Another mass shooting in America...
By louisehartmann
This one happened on Monday in College Station, Texas – just blocks from Texas A&M University. The shooter - identified as 35-year-old Thomas Caffall - opened fire after he was served an eviction notice by a county constable. That constable, Brian Bachmann was killed in the shootout, as was a bystander. A police officer and another civilian were also shot and injured, and are in the hospital. The shooter, Caffall, was fatally wounded when police returned fire.
According to the Caffall’s mother, her son was dealing with mental difficulties. And Caffall’s stepfather admitted that he believed Caffall was “crazy as hell” and a “ticking time bomb.” Yet, despite clear indications of mental illness, Caffall had been legally stockpiling weapons – including high-powered assault rifles - and bragging about it on Facebook. On Monday he used those weapons - to no surprise of those who knew him - killing two people.
Our nation is obsessed with the rights of gun owners, unfortunately, we’re forgetting about the rights of non-gun owners – like the right to not live in a nation plagued by mass shootings where the mentally ill can get military-grade weapons.
Comments
#2
Ranting nut. Go take your meds. The government isn't the threat, it's people like you that look for an excuse to see an enemy to shoot. This is not NaZi Germany - except for the fact that you are trying to make the US over as if it were
#3
Did anyone else catch on his Facebook page how the only current figure listed under "Inspirational People" was Glenn Beck? While certainly not a cause, Beck's propagation of distrust and paranoia should at least be considered as a contributing factor.
#4
I guess I could call you a simpleton useful idiot since you called me a ranting nut but I won't!! The problem with people like you is that you never see an enemy, even when they are very obvious to many others, and would never have the balls to defend yourself against them. You, just like the Germans during the Nazi regime, would rather let those power elite...the ones who always have the guns...frighten you into submissiveness..and cajole you with lies....just..just vote for Obama...that will set things right! Yeah, right!
Or, are you one of the useful idiots that are batting FOR the power elite? The power elite really doesn't want anyone else but those who they control to have guns..and they certainly don't want liberals to have guns.* They will even pretend to be progressive liberals who will ply their anti-gun propaganda in order to disarm the people. They will try to make you believe that it is only right-wing conservative conspiracy nuts who want to own guns. But the fact is that there are a lot of progressive liberals who own their own guns..although many would never admit it. And in the end...if you buy their propaganda...only the real right-wing nuts, the criminals, and the ruling elite will be the only ones who have guns. All the so-called liberals just obediently got on the box cars for their trip to the gas chambers. But, of course, our modern-day "gas-chambers" will be in the form of "no decent health care" and "starvation". It will be a slow death but it will come just the same. So, keep squawking and complaining and voting for the least evil choice...the one who had his chance to make good on who we voted for the first time but turned out to be NOT who we voted for. Obama is part of the illusion that the ruling elite has created to keep people ever hopeful for change...so they will never get off their butts and do anything substantial to change things.
* Funny how those who create our history books tend to emphasize MLK but try to hide HPN (Huey P. Newton) and the Black Panthers. More white cops sh!t their britches when the Black Panthers showed up as a regimented and armed force in the streets of America. And the Black Panthers was just a small part of what could have happened. What if hundreds of thousands of armed citizens decided enough was enough and took back our country from the rich snobs who have stolen it? It sure won't be the namby pamby chicken-sh1t liberals who want to ban all guns that will make any difference. I consider myself a liberal and a progressive but certainly not a misguided fool liberal who would be willing to hop on one of those box cars to the "gas chambers" all without a fight. I am also not a lone meglomaniacal nut willing to hurt anyone unless it is in self defense or in defense of loved ones. We have that right!
