And I for one welcome our new flickervertigo overlord. I’d like to remind him that as a trusted government worker, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in his underground sugar caves.”

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 9 2011 22:41 utc | 4

Rep. Gifford is still in hospital, hanging on to life; she is listed in critical condition, and so far has not shown any signs of brain swelling or other complications. She was shot from behind, at point blank range, and the bullet passed laterally, through the left hemisphere of her brain. She has been put into an induced coma to let the brain rest and facilitate healing. In our county’s history, political assassination, like everywhere else where it occurs, has grim and sinister meanings.
I think there is some misunderstanding of US political alignments by some of the posters here. The evangelical movement exploited by G. W. Bush was amplified and given a prominence by partisan media, that was out of proportion to its real significance. A significant number evangelicals are worried about issues of conservation and the ecology If an effective movement is ever to develop; it must include them, as well as a collection of liberals and conservatives.
There were a number of conservatives who joined ranks with liberals against Bush and Cheney, over Bill of Rights issues, as well as opposing the endless and insane wars. The tragedy is the nation’s betrayal by Obama and the Clinton clique, and their Wall Street partners in crime, is that the political realignment was a more creative one in 2008, which has revealed demographic trends that finally break up the control of policy held in the Deep South, which is deeply conservative and has dominated policy for decades.
Political killings, when they begin, are signs of an underlying rot; and I take the point that Uncle made, about the creepy and suspicious death of William P. Wheeler III, who was wandering around Wilmington, Delaware, in a daze, and turned up dead in a landfill a couple of days later. What does possible a hit against a former military insider in the government, and the other more visible violence, that takes the lives of a prominent democrat in a republican-leaning state, have in common. Do these things connect? I don’t know.
Assassinations such as these work on a higher level; and we have reasons to worry. It is also worrying that so many, whose comments I have read on other blogs, are in a state of emotional breakdown, going absolutely apeshit, in partisan meltdown before the crucial facts have become known. And we still lack enough evidence, about what has happened.
Going back to my previous point: Ron Paul’s son, Rand, for example, is a far cry from the more principled libertarians, like his father. Rand personifies unprincipled ambition (but then again so does Obama); he is an amoral opportunist who is riding to power on the coattails of the Tea Party. However, the extremists on the right have not been adverse to the crudest rhetoric; and the nativist stridency in the Tea Party. Its cultural parochialism laced with racism, doesn’t separate it that much from the right-wing extremism that rears its head in Europe.
I don’t dispute that democrats and republicans are corrupt. They are alike in many ways. But the darker side of the US has bubbled to the surface in Arizona and in parts of the American South. But this is true in Arizona most of all. The Tea Party are the white, aging, and up-to-now comfortable middle class, who are filled with inchoate rage whenever they are reminded that we should be concerned about the 50 million Americans who are uninsured, and without access to health care. They are livid at the idea that children born to the illegal immigrants become citizens, just as the Constitution stipulates. The better off still want the sweat and toil of these illegal immigrants, who dig the swimming pools, that the better off enjoy.
And ever since the Bush years (and especially since the Tea Party came into existence), the most crude and incoherent of them have been waving their guns in the face of the electorate, shooting bullets into the offices of democratic representatives in Arizona, and using the platform of election politics to brandish the guns in political ads, in a way that suggests a veiled threat. In Pakistan, Taseer crossed the mullahs and offended the religious piety of extremists; but in our country the problem is mixed up with class, and in misbehavior that goes back to the slave history in this country. I don’t know if the analogy is so close to Pakistan, as it is to the classism and cultural hang ups that we picked up from Europe. These hang ups persist here; and the violence in Arizona should worry every American.

Posted by: Copeland | Jan 10 2011 0:10 utc | 6

I certainly would not be welcoming those shots as the opening of a revolution. The first tens of thousands to die would be totally innocent people; and they would not be holding guns in their hands. The ones doing the killing would not be the vanguard of a new republic, but the uprising of a fascist Falange.

Posted by: Copeland | Jan 10 2011 0:31 utc | 8

@ Copeland–this kind of Fascist Falange?
shudder.

Posted by: catlady | Jan 10 2011 1:03 utc | 10

My God, catlady, that is truly horrific.
Church people in Topeka are calling for “more shooters, more dead carcasses”. Shudder indeed.

