RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/flagging-future-killers-11565132691

The Dayton and El Paso shootings have spurred familiar calls for more gun control, and by all means let’s have a debate. But the focus should be on denying weapons to the potential killers rather than on gun laws that may be politically satisfying but won’t make much difference.

Start with the calls for more “background checks,” which implies none now exist. Yet nearly all gun purchasers today have their backgrounds checked on the spot via the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Most mass shooters obtained their guns through licensed dealers after checks, or from family members. The Dayton and El Paso killers, and the Gilroy, Calif., shooter of late July obtained their firearms legally.

Democrats want to expand background checks to person-to-person sales, though policing that would be a challenge as most such sales could be done off the books. They also want to extend to 10 days from three the amount of time dealers must wait to get a response from the background check system before proceeding with a sale. Senators Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) want background checks to cover unlicensed sales at gun shows and online, but exempt sales between friends and family.

Congress should have that debate, but no one should think they would reduce the number of mass shootings. Most mass shooters don’t have a criminal history that would pop up in the background system. There is also no evidence that longer waiting periods reduce suicides, homicides or mass shootings. Determined killers can always get a weapon.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/yes-the-u-s-has-a-mental-health-problem/

What Congress can do to fix our broken treatment system

The Dayton killer, according to his ex-girlfriend’s interview in the Washington Post, heard voices, suffered troubling hallucinations, and battled psychosis from his youth.

But there is no connection between violence and mental illness. Say it over and again if you must, at least until you disabuse your lying eyes. The experts have spoken. CNN distilled the media’s recitation of this creed in their headline Monday: “Blaming mass shootings on mental illness is ‘inaccurate’ and ‘stigmatizing,’ experts say.”

“Experts say,” as employed here, means what it usually does: a handful of ideologues get to pawn off their ideology as fact under the pretense of “expertise” to those in the media eager to toe a particular line. Whatever the “experts say,” the fact remains that the untreated, seriously mentally ill (those with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, most often) are significantly more likely to engage in violence. Individuals with schizophrenia, most of whom are non-violent, still commit homicide at a rate 20 times that of the population at large. The prevailing social science on the matter suggests that at least 33 percent of mass shootings are committed by someone with a serious mental illness (even when this is narrowly defined).

What are we to do about it?

Congress might start by repealing the Johnson administration’s so-called “IMD (Institutions for Mental Disease) exclusion” in the Medicaid statutes, which prevents individuals over the age of 21 from using Medicaid funds at a facility with more than 16 psychiatric beds. The measure was included to forward the vision of Johnson’s late predecessor, John F. Kennedy, whose final legislative act was the signing of the Community Mental Health Act (CMHA) of 1963. CHMA usurped state control of mental-illness treatment and anointed the federal government architect of an entirely new method of care.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/another-evil-and-deranged-bastard/

I have been away, so have just caught up on the reporting on the Dayton shooter from the last couple of days:

Connor Betts, the Dayton, Ohio mass shooter, was a self-described “leftist,” who wrote that he would happily vote for Democrat Elizabeth Warren, praised Satan, was upset about the 2016 presidential election results, and added, “I want socialism, and i’ll not wait for the idiots to finally come round to understanding.”

Betts’ Twitter profile read, “he/him / anime fan / metalhead / leftist / i’m going to hell and i’m not coming back.” One tweet on his page read, “Off to Midnight Mass. At least the songs are good. #athiestsonchristmas.” The page handle? I am the spookster. On one selfie, he included the hashtags, “#selfie4satan #HailSatan @SatanTweeting.” On the date of Republican Sen. John McCain’s death, he wrote, “F*ck John McCain.” He also liked tweets referencing the El Paso mass shooting in the hours before Dayton. The Twitter page contains multiple selfies of Betts.

It’s a banal point to make at at this point, but there obviously hasn’t been the same focus in the media on his politics and religion as there would be if he had been a right-wing Christian. Indeed, the press has been scrupulous about attributing a motive to him, taking an appropriate care it doesn’t show in other cases.

Politics aside, he was obviously deeply disturbed:

During his senior year of high school, Connor Betts seemed to always have caffeine pills in one hand and an energy drink in another. He was unable to sleep, he told his then-girlfriend Lyndsi Doll, because of dark, animal-like shadows that tormented him at night.

Seven years after they dated, Doll recalls Betts as a serious and reserved kid who wrestled with hallucinations and menacing voices in his head.

