Friday, December 21, 2012
The NRA: A Predictable Response
Today the National Rifle Association (NRA) finally broke its silence about the massacre of innocents and their teachers in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.
Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president rejected the idea of stronger gun legislation in favor of placing "...armed police officers in every single school in this nation." LaPierre goes on to declare, "Innocent lives might have been spared, if armed security was present at Sandy Hook. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." (Rachel Rose Hartman, NRA Newtown Response, Yahoo News)
LaPierre and the NRA are irrational and dangerous.The difference between a good guy with a gun and a bad guy with a gun is indistinguishable until they shoot someone. Mass shooters are typically people who decide on a particular day to murder a lot of people. If they had been a "bad guy" and made a practice of shooting large groups of people, I seriously doubt that they would still be allowed to wander about with a gun. The NRA's position makes no sense to anyone capable of rational thought.
The problem lies with the number of guns owned in America, the type of weapons, and the type of ammo. Even a good guy can have a bad day and the last thing that we need are a bunch of armed people patrolling the halls of our schools unless the NRA can come up with a fool proof test to determine who is a good guy and who is a bad guy.
The NRA also tries to shift the focus to violent movies and video games. The problem is that numerous studies have concluded that exposure to such material is not the causative factor in American gun violence.
A Facebook friend argues that it isn't about the tool used by the perpetrator of mass violence, but about our "social celebration of violence as an answer to problems and as a way to fame."
I agree that we need to deal with our culture of violence, but the tools do make a difference. In addition, when data of other types of crimes is compared with crime rates of other cultures, the U.S. doesn't appear to be any more violent than other developed countries except in the area of gun violence.
We are not a more violent nation, if we look at overall crime rates. It is only in the area of gun violence that the U.S. drastically exceeds other nations. (National Vital Statistics Report, CDC, October 2012)
While we kill 11,000 to 12,000 of our fellow citizens each year with guns; England and Wales have about 50 gun homicides a year -- 3% of our rate per 100,000 people. The U.S. has more gun-related killings than any other developed country. (Max Fisher, WorldViews, 12/14/12 Washington Post).
Changing cultural norms takes an inordinate amount of time and in the meanwhile, this nation has a murder by gun rate that far exceeds that of comparable developed nations.
A single person with a semi-automatic gun with a magazine capable of rapidly firing multiple rounds is bound to have a higher kill count than someone with a shovel. Lanza killed 26 people in approximately 10 minutes. This pretext that tools don't matter is dangerous and nonsensical. Who would you rather face--a person armed with a shovel or a person armed with a glock?
The countries that have enacted stringent gun controls have seriously lowered their rates of death by gun violence
The NRA offers a ludicrous solution--let's arm the good people to fight the bad people, as if good people and bad people are separate species. Anyone has the potential to commit an act of violence and we don't know that they are a "bad person" until they do so. Some of those "good people" that the NRA would arm may get pissed off one day and become a bad person with a gun.
We have to stop coming up with overly simplistic solutions based on fallacies about human nature. There is no such thing as a criminal until a person commits a crime. We have more people in prison proportionate to our population than any other country. I'm not worried about criminals running around with guns. It's those law abiding citizens, armed to the teeth that worry me. Up until last Friday, Adam Lanza wasn't a criminal.
The CDC has gun death stats for 2011.
Another point they've been bringing up a lot is "A man armed only with a knife injured 22 people in a school in China!" Of course, they then ignore that nobody died, and the attacker was subdued by unarmed security guards.
ReplyDeleteBecause actual facts are messy.
Does that really address the question of why we suddenly have school shootings when nothing else has changed and while violent crime has diminished?
DeleteOr are we really more interested in achieving a prior objective?
Sister,
ReplyDeleteI took the liberty of posting a list of gun crimes since the Sandy Hook massacre (above). The visual impact of this list is so SHOCKING, it stands alone. Even more disturbing, the "fight fire with fire" crowd is arguing for even more guns.
I reject the idea that we must live in a society that is in essence turning itself into an armed camp ... with every citizen armed to the teeth and a self-appointed vigilante in every school, on every street corner. This is THE END OF THE WORLD, not that stupid Mayan calendar hocum. It's like a bad MAD MAX movie turned real and terrifying. Not an imaginary dystopia but a real one taking over our lives.
After the weekend, I'll post some additional commentary.
How many people are actually asking for more guns and how many are asking more pointed questions that aren't being answered? Is the 24/7 media fear and angerfest making things worse?
DeleteWhy are more people afraid and what is making them afraid? Why is the recent increase in gun ownership largely accounted for by women and minorities and why is the increase in shootings mostly not ordinary criminals but suicidal people running amok? We didn't have school shootings when you could legally buy machine guns and every kid was encouraged to learn to shoot.
Are we part of the fearmongering?
"How many people are actually asking for more guns"
DeleteRight now many are asking for more guns. The gun business has never been better since Newtown. Their fear seems to be they are afraid they won't be able to buy those guns if legislation to ban them passes.
Yes, but the point is that people are asking important questions in an effort to find out why such things happen and what contributes to them that aren't being answered. I'm quite aware that gun sales are up. That wasn't the point.
Delete" a fool proof test to determine who is a good guy and who is a bad guy."
