EU-DIGEST

An investigation into protests against coronavirus restrictions in the US revealed a tale of coordinated political action by gun lobbies, and one Florida man who was trying to get ahead of the curve.

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/revealed-how-the-us-gun-lobby-exploits-the-coronavirus-pandemic-to-further-its-aims/a-53230399

Donald Trump the master of deception

If you think of driving to Florida or anywhere else in the US for that matter, think again.

Gun violence is going totally out of control in America and politicians there, many on the payroll of the powerful gun lobby NRA - National Rifle Association,  are doing nothing about it.

So far it has led to a large number of innocent people who have lost their lives, a significant loss of income for America from the international tourist business, with large numbers of tourists now avoiding America they consider  an unsafe tourist destination, and considerable sums of Public money being spent on security issues, as the result of a lack of proper gun control laws.

For recent statistics on gun violence in America Gun Violence Archive

Just recently in Florida more than a dozen drivers were shot at in three different counties while traveling along two major highways in Central Florida — and deputies are searching for the ones responsible. It happened on New Year’s Day.

The victims were traveling eastbound on Interstate 4 and northbound on Interstate 95 when they were shot at by a passing vehicle, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies say the calls came in shortly before 6:30 p.m. Wednesday December 31

The death toll rose to seven Sunday after a gunman's rampage that left many more injured following what began as a routine traffic stop in Odessa, police in the West Texas city said.

Odessa police spokesman Steve LeSueur said Sunday that at least one person remains in “life-threatening” condition. Police Chief Michael Gerke previously said the gunman, whose name has not been released, was fatally shot by police.

"There is no longer an immediate threat to the public, and this situation continues to be investigated by local, state and federal officials," Gerke said in a statement.

The assault took place one day before a series of gun law changes in state that ease restrictions on where Texans can carry or store firearms, from foster homes to churches.

The shooting began Saturday afternoon when a state trooper pulled over the suspect, described by authorities as a white male in his mid-30s and driving a gold-colored car, was pulled over for a traffic violation on Interstate 20 between Midland and Odessa.

The driver opened fire on the trooper before fleeing westbound on the interstate, shooting his way to Odessa, stealing a mail truck and continuing his assault, police said.

Read more: Texas shooting: Death toll rises to 7 in gunman's rampage

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State laws that mandate universal background checks for buying guns and ammunition may save young lives, suggests new research presented this week at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies. The study found that states with stricter gun laws had lower rates of gun-related deaths among children compared to states without such laws.

Researchers, primarily at the Children’s National Health System in Washington DC, first examined gun injury data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They specifically looked at reported firearm deaths of people under the age of 21 that took place in 2015. Then they matched each state’s child mortality rate to a rating of their gun control laws and policies, based on a scorecard established by the Brady Campaign, a non-profit organization that advocates for gun violence prevention.

There were a total of 4,528 reported child deaths from gun in 2015. The state-by-state firearm mortality rate ranged from 0 deaths per 100,000 children to 18 deaths per 100,000 children.

The researchers found that the median mortality rate for the 12 states with universal background laws for all gun sales—including Washington, Colorado, and Connecticut—was 3.8 deaths per 100,000 children. But for states that didn’t require background checks, the median mortality rate was 5.7 per 100,000 children. The same relationship was true when looking at background checks for ammo: The median mortality of the five states with these laws was 2.3 deaths per 100,000 children, while it was 5.6 deaths per 100,000 children in states with no background checks.

Read more: The Stricter a State's Gun Laws, the Fewer Children Die From Guns, Study Finds

The AR-15 Also Known As The NRA Special Killing Machine

The mentally unstable gunman suspected of killing four people in a late-night shooting at a Waffle House restaurant was arrested near his apartment Monday after hiding from police for more than a day, authorities said.

Police and federal agents had mounted a massive manhunt in Nashville for 29-year-old Travis Reinking after the Sunday morning attack, in which a gunman clad only in a jacket opened fire with an assault rifle on a diverse crowd at the restaurant before a customer disarmed him.

Reinking was formally charged late Monday with four counts of criminal homicide and held on a $2 million bond, court records show.