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&i

Last week — after President Trump via Twitter had accused Representative Elijah Cummings of Baltimore of “incompetent leadership” and making a “mess” of his very-high-crime, high-poverty district, and after numerous media critics had responded by hurling the charge of “racism” at Trump — I weighed in with a post titled “It’s About Time That Someone Pushed Back About The Disaster Of Democrat-Controlled Cities.” The post made what I think is the obvious point that when a group of people have for decades promoted certain government spending programs as the appropriate solution to low incomes and poverty in African American communities, and when after decades of time and trillions of dollars of spending the problems of low income and poverty persist and indeed worsen, it is entirely appropriate to hold the promoters of these spending programs accountable for their failure.

On July 30, the often-creative Kevin Williamson of National Review offered his own even more contrarian view on the subject, in a piece titled “Which Party Can We Blame For Poverty And Crime?” (More contrarian than the Manhattan Contrarian? How is that even possible?) Williamson points out that Census data from around the U.S. give no clear correlation between poverty and crime on the one hand, and Republican versus Democratic governance on the other. He notes that the very poorest county in the whole country is Owsley County, Kentucky — a place with almost entire white demographics (98+%) and very strongly Republican politics. Meanwhile, there are numerous examples of Democrat-run cities that Williamson says are “very good places to live,” with relatively low-ish rates of crime and poverty. He cites Austin and Denver as prime examples.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/06/nation-mourns-shootings-el-paso-dayton-chicago-sees-violent-weekend-year/

Fifty-five people were wounded by gunfire in Chicago this weekend, with seven killed in what became the most violent weekend for the Windy City this year.

The Chicago Tribune reported that nearly all of the gun violence that took place Friday night through Monday morning occurred in the west and south sides of the city, with victims ranging from ages 5 to 56 years old among those whose wounds were fatal.

The weekend shootings left the city with a toll that was slightly higher than Chicago’s last major outburst of gun violence during the first weekend of June, when 52 people were shot and eight of them killed.

According to data from the Tribune, more than 1,600 people have been shot this year in Chicago, along with 300 homicides. While the paper reports that both numbers are still down from last year, the city has struggled to shed its reputation as a crime-infested city where gun violence is rampant even though Illinois has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

Residents in the state are required to have a license to own a firearm and must undergo a 72-hour waiting period before owning a gun. Residents are also subject to “red-flag laws,” where relatives or law enforcement may request that a court take away firearms from individuals who could be a threat to themselves or others.

This weekend’s outbreak of violence in Chicago comes on the same weekend where back-to-back shootings occurred in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, leaving a total of 31 people dead. The weekend’s events have once again led to calls for more gun regulations from Democrats and for an increased focus on mental health from Republicans.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/08/05/whats-

The anti-Trump forces, now stripped of their Russian collusion ammunition, have invented another imaginary threat they hope to weaponize against the president: The public menace posed by “white supremacist” terrorism.

Much like the collusion conspiracy theory—which relied on random incidents, fictional villains, unconvincing evidence, and the Bad Orange Man in the White House—there is little substance to this purported danger.

Unironically, the whole ruse is being pushed by the same people who foisted the Russian collusion hoax on the American people for three years in the hopes of prompting President Trump’s impeachment and removal. The political agenda behind this manufactured white supremacy crisis is equally sinister because its specific purpose is to influence and undermine the 2020 elections.

The “white supremacy” canard is intended to further demonize Trump; falsely defame his supporters as white supremacists; and pressure nervous voters into defeating Trump and Republican candidates next year. The strategy is as cynical as it is pernicious.

Let’s clear one thing up before I get into the details: There is no systemic threat posed by white supremacy. Domestic white terrorists are not the same as, let alone worse than ISIS Jihadis. There has been no massive “surge” in white supremacy activity, as I wrote in November. These groups remain fringe, disorganized, and unrespected.

In his Senate testimony last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray was intentionally vague when questioned by Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) about the supposed rise of white supremacy.

“In terms of number of arrests, we have, through the third quarter of this fiscal year, had about, give or take, a hundred arrests in the international terrorism side, which includes the homegrown violent extremists,” Wray explained. “But we’ve also had about the same number, again, don’t quote me to the exact digit, on the domestic terrorism side. And I will say that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence but it includes other things as well.”

