Why are military-grade weapons available to civilians anywhere on earth?
4
If festival goers were able to carry firearms the butcher's bill would likely have been less. These shootings seem more prevalent where gun control is strictest; shooters are more likely to pick targets they believe to be unarmed and defenseless, e.g. schools. We can't depend on the police - they are called after a crime occurs. "Protect and Serve" is a misleading motto. Our laws should allow us the means to protect ourselves, at least until the police get there. Prohibition and our drug laws have shown us that no matter how tough the laws, and no matter how vigorously those laws are enforced, and no matter how draconian the penalties, people will get what they want and the criminals who provide it will get wealthy.
1
I've only been to the Garlic Festival once (even bought a yellow & green T-shirt) and will remember that event forever. Regardless of what the motive was, whether it will ever be known or whether there even was one, the tragic results will always be the same for victims, their families and their communities. When we're all deathly afraid to attend a gathering or celebration of something designed to be fun, everything has changed for the worst.
7
This killer seems to have been obsessed by fringe politics and animosity towards this particular festival. Another domestic terrorist motivated by hate politics and personal issues. This guy was likely talking to others who he thought felt like did he. Some of them might have heard something that made them feel like this guy wanted to do something, not just talk.
The image of a little fellow "now we are six" running around and enjoying himself at a fair and ......some days the news just crushes me.
6
How can Trump tweet ‘be safe’ when this very event shows that you never are, that his NRA support ensures that you never will be? How does he have the guts? Maybe if one day it happens to him or his family his mindset will change. Even Republican presidents get shot (see Reagan), after all.
6
Why are reporters repeatedly mentioning the killer’s name in the articles? We can read one story or a paragraph that identifies the killer and his circumstances but it is hideous to place him in a pantheon of killers by repeatedly mentioning his name over and over again. The media often follows an informal policy of not identifying sexual assault victims. It’s time to implement a similar policy for mass shooters. They should be allowed to die in obscurity.
3
The NRA, the GOP and Trump have kept on harping that the solution to mass shootings is people with guns. Yesterday, the police had guns and they were present at the festival and it took them only 1 minute to confront the shooter. So this seems to be the perfect scenario to stopping a mass shooting according to the NRA. The only problem is in that 1 minute, the shooter with his assault rifle killed 3 people and injured 12. It’ll be interesting what their argument against an assault rifle ban will be this time or maybe they will continue to argue for more guns and ignore this tragic shooting.
6
Consider this. If one buys a gun or a knife, one is required by law and social norms not to harm any person with them, unless legally in self defense. Having a weapon is not a license to kill or harm anyone because one can. These rules apply to anyone who operates machines or tools or handles danger substances. Nobody is entitled to harm others just because they can. These mass murders are acts by people who are violating the obligations expected of everyone. These would not happen, otherwise.
Guns are firmly entrenched in a large part of our culture, and the opportunity to keep semi-automatic weapons out of the public’s hands appears to be long past. Instead of continuing to go nowhere with the two sides of the gun control debate talking past each other, there could be a recognition that guns (and yes, even semi-automatic ones) are here to stay, and then maybe there could be progress in making our reality of a gun-filled country as safe as possible.
Maybe all schools and public events should have armed security guards, bag scanners and metal detectors at entrances. Safety should not be limited to only planes and courtrooms. Before you think that this isn't possible, be aware that Israel does it successfully today.
Maybe in exchange for reaffirming the 2nd amendment (as an assurance to gun advocates that their guns will not be taken away), those advocates would agree to restrictions on magazine capacities, caliber sizes, waiting periods, purchases by the mentally ill, etc. My guess is that most gun advocates would agree to some restrictions as long as there is certainty that it is not a slippery slope to losing the guns and gun rights that they hold most dear. It would be interesting to hear from the gun advocates, what do they want guaranteed and what restrictions do they see as common sense or at least acceptable. They understand the gun world the best, and they want their families and friends to be safe too.
3
The lives lost / shattered has to be the immediate priority but the lesson of the Gilroy massacre -- the thing that can not get lost -- when we go through the ritual of debating how to prevent the next shooting is this:
Three police officers - armed, trained and on-site -- responding
within one minute could not prevent a gunman, armed with a
semiautomatic assault rifle from shooting 15 individuals,
ending 3 lives and shattering the lives of countless others.
The mass shooting in Gilroy has destroyed the myth the myth of "more guns, less crime." It destroyed the myth that arming more people, whether teachers, or pilots or the couple sitting one booth over in the local diner is an effective, sensible approach to gun violence prevention.
There is nothing we can do to prevent all criminal gun violence, every shooting (fatal or not), every suicide committed with a gun or every accidental shooting. But we can make all of these tragedies far less common if we stop lying to ourselves -- if we stop pretending that we can't have a significant impact on gun violence if we enact sensible restrictions on private gun ownership.
There is no legitimate justification for exempting private gun sales from background checks, for allowing people to buy an unlimited number of guns at one time or for shielding the gun industry from civil litigation when it won't impose a code of conduct on dealers or innovate for safety.
We can do a lot if we stop lying to ourselves.
4
In a different story I read today, the Nevada gun shop owner who sold the semiautomatic rifle to this child killer suggested maybe this type of weapon shouldn't be sold to anyone under 21 years of age. Like that will change anything? Here's a thought, Nevada gun shop owner, maybe you should not sell semiautomatic weapons to anyone regardless of their age.
15
If this country can turn its back on children gunned down in schools, what hope do we have for any real change in the access to firearms?
8
It's only a matter of time before it happens to you or someone you know.
The Christchurch 'banned' video got me to sell my guns and change my life-long position on the subject, because while watching, the most horrific thing to me was how easy it was for him to rack up so much carnage. Not something I think about when I'm out target shooting. You don't really know until you see it. I think everyone should see it. Shocking imagery has long had the ability to sway public opinion toward more progressive stances... from Emmett Till, to the Mi Lai Massacre, our history is littered with examples.
But in our recent history, we keep brushing the horrors under the rug... repainting murals... taking down statues... banning videos... anything to avoid facing our failures. How can we expect to correct them?
9
I have never known anyone shot except my grandfather nicked by a bullet in a great battle. I have seen a person stabbed and bleeding profusely. I have been attacked by a person striking me with his hands. Murders have occurred within a hundred yards of me, one with a gun, one with a car. I have seen fatal auto accidents. I’ve known three people personally who committed suicide, none by gun. I have known a person found murdered with a knife.
Over the last ten years less than nine thousand per year were homicides by guns. The mass murders that shock us all are a small fraction of these. Knifes used as often to murder as are rifles of all kinds or shotguns. Handguns are the most often used murder weapon and it’s the less powerful ones because they are easier to use. The risk of being shot is about 30 people per one hundred thousand people per year (including non-fatal ones and deaths). Not insignificant but not likely.
Wait a Minute. Police can uncover videos in every nook and cranny to discredit Jessie Smollett but on real horrific shooting crimes--they get away(accomplice in this case). In this age of surveillance-you can find anyone..........
1
The other day I was thinking — it's been a while since there's been a mass shooting. What's going on?
It's messed up when mass shootings are the norm and the absence of them is what seems odd.
4
We now think seriously of leaving this country. And we have (younger) friends who are buying property abroad with the intention of moving if Trump is reelected.
Who can respect America anymore? With this President? With these gun laws? Its increasingly embarrassing to be an American.
14
Gun control will come the day we trust our government more than any random person. It will be a long time coming for many.
3
The Problem: California has strict gun laws, the gunman purchased the weapon in Nevada, which has gun laws that are "lax", and then he crossed state lines. " Our country has a gun violence epidemic that we will not tolerate", the question is how will Congress address the issue, and take action.
Words are great, if Congress does not back up their words with laws, we find ourselves in the same place. All of us have gotten on the phone, contacted our MOC's , tweeted, signed petitions, it is up to our elected officials. Do the right thing.
2
@Debra Sayers. I hope Xavier Baccera figures out how to sue Nevada and gets on it right quick. No more dead children.
Who cares about the motive? There have always been people not right in the head. That’s a hallmark of the human condition.
What’s different about our society is that we are fine if those people have war weapons. Civilized societies don’t.
13
Confiscate the guns. Or buy them back. Every. Single. One. It might take a generation. Or two. We won't be safe until there are no guns in private hands.
8
Why does this shooting get so much more press than the shooting yesterday at the Old Timers festival in Brooklyn? They are both horrific.
9
Just to be clear, the man in his twenties was not a child but he is his parents' child. Just as devastating a loss as the little children.
15
I hope someday that the journalists who have worked so hard to follow the money and corruption in the Jeffrey Epstein case (and so many other cases past and present, concerning individuals and corporations) will turn their focus to the board members and donors to the NRA.
We already know that the NRA was being used by Russian intelligence to gain access to conservative circles. Could their motives be even more nefarious?
Who else has "donated" and how much and how much is in private hands, possibly off shore account, and not the NRA itself?
Someday I hope we know where all the money is, and in whose hands. It would answer a lot of questions about the unshakable loyalty to guns, and gun makers, and the depraved beliefs about the Second Amendment.
14
What country allows a 19 years old to buy a semi-automatic weapon ? A piece of hardware designed for warfare.
The answer: Trump's country and its love of the Second Amendment. When are we ever going to wake up?
21
Semi-automatic. Purchased legally. 19 years old. R.I.P. U.S.A.
24
And more “hope and prayers” from Trump...
1
Thoughts and prayers? Pro-life? Please...obscene and fatal hypocrisy!
So tragic. I am so sorry for the families.
14
It seems as though every morning when I check my DailySkimm or this platform, I am informed of a new mass shooting. It pains me that some have become numb to this prevalent issue as a whole due to how frequent events such as this occur. As a California native, this shooting hits close to home. It is hard to fathom how many have been killed, wounded, and effected both physically and mentally. Living in a constant state of fear is not ok. I have too many friends concerned that each day is going to be their last due to mass shootings. Politically, we need to find a middle ground to enforce some form of protection for everyone, especially those at risk.
3
Ever consider that virtually all mass murders were carried out by men? Women get angry. Women get depressed. Women are mentally unstable. Women hate their boyfriend/girlfriend/mother/father, etc. but almost no women pick up a gun to solve their problems by mass murder. That is a thought to ponder.
25
I live in CA. We are not safe in this country anywhere. I’ve always wanted to go to the Garlic Festival. No more. How does a nineteen y/o get an automatic rifle? For what purpose? And carry it easily across state lines into my state? Have we gone insane? Politicians, if you have a backbone, please help us, the people you vowed to help live in a wonderful country. Or maybe you’ve sold your souls to the highest bidder. It seems the populace is on our own. Sad. Again.
149
Kamala has the usual liberal response-- more gun control. Nothing about the issues that cause such violence. No vote for her.
1
@Giles R. Hoyt What issues led this man to drive to Nevada and legally purchase a weapon that is illegal in his state? What could a Senator do about that? We need common sense gun control at the federal level to avoid this scenario. We are the only developed country in the world with this level of gun violence because people can't parse an 18th century sentence through a 21st century lens.
35
@Giles R. Hoyt Could you elaborate on the issues that cause such violence?
10
There are only two components of the U.S. Constitution that the Republicans are willing to defend: the Electoral College and the 2nd Amendment -- and of that 2nd Amendment, they want to toss the language about "well-regulated militia."
13
I’m sorry to say but the reality is that nothing will change until the Republicans are voted out of office by a substantial majority. But the American voters have been unwilling to do that, so the mass carnage will continue while the Republicans regurgitate their thoughts and prayers.
17
Nothing’s going to change until Americans change: travel, see other cultures...and improve their understanding of how the world functions
3
"Be safe! Be careful!" implores our President! So We The People must have pity on him! for he's trying to walk a careful line between the gun lovers of America and we who are angry over the free pass they get from him.
So, I hereby promise I'll be extra safe and be extra very careful to punch the "dump the trump" button as many times as I can during this fall's Presidential election... fingers crossed we actually get someone who tells the truth, doesn't cheat on his wife, does not take advantage of his position to curry favor with others, including a commie dictator, and ...well, my fingers are hurting now, there are so many reasons to dump the trump. Gotta go...
9
This military-style weapon was purchased in Nevada, which has virtually no gun laws. So...
Don't travel to Nevada. Don't holiday there. Don't do business there. And that goes for racist states, and states that restrict women's reproductive rights. Don't schedule trade shows in these places.
In America, money not only talks- it shouts! Spend your money in places that stand up for American values.
12
@Mark Paskal Nevada does not even make the top 10 in states with most lenient gun laws. Nevada is a pure blue state. All the reps, Senators, and Governor are Democrats. And Californians spends lots of time here in Tahoe and Reno skiing, boating, and gambling.
4
To those who say that had others been carrying guns, this could've been prevented -- there was police at the fair, confronted the perpetrator within a minute and shot him dead, but not before he had killed three and wounded many others. If police has arrived five minutes later, scores could've been killed. The only way to stop deaths by guns is to stop the guns from proliferating.
16
Last year 40,000 Americans died from gunfire, by suicide, accidents, and homicides. If one considers the number of people we have lost from firearms over the last twenty years, it dwarfs how many soldiers we have lost since Second World War. You can combine Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf Wars, the global war on terror and the victims of 9/11 and it won't add up to the number of people lost to firearms.
What we do know if that states with strict gun laws like New York and California lose far fewer people per capita than those who don't have them.
8
Mass shootings nearly every week and the greatest country in the world can't do anything about it? Pathetic.
13
Cue the thoughts and prayers mantra...
3
I keep hearing gun advocates declaring they need their guns to protect them from the tyranny of government.
All the while this administration is curtailing rights to privacy, voting rights, health rights to a clean environment, rights to asylum, congressional rights to oversight.
Don’t wait to rely on your gun.
VOTE.
16
Just a year or so ago, my kids’ high school had a lockdown because someone called in a gun threat. Two of my daughters were barricaded in their classroom closets for an HOUR, frantically texting us but telling us not to call them, the teachers didn’t want any phones ringing or buzzing. All the while, parents were frantically texting one another, have you heard from your child? Yes, have you? All of us were beside ourselves with worry. Did a slowdown in the texts from our children mean horrific news? Were we putting them in greater danger by even texting back? Some parents were gathering at the nearby shopping area to keep watch... and what? Helplessly wring our hands? Hope and pray that our children make it out of her school alive while some crazed person celebrates their 2nd amendment right?
