Guns

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised The United States continues to be peculiar in handing out powerful magazine-fed firearms to almost anyone who wants one and not requiring background checks on private purchases even if these are made at gun shows. 80% of civilian-owned firearms world-wide are in the US, and […]

Guns

NRA: The Public be Damned (Political cartoon)

contributors

By Paul Jamiol | ( Jamiol’s World ) Courtesy Jamiol’s World

Democratic Party

Occupy Congress? House Democrats Stage Sit-In to Force Vote on Gun Control

contributors

TeleSur | – – Democrats have been demanding changes to gun control policy in the wake of the Orlando club shooting. U.S. House Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor Wednesday to protest U.S. Republicans’ refusal to hold a vote on gun control measures, several media outlets reported. Led by civil rights icon John […]

Featured

Top 7 ways to tell if Someone is lying about being a ‘Salafi Jihadi’

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Regulars at Pulse Nightclub are saying that Omar Mateen, the alleged shooter in the early Sunday morning massacre there, was himself a regular! The Orlando Sentinel writes, “‘Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would […]

Domestic Terrorism

Omar Mateen and Rightwing Homophobia: Hate Crime or Domestic Terrorism?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – US law enforcement is at least initially categorizing the horrific Orlando shootings as “domestic terrorism.” I don’t think it probably was terrorism in any useful sense of the term. I used to know what domestic terrorism was, before the term became politicized in the past decade. […]

Far Right

Will the Militias & gun nuts volunteer as Donald Trump’s Storm Troopers?

contributors

By Bob Dreyfuss | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Can it happen here? That’s the question circulating now that Donald Trump, the nativist, rabble-rousing xenophobe, and billionaire, is threatening to capture the Republican nomination for president of the United States — and it’s a question that isn’t being asked only on the left. It’s […]

African-Americans

Oregon Standoff: What If The Armed Men Were Muslim Or Black?

contributors

Jessica Sherry | AJ+ | (Video News Report) | – – “The Ammon Bundy–led armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon isn’t just about land rights. Dena Takruri gets the thoughts of occupiers LaVoy Finicum and Jon Ritzheimer on what would happen if they were brown, black or Muslim. Shot by video […]

Guns

A Letter from Norway on our Epidemic of Mass Shootings

contributors

By John L Hanson | (Informed Comment) | – – Why is it easier to buy a gun than to board a Plane? Why doesn’t America change their weapon law? What is your view on the Gunlaw in the USA? I am teaching in Norwegian Upper Secondary schools this academic year as a Fulbright Scholar […]