Showing posts with label Gun control. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gun control. Show all posts

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Unregulated Gun Ownership Is Unconstitutional



.... also, seems like only "a well regulated militia" is allowed ----- as in, you can own guns, but only if you are a member of a well-regulated media
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Sunday, August 04, 2019

America's Insane Gun Laws, Hate Ideologies, Mass Shootings: Recipe For Domestic Terrorism

When you kill one person, that is murder. When you kill one person for what their background might be, that is a hate crime. And it is important to distinguish. Just like it is important to distinguish between a killer and a serial killer. If someone fell to a serial killer in your area, the citizens need to be alerted. The killer might strike again. Say if a hate crime is committed against a Sikh in a particular town, the Sikhs in that town might want to take notice. Because it might happen again.

Terrorism is when one person or a group of people kill indiscriminately a bunch of people in a public place driven by a particular ideology of hatred. The FBI has been mislabeling too many acts of domestic terrorism. There can be lone-wolf terrorism. Someone might not be an official member of some organized group, but might be inspired by some ideological teachings online, and they might go perpetrate a well thought out act of violence. It is not true America has not seen acts of terrorism on its soil since 9/11. It just saw two. Most mass shootings, if properly investigated, will be found to have been acts of domestic terrorism. Some might be mental health fail scenarios.

Which makes the ideology of hate very relevant. Hate speech is not harmless. When you openly incite violence from a podium, that has got to count. What do you think Al Qaeda and ISIS do in their online videos?

You can not whitewash terrorism. Just because a white male opened fire inside a black church does not make it any less of an act of terrorism.

Mass shootings hit America with greater regularity than hurricanes and tornadoes. Gun deaths far exceed war deaths in this country. The gun laws, as they stand, are insane.







Deadly violence heightens concerns about domestic terrorism and white supremacists Investigators recovered extremist materials during a search of 19-year-old gunman Santino William Legan’s home in Nevada, according to one law enforcement source, and Legan had posted a photo on Instagram urging people to read a novel widely associated with white supremacists....... the Gilroy attack fell into into an increasingly common category of domestic threat: those associated with white supremacy...... in the El Paso massacre. The suspected assailant taken into custody, Patrick Crusius of suburban Dallas, is believed to be the author of a hate-filled manifesto posted online ..... In July, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee that a majority of domestic terrorism cases the bureau has investigated are motivated by white supremacy. ..... the bureau was investigating about 850 cases of domestic terrorism...... the gunman in the Parkland, Fla., shooting in February 2018 that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School fixated on racist imagery, but authorities did not designate the attack as a hate crime ...... political polarization and a rise of far-right nationalism is contributing to hate crime around the globe....... Louisville resident Ed Harrell told the Louisville Courier-Journal that as he crouched in the parking lot and grabbed his own revolver, the gunman walked past and said: “Don’t shoot me. I won’t shoot you. Whites don’t shoot whites.” ...... For months before the attack, Bowers posted angrily on social media, calling immigrants “invaders” and said Jews were the “enemy of white people.” ...... Tarrant livestreamed the shooting and left a 74-page manifesto in which he detailed how he grew to hate immigrants and specifically Muslims, and aimed to kill them and encourage others to do the same.

Trump briefed on Ohio mass shooting In a second tweet , he wrote, “God bless the people of El Paso Texas. God bless the people of Dayton, Ohio.” ...... Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley says the gunman in a mass shooting that killed nine people in Ohio was wearing body armor and had extra magazines. ...... Two women who were in a bar across the street from the Dayton, Ohio, shooting say they are in shock...... The 23-year-old says people her age “don’t think something like this is going to happen.” ..... Tianycia Leonard says she heard “loud thumps” she initially thought were people pounding on a dumpster. The 28-year-old says she then realized “it was gunshots and there was a lot of rounds.”..... the Dayton shooting is the 22nd mass killing and sixth public mass shooting in the U.S. in 2019. It came just hours after 20 people were killed in an El Paso, Texas, shooting...... the second mass shooting in the U.S. in less than 24 hours took place in “a safe part of downtown.” .... The Oregon District is a historic neighborhood known for its entertainment offerings.

