The ominous trend hidden in mass shootings

I don't need to remind everyone of the Orlando shooting. Everyone is shocked over the sheer number of casualties, and surprised about the targeting of the LGBT community by an undoubted Islamic terrorist. Those two things will make this atrocity linger in the public mind. The tragedy is taking us through another tour of the well-worn debate over the availability of military-grade guns under the Second Amendment. Never mind these are weapons that could kill fifty people in five minutes, argument always ends the same way. The gun lobbying and PR kills any action. Yet, both the shock of the massacre and the familiarity the aftermath ritual obscure a disturbing trend in mass shootings, one that should be getting more attention.

(Continued after the break.)

Mass shootings are for white Christians only

Looks like the old American tradition of racism is finally going beginning to crack the gun regime. It's taken a couple of brown Muslims doing mass murder for conservatives to see it jus' ain't right that anybody can buy a gun, almost no questions asked. Since racism created the NRA to begin with, that's what Abraham Lincoln would call fitting and proper.

Personally, I was surprised that a couple of Muslims were able to put together such an arsenal and not draw more attention, if not from law enforcement, just from neighbors. It goes to show me that the Right to Keep and Bear (if not open carry) is a lot more colorblind than I thought. It's apparent that the two San Bernadino terrorists thought they get away with it. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms means that Middle East terrorists don't necessarily have to commit suicide nor fool with huge amounts of explosives. Much safer to just buy assault rifles.

I'm still waiting for one of these shootings to be thwarted. The problem with that is a matter of response time. It will take ten seconds for the would be hero to come out shock and begin to respond. By the time he pulls his gun, there's maybe fifteen to twenty seconds. A guy with a semi-automatic can empty his clip and be reloaded before then. By that time, five people are down, and he's aiming at our hero.

You could see from this that it's far better the killer doesn't have such a capable weapon in the first place.

Conspiracy theories

The Oregon tragedy seems to have died without making any changes. Nothing about guns is going to be reformed until the gun industry is investigated and its propaganda-marketing apparatus exposed and/or prosecuted.

Some may wonder why guns have this kind power. Remember, that industry has a foot in the military-industrial-intelligence complex. This means the industry has undue political pull over Congress from several different sources. The National Riflery Association is now part of the gun industry's marketing arm. Most of its funding comes from the gun industry.  Yes, it has citizen membership, but it's an example of a grass roots organization captured by an industry. The grass roots have been removed and it's all astroturf now.

I'm not a conspiracy buff. There are conspiracies that absolutely can't happen, there are conspiracies that are unlikely, but there are ones that both can and do happen. There are certain ways of separating out the unlikely (or can't-happen) conspiracies from those that could be happening. Leonard Mlodonov's book The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. He talks about conspiracy theories and gives some hints about likely and unlikely ones. 


Any conspiracy with size and reach runs on money. The reason why the CIA was able to grow into the menace it became was because in its early days, it got its funding by skimming off the Marshall Plan.

The gun industry has plenty of money. It has guerrilla marketers to spread rumors of conspiracies to take away guns. These are bloggers, writers, editors for gun publications.

It is creepy, though, how consistently corporations behave in the same way. The tobacco industry had similar riches and used it to buy politicians, suppress data about the harm of tobacco, and put out its own propaganda and marketing. It convinced people that smoking was part of their freedom. The gun industry is pretty much doing the same thing. But many industries pit themselves against the interests of their clients, and the interests of the public at large, so they can continue to enjoy profits.

Look at the fossil fuel industry and Global Warming. Or not, because it's so depressing. Whatever we conjure up when we form for-profit corporations, it doesn't act like a human being with a conscience, never mind what the Supreme Court said.

PS. I've taken a large dose of Melotonin. I'm not sure if this entry came out right at all. I'll have to check it when I have time.




  

The Unabridged Second Amendment

I'm not joking when I say that there is an unabridged version of the Second Amendment, that no gun nut cites because not only does it make it all too clear what the 2A is for, but the similar wording leaves no doubt that the 2A was hacked out of it.   

