"What We Lose with Every Mass Shooting."

“You can't talk about fucking in America, people say you're dirty. But if you talk about killing somebody, that's cool.”
― Richard Pryor

Back in the day, Thomas Jefferson observed that so long as evil is tolerable, people will not seek redress by abolishing the forms to which they're accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpation reaches a tipping point, there comes a time to throw off the evil.

Are we there yet?

What We Lose with Every Mass Shooting, by Charles Pierce (Esquire)

​Orlando is not merely the destruction of innocence. It's worse.​

... This being the 15th one of these he's had to give over the eight years of his presidency, he probably feels somewhat burdened by how little has changed in the wake of the previous 14 statements he'd given on the subject. I would not blame the man if, at this point, he simply threw up his hands at the possibility of weaning this country off its suicidal affection for its firearms.

So I was struck by the thought that Barack Obama has had to preside over more mass shootings of Americans than any president since Abraham Lincoln. That was a bit sobering, I must admit, and it must be moreso for him.

(The only possible flaw in my calculation would be those presidents after Lincoln who presided over the mass killings of Native Americans. This will require further research as this country's suicidal affection for its firearms has a long and bloody history.)

“See, people with power understand exactly one thing: violence.”
― Noam Chomsky

To me, the key point is this.

The events in Orlando do nothing more than demolish our most treasured illusions about ourselves and our country and—most trivially—our politics. How many of the congresscritters now sending "thoughts and prayers" to the victims in Orlando, and to their families, spent a lot of time in their day jobs making the everyday lives of those victims more miserable than they had to be? There's still an audience for clean-shaven, well-tailored bigotry of all faiths.

Hate crimes, terrorism ... violence.

The original American birthright.

Statistically, the perpetrators are few in number, but the accessories and accomplices are many. To spend every waking hour demonizing is to find and create willing disciples, and when public "safety" has been outsourced to the gun rack at Wal-Mart (Jamey Noel will give you directions to the nearest store), there simply isn't much cause for optimism.

Or, as a friend phrased it on Twitter:

If you've said that people aren't good enough for heaven, nobody wants to hear you say you're sorry they're dead.

Repost: "I'll even 'hari kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun."

If I were to start carrying a gun (I'm guessing they're fairly easy to get, although I've never owned one), does it mean this idiotic one-way street in front of my house will start running two ways again?

See, it would be safer in my neighborhood that way, and right now, I don't feel safe at all with the street being one-way. Everyone keeps telling me that carrying a gun is about safety -- pack a piece, and you feel safer. So, does it really work?

Or is carrying a gun not enough, and I must go out and actually shoot the street in order to feel safer?

What's the best place to kill an unsafe one-way street -- near the center line, or near the useless bicycle lanes?

Should I aim for the Silver Creek beginning of the world's longest interstate entrance ramp, or closer to the Best Western down at the other end?

But wait: Ammo's not an absolute drop-dead requirement, is it?

I don't actually have to load my new gun, do I?

It's just the deterrent of being known to carry the gun, right?

It's all so confusing. Back in August, The Economist talked sensibly about it.

God, good guys and guns.

... This dilemma is an iteration of a broader question: whether keeping guns makes people safer. A growing majority of Americans think it does—another mistaken conviction. Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Centre for Gun and Policy Research says that, other factors being equal, keeping a gun at home is associated with a double or triple risk of homicide. What holds for homes is also true of states and countries: more guns mean more gun-related murders, tragic accidents and suicides.

"God, good guys and guns."

"I will not carry a gun, Frank. When I got thrown into this war I had a clear understanding with the Pentagon: no guns. I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!"
--Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce of television's M*A*S*H (quoted here in 2012)

I grew up around guns, and as an adult, I'd prefer guns not be around me.

To me, firearms are roughly akin to cars, sports and Viagra as penile enhancement devices, and I already have a penis, thanks. Pieces of machinery generally are value-neutral, their performance dependent on the guiding mind of humans. Conversely, human minds infected with machismo, conspiracy theories, hatred, kitchen table Formica and just plain variable mental health issues offer as much cause to be frightened as the typical armed robber, who after all, just wants money.

But: I'm no prohibitionist.

My own professional world of alcoholic beverages symbolizes "legal but heavily regulated," and that strikes me as utterly appropriate. You need a gun to cope, and I need a bottle. More alcoholic beverages to redress alcoholism? I'll get right on it. Whatever gets you through your life, it's all right.

Just leave me out of it.

Mass shootings: God, good guys and guns ... An understandable impulse to self-defence is nevertheless mistaken (The Economist)

 ... This dilemma is an iteration of a broader question: whether keeping guns makes people safer. A growing majority of Americans think it does—another mistaken conviction. Daniel Webster of the Johns Hopkins Centre for Gun and Policy Research says that, other factors being equal, keeping a gun at home is associated with a double or triple risk of homicide. What holds for homes is also true of states and countries: more guns mean more gun-related murders, tragic accidents and suicides.

Yet, amid the drumbeat of bloody news, well-meaning, fearful individuals take the seemingly rational decision to arm themselves. Almost all plan to be prudent with their guns. That, alas, is what everyone thinks.

Pierce: "And, of course, this was not about race because nothing is ever about race."

Pierce says it well, as usual. This is what this case means. That is precisely why so many seem happy about it. They are as paranoid and as fatalistic and as likely to be armed as Zimmerman. Their imaginations do not extend beyond the boundaries of their own fear and there is nothing they fear more than a disruption or recalibration of those boundaries. They have been validated by the system that created them, again. They are the system.

What George Zimmerman Can Do Now, Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

Calm is prevailing. For now. At least, that's something.