2020 Dems back gun limits after El Paso mass shooting “It’s not just today, it has happened several times this week. It’s happened here in Las Vegas where some lunatic killed 50 some odd people,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said as he and 18 other White House hopefuls were in Nevada to address the nation’s largest public employees union. “All over the world, people are looking at the United States and wondering what is going on? What is the mental health situation in America, where time after time, after time, after time, we’re seeing indescribable horror.”...... Sanders blasted Republican Senate leadership for being “more concerned about pleasing the NRA than listening to the vast majority of the American people” ...... O’Rourke appeared shaken as he told the union forum he’d heard early reports that the shooter might have had a military-style weapon, saying the country needs to “keep that (expletive) on the battlefield. Do not bring it into our communities.” ....... O’Rourke said the U.S. may require direct action, urgency and in some cases nonviolent civil disobedience, to make real change. ...... “This is a sickness,” Biden said. “This is beyond anything that we should be tolerating.” He added: “We can beat the NRA. We can beat the gun manufacturers.” .......

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, noted: “We are the only country in the world with more guns than people.”

...... New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said, “This has got to be a movement, politics or not, we’ve got to make ending this nightmare a movement before it happens to yet another community or another person dies.” ........ Elizabeth Warren tweeted: “Far too many communities have suffered through tragedies like this already. We must act now to end our country’s gun violence epidemic.

Ideology Kills. How Do You Police It? The manifesto that appeared just before the El Paso shooting opposed racial mixing...... Is Donald Trump—recently seen on Twitter gloating over the burglary of a congressman’s home in Baltimore—capable of a statesmanlike response that acknowledges and repudiates his support from those who openly or tacitly celebrate the crime? ...... no debate will be necessary about what motivated the killer, or what fountains of ideas he drank from. ...... The author of the manifesto pronounced himself in “general” agreement with the Christchurch murderer. He opposed racial mixing; he thought America was committing suicide by letting Hispanics “invade.” He intended to kill to counter these trends, and he claimed to be ready to die in the act. He even endorsed, tactically, the targeting of innocent and unarmed people, using the phrase “low-security targets” (imagine the type of subhuman consciousness that would refer to cowering children this way)........ The ideal, he suggests, would be automation without immigration, so the low-paying jobs would go to robots, and non-immigrant Americans would get the good jobs. ...... To my knowledge only one politician on the national stage has done all of these things. ........ These conspiracies have been snatched from the buffet line of bad ideas, then served up as a form of fascism. .......

keep in mind how commonplace, on a sentence-by-sentence level, portions of that manifesto are.





The Death Rattle of White Supremacy In the past week alone, three American cities have experienced three mass shootings, with gunmen killing at least 32 people. Yesterday, police say that Patrick Crusius, 21, walked into a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, a border town with an 80 percent Hispanic population, opened fire, and killed 20 people. Several hours later, police say that Connor Betts, 24, shot and killed at least nine people in a busy downtown district of Dayton, Ohio. At the beloved annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, 19-year-old Santino William Legan allegedly opened fire on the crowd and killed three people. ....... The El Paso shooter allegedly wrote a four-page note to explain his deadly rampage. The author of the manifesto claimed that he was inspired to target Hispanics after reading the manifesto of the Christchurch, New Zealand, terrorist who attacked two mosques and killed 51 people in March. He wanted to kill Hispanic immigrants as an “act of preservation” to reclaim his country from “destruction,” he explained. He referred to Hispanics as “invaders with high birth rates” and expressed his fear of “shameless race mixers,” “the threat of the Hispanic voting bloc,” and the “cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by invasion.”...... President Donald Trump used invasion to describe a caravan of immigrants trying to cross the border. The Fox News host Tucker Carlson has called immigrants “invaders” who “pollute” the country and make it dirtier. In the past few weeks, President Trump told four congresswomen of color, all U.S. citizens, to go back to where they came from. He stood onstage at a campaign rally while the crowd chanted “Send her back!” for 13 seconds. He retweeted Katie Hopkins, a British extremist who has called migrants “cockroaches” and called for a “final solution” for Muslims. Some Trump supporters now openly flash white-power signs in front of cameras........

Hate that was once hidden has now been given permission to come out of the closet and drop its white robes and masks. This has real-life consequences for communities of color, Jews, and immigrants.

