After Tuesday’s school shooting in Uvalde, Texas left 19 children and two adults dead, we wondered how difficult it was to order a DDM4V7, one of the two rifles the gunman bought a few days after turning 18 years old, accordingto reports.
The answer: Five clicks.
The AR-15-style weapon, made by Georgia-based Daniel Defense, sells online for $1,870, plus tax. Shipping to a local gun shop is free.
After clicking “place order” we received an email confirming the purchase, promising to send a tracking number once the gun was on its way to the pickup point.
At no time were we asked for proof of age or of a clean criminal record, both of which are legally required to buy a firearm. That will happen when we pick up the gun at a local licensed dealer.
Aside from that, it was a routine purchase, not unlike ordering a Lego set from Amazon or a pair of shoes from Zappos. Except, of course, for the lethality of the product.
Buying a gun online in Texas
We knew exactly what we wanted, based on a copy of a receipt the gunman shared online that was published by the Daily Dot, an Austin-based outlet that covers online culture. But undecided shoppers can watch a video highlighting the rifle’s features. Weighing just over six pounds, it’s “extremely maneuverable” and “a perfect addition for anybody’s gun safe,” according to the host.
There are also reviews. All 46 for the DDM4V7 gave it five stars, including one that calls it a “terrific weapon.”
Daniel Defense, which was founded by a garage-door business owner in 2000, touts that most of the parts in its guns are made in-house. It’s one of the US’s largest privately owned gun manufacturers, according to Forbes.
Under Texas law, buyers of rifles have to be 18 or older and have no felonies or domestic violence convictions, and the federal government requires a background check. We didn’t get any notices or warnings about that during the checkout process. (Elsewhere on its site, Daniel Defense promises it is “100% compliant, 100% of the time.”)
Texas Gun Experience, the local dealer we selected for pickup, tells shoppers to be ready to show ID and complete a three-page form for the background check, which is done on the spot via an FBI database accessible from the gun shop.
That’s it. We’d ordered a gun. It won’t be delivered at our doorstep, like that Lego set or the pair of shoes, and to take it home we’ll have to fill out paperwork for a background check (in fact, you can’t order it to your home, only to a licensed dealer). Still, the fact that shopping for a firearm does not feel noticeably different than ordering those everyday items is a telling commentary on the prevalence of guns in US culture.
There is no single solution to this problem but one thing that needs to be said is, "Anyone who would own an assault rifle or desire to own one is a morally depraved individual." Blaming this on mental illness is dishonest. Statistically, the mentally ill are more law abiding than the mentally healthy. Blaming it on mental illness demonizes the mentally ill.
More evil than the shooters are the Republicans and their gun-centric base.
One Solution: Since it is impossible for police to protect the innocent from the depraved Gunfederates and Trump mobsters we should at least give folks a heads up by publishing a gun owners registry just like we do for sex offenders. It should contain the names and contact information of gun owners and what guns they own. This way citizens and first responders would know what they may be facing and who in their neighborhood is a gun nut and who is merely a sportsman. The guy with the hunting guns and personal protection guns is very different than the asshole with weapons of war. Forewarned is forearmed.
Race is a component in these massacres as is politics but I think it is best that we try not to mix them and stay on point. There may even be racists who are for commonsense gun laws though not many. As to race, there is one race, the human race of which many Republicans are not members.
Treasonous Trump is dedicated to exposing the lies, high crimes, and misdemeanors of President Donald Trump.
To me this shows that gun laws alone will do little to stop these massacres. The depravity that cultivates Trumpism/Republicanism is the root cause. Short of spaying and neutering these sub-humans we are forced to use more difficult solutions.
1. Doctors should ask before prescribing certain drugs if their are guns in the home. Many mass shootings have involved psychiatric medications.
2. 18 yearolds can't buy booze but they can buy guns. That needs to stop.
3. Gun nuts need to be humiliated and mocked until they see that rights come with responsibilities and that guns are not toys.
