Part 2 of this diary focusses exclusively on senseless mass shootings and the proliferation of guns in this country.
To a large degree, we have become desensitized to the prevalent gun culture and almost daily news of mass shootings. No one seems to be able to do anything meaningful which might prevent this recurring travesty. One can reprint articles printed the week or month before and all sentiments expressed would be valid and applicable to today’s or yesterday’s horrific event.
What kind of a country are we leaving for the next generation?
Part 1 has some commentary from me about the future of artificial intelligence (AI), historical analogy about Luddites in the early 19th century, and whether AI will be beneficial to us or prove to be disastrous. Lots of wonderful editorial cartoons and informative Tweets about AI, the War in Sudan, and singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, who passed away a few days ago.
I’ve posted over 15 cartoons in the comments section.
As usual, I will post additional cartoons in the comments section or as updates in the text of this diary. Thank you.
Oozing With Empathy for Dead Victims /s
So Many Killings, So Many Lives Lost
Action Needed, Not Phony Thoughts and Prayers
Attribution for the above cartoon: Clay Jones @claytoonz
Callous Indifference
Another week, another deadly day in Texas. This article could have as easily been written about one of the dozens of mass shootings all over the country this year.
Above all, it is a cry for helplessness. If the solutions lie with politicians, most are failing miserably in trying to craft sensible legislation. Perhaps it will take a massive political movement that exerts unbearable pressure on elected officials to enact meaningful gun control legislation. That’s how important civil and voting rights were won, but not without a great deal of sacrifices made largely by African-Americans.
Absent that, no one seems to have any answers. American exceptionalism certainly has its limits!
Heather Cox Richardson: “For years now, after one massacre or another, I have written some version of the same article, explaining that the nation’s current gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of the takeover of our nation by a radical extremist minority. The idea that massacres are ‘the price of freedom,’ as right-wing personality Bill O’Reilly said in 2017 after the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history.”
The unfettered right to own and carry weapons has come to symbolize the Republican Party’s ideology of individual liberty. Lawmakers and activists have not been able to overcome Republican insistence on gun rights despite the mass shootings that have risen since their new emphasis on guns.
Is Any Place Safe?
Gun Violence is Highest in the Red States
Yes, Even Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood is Not Safe
Didn’t the Cold War End in the Early 1990s?
Guns Have Become an Integral Part of American Culture
Associated Press: “Mass killings are happening with staggering frequency this year: an average of about one a week.”
“The 2023 numbers stand out even more when they are compared with the tally for full-year totals since data was collected. The U.S. recorded 30 or fewer mass killings in more than half of the years in the database, so to be at 19 a third of the way through is remarkable.”
No Separation of Church and State Needed
It is Comforting to Know That
Equal Protection and Justice
Helplessness
The Game of Life With Deadly Consequences
We Know That
You Can’t Deny His Rights… Correct?
It’s Good to Know That
Gun Culture of the US of A
There Never Have Been Any Question About It; the Evidence is Overwhelming