ReplyDeleteWe ordinarily trust the guy in the blue suit, but that's often a misplaced trust too. Ask people in New Orleans if Cops ever go bad -- ask me about Chicago. Should we only allow the police to have billy clubs -- or even those after Rodney King! Because there's no foolproof test after all if you'll pardon the reductio ad absurdem. I think the odds that you'll flip out and shoot me are low enough that I can trust you with an Uzi. Really.
Here's a statistic. The number of homes with guns had been declining until last year to only about a third, but after 2011 that has markedly increased to 47% and the fastest growing sector has been minorities and women -- not rednecks with neck tattoos and camo underwear. Sentiment against more gun control is growing as well. Why are we more afraid than we were during the crime waves of the 70's? I'd like to know.
Foolproof by the way, is a pretty high standard. There are no countries with no murders and there's a limit to how much you can render us helpless and dependent in the interest of safety in a free country that's always been concerned, rightly or wrongly, about how authoritarian that government has become. I should point out that military containers meant to safely bury guns are flying off store shelves and there are lines at the gun shops again. The price of ammunition is getting ridiculous. And somehow we're still safer than we were 20 years ago.
I'd ask us all to look at how countries like Israel deal with suicide bombers and madmen with who target children with real assault weapons and bombs? I have a feeling that banning dynamite and leaving the school doors open isn't the plan. We should also look at Mexico with per capita murder statistics as bad as ours and stronger gun control than we have.
And of course State crime rates seem independent of types and degrees of gun control. Can we trust what we've been doing and if not, why call for more or the same?
NYC has had a large decrease in murders - a historical low, this year. Why? Chicago, with the strictest gun control has had a huge increase in murders. Why are we not asking why if we really want to make things better or is it that we just like gun control because we're used to having faith in it?
"Some of those "good people" that the NRA would arm may get pissed off one day and become a bad person with a gun"
Um, but a much higher number win the Powerball or get eaten by sharks in Florida and it's the US Constitution that guarantees that people can arm themselves, not the NRA. and I think we have to -- absolutely have to -- avoid simplistic solutions based on the assumptions that bans will make 300 millions of things go away, or that severe penalties reduce serious crimes or that laws are self-enforcing or that a three second reload of a 6 round magazine won't equal someone with a 12 round magazine in a place where NO guns should be allowed in the first place. No guns in schools is already the law (no thanks to the NRA.) Why aren't we enforcing that today instead of talking about things that could take centuries to matter?
Why is it that when machine guns and dynamite could be purchased at the neighborhood hardware store and boy scouts carried rifles, we didn't have school shootings? We're ignoring some factor not discussed here and perhaps because we're arguing from some assumed conclusion.
"This pretext that tools don't matter is dangerous and nonsensical."
Really? Is it a binary question of matter/not matter or of how much it matters? Think some Son Of Sam type ever decided to forget the whole thing because he only had a six shooter or a double barrel shotgun and not a 17 round Beretta? Again, NO GUNS IN SCHOOLS AT ALL!
“Why are we more afraid than we were during the crime waves of the 70's? I'd like to know.”
DeleteCaptain,
I’ll repeat a comment from an earlier thread: “What do we write about in our respective forums? We write about corporate corruption of our government, greed and abuse, inequality and social injustice, dirty tricks in the conduct of our elections, lies and deceptions by persons who aspire to positions of power and authority over us, and more! Birthers, character assassins, town hall hooligans, authoritarian demagogues, and a public held hostage – how often have we felt outrage! How often have we felt violated buy partisan thugs and assassins?” My point: The center of our culture no longer holds.
“There are no countries with no murders …”
Does this mean there are countries with no currency? No disease? No people? How absurd. On carnage counts alone, no country comes even close to the degree of bloodshed headlined in U.S. tabloids. Compare statistics. Look at the graph cited by Sheria.
“The price of ammunition is getting ridiculous. ”
I would hope the value of human life would be even more precious.
“And somehow we're still safer than we were 20 years ago.”
I don’t feel safer … at least not according to this.
“We should also look at Mexico with per capita murder statistics as bad as ours and stronger gun control than we have.”
Mexico’s crime wave is driven by Yankee Hanky Panky north of the border. Mexico serves as a transit point for drugs flowing north and arms flowing south.
This is making me sad and making Dinos post so relevant. I'm talking about the price of safety, not about countries without currency. Human life is precious but so is human freedom. Do we have to trade one for the other and if yes, how much? Does maximum safety require minimum freedom, or is some compromise possible. I'm feeling that using the word compromise might be as repugnant here as it is in the halls of the NRA with their slippery fallacies.
DeleteAnd with the NYC murder rate at a historic low and nearly so in many places, it's not foolish to feel safer and "why?" is not an improper question to ask, particularly when you're trying, or should be trying to protect schools and are really looking for a solution rather than selling the product we have on the shelf. Are we confusing fear with danger? I'm feeling uncomfortably like there are taboo questions here.
All I'm getting at is that we seem to be ignoring an overwhelming question while indulging in all sorts of emotional condemnations. I want to know what went right in New York and I want to learn from it. What I hear, right or wrong, is "don't ask, just say Gun Control ten times and sin no more.
And Mexico? Is there no point whatsoever in looking at the failure of their gun control while arguing that gun control will solve our problems? I know why they have all those murders. It's also behind a large share of ours and in neither case have our respective bans and controls mattered -- or have they? Why is that a dumb question? I'm sorry, but I see some conclusion to be derived here and don't understand how it makes me a pariah or an advocate for the NRA.