Posted by: Copeland | Jan 10 2011 1:35 utc | 12

flickervertigo said:

as the loot piles up in my mattress, and you poor slobs get poorer, once the shit hits the fan i’ll be able to hire armies of you people to protect me from the rest of you

that’s nice, but there is a chance our economic decline will spark a collective national tantrum when we can’t consume as we’ve become accustom to consuming, and we will beg some 21st century Hitler to do what it takes to allow us to keep importing our lifestyles.
then, watchout.

Posted by: lizard | Jan 10 2011 3:42 utc | 14

“…we will beg some 21st century Hitler to do what it takes to allow us to keep importing our lifestyles.”

yes, that’ll probably be the cover story for the dictator as she takes over, but the problem with that, is: no amount of hitlers is gonna be able to replace the trillion barrels of easy oil we’ve already burned… so our hitler will probably be an interim stage in the collapse… they cant ignore peak oil forever… –they may be able to stifle knowledge of it (and the cause/effect relationship between peak oil and 9/11) long enough that, once people discover what’s going on, it will be too late to matter.
the gulfstream to paraguay seems like a much better solution, in the long run.
i’d invite you along, but we’re already gonna be overgross on takeoff… what with the gold and dancing girls and everything.

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 10 2011 4:04 utc | 16

Everything for the real enemy to win by slathering the issue with false difference. The loud ridicule and flameouts over semantics and the politics of lifestyle — they’re a little Country and we’re a little Rock and Roll — the ceaseless circus of video mashups and screeching hyperbole, as ignorant if not as illiterate, while never having the heart to get out there and DO anything to get our country back, is all at least as reprehensible as anything the Tea Party has done… plus lazier and more cowardly. There is plainly evident support for those Democratically wiping their asses with the Constitution every bit as heinous as that for those who did it Republicanly up until a couple years ago. Democrat = Republican. Citizen = Citizen. Making a thousand pissant scandals into raging controversies is IDIOTIC in the face of the stakes. It will not be just the bubbas being frisked and told to show their papers whenever an official is in the vicinity. It isn’t just the bubbas being molested at the airports. It is not only bubbas losing their homes. Millions of honest citizens are on food stamps while a fraud artist elite reaps millions in bonuses for driving us into ruin. And ALL of us are slaughtering people all over the globe… for the enrichment of those few fraud artists and to the detriment of us all. Kids too engrossed in a game of War to notice the fat fraud artists cackling out in the yard, watching our house burn down around us.
If we don’t quit being THIS easy, we’re dead.

