Content Warning 1: This story contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide and needs support now, call or text 988 or chat with the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988lifeline.org. 1/11

The “unsinkable” HMS Titanic sank in April, 1912. Dave MacDonald lost control as he exited Turn 4 on the second lap of the 1964 Indy 500. Eddie Sachs hit him. Both men died. Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in the sky shortly after lift-off in January,…

Implicit in a Feb 6 post, “LADIES PLEASE conceal and carry” [FN1] is handguns “work” as a means of self-defense. Before you [FN2] buy a weapon lethal to you or a loved one, you should research guns and alternatives for self-defense. “Let the people know the facts...”1/10

Peer reviewed studies of gun violence as health risk were prevented, as a practical matter, from 1996 to 2022. The NRA paid for members of Congress to block funding of such studies [FN3] by NIH [FN4] and CDC. [FN5]…

Latest from Lewiston, Maine: 20 people died when one of those “lone gunmen” went nuts w/an assault style weapon. We all should be thankful for the NRA bribing public officials on a scale sufficient to ensure at least two other shooters did not cut loose in other places. 1/7

In post-Citizens United America, the NRA does not have to waste its valuable resources & stuff cash into public officials’ pockets. SCOTUS Associate Justice Clarence Thomas sets a great example of efficient…

100 years ago on this date, D.C. Stephenson was formally inducted “as Indiana Grand Dragon” of Indiana’s KKK. Madison, “The Ku Klux Klan in the Heartland,” 2020, p. 129. In “My Indiana,” Irving Leibowitz, a reporter for The Indianapolis Times, wrote: Stephenson promoted 1/5

himself to Grand Dragon of the Klan in Indiana. [H]e arranged at Kokomo’s Malfalfa Park on July 4, 1923 the greatest gathering of the Klan ever held in the state” 200K kluxers assembled for the konklave...” (p.…

Last Tuesday, during “smalltalk,” a 2-minute segment that appears on John Schmitz’s Facebook podcast “Mouthwash,” that also airs on Mondays on WHMB, Ch 40, at 9:30 pm. The topic was “hatred.” I said we should address hatred as carried out in shootings, and said majority of 1/6

shooters in mass killings are from right-wing groups. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracks mass shootings. In “Murder & Extremism in the United States, 2021" (ADL report) validates my statements on…

I congratulate Guy Relford, host of “The Gun Guy” (spiffy play on words) on WIBC, where he advocates a culture of concealed-carry & a 2nd Amendment the 1st Congress never intended. For every mass shooting in the U.S., Mr Relford should feel good. 5 more are dead in Texas. 1/5

Laughs & chuckles abound on his show & in ads for gun shows, like the pooka (seven-foot-tall imaginary rabbit) from the movie “Harvey” getting shot & a one-liner about the Brady Bill (named for…

One reasonable restriction on guns is to limit the number of firearms one person may own. If a person has too many guns to keep track of or use, that would mean “bad people” can more easily get a gun. But gun manufacturers need markets in which to sell their gadgets of death. 1/5

Guns are durable & can last 100 years or more. Harvard public health researcher Deborah Azrael, who surveyed gun owners in 2016, says the annual attrition rate of guns in the U.S.is about 1%. Gun makers…

NRA’s annual fete is in Indy 4/14-4/16/23. U.S. civilians hold an average of 120.5 guns/100 ppl, “the highest rate in the world by a factor of more than two.” U.S. News & WR, 1/20/23. We are the only country w/more civilian-held guns than citizens. Guns did not make us free. 1/6

After mass shootings, ppl “for” gun control (as favored by GOP Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and II) are told stfu, that guns won “us” freedom fr England & that we should thank guns & the…

Sen Todd Young (R-IN) got $2.89 mil & a grade of A+ from the NRA. As proof that Sen Young earned that grade (& that $) NRA says Sen Young opposed bans on semi-automatic guns (such as AR-15s) & “green tip” (armor-piercing) ammo (that is 35% of AR-15 ammo sold). 1/4

Sen Young is not a friend of the AR-15 because one can’t be a friend of an inanimate object. We can say the slaughter at Uvalde might not have occurred if the 18-year-old killer faced barriers in purchase of the…

Sen Todd Young (R-IN), by 2019, got nearly $3 mil & A+ grade from the NRA. If guns are more likely to harm, than prevent harm to, gun owners, some people won’t own guns. CDC studies can help us know guns’ deterrent effects. CDC is blocked, by Congress, from those studies. 1/4

NRA pays for what it gets. Of course, as individuals we can take first steps against gun violence by not owning guns. The “good guy w/a gun” is what stops a “bad guy with a gun” has been, this week, show to…

To: Sen.Todd Young. Did you accept almost three million dollars ($2,897,582) from the NRA? That was the number in a 2019 report of the Brady Campaign. Did you return any of that money? Was that the total you received from the NRA since taking office in the Senate to 2019? 1/4

That’s about a million bucks a year. A Senator makes a Hundred Seventy-four Thousand Dollars ($174,000). What does a Senator do to earn money at a rate over five times the pay from the U.S. public? Have you…

   The president of the National Rifle Association yesterday stated the NRA has chosen the vehicle by which it will advance its political agenda. That "vehicle" is the Republican Party.

   For years members of each party have crawled over each other to seek NRA support. NRA support means money, as in $$$$. Members of the House of Representatives, who are in a constant fund-raising mode (one estimate is that 25% of a member's time is spent in fund-raising endeavors), take money when…

   Saturday's Show will address the Second Amendment and arguments for control or repeal of the Second Amendment. We stream "live" at 11 a.m.

   One common argument against any restrictions on gun ownership relies upon what is set forth as an historical "fact"---that one of Adolf Hitler's first actions as Chancellor of Germany was to require registration of ownership of guns by private citizens. To authenticate this claim, gun advocates even have a "quote" from Hitler:

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