsodic about guns, and dismiss the threat of domestic violence as (like Nikki Haley did) a "special interest issue."

I think the pro-gun crowd should be forced to look at the bloodshed they've worked so hard to guarantee. They should see what it looks like when someone shoots a child with a weapon of mass destruction. I'd be willing to bet they don't have the balls to do it.

The Texas shooter landed in the right country. It matters not one fig whether or not he (or the victims) were "legal" residents. What matters is that he wanted to use his AR to make a statement. Texas was happy to supply him with his deadly megaphone.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/04/28/red-states-have-higher-gun-death-rates-than-blue-states-heres-why/?sh=561ca3ad1f81

https://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1089792/

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