I don't understand why we can't have any discussion about reducing the danger to school children without first being committed to policies that haven't done anything -- or so it seems to me. I hope I'm wrong. If we do manage to have one, I'd also like it to be without the sneering stereotypes and false associations that make it seem we're not really interested in a dialogue.
No, we can't humor people like Ted Nugent in some wild quest for neighborhood nuclear superiority. I'm not against gun control. But with practice someone could have murdered any number of kids with a pair of .38 special revolvers or a totally unacceptable number of kids with Abe Lincoln's Henry repeater. I'd argue that if bag checks and metal detectors have done better than a fair job of keeping courthouses safe, why aren't schools as worthy?
ReplyDeleteI think we waste too much time arguing about replacing 1890's weapons technology with 1870's technology as the one and only road to keeping kids safe.
"How many people are actually asking for more guns and how many are asking more pointed questions that aren't being answered? Is the 24/7 media fear and angerfest making things worse?"
ReplyDeleteOf the threads that I scanned (and, no, I didn't go that deeply into threads with thousands of comments) the pages I glanced at had a preponderance of people calling those who want some form of gun regulation "idiots", "morons", "cowards" and worse. There were certainly a fair number who were lobbying for some form of control but few who were calling for outright bans and none that I saw calling for confiscation.
Wayne LaPierre used his "news conference" yesterday to pander to the deeply disturbed gunzloonz reiKKKwingers (and that's what they are, Capt. Fogg, they're not "my kind of people" nor, I think, are they yours) and gin up fear to higher levels than it was before he started his diatribe.
"Why is the recent increase in gun ownership largely accounted for by women and minorities and why is the increase in shootings mostly not ordinary criminals but suicidal people running amok?"
Where is your information coming from? I'm honestly curious. If you're using statistics from a reliable source, please provide a link/citation.
"We didn't have school shootings when you could legally buy machine guns and every kid was encouraged to learn to shoot."
When I grew up in the 1950's in Omaha, NE, nobody in my circle of friends, acquaintances, classmates; employees or employers I worked with or for or any of my relatives EVER carried a gun that I was aware of. Lots of them owned guns, almost all of those were used for hunting/nuisance animal control/target shooting. The majority of the guns were either shotguns, .22 cal. rifles or "deer rifles" (.30-06, .308, 7mm and the like). Nobody I knew, prior to joining the USAF owned any sort of firearm that wasn't primarily desinged for hunting, target shooting or pest control.
I'm not saying there weren't people who owned military/law enforcement style weapons; I am saying that I knew nobody in that category before at least 1975. I am currently living in an area that's more rural than the area where I grew up but not anthing like the "high crime" urban environmentsof many major cities. The number of people in this area who own military/law enforcement style weaponry is disconcertingly high. Many of them talk about the need to be able to defend themselves from strong arm robbers, wilding teens, home invasions and the like. None of those crimes are common where I live and I can't recall more than a few of them happening in the last several years, mostly in Syracuse, Rochester and other upstate cities with a lot of poverty and little hope for the poor ever climbing out of it.
Poverty does not cause crime, it breeds despair. Mental illness does not cause crime, it removes inhibitions for some or their ability to control dark impulses. Guns do not cause crime, they enable people who despair, people who have dark impulses and no impulse control, to attain, if only for a moment, a feeling of contol, of superiority over others. That the feelings of control and superiority often result in the taking of other's property, dignity, safety and, far too often, their lives is not the result that they dreamed of. It is the stuff of nightmares.
Guns, by themselves, do not kill people. A lot of people lack, to varying degrees, proper impulse control or the ability to their rage at being in a world that treats them unfairly; keeping them from easily obtaining firearms that make it possible for those with such levels of pain to try to balance the scales seems like a very good idea.
Well, I tend to gloss over comments that require three hours of reading selected links as well, but I believe I read about the recent changes in gun demographics in Newsweek a couple of days ago. I'll see if I can find it. I can certainly confirm that half of the people I see shooting are women ( who aren't wearing camo)
DeleteI believe that if the local press is accurate and the Deputy I know isn't lying to me, that there have been 89 armed burglaries in this population of 11,000 in this year and that's of concern to me. The argument that "it's not in my back yard so who cares?" isn't comforting, but I really don't lose sleep worrying about burglars and the even scarier home invaders who prey on the elderly. It's a problem in Florida, but one that's been diminishing of late and I think it's not only fair, but necessary to ask why, even if the answer doesn't line up with what people want to hear.
As I've mentioned before, I have indeed been confronted and I and my wife were threatened by armed youths immediately after a major hurricane in 2004. It happens and people do, yes they do, successfully defend themselves and the people who predicted that allowing concealed carry would cause a bloodbath have yet to eat the crow that's been on the menu for years now because they were quite wrong. Outside of one gang-infested area of Palm Beach County, Florida's murder rate continues to decline.
So seriously, can we talk about or show evidence that the increased popularity of certain weapons has had an effect on any kind of crime before asking for a ban? Am I really really Satan's evil twin for mentioning that Hoppalong Cassidy can shoot 4 more people without reloading that someone with an army issue .45 auto? Any gun is dangerous and no gun is safe and it's the ban-it brigade arguing otherwise, and wrongly.
I just think we're blindly accepting arguments that weren't formulated by the well informed and I'm wonder why if we all have these "dark impulses" school shootings are relatively new. If we're all potentially suicidal mass murderers, perhaps we should be talking about more than Gun Control -- unless we're just defending instead of seeking.
