Shooting Down the “What-ifs”

Isn’t the right to life higher than the right to purchase a gun? And does a gun purchase threaten or enhance that right to life? The NRA always suggests that a gun enhances the right to life, even against the threat of other guns. Its straight line view ignores the paradox, the several places where its logic breaks down, and where its thinking in real cases is a proven failure.

The common argument is a “what if” story. It ignores the large, overwhelming real body of experience to the contrary, that guns can be or will be used in public areas to end mass killing sprees. In the abundant cases and timelines in urban neighborhoods, gun possession has consistently increased violence, not deterred it. In well armed areas (Mexico, Chicago), deaths have gone up, not down.

As the NRA plays “what if” people are dying–overwhelming, incontrovertible proof that the arugment is specious and self-serving. How many have to die before this argument’s empty logic is condemned as wrong?

Since people kill people (not guns!), let’s take guns, at least weapons of mass destruction sold at weekend gun fairs, at store walk-up counters, on over the internet out of the hands of people. Let’s regulate people! No extended clips and semi-automatics. National registration. What if we as a country did implement these people controls? Because the logic of the current “what if” is isn’t working, never has, and is empty as a mass murder’s clip.

II.

Confiscation. That’s a dark conspiracy that ignores reality. There are solid reasons–and overwhelming examples (the I-95 gun pipeline to urban Eastern cities, the Southwest massive gun purchases that end up in the hands of Mexico’s gangs–the purchases not only legal, but untraceable, which put our agents at risk–these are real!) for registration. The notion of “confiscation” is a favorite “what if,” and ignores the legislative steps, bureaucacy, and demonstrated need–and there is none! “Righty” assumes not only logical connection, but eminent cause.

I oppose federalizing and making possession uniform as a function of big government. I live in South Carolina. I can see legitmate reasons and differences for its gun laws and those in New York or Illinois (or Maine and Montana!)

My famiy has hunted, owned guns for four generations. I have news photos of my father’s African-American hunting club having an integrated hunt with another club. My brother is a retired police officer, rated expert, and a fire arms instructor. But we see the need to regulate the growing numbers of people who seek the opportunity of gun ownership as a chance to be irresponsible and play out even more dangerous and deadly “what ifs.”

The Walk-up Counter

Bullets are the gears of society spinning to a halt, breaking the chain apart, flying out of control. The hands that control those gears pull gently and pivot like dancers as bullets explode in a slow motion passage through which death often rapidly descends. Bodies fall in a staccato noise that channels fear to our ears. Their out-of-control spin is for sale, available for purchase at walk up counters, and comes in sizes and hardnesses, with different powers. Bought as a package of mini-explosions, accompanied by precision machines that increase their speed of flight to bring death to a wider area, taking down trust and respect and replacing it rapidly with dying.

All the noise, all the noise doesn’t cover the silent, immutable presence of death, of society spinning to a halt, leaning on insufficient cliches, “tragic,” “unspeakable,” as empty as death, as empty as the reason why, as out of control as our acceptance of somebody’s next purchase at the walk up counter.

~Beautifully written and powerfully true.

~I often nod my head in agreement as I read your comments, Walter, but today, you made me cry.

~Bravo.

~Thank you Walter. This reinforces why I’m a proud subscriber to your blog.

Divining Miss B

Michele Bachmann’s warnings against all things she perceives as dangers–intra-geder preference, race, religion, political ideas, cyber vunerablility, medicine, (some are “sin,” some are secular)–yet media treats her as asan annointed part of we-the-people. Her speciality is the threat, the danger, the common sin, the human corruption of politics and spirit cloaked in a quilt of faith that remains examined. Do we know her view of veracity, on how central to “sin” is its combat by truth telling? Do we know how her faith influences what she sees as truth? Has she ever moved beyond a sound bite on any question?

