I suppose we should also blame the proliferation of fire stations for the recent thefts there as well. If only there weren't as many fire stations people wouldn't be able to rob them. God forbid we actually blame the people perpetrating the violence.

Hey Charles, why not link to one of your favorite Langston Hughes's poems if you're going to mention his birthday?

@5: Indeed. It's a narrative seesaw.

The Right: "More guns! MORE GUNS!"

The Media: "Shootings on the increase"

The Right: "Don't look at us."

This may not seem as obvious as it seems to many: American criminals with guns are American gun owners. Just as much as me or anyone else.

Criminals using guns to defend themselves (regardless of the perceived legality of that use) perceive themselves as gun owners doing exactly what the gun obsessed American Rightwing claim is the inherent right of American gun owners: to preserve thier life, rights, and masculine rugged dignity.

To them, just like to all gun obsessives, guns solve problems.

So. Yes. It is about the guns. How they are marketed and how the reflexive violent American gun culture has carefully cultivated and fetishized guns as necessary.

people don't commit crimes, guns commit crimes.

here's a thought: the rise in gun violence and theft are both tied to Tammy Tweaker and Fenty Tom. People steal to feed their addiction, I don't think they are about to start a citizen's fire brigade with all that equipment. Additionally, drug dealing and guns pretty much go hand-in-hand. Just yesterday they caught somebody after a shooting, guy tosses the gun into a tent under the overpass, surprise-surprise dude was selling crack. Actual surprise: crack is back?

Gun violence is the price you have to pay to be a gun humping country. We've agreed to pay that price so let's stop with the feigned surprise and theatrics when it only gets worse.

Shootings on the increase... The guns must be going off by themselves now.

It couldn't be due to the rising tide of lawlessness....criminal using them in acts of violence or crimes.

It couldn't be related to the drop in police budgets, officers and detectives on cases?

It couldn't be due to the far left agenda of "nobody is responsible for their actions".

Nah, that would be silly.

Theft, drug addicts, and drug trafficking exist in other nations with better gun regulations. And lo and behold gun crime as it relates to the drug trade in those nations is orders of magnitude lower. How? It's a mystery that can never be solved. Except with more guns!

@14 You postulate that if there were no guns that the criminals would still shoot people with empty pointy gun fingers?

There has been no drop in police budgets. In fact most budgets went up.

"Cities vowed in 2020 to cut police funding — but budgets expanded in 2021"
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/cities-vowed-2020-cut-police-funding-budgets-expanded-2021-rcna9864

At most there has been a freeze on a few increased budgets in a few cities. But the increase in gun crime has been seen all over the US. Not just in the fantasy socialist hellholes constructed by your transparent straw man.

"Homicides also rise where police funding maintained

Yet homicide rates are also increasing in cities that didn't cut spending.

In Houston, a city led by a Democratic mayor, killings have increased, but so, too, has funding for police.

Nashville, Tennessee, also led by a Democratic mayor, increased the police budget but has seen homicides spike 50% so far this year over last.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Fresno, California, have also seen more killings so far in 2021. Both cities have Republican mayors.

Meanwhile, other types of crime are down, according to preliminary statistics and researchers who say crime initially dropped around the world after the pandemic began. While cities are reporting jumps in their homicide rate, there's been no similar increase in other crimes, like burglaries, robberies or drug offenses.

That's not what you'd expect if calls to defund the police were leading to a rash of crime, Abrams said.

"Any theory explaining the rise in homicides would also have to explain why we haven't seen a spike in other kinds of crimes," he said."

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/11/republicans-blame-democrats-defund-police-national-crime-increase-2020-fact-check/7641800002/

As for a leftist agenda to not hold people responsible for their actions? It's an odd statement coming from the rightwing which just vowed to literally pardon criminals for a violent insurrection and coup attempt — quote possibly the most severe lawlessness that can happen in a democracy.

Back to the snow watch, while I suffer in a mini hell.
Bogus companies in our culture.
Amazon Man & the new missus are awaiting the boat to dock. Ffs, read the room mate.

Bezos’ workers got no time to waste
cuz a quarter-minute late’s a Foul
Billionaires’re tender souls
they say taste like
spotted owl.

That’s no excuse “Santi”, All Lives Matter.

@2 Yeshua: I am. And I was in the U.S. Navy when George H.W. "Poppy" Bush was in the White House.

@20 LavaGirl: I can commiserate about wildfire season. At least you and I, although on separate parts of the world and different time zones, are both near water. Hang in there. Sending big hugs, positrons, and VW beeps.

Oh, lookee!! Amazon's Biggest Dildo is now pissed about his MAGA yacht not being delivered in time for his birthday because it's on BACK ORDER!!---WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!