#5
A) It's really funny to me when the group most like Nazi's (republicans and conservatives) argue that Democrats and progressives are akin to Nazis. Couldn't be further from the truth. There is no parallel between fascism and democracy or socialism. I know Hitler claimed to be a socialist, but he wasn't....he was a fascist....and a racist.....and really almost like a monarch....much like the modern day conservative movement who wish to purge minorities from the voting booth (and which is home to neo-nazis, the KKK, and other white supremist groups), who argue in favor of unregulated capitalism, who embrace the citizen's united decision and corporate personhood in general, and who voted for GW who claimed "this would all be much easier if this were a dictatorship....and i were the dictator"
B) How did you get from Thom's argument "the right to not live in a nation plagued by mass shootings where the mentally ill can get military-grade weapons" to "Don't buy the idea that we need to give up our guns just because an occasional nut kills a few people."??? Thom and the overall progressive voice is not saying that guns should be illegal. What we're saying is: A) military grade weaponry shouldn't be legal to purchase or at the very least people shouldn't be able to buy mega sized clips, B) proper background checks, including mental health, should be performed for all gun purchases. Some of us would even go a step further to argue that licensing should be required for each type of gun purchase. Guns are dangerous and in the wrong hands they can wreak havoc as we've been seeing more and more over the past 15 years. This is a debate about how to live in a safe society where responsible people own guns and irresponsible and mentally ill people don't. End of story. Stop acting like this is Nazi Germany.
#6
"Police Officers were in fact terrified of the Panthers. Carrying law books and equipped with tape recorders Panthers would follow the police around during their beats. Huey implemented Panther's monitored the police's behavior by pointing out legal violations to them and documenting unjust police action . As the BPP rapidly grew across the nation, the Panthers threatened police from local, state and federal branches of government."
http://www.customessaymeister.com/customessays/Civil%20Rights/15696.htm
"The Party's ideals and activities were so radical, it was at one time assailed by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States." And, despite the demise of the Party, its history and lessons remain so challenging and controversial that established texts and media would erase all reference to the Party from American history."
".........a small group of Black Panther Party members, led by Bobby Seale, designated chairman of the Party, marched into the California legislature, in May 1967, fully armed. Defined as protest against a pending guncontrol bill (which became the Mulford Act) aimed at the Party with the position that blacks had a Constitutional right to bear arms, the Party's message that day became a clarion call to young blacks."
"When, therefore, in October of 1967, Huey Newton was shot, arrested and charged with the murder of a white Oakland cop, after a gun battle of sorts on the streets of West Oakland that resulted in the death of police officer John Frey, it was indeed the spark that lit a prairie fire. Young whites, angry and disillusioned with America over the Vietnam war, raised their voices with young, urban blacks, to cry in unison: "Free Huey!"
"It became a movement of itself, the very embodiment of all the social contradictions, between the haves and have nots, the included and excluded, the alienated and the privileged. The freeing of the black man charged with killing a white cop, the oppressed who resisted oppression, was tantamount to the freedom of everyone."
"One result was not only the flowering of the Party itself but a rapid proliferation of other, like minded organizations. Chicanos, or Mexican Americans, in Southern California formed the Brown Berets. Whites in Chicago and environs formed the White Patriot Party. Chinese in the San Francisco Bay Area formed the Red Guard. Puerto Ricans in New York created the Young Lords. Eventually, a group of so called senior citizens organized the Gray Panthers to address the human and civil rights abuses of the elderly in society. The Party expanded from a small Oakland based organization to a national organization, as black youth in 48 states formed chapters of the Party. In addition, Black Panther coalition and support groups began to spring up internationally, in Japan, China, France, England, Germany, Sweden, in Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uruguay and elsewhere, including, even, in Israel."
#7
You'll get nothing without a fight...and they know how much you don't want to fight...because you are willing to not only give up your guns but you are willing to make everyone else do so as well.
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Excerpts from Chris Hedges' article "The Battle of Blair Mountain":
"Blair Mountain, amid today’s rising corporate exploitation and state repression, represents a piece of American history that corporate capitalists, and especially the coal companies, would have us forget. It is a reminder that citizens have a right to resist a corporate machine intent on subjugating them. It is a reminder that all the openings of our democracy were achieved with the toil, anguish and sometimes blood of radicals and popular fronts, from labor unions to anarchists, socialists and communists. But this is not approved history. We are instructed by the power elite to worship at approved shrines—plantation estates erected for wealthy slaveholders and land speculators such as George Washington, or the gilded domes of authority in the nation’s capital."