That threat turned out to be a hoax, but my daughter came home shaken to the core. We all remain in a state of post-trauma.
This time, my eldest daughter and her friends went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival the day before this massacre. By sheer luck of timing, they were spared, but sixteen other human beings were not.
This country continues to prioritize gun ownership over the very basic right to life. How did an entire nation lose its mind?! And more importantly, how does it get it back?
29
@Vibha Akkaraju So one of your town's students called in a prank, and you blame this on the gun culture??
Yes, Mileena, it is precisely because we live in a gun culture that such a prank could be so successful in sowing terror. It is precisely because people get gunned down on a regular basis in American schools, movie theaters, concerts, clubs, churches, that we live in fear that one day, it will happen to us or to our own children. This gun culture takes tens of thousands of Americans lives every year, and robs the rest of us of the freedom to live without fear.
8
@mileena There's no mention that a student called in a gun hoax.
And yes, I blame our depraved gun culture for lock downs at schools, hoax or no.
4
Some commenters are saying Santino William Legan, the killer, was a white supremacist. There has not been any evidence yet that this was the case. Some are saying he was an NRA member and yet no evidence. Before we start making false allegations, we should wait for the facts to be revealed. One thing is certain and is that this man was a cold blooded killer. And evil. May be victims rest in peace.
7
Other credible sources are now telling us a little more about the shooter. For instance, shortly before the shooting he made reference on Instagram to a book that is generally considered a white supremacist manifesto. Thank you, Mr. Trump, for promoting these ideas, and normalizing them. For Trump Republicans, "thoughts and prayers" is just another name for the NRA. And "free speech" is just another word for white supremacy.
19
This is so heartbreaking! A beautiful six year old boy was shot in the back. Who on earth does this? Why am I not surprised that the shooter was found to favor white nationalistic reading material. I don't feel safe in this MAGA world and have absolutely no interest whatsoever in attending anything involving crowds of people. Maybe more and more Americans should start boycotting these events. Economic power wielded judiciously is a very effective weapon. It is the only thing those warped minds in the GOP seem to respect.
5
Why is this story featured more prominently? I guess Donald Trump's tweet against Al Sharpton is more important. Also, three were killed but at least 13 wounded. The mass shootings always focus on those killed, but there are also those that will be disabled for a lifetime because of these shooting injuries. They may not have adequate health care to support these life threatening injuries, or be able to even get physical therapy, pain medications, entire lives lost. And the Republican party is Pro-NRA, for guns, against healthcare. We pay our taxes, and this is what we get? A country that allows people and children to be gunned down, and not even have health insurance to pay for being assaulted by an assault weapon, gun, or military style weapon. A 6 year old and 13 year old killed and injured bystanders at an idyllic festival in California. Who covers these peoples lives after the shooting? There is a ripple that is never reported in the news. What happens to the parents of the children, the injured who may never lead normal lives again, the pain, the nightmares, PTSD. The USA is now a war zone and Donald Trump is the leader, encouraging gun violence, violence against anyone who isn't white.
12
If guns are so readily available to mass murderers, the only answer I can come up with is to not go to festivals or concerts, or church or school or shopping malls or movies or...
5
Heartfelt prayers to the families of the victims gunned
down yesterday in Gilroy. There are no words to express
how one feels at the loss of a loved one, especially so
with little ones.
God Bless You.
2
Bet you $10 this clown was an NRA member!!
2
Just another day in America.
2
Every week in Chicago, this many and more, including children, are killed in Chicago.
But because they are poor and black, they don’t get headlines like these. Where is the horror and outrage about the Chicago killings.
It happens every week.
7
@Homer The difference here is that innocent people were killed, not gang bangers or people involved in drug deals gone wrong.
4
Killings in Chicago have included the elderly, veterans, teenagers and children who were NOT involved in gangs and street violence. Their deaths are just as tragic as Columbine, Sandy Hook, Pulse and the countless other homicides.
The NRA is a terrorist organization and must be made to disappear. Then again the news would be boring... am not sure what I want. Will ask Wayne.
5
Just another Sunday in America. So very, very sad.
2
From doing nothing about gun violence, to doing nothing about the devastation of climate change, to doing nothing to stop Russia from attacking us, the Republican Party is responsible for death and destruction on an unimaginable scale. If you are voting for Republican office-holders, YOU are part of the problem. Full Stop.
31
If all guns were properly and accurately registered and all users were licensed, it would be possible to reduce the number of guns in the hands of people who might misuse them. It would be easy for cities and suburbs to control guns while allowing rural areas to control guns as what suits them. If a person from a city wishes to buy a gun in another location, that person's gun license might make the purchase require approval from the purchaser's city. If a person has been served with a court order to confiscate their guns, the court would have a record of the guns registered to help secure them. If a person is under age or has no license they would not be allowed to buy guns nor ammunition. These would be a lot better controls than what we have.
But to do this all must agree to accept these controls. This continual demonizing of people who disagree about guns make such a consensus impossible. Both sides just seek to force the others to submit to their wishes. It's pointless.
2
Horrible tragic and senseless- the problem is the disaffected young men behind most of these mass shootings, not the legality of the guns.
Mass shooting deaths make up less than ONE percent (1%) of gun deaths, but they capture the headlines.
Our society, lack of cohesive parenting that would see a signal, and hands-off approach to worrying about our neighbors may be some of the contributing factors.
Ultimately, someone needs to find out the WHY in the issue of mass shooting young men.
Stricter gun laws will not prevent killings in Baltimore, Chicago, NY and LA where the strictest laws are already in place. 99% of gun owners are responsible.
The 1%ers who commit mass shootings are the issue.
7
@cedar
The common denominator in all shooting are the firearms.
I’ll take my chances against a hammer or baseball bat over a firearm every time.
Lax gun laws in states neighboring those with strict laws are the problem since state borders are not subject to weapon searches.
7
@Bullmoose
Bull, while the common denominator is guns, how do the gangs in all major cities get them with heavy duty gun laws? They won't be following the laws, since they already don't currently. Do we ban alcohol for the 1% who are driving drunk- no. So, people make bad choices every day and we have to figure out how to change their decisions.
4
@cedar
There are flaws in your reasoning and conjecture.
Age restrictions for alcohol are applied nation-wide and while drunk-driving laws are not 100% effective in the US, they are enforced.
Virtually every firearm enters the market legally. After that, stolen (about 240,000 annually), unregistered or straw-purchased guns are trafficked to states with strict gun laws. It is called the iron pipeline.
A lot of respondents are blaming Republicans for the lack of gun legislation/regulation.
I ask my fellow Democrats - what are WE doing?
Are we organizing, protesting, marching on Capitol Hill? in front of our state representatives homes? in front of Mitch McConnell’s home? Wayne LaPierre’s?
Why do we gather in DC with pink hats and signs after Trump’s election - and post selfies on Instagram and Facebook - but not after 20 young children are executed in their classrooms?
Blaming Republicans just doesn’t cut it.
We are literally willing to die, to have our children die, during the most routine and special events - going to school, going to work, attending a concert, attending church. I’m sick of it.
We need to be willing to inconvenience ourselves and our lives if we want real reform. Look at the Civil Rights movement; look at the LBGT movement.
Until we commit to change and making a real effort, all the handwringing and Republican-blaming is white (yes, as in white people) noise.
10
Ban assault weapons.
Limit clip /magazine capacity.
In Tucson the killer fired 30 shots in 15 seconds before he was tackled and stopped when he paused to reload.
If his clip/ magazine had held fewer bullets he would have killed injured/ fewer before being stopped.
8
@david
The semi-automatic civilian versions shoot bullets at same rate as any gun. Few guns are single shot weapons, most are designed to shoot multiple times before reloading. The big magazines do not make the guns significantly more lethal but they look ominously like they are intended to be used to shoot a lot of times. They are simply easier to shoot than earlier kinds of guns, which is why they are as popular as they happen to be and why they end up frequently in these mass shootings. Statistically, they are not as like to be used in the vast majority of gun homicides that all other guns.
3
That’s comforting.
@Yuri Pelham
Guns are deadly weapons, even the little ones. Fortunately, the vast majority of people are aware and keep them from being a threat to others. But we do not account for all the guns nor who has them. That is the problem. One solution is to eliminate the guns the other is to register all guns and license all users. Neither is possible in the current environment.
1
It is remarkable how tolerant and indifferent Americans are to children dying from firearms.
Not entirely unsurprising though since the US is the only modern country that does not mandate paid family leave, paid sick days, paid vacation, healthcare, child daycare and other fundamentals that are designed to promote a healthy family and ostensibly benefit children.
14
@Bullmoose I am childless. Why should I have to pay for all those who chose to have children?
5
@mileena for the same reason you pay taxes to fund public schools, and public transportation even if you don’t ride it. Because it makes for a socially and financially prosperous society. It is what makes most other modern countries great.
18
@mileena
Because being a member of a community or country means not all individuals always benefit from all policies.
The larger benefit is each individual sometimes directly benefits from the group’s resources and spending policies.
The gain from community spending which individuals’ particular needs receive would otherwise be out of financial reach.
If I never visit a national park and you do so often, I am still obligated to pay for its upkeep which benefits you and others who visit national parks.
9
White Supremacy and an AK-47. What could go WRONG...???
13
The same people who build USA
The murderer was a white supremacist from Nevada who openly published his views on Instagram. The guns used in this terrorist attack are illegal to purchase or bring into Ca. I am sure that Facebook/Instagram/etc. can identify the white supremacists, link them to their plates which can be scanned when they enter Ca. for apprehension.
3
@Tibby Elgato He did not post his views on social media until he returned to California. Being a white supremacist is not illegal. People most ridiculous things on social media all the time they do not believe in. There is nothing social media or anyone else could have done.
2
@mileena: For starters, there is something that can be done. Nevada can pass its stalled gun safety legislation and ban assault weapons, so it is not feeding murders jn California like Indiana supplies Chicago. And second, we've got to get at why a young man thinks it is his right to go out and massacre people just because he's angry.
4
@J Dalton
What about handguns? Does Nevada require a waiting period like California?
Actually, if you know anything about guns, you realize that the assault weapon ban on semi-automatic weapons is a very good first step towards banning private ownership of guns.
Assault weapons are less deadly than all other weapons and once they are banned, banning all the rest is logical by showing how relatively more danger all the others happen to be.
The NRA shall disinter LaPierre
from the crypt wherever they keep him during the breaks between the mass shootings. He shall say that thoughts and prayers will be sent.
What have we become?
3
LaPierre should be sentenced to life imprisonment as an accessory to tens of thousands of murders.
6
This was all over the news this morning on TV. All I read now was the AK-47 was purchased legally and I don't even want to read any more. I am SICK TO DEATH every time there is one of these mass shootings that I read the weapon(s) were purchased "legally". How is it "legal" for these shootings to keep happening over and over and over in this sick country of ours. Being American is nothing to be proud about any more.
12
I have a young child and cannot imagine the pain these parents and families are suffering. It is certainly needless. They are members of a one of the fastest-growing contingents in this country: bereaved survivors of gun deaths. I do not own a gun, but have intelligent and beloved friends and family who do. Each national, regional and local shooting tragedy offers a fresh instance to ask exceedingly tired questions: do your guns make you or anyone safer? When or what is the tipping point at which point you would endorse or even call for gun ownership restrictions? What do you think about the rights of those fellow citizens who are deliberately unarmed? It's obvious that the current interpretation of the Second Amendment, in this digital day and age, has only spurned such calamities and threatens every citizen's right to practice, enjoy or be protected in the use of EVERY OTHER AMENDMENT afforded to us constitutionally.
4
@Gun Subtractor
Whether guns make anyone safer really is not the issue. The issue is whether those who don't want guns and those who have them can cooperate to keep guns from people who are likely to use them to harm others.
2
Is this what freedom looks like?
7
@Dunning Kruger it's only freedom for some. The freedom only exists for those who have guns and the freedom to own any gun you want. For the rest of us, there is no freedom. The freedom to feel safe is gone. And will forever be.
5
Mandatory surrender of semi automatic weapons at fair buyback prices.
Repeal of the second amendment.
Comprehensive gun ownership laws protecting hunters, hobbyists, collectors,
et al.
Strict licensing and renewal provisions.
Manufacturer liability for all guns sold after repeal of second amendment.
8
@James Noble Hunting needs to be banned too. We need to go house-to-house searching for and collecting all guns.
1
We have to ask ourselves, as Americans, even beyond gun control arguments, "What is it in us that promulgates so many among us to a penchant turned so frequently and inhumanely to the desperation of mass violence?".
What is it, again beyond gun control, that other nations habitually do, in their national profile, that turns them in other directions, despite anger, massive frustration, and poor self-image?
Is it our history of shoot em up good guy, bad guy westerns, mobster movies, recent rap, front burner politics, numbing "social" networking, familial and religious breakdown, racial and political polarization, etc.?
None of those feel unique to us, or new enough to us to spark such a torrential reign of slaughter previously unknown.
Is it more about the intense surge of power and very convenience of guns that drives many of us of to either wholesale numbly defend or violently abuse them?
2
All anyone has to do in California is go to Nevada or Arizona and they can buy all the assault weapons they want. California’s gun control laws need to be enacted nationally.
6
The shooter broke multiple gun laws even before shooting at people. Lets face it, when we talk about gun control (esp in CA), we mean ban the gun.
2
@hmlty Where were his parents in all this? Why didn't they stop him? He lived at home.
And people wonder why my son and his family are applying for Irish citizenship.
5
Mitch, Trump, et al.: it's time for thoughts and prayers, eh?
2
It is sickening and rage-inducing that more importance is clearly given to today's antics of our bully-in-chief than to the deaths of two (more) children less than 24 hours ago. Shame on every complicit individual at the NY Times who has a hand in this.
6
I just retired from a 30 year long teaching career near Gilroy. Starting in 2005, every school started code red lockdowns due to nation wide school shootings. Unless you’ve been in a lockdown with children hiding under desks and tables for up to an hour in the dark, you have no idea what it does emotionally to them. These drills are several times a year. I’ve always prayed that I could retire without having an actual shooter on my campus. This is the world in which we live. All because of the ammunition industry and lobbyists from the NRA. Take a look at some of their commercials sometime and you will see that the agenda is to spread fear and divisiveness. Children should not have to be subjected to this fear every day of their life. It’s shameful, uncivilized and sad. And now a shooting at a family festival near my home. When is this madness going to end?
