A 14-year-old boy allegedly fatally shot his older sister in Florida after a family argument over Christmas presents, officials said Tuesday.

The teen had been out shopping on Christmas Eve with Abrielle Baldwin, his 23-year-old sister, as well as his mother, 15-year-old brother and sister’s children, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference.

The teenage brothers got into an argument about who was getting more Christmas presents.

“They had this family spat about who was getting what and what money was being spent on who, and they were having this big thing going on in this store,” Gualtieri said.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    100
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    11 months ago

    Republicans were so lucky to find the gun issue

    They don’t give a shit about guns. But at long as they can keep their voters riled up about it, they won’t have the time to think about real issues like why they’re so poor, why they will go bankrupt if they get really sick, etc etc etc.

    Guns is like religion, it’s just another method of control where the target doesn’t even know they’re being controlled

    • icepick3455o65@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      11 months ago

      There was a time when the NRA fought for a two-day waiting period on handgun sales and limits on concealed weapons permits. And a time when then–California Governor Ronald Reagan signed legislation forbidding the carrying of loaded firearms in public. Before gun control became a progressive cause, it was a right-wing staple, and it was aimed squarely at the rights of African-Americans nationwide.

      In Florida, white “citizens patrols” were permitted to search the homes of free African-Americans for guns “and other offensive or improper weapons, and may lawfully seize and take away such arms, weapons, and ammunition.” The message was clear: guns — like the ballot box, marriage, and the right to free assembly — were for white Americans only.

      That conflict — between the fears of racist whites and the needs of African-Americans to defend themselves — arose again in the late 1960s. The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement recognized that the need for self-defense still existed — in fact, Martin Luther King Jr. applied for (and was denied) a concealed carry permit. Recounting his memories of “Freedom Summer” and the Civil Rights Movement, Charles E. Cobb Jr., former field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, said, “I know from personal experience and the experiences of others, that guns kept people alive, kept communities safe, and all you have to do to understand this is simply think of black people as human beings and they’re gonna respond to terrorism the way anybody else would.”

      On May 2, 1967, a group of Black Panthers took to the steps of the California Legislature carrying revolvers, shotguns, and pistols and read a statement saying, “The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.” In a direct response to the incident, Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act, banning the open carry of loaded weapons, barely two months later. Guns were “a ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will,” he said.

      As former NRA president Harlon Carter said in 1975, the use of guns by violent criminals or the mentally ill was simply the “price we pay for freedom.” In 1980, the NRA endorsed Ronald Reagan — 13 years after Reagan had signed the first open-carry ban in the country.

      White people may be more likely to carry a gun, but black people are more likely to be jailed for it.

    • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Exactly. And they keep sowing this myth that the guns will be taken away at any point in time, but “you should keep them in case we become tyrannical!” And the definition of what is and isn’t tyranny is always subject to change, but usually if it’s tyranny against people the base doesn’t like, then it’s not tyranny.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        11 months ago

        Yeah the same people are turning around and fully supporting a presidential candidate who is openly saying he will be a dictator when elected.

        Just an unbelievable level of stupid.

        • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          They want someone who is going to be a dictator to the people they don’t like. Ask the SA how they were rewarded for their service to the Fuhrer. Oh, you can’t, because they died. Their reward was arrest and summary execution once their usefulness had ended.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      11 months ago

      Republicans were so lucky to find the gun issue

      The best part is that Dems could take it away from them at any time by just deciding not to fight them on that one with little lost in the process.

      • crimroy
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Just out of curiosity, what does that mean?

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          11 months ago

          That means that gun control as an issue only exists because Dems allow it to exist.

          It’s the easiest and largest impact wedge issue for the GOP because gun control is basically a no go so they have to do very little to actually prevent it while it garners them a comparatively large number of wedge issue voters.

          Dems would lose relatively little by just dropping the issue almost entirely while denying a powerful wedge issue to the GOP.