Posted by: 99 | Jan 10 2011 4:49 utc | 18

b,
One can’t deny that the rich and poor live in different worlds. This is probably true in most, if not all, nation states in this era. I agree with the general idea in the first condition of your conclusion, that is, a country where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer breeds violence. But religious fanatics may or may not be helpful, hurtful, or influential to either the elite or the poor, and a strong military complex could keep violence by the population to a minimum by restricting freedom, using media propaganda, and using a minimum amount of brutal tactics – low quantity, high “quality” – just enough to install fear and compliance.
Re-quoting Omar: There are three sources of violence: one is the element of violence seen in every third world country where a small corrupt elite lords it over the mass of the people. Omar cites this attribute to third world nations and you cite this attribute in a comparison to the U.S. and Pakistan, but isn’t this a condition that we see in many nations? Of course, we often see this reported in other nations as group violence in the form of protests – the austerity measures causing riots and death in Greece, the Prince and Duchess of Wales attacked by protesters and related violence (possibly no deaths but many hospitalized) for fee increases, etc. and etc. Perhaps it takes a religious conviction or extreme abuse for lonesome bravery, but any implication that violence is special to the U.S. and Pakistan because of ‘religious fanatics’ or the chasm between rich and poor in these countries would be an error. To quote Gerald Celente “When people have nothing to loose, they loose it.” I think we can find examples of this most everywhere.
The comparison is further strained when applying the terms ‘religious fanatics’ and ‘liberal’. In the U.S., our media such as FOX News and other mainstream media, not religious fanatics (although some may beg the difference), brings the news to both rich and poor, and it surprises me how the poor and marginal (and yes, even so called “liberals”) support such things that are clearly not in their interest. Perhaps this is your main point. A good example in the U.S. is how so-called ‘liberals’ support a health care plan run by private corporations without a ‘public option’.
In your first sentence, the word ‘liberal’ is placed in quotes …and then you proceed to quote Londonstani that the wealthy (elite) don’t trust the poor, and the poor consider the elites [wealthy] as aliens. In the linked article, Londonstani says: ”Taseer’s death, like the blasphemy debate that preceded it, was about much more than religion; it was about the politics of resentment in a state that’s failing.” No problem in understanding that, and no disagreement, especially with my limited knowledge of Pakistan. However, Londonstani is wrong to liken the abortion debate in the U.S. to Blasphemy laws in Pakistan, especially when implying ”this was economic resentment manifesting itself as cultural resentment”. For example, my personal opposition to abortion has zero connection to resentment of the wealthy or my economic status. It is quite the opposite, as it is the poor and minorities who are being aborted in large numbers. A culture of acceptance and economic aid would surely change these statistics. Are only the rich and elite allowed to reproduce without undue anxiety and hardship?
As stated in the previous post, assigning the word “liberal” or “conservative” to this situation is what is most confusing. Do your quote marks around the word ‘liberal’ imply that G. Gifford is not a “liberal”, but of the [conservative] “elite”? Was G. Gifford {acting as} a ‘liberal’ in representing the poor with her recent public appearance, “sharing a public space with the poor” ? Does this illustrate a grave mistake on her part, because she really is considered part of the elite by those who live in a world influenced by religious fanatics? How much political analysis is necessary for a senseless violent act?
Usually I am the one who makes simple comparisons and overextends generalizations. Maybe in this case, it is not a worthwhile path.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jan 10 2011 5:36 utc | 20

I probably shouldn’t weigh in on this… but I’m an American, and the crap going wrong in our former republic is sickening.
Personally, I hate violence. I hate seeing people being killed, maimed, and uprooted because somebody has decided violence is the best way to achieve their goals. Unfortunately, violence IS the best way for our social engineers to build the kind of country/culture where they get what they want, and we get squat.
I’ve become a big supporter of our gun rights, because when Americans give up our right to own weapons, we’ve basically given-up our right to be self-governing citizens. I know guns are scary, that they are far too easy to kill someone or something with on a whim. That said, gun ownership is really the litmus test of whether a citizen is a freeman or just a slave to the state.
I know there are many here who will argue against this position, pointing to Europe as a shining example of the kind of society that can be created in a place that has stringent gun control. But then you’d have to point to Switzerland, where the entire country is armed… I’ll readily admit I might be talking out the puckered place where I sit, as I’m not a world traveler, I don’t really comprehend what life if like in other places. Guns, and the rules for their ownership and use, are as different as the governments that try to regulate them.
I don’t own any firearms. I’ve a mess of cheap air rifles because I love to plink, but I don’t like the idea of ME owning a firearm, so I choose not to. And thanks to the crazy gun culture of America I don’t need to. If I want to shoot one, I’ve a mess of buddies that are armed like banana republics, and they love to take me shooting. I like knowing that I’m surrounded by such humans, because it’s folks like them that help keep where I live safe. There aren’t too many incidents of armed violence because most attackers take into account their victim might not be a soft target.
The recent tragedy near where I live was done with a knife, and the guy who did it supposedly had plenty of guns, but instead used a blade. Do we outlaw all the world’s cutlery? Guns are easy to kill with, often too easy. But they’re also the only thing that makes a 75 year-old woman equal to any young punk trying to harm her.
Ahh, I start to rant, and about something most people have already made their minds up about. I think it’s funny that I’m against the death penalty, and yet I’m for guns… and, believe it or not, there was a time when I thought the opposite of this. Yeah, there was a time I thought guns were the problem, and that the government didn’t fry enough of the bastards who used one for something illegal.
But these days I like guns, and I hate the death penalty, and both for the same reason: letting a government control either of these is what eventually leads to tyranny. A government that can legally premeditate a murder has far more power than any individual citizen, and such power, is eventually abused. An armed citizenry is what helps keeps the government nervous and watching itself to make sure it doesn’t step too heavily upon the governed.
At least this is the case in a perfect world, and the world we inhabit isn’t perfect. There are plenty of ‘messed-up’ governments that own weapons, just as there are plenty of messed-up people who own them. At least in a place where gun ownership is legal, if some asshole threatens you with a gun, you can threaten him right back. Try doing that to an armed government if all you’re carrying are rocks…
Peace
P.S. I tried to link something about the local murder, and MoA wouldn’t accept my data… copyright issues? Just wondering.

