ORLANDO MASSACRE - 2016

I am not persuaded by motivated reasoning. I read the same news and hear the same media reports, yet form my own conclusions. Historically low crime statistics are irrelevant when specific crimes and accidental deaths are preventable.

In 2016, over 100 children killed themselves or other family members after finding unsecured weapons. The NRA has fought legislation mandating safety locks and secure gun storage.

The shooter worked as a security guard with a carry permit and access to guns. We also learned of domestic abuse; his former wife reported regular beatings. The NRA has fought legislation that would confiscate weapons owned by domestic abusers. Shall we ignore this point?

The shooter armed himself with an AR-15 assault rifle — the same weapon used in the Sandy Hook and San Bernardino shootings. A law banning sales of this weapon expired years ago. Yet Congressional Republicans blocked reinstatement of this law. Does cognitive bias blind us?

Furthermore, the NRA lobbied Congressional Republicans to defund research by the CDC on causes of gun deaths in America.

Finally, here is one more point buried beneath the media noise: CNN reported an arrest in West Hollywood, California, during a gay parade. Police found an arsenal of weapons including an assault rifle and pipe bombs.

Anti-gay messaging and anti-Muslim rhetoric conspire to up the ante on hate speech. Dead bodies and grieving families are not numbers. They deserve more than deceptive, self-serving soundbites and decades of legislative obstruction.

Blood on their Hands

Nothing stops a bad guy with a gun.  Not more guns.  Nor the NRA.  Not their stooges in Congress holding us in thrall.  Nor public outrage over dead kids, dead neighbors, dead friends.  Certainly not voters who have demanded common sense gun legislation for years.

Congressional Republicans, Senate Majority leader McConnell, House Speaker Ryan, 'open carry' hooligans and thugs, Christian fundamentalist gay bashers, and the North Chinalina legislature … all have blood on their hands.  

Up yours, America!  Land of the free, home of the knave.

How do you like your blue-eyed boy Mister Death

Scarcely a day after the San Bernardino massacre, many questions remain unanswered. Thus far,  among the 14 dead and 21 injured were clients with developmental disabilities -- helplessly handicapped -- and their caregivers. What else do we know?

According to reports, there was a heated exchange at the social services center. A man stormed angrily from a meeting room. He returned later with an accomplice. Together, they aimed for maximum body count in the shortest possible time.

The shooters were a man and wife armed with assault rifles, handguns, tactical gear, and high capacity ammunition magazines. Hardly a spontaneous act, these superficial details suggest advance planning and preparation. 

Was the massacre a work-related revenge killing, an act of terrorism, or a hybrid of motives and methods as yet unknown?

Yesterday, our news media reported unsubstantiated rumors with headlined hearsay and mindless blather. Tomorrow, no doubt, reactionary voices will jump to conclusions with reflexive blame, opportunistic pandering, and ritual scapegoating.

No doubt, the NRA will place “good guys with a gun” on a pedestal alongside Buffalo Bill’s Defunct -- American idols of anachronism, snake oil, and sleaze.  Once again, the NRA will blame victims for failing to defend themselves. Rehearsed rhetoric from recycled scripts will condemn victims to silence -- shades of Aurora, Columbine, Sandy Hook, Roseburg, Tucson, and Virginia Tech.

All of which makes me madder than hell. No longer will I accept carnage as currency in exchange for unfettered gun rights. No longer should we tolerate errors of mystification that lead to an overwhelming conclusion: Nothing can be done.

Those who perpetuate the madness -- the NRA, the gun lobby, 'open carry' extremists, and politicians of every stripe on the NRA payroll -- have blood on their hands.  From this day forward, let us treat them as enablers, collaborators, and co-conspirators.  Never again should we accept partisan deadlock and Congressional gridlock as an excuse for protecting this American death cult.

Transient Sanity Events

Particles do escape from black holes, or so argues Steven Hawking. the phenomenon is called Hawking radiation. Things do escape beyond the event horizon at the NRA as well apparently. It's called a Transient Sanity Event.

Members of Open Carry Texas, people who think it's really cool to act like a 6 year old with his new Hopalong Cassidy cap gun on Christmas morning, are cutting their NRA membership cards in half over a statement that somehow escaped the gravitational well of craziness and irresponsibility:

  “Let’s not mince words. Not only is it rare, it’s downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one’s cause, it can be downright scary.” 

The official apology for having allowed a sanity particle to escape was forthcoming from the NRA who called it one man's opinion and assuring the OCT people that

 "Our job is not to criticize the lawful behavior of fellow gun owners”

 except perhaps fellow gun owners who think these people are "downright scary."