Construction workers told officers earlier Monday that a person matching Reinking's description walked into the woods near a construction site, Metro Nashville Police Department Lt. Carlos Lara told reporters. A detective spotted Reinking, who lay down on the ground to be handcuffed when confronted, Lara said

Reinking carried a black backpack with a silver semi-automatic weapon and .45-caliber ammunition, Lara said. Detectives cut the backpack off him while he was cuffed.

It's not clear why Reinking attacked shortly after 3 a.m. Sunday, though he may have "mental issues," Nashville police Chief Steve Anderson said earlier.

Police said Reinking opened fire in the restaurant parking lot before storming the restaurant, which had about 20 people inside. Four people — three of them black and one Hispanic — were killed and four others injured before a customer wrestled the weapon away and Reinking, who is white, ran out, police said.

Police said Reinking stole a BMW days before the attack. The car was quickly recovered, but authorities did not immediately link the theft to Reinking.

Meanwhile, authorities in Illinois shared past reports suggesting multiple red flags about a disturbed young man with paranoid delusions.

Another sheriff's report said Reinking barged into a community pool in Tremont, Illinois, last June, and jumped into the water wearing a pink woman's coat over his underwear. Investigators believed he had an AR-15 rifle in his car trunk, but it was never displayed. No charges were filed.

Last July, Reinking was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service after he entered a restricted area near the White House and refused to leave, saying he wanted to meet President Donald Trump. Reinking was not armed, but at the FBI's request, Illinois police revoked his state firearms card and seized four guns from him, authorities said.

The AR-15 used in the shootings was among those seized.

"There's certainly evidence that there's some sort of mental health issues involved," Tazewell County Sheriff Robert Huston said. But he said deputies returned the guns to Reinking's father on the promise he would "keep the weapons secure and out of the possession of Travis."

Reinking's father "has now acknowledged giving them back" to his son, Aaron said.

Read more: Waffle House slaying suspect arrested after massive manhunt

Jake Decardenas, a Daytona Beach 20-year-old, may not have had his gun taken away. But his attempt to buy a BB gun for his younger brother at Walmart the other day failed.

He is one among tens of thousands of young Floridians who had their gun rights curtailed in March in a state that, to a large extent, has defined the modern American gun rights movement.

For Mr. Decardenas, the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland has prompted a personal reconsideration: notably that it is important to him that the state restrict gun purchasing more – even though that may drive some purchases underground.

Polls and interviews suggest Decardenas is not an outlier when it comes to being open to new restrictions. The Parkland tragedy jarred many Floridians. The state is at the heart of America's gun movement, with booming gun manufacturing, liberal gun laws, and a cultural reverence for the Second Amendment.

But the Parkland shooting – and the election of Donald Trump – is subtly changing the political dynamics even on the Gun Coast, where nearly 700 gun manufacturers hold licenses to build custom weaponry. Florida has long been a testing ground for expansion of gun rights. With the gun industry facing its first serious headwinds in two decades, experts say shifts in perception and policy in Florida could, once again, lead the way.

Read more: Florida, the 'Gunshine State,' tries on new role: gun-control bellwether

For Photo reportage click here: Photos: Students lead March for Our Lives

Nothing can assuage the agony and the unbearable pain that parents feel when their child is lost to an outrageous and utterly senseless attack that could have been prevented.

When will lawmakers face the bitter truth that America is at war with itself? A de-facto civil war is consuming us from within. Firearms are mercilessly robbing the lives of 33,880 each year—nearly five times more than American soldiers killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined (4,530 and 2,408 respectively).

On average, 93 people are killed from gun violence every day, and at least 239 school shootings have occurred across the United States since 2012; a majority of the over 400 casualties are children under the age of 19.

And yet, after every such unconscionable carnage, you hear our derelict political leaders suggesting that it is not the right time to talk about gun control laws when the families and friends of the victims are agonizing about the loss of their loved ones.

When will the right time come? How much more pain and suffering must our own fellow citizens endure before we act?

Shame on every single House and Senate member who each year takes millions in blood money as a political contribution from the National Rifle Association to ensure their re-election.