Posted by: DaveS | Jan 10 2011 9:54 utc | 22

b,
I totally agree with your main point and wonder how long things can go on as they have here in the U.S. with such income inequality. Even when both spouses are working, so many go further in debt. Of course they maybe wasteful but the bulk of their expense is probably [a huge] mortgage, insurance, auto and utilities. Food now is also getting to be a big factor. Income inequality is maybe a misnomer as so many have lost their jobs (no income at all). So many on food stamps, so many underemployed and unemployed, so many in prisons, and so many in unproductive jobs especially in government (much of this waste in military/intelligence/homeland security), banking, and insurance. That is not to say that much of this work isn’t needed but there’s an obvious bloating at this point in time. It is worse than waste as so much of what our military does results in needless death and injury. It would be better to just throw the money away. Government corruption -self-serving actions, actions favoring large corporations, and actions favoring large lobbying groups leave too much of the population stranded and abused.
I am surprised there hasn’t been more violence, but as I stated before, the government/corporate system can have a large influence through propaganda and outright fear.
Like DaveS, I think being allowed to own firearms is a good thing in some respects – maybe preventing full government tyranny but it is hard to imagine things getting worse – maybe we have reached maximum tyranny already even with an armed population. Maybe a religious fanatic is needed to stir the pot in some non-violent way
Sorry for the long rants and the lack of new ideas.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jan 10 2011 14:29 utc | 24

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/bless_you_20110109/

Posted by: noiseannoys | Jan 11 2011 0:34 utc | 26

The involvement of the amerikan empire’s elite in zionism is a symptom of the disease of capitalism not a cause of the disease.
If it wasn’t zionism that was used to justify the ever-burgeoning corporate welfare/defense scam it would have been something else. Maybe assisting Java to ‘stabilise’ its borders as it slowly eats up every island in the malay archipeligo, or maybe aiding the Tutsi to control the mineral wealth of equatorial africa. For sure if amerika doesn’t choke on the huge mongoose that is the Arab ME, the snake will turn & try to devour africa and then the western pacific rim.
I’m betting that ultimately the amerikan empire will rue the day it chose israel as it’s raison d’etre, just as israel will blame it’s demise on the day that amerikan rhetoric had the punters believing the crooks who have been governing israel were actually credible. If all those amerikans believed the patent garbage spewing outta, Ben-Gurion, Meir, Rabin, Begin, Shamir, Peres, Netanyahu, Sharon, and the dreadful Barak, Olmert and the rest, who were they to argue?
I don’t think anyone can definitely predict what will happen in the not too distant future when the rest of the ME says to the zionists “Use it or lose it” but I suspect for most current israeli zionists the rediscovery of religion has been a useful device rather than an epiphany. One that should prevent a new Masada rather than create it, so if the leadership does really want to go the martyrdom option, a big mob of zionists are gonna discover their secular traditions fast, and then attempt to reach an understanding with the rest of the people living in the ME.
It will be too late for that, because of the self deception from when amerika took israel seriously for too long.
What a mess – healthy societies recognise that there will always be a definite percentage of citizens who cannot be trusted with lethal weapons, so they struggle with the balance between individual power and the power of the individuals joined – called state power, because a healthy community recognises that if too many individuals feel so threatened by the power residing in the clique representing the simple majority that they ‘tool up’ a great many people who should never be allowed close to lethal weaponry, will have to be given access, leading to killings such as this one.
Of course societies full of people that aren’t scared are also societies where attempts to put political power in the hands of cabals seeking to profit for themselves are nipped in the bud before they can be established.
It is amerikans insistence on being armed which determines their state of helplessness.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 11 2011 11:44 utc | 28

it isnt as if zionist control of american media and politics hasnt been demonstrated time after time after time.
and the psychology is easy to understand: goy americans were put to sleep by television and the “stuff” they acquired, while jews worked their network to achieve power… then, when it became obvious that america itself was in trouble, that scared the zionists and something had to be done.
it remains to be seen if israel will survive, seeing as how many of the supposed zionists seem to be looters who are damaging israel’s support system, aka america.
will zionist looters be able to loot enough to buy enough weapons to secure israel? …can indian armies or some other suckers be lured into defending israel as america has done?
who knows?