Some version of what you might call white supremacist violence? Even giving Wray the benefit of the doubt, that means the FBI investigated roughly 50 or so cases of some version of white supremacy. Not exactly solid evidence to justify a law enforcement, political and media war against white supremacy.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274523/judges-cave-cair-lloyd-billingsley

In 2006, federal judge Garland E. Burrell sentenced Hamid Hayat of Lodi, California, to 24 years in prison for, as the U.S. Department of Justice explained, “a series of terrorism charges related to his 2003/2004 attendance at a jihadi training camp in Pakistan and his 2005 return to the United States with the intent to wage violent jihad.”

As prosecutors charged, the man with “a jihadi heart and a jihadi mind” intended to target hospitals, banks and grocery stores. Hayat boasted about giving money to Sipah-e-Sahaba, a group that Pakistan declared a terrorist organization. The case was one the first major prosecutions of terrorism in the wake of 9/11.

Nearly 14 years later, judge Burrell, an appointee of  George H.W. Bush, has vacated the sentence and conviction of Hamid Hayat, now 36.  This  action was based not on new exculpatory evidence but what amounted to a post-facto performance review of Hayat’s trial attorney by magistrate judge Deborah Barnes.

In May of 2006, Hamid’s father, Umer Hayat, pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI and United States Customs and Border Protection. He was tried by a separate federal jury but the proceeding ended in a mistrial and Umer Hayat gained release in August of 2006. Hamid Hayat’s attorney Wahzma Mojaddidi, a former CAIR president in Sacramento, contended there was no evidence that Hamid attended a terrorist training camp and pushed for a new trial.

In 2007, federal authorities argued against a new trial, and as their legal brief noted, Hayat claimed that jihad was the duty of all Muslims. In recorded interviews, Hayat gleefully stated he was “so pleased” that jihadis had cut Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl “into pieces.” Hayat said Pearl “was Jewish” and that as a result of this “good job,” now “they can’t send one Jewish person to Pakistan.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/basketball-player-uses-girlfriends-urine-to-fake-drug-test-finds-out-hes-pregnant/

Well, this is both awkward and a solid entry for a Darwin Award. A basketball player attempting to return to the game after a hiatus found a way to spectacularly fail his drug test and get some family news at the same time.

The New York Post:

D.J. Cooper, a former Ohio University star who’s played professionally in Europe, is currently suspended by FIBA after using someone else’s urine for a doping test — a sample which showed Cooper was pregnant,  according to Eurohoops.net.

Cooper, 28, was interested in joining Bosnia as a naturalized player. Specifically, Cooper tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which is produced during pregnancy by the placenta. The urine allegedly belonged to Cooper’s girlfriend, according to RTV Slovenia.

It’s unclear what Cooper might have been trying to hide, but it stands to reason he wouldn’t have used his girlfriend’s urine had they known she was pregnant.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/anti-gun-agitators-harass-sen-mcconnell-at-his-home-just-stab-the-motherfcker-in-the-heart/

Twenty to thirty left-wing agitators gathered outside of Senator Mitch McConnell’s house in Louisville, Kentucky, Monday night and made a ruckus to agitate for gun control in the wake of two mass shootings that roiled the nation over the weekend.

In addition to gun reform, one activist told WHAS11 News that the protesters also wanted to address immigration and LGBTQ rights.

The protesters told the local media they had been trying to reach the Senate Majority Leader but he hadn’t answered his phone. McConnell has been convalescing at his home since he fractured his shoulder in a fall on Sunday.

One of the agitators, a local Black Lives Matter leader ostensibly upset about gun violence, said on Facebook Live that she hoped someone would “just stabs the mother f*cker in the heart, please.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/politics-and-the-shooters-11565047588

Police in Dayton say they’re still seeking a motive for Connor Betts’ shooting spree that killed nine people, including his sister. But whatever turns up, we hope no one blames Elizabeth Warren.

We say that because the news site Heavy.com, which gained access to Betts’ Twitter account before it was taken down, reports that his politics appear to have been left of center. The shooter recently tweeted that he would “happily” vote for Senator Warren. His Twitter profile also read: “he/him/anime fan/metalhead/leftist/i’m going to hell and i’m not coming back.” In December last he wrote: “This is America: Guns on every corner, guns in every house, no freedom but to kill.” A month before that, he wrote: “Vote blue for gods sake.

The Dayton shooter’s leftist ravings are notable only because the media and Democratic politicians have drawn a straight line between the El Paso shooter’s anti-immigrant “manifesto” and Donald Trump and the Republican Party. After so many recent mass shootings, it is disheartening to see how quickly the issue of these two highly disturbed shooters was overwhelmed by the urge to assign political causation.