17
At some point, mass-shootings will become akin to traffic reports. They will become commonplace. We will shrug every time we hear about another one. But that will be our tragedy alone. Bangkok? No. Delhi? No. Moscow? No. Addis Ababa? No. Sydney? No. Tokyo? No. São Paulo? No.
This is what’s become of “American Exceptionalism.” Murder on a grand scale every day. Are you still proud to be an American. I’m not.
10
It is a pity the Founders didn't include "the right not to be murdered" in the Bill of Rights. It would have made a logical counterbalance to the Second Amendment.
8
@Bruce
There was no need. I'm sure they could not have imagined that their words would be deliberately misinterpreted by a criminally conservative supreme court 200 years later.
9
@ Max
You hit a bullseye.
Kindergarteners were shot down at Sandy Hook. The Republicans, together with the NRA went out of their way to make sure nothing stood in the way of anyone, anywhere, from buying a gun or two or ten or a thousand. This guy can't legally buy cigarettes, or liquor or be allowed in some night clubs, but he can go out and easily buy a war-type weapon, compliments of callous politicians and their NRA donors. These killers are terrorist and the NRA, and callous politicians are complicit in their terrorist acts.
22
NY Times please, this is the only story that matters today. In a nation that just authorized a $750 billion defense budget and that is poised to spend a couple of billion on a border wall, six-year-olds are not safe to attend something as Americana as an outdoor Garlic Festival, we have so enabled white supremecists and the deranged to buy high-powered guns easily used for mass murder. The organizers did everything right according to gun rights advocates, with searches and metal detectors at the entrances. Still, the gunman apparently came complete with wire cutters to break in and unleash his terror.
What happened in Guilford makes a mockery of the appeals of some lawmakers for every greater spending on national defense and border security to ensure the safety of the American people, all while ignoring the real source of carnage, domestic terrorism with military-style weapons. Contrary to the cries of the NRA that guns make us free, we do not have freedom when we cannot even attend community events without armed guards positioned everywhere and need to be ever on the lookout for a depraved individual with a gun. That is not definition of an event at a park; it's a description of a battlefield.
Time for Americans to choose how we want to live.
18
@DL The Baltimore story and the new health care proposals are just as important, if not more, as they have more of an effect on most citizens.
1
@ mileena
You’re quite wrong. The “Baltimore story” & healthcare debates are not causing people - all over this country - to consider whether attending a family friendly outdoor festival could end in the death of one of their children, or their self. Those topics are not causing parents sending their children to school in the morning worry that their child could be shot dead in a classroom that day.
Those topics are not causing members of religious groups to consider that they might be gunned down in their place of worship.
2
@mileena so you do have some conception of the collective good. Ergo, the rights of some people to own egregiously dangerous weapons do not take precedence over the rights of more people to live.
The National Rifle Association is guilty of fostering, if not actually supporting, this type of domestic terrorism by clinging to a grossly misinterpreted "right to bear arms."
8
How Many Times Must Our Hearts Break Because Of Insanity Such As This?
3
A shooting incident happened in New Zealand not long ago, what was their government's response - they banned all combat style rifles and weapons within weeks.
Did you know, the house passed a sweeping legislation on Gun control in Feb'19. What happened to that bill you may wonder, it died (or is dying) in the republican controlled Senate. So be sure to call your senator and ask them why they wont support this bi-partisan bill. If that does not work, try and vote for someone who has the courage to stand up to likes of NRA. If you value your second amendment rights more than you value lives in innocent children then I pray to God to show you the right path.
8
Updated reports reveal that the gunman had white nationalist social media posts and, of course, unfettered access to an assault-style militaristic weaponry. We face real danger from an extremist right wing fringe that is emboldened by the irresponsible hate speech emanating from Trump. Moreover, the NRA and its Republican lackeys have blood in their hands; I don’t think the Founders would have believed that children and innocent civilians should be viewed as acceptable collateral damage in the service of an unnecessarily broad reading of the Second Amendment.
6
Guns diminish our freedom.
7
Was the murderer wearing his MAGA hat? Trump & Co apparently inspired him.
3
trump ..."don't believe what you see or hear" believe me when I tell you there are no shooting problems in the good old USA; the democrats are trying to take your guns away. More children & innocent people dying in gun violence...republicans look the other way... it is all the democrats fault.
1
If these shooters all tended to be middle-aged women of color, we'd be talking about that in great detail. These shooters tend to be young, white, males. So, let's talk about that in great detail. Let's figure out why this particular group is more likely to lash out with assault rifles than other demographics.
15
@Anne I agree that something has to be done, but we should not stereotype and profile as a nation. This is why people of color, LGBTQIA people, and women are still discriminated again today
@mileena: But it's not a 'stereotype' that mass shooters are predominantly male and white. And mostly young. That's a fact.
7
Children, scmildren. Let the dollars keep coming.
2
Cue yet another round of meaningless "hopes and prayers" uttered by those who actually couldn't care less about the people killed by guns today (and killed by guns yesterday, and killed by guns the day before that, and killed by guns the day before that...). Yeah, NRA and Republican elected officials, I'm talking about you.
5
I received a phone call last night. It was my best friend. He was hiding from the shooter(s) and I could hear screaming and sirens in the background. He told me that a man had been shot and killed in front of him, and then the phone call got cut off. I didn't know if he was okay, and had to sit with that horrific dread. He was lucky to make it out alive.
The thing is, I wasn't even surprised when this happened, because I knew it was just a matter of time before myself of someone I loved was directly affected by gun violence. I have been carrying medical grade tourniquets in my wheelchair backpack since the mass shooting in Orlando, and I know how to use them. We should not be living like this but much of our country is being held hostage by selfish people who value guns over lives. Enough.
255
@Nikki Actually we're being held hostage by selfish gun sellers who value money over lives. They convince the gullible to demand more guns, and the politicians to accommodate with lax gun laws.
29
@Nikki I'm so sorry your friend witnessed this and hope he is okay, and I'm sorry that you had to shoulder this burden as his friend.
So, if I get this right - you require a wheelchair for mobility, yet have taken the time to learn how to save others' lives in this type of situation? Not all heroes wear capes (but maybe there's one on trailing your chair? lol)
Thank you - and I hope you never have to put those tourniquets into practice. What would our country be like if people with your level of compassion, drive, and intellect were free to focus on things that built resilience instead of mopping up another trauma?
10
Nikki, I hope your tourniquet training emphasized that tourniquets should be used as a last resort only. They can easily lead to amputation. I recommend that you carry some Celox or Quik-Clot, some large abdominal pads, some tampons (for puncture / bullet wounds), and an Israeli bandage (that one takes practice) and gauze rolls and tape. I carry all these in a trauma kit in my car trunk, just in case I happen to be present at the site of a major injury (most likely to be vehicular in origin, but could also be caused by a gun-wielding maniac.
I’m sorry for your and your friend’s trauma. I hope you can get the help you need.
7
Nevada, what are you going to do about this?
Your pathetic gun laws are responsible for the slaughter of innocents. Again and again and again.
This blood is on your hands.
Nevada, what are you going to do?
14
@DaWill
Nevada's not even in the top ten of states with the most lenient gun laws: https://www.deseretnews.com/top/1429/0/10-states-with-the-most-lenient-gun-laws-.htmlThis is not a state
Gun violence is America's problem, not just any one state's problem. Unfortunately, money is the real problem here. As long as guns and violence and religion, and the glorification of guns and violence and religion proliferate and is made "godly", America doesn't have a prayer - pun intended.
1
@DaWill Nevada is a blue state with 2 Democratic Senators, a Democratic governor, and 3 out 4 Democratic Congressmen. It is the home of Harry Reid. We have the nation's only female-majority state legislature
NV is liberal, and has legalized marijuana and gives driver's licenses to undocumented migrant.
Please don't paint us as a redneck, hick state.
3
... and Trumps pathetic response was a Tweet to all to be "careful and safe" out there.
Yeah...
People can't even go to a garlic festival on a Sunday afternoon. This is where we're at.
16
BAN. ASSAULT. WEAPONS. NOW.
Public safety and security for our families, our schools, our first responders, and our communities clearly require every state: 1. ban non-military production, sale, and possession of assault weapons; 2. buy back assault weapons from all state residents who now own them during a short amnesty period; 3. and then criminalize all production, sale, and possession of assault weapons for non-military use as a felony with mandatory prison sentences.
19
@Allan Slipher Arizona has open-carry. I saw a guy the other day walk into a restaurant with a gun strapped to his side and the restaurant owner congratulated him.
@mileena
Each state can turn the tide and join California in banning assault weapons. But California needs to go further to and buy back assault weapons and criminalize production, sale and possession for non military use.
Arizona has much further to go but is a swing state hanging in the balance as the 2020 election comes in view. Hopefully more people here will come to see a total ban on assault weapons outside of the military is a better way to assure safety and security for our families, schools, first responders and communities rather than more people on the street selling, buying and carrying even more military assault weapons.
1
@Allan Slipher
The reason that these guns are used is not because they are weapons of war, which they are not, but because they are easy to shoot. The recoil is less than most other guns, making it less punishing on the user, and it's easier to regain aim on the targets, and while the bullets are less powerful that rifles used to hunt deer and are easily deflected by shrubs, they are accurate enough at the ranges where they are intended to be used. The ammunition is like that used to shoot varmints rather than game animals.
The idea that eliminating this kind of gun will stop mass shootings is mistaken but it seems to be the urban myth that keeps on being repeated.
3
Nothing to see here folks, just another American exercising their second Amendment rights...
11
Can someone please give me a rational argument for the need of a US citizen to own an AK 47?
17
@Brian Hauswirth
THERE ARE NO RATIONAL ARGUMENTS
8
@Brian Hauswirth Some Republican Senators claim guns are needed to protect against governmental tyranny. "A well regulated militia".
And how was this young man ‘well regulated’?
When will it stop ?
2
I don’t want to see Donald’s tweet here!
Focus on the tragedy and leave our atrocious, NRA loving president out of it. His words here mean less than nothing. #guncontrol
13
NRA / Republicans: If that 6-year old had also been carrying a handgun, he could have shot back and defended himself.
15
This is a serious question, will American males feel castrated if common sense takes away their weapons one day? Can you at least live with making the purchase of mass murder assault weapons like the AK-47 illegal?
8
When will "thoughts and prayers" stop being enough?
2
Victims don't have millions to donate to legislators and presidents.
The NRA and other gun lobbyists do, thanks to Putin and few other Russian oligarchs.
Hey, you expect American elected officials to protect American children from gun-worshipping lunatics without a big payoff?
What century are you from?
4
It clear that the poverty of inner cities drives gun violence and death. It's no stretch to suspect that Republicans see flooding these area with guns as voter suppression.
Those who refer to Second Amendment Rights after tragedies like this need to reread the text and refer to the Supreme Court's interpretation, which clearly allows gun controls to be enacted by Congress. Our representatives are cowed by the gun lobby nto putting the "rights" of gun owners above the lives of citizens, including children. If Sandy Hook didn't move them then nothing will except for one thing: voters willing to remove them from office.
4
"... the motive is not known."
And will probably never be known, as has happened time after time after time after time.
"Motiveless" murder is still murder.
7
The adjective "well regulated" in the Second Amendment modifies "milita," not the the right to bear arms. The amendment does not say "the right of well-regulated militiamen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." It says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
The founders' intent was to ensure Americans were equipped with weapons of war so they could form militias and fight against tyranny just as they did in 1776. Semiautomatic rifles are exactly the type of weapons they had in mind.
Most Americans may agree the Second Amendment is outdated, but there is no chance of repeal. An amendment that prohibited the federal government from enacting gun laws but empowered states to enact his laws might pass. Why should Texans care if New Yorkers and Californians want to disarm themselves?
Your ‘interpretation’ of theConstitution is ridiculous. You left out the first clause, ‘A well-regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state,’ is PRECISELY the limit the signers put on the right to bear arms.
You have the right to bear arms as part of a well-regulated militia. It’s plain English.
We have a well-regulated militia and it is called the US Army.
Any other interpretation is sophistry...whoops! I forgot, the late Justice Scalia would disagree!
This just demonstrates the motivated reasoning that goes into his SCOTUS ruling.
3
@Bob G
I did not leave out the first clause. I pointed out that the adjective "well regulated" modifies "militia," not "the right to bear arms." The purpose of the Second Amendment is to ensure Americans are armed so they can form militias and fight against standing army, like the U.S. Army. The
U.S. army is the opposite of a militia; it is federally controlled.
There is nothing about the second amendment that prevents guns being removed from those likely to commit homicide, suicide, or others who cannot use them safely or do not secure them from those who would do harm with them. Nor is there reason to not keep accurate records of the guns nor of who has access to them. Nor does it prohibit assuring that those who keep and bear arms are qualified to do so.
There is no reason to consider a democratic government a source of tyranny. In the tradition of England and America the only domestic source of tyranny was the central government. In England, most army forces were local forces not under the King except in time of war. In America, the states were the ones concerned about the national government. The right to insurrection is what your interpretation infers, and several of those were put down with the support of all other citizens and states.
Background checks obviously failed in Nevada, where he purchases an "AK-47 type rifle" ,in that he was a white supremacist self avowed on his Twitter posts. Like bump stocks, all assault weapons and modified to be an assault weapon must be seized. To have done this much damage in a little over 1 minute after the first shots were fired and reported on 911. In that time, three policemen already on the grounds engaged him, after he killed 2 children and a young women, along with inflicting perhaps devastating injuries to 11 others. As reported in the town's 9AM press conference in Gilroy, all the three officers had was a handgun. Although they were outgunned they took him down. China rates US as too dangerous to visit for tourism. They are right.
3
Freedom of speech includes hateful speech. Threatening to do a crime, planning with others to do so or stating the intent to do so are not protected. Unfortunately, a lot of that can go on unreported..
So long as we as Americans govern ourselves under politicians of all stripes elected through skewed anti-democratic features, a Senate beholden to a small minority of the American people, and the absurdity of assigning First Amendment rights to inanimate objects (corporations), we are going to get to the point where to effectuate the value most Americans place on human life, education, progress and enlightenment, there may eventually need if all else fails to be consideration of a separation from those states that collectively believe otherwise, obstruct advance and value personal arsenals over the lives of innocent men, women and children. If the only choice is between living under the unfortunate consequences of anti-democratic rule through the historical compromises made at the nation’s inception, or walking into the light of shared democratic values, assigning greater importance to life over death and to science over mindless dogma, to trying to save this planet over regarding it as something to be flushed, and personal achievement over being content with nursing grievances toward “the other,” where exactly right now are the mystic chords of cohesion existing under the banner of unity? A new compromise is in order requiring that the majority of living, breathing Americans control the legislative branch and that the Electoral College be abolished.