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 11 2011 12:31 utc | 30

Noirette–

Right now I can’t think of a good example where the populace having guns prevented a Gvmt., Overlords, Dictators, an Oligarchy, Invaders, taking or holding power.

At the moment Afghanistan comes to mind… Vietnam? How about America?
I think the misperception is, even among the gun and god types, that individual guns are gonna protect them from a better armed, trained and equipped govenment. That’s not the case, not the goal of the legislation… it’s designed so that if a tyrant came into power, such a person would think twice about screwing the entire population because of the cost of such a decision.. or at least that’s my take on it.
Plus, I know it’s only a movie, but it has a pretty good example of proper insurgent small-arms tactics… Red Dawn
Of course, if we’re talking armed revolution, then the proverbial feces have hit the fan, and a weapon isn’t such a bad thing to have on hand when the rule of law has completely broken down. As I’ve said numerous times, I don’t own any firearms… because I know that if I need one, someone will have one to give me. Otherwise I don’t need or want the responsibility of owning such a weapon, but that doesn’t mean I don’t support others in their rights.
If we want to talk about taking a weapon that is misused and kills far more often than a gun, why not take everyone’s car from them? How about the diet of the average fat American, should we outlaw fat?
Seriously, there are many things that are used as weapons… yes, guns are scary, quick and lethal, but that’s what they’re supposed to be. And they’re not all scary, I watched a video of a young lady who sent burglars scrambling with her mom’s pink .22 rifle, that she has just learned how to shoot the day before. Poor burglars, bad timing

Posted by: DaveS | Jan 11 2011 16:15 utc | 32

Let’s not confuse organised armed resistance with individual gun ownership. Before the war in Vietnam hotted up it would be highly unlikely for the average vietnamese home to have more than a sharpened blade such as a machete or cane knife. True the afghans have a history of individual gun ownership but from reading Zaeef it seems that that isn’t what determines battles when organised resistance is fighting. They tend to give more respect to heavy weapons that have to be sourced through other means, so I don’t see that having a few guns in the home is really much use when confronting an armed highly organised oppressor.
That was certainly the case in Iraq where every home had its ak47 yet eventually force of arms delivered through heavy weapons took control.
The point I was trying to make above was that when citizens get into a competition with the organised state structure over armaments, all that happens is an escalating cycle which the state with its deeper pockets and better contacts, always wins.
Everyone in amerika owning a gun has meant that the state has highly lethal weaponry and systems to supress the population with. Remember back when the crack fights started out and local cops had revolvers to the entrepreneurs TACs and other automatic weapons. Pretty soon the state equipped their enforcers with heavier weaponry & body armour; all the same shit as they use to opress citizens in other countries was pretty soon being used against the amerikan citizens. Not just the crack dealers either, now just about everyone who has to deal with a policeman confronts a body armoured ‘weapons platform’.
Citizens tooling up becomes an arms race just like any other, which is to say one where the entity with the most resources wins. Between humans and the state, the state wins every time…
I realise in saying this that I won’t change any minds you mob have been too deeply indoctrinated with emotional triggers to ever respond positively to a rational argument on the stupidity of everyone having the power to kill anyone else instantly before any consequential analysis has had time to run.
Even if you can see the logic, the fear has been too deeply implanted and kept in place with constant reinforcement for most amerikans to ever be able to consider the issue rationally. I wouldn’t care except the poison is spreading, there is considerable momentum here for arming the police based on years of campaigning and lobbying by offshoots of the pricks who did it in amerika and elsewhere.
I’ve always carried one statistic around in my head, that is if you have a gun in your home you are far more likely to be shot than if you don’t own a gun. I don’t wanna get shot and I get pretty volatile when the correct buttons are pressed so my self preservation instinct tells me that having a gun around will either get me shot or put in prison, neither of which seem attractive.
My life is quiet nowadays but it wasn’t always. I reckon I’ve got outta tight spots using my mouth that I would never have escaped with a gun, no matter how big it was or how many bullets it could hold or any of the other measures determined by the weapons pornographers.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 11 2011 21:35 utc | 34

debs says…

“…when citizens get into a competition with the organised state structure over armaments, all that happens is an escalating cycle which the state with its deeper pockets and better contacts, always wins.”