Robert Bowers, the terrorist who shot and killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, wanted to punish Jews for allegedly helping to bring “invaders”—immigrants and Muslims—into the country.......

My local mosque now has an armed guard with a bulletproof vest standing outside our weekly Friday prayers.

My Jewish friends say their synagogues have amped up security in the past year. We no longer feel safe in our houses of worship. .......

If you have been in power your whole life, equality looks like oppression.

Some white Americans feel that people of color are “replacing” them with each success, each publication, and each promotion. Those who have historically been marginalized, excluded, or cast as permanent sidekicks, though, finally feel that we have the chance to taste the American dream, which in my home tastes like goat biryani......

For them, our success is the American nightmare.

...... the FBI has recorded about 100 domestic-terrorism arrests in 2019, most of them involving ties to white supremacy ...... As a Muslim American, I have been asked for 18 years to denounce violent Muslim extremism done by terrorists I’ve never met. My loyalty and patriotism are interrogated, questioned, and treated as suspect. So what do we say to those who enable and promote a white-nationalist ideology?



He’s Getting Worse Trump is turning the American presidency into a platform for the wholesale demonization of minorities. ....... The current, and (to date) most debased, phase of the Trump presidency—the phase that includes the unceasing demonization of minority legislators and the endorsement of North Korean communism—began, in retrospect, on May 8, in the Florida Panhandle, at a rally in Panama City. It was there that Donald Trump gave tacit approval to the use of violence against immigrants. ..... His message was typically soulless. He tried to provoke feelings of deep insecurity among his followers ....... Late in his disorderly presentation, as he discussed the work of Border Patrol officers, he raised, and then dismissed, the idea of allowing them to use violence against migrants. ...... “And don’t forget—we don’t let them and we can’t let them use weapons,” he said. “We can’t. Other countries do. We can’t. I would never do that. But how do you stop these people? You can’t. There’s—” ...... It was then that he was interrupted by a woman in the crowd. “Shoot them!” she yelled....... The president found this funny, as did his audience...... he encouraged—in the greasy, joking-not-joking style he has perfected—the normalization of violence....... In March, in an interview with Breitbart News, he made it plain that he was sympathetic to those of his supporters who might feel compelled to become violent on his behalf. “I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump. I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough—until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.” And he has spoken about the press in such a way as to possibly stimulate thoughts of violence among his more fervent adherents. ...... But in this latest phase, his rhetoric has become particularly sweeping. Brown people in general have become his targets. And there is no reason to hope that he will reform. His followers reward his radicalism, and his handlers are among the most cynical figures in American political history...... there is no one of any influence in his party who is willing to confront him. ...... As Trump faces the possibility that he will lose the presidency next year, he may become more enraged, and more willing to deploy the rhetoric of violence as a way to keep his followers properly motivated. The Panama City speech was an important moment in Trump’s ongoing effort to make the American presidency a vehicle in the cause of marginalizing and frightening racial minorities; the killings are a possible (and predictable) consequence of such rhetoric. ........ Three years ago, The Atlantic, in its endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president (an editorial motivated not by love for Clinton but by fear of Trump), stated, “In one of the more sordid episodes in modern American politics, Trump made himself the face of the so-called birther movement, which had as its immediate goal the demonization of the country’s first African American president. Trump’s larger goal, it seemed, was to stoke fear among white Americans of dark-skinned foreigners.” ....... It is depressing to realize that we were correct (though, if anything, understated in our analysis), and it is depressing to think that there is no immediate way out of this crisis.
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Friday, August 26, 2016

This Is What Women "Coming Out" Looks Like

She and a team of organizers and student volunteers had spent the week before school started handing out 5,000 dildos in varying sizes and shapes (some with balls, some without) to UT students, in hopes that they would zip-tie them to their backpacks and walk onto campus openly brandishing veiny, phallic dildos to prove a point about gun control. If it seems absurd and ridiculous, that's because it's supposed to be. The slogan of "Cocks Not Glocks" — the gun protest that had Zander wielding a giant dildo and has drawn international attention to UT Austin — is "fighting absurdity with absurdity."

To Protest Guns on Campus, Students in Texas Are Carrying Big, Fake Penises to Class

​"If you're packing heat, we're packing meat."

