One of my high school teachers sent me this article and asked me to write about it. Just wanted to share my intro.
Shabbat Shalom, peace be with you on the sabbath day, is what many members at the Tree of Life congregation were wishing to each other on this “seemingly normal,” sabbath day of October 27, 2018. I myself during the morning shooting was gathered at my local SDA church and now after reading this article, feel a wake-up call on the fact that the Tables could have been turned. In our world today, for each passing day, the hearts of many augment with greed and hatred; so much so that people believe that they have the audacity, through their ill minds, to determine the value of someone else's life. Every passing day more and more reports of shootings, suicides, earthly disasters come up on the news; they are becoming more and more common. We must understand that not much can be done to prevent these acts of pure disgust and we must ready ourselves for the end times!
-Have a Blessed day
1
No matter what the tragedy, it all leads back to Trump. Trump is the real reason behind the shooting. Never mind the fact that people have been brutalizing one another for a million different reasons since the beginning of time. It has always been that way and it will always be that way. If there were only white people in America, there would still be reasons for crazy, hateful people to shoot someone else. This has nothing to do with how it is in America, and it has nothing to do with who our president is... but it's just too easy to politicize a tragedy to fit the narrative. "You cannot be civil with a(n ethnic group) that wants to destroy what you stand for." Right? Yeah. It's too easy to fit whatever narrative you're trying to sell.
2
When we are given birth to live and excel on this mundane
life,who has authorized X to carryout homicide in the name of religion,color,faith etc?. When we have advanced the science to aid the fellow citizen to survive in the world by donating our eye,kidney or any other organ, why do we
blindfolded even after witnessing and experiencing the tragedy of 'multitude recoiling of the guns' in the oldest democracy of the world and still unable to enact law to confiscate from the illegal free -wielding hands of rifles?.
In the age of delivery by drone,we could witness the explosives by mail and in the near future there might be a
robot in the form of driver less, autonomous car driving through a congregation. We must be ready to overcome or counteract the output of the drone or the robot in our daily routine since we are unaware of the heinous -run amok input fed by its master in remote .
2
@N.R.JOTHI NARAYANAN
The only way to stop a bad guy with an armed, A.I. drone is a good guy with an armed, A.I. drone?
Congratulations, you're on the short list for the U.S. Supreme Court.
6
Trump says "something has to be done." He is missing, as president, his job to be the one who does something. He needs to make a loud and clear statement that murder is not ok, and that murdering people because of their religion will not be tolerated in this country.
Unless he makes a clear statement against hate crimes, he is emboldening them
10
I was born and raised in Western PA, 50 miles outside of Pittsburgh, and lived for 4 years of my adult life in the actual city, of which I still have great affection. It is a beautiful part of the country with hard-working, closely-knit families and communities. I love where I’m from.
But sadly, there is an ugly underbelly running through these predominantly white, tightly-knit, insular neighborhoods. It is an area where racism and bigotry, fear, and yes, hate, runs deep, going back generations, even in a big city like Pittsburgh, and especially in the outskirts. Residents complain to one another about “changing neighborhoods” and “those people” coming here from “other” countries, all the while forgetting that their own grandparents and great-grandparents did the very same thing. One of the Pgh shooter’s neighbors is quoted in a Times article making a similar comment.
With the ascension of DJT to president, I absolutely noticed these comments greatly increasing. I have stopped communicating on FB with many old high school alum for this reason, and when I visit family, I rarely socialize. I cannot abide the small-minded, backward-thinking, Fox News propaganda-spreading, hate-filled rants and rhetoric.
Unfortunately I fear it will get worse before it gets better. We must vote as though our lives depend on it. People are being slaughtered in the name of unbridled hatred & fear, as the president proudly declares himself a nationalist. The future of our country is at stake.
13
Each tragedy of hate and violence brings sadness and wonder at how a person's life can go so horribly wrong as to want to destroy others without any gain. But each event also brings something that personalizes it. In this, it's how a Jewish person can live to be 97 years old, in such a difficult century as the one she lived in, only to be gunned down in a synagogue. It makes no sense.
To those who stoke violence and hate there must be a better way. Most raise their children to not hate but somehow haters elected a president. Gun violence predates him but it is a warning that maybe freedom of speech should not be tolerated when it incites violence with false conspiracies.
The answer has many avenues but it's way past time to begin. Starting with how much is fomented by foreign entities.
2
Please look in the mirror today and think "My inaction has caused places of worship and schools to become slaughterhouses. This is my fault because I did not demand action and continue to demand actions to ban the weapon used"
9
Go ahead and get your AR 15. It is load em up and shoot em out. America still lives in the Wild Wild West with shootings in Nightclubs, Schools, Churches, Concerts, Offices, Restaurants etc. And with no gun laws there is no end in sight. The USA has not had enough carnage yet. This is the age under a President that supports hostility and hatred against his opponents ("Lock her up") and against the media (endorsing body slamming journalists) and politicians are receibing mail bombs. With so much hate and racism in the nation, these years will be remembered as the age of Violence.
8
@Gina
Good call. Trump is NYT favorite piñata, too. High-five to you.
1
The names of the 11 on the front page of NYT, of Oct. 28, 2018, are truly of those who are referred to in a Hebrew saying as "Fallen for the glory of God" (in Hebrew, "naflu al kiddush ha'shem").
6
This is an AR-15 armalite rifle not an assault rifle.....Stop blaming the weapons they need someone behind them to do the harm and killing. We are a divided nation that needs to come together and heal. My heart goes out to those people who are now in Gods hands.
4
Sorry liberals, but you're not taking our guns. We know that your goal is a full ban. It ain't happening. Not unless you're personally volunteering to come confiscate the 400 million guns already in private hands.
1
It takes a lot of courage to fight straw men online. I’m impressed.
11
@Doug It's not a straw man. Nearly every post from leftist commenters on the NY Times and Washington Post are calling for "gun control" or "gun sense" which means a full ban. Hint: You can't say you support banning AR-15s without really supporting banning all guns.
@Jon W. I am so tired of some gun owners whining about the idea of someone taking their guns. The selfishness and childishness is galling. Like a child saying "Mine, mine, mine" They are only thinking about themselves and their rights. What about the right to live. In the USA the second amendment is the law of the land. Good sensible gun laws can be enacted. Laws that enforce back ground checks, laws that control the sale of guns to the mentally ill. Laws that mandate mandatory reporting of people who could be dangerous. Stop crying about somebody coming to take your manly toys and come up with a solution.
23
Anyone who calls for a ban on AR-15s is either stupid or dishonest. Nothing functionally separates it from any other semi-automatic rifle. If you are calling to ban all semi-automatics, you're basically calling to ban all guns, as nearly every gun made since World War II is a semi-automatic. There's no way to ban guns that are useful for offense without also banning guns that are necessary for defense. It's that simple.
2
If we can't agree to ban everyone with mental illness or dangerous idology from purchasing lethal firearms, the left would have to work on banning all firearms alone.
If that happens, either you lose all gun rights completely or this kind of masscares happen frequently in every community.
3
@ZL Ban dangerous ideology? Who determines what is a dangerous ideology? I personally think liberalism is an evil and destructive ideology. So if you put me in charge under that regime, liberals would have no gun rights. Is that what you want?
While Donald Trump and his minions in Congress may not have actually pulled the triggers on the guns used in Saturday's massacre they are definitely complicit in the crime. Through his vile rhetoric for which he has not been criticized by his fellow Republicans , Mr. Trump has encouraged his followers that it's OK to hate "others" - Jews, African-Americans, Hispanics, gays, etc. - and to act on their hatred. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump will not be charged as an accessory to the murder of 11 innocent people who were killed because of where and how they worship. Prayers and condolences are nice but they are not enough. It's time to stop the hatred and to eliminate access to guns. It's time to make sure that people with a conscience and a sense of morality and justice take over our government.
7
@Sheila Dropkin
What kind of leader speaks about hating other people within their own nation, besides hitler and Mussolini?
The bigot-in-chief.
7
Our condolences to the families of the victims. We do not share in this fiasco of terrorism on innocent people, esp., God's people; for the abusers/ killers are touching the Eye of God; and sooner or later or at judgment day, they will be held accountable. Jewish people should be held as the "treasures" of America. Jews have contributed to so much to our society and nation from 'settler' days to now. One of the most viable product they brought to humanity is the holy scriptures. It is the Bible on which our national leaders lay their palms to swear into office. Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem (and her children around the globe). Anti-semites have to deal with the rest of America whenever something like this occurs in our nation.
2
@jhardi
Thank you for recognizing that the birth of Christianity lies within the Jewish people. Jesus Christ was a religious Jew and a teacher of the Talmud .
How did we come to this place ? When our president is an obvious racist and says that Neo- Nazis in Charlottesville are “ fine people “ then we are in deep trouble. Donald Trump is an evil man and a frightening one as well. Isn’t this what a dictator looks like ? It’s right here , in the White House . Shame on Republicans for turning a blind eye . Shame
I hope this coming election we can fight back and win with hope and goodness instead of hate and fear.
My heart is broken today .
3
I have a very nimble imagination. I can with ease imagine nearly infinite possibilities. I cannot imagine the level of rank depravity and corruption and moral rot that allowed this petty coward to take in his sights someone's grandmother, someone's wife -- while they were worshipping-- and pull the trigger.
That is an act of craven cowardice with no equal. And we make a very serious error if we think that l there I'd not an army of quivering cowards behind him.
In DJT's America, rot seeks rot. Cowardice seeks cowardice. They feed the swamp.
7
A vote for a Republican on Nov 6th is a vote of treason against the USA and its democracy.
Vote for Democrats up and down the line to attempt to nullify the crackpot in the white house. He is a disgusting thing and he incites people like this mass shooter and the bomber to do what they do. All the while claiming Democrats are violent. Trump is a crackpot and the people who support him are crackpots too.
Vote Democratic like your life and the future of the country depends on it. Because it does.
14
Tone from the top matters.
4
It was really presidential, on the night of the day of a slaughter in a house of worship, to get on Twitter to second-guess the Dodgers' manager. I'm sure that's what his buddy Abe would've done in a similar situation. Talking with Congressional leaders or administration officials about how to cool things down, and try somehow to find a way to avoid these tragedies, shouldn't get in the way of Tweeting in the Gee, I'm such a genius competition.
3
Vote the hate out of office.
7
I warned the FBI about the rise of these Nazi terrorists. A guy who was friends with Bowers on Gab just threatened to murder me and my family. He is cheering on the death of these Jews on his Gab page. We were targeted because of our efforts to stop these people. We have been gangstalked by these Nazis for about 2 months now. We reported to the police 3 weeks ago. We just got a home sercurity system because of the threats. I've tried contacting many news sites about this. We are going to sue minds.com for participating in the stalking and giving our personal information to these people.
4
White People you really have some deep soul searching to do right now...
"A tragedy is merely a comedy where the audience understands the consequences." —Samuel Drest, playwright
5
This week is the "American Carnage" Donald Trump promised us in his inaugural speech.
10
If a judge claims what Trump says on Twitter is just hyperbole, not presidential, then why does Twitter let him get away with this? It's not true, it's not just and it hurts all of us. Benevolent and righteous is not what we have in this president.
I suggest we start to boycott that twitter trap. Of course, i never touched the stuff, so I appreciate many of us are addicted to it, but it's a horrible place to live.
9
I, for one, will be taking anti-fascism more seriously as a strategy moving forward.
8
Although this horrifying rampage is most often being described as anti-Semitic, my sense is that its starting motivation was anti-immigrant and only secondarily became anti-semitic when the perpetrator leaned that The Tree of Life Synagogue was a big supporter of HIAS. In support of that, I find myself wondering about the timing of 45's announcement that he'd become a nationalist. Was 45's timing of that announcement driven by his learning that the members of his base could better be entranced into thinking nationalism is what binds them?
3
Angus Cunningham,
You are correct . I feel that this was motivated first and foremost by the shooter’s rage against refugees, a rage that was started by and now continually fueled by Donald Trump.
Our president has blood in his hands . Our own Commander In Chief is rotten to the core and he exemplifies this as he instigates violence and fear at every one of his emotionally high hate filled rallies . I feel like it’s Nazi Germany all over again.
2
I am thinking today how this shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, three blocks from my house, will change our lives in so many ways. The worst, of course, is the impact on the Tree of Life families and my heart goes out to them.
But we will all lose some of what is wonderful about living in Squirrel Hill, where people of diverse religions and backgrounds live in a vibrant, tolerant community.
When I first went to the local Jewish Community Center with our kids years ago, I could just walk in. Then, there were locks on the doors a decade ago. In the past month, more intensive security systems have been installed, with metal detectors, etc. What's next? Bullet-proof vests while I swim my laps? Do we really have to barricade ourselves to be safe? Meanwhile, our politicians pander to the NRA and tell us to arm our synagogues and churches and schools. And we all lose. This is no way to live. We must hold our politicians accountable on gun control. Or, we will become one more place where people have to live in fortresses to be safe.
563
I hear your anguish. But at the Seder and at Purim and on HaShoah we recount that life is only sweet in tastes. The Cossacks, Haman, the SS, the Egyptians, a long line that we must survive. Therefore let us devote ourselves to rebuilding, and especially caring for the children.
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@Ann
I m so deeply sorry that this has happened so close to you - that it has happened at all. We cannot live in a fortress, after all we are "the home of the free and the brave." Yet some are more concerned with posture during the National Anthem than living the sentiments it conveys. Horrible times!
11
@Ann Plus the absurdity of the FACT that armed police were shot at... as if guns would have made a difference.
6
I do not want to hear from anyone, regardless of their political views,“This is not who we are”. It is as meaningless as “thoughts and prayers”, and worse, it is also a denial. This IS who many of “us” Americans are: angry, bigoted, full of fear and hatred and eager to let the world know it, often violently. And while the Trump era has stoked the ugliness behind violent behavior, it is as old as the U.S.A. Even if we defeat Trump in 2020, this nation will still harbor profoundly deep and perhaps unbridgeable divisions over race, ethnicity and social issues impinging on tolerance. How do we reckon with this, how do we heal the wounds of people in whom hatred and fear reside so deeply?
723
Come live in NY. We have figured out how to get along here even some groups don’t like each other.
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@kjm44
Partition, maybe? Give them their own separate country.
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@kjm44
"How do we reckon with this, how do we heal the wounds of people in whom hatred and fear reside so deeply?"
Though saner people in government who are capable of original thought and lead instead of following and toeing the party line would be an answer, the real answer is that we can't.
Hate has been with us since the beginning. We fight each other, beat each other up and kill each other. Occasionally, an outside threat shows up, stuff like Hitler and 9/11. At that point we unify and get along against the outside enemy (as opposed to the enemy from within). We feel good for a while and then it's 'rinse and repeat.' Think about it; how long did we get along after 9/11? Not for long.
The difference now is that we have an ignorant president devoid of curiosity, maybe even of education (by his own admission, he doesn't read), without sympathy or empathy for seemingly anyone. After all, he needed cue cards to try to show empathy to Parkland and Sandy Hook parents when they visited the WH not long after the Parkland shooting. And many in his party willingly follow along. And that has fomented and even legitimized the hatred.
13
If the term "leafy" to describe a suburb or neighborhood could only be banned from the English language, it would allow us all to look at a horrific shooting like the one in Squirrel Hill's Tree of Life Synagogue as a dark and evil event without benefit of the implied pearl-clutching "how could it ever happen here, in a leafy neighborhood?" cliché. Hate (and specifically anti-Semitism) is not dependent on leafiness.
3
The solution is not to arm houses of worship, schools and public places...the solution is to get rid of high power weapons & ammo, they have no use other then to kill, no hunter needs them, they are made exclusively for killing humans. Other countries do not have this insane obsession with guns nor do they tolerate those who believe they have a right to be armed so they can kill others.
14
Of course that’s the answer but it’s too easy.
2
You're absolutely right, yet I'm afraid even if such a ban was instituted, the number of guns out there means that houses of worship DO have to take such measures to protect themselves. It's not the easy cure-all that the Cretin in Chief makes it out to be, but realistically, what's the choice? I lay it totally at the feet of the Republicans in Congress, who've prostituted themselves for so long, and Republican voters who let them.
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@Sandra Garratt
I want to live there.
2
Congratulations, Mr Bowers, you were totally pwned.
When will these “lone-wolf” psychopaths realize that they are throwing their lives away for some other guy’s political agenda?
Internet trolls, a la ISIS, sit in their basements and turn up the temperature online. They just have to keep it up and wait for some gullible and stupid pawn to grab a gun and blow away grandma and grandpa, this time essentially at church.
The slicker ones get the dumber ones to get up and grab a gun. Not until it’s over can you tell which was which.
3
We're just going to ignore the fact that Hungary willingly let Nazi Germany into their country? That it wasn't an occupation as much as letting their militarily superior ally set up in their borders?
4
That's incorrect. Hungary was, effectively, tricked into a situation in which German forces invaded and occupied the country without resistance, because the regent had been "lured" to discussions with Hitler, in Salzburg. That left the Hungarian military without orders, despite an existing plan to oppose an occupation.
1
Trump + assault rifles = violent neo-Nazism. This is going to get much worse before it's cleaned up. Get off your duffs and VOTE.
13
Yet the promoter of hate and ignorance with a fan base of
neo-nazis, white-supremacist & "gun nuts" accepts no responsibility.
Words matter. Words infect insecure low wattage men.
It clearly is to much to ask Trump be Presidential – Beyond his sociopathic DNA.
10
People want to blame everything from the gun to the President. Rhetoric did not kill these people. Vitriol did not kill them. A deranged man murdered them.
2
@Mark
That man holds the same hatred for refugees as the president. He believes they are coming toslaughter hs people. Trump has said as much repeatedly even though immigrants are the least likely to commit violent crimes. Yes, the man is deranged, but Trump gave him that permission.
9
My heart goes out to those affected by this terrible act. Now Trump stated "The results are very devastating,” he said, adding that if the temple “had some kind of protection” then “it could have been a much different situation.” I really am not surprised by this comment since he always makes comments are not appropriate. No one should need protection to practice their religion. This is supposed to be a country; no matter what race, religion, or sexual preference and so on; everyone should get the same treatment and not need security to be who they are. Trump should know when to put his foot in his mouth and not be a hiprocrite going back and forth and just offer condolences where it's due.
Many people are blaming Trump, but he is just one of many enablers. You have the people who run social media platforms like Gap, Reddit, tumblr, twitter, FB, etc., who apparently have no sense of social responsibilty, either. They are also willing to tolerate hate speech and forego civil discourse, laboring under the misconception that it is a "free speech" issue.
They forget about the social contract that every civilized society requires in order to serve its citizens' best interests. We have to tolerate our differences. All of us have to tolerate each other's differences. That means that we have to tolerate a conservative Republican man's opinion, even if we disagree with it. Conversely, that conservative Republican man must tolerate the opinions of others he does not like. Tolerance is a two-way street, and that is what the white supremacists/nationalists do not understand. If they are real Americans, they will tolerate everyone, regardless of political opinions, gender, color, religion, or sexual orientation.
The rest of us are no longer willing to be harassed, intimidated, threatened, and dictated to by a small segment of people suffering from inferiority complexes, who need to destroy other people in order to make themselves feel superior.
5
@Allison Please stop it with the false equivalences. Read a post in the NYT Picks section about the findings of the Southern Poverty Law Center regarding the percent of all hate crimes perpetrated by the left-wing extremists (3%) vs. by the right-wing extremists (75%), and how they have sky-rocketed since Trump got elected. The rabble-rouser-in-chief has roused the rabble to the point of not being able to control it anymore. They now consider themselves his "foot soldiers", as one of them has tweeted, and he will be hard-pressed to shoo them away or ask them to tamp it down. All the nice rhetoric about tolerance will just be so many words he trots out - scripted for his TV appearances - that mean exactly zero, because he has not ONE plan to put an end to what he has unleashed. Remember the size of his base - that is not just a few people who are deranged, as you suggest. It's 40% - that's just about every other person in our voting population, who has been given license by the power of his example to be as hateful as they please.
8
Dear NYT, You've got an over-sized pulpit from which to speak. For starters, please stop the "both sides" rhetoric with almost every story about Trump's lies. Then, please call Trump's lies loud and clear. Trump's defenders will protest, of course. Please do the right thing in this time of crisis for our republic.
4
n the wake of the attempted pipe bombings and the Pittsburgh synagogue murders, I have realized that there is one particular subspecies of Trump voter that I have an especially hard time coming to terms with. It isn't the die-hard fans; it isn't even the white supremacists or nationalists. The Trump voter I have the biggest problem with is the voter who knew, and openly recognized, that much of what came out of Trump's mouth was nonsense, and that he regularly engaged in rhetoric that was irresponsible by any standard, but who c calculated that a Trump presidency would have something in it for them. They told themselves that his lies, his fomenting of hatreds between various group, and his lack of presidential bearing were unimportant this time around. They knew better, but they nevertheless decided to put whatever benefit they anticipated from a Trump presidency ahead of the good of the country as a whole.
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@Mark Kissinger
Totally agree. I would hate to think they may be a significant fraction of the 40% base of support that Trump enjoys. That means at least a quarter of our electorate is just as sociopathic as he is.
3
While this was the worst anti semitic attack in American history it nevertheless was of a completely different nature than the anti semitic attacks that Jews suffered throughout history.
And this is because this was an act by a single individual who was willing to receive the death penalty for this actions. This is vastly different from anti semitic attacks throughout history. Those attacks were not by a single individual but rather by the society itself, and sanctioned by the authorities. That it was considered okay to murder Jews. And so to be a Jew who lived in such a society was a terrible way to live.
This case however is the very opposite of the anti semitism of those times and countries. As not only was this the act of an individual and not a mob, let alone the society at large. This was an act that was so at odds with the society and country in which is occured that this is one of the only cases where the whole country is in agreement that if there is a case deserving of the death penalty this is it.
1
How much heartache and suffering does it take before changes take place? These killers are angry, resentful and WANT ATTENTION. They rage against the innocent and in return we give them the notoriety that they crave. As a society we are giving these murderous thugs what they want. News media show their photo's and report their names saying the American people have a right to know. Have they asked us? Stop giving these killers the fame they want. If the coverage encourages more violence, change it. We don't need this on cable 24 hours a day. Pay more attention to the fact that the NIH is not allowed to study gun violence, that the gun manufacturers cannot be sued. In other words give more attention to the possible solutions. Consider showing pictures of the damage these weapons do to the human body. This will cause anguish and distress, but that's the point. Maybe then people will respond, get angry and demand change. The victims family suffer unimaginable pain and I would hate to make it worse, and therefore photos should only be published with their consent. We need to know and face the trauma that these weapons cause and then maybe we'll demand change. I feel nauseated when I think this will happen again and again. I want change. I want these lost lives to matter. The country is suffering. We need to stand up and make our leaders hear our cries.
6
@Linda
Donate to HIAS in the name of every congregant who was slaughtered by the bigots minion.
Donate to keep funding the immigrants who are struggling to come here in defiance of the bigot and his followers who hate.
3
@Manderine Already have and I hope many others do the same.
1
For the love of God, grow up:
Trump and some others resort to the old ploy of delinquent youth of attempting to rationalize destructive behavior by contending that everyone is doing it. No everyone is neither doing it nor condoning it by dismissing it on grounds that others do it. Acts of violence and attempts to hide them by contending that they happen is unconscionable and Trump and his ilk exacerbate the threat by trying to point fingers at others that need first be directed at self. Mr. President you have stirred up far too much anger and as head of the nation’s first family you need to stop rendering our land into your own dysfunctional family.
4
In America you have high cases of people with mind instability conditions without treatment and access to health services, and the political discourse is not helping. Adding to all that, racial, sex, classes and inequality issues that just polarize the society. I think is time for a new “New Deal” in America. Is that, or prescribing a cocktail of anxiolytics and antipsychotics to the entire nation with the purpose of not missing any type of "solitary wolf" criminals.
3
My heart breaks for the victims and families of yet another senseless act of violence. Churches and synagogues are supposed to be a place of solace, comfort, and refuge. The perpetual state of fear mongering and hatred is irreparably dividing us as a nation.
I’m optimistic that the next generation can learn from the missteps of our current times. As a native New Yorker now living in Atlanta, I work at a large university in Atlanta. It’s refreshing to see graduate and undergraduate students of all races, ethnicities, and religions working side by side on social justice issues.
Am I naive in hoping that somehow, we as a nation can begin to come together on more than a superficial level? Maybe I am. At this point hope and action on our part can begin to hopefully bring about a positive change.
Regardless of race, class, and religion, we all want the same thing - to be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect.
A petulant child “acting” as president and lax gun laws has left us with a recipe for disaster. If our so called Commander In Chief can’t act with even a modicum of civility, it’s up to each of us to do our part. If nothing else, please be sure to vote in the upcoming election. Hopefully we can turn things around.
30
To readers who don't believe this kind of hatred is prevalent, read on:
My two sons and their families have been in the U.S. for some 20 years. Both are married to wonderful American girls.
One of our daughters-in-law happens to be Jewish, ergo our two grandsons, one entering middle school, the other entering high school, are of course half Jewish. She and their Dad teach our boys about their religions and they celebrate and follow Christian and Jewish rituals and traditions.
Since the election of the current potus, one of the boys has already faced harassment in school due to his Mom's heritage.
My son who has retained his Cdn citizenship (green card) has been harassed by Trump supporting neighbours, told to go back to Canada and take his Jewish family with him. He has decided to apply for U.S. citizenship for the expressed purpose of being allowed to vote
I've reached the point where I actually fear for their safety. I write this with a heavy heart. My condolences go out to all those who lose their lives to hatred. Pittsburg is in my thoughts today.
20
"Critics of President Trump have argued that he is partly to blame for recent acts of violence because he has been stirring the pot of nationalism, on Twitter and at his rallies, charges that Mr. Trump has denied."
Completely gratuitous, guys. Youre playing into Trump's narrative. This bit of editorializing has no place in this story.
Donald Trump absolutely needs to curtail his language. Bottom line is that the manner in which he says things is irresponsible. I hope he takes note of it and adjusts his speech for the remainder of his time in office.
However, I am truly sick and tired of people blaming these events squarely on Donald Trump. Please. Robert Bowers hated Jews long before Donald Trump rose to political prominence. Take off your partisan blinders for two seconds. You do a disservice to the victims of these tragedies by blaming this on Donald Trump and not acknowledging the REAL reason which is the poison that is being continuously pumped throughout our society: the hate, the bullying, the violence, the greed, the objectification - these things are being preached and glorified from the rooftops from nearly every facet of American life. You continue pouring this poison into a society, and the results are tragedies like these.
All of this hate was well in place before Donald Trump became president. I firmly believe that if Hillary had won the election this kind of stuff would still be happening. How many more tragedies have to occur before we wake up and realize that we aren't just Republicans or Democrats - we are ONE race. We are NEIGHBORS. We are AMERICAN CITIZENS and we are called to love each other.
4
@Jon KRead the hate crime stats from the So. Poverty Law Center. You will change your mind.
4
@ush Am well aware of the crime stats.
Did we not have mass shootings under Obama? By that logic it's the fault of Obama for failing to unify us... which is a common right wing talking point by the way...
The perpetrator claimed he wanted to stop "invaders" who seek to come to our country to harm us. The invader is already here. It is him. And all those like him who hold hate in their hearts toward others who are different from themselves.
13
Believe me, I can not stand our current president. But I don't think it helps the discussion to find blame where it may not belong. Lots of people express anger towards groups but few actually kill over it. We need to have a more nuanced conversation about hatred, racism (or any -ism), violence and guns/weapons in this country. This guy, like all of the other mass shooters, is obviously mentally ill (My feeling is that all people who have hatred towards some group are on a mentally ill spectrum) and with reason. We need our countries leaders to get together with mental health experts, law enforcement, and gun owners to talk and come up with some ideas for stopping this terrible violence that has become all too commonplace. Armed guards is a ridiculous idea. We need more.
7
When I first heard the news of the shooting in the church in Charleston in 2015, I was shocked. When the press knew that the families had all been notified we were given the names and pictures. I was saddened as I saw the pictures of six victims then I saw Suzie Jackson. 87 and I cried. I did not know her or any of her family and friends. I am also white and grew up in a small midwestern city with so few black people that I almost never saw one as I grew up. Now I see the news of this hideous murder of people I don't know we didn't share religion, but just like Suzie, these people are also my bothers and sisters and I am crying again.
17
My Sympathies to the Families. Why can’t everyone just say that this behavior is instigated by Donald Trump? He is the problem. These hate groups feel empowered by his rhetoric. Trump is void of any thread of moral decency. We need to keep telling the truth about the link between Trump and right wing hate groups. Web sites like Gap that promotes hate need to be shut down. Please keep telling the truth and be direct.
18
Obviously, it’s not enough to vote. You also need to find ways to help and get the other 50 percent complicit non voters in your neighborhood to the poles. It’s hard, but think of the alternatives!
15
I read in one place that this shooting happened during a bris.
Is that true?
Imagine going to Temple for such a happy event, the equivalent of a baptism, your family around you.
Then.
This?
Thanks, Limbaugh, Ailes, Murdoch, FOX and Trump.
15
@Naples,
Add Gingrich to your list of deplorable. Read/listen to his memos and cassette tapes he sent to Republican candidates in his effort to take Congress in the late 80’s early 90’s. He professed confrontation and hate towards his opposition. Ailed, Murdoch, Fox, and Trump have escalated and normalized this un- American behavior of bigotry, hate and violence. NRA also amplify this atrocious behavior.
7
@Truth Please
OMG, Newt is the worst. I used to go through my FinL's mail when he became demented. It was a coin toss between "Buy My Books Bolton" and "Buy My Tapes Newt." Both had rewrites of history waiting to take you back to the 1930s. Steve Forbes just looked like Stephen Colbert to me and wasn't nearly as funny. Why does a rich guy need all my money?
That's hardly fairto suggest what went down then when the Public Domain has been frozen since 1998, and next year 1925 finally drops. I want to see how this Hitler thingy worked out in Munich.
1
You have be amazed at the gall of POTUS’ comment that the attack would not have been as serious as it was if the synagogue was better protected. So it’s the synagogue’ fault. Taken to its appalling conclusion, our president would have every public venue, house of worship etc be an armed camp waiting to be attacked. This man who is our leader has no shame. His words are about as empathetic as a telephone pole. This country as descended to the lowest rung of the civilized world. I AM ASHAMED TO CALL MYSELF AN AMERICAN!
