Tag Archives: violence

Inflation: It’s a Real Thing!

Mother Jones

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Petula Dvorak has gotten a lot of, um, pushback for this column about the kids these days—including hers:

The work ethic of our kids: Where is it? Where are the entrepreneurial snow shovelers? For generations of enterprising children, snowflakes may as well have been dollar bills, y’all, falling from the sky. Kids jostled to be the first to ring the doorbells of the snowed-in, the $5 driveways added up, and that new Atari Defender game cartridge, those rainbow Vans — yours and yours.

But in 2016? Not so much.

….Last year, when we had a mere dusting compared with Snowzilla and the boys were 8 and 10 years old, they shoveled our stairs and sidewalk with verve, and then struck out to ring doorbells to make a buck. The novelty of responsibility was fresh and delicious.

They got three customers: a politician’s wife who was encouraging and delightful, giving them a crisp $5 bill and a load of praise; another neighbor who paid $5; and $0 from a bleary-eyed millennial renter who promised to pay them but didn’t have cash. And never paid up long after the snow melted.

As school was closed for the big dig-out, I tried again to inspire some hustle in my little childlumps, whose only hustle was to get a sleepover going. “There are still lots of cars buried out there,” I said. “I bet you can make enough money for that Lego Poe Dameron X-Wing you want.” No spark in their eyes. What’s going on?

Hmmm. Last year the kids shoveled three houses and they each earned $1.66 per house for their efforts. This year the snow is far heavier. They could probably double their earnings! I wonder why they’re not feeling enthusiastic about this? It’s a head scratcher, all right.

As it happens, lots of kid jobs—snow shoveling, burger flipping, lawnmowing, etc.—have been largely taken over by adults these days. But the real issue here is that adults simply have no feel for inflation. Petula’s father probably got paid $5 for shoveling a walk in 1950, so that’s what he paid Petula. Now she wants to pay her kids $5. Ditto for everyone else in their generation. But $5 in 1950 is about $50 today.

Sure enough, a 30-second bit of googling suggests that the going rate for getting a neighborhood kid to shovel your walk is about $40 or so. More if the storm is heavy and you have a big lot. A professional goes for about $70.

Maybe kids these days are lazy. I don’t know—though the most recent kids I met were so smart and well-behaved that Marian and I were in awe. But hey—maybe they’re lazy too! I didn’t invite them to mow my lawn, after all. But this complaint about snow shoveling is just a personal version of that old chestnut, the business owners who complain they can’t find good workers but then admit they aren’t willing to raise their wages to attract them. Bottom line: don’t whine about lazy kids unless you’re willing to pay them enough to make it worth their time to work for you. For five bucks they’ll feed your cats while you’re on vacation. But only newbie suckers would shovel a walk after Snowzilla for that.

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Inflation: It’s a Real Thing!

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Raw Data: Lead Poisoning of Kids in Flint

Mother Jones

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I wanted to get a read on historical levels of lead poisoning of children in Flint, Michigan, so I put together the chart on the right. There’s no consistent data available for the entire 20-year period, but I think I made fairly reasonable extrapolations from the data available.1 What you see is very steady and impressive progress from 1998 to 2013, with the number of children showing elevated blood lead levels (above 5 micrograms per deciliter) declining from approximately 50 percent to 3.6 percent.

Then Flint stopped using Detroit water and switched to Flint River water, which corroded the scale on their lead pipes and allowed lead to leach into the water. The number of children with elevated lead levels rose to 5.1 percent and then 6.4 percent.

In late 2015, Flint switched back to Detroit water. Preliminary testing suggests that this had a beneficial effect: the number of children with elevated lead levels dropped back to 3.0 percent. However, these numbers are still very tentative, so take them with a grain of salt.

1Here are my data sources and extrapolations. For early years, only data for children above 10 m/d was available, but later years showed both 10 m/d and 5 m/d, which suggests a rough factor of 6x between the two. Also, some years only show data for Genesee County, but other years show both Genesee and Flint, which suggests that Flint levels are about 1.6x higher than Genesee.