My view isn't quite that dark, sorry, and I wish a discussion of better mental health care would find a home here. But really, I agree with your last. Yes we do need to need to keep certain people away from any weapons of whatever style or appearance. I wouldn't feel much better if only one kid had been killed and I'm sorry that no one seems to be listening when I say that.
And when Octo says maybe we should be having a different conversation, that's exactly what I've been asking.
Democommie,
ReplyDeleteYour paragraph beginning with "Poverty does not cause crime, it breeds despair ..." is eloquent. Not just the poor but mentally ill folks often feel this way too. Deep despair drives people to perform desperate acts - murder, suicide, lashing out against institutions, other persons, society, and finally self. What LaPierre are others fail to realize: No amount of guns, militias, or vigilante groups can stop them. Deepest despair is the ultimate nihilism.
It is why, in my opinion, we should have be having a different conversation. More later.
Octo:
ReplyDeleteThere are many things to work on OTHER than gunz, but not instead of gunz.
The following is what I couldn't get in my last post, because of the comment's size:
"" a fool proof test to determine who is a good guy and who is a bad guy."
We ordinarily trust the guy in the blue suit, but that's often a misplaced trust too."
I would not argue that point as it's irrelevant to the discussion. Cops are OFTEN authoritarians, that they are not to be trusted is an unfortunate, but all too common experience.
The NOPD is so corrupt that it should probably be completely replaced--from the top down. That will not be happening, but that is what it would take to effectively correct its many deficiencies. That New Orleans has a horrific PD has nothing to do with whether I trust other people with guns.
"I think the odds that you'll flip out and shoot me are low enough that I can trust you with an Uzi. Really"
Why? People have a demonstrable bias towards doing incredibly stupid things with guns--when they know how to handle weapons. If I found myself in the vicinity of someone with an Uzi or even a handgun in my vicinity I would remove myself from the area.
"Here's a statistic. The number of homes with guns had been declining until last year to only about a third, but after 2011...rednecks with neck tattoos and camo underwear.".
No, it's not a statistic. It's your assertion that the statistic exists. If you are going to use numbers you need to cite the sources. I'm not saying you're not telling the truth but without a citation to the original source of the information there is no way to determine its origin.
"There are no countries with no murders".
There are no countries which we would consider a decent place to live that have anywhere near the number of murders that we have here in the U.S.. There are no countries that have stable governments and no simmering civil war that have even a significant fraction of the deaths due to gunshots that we have here in the U.S.
I'll get back to this later, I gotta go play Santa Claus.
Ok, here's the Gallup poll I found sited in the Daily Beast and it shows that households with guns have increased of late after a period of decline but that the largest and most recent increase has been amongst DEMOCRATS in the last two years and that female ownership has gone from 33% to 43% since the end of 2010.
Deletehttp://bit.ly/vndOgV
I prefer this sort of thing to stereotyping people and conjecturing about their motivations.
Practically speaking, Captain, tools do matter and they matter a lot. Lack of assault type weapons may not prevent anyone from going forward with a shooting spree but the type of weapon does make a difference in the outcome of that shooting spree. I've never fired a gun. However, my dad has. He was a police officer for 25 years and retired with the rank of captain. We've talked a great deal about this most recent mass shooting. He's fired a weapon in the line of duty, both as a police officer and a marine and he doesn't recall any pleasantries about the experience. He's also faced down those who pointed a gun at him. He's also had knives drawn on him, been attacked with a flashlight, and by some nutcase who used his shoe. He is unequivocal in asserting that if he had to choose, he'd prefer to face any weapon other than a gun. He says that the odds of surviving an encounter with a knife or a shoe are infinitely higher.
ReplyDeleteStatistical data also supports that tools do matter. "According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, between 2006 and 2010 47,856 people were murdered in the U.S. by firearms, more than twice as many as were killed by all other means combined." Guns in America, a Statistical Look
"Here's a statistic. The number of homes with guns had been declining until last year to only about a third, but after 2011...rednecks with neck tattoos and camo underwear."
1. The U.S. has the highest gun ownership rate in the world--88.8 firearms per 100 people. Yemen has the second highest at 54.8 firearms per 100 people. Gun Ownership in America, Sources: The United Nations of Drug Control, Gallup, Pew Research, and Harris Interactive. This information was released in August 2012 after the mass shootings in Aurora, Colo. and Oak Creek, Wis. Mass shootings aren't exactly uncommon in the U.S. Just How Many Guns Do Americans Own?
2. The number of U.S. households with guns has indeed declined, but current gun owners are gathering more guns. "A decreasing number of American gun owners own two-thirds of the nation's guns and as many as one-third of the guns on the planet -- even though they account for less than 1% of the world's population, according to a CNN analysis of gun ownership data." Analysis: Fewer U.S. gun owners own more guns (7/31/12)
3. Gun sales in the U.S. increased after Obama's election in 2008 and again after his re-election in 2012. U.S. Gun Sales Soar After Barack Obama's Re-election; Gun Store Reports 400% Surge in Sales After Obama Re-election; Obama's Re-election Drives Gun Sales
4. However, I find the following story the most disturbing. This country has an unnatural love affair with guns.Sandy Hook Shooting Sparks Gun Sales Surge.
5. There have been at least 62 mass shootings in the U.S. in the last 30 years and most of the killers obtained their weapons legally. I assume that they were mistaken for the good people whom the NRA declares need to have guns to defend us from the bad people. A Guide to Mass Shootings in America.