1
People mention the 2nd amendment all the time and their rights. What about the Declaration of Independence which says "all humans are created with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that governments are instituted to protect these rights"? Where is the government when 6 children are laying on the ground, cold, and dead? What about the rights of those kids to life, to liberty, to pursuit of happiness? Interestingly enough, the Declaration of Independence then goes on to say "when government fails to do so (protect these rights), it is the right of the people to change it, or abolish it, and set up a new one that will promote and protect said rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" What I'm essentially saying is, do you want change? Then vote.
5
This is really sad news. I remember seeing my first Gilroy Festival on station KQED during the period I lived in San Francisco during the 1980s. People went there to eat interesting things such as garlic ice cream and other goodies. It was always a fun place to go. Now this senseless killing of these young people. When will this stop?
4
Another brilliantly triumphant day for the NRA, for Mitch McConnell, for Donald Trump, and for the Republican Party. This is exactly how their America functions, and it's "great." The NRA and GOP logos should be etched in each headstone.
5
The depths to which this country has sunk - these children will be forgotten and even mocked, as the Sandy Hook children are - make our choices next year stark yet easy. Vote against the NRA. Vote against Donald Trump. Vote against Mitch McConnell. Yes, it's unfortunate that we have to approach this next election with such a negative motivation but we've got to stop the calamitous descent. Use NRA allegiance as a metric and vote against it. Gun ownership is fine, gun owners are good and decent people. But there must be reasonable regulations for such deadly instruments that are freely available to civilians, and the NRA exists to thwart such regulations. My comment accompanies the story about this one shooting but it refers to the plague of shooting that currently envelops this country.
4
As is often the case, Garry Wills wrote the finest essay on the subject. Check out his "Our Moloch," which was published in NYRBlog on December 15, 2012. Here is the link:
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/12/15/our-moloch/
The pro life party will shrug and defend as usual. The Senate will do nothing, nor will the courts or the President. Thanks
The only solution is a Senate majority north of 60 and reconstitute the Supreme Court allowing each President to appoint one per year or a total of 4 per term, with 25 on the court. Max service would be 24 years, then retirement.
1
Its been reported the teenager bought the automatic weapon legally in Nevada.
210 mass shootings just THIS YEAR, and no one still wants to ban the sale of automatic weapons?
Look up the statistics of the increase in mass shootings since the Clinton 10 year ban on auto weapon sales expired. This isnt really rocket science, people
3
Okay, keep the 2nd amendment as it was intended: Americans have the right to carry muskets.
7
It’s no longer news, even to the New York Times which placed this story at number 7 in my digital feed today. It appeared Behind a story about Facebook.
It’s been 7 years since Sandy Hook and countless, nameless other victims all over the country. But yet today at a traffic light, the car in front of me had decals of AK47’s that said, “Buy Guns”.
As long as the laws don’t change and we don’t press for change, we will just tolerate the carnage. Rock on; gun toting proponents.
5
Why even report it - it happens every day and guess what nothing is going to change. I was in the Marines when it was still M-14, but since it was single shot they needed a machine gun. So, developed the M-16 and guess what it was never made for civilians to use. Oh, yes, one can hunt with one meaning humans. Humans are the life form that kills their own for the sheer joy of killing. I became sick of American long ago with its fake outrage and nothing done. Where is Trump on this to busy upset that a Rapper was arrested in Sweden. Of course he is a racist, but his friends are Rappers who beat up people that is different. In New Zealand after the mass killings the female gutsy PM put a stop to the weapons and advertising who the shooter was including his name. These are Trump people trolls of no importance that use a weapon to kill innocent in other words cowards like him. Check back the last time Mitch was up for reelection him waving around an old musket sure to see that again. After nothing was done about Sandy Hook and Trump and his followers said it never happened it showed how America has become one giant mental institution and unfortunately the patients live among the people. Jim Trautman
4
I am willing to cut a deal with Republicans:
We will ban abortion in all cases except where the woman’s life is in.l danger if you repeal the Second Amendment.
I am willing to compromise. Fair enough?
2
The republicans and some democrats are guilty of at least collusion in these murders. Why can they not stand up to the NRA and say no more assault rifles. Even Ronald Reagan thought assault rifles had no place society. What will it take? When Theodore Roosevelt's son was killed in WWI I think, he suddenly became antiwar. Somehow it lost its romantic appeal to him. Is this what it will take to ban assault rifles? If Sandy Hook couldn't persuade the cowards in congress, will anything?
3
After eighteen years of wars and gun violence portrayed on national television and movies, there should be no surprise that all these mass murderers learned how to in their young formative years. All the political leaders are cowards for allowing such violent portrayals to continue and the Republicans and their gun lovers are reprehensible and disgusting for starting wars and cultivating violence in the minds of millions.
My dad was murdered in California by the government and he was an avid Garlic lover and fan of the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
No one should be surprised at why these killings are happening. You need only look at your TV. Then again, don't.
2
People who murder strangers like this are psychopaths. They are people who developed homicidal obsessions over time. They might have spent a lot of time viewing violent entertainment but what made them killers required more factors. Few people who view these harm anyone. Neglect in early childhood, traumatic experiences, physical injury, frustration resulting in rage, difficulty relating to others, and so on, many contributing factors.
Most people’s fundamental personalities are fairly consistent from childhood. Some undergo great changes by adulthood but more develop consistently from who they are as children.
What this all amounts to is that people tend to become known fairly well to family, co-workers, and neighbors, those interact with them often. Those who explode into violence usually disclose things prior to the acts which upon hindsight others believe indicated things that might have been signs of what might happen. If we see some might be losing it and we know that they have access to guns, we might with court order, remove those guns, at least temporarily.
1
I don’t want to see Donald’s tweet here!
Please focus on the tragedy and leave our atrocious president out of the story. His actions have made guns more available. He’s a friend of the NRA. I don’t care what he tweets or says right now. Spare me.
1
The American descent into unreality continues unabated.
2
Folks should lock up criminals instead of taking away my civil rights.
I remmeber this weekend looking at a Groupon and thinking that we should head to the Garlic Festival on Sunday since my 8-year old has been asking to go. We decided to heard to the beach instead since it was so hot outside.
This could have been my family there. It could have been my child murdered. I grew up in a household with lots of guns and never thought much about it. However, it is time for a change. We must enact comprehensive legislation to prevent this from happening again. California cannot do it alone since these people can get their guns in neighboring states. There is no reason that anyone needs an assault rifle. What about our right to not live in fear of a madman with a gun?
301
@Kate
" We must enact comprehensive legislation to prevent this from happening again."
Sorry, Kate, but words on paper will not deter a crazy person with a gun.
5
@Heckler ...but "the words on paper" would bared him from buying the gun to begin with....
31
The venue was secured with a barrier and all visitors checked with metal detectors. The killer had to sneak up and cut through the barrier. He was engaged by police within a minute. He could not legally obtain the weapon except by traveling a very long ways into a different state. Clearly he planned this for a long time and took great efforts to do it. It was not a spur of the moment or crime of opportunity. Yet, he knew nobody that he shot. Every rational effort to prevent this was taken. But still happened.
This is the kind of event that is impossible to prevent by any indirect methods. People who could stop him had to know that he would do this to prevent this tragedy. How to do this is still not known with certainty.
That such innocent people should be harmed is heart breaking. It makes us furious that it was not prevented. But what we cannot anticipate but is possible will happen. Even in a country which takes even greater precautions to prevent such events like Norway, it has happened.
I am worried that the furious argument over gun control and mental health monitoring is going to turn this into another exchange of demands to limit everybody’s liberties, as it has previously. That conflict goes nowhere.
5
@Casual Observer.
From the Onion: (published for years in various forms)
VIRGINIA BEACH, VA—In the hours following a violent rampage in Virginia in which a lone attacker killed 12 individuals and injured four others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Wednesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking place. “This was a terrible tragedy, but sometimes these things just happen and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them,” said Michigan resident Mark Butler, echoing sentiments expressed by tens of millions of individuals who reside in a nation where over half of the world’s deadliest mass shootings have occurred in the past 50 years and whose citizens are 20 times more likely to die of gun violence than those of other developed nations. “It’s a shame, but what can we do? There really wasn’t anything that was going to keep this individual from snapping and killing a lot of people if that’s what they really wanted.” At press time, residents of the only economically advanced nation in the world where roughly two mass shootings have occurred every month for the past eight years were referring to themselves and their situation as “helpless.”
3
@Casual Observer Impossible to prevent? It was easy to prevent: if he could not have gotten that assault rifle in ANY state, the crisis could have been averted.
Also, had his mind not been clogged with right-wing hate propaganda, or had he the education to resist that propaganda, the crisis could have been averted.
Ban assault rifles. Police Fox News' hate machine. Vastly increase funding for public education. All solutions that could have helped prevent this tragedy.
7
The assault weapon argument seemed to have a successful conclusion in New Zealand. But that requires political guts and common sense. None of that exists in America anymore.
7
I just want to share that two SF 19 year olds killed a policeman in Rome a few days ago, using a knife. We are not exporting the best. Not out of California.
9
@Mike P They allegedly killed a person. Remember Amanda Knox, the American who was purported to have murdered someone in Italy?
1
@Mike P
So that’s the problem. Let’s just get rid of California. Because violent acts never happen anywhere else in the US.
2
@mileena,
It seems these two got caught in the act and a video. Plus the knife was still in their possession.
4
and yet, we do tolerate this violence. we tolerate it very well it seems.
8
Three years ago Trump said "the carnage stops now!" I'm not sure what he was talking about, but it certainly wasn't about a copper-jacketed, high velocity .223 bullet entering a child's body.
20
@Troutwhisperer
Trump was lying, as always.
3
These are weapons of war. They are weapons of mass death and destruction. We need these weapons for war. They should be outlawed for civilian ownership. I am all for responsible personal ownership of firearms, but not these weapons. This is too much firepower to have in the hands of the public.
14
Please make it as hard to get an assault rifle as it is to get an abortion in the South. If pro-life advocates turned some of their energy to these killing machines perhaps some progress can be made.
45
This is exactly why we need tougher national gun regulations, because people can easily cross into a state that is more wild west in its gun laws, like NV.
13
I’ve said this before - in a letter this paper published no less - but the fight for gun control/regulation was lost after Sandy Hook.
Twenty grade-school children, no older than 10 years old, in an affluent white community were slaughtered and nothing changed.
If that didn’t galvanize anyone nothing will.
517
Not to mention Las Vegas in 2017.
37
And there it is; you could not be more right.
The new normal for attending public events is to consider this as a possible outcome. That is where we are as a society. It will be the only reality my children ever have starting with active shooter drills in the classroom and eventually their workplace.
I understand the statistical likelihood is miniscule, but that doesn't make any less prevalent in my thoughts as I plan our escape just in case. It is a terrible way to live so a small subset can remain enamored with guns.
40
SM,
The problem is the Republicans. Yet another reason to vote for Democrats in 2020 (and beyond).
54
Does a child‘s right to live take precedent over a person‘s right to own a gun?
143
@Rick M No. A child's right to live only takes precedence until they are born. After that, all bets are off. s/ (I'm deeply saddened by this. My comment comes from anger)
30
@Rick M
A child's right to live only extends to anti-choice laws to infringe on women's rights that the GOP can really get behind. Gun laws? No thanks, that would upset their base and their in-bed position with the NRA. Thoughts and prayers all around. Next!
25
According to the Corrupt-lican politicians, the answer is a resounding, “Of course!”
Just follow the NRA and Russian money into their pockets...
12
Too bad the six-year old boy didn't have a gun as well.
Or that everyone else at the festival had been packing heat... then there would have been hundreds of cool, level headed citizens returning fire in the crowds, and surgically targeting the bad guy.
Well, losing nearly 40,000 Americans a year is a small price to pay for the right to carry these precious guns around. I'm sure Stephen Romero understands this.
119
@R Mandl, THIS. Well said. And crickets from trumpies.
9
Sign posted at the garlic festival in California in the aftermath of yesterday's horrific shooting: "Kilroy IS here."
5
This so sad and so repetitive. I am a white male. I have been shot at by a group of white males with rifles. That was very ... uncomfortable. They missed but they took four shots.
There is an alarmingly high frequency of such events committed by white males with rifles and guns clearly designed to shoot quickly.
This must stop. Thoughts and prayers are not enough.
7
@Playon
White males have been emboldened by Trump to think that they can do this. Trump is partly to blame for the deaths at the food festival.
5
I've never understood why someone's right to own a gun and kill me with it supersedes my right to not be killed.
Yes, Republicans. We have the Second Amendment from 1791.
But we also have my right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" from the Declaration of Independence. 1776.
Pretty tough to enjoy those freedoms as you're bleeding out at a fairground.
18
The second amendment should be interpreted as the right to own a muzzleloading smooth bore musket.
4
"AK-47-type assault weapon that he had purchased legally this month in Nevada...."
Good to know Chief Smithee. Now I can rest easy.
1
One might legitimately wonder, how many of the pro-gun, anti-regulation posts that follow on all the op-ed pages are from Russian troll farms? We know that the NRA was infiltrated by Russian operatives and that Putin's agents will weaponize social media and public commentary to create further division among Americans... it's so easy to get our citizens at odds with one another over guns.
8
Watched all three evening "network news shows" Sunday evening. No mention of mass shooting event in Brownsville on Saturday. Shooting at a festival in California Sunday night gets wall to wall coverage. Wonder why? Other questions about Saturday night shooting come to mind. Where is the outrage from BlackLivesMatter? Where is the voice of Kyle K? If he could be so vocal about Betsy Ross shoes, why is he silent about this horror?
1
Thank whomever, there isn’t a constitutional right to bear Ebola...
1
A boy terminated in his 40 trimester...did the forced-birthers protest?
I didn't think so.
5
@Victorious Yankee You mean 27th trimester? A trimester equals three months.
Why is it that nearly every mass shooting is one by a young male? Shouldn't we investigate what is happening in our society?