"In late August and early September 1921 in West Virginia’s Logan County as many as 15,000 armed miners, some of them allegedly provided with weapons by the United Mine Workers of America, mounted an insurrection after a series of assassinations of union leaders and their chief supporters, as well as mass evictions, blacklistings and wholesale firings by coal companies determined to break union organizing. Miners in other coal fields across the United States had concluded a strike that lasted two months and ended with a 27 percent pay increase. The miners in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky wanted the same. They wanted to be freed from the debt peonage of the company stores, to be paid fairly for their work, to have better safety in the mines, to fight back against the judges, politicians, journalists and civil authorities who had sold out to Big Coal, and to have a union. They grasped that unchallenged and unregulated corporate power was a form of enslavement. And they grasped that it was only through a union that they had any hope of winning."
"It is an old and cruel tactic in any company town. Reduce wages and benefits to subsistence level. Break unions. Gut social assistance programs. Buy and sell elected officials and judges. Fill the airwaves with mindless diversion and corporate propaganda. Pay off the press. Poison the soil, the air and the water to extract natural resources and leave behind a devastated wasteland. Plunge workers into debt. Leave them owing more on their houses than the structures are worth. Make sure the children will be burdened by tens of thousands of dollars lent to them for an education and will be unable to find decent jobs. Make sure that everything from hospital bills to car payments to credit card fees exact increasing pounds of flesh. And when workers stumble, when they cannot pay soaring interest rates, jack up rates further and deploy predators from debt collection agencies to harass the debtors and seize their assets. Then toss them away. Company towns all look the same. And we live in the biggest one on earth."
"The armed miners, many of them veterans of World War I, fought militias and police, who were equipped with heavy machine guns, for five days. The militias and police held back advancing miners from a trench system that is still visible on a ridge top. The Army was finally ordered into the coal fields in early September 1921 to quell the rebellion. The miners surrendered. By the time the battle ended, at least 30 of those defending the mine owners had been killed along with perhaps as many as 100 rebel miners."
"These miners knew the dynamics of capitalism and the role of government. They knew who their friends and enemies were. They knew that only by organizing and physically defying centers of power would they ever get justice. They did not trust authority. They did not wait for authority figures to dole out justice. They were not seduced by the empty rhetoric of politicians. They knew that if they wanted a better world they would have to be their own leaders. They would have to fight for it. And this is a lesson in the nature of corporate and governmental power that we have forgotten. We must make the powerful afraid of us if we are to get any semblance of an open and free society. They are not and never will be on our side."
"The coal companies have erased this piece of history from school textbooks. It is too inconvenient. It exposes predatory capitalism’s ruthless commodification and exploitation of human beings and the natural world. It exposes the drive by corporations to keep us impoverished, disempowered and unorganized. If corporate forces can sanitize history, if they can ensure historical amnesia, then the doctrine of laissez faire economics—which in short promises that the wealthier that rich people get, the better it is for all of us—can continue to rule our lives."
"All the gains, often paid for with the lives of working men and women, have now been reversed. We are back where we started. We must organize, resist and build movements. We must embrace radical politics and remain perpetually alienated from power or become a subjugated herd. I do not call for an emulation of this violence. But I do call for direct and sustained confrontation with all formal mechanisms of power, including the Democratic Party. The corporate state, for its part, should also remember the lesson from Blair Mountain. There are limits to how far a people can be pushed. And if violence continues to be the preferred mechanism for control, if the state refuses to institute rational economic and political reforms to address the growing misery that corporations inflict on the citizens, it will, as at Blair Mountain, engender a violent response."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_battle_of_blair_mountain_20120716//
#8
A: " I know Hitler claimed to be a socialist, but he wasn't."
