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🇺🇸 Jacksonville Shooting

🇺🇸 Jacksonville Shooting

Plus, a muddy marathon.

August 29, 2023

Good morning, and happy Tuesday. A young boy in Seattle is showing that there’s no barrier to entry for disaster relief; that all it takes is a willing heart, a hot summer day, and some ice-cold lemonade. Just how much did this young philanthropist raise?

Plus, intrepid athletes donned snorkels and slithered through slime on Sunday during one of Britain’s quirkiest sporting events: the World Bog Snorkeling Championships.

Also, it took 15 years for Mode Mobile to disrupt the iPhone. It takes 5 minutes for you to take advantage…

QUICK CLICKS

Idalia Incoming, Trial Date Set, Earthquake in the Bali Sea

US: Tropical Storm Idalia prompts evacuations along Florida’s Gulf Coast ahead of expected Category 3 landfall (CNN)

US: Federal judge sets March trial date in Trump's election interference case (NBC News)

US: A college sophomore was shot dead after trying to get into the wrong South Carolina home, police say (CNN)

US: Biden is widely seen as too old for office, an AP-NORC poll finds (AP)

World: Earthquake of Magnitude 7.0 Strikes Bali Sea, Indonesia (Reuters)

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GUNS

Jacksonville Shooting

On Saturday, a white gunman wearing a mask opened fire with a swastika-emblazoned weapon inside a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida, killing three Black community members. The FBI has been investigating the shooting as a racially motivated hate crime.

Reporting from the Left: Ron DeSantis booed at vigil for Jacksonville shooting victims (NBC News)

Reporting from the Right: DeSantis directs $1M to secure historically Black college, $100K for families of Jacksonville shooting victims (Fox News)

From The Flag: The attack has brought renewed scrutiny to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ record both on guns and race. At a vigil for the victims of the shooting, a video shows onlookers booing DeSantis as he spoke about providing aid and added security to the historically-black Edward Waters University in Jacksonville. Here’s how both sides are covering the shooting.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

A Culture of Racism and Guns Keep Allowing This to Happen

DeSantis cannot simply offer nice words in the face of this tragedy, and he needs to take meaningful action to curb this type of violence.
This shooting was a painful and startling reminder that the remnants of racism continue to fest in Jacksonville.
The shooter’s guns were legally purchased and owned, pointing to how our laws are making it easier for these shootings to happen.

Ron DeSantis needs to do more than denounce the Jacksonville shooter Dean Obeidallah, CNN: “DeSantis must do more than simply denounce this hate-fueled shooting as ‘unacceptable.’ Given the fact that the GOP holds a supermajority in the Florida Legislature, the governor must champion legislation to address gun violence and the apparent cause of this shooting: White supremacy. And since he’s a leading presidential candidate, DeSantis should also be advocating a federal approach to both these issues. … The racist-fueled shooting in Jacksonville is the perfect time for DeSantis to denounce White supremacy…dedicate resources to combating this scourge before more people are killed. When DeSantis is passionate about issues — such as his anti-‘woke’ agenda that has led to restrictions on the teaching of Black history in Florida — he is outspoken and demands legislation be enacted. It’s time that he shows the same passion for both saving lives from gun violence and combating the poison of White supremacy.”

Jacksonville shootings refocus attention on city’s racist past and the struggle to move on Bobby Cain Calvan, Los Angeles Times: “Jacksonville is home to nearly 1 million people, about a third of them Black, just south of Florida’s border with Georgia. The city is still coming to terms with its Southern heritage while trying to become more cosmopolitan in the shadows of the state’s other major cities… In recent years, there were signs Jacksonville was changing, and it might still be. Jacksonville elected its first Black mayor in 2011. A couple years later, there was another watershed moment when a coalition of activists succeeded in persuading the school board, after years of failed attempts, to rename a high school honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. … Social justice activists such as Michael Sampson, who founded the Jacksonville Community Action Committee, have long hoped for permanent change but continue waiting. Saturday’s shooting is ‘a reminder that we’re still at the same place,’ he said.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: There’s no place like America for gun violence Editorial Board, Los Angeles Times

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

This Isn’t DeSantis’s Fault

The criticism being levied at DeSantis is completely unjust, and it thinly veiled attempt to smear him during his campaign.
Republican voters should be watching the governor’s performance closely over the next few weeks.
The crowds booing and blaming DeSantis didn’t give him enough of an opportunity to explain the actions he would take.