 “If they do not retract their disgusting and disrespectful comments, OCT will have no choice but to withdraw its full support of the NRA and establish relationships with other gun rights organizations that fight for ALL gun rights, instead of just paying them lip service the way the NRA appears to be doing,” 

 responded Open Carry Texas openly.You know what's even scarier?  The idea that anyone thinks the NRA is too reasonable and that there may be other groups who are even more irresponsible.

Can this possibly end without bloodshed?  Texas, like many states, has a " menacing" law that has consequences to someone who causes you  to believe they will cause physical harm or serious physical harm to another person, their family or property.  Frankly, someone coming into a place of business or even a public square looking like Pancho Villa, or even carrying a holstered pistol makes me feel menaced and without a doubt, the police would be deluged with calls about armed men at playgrounds, gas stations, fast food restaurants and everywhere.  Welcome to the OK corral because every one of these open carry fools might just have that secret blaze of glory fantasy.

Gun Nutz in the First Degree

This Stephen Colbert video features Doug Varrieur, a rogue homeowner in Big Pine Key, Florida, whose backyard target practice range is tormenting neighbors.  Every day, neighbors endure the discharge of firearms - living in fear of stray bullets and in fear for their lives. Neighbors consider him “inconsiderate, obnoxious, a wacko” and a menace to the neighborhood.  When asked about the safety of local children or boaters, “I don’t care,” replies the imperturbable Doug Varrieur.

Are there are no laws to prevent Rambo wannabes from menacing our neighborhoods? Doug Varrieur may challenge anyone to stop him, but he should think again.  Most municipalities have "anti-menacing laws" defined as:

‘A crime governed by local or state laws, which vary by region, but typically involve displaying a weapon or a course of conduct that intentionally places another person in reasonable fear of physical injury or death.’

All rights have limits.  Free speech does not confer a right to defame a neighbor or broadcast crazy rants at 100 decibels in the middle of the night.  There are laws that cover slander and disturbing the peace.

Property rights do not mean you can operate a strip joint in a residential neighborhood or within proximity to schools or houses of worship.  Zoning laws prevent rogue operators from despoiling neighborhoods.

Freedom without responsibility is not freedom, and rights without reasonable limits are not rights when any self-styled fanatic turns himself into a public nuisance.

When the NRA pushes gun rights to this extreme, what recourse do you have? Call law enforcement and invoke the laws of your municipality.  You can also vote out lawmakers on the NRA dole who support unconscionably bad bills that turn formerly safe and peaceful communities into a torment. Here is an example of extremism gone too far.  Enough is enough!

A violent man will die a violent death (Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, ch 42)

So I was on Facebook, because I'm old and it's no longer fashionable. And I came across this post.

And that sounds like a terrible thing, right? A guy, murdered in his home by rogue police officers - that's a travesty of justice!

Yeah, it sounds pretty bad, until you look into it. But that's part of the problem with the internet - people post stories, and other people believe them without looking up the details.

Now, before I start, let me point out that I oppose police brutality. I understand that there is police overreach, and that criminal acts have been and will be performed under the cover of a badge. I mean, hell, I live in Albuquerque - I'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise.

The thing is, this one isn't like that. Not according to the available evidence. The police were, in fact, sent to the wrong address. But only after they arrived did things go straight into the crapper.

Waller exited his residence and entered the garage with a handgun showing. Police did not know if he was a resident or a suspect.

Investigators said that the Hoeppner gave Waller repeated commands to drop his gun, but the homeowner did not comply. According to the officer, Waller responded with "Why?" and "Get that light out of my eyes."

Hoeppner added that Waller eventually put his gun down on the trunk of a car. As the officer moved in to retrieve the weapon, Waller scrambled to pick it up, and then pointed it at the officer. The report said that this is when Hoeppner fired his weapon six times.

Waller wasn't an innocent man - he was a paranoid nutjob with a gun. And he felt that he had the right to point that gun at the police. Sure, they were at the wrong location, but they were doing their job. And what, exactly, are the police supposed to do when confronted with armed lunatics brandishing firearms? Lie down and bleed?

The NRA wants you to believe that an armed society is a polite society, and that the only defense against a bad man is a good man with a gun. But they're wrong. Because what is the defense against a good man with a gun? Or an armed man who believes he's good?

If Waller hadn't been a Second Amendment cultist, nothing would have happened. But he felt that he was had the right, and the knowledge, and the training, to act as some kind of lone vigilante protecting his homestead. So instead, he committed suicide by cop.

The only tragedy for Waller's family is that they didn't talk him down off the ledge; you have to wonder how long he'd been cleaning his guns and muttering angrily to himself. But the real tragedy is for Officer Hoeppner, who had to face the choice of killing a man or being killed himself. He made the right choice, but now he has to live with it.