..and I'd say that Obama claims to be a Democrat and strongly inferred, when he campaigned anyway, that he had progressive leanings...that he was at least more for the middle class and lower classes than for the wealthy upper classes. None of us, who voted for him, ever thought he would be more like a conservative than a liberal progressive. And highly disappointing was his pre-election rhetoric condemning the Bush administration for 911 and their illegal war in Iraq and then, after he was elected, he just wanted to forget the past and concentrate on the future. Obama turned out to be not only dismissive of what the Bush administration did but actually carried on with the same policies that the Bush administration started. Obama is nothing about what we were led to believe about him.
Hitler had his death camps where they tortured and murdered innocent people. Obama has his death machines flying in the air that murder innocent civilians from the skies and prison camps where they torture people.
B: Hartmann's blogs has long railed against gun ownership...and I don't think Thom or Louis makes a very clear and persistent distinction between military-grade weapons from any other guns/rifles. A lot of people who read these blogs, I believe, could very easily think that all guns are bad and should be removed from everyone.
But having said that...how do you think it would go if hundreds of thousands of people armed with sling shots and BB-guns who tried to rebel against a right-wing corporate controlled government armed with drones with Hellcat missiles? Ludicrous, right? But, if millions of people are ticked off and well armed, it would make the ruling powers a little more willing to be less rapacious and tyrannous.
"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." --Thomas Jefferson
And so...as a last resort...when the "Democratic System" has been so corrupted that we are basically cornered into voting for one of two who represent the tyrants..the ruling elite..the plutocrats...instead of the people...then we don't have a real Democratic System...but are ruled by tyrants who...according to TJ need to be overthrown...and you don't do that with BB guns and sling shots...and you will never do it at the ballot box...unless (remote possibility) you manage to vote in a third party candidate like Jill Stein. But, I'm not sure how well even she would stand up to the pressures of the ruling elite.
Obama has already proven that he won't really go to bat for those constituents who voted for him.
But, this country IS getting very close to Nazi Germany...and it will be...or could be... much worse...if there is no decent ability to oppose them....NOW...before it is too late to really do anything about it. Put it another way....if all of you people keep talking the way the ruling elite wants you to...ie: "oh, please, we need more gun control"....the ruling elite knows they have you right where they want you. If on the other hand the majority of people don't buy it and oppose gun control, especially if they are liberals/progressives, then the ruling elite knows they have a problem. Just look at how the Democrats chicken out whenever the right-wingers start mentioning "overthrowing the government"..."armed rebellion"..yeah, like the "government" they want to overthrow is the one that provides benefits and safety nets for the majority of the people and protects them from the rapacious greed of a small group of insidious capitalist gangsters. And, perhaps, the reason why the Democrats chicken out is because they have no teeth (guns).
And lastly, I wouldn't be surprised if these lone-nut shootings were actually done by patsies manipulated by whatever MKULTRA-like operation they have now. It used to be LSD and hypnotism...I'm sure they have a much better way of controlling people to act as "Manchurian Candidates". All they have to do is create a few of these killings and use the mass media to scare people out of their liberties and rights...like gun ownership.
#9
"Our nation is obsessed with the rights of gun owners, unfortunately, we’re forgetting about the rights of non-gun owners – like the right to not live in a nation plagued by mass shootings where the mentally ill can get military-grade weapons."
Yes, and our nation is obsessed with murdering people in other countries...and they use the world's most powerful high tech killing machines...against unarmed civilians. Where is my right to not live in a world where a superpower goes around murdering innocent civilians...all in our name? Sure, they argue that the civilians are just "collateral damage".."they didn't mean to kill all those kids"....something they are willing to laugh off...like a bad joke...and then claim they have some worthy and patriotic reason for why they had to do it. Very bad taste of those chicken-sh1t Al Qaida to hide behind women's skirts instead of standing right out in the open...armed with their sling shots and BB guns...and take a direct hit from one of our Hellfire missles launched by some snot-nosed, pimply-faced gamer back in the states sitting in a cozy air-conditioned office.
Maybe more people should be more concerned about all of the mass murder our brave boys and girls in uniform are doing in the Middle East. Maybe we need to disarm the military of all their murderous toys...before they decide to turn them on us...the unarmed American citizens who balk at being crapped on by the few wealthy elite.