1998-2000: From Michigan Department of Health & Human Services chart here, extrapolated from Michigan —> Flint (factor = 0.87) and 10 m/d —> 5 m/d (factor = 6x)
2001-2004: From 2005 MDHHS report here, page 54, extrapolated from 10 m/d —> 5 m/d
2005-13: From MDHHS data here.
2014: From Hurley Medical center data here, adjusted for Genesee —> Flint (factor = 1.6)
2015: From Hurley Medical center data here, slides 10-11, adjusted for Genesee —> Flint.
2016: From preliminary MDHHS data for post-switch levels here.

Full spreadsheet here.

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Raw Data: Lead Poisoning of Kids in Flint

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The Racially Charged San Francisco Police Shooting You Don’t Know About But Should

Mother Jones

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Dozens of people gathered at a candlelit vigil on Thursday night in San Francisco, at the spot where 26-year-old Mario Woods was killed by police the day before. Woods, who is black, died in a hail of bullets fired by San Francisco Police Department officers on Wednesday afternoon in the city’s Bayview district. Police identified him as the suspect in an attack whose victim was apparently stabbed in the shoulder but is expected to survive. Police officials said Woods was wielding a kitchen knife that he refused to relinquish even as officers ordered him to drop it, fired bean bag pellets, and pepper-sprayed him.

The moments leading up to the shooting were captured on several widely circulated videos recorded on cellphones. In one, Woods can be seen standing with his back against a wall, surrounded by police whose guns are drawn. When Woods begins to walk away, an officer steps in his path, and within seconds a series of shots rings out. SFPD Chief Greg Suhr told reporters that a total of five officers opened fire. (Warning: graphic images)

A video posted by HotRod (@daniggahot) on Dec 2, 2015 at 4:59pm PST

Woods died at the scene. A resident who lives next to the site of the shooting told Mother Jones that he counted at least 36 shell casings on the sidewalk after the violence was over. Another angle also captured the shooting (graphic).

SF Weekly reported that Woods had been a gang member in 2009 and had previously served prison and jail time for possession of a firearm by a felon. Woods’ mother, Gwendolyn, told ABC7 News that her son had suffered from mental health issues but was getting through them. “He just needed some help,” she said. “He fought past them.She told interviewers that her son had “gotten his uniform” for his new job with the United Parcel Service that he was slated to begin the day after he was murdered.

The San Francisco police department has had a troubled history of police aggression and racism toward minority communities. In February, four San Francisco police officers were cleared in the shooting death of Alex Nieto, a 28-year-old Hispanic man who was shot 10 to 15 times by police in March 2014. Police officers mistook a Taser for a gun. In March, a series of racist and homophobic text messages sent among a group of officers in 2011 and 2012 emerged as part of a federal case against a former San Francisco police sergeant convicted of corruption charges, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The department tried to fire eight officers and suspend several others involved, but the disciplinary process is ongoing. In August, a video of more than a dozen San Francisco police officers surrounding and tackling a disabled homeless man went viral, spurring outrage.

Neighborhood residents where Woods was shot questioned the level of force used to subdue him.

“They had six officers against this one little guy,” area resident Cedric Smith told the San Francisco Chronicle. “They could have used batons. They could have backed off. They didn’t need to shoot him.” And Chemika Hollis, another resident, wondered why police officers shot him so many times. “How can you feel a threat when you have 10 cops around you?” she said.

Thursday’s vigil was set up on the spot where Woods was gunned down, with pictures of him, candles, and a sign posted to the wall reading, “Black Lives Matter.” A few blocks away from the vigil, dozens more gathered at a community meeting in the St. Paul of the Shipwreck Catholic church, while others held a peaceful protest outside.

Jaeah Lee

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr has said the officers were justified in shooting Woods, and he promised a thorough investigation.

“It’s a tragic loss anytime somebody dies. We never want to do that,” he told reporters after the shooting. “But this is all they could do. I really don’t know how much more you can make it plain to a wanted felon that he should drop the knife.”

