{"id":4782,"date":"2011-01-12T10:15:39","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T15:15:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/?p=4782"},"modified":"2011-01-12T14:30:28","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T19:30:28","slug":"crazy-people-guns-and-gun-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/4782","title":{"rendered":"Crazy People, Guns and Gun Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is another edition of what Atrios said… \u00a0 Actually, Rotwang<\/a>…<\/p>\n

It is very difficult to get someone committed against their will, unless they have committed violent acts. After all, I’m still at large. In states with big public sectors, aid for the mentally ill — assuming they accept assistance — can be very spotty. There are agencies with phone numbers, but try calling and getting some service. (I have.) In Arizona, forget it.<\/p>\n

The icing on the cake is that in some places almost everyone has access to firearms. Efforts to deal with guns or magazines or bullets are doomed, like Prohibition or ‘The War on Drugs.’ There are just too many around, and too many people who want them. Better coverage of mental illness would be worthwhile, but it wouldn’t stop homicidal people from reflecting back the hostilities of extremists with prominent platforms. We know who the extremists are.<\/p>\n

P.S. I would concede that some kind of gun control would make it more difficult for incompetent, crazy people like Nutboy to get guns. As crime control, however, forget it.<\/p>\n

P.P.S. An attack of this intensity on a Congress person is an exceedingly rare event, so in that sense it’s futile to diddle with ‘how could this have been prevented.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Glenn Greenwald Tweets somewhat sarcastically, “Remember the 1960s, when 1000s of people were involuntarily locked up in insane asylums and there were no assassinations? http:\/\/is.gd\/kAbza”<\/a><\/p>\n

I remember part of the impetus for getting people out of the asylums was far too many were committed who didn’t really need hospitalization, and the ones who did weren’t getting it as long as they were being held safely out of public view. \u00a0 In far too many cases they were more dumping grounds then hospitals.<\/p>\n

It’s tempting to engage in a little sarcasm myself when I hear my fellow liberals start yapping about gun control now. \u00a0 Hey fellas…I’ve got a Swell idea on how to lower the temperature of the rhetoric in this country…let’s start making noises about gun control…!<\/em><\/p>\n

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Yes…this will certainly lower the temperature of the dialogue in this country<\/a>. \u00a0 But then there’s this…<\/p>\n

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Joe Wilson ‘You Lie’ Slogan Etched Onto Line Of Assault Rifle Components<\/a><\/h3>\n

Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-S.C.) health care-era “you lie” interruption of President Obama is now reportedly being commemorated with a place on a new, limited edition line of assault rifle components.<\/p>\n

The Columbia Free Times<\/em> reports<\/a> that the words are being engraved on a series of lower receivers manufactured for popular AR-15 assault rifles. Lower receivers are one of the primary pieces of the firearms.<\/p>\n

“Palmetto State Armory would like to honor our esteemed congressman Joe Wilson with the release of our new ‘You Lie’ AR-15 lower receiver,” the weapon manufacturer’s site writes<\/a> on the product description. “Only 999 of these will be produced, get yours before they are gone!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I believe the 2nd amendment guarantees the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms. \u00a0 I believe that freedom is part and parcel of democracy itself. \u00a0 And I despair. \u00a0 Never mind the lunatics who are selling the above back handed incitement to kill a president (I sincerely hope the Secret Service is watching where those rifles are going!). \u00a0 Never mind the NRA’s grotesquely dogmatic stances on gun regulation and crime. \u00a0 The biggest reason we can’t have a rational discussion about gun control in this country is the gun control crowd was very successful back in the 70s in convincing people that their ultimate aim was to eliminate private gun ownership in this country. \u00a0 People quite correctly concluded that even the smallest most perfectly rational regulations on gun sales and ownership was just a first step toward total confiscation. \u00a0 That wasn’t paranoia…it was often stated quite openly by gun control groups.<\/p>\n

That seems to have changed on the democratic side of the isle. \u00a0 Good. \u00a0 But it isn’t enough to get us to where we need to be regarding guns. \u00a0 There’s a lot of things I think we could do, including bans on high capacity clips for instance. \u00a0 But the first step has to be acknowledging Americans, if they are peaceful and law abiding, do in fact have a basic right to own their own guns, which is to say, the means to defend themselves.<\/p>\n

How denying that somehow became a staple of democratic politics completely baffles me sometimes. \u00a0 I understand and share the liberal democratic impulse to hate war, revere life, nurture love and defend liberty, to work for justice and toward the peaceful society where we are all equals in the eyes of the law. \u00a0 I am completely disgusted by the the republican lock them up and throw away the key approach to crime. \u00a0 That we incarcerate a higher percentage of our own citizens then any other industrialized nation should be a matter of shame to all of us. \u00a0 But if democrats represent the interests of the common everyday working people as opposed to the rich and powerful, then they really need to remind themselves from time to time that the lot of the common people is not greatly improved by rendering them defenseless.<\/p>\n