Dear Josh

As a side note, I honestly intended to send this out. Unfortunately, I found 6 Joshua Bostons in Kentucky, two of whom were in Louisville, and I don't randomly spam people just because they MIGHT be the right person. If anybody finds an actual physical (or email) address for him, please advise. (Just like in school, be sure to show your work.)

So, just after Christmas, an ex-marine named Joshua Boston posted the following open letter to Dianne Feinstein on CNN's attempt at social media, CNN iReport.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government's right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me by a group of people who enjoy armed protection yet decry me having the same a crime. You ma'am have overstepped a line that is not your domain. I am a Marine Corps Veteran of 8 years, and I will not have some woman who proclaims the evil of an inanimate object, yet carries one, tell me I may not have one.

I am not your subject. I am the man who keeps you free. I am not your servant. I am the person whom you serve. I am not your peasant. I am the flesh and blood of America. I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned. I am an American. You will not tell me that I must register my semi-automatic AR-15 because of the actions of some evil man.

I will not be disarmed to suit the fear that has been established by the media and your misinformation campaign against the American public.

We, the people, deserve better than you.
Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua Boston
Cpl, United States Marine Corps
2004-2012

There. Now you have the backstory, in case you missed it.
_____________________

Mr Boston,

You don't know me, but, just like you, I was in the military. Unlike you, I did more than just two tours - I retired after 21 years. On the other hand, I only had two vacations in the Middle East, to your four. So, things even out, I guess.

I read your "open letter" on the CNN website with some interest. I get the general impression that you don't support the idea of gun control: if I'm wrong about that, please tell me.

Oh, and congratulations on learning to use Spellcheck: so many of your fellow lunatics can't manage even that much. But next letter, maybe you should see about getting somebody to help you with the punctuation. I know that's hard for a Marine (or even an ex-Marine), but we all need help sometimes.

I could argue with you on the subject of gun control - it's actually not that difficult to refute every one of the NRA's talking points. The hardest part of the debate is keeping you guys from yelling; you seem to feel that your arguments are more valid when they're louder.

Now, since then, you've become something of an internet celebrity. Your letter has gone viral. You've appeared on Fox News several times, you've been interviewed by Piers Morgan (that one seems particularly popular), and there seem to be people lighting candles and incense under your picture. You're another Internet celebrity. Enjoy it while it lasts, I guess - those 15 minutes die out pretty fast.

I'll tell you the truth, though: I'm not impressed. To be honest, other marines aren't impressed. But I'm not going to try to argue the Second Amendment with you, despite the fact that even the most extreme right-wing Supreme Court justice has said that it's not as all-encompassing as you seem to think.

I could even argue history with you. You seem to ignore the first half of the second amendment, because the full text is "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

See, back then, every town had a militia. Where we've got the National Guard, they had the local militia. And when they said "well-regulated," they meant it. They had volumes of regulations covering the behavior of the militia.

The founders had a simple reason for curbing this right: Quakers and other religious pacifists were opposed to bearing arms, and wished to be exempt from an obligation that could be made incumbent on all male citizens at the time.

When the Second Amendment is discussed today, we tend to think of those “militias” as just a bunch of ordinary guys with guns, empowering themselves to resist authority when and if necessary. Nothing could be further from the founders’ vision.

Militias were tightly controlled organizations legally defined and regulated by the individual colonies before the Revolution and, after independence, by the individual states. Militia laws ran on for pages and were some of the lengthiest pieces of legislation in the statute books. States kept track of who had guns, had the right to inspect them in private homes and could fine citizens for failing to report to a muster.

(Saul Cornell, author of "A Well-Regulated Militia:The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America")

Yeah, but, see, that kind of argument doesn't do much for you. Logic has left the building. The historical reasons for the Second Amendment don't matter so much as your ability to take out your automatic weapons and blow the shit out of everything in the neighborhood, does it?

I just want to point out a couple of little things you should consider, outside of the Freudian glories of firing off your boom-stick.

First off, Senator Feinstein doesn't carry her gun everywhere. She just happens to own one. That's not hypocritical: she isn't trying to ban all guns everywhere - she wants some simple, common-sense laws to be instituted. Are you aware that out of the 23 executive orders the president just signed into law (yes, they're legal and they're constitutional, despite what you'd like to believe), one of them made it legal once again for the CDC to look into gun violence?

Yes, did you know that the NRA had gotten some of their trained Congressional poodles to make it illegal to even examine one of the 15 most common causes of death in the US? That's how afraid they are of reality.

But, of course you'd see Senator Feinstein's actions in the worst possible light: after all, she's a woman, and I hate to break this to you, but you're sexist.