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The Racially Charged San Francisco Police Shooting You Don’t Know About But Should

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5 Big Developments From the Beginning of the Paris Climate Summit

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After just a few days, billions of dollars have been committed to clean energy. Yann Caradec/Flickr On Tuesday, more than 100 heads of state departed from Paris, after kicking off two weeks of international negotiations intended to limit climate change. But even though the biggest names have left the building (actually a converted regional airport), the real action is just getting started. If history is any guide, diplomats will be holed up in a room negotiating minute textual details until—or well past—the last possible minute next Friday. Still, the last few days have seen a barrage of developments that aren’t necessarily tied to the core negotiating text. It started on Sunday with a joint commitment from dozens of nations and private corporations to vastly increase their spending on clean energy research and development. Here are a few more key developments, in no particular order: 1. New milestone for fossil fuel divestment: Some of the most prominent activist groups at the summit are focusing their attention on divestment—that is, getting high-profile individuals and institutions to pull their money out of fossil fuel companies. In September, that campaign reached a high-water mark, when a study commissioned by a coalition of environmental groups found that hundreds of institutions and thousands of individuals with assets totaling $2.6 trillion had pledged to divest from fossil fuels. Bear in mind, the actual amount of money being pulled out of fossil fuel companies is substantially smaller than that. But it’s nevertheless a pretty impressive number because of the growing movement it represents. On Wednesday, the same coalition updated that figure: It now tops $3.4 trillion. Again, it’s unclear how much of this is actually being divested. (It’s not always easy for a complex institution such as a university to know how much money, if any, it actually has invested in a given industry). But it’s striking that the total jumped nearly $1 trillion in just a couple of months. The African Development Bank promised to pour $12 billion into increasing access to electricity. 2. Big boost to clean energy in Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the world’s lowest rates of access to electricity; nearly two-thirds of people there live without power. That makes it hard to grow a business, hard for kids to study, and hard to store fresh food and medical supplies. As we’ve reported before, it also represents a huge opportunity for renewable energy. Small-scale wind and solar projects, while not up to the task of fully supplying the continent’s electricity needs, can often be deployed more rapidly than big fossil-fuel-fired power plants. On Tuesday, the African Development Bank announced that it would pour $12 billion into energy projects over the next five years and seek to attract up to $50 billion in parallel private-sector funding. The project has two goals: to vastly expand basic energy access, and to do so cleanly, by boosting the continent’s renewable energy capacity tenfold. This is just the latest sign that the clean energy industry is likely to be one of the biggest winners from the Paris climate talks. 3. China is playing ball: President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping set the joint climate action ball rolling more than a year ago, when they announced a sweeping plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions and pool resources on clean energy. Since then, China and the United States—the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 carbon polluters, respectively—have stayed close on their climate agendas. That trend appears to be continuing in Paris, a rare point of diplomatic accord in an otherwise testy relationship. China has said it could agree to reevaluating its climate goals every five years, a protocol that the United States, the European Union, and other leading emitters are pushing strongly to include in the final agreement. On Wednesday, Chinese officials back in Beijing also announced deep new targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. India has also rolled out a new $30 million plan to invest in clean energy, although that country remains opposed to the five-year review standard. Russia, meanwhile, doesn’t appear interested in doing much at all. Tensions between the United States, China, India, Russia, Canada, Brazil, and other heavyweights—not to mention small island nations and other highly vulnerable players—are likely to become more apparent as the talks progress into finer minutiae. 4. Who’s going to pay for all this? One of the most contentious issues in Paris is climate finance, a term that refers broadly to cash ponied up by wealthy, high-polluting nations such as the United States to help poorer countries adapt to climate change impacts and reduce their carbon emissions. In 2009, at the last major climate summit, developed countries agreed to raise $100 billion in climate finance per year by 2020. That goal is about halfway met, according to the World Resources Institute. On Tuesday, Obama announced an additional $30 million from the United States for climate adaptation in the most vulnerable countries, on top of a $3 billion promise the United States made to the UN Green Climate Fund last year. But it’s unclear how the Paris agreement will ensure that this fundraising continues. Delegates will have to hash out what sorts of commitments can or should be legally binding, how to count the money, how to spend it, and other important considerations. Jake Schmidt, an international programs director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said many developing countries are pushing to include language in the agreement that would require the total level of finance to be gradually ramped up over time. “I don’t think anyone is envisioning there will be a new [specific] number, but rather asking that $100 billion is a floor to the finance that will be mobilized over time,” he said. The same is true of countries’ various greenhouse gas reduction targets, he said: A big question at the talks is how these commitments can be enforced and strengthened past the next decade or two. “We’re leaving Paris with a sense that it could be 10 or 15 years before we return to these targets,” he said. “If we don’t have another moment to reevaluate these, then we have a problem.” 5. Cities are playing a big role: National governments aren’t the only players in Paris. Cities and states are also offering their own commitments. One of the most prominent voices at the summit so far has been that of California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), who is pushing a group of 60 states and cities around the world to sign on to a sub-national climate agreement. Meanwhile, on Tuesday a group of 21 mayors committed to dedicating 10 percent of their municipal budgets to climate “resilience,” which includes steps like making infrastructure more weatherproof and restricting energy consumption by buildings. They include the mayors of Paris, New Orleans, Oakland, Rio de Janeiro, and other global cities.