General Eisenhower, after Germany's defeat, paraded all the town's people into the death camps so that they could see what the Nazis had done. It is not so easily done, here in America, to make the people experience the visceral and traumatic experience of the stench and horror that the German people had to endure. These German people were not much different than Americans today. They wanted so very much to believe in their system and what their Furor was doing for their country. They swallowed the propaganda...and so do we.
Our media won't cover atrocities that our military commits and tries to avoid it...oh, they'll, perhaps mention surface details but no investigative journalism will touch it. They leave that to Wikileaks. And when they do mention it it is done so as not to make people question our military presence over there. So, the pampered Americans get very upset when they experience the highly touted and well covered lone-gunman media events. "Oh, how horrible!" And the reactionary..."Oh, this shows that we have to ban all guns." That's right...make everyone else who wants to own guns...to give them up.
#10
Palindromedary, Do you ever slow down the rhetoric? You see a conspiracy behind every corner! Who the hell said they want too take away your guns. This is a story about a sick man, in a terrible situation, where innocent people were slaughtered....He used a perfectly legal weapon too carry out this insane crime. Maybe if we were not pushed into these situations by a society that has almost broken down due to our corrupt politicians on both the left and the right, this type of event would not be so common in our nation. So stop crying about being disarmed, you sound like a regular NRA member....I become nervous when I think people like you are running around thinking the goverment is out to take away all your civil rights, damn, lighten up!
#11
It couldn't happen here ...or could it?
In 1994 A genocide occurred in Rwanda. "This genocide had been planned by members of the Hutu power group known as the Akazu, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government; the genocide was supported and coordinated by the national government as well as by local military and civil officials and mass media. Alongside the military, primary responsibility for the killings themselves rests with two Hutu militias that had been organized for this purpose by political parties: the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, although once the genocide was underway a great number of Hutu civilians took part in the murders."
"Most of the victims were killed in their own villages or in towns, often by their neighbors and fellow villagers. The militia typically murdered victims by machetes, although some army units used rifles."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide
Perhaps we should outlaw machetes and clubs as these were the primary weapons that murdered over 800,000 civilians in Rwanda.
We have to look out for those ticked off End of Days Baptists who see Satan behind every tree and in those who don't believe as they do! No, it wasn't Baptists in Rwanda...just other groups of people who had differing ideas and beliefs. But it could happen here!
Atrocities since WWII:
Mao Ze Dong, China, 40 million;
Khmer Rouge, Cambodia, 1.7 to 2.0 million;
Muslims, East Timor, 200 thousand;
Muslims, Sudan, 200 thousand;
Hutus, Rwanda, 800 thousand;
Serbian Orthodox Christians, Boznia Herzegovina, 200 thousand;
Serbian Orthodox Christians, 400 thousand displaced..deaths unknown;
Government (army and rebels), Democratic Republic of the Congo, 6 million..deaths continue;
Uganda Judicial murder, Uganda, 5% of the population can be legally murdered for being gay
[Fascist Ruling Elite, US, non yet that I know of but it could happen here! Their form of killing is more low key (.no medical care...etc.), so far, but that is only because many people still have guns.]--my comment
http://www.religioustolerance.org/genocide4.htm
I'd bet that many of these victims had wished they had the firepower needed to resist.
#12
Assault weapons must be banned!! Ammo that we call "cop killers" must be banned!! Handguns must require safety classes and permits along with rifles. Some equipment should be controlled. The Stand your Ground law must require full investigation, if used in self-defense. We are sick and tired of reading about children dying from gunshots. We are sick and tired of risking our lives just to walk to our car in the morning to go to work. Just back from WY and SD and they are totally against ANY control and believe the lies that Obama wants to destroy the 2nd amendment. He hasn't done Anything but allow us to travel between states with our guns. Are people crazy? They cannot see what life in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland is like? They can shoot on their property and play "annie oakley" all they want; but our children are dying in the cities. What's wrong with people??
#13
How cleaver to quote foreign countries atrocities. You conviently forgot to site ALL the children, elderly, blacks, whites in AMERICA that are KILLED every darn day because of weapons!!