4. People with illegal guns should face minimum of 10 years in prison or 5 years if the agree to be spayed or neutered.
5. All military style assault weapons should be confiscated.
6. Police unions that up until now have enabled police to break the law need to step up for their officers in protecting them from these high powered killing machines.
When it comes to depravity the Bible Belt aka Trumpistan wins the gold medal.
CNN anchor John King, displaying a graphic showing the proliferation of school shootings in America since 2008, told his audience on Tuesday to “ demand the conversation” about gun violence.
“I’m going to be quiet. Just watch the map fill in,” King said during his daily political and news program on Wednesday. “These are just school shootings in the United States of America since 2008.”
King was silent as dozens of red dots popped up on the screen, usually used to show vote totals and electoral results on election night. After 22 seconds, the map was covered from coast to coast with some 500 school shootings in the U.S. since 2008.
“Those are our children. Those are our children,” King said. “It is everywhere in America. Everybody has to be a part of these conversations. Whatever your views, demand the conversation.”
The segment came as part of CNN’s continuing coverage of a mass shooting on Tuesday in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old gunman opened fire in an elementary school, killing 19 children and two adults.
The incident has thrust the epidemic of gun violence back into the national spotlight and sparked calls from outraged citizens for U.S. leaders to do more to prevent mass shootings.
Baseless anti-trans theory about Uvalde shooting spreads online, touted by U.S. congressman
Courtesy Sam
Jo Yurcaba and Ben Goggin and Ben Collins
Sam, a transgender woman who lives in Georgia, said that on Tuesday evening, Reddit users started commenting on a photo of her that she had shared on the platform three months ago.
They told her the photo was being shared on 4chan, a forum website with little moderation, and people were saying that it showed the shooter who killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday. The shooter, identified as 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, was killed on the scene by police.
Sam, 20, started posting photos of herself and her art online to help build up her confidence. (Courtesy Sam)
Sam, 20, who asked to go by her first name to protect her privacy and safety, told NBC News that the photo and others were taken from her personal Instagram page, and that she’s faced harassment and threats as the image has spread.
“This isn’t the first time I was harassed, but it is the first time I’ve been accused of murder,” she said.The false claims started shortly after news of the shooting first broke. A photo of Sam was posted to 4chan on Tuesday afternoon, in a post that began with “here’s the shooter’s reddit” before linking to her Reddit account and posting a transphobic slur. While some users said they did not believe the photo was of the shooter, other users posted new threads soon afterward, using pictures with fewer details of Sam’s face from her profile.
She said she’s feeling annoyed more than anything: “I’m more worried about the families of the victims of the attack,” she told NBC News.
Social media users and trolls on 4chan, Twitter and Facebook are using Sam’s photos and images of at least two other transgender women to spread the baseless theory that the shooter was transgender. In some cases, they have created collages that place the women’s photos alongside images from an Instagram page believed to have belonged to the shooter.
The claims were spread by some prominent conservatives on Tuesday.
Rep. Paul Gosar, an Arizona Republican, said of the shooter in a since-deleted tweet, “It’s a transsexual leftist illegal alien named Salvatore Ramos.” Gosar has not returned a request for comment.
One of Sam’s photos was shared by the Young Conservatives of Southern Indiana Facebook page, which has more than 4,000 followers.
Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who was successfully sued for defamation for falsely claiming the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a hoax, also echoed the misinformation that the Uvalde shooting suspect was trans. Representatives for Jones’ website did not immediately respond for comment.
Conservative personality Candace Owens joined in on Wednesday, referencing “cross-dressing” photos she said she’d seen of the suspect. Owens has previously shared misinformation in her feeds and unsuccessfully sued Facebook in 2021 after the company added a fact-checking warning to one of her posts.
The photos that social media users are claiming show the shooter are actually of three different transgender women wearing skirts, including Sam, according to Trans Safety Network, a U.K.-based group that monitors online threats made against the transgender community. The group wrote in a post that all three women have confirmed they are alive.
