Wednesday, May 25, 2022

yes, the problem IS the guns





We are a violent people. We are a violent people that loves guns more than we love our friends, neighbors, more than we love our children. This country has been at war, and sometimes more than one war at a time, for nearly every year of our national existence. We have more guns in this country than people, approximately 120 guns to every 100 people and we protect those guns far more than we protect our citizens. We worship guns, churches bless them, families' Christmas photos show every member brandishing a gun, after every mass murder the answer is not restricting guns but always more guns. Nineteen elementary school children and three adults were murdered yesterday and right on cue the gun nuts clamor that the solution to school shootings is not restricting sales or requiring background checks or instituting a waiting period between purchase and acquisition or requiring training or requiring insurance or outlawing semiautomatic weapons and high capacity magazines or any other measure to reduce the ridiculous amount of guns but giving the teachers guns to protect the children because of course that's all that's needed, never mind that once gunfire erupts it's absolute chaos as people try to flee. Never mind that trained security guards with guns on site of these mass shootings are always killed. It's not like these shooters announce their intention before they open fire.

We have unrestricted access to guns, you need only be 18 to buy one legally. I've been to estate sales where guns were sold no questions asked and the only restriction to buying a gun from an individual is having the right amount of money. In Texas almost anybody can carry a gun without a permit thanks to our governor. Guns are not the problem, they like to tell us. It's mental illness. And then they fight against national health and mental care. But we don't have any more mental illness than any of the other affluent first world nation and they do not have the gun violence we do. A gun cannot walk up to person and discharge itself, true, but all the gun violence victims would still be alive if guns weren't at hand. So yes, guns are the problem. Guns and hate and violent rhetoric from politicians, even some religious pastors, against those who aren't white straight christian conservative males fearful of losing their supremacy. Our national identity, our history, is war and violence and cruelty born out of imperialism and racism and sexism and demonization of other religions. Already we have more mass shootings than days of the year this year. This is not mental illness, this is a society where violence and murder against the other is seen as an acceptable response to annoyance. How many people would still be alive if that 'good guy with a gun' hadn't had a gun at hand when his anger flared or a cold blooded response rose to irritation? Because these shootings aren't committed by criminals. They are fueled by hate and anger and some misplaced feeling that they are being oppressed. Well, everybody with a gun is a good guy with a gun until that moment they aren't, when they consciously become criminals. It is rarely the oppressed who commit these atrocities. Where are we as a nation when the most recent ex-president is openly calling for a civil war because he was not re-elected.

So what's the answer? The obvious answer that has worked in every other country is to severely restrict guns; who can have them, the kind they can have, the amount they can have, and what they need to do to have them but that will never happen here because our politicians are cowards. They want that money from the NRA more than they want to protect our children, they want to keep their jobs more than they want to do their jobs regardless of what the people want. And unfortunately and to our detriment, a good portion of our population is just fine with all this gun violence as long as it doesn't touch them or their guns, so long as they can continue their own violence, hatefulness, and racism unimpeded.

The fact is, we are not safe in this country, none of us. We are not safe in our homes when stray bullets zip through, we are not safe if we park our car on a public street, we are not safe in our cars from someone we inadvertently cut off, we are not safe at a concert or a nightclub, we are not safe in our workplaces or schools, we are not safe hanging out listening to music with our friends, and now not even our democracy is safe from those with a gun and a bone to pick. Getting rid of weapons no citizen needs or should have a right to won't get rid of the hate and anger and innate violence Americans harbor but it will end these mass shootings. We have only to look at other nations with strict gun control laws to see the truth of this.

We are a nation rotten to the core when murdering 19 children only elicits 'thoughts and prayers' from the very people who allow it to happen. We are a nation rotten to the core because this isn't the first time or even the second time but just the latest in a long string of such atrocities.

It didn't used to be like this in this country. Heather Cox Richardson's newsletter today is on the history and rise of gun ownership and gun violence in this country. You can read it here.


 

28 comments:

  1. I'm at a loss for ideas on gun control. I did think about two items. How about taxing the crap out of the bullets and bullet making supplies and also requiring gun insurance like car insurance? It's worth a try but who are we kidding.

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    1. There's plenty of restrictions that can be implemented, first and foremost getting rid of assault style rifles and high capacity magazines And anything besides a shotgun or a hunting rifle should require a permit and a waiting period and a good reason for needing it. Insurance and training, definitely.

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  2. Those of us who do not live in the United States barely recognize the country any more and fewer and fewer of us are willing to visit. As people that used to go to the United States regularly, the Sandy Hook massacre was the tipping point for us. We have not visited the USA since 2012 and I doubt that we ever will again. It has become a very dangerous, lawless society, fuelled by hatred, bigotry and religious extremism, with gun violence in play every day, quite apart from the mass shootings that are ever more frequent. I think that for some rabid gun owners and shills for the second amendment it would be easier to prove the existence of the Tooth Fairy than to get them to accept the link between the widespread availability of guns and homicides.