#14
"You see a conspiracy behind every corner! Who the hell said they want too take away your guns."
Well, for one thing the world IS full of conspiracies and that word, contrary to what some would have us believe, does not automatically discredit it's reality or truthfulness. Yes, there are some "conspiracies" that I believe are worthy of denigration and ridicule...like the "official 911 government conspiracy"...that is so full of holes and lies that it would take some pretty ignorant and/or "lacking of facts" people to believe in.
As for my "guns"...I do not love my guns nor do I even fondle them. I have no gun fetish. And they are not high tech weapons...and I don't collect them. But some people do. And they should have the ability to do so. If I feel a little bit safer because I own a gun then..that is enough for me to be a gun advocate...not a member of NRA by any means.....although mostly...I hardly ever even think of them.
I don't hunt and I no longer go to the firing range.. ammo is too expensive and I really hate the loud sounds, even with ear protection, and the smell of burned powder. But it sure makes a heck of a lot of sense to have some means of protection should someone break in to my house.
There is just no way the police can protect you in time to save your life or that of your loved ones. They usually pick up the pieces later after your dead. It is certainly not a sure thing protection for sure but just the fact that so many people do own guns, I believe, has a tendency to scare off potential attackers..if it was well known that most citizens had their guns taken away then there would be little risk for an attacker...and more attacks would occur.
" Maybe if we were not pushed into these situations by a society that has almost broken down due to our corrupt politicians on both the left and the right, this type of event would not be so common in our nation."
I'd certainly agree with you there. But maybe that is the problem with too many people who believe themselves to be liberal or progressive...they try too hard to appear cool, calm, and collected. While the damn conservatives are ranting and raving on Fox Snooze and everywhere else and threatening to start an armed insurrection if Obama is re-elected...there are an awful lot of people who go for all this.
Democrats need to stop being such tight-A$$eS and being so politically correct and meet these clowns head on with their own threatening gestures...ie: go down to their level. After all it worked to scare the crap out of the Soviet Union..we did all we could to out-crazy, and out-spend the Soviet Union and just how heartless and cruel we could be.
If the majority of Americans did not watch Fox Snooze and were not so enamored by all of that kind of nonsense and their obvious willingness to be the ruling elite's useful idiots then it might make sense to be level headed. But nobody that is smart enough to see how the system has been rigged will vote for Tweedle dee or Tweedle dum anyway...and I think we are in the minority. But the ruling elite knows that they appeal to this kind of emotional histrionics. After all, if you expect people to vote for you, you have to appeal to their baser, reactionary, lizard-brain.
#15
Not nearly as many as die in traffic accidents or misdiagnosed illnesses...or those who cannot get decent health care and die from a treatable disease but are prohibited from doing so because the healthScare insurance companies, even if the people had insurance to begin with, are the real death panels and usually decides in favor of profit rather than life. By the time some of you people put your priorities straight, tragedy may strike you and you will possibly change your minds of some issues. Some of you just don't get it that we are in a war that the ruling elite started against us...and many of us will actually die in that war...a casualty of profit maximization by a few wealthy people who really do want us all dead...well, some of us...they still need peons to do their cleaning, etc.
#16
Deaths and Mortality
(Data are for the U.S. and are final 2009 data; For the most recent preliminary data see Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2010 [PDF - 724 KB])
Number of deaths: 2,437,163
Death rate: 793.8 deaths per 100,000 population
Life expectancy: 78.5 years
Infant Mortality rate: 6.39 deaths per 1,000 live births
Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
Heart disease: 599,413
Cancer: 567,628
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
Alzheimer's disease: 79,003
Diabetes: 68,705
Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm/
Number of traffic deaths in 2009: 33,808 in 2010: 32885
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
The actual statistics depends upon what you consider what age is still considered "Child". Gun control supporters try to use the age of 24 as the upper age of a child in order to make the numbers seem more. Let's see, at what age does the military accept the children to go and play with guns and train them to kill? A much younger age..for sure. They don't consider them children then do they? How many people, when they hear the numbers, think little 10 year old Bobby or 12 year old Jimmy...innocent little school kids who are not into selling drugs?