Perhaps only when some of these lawmakers lose a child of their own will they begin to grasp the excruciating pain that parents bear when their telephones ring, only to be told that their child was just gunned down at school by a random shooter. Yes, every lawmaker should stop and think how it really feels. But then again, are they even capable of feeling?

The Book of James says it best: “Faith without works is dead.” Without action, “thoughts and prayers” cannot be counted on to stop random mass killings; this has been proven by history time and again. The occasion for condolences and prayers expired a long while ago.


Read more: After Parkland: Murder By Congress - The Globalist

The strong message of a student who survived the mass shooting at a Florida high school this week reverberated across social media Saturday after a passionate speech at an anti-gun rally.


Read more: Emma Gonzalez's passionate anti-gun speech calls out politicians

At least 17 high school students are believed dead in a school shooting in Parkland, Florida. The suspect, a 19-year-old former student, had threatened his peers before, and collected guns at home, students told the Miami Herald.

The US’s political response to these tragic incidents has become rote—Republicans offer up “thoughts and prayers,” Democrats demands new legislation that stands no chance of passing.

America’s gun lobby has deep pockets. The National Rifle Association and its affiliates spent over $50 million in political advertisements in the last US general election, boosting Republicans who promised to support the NRA and targeting Democrats who propose stricter gun laws.

In fact, the pro-gun lobby spent over twice as much to fight Democrats ($34.5 million), as it did to support Republicans ($14.5 million). President Donald Trump, who tweeted his condolences to Parkland parents on Wednesday, was the biggest beneficiary of those ad dollars.

Separately, the NRA and affiliated pro-gun groups donated millions directly to individual politicians in Congress as well. Paul Ryan, Ryan Zinke, and Martha McSally were among the biggest recipients in 2016:

The NRA has a dedicated lobbyist, Marion Hammer, in Florida. She has helped make Florida a “laboratory for generating new types of gun protections,” as NPR host Terry Gross explained last year.

This year, Hammer is pushing for legislation that would prevent local sheriffs from testifying for gun control laws in uniform. Meanwhile, Republican politicians in the state are pushing to allow guns in elementary schools and airports.

Read more: Parkland shootng: The NRA and gun lobby invested millions in Trump and other Republicans in 2016 — Qua

Lets Make America Great Again By Closing Down The NRA

A teenage gunman opened fire at a South Florida high school on Wednesday afternoon, killing multiple people before he was arrested, officials said.

The suspect, believed to be about 18 years old, is a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and there are at least 20 victims, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said.

It was not immediately clear how many of those victims were injured and how many died, but Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., citing Broward County officials, told NBC News that there were "a number of fatalities."

Note EU-Digest: As of February this year there have already been 6 school shootings, and 168 shootings involving schools since the Sandy Hook Dec. 14, 2012 school massacre. Yes indeed America is first allright, also in gun violence.

Read more: 'Number of fatalities' after shooting at Parkland, Florida, high school, senator says - NBC News

One man was killed and two others were wounded, including a 12-year-old boy, in a shooting Thursday night at a Starbucks in the Uptown neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago, authorities said.

The shooting happened around 8:10 p.m. EDT at Broadway and Lawrence at a Starbucks outlet located at 4753 N. Broadway, according to Chicago police and fire officials.

The deceased was shot in the body and was declared dead at the scene, police said adding that the 12-year-old was shot in the groin and was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center by ambulance immediately. Fire officials said the boy was in serious-to-critical condition.

Another adult male who was also shot and he self-transported himself to Weiss Memorial Hospital, police said. His condition is not yet known.

A witness told CBS local in Chicago that he heard gunfire and saw a suspect wearing a ski mask escape the scene after the shooting, reportedly running west on Lawrence.

Note EU-Digest:  When will politicians in America get it into their head that some kind of gun control is needed in America, regardless how much money the NRA gives them for their political campaigns? Even ISIS is now telling their "followers and admirers" how easy it is to get guns in America.....Come on Political America, get with the program - We need Gun Control legislation in America.