20
We're targeting the wrong organization when we want to stop mass murderers.
Mental health problems are the starting point of violence.
Guns are the end point of violence.
If violence is the language and sound of the unheard and unseen mentally ill, then guns make a lot of noise.
On the other hand, health insurance companies are as silent as the ghosts of the children and adults who've been gunned down by the mentally/emotionally impaired.
Congress and State legislators demonize the NRA to avoid going after HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES THAT REFUSE TO ADEQUATELY COVER COSTS OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE. Until health insurance corporations provide mental health care, we are all at the mercy of these rampant shooters.
Psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and police must find ethical but balanced methods to place the mentally/emotionally unstable on a watch list so there can be a way to forewarn against potential mass shootings. Robert Bowers should have been red flagged by someone. He should have been on a police watch list, just as drug dealers and other criminals are on police watch lists.
We can no longer afford this tradition of strict protection of the privacy rights of patients when the actual lives of too many children and others are at imminent risk of being violently taken from them. Balance, rather than non-sensical extreme privacy of patients, is essential in all matters of this human condition.
4
@cynic2
Anti semitism in NOT a mental illness.
The Republican Party on the other hand is a mental illness.
3
if we do not weep for the victims of gun violence, we have lost our heart. If we do nothing to end gun violence, we have lost our soul.
10
@David g k
We are lost souls.
1
It is the government’s responsibility to keep us safe not our responsibility to keep us safe. The government needs to be aware of its responsibilities. Trump again seems total unaware of the responsibilities of the government.
The head of the government doesn’t need to be the instigator of hate and division. It makes the government incapable of protecting its citizens.
If safety only involved arming yourself, strip the President and Congress of their secret service details and give them AR-15s to protect themselves. They would take their responsibilities more seriously if their lives were at risk. The secret service even provides security to congressmen playing baseball. How many republican Congress people would have died otherwise.
2
I have read many many comments about the weapon used here, and for the sake of clarification; it was not an AR-15, it was an AR-15 STYLE rifle. An AR-15 is a weapon used by the military of our country and others which is much more powerful and deadly.
And for the sake of argument: The Second Amendment has been twisted so badly by Republicans and their conservative supporters for decades. Nowhere in the second amendment does it state that every citizen has a right to bear arms. The entire purpose of the amendment was to ensure that a CITIZEN in a STATE was armed in order TO FORM A MILITIA in a time of war or to defend the state. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." We had NO full-time freestanding military until after the civil war so the people had a right to arm so a militia could be formed for defensive purposes. If you want to twist it all then we all can own tanks and RPG’s as well. We have a full military presence and a fully manned reserve military securing all free states so the need for the 2nd Amendment is now null and void.
And finally: I believe that people should have the right to own firearms, but I see no need for assault type rifles to be sold or owned. Their purpose is to kill human beings. That’s just my opinion though. I own a handgun for home protection and I know plenty of people who hunt but none of them hunt with assault style rifles.
8
@Dave P. Tell me, what functionally separates the handgun you claim to own and an AR-15? Please be specific.
@Jon W.
One's an assault rifle and the other is a hand gun, are you done yet? Please be specific.
1
Cesar Sayoc's mailed bombs to targeted opponents of President Trump and Robert Bower's deadly rampage against members of the Jewish faith reverberate back to Trump's hate filled, implicitly violent campaign rhetoric. Trump's base, including white supremacists, consider him their president. Trump, their leader, leads them. He has given them more than a wink and a nod.
I'm told that both sides are responsible, that Rep. Steve Scalise having been shot by a Bernie Sanders' supporter shows this to be so. However, Bernie Sanders did not campaign using hate filled, implicitly violent rhetoric against his opponents. His focus was on policy.
If it wasn't clear before, it is clear, now that Trump is not interested in, is incapable of, healing, leading and uniting the nation.
And Congress. Where is the majority in Congress in all of this? They just lay low and say nothing. Or, they say the problem is... both sides. Their solution: make it a them vs. us. The majority party in power are the Republicans of Donald J. Trump (who expressed concern about the appearance of his hair in the same breath as referring to the murders in Pittsburgh).
Vote.
8
It is hard to know what to do. This last year I was at bat mitzvah at a temple in Encino, CA, that was like driving into a fortress with twelve foot fences around the entire compound, motorized gates and guard station at the single entrance to the parking lot and a patrolman on duty inside in the hallways. Later at a bar mitzvah, also in the San Fernando Valley not too many miles away in Woodland Hills, this temple was completely open to a main boulevard with an unblocked terraced parking lot and wide welcoming stairs leading up to the synagogue. I can only imagine it was a preference of each how it chose to live and worship.
3
Yes, we must do something to combat the expression of ideas on Social media. But people seem to forget that there're other things out there that pose a threat to our way of life...they're called books! And they're filled with all sort of ideas, dangerous ideas, and we need to take action. I think we should gather all the books. and put them in a pile and burn them! We'll call it a Freedom Fire! Sound good? Come on people, let's remain calm, and not be so quick to escape from freedom. One thing I was taught that in the United States we should not fear ideas, but we should combat them with thought and reason. That is one of the reasons I always felt made America great.
2
Joyce Feinberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 86
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69
46
@Catherine
Maurice Stallard Sr, 69
Vickie Lee Jones, 67
3
Trump and everyone in his administration and in the Republican Congress must go. Trump has incited hatred and mob rule against civility since he took office in 2016, and the Republican Congress has done nothing to stop his deranged rambling and belligerent and dangerous behavior. They are as guilty in this tragedy as he. The Republican Congress has supported every lunatic utterance and action Trump exhibited. Mitch McConnell is Trump’s right-hand man in the decline of America into mob-rule.
40
@eliza Trump's ugly and rabid appeal to the basest and his base's instincts started with the first GOP debate in 2016, long before he assumed office. Yes, Trump is clearly responsible and must be held accountable. We start by voting every Republican go-along out of office next month. Meanwhile:
To get to the core of what is going on, we need to look right inside the minds of people who do this -- and discover their atom of derangement. For example, look at this news article from 2014:
"On February 25 1994, a US-born Israeli military physician walked into the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron armed with a Galil assault rifle. It was early morning during the holy month of Ramadan, and hundreds of Palestinians were crammed inside, bowed in prayer.
Baruch Goldstein, who had emigrated to Israel in 1983, lived in the Kiryat Arba settlement on the outskirts of the city. As worshippers kneeled, Goldstein opened fire. He reloaded at least once, continuing his barrage for as long as possible before finally being overpowered and eventually beaten to death. By the time he was stopped, 29 worshippers were killed, and more than a hundred had been injured."
This was an American. Carrying his rabid, ugly mind right into Israel. 1994, the time of Bill Clinton, yes .. but much more the time of the rabid messages of Newt Gingrinch and the New Rapid GOP. A lot of our trumped up political rage and insanity began then, Newt.
6
There is a direct line from Charlottesville --when the spectacle of armed thugs chanting "Jews will not replace us" was met with the president's confounding comment that "there are good people on both sides"-- to this massacre in a synagogue.
Is anyone really surprised that winking at and waving away the murder of a young woman peacefully exercising her First Amendment rights has led to this greater horror?
When is this country going to wake up and hold the Instigator-in-Chief accountable for the crimes--real ones-- of aiding and abetting terrorists? When are we going to connect dots so evident they become arrows leading to crime scenes? When are we going to stop pretending any part of this is normal?
We are so lost that there may be no coming back from this. Our failure to act collectively to hold in check a man of such raging impropriety (at best) and flagrant criminality on a bad day is destroying us.
Every time we shrug off the newest atrocity, we ensure the next one. We have had two incidents in a week that track directly back to his rhetoric. Bombs and guns. But this unhinged, unprincipled man --to be clear I am talking about our president --has access to nuclear weapons.
How many dots need to be connected before we act? We'll end in a mushroom cloud if he's not stopped. That, too, is something he promised during the campaign. His threats are the only truth he ever speaks. It's long past time to pay attention to them and act.
36
What say Paul Ryan (D, Wis.)?
Congressman, if you need an AR-15 to shoot your Wisconsin trophy buck once a year, you need a different gun club than the NRA, and a eye test. Get rid of AR-15’s on American streets or join the Military.
22
No one should refer to what happened at my synagogue yesterday as a tragedy. Please call it what it was. It was an act of domestic terrorism. It was a one-person pogrom.
56
@salt You are in my Prayers.
3
@salt
Thank you for your clarity. I too am done with the euphemisms. I have railed against them from the day "shock and awe" was foisted on us. I noted in 2003 that they would usher in an age of violence, lies and lack of accountability.
Sincere condolences to your synagogue. May we have the courage to speak the truth of what happened there. It is our failure to do so which is a huge part of the problem.
3
According to pResident Trump this mass shooting had nothing to do with guns. Right? Can we ever have gun violence without guns? Yes people pull triggers, but triggers are on guns. AR-15 needs a national ban. It's beyond question and beyond reason. You may try to blame anyone and anything by diverting attention from the problem. NRA's time is over. This country is no longer safe as long as NRA and people argue that more guns will deter gun violence. That is just a bare faced lie masked as a sales pitch to circulate more guns and increase corporate profits for gun manufacturers. NRA ought to be tried as a terrorist organization in forstalling laws and policies to protect Americans from reasonable and practical anti violence laws.
12
Who's feeling all that resurgent American greatness shining through? Me neither.
21
Recognition and appreciation due to City of Pittsburgh Police, Fire, and EMS who ran to the gunfire.
18
To those who continue to support and believe (in) Trump, including present members of Congress and those seeking office, shame on you. Shame on you. America has become a horror show. And of this, I, as an American, am appalled.
41
ok Now we know. Chiming in on hate filled web sites is not just free expression of unpopular views it actually leads to violence. I would not want all unhinged ranters and conspiracy theorists to be put under police surveilence any more than I would want all migrants from central america to be issued ankle monitors but it is tempting.
We are on a slippery slope.
6
I have waded through that cesspit of a message board, Gab, where the shooter took comfort in posting the hateful outpourings of his mind. He has a lot of company. At what point will we as a nation stop tolerating such hate in the name of protecting what they insist is free speech?
14
Don the Con fuels hatred. Yes, he should be held accountable for his behavior. As a society, we need the strongest denunciation of racism, anti-semitism and bigotry.
If we are seeking a unifier, someone who can bring us together as a nation, then what a dilemma for him to have to choose between his hatred-built base and the rest of us. For myself, he made is choice a while ago and this tragedy is a reminder of it.
17
Horrible crime, horrible use of a completely legal incredibly deadly firearm. I wish all officials would not use the tragedy for the sanctimonious back slapping of law enforcement who were doing the job they were trained and paid for. Everyone, should realize that if they do a crime they will have a team of trained professionals capture them and hold them responsible in short order. Calling police “heroic" for doing what they supposed to do diminishes the professionalism they are suppose to perform routinely.
3
Make America Love Again.
Make America Safe Again.
Make America Democracy Again.
30
@SZ
Trump stole the Make America Great Again phrase from Ronald Reagan.
That's the tipping point - 1980 - for all the violence and corrosion of U.S. democracy. Prior to Reagan, the nation had problems, of course, but we were working on them together and with the strength of a nation of laws and the law abiding. After 1980, the religious right wing Republican circus came to town and never left.
4
It may sound illogical but it's fortunate in a way that this animal was only armed with a so-called assault rifle and several handguns. Had the animal been armed with a shotgun I fear the number of dead and wounded would have been much greater. Although we normally depend upon the police to protect us, they cannot be everywhere and they are normally not present when they are needed most. We live in a time when each adult must take primary responsibility for their own personal safety. It's indeed a shame that this is the case. There is an argument to be made for incurring the expense of engaging armed security guards or arranging for enhanced on-site police protection. This seems to be the usual state of affairs in France these days. Although we lost most of our family in Europe to the Nazi murderers, my dad who fought in WW II said he suspected that the anti-Semites were not yet done with the Jews and it was only a matter of time before the next series of pograms or the next Holocaust befell us. I fear he was right.
1
Yes. Every "good guy with a gun"is a god guy with a gun...until he isn't, as this case, and so many others like it, clearly shows.
The fact is, without a gun this man is a coward. It is the gun that gives him and others like him their courage.
There is currently one gun for every man, woman and child in America. How anyone can say the solution is more guns is defies logic.
16
After reading the accompanying story that quoted his hateful social media posts, how can this guy NOT have been known to law enforcement authorities?
7
@Luke
Trump's Justice Department is willfully under funding this area of crime intervention. They are NOT looking into white supremacists or others with religious bents unless those investigations began two years ago. No, Sessions is claiming he's out to protect the free speech of such haters from this our mob.
The statement that is included in most of the coverage of this horrible crime is, "he was not known to law enforcement before the shooting."
It is a testament to our high tolerance for violent hate speech that this man was not already known to law enforcement. By that I mean that prior to the Internet if someone were making those kind of statements we would very likely have contacted law enforcement and taken his threats seriously instead of ignoring them or chalking them up to empty rhetoric.
It is time that the Internet platforms take these people seriously and that users also take them seriously, at least to the extent that their comments are preserved, printed, and passed along to the FBI tip line which is here: https://www.fbi.gov/tips
4
My heart goes out to all the innocent victims yet again.
As after every mass shooting in this country, I say enough is enough! We need to do something to stop the carnage by enacting sensible gun control laws like banning the AR-15 and any assault rifles!
In the midterm elections we need to vote for leaders who will have the courage to do this!
If we can not stop all human depravity, we can at least deny it access to assault weapons in this country!
That’s the least we should do!
9
These type of institutions don't pay a penny of tax, if they want extra security let them pay for it.
1
There is a well-known Catholic Church on the upper east side that has a security guard during opening hours and it is paid for by the Church. It is a wealthy parish and can well afford this protection. I always feel safe when I worship here. Not one dime of tax payer money goes toward this very important service. I would guess that other houses of worship pay for it themselves also.
@Walter McCarthy
The victims and their fellow congregants are humans first.
We should care about them, and the lies and hatred that leads to violence against them, because they are our cousins (no matter how distant) and their suffering is our suffering.
Terror perpetuated against them weakens our whole society.
2
@Walter McCarthy
Wow, Walter. This is your response?
Why not put that outrage to work to end the oil subsidies? As it is, part of my salary is given to oil companies—among the ten most profitable corporations in the history of the planet. They not only get a free court system, roads, sewage. police, jails—an entire Commons—on my tab, but they also are subsidized.
And then learn to practice a little respect for the innocent dead for about ten minutes before you start in.
2
There are a lot of Robert Bowers' in our country right now and we need to do something about them. This is not going to end anytime soon. White, middle-aged, undereducated men have been jettisoned by our economy, marginalized in the family unit and they have fallen to the lowest layer of our cultural hierarchy. They are angry, they are armed and they are looking for someone to blame. Blaming them for their lot won't work; vilifying them only emboldens them and Trump has figured out how to exploit their rage, as any cowardly leader would. In this instance the nut even turned against Trump, but Bowers is, nonetheless, Trump's creation. I don't profess to know a solution. I do know, however, that we cannot rely on Trump or his party to fix it, of course, so it's up to us. It needs to be our singular focus because it ties into everything. It requires more than Trump-bashing and an us-versus them mentality. I hope we, the Democrats, are capable of it.
8
Recently a longtime friend shocked me. He and I are clearly from different political outlooks, but not too far apart. He walked out into his kitchen to show me his newly purchased AR-15. Lives on a ranch, coyotes, ground squirrels, mountain lions, bears etc. I felt revulsion. Kept my mouth shut. But to this day, lets just say "Not Pleased".
6
My condolences to the victims. I hope Americans find a way to elect reasonable leaders who will keep hatred away from our communities.
Seems to me like all of the so called agencies involved in keeping America are safe are looking outside the country while the real terrorists are hiding in plain sight - running around freely.
9
I truly wonder if there is any hope for humanity, democracy and freedom when one mass tragedy after another continues to occur throughout the world. What will the tipping point be prior to all wearing GPS devices, where all purchases are reviewed, all internet surfing is subject to analysis? Is it when one or a few individuals easily acquire the capability of ending lives of 100?1000? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? We are a flawed species hellbent on self destruction..
3
I read that the shooter has 21 licensed guns. Why should this be allowed? After three purchases, I suggest that a "hold" be placed on future purchases until a mental evaluation or some valid reasons can be obtained. Also, why not limits on ammunition that can be purchased.
12
@george richmond I’ll agree to that when you agree to similar limits on abortion and gay “marriage.”
Action: consequence::
Post hate speech: lose access to guns
I don’t see how that would violate either of someone’s first or second amendment rights.
5
I am still waiting for a Democratic candidate who has the spine to call for a federal assault weapons ban and nationwide mandatory gun buyback programs. We all know measures like these are a necessary first step for preventing mass shootings like this, but where is the political will to actually stop these attacks?
Republicans have no problem scaring their voters into believing that a caravan of a few thousand migrants from Central America poses a grave threat to national security. Why aren’t we as motivated by the actual danger that on any given day, there’s a chance that dozens of innocent Americans at a school, church, or at a public event will be gunned down by a madman with an assault weapon?
5
Yes, Mr. Trump, they might have been better off with a "different kind of protection". I'm thinking Amendment One of the Bill of Rights.
5
@Jason Sypher
Trump's Justice Department is not doing tjob if he really means what he's told to say. They have dropped the ball on these kinds of killers. I wonder why?
1
The Republican Party has been hijacked by those who promote hatred and extreme positions, led by Donald Trump. This is not what honest Republicans ever wanted. On Nov. 6 they can choose to stay at home and let their party re-form itself.
7
This will be no solution nor ultimate salve:
But I hope that everyone posting here and everyone watching this country disintegrate will stop and look at themselves in the mirror and examine the petty ways many of us on a daily basis gossip about others, are rude to others (brushing by an old person at the supermarket door while we gab on a cellphone), fail to send that get well card because we're "too busy", never invite someone who lives alone into our home for companionship at a dinner.
The list could go on and on. In addition, in our own communities Republicans and Democrats spurn one another and viewpoints, using only political affiliation as the litmus test of whether any individual is worth our precious attention and respect.
Real change starts not at the top of anything but in the foothills.
You may not be able to feed a caravan; you can stop to ask a homeless person in your town what brought them to that place. You may not join the Peace Corps, a good topic at a cocktail party; you can teach one close-by child in poverty to read.
No one can depend upon others to set the tone we want (we can hope they will but have no guarantee). What we can do is live as Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
8
@hotGumption
May your words have feet and hands. Your wise words are a starting place.
1
I went to look up news about the baseball game last night. And what do I find? News critical of Trump. Apparently Trump watched the baseball game and tweeted that he thought that the Dodgers should have left their starting pitcher in. For the left this was terrible. A reason to blast him. Trump shouldn’t be commenting on a baseball game the same day of a shooting. The left has serious hate issues with Trump.
2
@Jim
Ah no, the point is, Trump shouldn't be tweeting at all.
9
Actually, we don't hate Trump, we believe he IS a clear and present danger to Freedom, our Democracy, to Justice and....has trashed American values!
DISAGREEMENT with Trump, is not hate......it is disgust.
7
@Jim: We don't hate him. We just think he is the worst president in the history of the United States, and that he does not belong in any seat of power, anywhere. He is simply a divisive figure who delights in chaos. That type of person does not deserve the mantle that has been bestowed upon him. His job is to represent the American people on the world stage, but he is unable to do so, since his idea of who the American people are is extraordinarily narrow and exclusive. He ignores millions of us, as if we did not exist, because we did not vote for him. He is unqualified to lead this country, since he is unable to brook disagreement or make compromises. He cannot endure constructive criticism, and is unable to get beyond his own prejudices and shortcomings to learn how to be a better president. His personal failings are so great, that one would simply feel sorry for him, if he were not such a destructive, spiteful, petty, and mean-spirited human being. He is not worth hating. He's simply a tiny man with a narrow mind, occupying an office that requires a far greater intellect, a more generous spirit, and stronger moral character. Voters need to smarten up and vote for better people. Almost anyone would have been a better choice than this sad, pathetic, spiteful, little man.
2
An effective corrective reaction is required immediately...all television*/radio channels (cable and otherwise) should and must stop covering Mr. Trump's rallies...and his inflammatory rhetoric.
Perhaps the TV honchos will realize their hunger for ratings (which is fed by Mr Trump and his symbiotic relationship with the media) is abetting this noxious behavior which, in turn, leads to unspeakable tragedies and hatred.
* Only Fox will carry them...but that's still means a much reduced audience.
8
So, you’re advocating censorship? Won’t that just add to the anger out there and possibly lead to more such murders?
Nobody is forced to watch a Trump rally on TV. At least not yet.
So, according to our Prez, we should have an armed guard (full time) at each school, each house of worship, each place of public gathering, etc. Wonderful, peaceful life ahead of us! What's next each and every place of work? (We are almost there on that one as well, it seems....)
7
Can we please stop equivocating. The perpetrators of these horrific incidents have been given permission. cover, if you will, by the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Until some individual or some group - forget our somnolent congress - leads a nationwide campaign to silence Trump and his scarily effective ability to incite and arouse his "base" we will have an escalating series of hate-driven horrors. Truly a frightening future.
37
An AR-15 style rifle says everything you need to know about how to prevent such MASS murders. There is no place in this country where assault weapons should be available. Hunters don't need them. Automatic weapons may be appropriate in military settings, but not for "sportsmen". The second Amendment does not permit what happened in Pittsburgh or anywhere else where a gunman opened fire on unarmed innocent civilians. The NRA and its supporters are responsible for this mass murder. Only deranged cowardly mass-murderers need automatic weapons.
10
@RLW actually, the second amendment was written explicitly to protect military weapons. It’s not about hunting.
From the start of his political career, Donald Trump has been legitimizing prejudices and violent expressions of hatred. The result: his “base” has readily accepted his disgusting message and is putting it into action, stunning the civilized world as we rapidly slide downhill from a democracy toward... what, a police state? That could be the logical next step in the Trumpian grab for absolute authority. His fellow Republicans won’t stand in the way because they figure to benefit from the Age of Trump (as long as they keep cheering for him.) But on November 6 we can all reassert our rights and collectively blow the whistle on this would-be dictator — if we want to. Go to the polls on Election Day and vote to put a halt to the Republican Party’s death grip on democracy. On November 6th, vote to take back your country while you can.
46
The president of the US spent yesterday dutifully issuing the expected "thoughts and prayers" remarks, and then went on to yet another of his delightful hate-rallies, this one in Chicago. Is there anyone out there who still wonders what's wrong with this country today?
10
There is no arguing with the obvious. President Trump is directly complicit in this attack.
Anti-Semitism in America has skyrocketed since he was elected. His explicit hate speech and implicit encouragement of violence against his political opponents has emboldened bigots of all stripes, as we saw this week through mail bombs in addition to guns.
His response to this tragedy was dishonest and woefully inadequate. If a bunch of old folks going to their synagogue for Saturday worship need to be protected by armed guards, our society is truly lost.
And the party in power clearly has zero intention of limiting public access to weapons of war that should not be available to civilians but were used for yet another mass murder yesterday.
We must restore American values and sanity to government by voting Trump's enablers out of office on November 6th.
33
This blood is on trump's hand, for that alone he should be impeached.
trump hate mongering resound with this kind on mentally unstable individuals, that alone has the potential to creates
more dangerous and tragic situations.
Don't expect trump to take responsibility for it, he never will.
6
The right-wing media, starting with Fox News, has been spewing lies and hate and attempting to drive a wedge between Americans for years. Their business model is to make their viewers angry. Donald Trump and the violence plagued society we now inhabit are the logical result. We can no longer sit back and hope things will get better. Everyone needs to vote. Leaders are supposed to bring us all together, not use divisive, hateful messaging to motivate their narrow base. Forget about party and reject those who try to drive us apart. Contact the advertisers who support hate infused programming and web content and tell them you will not be buying their products. Good people in this country far outweigh the bad, but we have become complacent. Time to wake up!
25
Long summer weekends in Philly 11, or so are killed frequently.
2
@Walter McCarthy
But your hood really knows how to blow the lids off a concert crowd! Offensiveness noted!
1
Why is there any doubt about Trump's implication in these events? He memorably recruited violence, offering to pay court costs of those who took him up on it.
9
My deepest condolences to all the members of the Tree of Life and the surrounding community for this horrific attack.
I think Americans are woefully ignorant of human nature and basic psychology. To say that these hateful actions originate with and are caused only by the perpetrator is wrong.
He was filled with anti-Semitic propaganda from various right-wing sources. What may have triggered him is knowledge the Jewish non-profit organization (HIAS) was helping refugees. He equated refugees with contemptible criminals instead of people fleeing violence, poverty and persecution. Of course, he got this absolutely false belief from Trump, various Republicans and right-wing media. Couple this to free accessibility to AR type assault weapons and attacks like this occur.
I'm reminded of the opening lines of the Dhammapada:
Mind is the forerunner of all actions.
All deeds are led by mind, created by mind.
If one speaks or acts with a corrupt mind,
suffering follows,
As the wheel follows the hoof of an ox pulling a cart.
Mind is the forerunner of all actions.
All deeds are led by mind, created by mind.
If one speaks or acts with a serene mind,
happiness follows,
As surely as one's shadow.
We are witnessing a shared psychic event unlike anything in recent American history. There is a direct causal link between lies and hate-filled propaganda coming from our leaders and events like this. This atmosphere is also causing many more numerous attacks that don't involve murder.
24
And the leader of our country is second-guessing the Dodgers manager in the wake of this tragedy. A vote for ANY Republican is a vote for Trump.
22
"The Jews will not replace us" This is the chant of the white Supremacists in Charlottesville. What was Trump's response to it? "You saw the same pictures I saw, there were good people on both sides"
And now, he claims to be a champion of unity. Yet, he couldn't disengage himself from politics for one day to show respect the dead and grieve their loss. And his supporters at his rallies? Were they solemn or respectful. No, they were energized, smiling, laughing, almost ebullient in the face of this tragedy.
To expect Donald J Trump to have sympathy, to feel deeply about someone else besides himself, is like asking a blind man to see. Donald Trump said what he needed to say under the circumstances but, the personal attacks, scapegoating, and the fear mongering will not stop. There will be more blood spilled, more tragedy, in this overheated and hateful environment that Trump has conjured.
11
If Trump does go to Pittsburgh the audience should quietly turn their backs on him the way he has turned his back on Americans of all types. It would make a powerful statement and is the ultimate powerful message to a narcissist.
13
@Frank
When Obama came to Tucson, we were so touched by his humanity. He went first to sit with Gabby and see others who were still in the hospital. Then he went to the college campus to speak before an over spilling crowd after numerous speakers gave uplifting speeches. I wound up outside the arena watching the event on the large screen in the stadium. Everyone was so full of love for the other, we became joyous in our honoring of the dead.
FOX News actually made fun of us for not behaving cowed enough. We were unfitting for our own grief, said FOX It's like the Grinch was waiting to hear our collective cry of misery, but we came back singing. Who Dat? Whoville, sluggers.
2
Will Trump’s next suggestion be armed guards in front of everyone’s front door to prevent home invasions? What a short sighted individual we have in the White House.
3
@Derek Martin
You beat me to the punch down. I'm expecting him to position troops at the polls in the Southwest to scare us away from them. Too late, I voted by mail.
1
So sad and utterly tragic. And to think we have a president who fuels the hatred with his vile rhetoric. Words do indeed matter, especially coming from the most powerful person in the world (unfortunately). I fear this will only get worse, especially as long as we have a president constantly sowing seeds of division, lying, and encouraging violence.
13
I am so tired of seeing pictures of military styled police with articles like this. It's not about the SWAT team or the police response, no matter if that makes eye candy for the readers. Let's lead with pictures of the synagogue that's affected. That congregation should be the center of this story.
7
There were four police officers wounded in this event. The police are very much affected by these tragedies.
1
@Daniel Gelperin--Very little is being said so far about the victims--it's all about the cretin killer and police action--including the reiteration of the injuries of four police officers. Well, there were two other people wounded besides police--where is the mention of them and their injuries?
There can be little plausible doubt that the unremitting Trump/Fox/GOP "caravan hysteria" of the last few weeks and the massacre in Squirrel Hill are directly connected. Hours before the killings, the killer wrote that because the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society "likes to bring invaders in to kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. I'm going in."
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the guy didn't read Trump's tweets and comments on the subject. Maybe the guy didn't watch the Fox News coverage of the caravan. And maybe people will be dumb enough to believe that it was just a coincidence.
7
For those who have witnessed or survived a shooting, or keep the company of those who have...
The cause of PTSD has a lot to do with the aftermath of a traumatic event... what happens to the person after the event rather than just the event itself. For eye witnesses, or people easily triggered because of their own history, it's important to take care of yourself in ways that have been proven to work. That includes not watching news constantly (not exposing yourself to repeated images) and - this is important - not re-telling the story repeatedly without interruption. In the brain, the more a neural network fires, the more likely it is to stick around. Repeating the story is like walking the same path - it becomes more permanent the more we wear it in. Among others, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR are two very effective trauma treatments. Bessel van der Kolk, who has appeared here at NYTimes, is one of the world's leading researchers on trauma - a very good source of information.
I wish every parent, teacher and medical professional had some basic training in attachment and emotional first aid to avoid the overamplification of trauma. Here are a couple of essential first aid kits:
http://www.ginaross.com/images/emotional_first_aid_brief_guide.pdf
https://francescaredden.com/emotional-first-aid-trauma-prevention-every-...
2
@Barbara
It is important not to cut a groove in your own amygdala so deep the needle keeps skipping there without you choosing the tune. But Trump is ubiquitous as intended by Bannon and Miller. Bannon said he would shove Trump upon us and spread misinformation so deep we would never know what hit us.
This is excellent advise, and you must know the same science is at play going the other way to achieve the opposite result. Trump wins when anxiety, scarcity, depression and opioid addiction flourish. So do our enemies. Trump puts science to work to defeat the human spirit. I think that spirit is stronger than Trump.
1
Instead of condemning this administrations’s encouragement of violence, divisiveness, prejudice, this GOP by its mere silence got us where we are now. These attacks on us, because regardless of how this government tries to divide us we are one people , will continue to happen. No action, the same old song”we feel so bad for you and yours.” We did not put you in your positions just to get sympathetic rhetoric. Get up have your Wheaties and get to work. We want, no we demand a sensible, protection in our laws as most civilized countries have.