Nobody has a right to bear arms. Guns have always been a gendered issue. Guns are patriarchy's number one tool. When they are not fired they are used as scare tools. Guns are the Confederate Flag targeting women.

95% of African Americans (or "the blacks," as Trump might say it.... Thanks to Trump's "outreach" to "the blacks" now I know more about black stereotypes than I thought was possible) voted for Barack Obama. Where are all the womens at?

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Wednesday, August 17, 2016

300,000 Gun Deaths In America Every 10 Years


15 Statistics That Tell the Story of Gun Violence This Year

There are 300,000 gun deaths in America every 10 years. In any other country you would call this a civil war situation.

When there is a mass shooting somewhere in America people get all riled up for a few news cycles. But nothing gets done. No rectifying moves are made. In a democracy if a majority of the people want better gun laws they should get better gun laws. Maybe America is not a democracy. False information has been passed around. That America is a democracy.

In no civilized society or country should human beings have a right to bear arms. Human beings have a right to safety, but that's what police officers are for. A response time of three minutes or less is possible every place in America. It is so much easier to carry a smartphone than a gun. There is a need for a world government and a global 911 and a response time of five minutes or less everywhere.

If hunting is a sport, it should be regulated like a sport. Why do you need artillery that can blow up buildings to go deer hunting?

The tobacco lobby also used to be very strong. The gun lobby is strong. Follow the money. Drug gangs across Latin America use American guns. It is almost always American guns that get used in civil wars across the world. This is madness.

The gun lobby has an ongoing civil war in America and numerous civil wars across the world. This is barbaric.

Domestic violence is the number one security threat on the planet right now. In that as well in human trafficking American guns play major roles, not to say in the global drug trade.

The joke on the Soviets was they would dig up ditches and fill up the same ditches to show a lot of work got done. Has America been fighting both sides of the drug war?

Limit guns to police officers and soldiers.

America could use a healthy dose of yoga and meditation. Human beings are supposed to be moved by consciousness not driven by instincts.  

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Friday, July 08, 2016

Guns Kill People

And if guns don't kill people, why manufacture defective guns?

The strategy of those who would control guns has been in fundamental error. It has been about whipping up the outrage.

There's plenty of outrage. The outrage is in clear plurality.

Gun laws are in a political monopoly situation. The NRA needs to be sued out of existence.

This has been done before. Big Tobacco was successfully sued.

Families of gun victims need to come together and sue the NRA out of existence. After that the democratic process can decide on sensible gun laws.

Sensible means a constitutional amendment. No more right to bear arms. What are you? An animal?

A national 911 on a location aware smartphone with a camera with a response time of three minutes or less (keep helicopters at the ready in rural areas) will protect you better than a handgun.

Hunting can apply to be recognized as a sport. Who goes hunting with AK-47s? Cannibals. That's who.   


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Friday, January 29, 2016

A New Thought On Agricultural Subsidies

Instead of the government paying farmers to not grow as much they could, why not just let them grow as much as they want, and instead use that subsidy money to buy from them, and give the food first to the poor, and then to whoever might want it? There should be an emphasis on fruits and vegetables.

I don't think food is expensive. But what if it were 10 times cheaper? Because 10 times as much is grown. Michelle Obama should make this happen while Barack Obama works on guns. If this can not become bipartisan, shame on you America.

Food stamps should not be a matter of shame. It should be a signal that you are eating healthy.


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Monday, January 25, 2016

Hunting Is A Sport?

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Thursday, January 07, 2016

Barack Obama: FDR, Lincoln And Washington

He pulled a FDR by preventing Great Depression II (which makes Bush Hoover) and through Obamacare. He now gets to pull a Lincoln by liberating black folks. If you have to live in fear for life, that is still slavery. The right to bear arms has to go. This slavery of the 21st century has to be abolished also through a constitutional amendment. You basically get the sentence deleted. That is a nationwide campaign. And you top it all off by pulling a George Washington. He need not be in office to do that. That could be his post-White House project. He could go on a world tour. He could be the first president of the world. There is no other way to pull Africa out of its permanent slump.

This guy Barack Obama is time travel.