Yeah, I know. You'd like to deny it: either to call it a lie, or to attack the messenger (it's a pretty common tactic: "liberals always call conservatives racist," as if simply denying it makes it less true).

I mean, it's pretty obvious just from your choice of words. "I will not have some woman... tell me I may not have one," or "I am the man who keeps you free... I am the man who fought for my country. I am the man who learned."

Those are your own words. But that's just subtext, so maybe that's too subtle for you. Let's look at some of your other words. "I will not register my weapons should this bill be passed, as I do not believe it is the government's right to know what I own. Nor do I think it prudent to tell you what I own so that it may be taken from me..."

That's adorable. Paranoid, but adorable. So I suppose that your car doesn't have a license plate, right?

Let me explain what you've done with your idiotic little rant. You made this statement on a nationally-read website. You told the American public that you weren't going to comply with the law. Now, hypothetically, some members of that same public might just work for the government. And they might just file your little letter away for future consideration.

And then, later, a couple of people might just knock on your door. With pictures of you at a shooting range, firing an unlicensed weapon. Since you aren't listed as owning, say, an AR-15, that could very well be considered "probable cause." And then you get a citation: even then, the government would be unlikely to confiscate your guns - they'd just take them as evidence, and you'd end up with a fine.

Of course, if you still didn't register your weapons, then they would be perfectly within their rights not to release the weapons back into your custody. Which may seem like "confiscation" to you, but it's something that they wouldn't be able to do if you'd just complied with the law.

I'm not saying that this is a likely scenario. I'm just pointing out the obvious flaw in your logic. The most likely way that your stubborn ignorance would turn around to bite you would be if you ended up arrested on, say, drug charges, or suspicion of being a terrorist: some charge that resulted in a search warrant against you.

Licensing your guns doesn't put you on a "confiscation list," despite what you read in The Turner Diaries. It just keeps you from getting further charges filed against you when the guns turn up in your possession.

But mostly, I'd like to thank you. When people see the immediate and illogical overreaction of people like you, to the mere suggestion of guns getting at least as much regulation as a car? It highlights the insanity of certain parts of the American public. And maybe suggests to them that there are some people who probably shouldn't be allowed access to firearms. People like you, Josh.

So thanks for your efforts to get some common-sense gun laws put into place.

Bill Minnich
TSgt, United States Air Force
1983-2004

GUNZ AND KULTURE

By (O)CT(O)PUS

Years ago, I was researching delusional thoughts for a paper on psychotic disorders. Where do delusional thoughts come from? Are there patterns or archetypes? Should all killing rampages be considered copycat crimes?  Or something else?

We find examples of delusional thinking across a range of psychological disorders - dissociative, bipolar, personality, and psychotic disorders, as examples. Delusions are often expressions of inner conflicts, drives, memories, and feelings. For lack of a better expression, I call these “cultural artifacts” because they rise to the surface from the Spirtius Mundi of culture and infuse the mind.  Delusional thoughts take many forms: Astral entities, historical events or persons, personifications of painful emotions or traumatic memories, revenge personae, or voices in the head – all born of our culture and made manifest in shocking crimes.

Every massacre demands an explanation. Law enforcement will gather evidence and assign motives to explain the unexplainable; the public wants answers; and parents seek reassurance.  Every night on cable news, talking-head gasbags will assault our senses as competing stakeholders weave false hypotheses and self-serving narratives. Perpetrators rarely live to disclose their delusions in detail; they take their secrets to the grave.

If you accept this concept of delusions as cultural artifacts, then perhaps you might approach from a different perspective the murderous rampages that continue to confound and mystify us.

Perhaps there are other artifacts less visible to us. How does social stress correlate with violent crime? How do we quantify and measure alienation and depersonalization - the kinds of torments that find a path of least resistance in the delusional mind?  Recently, one of our readers named democommie commented:

Poverty does not cause crime; it breeds despair. Mental illness does not cause crime; it removes inhibitions and the ability to control dark impulses. Guns do not cause crime; they enable people who despair … to attain, if only for a moment, a feeling of control, 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.

The incidence of mental illness is constant across various population groups – as constant as background radiation in the Universe. The rate of violent crime in the mentally ill population equals the rate of violent crime in the general population. Yet, America has a far higher prevalence rate of violent crime across all population groups compared with other nations.  Why?  Gun merchants offer easier access to arms. Simulated violence in games and entertainment provide scripts for delusional reenactment. Desperation drives motive. These are cultural artifacts.

Let there be no doubt. Easy access to arms correlates with higher incidence rates of violent crime, and America leads the world.  The U.S. has 50% of all guns in circulation worldwide and 30 times the murder rate compared with other industrialized nations. Undeniably, gun culture is the vestigial relic of a frontier mentality deeply imbedded in the American mythos. Cowboys and guns are cultural artifacts.