This is so difficult. Yes I know guns are dangerous. Please remember that many of my friends are also active and retired police and military and even Special Forces. All, and their wives too own guns. I go shooting with them sometimes.
DeleteSheria, I'm not your enemy in any way and I agree more than you think I do. I value your opinions and I mess them when they're not here but I think I'm being misunderstood. Look, ALL GUNS ARE DANGEROUS, even my flintlock. All guns are dangerous but that requires my respect and care and not my fear and loathing, my straw grasping panic. Guns that give you 5 shots and those that give you 40 are dangerous enough I think, that the difference is beside the point and yet we're still pretending we can make schools safer by substituting revolvers for autos or 20 round hunting rifles for 20 round hunting rifles with a different stock. There are more guns in America than we can count, more than we can get rid of. Lamenting our love of guns is not productive and the more we agitate to get rid of them, the more we love them. I'd like to keep the focus on how to make certain areas safe and not on preserving our pet solutions. Walking into a school with a gun is already a felony and I don't care whether it's a fake assault rifle, a real assault rifle or a .22 derringer. Any way of keeping them out is fine and if it takes a dozen different overlapping measures, let's take them.
I have enough words in my mouth without anyone's help and I'm upset enough to have been losing sleep over this damned slaughter of the innocents and the ensuing witch hunt. I'm not arguing against gun control. Should I say it again? I want gun control that works yet is commensurate with public need and public desire and public freedom and my not being overcome with fear and panic and loathing doesn't make me a bad guy.
We can do it and particularly if we ignore the sides that want it all and won't compromise. We can do it if we stop describing compromise as capitulation and demonizing sincere people with sincere concerns along with the genuine idiots. Can we be an example here?
The first words I heard on TV within seconds after I turned it on were "assault weapon ban" and I'm sick of having to repeat myself and being ignored simply because I can tell a Luger from a Ruger and own firearms. Don't mention that miserable AWB again and I won't have to keep taking these pills and my doctor will thank you too.
I don't care what the NRA says and I'm not advocating a nation of vigilantes. I'm also reluctant to maliciously label the tens - hundreds - of millions of people who are not ever going to harm anyone or deny their right to self protection if they so desire: their right to shoot the thanksgiving turkey or a rattlesnake or a paper target. I'm disgusted by the proposition that we're all Charles Manson until proven otherwise.
Whether the love of weaponry is unnatural, or as I suspect, totally natural, I fully recognize the danger as I also totally mistrust any government that will completely disarm its citizens and I absolutely refuse to have anything to do with one that sees its citizens as enemies and their freedom as dangerous.
Now can we please get to accepting that there are no absolutist positions that are going to work and that we can never be totally safe and totally free and for God's sake stop raving about some worthless and fraudulent ban that generated the desire for military looking weaponry? ALL GODDAMN GUNS are GODDAMN dangerous! Lots of things are dangerous and none of this is easy or will pacify the fearful of every sort. But the thing isn't to feel good, is it? The thing is to keep guns away from defenseless people and children in particular.
Wayne LaPierre's response is as ludicrous as it is predictable. His whole career has been about promoting the interests of gun and ammunition makers and sellers, and the most extreme pro-gun fanatics in the country. LaPierre has gotten rich and become powerful doing that. I don't think he's particularly concerned with the safety of schoolchildren, teachers or anyone else. His first concern is his own prospects for more wealth and power.
ReplyDeleteLaPierre and the NRA will become marginalized, as they should be, when more voters all across America decide they love their children more than they love their cold, blued steel, and finally get past their delusions about rogue government confiscating their deer rifles and ushering in socialism.
As usual, I agree with you. Thanks for an objective comment.
DeleteI hope on Christmas
ReplyDeleteevery stocking gets a gun
loaded down with ammo
a red Christmas, Oh the fun!
military grade hardware
gives civilians so much glee
why wait until the New Year
let's have a shooting spree
turn the white snow crimson
the NRA will be so proud
bullets and guns a blazing
only gun rights are allowed
forget all about Newtown
Aurora and all the rest
these tragedies mean nothing
as any conservative can attest
I'll be home for Christmas
unless of course, I am not
will it be a white one
that depends if I get shot
after posting this little poem on facebook
I had several supposed friends complain in
fact they called me sick!
I was eventually unfriended by at least three
people maybe more and there in lies the crux
of our national dilemma we are absolutely
divided, gun rights here, gun control there
democrats here and republicans there as if
we can not agree on the simplest things
right and wrong have become different outcomes
for so many people the divisive nature of our
current culture creates an atmosphere of
abject failure no wonder congress faces a
fiscal cliff we have all become lemmings
no matter if we don't want to fall off that
cliff we will all be forced to by the sheer
magnitude of our collective disillusion
the NRA's latest press conference says it all
let's arm every teacher every school employee
wow what a brilliant idea lets make the entire
nation an armed military establishment it's
a gun manufactures wet dream! Fuck them I won't
pack heat, guns are simply for cowards! The
Republican mindset is based on cowardice
they quiver in fear at everything and I mean
everything and as a result we have suffered
immensely the stupid TSA remove your shoes...?