4
James Hodgkinson’s actions aside for a moment, as well as the bleating, foul mouths of our “entertainment” industry all as instruments of hate-inciting behaviors, will it be sufficient to distance our President from this Pittsburgh demon, who doesn’t like President Trump, either?
Probably not.
@JClare Predictable. The shooter doesn't like Trump only because he isn't extreme enough, not for the same reasons people of conscience dislike Trump. The shooter's motive was apperently anger over migrant 'invaders' - now where might he have gotten that idea?
Trump cannot be distanced from any of this, despite the pathetic sophistry suggesting otherwise. This game is old, and losing. Just stop.
If this is “winning”, Trump was right... I am tired of it.
7
We need REAL LEADERSHIP in this country! November 6, Americans. Vote as if your lives depended on it. Because they do.
11
I am sad and mad!
My cousins ( who are to the last one bleeding heart Libs) have always be shocked that I own and carry a weapon.
My response to their shock, has always been, that as the son of a holocaust survivor, I have a right and a duty to prevent those same atrocities from happening again, ANYWHERE.
1
@Rhsmd1
I've owned a handgun since the age of 24 to protect myself, family and home from violent men of all races and ages, the sort that the U.S. grows like a fungus on the forest floor generation after generation.
@Rhsmd1: That is just an excuse for your need to have a gun. If you think that you are in danger from the US Military then you are looking in the wrong place. Your danger is from Trump and his henchmen. I too am a gun owner but I have no illusions that I can defend myself against the US military if need be.
1
@Rhsmd1--Right on! Enough is enough. I'm not a gun owner, but I know responsible owners who own them for protection.
Trump has the largest megaphone in the world. He needs to use it to reduce the division in this country. It is not enough to read off a statement condemning hatred and violence in a dead voice, especially when he immediately goes back to talking about things like body slamming a reporter. Yes, we all must act, but he is the leader of the country. His behavior must act as a role model for all of us.
6
“It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done”.
Really?
Trump, leader of a super power, I was under the impression have pretty good comprehension of what he is talking about.
Evidently either because of political compulsion or of ignorance chosen to include all countries have problem of terrible hate, completely ignoring that the hate in America is terrible thing a country awash with military grade weapons in public hands, many suffering from mental disorders. No other nation has this problem and hence nothing much hateful nuts can do.
“ connections between mental illness and gun violence are less causal and more complex than current US public opinion and legislative action allow. US gun rights advocates are fond of the phrase “guns don’t kill people, people do.” .. neither guns nor people exist in isolation from social or historical influences. .. US gun crime happens when guns and people come together in particular, destructive ways. Gun violence has a social context, and that context is not something that “mental illness” can describe nor that mental health practitioners can be expected to address in isolation. “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms”. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/
As long as NRA control the country there is little hope for the country.
Tail wagging the Dog syndrome indeed.
4
Gun advocates shout that gun regulation only hurts law abiding gun owners. But the problem with guns is that, as in this case and many others, law abiding citizens are only law abiding intil they aren’t. The simple truth is that these things happen here with regularity because we make it so easy for almost anyone to create a vast armory. The racist hateful divisive politics of Republicans also played its role. Vote-and not for a Republican.
7
The Pittsburgh murderer apparently was an active user of "Gab", a social media platform that is popular among bigots and conspiracy theorists. What if a large number of anti-trumpers established accounts with Gab and flooded the platform with posts that offer cogent counterarguments and evidence of Trump's lies. It may be possible to pierce their "media bubble" and expose them to different ideas. Let's go sane people - here's their registration page: https://gab.com/auth/register
4
Can anyone imagine any former President using Trumps' thug- like language to incite riot and to encourage hatred? He has created epithets that bring discourse to its lowest level, dividing a country that needs unity. He has given permission to violate and to disrespect, and for that alone he should be impeached. A good economy cannot make up for the lack of common, human decency that is disappearing too quickly. How can our children develop respect for the 'other' when their President behaves like the playground bully? Can we recover from this? How bad must it get? Is there a point of no return?
32
As noted in this paper just yesterday, anti-Semitism has risen dramatically in the last 2 years. This kind of violence is a direct result of our “allowing” and our “normalizing” of sexism, anti-Semitism, harassment, prejudice, vitriol, manipulation of information, lying, and the fomenting of rage and fear.
We’ve normalized poverty and enormous income disparity.
We’ve normalized epidemic use of anti-depressants, opioids, and anti-anxiety medications.
We’ve normalized marijuana use.
We’ve normalized the sexual harassment and abuse of women.
We’ve normalized the sexual abuse of coaches, teachers, employers, and priests.
We’ve normalized spending and credit, absent savings.
We’ve normalized health care as a privilege, not a right.
We’ve normalized assault weapon ownership.
We've normalized the shooting of our children in their own schools.
We’ve normalized full-time child care to raise our children.
We’ve normalized technology as a replacement for genuine connection, friendship and intimacy
“Liberals” and “Conservatives” share in the responsibility for the list above. However, what we have allowed is not about a tribe, a party, a label, or an ideology…it’s about our shared humanity.
Perhaps on November 6th we need to vote for the would-be leaders who will stop normalizing and allowing…the candidates who recognize the real work that needs to be done.
Perhaps we need to vote as if it is our last chance.
8
13 of the worst massacres in our history are correlated with Trump's presidency. What happened to his ludicrous "the carnage stops now"?
9
i have belonged to 3 different congregations in 3 different cities since 9/11. All three locked their doors even on Fri night and Sat with entrance being allowed by guard and representative of the congregation. There are undercover police in the sanctuary and around the premises during the High Holy Days. Of course this is paid for by higher dues and fees.
I cry as I write this that we even need to deal with this in the United States of America. The home of equality and religious freedom. Mr Trump may laud himself as a Nationalist presuming to make America first among all other countries. But too too many White Nationalists in this world it is a war cry to cleanse in any means possible.
If we can not safely worship in this country, we are no better than Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Shame on you Donald Trump for making civililty a sign of weakness when in fact it is strength.
10
It's way past time to acknowledge these mass shootings in a synagogue, churches, schools, newsrooms for what they are - HATE! And now we have a President extolling that hatred. His words of empathy and condolences ring so hollow. His next words will be shifted to ' fake news ' and more guns. Really?
One gun in the hands of a murderer with only hate in his heart is horrendous enough! Trump talks about about so much hate in our country and the world. But the buck stops with him. He spews hate, his actions confirm his hate for anyone unlike him, in fact he epitomizes hate. Humans pride themselves of being civilized. But what is happening shows how we have regressed. We are back to being barbarians!
My deepest condolences to the victims' families and the victims themselves. But they ring so hollow too!
2
A predictable senseless tragedy.
6
The president proposes a police state (armed guards at EVERY public place, ridiculous) when what we need is to get the wrenches out of the gears of our democracy.
I can't believe America is in the state that it is in. My heart breaks every day.
9
Donald Trump and his supporters in right-wing media continue to demonize Jews, Globalists and George Soros in particular, spinning tales of conspiracies to bring refugees and illegal immigrants into America on a wholesale basis. The Republican Party in my area of Ohio is running an ad portraying America under Democratic Party "rule" as a sci-fi wasteland of crime caused by these same immigrants. People I know here in southwestern Ohio who are Trump supporters get ALL their news and information from Fox or other right-wing media. They believe what they are told about Jews, Globalists, Soros and immigrants by these sources. Until the vitriol and lying stops there will be more of this violence all over America. How many more weeks like this one can our country take?
10
Bring up the bodies. Show them. Show the carnage. Only then will we get responsible gun control.
9
@Little Doom
Sorry, Trump's not even up for a Greek death scene, he's just a reality president. This scene must fade into the next, forgetfulness would "be best."
@Little Doom
Some suggested that after Sandy Hook 1st graders were slaughtered by a lifelong mentally impaired young male whose parents bought him numerous semi-automatic assault guns. The specter of that ought be horrific enough to move even the most hardened gun nut. We all know showing the bullet mangled bodies of any mass shooting would not stop men from their savagery. It likely would fuel it.
@Abby
I don't doubt what you say about Trump; my point is that those images will move public opinion to stricter laws that will remove guns from those who shouldn't have them. I hope it will repeal the 2nd amendment so that gun ownership is a privilege and not a right.
Hate speech should be banned and not be
considered a free speech. This person has
been posting anti-semitic comments on social
media. No one pointed a finger. Speech reflects
the thoughts of the person and people act
on their thoughts. Hate speech means
the person is hateful. With the easy access
to weapons like AR-15, such a person can
inflict serious casualties. Time to act.
6
@s.khan: Go read the First Amendment to our Constitution. Banning "Hate" speech allows the Government to label all opposition speech as "Hate Speech." We already have an Administration that labels left wing speech as hate speech and promotes right wing hate speech.
It is time that we DEMAND that our politicians pass common sense gun control. This human carnage is a tragic public health crisis and a disgrace to all of us who call ourselves American.
Vote cowardly politicians out of office who do the NRA's bidding rather than working to keep their constituents safe.
Know where every politician stands on guns.
Then vote in EVERY ELECTION like your life-- and your family's life-- depends on it. Because it does!
Vote ONLY for candidates who are COMMITTED to reforming our disastrous current gun laws. The gun situation in this country is outrageous. We must change it.
IT IS UP TO US. Our current spineless politicians will do nothing while their constituents are slaughtered by men and boys with guns. Their time is up-- they do not have the right or the moral courage to represent us.
7
This country will never change and our people will never decide to do anything about the brutality and senseless, pointless, unnecessary evil that takes thousands of lives from us at the point of a gun every year.
I used to believe that America is a noble country. It's not. It's selfish, self-absorbed, arrogant, distracted, indifferent, apathetic, and insensitive.
We can't even get reasonable laws to restrict firearm access. It's no wonder we tolerate a corrupt President, a corrupt Congress, a partisan Supreme Court, rigged elections, voter suppression, etc.
11
@CastleMan
The U.S. and colonies began as some of Europe's most educated and resilient, then rapidly devolved into Europe's and the world's least educated, most religious, criminal and opportunistic. We're generations into that model, with unsurprising results.
1
@CastleMan: Did you know that the vast majority of gun deaths are suicides, followed by accidents? Look it up. Beliefs aone one thing but facts are another. I agree that we need to ban military style weapons, high capacity magazines and bump stocks but most gun owners are not murders.
The Republicans' answer to this tragedy is that the worshippers should have had an armed guard at the door! Really? If that is the best the Republicans have to offer, they need to pack their bags and head home to live in the real world of hate and hostility they have created. They do not belong at the adult table. VOTE for CHANGE on Nov. 6. Save our country from personal agendas and moral muteness and disintegration.
8
I will be voting all Democrat. The state of our country today has me in tears. Trump and his cabal are to blame they must be removed, democratically, one way or another.
11
So one theory I had about guys like this is wrong: That social media gave them an "outlet" for their bile, and if they had that outlet it probably wouldn't turn to action. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Also Facebook barring hate speech probably backfired, because now all of the nuts can get together on a site like Gab, then reinforce and bolster each other, whereas if they were allowed on Facebook, there was a chance that some sane person would step up and counter them.
2
"American carnage." Remember that from the inaugural "speech"? I hold Benedict Donald responsible for all this carnage. He didn't actually pull the triggers, but a blind person can see that his rancid rhetoric enables, encourages and semi-normalizes these marginal outliers of society, and I hold every Republican in government who takes no action against Trump complicit. This atrocious state of affairs sits solidly on his and their heads. How much more of this fear and loathing can our country withstand?
6
I dont know what Trump supporters see in Trump. To borrow from Kavanaugh, I think any sane person would stay 2 zip codes away from the president.
5
@sunland
Most sane people, especially half the U.S. that's female, would stay 2 zip codes from Trump and Kavanaugh.
Instead of acting as the consoler in chief as he is supposed to, Trump joked at a rally today that his hair was ruined by having to answer questions in the rain about the Pittsburgh shooting, and that he almost had to cancel the rally because of his messy hair. And his audience laughed and clapped. So disgraceful.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-pittsburgh-shooting-hair-1190592?f...
14
No, this is who we are as Americans - as evidenced by mass shooting after mass shooting, led by a president who riles up hatred and division at every opportunity.
9
Trump's solution to terrorist attacks such as this:
Hire armed guards.
Has it come to the point that people cannot walk freely and expect to be safe without carrying a weapon.
This is Trump's world. Welcome to the Jungle.
4
When a place of worship is attacked, what would Jesus say?
The same as Trump and Pence?
More guns and more death penalty?
6
America, I love you and I cry for you. From a loving Canadian.
7
Trump's view that church /synagogue/ mosque attendees be armed is both totally nuts and ineffective.
People attending a religious service should not be required to carry guns.
In Tucson the killer with an assault type weapon fired 30 shots in 15 seconds.
The only way to stop that type massacre is to have people prancing around with their guns drawn and blast away any person who is thought to possibly have a gun.
"Can't be too careful. Can't take a chance. Have to blast him away first."
OR
We could ban assault type firearms and ban hand guns in public.
Your choice.
A "wild west" environment or an environment where no one carries guns in public.
Note: Even in the "Wild West" people coming into town had to leave their guns with the sheriff.
In California Governor Ronald Wilson Reagan signed his state's Mulford Act which mandated 5 years in the clink for anyone carrying a loaded gun in public.
Perhaps a federal law like the Mulford Act.?
9
@david
How about we just go back to when weapons had to be registered just like cars? Paul Drake could run down a weapon's owner before the cops ever saw it.
2
@Abby
I agree with you on registration but I do not think we have the political power to have that enacted.
Perhaps the compromise measures i outlined above might be enacted.
Most of the hate I have seen since Trump has been elected is just the hate of Trump. But it’s not any different then any other republican president.
This killer has nothing to do with Trump. But the hate of Trump runs so deep. The haters just have to find away of blaming Trump. And seriously what has Trump done that deserves this much hate?
It’s the economy stupid. The rise in hate related crimes and shootings is a direct result of the stratification of wealth in this country. As wages stay stagnate for 30 years, the 1% have now accumulated over 50% of total wealth which is astounding. The greed of the gilded folk will be the downfall of our society. The middle class in America is being assaulted from all sides and this is the result. Citizens who otherwise wouldn’t act out are doing exactly that because they feel they have nothing left to lose as want to blame someone, even if that blame is misdirected.
3
Call me suspicious. One year later we don’t know a thing about the Las Vegas shooter who mowed down hundreds of people mostly Republicans from his hotel window. We don’t know his motive or political affiliation, but the case has for all practical purposes been closed, and the media seems content with that. It’s like it never happened. Yet for some reason right-wingers always leave a calling card and an extensive bio. Not one day goes by, and we already know that the guy in Florida was a “registered Republican.” How convenient. Assassins register themselves now? This guy in Pittsburgh not only kills Jews, he has to underscore the point by shouting “All Jews must die!” in case we don’t get it. Then we are confidently assured that it can all be traced back to Trump and his rhetoric as if there is a cause and an effect. Can the Las Vegas incident also be traced back further, or was it just the isolated act of a loner who was totally apolitical because unlike the more recent killers he didn’t shout “Death to Republicans!” or plaster his van with pro-Obama signs—?
1
Trump wants to take credit for the booming economy that Obama actually started, but doesn't want to take responsibility for the senseless violence of his supporters. When will America wake up and get rid of this divisive, lying, immoral president?!
5
I personally wanna say i'm disgusted. This is just terrible. Not only did Robert D Bowers' heinous act have me effected, but President Trump's response had me livid. It honestly still makes me sick to even call this clown our president. The fact that he can just nonchalantly blame the synagogue for not having "some kind of protection" makes me furious. I am only a freshman in High-school and its sad that I can see the seriousness in such a situation more than others can. Now dont get me wrong, I'm not letting Mr. Bowers off the hook either. It is 2018. Why do people still struggle with living with people of other races and ethnicity? I can force everyone to love each other, but if you're hate for another race (Jewish people in this case) is so strong, that it makes you wanna shoot up a synagogue, then there has to be some mental illness in the mix. And to our president, actually i'm not even gonna say president. Trump is a dictator. He wants us to trust him as our president but he can't think of a better response than pointing out how the synagogue had no protection. Does a store have protection when someone robs it? How are we supposed to look up to our own president when he can just give the same lame response as someone walking down the street? Trump and the GOP have failed to protect our country. And i know some of you will say i'm just an obnoxious kid, but it's sad that a "kid" can point out more issues in our country than our own president.
8
Oh good lord, whenever You think insanity in this world can't get bigger anymore someone shows uo to prove the opposite. World, where are we going?
Trump has blood on his hands. Every respectable news organization should run a banner headline or crawl: "Mr. President, Stop Lying about the Caravan."
6
How does one “politicize” a crime that is inherently political? Bowers was making a political statement with these murders, and his social media rantings. and ravings reads a whole lot like our president’s rantings and ravings of the “migrant caravan.”
But part of Trump’s essential cowardice is that he will not take responsibility for anything. Not even when a red hat wearing supporter like Cesar Sayoc is sending bombs to critics Trump has railed against.
3
“Mr. Trump said he planned to visit Pittsburgh”
Mr. Trump, you and other “Nationalists”, hate mongers and racists are not welcome here in Pittsburgh.
13
“And the Lord hardened the Pharoah’s heart.”
This was an act of both domestic terror, and hate. To execute this person would be a gross miscarriage of justice. He belongs in ADX Florence. Murder only begets murder.
3
I am sickened by the shooting, and I am sickened by the reader comments. You all should be ashamed of yourselves turning this into a political argument against Trump. Many of his statements cannot be defended, but he is no more responsible for this shooting than Obama was for the school in Connecticut. I disagree with his viewpoint on gun rights, but even if he supported a ban on all guns, this guy would have given his back????
The rhetoric on both sides is disgusting. The dems claim the moral high ground, the repubs claim the moral high ground, and people get killed.
How about Americans? Americans decry violence, and celebrate political discourse. But when both sides ram their views down the other side's throats, each with the feeling of divine inspiration, we get nowhere. We can't get everything we want. But hopefully we can avoid getting killed.
This is not Trump's fault. Nor Obama's fault. This is America's fault. Grow up, celebrate differences in opinion.
12
While I agree with most of what you say, listen closely and you'll see clearly that the president has incited violence and hate. He calls Mexicans "gang members and rapists" and he offers to pay for the legal feeds of any of his supporters who will beat up protesters! He praises a Montana congressman for assaulting a journalist! These are not words that promote peace, unity or justice. He is responsible. Attacks in Minorities are up, especially hate crimes. Look it up, it's fact.
1
I can't remember President Obama celebrating an assault on a journalist. Or mocking a disabled reporter. Can't remember any Democratic senator claiming George Soros is behind all the so-called Democratic chaos. All this is not my fault. Or many Americans, for that matter.
4
@Ny Surgeon Unfortunately, people respond to leaders. That is why we elect them. Differences of opinion are absolutely fine - but how about civil discourse? Who sets the tone? Your note sound angry - but it may be this format.
1
Perhaps Bowers was one of the "many fine people on both sides" as described by Trump after the neo-Nazi marched in Charlottesville carrying torches reminiscent of the brown shirt marches of the '30s, shouting, "Jews will not replace us."
It is ironic that he was set off by HIAS, a Jewish
organization that helps refugees of all kinds. He was upset that they help "hostile invaders" live among us.
I am more worried about the alt right and its armed members being able to live among us and take action to line up with their odious politics.
I realize that free speech is a cornerstone of democracy, but surely when these people make their intentions known on social media we should not have to wait for them to kill innocents to act. They identify their potential victims clearly and seek support from like-minded people. It is only after they act that their posts are removed. Is there any way to preempt white supremacists before the carnage? We must all be alert to what we see and hear and read and inform the authorities of our concerns.
Eleven people have lost their lives at Shabbat services that included a naming ceremony for an infant. Of all places, this should have been a safe one. Let us not sugarcoat it. Anti-semitism is alive and unfortunately thriving along with racism, xenophobia and more in the current climate. All people of good will must make clear that this is anathema in civilized society and reach out to each other regardless of creed, race, status.
15
"Mr. Bowers had 21 guns registered to his name."
Insanity of the highest order. How many were assault rifles? How many guns are ok for one citizen with a clear history of rabid hatred online to buy? When will we come to our senses?
Vote for Dems, vote this week, do not wait.
21
Trump can’t connect the dots between his Nuremburg styled rallies and his hate based directives to GOP voters. Misogyny, racism tax evasion, shorting workers, sexual assault, hate mongering....all in one presidential package. The US is under assault from the White House and the rest of us on the outside need Secret Service protection. Waiting for the photo of
Trump’s progeny in a red MAGA hat to surface. If Congress has a line, will they know when he crosses it?
11
I didn't vote for Trump, who is an uncouth and uneducated person. But I am very disappointed in the comments here which blame this horrendous crime on Trump and the Republicans. Isn't is possible for one moment to not politicize everything? Those who blame Trump for this are every bit as uncouth as Trump.
9
The buck stops at his desk.
@Mark Mandell
i.e. "Look, a squirrel."
This is all on the heads of Republicans for more than 50 years. Their economic, cultural and political revolution has been the goal; thus, Trump was the GOP nominee from 16 bona fide candidates.
1
When are we going to ban AR 15 type firearms and ban handguns in public with severe jail penalties for violators.
17
@david
...right, so only these kinds of hateful and cowardly animals have them, and then of course our increasingly militarized police forces. As I stated elsewhere, only the most myopic kind of privilege can look at these photos of police in hand-me-down military gear, vehicles, and weapons and derive a sense of security or amelioration.
Amongst my many guns, I have two AKs, and as long as these murderous lunatics and the police have comparable weapons, aspiringly peaceful poor and working people like me should as well...
1
@SD
Do you really think you are going to defend yourself with firearms against the "evil" federal government equipped with tanks and air power .
Richard Nixon was stopped by the rule of law and not by gun nut vigilantes.
A would be killer has the element of surprise.
Are you going to prance around with your gun drawn and shoot first anyone you think might have a gun.
Why do you need an AK or AR type firearm instead of an ordinary hand gun for self defense.
Trump is the leader here and all roads lead back to him. He caused this-he needs to be tried for war crimes!
11
not only is it American Military lives that are given up for your right to vote in American elections...
In case you ever doubted it, it is those wonderful American minorities that have given up their lives. they have earned their life,
now you must earn your life in America by voting for only those candidates that want to restrict military style weapons and no American citizen needs to have more than 2guns in their possession. And they must prove that they are Hunters of animals if they have any type of hunting rifles.And if u own a gun u must have liability insurance to cover costs of those you shoot.
Just as we must prove we are fit & legal to drive.. yes some drivers dont have any legal docs...but They r easy to catch at any check point or purchase at dealership etc.
8
AR-15's are weapons of war and must be removed from our streets.
22
About time people use their brains and work (and vote) to ban guns.
Hate crimes by mentally unstable persons will always happen - with knives may be a few injuries; with guns - time and again we see scores dead.
Grey matter between the ears - please use it!
9
Trump bears a great deal of responsibility for both of this week's domestic terrorism events.
16
Can you please tell us something about the shooter, besides his name, age, and social media postings? Like what he did for a living? Early reports said he was a member of law enforcement. Then it all went dark. If he was a police officer, that is highly relevant information. Highly embarrassing for the police, but it is well known that applicants slip through their screening process in spite of highly biased social attitudes. As for blaming Trump, yes, he has contributed to the deterioration of public discourse, but so has the hate-filled commentators on the other side. As the article points out, anti-Semitism has been growing in recent years, before Trump came on the scene. The shooter expressed no affection for Trump, like none of the neo Nazis do, but that inconvenient detail is ignored by those who want to pin all our current troubles on the president.
6
@PL - the NYT won't tell you anything that doesn't fit there storyline that they want to present/convey. It's sad. Even maligned Fox tells you all the news.
2
Trump inspires these violent terrorists, calls them evil, then concludes by preaching their cause.
How will this disconnect be solved?
15
Here is the reality: Trump and his followers know that their rhetoric is probably responsible – they just don’t care. All of the arguments about how both sides are to blame and Obama and Hillary and this always happened, is all well-rehearsed and choreographed response to the inevitable. This is just collateral damage, acceptable to the larger goals – the ends definitely justify the means.
Don’t kid yourself. Lying about all of this is part of the script too, as is indignant response to people like me who expose them. Read carefully, it always rings hollow somehow. Criticizing those who will politicize a tragedy instead of sending condolences, yet conspicuously fail to send condolences themselves. Claiming this is not the time to bring politics into the discussion, yet showing no bounds otherwise. Not really giving a rat’s behind about anything but protecting their faux-knight in faux-armor – the man couldn’t legitimately fight his way out of a wet paper bag, and they know it.
It is all too disgusting to bear. I pledged to defend this country with my life, and we now being ‘led’ by a worthless conman who would never put anything before himself. Why do people fall for his transparent lies? I just don’t get it – those who love to claim ‘common sense’ seem to have zero when it matters most.
16
@nytimes
The article states that there hasn’t been a shooting like this since 2004 - when a shooter thought a family was Jewish. Please do not forget (negate) the horrific shooting of the Jewish Federation offices in Seattle in 2006 - one fatally shot, 5 more injured and it was a direct attack on a Jewish community -
10
Whether this racist, xenophobic murderer thought the Liar in Chief had gone far enough, it is clear that Trump's vitriolic, hate-filled and lying rants have given permission to extremists to act on their beliefs---because facts have no place in Trumplandia.
Oh yes, and again, we hear from Trump that it wasn't easy access to guns that caused this problem. According to TRump, we should all live in an armed society in order to feel safe.
10
Trump is breeding terrorism in the US. His fanatics are right-wing extremists that spew hate and destruction to innocent people. My heart goes out to all families that are grieving.
9
Today was shabbos so I did not learn about this until sundown and someone told me about it.
Hatred of Jews is ancient and, honestly, this does not surprise me.
I was born in NYC in 1949. Up until we moved to New Jersey when I was 9 I had never had any contact with non-Jews. We lived in a Jewish ghetto and knew little about how others lived, what they believed. My parents were American born but lived in a Jewish world; it was just the way it was.
The idea was dress and act English, think Yiddish.
I never knew people who loved guns, who drank, who were into violence. It was just foreign to us.
When I was walking home from the library in suburban Livingston, NJ where we moved, one day around Easter in the early sixties, three Christian boys attacked me, telling me that I had killed Christ.
I had no idea what they were talking about.
I told them that I was at the library and had killed no one.
They broke a tooth and threw away my books.
There were other incidents. I kept them to myself. In my family you don't tell these things to the others. It would only make them unhappy and they already had enough problems.
My dad went to CCNY. Why? " They had to take Jews."
We moved to NJ because my father, as a Jewish CPA, couldn't find work in NYC other than with a Jewish firm and there were very few of those then. Finally, in the late 50's he was told, Hey, the federal government is hiring Jews. So he worked for the Defense Dept Audit agency for the rest of his career.
11
@simon sez
This is an update:
Today I spoke with my friend who lives near Squirrel Hill. She was born there and her whole life has been there.
She told me that yesterday she sat at home and wept all day.
Today she took her daughter, Julia, to the museum to get away from what is going on. To help the community, all the museums are free today. It is especially hard on the kids who just are frightened and bewildered about what has happened.
This last year has seen a 57% increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Pittsburgh over 2017. 50+ have been reported and include vandalism, attacks.
Jew haters seem more empowered and free to indulge their motivations to hurt us.
2
Does anyone know anything about the police officers he murdered? We need to remember them and their families, too. Ova shalom.
5
@AH
No police were murdered, although some were injured.
2
@AH
As of this time none of the police officers he shot have died; all appear to be surviving and hopefully will continue to do so.
1
@Sprite @Greenie oh good, thank you
There was a trained and armed School Resource Officer at Parkland High School, didn't make any difference, so what other bright ideas do you have, Trump?
10
@Jennene Colky
Anything that deflects from the fact he declared himself virtually a Nazi, and by week's end we witness the largest massacre of Jewish people in our history with a side dish of attempted assassinations of leading Democrats.
Sorry, NYTs, the National Socialist Workers Party is from whom white nationalists lifted their brand name. This is logic speaking. Nazi = Nationalist = Trump. How dare you silence logic just because Trump says using is not PC?
1
How much more violence do we need before it gets through that these are not anomalies but the very fabric of a nation so divided that guns, bombs, and vile tweets from a man as unhinged as his sycophants are rapidly becoming the only tools at our disposal?
Has the Enabler-in-Chief tweeted his support yet by noting that "all sides have good people" (an actual quote from our last debacle).
Those who want to keep claiming that liberals are exaggerating the threat posed by a rabidly unhinged and violent right wing can only do so if we all develop collective amnesia and pretend we don't have a road map as direct as this:
The man in the WH daily derides the press and calls for violence against it and even promises to pay the legal fees of those who cause harm. And lo, we have a bomber step up to the plate. But it's all just a coincidence. Right.
In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville --where armed thugs stalked the streets chanting "Jews will not replace us" (and that is what they were saying)-- our "leader," with a smarmy, dismissive wave, assured us that both sides --let's be clear: one of those sides is the KKK and neo-Nazis--are equally right, and we have one of that group's finest step up and open fire in a synagogue.
Do not sully the historical page with the claptrap that it's a coincidence. There are no coincidences. This is malign intent. Those who ignore the threat cultivate it. Those who excuse it are complicit. Enough. Time to take our country back.
17
Repeal the Second Amendment.
14
This is so sad. I am so sorry our president is not helping bring us peace. He spews hate at his rallies and divides us. He is stirring up violence like no president ever has. He is a horrible person, and yet his base loves him. This is unbelievable that so many Americans embrace hate of others.
Frightened Americans, please embrace the strangers among us.
Jesus, who was Jewish, said so.
12
So much hatred in this country. So horrendous.
8
Trump’s casual racism and violent rhetoric are base causes of the ugly racial, religious and political violence plaguing the nation. Our best hope is to vote his cowardly enablers out of Congress.
13
For anyone to kill these innocent and decent people while they are praying is unfathomable and the worst kind of evil. This sick act should be condemned and the lunatic who did this atrocious act should be punished to the full extent of the law. We must stamp out these vicious acts and get to the root of this criminal behavior. Eleven people should never have seen their lives ended and the many others who were injured did not deserve this barbarism. We must all speak out and demand this horrific behavior end once and for all.