However, in theory, at least, here is what is now possible. Some night very soon, if he so chooses, George Zimmerman can load his piece, tuck it into the back of his pants, climb into his SUV, and drive around Sanford, Florida looking for assholes and fucking punks who are walking through neighborhoods where he, George Zimmerman, defender of law and order, doesn't think they belong. He can drive around Sanford, Florida and check out anyone who is dressed in such a manner as might frighten the average citizen who has been fed a daily diet of "Scary Black Kids" by their local news and by their favorite radio personalities, and who is dressed in such a manner as might seem inappropriate to their surroundings as determined by George Zimmerman, crimebuster. He can drive around Sanford, Florida until he spots an asshole or a fucking punk and then he can get out of his SUV, his piece tucked into the back of his pants, and he can stalk the asshole or the fucking punk, the one who is in the wrong neighborhood, or who is dressed inappropriately, at least according to George Zimmerman, protector of peace. If the asshole, or the fucking punk, turns around and objects to being stalked -- or, worse, if the asshole, or the fucking punk, decides physically to confront the person stalking him -- then George Zimmerman can whip out the piece from the back of his pants and shoot the asshole, or the fucking punk, dead right there on the spot. This can happen tonight. That is now possible. Hunting licenses are now available and it's open season on assholes, fucking punks, and kids who wear hoodies at night in neighborhoods where they do not belong, at least according to George Zimmerman, defender of law and order, crimebuster, and protector of the peace, because that is what American society has told George Zimmerman, and all the rest of us, is the just outcome of what happened on one dark and rainy night in February of 2012.

NYT: "Mr. LaPierre looked wild-eyed at times."

I've been thinking about this, and it occurs to me that the real culprit is bullets. Without bullets, guns merely are glorified clubs, and I can outrun them, not unlike wildlife fleeing cave men of old. And if cars are what makes us drunkards dangerous, I'm cool with banning them, and operating trams and buses, instead.

But what I do know is this. If I spray Bibles around the room, folks get deluded. Spray beer, and they get sticky. Paint, all multi-colored.

Gunfire? Well, you know the rest of it.

The N.R.A. Crawls From Its Hidey Hole (New York Times editorial)

No one seriously believed the N.R.A. when it said it would contribute something “meaningful” to the discussion about gun violence. The organization’s very existence is predicated on the nation being torn in half over guns. Still, we were stunned by Mr. LaPierre’s mendacious, delusional, almost deranged rant.

Mr. LaPierre looked wild-eyed at times as he said the killing was the fault of the media, songwriters and singers and the people who listen to them, movie and TV scriptwriters and the people who watch their work, advocates of gun control, video game makers and video game players.

The N.R.A., which devotes itself to destroying compromise on guns, is blameless.

Brian Howey: "Soul searching in Indiana and America in a post-Newtown era."

"I will not carry a gun, Frank. When I got thrown into this war I had a clear understanding with the Pentagon: no guns. I'll carry your books, I'll carry a torch, I'll carry a tune, I'll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I'll even 'hari kari' if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!"
--Hawkeye Pierce

I grew up around guns, and as an adult, I'd prefer guns not be around me.

To, me, firearms are roughly akin to cars, sports and Viagra as penile enhancement devices, and I already have a penis, thanks. Pieces of machinery generally are value-neutral, their performance dependent on the guiding mind of humans. Conversely, human minds infected with machismo, conspiracy theories, hatred, kitchen table formica and just plain variable mental health issues offer as much cause to be frightened as the typical armed robber, who after all, just wants money.

But: I'm no prohibitionist. My own professional world of alcoholic beverages symbolizes "legal but heavily regulated," and that strikes me as utterly appropriate. You need a gun to cope, and I need a bottle. More alcoholic beverages to redress alcoholism? I'll get right on it. Whatever gets you through your life, it's all right.

Apart from all that, I've little to say that isn't already being said. From a rotten national cultural perspective, Frank Rich hits the center of the target in terms of what is significant. In reddened Indiana, Brian Howey does the same. Here's an excerpt.

Soul searching in Indiana and America in a post-Newtown era, by Brian Howey (Howey Politics Indiana)

NASHVILLE, Ind. – A couple times a year, I invite friends to come down to my cabin here for some target practice in the valley below. We shoot into the base of a ridge.

Most of the guns brought were shotguns, .22s and pistols. But one friend brought a Chinese assault rifle with a clip and at one point, squeezed off a succession of 30 shots. After about the 10th shot, I found the sequence unnerving. The fire power was – choose a word here: awesome, spectacular, overwhelming, catastrophic . . .

My Friday morning last week seemed normal until I caught an initial, brief CNN report of a school shooting in Connecticut. Returning to the cabin about an hour later, the scope of the horror was only beginning to emerge. By Sunday, we would learn that the shooter, Adam Lanza, had used a Bushmaster .223 semi-automatic rifle to gun down 20 children ages 6 and 7, along with the school principal, five teachers and his own mother. The kids suffered three to 11 gunshots each.

So this is the first set of thoughts I've deeply pondered, taking personal experience with the utter tragedy in Sandy Hook. The assault rifle is a military weapon, designed for battlefields. It really has no civilian application. I don't know any deer or turkey hunters who would take to the field with one. You don't need firepower of that magnitude to protect your home or property. On that front, an Elkhart police chief once told me that a pump action shotgun would be best for protecting home and self. "Anyone who hears you pump that will think twice about proceeding," he said.

Collins on Newtown: "We need to redefine who we are."

Part three of four.

Looking for America, by Gail Collins (New York Times)
By GAIL COLLINS

... Every country has a sizable contingent of mentally ill citizens. We’re the one that gives them the technological power to play god.

I'd have expected this in NA, but perhaps New Bethel will franchise the idea.

As reported at The 'Ville Voice blog: Bring Your Sidearm to Church Day.