300 million guns are never going to disappear
but OCTO's list highlights the problem! We are a
bunch of murderous neanderthals wait why should
I denigrate neanderthals maybe Homo Sapiens is a
misnomer we hardly deserve the term.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"LaPierre and the NRA will become marginalized, as they should be, when more voters all across America decide they love their children more than they love their cold, blued steel, and finally get past their delusions about rogue government confiscating their deer rifles and ushering in socialism."
ReplyDeleteSpot on, except...I think that many people who are against gun control are the same people who are against gay marriage, abortion, higer taxes on the rich and the rest of the ReiKKKwing's hot button issues.
Many people who do not own guns and probably don't want one have been convinced by the GOPropagandists that THEY are not patriotic MurKKKans if they don't at least make sure that the idiots who stockpile weapons and want to continue--despite the lack of any justification to do so--remain FREE.
finefroghair:
Word.
If the frequency of the word "probably" is an indicator, there's a lot of smug hypothesizing about those nasty, easily converted to schizophrenia gun nuts around who are asking us to look for rational solutions that work instead of those hasty, fear guided, dysfunctional and apparently ineffective "gun control" measures we've pinned our messianic hopes on before. No, if you're to be admitted to the clan you have to affirm that if we just ban it, it will leave -- let's just make a tedious argument of insidious intent and do not ask "what is it?" Let's just close our eyes and ban it.
ReplyDeleteWhat's important, I see, is GUN CONTROL. All we need is gun control just like all we need is faith. What we believe and what's actually in that gun control or that faith isn't important. Yes, sure anyone who cares what we're trying to control and how we're trying to do it and whether the same damned thing hasn't failed twice already is fair game for our speculations about bigotry, Tea Party tax policy, NAZI affiliations secret NRA membership, devil worship and the like. I mean no decent human being would ever disagree, right?
I'm so proud.
Look, I'm tired of being a paper donkey for people to pin tails on. I'm tired of being asked to read and agree with all the websites and statistics marshaled for the purpose of convincing me that all we need is to make certain dishonestly labelled items somehow disappear by miraculous fiat from a country that, regardless of your disapproval, has always liked weapons and has millions and millions of them for hundreds of years. Once that happens, the lion and the criminals will lie down with the lamb and we'll all be safe as babes in arms and that's that.
ReplyDeleteSweet Jesus, can't we talk about what meets the needs of a Manhattanite without leaving the Montana mountain man or the Alaskan Yupik to be bear bait, without putting the weak and small and old and vulnerable at the mercy of criminals without being bludgeoned with accusations of sexual perversion and worse: being against gun control?
I'm tired of hearing us use those slippery slope arguments the NRA is so fond, of used to attack any attempt to use proper, more honest, less emotional terms as some state of BEING AGAINST GUN CONTROL. After all, if we allow a 6 shooter we'll allow 7 or 8 and then Rocket Propelled Grenades and Tomahawk missiles! Right? No, we're not paranoid, they are.
I'm not against gun control God damn it. I'm against being gullible and naive and self righteous -- and wrong.
So to be in the club of the elite solution creators here, I have to affirm your prior conclusion that nobody - nobody at all who doesn't wear a uniform - can be trusted with dangerous equipment that could kill scores of children by people who still somehow trust airline pilots and cruise ship captains and locomotive drivers and Federal Marshals, bank guards, secret agents and Seal Team Six. Well dammit, I don't want to live in a country that is based on the idea that we're all potentially violent madmen and slaughterers of the innocent and should be kept away from anything harmful to others lest we act out.
No, I don't.
No, I just don't have the fantasies or perversions being flung about the place like some middle school food fight. I don't like the japery and I'm not quivering in terror and you can't make me. No, there was a time many years ago when I might have agreed with this hoplophobic onanism, but I've seen too much since and nobody cares to listen and I just give up.
I give up because I'm beginning to think that "gun control" is an article of faith, no more than a shibboleth used to keep heretics out of a restricted club of true believers who have all the answers -- but just don't ask for details or you'll be out.
Look, some level of trust must be in the foundations of a civilization. I don't want to live in a country based on fear and mistrust and whose laws are based on fear and mistrust and where people talk amongst themselves about why we should fear and mistrust each other and whose government and system of laws is based on fear and mistrust. I know what the fate of such societies has been and until I see someone willing to look at our successes and failures and try to learn, I don't want to be here either. Sorry, long live freedom and Merry Christmas.
Capt. Fogg, I'm going to crawl out on a creaky and suggest that you might find my post at Oh!pinion on this matter provides some welcome relief. Your comment, if any, will of course be welcome.
ReplyDeleteI tried to post there, but couldn't -- must be the NRA, or maybe the gun grabbers.
DeleteBut it was a good post and I agree, we have a problem that isn't going to be solved by switching guns to types that don't scare the city boys as much.
"Look, I'm tired of being a paper donkey for people to pin tails on."
ReplyDeleteThis is a mis-perception on your part.
Without going into detail (I need to leave in a few minutes to walk my roommate and then go to the Syracuse VA for my ChrisKwaNuchFestiNalia present, a free MRI on my lower back) I really, Really, REALLY get that you,PERSONALLY, are not interested in killing people. I get that. What you seem to be, deliberately, NOT GETTING, is that I do NOT WANT YOUR GUNZ. I do not trust people, at their word, who carry guns for no apparent reason and insist that they are making my world a safer place. That's the bottom line.
I will try to get back to this before I get too deeply into the eggnog.