4
How many clues do we need that Trump is poisoning our nation's spirit?
22
Trump is a violent, hateful, selfish man. His followers and the Republican Party are complicit in that violence. The MAGAbomber and the synagogue shooting were incited by Trump’s rhetoric. Trump expresses violence toward women, the press, the disabled, prisoners of war, liberals, the world outside of the U.S. (except Russia, fascist states and dictatorships), the environment, children take away from their parents, minorities, hurricane victims, the constitution, the rule of law, his accomplished predecessors and toward anyone who disagrees with him. Trump is sympathetic to white nationalists, dictators, police violence, and to the murder of journalists (whatever it takes to protect a large weapons sale).
21
Donald Trump and his hatred, his ranting, his shouting, his racism, his insults, his mockery, his blaming, his demonizing, his ugliness, his support for assault weapons.
Why are we surprised?
20
People who call themselves nationalists in the face of this tragedy are evil cowards. THOSE are the people we need to build a wall to stop in their tracks.
Hate has no home here. Not now, not ever.
22
@common sense advocate, hate already lives here. I cry for the country, too. Now, when is anyone with the power to do something going to take action on behalf of most of us citizens - if ever?
2
We don't have a violence problem, we have a male violence problem.
I don't see women mailing pipe bombs. I don't see women shooting up churches and synagogues with automatic weapons. So, I don't see a woman president saying she could stand in the middle of a New York and shoot someone and it wouldn't matter.
And since we know there is nothing in the male genome to predispose men to use guns to act out discontent, therefore we reasonably conclude that men have been socialized, when they are angry -- and don't know why -- to find some culturally hated group to kill.
Who's responsible here? Everyone. From the people who taught this man to hate in general, to the people who taught this man it's OK to hate jews, to the man himself for whatever part he played in darkening his own character, to the legislators that keep deciding to make assault weapons broadly available, to those in the right-wing echo chambers on the internet that rile everyone up into solving complex cultural and national problems using the barrel of a gun, to sporting environments that elevate the military man above all other role models for men (when was the last time you saw a prison chaplain or hospice worker or social worker who works with homeless people honored at a sporting event.)
The waters of violence don't get turbulent on their own. Every unkind word said, every sneer, every bullying event ignored, every rape unsolved, every social violence done against the poor is part of the problem.
16
Kippur Leitner: Bravo! Well said!
2
@Kip Leitner Patriarchy Kip, it's the abhorrent patriarchy that is king in this God forsaken country. tRump and his minions are perfect examples of it. I fear that we will see a lot more of these massacres, they're just getting started.
3
@Kip Leitner
In general, I agree with you, as long as we don’t label the problem as “male,” because then you are then implicating all males, which obviously is ridiculous.
My husband despises guns even more than I do. His favorite films are by Francois Truffaut and Michelangelo Antonioni, not Sam Pekinpah and Quentin Tarantino (I’m the one who gravitates toward the latter, and I know glorified gun culture in American entertainment is a big problem). My brothers and brothers-in-law are all kind, gentle people, as are all my nephews.
I get that the actions resulting from the toxic brew of testosterone and anger-fueling hate-speech is a male phenomenon, but let’s not blame all men—just the ones who deserve it (and I’m thinking of one in particular).
Donald Trump wants us to live in a country where we need armed guards at houses of worship to prevent terrorist massacres. My god... we’ve become Iraq.
10
@Jim
Or France, Italy etc.
My heart is broken at this heinous unprovoked attack. Condolences to the Jewish diaspora.
5
Matthew Dodd had a very impressive outlook on the responsibility of Donald Trump on these madmen now actually going into action and killing Americans expressed on ABC today
All the gun supporters should be introspecting , what is more likely to happen.? Violence like this or use their guns against Government atrocities?
2
The fact that this week's bomber finds Donald to be an inspiring daddy figure who attended his rallies will probably translate to a Republican Congress and the hardcore right as resoundingly little as did this sick puppy's guru bragging he could shoot someone in Times Square and simply walk away.
We are starting to learn quickly how well the synagogue shooter who speaks of “invaders ...enemy of white people” could have aligned with the crusade bomber in tending their mutual leader, who besides consistently spewing hatred and fear in his rallies, this week sent the message that "others" within should not vote, or if advancing from beyond his borders other than as nationalist-oriented white Christians, refrain to retain their children.
What a week. Donald's conduct throughout all of it has to be impressing himself to no end.
5
Something I find seriously lacking in the reporting is The anti immigrant aspect of this attack which can be laid squarely at Trump's feet.
8
Why isn't this case being investigated as domestic terrorism?
15
@KG
I'm surprised Sessions isn't suing the victims for attacking that nutjob's 1st Amendment Rights with their beliefs.
1
This nation is in the midst of a mental health crisis. Where does one even begin to tease apart hate, ignorance, mental disease, and evil? There are no pure boundaries. Only carnage.
10
When will National Jewish leaders, particularly Trump donors, start publicly calling him to account for his inflammatory and divisive rhetoric? When?
9
What will it take before Congress and the House of Representatives demonstrate some courage and sanity and act APPROPRIATELY in starting impeachment proceedings on a demented, bizarre and transparently destructive person who repeatedly criticizes everyone else for his very own actions? Our world is being destroyed in front of our eyes, piece by piece, by our very own wanna be Facist.
8
Apparantly these senseless acts of violence are who we are as Americans.
11
@jakeo, no more than the heroism of the police or the skills and efforts of first responders or grief of good-hearted people nationwide. It's a battle, not an occasion to give up.
1
Any President would respond more appropriately than Trump and his hate based GOP supporters.
4
Just yesterday President Trump said he would do all he could "as President" to stop the hate and violence.
What will he do as a PERSON to stop the hate & violence? As a person he incites hatred & violence against his critics and the media (except Fox). In Montana recently, he lauded a convicted criminal congressman for body-slamming a journalist.
Trump can't hypocritically condemn hate & violence as president and encourage it as a candidate, media personality and stump speaker for his political supporters & base.
Trump MUST stop encouraging hate, intolerance, lies and violence, NOW! To continue his snide, vengeful attacks on those who criticize him while he attends rally after rally, inciting his base to violence, ultimately results in mass murder and threats & attempts at murder.
Trump, the GOP and "the base" cannot blame the perpetrators and/or mental illness as the sole reason for these continued attacks! More than anything, Trumps rhetoric is causing hate and violence to be an acceptable way for the lunatic fringe and the mentally ill to lash out at those they blame for their ills & woes.
STOP THE HATE TRUMP! You're tearing the Country apart, singlehanded & with the platform created for you by Fox News and your sycophant staff.
8
As of November 7, 2018 we will cease to exist as a country.
4
Last night at a party, a well-off white Republican gun collector told me that the Democrats are provoking them, pushing for a civil war and that the right is ready with guns to finish them off--two other guests agreed with him, Trump supporters, Alex Jones watchers. Knowing these people well (and several others like them) and having observed their hate and rage grow since Obama was elected, I am sure they would love to see bigger and better organized massacres of people they view as invaders, enemies of the state. America needs MANY more anger management specialists for publicity programs and interventions or the rampages will become daily affairs.
11
the time has come for Jews and Israelis to realize that the evangelical world view envisions the demise of the jewish people as part of the second coming. And so the evil partnership that has sprung up between the jews and supporters of Israel and the fundamentalist Christian right wing is, in the end, a suicide pact. This moment of pure anti-semitic violence is a precursor in the beliefs of these horrible people.
Jews, stop supporting Trump and Christian right. the convenience of the partnership of the moment that seemed to matter to keep support in the US for the most extreme zionist positions has just now shown you who the partners really are.
5
@rick
Where on earth would you get the idea that this mass-murderer is a fundamentalist Christian?
Jews that think Trump is their ally need to wake up. Jews and other non-Christians, along with non-whites, are one tweet away from Trump and his minions chanting "lock them up" or worse. When the Republican House and Senate put their own re-election ahead of their duty to offset the power of the President, no minority is safe.
7
Though overall I think the NYT tends to do a great job with their journalism I sometimes must question what they choose to post within an article. While this article is informative I must ask - why include the site ‘Gab?’ Is it necessary to mention the sites name and give exposure to a site that has been a source of spreading hate?
As people’s hearts begin to harden in this country and divisions begin to widen I can’t help but feel that what you’ve done here is give Gab exposure to thousands and thousands of readers and in turn increase traffic to Gab’s site. And while I hope that no reader would actually join the site at the very least you’ve given the site validity - validating the comments of hate that are born there by directing people there. At the worst case, my hopes are broken, and a few more people have just joined this awful place.
4
Blame belongs in the lap of the NRA and the Republican Congress & Senate and finally by his words the President. Gun policy is not the problem according to them. More guns are needed they keep ranting. Trump today instead of acting first like he will do something, owed to the very near election, said what he really thinks immediately...the Congregation was to blame or the Rabbi, for not hiring a security person with a gun to fight off a killer like the one who came into their midst today. But people who want to stop all these shootings know the truth. And it is not what the President or Republicans keep saying.
4
I've had several hours to react and reflect on today's massacre of innocent Jewish people saying their Shabbat prayers in their synagogue. The first is feeling of deep sadness for Pittsburgh for the Tree of Life Synagogue and for the Jewish Community at large. The second, for this president to speak of this barbaric act but fight slaughter with saying we need armed guards, but "his thoughts and prayers" go with the victims was hollow and his words were certainly not comforting, calling for armed guards, his litany of choice at any public shooting. Tonight he is basking with his peeps at another rally. But the heroes? Within minutes of the gunfire this morning the Pittsburg police, SWAT teams and the media have been a constant presence. This president uses his bully pulpit to spread fear and outrage. But it is the police, the media (yes, the Main Street Media), the hospitals, the schools and fire departments across this country who are protecting us. You know, the everyday heroes who I am so grateful for.
8
We are not lead by a man of character, here fake is a big mistake! This ineffectual President does not read, and he can not lead. He is weak, choosing to sew hate & derision, creating division. This narcissistic man can not learn. As a nation it is time to turn away from this divided state so poorly lead by a man who is incapable of true feelings, moral character, or sincere empathy. His obviously faked platitudes do not ring true. He is a bad actor too.
Empty words with no condemnation for AR-15-style assault rifles yet again. America is a gun nation because of a convenient misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment. This president stands only for his money, and his backers. He is propelled by hackers and lies.
7
Trump first instinct was to blame the victims for not being armed. Then he reads a teleprompter message condemning the attack, that was clearly written by someone else. After that, he was off to his mini Nurembreg rally to once again repeat the lies that there are hoards of criminals and terrorist flooding over the borders and these people are funded by Democrats, Soros and "globalist". Trump and the alt-right (white nationalist) media has blood on their hands.
8
Our national nightmare added new victims.
we do not have any other option but VOTE.
Vote out who sides with guns instead of human life.
6
It is a cataclysmic failure of leadership at the highest level. I wonder what Jared Kushner makes of the Jewish invaders remark? The nepotism, the silence, the millions undeclared. Trump has to own the hate and the playbook unfolding in his country that he leads. There IS a correlation between his call to arms and incendiary rhetoric and violent events of the past few days. POTUS has to be charged with hate crimes and inciting violent behaviour like body-slamming, or is your president above the law? Is he inviolable? Seems so.
9
What a horrible horrible tragedy ! Only can hope and pray that the families of the victim can find some peace.
In the meantime, there is a massive corrective action that is needed to prevent future occurrences : Put three concrete walls and a whole lot of metal bars between us and the man we have put into the white house. He poses an existential danger to all of us. Go to the polls and say NO to him and the members of his party. It is imperative that we be heard lest his hateful fan club ruin all of us.
18
Yes! Trump, and the entire Republican party, pose an existential threat to the US and to the world.
Vote in November and 2020, and throw the Republicans out of office. They wholly lack the moral compass necessary to lead this great nation.
And while you are in the voting booth, throw out any Democrat who has a record of voting against common sense gun control.
We demand action on this disgraceful public health crisis— the continuing slaughter of innocents is NOT ACCEPTABLE!
2
In a related article, the Times reported, "Bowers, who had 21 guns registered to his name . . . was not known to law enforcement before the shooting, and a search of the Pennsylvania judiciary database shows only a 2015 traffic violation in his name."
In other words, he's what the NRA would call a law-abiding citizen.
5
Thoughts and prayers? Closer to anger and feelings of helplessness. What a life of sorrow is just beginning for so many good and decent people, and for what? Nothing other than the temporary gratification of an insatiable desire for attention and the attention seeking race baiter who inspired him - a figure who can fairly be characterized as nothing less than a villain for the ages.
4
It seems there is greater danger of violence and domestic terrorist attacks from white Americans than from migrants, Hispanics, blacks, and Muslims "others." This is not counting the mass murder or domestic massacres without any apparent racial, ethnic or religious targets. Is this what "making America great again" is about?
9
You know , just take the last 72 hours; you have a gunman who wasn’t able to access a black church ,instead shouted and killed two black innocent people unknown to him , a self “ make america great again “ follower sending explosive devices all over the place and today this egregious crime happened inside a place of worship. You may say the world has always been like this but I disagree; just take the George w Bush’s example, the guy gave me big headache at times regarding his policies but many ,many times when tragedies like theses happened , he was there using his power as the leader of world and put things right where they belong so we can all go to bed with hope.
I’m very grateful to him for that. But since the 2016 election, there’s this ill feeling you can sense flowing in the air that burden good, good conscience people
It’s troubling.
6
DT said in response to the shootings, "... something must be done." Well, he's the President! And that's all he's got to offer? One thing he could do to have an impact is shut up.
6
As a Jew , I could say that I’m doubly horrified that these poor people were targeted solely because they were Jewish , but as personal as this is for me , I know that the great majority of Americans are good people , not anti -Semites and that people of all faiths are grieving today. But I blame this disgraceful President of ours who spews hate with every carnival like rally he holds . If Trump had any modicum of respect he would have cancelled his selfish rally last night out of respect. But he can’t even do that.
The hate that our president spreads is like a virulent and insidious virus that spreads into those who are predisposed and now feel they have a license to act in any way they perceive they are entitled as part of their sick and hateful mission .
We need to send a very strong message this coming Election Day . Trump will never change because once a hater , always a hater .
4
Trump's first thoughts were to blame the victims for not having a security guard in the synagogue.
The man shot four police officers. What do you suppose he would have done to a security guard?
5
The president blames the victims. According to him, it's okay for gun owners with hatred to roam freely, so be careful everyone else.
5
The dead aren’t even buried yet and our president is leading a rally where the participants jeer and cheer for violence. This is new. Remember this and use your common sense to vote for decency on November 6th.
8
I strongly believe that Trump is responsible for the murder of 11 Jews inside a synagogue in Pittsburgh,PA, yesterday.
Millions of Frankenstein that he created before his election in '16 are going to devour each and every one of us if we don't stop his party from gaining the power in congress on Nov. 6th.
Although it's true that Trump didn't tell this supporter of his evil preaching to go to the synagogue and open fire on the Jewish attendees but we can hold Trump responsible if we all recall Trump's speeches of last year and before that.
Yes, we can squarely put the blame of this massacre on him because it was Trump who brought the evils of extreme hatred in our election forum on the day he announced his presidency in the Trump Tower in the month of June, 2015.
His thoroughly racist pronouncement that hot day in NYC against the Mexicans and other immigrants propelled him to power beside the huge help he asked for and got in return from the Russians.
But not being a seasoned politician he couldn't realize what his embrace of hatred of other people who're not Whites and neither Christians nor Jews would do to the Whites Christian and Jewish Americans later on.
He had no clue then what the totally racist tone in his language would cause terrible harms to the people of color and Hispanics and Asians beside the White Christians and Jews like it did yesterday.
The monsters, that he deliberately created to win are out on the loose in the open arena of American societies.
4
This is Trump's America. His answer is more guns.
2
Enough of this. Confiscate all the guns.
3
You know, between Gab’s and Trump’s desperate hand-scrubbing and Mike Pence’s prayerful knee-walking right past any reality, some folks are gonna be missing some skin by late tonight.
5
Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania said “these senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Americans.” Well you would have fooled me. Every year America has over 300 mass murders. As of this date it is 294 mass murders https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
I spent some time in Australia when they came out with tough laws on guns. But in the USA , nothing happens on gun control it is quite unbelievable .
3
Many poorly educated white males who are scared of losing their "top of the pecking order" position have taken solace from Trump, and the hate he spews. Trump identified them, fed them, nurtured them and pumped them up at his factious rallies, to get their vote.
Well it worked. God knows how, but it did. And now we have synagogues shot up during the shabbat service, and 13 bombs mailed, all in a couple of days. Time to vote him out, or melt down the Statue of Liberty and forget about the greatest experiment in social history ever attempted: The USA.
(Incidentally, the NRA is selling a Christmas tree ornament for $24.95. How sick can it get?)
9
When will this country learn? Only if we can express the will of most Americans at the voting booth. Let's pray we have no mass murders there.
5
My condolences to those families.
Trump should be proud about the results of his hatred campaign, after all.
2
According to the POTUS and leader of the free World, "... something has to be done.", "...some kind of protection...", "...it could have...", would have, should have. Perhaps, Mr. President, you would give us all a required tax-deductible gun purchase voucher before we can vote? Yea, that's the ticket! Manditory guns, so we all have "some kind of protection", but from what, who, where, why?
If he were any stupider he'd be a reality TV show celebrity.
3
When a school was shot up, trump wanted more guns in schools. When a house of worship is shot up, they need guns. This "president" is so married to the base, so under the thumb of the gun lobby, he's trying to help them sell more guns!
It's not SAD, it's SICK.
It's time to get control of congress, and rid it of anyone who signs on for this awful dictator want to be.
8
I watch this tragic event unfolding from the relatively safer societal environment of Canada. But as a Jew and a survivor of the Nazi regime, I cannot but fear for the safety of all people but especially Jews in the United States. The US has had bad presidents before but none, to my knowledge, who so flagrantly espoused hatred, isolationism, ultra-nationalism and fear mongering. Too many people take their beliefs, attitudes and behaviors from their leaders. The example of the rise of the Third Reich comes immediately to mind. Time and present circumstances are very different today but extremism of the kind practiced by this leader cannot be tolerated. It is up to the many good decent Americans to do their best to vote him and his cronies out!
8
It's long past the time when hate speech should have been made illegal in the U.S. This could help prevent some people from fanning the flames of hatred and inspiring others to do dastardly deeds like this.
1
I caucused for Trump 2 years back. I now realize his dog whistles, bring out the worst in racists and xenophobes. As a non-white non-Christian person, I am making the same mistakes the Jews made in Germany by initially supporting the right for tax reasons. Tax cuts are of no use if people who are or look different are going to be targeted by the dog whistle calls from Trump. I have seen no empathy from him other than musing why the synagogue was not protected by a gunman. I am happy I get a chance next month to correct myself at the ballot box.
13
Thank you.
2
Trump’s words encourage this violence.
4
Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that the Justice Department would file hate crimes and other criminal charges, “including charges that could lead to the death penalty.”
So the AG wants to kill the killer. That'll show 'em that is wrong to kill.
1
First they came for the Jews and nobody spoke up… then they came for the Catholics and nobody spoke up... then they came for the Freemasons and no body spoke up. Suddenly, they came for me and their was no one left to speak up for me… When are we going to wake up and realize that we have a dangerous leader who gives pass with a wink and nod to white nationalists advocating racial intolerance just to win elections and line his pockets. It’s time to call those who hate under the banner of white nationalists terrorists. ISIS posts and recruits online the same way all the white supremacy websites and chat rooms do and yet we have yet to call them a terrorist group. For the sake of our ideals as a nation we should not stand for this. I invite all those decent Trump voters left who continue to sit quietly on the sideline while this President spouts his divisive rhetoric in the name of Nationalism to ask themselves who is benefiting from this rhetoric before it's too late they come for you.
6
One other thing to note: a white male can kill 11 people and injure 4 police officers and he’s still brought into custody alive.
Meanwhile an unarmed black man selling cigarettes gets killed by the police. An unarmed black man sitting in his own backyard gets killed by police. An unarmed black man in his own apartment gets killed by police.
14
@Manish - Well Yes, point taken. But also consider that there is a different standard for capturing terror suspects because the police want information. The black DC sniper was brought in alive.
@Manish, the Kroger killings of black shoppers, did not even make it to the news.
2
Regardless of where you live, how you are registered, how you've voted for the last 125 years, a vote for ANY Republican on November 6 makes you culpable.
5
@Mack
I doubt many who've sent in their early ballots want them back again. They would simply agree the synagogue was asking for it.
After Melania Trump insisted sex crime victims bring the evidence before speaking of it, I took her challenge seriously and attempted to find the police records of my gang rape at age eleven. But due to the Gault decision of 1967 in which a 15 year old was given an outrageous detention for making an obscene call, my rapists' records were expunged with my own victim statement.
In the early 1970s, we began retaining major crime records of juveniles and their victims again, but a whole lot of bad guys escaped their major crime histories. My assailants blindfolded me and used gasoline to asphyxiate me so I would have no memory of what they did to me. If only.
The police told me they had no records of crimes similar to mine at that time. I figured it out for them. Now, they are talking with retired detectives to see who can recall my case. Also, they took another victim statement from me. It is never too late to make a statement.
Now I have to worry that somebody will sue me for trying to find out whether my offenders ever met justice. I wonder if Kavanaugh would have to recuse himself? Rich kids can usually get their major crimes reduced to misdemeanors so as to have their major crimes expunged. Poor kids get to wear Trump's scarlet letters. Did I mention my assailants wore a DC area's private school's sweatshirts?
1
This atrocity, like the acts of Cesar Sayoc, are connected to Trump's rhetoric.
In "Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust: Language, Rhetoric, and the Traditions of Hatred," Beth A. Griech-Polelle asks: "Why do ordinary people become murderers and, sometimes, mass killers?" A primary reason is "rhetoric."
Rhetoric of dehumanization revolves around 3 themes: identity, purity, and security. All of which Trump talks about constantly. The rhetoric defines outsiders as seeking to defile, pollute, and ultimately destroy an insider community. The relationship between insiders and outsiders in Nazi Germany, between non-Jewish Germans and Jews, became an existential struggle because of rhetoric. Anti-Jewish rhetoric and actions helped delineate the boundaries between those within the Volksgemeinschaft, or Nationalist Community, and those outside of it. Participation in violence became central to a feeling of belonging to that Nationalist community, while the concept of "redemptive antisemitism," drew on traditions of depicting Jews as a powerful evil force, whose elimination was necessary to save the Nation.
Here Jews were helping refugees, including Muslims and Hispanics, safely come to America. Trump spends his rallies vilify all of these groups, saying they're murderers who will destroy the Nationalist community unless stopped. An anti-Semite and White Nationalist decided this required murdering Jews helping refugees. Saying this is unconnected to Trump’s rhetoric is ridiculous.
7
Ideologies and beliefs can spur some into violence. History has taught us that the best way to combat bad ideas is to fight them with good ideas. Banning, imprisoning or killing whom may hold what you consider detestable beliefs succeeds only in making martyrs for the cause you fight.
I'm sure that this particular guy inevitably had a personal crisis (divorce, job loss, etc...) which led him to seek someone to blame. I would guess he felt demonized for being a middle aged white male.This idea of classifying everyone by their race is what Dr. King vehemently spoke against. Somehow, it's pushed as progressive now.
There are a myriad of groups which thrive on portraying themselves as the victims. Parasites that feed on corrossive thought patterns, they provide consulation to ego maniacs who feel slighted by society. These guys aren't recruited by nefarious white supremacists lurking on 4chan, Gab and YouTube. Spreading hate with memes of cartoon frogs and Russian bots.
People who want to validate their feelings of being oppressed can find someone selling a scapegoat to blame. Watch the INCEL school shooters personal video logs if you want an insight into a very similar broken psyche. Narcissist perceive themselves as persecuted when their desires are denied.
**Nationalism isn't racism nor is it fascism. Globalism isn't socialism nor is it liberalism.
These terms have specific meanings and using them incorrectly diminishes their importance and historical significance.
1
I don’t understand why people keep calling the AR-15 an assault rifle, it’s a rifle that liberals want to ban so we the people cannot defend ourselves.
2
@Victor: Defend yourselves against people praying in a synagogue? Against young children in a school? Against Black congregants praying in their church? Against teenage students attending lessons in their school? Against moviegoers enjoying a Batman movie? Against festival goers at a music festival? Revelers in a night club? Against all those people going about their peaceful business together, enjoying a sense of community? Is that what you need to defend yourself against? Other people having a good time together? A sense of community you cannot even begin to understand? Most Americans want to ban AR-15s, including conservatives. They should only be in the hands of the military and law enforcement.
3
@Victor
An AR-15 is designed to kill large numbers of people quickly and efficiently. It's for offense, not defense.
1
@Victor
AR doesn't stand for "assault rifle?" Look, Victor, the Putinnanny next to you just got another Starbuck's card. You can do better than this hit and miss job.
"It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done.”
Yeah Donald, it's terrible. I can't imagine who would instigate this kind of hateful behavior...
"If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know."
6
Can’t wait for Trump to say that the Democrats are behind this. Better yet, no doubt financed by George Soros.
3
Can you say, NYT journalists (and hence do your job), that Trump blamed the victims for not being harmed, that these sorts of antisemite conspiracy theories are being peddled officially not only on some dark place of the net but on Fox News (Soros paid and organized caravan), and hence reflect the mainstream thinking of Republicans all over the country? Can you basically do your job of informing people and stop making the wrong calls all the time (Irak war, coverage of Sanders and Trump in 2016)?
3
Potus' reply (and NRAs defacto voting for having guns in churches, schools, malls etc.) is based on zero "military knowledge" and even less knowledge on average 'combatants` psychology.
With the 'right` psychology (or drugs) or combat training any planned assaults leave little to no chances for defenders - as little as winning the Powerball lottery - fast.
2
Assault rifles are meant for military warfare. They kill too easily and too rapidly. The NRA and their supporters (including our President) have blood on their hands.
6
On the same front page of the New York Times is this article describing a massacre of Jews at a synagogue in Pittsburgh and another article describing the holocaust against millions of Yemenis. It is obvious to blame the former on the Trump rich-white-male supremacy that feeds on narcissism, promotes hatred and finds scapegoats. It should also be obvious that the catastrophe taking place in Yemen results directly from United States' material support for one massacre after another, support not just by Trump but by his predecessor and a majority in Congress. Is it possible that people miss this connection? The anti Semite shooter demonizes Jews and aims his weapons at them. The U.S. demonizes one leader after another and aims its weapons at them, killing, starving, infecting whole civilizations. What is the power of one shooter compared to the vast military killing machine? Mass shooters don't arise out of nowhere. Neither do the profitable merchants of death. Perhaps only when we stop our country's policies that promote wars in someone else's backyard will we also see the end of the solo shooters in our own.
5
If this evil act had happened in Europe, most would have expected that the shooter would have been an Islamic terrorist. Who needs to spend money on walls to keep the "foreigners" out when we have a deep reservoir of home-grown haters here who, with their supporters in the Republican party and Fox News, ensure a domestic supply on the cheap?
8
Trump’s promotion of violence and white supremacy, and the GOP’s silence in congress, have finally given birth to an atmosphere of hatred and intolerance, from which there is only one outcome.
3
So much for Trump encouraging “Second Amendment solutions” and bragging about his own guns, real or fictitious. Add these innocents killed to Trump’s tally of minorities murdered. If there’s bloodshed at the border when the caravan arrives, that’ll be more innocent blood shed for no reason except Trump’s inability to seek nonviolent solutions.
We need the treasonous NRA shut down. And add sensible gun restrictions to the many reasons I’ll be voting straight Democratic in the midterm elections.
8
Watching TV coverage, I hear "no one ever thought it would happen here" comments. Guess what? Newtown folks thought that. So did party goers at the Pulse nightclub and music fans at the Route 91 festival. Watching the new Batman movie should not result in death, but it did, in Aurora. Rinse and Repeat for so many other places - High Schools, Churches, Restaurants, Colleges.
Another common theme is "this is not America"
Really?
The majority of gun owners do not commit these crimes, so I'm not blaming them. Although I do wonder about the need to have as many guns as you do, that could be a topic for another time. At issue is the availability of AR-15 style weapons which are "similar" to military assault weapons. This seems to be the weapon of choice for these mass shootings.
Several of these shooters have expressed their views on social media. The companies who run these sites have tools to track this and perhaps they should be proactive. I don't advocate a Big Brother approach, but a general "if you see something, say something".
There are several things Congress can do. Severe background checks on ALL gun sales. Longer wait time. Limit number of guns bought at any one time. Ban on AR-15 types. Stiffer penalties for gun dealers who skirt the law. Reduce magazine capacity. Allow the CDC to track gun deaths like any other. Stop with "thoughts and prayers". Take action!!
Is the collective voice of the Jewish voting bloc louder than the cries of 20 children at Sandy Hook?
12
@Fred You stole my thunder. Have exact same thoughts. Believe the vast majority of Americans are in agreement. Have hunted all my life. Rifles, shotguns - never needed a handgun. But, pump action, bolt action, lever action only. Highest single load capacity 8 shells. No semi-auto arms - inherently unsafe. (Thought we had the job done once, but cowardly politicians put a sunset clause on the approved legislation). We will prevail. Duane and crew not immortal.
2
In the report, what jumps out at me is statements such as "This is not who we are, in America".
Wait a minute, look at the murder and mayhem these last years in this losing touch with reality nation; police officers murdering minorities, because they know they can get away with it, we have all manner of abuse being carried out against children by clergy, by high profile professionals against women, and God only knows what else we simply don't know about.
And sitting with his fingers punching keys on his iPhone, apparently 24/7/365 is our half-baked President, alternatively spewing hate messages, condoning all kinds of outrageous actions, giving support to international murderers, tearing up long-in-place agreements with staunch allies, in summary we have a President who is off the wall, aiding, abetting, and indirectly goading on all the crazies, all of them, on the planet.
And then he "fixes" it with some shallow meaningless platitude, hoping that this latest abomination, after his crazed mad bomber sent pipe bombs to anyone and everyone, would not adversely affect Republican control of Congress.
