Bang, Bang! You’re Dead.
Folks, we all try to work out why America is the world’s biggest warmonger. We come up with this complex theory and that one but perhaps the underlying reason is very simple: almost every American, from birth, grows up with guns.
90 million Americans own 200 million guns. Of course, given the ease of obtaining guns in America, this figure may well seriously understate the true picture. These statistics detail America’s level of gun violence: 100,000 people shot each year, eight people dying each day from gunshots, one million dead since 1968.
Not content with this frightening figure, the American Supreme Court has defied logic and commonsense and extended gun rights to every state and city. Shares in gun manufacturers have jumped significantly. What could the judges have been thinking?
Now just imagine an American child escaping from the indoctrination that guns are good, good Americans own guns, it’s in the Constitution that each American has the right to bear arms for self-protection, and the American Constitution is a holy document, written centuries ago, that each citizen should worship and obey. It’s impossible unless the child has unusual parents.
The child might be introduced to guns at an early age, perhaps taken hunting. On television, the child sees violent movies which show guns being used by the ‘goodies’ to kill the ‘baddies’ as though this is the natural order in the human world.
The child may hear its parents talking about their guns and how they would be used to deter intruders. The parents may even sleep with a handgun under the pillow! So the child grows up to think that guns are normal and everyone should have one.
Now guns have only one purpose: that’s to kill things. A bullet does not discriminate. It smashes into the body or head of animals, humans and causes tremendous damage. The gun on the bow of a whaling ship fires a harpoon with an explosive head into the hapless creature and everyone cheers as it thrashes about, mortally wounded.
Guns are dangerous things. Accidents happen frequently. Gun predispose people towards violence in conflict resolution. On the news here this morning a man went out and shot dead two brothers over a dispute over noise perhaps from loud music. If he’d had no gun, then two more humans would still be alive and he wouldn’t be spending years in jail.
Guns not only predispose individual people towards violence but, if you think about it, they enable humans to think that war is an acceptable way to solve problems between nations. If someone threaten you, kill them. If some nation seems to threaten the homeland, exterminate it.
This bizarre action of the Supreme Court will increase these stats significantly and prolong America’s predisposition towards guns and war.
Intelligent humans don’t need guns. Let’s get rid of guns and the gun culture!
i’m not very good at maths but the figures you note david, suggest that there could be two guns per person? (or near enough) in the u.s……….
in the european country i live there was recently an article in the newspaper that stated there was one gun for every four indigenous person……….. that was scary enough!!!
yes it’s a culture of ‘shoot first’……….ask questions later……………sad.
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David G Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 10:41 am
Coco, humans have never moved away from the use of brutal force to achieve their objectives. The weapons they use have become ever more fiendish but the killing mindset remains.
There can be only one outcome to this mindless progression.
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coco Reply:
June 30th, 2010 at 11:08 am
and if the violence doesn’t get us, bp will……………….
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Immediately after Hurricane Katrina, Blackwater was in the streets and knocking at doors wanting the guns of New Orleans residents. Immediately after “Shock and Awe” in Iraq, the US tried to disarm the public.
I am not crazy about armed humans, but I am less enamored with a fascist state armed to the teeth amidst a vulnerable, disarmed populace. Yes, too bad when people turn their guns on each other. But when the State grabs more and more power, it is inevitable that sooner or later people will need to rid themselves of the State.
Humans shed human blood because they shed animal blood. Both are unnecessary, preventable and they harm both sides of the relationship in every instance. The first people ate tree crops and had no interest in harming anything. We lack claws and fangs. Our gastric chemistry is not akin to felines, who can digest dense parts of the prey. Tech-less, what creatures would we even be able to catch, besides a few insects?
We BECAME what we are, we were not made this way. But we have created the concept of the State replete with borders, nationality, patriotism, etc. This is all artifice, not natural. To cement these things together people created gods that demand sacrifice–ritualistic blood sacrifice. Generational warfare. The blood of the turkey at Thanksgiving, the pig’s ass (ham) at Easter, the liquid “blood” for baby calf after an Indianapolis 500 win (the bottle of milk ritual–will we ever allow ourselves to finally end being the only mammal that doesn’t wean itself?). A different animal (un)made a different way for all occasions. State fighting State. Sacrificing its youth to perpetuate this foolish bending of the knee to divine beings that live only in the minds of fools.
Surrender our weapons to the State? They’d love that. It would make enslavement a lot easier. Better that the STATE be disarmed.
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well said ted…………….i couldn’t agree more. i’m vegan btw, so know what you are saying re: eating meat.
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No guns in our house. Live by the gun, die by the gun. I don’t wish to die by a gun. However, I am with Ted, in that I would rather see an armed populace – than an armed government with unarmed citizens.
If my son were ever interested in guns, I would take him to the sheriff office and the morgue to learn about the bad side. Then I would take him to a Range and have a professional teach him properly – and then all guns would be stored at the range (which they allow). Guns would not be allowed outside of the range unless there is a national emergency – like the government turning on the citizens!
