Tuesday, January 22, 2013

It's not the guns, it's the... (video)

S.S. Lamb; Wisdom Quarterly; Jesse Ventura; Piers Morgan Tonight (CNN)
Shooting started as fun then got out of control; Top 10 huge personal guns (toptenz.net)
Former Governor Jesse Ventura debates and defeats soon-to-be deported British CNN host Piers Morgan, who fled the UK and is wanted for questioning in the bad journalism scandal surrounding Rupert Murdoch's illegal media activities.

"Give us easy answers," the public demands. Piers Morgan and B.S. Obama say, "Okay, let's take away the guns!" Although this leaves us open to exactly the kind of tyranny the revolutionary founders of this country were trying to prevent, that is the best these two dishonest leaders offer. For now. Soon much more will happen -- and in the absence of any effective means of self-defense, who is going to stop the rising police state?
  
It’s not the guns; it's the gunners
Steven S. Lamb (pasadenaweekly.com); edited by Pat Macpherson Wisdom Quarterly
Dig two graves before you pull the trigger.
Another tragedy has befallen our nation. Each of us hangs our head in shame, and our hearts grieve. Twenty children and six teachers lie dead, executed by a [heavily medicated and managed] "madman" because [we were first told] he felt his mother loved those children and that school more than him. 
  
[This piece of propaganda was soon withdrawn but not until it served its function: leading people to label the gunner as a "madman" and close the book on this tragic episode without looking more deeply to what's really going on and why.]
 
The anti-gun lobby demands prohibition while screaming about the lives of the innocent.
  
The pro-gun lobby calls for armed guards on every school campus, also invoking the lives of the innocent.
 
No one dares speak the unspeakable truth, and that is that We, The People, are the problem. 
 
We, as a people, have failed our children, 
failed each other, and even failed our madmen.
  
Yes, almost seven of 10 American households have at least one gun. [There are more guns than people, if all the policing, paramilitary, military, and illegal arms are also counted.]
It’s not the guns. It is not one simple thing. No single legislative act will change madmen killing people.
  
Banning guns means more crime
What? (damnhangover.com)
Some believe if we just outlaw all the guns, the problem will go away. Clearly, this is not so.  
  
Mexico, for example, makes it almost impossible for a private citizen to legally own firearms, yet Mexico has a gun homicide rate of 5.11 per 100,000. The US has a rate of 3.94 per 100,000.

Even with more guns, there are fewer gun homicides per person [in the US].
 
Canada has as many guns per person as the US and almost no gun homicides, with a rate of .65 per 100,000.
  
[Switzerland] The Swiss have a gun homicide rate of .94 and every home has a full military assault rifle, a military pistol, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. On every block, there is a designated home with grenades.
 
The mere presence of guns does NOT lead to gun homicide. Moreover, the prohibition of guns does not end gun homicide.
 
Anyone who looks at the figures published by the United Nations knows this fact.
 
The real problem and solution
Killing guns (badideatshirts.com)
When looking at the United Nations gun homicide figures, what leaps off the page is that no matter what the legislative scheme may be, nations that have broad but tightly woven safety nets and lower economic disparity rates have lower rates of gun homicide.
 
[Economic disparity refers to the difference between the higher and lower earners/inheritors, between the haves and have-nots in a society.]
Nations with weak safety nets and high income disparities have higher rates of gun homicide, no matter what prohibitions against gun ownership are enacted.
 
Since 1966, when then-Governor Ronald Reagan emptied state [psychiatric] facilities that treated the mentally ill, getting help for someone with a mental disability has become extremely difficult. 
 
While this was astounding and seemed like democratic deference toward individual freedom and freewill, it was mostly a [Republican] cost-cutting measure. The idea went national.
 
In the 1960s, it was too easy to commit people against their will. But now it is almost impossible to commit a manifestly "insane" or trouble people until they harm either themselves or someone else.
 
Is it a wonder that the number of insane people damaging themselves and others has skyrocketed in our society?
 
When attempting to discuss the relationship between gun homicide rates and economic disparity, anti-gun lobbyists begin to scream, to insult, and to say I don’t love the children. They become totally irrational.
 
When discussing gun homicide rates, pro-gun lobbyists gladly accept that gun control doesn’t work, but they refuse to discuss the nexus between gun homicide rates, the quality of the safety net, and the giant size of our national economic disparity. They then accuse me of being a socialist, a Big Government liberal, or some other terrible thing Wisdom Quarterly won’t print.
 
We cannot ever stop the shootings of children by crazy people without some kind of discussion and action on societal reform.
  
Why are most gun advocates manufacturers? $
Just outlawing guns or giving every adult in a school a gun and tactical training will never eliminate the problem. But we cannot have that discussion until we stop irrationally insulting and/or screaming at each other.
  
A safe society is one that is broadly middle class. We used to be that society. Until we reverse big corporate deregulation, the push toward globalization, and our economic race to the bottom, we will not be a safe society, no matter what kind of “gun control” is forced on us at our request.

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