And meanwhile, the Republican Party, and Congress acts as if nothing is wrong, nothing is awry, and peace reigns in Paradise.
What is it going to take, to finally get Americans to understand that this has to stop.
Massive midterm turnout and voting out of any and all Republicans, regardless how moderate must occur, otherwise the creature in the White House wins in 2020.
7
If you are left-leaning, and want to sway things, it will no longer do to sit at home. You must go to the exact places where the right wing lives, and go into pubs and restaurants and tell them to turn off Fox News. In the rural locations you do not live. You must actually go there, and personally convince them. If you do not go there and talk directly to people and let them yell at you to leave and spit on you and call you names and bump you with their chests and maybe even brandish their weapons around you, then you will only have your vote diluted. You, and that means you, must leave the cities for the next week, quit your job, lose your pay, anger and frighten your family, scare your friends, risk injury and actually go to any location that voted strongly for Trump and stand on a corner and yell at the top of your lungs until you get attention. If you don't then the election will not turn. It is actually that simple.
3
Another very sad day for America. Oh, the hypocrisy of your President. Today Trump laments “what’s going on with hate in our country”. Seriously? This is the so called leader of the free world who has claimed there were “fine people” on both sides of the racist rally in Charlottesville, has identified as a Nationalist, has boasted about sexually assaulting women, has denigrated those with special needs, and has applauded the body slamming of a reporter. And on and on and on. Trump says “something has to be done”. With that I agree, and that something is to vote AGAINST the Party of Trump in the mid terms. Only then might America begin to pick up the pieces of what was once a great country and try to piece itself together again.
6
The NRA home page is currently castigating the media for blaming everything on Trump. Eleven souls lost their lives today to an AR-15 assault weapon, and this is their heartless priority.
4
Why do all of these white males - Pittsburgh shooter, pipe bomber, MSD shooter, Charlottesville, etc think its ok to hate and act on it - because they see it all day, everyday from our president. Trump and his supporters who encourage this at his rallies are fueling this continually. Sadly, this will continue. Given that within hours of this incident he went right to another rally spewing hatred toward democrats. To them its just another day and really not a big deal.
Step up Christian Clergy, especially Evangelicals and those of all faiths and gather your flocks to denounce this behavior. Encourage and support action at the polls to really do something that aligns with the core tenants of your faith. Otherwise, its just more thoughts and prayers until the next one.
9
@JSC Thank you. Don't get mad but tennets instead of tenants. Keep working at this. Me, revile Trump and ashamed for our country.
Gun laws work. Doing nothing doesn’t.
1
President Trump had nothing to do with these vicious murders and yet those who despise Mr. Trump place the blame solely on him. President Trump condemned this evil act very strongly.
This madman hated him, didn't even vote for him and was very vocal about it. This is just another excuse for the Trump haters to criticize and defame our president. They are unbelievable and just too much.
2
@WPLMMT
How dare you defend him without offering any evidence of his lack of responsibility for what is happening around the country.
His entire campaign was built on hate and fear, and so it continues. He's totally unfit for office, any office.
How many more people must die?
2
@WPLMMT
Regardless of the specifics of this case, the President is a relentless promoter of hatred and division. He is rightly condemned for his part in degrading public dialogue.
3
Pres. Donald Trump and his whole administration (who cannot control him at all) are responsible for giving these cowards the push they need to actually do the dirty deed. For sure they have acted out made signs gone to rallies but now Trump gave them the license to ACT and kill American citizens, He is responsible his advisors are responsible, his family is responsible. Today he hugged a Rabbi big deal he preaches pure hate and encourages violence. OUTRAGEOUS
Republican leadership wants to hold power at any cost. Their so-called leaders are actually acting Anti American by putting up with Trump's behavior and words which are now actually being put into real action.
He kind of says he thinks there's no way Saudi leader did not know about the killing, well there is no way Trump and his administration did not know his words and action would not lead to Americans actually getting killed by them not stopping Trump's outrageous behavior which has now turned into murder and attempted murder
2
Trump is just a puppet for the NRA. It is madness. Once the massacre of 20 small children in Sandy Hook changed nothing, I knew we were doomed. Trump just now at a rally says bring back the death penalty and his crowd cheered! Really? THAT is prevention? So many of these hate filled mass shooters have a death wish anyway - they are mentally ill and the thought of a death penalty would not curb their slaughter. We all know what needs to be done but the NRA has complete control over the government so nothing will change. The other maddening thing is this country won't even TRY to change the gun laws. The GOP says it won't make a difference - well how will we know if we don't try? Thoughts & prayers didn't seem to stop Orlando or Parkland or the Texas Church massacre (where 26 died). It all becomes numbing. But Australia changed their gun laws after their Port Arthur massacre and it had a huge effect on mass shootings. But this country has made it clear that gun rights are more important than innocent citizens being able to go to church or to the movies or to a concert or to school without being shot & killed.
6
The bully wants you to think your complaints are irrelevant. The bully wants you to fear reprisal enough to never complain in the first place. The bully wants you to question if maybe you did something to deserve what he did to you. The bully wants to know it won't matter what you do, because he will get away with his crimes consequence free. The bully wants you to feel inadequate, even if you are objectively better than him - he is a loser at heart, but will convince you 180. The bully wants you to think 'everyone' hates you when the opposite is close to reality... but everyone is too afraid to say so. The bully wants you to think no one will defend you, and you will be out on your own against the mob which supports him. The bully wants you to love him, because he doesn't, and can't, love himself.
I want you to know this: your complaints are legitimate and will be heard. You don't need to be afraid to complain, and there will be no retributuon tolerated against those who do. You didn't do anything to deserve the bully's punishment. It WILL matter if you stand up for yourself; there are those of us who will die to defend your rights. Be proud of who your are - the bully will not bring you down for doing so. Some may hate you, but they are ignorant - most people don't. You don't need to love the bully, as he is unlovable. I, and others of like mind, will try our very best to defend you against the cultish mob.
Together we stand, divided we fall. I will stand with you.
3
A politics of resentment, an incessant need for scapegoats, a disdain for the life of the mind, rampant xenophobia, the incitement of fear and anger, inevitably combine to spillover into ghastly violence -- such are the hallmarks of Fascism. Trump promulgates them all and his extremist cult followers are eager to make it all too real.
Another mass shooting with an assault rifle that kills innocent Americans.....
Having occurred less than two weeks from the midterm congressional elections, this latest tragedy, which occurred in a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, presents Americans with a golden opportunity to ensure the introduction of serious gun control legislation next year by a newly-elected majority Democratic House of Representatives in the next Congress, including a comprehensive ban on assault rifles and pistols.
Please vote a straight Democratic ticket on November 6 because in America unstable people with assault weapons the general public should not have access to, routinely kill lots of innocent people.
6
It all filters down to the fact that the world has become a darker and uglier place since this president entered the White House. Be in coincidence or not. Now we need some hope and light. Politicians of every stripe take note that divisiveness doesn't heal, but wounds. November 6, vote.
2
Trump says outcome would have been different if armed guards were present. Since these kinds of barbaric acts are happening ever so often and every where - schools, night clubs, concerts, places of worship etc, my question to Trump is where else are we suppose to keep armed guards? Should we now have US Army patrolling every major city and every street corner? Trump has no sense and is such a disgrace to this country.
5
@Tejas Doshi That is exactly what Trump, much of the GOP, the NRA and all ultra right-wing organizations want, yes. An excuse to put armed forces and surveillance everywhere. An excuse to keep everyone afraid and cowering in their homes. Much much easier to control people in that situation. That’s why we have to keep reminding each other that the chances of ever being caught in this kind of massacre are far less than getting in a car accident or contracting, say, heart disease. Don’t let these horrific incidents keep you from living your life and exercising your freedoms. That is *exactly* what a certain type of authoritarian wants you *not* to do.
This happens in the United States more than in any other modern industrialized country...this happens in the United States more than in any other modern industrialized country....(repeat ad infinitum)...
5
21 guns. This madman had 21 guns registered to him. Inspired by Trump nationalism and hatred, he finally can take it no more. We are in a dark hole. A very dark place, and the only way out is to vote democratic. And please, save the false equivalency argument. This nonsense comes from only one side of the aisle.
6
Thoughts and prayers. :)
I will confess that after Trump won the presidency a bizarre thought came to mind. Grasping at the narrowest of straws, I convinced myself that with one of their kind in the Oval Office, nihilists would no longer need to assert their sickness through mass slaughter. I told myself that something good might actually come from Trump's election, that our routine public massacres might slow down a bit. Call me the angriest and saddest of Pollyannas.
2
When the President of the United States incites his rallies with shouts of "Lock her up!" or, go ahead and assault whomever you think is not on our side and I'll pay your bail... and then has the unmitigated gaul to next claim, “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done.”. That is called talking out of both sides of your mouth. We are fast descending as a society into mobs led by a man-boy who is not capable of either taking responsibility for what comes out of his mouth or constraining that mouth.
2
Note the date, America. Feb. 21, 2017: Trump again declined to answer a question about what action he would take to address the threats to Jewish organizations. Sean Spicer, a White House spokesman, said later that Trump would respond through “deed and action” over the coming months and years. - Reuters
3
Don’t let this horrific tragedy get filed away in the anti-Semitic drawer. This is another crazed individual with easy access to mass murder weaponry. This vileness has bounced from kindergarten classes to high school classes to concerts to gay bars to African American churches and yes now a synagogue, but imagine how many more categories of people will be taken down in the United States for being in the next hater’s chosen focus. Let’s get back to a time when we can all feel safe. Will we ever feel safe with armed guards in our children’s classrooms as they take spelling tests; armed guards at our places of worship; armed guards at all bars, all concerts; armed guards on every corner? We will only be safe when two voices collide: 1) “We are all in this together; lift each other and we all are lifted” and 2) “Gun makers may be held legally responsible for irresponsibly selling death weapons”. We need a president and Congress that can deliver this sentiment.
1
Already 11 dead in another mass shooting by a hate filled white supremacist. Trump is the best propaganda material that such hate filled racist people and white supremacists got in decades, if not centuries in this country.
GOP and its leaders should be tried for mass murder charge for such routine mass shooting and other gun related death that they help perpetrating.
Poorly educated and mostly living under poverty, many blind supporters of GOP need to grow up before it's too late for them, and more importantly, their children and other loved ones. Data says that most gun related deaths are of the relatives, neighbors, colleagues, and worst, their spouse and children. Most deaths are done in such mass shootings either, even though such mass shootings get more media and public attention.
These GOP supporters probably do not know that red states are more violent and experience more gun death.
"Gun saves like" rhetoric is only for ignorant gullible people to believe. but it became the best propaganda slogan for NRA and other lobbies for gun manufacturers, for which GOP shamelessly accept millions or billions of dollars as political donations.
3
78% of United States citizens do NOT own guns, leaving 22% of the population with 393 million guns. What ARE these people afraid of? Their government? Ollie North, head of the NRA, ought to lead this "caravan" of gun-owners on a trip back to Central America, a place he knows very well, and make a deal with Saudi Arabia this time. Birds of a feather. Even China has hand-gun control. Geez.....
2
the country needs to stop the terror that keeps happening. Stop supplying weapons else local terrorist never ends...
The pathetic of this tragedy is that - as we saw with Columbine, Las Vegas, Parkland and others - after the furor has aged out of the news cycle all will continue to be business as usual.
3
We need to reverse how hate courses through the veins of Trump's America. In one week of Trump's America...
- First the "MAGA bomber" who targeted Democrats.
- Later, a white shooter who tried to target African Americans in Church in Kentucky
- Today, this anti-Semitic mass murder.
Trump would not cancel an election rally today while he was in the Midwest despite one of the worst anti-Semitic attacks in the history of our country.
Sure, he made a cursory attempt to denounce anti-Semitism today, but what has his distant and recent past most consistently revealed about this President?
There's ample evidence from his embrace of the propaganda of hate groups, to declaring himself a "nationalist," to his pronouncement that both sides were to blame in Charlottesville, to his support of white-nationalist led "Unite the Right" rallies, to exhortations at election rallies for supporters to attack those with different viewpoints, to sharing white nationalist anti-Semitic tweets, to a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement refusing to acknowledge the suffering of Jews, to numerous refusals to denounce white nationalists and the Ku Klux Klan. Need one say more?
People say, "elections have consequences."
In the case of Trump's 2016 election victory, hate-based violence is one of them.
We should not support a President who models for his citizens that it is okay for them to act on their hatreds.
If you have not yet been motivated to vote in 2018, on November 6th, reconsider.
1
I understand that we have a first amendment that prevents the government from censoring hate speech but, for the life of me, I cannot fathom why social media platforms - including Facebook - tolerate it. I have reported numerous instances of anti-Semitic hate-speech to Facebook, in vain. The response most often is some pap about "you did the right thing" but the content "doesn't violate Facebook's community standards." Just last month I reported a meme that shows six pictures of piles of human corpses, each purporting to document a massacre of Armenians, Russians, Germans, Polish, Ukrainians and Palestinians. In large, bold letters underneath appear the words "Victims of the Jewish Babylonian Talmud. Kabballah duality = Jewish duality." The point of the meme, of course, is to blame Jews for massacres of innocent people in nation after nation. Facebook's response to my report of this for hate-speech was this: "Thanks for your report. Facebook is a place where people can share their experiences and raise awareness about issues important to them. However, after hearing feedback from our community, we now limit visibility of this type of content to people older than 18. We may also display a warning to let people know about the content in this photo before they view it. You can learn more about how we respond to violence and graphic content in the Facebook Community Standards." In other words, piles of corpses: problematical; blaming Jews for those deaths: no problem!
8
A very tragic event that somehow will be blamed on President Donald J. Trump. Thank you.
2
@Southern Boy
You're welcome? I see you too have adopted a Trump Trait. Saying "thank you" when you want others to stop asking questions.
1
The President of the United States incites terrorism constantly. We have hears his racist rants since before he was elected. I can't listen to him he is so sickening. Mentally ill and angry and otherwise disenfranchised people will listen to him and act accordingly.
This President is aided in his destruction of our citizens by a Republican congress who will do absolutely nothing about gun control although over 70% of all citizens want it. In their way, this Congress also incites terrorism.
Both Trump and the NRA are backed by Russia and Putin. Their goal is to destabilize our country. As long as we have a weak President and Congress who cannot stand up to these destabilizing forces we will have horrible tragedies and innocent people will loose their lives.
We can be better, but not until we all vote for people who will oppose Trump and the NRA and have a better vision for our country.
6
From the article:
"Though a bris, a ceremony to mark a child’s birth, was among the ceremonies taking place Saturday..."
I would be be good if the Times provided their authors with a dictionary - that is not what a bris is.
I just checked 6 dictionaries to be sure; not one gave that description for a bris.
2
A bris is a ritual circumcision of an eight-day old boy, marking his acceptance into the Jewish community. iIt's based on biblical tradition. No matter your view of such ceremonies (I'm Jewish, and think it's barbaric), it's a basic Jewish tradition.
1
@Peter Zenger
Deflect much? Horror can do that to a human.
Today an angry deranged man with an AR-15 walked into (fill in the blank) and killed (fill in the blank).
When we will we ever have to courage to end this carnage? Certainly not while Trump continues to ramp up hatred and fear in his followers.
2
And yet NRA again gets a free pass. This country is done unless we stop the gun addiction.
1
People are blaming President Trump for these atrocious killings but he had absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact, he has condemned these murders in the strongest of terms and is as outraged as anyone over these senseless acts. The blame should go to the killer who had a long history of anti-Antisemitism. He is a madman and monster who caused terror among the Jewish people. My heart goes out to those victims and the families of this massacre. These are the ones who are suffering right now and we must put a stop to this hatred that is destroying our nation. We are all in this together and we must speak out against this tragedy.
2
It's so pathetic, it's not even worth talking about anymore. If Kavanaugh would like to redeem himself and become a truly great Supreme Court justice, he will re-write the 2nd. amendment severely limiting the existence of guns to the public and give it to Congress to turn into law like other rational countries.
4
@Philip Currier
OMG, that man is in the can for the Patriarchy. He's more a conservative DSK than a humanitarian.
It's so disheartening to hear the thoughtless comments of our president. Whatever your opinion about gun control and gun violence, when practically the first thing out of his mouth is promotion of more guns, he shuts out the feelings and concerns of the majority of Americans. He will never figure out that he's more than just a President to his base. He's not truly my President, and he's a national disgrace. 2020 can't come soon enough.
2
Donald Trump wants to make America Great Again. Is this making America great again?
2
"On his Gab.com account, Bowers claimed Jews were helping transport members of the migrant caravans. He shared a video that another Gab.com user posted, purportedly of a Jewish refugee advocacy group HIAS on the US-Mexico border. Another post that Bowers commented on described HIAS' overall efforts as "sugar-coated evil."
"According to his posts, Bowers believed that those in the migrant caravans were violent because they were attempting to leave countries that had high levels of violence. And Bowers repeatedly called them "invaders" on his Gab posts. "I have noticed a change in people saying 'illegals' that now say 'invaders'," read one post, six days before the shooting. "I like this."
2
Supreme irony:
“We can’t make these sick, demented, evil people important,” Mr. Trump said to his rally crowd. “When we change all of our lives in order to accommodate them, it’s not acceptable.”
Dear Donald, please look in the mirror, and try really hard to recognize the sick, demented, evil reflection.
7
Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, speaking at news conference Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh. “These senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Pennsylvanians and are not who we are as Americans.”
Apparently that IS who we are as Americans bevause we don’t do anything about it.
2
@Rocky star
My father's family lived in PA for several centuries. From the Seven Years War to this very day, PA has been a hot bed of partisan politics that only occasionally becomes deadly. Several of my ancestors were abducted and carried off to live for years with the Natives. I like to think we know ourselves better than the average American.
We are capable of the same horror as any of our opponents, the trick is to rise above it. Like those Moravians who died in a massacre with the Indians the hot blooded Scots were griping held all their land. Some of those Scots were haunted by the Moravians cries to God to forgive them as they died at their hands.
1
@Abby
I am referring to the never-ending mass shootings with no venue or victim off limits and the inability or unwillingness of lawmakers to do anything about it. No doubt we COULD rise above it by no confidence we will.
I am psychologically relieved by the fact that this killer is a white suprematist .
Don’t get me wrong , had he been a Muslim or African American we would have had the ignominious trumpian racist propaganda against minorities , right now before midterm elections.
I am appalled that once again in this country there is so much hideous hatred against our Jewish brothers and sisters .
Where are the seeds of such a crime against humanity coming from ?
Who is responsible for spreading so much hatred towards some religious and ethnic groups ?
I am an atheist , but grown up in the Catholic religion.
I remember the seeds of anti semitism being spread into young minds through the history of persecution of Jesus Christ...
Could this be the origin of hatred being perpetrated by the narrative of the fairytales in the New Testament ?
I am not a theological expert , not interested in this subject, but I am a normal human being horrified by the hatred in this country.
1
We need to reverse how hate courses through the veins of Trump's America. Sure, the President made a cursory attempt to denounce anti-Semitism today, but what has his distant and recent past consistently revealed about this President?
There's ample evidence -- from his re-posting social media propaganda of hate groups, to his declaring himself a "nationalist," to his provocation that "both sides" were to blame in Charlottesville, to his support of white-nationalist led "Unite the Right" rallies, to his exhortations at election rallies for supporters to attack those in the audience with different viewpoints, to his sharing anti-Semitic tweets, to a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement refusing to acknowledge the suffering of Jews, to multiple refusals to disavow white nationalists like the KKK's David Duke. Need one say more?
People say, "elections have consequences." In the case of Trump's 2016 election victory, hate-based violence has been one of them. In 2018, let's change this.
More of us must be part of the solution, so please encourage friends, family, and others you know who did not vote two years ago to be a part of the solution by being a vote against nationalist extremism and the hate it promotes.
Only those of us with a vision for a different America, can make the difference. Vote against those who traffic in hate and in support of those who President Trump's policies, actions and demagoguery have targeted. Your vote can be the difference in their lives.
1
Trump gives these terrorists license to express their racism. Too bad he didn't have the same concern for the safety of those Democrats who were placed in danger. Apparently his condolences are for only those he considers politically worthy.
1
My heart is heavy with sorrow and my prayers are with the victims' families and all Jewish people. I am Buddhist and my family came here from Vietnam in 1975 after the war. HIAS was the organization that helped us resettle in Baltimore, MD, with much kindness and compassion and we are forever grateful for that. I had many incredibly caring and compassionate Jewish friends who helped ease the pain of being uprooted from my homeland and the trauma I witnessed after the mass exodus from VN. It is a horrific day for all of us who value true freedom, humanity and justice.
39
My heart goes out to the victims and their families. Rest in peace.
3
Trumps solution to prevent mass shootings at temples is to have armed guards at services.
He though of limiting services to no more than 5 people but Ivanka and Jared advised of a problem with this solution because of minyan requirements.
Can anyone explain to this foreigner just how the American people benefit from some of the laxest gun control laws in the world?
Just keeping it in the 'Anglo' world for a minute... Here in l'il old England we have some of the world's toughest gun laws. Private gun ownership is pretty much zero. Gun crime is very low. Yet, I don't feel enslaved by my government, unmanned by my impotence, or particularly threatened. I spend little (well, no) time fretting about being stabbed or beaten. I perceive no need of a firearm. Australia and NZ have tight gun control too, but they seem to be doing OK as well. Canada operates gun laws, relaxed by Euro standards but tough by American ones, without damage to the nation's pride. Canucks seem content about that.
I really do get the 'fun' aspects of guns. I was a pretty serious competitive rifle shooter at school and university. I just don't don't understand the acceptance of what seems intolerable collateral damage in your country.
15
Follow the money. The NRA is a lobbying and advocacy organization for gun manufacturers.
@nolongeradoc Why can't people go to the range and shoot and leave their guns there, I don't know. It is rare that someone has needed to use guns for self-defense, unless they are in law enforcement . Far more frequently it is an accidental discharge, a toddler's curiosity that ends up taking away a family member, or else create a victim of domestic violence or make a mass shooting possible by allowing unfettered sales of arms and ammunition even for high powered rifles and automatic weapons. To claim to need a gun outside of the shooting range or hunting season is either a fantasy of the Far-West long gone days, or an outlet for aggressivity or paranoia.
@nolongeradoc--What happens when someone steals a truck and creates mayhem? How about that knife killer in Norway who managed to decimate something like 80 people?
I'm not an NRA member or gun owner. I'm just a realist who understands that when someone wants to kill, they'll find a way to do it.
Our two short-term hopes: 1. Mueller and Congress get together to remove Trump. 2. The midterms bring big wins for the Democrats. Otherwise, we are in serious trouble, since Trump is so detached from reality that he will keep stirring up discontent for the short-term benefits and ego boost.
16
Without all the us vs them blame...I simply wish to state my sorrow for the innocent lives lost, the injured, and the officers who were injured risking their lives to stop this madman. I pray for the families and friends of all who have been harmed by a man who has no idea how to be a man or human being in general. I have never understood the hatred so many have for so many others.
3
Manage guns, ban assault weapons and control ammunition like like a drug.
Yes, Call it a hate crime, but all murder, be it by Assad or a maggot in Pittsburgh is not an act of love. Surely not what the framers intended by the second amendment.
Guns have become platforms for freedom of expression and nationalism.
We are all co-conspirators in this Pennsylvania horror and we bear more responsibility than the gunman for not implementing arms control. In the end the honesty of our intentions to manage and control weapons Is what makes the pen mightier than the sword.
8
Sadly Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania is wrong, these senseless acts of violence are who we are as Americans. Incident after incident proves we don't really care. Our guns are more important to us. Our leaders care more about the impact it has on the next election and they're more concerned about casting doubt on those who are victims of these acts of violence. Where is the outrage about the President of the United States reaction to the impact Florida and Pennysylvania have on the next election cycle. Governor we are so far away from sensible gun laws. So I asked where have you stood on this divide?
10
My thoughts and prayers today are with the families who lost loved ones and for the brave officers and fine synagogue members who were injured.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank
It’s time to elect new leaders in this country who represent all the people of this country, who stand by us and work hard for all of us and who are good at heart.
My heart is full of sadness for those whose lives were needlessly taken yesterday.
Enough America enough!
Stand up for goodness, kindness and love which that synagogue represents. Denounce murder, automatic weapons, hate speech and in civility and harassment towards others.
10
And the carnage continues fueled by the 7 year old bully on the playground who happens to be our president. Now we're supposed to arm our places of worship and our schools? Everyday things that most of us do. How terribly tragic. And the bully rages on almost every night.
6
I lived in Squirrel Hill for a while. The people are amazing. In fact, one of the synagogues there had a survivor from Schindler’s list. To think that someone so callously hurt this wonderful community breaks my heart.
24
@jen Sharing your feelings. Squirrel Hill is all-American. We spend way too much time putting people who are citizens and residents of our country in boxes and defining them as "Other", and toxic leadership may encourage people to do so. This criminal assault is against the country, against Americans like us among us. It strikes into all our hearts.
1
Could someone in Mr. Trump's administration, may be after the mid-term elections, persuade him to sit for few hours and watch and listen to video clips of his own utterances and contemplate whether he is espousing peace and harmony or division and hate to Americans.
17
He will probably clap and complement himself. This man is unredeemable! He needs to be made irrelavant!
@Joe Not The Plumber
Dealing with this with my elderly in-laws. Part of the problem with dementia is the loss of self-awareness. He wouldn't get it.
1
I first heard about this on NPR yesterday morning. My brother, his wife, their son and daughter-in-law and two grandchildren all live within half a mile of the Tree of Life synagogue. Not yet knowing which synagogue was involved, but aware that my brother and sister-in-law spend every Shabbat morning in synagogue, I panicked, fearful that my relatives had been shot. I’m crying as I write this. He called me as soon as Shabbat was over; I have never been so happy to hear his voice.
Even though my kind and gentle big brother is safe, someone else’s beloved family will never come home. As the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, I have always been aware that we Jews are never completely safe anywhere in the world. Somehow, on my visits to Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill seemed to be a place where everyone felt secure. Never again.
7
@1499-As the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, I'm very surprised you would think anti-semitism couldn't reach Pittsburgh, even to the extent of this danger.
The Jewish community needs to be more proactive and less complacent. Time to take care of our own because no one else is going to do it.
Mr. Trump, addressing reporters at Joint Base Andrews, said: “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done.”
____________________________________
President Trump could do something, and it starts with him. Stop demonizing Democrats and the media and anyone who criticizes him. Soon after calling for unity he resumes his attacks. He either does not realize, care - or both - that his words have impact. His constant, relentless, angry attacks against everyone who questions him create a poisonous environment, which ultimately leads to the bomb threats and mass shootings.
There are many reasons to impeach President Trump. His narrow understanding of his role as leader of America and the free world is one of the most important.
15
@Eric You liberals go first. Stop attacking conservatives as "cruel," "cold hearted," and "evil" simply because you disagree with our policies.
As Trump was quoted, “This is a case where if they had an armed guard inside, they might have been able to stop him immediately.” No problem! Just assign the military to protect all synagogues, just as the Secret Service protects those attended by Jared and Ivanka (guards inside and out).
Just synagogues? Maybe all gatherings for more than 25 people. Restaurants? Stores? Hotels? Schools? Churches? In the deranged minds of Trump and HIS Republicans, that makes a lot more sense than prohibiting and confiscating assault weapons.
8
“It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done.” Mr. Trump, why don't you look in the mirror and repeat that? Several times.
14
We can't throw out the 2nd Amendment but we can make owning a AR-15-style assault rifle against the law.
This is another good reason to vote for Democrats.
9
All mydeepest thoughts goes to the victims of this racist horrific act and to their families and friends. The gun man is fortunately under custody and should respond to his crimes. But one should fight against recurrence and this tragedy should trigger decisive bipartisan reflection and actions now, before encystement.
My condolences. From previous attacks, this comment has stuck into my mind: "there is no solution to mass shootings, says the only nation in the world where mass shootings regularly occur".
6
Donald Trump being President did not cause this tragedy any more than Bill Clinton caused the Oklahoma City bombing. The crazy terrorists caused them. Let us not diminish in ANY way the personal responsibility of the men who were charged the these most recent hate crimes. It is truly amazing that someone can watch the same exact event live in the same "reality" and come to such a completely different conclusion. Every bad thing that happens is not because of the President. Look at all those that heard his message and did not harm anyone? What is it 300 million to 1?
3
I'm sorry, I simply can not agree with this statement that Trump holds no responsibility. Yes personal responsibility is a part of this but Trump fans the flame with hate filled rhetoric that encourages bad behavior that mentally ill people are exposed to. Weak minded people are easily influenced by a culture of acceptable behavior good or bad. I would be beaten up if I went to a Trump rally wearing a shirt for an opponent. If a Trump supporter showed up at a Democrats rally, they would not be assaulted. (Try it and see for yourself.) Booed perhaps, but they would be allowed to stay unless their behavior became unseemly and interrupted the event. Trump on the other hand praises the people throwing the punches at opposition. ( I will pay for your lawyer ). You can not say he holds no responsibility for the violence when he creates the culture that encourages it.
1
In a way Bill Clinton was a partial reason for the Oklahoma Bomber but not in the same way as Trump. It was not Clinton's rhetoric that goaded Mc Vie into action but the fact that he was a Democrat. Trump inspires right wing hate with his rhetoric not that he is a Republican. Do not forget that in all cases cited the perpetrators were Right Wing.
@Martie Andrews You are giving Trump way too much credit. He did not create the culture he has just learned how to speak the language. Let me ask you, should we start censoring TV and Movies and politics because mentally ill people may react poorly to the message? Truly mentally ill people hear dogs and static on TV that tells them to commit crimes. I do not think that Trump should bear any responsibility for the actions of the mentally deranged. Do you blame Janet Reno burning out the Branch Dravidians in Waco as the cause of the Oklahoma City bombing or do you blame Timothy McVeigh?
Trump said the Tree of Life shooting was a tragedy but "there were fine people on both sides" ...
1
Welcome to Trump's America. It was true in 2016 and it is even more true now, as we witness the inevitable fruition of Trump's toxic lies and demagoguery. There is no way to sugar-coat it or deny it: a vote for Trump was a vote for Sayoc, Bowers and all the other deplorables who buy into Trump's bigotry and conspiracy theories and a vote for hate. It's time to stop coddling those who put this monster in the White House as though they are poor, misunderstood common people in fly-over states. No - Clinton was right. They actually are deplorables.
