Tag Archives: guns

Political Rants

The week that was. (Again.)

It’s hard to settle on one thing when so much is so fucked up, all at once, so I’m going to just set them up and knock them down.

Boston. I am thoroughly disgusted by this crime, by the callous brutality of it. I am sick with the notion that we might be entering an era when bombs go off in our cities with some regularity – hope to hell not. I am horrified at the loss of life and limb and amazed by the selflessness of those who helped others, not knowing or seemingly caring what price they might pay. I am also angered by the eagerness on the part of some organs of the press and near-press to hang the blame on someone when they don’t know WTF they’re saying.

Profile in Courage (not)Gun show. Another majority vote fails to carry legislation out of the rat hole that is the U.S. Senate – the proverbial Box of Crackers has once again screwed minimally useful legislation in favor of doing absolutely nothing. These people are hopeless, so just send them the hell home. If you can’t pass something as watered down and flaccid as Manchin Toomey, hang it up. Shame!

West Texas. Very few industrial accidents are truly accidental. The West, Texas fertilizer explosion is no exception. That plant was, by virtue of its location near a school, a nursing home, and an apartment complex, a disaster waiting to happen. Add to that the fact that they had no disaster planning, no fire alarms, very few safety measures in place, and managed to evade inspections, and you’ve got yourself a town-sized bomb. Will someone go to jail for this? I’ll believe it when I see it. We’re still waiting to see BP execs behind bars.

Maduro. Chavez’s successor won by what the U.S. press terms a razor thin margin – over 200,000 votes (here, that’s a mandate). The opposition, with the encouragement of our government, no doubt, is disputing the results, bringing Venezuela to the brink of a major crisis. This is a very difficult situation for the poor in that country, who are just inches away from having their meager stake in the Venezuelan economy taken away from them. Hard to see a good outcome here.

That’s all for now. Lights out.

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