I was raised in an intellectual environment. Music, reading and multi-culturalism were all encouraged.
Reno 911 is a parody of the popular police reality shows. When I watched COPS one day, I thought it was a parody – but it wasn’t! They bust into some guy’s trailer and he the cops found a gun hidden in the toddler’s toys!!!!!
We had some neighbors a few years back. Their son was four years old – just like our son. They let their kid play with toy guns and yet did not teach him about the rules. He would point the gun at people! I said something to his mother and it never crossed her mind that one day he could pick up a real gun, treat it like a toy, point it at somene, shoot, kill probably another kid and then go to prison!!! I tell my son that all guns – even toy guns must be treated as though it were a real gun.
Discipline. Self control. Never hold a gun in anger – unless it is aimed at an attacker!
I don’t like guns. However, I cannot make them go away, nor do I think that would be wise – under the current political climate..
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Ted, in an ideal world neither the State or individuals would be armed. In an ideal world we would cooperate, help each other, be driven by our intelligence not by our instincts.
We don’t live in an ideal world but guns and killing ensure it never will be.
Grace, I found your comment interesting. I guess with both Ted and yourself, you have been brought up with guns occupying a rather sacrosanct place. I wasn’t.
Few people in my country own guns and those who do face severe restrictions. The thought of Australian citizens having to be prepared to fight their own government is something that is beyond the comprehension of Australians (except perhaps for a few wackos).
It’s a clear example of two very different forms of indoctrination, one benign, one dangerous. And let’s face it, when the American Constitution was drawn up, there was a need to bear arms. But times have changed!
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Ted Zagar Reply:
July 2nd, 2010 at 3:07 am
David, you said that, “And let’s face it, when the American Constitution was drawn up, there was a need to bear arms. But times have changed!”
Yes, times have changed. For the worse. We have had two consecutive administrations that have systematically shredded the American Constitution, and I truly believe that Obama is considerably more dangerous than Bush,if only because the former is an obvious idiot and the latter can disarm a nation of trusting buffoons with a gilded tongue. His administration has openly endorsed the targeted killing of an American citizen–a cleric living abroad–and there are rumors of a list of CITIZENS that are up for assassination by the State. He refuses to release KNOWN innocent parties from Guantanamo. He hasn’t flinched against the practice of torturing untried prisoners, or prosecuted the Bushies who DID break this international law with gusto and no remorse. A Congressional committee just PASSED along the bill which gives Obama a KILL SWITCH to turn off the Internet in “times of crisis,” whatever that means. Well, we KNOW what that means. Stop the Davids and Teds of the world from communicating. Stop the media from covering events like the massacre on the high seas of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla (this bill is Mad Dog Senator Joe Lieberman’s baby from hell).
Maybe you might recall when Serbian paramilitaries were marching from one village to the next killing everything in sight, raping along the way. Ditto for the “other side.” If you were there and your village was surrounded and some rabid, rapacious beast was three blocks away, then two, then one, you would WANT to do what EVERY SPECIES INSTINCTIVELY KNOWS WHAT TO DO DURING TIMES OF ENDANGERMENT–you FIGHT!
I waged Peace against Vietnam, animal abuse, etc. for four decades in the streets and on paper. I’ve seen the Beast, beating unarmed people at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, at open housing rallies, etc. People mistake me for a Pacifist because I want the original peaceful human that we once were and are designed to be to enter our collective spirit. But NEVER mistake me for a martyr or a pacifist. I couldn’t play the Ghandian role if I wanted to–a tight solar conjunction to Mars makes me essentially a reluctant warrior. If that Beast is now on my block and my elderly mother and sisters are in the cross-pubic-hairs of this rapist, heaven forbid that he go man to man with me and without arms. As long as he IS armed, why should people lie down and stretch out there necks on the chopping block? A mother robin fights off–to the death if need be–any threat to her nestlings. Are we any less? Taking out evil and being willing to sacrifice yourself in the process is a noble deed. And I am not talking about the Empire’s storm troopers fighting some made-up terrorist bogeymen to extract more tax treasures from the cowering citizen to expand the Empire’s holdings.
I am glad that Australian culture is less inclined toward gun violence. May it spread elsewhere. But knowing WHO and WHAT has commandeered the levers of power in the USA at the highest level makes me convinced that we are a stone’s throw from the NECESSITY to take back our freedoms “by any means necessary,” because the ballot box has an empty bottom. There is no pledging allegiance to the Republic. This is empire, impure and simple, and it never gets prettier, only uglier, until it is brought down. Yes, there are the Martin Luther King, Jr.s, but would civil rights have been assured without the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, or Malcolm X? I think not. The instinct for survival is close to the top of the list of our instinctual proclivities. Were the armed Jews who fought back when the Warsaw Ghetto was “closing for business” wrong or right?
