Tag: gun laws

Gun Control. Gun Safety, Gun Something!!

My brother sent me a group of articles on guns. I am not fact checking, most are from sane responsible sources although they may be accused of bias. I am now biased. As a gun owner and concealed gun carrier, I am biased. I think it is time to examine seriously the corruption of America by the NRA. I am biased against the lies disseminated by groups like the NRA which lie, twist and bend the constitution to an audience that honestly believes the bullshit. I know many people who pontificate about the rights granted in the second amendment and none of them can intelligently discuss the responsibilities that all public policies and legislation represent. If you do not understand the underpinnings of the law then you are quite ill-prepared to analyze it. Like the doctors who saw lung cancer but never understood the relationship to carcinogens. Or sees a damaged liver but never bothers to explain the effects of alcohol on that liver. And worse yet, refuse to look at the scientific research that would explain the linkage. So here goes.

There have been more than 2,500 mass shootings since Sandy Hook -includes not just shootings in which four or more people were murdered, but shootings in which four or more people were shot.
Mass shootings make up less than 2 percent portion of America’s firearm deaths, which totaled nearly 40,000 in 2017 alone.
On average, there is around one mass shooting for each day in America

states with more guns tend to have more gun deaths

the US does not, contrary to the old conventional wisdom, have more crime in general than other Western industrial nations. Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence

“A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London.”

other social indicators in 2011,… found that higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness didn’t correlate with more gun deaths. But he did find one telling correlation: States with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths

http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

one theory that researchers have widely debunked is the idea that more guns have deterred crime

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/

The problem with much gun violence research is that the Congress forbids the federal government including the Centers for Disease Control to study gun violence. So the best we can do is extrapolate from FBI statistics.

Whichever side of the debate you stand, your ideology or your love or disdain of firearms, the truth is that we kill a lot of innocents. The law has a term, reckless disregard for the life of others, to act without regard to the risk of death or great bodily harm to others. Recklessness means the person knew (or should have known) that his or her action were likely to cause harm.

A failure to do something; a neglect of a duty, is an omission which can be the foundation of liability. We all know the lethality of guns. We know that gun violence in the hands of gun possessors causes harm to innocents. And we are guilty by omission everyday we do not explore and implement changes in our society to protect innocents!. Universal background checks on all firearm sales is the beginning and can and should be implemented tomorrow upon an act of a united congress. I know that is never happening but I write because saying nothing is just more omission, negligence and a betrayal to every innocent who will die because we did nothing.

Throw the bums out.

When you listen to Rand Paul, Chuck Grassley, Chuck Schumer, et al in these hearings, you get an overwhelming sensation that we are long, long, long past the time for term limits. This men’s club is corrupt beyond measure. They are partisan, politically or financially corrupt and out of touch. I do not agree with everything Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says or supports, but clearly she is more plugged in to the reality of our everyday difficulties. Whether or not she has the solutions is unimportant because until you grasp the problem you cannot craft the solution. (Kinda like a pandemic)


I never feared a sole political leader in the past because I was raised with the notion of checks and balances. Now I have learned what can happen when the entire government capitulates to the president. Now we are seeing the complete surrender of obligations by the ruling party and how much it resembles foreign authoritarian governments. Especially where the “strong man” consistently and persistently derides the opposition and encourages violence against his own citizens who oppose his rule.

Time to revisit life in the USA. Politics in the USA and the allowance of bought and paid for politicians being allowed to rule over us for years on end. I am okay with the suppression of the political parties especially to the degree that governance returns to the governed. I favor rule by coalition allowing for more political parties. I do not believe in social engineering by legislation. I do not believe that items beyond the scope of national concern can be subject to the whims of the party in power. I abhor the drug laws which criminalize and demonize addiction. I support the right to choose but I believe we have never spent enough money and time curbing unwanted pregnancies.
I love my guns but I also support the right to life as pertains to the health safety and welfare of school children, concert-goers and worshippers. If I must compromise my gun rights, so be it if it will help make it more difficult for the mentally-ill and prohibited possessors in securing a firearm. And every fucking gun owner with half a brain knows that there is an open market in Texas and other states which allows free access to guns by persons who would not be allowed to purchase under federal law from any licensed seller.

So no one is going to compromise or bend in today’s environment of which trump remains the pivotal figure from both sides. So it is clearly time to start over with a government that works for both (many) sides. Many repel at the idea of compromise and cling to the illusion of God Given rights and obligations. I also repel at certain compromises such as caging children, even illegal children. I believe in the sanctity of school children and their right to be free from men with AR-15s who are set to slaughter them.

So I hope we can agree on just this one item. Term limits. Run out the rascals. Then we can sit at the table across from each other via young, smart partisan legislators who will be unable to legally take lobbyists dollars and will know how to craft legislation which addresses the needs of the greatest good.
The Congress was invented to find compromise in legislating. That concept has been abandoned. So I am good with the destruction of the republican party. I never would have advocated that before but recent events over the past 12 years have convinced me that our government is more fragile than I knew. I do not have to advocate the elimination of the democratic party, the republicans are already well on their way to that. But we must not let the victor have the spoils. Deprive both sides of a stranglehold/foothold over our government.

I am and always have been a citizen of the USA. I have and always will support the health, safety and welfare of our military, especially our combat veterans. I do not support rioting and looting but I absolutely support a transformation in policing. Change the training paradigm, the caliber of recruits and the policies around use of force especially as pertains to the mentally-ill.

Oh my I have gone on far too long. God bless the REAL America. Not this trump perpetrated hoax and pox upon us.