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    1. Many of us who live here don't recognise this country anymore. It wasn't like this when I was growing up. I don't blame you for not coming here to visit. I wouldn't recommend anyone coming here. Last I read 90% of the population wants stricter gun control laws.

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  3. I am utterly brokenhearted about our country and where we're headed. We talk about leaving the country and wondering where we should go and who would take us. The violence and hatred has passed the tipping point, and the insane Republican Party just ignores the bloodshed and goes straight for the money. We weep.

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    1. They are morally bankrupt. Trump openly calling for a civil war which never really ended. the south never got over the loss of slavery and so that hatred had just simmered until someone gave them permission to act on it. And we know who that someone was. But then we had this problem before Trump so, I don't know. Sometimes I think it best if we just split the country in two except then I'd have to move.

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  4. You’ve said everything I’m feeling. We aren’t safe anywhere, except in a different country. So damn tired of this insane love of guns.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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    1. And they just are incapable of seeing how sick that love of guns over the lives lost is.

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  5. Totally sad today. Clinton banned assault weapons. Republicans ended the ban. Killings multiplied rapidly. And here we are.

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    1. Who needs a national enemy when we're destroying the country ourselves.

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  6. As long as there is no strict gun control in the United States, we citizens are all living in a war zone and have been for some time.

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    1. Have you seen the picture of the family of four and their arsenal spread out in front of them and along the eave of their house? Must be well over a hundred and for why? For what? How much money have they spent on all those guns?

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  7. From a 2017 essay by David Frum, The Atlantic:

    A village has been built in the deepest gully of a floodplain.

    At regular intervals, flash floods wipe away houses, killing all inside. Less dramatic—but more lethal—is the steady toll as individual villagers slip and drown in the marshes around them.

    After especially deadly events, the villagers solemnly discuss what they might do to protect themselves. Perhaps they might raise their homes on stilts? But a powerful faction among the villagers is always at hand to explain why these ideas won’t work. “No law can keep our village safe! The answer is that our people must learn to be better swimmers - and oh by the way, you said ‘stilts’ when the proper term is ‘piles,’ so why should anybody listen to you?”

    So the argument rages, without result, year after year, decade after decade, fatalities mounting all the while. Nearby villages, built in the hills, marvel that the gully-dwellers persist in their seemingly reckless way of life. But the gully-dwellers counter that they are following the wishes of their Founders, whose decisions two centuries ago must always be upheld by their descendants.

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    1. Ridiculous, right? And the thing is, this is not what the Founders wrote or thought or meant.

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  8. I don't own a gun and don't want a gun. If I had a gun, I don't know that I would be able to use it and actually kill someone and I don't want to know. The gun enthusiasts who spout all their bullshit about the right to bear arms will sing a different song if their child is murdered by some crazed gun toter, I guarantee you. I fail to see the other side of the story. We have restrictions on driving a vehicle, which can be considered a deadly weapon if used improperly. I am sick of hearing stupid people lament that "they will get a gun if they really want one". These same people lock their doors at night while they sleep. Why not leave it unlocked, after all if they want to get in bad enough, that lock a'ain't gonna stop 'em". I have a feeling that more people agree with our opinion than don't. It is time to rise up and make some changes!

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    1. I don't have a gun either. Never wanted one, never thought I needed one. I thought I lived in a civilized society. Though, I tell you what, if the republicans get back control of congress I might consider it.

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  9. Broken hearted, like most everyone except the senators and folks who have guns, I hate this country.

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    1. Same here. And of course one of my senators is vehemently opposed to any gun regulation.

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  10. You set this out so succintly and so clearly I would love to be able to share your post. Thank you for posting this.

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  11. I look on from far away and shake my head in disbelief. I feel your pain. Friko

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  12. How about we go after the NRA? There has to be a way to make it ILLEGAL for any politician to accept money from an organization that is obviously a huge link in the domestic terrorist supply chain.

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    1. As long as we are ruled by the minority nothing will change. It should be illegal for the NRA to fund politicians. I thought the NRA was bankrupt. Where are they getting the money to buy these politicians?

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    2. Good question! And no one has said anything about the parents of this 18 year old 'kid'. Did they know he'd bought two guns?? Where are they?

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  13. If I believed in a god, I would say "God help us."

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  14. Well said... and no Politician should be allowed to accept Blood Money from an Organization like the NRA, it's blatant conflict of interest. And yes, Guns being only part of the Problem, the Person behind the Gun is the other part, and let us be clear that we've got far too many People behind Guns that are dangerous and why they even own a Gun is an extension of their sickness as a Human Being with Issues that have continued to devolve us as a Society and as a Nation.

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.