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5 Big Developments From the Beginning of the Paris Climate Summit

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5 Big Developments From the Beginning of the Paris Climate Summit

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A Lot of People Are Telling Congress to Repeal Its Gag Order on Gun Violence Research

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Even before today’s tragic shooting in San Bernardino, pressure was building in Washington to overturn an NRA-backed amendment that has barred federal research on gun violence for nearly 20 years. More than 2,000 physicians, dozens of Democratic lawmakers, and even the author of the amendment have all called on Congress to once again allow gun violence to be investigated as a public health issue.

On Wednesday, nine medical associations publicly urged Congress to overturn the so-called Dickey Amendment, which in 1996 effectively halted research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) into the causes of gun violence.

“Gun violence is a public health problem that kills 90 Americans a day,” Dr. Alice Chen, the executive director of Doctors for America, said in a statement. “Physicians believe it’s time to lift this effective ban and fund the research needed to save lives.”

Tacked onto a 1996 appropriations bill, the Dickey Amendment was pushed through Congress by Republican legislators under substantial pressure from the National Rifle Association, as the amendment’s author, former Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.), admitted in a 2012 op-ed in The Washington Post that he co-authored. Dickey wrote that the lack of research by the NIH and CDC had resulted in a troubling information gap: “US scientists cannot answer the most basic question: What works to prevent firearm injuries? We don’t know whether having more citizens carry guns would decrease or increase firearm deaths; or whether firearm registration and licensing would make inner-city residents safer or expose them to greater harm.”

The doctors are not alone in calling for the amendment to be overturned: late last month, dozens of House Democrats made a similar plea to renew federal research on gun violence. “We dedicate $240 million a year on traffic safety research, more than $233 million a year on food safety, and $331 million a year on the effects of tobacco, but almost nothing on firearms that kill 33,000 Americans annually,” they wrote in a letter to senior representatives in charge of appropriations. A few weeks before that, Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) submitted a bill called the Gun Violence Research Act with the express purpose of “helping identify and treat those prone to committing mass shootings.”

Dickey himself has repeatedly urged Congress to overturn the provision that bears his name. In a letter published Wednesday by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, Dickey wrote, “Doing nothing is no longer an acceptable solution.”

“I commend Jay Dickey for taking this stand,” Thompson wrote in response. “As gun owners, we want to protect the Second Amendment. But at the same time, we recognize the fact that we can safeguard those rights while also allowing our expert scientists to conduct research on how to best prevent gun violence.”

A Mother Jones investigation published this summer found that gun violence costs the US a staggering $229 billion every year.