8
Another white nationalist inspired by Trump's ranting against brown folks and the need to take action like Trump said I want to punch him in the mouth, take them out on stretchers for disagreeing with Trump. Trump a big fan of phony wrestling industry has video of himself throwing a CNN reporter to the ground punching him in the head. Tanks displayed at Trump's July 4t rally were there at his insistence to threaten dissidents vs his fascist rants which reeks of a dictatorship.
5
Angry young white men, stoked by rampant low self-esteem and access to guns. Our society is very, very sick.
9
@SDT California does not make guns accessible.
1
@mileena and yet they're accessible. It's important to see the forest, not the trees. The problem is a national one, and whatever California (my state) does or doesn't do, people cross state lines carrying weapons every day. Please tell me you see that.
2
You can buy various brands of semi-auto rifles, in AR-15, AK-47, or hunting styles in most gun shops in California. He didn’t need to import from Nevada.
Surprise, surprise - there are news reports linking the gunman to white supremacist posts on Instagram. I wonder where that degraned person found inspiration?
6
How can you tell me your gun laws are not politicised in North America ? Dems yelling and screaming for tighter controls. So naturally then the 'opposing side' aka the Republicans/NRA (I mean cause let's face it they're basically the same thing) who are in power have control over current gun laws. Trump elected in 2016. Think about how many people have been killed with semi automatic weapons since then. That's on your head, nobody else. So, is it time to talk about gun laws yet Mr Trump?
The people of Nevada should be sued for these murders.
4
@Purple Spain Nevada is a blue state. For example, we have legalized marijuana. Also, Harry Reid and Cortez-Mastro. And our governor is a Democrat, as are 3 of 4 of our Congressmen. Nevada is the only state where a majority of the legislators are female.
2
The NY Times included a map showing where Gilroy is. LOL. Everyone knows where Gilroy is, and has been to the Garlic Festival. I have.
1
@mileena What? No, not everyone knows where Gilroy is...
6
Why is this story not top of the fold, first story in the app? This is how shootings are normalized. Kids being killed by a gunman is the most important story. Not the latest stupid thing Trump said or Cuomo’s corruption. Move this story to the top, New York Times. Come on.
6
Washington Post says gunman was killed by police. I don't see a reference to his fate in either of the Times stories. Did I miss something, or did you? Thanks
So... what are we gonna do about our white supremacy problem? Or are we gonna continue laying blame solely on guns. I suppose it’s a lot easier - leveling any degree of blame on white people and unabated white supremacist ideology is just too unpleasant.
2
@Jose P. we could do both. We should do both.
6
You should look and see how quickly republican news outlets buried the shooter headline now that it has been discovered he was a white supremacist. They are complicit in this ongoing hate and the violence it spurs.
Please don't limit your comments to this publication alone, head over to the comments sections on the right, we need to all be vocal INSIDE the right wing bubble.
Enough of their wriggling off the hook every single time.
4
Another angry white male activated by a Beer hall putsch speech exhorting the base to murder.
6
Turns out the shooter quoted white supremacist texts on his social media.
Shocker.
6
American gun owners could care less about children murdered by guns on almost a daily basis now...
Most polls consider a mass shooting has to mean at least 4 people must have been murdered to be counted as a mass shooting.
I want my children to live without fear of being shot up by an American gun owner or what they should be called American terrorists.
191
@mileena:
does a person have to live here to care about this?
12
@Thoughts and Prayers Don't Work
"Thoughts and Prayers" is just another name for the NRA.
16
I just sent my thoughts and prayers! Hope that helps! God bless!
Have a GREAT day! -
Vice President Mike Pence
7
There are no customs inspections between states. We need national firearm registration to identify straw purchasers who buy guns legally and sell them illegally.
2
Please. Someone please explain why it is not time to reconsider the necessity of the Second Amendment.
12
Unless and until there is a forensic investigation verified by independent third-party experts, this is a narrative.
1
Why does this make the news? It's an everyday occurrence as far as I can tell.
Lecture me again on how more laws protect people.
Please, let’s hear it.
Oh wait, they don’t. why? Because criminals are that, criminals, because they break the law. Be it one or 150 laws, they break them.
And telling people to turn in guns, will leave the criminals armed, the rest of the people unprotected.
Just make bullets super expensive (not my original idea), make reloading dies an ATF article, and then people can’t get bullets.
Or make more rules, the criminals are sure to follow them.
2
@AutumnLeaf this is the most thoughtful rejoinder i have read in a long, long time.
This should be front page news every time it happens , no matter how often...and it’s becoming more often. It should never be accepted as being normal...because hurting someone should not become a norm. We have a Mad man in charge who has made insulting people a new norm...violence a sign of omnipotence.
5
@Hobo This would not have happened had we elected HRC in 2016.
1
How many times do Americans have to post their words of despair and desperation?
How do purported Christians, like Mike Pence, live with themselves knowing they are bought and paid for by the NRA?
Does anyone really doubt we would have reasonable gun control if racial fears weren't stoked by politicians (translation: the GOP)?
5
Public gatherings in the U.S. are no longer safe. They're magnets for the angry and mentally ill, who are armed to the teeth. This is the nation the NRA has wished upon us.
7
Another community in America where children are terrorized and traumatized for life by our lack of adequate gun control.
7
A 19 year old bought an assault rifle, legally. An assault rifle.
7
@Fleming It is illegal to purchase a gun if that would be illegal in your home state. Assault rifles are illegal in CA, ad is a gun purchase by someone less than 21.
My son and daughter are turning 6 in a week. The NRA and other gun advocates have no understanding of the six years we tried to have kids, then the nine months of hoping the pregnancy would go well, the 6 years of love and cherished moments, and of our hopes and dreams for our childrens' future. The title to the article is what it is because so many of us can't imagine our lives being changed by such an unthinkable, horrible, tragedy. Our hearts go out not only to the children, but to their siblings and all those that have invested love an affection for the boy and girl. It's not only their lives that were taken, but the lives of every one that knew, loved, and ever cared for them is shaken to the core. They were all innocents enjoying life. What are we to do? Stay inside? We should remove the weapons of war from the public that enable mass murder!!
298
@Bill I feel you: I have girl+boy twins; 5 yrs trying to get pregnant; nail-biting 9 mos; a healthy birth, and now we adore them every day. They're now 8, and I struggle with my worries when they go to a movie without me because I envision a shooter like in Aurora, CO. Plenty of other scenarios play out in my mind in public places, or when I leave them at school. Awful!
I think the solution is much more complex than doing one single thing, such as simply banning a category of guns or magazines -- it has to be a combination of things working in concert to put as many barriers between unstable, immature people and weapons of mass destruction as possible without preventing stable and responsible people from having them for self-protection. Things like more stringent (and perhaps more frequent) background checks, requiring training, insurance, safe storage verification, and perhaps higher minimum age to own. Severe consequences for violations. All to reduce access by risky persons. Such impediments would seriously annoy hardcore 2A people (cue up "shall not be infringed!"), and it may be true that it could only happen with a full repeal of the 2A as per Justice JP Stevens' suggestion. However, those who could jump through the new hoops and demonstrate their responsibility, stability, and commitment to safety could still own guns.
More long-term, address availability of mental healthcare + the cultural malaise of violence, and why are these people always disgruntled men?
19
@Bill The NRA and other gun advocated do know and understand. They just don't care.
23
@Bill HOW do we take on the NRA? They have the $$ and the SCOTUS 'in their pockets'. Every possible affected person should sue the NRA and gun manufacturers and sellers. BDS [boycott divest sanction] ALL companies that have invested in gun manufacturers [these can be your bank that does business with them, your investment company that owns their stock - eg: I used to shop at whole foods, but since Amazon bought them I have boycott WF; boycott retailers that sell guns]. Vote AGAINST every candidate who does not openly OPPOSE the NRA. Withdraw the tax exempt status of the NRA.
BUT there has to be the WILL to do it -- looks like the NRA etc have a WALL around them in the name of the 2nd Amendment. Got to work around it - until that can be taken down.
11
I've never been to the Garlic Festival, but I've driven through Gilroy millions of times on my way to Santa Cruz and Carmel. It's such a sweet town and a precious area. After the Parkland shootings, Justice Stevens wrote an Op-Ed saying that he strongly believed the Second Amendment should be repealed, and I agree with him. He said it has become so perverted, that it should just be repealed. The intent of the Second Amendment was NOT that individuals should be able to have automatic weapons!! It was created in 1791, with MUSKETS!! So that states could form a Militia if needed to defend against an outside country's attack because at that time the US was brand new and did not have a national army. It has become so completely perverted by the NRA. This was NOT the original intent and I agree with Justice Stevens. It should be repealed. How many 6 year olds have to die?? This is complete insanity. Our guns for everyone culture is a HUGE public health risk. Other countries have radically changed their gun laws to ban the sale of automatic weapons. WHY CAN'T THE US??
381
@Michelle I also am concerned that most of these mass shootings are done by young males.
28
@Michelle
Automatic weapons have been banned since 1934 (National Firearms Act). https://bit.ly/2HCu9ka) and this murderer, as well as the murderers in Sandy Hook, Parkland, the Pulse nightclub, Columbine, etc. didn't use an automatic weapon. I think you mean to say semi-automatic.
The difference matters because it would be more difficult to ban all semi-automatic firearms.
1
@Michelle Actually the Second Amendment was not included so states could form militia to guard against invasion from foreign elements. The Southern states demanded it so that they could continue to maintain slave patrols to guard against slave uprisings. Like just about everything else in the USA, when you peel away the outer layers it comes down to the same thing: white supremacy. As old Casey Stengel used to say, "You can look it up."
29
Here in Canada, the idea that a person could go out and just buy an AK-47 is obscene. We look at the absolute carnage that continues to happen in your country and shake our heads. What will it take for you to wake up and end this?
432
@Hammerwielder We in Australia have the same view, as does most of the world. When will the madness stop, Americans?
51
@Andrew so do we in Spain. The US is another country, another rules, no arguing about that. People is criminalized for buying drugs for their own killing while at the same time is not criminalized for buying machines of destruction for the killing of others. Guns are for trained officials. No wonder police militarization is real there. We'd seriously like to see this madness stop. In the end, we share the same world and same displeasure for these actions. R.I.P. for those in pain. You are not alone.
36
@Hammerwielder
Thank you Canada (and HA, OZ & NZ).
Your gun laws are one reason we choose to vacation in Canada, NZ or at sea. We feel safer.
24
The murderer bought his ak-47 legally in the neighboring state of Nevada and brought it into California. This is exactly why we need Federal gun laws so people cant do this. The Republicans in Congress have consistently blocked this.
410
@terri smith
The emphasis in the story is "he bought the weapon 'legally' in Nevada. Perhaps there will be a follow up on whether he registered the weapon in California as required.
5
@terri smith
No "law" is gonna stop a madman with a gun.
6
@Candlewick
You know the answer to that. he did not. So what exactly is your point?
Moreover, if he had registered it, that does not mean that he would have been able to have purchased it.
3
The gun, and probably the ammunition, was purchased in Nevada. I wonder if a federal law requiring all gun purchasers be citizens of the state in which the gun is purchased would have some good effect.
29
@Silty It is illegal to buy a gun if doing so would be illegal in your home state. In California, assault rifles are banned and you must be 21 to purchase.
1
@mileena If what you say is true, then doesn't the gun shop that sold him the gun face liability? (I had never heard that, though).
1
@mileena I don't think that's true. However, it is illegal to transport a gun to another state, if the gun is illegal there. So the Gilroy shooter broke the law not when he purchased the gun in Nevada, but when he brought it back to California. Of course, it's practically impossible to enforce that law.
3
A well “regulated” militia.
24
@Mathias A well regulated militia (the police) took down the shooter very quickly. Without their presence, it would have been even worse.
1
@Mathias "shall not be infringed"
@Michelle No one but the police should have a gun, then. Everybody else is "unregulated."
4
And once again, the so-called president offers thoughts and prayers as his response to an assault on civilians with weapons of war!
Ludicrous as this recurring and absurd response may be, it is made even more ridiculous as it comes from a Godless and soulless conman.
27
True: "people kill, not guns."
BUT:
If every lunatic is entitled to arm him/herself to the hilt, including with assault rifles, we are enabling lunatics to slaughter us at will.
Are lunatics, with legally purchased arsenals, slaughtering us with any "regularity?" YES.
16
State gun laws mean nothing when the next state over will sell you whatever you want...
19
@Tim Not true. Article said he purchased it legally, which means he probably had to have the rifle shipped to CA FFL, go through a background check as well as a firearms safety certification before he could take possession of the rifle. I know the gun laws as I have lived in both state.
2
@Tamar Let's try to get the facts on this. Obviously he was mentally ill but even severe mental illness is not a barrier to buying an arsenal in some states. If he could have legally gotten the gun in California he would most likely have done so.
@Tamar Or more likely he bought it in Nevada, put it in the trunk of his car and drove across the state line, no one the wiser. I agree, state gun laws mean nothing if you can get around them just by driving a few hours.
6
Sounds like we need to build a wall-AROUND NEVADA.
19
@Ron It is illegal to buy a gun if doing so in your home state would be illegal.
Nevada is a blue state and ally of California. We have legalized marijuana here too (except in casinos), just like California
1
@Ron Yes, because we don't want any more Califorians to further erode this state.
1
Trump tweeted, "Be careful and safe!"
He is mocking the American people. It's his responsibility to keep people safe. He and his corrupt party have done absolutely NOTHING to protect the people of this country from becoming victims of gun violence.
Perhaps families and victims of gun violence should file a class action lawsuit against the Republican party. They are guilty of negligence.
79
Thanks to the NRA and their GOP sponsors, another assault weapon and its amok user was enabled to bring death and misery to what was a family festival.
Without the ongoing NRA & GOP sponsorship for civilian ownership of military assault weapons and large capacity magazines, this type of mayhem could not occur.
These mass murders belong to the firearm industry, their NRA shills, and their GOP defenders. These are the people that will now extend their "thoughts and prayers".
But their next random NRA mass murder is already being initiated. It will occur soon - at a local mall, a theatre, a school, a church, a stadium, a festival.
The NRA & GOP say the 2nd Amendment gives them the right to promote this slaughter of the innocents. They say we the people must continue to live in fear of their weapons.
38
No 'we the people' don'thave to live in fear!! We must vote!!
1
Again we have to ask why people need assault weapons except for this type of deadly rampage?