Didn't say or think that you want my guns or my crossbow for that matter. Why do you think I think you're after my flintlock? That's kinda what I'm talking about -- I say something about being taken in by fraudulent gun control bills and not wanting to repeat past failures expecting different results and people start confusing me with Wayne LaPierre. Aren't we better than them?
DeleteI got into this only because people who were outraged by a crime were claiming there was no gun control and were demanding that we reinstate a bill that was designed to defraud the public and benefit the domestic arms industry and that didn't help anybody and that actually created a demand for pseudo-military arms.
Sorry, there's way too much misinformed raving about types of weapons, too much panic, too much of a lot of things and not one practical suggestion.
By the way, I don't necessarily mistrust people licensed to carry and who have their prints on file and have no record have taken a safety course, have 55 years of experience and aren't mental patients just because they have the want or need or desire for something that many people just don't like, but that's not what it's all about. Why is there a rifle in a school and how can we keep that from happening? That's the kind of gun control I want to talk about, not shit about how only perverts own guns and you can't trust your mother. I'm trying to tell people that these pretend "assault rifles" were bursting the seams of catalogs and gun stores more during that misbegotten and accursed "ban" than before it and nobody wants to hear it 'cause I'm a "gun nut" and against "gun control"
Am I imagining it, or are we here being as bad as the NRA who scream GUNGRABBER at anyone proposing any regulation and the other brand of extremists who learned all about hunters from watching Bambi and want to disarm the Eskimos so they don't kill our kids?
Lets start to look at this from another perspective; can we find a way to allow our children to go to school and be safe (again a relative term) from the threat of a massacre, without relying on armed guards and metal detectors or something along those lines?
ReplyDeleteIs there an alternative to the NRA's proposal? I mean, in 1999 Columbine High School did have armed guards stationed in the school.
We have seemed to make our school buses safer and we have child proof devices for just about everything; all of these were developed slowly, over time, and some modifications worked well and others didn't but we kept plugging along.
Indeed. You make perfect sense to me. I'm certainly open to suggestions and that may be more productive than blaming this thing on magazine capacity as though it wouldn't have been horrible if one kid or teacher got killed. I don't know why I can't get that idea across.
DeleteYes, absolutely we've made progress in many areas of making people safer and maybe that was because we were more rational and less hysterical than we seem to be now.
Capt. Fogg:
ReplyDeleteThis:
"By the way, I don't necessarily mistrust people licensed to carry and who have their prints on file and have no record have taken a safety course, have 55 years of experience and aren't mental patients just because they have the want or need or desire for something that many people just don't like."
is NOT about what I said. If I know the person then I can make some sort of informed decision about whether to trust them or not. I am talking precisely about that person that I don't know--by default well above 99% of the planet's population--and thus cannot make an informed decision about.
I think that both of us are making assumptions about how other people think. My assumption that a lot of people who want guns are not good candidates for owning them is borne out by the reports of incindents. Far fewer people who do not own guns are murdered every year than are shot by their own or someone else's gun, held in the hands of a gun owner. I assume that more people owning guns will not result in less people being shot. I assume that more guns in schools will result in more people being shot in schools--the odds favor it.
And I've been talking about keeping guns out of schools too. I keep saying that centering on, obsessing on types of weapons is not the way, because no weapons should be allowed to be brought into schools by the public.
DeleteI don't know how or why the discussion has to be about military-looking weapons. A BB gun shouldn't be there either.
We've had a tragedy in yet another school. Elsewhere we've seen progress, so I'd like to talk about gun control in schools before deciding Elmer Fudd shouldn't have his shotgun and all the other distractions. Fear doesn't make us smarter.
But I'm not convinced that a police officer in a school is going to result in shootings and although we can't guarantee that having one in every blackboard jungle will help much, I think it isn't as dangerous an idea as convincing ourselves that if restrict America to revolvers we've solved anything.
On another blog, I read where someone someone denounced that argument by saying that if an assailant had only 9 shots instead of ten, why then the individual target had a 10% better chance of survival. To me that's jaw-dropping. I don't want my grandkids to be shot at at all.
But we're talking past each other here. The point I was making is that we have to trust certain people and we do trust certain people although that trust can't ever be absolute. I think you can trust me, for instance, more than some guy who stole a gun and carries it around secretly. I don't think that's a controversial opinion and if certain criteria had to be met by anyone carrying, say a handgun, it would be better. But of course someone with criminal intent or voices in the head isn't going to bother going along with the program, so it's foolish to bank on compliance from the psychotic community.
On an entirely different level, I hate the growing atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion in our country and in an abstract sense, I think that trusting people leads to more trustworthy people, at least in the workplace and at the family level. I think giving responsibility leads to responsible behavior and I think the reverse is true.
I think also that the idea that you can make the public safer by disarming the people who will consent to being disarmed makes even less sense than the argument I used to oppose many years ago that if we give up our nuclear weapons unilaterally all our enemies would follow suit. But all that's an aside.
Where I'm really coming from and would like to return to, is that the loud voices demanding simple solutions, blaming a baffling social problem on a treasured and intransigent misunderstanding about the relative dangers of weapons are not going to give us a solution that means anything. Perfect safety for all is a Utopian concept and Utopian concepts, no matter how elegantly argued for, have a bad history. Can't we at least talk about the price of the kind of safety we want and how much we can afford? Can we devise something that minimizes the danger to the innocent without bad mouthing each other and especially without putting us all in handcuffs and making us justify every action and keeping us all indoors after dusk?