You May Not Kill
The Insanity Of Guns In America
The Genius Of The US Constitution
Greenland: Should We Be Worried?
Tens Of Trillions In Parked Money In The Face Of Unmet Need
What Did I Do?
MLK, Malcolm X, And Assassinations
2016: The Year For Barack Obama's Revolution From The Top
Right To Privacy Is Important
Barack Obama: George Washington
Barack Obama Is Biologically Superior
An Open Letter To Barack Obama
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Friday, July 24, 2015

Guns Are Insanity

And, no, I don't understand hunting either. Why can't you shoot with your camera? Why can't you take pictures? Your "over my dead finger" is killing living, breathing creatures. For fun? Have you tried jogging? Or is that too hard for you? Have you tried baseball? What? You are overweight?

It is not like you can use guns to kill, but also as toothpicks. Guns are not dual purpose agricultural tools. Guns only kill. They have no other purpose.

Guns make America insane. This is a classic case of follow the money. People manufacture guns because they make money doing so.

Imagine a primitive person, the dumbest, stupidest, most racist, sexist, homophobic retard on the block. One day he wins a lottery and becomes a millionaire. He has not changed. He is now just a million dollar dumbfuck. For someone like me who grew up outside America, this country feels that way. And it is because of the insane gun laws. It feels like this is a dumbfuck rich country. Primitive on the inside.

Guns are worse than cocaine, and they are legal. American guns fuel all civil wars across the globe. American gun companies need to be taken to The Hague.

After gay marriage, the next stop is guns. And Barack Obama just might pull it off. The lame duck president is an attitude. It does not actually exist. You have all your powers until the last hour of the last day. And you might as well use it.

Take out cocaine, but also take out guns from the inner cities. Guns kill people like terrorists don't even fantasize about. Terrorism is at home, and it is well and alive, and it is legal.

America should be able to afford sane gun laws.

There is a need for a single issue organization, perhaps called Mothers Who Lost Their Sons To Guns, that will outorganize the NRA, dollar for dollar, word for word, ad for ad.

No, you don't have a, should not have a right to bear arms, any more than you have a right to eat human flesh. Your primitive ancestors put it in there just like they put slavery in there. You got rid of slavery, now get rid of the right to bear arms. Grow up.

I demand a constitutional amendment. I want the civil wars across the world to stop. I am a global citizen. Go make your money some other way. Sell hamburgers or something.











Barack Obama says failure to change gun laws his 'biggest frustration'
"If you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it's less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it's in the tens of thousands," he told BBC.
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Monday, December 17, 2012

Female Circumcision And Guns That Don't Hunt

My Facebook Post

Not even the staunchest NRA supporter goes hunting with an AK-47. The gun laws in this country are insane.

I have long tried to get into the conservative shoes. Maybe they mean small government. Maybe then mean the state should stay out of your face.

But those who quote the second amendment are no different from those who quote the Bible to justify homophobia, or back in the days justified apartheid, or slavery, it was all in the Bible.

Maybe you needed guns when you first came to this country in the 1700s. But those were lame pre-rifles, they shot deer and, yes, people. But the right to bear machine guns?

If the right to bear arms is so sacrosanct, guns need to be regulated like cars are regulated. I mean, why don't people cruise around on interstate highways in tanks? They perhaps have a right to drive. The right to mobility.

This is really about the money.

I do not want to make light of what happened in Connecticut, but for me gun control is about what the American gun industry is doing to the rest of the world. America exports guns that kill people. American guns start civil wars.

The right to bear arms is about money. Follow the money. That is blood money.