Her message always is a dark critiique, hurled as light. Yet her own views are concealed in shadows. The media mingles these shadows in a double place of “religious” and “right.” Take away “religious” and her views look like the run of the mill views of the severe conservative wing of the Republican party, without regard to religion or creed. She does not see the contradiction of reducing budgets and reducing liberties. She opposes regulation but wants to expand goverment into people’s lives by sanction and social labels. She believes in a pure strain of democracy that is intolerant of differences and sees diversity as decline. This is neatly protected by the media calling it religion (it is not!). Doing so makes her unvetted views protected speech. Let’s take politics out of the pew, end the confusion, and confront the truth, unprotected by labels of faith.

~Nice sentiment but Bachman’s point of view was nurtured in religious institutions. Evangelical ones like Liberty University founded buy another religious hate monger, Jerry Falwell. I take your point though. The founders of our country wisely saw the problems of religion intermingle with government. The separation of Church and State in the Constitution was their effort to keep them separate as we all know except for some with a certain Christian persuasion.

~And there is a commandment in the “Old Testament” that forbids “false testimony”. False testimony can be translated “lies”. And Satan is known as the “Father of Lies”.
Anyone who lies and claims to be either a religious Jew or a religious Christian is mistaken in their self assessment.

~Separation of church and state is not only to protect the religious from the government but to protect the government from the religious.

Read His Lips

“Good things about Mitt?” The same things he says about himself! He made significant amounts of money, took tax deductions for a dressage horse significantly higher than the median family income, and moved significant amounts of his wealth offshore. He becomes the first party candidate to express faith in America by moving his money out of the country. And as Romney says (on his jobs program, defense plans, trade agreements, safety net proposals, health care, et al.) details to follow!

Slander and Delight

Romney’s political lies: the public should be mindful some buy it, some delight in it, some take their courage from it. Some see the lies and slanders as the source of their strength. Hence, the very gentle way the President chides Romney on his continuous misrepresentations. But many many believe. We must offer them an open heart to take away their fear and hate.

The Romney Rendition

A partisan critique of the President’s foreign policy is not a foreign policy plan. Mitt Romney’s VFW convention stump speech on foreign policy sounded remarkably similar to his stump speech about America’s standing. All fault, no forward. All will, no way. All blame, no shame. His grand strategy sounds like a clarion call for global domination. But he doesn’t practice what he preaches! He is the first major party candidate to express his faith in America by moving his money out of the country. The real question is what does he preach?

What uses of soft power does Romney propose? Where does he stand on the UN call for nations to give 0.07% of GDP to foreign aid? What is his approach to the military and political conflicts that have destablized and disrupted important African states? Does he see the connections between political stablity and gender equality recently outlined in Foreign Policy? What are his views on international agreements on fishing stocks? How will he limit the theft of intellectual property? Does he see AIDS treatment as an arm of American policy?

Will he switch to local purchases of food aid, a model that reduces workers’ risk, stimulates local markets, and broadens food aid’s impact? Will he strengthen ties with Brasil, already a major partner of China? Will he aid in developing Brasil enormous oil find or expand its steel industry, redirecting energy and infrastructure trade to a hermispherical partner? Does he support greater acess to education and greater economic opportunity for the world’s women?

Could Romney rally the world against Iran as the President has done? Will he continue drone strikes? Does he support rendition?

Romney’s policy seems to be a) search for enemies, b) spend billions more on building outmoded traditional defense like battleships and carriers, and c) restore imperialism. For him, global social reform means suppressing the rights of laborers and workers and controlling the results of democratic actions by organizing efforts to undermine self determination.

Romney’s biggest failure, as a candidate and as a leader, is that he doesn’t take responsibility for his own actions, a premise central to trust and success in foreign policy. Perhaps the widely leaked discussions his advisers held Tuesday in Britain reveal his basic principle, a “shared Anglo-Saxon heritage” that Romney is eager to “restore.” Values his advisers say the White House doesn’t fully appreciate or share. This thinly coded appeal to a culture-based, race-based imperialism, a doctrine of Western cultural hegemony thoroughly discredited and globally reputed no doubt showed an appalling ignorance to a nation once a colonial master whose population is now among the world’s most vibrant and diverse.

Perhaps the message was intended for voters in the US. England must feel exploited that Romney, whose grandfather lived in Mexico, would center his approach on questioning the affinity of a President whose grandfather from Kansas fought in WW2 to protect the liberty of England.

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