"In 2007 there were 1520 gun deaths in the 0 through 17 age group (out of 74,340,127 children) and 3067 gun deaths in the 0 through 19 age group. By subtraction we find that there were a whopping 1547 gun deaths in just the 18 through 19 age group. In other words, in 2007 most "child gun death victims" were actually adults. Historically the 18 through 24 age group is the highest crime-committing group. At age 18 part-time drug dealers leave school and become full-time drug dealers. Despite the propaganda from the gun control lobby, criminals in general and drug dealers in particular are the group of so-called children most likely to be shot by their fellow criminals. You can verify this by reading the local gun death news stories in any city newspaper. School shootings are so rare that every one gets national television coverage, but drug dealers are shot so often that they are barely mentioned in their local newspaper."
http://www.tincher.to/deaths.htm
And yes, of course, you are right if you say that even 1 "child" (no matter what age) is too many. But I wonder how many of those people so concerned about gun deaths even care that hundreds of thousands of children died by American firepower in the Middle East...or that 500,000 children died in Iraq due to the sanctions the US put on Iraq. Was it really "worth it"? Odd how the American mind believes these 18 year old "children" are "children" when it comes to gun related "child" deaths yet they are considered adults when they go off to kill other children in other countries. Then these "children" who killed other "children" become "heroes".
#17
What scares me Palindromedary is that you probably own guns and you show yourself to be pretty batsh*t crazy. Long, rambling rants that do not make any logical sense and intense paranoia. You are the poster child for quality gun control laws.
#18
Well, I suppose I could talk on your level...like a child, I suppose. Short meaningless sentences that any 5th grader can muster. If you can't understand, and if it is too hard for you, and don't agree with anything I have to say, then just don't read my posts. That's ok with me. You obviously cannot muster up the facts to counter any of the facts that I have presented so you stoop to name calling. How hard is that?
#19
Suicide by police!
#20
Yeah, how about that, eh? The man was frisked, handcuffed (and they usually cuff them from behind), stuffed into the squad car, as I understand it, and then the police claim the man had a hidden gun that he used to commit suicide. Very, Very suspicious!
#21
Guns are dangerous, so are ideas, kinda depends on one's point of view. Gun control laws much more restrictive than USA's don't prevent massacres (Norway, Australia, et al). Guns do protect the weak against victimization by the strong and/or numerous. Rwanda genocide was carried out with machetes, a kind of assault that firearms in the hands of the victims could have prevented, or at least reduced
.
Instead of railing on and on about restricting access to a very dangerous, very useful tool, let's redirect the discussion to mental health care, and how to make it available to everybody.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". Let's start infringing on the right of The People to be oppressed by employers, underserved by health care providers (including mental health care providers), and the right of the people to be miserable as they try to build the best lives for themselves that they can in a society that only values monetary wealth and the power that wealth can buy.
#22
Right on, MacManor! Thank you very much!
#23
We live in a war motivated society and thats just one of the many problems,the
others are racism,lack of self esteem,covetous dispostion,and being oblivious to other peoples
well being.
#24
Public Health Care. I believe that the primary debate on this subject should be about Public Health Care. Since the Virginia Tech shootings, I have wondered if any of these shooters -- who are almost always described as unstable -- had had access to good mental health services, would they have not have committed the murders? It is cruel to the mentally ill, as well as to their victims, that they are not able to easily obtain good mental health care. Oh, yeah, right, ANY health care is about the right of the providers to make as much money as possible; it's not about helping the citizens of this country.
How about creating a humane system for dealing with the criminally mentally ill? An alternative to our current prison system, which "cures" no inmate?
As to the "gun debate," how does a culture which is saturated by the "entertainment" industry's gory, bloody, violent, shallow, & volatile stock of movies, TV and computer games, and which is (apparently) so easily influenced by these media, say "Enough!"? Oh, yeah, right... it's a Free Speech issue AND the entertainment industry should be left alone and allowed to make as much money as possible.
