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Carrie Underwood Honors Las Vegas Shooting Victims at 2017 Country Music Awards


This year’s annual Country Music Awards was not marked by tragedy, but rather hope and some good ol’ fashioned Nashville perseverance.

Carrie Underwood took time out of the award show’s standard “in memoriam” segment—which recognized country music artists who have passed away this year, such as legends Don Williams and Glen Campbell—to also pay tribute to the 58 victims of the devastating Las Vegas shooting that occurred last month. (The shooter specifically targeted attendees at a country music event: the Route 91 Harvest Festival.)

Performing a gorgeous rendition of the Christian hymn “Softly and Tenderly,” Underwood visibly became overcome with emotion when a black and white photo compilation of the victims appeared on a screen above the stage.

Underwood hosted the show alongside Brad Paisley for an astounding 10th time in a row, and the duo dedicated a significant portion of their opening monologue to encourage people to lighten up and enjoy the show for as long as they can—despite all of the terrible things going on in the world. The country community really is like a family, after all. “This has been a year marked by tragedy, impacting countless lives, including so many in our country music family,” Underwood said. “So tonight, we’re going to do what families do: come together, pray together, cry together, and sing together, too.”

Paisley added: “The way we see it, the best way to honor our fans is to play our music—loud and proud. Our music lifts people up and that’s what we’re here to do tonight. So this year’s show is dedicated to all of those we’ve lost and to all of those who are still healing. We love you and we will never forget you.”

Related: 2017 CMT Awards: Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban Deliver a Showstopping Duet





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Sutherland Springs Shooting Suspect and Domestic Violence


As you’ve no doubt already heard, another mass shooting rocked the nation yesterday after at least 26 people—including children—were killed during a church service in the small town of Sutherland Springs, Texas.

While the country mourns, investigators look into motives, and many call, once again, for stricter gun control regulations, one common thread seems to have emerged that links the suspected gunman—identified as Devin Patrick Kelley—to many of the men who have committed this sort of atrocious crime before him. And that’s a history of domestic violence.

It has been widely reported that Kelley had served in the Air Force but was court martialed in 2012 for assaulting his wife and child. Per the NY Times, he was sentenced to 12 months’ confinement and received a “bad conduct” discharge in 2014. Though federal law prohibits those convicted of domestic violence from having firearms, per ABC News it is unclear if there were exceptions in this case that would have allowed Kelley to purchase the military-style rifle reportedly used in Sunday’s shooting.

According to an Everytown for Gun Safety study that used FBI data and media reports to analyze mass shootings from 2009-2016, 54% were related to domestic or family violence. And while a direct motive still seems unclear in the case of the devastating shooting in Las Vegas, the shooter, Stephen Paddock, was reported to have been abusive to his girlfriend. The ex-wife of Pulse nightclub shooter, Omar Mateen, has also said that he beat her repeatedly. And let’s not forget the San Bernadino school shooting where the shooter’s wife was killed, after previously accusing him of abuse and filing for divorce. The list goes on and on.

Details continue to unfold in this latest tragedy and as we address all the issues that surround gun violence, we must pay attention the red flag of domestic violence and try to figure out how to better protect women, children, and our communities as a whole.



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Church Shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas Leaves at Least 20 Dead


A mass shooting took place in a Texas church on Sunday and has left more than 20 dead and at least 20 injured, according to reports from local, national, and international outlets. The act of domestic terrorism occurred at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, a small rural community located 35 miles east of San Antonio. Local reports say a gunman walked into the church during the morning service and began shooting. The gunman has since been killed, though further details are still breaking.

Albert Gamez Jr., a commissioner in Wilson County, where Sutherland Springs is located, told CNN that he’d been told by police that the shooter was chased into the next county, where he was killed, though it’s unclear whether he killed himself or whether police killed him.

Although it’s not an officially confirmed estimate, he told the BBC that “what they’re telling me, [there are] like 27 deceased and over 20, 25 injured.” The editor of the area’s Wilson County News has said there are children among the fatalities; one of whom is reportedly the pastor’s 14-year-old daughter (he was in Oklahoma over the weekend, a rarity). Residents also told the BBC that about 50 people usually attend the service at this church on a given Sunday, making the high numbers even more heartbreaking.

Sutherland Springs, population 643, is a close-knit town, according to reports. Locals describe it as having a gas station and a post office. “That’s about all there really is,” one told the Times.

“You never expect something like this,” Gamez told the New York Times. “My heart is broken.”

“This is something that happens in a big city,” said a local who works at a gas station nearby. “I would never have thought this would have taken place here. It’s just too tight a community. It doesn’t make sense.”

President Donald Trump tweeted about the shooting soon after news broke. He’s currently on a diplomatic tour of Asia. His daughter and informal White House adviser, Ivanka Trump, also tweeted a statement.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted a statement sending the “thoughts and prayers of all Texans.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott echoed his sentiments in his own post.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) also tweeted, expressing gratitude for the first responders:

Las Vegas’ mayor, Carolyn Goodman, also offered her solidarity to the town:

The hospital continues to receive more injured in the shooting as the story breaks. We’ll update the story as we know more.





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The 'Mean Girls' Cast Reunited to Raise Money for Las Vegas Shooting Victims


PHOTO: Paramount/Everett Collection

On October 3, a.k.a. Mean Girls Day, the movie’s cast have come together to raise money for the victims of Sunday’s deadly shooting in Las Vegas. In a video shared by the iconic 2004 film’s stars on social media on Tuesday, they set a goal of raising $300,000 for the National Compassion Fund.

