Guns are not the problem, no more than Gays getting married are responsible for heterosexual divorce.
We cannot be led astray from the bigger picture by Red Herrings.
This is Republican Sabotage. And Gun Control is a JDAM headed straight at the heart of our priorities of a fairer more Just economy, world-class education, a grean economy, healthcare for all, oppurtunity to a dignified life for all, and clean air, water, and food.
Guns don’t kill people. People with guns kill people.
People that have a untreated/undertreated/undiagnosed mental illness with a closet full of bones kill people, with guns, among other objects.
People living and/or in a world filled with hopelessness, crime, dilapidation, domestic violence, constantly programmed to have more by a Media existing as a channel for consumerism, 75 year old relic schools with leaky roofs and plumbing with no A/C or properly working plumbing, feeding a lunch of processed, corporate slop. No jobs, no factories, no infrastructure building by local residents. And all of these with a constant stress and feeling of hopelessness, of cynicism, of no way up or out that produce crime as a by-product of a willful, and failing, and self-defeating War on Drugs.
The Stress that creates an environment where literally somehow surviving is a daily struggle, or just too mentally escape threw self-medicating. The Stress that triggers mental illness fueled outbreaks of extreme violence, and daily violent rampages in our forgotten inner cities. Institutionalized Cradle to Penitentiary communities there and in the rural South.
This stress is from poverty. Poverty is the root of all evil. Take away someone’s guns all the social ills still exist and will grow, and you are at the whim of the powers that be, that are producing the poverty on an industrialized scale looting our Treasuries and lands as an economic model, or as a rule, the powers that will be. Now I know the argument, “if the government wanted to crack down and abuse and come get us (hypothetically speaking) that can and will”, which IS true. But their possible conquer isn’t complete, look no further than Iraq or Afghanistan as proof. Completely outgunned and outmanned, but hanging in there. It’s is still a source of much respect from our overlords. That is the point. Costas and Whitlock can afford a gated community. I cannot.
Poverty is our problem. Poverty is what creates the environment for most ALL of our social ills. Poverty, lack of opportunity for gainful employment doing something, anything that pays a dignified after-tax wage, that allows a parent to raise children in a safe, clean, safe, structurally sound, both inside and out environment, where fathers, or mothers, or both, can earn enough that they can eat good food, have a safe and sound neighborhood, and a good school, and parks for kids to gather for pick-up games, affordable college, healthcare that will not bankrupt them.
There is always going to be tragedies involved with individuals that are troubled, and the causes are mental illness, and bad elements of our blingy, winner take-all culture.
Threatening to take guns away which are viral stories from Fox Sports Jason Whitlock Whitlock says get rid of guns. and Costas comments Costas floats it..........are distracting and are going to cement the poverty above, and social ills that come with it, and gun violence that it fosters. Instead of women getting shot by her husband they will be beaten and/or stabbed to death. Thank you, but I prefer death by gun if I had to choose.
I voted for Obama twice, wrote checks and worked endlessly on Facebook and Twitter for his re-election, and am liberal or progressive in almost all subjects. But you start talking about taking my 9mm pistol, or my shotgun, or my hunting rifle, or my AR15 that I plunk with for shits and giggles. You do that, you’ve lost me. You want to fight the ills that nurture gun violence or any violence, I am all-in, and there are tens of millions of voters just like me. From a Utilitarian point of view back off gun control. You want to screen me better? Fine, I have nothing to hide, but it’s a losing issue but one that can be used to convince people that own guns that fighting poverty and the gun violence that comes with it does. Sorry.
Keep our eyes on the ball. Poverty and lack of opportunity with a livable, dignified wage is our enemy.
How about investing in the awareness, assessment, and treatment of Mental Illness.
Or demand from out leaders for Economies that create safe, secure, well-fed, well-schooled neighborhoods in communities filled with opportunities.
How about shunning our reality, lives of the rich and famous, what I don’t have, who I should be world of entertainment and focus on one that is factual, tolerant, scientific, and makes us think, cry and laugh and cheer.
Because guns don’t kill people, people with mental illness and people that are violent and/or mentally ill as common products of poverty, kill people 99.8% of the time.