The on-air shooting in Virginia has more outrage over our country's lax and getting-laxer gun laws. Again, there are going to be calls to limit guns in some ways, and again, the gun industry is going to marshal its goons . First there's the paranoid division, for spotting evidence that entire shooting was staged by Obama. Because as we all know, no gun nut would ever commit such an atrocity. They're such humanitarians.

Then you'll have Cold-Dead-Handers, who will swear who will get their surgically implanted in their hands to make sure the government can never take them. Never mind that the government has never come close to doing that. In my home city, the state legislature has forbidden police from getting guns off the streets. As a result the number of murders have spiked horribly even though overall crime is down.

They're also forgetting the government has drones and nuclear weapons, and soldiers with body armor. The weapons people are arming themselves with are handguns and rifles that are too light and obsolete for any serious war. 

Then you'll have the Rambo Revolutionaries. These are the ones who swear the whole purpose the Founders had in mind for the Second Amendment was written to keep people prepared rebel against the inevitable tyranny that's predicted in the Bible, somewhere. A tyranny would be any government that does away with the Second Amendment. They're not too concerned about the other Amendments though. Like the Oaf Kreepers weren't too concerned with police launching chemical weapons into a crowd practicing the First Amendment. They also seem rather doubtful on Amendments 13-15.

So, what is the Second Amendment for, and why does it guarantee us an armed population? You would think it would tell you that. Unfortunately, this is what it says. 

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. - See more at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html#sthash.ULMHQaRU.dpuf

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

One thing that strikes you from reading it with the rest of the Bill of Rights is it's the only Amendment that tries to explain what it's for. The rest are pretty self-explanatory. "Congress shall make no law . . ." "No soldier shall . . ." The rights of the people . . . shall not be infringed."


Except it's not too good an explanation. Write a sentence like that in English class, and your teacher would probably gouge your eye out. Passive voice with the noun at the end? Is that Latin or Germanic syntax? How is the militia to be regulated, especially if it's a militia to overthrow the tyranny? Does the tyranny do the regulating? If not, who does? In what capacity is an armed populace necessary to security of a "free state?" Nations like Libya or Somalia, where everybody is armed, don't look particularly free on the surface. Other states that have overthrown their governments with the help of arms don't seem to end up better or free. Ukraine, with its Nazi problem, being the prime example.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. - See more at: http://constitution.findlaw.com/amendments.html#sthash.ULMHQaRU.dpuf

So, what are its garbled phrases really about?

It just so happens we have the unabridged version, and it survives in the laws of one of the original states. Before the what became the US even won the Revolution, the Constitution of the Common Wealth Virginia was enacted at the same time as the Declaration of Independence. One of the two principle writers of the document was James Madison, who was also later the principal writer of the US Constitution.

Section 13 concerns what we call gun rights, or the right to keep and bear arms. I've put in bold the parts that are word-for-word in the Second Amendment. Here's what it says: 

"That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."
 
Therefore, the purpose of the Second Amendment was to provide for state or national defense without having a standing army. Any questions?

We've already stomped over and spit on the Second Amendment by having the biggest standing army in history!!

It's insane to think a government would give, in its own founding document, a means of the people to destroy it once it goes bad. The Founders were trying to form a "more perfect union," remember? 

Therefore, the Second Amendment has nothing to do with individuals owning guns, whatsoever. They're not patriots, nothing about owning a gun makes you more patriotic. They're just consumers. If it's not a "well-regulated militia" the Second Amendment doesn't apply.

However, by having a huge, standing military, we've completely destroyed any context in which the Second Amendment can be applied. We've evolved into a nation where the need for the right to keep and bear arms is dead.

Oddly enough, the size of the military doesn't seem to worry gun nuts very much. Nor does the militarization of police.

Again, gun advocates aren't patriots, they're a niche market that's been shaped by the merchants selling to it.   

An Unsexy Gunshot to the Eye

Just wait 'til you see that mugger's face when you blow your boob off!

Woman fatally shoots herself while adjusting her bra holster.

Without a doubt, this is the worst wardrobe malfunction since Janet Jackson invented them. In fact, it sets a record.