In the video, which was posted to Twitter by Jonathan Bennett, he, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, and Daniel Franzese take turns calling their fans to action. “We know today is a special day, and that’s because of fans like you. It’s October 3rd,” they say. “This year, though, we’re doing things a little differently. We want to turn the attention to those who need it. After Sunday night’s tragic events in Las Vegas, let’s give back. In honor of Mean Girls Day, we’re asking each of you, the groolest fans out there, to help. We’ve started a GoFundMe page, and 100 percent of the proceeds will go to the National Compassion Fund. If every fan gave just $3 in honor of October 3rd, just $3, we would hit our goal of $300,000 in no time.”

They add, “Guys, look. We know ‘fetch’ is never gonna happen, but we can make this happen. On October 3rd, I’ll ask you what day it is, but we’ll also ask you to help. So, you go, Glen Coco, to GoFundMe.com/October3. Thank you for being a fan and thank you for your help.” In the three hours since Jonathan posted the video online, the campaign has already raised more than $9,000.

According to the GoFundMe page, the National Compassion Fund is sponsored by the National Center for Victims of Crime, and previously helped raise money for victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, the Aurora movie theater shooting in 2012, and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The NCF website promises that “100% of the funds received through the National Compassion Fund Las Vegas will be distributed directly to victims,” and that donations will provide “critical support to the victims and their families” in both the short- and long-term. Fetch, indeed.

Related: Here’s 5 Ways You Can Help Victims of the Las Vegas Shooting



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Megyn Kelly Speaks Out Against Gun Control After Las Vegas Shooting


Megyn Kelly Today was preempted for NBC’s coverage of the shooting that killed at least 59 people and injured at least 527 in Las Vegas the night before. But on Tuesday, Kelly went on air to address the attack. First, she expressed how upset she was to hear about the news. But then, she pivoted to some controversial statements about gun control.

“Now we inevitably struggle, in vain, to make sense of it all, trying to rationalize an irrational act,” she said. “I think we feel like finding the motive will help us understand better, help us feel like the next one may be preventable, if we can only understand this one. But the truth is, we never really change anything after these situations, do we? And the mass murders keep coming. They keep coming and they come and they come, over and over again. So many now that we stop and say ‘oh, god,’ when we see it, then we move on, perhaps a little too quickly.”

She continued, “I do feel helpless in these times. Do you? The mental health laws are not going to change, and we know it. The gun laws? Right. And even if they did change, you would still get people like this guy and we know it. From the look of things, this is a guy who was a lone shooter, no history of violence, no record, no red flags, no anything. No anything in this case, not yet anyway. A retired accountant who had a girlfriend, who was supposedly happy, decided to murder a group of innocent people here in the land of the free. So how exactly do we make sense of that?”

Her guest, journalist Tom Brokaw, expressed a different opinion. “We are where we are because of the power of people who wanted these kinds of guns, and the NRA managed to organize them and get them as a political force in America,” he said. “We’re a long way away from that second amendment in which we said that a well regulated militia is important to our country.”

Kelly cut him off “Got it. Gotta leave it at that, Tom. Thank you to our entire panel. We’re up against a hard break, apologies Tom Brokaw,” she said. “Sorry, they’re wrapping me hard because we got a hard break coming up. But listen, this debate will not end now. There are people who defend the second amendment who believe you can’t legislate against evil, and those who believe we have to have an honest conversation. Gotta leave it at that.”

Despite Kelly’s claim that this still would’ve happened with stricter gun control laws in place, research shows that these laws do affect people’s safety. There’s a correlation between state gun control laws and the number of gun deaths in each state, and the U.S. has a huge number of gun deaths compared to other countries. UN data show that the U.S. has over 21 times the firearm deaths of Australia, which has seen a dramatic decline in gun-related deaths ever since passing stronger gun control legislation in the 90s. And women in the U.S. are 11 times more likely to die at the hands of guns than those in other high-income countries, according to a study in the Journal of Trauma.

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People on Twitter have called Kelly out for mourning the lost lives in Vegas while also defending something that contributed to them—and then interrupting somebody trying to call attention to the problem.



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Ariana Grande Responds to Las Vegas Shooting and Calls for 'Unity, Peace, and Gun Control'


Saying that her “heart is breaking,” singer Ariana Grande tweeted out her condolences to victims of the Las Vegas shooting on Monday—and made an urgent plea for gun law reform.

On Sunday night, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire during the Route 91 Harvest music festival, killing at least 58 people and wounding hundreds. As NBC News reported, Paddock “released a barrage of bullets” from a hotel room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino, targeting concertgoers below as they watched country star Jason Aldean’s performance. Paddock’s motives for the attack are still unclear and police believe that Paddock took his own life. They have also said that he had a variety of guns in his hotel room. Information about the victims of the attack is only now becoming available.

“My heart is breaking for Las Vegas,” Grande wrote in response to the news. “We need love, unity, peace, gun control & for people to look at this & call this what it is = terrorism.”

The Las Vegas attack comes just four months after a terrorist detonated a bomb as Grande performed in the United Kingdom’s Manchester Arena. The mid-May attack left 22 people dead and over 50 injured.



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