Reductio ad absurdum. After a weeklong silence following the Sandy Hook massacre, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA responded with this prescription: Fight fire with more firepower; place armed guards in every school; arm the good guys to neutralize the bad guys.  More guns!  Turn America into an armed fortress with self-appointed militias and vigilantes in every city and town.

LaPierre offers not an imaginary dystopia but a real one – like a bad Mad Max movie – creeping into our lives. Is the ubiquity of guns an acceptable vision for our children and future generations? If you understand the pervasive impact of “cultural artifacts” on people, then LaPierre’s prescription for fighting fire with firepower is akin to pouring gasoline on a raging inferno.

During my parenthood years, I tried to teach my children the relationship between responsibility and freedom. Responsibility earns trust and confidence; the penalty for misconduct is more parental supervision and less independence. A reasonable proposition for raising children, I thought. Yet, ours is a society that fails to understand this relationship.  Every public controversy, every perceived loss of freedom (whether imagined or real) represents a failure of responsibility.

Which is worse: A crazed gunman who kills 20 children at a clip?  Or junk food merchants who consign  children to lives of obesity and diabetes? Or designers of video games who market violence to children and call it entertainment? Or arms dealers selling automatic weapons that appeal, not to legitimate sports enthusiasts, but to adult children reared on action toys - who project their self-image of manhood through the barrel of a gun? Or reckless speculators who game investment markets and leave millions of lives in financial ruin? Or a corporate CEO who orders massive layoffs - casting entire families into panic and debt - then rewards himself with a million dollar bonus. Crimes of violence against people committed in the name of easy money, fast money, and free enterprise - these have become cultural artifacts.

How often have we heard people in the news disclaim or dismiss a public controversy with: “No laws were broken.” And how often have we thought: The word ‘legal’ is not necessarily synonymous with the word 'ethical.' Legal acts, all too often considered irresponsible and reprehensible, have become cultural artifacts.

What preoccupies our thoughts in this forum? We write about chicanery and corruption, inequality and injustice, abuse of our public institutions, the lies and deceptions of persons who aspire to positions of power and authority over us; of town hall hooligans, legislative gridlock and deadlock, and a public held hostage by political hacks and henchmen.  How often have we felt bullied and abused!  These too are cultural artifacts.

We may talk about the dangers of easy access to automatic weapons; about loopholes in our system of background checks and bullet holes in our mental health establishment; about the subliminal influence of violence as entertainment; about competing ideas of gun ownership versus public safety. These controversies, grave as they are, overlook other urgent questions:

How will more guns or less guns serve us when “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold?” Have we fostered a culture of remorseless and ruthless sociopathy?  Are incidents of gun violence signs and symptoms of a culture in crisis?

We equate freedom with excess and excess with freedom. We enable overindulgence without self-restraint.  We practice brinksmanship but not citizenship. With each passing year, we drive all standards of civility, community and accountability further into the wilderness. National conversations turn fractious and fragmented; not even the high ideals of secular democracy bind us together.  We covet freedom but spurn responsibility.  Perhaps the worst monsters of society mirror the accelerated grimace of a culture grown monstrous.

Let’s talk about the cultural artifacts that crash in the mind. Perhaps we should start this debate at the beginning by reaffirming those values of a democratic republic whose mission and purpose is to secure “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The price of civilization is never cheap. We demand the rights and privileges of full membership, but refuse to pay our dues.

George Bush, Treason and the NRA

 ". . . and forgetting long-passed mischiefs, we mercifully preserve their bones and piss not on their ashes."

-Thomas Browne-

 _______________

I have to admit that there was a time I considered joining the NRA -- a couple of times actually.  The first was when I heard that Michael Moore belonged to it and I thought that membership would mean that my frequent maledictions might find their way to someones desk,  and the second was when I found that the one local rifle range that allowed black powder muzzle-loaders like my flintlock Kentucky long rifle required NRA membership.  In both instances my better senses took over and I decided it wasn't worth it.

I understand that following Wayne LaPierre's comments after the Sandy Hook massacre there has been a rash of resignations from the rank and file membership and a recent Snopes e-mail and a number of blog articles have reminded me of  the 1995 resignation from the NRA of George H.W. Bush. The President wrote an open letter to the NRA  after the group's refusal to disassociate itself from the then NRA spokesman LaPierre who gloated over the deaths of  the "Nazi's" as he called the federal officials slaughtered in Oklahoma City.

TREASON: the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family.

I didn't vote for Bush.  I've condemned him vehemently for his positions and offensive statements.  Although to compare GHWB to his 'George-without-the-H' scion is to make the old man look like George Washington in retrospect, I was enraged when he told us that he couldn't see how an atheist could be a citizen, and when he vetoed the Brady Bill, I wrote him an unpleasant letter.