if the state is dying, the best you can do, if you’re in position to do so, is manage the collapse to maximize your opportunities to loot… and acquire enough loot to set up successor states.
9/11 was a management tactic, and it worked fine, as an endless parade of PNAC/AEI “terrorism experts” (mostly people who’d said they needed “a new pearl harbor” in their sept 2000 PNAC document) blamed bin laden for 9/11… and those shills tipped off everybody else in the media, and bin laden was convicted before the dust settled, despite the fact that the FBI could find no evidence against bin laden even after invading afghanistan.
the point being, the think tanks and their crays most likely have been gaming thousands of scenarios for managing the end of america, and it’s likely that anything that happens has been either staged or anticipated.
so, when “american patriots”, in all their varieties –presiding over their regional fiefdoms– emerge victorious after the collapse, guess who will be crowing about the “triumph of the human spirit” and egging their favorites on?
live and die by the sword… america and israel… the affinity between them is understandable even without zionist control of american media, or the influence of deathwish christians.

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 11 2011 22:24 utc | 36

I appreciate everyone’s opinion on the civilian ownership of firearms, but I think that if we believe that we’re too civilized for weapons, then why do we have a problem with people owning them… oh yeah, I think this sums it up:

“I don’t wanna get shot and I get pretty volatile when the correct buttons are pressed so my self preservation instinct tells me that having a gun around will either get me shot or put in prison, neither of which seem attractive.”

Good on you, I’ve not owned a firearm for much the same reason… I’ve been able to talk my way, or drive my way, out of the couple of times I’ve actually had such a weapon pulled on me. Those were back in my younger days in redneck California, where such an experience wasn’t uncommon when dealing with fellow hicks… plus that place was a meth haven, lots of crazy freaked-out psychos and a murder rate per-capita higher than Los Angeles. That might be blamed on the guns, but I think it makes more sense to blame all that bad shit on poverty and bathtube meth. Where I live in Colorado, the poverty rate is probably much higher, gun ownership is higher, but the number of shootings is practically nil… you have to scour two counties to come-up with much gun violence.
And I understand many people think, remove the guns, remove the problem… but it isn’t that simple.
You have to educate people and give them a reason to believe in themselves and their communities. A peaceful society is a society where people aren’t made to feel marginalized and where they have the skills to defuse angry situations. Civilized people don’t go shooting up everyone and everything when stuff goes bad, they know better. And they have good reason not to resort to violence at the drop of a hat, they’ve got a lot to lose; social standing, money, freedom. This is what keeps a civilization polite… not the laws themselves, but the larger community of people working to keep it working.
Everyone likes to believe America is some backwoods wild west where violence rules… this by and far isn’t the case. Only in places where populations have been marginalized, pushed into the cracks, do we have increases statistics of gun violence… Not many people are getting whacked over drugs in the ski towns, but look at Los Angeles’ ethnic burbs and it’s a different story. People are quick to point to Southern California’s gangs, but such groups exist in tiny, bleached-white, redneck places too. They don’t call themselves Crips, Bloods, or Sur 13, they might not have a name at all, but they’re the same thing; poor folks who figure it’s better to live outside the law because the law doesn’t ever do much to help them, why not look out for numero uno?
Do you think outlawing guns is going to change why those people react violently? Or is it just going to give them more and easier victims to prey upon?
Debs quotes the statistic that if you own a gun in your home you’re far more likely to be shot by one… I’d like to add the statistic that says you’re far more likely to encounter random violence in America in places that have strict gun control laws. Of course when stating statistics I like to remind myself of the saying (I believe Mark Twain gets credit for it) ‘”There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”
I know the statistic about being shot by a gun is because they lump all suicides by firearms as gun deaths, which I suppose they are, but does this give us the real picture of actual violent homicides by fire arms? I’d argue no.
An important number anti-gun people ignore are the number of times a weapon saved an innocent and weaker human from becoming the victim of a thug. About the only thing the NRA does I like is their round-up of such stories called The Armed Citizen which is often an eye-opening look at the times innocent people benefited from owning a firearm.
Personally, I think most gun violence is instigated by governments, not civilians. In America, this Officially Sanctioned Violence is due to the culture created in 1960’s America where the inner-cities became the focus of government thug programs designed to keep the African American community fractured and from forming any meaningful coalition to demand their rights. Also, remember the Draft and Vietnam? Just look at the issues facing the volunteer soldiers coming home from the Middle East. Imagine the issues facing the guys who were forced to fight… white veterans might have came home to nothing but, nothing would have been better than what the African America vets were greeted with: still being a hated minority. Maybe even more so because of the losing stain Vietnam left on America’s forces.
Honestly, in the times we’re living in, when the government has the power to do about anything it wants to you, just because, I’m not that worried about the guy next door with his little arsenal. In fact I’m glad he’s there.
I close by adding, in response to the remark about a constantly escalating arms race that it only takes one brave human and one small gun to take-over some pretty sophisticated weaponry.
If the Union breaks, I imagine the various military bases are going to make things awful interesting to live in the U.S. of A. How those freaks side is any body’s guess…
Peace