'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother': A Mom's Perspective On The Mental Illness Conversation In America
it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness..... I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me. ..... A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan -- they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me...... We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. .... At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he’s in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He’s in a good mood most of the time. But when he’s not, watch out. And it’s impossible to predict what will set him off. ..... it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. ...... our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system ..... Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”
What Does It Mean That Adam Lanza Might Not Have Been Able to Feel Pain?
"If that boy would've burned himself, he would not have known it or felt it physically" ..... congenital insensitivity to pain, a rare neuropathic disorder that makes people unable to register painful stimuli. .... autism spectrum disorders can sometimes correspond with a reduced sensitivity to pain. ..... People with congenital insensitivity mainly experience problems with self-inflicted injuries, but they also sometimes struggle with emotional regulation. ..... a Georgia teenager who can't feel pain. Thirteen-year-old Ashlyn Blocker had been given "a range of psychological tests to determine if she could feel emotional pain and empathy" by her doctor. "He found her to be a bright and friendly child"
It Is Incredible How Much Guns Have Advanced Since The Creation Of The Second Amendment
Understanding where they came from goes a long way to understanding that they're not going away any time soon...... As soon as gunpowder was poured down a metal tube and lit to fire a bullet, the challenge became speeding the process along...... In the history of weapons, the M1 Carbine is the father of what all of we now call "assault weapons." It is also something the writers of the U.S. constitution probably never imagined
A Land Without Guns: How Japan Has Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths
America's gun control laws are the loosest in the developed world and its rate of gun-related homicide is the highest. Of the world's 23 "rich" countries, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is almost 20 times that of the other 22. With almost one privately owned firearm per person, America's ownership rate is the highest in the world; tribal-conflict-torn Yemen is ranked second, with a rate about half of America's. ...... the country at the other end of the spectrum .... In 2008, the U.S. had over 12 thousand firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11, fewer than were killed at the Aurora shooting alone. And that was a big year: 2006 saw an astounding two, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal. By comparison, also in 2008, 587 Americans were killed just by guns that had discharged accidentally. ........ Even the country's infamous, mafia-like Yakuza tend to forgo guns ..... Japanese tourists who fire off a few rounds at the Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club would be breaking three separate laws back in Japan -- one for holding a handgun, one for possessing unlicensed bullets, and another violation for firing them -- the first of which alone is punishable by one to ten years in jail. ......... Japan is unusual in that potential gun owners must affirmatively prove their mental fitness ...... U.S. gun law has its roots in resistance to British gun restrictions, whereas some academic literature links the Japanese law to the national campaign to forcibly disarm the samurai, which may partially explain why the 1958 mentions firearms and swords side-by-side. ....... Tunisia, which had the lowest firearm ownership rate in the world (one gun per thousand citizens, compared to America's 890) when its people toppled a brutal, 24-year dictatorship and sparked the Arab Spring.
The Freedom of an Armed Society
an armed society — especially as we prosecute it at the moment in this country — is the opposite of a civil society..... gun sales have steadily risen over the past few years, and spiked with each of Obama’s election victories. ..... the N.R.A. strives for a day when the open carry of powerful weapons might be normal, a fixture even, of any visit to the coffee shop or grocery store — or classroom. ....... A favorite gun rights saying is “an armed society is a polite society.” If we allow ever more people to be armed, at any time, in any place, this will provide a powerful deterrent to potential criminals. Or if more citizens were armed — like principals and teachers in the classroom, for example — they could halt senseless shootings ahead of time, or at least early on, and save society a lot of heartache and bloodshed. ...... gun rights advocates famously maintain that individual gun ownership, even of high caliber weapons, is the defining mark of our freedom as such, and the ultimate guarantee of our enduring liberty. Deeper reflection on their argument exposes basic fallacies. ........ speech dominates and distinguishes the polis, the highest form of human association ..... “violence is mute.” ..... Violence — and the threat of it — is a pre-political manner of communication and control, characteristic of undemocratic organizations and hierarchical relationships. ...... Guns do communicate, after all, but in a way that is contrary to free speech aspirations: for, guns chasten speech. ...... An armed society is polite, by their thinking ...... The suggestion is that guns liberally interspersed throughout society would cause us all to walk gingerly — not make any sudden, unexpected moves — and watch what we say, how we act, whom we might offend. ...... The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld our right to experiment in offensive language and ideas, and in some cases, offensive action and speech. Such experimentation is inherent to our freedom as such. But guns by their nature do not mix with this experiment — they don’t mix with taking offense. They are combustible ingredients in assembly and speech. ....... Such is the effect