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A Lot of People Are Telling Congress to Repeal Its Gag Order on Gun Violence Research

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These Tweets About Attacks on Abortion Providers Should Make Your Blood Boil

Mother Jones

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Last Friday, three people were killed and at least nine were injured when Robert Lewis Dear allegedly shot them at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood facility. This assault was the latest in a recent surge of violence against women’s health clinics following the release of doctored videos this summer by anti-abortion activists who claim the videos show Planned Parenthood staffers selling fetal tissue.

But even before this summer, US abortion providers have weathered a long and deadly string of violent attacks. On Sunday, Michelle Kinsey Bruns, a feminist organizer and the woman behind Twitter account @ClinicEscort, tweeted a roundup of 100 attacks on women’s health providers, beginning with the 1976 arson attempt at an abortion clinic in Eugene, Oregon, and ending with the response from some anti-abortion activists to Friday’s shooting in Colorado.

Here’s her list:

View the story “#is100enough: how many antichoice attacks, threats & incitements until you admit clinic violence is real?” on Storify

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These Tweets About Attacks on Abortion Providers Should Make Your Blood Boil

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These Senators Want To Break the NRA’s Stranglehold on Gun Violence Research

Mother Jones

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For years, Congress has blocked funding for research into the impacts of guns on public health. On Wednesday morning, twenty Senate Democrats demanded a necessary first step to upset that status quo, by asking the Government Accountability Office to audit what health programs exist to make guns safer.

“With more than 300 million guns in American homes, we write to request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conduct a study to assess the efficacy of public health and safety programs designed to impact gun safety, including the storage and security of guns in households throughout our country,” they wrote in a letter to Gene Dorado, Comptroller General of the United States.

The senators note that other federal public health campaigns, such as those to reduce drunk driving and smoking, have been hugely effective. But for nearly 20 years, Congress has pushed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to steer clear of firearms violence research. “I’m sorry, but a gun is not a disease,” said former House Speaker John Boehner this summer, after the House Appropriations Committee voted to block funding on gun research to the CDC.

“Prevention of gun deaths and injuries should be an essential component of the federal government’s commitment to public heath and safety along with other efforts such as background checks on gun purchases and closing other gun loopholes,” the senators wrote.

A Mother Jones investigation, inspired by the lack of research on the matter, found that gun violence costs Americans a whopping $229 billion each year. A Washington Post investigation found that Americans are getting shot by toddlers on a weekly basis.

The senators’ request was lauded by gun control advocacy groups. “The American people have had enough of gun violence and this is an important step,” said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Read the full letter below:

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Letter to GAO on Gun Safety (PDF)

Letter to GAO on Gun Safety (Text)

Watch part of our investigation into the costs of gun violence here:

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These Senators Want To Break the NRA’s Stranglehold on Gun Violence Research

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Why Did the Media Ignore the Beirut Bombings One Day Before the Paris Attacks?

Mother Jones

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After the Paris attacks, a popular tweet made the rounds asking why the media was covering it so heavily when they’d ignored a pair of ISIS suicide bombings in Beirut just the day before. Over at Vox, Max Fisher says this is just plain wrong:

The New York Times covered it. The Washington Post, in addition to running an Associated Press story on it, sent reporter Hugh Naylor to cover the blasts and then write a lengthy piece on their aftermath. The Economist had a thoughtful piece reflecting on the attack’s significance. CNN, which rightly or wrongly has a reputation for least-common-denominator news judgment, aired one segment after another on the Beirut bombings. Even the Daily Mail, a British tabloid most known for its gossipy royals coverage, was on the story. And on and on.

Yet these are stories that, like so many stories of previous bombings and mass acts of violence outside of the West, readers have largely ignored.

It is difficult watching this, as a journalist, not to see the irony in people scolding the media for not covering Beirut by sharing a tweet with so many factual inaccuracies.

I get Fisher’s point, but come on. There’s coverage and then there’s coverage. On November 14, the New York Times dedicated a huge banner headline and nearly its entire front page to the Paris attacks. On November 13—well, don’t bother looking for their Beirut story. Fisher is right that they had one, but it ran on page A6. And Vox itself? Beirut was relegated to one mention in its “Sentences” roundup on Thursday. By my count, Paris has so far gotten 26 separate posts.

