In 2022, the Transportation Security Administration confiscated an average of 18 guns every day from would-be airline passengers, most of whom said they “forgot” about carrying the weapon.
The top federal fine for this version of forgetfulness is $14,950, plus whatever punishments apply via state and local ordinances.
From the Associated Press:
“What we see in our checkpoints really reflects what we’re seeing in society, and in society there are more people carrying firearms nowadays,” TSA administrator David Pekoske said.
With the exception of pandemic-disrupted 2020, the number of weapons intercepted at airport checkpoints has climbed every year since 2010. Experts don’t think this is an epidemic of would-be hijackers, but they emphasize the danger even one gun can pose in the wrong hands on a plane or at a checkpoint.
More guns get seized in states with lax gun laws, like Texas, Florida and Tennessee.You’d think more people would remember a $15K penalty, but they don’t.
The concept of being safer by carrying a gun, which is probably the ethos of those bust at the airport, doesn’t hold up when statistics show the 'more guns everywhere' approach has been found to increase violent crime and does nothing to reduce mass shootings.
The National Rifle Association backed mythology about ‘good guys with guns’ doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, with supporters of the idea reduced to citing a few isolated incidents to refute overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
From ABC News:
John Donohue, a law professor at Stanford University, was a co-author of a National Bureau of Economic Research study that examined how gun violence coincides with the ability for individuals to carry concealed weapons, known as Right To Carry (RTC) laws. The NBER study discredited the idea of the “good guy with a gun” as a possible solution to gun violence.
Donohue told ABC News that the research “concluded that allowing citizens to carry handguns seems to increase violent crime 13 to 15 percent by the 10th year” of the laws being enacted in the state.
Another takeaway from the NBER report is that the presence of the gun could turn a would-be good guy into an intentional or unintentional bad guy.
There have been 82 mass shootings this year, compared to 59 at the same time last year, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive .
This past holiday weekend (Feb. 17-19) there were 10 mass shootings in the U.S.with a total of 50 victims. That is an above average number of mass shootings where four or more people were shot for a winter month.
Research suggests gun violence in the U.S. typically increases during the warmer months .
The comeback for gun apologists has to do with mental health. If this were true, all those pro-NRA legislators would support legislation enabling greater access to mental healthcare. The fact is, they don’t.
Instead we have ol’ what’s-her-face out of Georgia looking to honor a young man who crossed state lines and killed people marching because Black Lives Matter.
There is no denying that we have a mental health crisis in this country that’s only getting worse.
However, as George Pyle noted in a St Louis Tribune op ed (you know, the kind that get published after every mass shooting):
But, right at this very moment, there is a man in Helsinki who is consumed by anger at a former girlfriend. In Glasgow, there is a man whose entire self-concept has been wrecked by the divorce petition he just received. In Auckland, there is a man who is coming completely unhinged for reasons that nobody else may ever understand. In Venice, there is a man whose religious beliefs cannot abide the idea that he is not the master of his family.
Each of these poor souls may or may not seek, or be ordered to receive, mental health treatment.
But the possibility that any of them will murder one or more people is a fraction of that found in the United States, where guns rule and people are statistics.
Mental illness is associated with a relatively small portion (around 5%) of gun homicides.
So, you can’t conclude that mental illness causes people to engage in gun violence.
The regularly dispensed bullshit about illegal firearms being a cause of gun violence doesn’t hold up, either. It’s the uniquely American worship of firearms that does more to kill innocent people than anything else.
We live in a society where the historical ideal of firearms holds that they are not weapons of war. They were tools for frontier families, enabling the supply of meat and protecting the family from intruders. Both of these (now) subliminal justifications are now tied to traditional masculine virtues in American society.
Men’s behavior is profoundly shaped by social and cultural expectations related to masculinity – expectations which can push men to arm themselves to gain power and respect. Yes, women do own guns, and I can’t blame them for doing so as they wade through the swamps of toxic masculinity.
Ultimately, gun violence is a problem fostered by the excesses of late state capitalism in the U.S. Lacking any realistic chance of upward financial and social mobility opens up people to violent solutions (usually inflicted on domestic partners and children) and encourages the popularity of cultish behavior.
And, of course, part of that picture has to be things like the $1 billion gun makers have reaped from selling AR-15-style guns over the past decade, at times marketing them as a way for young men to prove their masculinity.
A Committee on Oversight and Reform study released last summer said some ads mimic popular first-person shooter video games or tout the weapons’ military pedigree while others claim the guns will put buyers “at the top of the testosterone food chain.”
Ultimately, control of gun violence starts with a cultural shift, one that’s almost impossible to occur under present circumstances. Vigorously pushing back on gun mythology and higher standards of gun safety are among possible avenues to be pursued.
The reality is that weapons are integral to the anti-woke culture of the right. Teachings about inclusive history, control over women, oppression of LGBTQ+ humans, protecting the suburbs against “others’, denial of climate change, and weapons as a symbol of strength are all part of the MAGA vision.
The suckers watching Tucker Carlson are being conditioned to see all-of-the-above as disgusting and threats to their survival. He and his cronies sell lies and distortions, knowing that they are not related to truth. Democracy as we know it is to be replaced with authoritarianism of the sort where Donald Trump is campaigning on the premise of sending in the Departments of Justice and Education to regulate the behavior of children in school.
‘Many of these carjackers and criminals are 13, 14 and 15 years old’
Undoing the damage done to our nation by antidemocratic forces isn’t going to be easy. This may seem counterintuitive, but a good place to start would be indicting a certain former President of the U.S.
Yes, I know his diehard fans will go nuts and right wingers will say “they” are coming for your guns as they always do when something important happens, but taking down the golden idol is a start.
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Today’s version of: “Every accusation is a confession”
Number of transgender humans arrested recently for sex of any kind =
This week’s confessions:
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