In an effort to debunk the theory, Sam shared a photo of herself standing in front of a transgender Pride flag on Reddit Tuesday evening and wrote, “It’s not me, I don’t even live in Texas.” In response to a comment on the post, she said she just wants “to live without being attacked when I leave my house.” She also shared another photo of herself holding a piece of paper with the date on it.
Image: Sam on May 25, 2022. (Courtesy Sam)
She encouraged people to be careful about what they see online.
“Transphobic people exist and people are quick to blame someone for terrible things instead of looking for the truth about what actually happened,” Sam told NBC News.
Despite the fact that the posts including Sam’s photos violate Twitter and Facebook’s misinformation policies, the platforms have done little to combat the emerging false narrative.
A review of posts on Twitter and Facebook Wednesday morning found numerous tweets and posts using Sam’s image and labeling her as the shooter. In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson said, “In line with our hateful conduct policy, we will require the removal of Tweets that share misleading claims about the identity of the perpetrator with the intent to incite fear or spread fearful stereotypes about a protected category.” Additionally, the spokesperson said, “In line with our synthetic and manipulated media policy, we will require Tweets to be removed if they contain media that present false or misleading context surrounding the identity of the perpetrator.”
A Meta spokesperson said the company is removing content that violates its Bullying & Harassment policy, which forbids content “in which criminal allegations pose off-line harm to the named individual.”
“They’ve been relying on me and others to report the misinformation before doing anything,” Sam said.
Some advocates condemned the basely theory that the shooter was transgender.
“This has GOT to stop,” Erin Reed, a trans advocate, said on Twitter. She went on to reference investigations that Texas opened into the parents of some transgender youths in March following a directive from Gov. Greg Abbott that ordered state agencies to investigate claims of parents providing gender-affirming medical care to minors.
“A sitting congressman just spread a lie about the Texas shooter to pin it on transgender people spread by troll sites, in a state where they are spending more time banning trans kids than they are spending regulating guns,” she said.
Another advocate, Charlotte Clymer, criticized Gosar and said he “owes the public an apology.”
“It’s pathetic that @DrPaulGosar sought to exploit this horrific tragedy for anti-trans propaganda,” she said. “There is zero evidence that the shooter is transgender.”
Reporter and MSNBC contributor Katelyn Burns said this isn’t the first time “right wing liars have tried to falsely claim a mass shooter was trans.” She referenced an article she wrote in April 2018 following a shooting at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, in which three people were wounded.
The shooter died by suicide by the time police arrived at the scene, and afterward, some far-right websites and conservative critics speculated, without evidence, that the shooter was transgender.
Similarly, Burns noted that following a 2015 shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, that left three people dead, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, shared the unsubstantiated theory that the shooter was transgender after a far-right outlet reported that he registered to vote as a woman.
“Well, it’s also been reported that he was registered as an independent and a woman and transgendered leftist activist, if that’s what he is,” Cruz said during a campaign event in 2015, according to audio obtained by the Texas Tribune.
Cruz’s campaign later told news outlets that he was trying to make a point that there were still many unknown details about the shooter.
I'm not going to speculate as to whether mass shooter Payton Grendon's parents were Trumpanzees or bad parents. They did allow their little fucker to own body armor and military assault weaponry. They did know than the little bastard was a racist with hate in his heart. Draw your own conclusions of contact his father and ask him everything you want to know. If he won't talk, here's the 411 on his mother Pamela Grendon.
Pamela and Paul Gendron the two who produced and nurtured this demon child.Judging by the snouts on these two, eyes and teeth, they look more like brother and sister than husband and wife and perhaps Trumpanzees but only genetic testing will be able determine than with complete scientific certainty.
Whether or not Payton is the result of nurture or nature is unknown but what is known is that he's an evil bastard. He's probably more than just a bad seed. This needs to be found out because chances are his parents are complicit and or culpable. They may face criminal charges.