You have to be here to FEEL how near the fascist boot is from stepping down on your face. Bless Australia if it never knows this feeling.
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It is so true that here in the US we live in a gun culture. My 4 year old grandson is fascinated with guns and shooting. His parents have no guns and neither do either set of grandparents or anyone else he is close to, yet he still knows about guns and seems to think that they are nothing more than cool toys.
This really scares me! I try to tell him about how dangerous guns are and how they hurt people, but the culture he is growing up in, that celebrates guns, is much too strong for my words or those of his parents to have much if any effect.
Recently a 2 year old boy shot himself in the head while playing with his parents loaded gun that they kept in a dresser drawer. This was after he had been told not to play with that same gun.
It is simple guns kill people!!!
Now the US Supreme Court has ruled that cities and states cannot limit and control guns.
This is insane!
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Ted Zagar Reply:
July 2nd, 2010 at 3:32 am
Jeannie,
Not only am I for an armed militia to protect the people from the State, but I am totally against registration BY the State. Why tell them what you have?
The people who SHOWED the child a GUN and told him not to use it WITHOUT locking it up–separate from the ammo (kept somewhere else)–in a secret place sound like total idiots. I’m sorry that they lost their child, but come on now! That’s like me showing my dog a meaty bone and saying, “NO!” and then being surprised when he’s gnawing on it.
I would NOT give my child or grandchild a toy weapon–of any type. I would give them SAFE toy tools and build things with them–birdhouses, bird feeders, cold-weather stray cat shelters, etc.
My hard-earned money is being spent on the mass murder of Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani (and who knows who else by covert ops, foreign AND domestic?) CIVILIANS. If these people are willing to kill unarmed people THERE, what makes you think that they have one moral fiber in their being to STOP at killing unarmed people HERE if they thought that that person was “in their way” of gaining total control of the world? They wouldn’t. And that’s what the Founding Fathers KNEW. Any State, no matter how well-designed, is manned by HUMAN BEINGS. Hitler was elected, not the beneficiary of a coup. So they created an amendment to assure citizens that they could keep the means of their protection, from all enemies, foreign or domestic. I do not find it odd that this Amendment is near the top of the list.
Do you fear Iraqis or Afghanis more than people on the Beltway? I don’t. And the latter have EASY ACCESS to me. I never met a Vietnamese, an Iraqi or an Afghani in a dark alley. I don’t expect to, as I laugh at the fear mongers.
I live in Indiana’s poorest community per capita. I have had 2 cars and my house shot up by drive-by gang-bangers shooting at the young men standing in front of the tavern next door–which I had closed two years ago. A young boy whose father was a reputed gang lord on my block was shot in the head by assassins who tried killing the father. In retaliation SIX HOUSES within one block from my home were torched that summer–one belonging to a police officer.
You have to be here to understand why some people feel that they need to take measures to protect themselves.
Our current mayor is under federal indictment. Our last mayor was told by a judge recently to pay back over 100 million dollars mismanaged (read, “stolen”) by his administration. His lawyer said that he had no money and that he couldn’t comment because he was in his spare home in Mexico. Cops have been suspected of assassinations.
Life goes on–sort of.
Best wishes in your neighborhood.
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Ted, the picture you paint of life inside America is horrifying. It certainly shows America is no ‘Beacon on the Hill.’ The extreme irony of the situation is that America is trying to impose its ‘values’ on other nations while it swallows them up.
The question I would ask is: why don’t the people of America rebel against their leaders? They have the guns, they have the right, and they have the anger. What percentage of Americans feel the way you do?
Jeannie, while the indoctrination goes on, the gun culture will go on and while Americans are afraid of their own government so will the urge to own guns. It’s a Catch 22 situation.
It seems that America has become a basket-case, one that is a danger to itself and the world! The solution is in the hands of the American people.
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I was serious when I said there was a helicopter over my apartment within minutes of writing and phoning President Obama saying to stop fighting Israel’s wars. It hovered there – over my head – for a few – before flying off. I live in an uppermiddle class neighborhood. I have seen the police helicopter fly over many times, but it never stops in my neighborhood.
I lived with a man who turned out to be an Israeli agent. I made the mistake of mentioning “revolution” at the dinner table once. I was shocked at the response. He was compelled to say to our guests (his son), Oh, she always says ridiculous things! As if to cover for me. It was an extremely revealing moment. He thought I was a secret agent OR a witch (he told me so)!! Because: I seem to know things. None of this is dinnertime conversation, folks!
Fascism is so close you could reach out and grab it (except you don’t!)
How do I know what I know? Because I try to keep an open conversation with nature. Trees tell me that they are working too hard to compensate for all the forest destruction. I smell the air and I know there is toxic abuse. I have suffered. I recognize when others are suffering. Gazans are suffering. It goes on and on.
Peace on Earth, folks.
Good will towards all.
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