I am not going to stand here and argue that had someone in Gifford’s crowd been armed some or all of the killings may not have happened. I’m certainly not going to argue that a state that can’t at least Try<\/em> to keep guns out of the hands of mentally unstable people isn’t asking for trouble. The argument I often hear that an armed society is a peaceful one seems grotesque on its face. \u00a0 You need your gun when the peace has broken down, not when its alive and well. \u00a0 So the first thing is to nurture the peace.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was bullied horribly during part of my grade school years, the middle school ones, and it left me with a perfect understanding of how it is that your personal safety and security is ultimately on you and you alone. \u00a0 You need to prepare yourself for the worst. \u00a0 \u00a0 But having a fire alarm in your house is a pathetic excuse for playing with matches and gasoline. \u00a0 What…I had a smoke detector…why is my house on fire…??<\/em> The bromide is that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. \u00a0 But turn that around. \u00a0 Guns don’t make a peaceful society either. \u00a0 People do. \u00a0 And one way you Don’t make a peaceful society is this:<\/p>\n

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Or this…<\/p>\n

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Or this…<\/p>\n

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And this…<\/p>\n

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And this…<\/p>\n

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That last is from an ad that was televised in West Virginia as part of the campaign to enact an anti-same-sex marriage amendment in that state. \u00a0 It’s a family in the crosshairs of an unseen homosexual sniper. \u00a0 More specifically, the unseen homosexual sniper is targeting their children. \u00a0 This is what gets people killed. \u00a0 This is what makes a society violent. \u00a0 This is creating the climate of hate that can set off a mentally unstable individual. \u00a0 \u00a0 But also the perfectly, murderously sane gay basher. \u00a0 Your gay and lesbian neighbors have been on the receiving end of this hate incited violence now for decades. \u00a0 What’s changed is now the right is doing it more broadly, and more openly, and with even less compunction. \u00a0 What we’ve been seeing in this country in recent years, your gay and lesbian neighbors have been seeing for decades. \u00a0 A climate of hate, meticulously, relentlessly cultivated for political and social ends.<\/p>\n

There’s your problem. \u00a0 Not guns. \u00a0 Hate. \u00a0 Last Saturday it was a crazy man. \u00a0 Tomorrow it might be the chillingly sane. \u00a0 Timothy McVeigh. \u00a0 Eric Rudolph. \u00a0 Scott Roeder. \u00a0 One political party has been ginning up hate as a way to win elections for decades now. \u00a0 \u00a0 The problem is when the inevitable violence results the other party responds by calling for more gun control, as if that’s even possible in a nation that hates itself as much as this one is starting to.<\/p>\n

I understand that first amendment freedoms are sacred to a democracy. \u00a0 If we can’t talk to each other we can’t govern ourselves. \u00a0 Speech, even ugly disagreeable speech, is a right government cannot be allowed to trample on without opening the door to tyranny. \u00a0 Our ability to speak truth to power depends on that freedom. \u00a0 My hope is the killings in Arizona can finally, finally, enable us to also speak truth to hate without fear that we could sabotage freedom of speech in the process. \u00a0 If we don’t confront hate we will loose that too. \u00a0 Hate will silence the democratic dialogue if we let it, and then we Will loose our precious democracy.<\/p>\n

All the gun control in the world won’t matter if we hate each other enough. \u00a0 And if we love and care about each other as neighbors, as fellow Americans, regardless of race, creed or religion, then guns cannot do us any great harm. \u00a0 Just there in the background, like the fireman’s hose if you need it, but the point is not to. \u00a0 How much crime could be eliminated if we actually cared about each other as fellow Americans enough to make our schools strong, and the economy work for everyone? \u00a0 How many gun accidents could be avoided if we cared about each other enough that we held our neighbor’s safety, and their children’s, as if it were our own? \u00a0 Yes actually, guns do kill people. \u00a0 When people hate each other enough. \u00a0 If you’re worrying about the availability of guns in this country you are worrying about the wrong thing.<\/p>\n

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This is another edition of what Atrios said… \u00a0 Actually, Rotwang… It is very difficult to get someone committed against their will, unless they have committed violent acts. After all, I’m still at large. In states with big public sectors, aid for the mentally ill — assuming they accept assistance — can be very spotty. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,65],"tags":[49,131,32,21,78],"class_list":["post-4782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-thumping-my-pulpit","tag-crime-and-violence","tag-guns","tag-hate","tag-the-abyss","tag-the-struggle-for-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}