How Exactly Would DeSantis’s Policies Have Had Any Effect on the Jacksonville Shooting? Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review: “How? Explain the ‘connection.’ Tell me what the link is supposed to be between what happened in Jacksonville and ‘the changes’ to the curriculum. Which ‘changes’? How do they relate to the crime? Spell it out. They can’t, of course, because the idea is utterly ridiculous. The three Americans who were murdered in Jacksonville on Saturday were killed by a white supremacist who hated black people — and had for a long time. … There isn’t one. And, worse, NPR’s reporter knows it. He’s not inquiring; he’s smearing. The aim was to get DeSantis’s name into the same sentence as a neo-Nazi; as if the two men have anything whatsoever to do with one another, as if DeSantis didn’t call the guy a ‘scumbag’ and a ‘coward’ at the first possible opportunity, as if disagreements as to how schools can best foster universalism are really disagreements over whether or not racial hatred is acceptable.”

Crises in Florida Present a Test of DeSantis’s Mettle Charles C. W. Cooke, National Review: Republican voters [should] ask the following questions when evaluating the next two weeks of DeSantis’s governorship: (1) ‘Did he fulfill the most essential duty of a governor of Florida — the management of hurricanes — well, and if so, what does that tell us about how he would fulfill the most essential duties of the presidency?’ (2) ‘Did he deal with the racially motivated murders in Jacksonville in an appropriate manner? Did he acknowledge that they were a hateful act, carried out in a country with a tragic past? Did he show up in places where he is not popular? And, just as important, did he reject the false premises presented by the media and his opportunistic opponents, and rebuff the inevitable attempts to parlay the crime into policy changes he opposes?’ (3) ‘Did he stand firm against the resuscitation of the illiberal anti-Covid measures he disdains?’

One more opinion piece from the Right: DeSantis Comments On Jacksonville Shooting: "Racially Motivated" Shooting In Jacksonville Was "Cowardly Act" Tim Hains, RCP

FLAG THIS

Americans Overwhelmingly Favor Gun Control Measures

Earlier in April, a Fox News poll indicated an overwhelming majority of American voters favor a wide variety of gun control measures.

87% of voters surveyed said they support requiring criminal background checks for all gun buyers. 77% support requiring a 30-day waiting period for all gun purchases. Vast majorities also support raising the legal age to buy guns to 21 (81%) and requiring mental health checks for all gun purchasers (80%).

80% of voters say police should be allowed to take guns away from people considered a danger to themselves or others. 61% of voters support banning assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons (Axios).

Do you support requiring criminal background checks for all gun buyers?

FLAG FINDS

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WATERCOOLER

Mt. Rushmore Protest, Coin Toss, Amphibious Sloths

On This Day in 1970: A group of 23 Native American activists climbs to the top of Mount Rushmore. Renaming the landmark Crazy Horse Mountain, in honor of the Lakota Sioux leader who famously resisted white Americans’ incursions into the area, the protesters are there to reclaim land they believe to be rightfully theirs under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which guaranteed Indigenous people the right to all of Western South Dakota.

BBC: How coin tosses can lead to better decisions

Scientific American: What’s the World’s Oldest Language?

Men’s Health: The 17 Biggest Food Myths of All Time

Today I learned sloths can hold their breath up to 40-minutes underwater; Dolphins can hold it for only 20 minutes.

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