Read more: At Least 3 Shot, 1 Dead After Shooting At Chicago Starbucks

The mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday night has again raised fears about terrorism. There’s much we don’t yet know. The Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed the attack, but the FBI claims that there is no international terrorism link. The attacker, Stephen Paddock, was 64 years old and white, fitting a stereotype of a right-wing terrorist more than a jihadist one. And he may just be a crazy nut. But regardless of Paddock’s particular pathology, the situation highlights how the United States treats similar forms of violence differently depending on the nature of the perpetrator.

Almost two months before, on August 12, 2017, James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators in Charlottesville, killing Heather Heyer, one of the demonstrators. Heyer’s death came after a day of demonstrations in which armed neo-Nazis and Klansmen, including Fields, who bore the symbols of Vanguard America (a white supremacist, neo-Nazi organization), marched ostensibly to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Civil War hero Robert E. Lee but really to trumpet their hateful ideas.

Fields’ act was treated as the crime it was: he was charged with second-degree murder and hit-and-run, along with several crimes related to the injuries of other victims. Yet given the political nature of the violence, and given the power of terrorism as a label, many have called for treating Heyer’s death as terrorism. Indeed, Fields’ use of a car to drive through a crowd resembles nothing more than the vehicle attacks that we’ve seen in Barcelona, Berlin, London, Nice, and other cities in the past two years. In turn, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions labeled Field’s attack “domestic terrorism,”  which federal law defines as trying to intimidate a civilian population or affect government policy through violence in an area of U.S. territorial jurisdiction.

Independent of greater federal legal authority, the resources allocated to countering domestic terrorism in general and right-wing violence in particular should increase given the danger these groups pose. Counterterrorism and law enforcement officials should also focus on the violent elements within radical groups, using the law to move them away from the line that separates legitimate (if deplorable) protest and violence. In addition, officials should use the law more aggressively to stop potentially violent situations, such as when armed protestors show up at a legitimate march. Finally, legitimate mainstream groups that share part of the radicals’ agenda have a responsibility to report suspects and otherwise police their ranks—just as the United States expects other communities, like American Muslims, to do.

Note EU-Digest: whatever way you turn the coin - one of the major ways to combat disturbed people to go on a killing spree is to get some gun-control legislation passed in the US Congress.

Read more: Should We Treat Domestic Terrorists the Way We Treat ISIS? | Foreign Affairs

They say that while he bathed in the glowing media coverage after his surprise debt ceiling deal with the Democrats; he'll be very reluctant to do anything like that on guns:

• He feels closer to the NRA than just about any outside group.
• He believes his un-nuanced support for the Second Amendment was crucial to his election victory.
• He's been instinctively allergic to Democrats who argue for gun control in the immediate aftermath of mass shootings.

Besides, as former Trump adviser Roger Stone told me: "Base would go insane and he knows it."

I asked Steve Bannon whether he could imagine Trump pivoting to the left on guns after the Las Vegas massacre. "Impossible: will be the end of everything," Bannon texted. When asked whether Trump's base would react worse to this than they would if he supported an immigration amnesty bill, Bannon replied: "as hard as it is to believe actually worse."

One possible path: Trump could make a modest concession to gun control advocates by opposing a controversial bill, backed by the NRA, to relax restrictions on the purchasing of gun silencers. Politico reported, citing GOP sources, that the bill "won't be reaching the House floor anytime soon after a horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas."

Read more: Bannon warns: "end of everything" if Trump supports gun controls - Axios

"GUN CONTROL NOW. ENOUGH ALREADY," Billy Eichner declared on Twitter after a gunman opened fire at a country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night, killing over 50 people and injuring hundreds more.

Since news broke of the horrific incident that took place at the Route 91 Harvest Country Music Festival while Jason Aldean was performing, a number of celebrities have taken to social media to not only offer their condolences to the victims of the attack, but to also speak out about instilling stricter gun control laws in America.

In addition to Eichner, Lady Gaga, Julianne Moore and Emmy Rossum were among the celebrities to post passionate, take-charge messages following the shooting. The hashtag #guncontrol has also started trending on Twitter.


Read more: Celebrities Speak Out About Gun Control After Fatal Shooting in Las Vegas | Entertainment Tonight