Posted by: DaveS | Jan 12 2011 11:42 utc | 38

Juan–
As always, thanks for the excellent commentary, and I understand where you’re coming from… especially the part of having multiple armed ‘good guys’ on the scene of a shooting. That said, I need to disagree with you because the Slate piece is nothing but a POS opinion piece full of speculation of what might have happened. Funny, all that speculation about nothing. I’d argue the Slate idiot is reaching pretty far out there into the realm of fiction to spin the story into something anti-gun.
In fact, had you read the Slate piece closer, you’d find that indeed there was at least one armed man who helped subdue the perp, in fact it’s the guy who DIDN’T shoot the wrong guy, DIDN’T have police or military training, yet in split seconds was able to figure out the situation and not harm anyone by taking a pot shot. I doubt the innocent guy holding the perp’s weapon would have fared as well with uniformed police on the scene. Seriously.

I was very lucky. Honestly, it was a matter of seconds. Two, maybe three seconds between when I came through the doorway and when I was laying on top of [the real shooter], holding him down. So, I mean, in that short amount of time I made a lot of really big decisions really fast. … I was really lucky.

And honestly, I’d rather trust my luck with a bunch of armed civilians than an armed police force. At least if you accidently kill a civilian, you’re just a manslaughter… you accidently kill a cop – you’re frying, or at the very least, spending a lifetime in jail. Unfortunately, the reverse isn’t the same. A cop kills you in cold blood, and he can claim it was either an accident, or job stress and usually the worst that happens is they need to change careers.
I know people like to point to how civilized the mostly unarmed western Europeans are, but then maybe that has more to do with a general atmosphere old world civility and living as neighbors for eons than it does with a lack of weapons?
I know nobody wants to end-up as the innocent bystander killed or maimed by some smuck with an AK-47 and a bad attitude. I certainly hope it’s never my noggin in the crosshairs of some loon’s scope who’s sitting in a clock tower… but then I hope it’s not me in the car next to the knucklehead on their cellphone when they swerve without warning. Or having my plane crash, or any number of crappy things that can befall humans on the planet. Bad shit happens, try as we might, we can’t legislate all problems away. That’s what I believe the founders of America were kind of thinkin’ when they wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and they hoped that citizens would live-up to the high ideals they were setting down on paper.
Truthfully, I’d rather the PTB ban violent media, than ban guns. And I believe wholeheartedly in the freedom of speech, but I think we can all agree that the awful crap passing as entertainment doesn’t help create the sort of place where people are making rational decisions. Yeah, guns may facilitate stupidity, but they alone aren’t the cause of it.
And as a footnote, maybe there wasn’t a mob of gun wielding Arizonians at the function because of who the function was for, and I’ll step out on Slate’s limb of speculation and add that maybe the perp knew nobody was likely to be armed at a Democrat’s function? Why not, seeing how much we’ve speculated about already 😉
More thoughts before I hit send… how many of America’s crazed shooter could have been prevented if the public mental healthcare system hadn’t been gutted under Reagan? The freak in Tuscan had shown signs of needing help long before he started shooting. Just a thought, one I think we’d all nod are heads knowingly in agreement with while spilling tears into our beers here at b’s bar as we talk over these sorry events. 🙁
Peace

Posted by: DaveS | Jan 12 2011 19:06 utc | 40

what we need here is another big government agency, staffed by people of proven political reliability, to sit in judgment of americans’ mental health.
any criticism of the government, its policies, or goverment “leaders” is proof of insanity, and will get you five years without the option in the america gulag.