44
Presidential Candidates: Please let us know, in a straightforward manner, where you each stand on gun control.
It will affect a great deal of our votes.
33
@M J Earl My guess is that Trump is well aware that many of his strongest supporters see guns as their only friends an are ready to "rise up" against any duly elected government they believe is limiting thier right to own guns.
3
politicians don't care about these events. Whatever they say ("thoughts and prayers!!") are just lip service. If they did care they'd change the laws bringing the US into the fold of many other prosperous countries without the level of gun violence we have.
12
This report states " California, which has seen mass shootings at a country music club and a synagogue in the last year, has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. With few exceptions, the possession, manufacture, transfer, sale, or lending of assault weapons is prohibited within the state, and recent legislation raised the age for buying rifles and shotguns from 18 to 21."
And despite this 3 people are dead.
I find it troubling that the toughest gun and ammunition laws in the nation were totally ineffective. Short of an outright ban of all types of firearms that includes everyone in California there could not be stricter or more punishing laws (except for NY, NJ, MA etc.)
Gun advocates have been saying that stricter laws have no effect on people with evil, criminal intent. Maybe they are right. But, then again, maybe a total ban is the answer. Maybe California should be a totally gun and ammunition free state. But there are 49 other states that will not have such prohibitions and also the black market will always be in existence.
My point is that no matter how tough the laws there will always be people that ignore them. There will always be criminals, murderers, gangs, and people who will ignore laws and the rights of others.
So, even if there is a total ban, then how do ordinary citizens protect themselves and defend their homes, children, family members and property? The police only respond after the tragedies start. We need a far better solution than laws.
8
@Jay Obviously we need a uniform national law. Many if not most of the guns used in crimes in New York come from Florida along I-95, the "iron highway".
2
@Jay did you read the article? he bought the gun in Nevada. short of inspecting everybody who crosses into California from other states for guns (which of course would be impractical and illegal), there is nothing California, or any other state, can do if other states have lax gun regulations.
2
"how do ordinary citizens protect themselves and defend their homes, children, family members and property?'
How about instilling more hope in one's future. How about better education and living wages, better treatment for mental illness, all things that reduce the stress that often drives people to act with such rage against their circumstances.
5
The 2nd Amendment has outlived its original purpose. It was written when the colonies had just won the American revolution. There was no standing army. It's been subverted by gun manufacturers, the gun lobby, and gun rights advocates to mean individuals are allowed to own huge amounts of fire power that the Founders could never have dreamed of.
The 2nd Amendment was not written for today's world. It's become a danger to human rights, not a protector. It's been weaponized.
The 2nd Amendment should be repealed, tight restrictions for gun ownership passed, and existing guns taken from their owners. Then we'd be like other countries which don't have to deal with 6 year olds getting killed at summer festivals.
58
@Eric
Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. You are talking sense. Agreed 100%.
1
Of all the many problems that ail the U.S. now, the pervasive fear and harm caused by out-of-control gun violence must be near the top of the list.
We must do more to reduce the violence caused by guns in this country, despite the opposition from the pockets of extremists and the Republican politicians who profit from gun lobby donations.
13
This article should be at the top of the feed, not buried beneath articles about the president doing the same thing he does almost daily—make outrageous comments so that he can dominate the headlines.
132
@AL
Agree. Editors looking for the almighty click.
8
There were "good guys with guns". Apparently, they engaged the shooter within one minute. And, they were not civilians, but police officers. Still, three people, including a child, are dead. And, several injured. The lives of citizens mean nothing compared with the rights of 2nd amendment lunatics and the NRA.
Where are we going? When will this stop? How important can money be to some people?
151
Very sad to see almost every commenter jumping on party lines. We're all Americans, we're all humans. Liberal or Conservative, it's always easy to pass blame to the other side. I wish we could make constructive progress with policies by compromising, but that seems to be a thing of the past.
17
It is, sadly, an issue that runs along party lines, like it or not. The GOP is in bed with the NRA, the dems are not. The politics of it cannot be ignored. The debate is infused with the values of each party.
15
@Jessica J
I no longer agree. NRA is a symptom, not cause. Believe those who support it, those Republicans whose hearts cannot be moved to action as so many people, especially children are killed by gun fire, have different brains, wired differently, don't respond with the kind of pathos that others do. And never will. They can utter their thoughts and prayers, insincere as it sounds and move on as if nothing happened. For most of the rest of us, there is an emotional response that we can't make go away, if ever.
All registered 'Assault Rifles' should pay an annual 'Carnage Fee' to be assessed depending on the 'National Slaughter Count'.
68
I have yet to hear a reasonable argument about why assault weapons should be legal for any civilian to own. Probably because there isn't one.
7
Welcome to the new normal!
6
Just a reminder that the Evangelical Christian Family Values Party believes that your right to own any gun you want whenever you want is more important than this child’s right to live.
171
@Sterling
Except when abortions are involved. Then they’re all about restrictions.
29
And much
More important than
Women’s choice
5
Loving New Zealand now....
30
We should adopt the same NATIONAL gun SAFETY laws that Canada has. They unlike us have National laws that require application & safety course along with background screening that prevent those that shouldn't have guns from getting them. You can still buy guns to hunt and target shoot, etc.
With a patchwork of "state" gun laws it doesn't matter if one state has strict laws when the one next to it has lax laws.
Also in Canada there are triggers and steps set up to alert authorities to take action when people have mental issues or other life changing events or are involved in actions that can put people over the edge.
They're shootings like every place else that has "common sense" laws are much less.
Noone is out to take away all guns - we just need common sense gun "safety" laws and procedures. People that are against "national" gun safety laws are either ill informed, lack common sense and live in a vacuum or are bought and paid for politicians.
43
@Will Goubertm I completely agree. I think a simple class would keep these guns out of the hands of a large percentage of people who think about committing acts like these. Unfortunately, I don't think it is something the Dems should campaign on. I think they are likely to lose more votes than they gain on this issue.
1
@Will Goubert I believe the Kern County/Gilroy may have open carry laws. If there were other armed people, the assault rifle would have prevented them from firing upon the shooter.
@stuckincali Open carry is illegal in all of California. And Gilroy is not in Kern County, but in Santa Clara County, the heart of the Silicon Valley.
3
We live fairly close to Gilroy. I even thought about going to the festival but decided against it. When I heard about the shooting, I did not feel fear or pity for the victims. I felt anger. What country is that in which random crazies and would-be terrorists can get an assault weapon? Why? Nobody needs an assault weapon. Nobody needs guns, period. Repeal the Second Amendment, confiscate all guns, and start issuing licenses on the need-only basis. You don’t like it? Then live with mass shootings. Unless gun crime is treated like terrorism, nothing will change.
101
@Mor Silicon Valley here - and I had the same reaction - anger that you can't go to the Festival now without fear. We have an arts festival in my town this weekend and we don't have fencing around it. its wide open. its a mile from house. I was going to ride my bike. I think I may stay home now. I don't need to worry about stuff like this. looking at a few trinkets and drinking some cheap wine isnt worth it.
7
@MeanGurl Then the bad guys have already won. Why cower in fear??
@mileena well. If everybody started staying home- seriously, everybody- that might be a protest which would actually register with someone. That is, if you think something can be done. I honestly don't.
3
Your photographs tells us many things. You said roads were still closed but I see a man walking his dog as if nothing has happened. Perhaps he has his reasons. A 6 year old child is shot during a mass shooting and it did not make it to the headlines - tweets did! And we think we are serious of gun violence. We certainly are betraying in our deeds what we argue in our words.
21
I used to grieve for the loss of life and be sympathetic but that well is long dried up. Why expend that energy when not enough Americans care about this issue to stop voting for NRA-backed politicians? Your right to arms is more important than innocent life.
20
I am exhausted by these stories and worried about my own small child being out somewhere the wrong day the wrong time... and I have no idea what to do.
25
@Mel Move to a country where the gun makers and Christians don't own the elected officials?
11
@stuckincali Yeah, that's about it. There is probably a slightly higher chance of surviving life without being shot in the Netherlands or someplace like that.
1
No gun law that would make a significant difference has a chance of passage or surviving Second Amendment scrutiny.
For example, gun control advocates call for a ban on assault-type rifles, but rifle fire accounts for a tiny percent of murders.
The most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report shows that in 2017
—7,025 people were murder by handguns;
—1,591 people were stabbed to death,
—696 people were beaten, stomped or kicked to death;
—467 people were clubbed to death;
—and 403 were killed by rifle fire, including assault rifle fire.
If we banned all rifles, we would not save 403 lives; killers denied rifles would used handguns, knives, their bare hands or clubs.
We need to work on making Americans less homicidal.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls
7
@William Case: What a tired argument. If Stephen Paddock didn't have semi-auto rifles, high-capacity magazines, and bump stocks would he have beaten 58 people to death with his bare hands in 10 minutes? I truly do not understand the argument that the relative lethality of killing tools available to the public doesn't make a difference.
26
@Wiiliam Case, while every death you referred to would not be prevented by making assault rifles unavailable, of the 403 deaths that occurred due to rifles and assault rifles would likely be less.
The reasoning for this is that assault rifles are much more effective weapons for killing than knives, clubs, bare hands or even hand guns, therefore, many of those people killed by the spray of weapon fire in minutes could not have been killed so efficiently by hand or club in the same time frame.
Many people enjoy shooting assault weapons for entertainment. I understand that. However, we have come to a point in our society where we need to make choices about what we value more, the availability of that “entertainment” or the lives and safety of our children and fellow citizens.
12
@William Case Before trying to compare weapons of choice-ask your self two questions -which weapon would you rather have in a fight (ie which is more lethal). And can you outrun a projectile -thrown brick, knife, frying pan or bullet-better.
3
Why can't individual states ban assault rifles?
6
@Helen Wheels California DOES ban assault rifles.
2
@mileena
Thank you. Murderer bought his in Nevada and I forgot that spineless Republicans in the state legislatures won't agree to ban assault rifles.
1
Remember the GOP shouting about "Death panels!" when the Democrats tried to give us affordable healthcare? So do I.
41
@Chicago Guy What does this have to do with the article?
It turns out that the killer/shooter, was a nineteen year old man, who at the time of his assault/murder was wearing military fatigues, and his weapon was an assault rifle.
Some anti-gun experts/advocates blame the military media/ merchandising of weapons and war.
For the record for those readers who have not been to Gilroy, it is the last bucolic area that mixes residences with farming and farmland, and it is beautiful, restful, and peaceful.
Gilroy is a tad bit quaint. There is one cafe restaurant which is THE best (in my opinion), and there are many authentic tacquerias/burritos with authentically cooked Mexican food.
It is a growing city, as in the City of Gilroy purchases land, and the city continues to grow in size. The library is the town meeting place. There are many newcomers to the area - extreme South Bay.
It is not a violent place and there is little crime. Lastly, it has an excellent medical/clinic health care system with is a part of Santa Clara County's Health Services and Hospitals.
10
@RR And what on earth was he "angry about"? being a white male in Trumps America? Seriously? what the heck was wrong with this guy. Mentally ill with a gun? Or just an angry "entitled white guy" who is upset that the world is changing?
California has better gun laws than most of the country but they cant stop everything. And I do not want to hear about how festival goers should be "concealed carry" to prevent this. I do not believe that would not have helped . That little boy would still be dead. His family still injured. - and perhaps more would be dead instead as it would have turned into a free for all shoot out.
1
As long as the GOP is owned by an extremist organization known as the NRA, and as long as people keep voting for Republicans, nothing will change.
In 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, 20 adorable, innocent little children between six and seven years old were murdered by a mad man. Adorable, innocent little children. And still, people keep voting for Republicans who fight everyday to block the most minimal of firearm protections for the public. Nothing will change.
In total, there have been at least 2,184 mass shootings since Sandy Hook, with at least 2,437 killed and 9,084 wounded.
75
I live in a relatively low crime area of San Francisco in a neighborhood with high home prices and generally a good group of neighbors who look out for each other.
A few weeks ago I was sitting by the window at night reading when I heard what I thought was firecrackers. I look out the window and see a car full of young men driving down the street, the passenger had his arm out of the window, a semi automatic rifle pointed in the air firing multiple rounds.
I was so shaken and horrified, thinking had the shooter pointed the gun down I, and any of my neighbors, could have easily been shot.
When will this madness end?
61
@Tam When the guns and ammo are gone, when everyone is mentally well-balanced, when aggression and hateful urges are history, when respect and appreciation of others is a paramount consideration in behavioral choices, when force is no longer the deciding factor in hierarchies, or maybe when this species has exited this planet. I wonder which will happen first?
1
@bill no need to imagine a utopia. Just ban all guns, and things like Tam describes won’t happen. I lived in Hong Kong which has some unsavory areas and I was never afraid of being shot. I lived in London which has an increasing number of stabbing attacks, and still I was not afraid because I knew to avoid bad places. I am afraid to go to San Francisco because some junkie muttering on the street corner might have a gun. Yours is an attitude of resignation - nothing can be done unless we change human nature. No, human nature is the same everywhere, and gun violence is a specifically American malady. I don’t want to live in a society of enforced virtue. I just don’t want to be shot.
2
@Mor What do we presently have in America? 400 million privately-owned guns? I have some resignation, sure, but I also have a bit of realism. Maybe millions will decide to voluntarily turn in their guns. That'd be great. BTW, how would you describe this 'Just ban all guns' you mention?
2
Heartbreaking. Yet again.
We can now add food festivals to the growing list of places that are no longer safe in America including houses of worship, schools, movie theaters and concert venues.
33
There is a lot that could be done to reduce the frequency of these events, but the main obstacle is ignorance. Most people only think about this briefly after a shooting and then they quickly lose interest. Gun advocates think about this issue all the time and are motivated to prevent any meaningful gun regulation in the mistaken beliefs that a). nothing can be done and b). that we are safer with free access to guns. Gun regulation advocates play into this by proposing things that will do nothing (e.g., who believes putting up signs that schools are gun free zones really accomplishes anything?). Educate yourself! Don't just ask for more regulation-look into this and become active in support of meaningful regulation. If you aren't willing to do that, don't bother asking why these things keep happening-they keep happening because you are too lazy to do anything about it.