14
@David Equally deplorable and not as often mentioned are those who support this regime because it is making money for them. How many educated, well-off people have we heard saying they're "socially liberal and conservative financially"? How can those people continue to vote for these soulless people who don't care how many innocents are slaughtered, schools left to languish, and natural resources plundered just so their portfolios continue to grow? It's heartbreaking and will be the end of America as we have known it. VOTE BLUE.
2
yep "really fine people on both sides"
4
“It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done.”
Latest transmission from Clueless of the Clueless to Planet Earth.
6
Tragically, with Trump/GOP in power, we undoubtedly will have more radicalized domestic terrorist attacks. It’s already happening.
3
Again we see the level of hate and violence escalate. And Trump is the puppet master pulling the strings. He spews hate racisn, fear . His words fuel the flames of violence. He is the very essence of evil. Instead of unifying the nation. He divides it with his speeches of distrust of immigrants, fear of foreigners and people in general who he dislikes or are different. I feel sorry for Barron Trumps son. For him to be raised by a dad full of hate, fear and anger. Hopefully, someone in his life can show him the light. So that he does not repeat the sins of his father.
1
The gunman's reference to HIAS, which is helping refugees from Venezuela, is proof that Trump's anti-immigration rants are dangerous and need to cease.
14
@RQueen18
They help refugees from everywhere. A refugee from Vietnam claimed here to have been sheltered by them in the 1970s. Sounds like an org we should all get behind.
There is so much wrong with this country besides Trump and no one on the Left, or in the media is talking enough about the real problem; we live in a plutocracy. We have been producing a whole lot of disturbed hate filed people for over a decade now because it is no longer true that you can go as far as your talents will take you or even make a decent living. When people are economically depressed, desperate and unhappy they seek scapegoats, Jews are only the oldest victim, Trump serves new ones up daily, Mexicans, Hondurans, Blacks, Women, Democrats etc. He has unleashed the violent American Id and the irony is the conditions that give us this horrific violence are the same that gave us Trump. A plutocracy and an unregulated media serving up lies and misinformation daily, who needs the Russians when we do it to ourselves.
After two years of Trump, It's obvious the situation is hopeless. The Right maintains the plutocracy by fooling as many people as it can, and the Left is too busy fighting symptoms and ignoring the real problem. The culture and social justice warriors of the Left have no idea what they are really up against and are oblivious to how they make everything worse. Anyone who has been exasperated by 2018 campaign commercials knows that nothing is changing.
And everyday more and more people are unhappy, desperate and filled with rage and they don’t know why.
5
@Benjamin Greco
I respect your thoughtfully written comment, but this, like several other comments along the same theme, sound like “many fine people on both sides to me”. No, sorry, you cannot compare the left and the right. Maybe 10 years ago you could, but after what Trump has done to the GOP and this country, you can’t.
@Kally
I was not equating the Right and Left. You should reread my comment. I was pointing out that the Right keeps winning because the Left is lost.
Too much of this article is about the shooter and his views. Promoting him and his writings worldwide after a shooting will encourage others to do the same.
If you want to stop the proliferation of mass shootings, STOP FREE ADVERTISING FOR THE SHOOTERS!
12
No, take away their guns, all of them. No other country in the world allows such easy access to guns, so no other country in the world has these problems.
Why must we have AR-15's available to anyone who wants them? A shooter is 100 steps in front of any armed guard. It's absolutely ridiculous to think an armed person can react quickly enough to someone armed with an automatic (or any for that matter) weapon who has been scheming and plotting (or not). He could have easily been shooting out in the street. Again, why are AR-15's a right?
8
So supreme leader Trump calls for the death penalty.
He is incapable of understanding that when you answer death with death, the original killer wins, the second, civilization, loses.
2
How is this not related to Trump’s hate speech? Fair or not, every time a hate crime occurs in this country, it will be associated with our president.
18
When you have a President who has the approval of someone like David Duke, who has on not a few occasions spewed falsehood or invective to incite a destructive nationalism, or who has been cattle prodded into a weak as tea condemnation of those responsible in Charlottesville, or who under his watch has deemed it necessary to cage children at our borders and separate them from their parents, or who has applauded body slamming of journalists, or who has mocked cruelly a disabled reporter, all of the above (and more) without unequivocal condemnation from GOP leaders like McConnell and Ryan with a political agenda determined reprehensibly to attain their goals no matter the cost, then you will have witnessed the occupant of the highest office in our land, during the campaign and since November 2016, green lighting a spawning ground for such moral turpitude and heinous acts.
7
Sessions: "This could lead to the death penalty." Brilliant response to immediately suggest a killing for a killing. Just brilliant.
Gov. Tom Wolf: “These senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Pennsylvanians and are not who we are as Americans.” But the hard truth is, after so many testimonies around our country that we ARE a people of "senseless violence." We are now that. We tolerate violence; we endorse violence; we legalize violence; we teach violence; we encourage violence. We are a senselessly violent people.
4
That tens of millions of blind Americans cannot connect the dots between dramatic hate crimes increase since 2016 and Trump in office only further proves the deep dilemma America is in right now. For the rest of us, voting against ALL Republicans is the first order of the day.
13
Gov. Tom Wolf says, “ This is not who we are”. YES IT IS!!!! Mass murder has become the norm in the USA. Say it, if you can without vomiting. Or Stop saying that, or worse yet, “I didn’t think it could happen here.” It happens HERE every day. This blood is on Trump’s hands. Our media repeat his vitriol over and over and over and over again, and we listen and wring our hands. Speak up and out against guns and gun violence. VOTE and support gun sense candidates. Hold your representatives accountable. Hold evangelicals accountable. Hold your representatives accountable when they fail over and over again to speak up and out again and again against Trump, NRA and anyone who takes blood money from the NRA. Support the Florida children who gave bravely campaigned for sensible gun laws. Enough was enough a looooong time ago.
2
Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania said “these senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Americans.”
You are wrong, Gov. Wolf. These acts of violence are exactly who we are. Now.
3
Sadly, you are so right LEFisher. So right
Another incredible gun violence tragedy. At what point are we going to wake up and realize the real terrorists in America white male and usually Christian, not immigrants or migrant caravans. And, how do we tolerate as a nation that it is acceptable for us to live in fear with armed guards in our schools and houses of worship and that the right to "bear arms in service of a well regulated militia" out weighs the right to life of everyone.
15
"“I’m afraid to say that we may be at the beginning of what has happened to Europe, the consistent anti-Semitic attacks,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier,"
Rabbi, NONE of this has 'happened to Europe'. There have been no violent attacks on Jews or synagogues on anything like the scale witnessed in the USA.
It's a common alt-Right trope that claims 'Europe is lost' (and we're going the same way unless...) - which condones American violence as both proportionate and necessary.
Stop doing this to yourselves. Europe is fine.
10
Thousands of Jews have left France because it was.... no longer safe
Safety is the beginning of every Jewish immigration story.
13
@nolongeradoc I guess you're conveniently forgetting about the Hypercacher kosher grocery attack?
2
@nolongeradoc
Guess you dont know our friend who was beaten viciously on the street in Paris--for wearing a kipah. Guess you haven't tried to get into a synagogue in Europe lately (not the ones open to tourists)--they are very difficult to find and very, very difficult to gain entry to, because of the necessary security.
2
It's easy to do and say nothing about the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre other than shake one's head in horror. But, along with the thousands of other commenters responding to online articles about this horrendous incident, I won't be silent. Silence in the face of this depraved anti-Semitic act is dead wrong. Silence is one of the main factors that allowed Nazis to perpetrate the systematic Holocaust tortures and murders of 6 million Jews and countless other targeted populations, such as gypsies, gays, church leaders, Jehovah's Witnesses, and anyone opposing the Nazi Party. Recently, a Jewish community center in my area organized its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day. Every year, several Holocaust survivors speak of their anguished experiences during that time and answer questions posed by children from local synagogues. It's always a heart-wrenching two hours and my soul aches for the survivors who are asked to recall in detail the horrifying events they went through, including losing most of their family members in extermination camps. Somehow, after months or years of attempted recovery from the physical and emotional deprivations they endured, these courageous people made it to what they considered the relative safety of the United States. Now they have to come to terms with depraved people like the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter invading their sense of security.
22
P.S. I consider those who are Jewish my sisters and brothers. I'm Methodist, but I think of all humanity as being one in this puzzling situation we call "life". We're all in this together. I believe that most Jewish people know, or at least hope, that the vast majority of people of the world (at least the mentally stable ones) are on their side and join them in grief and devastation over the Pittsburgh synagogue shootings and other acts of anti-Semitism that have occurred over the years. But I want to remind them, in writing, of the empathy towards them by most. Minds like those of the Pittsburgh shooter are abnormal, and vicious acts like the one that just occurred are an anomaly. Still, all of us, not just the Jewish people being targeted, need to stand up against bias. I, for one, am going to continue writing and speaking out against the anti-Semitism that appears to be growing in our current environment of intolerance. I refuse to stand by and witness acts of aggression against Jews. And one final thought about the shooter: He has proven his hatred of Jews. But he has also proven his hatred of himself. Anyone who could do what he did loathes himself. I feel pity for the man that he has to live in a private shell of misplaced outrage and anger. That must be a miserable feeling. I have no empathy for him, but I do have pity towards him. My heartfelt condolences towards everyone affected by the Oct. 27 massacre.
2
A country that claims to be tolerant, a country that offers everyone a right to dream and worship, a country that claims a welcome to immigrants, is in fact a country built on the backs of the enslaved, on the backs of the underpaid, on the backs of the indigenous people. The common denominator here is always the same: a greedy, entitled white men who will lie and kill to retain power. Now we have the embodiment of ugly America in a profoundly corrupt leader who plays his base like Nero played his fiddle as America burns. I believe most Americans are decent. I believe we must hold on to hope. But I also believe that until trump is removed and those who allow his behavior in our government are held accountable, more will die. And that is a sad end to promise and decency. (END CITIZENS UNITED)
5
Is it just me or is America starting to resemble pre-war Germany? Let me see; an autocrat/dictator assumes power, curates a group of political sycophants, consolidates the power of the single party; then comes international aggression, control of the press, increasing military expenditures, preservation of a well-armed citizenship, and promotion of social intolerance against minority groups, religious factions, innocents. Not surprisngly, these elements are a backdrop to an increase in the ongoing random mass murders across the nation. MAGA seems to be a euphemism for US Second Reich.
40
I wonder how Ivanka and Jared feel about the hatred their father is stirring against "other" groups in America and against racial, ethnic, and religious "difference." Eventually it hits home. It is not just against blacks, Hispanics, Muslims. Jews are in too. The permission to express all that hatred of others includes them too, as this execrable attack against Jews at worship shows. Better change the overall party rhetoric soon.
7
@tdb They don’t have any negative feelings. He is making them rich(er) which is their one and only “value”.
Another tragedy of monumental proportions, aided and abetted by Donald Trump with his divisive hate speech and with the complicity of Netanyahu cozying up to Trump.
There will always be zealots on the fringe willing to perpetuate violence in the name of incessantly lying demagogues like our commander in chief, requiring only the gentlest of nudges.
Entangled in a meaningless and hopeless existence, they seek refuge in a cause greater than themselves, no matter how false and perverted.
Thus, Cesar Sayoc and Robert Bowers, by definition two mentally ill individuals, spurred to act violently just enough by Trump and his minions.
8
"These senseless acts of violence" are lethal expressions of hatred inspired by demagogues with divisive, senseless rhetoric. They tell the so-called "victims", in carefully coded language or even openly, to use violence against the” villains" who steal, rob, rape, kill, do not pay taxes but live on public assistance, and those bleeding heart liberals who support and protect them. The villains are “them” with different religion, race, ethnic origin, political ideology and life styles. Violence and its advocacy at political rallies and social media will continue until we stop endorsing and electing demagogues as leaders and eliminate the means and tools of mass violence and murder (e.g., AR-15). "Protecting" our public places and arming our mentally fit, law-abiding citizenry will not work. This guy was a law-abiding citizen. As such, he exercised his Second Amendment rights, purchased 21 guns and was in good mental state until yesterday. Let us stop talking and act for a change: stop electing divisiveness and hatred spewing demagogues and vote them out if they are in office in the next election; and break the stranglehold of the NRA on our lives. If we do not have the desire and courage to act, we should brace for more of the same—more mass murders, more prayers, mournings, vigils, funerals, and empty talks and condemnations.
5
Did Trump, a "Nationalist," cancel one political rally? No.
35
@Fern2, his main job seems to be political campaigning. at the cost of his day job which is being President of ALL Americans, not just republicans. If he were the CEO of a company and he moonlighted, the board of directors would have fired him for not doing his job. At least demote him. Or cut his pay.
1
you will notice that no Fundamental Churches have been targeted.
5
This will be blamed on fake news, Democrats, and his critics. The country is slowly tearing itself apart with hate.
5
I'm a 72-year-old, second generation Jewish American and nothing like this in my lifetime has ever happened before. What am I to make of it?
I grew up in a small town in northern New Jersey. My parents, first generation Americans, taught me to be careful. But I never saw the need for it. My friends were my friends, we measured each other by our batting averages, we competed for the same girls.
I went to Yale just as the Ivy League was opening up for Jews. One of my class mates was a Chasid. Today, the president of Yale is Jewish. So how do I understand 11 human beings murdered here in America for the same reason 6 million were murdered in Europe: because they were born Jewish?
When I was law student, I lived in a studio apartment in Brooklyn. The rent was cheap because in the foreground was the BQE.But the background – ahh, the background. The background was the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty looked over my shoulder as I studied the law and I had lots of time to think about her. Here is what I thought. All four of my grandparents came here from lands which would shortly become the worst killing fields in Europe. They all sailed into New York past the Statue of Liberty. That statute for me, and tens of thousands of other Jews, means life itself.
I lift my lamp beside your golden door. So now how I do understand something that challenges the core of my love for this country – this golden refuge?
20
@Barry Schreibman
Beautifully written.
1
I think all prominent Jews who have so far brushed aside Trump's racist rants as long as long as their personal needs were met need to step forward to stop this sowing of hate. Starting with Sheldon Adelson and businessmen like Steve Schwarzman, followed by Trump's very own family, Jared and Ivanka. Enough is enough.
2
@Barry Schreibman You're American, and unfortunately in a situation like this one we see Americans turning against each other. Get out and participate in your community, keep it positive, supportive, and politically active. Don't turn inward. Human nature is such that negatives will come up and we have to stand and be builders and repairers.
Here we go again.
When Obama was president he was a threat to the right and inspired threats and violence. Trump is president and he's an instigator of the right and inspires threats and violence. But ethnic, racial, religious and otherwise divisive talks, attacks and violence transcend race, religion, politics and history. We will point fingers at the left, the right, the middle, the guns, the Jews, the alt right, and never at ourselves. And meanwhile change doesn't happen and we wait for the next attack which has been happening for the entirety of human history and will continue to happen, unfortunately.
How about we stop for just a moment and realize that these attacks should never happen to anyone anywhere at anytime, not Pittsburgh or Myanmar or South Sudan or Bosnia or Cambodia or Auschwitz, etc, etc ad nauseam. Let's take the high road and not blame or incriminate third parties and realize that this attacker is a big boy who made a conscious, if morally repugnant decision to attack those who only wanted to head to synagogue on a Shabbat morning with their families and friends and commune with the Divine- what's more American than that.
Yes we need change and the founding fathers are smacking their collective heads that the second amendment could be interpreted to legalize assault rifles, but for today I'm going to contemplate how lucky I am to have woken up this morning, then hug my kids, be extra nice to my neighbor and spread a little more sunshine.
5
@Ernest
Ugh, no—as I just replied to another person, I appreciate your thoughtful comment, but no. Mentioning the left and the right together, or Obama and Trump in the same paragraph, no, there is no equivalency. Just think of the difference between Obama and Trump when tragedies occur. This is not a case of “very fine people on both sides”—or very bad people on both sides. These kind of acts can be tied directly to the kind of lie-filled hate speech of the right—not even alt-right, but plain old Fox News—and promoted by our nationalist president. You have to recognize the problem before you can fix it.
I have lived long enough to remember 11 U.S. presidents, and never, never in all that time can I recall—even among the Commander in Chiefs I didn’t care for—a president so undignified, so corrosively divisive, so utterly narcissistic, so lacking in empathy as Donald Trump. That he would stage another raucous political rally on the same day that 11 people lost their lives to a crazed anti Semitic gunman in Pittsburgh says it all.
9
Since both the "MAGAbomber" and this perpetrator had social media accounts which indicated their state of hate, flags were waved. Didn't anyone see them? And if so, could these hateful events have been prevented?
2
When will the"leaders" of religious institutions, media, business and government stop playing a game of hide, diffuse and lie.
Words do matter. Constant support for violence and excuses for the those who arm, assault and kill will only further destroy our democracy.
19
“We simply cannot accept this violence as a normal part of American life,” said Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, speaking at a news conference Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh. “These senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Pennsylvanians and are not who we are as Americans.”
Aren't they though? Don't these "senseless acts" define the United States, a country where there are more firearms than people? If for the rest of my life I never hear about thoughts and prayers being sent to the families of those killed it will be too soon. Our president's solution? Arm the teachers. Arm the churchgoers. Arm the rabbis. Put an armed guard in place. And that would have to be everywhere, because like in a guerrilla war, there is no front, there is no rear when it comes to this type of senseless violence. It could be a school in Connecticut, an outdoor concert in Las Vegas, or a Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Anyone who resists stricter gun control measures is above it all until the next active shooting occurs in their backyard. Then once more we will see neighbors interviewed on CNN exclaiming incredulously their disbelief that "it has happened here."
"Here" is your neighborhood, your house of worship, your child's school. It is your backyard, your street. And sadly, even as I write this, there is some lunatic out there oiling up his AR-15 to become the next active shooter. This madness has to stop.
10
After this shooting, Trump said, “He was no supporter of mine.” Another lie, Mr. Trump. He *was* a supporter of yours, and a particularly vocal one. I don't know if he attended any of your rallies, but the views he expressed were just like those who do.
It would have been presidential to say, "I disavow anyone who thinks I approve of this kind of violence. He might have thought he was my supporter but he doesn't represent what I stand for." But we'll *never* hear anything like that from DJT. Because he has no clue what it means to be presidential, and he actually approves of violence — he has said so.
46
The killer hated Trump. He despised Trump, in part, for his support of Israel and the Jewish people, and thought Trump was part of a globalist conspiracy.
How people can hear the truth, and ignore it and twist it into rhetoric that supports their political objectives is beyond me.
1
I can't imagine that the framers of our Constitution had assault rifles in mind when they passed the 2nd Amendment. Back then, guns were needed by colonial citizens to hunt game for the table and, having just gone through a war, enable militias to defend the country. If they could see the carnage of the last two decades, they would have altered this amendment.
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@John: To illustrate your point, I like to use an example of the military-grade equipment of the day. Did the framers of the Constitution believe that civilians should be allowed to own a cannon? I doubt it. That should support the argument that there has always been a limit on the "arms" that Americans are allowed to bear. Then we can quit talking absolutes and draw a line somewhere. Military-grade assault weapons should definitely be on the no-no side of that line.
@John I think it's likely the drafters of the 14th Amendment would have reacted the same way when they saw that a provision intended to ensure that freed black citizens had the full protection of the law was used to ensure that men could "marry" other men.
The Second Amendment has been twisted so badly by Republicans and their conservative supporters for decades. Nowhere in the second amendment does it state that every citizen has a right to bear arms. The entire purpose of the amendment was to ensure that a CITIZEN in a STATE was armed in order TO FORM A MILITIA in a time of war or to defend the state. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." We had NO full-time freestanding military until after the civil war so the people had a right to arm so a militia could be formed for defensive purposes. We now have a full military presence and a continuously manned reserve military protecting and securing all free states so the need for the 2nd Amendment is now null and void.
President Trump did not murder these Jewish people in their Pittsburgh temple. He is innocent of that specific, murderous expression of religious bigotry. He properly condemned this vicious, hideous attack. Trump's guilt is far broader, and so is the responsibility of his Republican enablers. He has verbally attacked nations on one continent with a schoolyard epithet worthy of a 12-year-old delinquent, lowering the discourse in our newspapers and all news sites with a word I never expected to read or hear there. He has officially, as president, called for discrimination against immigrants who believe in one targeted religion -- Islam. Trump has branded coarseness as the new hallmark of the political party created by Abraham Lincoln, our nation's greatest president. His coarseness infects the minds of angry, troubled people, and "inspires" them to commit heinous, murderous acts exemplified by the Pittsburgh mass murderer. I don't believe in hell, but there should be one for Trump.
8
Yesterday, I was in one of the most popular retailers in Michigan when the massacre was occurring in Pittsburgh. There was a huge crowd in that store and I couldn't help but wonder, what if someone began shooting in here?
Since returning to the States from Europe (on temporary assignment thankfully), I have tried to avoid public gatherings or going to a movie, etc. for this very reason. Call me overly-cautious, but as long as Americans cling to the notion that weapons with the deadly power of an AR-15 should be available to civilians, the U.S. might as well be declared a war zone.
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It is possible that readers of the column do not understand why the synagogue is called Tree of Life. In Hebrew it would be Eitz Chaim, a phrase that is used to describe the Torah which encompasses the idea of divine teaching and instruction. In the synagogue when the Torah scroll is returned to the ark from which it came the the torah is referred to as a tree of life and all its ways are ways of peace.
46
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said he was “heartbroken and appalled” "
Netanyahu: you and your buddy Adelson help prop up the Republicans and support Trump, who block all attempts to stop the uncontrolled spread availability of weapons of war in our communities and said "fine people on both sides" to the "Jews will not replace us" march in Charlottesville.
Shame, shame on you.
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I am shocked that a country as strong as the U.S. cant control these enemies of humanity.How did he enter the country where everyone is scrutinized and allowed to enter.It seems the U.S. has become helpless against these terrorists.From 9/11 to this how many terror attacks have taken place?
2
@Surprat He didn't enter the country - he's one of our very own domestic terrorist - that's the real threat = the threat from within!
Mr. Trump is furiously stoking baseless fear of the mythical dangers of illegal immigrants by lying about "Middle Easterners" among them and thus summoning the dark specter of Middle East terrorism. Meanwhile, it's two of his fervent followers who actually have carried out the principal work of Middle East terrorists, one with results so horrible as to qualify as the worst anti-Semitic attack in the history of the United States. I don't know if Robert Bowers and Cesar Sayoc will be permitted to vote now but if so they will vote Republican down the line.
19
“It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done.”
Oh please, give me a break already. Similar sentiments and statements were made after the February 14, 2018, massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
There were ample opportunities to make significant steps in having "something done" when Trump met with the NRA after that massacre, but in the end, he caved to their agenda and wishes and political support and financial backing, resulting in not one single change being made.
The constant hollowness of this windsock's words are as hurtful as they are disingenuous and insulting. Just stop already. This country is desperate for a real and effective leader who cares about EVERY American.
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Remember in November that this evil shooter was "one of the very fine people on both sides" praised by Trump.
24
The horror of mass shootings by assault-type rifles is more than matched by the everyday shootings of individuals by small arms.
Were these high-capacity-magazine weapons to be banned, there would still be upwards of 30,000 deaths by guns every year in America.
Nothing short of a total ban on guns will even begin to solve the problem.
But there are few voices among the public for such a ban, and practically none from any politician.
This shooter owned 21 legally registered guns. One-third of US houseolds owns at least one. The sheer number of armed Americans all but guarantees that the fatality rate will not decrease.
If the courage it takes to demand a total gun ban saves just one life, it will be worth it.
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@Jerry Engelbach
Guns in the hands of law abiding Americans is simply not the problem.
1
@LMJr
Almost every mass shooter, including this one, were law-abiding Americans until the moment they pulled the trigger. So, yes, guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans is exactly the problem.
Parable of a Sower by Octavia Butler. Read it. See Toshie Regan perform it. You will then understand what’s going on and what to do.
6
Sites like Gab and 4Chan that hide behind free speech protections to give psychopaths a platform should remember Justice Holmes' admonition about yelling fire in a crowded theater. To profess shock that a member of their community actually carried out an action he had been threatening, and found support for on their sites, is willful ignorance at best. It's not unreasonable to consider these sites accessories before the fact.
23
“These senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Pennsylvanians and are not who we are as Americans.”
These are the words of the Governor of Pennsylvania. But he is wrong. This IS who we are collectively - violent, selfish, materialistic, ignorant, inhumane and gullible. Exploited by evil money-hungry hucksters from the NRA, real estate speculation, oil interests, Wall Street and red hat salesmen selling hate and fear.
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@CitizenTM yes, we are exactly what you describe unfortunately.
A lot of things come in threes, so expect one more.
2
It’s height time that the MSM start asking if Trump is a stochastic terrorist.
Stochastic Terrorism
1. The use of mass communication to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.
2. Remote-control murder by lone wolf.
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Trump is wholly responsible for the hate and violence on full display in Amerika this week. There are consequences for his hate and fear mongering, and they are here.
Vote in November. Vote in 2020. We are here to take back our country. Throw every Republican out of office. We will not allow Trump’s hate, fear, and lies to replace our good old-fashioned American values of respect, decency, compassion and honor.
29
I could not watch this on the TV. Ban these guns already, for heaven's sake!!!
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@Kai Gee, that would only happen if there were laws to do so. Which is not happening soon because the GOP minority rules the country and the Dems are hapless opponents.
Between pipe bombs and the massacre at the synagogue I am numb with sadness at the unbridled hate in America. So today I completed my absentee ballot and voted unlike I have ever done since 1973.
As an avowed Independent I did not read the candidates position papers or policy statements. Instead I voted purely Democratic; hopefully sending Republicans packing.
31
And Trump's speech writers are hard at work scripting the next teleprompter pronouncement against today's needless tragedy ...
... while Trump himself takes another hit to his ego, worries how untimely gun deaths, so very soon after that bomb "stuff," might negatively impact the.midterms ...
... suddenly remembering that the remedy for ego depletion as well as gun fatality fatigue is ...
... MORE RIGHT-WING RALLIES!
And the cycle repeats.
18
Tikkun olam—to repair or heal the world. This is a tenet of Judaism that we are all responsible for improving the world. I do not know how to heal this terrible hurt today. But hating and blaming certainly won’t work.
Vote to elect those who support reconciliation over division. Vote to elect those in favor of gun controls. Vote to elect those who value people over money. Vote.
32
Another reason to vote Democratic—gun control legislation. GOP ignores America’s troubles.
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@JP You realize that there are already hundreds of millions of guns in private hands, and that most of us will not turn them in, no matter what "legislation" you manage to pass, right?
1
@JP--You do realize there are Democrats who own guns, right?
My dad grew up around the corner from this spot. Lots of wonderful memories of Squirrel Hill (Bagel Nosh! Waldorf’s! Pamela’s!). We Jews are no better or worse than other groups, from what I can tell. But we’re proud, we work hard, and we care for life and for our fellow human beings. We’ll get through this, as awful as it is.
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@Steve
It is heartening to know that people will get through this... we humans with courage and resolve manage to get through all sorts of terrible challenges. I'm so sorry to hear this happened near your family's former homestead.
However, the question must be "how do we end this?"
There is a boiling populace of people who feel exiled from the herd, who are furious (likely with themweslves, beneath that veneer), who have mental illness or soul erosion, who are attracted like moths to extreme views about any number of topics, who have no umbilicus to the world nor fealty to fellow human beings. What do we do about that?
We can emerge victorious -- and I am truly praying for all involved this week as targets of mayhem. But we never address causes because we cannot identify them capably and we know there is no solution that will fit all cases.
So much is fractured in this society -- family ties, community ties, the neighborly visits and witnessing that once was part of our fabric, the deceits that have emerged from so many sources once onsidered sacrosanct, and the rise of social media used by many as a vector for hate.
So we are left with is reacting again and again. Gun legislation is of course (IMO) necessary. But guns are not the killer; a corrosive atmosphere and alienation caused by any number of factors are the ultimate culprits.
The president's spewing is sickening BUT homegrown terrorism of what we've just seen pre-existed his election.
1
And the president is in Indiana claiming that Democrats - DEMOCRATS - are creating a toxic vitriolic environment. And the people in the crowd are CHEERING. I am just completely gob smacked.
58
@Patty Caiques - Patty, the minute Republicans start accusing you of being part of a mob, you know for certain that they themselves are about to act like a mob. That’s their standard operating procedure.
Entirely inconsolable about everything.
29
Before and during WWII Jews were severely limited as immigrants seeking to come into this country. They were the Mexican and central American immigrants of that day and the feeling in much of the country was to justify these harsh restrictions despite overwhelming evidence to the growing genocide. It is true that FDR did not do enough and bowed to the wishes of his nation and economic leaders and it is to his shame despite everything he did for the country. The same goes for putting American Japanese ancestry citizens in concentration camps.
There is no justification for bigotry under any circumstance and it must be fought everywhere we see it. Now we have a president who openly flaunts and attacks those who are different and not quite up to the white bread standards he thinks should be the American birth rite. Americans make mistakes and it is important that we correct them, but Trump inspired bigotry is not a mistake. It is an open deliberate attack on everything that we have stood for since the Declaration of Independence and must be fought in every peaceful way possible.
Where are the thinking people who do not fall into the knee jerk reaction of open or closet bigotry? Vote and if you have done so already, thanks.
19
But it IS how we are as Americans who will not or cannot ban assault rifles and elect politicians bought and paid for by the NRA.
64
@Anne Hajduk yes we are a nation of insecure fools, married to guns and vehicles with big engines. We are unfortunately led by fools as well. As Trump himself said, the rest of the world laughs at us.
@Anne Hajduk. It only matters who is elected and who is not. We do not really ask how. We really are not interested if the Russians are running our elections or not.
Today, we cry. November 6, we vote.
29
The real villains here are the members of the cabinet and the WH staff. They should all submit their resignations, rather than continuing to enable the Terrorist in Chief. It's apparent that the "adults in the room" have long ago lost control of their wild child.
12
These kinds of things can tie up traffic for hours.
2
@Stevenz. In the US this is just local news. Like a cat up a tree. Too common to be very interesting, at least to most Americans.
@Stevenz - Apparently I don’t understand New Zealand humor.