Well said Capt. Very well said. If a commission full of individuals with your reasoning ability were appointed to find a reasonable and effective resolution one migjt be realized.
DeleteCapt. Fogg:
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm sure we are talking past each other although we do agree that there is far too much bullshit and nonsense larded into both sides arguments.
For me the single biggest difference between the two sides is money.
Pro regualtion advocates are not possessed of the war chest that the NRA has. The Brady Campaign does not, afaia, target politicians and pour money into ad campaigns against specific legislators during election campaigns. The Brady Campaign and other groups which seek to achieve varying levels of firearms regulation are not acting as PR people for an industry that directly profits from the proliferation of firearms.
RE: Trust. I trust nobody, really, and haven't since I was four years old. I act, "as if" and live my life with the knowledge that my inability to trust people is a handicap in dealing with them. Having said that, not trusting people is properly indicated in many situations. I have no problem with firearms or people owning them. I am extremely concerned about anyone whose mindset is that they need to maintain a personal inventory of firearms that are not really designed to do anything particularly well, except kill people, in large numbers, with alacrity.
Turning schools into fortresses (impossible in any case) and relying on ONE person in a given location to protect children from enraged/insane killers who might prey on them will put more money in the pockets of the gun manufacturers and "security" experts--without solving the problem. Until there is a way to guarantee that children can be protected on school buses, field trips and other student outings or anywhere else that they might gather--in an unarmed, highly vulnerable group--the spectre of their being slaughtered by madmen will remain.
To say that the problem of gun violence can't be solved by doing something about guns ignores the progress made against other scourges in our nation's history; slavery, polio, air traffic and motor vehicle safety, safe food and water, and environmental pollution are but a few of them.
I do not want to take people's guns away from them as a reflexive reaction to this latest horrible crime. I want to see sane regulation of firearms, both of the type of weapons allowed by law and the vetting of owners--at the federal level. And I don't want to hear that it's an inconvenience to those who cherish their gunz collections for them to have to abide by some form of that regulation.
I'm for sanity and honesty in all enterprises. I think we all are, but when we freed the slaves it was easier to determine who was still keeping some and nobody was hiding polio virus in mason jars. I would assume that if they made some pistols or rifles or magazines off limits for civilians, there would, seeing as there are maybe a hundred million or more out there, a large number that would be hidden. One of the reasons many policemen have told me they're against bans is the difficulty of performing searches on every dwelling in the US in order to confiscate them and of course the crazies would all have buried there weapons.
ReplyDeleteNo, I'm not especially afraid of "Obama the gungrabber" but I'm afraid of mob psychology which is so easily harnessed by professional opinion makers. I'm a bit sad that measures being proposed by people who only know what they're told by both sides and even those in the middle rely so heavily on fear and that the actions of perhaps a thousandth of one percent control the rights of everyone else.
I'm concerned that I can't suggest the impracticality of some passionate idea or the unlikelihood of some straw bearing the drowning man's weight without getting that suspicious look we give "gun nuts" and having folks tell me I'm suggesting doing nothing and I'm tired of having others stereotype me as a gun grabber for suggesting that we consider any kind of review of our gun laws. No, I'm not worried about inconvenience but from what I hear from friends they're not talking about inconvenience, they're talking about that evil Obama and his urban ideas. That's as close to rational as it gets around here.
As it is, I think misinformation and stereotyping, exaggerated fear and prejudice is controlling too much and prevents anything similar at all to a national or Congressional discussion. Everyone's afraid, everyone's angry and everyone is defending positions based on their own personal fears. Really, I consider so many proposals to be foolish at best as though the fact that people are getting into schools with firearms is vastly more important than the difference of a second or two in reloading times. A demilitarized Uzi or AK is no more unwelcome in MOST places than a .600 Nitro Express revolver.
I don't think we have a constitutional problem restricting some kinds of weapons as long as we can fairly describe some as too dangerous or as "destructive weapons" as we already do. I'd just like to have those decisions made by people in the know.
There are some localities in which people are getting all kinds of happy about "buyback" programs that get hundreds and even thousands of guns "off the streets" although it's quite likely that as they offer a hundred or two bucks, most of them are being removed from closets and attics since not too many people are going to give up an $800 handgun or $2000 rifle, but I'm afraid, given the passions of the mob and the love of firearms prevalent in America this is the kind of legislation we're going to see -- things that feel good and do nothing.
ReplyDeleteIt feels odd to be warning against programs that won't do anything and being accused of not wanting to do anything. That's what I mean by talking past each other.
Actually, Capt. Fogg, someone has proposed a most brilliant idea:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2012/12/27/opinion/macintosh-gun-firm-takeover/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
Lets, just say that it goes to the "heart" of the problem with gun control.
Most of the demilitarized AK-47's are coming from China, Rumania and the former Soviet Bloc but they're shipped here in parts and assembled in the US which was perfectly legal under the former "ban." You can buy parts and make your own and of course there are so many out there already. Guns last a very long time. My Civil War revolvers still work just fine.
DeleteI seriously doubt that buying gun manufacturers by people who don't want to make or sell guns is going to do anything but make life more profitable for other companies any more than some organic farm in Oregon is going to put Cargil out of business.
Just asking. Has the huge amount of mind altering drugs used by boomers, caused more mental problems in their children and grandchildren?
ReplyDeleteJust asking for what purpose? Adolescent arrogance need some airing?
Delete