These days, I have no faith that the Brady three day waiting period measure had any salubrious effect, and although I'm still not a real fan,   I have to give him credit for some things -- amongst which is his resignation letter.  Responding to Mr. LaPierre's vicious characterization of some of the murdered Federal Officers he had know personally as:

"jack booted thugs . . . wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms” wanting to “attack law abiding citizens,”  the former president and life member of the NRA condemned LaPierre's words  as a "vicious slander on good people."

And slander  it was, a thundering manifesto of obvious disregard for the 19 children murdered by a mad bomber or bombers  and of utter and vicious contempt for the lawful government of the United States of America and a tacit approval of armed insurrection.  Now what is the definition of treason again?  Does anyone still see that loathsome miscreant as the defender of  the Constitution or the advocate for lawful and peaceful gun owners?  I don't even want to know the answer. 

Bush,  "a gun owner and an avid hunter."  wrote :

"Over the years I have agreed with most of N.R.A.’s objectives, particularly your educational and training efforts, and your fundamental stance in favor of owning guns. However, your broadside against Federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to country. It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us."

For an organization heavily funded by those seeking to make the government the tool of  plutocrats, an organization  willing to ignore the murders of 168 people in it's quest to de-legitimize the legitimate government and its institutions and interfere with enforcement of its laws to claim to be upholding anything but  violence and lawlessness is foul and disgusting and worthy of the same kind of contempt as the Klan or the Aryan Nation. They are not a gun owner's lobby, they are a Hate Group, an enemy of  freedom promoting the use of arms to oppose and defy a democratically elected government. 

George H. W. Bush is an old man in failing health I've never really liked, but for that one act I choose to remember him.  And to Mr. Lapierre: I tell thee churlish beast:  A ministering angel
shall he be when thou liest howling.

POST-MORTUMS

By (O)CT(O)PUS

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
              who used to ride a watersmooth-silver
                                                              stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                        Jesus
he was a handsome man
                                                and what i want to
know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

(E. E. Cummings)

Years ago, I was researching delusional thoughts for a study on psychotic disorders. Where do delusional thoughts come from? What drives them? Are there patterns or archetypes? Should all killing rampages be considered copycat crimes?  Or something else?

We find examples of delusional thinking across a range of psychological disorders – in dissociative disorders (multiple personality), in bipolar disorder (hypermania), in schizophrenia, in a subset of personality disorders, as examples. Delusions are often expressions of inner conflicts, drives, memories, and feelings. For lack of a better expression, I call these “cultural artifacts” because they rise to the surface from the Spirtius Mundi of culture and infuse the mind.  Delusional thoughts take many forms: Astral entities, historical persons, personifications of painful emotions or traumatic memories, revenge personae, spirit guides, voices in the head, beings from an another universe – born of our culture and made manifest in shocking crimes.

Every massacre demands an explanation. Law enforcement will gather evidence and assign motives to explain the unexplainable; the public wants answers; and parents seek reassurance.  Every night on cable news, talking-head gasbags will assault our senses as competing stakeholders weave false hypotheses and self-serving narratives. Perpetrators rarely live to disclose their delusions in detail; they take their secrets to the grave.

If you accept this concept of delusions as cultural artifacts, then perhaps you might approach, from a different perspective, the murderous rampages that confound and mystify us.

Let there be no doubt. Easy access to arms correlates with higher incidence rates of violent crime, and America leads the world.  The U.S. has 50% of all guns in circulation worldwide and 30 times the murder rate compared with other industrialized nations. Undeniably, gun culture is the vestigial relic of a frontier mentality deeply imbedded in the American mythos. Cowboys and guns are cultural artifacts.

Perhaps there are other artifacts less visible to us. How does social stress correlate with violent crime? How do we quantify and measure social alienation and depersonalization - the kinds of torments that find a path of least resistance in delusional minds?  Recently, one of our readers named democommie commented:

Poverty does not cause crime; it breeds despair. Mental illness does not cause crime; it removes inhibitions and the ability to control dark impulses. Guns do not cause crime; they enable people who despair … to attain, if only for a moment, a feeling of control, 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.

The incidence of mental illness is constant across various population groups – almost as constant as background radiation in the Universe. The rate of violent crime in the mentally ill population equals the rate of violent crime in the general population. Yet America has a far higher prevalence rate of violent crime across all population groups compared with other nations.  Why?  Gun makers and their merchants offer easier access to arms. Simulated violence in games and entertainment provide scripts for madmen to follow. Desperation drives motive. These are cultural artifacts.