And still not one word from any in this disgraceful administration about gun control. But of course, why would any federal official campaign now when they didn't push for gun control after Sandy Hook or the other countless mass shootings?
They are cowards who will mumble about 'thoughts and prayers' and do nothing. They are vile, malicious liars who care not for ordinary voters and citizens.
I am enraged by them all - the multiple bomb scare and the Pittsburgh mass murder are their responsibility starting with the Coward in Chief, that Thousandair, Donald Trump followed closely by the Congressional majority.
Let's see what empty words they utter for these two latest murderous attempt and success.
13
When right wing extremists were marching through Charlottesville last year with their tiki torches yelling "Jews will not replace us..." and President Trump lauding the "fine people on that side", is it any wonder that it has come down to this?!
When you have a President, who instead of using his office to unite and lead, does the complete opposite, by berating, belittling , insulting and attacking everyone from the media to religious , ethnic, racial minorities and pretty much all marginalized communities, this hate filled mass shooting and the letter bombs from a few days ago are a natural outcome.
No, Donald Trump did not invent hate and bigotry, but they are his preferred tools. These tools he uses at his rallies in order to foment division and create an ever deepening chasm between the American people with little thought of the lasting damage.
Words do matter and have consequences, especially when they are spoken by the person who occupies the highest office in the land.
29
The death penalty was applied already. 11 people were sentenced by the US Congress that is completely feckless to act. This does not have to be our norm. Please vote Democrat in November.
18
Governor Wolf: Take a hard look in the mirror... this is exactly who we are as Americans... we are collectively a nation of murders despite your statement to the contrary. As an elected leader it’s time for you to act as a leader and work towards promptly drafting and enacting meaningful gun control legislation. Enough is Enough
43
This has been a horrible week.We have held our collective breath as pipe bombs were delivered to prominent Democrats targeted by a right wing zealot.We were grateful that no one died but then on Saturday a deranged anti-Semite entered a Synagogue and killed people with an AR 15.There is no excuse for anyone to have an assault weapon and no reason for anyone to spew hateful rants.If members of Congress were serious they would do something besides offer thoughts and prayers.That is a lame non- response.The words we hear from our leaders matter-we need healers and not dividers.Mr.Trump divides and wounds- he will never be a healer.Vote for healers on Nov.6!
15
Alexa, "Arm the rabbis, nursery school teachers, and little league coaches. Then please turn off our young children's desire to look up to us.
14
This shooter was motivated by sheltering of illegal immigrants by religious groups in America. It could just as easily been a Catholic church service. I know just about every Catholic church in our city does shelter illegals and even holds special services. Congress must fix our immigration laws once and for all after 60 years of all over the place do-nothing ness, amnesty and tens of millions of illegals. This will not fix itself.
6
@Margot
A bipartisan immigration law passed the Senate, would have passed the House and would have been signed by President Obama in 2014
However, the Republican leader of the House, then Boehner, refused to allow the House even to vote on it. The Republicans want to keep this issue alive rather than solve it so that they can keep riling up their base at election time. For this hatred spewing, and for enabling the spread of guns, the blood of 11 more people is on the hands of Republican leaders this morning
To keep using our challenges to divide us and sow hate, vote Republican
To work to solve problems, vote for Democrats.
18
Does anyone else notice patterns here and why?
5
"You also had some very fine people on both sides. " Enough said.
18
Sharing the agony of every concious and decent American I can only ask you to walk another mile to make sure everybody votes in the midterms. No more Trump hate rethorics. No more support for that shameful human being in the WH. Disable him by your votes.
41
Trump is simply too damaged to lead this country.
He doesn't understand humanity, he is truely broken.
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@Blue in Green, his parents never taught him humanity. All they taught him was money greed dominance.
4
@Blue in Green: Trump would not have any power if the GOP did not give it to him. And the people of the USA keep electing the GOP. The people of the United States support this President and their representatives that keep him in power. To blame only Trump absolves the citizens of the
USA all responsibility for the situation they clearly want and insist on.
1
This is completely on DJK's multiple angry, uncaring, insensitive and always mean and untrue tweets; and on his raging fear mongering at rallies. Republicans now in power - this is on ALL of you who are doing nothing to stop gun deaths in this country. DJK is destroying this country via one tweet, one rally at a time.
10
My heart goes out to Tree of Life congregants and with my spirit I join all who mourn the losses we endure from these acts of hatred. It is wrong to hate and kill others. The tenor in this country is turning virulent as President Trump stirs the pot of fear, ignorance and hate.
10
Given that the shooter had no criminal history, the calls for "universal background checks" and "common sense gun regulation" are obviously red herrings. When liberals say these things, they mean "full ban of all privately owned firearms." It's too bad they can't be honest for more than 3 seconds.
6
@Jon W.
So, Jon, a question for you:
You say the choice is banning all privately owned firearms or allowing the continued slaughter.
Given that choice, you choose slaughter.
Actually, "liberals" would like to restore the ban on weapons like the AR15. I guess, again, you and your fellow Republicans choose enabling slaughter rather than keeping weapons of war out of peaceful communities.
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@Jon W.
So easy to fall back on blaming the liberals, right Jon? What about your president? What about the cheering folks who greet him at his rallies, calling out "lock her up"? You don't see a bright light connecting the behavior of those people to events such as this one? If not, you're the one not being honest.
2
@Lynn Yes, given the choice between banning all privately owned firearms (which wouldn't be constitutional anyway) and having the occasional atrocity (the events are shocking, but rare), I choose the latter. That's what freedom is about. I also choose allowing people to own cars that can drive at 120 mph or propane for their grills that can be used to make explosives.
And I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Anyone calling to ban the AR15 is either ignorant or intellectually dishonest. Nothing functionally separates the AR15 from any other semi-automatic weapon. Banning a weapon because it has a black collapsible stock and a pistol grip is neither constitutional, nor rational.
“Those seeking their destruction,” Mr. Trump said, “we will seek their destruction.” Yes, just what the Christian right and evangelicals want to hear pre-election; from someone who's 'got their back.' An eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth, with Pence on our side. 'More weapons' is the call from the highest offices of the land and the NRA; from an electorate that can't even fathom why Central American refugees-from-violence are heading north. Hint: ask the head of the NRA, Ollie North, for he can tell you a bit about how we (and he) destabilized Central America, pushing guns in and people out... "north." Now it's all coming home to roost, and it's called DOMESTIC TERRORISM. Little did George W. Bush know that his "War on Terrorism" would include his own country, but it does because it's home-grown in the U.S.A. Look for the suicide-vests next (might as well bring in the clothiers as well), for solid armament-profits require an "escalation," no? More weapons to the citizenry, more heavy artillery for the local police, and more nuclear weapons around the world. What's not to like? This so-called Christian nation, with bombs continually "bursting in air," knows nothing but violence and revenge. From its general incivility to football to digital games to unmanned drones to bombs-dropped-on-Yemen to the words of the President, the U.S.'s message to you: 'We will seek your destruction,' and if you're scared, 'buy our guns.' A kindler, gentler nation ???
11
We've had enough of this madness.
Trump incites violence and sows divisiveness. He is the hate-crime commander in chief. He purposely inspires the sickest in our society to act out in deadly ways with his inflammatory rhetoric. This is his "base." And then he distracts with lies, lies and more lies. A veritable reprobate with an 11-year-old mind running the country. It has to stop.
And aided by a bendable, corruptible Congress, allowing among other despicable acts, easy access to weapons of war to anybody with a pulse and a street address, we remain sitting ducks. No house of worship, no school, no place in America should we live in fear to simply live our lives. We must vote each and every one of these sorry excuses for humanity out of office who allow hate, division and falsehood to rule. These venal politicians do not protect and serve us; they turn a blind eye, offer thoughts and prayers, and move on. (Or feign outrage because they can't dine in public. So very sad for them. NOT.)
It's time we all rise up to the task, be it direct involvement, donations or simply getting to the polls.
We need real leadership. Vote out anyone connected to this buffoon on November 6.
58
The only thing that will stop this is more guns. Even preschoolers and grandmas should carry fully auto AR’s. Putin laughs.
8
When I lived in northern New Jersey, one of my favorite things was seeing Orthodox Jewish families walking to temple in West Orange. Somehow, we must find a way to end the hate and violence in our country, an increasingly difficult problem given that we have a president who won’t even condemn neo Nazis and KKK protests and violence.
Prayers go out to all the families affected by this tragedy.
16
Republicans are not a political party anymore. They are a mob, armed not with pitchforks and torches (most of the time), but semi-automatic guns and pipe bombs. Yeats’ rough beast, which has been slouching towards Bethlehem for the better part of a century, has arrived.
58
Hatred and violence on the basis of religion can have no place in our society,” Mr. Sessions said.
Religions are sectarian (catholic, evangelical, buddhist...hence the violence .
7
The connection between this guy and the bomber? The bomber's first threat was against George Soros, who many Republicans claim is responsible for financing the same immigrants that this shooter was talking about. This guy and the bomber were both battling the same "conspiracy", to flood the country with dangerous invaders, which is the same conspiracy that Trump rails against in his sick fantasies. The bomber gave Trump credit for being on his side, with some reason -- the shooter apparently didn't think Trump went far enough, but their thinking is along the same lines. Or so it would appear.
9
Trump’s answer to stopping violence is to allow the unabated sale and distribution of lethal weapons to everyone. From one side of his mouth he says we have to stop the violence, and from the other he provokes and encourages just that. Mass shootings, hate crimes, and domestic terrorism have increased exponentially since he became President. The ballot box beckons.
9
This is the second hate crime of the week in America. Two days ago, there was a racially motivated shooting in Kentucky (which was strangely hardly publicized).
I am so sick of the intolerance and violence in this country--and the world. What will it take? 10,000 more shootings? 10,000 future generations? The ruling elite don't want us to have healthcare, education, clean air. . . so what is it that they want? They just want us to have guns, nuclear weapons, and tax breaks (for them).
This incident shouldn't be our wakeup call. We should have said NO the moment we heard Trump making fun of our fellow Mexican immigrants, women, and disabled reporters.
34
Although I understand that many political conclusions can be drawn about the alleged perpetrator, Mr Bowers (anti-Semitic, right wing, etc) I believe that his most important characteristic is his severe mental illness. No, I am not a psychiatrist, and I do understand the reluctance of mental health professionals to offer specific diagnoses "from afar". However, I don't think I'm going out on a limb to suggest that Mr. Bowers is profoundly mentally ill.
Having said this, I wll wade into a political debate: Those with severe mental illness frequently harbor suicidal or homicidal thoughts. Suicidal or homicidal ideation in a person who owns a pistol or a rifle leads to tragedy. Suicidal or homicidal ideation in a person who owns a semi-automatic weapon leads to disaster.
I believe that we are capable of crafting gun laws that can move in the direction of protecting our communities (and the mentally ill) from these tragedies without violating the Second Amendment.
4
“The results are very devastating,” he [Mr. Trump] said.
Mr. Trump, many, probably a majority, of us think the same of your presidency.
9
My heartfelt condolences to the survivors, relatives and everyone affected by this heinous anti-Semitic hate crime. We must work to bring reason back and oppose the rhetoric and acts of blind hatred.
7
President Trump said today: 'If there was a good man with a gun in the synagogue, 11 people would not lay dead tonight'.
Tonight all the pundits and commentators on TV in unison say it is not realistic to have guards in a every place of worship. Also many ask a simple question: Who will get the chance to shoot first? The commonsense logic of this matter escapes the reasoning abilities of president Trump.
Assault weapons - (AR 15 was the choice rifle used today - these things shoot hundreds of bullets in a matter of seconds) - should be banned from sale to the public, period.
23
Saw some lamenting comments about how the US is in a bad place and the rotting has begun. Many delusional people in this country, which is a large part of the problem they complain about. They either ignore through personal interest or are just plain uninformed and have no knowledge of history or perspective. This country has been in peril since the 19th Century whether it be forced labor practices, racism, war, exploitative banking/finance or crimes against groups of people. In the 20th Century it was unfair labor practices, racism, prevention of citizenship privileges, exploitative banking/finance, war and crimes against groups of people. Yeah, now we have self driving cars, touch screen phones, access to information and more knowledgeable than any other group of Americans in this country's history. But guess what...still we have unfair labor practices, racism, prevention of citizenship privileges, exploitative banking/finance, war and crimes against groups of people. On top of that, the citizens still kill each other on a large scale and the divide that people ignored through blissful ambivalence is now apparent, which makes it seem more than what is. Normal. So, the guy who is President is responsible for it...its all his fault. Once again people will continue to point the finger elsewhere while they live their lives in a dream world where they actually think the President's position actually holds the definitive stroke that in all actuality, the public has. Wake up.
1
@PurePhakts. I don't have any problem with your narrative as far as it goes. Yours is a very high level, nihilistic view that everyone is culpable, no one is. I don't accept that. Leadership is very important. the current president incites violence. A fish rots from its head. Elections matter.
It's time. It's well past time.
If you aren't military, ex military, haven't served, and have never served or will never serve in a 'well regulated militia' you do not have the right to keep and bear arms.
If you can't muster and pass inspection in the public town square assembly of a 'well regulated militia' you don't get to keep a firearm; what do you think assembly, inspection, drill, and parade drill are? Stuff the military just 'does'?
No. It's that 'well regulated' thing no one pays a bit of attention to that uncovers misfits, unmasks them, makes them peel the 'NRA' stickers off their prized possessions.
It's well past time.
Your precious 'rights' have a sentence stuck in front of them, you misfits out there, and it does not say you have rights, it says you have a duty.
It's time.
Cowards with assault weapons are not who we are.
We have a duty to uphold.
Not a gun. A duty.
I understand that.
Duty.
Do you?
24
You have absolutely nailed it.
The interpretation, or misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment is killing us. “Well regulated militia” is enough verse to interpret on the side of regulating weapons, ammo and accessories designed for militia use. By regulation I mean elimination of those weapons for sale. This assures citizens are not at risk of being killed by people unfit for service in a militia using weapons designed for militia use. Unfit may mean unfit even just at any moment. In other words not possibly diagnosed as unfit. If U.S. Legislators argue citizens need protections against military coups, the stronger counter argument is citizens need protections from a U.S. government & President that expands the rights of the 2nd Amendment while diminishing many other articles of the Constitution.
Eleven innocent people have been killed because they were Jewish. The killer is a bigot who felt entitled to take this action.
The president says it isn’t about guns and the victims should have protected themselves. Has it become so bad that peaceful people attending religious services have to arm themselves?
He says we must do something. We? He’s supposed to be the leader. Where are the suggestions from advisors? Where is the action the leader should be taking? It’s pitiful. There wasn’t even a mention of thoughts and prayers regardless that repeating it would be inane. It’s too late for the victims.
Then he complains that having to answer questions from the press on a rainy day resulted in his hair getting messed up.
Is this the United States I grew up in? Each successive act of gun violence makes it worse regardless of the age, ethnicity, religion, or other characteristic of the victims. And the answer is more guns?
Mail bombs. Shootings. Apathy. We citizens need to rise up and change he direction of government. But wait a minute - that’s what has happened and we’re all the worse for it.
8
NBC was the only broadcast network to have the news on tonight. CBS and ABC were showing college football, which was apparently more important than news about this right wing terrorist act. But that's a topic for another day...
So what did I see on NBC? I saw Trump speak. I saw Pence speak. I saw coverage of another Trump rally, where the reporter was asking for the opinions of Trump supporters...again.
And what didn't I see? Not a single Democrat. Not one person who represents the majority of Americans who never voted for Trump or Republicans or this awful state we are in today because of Trump and the Republicans.
Yup, NBC did another fine job of putting its thumb on the scale of coverage for Trump, Trump supporters, and the GOP while ignoring Democrats and others who undoubtedly would have had something to say...if asked.
35
@Larry M
And yet the BBC had coverage.
I am terrified of what is happening to my country.
I am an old man and I remember the code words for discrimination "restricted membership" and other things.
I had thought for a while we had outgrown the silliness of believing those who are unlike us are less than us.
Sheesh there it sticks up it's ugly head again.
The most important question to ask, to begin to understand the common thread that runs through almost all of the violence, death and destruction in the world, throughout history, is "What is the gender of the perpertrators?"
23
@James Dean Why is that the most important question to ask when we already know the answer?
@James Dean
This is so obvious and yet we CANNOT face it. This is the greatest of ironies - one gender offering their "strength" to protect the peaceful from the very violence that their gender perpetuates. It is men who use violence and then maintain superiority by "protecting" others from the violence they have so often engendered. This is the GREAT LIE.
@James Dean We must also ask, given the nativism our dear "president" exhibits, what is the nationality of those perpetrators.
The platitudes of "mental health" and "more protection" are lazy slogans meant to direct attention away from the more complex and insidious nature of the root problem: a culture of violence, fear, hate and guns - fueled by a cynical media machine for the advertising of profitable outrage and a thriving weapons industry to sell to that audience.
Americans are being sold the means of our own destruction and murder.
2
Everyone let’s stop this insanity!
Go to the polls and vote for those in your state that will uphold the law and support your stance on issues that impact this country. Stop the straight party ticket voting that may have been taught to you. Think, read as much as you can about each candidate and make an educated decision before you cast your ballot.
1
A mass shooting, public outrage, demands to tightened gun laws, anger subsides. nothing changes.
Ad Infinitum.
25
The time for sensible gun control is NOW. It should have been put into place a long time ago. This madness has to STOP!
Our leaders need to do something NOW!
10
Many Americans look to the president for hope in dire times such as these. Yet instead of consoling the victims and their families and working to unify the country to rise above hate and fear, our current president has instead chosen to unabashedly continue his unhinged tirades at another one of his hate- and fear-mongering “Make America Great Again” rallies. I am sickened and saddened by the entire situation, and my heart goes out to everyone affected by this horrific tragedy.
6
The NRA ‘campaign contributions’ that US Senators & Representatives accept is nothing short of blood money. Will eleven more victims of an assault weapon, and the hundreds whose lives have been terrorized after witnessing this tragedy finally give you pause, and a semblance of conscience?
1
Every time there is a horrific crime of mass murder by some deeply disturbed individual by means of firearms the alleged solution is more gun regulations. But did the shooter in this incident own or use any guns that were not acquired legally? Did he not pass the mandatory federal background checks that have been in place for decades now (yes, that is correct - despite the fake claims that there are not mandatory federal background checks required in every state prior to be allowed to purchase a firearm, those laws have been in place and enforced for years now) and of course Pennsylvania is free to impose even more restrictive gun ownership laws as California has done - however those laws have done nothing to decrease the use of illegal firearms in California. The NRA is bankrupt so bloggers can stop blaming that straw man. And enough with the false narrative that Trump's rhetoric is somehow responsible for every heinous crime committed in America - the Sandy Hook, Fort Hood, Aurora, Colorado, San Bernardino, and Orlando massacres took place on Obama"s watch.
3
@John Q. Public
He purchased his guns legally. That’s the point. He purchased an AR-15. He killed 11 people. He had 21 guns that he had purchased legally. That is the whole problem.
2
@John Q. Public That's just it. He should not have passed and the regulations/laws are too lax and the continuance of this ridiculous gun culture which has been cemented into the US by politicians who take huge amounts of money from the NRA, by the way they make the laws and allow this taking of huge amounts of money from a company, Anyhow the taking of money to rubber stamp guns and then allow a person behind a counter to decide a person's fitness to own a gun is totally wrong. So yes, we need to change the laws that govern guns in the hands of misfits and in such abundance in general.
“We simply cannot accept this violence as a normal part of American life,” said Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, speaking at a news conference Saturday afternoon in Pittsburgh. “These senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Pennsylvanians and are not who we are as Americans.” Under Trump, that's exactly who Americans are.
12
Trump has no business going to Pittsburgh. He should be turned away at the city gates.
34
@Julia Lichtblau, for Bibi's sake and Shedlon Adelson's sake, Trump is probably going to make a token appearance in Pittsburgh. You know that money flow is more important to Trump than the fact that guns were used to a man with 21 registered guns, when our law could have prevented such a terrible act.
These gun lovers, many of them, use innocent rabbits and deer for target practice (I know many hunters who hunt for entertainment and recreation, NH is full of them). Then they turn the guns towards humans, after all that target practice should not go to waste, no? And all the ammunition they accumulate should not go to waste, so they aim at fellow humans, for whatever is their daily gripe. This is how the wild west used to be. Now it is the wild midwest, the wild northeast, the wild south..you get the drift.
2
“These senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Pennsylvanians and are not who we are as Americans.”
Unfortunately, it is who we are right now, and will continue to be if we refuse as a society to stop the gun violence. The ease with which anyone can buy assault weapons empowers those deranged, angry and sick people to kill. Our national leaders do not have the guts to stand up to the NRA so it is up to the people in each state to determine the extent to which they will tolerate such abhorrent violence in their communities.
Help me understand this. The President of the United States, and the enablers in his Republican Party, tell Americans day after day that women and children fleeing violence in Central America and begging for asylum in this country are "bringing crime, bringing drugs, bringing gangs" and even harboring "Middle Eastern terrorists" in their midst. These vulnerable people, desperately seeking a chance at a better life, are supposedly the greatest threat to our safety -- in fact, an existential threat to the nation.
How many mass shootings have been committed by these asylum seeking immigrants? How many of them maintain a private arsenal of semi-automatic weapons and handguns? How many have been spewing hate on social media?
And how is Trump NOT directly responsible for inciting violence when his own avowed supporters send bombs to the same public figures Trump repeatedly berates in public and exhorts his crowd to despise? How is Trump NOT directly responsible for inciting violence when one of his own "Second Amendment people" specifically states he is going to gun down members of a synagogue, not simply because he hates Jews, but because they believe people who come to this country seeking asylum should be welcomed and protected, not treated as criminals?
Both of these violent white American right-wing terrorists responded directly to Trump's hate speech. The blood is on Trump's hands. He put the pot on the burner; and he cannot feign surprise when it begins to boil over.
9
Mental illness is a real problem in this country and the proliferation of antidepressants and anti-psychotic medications is not helping the problem. When these people miss a couple of doses they turn violent and delusional.
4
So maybe a law that prevents such a person owning 21 firearms and an assault rifle would be worth looking at?
@Karen We do not know if this had a thing to do with this man's hatred. Personalizing the problem can also be a way to wear blinders.
@Karen
There are some who psychiatric medications provide a real help and it's true a very minor number of them become violent when off their meds. But that's a very small fraction of those who take the meds.
Blanket statements about those who suffer from mental illness is a major disservice to the patients and society.
I worked in psychiatric centers for over 30 years and in that time there is less violence in the center than on the streets.
Folk are more in danger from folk who think they are superior to everyone else and those who believe in major conspiracy theories than the mentally ill. But then perhaps those folk have a need for mental illness care.
1
Well, as long as they (Gab) 'unequivocally disavow and condemn', that's all right then. Giving these monsters a platform to spew hate and receive encouragement doesn't make one culpable, does it?
8
I voted Friday. I saw a man wearing a MAGA cap. He had a sneer on his face and a kind of "deal with it" look that was disgusting. It is people like him that have trashed our country. Trump was giving a "speech" that night in Charlotte and some of the people who showed up were asked about the pipe bomber. To a person they said it was a democratic led hoax.
Who ARE these people?
The rallying cry at the next political rally for a Democrat should be "Lock HIM up".
47
Yelling at Ted Cruz in a restaurant seems s little meaningless next to yet another massacre at a minority population's place of worship, doesn't it?
On the same week that pipe bombs were sent to victims of Trump's public bullying by a guy in a MAGA hat?
On the same week that Trump acted out "his guy" throwing a reporter to the floor, a crime Trump says could have gotten this politician elected?
While he tried to find excuses for the assassination of a reporter by the Saudis?
It's not both sides. The left argues for peace while the right practices political violence. Not all Muslims are terrorists, only far right Muslim religious extremists are terrorists. In the U.S., not all Christians are terrorists, only the extreme right are terrorists.
I worked with lots of left activists. The last thing they are interested in is violence. They are getting beaten up by police while they work for peace and justice.
The left knows it.
The right knows it but comes up with lots of clever excuses for how they are not responsible.
The fake center pretends it cam't tell the difference.
If you project hate greed and violence, hate, greed, and violence will be your reward.
I'm not a Christian, but I do believe that Jesus asked us to "love your neighbor "not blow her up.
6
I don't have an AR-15 to defend myself, and my Constitution.
All I have is my tiny vote, and faith that somehow America will come to its senses and outlaw the private ownership of assault rifles, and other such weapons.
And bring back the draft, which would give people a sense of ownership and belonging in America, and perhaps not need to find a family of hate.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
11
Are we so immune to violence or threats of violence that we yawn and turn away from the daily assault on our humanity? We return to our football games and our Halloween parties without missing a beat. Eleven people murdered by a domestic terrorist and there is nary a mention or scroll across the bottom of the TV screen. I am sickened.
16
It is becoming quite clear, and it is very simple: Trump and his supporters are people who live to hate.
We have always had these people in our country--the white supremacists, the virulent racists, the women haters and the man haters, but there is no place for such a person to be President of the United States and the leader of the Republican Party. But here he is, and the consequences of his hatred and his party's support are clearly having a frightening and lethal effect.
Trump has said a number of times, he is making the mid-term elections about himself. This is what he said at a rally at Missouri State University:
“Get out in 2018, because you’re voting for me in 2018. And then he said about the Democrats, "They aren’t just extreme.... They are frankly dangerous, and they are crazy.”
Pure psychological projection, on his part, of course--accusing others of the flaws he is most guilty of.
But if you detest this kind of behavior and what it is doing to our country, please vote Democrat on Nov. 6. There is no other way at this point to send a loud and clear message that decent people reject Trump, Trumpism, and all it stands for.
16
Trump said about White Supremacists, "you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. Trump wouldn't strongly denounce White Supremacists because he knows that they are part of his base.
With him in power, those who hate are emboldened.
25
I became curious as to how Fox News would cover this heartbreaking story, so I girded my loins and checked out their online site. It was there, but what I found really remarkable is that there is not one mention on that site of the MAGA bomber. Maybe I didn’t scroll down far enough - maybe I should’ve scrolled down 100 more swipes. Imagine that though - nothing on their pages about the MAGA bomber. Every time one of these horrible event happens, I think ‘oh my goodness the whole country must be anguishing”. Then I realize that the 50% (or more) of the country, who gets their news from that alleged news site, don’t ever hear about these types of things. That’s the scary part. Anyway, another very sad day.
39
After a few days life will go on for anybody who has't been directly affected. Despite the public outcry and outrage nothing will change.
On to the next mass shooting!
3
Thoughts and prayers because nothing is going to change.
When Congress decided with the NRA that 6 year olds were acceptable collateral damage and did nothing, the loss of life at this synagogue is not going to change anything... just like the AME shooting, or Orlando, or Las Vegas or the list goes on.
My only hope is timing. This tragedy happened just in time for a congressional election. Its time to vote the NRA out of Congress. Its time to create meaningful gun control that protects people of faith, children, and the rest of America. Its time to vote!
25
Most of the comments here seem to be channeling all their anger and shock towards Donald Trump. This is disconcerting especially considering N.Y. Times readers include many critical thinkers. Please folks. This has been about the NRA all along!!! This country and its politicians has been bought by them. We had an exemplary highly intelligent and cerebral democratic president that served two terms and gun violence was rampant. Please wake up America and stop being distracted by the noise. It’s the NRA we have to fight. The only way to stop them is to have political candidates with sound values, but more importantly, will not be bought by the NRA!! Yes we need to go out and vote but let’s be realistic about who can make real changes. Perhaps Bloomberg or a Kennedy might be our only hope. Peace.
3
Trump said that an arm guards could have prevented the shooting. Why don’t he arm his two adult sons and have them stand guards in a schools and places of worship.
24
Are we fooling ourselves to think when hate is ginned up for one group that it stops there? When you unleash the fringe you unleash the fringe! Fringe has a need to hate someone or some group for their miserable lives. Did we think the fringe was going to respect boundaries for who they hate? The daily violence pushed by our president must be stopped. Trump's a guy whom I bet never got into a fistfight in his life has projected this Macho Man imagine. Trump is not personally responsible for the recent events but his hands are not clean either. To say if there was an armed guard there is really telling. The Parkland School had an armed guard.I guess banks never got robbed that had armed guards? As long as we let people play soldier at home with weapons designed for the battlefield this is going to happen.
31
The best thing Trump can do for Pittsburgh would be to stay away.
34
'Mr. Trump said that if the temple “had some kind of protection” that “it could have been a much different situation.'
The temple had God on its side.
13
... and it still didn’t help!
Every word Tsar Trump utters is irrational poison and I use my TV remote constantly so I don't see or hear him. Reading news on line I constantly avoid photos of his vicious face. It is surreal that someone like this is president.
Trump/GOP have been setting the stage for a blow up. A blatantly extremist party dominates our 3 branches and uses its FOX News state media monopoly to broadcast constant hostile, outlandish fantasies to the public.
This motivates acting out of irrational aggression by unbalanced extremists who are susceptible. They translate Trump's destructive talk into destructive actions.
In a less hostile political culture they might fantasize, but NOT ACT on them.
Before this week's mailed bomb devices to 13 people, we saw the alarming news on Manhattans upper east side at the Republican Club. A violent street fight broke out with protesters in this quiet, upscale area, after a speech at the Manhattan Republican Club by the leader of the 'Proud Boys', deemed a rw white nationalist hate group. Arrests were finally made after much media publicity. Clips of vicious beating and kicking were on TV. Why did a hate group get invited by the GOP Club in the 1st place?
There are also almost daily video clips of violence and various criminals on the local and national TV news. Then they take us to a Trump rally amid cheers of his rabid fans. Is this also going to inspire acting out by hate ridden people?
4
Our well regulated militia at work, 100k Americans killed or wounded every yr., an aberration re our peer countries.
The founding fathers especially Madison turning over in their graves, exactly the opposite of what they wanted.
While our national cultural gun abuse sickness is shared by all Americans, the addition of the bigot, rabble rousing Trump has made it worse.
15
AR-15 assault rifle supported by Trump and the GOP- NRA! This president wouldn’t call 2 Presidents , Vice President, or Secretary of State or Rep and more as any real president would have. Disgrace and campaigns on the day of murder to take advantage with more hate and misinformation.
