Tag Archives: assault weapons

Political Rants

Four-foot gun.

My first thought when I heard the name of the male shooter in the San Bernardino massacre was of American Muslims across this country. My primary sympathy is for the victims and their families, but this incident is a disaster for the killers’ co-religionists, particularly in the midst of a political season that features major party candidates calling for registration of Muslims and attempting to incite blood vengeance for invented celebrations of the 9/11 attacks. I have to think that just about every practicing Muslim in America is cursing the name of this crackpot kid and his wife. In the current atmosphere, this could get very ugly.

All legally obtained.Much as the press is obsessing over the terrorism / not-terrorism question, this is in essence another story of the proverbial three-foot creep with a four-foot gun. That these people were prepared for some kind of attack seems clear, but what they had was not all that exotic except in the respect that there was an awful lot of it – something like 4,500 rounds of ammunition. The guns were legally acquired by someone. They’re not very hard to get, frankly, even military-style assault weapons. And as far as ammo is concerned, I am reminded of a kid I knew in my late teens, a musician, whose family maintained a sizable ammunition factory in the basement of their suburban home. I remember rehearsing some songs down there, in a small clearing between the casings, as siblings continued to add to the arsenal. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that my friend and his family had filled 4,500 rounds down there. They never shot up their workplace, but if they had, the basement armory would have been part of the news story.

With regard to the terrorism question, I am not sure what difference it makes. Honestly, if someone is shooting up my workplace, I could care less what his or her motivation is. Typically people are motivated by more than one thing – even jihadi terrorists. Part of the motivation is often provided by their distorted Salafi belief system, but I sometimes think that sham religion acts more as an enabler than an inspiration: you will be okay with the big guy if you do this. That may be mixed with political or personal goals. Nevertheless, the thing that brings Syed Farook and Dylan Klebold together is the freaking gun. They shot a bunch of people to pieces, for whatever harebrained reasons they may have had, and they were able to do so because it’s just too motherfucking easy to get your hands on an AR-15.

We can fix this. We just don’t want to badly enough.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Guns and poses.

Rumor has it that the assault weapons ban is all but dead. There’s a surprise. It has, after all, been more than a stretch of weeks since the Newtown CT children’s massacre, so all of the will has drained out of our ever-reliable legislators. The rabid voices of reaction have once again gained the foreground and are pulling out all of the stops to keep open their option on tactical nuclear arms … or whatever military weapon system will next be successfully marketed to bullet-headed Americans. We knew we had a problem after Newtown, but I don’t think we realized just how deep that problem is.

Repeat offenderAssault weapons, high-capacity ammunition magazines, and a lack of regulatory oversight over who can purchase a gun and who can’t – these are all crucial components of this national crisis. But they are not the core of the problem. Our problem is far broader than our persistent gun lust – it is the easy resort to violence for which we Americans are best known. This takes many forms, from the epidemic of domestic abuse to retail gang violence in Chicago and other cities. We fetishize anger and violence, honor it, respect it. And we have little trust for our neighbors and the people beyond our immediate circles of acquaintance.

My home region was struck by gun violence over the past week and a half – the kind that gets you into the national headlines for a day or two. Some older guy, out of work, out of money, grabbed a shotgun and started shooting people seemingly at random in a barber shop and a car wash he frequented. He was eventually shot by the police, but not before he killed several, sent others to the hospital, and blew away a police dog. No, he didn’t have an assault rifle … but that right up the street from where he committed his heinous acts is a major manufacturing plant that produces AR-15 style rifles, including Bushmasters like the one the Newtown shooter used.

This guy’s simple solution was to kill at random, and plants like Remington Arms feed the national addiction to violence. Put those two pieces together and you have a recipe for the types of atrocities we see all too often in this country.

Next week: Iraq, ten years later.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Crock tears.

Attention, politicians of every stripe. I don’t want to hear your expressions of regret over the Aurora massacre. You have no intention of doing anything to stop this bloodletting, so spare me your pious speeches and your pretentious, made-for-television tears. There is no excuse for what happened in Aurora, Colorado last weekend. You can blame that madman for losing his head and killing people, but there is a collective responsibility for the magnitude of the crime. This atrocity goes way beyond what a single armed person should be able to perpetrate through the use of legally obtained weaponry.

Perhaps some do not see a difference between 70 people shot and five. There is a difference. Five is bad, unacceptable, and something to be outraged about. Seventy shot – twelve fatally – is beyond outrage, and was only possible through the use of military grade weaponry. If Holmes had been armed only with the type of gun my dad used to carry (loaded) to coin shows on Sundays, perhaps only two or three families would be mourning lost loved ones, only a handful fighting their way back to a tolerable state of health, only one or two paralyzed for life. Instead, he had an assault rifle with an ammunition clip that holds 100 rounds, as well as two Glock handguns and a shotgun. Overkill would be putting it mildly. That’s more like the arms dad lugged about in Germany during WWII, when he carried a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). Here’s the difference: HE WAS FIGHTING NAZI GERMANY.

Invoking the second amendment, are we? Two things. First, I seem to recall, back in the early days of Dubya Bush’s Glorious War on Everyone that in the face of an all-out assault on civil liberties (made manifest in the USA Patriot Act) that conservatives were fond of saying something to the effect of, “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” Since they were so eager to toss out the first, fourth, and fifth amendments under that banner, why the hell should we, in the face of atrocities like Aurora, hesitate to consider limiting application of the second?

Secondly, if our representatives in government would take the ten seconds it requires to actually read the second amendment, they might notice that the word “gun” does not appear anywhere in that brief and cryptic complex clause. It’s referring to “arms”. What the hell does “arms” mean? Guns, sure. But bombs are arms, too. So are bazookas. Landmines, anti-aircraft missiles, nerve gas – they all fit within that rubric, as do nuclear missiles, tanks, and battleships, for that matter. My point is, we are already interpreting the second amendment and limiting its application. We are not merely relying on its text for guidance in this matter. I have to think even conservatives are against letting anyone buy and plant land mines in their yard. But if you think about it, a landmine is probably going to kill fewer people than that AK-47 knock-off Holmes got his hands on.

So … why do we allow one and not the other? Both are horrific weapons of war. Both should be banned from use in civilian life. We have to draw the line somewhere – we’ve already done so. Let’s just draw it on the safe side of AK-47s and 40 – 100 round ammo clips.

luv u,

jp