4
Just imagine how powerful a militia could be formed (if wanted) in some states in the US? This is pure insanity, and I am not talking about this particular shooting. I am referring to the USA's love of guns. It truly is nuts. We should do exactly what Great Britain does: They have an automatic 1 year sentence for simple possession of a handgun. Here in Louisiana, where there are "Gun Shows" every couple of months or so, most people would think that law is insane, and I don'r want some nut spouting off about the second amendment of the US Constitution. They didn't have AR-15s in those days, plus you had to fend for yourself in many places in the early days of our country coming into existence. But not now. The US military has so many weapons, they give tanks to small towns. You can go to a small town in , say Kansas, and you can bet they probably have a tank, and perhaps a SWAT team. Why? Because they can, even though it is completely unwarranted. We are a gun crazy nation, with more small arms than people.
10
@Easy Goer
In Japan, possession of a fire arm is a felony with a criminal sentence of five years. A minute, exceptionally small number of individuals may obtain and "own" a gun with a license in Japan, but setting it off will send them to jail for a very long time.
6
Another six-year-old child sacrificed at the altar of gun worship.
My heart breaks for this country.
325
Last night, after word of this shooting flashed over the news, did the GOP politicians who continue to take NRA money and fight any and all reasonable restriction on assault weapons say, "Oh dear Lord, this is so terrible. I must do something!" Or did they say, "Oh dear Lord, this is so terrible for my reelection chances. I must do something about insuring my base remembers I support arming 'a good guy with a gun...'.
82
@EveBreeze First thing GOPpers do after every gun massacre is call the NRA and ask, "How much is your donation? I need to know before I make a statement."
3
2,181 mass shootings have occurred in the U.S. since the 2012 Sandy Hook Children's School massacre. TWENTY - 6 to 7 year old children plus 6 staff members murdered.
Children being gunned down in America is a way of life now.
228 years ago in 1791 James Madison wrote the Second Amendment when muskets and flintlock pistols where the most advanced weapons around.
We have been told we cannot repeal the Second Amendment.
This brainwashing by corporations and politicians needs to end today and we need to get it done NOW.
175
How high a price are people willing to pay for their second amendment rights? The second amendment says nothing about what type of arms you are allowed to bear. Assault type weapons need to be banned, semi-automatic weapons need to be band, handguns need to be banned. You want to go hunting? Fine, go through a complete background check, get yourself a bolt action rifle and go hunting. You don’t need a semi-auto to hunt. You do not need a high capacity magazine to hunt. Why do we need to let this insanity continue? How many innocent people must be slaughtered before sane minds take over and do something about these atrocities? How long are we going to allow lawmakers to bow down to the NRA so they keep receiving their blood money? If someone running for a government position takes money from any gun lobby organisation, do not vote for them. If current people in office accept money from the gun lobbies, vote them out. Vote for the people that run on a strong gun control platform, accept no more excuses. This nonsense needs to stop, the only way to do it is at the ballot box, in the streets demanding gun law reform. Tell Washington you are no longer going to allow this insanity to continue.
606
@Canewielder
The second amendment is not about hunting with a single shot bolt action rifle. It's about defending the nation from a corrupt tyrannical government or other domineering force. Read some American history.
5
Agreed. Apparently the second amendment language "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," is without meaning. Awful.
34
@Canewielder
The most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report shows that in 2017
—7,025 people were murder by handguns;
—1,591 people were stabbed to death,
—696 people were beaten, stomped or kicked to death;
—467 people were clubbed to death;
—and 403 were killed by rifle fire, including assault rifle fire.
If we banned all rifles, including hunting rifles as well as assault rifles we would not save 403 lives; killers denied rifles would used handguns, knives, their bare hands or clubs.
We need to work on making Americans less homicidal.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls
3
This is America.
22
This is the first year in 16 that I was not at the Garlic Festival. NYT looks at this story and sees something to bury at the bottom behind the much more important quest to characterize the president's tweets.
I look at each picture and know where it was taken, what those people had to eat, where their cars were parked, and what sort of day they were having before the shots rang out, how hot it was, and even some of the names and faces of many of the people who responded. So very sad. Almost none of those people could run to their cars, they were parked miles away and bused to the event.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival went 40 years without anything like this happening, Mr. President. Is this how you've made America great again? Is it?
228
@ondelette
You do know that the City made the event "reined in" I guess fenced, due to the years prior disturbances by drunken motorcyclists belonging to certain clubs?
Gilroy will feel unnecessarily guilty but will have to rethink how to stage the event again in the future.
2
Things like this that happen in the state of California can easily be prevented as they are in states such as Texas. California is very strict with there concealed carry and pretty much all gun laws that it makes most people do away with having a concealed carry. In this situation, if someone around the gun man had a gun they could've taken the gun man out quicker than the police getting there which would allowed for more lives to be saved. See, most people look into gun laws as if the more the better because it prevents the bad people from getting guns and special accommodations such as concealed carry, but yet the only thing that it is doing is making the good people who follow the laws to go through more of a struggle from getting a gun to protect themselves and the good of the population. There in turn this is the reason most people steer away from carrying a gun in the state of California. To wrap this up, this state needs to fix their laws.
5
@Garrett Thank you for the NRA press release. I'm sure there are no shootings in Texas, just as there are none in those other pro-gun states, such as Nevada and Florida. We've never seen mass shootings there.
27
@Garrett, You really think someone could have been able to put this man down faster than the police force without injuries to other innocents? Seems to me a good guy with a gun and the training to use it appropriately was at the festival. Kudos to the Gilroy Police department and Santa Clara Sheriff’s Department!
I am impressed at how quickly people organized themselves out of the festival and the quick response of the law enforcement. An amateur with a gun could have injured more people and made him/herself another target.
And tell me, when people are entering a public festival with a concealed weapon, how are we supposed to know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy? What types of weapons will be approved to bring into public places? Do they have safeties on or off in preparation for a potential shooting? Are they going to be responsible if it goes off accidentally? Do these people go through a different security line than those without weapons?
I am tired of living in a country where it feels like we have to be prepared to be in a state of war. I want to go to festivals to relax and have fun, not be prepared to defend myself from attack.
47
@Garrett
That's assuming everyone knows who the bad guy(s) is immediately, the accuracy of the "good guys" is 100%, and that no innocent bystander gets hit during the gun fight.
I love arguments like this because it uses a pretty, organized, uniformed, and predictable imagination of what the "good guys" will do with the "bad guys" whereas in reality it is messier. Much messier.
Confusion, panic, fear, loudness, and chaos dominates these kinds of events. But no, according to @Garrett, introducing MORE guns to a hostile environment is the way to go.
25
What do you expect in a society raised on the belief everyone should be armed to the teeth and every slight, every umbrage, every insult, every infraction, every disagreement, every issue can be solved with a gun, and every "bad" guy can be stopped by a "good" guy with a gun as if this was video game or Hollywood action movie. Sickening!
57
As puke-worthy as Trump normally is, it's especially sickening to hear him feign grief and offer 'prayers' to the families affected by this most recent senseless shooting. Has he or McConnell taken any meaningful step towards curbing gun violence in this country? No. Does anyone, but the mentally impaired, believe for a second that Trump has one religious or moral bone in his body?
187
“It’s sort of a nightmare you hope you never have to live in reality,” the chief said.
Has the chief been to the United States? This IS our reality.
46
When Senator Moscow Mitch and his Russian comrades in the Congress allow weapons of war to flood the streets
of America,
war breaks out in gatherings which represent the best of America.
Outlaw all assault rifles, or dial back the security of the senate chambers and Congressional buildings.
It is a sin to protect Congress from the very evil that they have created!
53
“My son had his whole life to live and he was only 6,” Mr. Romero told NBC Bay Area..."
Another family grieves the loss of a child because of another senseless mass shooting. Another assault rifle is the weapon of choice. What will it take for Congress to finally outlaw these guns? A mass shooting at the Capitol in D.C.? Doubtful. Congress did NOTHING when a shooter attacked members of Congress at a baseball practice. Those in Congress who lack the courage to pass common sense gun legislation are just like the sociopathic shooters. They have no conscience.
Please donate to Gabby Gifford’s organization and/or Brady United which both fight gun violence:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/giffords-july-19?refcode=em190727-2-full
And/Or
https://www.bradyunited.org
46
Ok, I am on vacation and I wake up to a notification saying there is a shooting in California and I am appalled! These people going around killing people are just crazy! I don’t get it! There is absolutely no excuse for killing anyone! Just think, a little boy was shot in the back with his ENTIRE life to live and if some of the people of this world don’t think it’s TERRIBLE to take that gift of life away from this innocent little boy that is out with his family trying to have a little fun! All o has to say is ughhh
16
A 6 year old kid, shot in the back. Horrifying. Life in America.
36
Did you hear Donald's leading reading of his "message?"
Hearing Donald talk to God is yet another blasphemy.
Alas, we are not New Zealand.
20
Well, we all have a right to our weapons and ammo and gas-guzzling SUVs and Big Macs and jumbo flat-screen TVs. It's the American way.
13
It is unbearable. What have we become as a nation?
It is more than ironic it is chilling that we are so focused on a border wall to keep out people fleeing for their lives and in our own back yard we erect fences to keep out the deranged Americans who are bent on killing us point blank.
What is wrong with this picture?
22
When is enough enough, Americans? How many more people have to die needlessly?
28
One more child dead, six years' old. Think about it: What if that were our child or grandchild? What will it take for this administration to climb out of the back pockets of the NRA? What will it take for gun-rights' activists to relinquish their fanatical hold on the Second Amendment while stomping on our rights for equality and freedom to be who we are. My heart goes out to the community of Gilroy, not far south from my Bay Area home. My thoughts and prayers are with the innocent so brutally murdered and the loved ones left behind. But I am growing so weary of empty words of sympathy. They lack empathy, responsibility, and accountability. There is no love, no compassion left in our country. The cancer of hate seeping from this administration has metastasized to too many people. Yet we are all complicit. Our growing complacency and silence to such egregious crimes abet and hand over those killing machines to the dregs of society. We must do more.
19
There was also a mass shooting a festival in Brooklyn and a Florida synagogue last night.
13
Tears. Again.
This could have been my lovely family.
It could have been any of us.
Why are we putting up with it?
17
@Sophia Because of the internet. We've all been lured by its harpy cry to focus our attention on what happens here, on the internet, in this comment section, rather that on life around us. George Orwell dreamed of big brother, but he couldn't have imagined the way the internet has turned us all into silent sheep, content to post our anger here and then continue in our failed reality.
America is a failed experiment. Even if Trump is out of office, a huge, HUGE percentage of Americans genuinely believe that gun culture is the only way to live. The only reasonable solution I can see for my lifetime is to move away, to Europe or Canada. US culture is rotten at its core, I've got to get out.
8
Jefferson believed that the constitution should be rewritten every 20 years. Given our nation's inability to manage itself when dealing with gun issues, I think it is time to rewrite the second amendment. We are like children who need a baby-proofed house so we don't harm ourselves.
9
@Buck Brown While we're at it, rewrite the 15th Amendment to make voting an absolute right; the 14th to protect *everyone*; the 1st to fix campaign finance; and the 4th-6th and 8th to better protect rights and fix our increasingly dysfunctional legal system.
6
@Buck Brown
One little comment to that. If this were true (revising the Constitution, the 3rd amendment would have been struck from it. But in fact, China is doing exactly what the British did several hundred years ago to colonialists, only to regulate/kill/alter the Uighurs, as an experiment on how to change an entire ethnic group (we might be next). China goes INTO the homes of the Uighurs now, not only takes them away to a concentration - re education/indoctrination. If in the States, that would be a violation of our 3rd Amendment rights.
The most disturbing thing about this story is how deeply on the homepage it was buried. The attitude, to me, feels increasingly as though these shootings are hardly news anymore - like car accidents and fires, this is just what happens now.
32
@court It was the top story in the Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle.
3
@court
Court - here in California it is major first page news.
Nearly everyone knows or has traveled to Gilroy for the Garlic and the Garlic Festival. It is a tiny town relative to its posh and affluent neighbors to its north.
There are very interesting facts about the attack. The Gilroy Garlic festival has been plagued in the past by drunken violent outbursts by specific individual/groups. It appears that the City wanted to reduce that by designating an enclosed space for the event and that is what may have attracted this young man to kill.
1
Unbelievable. In a state (California) so enthralled by the NRA...is there anything we can do?
3
@Geronimo
Vote out of office those who undermine gun control.
18
@Geronimo California has the strictest gun laws in the country. It's not enthralled by the NRA in any way. However strict gun laws don't seem to be helping much. The state really needs to look to states like Illinois and Massachusetts which have more effective laws for preventing mass shootings.
2
Freedoms just another word, for murdered Children.
244
@Phyliss Dalmatian What an offensive over simplification?! Go say that to some Veterans.
1
I AM a Veteran, dude.
14
@Phyliss Dalmatian
Like "thoughts and prayers" is just another name for the NRA.
9
The day after this atrocity, this story is buried at the bottom of the front page in America's newspaper of record, the New York Times.
Fifteen people are mowed down with three deaths, including a six year-old by at a -- for the sweet Love of Larry -- A GARLIC FESTIVAL(!), and readers who scroll to the bottom and squint will eventually find the story.
It has come to this in the Land of the Brave. Mass murder has become so normalized in the national culture media that memorializes it, it it barely draws a mention in the New York Times.
Shame! Shame on us. Shame on our political culture. Shame on the Times. Shame on the media that can treat mass mayhem and murder with such ho-hum insouciance, fiddling while Rome burns.
410
@John LeBaron agreed, it's obscene that the top story is Trump tweeted some obnoxious thing about someone. That is just not newsworthy. At all. He's manipulating the press to bury the actual news, in this case yet another gun-fueled tragedy.
27
I’m up in Canada for a month and this incident has been all over the news. Canadians are appalled by our daily shootings and our president’s racist words. They cannot understand why we elected such a hateful con man. I can’t either.
51
@John LeBaron: and Trump's tweets are the lead story...as if anything coming from that con is worth repeating.
19
When didn't California's strict anti-gun laws work?
2
@James They didn't work because they are not strict enough and neighboring state laws less so. Ban all assault-style rifles from the general public. Even then...we'll need years to get them off the streets since they were sold like candy for so long.
26
They are not strict enough. For example, the assault-style rifle used in the shooting is legal in California. Time to change that nationwide.
12
@James
That's your response to this, James? Do you really think like that? How do we even know he didn't purchase the gun in another state that doesn't have strict laws? No one argues this type of thing won't happen with stricter gun laws. They do, however, argue it will happen less frequently, and that will be considered a win.