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 12 2011 20:00 utc | 42

“…disarm amerika restrict acess to guns…”

if you could make it stick, that would be a good idea, from the arms dealers’ point of view…
the arms dealers are probably already licking the chops at the prospect of arming americans, once the shit hits the fan.

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 12 2011 23:35 utc | 44

so, as of this posting, according to INO, the dollar is down 1.03%, crude oil is up to $92.87 per barrel, and the DOW industrials are up 83.56.
so wall street gains as the dollar deteriorates, and oil prices keep rising.
there comes a point where rising oil prices cripple the economy, but wall street likes rising oil prices and deterioration of the dollar.
seems to be some kind of disconnect, here.

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 12 2011 23:51 utc | 46

so what’s your greatest fear, dave?

Posted by: flickervertigo | Jan 13 2011 0:12 utc | 48

flickervertigo,
My biggest fear concerning guns and accidental shooting is exactly as DaveS has pointed out. An innocent person is far more likely being shot/killed by police or military than by anyone else. And if the word “accidental” is removed from this premise, I have even more fear. What B.S. are you talking about?

Posted by: Rick Happ | Jan 13 2011 1:59 utc | 50

David, I know where you and the pro gun lobby are coming from, and I agree with you in as much that it is hard to argue against people’s right to self defense. And by all means, if the majority of US Americans believe they need guns to feel protected, liberalise gun laws further, right back to the times when every second person walking down main street had a gun or two tangling on his hips, with bullet belts and all, and a stack of rifles to break the windows with and fire back at whoever is attacking the house. Everyone knows that everybody else is also armed and following the MAD theory, no one will fire the first shot. Might just work. I for my part feel relived though that I don’t have to be part of the arm yourself experiment.
I guess my ideas on gun control are based on my life experiences so far, and I have to tell you that there has never been a situation where I wished I had a gun whilst over the years I have met plenty of people where I am thankful they can’t just buy themselves one.
Regarding the blog conversation you posted, point taken. The odds of being shot by a non police actor trying to take down a dangerous criminal are mighty slim, and the picture I painted was rather hypothetical I have to admit. And yet the reason why the Tucson attack didn’t end up in a wild west style shoot out as I described, is partly because either nobody in the vicinity had their guns with them, and whats the point of having a gun and then not carrying on you at all times, or were afraid to use it, a point I made above.

An innocent person is far more likely being shot/killed by police or military than by anyone else.

Rick, I understand that police shoot plenty of innocent people, but significantly more than the number of dead victims criminals account for? I’d like to see that statistic.
Besides, the whole argument about cops killing innocent people only starts to make sense in the context of gun control if there would be cases of innocent people having been threatened by cops and who got away thanx to the fact they had a gun themselves and were able to shoot their way out of the situation. Are there such cases? I doubt it. Not these days.
And on top of that, its not a matter of either/or, either the police or criminals shooting innocent people, you got them both. So the chance of being killed by armed criminals is not diminished by the fact that you could just as well fall victim to out of their mind cops.
Anyhow, whichever way the US decides to go on this, what is needed for the number of violent deaths to come down is not more or less gun control, but action on the underlying causes for the violence in the first place, such as the criminalisation of drugs, the ever growing number of people sliding into poverty and the inter-human disconnect that has become a sign of our times.
And lets not forget the effect it has on our children when they are exposed to limitless hours of tv. I am not sure on the exact numbers but according to a study by the New Scientist in 2007, by the time the average U.S. child starts elementary school he or she will have seen approx 8,000 murders and 100,00 acts of violence on telly. For our societies to progress, we need to have a close look at the philosophies with which our children are brought up, and rethink the role of guns and gun based solutions in our culture.

Posted by: Juan Moment | Jan 13 2011 6:19 utc | 52