It’s true that readers tend to tune out reports of violence in the Middle East and other non-rich countries, but so does the media. Justifiable or not, there’s plenty of blame to go around here.

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Why Did the Media Ignore the Beirut Bombings One Day Before the Paris Attacks?

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Top Cop Union Threatens Quentin Tarantino

Mother Jones

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Amid the continuing national debate about policing, Thursday brought the latest batshit PR move from police union leaders. Their current target, Quentin Tarantino, found himself on the receiving end of a veiled threat when Jim Pasco, the head of the national Fraternal Order of Police, told reporters that “something is in the works” against the Hollywood filmmaker. The union’s plan, Pasco said, “could happen any time” between now and the premiere of Tarantino’s upcoming film, The Hateful Eight, on Christmas Day. Just what exactly did he mean? More from the Hollywood Reporter:

Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, would not go into any detail about what is being cooked up for the Hollywood director, but he did tell THR: “We’ll be opportunistic.”

“Tarantino has made a good living out of violence and surprise,” says Pasco. “Our offices make a living trying to stop violence, but surprise is not out of the question.”

The FOP, based in Washington, D.C., consists of more than 330,000 full-time, sworn officers. According to Pasco, the surprise in question is already “in the works,” and will be in addition to the standing boycott of Tarantino’s films, including his upcoming movie The Hateful Eight.

“Something is in the works, but the element of surprise is the most important element,” says Pasco. “Something could happen anytime between now and the premiere. And a lot of it is going to be driven by Tarantino, who is nothing if not predictable.

“The right time and place will come up and we’ll try to hurt him in the only way that seems to matter to him, and that’s economically,” says Pasco.

When asked, Pasco clarified that he was not making a violent threat. But his vow that “we’ll try to hurt him” joins a growing list of over-the-top statements from police union leaders.

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Top Cop Union Threatens Quentin Tarantino

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Let’s Not Rewrite History on Gun Violence

Mother Jones

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“This is something we should politicize,” President Obama said last week after the gun massacre in Oregon. “It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.” Jonah Goldberg is annoyed that Obama said this even though he’s routinely spoken out against politicizing issues in the past. “He’s not about to try building consensus on gun violence among people of good faith,” Goldberg says. Then this:

Obama’s comments on Thursday highlighted the problem with his approach to politics. He would rather go for everything he wants and get nothing, but keep the political issue, than make progress on common ground.

Virtually none of the proposals on his gun-control wish list — more comprehensive federal background checks, closing the gun show “loophole,” etc. — would help bring down the homicide rate….Typically, mass killers don’t buy guns at gun shows. And a CNN analysis found that a comprehensive background check system wouldn’t have prevented any of the “routine” killing sprees Obama referred to, save one.

….After the Sandy Hook slaughter, there was a bipartisan consensus that more needed to be done on the mental health side. But Obama, fresh off reelection, rejected a piecemeal approach, largely preferring to go for a “comprehensive” solution. He ended up with nothing at all.

Um, what? Shortly after Sandy Hook, Joe Biden released the final report of his task force on gun violence. It contained recommendations in four areas, one of which was increased access to mental health services. Several bipartisan bills that targeted mental health did indeed get introduced, and I believe Obama supported all of them. So why didn’t they pass? That’s always hard to say, but the best guess is that it’s because they all cost money, and Republicans were unwilling to vote for increased spending. So they died. Obama’s preference for a “comprehensive” approach had nothing to do with it.

Beyond that, sure, Obama wanted comprehensive legislation. But in the end, this got whittled down to one thing: a bipartisan bill mandating universal background checks. It was watered down repeatedly, and was about as weak as possible by the time it finally got a vote. Despite massive public support, even from gun owners, it failed after an enormous effort to reach out to all those people of good faith Goldberg talks about. I think you can guess who voted against it.1

1It was 41 Republicans and 5 Democrats, in case you’ve forgotten.

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Let’s Not Rewrite History on Gun Violence

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