Many young people have been effectively groomed to believe in American Exceptionalism and that violence is the ONLY course to resolving conflict. Could that grooming have been engineered by the Military Industrial Complex for its own profitable ends? Oh, yeah, right... who are we taxpayers to dare debate which wars and violence and abberant behavior our tax dollars are used for? Is it always all about making as much money as possible?
#25
Jeez Palidrome, get a grip. No one is going to, or can for that matter, 'disarm' America. It'd be neigh to impossible.
The idea that the police in this country have more power (willingly given) now then they've had in decades is a valid position to take, but that power CAN be taken back without all out war. Besides that, it can be argued that one of the reasons for the beefed up police we have in todays world is a direct result of allowing easily obtained war weapons into the general population.
To the question of what can be done about the crazies on the street? I think the root cause can be traced back to when some bright boy (Raygun) decided that the federal government would no longer fund a states care or feeding of the mentally ill. (yeah, mispelling intentional)
The first thing I thought at the time was yeah, this is a bright idea; let's throw all the mentally disfunctional out onto the street.
Since that water mark we've allowed more and more guns out to almost anyone that wants one. Hell, now it's even easier than when Oswald bought a 29 $ gun out of a catalog to shoot a president guns are so pervasive in this society.
Get a grip Palidrome. It's time we start getting the Street Sweepers off the street.
#26
Come to think about it, after the JFK assination the debate about 'some kind' of gun control was started but it wasn't till after another shooting, the first of it's kind, had taken place that the arguement actually gained any traction.
That shooting (the first of it's kind) also was at Texas A&M.
Ahem, that was over fourty years ago. It's hard to believe we're still having the same tired debate.
#27
We live in a different age. We no longer live miles apart, use hand load muskets, or ride horses for basic transportation. Yet somehow, although we openly accept the change to cars and need for laws to govern them, and don't complain that driving violates the constitution, we, the people, think the constitution guarantees our right to own Assault weapons capable of hundreds of rounds per minute. It is harder to get nicotine gum than to buy a nice little AR15, a couple of hundred round magazines, and the bullets to fill them.
We can perform "1984" type survellence, check Facebook, intercept all kinds of phone calls and internet traffic, but it seems to me that if we begin to stem the flow of assault weapons and bullets into the system,the problem may just start to become less.
Then there is the issue of mental health and the difficulty of getting help. Perhaps our new national heathcare policies will start to address this problem. For sure, the existing health insurance industry has done little to address the issue.
#28
Excellent points!
#29
Very good points! Now, where the heck did I put that grip?
#30
Noted! Now does that make me sane?
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Old people and children will be trampled by those struggling to survive. The 9 hour documentary called "Showa", which I watched at the theater when it first came out, had the testimony of concentration camp survivors who had to clear out the dead bodies from the Nazi gas chambers after the victims were gassed. They said that, in every case, they noticed one thing that was quite striking...that the children and old people were always on the bottom of the piles of people struggling to get the last bit of good air at the top of the chamber. People will try to be civilized and dignified up until the very last moment that it is quite clear that they are going to die. There was no wild, or uncivilized or undignified, lashing out in a struggle to survive, no rebellion, just follow orders...until right before it was just too late do do anything meaningful about it. How do you think this could be relevent today? Any similarities? In trying to be dignified and civilized, people will continue to vote for tweedle dee (Democrats) or tweedle dumber (Republicans) and believe they really have no other choice. Instead of using their advantage of a massive display of revolt against tyranny they will continue to play the rigged voting game. Maybe the ruling elite will set up chamber music ensembles at the entrances of every poll station and put up signs that says "Voting will make you free!". "See there, Hannah, what did I tell you....the music...the sign 'Arbeit mact frei'...we are just being resettled to work camps until the war is over...so let's not risk being shot...we'll survive!"
Don't buy the idea that we need to give up our guns just because an occasional nut kills a few people. The Nazis sure didn't want the people (especially the Jews) to have guns. The Jews (some of them anyway) eventually did fight back. But the "civilized" ones went to the gas chambers. And when you look at the things, like NDAA, that Obama signed into law...you had better hang on to your guns.