18
These times necessitate a president with more intellectual heft than DJT. Hint: genius is not something that is self-declared.
6
I suppose with a Jewish son-in-law and convert daughter, anti-semitism is the one thing Trump can't be personally accused of. But violence is violence. When you raise the temperature to combustion point with unceasing hateful, divisive rhetoric, you can't shrug and say "I didn't think *that* would catch fire". Trump is still the arsonist-in-chief, and must take some direct responsibility for the climate of unhinged extremism he has so irresponsibly fostered.
3
The slaughter in this country MUST stop.
We as a nation MUST unite regardless of party, background, beliefs or anything else.
What happened in Pennsylvania is yet another horrible reminder of what our society has become.
Either together we find answers or together we sink to a level where better times will only be read about in history books.
We can't blame Trump anymore than we can blame 9/11 on George W. Bush or any school shootings on Obama.
We have to blame ourselves for not having the guts to defend the words … "by the people and for the people."
Those who simply write about the horrors are just as guilty as those who commit them.
Yes, that goes for me as well as you.
#neveragain and #stoptheviolence all sound good, but words alone mean nothing.
George Vreeland Hill
8
This Shabbat, in our local synagogue, we also had a baby naming, a crowded sanctuary full of little kids and family members. We too are a multi-congregation synagogue, with a classical Reform, Conservative and Renewal congregations as well, all under one roof. We thought we were special. With American born rabbis and teachers, as well as American trained rabbinic and teaching staff, we are unique where we are.
But with the world as it is, we also have tall, concrete Bakst walls along our streetfront, where we once had a garden; we have 24 hour drive-by security service, as well as armed guards at all entrances and security-trained community volunteers, at all entrances and staked out at places and walking around the city/suburban residential block our campus is located on.
Because I am an immigrant and visibly different, annoyingly I am ALWAYS profiled by the security volunteers who are not our members, but as the armed guards know me from the past 24 years,I get in but I’ve hated that siege mentality. In Europe, all synagogues have armed security, visible police, blast guards: all the trappings of a besieged minority, all the time.
Now, I am grateful for them.
I grew up in love with Pittsburgh and Squirrel Hill, my best friend’s hometown. She is shellshocked there, as I am here; we wept together by international long distance today.
We agreed that MAGA hats today are like the Brown Shirts in Berlin of 1929 but we pray Heaven for deliverance from them soon; please Gd soon.
7
I've been reading that the DOJ might seek the death penalty in this case. Let's hope they do, that the trial is swift and the execution swifter.
6
The death penalty will achieve nothing except satisfy a lust for revenge. Society is supposed to strive to be better than the murderer, not coarsening itself by sinking to his level.
The death penalty has little deterrent effect either. If it did, the US would have one of the lowest murder rates in the OECD, rather than the opposite which currently holds.
@Douglas Levene--I know it's not PC to say but the death penalty should already have been carried out for this killer. Now taxpayers are on the hook while bleeding hearts dissect this anti-semite's childhood.
[[About Saturday’s attack, Mr. Trump, addressing reporters at Joint Base Andrews, said: “It’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done.”]]
Vague and empty statements. Typical.
[[“The results are very devastating,” he said, adding that if the temple “had some kind of protection” then “it could have been a much different situation.”]]
Blaming the victims. Typical.
[[Later, speaking to reporters as he got off Air Force One in Illinois, Mr. Trump said he planned to visit Pittsburgh but he did not say when.]]
Classic Trumpism..."We'll see." Typical.
7
"What do you think about American civilization?"
"I think it would be a great idea!"
13
@T. Clark, the entire west has mistakenly thought the being civilized means wearing western clothes, saying please and thank you, eating with fork and knife and sniffing exquisite wine...all the while western colonialists colonized and exploited the rest of the non western world, as though it was their birth right. Do you want to see the list of atrocities committed by western civilization (America being late to arrival) whether it be in the name of religion (church) or minerals and natural resources (Africa) or jewels in the crown (India). The word civilization is a misnomer, there is nothing civilized about well groomed people wearing Milan fashioned clothing and accessories with a mentality of superiority, domination, occupation, invasion.
1
"The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become — and so on in a vicious circle for ever.
Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible."
From Mere Christianity
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
3
It took the press about two years to start calling Trump the liar that he is. We don't need to wait another two years before we stop using the word "nationalist" and start using the more accurate term "white supremacist". The argument that the word nationalist is synonymous with patriotic is going to be a bigger problem in another two years if we don't start calling it what it is now.
26
Many years ago 2 men fired a rifle into the Tacoma synagogue. No one was hurt except the Torah and the its storage place. For quite some time there was a police guard outside the building during services. Sometime later the two individuals were apprehended after killing several persons on freeways on the east coast. I am sure that the actions of these events were each carried out by sick individuals. The sickness that has spread throughout our great country can currently be laid at the feet of certain politicians who prefer to stir up hatred and fear to gain votes.
10
He has 21 guns regisatered to his name! Due to the money Republicans are paid to continue to allow gun sales, the more guns this guy has, the more cash into the pockets are those who opposed to contoling the spread of a more weaponized and dangerous America. The governor of Pa says "we cannot accept this violence...." That does as much good as thoughts and prayuers. How about some brave action for once!
20
@Mike, how many GOP lawmakers receive money from the NRA? It is a blatant crime.
1
My father was a Republican. Not a psychotic sociopath willing to sell his soul for power. He loved his adopted country beyond belief, his never slackening reprise was, “we are so lucky to live in the greatest country in the world!” He died in 1992. I am so grateful he never lived to see the wanton bedlam the “land of the free” has become. I was born here. I weep for his memory. I weep for my country. He would have not been able to imagine the disgraceful nadir of inhumanity and hate we have as our daily bread now, nor would his heart have been able to bear it. Mine is shattered already. I went out and voted but understand all too well what the events of this past week have made crystal clear. Politicians from the left cannot scare these murderous criminals back into their caves of inhumanity and intolerance and allow the rest of us to build a better and more just society. I went and early voted. But I fear the patient, American civility and our beautiful founding fathers ideals are dead on arrival, just like the endless massacred victims of the past ten years that far outnumber the victims of terrorism on 9-11. We have become our own worst enemies, whilst our foreign enemies rejoice at seeing our social order ripped to smithereens everyday. What a shameful bitter pill it is to have to face the truth of the disgraceful ends we’ve allowed to flourish and thrive so that a tiny fraction of power hungry monsters can capitalize on every ounce of bloodshed.
21
May God Please Bless Us All and Especially Those Who Have Had Their Lives Shattered By Yet Another Case of Senseless and Deadly Violence.
4
Would it help to publish the photos of such a massacre? Would that reality drive our government to have sensible gun laws?
2
1. Ban assault rifles. Not just new but all. Get them off the streets. Have the FBI “purchase” them in the black market. It’s not a panacea, but it’s a start.
2. The first amendment right of free speech is being abused. Just as there are exceptions like for falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, there should be for hateful speech against religion or race. Enough is enough.
4
The Mayor is obviously wrong. This IS who we are!
2
Did anyone else's skin crawl when they read that Trump stated that thr presence of armoured guards at places of worship would have produced "better results"? Is it possible to have a "best case" massacre?
205
@Shoptimist.
yes, my skin crawled too.
4
@Shoptimist
I felt like he was minimizing what had happened. Trained police were shot and killed, and having a security guard is supposed to prevent this?
4
@Shoptimist
Yes, Trump's skin crawling remarks astound. His remark about the synagogue should have armoured guards is not unlike his remark about the Saudi's involvement in Khashoggi's assassination. "
They “had a very bad original concept, it was carried out poorly,” Trump said during an Oval Office appearance. “And the cover up was the worst in the history of cover ups.”
He doesn't appear to be lamenting Kashoggi's assassination. I hear him expressing wonder that the Saudi's botched the job and got found out.
Caring for or about the rest of humanity, the citizens whose democracy he's supposed to protect and lead, is not in his makeup.
The events of the last few days and weeks are a great annoyance to him, as he has said. They distract from him and his campaign rallys.
3
"Thoughts and prayers?" Today I am thinking about an urgent need for a change in the gun laws of this country, and praying the American people will vote for those with the will to make those changes.
3
My newborn son is six weeks old. The youngest of young American Jews living in this country. I’ve seen a lot since the days I was borne and raised in the squirrel hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. But all things considered, I am supremely grateful that my life growing up in the northeast from 1980 till now has been one of insulated safety, acceptance and comfort.
I’m not religious but you don’t need to be religious to be athe history of anti-semitism. It’s been around for centuries, and it’s alive and well today. For most of my life it felt as though the real anti-semites lurked in the shadows, with a overwhelming stigma and public disavowal of folks like David Duke and his ilk.
Trump may not condone what happened today, and this anti-Semite may not be a MAGA guy, but students of history can appreciate that the evils of racism, anti-semitism and nationalism represent fires that liberal democracies are at all times tasked with the duty of extinguishing. Today, we are letting the fires burn, and our President is fanning the flames, whether intentionally or not.
The Republican Party is structured around ideas that justify significant blood-letting and widespread strife if, at the end of the day, their wealth and social positions are protected. They must be aggressively beaten both at the polls and in the sphere of ideas. I’m not confident either will occur, and I would bet that my newborn so will not enjoy a 40 year stretch of relative domestic calm that I’ve enjoyed.
1
So, ho-hum or what is it? When will we decide when enough is enough? Not any time soon, in my opinion, and we continue to forget in the 24-hour news cycle that 25 people were killed yesterday, because that was probably the smallest number that showed up on the blotters in one state.
Can you understand that we live in a third world country right now that accepts this kind of violence, but no first world country could or would.
So, let's stop comparing ourselves to a first world country. We are not there in so many ways. poverty, maternal death, infant mortality, violent deaths, people incarcerated, etc.
You can talk about US as exceptional, but as I see it, that difference is how we spend our riches. The Romans spent it on war, and we all know how that ended.
1
Guns are dangerous by design. Guns in the hands of unstable minds are a danger to an entire community. Guns in hands of unstable minds, stoked by the virulent rhetoric from irresponsible "leaders" are weapons of mass destruction and they are ripping the fabric of our nation. These tragedies are at the juncture of critical limits of both first and second amendments. No one has power to fix it other than US.
1
I'm looking at the image by Jared Wickerham in the NYT of the police officer at the scene in Pittsburgh. Decades ago, when I was young, there were two stereotypes of a police officer - somebody in a blue uniform, or somebody in a worn suit. The image of the officer in the photo pains me. His grim look says that he has seen something beyond his comprehension -beyond his comprehension! And then there's the obvious. This police officer looks more like a soldier than a police officer. What have we come to with our hate and our fetishization of guns that our police need to take on the role of the military to perform their job? I grieve for the victims and their families. I thank the officers for their service, and I grieve for them as well. And I grieve for us and where we are now. With that, I will vote.
I've been to services at synagogues protected by highly visible police presence. Do you know how grim that is? Having to pass by the watchful eye of armed police to attend a routine gathering of Jews? Imagine the impact on kids growing up attending religious school and services under armed surveillance. If it makes them feel safer, it also serves as a constant reminder that they are targets. The president would like to see more such arrangements.
When I was a girl in the 70s and 80s, synagogues were considered safe, but the streets were not. It was understood that boys and young men could go out by themselves, but girls and young women could not, because we were targets We were largely prisoners in our homes, schools, and workplaces, waiting for male protectors/wardens to take us out for recreation. When occasionally forced to be out manless (or with a man who targeted us himself), we carried mace at all times, held keys poised to gouge, and were prepared to execute a variety of self-defense maneuvers at any moment. Growing up as targets inevitably left its mark on our psyches -- but it was easier for society to imprison us with protection than to take on the problem.
When you tell people that they are targets, that they need constant armed protection to go about their daily lives, they don't get "freedom" -- they get imprisoned.
6
"The authorities said that he had no previous criminal history."
I beg to differ. The man engaged in hate speech on several platforms, speech which incited criminal behaviors, in this instance, his own. At what point do we as a nation give up our absolutist attitudes about "free speech" to a common sense approach in these technologically changed times.
And another "weapon of war" in the hands of an ordinary citizen, probably bought with nothing more than a cursory ID check. That in itself is a crime to my mind, another result of absolutist application of a Constitutional principle!
Mental health, of course, is the core issue. When cultures have a low regard for intervention as a part of culture identity, they are confronted by those in crisis. It seems to me this is why Nordic countries, often cited as examples of lower violence and higher levels of well-being, are more successful in this area. They have, as a matter of cultural identity, put intervention into place in the form of a more robust safety net through more equitably distributed taxes. Maybe this is also why they don't feel compelled to store guns.
No good can come of what happened today. There are no
useful lessons to learn. There is only sadness and pain. We
need to spend some awful time in this moment. Taking a life away from a person, taking a person away from their friends and their families is an acts that cannot be reversed. It is time for all of us who care about our country to feel the pain of what has happened before we think about what to do about it.
2
Another "apple pie" murder. What could be a more typically American crime template than going to a gun store, buying a few guns and some ammo, then go on to shoot whomever one pleases. None of it is complicated, difficult, or very expensive. The perpetrators seldom seek to escape or even survive after the event.
The media generally seeks to portray an element of exceptionalism to the event and virtually deify the victims, even though on average about 6,000 Americans die each day (about 1300 of those from smoking related illness), and 150,000 die world wide each day (decent number from US direct military action or US funding and arming of others).
But the template will remain intact, readily available for the next perpetrator. Of course the quality and performance of weapons keep getting better, and "bump stocks" are still on the market.
1
The United States was one of the countries which had started the liberal democracy as such. And I believe that Americans are still very proud of it. And if the very liberal democracy as such has ended up accidents like this, should I redefine the meaning of liberal democracy?
Free speech has consequences. Show what those consequences are on November 6 by voting those that support Trump’s vile rhetoric (or remain silent in complicity) out of office.
2
What is happening in our country? It is unraveling under this Trump presidency.
5
This is a tragic situation beyond belief. My heart and prayers go out to those who lost loved ones.
President Trump suggested that maybe an armed guard needs to be in this place of worship, and others I suppose.
Places of prayer and peace?
Maybe what we need is no one - not even the President - to have armed guards defending them? So perhaps we then would come face to face with the harsh realities of our current gun policies?
One of the most satisfying aspects of attending a religious service is the wonderful sense of peace it brings in an other wise crazy world. Unfortunately that may no longer be a benefit of attending any prayer service. President Trump's victim blaming inferring the Synagogue should have had more protection is nothing more than an extension of his inciting his followers to violence. These acts of violence are not going to stop even if Democrats get elected because Democrats will not initiate any meaningful gun control. Ask any Democratic candidate for Senate or the House. Presidents Clinton and Obama had large majorities in both the Senate and the House and did nothing. Americans do not want their guns laws to be restrictive. Readers of the NY Times may be willing to amend the gun laws but not the majority of Americans.
3
I’m deeply saddened for this terrible tragedy at the Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
The internet is now a haven for hateful extremists who are encouraged by political leaders.
We need to take a good look at hate speeches and the effects it have in our civil liberties. We should not have to worry about being murdered while
We worship in church or synagogues.
It is nonsensical to value freedom of speech over the sanctity of life.
Twitter and Gab should be held accountable for facilitating vitriol which often leads to violence.
3
Talk, talk, talk, talk....but no action. I learned that actions speak louder than words. Gun violence is not normal but it is an everyday part of American life. How many people really believe we need AR-15's or that they are essential to our maintaining our democracy. How much democracy do we still have anyway? Doesn't feel like much lately, between Trump bashing the free press (1sr amendment) and 2nd amendment perversions tearing us apart.
1
Mr Trump said that if the synagogue “had some kind of protection” then “it could have been a much different situation.”
Apart from the egregious implication that the synagogue authorities were themselves partly to blame for this atrocity because there weren't armed guards on all the doors, one is left with the distinct impression that the President of the United States has just signalled to the nation that what happened here is actually just one of those things: a part of life in America. Tragic, certainly, but also something one should expect might happen, and make provision for.
As Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.” It is surely no challenge to Americans' Second Amendment rights to say that there are people in society who should not have access to AR-15-style assault rifles.
If, however, America has reached the stage where the President is suggesting that its schools and churches should be fortified, then this is not the Land of the Free, it is the Land of the Fearful. And that is no way to live.
7
A truly great nation would have stopped the ridiculous misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment to its Constitution long ago. That, in itself, would have set the groundwork to fewer guns in the hands of every hate monger roaming our streets.
if gun control is beyond the reach of congress, how hard can it be for law enforcement to track those who reveal their violent prejudices on social media, cross-reference them with a roster of those with registered guns, and put those individuals on watch lists? authorities have anticipated and prevented terrorist attacks; they should be able to do so for domestic terrorists, as well.
The news media needs to show the pictures and videos of the horror. Shielding American people from the gory reality of gun violence has made people numb to that the cruelty that the victims and their families face. Reporting number of casualties and showing interviews of people shows us nothing. We need to see the shocking details to wake up from our state of indifference.
4
The answer to the, now, weekly occurrence of mass-shootings, according to Donald Trump and the GOP, is armed guards.
Armed guards in: places of worship. schools, movie theaters, office buildings, libraries, grocery stores, restaurants, music venues, parks, museums, dance clubs, coffee houses, bookstores, bars, hotels, playgrounds, toy stores, hospitals, and, eventually of course, on every corner of every street in America. For them, it's the only way for everyone to be really safe. And everyone needs to be packing as all times. Constantly vigilant, and constantly on edge, waiting for the inevitable "active shooter" situation that will arise. Otherwise, IT WILL BE YOUR FAULT when you, your friends, or your entire family are shot and killed.
The other answer, of course, is reasonable gun laws.
But this notion is anathema to the GOP doctrine that the best way to make things safer, is to make everything exponentially more dangerous. That the best way to solve a problem is to have more of it.
Carried to it's natural conclusion, the GOP, to be consistent, should favor the idea that, in order to make the world a safer place, everyone should have nuclear weapons. Think how safe that would make everyone feel?
Fortunately for us, there isn't a National Nuclear Weapons Association bribing them all to do just that.
Vote for those who support sensible gun control. Or, you just might end up paying for it - with your life. And that's not hyperbole, it's a fact.
Food for thought.
6
The government can charge this man with a thousand crimes and it won't bring back one life, though it might make us all feel better and the government more responsive. But one life is all that he has to give. It seems almost pointless.
1
It strains credulity to believe that a president and a party that refuses to endorse even the most basic control of assault weapons has no responsibility for this and the many other mass shootings we have seen this year.
It strains credulity that a president who denounces white supremacists with the greatest reluctance and then claims there is violence "on both sides" does not bear responsibility for hate crimes such as we have seen this week.
It strains credulity to believe that an administration that threatens to withdraw support for LGBT rights does not bear responsibility for the denigration of perfectly harmless minorities among us.
And so I do not believe Donald Trump's calls for unity. They're hollow. And it does not matter whether his incendiary "politics in a sharper key" betoken mere rhetorical flourishes or not. The result is the same: mayhem.
3
I offer my opinion as an outsider. I offer the same question no doubt many Americans have asked themselves and each other - how long? How long must these instances of rabid violence persist? How long must people deny the obvious roots of the issue?
And, perhaps most importantly, how long will you hold on to your precious 2nd amendment?
1
@UK,we want to keep our right to bear sensible arms, no machine guns, no bump stocks etc. no felons or mentally unstable. Background checks with sensible waiting periods. Just the exercise of common sense and education. A severe and consequential fine to the NRA, billions for infractiond, promotion of narratives in movies, video games that influence the sale of baned assault weapons. We don't allow the advertisement of cigarettes anymore on TV because of their influence. We should not allow the NRA to have a voice of influence.
My heart breaks for the victims and families of yet another senseless act of violence. Churches and synagogues are supposed to be a place of solace, comfort, and refuge. The perpetual state of fear mongering and hatred is irreparably dividing us as a nation.
I’m optimistic that the next generation can learn from the missteps of our current times. As a native New Yorker now living in Atlanta, I work at a large university in Atlanta. It’s refreshing to see graduate and undergraduate students of all races, ethnicities, and religions working side by side on social justice issues.
Am I naive in hoping that somehow, we as a nation can begin to come together on more than a superficial level? Maybe I am. At this point hope and action on our part can begin to hopefully bring about a positive change.
Regardless of race, class, and religion, we all want the same thing - to be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect.
A petulant child “acting” as president and lax gun laws has left us with a recipe for disaster. If our so called Commander In Chief can’t act with even a modicum of civility, it’s up to each of us to do our part. If nothing else, please be sure to vote in the upcoming election. Hopefully we can turn things around.
I feel sad about the victims and families, friends and loved ones. With that aside, I read so much on how this is the President, News Media and National Rifle Association's fault.
When I was growing up, I remember there was an outcry on cartoons such as Bugs Bunny and Road Runner and so on, are the cause of this type of thing. Then it seemed to be computer games. These type of things may have played a certain role to some, but violence always been around since the beginning of time.
So many people take the negative and we take it out on each other. When I talk to people who have opposing opinions, I remain calm and allow them to speak. Then I speak my opinion. It allows the conversation to continue at another time in a more relaxed way. The bible talks a great deal about all of this as well as the hate in the people's hearts. It isn't the guns that kill but the sword that many stores in their hearts. People need to put their swords away. For all these things were written. All these things are shown to be true. It's in the bible.
"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."
- D.H. Lawrence, STUDIES IN CLASSIC AMERICAN LITERATURE (1923).
1
This is not who we are as Americans. Everyone should have the right to worship in peace. My heart aches for these people.
5
I come back from synagogue this evening and I see this horrific news.
We inaugurated our beautiful new synagogue today. An elderly Holocaust survivor got up and spoke. "Eighty one years ago," he began,"I was bar-mitzvah. My family accompanied me to synagogue. It is from my last joyous memories of them before they were all brutally murdered."
He talked about the death camps and the "'angels of G-d' that liberated him, in the form of the U.S. Army..."
He cried. You could see the pain in his eyes, but how can I describe the pride and joy he exuded at witnessing the rebirth of the Jewish people—and the gratefulness he felt at being able to live freely in this blessed country and share in this special occasion.
We formed a circle around him and we danced.
A short time later, a murderer killed 11 Jews in a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
No Words.
Only pain and empathy for those who must now bear the unbearable, and prayer for the injured.
And a shared faith, just as our beloved survivor believes, in the eternity of the Jewish people, the eternity of G-d's love, and the ultimate goodness of humanity. Even in times of darkness.
May we only share good tidings.
7
@Jack M
Sorry to nitpick here, but his important memory isn't entirely accurate.
US troops liberated Dachau, Germany, which wasn't a 'death camp'.
The real horror death factory camps were 'liberated' - it that verb can really describe it - by the Red Army and the British.
As a young med student, I was taught by professors who had been British Army doctors at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. They could not even bring themselves to speak about what they saw.
I never understand why people can hate some just based on what they have learned as knowledge. But I can understand what actions the society accept as a whole. (Japan went through this before.) Trump owes some of the blame.
2
Another horrific example of what happens when Republicans are in position to block reasonable gun control. When will the madness end? When Republicans lose that power. The majority of Americans want reasonable gun control. Republicans don't. Vote them out of office.
1
Murders in Black churches, Christian churches, synagogues, bomb mailings, name calling of the rudest kind, intolerance burgeoning; what has happened to this country?
The first step in making this or any country great has to be instilling a sense of inclusion; patriotism means a shared sense of place and community, not just who has the biggest flag as the flag is a symbol of ideals, not division.
We salute and honor veterans of all services; not their rank or branch. We sing an anthem written to bolster community and solidarity, and honor the values enshrined in our founding documents. Our country makes mistakes but it has done much for the world. We can atone for mistakes and correct, we hope those initiated in a confused state of what is being defended, but we must really think about what corrosion is being fostered with the hateful rhetoric spewed daily from the highest levels. There are always consequences to words and deeds. Let us reconsider division and look for reconciliation. This path is dangerous.
3
Amazing all those thoughts and prayers haven't made a difference. If only there was something else we could do...as long as it didn't threaten the most important thing: gun industry profits.
1
Donald Trump said the current tragedy was 'unimaginable'. Unfortunately, this terrible event was always possible, inevitable.
No changes to gun laws = no changes to mass shootings.
I'm a staunch critic of Israel and firmly believe our blind support of them is a corrupt arrangement that allows Israel to brandish a strong arm with any of their detractors. In the long run, we are worse off because of it...
But my criticism along with most criticism of Israel is based in a desire for less violence... not more.
As a left-winger that's highly critical of Israel I feel confident in saying, this does not represent us...
Still against the move to Jerusalem. Still firmly against how they treat their neighbors...
But this doesn't help any of that.
And I'd like to think most of the left wing in politics has the same attitude. When we get mad, we grab a bullhorn... not a gun.
2
Taking away guns from the innocent law abiding citizens, leaves us defenseless like a cat without its claws. Law enforcement officers can’t be everywhere meanwhile we need to be able to defend ourselves. I’m not running out the back Door of my home if an intruder breaks in and I take no prisoners just so they can be released on a technicality.
Any type of mass shootings and murders of this nature need to be put into the hands of the federal government and no plea bargaining
Across the board
"The past is never dead. It isn't even past."--William Faulkner
4
Why is it that the many "leaders" in this administration, on both sides of the aisle, are either totally silent or mealy-mouthed about the multiple events of violence and wide-spread vitriol that seems to rule the conversation in these "United States"?
American citizens should be demanding more from ALL our elected officials regarding the cessation of such actions. Sound bites are simply not effective against such evil. We should be having Town Hall meetings all over America and demanding a dialog from those in power. All members of this "failing government" should have to be made to declare themselves front and center to their constituents.
Today's happenings are not about elections any more. They are about what kind of people we choose to be in view around the globe. This is about what kind of nation we want to be.
Choose!
Donald Trump said the current tragedy was 'unimaginable'. On the contrary, this terrible event was entirely predictable.
No changes to gun laws = no changes to mass shootings.
6
There is a simple solution to all of these gun deaths. Local or central government could ban guns from all domestic households or put a very steep tax on gun purchases to pay for mental health.
1
From the far right / "alt right" we have a dozen attempted murders of senior opposition party figures and the actual murder of 11 American Jews. Mainstream politicians and political activists can get angry and employ very heated--often personal--language. But the far right has crossed a line in recent years in its language, imagery, and narrative. It has embraced white nationalism and its cousins. This movement employs the language of life or death. Of violent struggle. It views well-being in America as a zero-sum struggle among "the races."
This faction needs to be excised from the legitimate American right. William F. Buckley rightfully earned great praise for denying any place to old fashioned WASPy anti-semitism and newer John Birch Society conspiratorial anti-semitism in the modern conservative movement he was creating. The new American conservatism would have its roots in classical liberalism, not "blood and soil" nationalism.
Conservative leaders must now do the same with white nationalism and extremist far-rightism. Just draw the line and disown those on the wrong side of it. Trump has the opportunity to go down in history as a political great if he leads this effort.
Trump is unlike any US president we have ever had. He is the first to spend most of his energy alienating our relationships with decades-old allies and pandering to hostile authoritarian leaders and nations.
Some US leaders have been better than others. Many before him have sought to change immigration policy, but none have worked to incite fear and rage against those seeking refuge while his first-generation immigrant wife's parents were being naturalized after he took office. He cut funding to nations that didn’t stop immigrants from traveling through their countries to get here—thus creating more hatred and chaos in those countries, as well as ours.
Many have worked to bring peace to the Middle East, but none have proclaimed the single city central to three prominent religions, all of which claim it as sacred, as the capital of Israel, affiliated with Judaism—stoking anti-Semitic feelings throughout the world.
Trump's primary focus seems to be sewing discord and hate—the only message he consistently gives voice to in tweets, at his rallies, and when he speaks to the press—which he constantly demonizes. He embellishes his message with misleading insinuations, misnomers, and out-right lies.
We know this—though not all admit it. Those who don’t decry the hate are, by omission, condoning and supporting it. They include members of his administration, of Congress, and of the media. They include his base; they include hate groups.
Perhaps they all believe him.
I don't.
3
The murder of these people as they celebrated a wonderful moment of life causes me great sadness. The man who committed this crime was full of rage, probably fueled by what he read and because he had a twisted moral view that rationalized the murder of innocents.
We are living in a time of great division in which people have chosen sides and lash out at those who oppose them. Many of comments on this story, an perhaps every story on the NYT, are accusatory of Trump, Repubs and conservatives. If you look at articles on the right, you see the exact same kinds of accusatory rhetoric about Obama, Clinton, Democrats and liberals.
Politicians and the media are divisive and represent the same kinds of division. They fan the flames of events like this and seek to manipulate us to gain power and/or money. And we continue to fall for it.
Sadly, we have had a run of highly polarizing presidents. Trump is simply a reaction to Obama. Both are polarizing and manipulate one group of Americans against the other. Both of them are great men who have achieved much. Neither them are able to draw us together. Can we not do better in a country such as ours?
A first small step is for us to, in humility, step back are realize our own bias and ignorance. Instead of expressing rage, we should perhaps speak less and begin to hope (and for those who pray, to pray) for a leader to emerge who can unify us; not just win an election but rally the country. We are at war and need to be peacemakers.
1
@James
I agree that politics has become quite tribal, but you cannot really believe that Obama was as polarizing as Trump, can you? He did not berate the media. He did not call for people to “lock her up.” He did not on a daily basis tweet negative things about Republicans. He did not mock a victim of sexual assault at a campaign rally. He did not call Republican leaders mean nicknames. The list goes on and on. While Republicans may not have liked Obama’s ideology, he was the nation’s President. He did not go out of his way to mock and jeer at his opposition.
I am so tired of hearing "This is not who we are" when something terrible like a mass shooting or something nasty, like verbal racism or the separation of kids from their families happens. Of course I understand what is meant by it. But it starts sounding very hollow.
America, you have to face it, this is exactly what part of you is. And while millions of your Individuals of course are decent people - as long as you as individuals do not change anything and let these things happen, this is what part of you is. As long as Gun laws stay unchanged, despite Sandy Hook and despite the Florida-shooting, as long as the GOP remains inactive and silently excepts all the filth that Trump utters - as long as there is no price to pay for those who support these laws and these politics, this is also what you are.
To accept that and to get out of the denial is the first step towards change to the better. Thoughts & Prayers do not help, neither does the claim to be "The greatest nation on Earth". These are just part of the denial.
2