of guns on speech — and assembly. Like it or not, they transform the bearer, and end the conversation in some fundamental way. They announce that the conversation is not completely unbounded, unfettered and free; there is or can be a limit to negotiation and debate ....... The very power and possibility of free speech and assembly rests on their non-violence. The power of the Occupy Wall Street movement, as well as the Arab Spring protests, stemmed precisely from their non-violent nature. This power was made evident by the ferocity of government response to the Occupy movement. Occupy protestors across the country were increasingly confronted by police in military style garb and affect. ......... The non-violent nature of protest in this country ensures that it can occur. ..... nothing suits power so well as extreme individualism ..... Their pervasive, open presence would sow apprehension, suspicion, mistrust and fear, all emotions that are corrosive of community and civic cooperation. To that extent, then, guns give license to autocratic government. ..... Our gun culture promotes a fatal slide into extreme individualism. It fosters a society of atomistic individuals, isolated before power — and one another — and in the aftermath of shootings such as at Newtown, paralyzed with fear. That is not freedom, but quite its opposite. ...... assembled masses don’t require guns to exercise and secure their freedom, and wield world-changing political force. .... power does not lie in armed individuals, but in assembly
Gun homicides and gun ownership listed by country
With less than 5% of the world's population, the United States is home to roughly 35–50 per cent of the world's civilian-owned guns, heavily skewing the global geography of firearms and any relative comparison ...... The US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world - an average of 88 per 100 people. That puts it first in the world for gun ownership - and even the number two country, Yemen, has significantly fewer - 54.8 per 100 people ...... But the US does not have the worst firearm murder rate - that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. ....... Puerto Rico tops the world's table for firearms murders as a percentage of all homicides - 94.8%. It's followed by Sierra Leone in Africa and Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean
Manchin Gives Boost to Gun-Restrictions Push
even strong proponents of gun rights in Congress may begin to shift in their views after the deadly shooting rampage last week in Newtown
GUNS AND THE LIMITS OF SHAME
When did a majority of South African Boers realize that Apartheid was reprehensible? How about whites in the American South? When will the Japanese force their whalers to stop, finally realizing that their persistence has caused widespread international revulsion and opprobrium? When will the British realize that public drunkenness—a practice now internationally associated with them as a nation—is something to be embarrassed about? When will we Americans realize that our society is an unacceptably violent one, that this is how the rest of the world sees us, and that much of that violence is associated with guns? Will it be the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School? Where is our threshold for self-awareness? ...... The unprecedented massacre of children led, within two years, to legislation that imposed a total ban on the private ownership of handguns in the United Kingdom. Today, no one in the United Kingdom can privately own a handgun or a semiautomatic weapon....... There was not much hand wringing or heated debate over this legislation. It was discussed, and enacted, with overwhelming public support, in response to the mood of national shame and grief over the killings. ...... What will it require for a majority of Americans to realize that they have a national problem that needs to be urgently addressed? We have lost four Presidents to gunmen in our short history as a nation, and very nearly lost several more ..... Would even another, much larger school massacre bring about change? .... If someone murdered a hundred schoolchildren in a single day with guns, would a majority of Americans agree to true restrictions on them? What is our national threshold for shame?
Mayor Bloomberg Telling It As It Is on Gun Control
The U.S. gun laws, bought and paid for by the N.R.A., are a disgrace to the nation, an affront to the values it claims to represent, and a travesty of the Democratic process. ...... Senator Dianne Feinstein, of California, said that once Congress resumes she would introduce a bill to ban on assault weapons. (The previous ban expired in 2004.) And Dan Malloy, the governor of Connecticut, seconded the call for such a ban ...... And if he does nothing during his second term, something like forty-eight thousand Americans will be killed with illegal guns. That is roughly the number of Americans killed in the whole of the Vietnam War....... prohibit assault weapons. We’ve got to really question whether military-style weapons with big magazines belong in the streets of America in this day and age. Nobody questions the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. But I don’t think the founding fathers had the idea that every man, woman, and child could carry an assault weapon..... nobody should underestimate the hatred, ignorance, baloney, mendacity, and borderline lunacy that would confront him if he were to follow Bloomberg’s advice and take on the gun lobby ....... There is no point trying to reason with Republican gun nuts like Gohmert, just as there is no point trying to reason with Republican anti-tax nuts about income-tax rates, or with Republican nativists about immigration.
WHAT OBAMA MUST DO ABOUT GUNS
emotion is hardly all that is needed. What is needed is gun control—strict, comprehensive gun control that places the values of public safety and security before the values of deer hunting and a perverse ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment. ...... in my home town of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence and they’re not using AK-47s. They’re using cheap hand guns..... eleven of the worst twenty mass shootings in the past half century have taken place in the U.S.

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