Reductio ad absurdum. After a weeklong silence following the Sandy Hook massacre, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA responded with this prescription: Fight fire with more firepower; place armed guards in every school; arm the good guys to neutralize the bad guys.  More guns!  Turn America into an armed fortress with self-appointed militias and vigilantes in every city and town.

LaPierre offers not an imaginary dystopia but a real one – like a bad Mad Max movie – threatening our lives. Is this an acceptable vision for our children and future generations? If you understand the pervasive impact of “cultural artifacts” on people, then LaPierre’s prescription for fighting fire with firepower is akin to pouring gasoline on a raging inferno.

During my parenthood years, I tried to teach my children the relationship between responsibility and freedom. Responsibility earns parental trust and confidence; misconduct results in forfeitures of freedom and independence. A reasonable proposition for raising children - yet ours is a society that fails to understand this relationship.  Every public controversy, every perceived loss of freedom, whether imagined or real, represents a failure of responsibility.

Which is worse: A crazed gunman who kills 20 children at a clip?  Or junk food merchants that consign  a generation of children to lives of obesity and diabetes? Or designers of video games that teach violence to children and consider it entertainment? Or arms dealers selling weapons of mass murder that appeal, not to legitimate sports enthusiasts, but to adult children reared on action toys, who project their self-image of manhood through the barrel of a gun? Or reckless speculators who wreck the world economy and leave millions of lives in financial ruin? Or corporate CEOs who order massive layoffs - casting entire families into panic and debt - then reward themselves with multi-million dollar bonuses. Atrocities committed in the name of easy money, fast money, and free enterprise - these have become cultural artifacts.

How often have we heard people in the news disclaim or dismiss a public controversy with: “No laws were broken.” And how often have we thought: The word ‘legal’ is not necessarily synonymous with the word 'ethical.' Legal acts, all too often considered unethical and reprehensible, have become cultural artifacts.

What preoccupies our thoughts in this forum? We write about chicanery and corruption, inequality and injustice, abuse of our public institutions, the lies and deceptions of persons who aspire to positions of power and authority over us; of town hall hooligans, legislative gridlock and deadlock, and a public held hostage by hacks and henchmen.  How often have we felt bullied and abused!  These too are cultural artifacts.

We may talk about the dangers of easy access to automatic weapons; about loopholes in our system of background checks and bullet holes in our mental health establishment; about the subliminal influence of violence as entertainment; about competing ideas of gun ownership versus public safety. These controversies, grave as they are, overlook other urgent questions:

How will more guns or less guns serve us when “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold?” Have we fostered a culture of remorseless and ruthless sociopathy?  Are incidents of gun violence signs and symptoms of a culture in crisis?

We value freedom but not responsibility. We enable excess without restraint. We practice brinksmanship but not citizenship. With each passing year, we push all standards of civility, community and accountability further into the wilderness. National conversations turn fractious and fragmented; not even the high ideals of secular democracy hold us together. Perhaps the worst monsters of society mirror the accelerated grimace of a culture grown monstrous.

Let’s talk about the cultural artifacts that crash in the mind. Perhaps we should start this debate at the beginning by reaffirming those values of a democratic republic whose mission and purpose is to secure “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The price of civilization is never cheap. We demand the rights and privileges of full membership, but refuse to pay our dues.

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.

Maybe now

Maybe now's the time.  The NRA has taken a serious body blow and in general, the American public is losing faith in the extremists of the GOP and its ability to solve our problems.  A CNN poll shows that a majority, albeit a small one, thinks the GOP is too extreme and I don't think we need a poll to show that the National Rifle Association, its frequent unindicted conspirator, is aware that it has blood on its hands. The nation's largest and loudest gun  lobby all but turned out the lights and pulled down the shades for 4 days after the Newtown incident and had nothing to say as 300 protesters arrived at their headquarters on Monday.

They have scheduled a news conference for Tomorrow, Friday the 21st and have announced that:

"The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again."

Wouldn't that be nice, but while that remains to be seen, I'm given to wonder if the changes they propose and proposed by others will be meaningful as well, or as is often the case, haphazard, oblivious  to facts and doomed to be ineffective at best.  What I'm hearing and reading rather confirms my worries. My incompletely documented opinion is that most bans aren't effective because they weren't designed to be. Ineffective by design and ineffective because they're unenforceable, many make things worse. Looking at the Volstead act and our "war on drugs" I see massive increases in crime and harmless people having their lives ruined. If a ban is what we hang our hopes on, a ban without further characteristics, we'll be as successful as Reagan's "just say no" billboards or Ford's "WIN" buttons were.  If we refuse to recognize the primary goal that no weapons at all should be inside an elementary school, we'll get bogged down with descriptions and characteristics that most of us are painfully incompetent to handle. If we let the discussion revolve about ballistics and rates of fire, around plastic gunstocks over wood or barrel length; over gas or recoil operated actions and magazine capacity, we're going to pass more nonsense and walk away dumb and happy until some other crazy bastard pulls another trigger, or God help us, lights a fuse or opens a canister of ricin.