14
As a parent, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that the only way to ensure that my family is not shot up by an assault rifle bearing lunatic is to move to another country.
359
@Michael Right there with you. I often take solace in the fact that I live in San Francisco, a generally peaceful place, and in California, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the Nation. But as this horrific crime shows, California's strict gun laws can't matter too much when we live in a nation of gleeful gun-promoting idiots. My kids and I considered going to Gilroy this weekend.
Have you been to Europe lately? From the second you get off the plane, and AREN'T immediately faced with a phalanx of border guards armed with guns, you immediately feel more at ease. The difference in the stress level is palpable--literally everyone there is more calm, more courteous, more mannered. Americans have chosen to create this hateful climate; Americans have chosen to put their pretty guns over their children.
I'll wave at you when I cycle by on the Damrak.
39
@Michael
This is one of the reasons we have decided to stay in Canada. I have 3 black teens, their chances are a lot better here.
39
@Michael I agree... As a parent it's hard to know what the right thing to do is. My child is traumatized on a regular basis by active shooter drills at school and now refuses to go to movie theaters or malls. Every new mass shooting reinforces this anxiety. We've thought about moving out of the country because living with this constant stress is too much. But we'd really like to just stay put and not move away from our family and friends. It definitely feels like the rights of people to own assault rifles is impinging on childrens' rights to have a normal childhood (and not get shot...)
1
Are our police trained to resolve these situations only by shooting to kill?
6
@Yet Another David When there's a guy shooting at a crowd full of families the police aren't going to try and negotiate, they're gonna stop him as fast as possible, and that means shooting him.
16
@Yet Another David
What's wrong with that?
5
@Yet Another David
OK in June 2019, in Sacramento, California, a newish Police Officer was shot dead while attempting to save a victim of domestic violence from her abusers who had "Dah Dah Da" a rifle. All kinds of military type devices, including an armored tank were brought in. There was a standoff between the shooter and the Police. The shooter is in jail. I don't think he has been arraigned yet. There are going to be many, many criminal charges against him.
The police could have easily shot the perpetrator to death. They had cause. He targeted and killed a Police Officer in uniform and on duty. I suppose he will challenge that once in court.
So the answer is - when someone with a rifle, stalks people, breaks chain link fences (I believe), to get into what is a secured and by fee entrance only place, and shoots only once - the Police must kill that person.
I am sure DJT and republicans will issue the standard "thoughts and prayers" response...and move on.
39
Though not yet published on the NY Times, other outlets are describing the shooter as someone who quoted from White Nationalist tomes.
How many more times do we need to see a mass murderer espousing White Nationalist ideas? When is the government going to take seriously this Domestic Terrorism threat?
If the US Government can infiltrate and monitor Islamic Extremist groups to prevent attacks - who often use platforms external to the US to communicate - they sure as heck can do the same with domestic terrorist groups and their ideological sympathizers.
112
@Daniel
The guy is at least part Latin, I believe. His name was
Santino William Legan. Gilroy is a Latin community by virtue of the farm workers and land owners there.
Terrible that a child was killed in yet another avoidable mass murder. Equally awful that 2 other people were murdered, who not only received no note in the headline, but also were not mentioned in the article.
26
@Skeptical Observer
It's possible that their identities have not yet been released, phps. because of the inability to notify next of kin. I suspect we will ultimately know who they were.
6
And they gloss over gun-shot injuries like they're nothing instead of emphasizing that these are injuries that people will likely have to deal with for the rest of their lives.
9
White House? Empathy? Republicans?
25
Terrible and very, very sad.
And the story has slipped from top of page to the middle.
I suppose the next one will be on page two.
Terrifying.
15
First and foremost, condolences to the Romero family, and the other families and friends who lost loved ones in this inconceivable violence. When might America be able to stop saying, "it happened AGAIN"?
Last week, my workplace conducted its first Active Shooter training. Sadly, most of us observed not that it should be unnecessary (which, of course, it should be) but that it felt late in coming. During the session, I wondered if there'd be another mass shooting before we finished. I was off by 80 hours.
Reading Trump's pointless tweet (really, "Be careful and safe" when the shooter is still at large?) I realize, once more that change will not come until he leaves office. The NRA (please, may it implode soon) owns too much of Congress, and Trump is no Jacinda Adern.
In the meantime, anyone looking to promote sane gun legislation should consider supporting giffordspac.org or everytown.org... and vote every against every official who accepts NRA money.
59
@D Price sandyhookpromise.org and bradyunited.org are two other good organizations.
8
@Susi
Thank you for adding to the list, Susi.
Sad that we should need even one...
5
This seems to happen a lot in America, but you actually argue about guns making people safer, to the outside world you are becoming increasingly more baffling as a nation.
224
@Martin
Please know that a good 60-65% of the country want gun control legislation but Trump, McConnell and the spineless Republican Party en masse block any meaningful attempt at such legislation.
57
There always will be disturbed people in the world and until we enact sane gun control laws those people will be inspired and enabled to commit horrific acts of violence like this.
17
"I am living in Central America under a savagely driven government. I have got to fell from here, my home and culture. It's that desperate. But hearing more and more of the murders of innocent American like here at a Garlic Festival in CA where I had hope to relocate, I've got reconsider going North with the hope of finding a better life in the USA," said my friend hearing of our latest slaughter of the innocent.
10
@Abe 46
We are all thinking that Abe. All of us.
1
Apparently, police action was sufficient to minimize the slaughter of a civilian with a combat weapon. There was no need for others to carry weapons in the midst of a crowded summer festival. If others also carried combat weapons and high capacity magazines, there would likely have been worse casualties !
The good people with guns are our authorized law enforcement personnel- not self-appointed vigilantes.
69
Sara, how much death and destruction with a semi automatic weapon can happen in one minute?
10 deaths, 20 deaths, plenty of wounded?
The answer is that only military and police should have weapons of mass children destruction.
7
“The identity of the suspect had not been made public by Monday morning.” Good. Let’s stop providing publicity for these damaged individuals, and maybe we’ll see a slight change in behavior. No name, no fame.
20
Of course there's nothing we can do to prevent this due to the fetishization of firearms. I sure wish we'd get over that.
9
Another mass shooting in gun control utopia California. That state has the most restrictive gun control laws in the country yet California has more mass shootings that any other state in the Union. I don't know why such facts are so difficult for liberals to digest.
2
As long as semi automatic assault rifle’s are available, as they are in California, this stuff will keep happening. California’s gun laws are not tough by any reasonable standard.
8
@Aristotle Gluteus Maximus
Your argument is facile. Many of the guns in the hands of California civilians come from surrounding states with more lax gun control. There are many other factors, but the fact remains that California is victimized by surrounding conservatives. I don't know why such facts are so difficult for conservatives to digest.
19
@Aristotle, I’m not so sure about that.
Think about the shootings in Florida that, unfortunately, set records; Pulse Nightclub and Stoneman Douglas High School come to mind.
4
Guess it's time for that old "thoughts and prayers" song and dance routine. My advice: Vote blue on November 3, 2020, or vote red on November 4.
20
@Michael Tedesco ... accompanied by "it's too soon to talk about gun control in response to this tragedy".
3
And yet the NRA and its enablers will continue to mouth the meaningless mantra that "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."
That is a false dichotomy and always has been. The fact is that people with guns kill people far more often than people without guns.
The problem we face is that the NRA finds nothing wrong with the now-regular slaughter taking place across the nation.
Look at what the NRA does, Folks, not at what it says.
21
Another shooting tragedy and nothing is going to change except that there will be another shooting tragedy.
14
When didn't California's strict anti-gun laws work?
@James
Did you mean "why?"
If so, two issues. One, you cannot say they work or don't work based on individual incidents. All states have laws against drunk driving, people still drive drunk. Two, the California laws will work better when surrounding conservative states enact sane gun laws. Many guns in California come from states where they are far to easy to obtain.
11
@James
I forgot about those border walls between California and the rest of the U.S., most of which have non-existent gun laws.
9
@James They do work. California is ninth in the states with the lowest per capita gun deaths. The Red States are almost all at the wort end of the ranking.
5
I am angry and sick of reading stories like this. When, oh when, is Congress going to “man up” (I’m using that phrase on purpose), get a backbone and address gun control like the public safety threat that it is? On this issue, there is no justifiable argument.
15
The obvious fact is that US as a nation apparently accepts murders of 6 year old children as a perfectly acceptable price for unrestricted rights to bear arms.
Nothing I have seen in the last 30 years since I emigrated to US says otherwise. During this time the frequency of mass murders committed with firearms has increased and the laws regulating firearms purchase and possession have become more relaxed. Therefore, the conclusion that we in fact care more of our guns than our children stands.
46
We must break with our past to find peace. Our nation was founded on gun violence: guns aimed at the indigenous peoples to "secure" the invading Europeans. Then, gun violence was used to enslave Africans and to sanctimoniously battle to continue enslaving humans. That's the ugly truth of our history, but it does not have to be our future.
True, those guns enabled the new Americans to defeat the British empire. And then those guns enabled those who fought the war against the British to demand their right be protected through the Amendments we enshrine as the Bill of Rights -- an afterthought by the framers.
But enough is enough. As a nation, we must reject the assumptions that perversely legitimize the marginalization, persecution, and execution of our fellow inhabitants whenever someone feels scared or angry.
Those who would treat the Second Amendment as sacred should be asked if they hold the Third Amendment to be as holy. How many of us even remember the Third?
The very fact that these are Amendments or revisions points to a deeper lesson about democracy and liberty: these are works in progress -- not pronouncements of an Almighty or surrogates thereof.
We must change ourselves to end the pernicious predicates of gun violence to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
12
Although I had to move away, the Bay Area has always and probably will always be my home base. Out of all the fun and interesting things to do there, the Garlic Festival was really the only single event I ever looked forward to. OMG, I'm so sorry for the Romeros. I have no words.
14
Shootings like this have become a contagion, afflicting the entire country, with the perpetrators possibly feeding on the publicity.
As I write this the police have identified the shooter but not released his name. I wonder what would happen if they provided identifying details but withheld his name from all public statements. This could be a form of public shaming and possibly deter others from thinking they will die in a blaze of glory.
5
Our gun policy has been shaped by gun manufacturers just like in the 80's and 70's smoking policy was dictated by the tobacco industry. And we paid for it with higher cancer rates and higher deaths from tobacco. Right now our gun policy is Mutually Assured Destruction; there were already cops at this event and the shooter was prepared and didn't care!
12
The POTUS's response is conspicuous for its lack of anything consoling or meaningful, with no mention of the victims and the suffering of their families. He feels nobody's pain.
16
The Republican platform sides with the right of murderers to have their guns over the rights of children to have their lives. Motivated solely by NRA welfare and a radical fringe, they have created the conditions for America to be the mass violence capital of the world.
440
@Suzanne Moniz CA has the most strict gun laws, so although I agree with your sentiment, this has more to do with our society. How is it that people are so angry that the only solution is to kill? And where is this anger coming from? Years ago, mass shootings were rare. What is happening to this country?
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@Suzanne Moniz
The NRA had nothing to do with this shooting. You might just as well blame Napa Valley for drunk driving deaths.
4
@Dee
Years ago, when mass shootings were rare, assault weapons were banned.
That is what has happened to this country. We’ve always had crazy people. Now they can buy assault weapons and have a field day.
26
A society where guns are more valued than children is a society in steep decline. The unnecessary deaths these horrific events produce can be fully attributed to every congressional republican of the last forty years.
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@Wm. Blake CA has strict gun regulations. I am not a fan of the NRA but I think this has more to do with a mental health issue in our society where angry people feel it's okay to release hatred on innocent people.
7
@Wm. Blake - WHEN will the COWARDS IN CONGRESS stand up to the NRA and help protect America’s citizens?
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@Wm. Blake you are 100% correct. When Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by an over eager neighborhood watch quack, something told me that was the beginning of the end ... when society accepts the sacrificial death of children in order to support a gun culture.
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I was coming out of Union Station in DC a few weeks ago when suddenly, people started pouring out yelling about an active shooter. My wife and I hightailed it for quite awhile before we stopped and jumped into a ride share. It turned out to be that someone lit off fireworks inside Union Station, not an active shooter. Definitely a terrifying experience to feel so helpless in that situation.
What was most remarkable was that as scared as everyone was, nobody seemed that surprised.
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@cw
Thankfully Union Station was not populated with "good guys with guns", per the NRA mantra, because one of them might have erroneously opened fire.
16
@cw I've had a gun pulled on me twice. As a teacher, I've experienced two lockdowns. It has become the most commonplace thing nowadays. Deeply troubling.
9
Let's accept for a moment that "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." That means we all need to pack firearms when attending the local garlic festival? It's too bad the Monty Python guys aren't still on the air, the U.S. would supply an endless amount of material.
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@Anderson
Indeed, would all those good guys with guns have had perfect judgement and perfect aim? Would they have stopped that bad guy instantly?
9
@Anderson Even given that statement, the 'bad guy with a gun' is still going to kill multiple people before the 'good guy with a gun' can react. No 'guy with a gun' is a much better solution.
15
@Anderson this is exactly the point. You can never know where evil or crazy will show up, so you're always prepared. I put on my seatbelt every time I drive for a similar (albeit far more likely) reason. I carry a firearm at all times. It's unlikely I will ever have to defend myself, my family or anyone else in my community, but I'll be equipped if I have to.
In this particular circumstance, the attacker bypassed "security" and was thus the only non-LEO to be armed. A person intent on committing a crime will not allow "security" measures such as "gun free zones" to deter them. They're criminals, after all. The only thing such "security" measures assure is that those otherwise capable of defending themselves and others are left defenseless.
1
What a tragedy. I hope people will take legislative action to better protect those who would like to gather peacefully.
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@Covert Why do you think legislative action will have any affect? California has the most restrictive gun laws in the nation but they also have the most mass shootings in the country.
1
With this administration the most they will offer are (hollow) thoughts and prayers. They will do nothing to stop it from happening again, I'm sad to say. I keep hoping they will prove me wrong.
@Aristotle, please provide a reference for the most mass shootings.
Also, can you take into account the population of California compared to other states?
9
Just sickening
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Aren't we lucky to have the NRA to remind us that the slaughter of innocents, their blood puddling in our streets, is keeping us "free".
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@Frank O
But don’t forget the NRA and their enablers do offer us “Thoughts and Prayers” in return.
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