Diminishing the influence of  the powerful, fear mongering  NRA, at long last, will not be all that we need if we truly want to protect our schools ( or theaters and shopping malls for that matter) unless we shed some of the self-righteousness we sometimes share with them and take an honest look at our own "meaningful contributions."  Do we share that "more of the same stuff that didn't work" and that "we didn't think of it so it's no good" attitude?  Do we steadfastly repeat party lines and refuse to consider inconvenient and contradictory facts as the economic extremists at the Tea Party do?  Do we draft laws that will address other forms of mayhem we haven't thought of yet or do we, as Generals are accused of doing, fight the previous war?

Times have changed.  When my parents were in elementary school one could buy a Thompson submachine gun, the infamous Chicago typewriter, at the local hardware store, but there wasn't much demand except from the gangs and the company would have failed if the Army didn't buy some. As far as I know, nobody was shooting up schools with real, honest-to-Thompson assault weapons. Now they're illegal, although many don't yet know it or admit it, but demand for things that look like them is soaring.  I can ask why we are different now, but I can't answer the question.  I just have to accept that we are.

Congressional gun rights supporters are suddenly willing to talk gun control.  So will it be substantive gun control or will congress pull off another fast one giving us some paper that they call gun control but is designed to do nothing?  Will we fall for the usual sophistry and sleight of hand a longer waiting period or another toothless ban?  Will we make a fuss about gun shows despite knowing that the guns used in these sprees were bought at licensed gun shops?  Will we continue to create straw men and indulge our fantasies and stereotypes?  Face it; for 50 years we've refused to face it and have enthusiastically  and fatuously blown it. Let's not blow it again.

So maybe it's the time and the season.  It's surely not the time to do nothing or reprise our failures. I hope we can do it right. I hope to hell we can avoid the extremist and not always useful language we're hearing from so many sources.  I hope we can address the question of why current policies have fostered or allowed a real reduction in aggravated crimes yet haven't had sufficient effect on "Amok" crimes; suicide-by-cop crimes where the deranged perpetrator isn't concerned with remaining alive or was seeking to die in the process. This isn't time for shouting and screaming, wailing and mourning or for listening to hysterics. It may be time to listen to people who are used to dealing with suicide  bombers and terrorists -- who are weapons experts, security experts and perhaps even psychologists  -- and tune out the scared and angry amateurs like you and me.

The irreversible ratchet

The barber shop I frequent looks like something out of the old West, or at least a Hollywood version of it. Cowboy movie posters, ammunition boxes -- It has more old guns and shooting paraphernalia on display than most small gun shops and indeed Bob the barber is a licensed gun dealer.

So anyway, there I am waiting my turn along with one deputy and the rest of my disreputable contemporaries and reading American Rifleman -- and the first thing I see is an article by Wayne LaPierre of the NRA telling us that the "irreversible ratchet" of gun control has been turned back in Canada after their gun registration policy has cost a fortune and produced no measurable results. Why am I laughing? It's because that "camel's nose" and "irreversible ratchet" argument has been used to death since I can remember to counter any gun control laws at all, reasonable and unreasonable. It's because all I hear from NRA sources is that Obama is a gun grabber and he's so close to grabbing your guns that you'd better stock up on ammo and bury it in the back yard because here we go down the slippery slope to disarmed totalitarianism. Catalogs are selling books on just how to do that and ammunition prices are sky high, along with the prices of military surplus waterproof containers. Shops can't keep AK-47s on the racks.

Then if one looks at the news and realizes that under the current administration gun rights have been expanded to allow concealed carry in the national parks, as they are in most state parks and nearly everywhere else, that the last bastion of handgun banning, Chicago, Illinois may be about to fall and that 309 members of Congress and a majority of Americans approve, -- one has a hard time believing that there is a nationwide confiscation program being planned or that any gun control measures are by nature irreversible. Nearly all the states now issue concealed carry permits while crime continues to decline, so if that policy of citing the slippery slope fallacy has been debunked, where is the apology for all the fear mongering? were they wrong? Did the will of the majority actually prevail over the evil gun grabbing Liberals just like it's supposed to?

No, the ratchet works both ways, the camel isn't interested in your tent and the slope wasn't so slippery after all. Do I suspect that the worst thing that could happen to the NRA would be a definitive affirmation of the second amendment of the individual's right to keep and bear arms and a legislative branch inclined to go along with them? Does a red-neck shoot in the woods?