Whatever your politics (if any) on gun control, this video is worth watching. For one, it will disabuse you of the notion that Rachel Maddow is a wild-eyed reactionary. Secondly, she gives an excellent account of the chain of events in the Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. It's easy to follow, and even handed (and comes with an advisory warning for people who'd rather not picture the events). Starting at about 1:45, she chronicles what happened, and only after about 6:30 is there any particular editorializing. And what editorializing there is, in my opinion, is hard to argue with.
152 bullets in under 5 minutes. Four reloads, with extended magazines. How different might it have been if the shooter had to reload 15 times, instead? It's a valid question, and a good one.
I have found that it is nearly impossible to have a civil, rational and fully engaged conversation about guns with people who consider themselves gun enthusiasts (or gun fetishists, if you prefer). Their metaphoric defenses go up instantly if they feel that their literal defenses are threatened in any way. If any discussion about the potential limitation, regulation or registration of any element of the category "arms" are discussed, they come out. . .uh. . .guns a-blazing. To the gun enthusiast, the 2nd amendment is akin to a holy commandment, and is separate and apart from the rest of the document it resides within.
I've never understood the passion gun owners have for either the 2nd amendment, or guns in general, but I've also never been against guns either for sport or protection. Increasingly, my stance has been difficult for me to square with the lunacy I hear coming from the far right on the subject. And when I see their hair trigger (sorry) reactions to any notion of "gun control," I find my instinctive defense (sorry) of their position harder to justify. Wayne LaPierre comes off as such an unreasonable douche, I find myself identifying much more with the counterargument.
Why must this be so? Why is there such hyper-defensiveness about the 2nd amendment? It isn't as though we don't regulate other devices, such as cars. And while it's true that car ownership isn't declared a "right" in the Constitution, it is also true that other Constitutional rights are subject to delineation, regulation and restriction. Check out this (much better written) article for an excellent deconstruction of the issue.
[Excerpt] Driving, Drinking, Shooting . . .So really, there's no comparison between cars and guns. Or guns and fatty foods, or guns and alcohol. There's no comparison at all.
Because gun ownership is a right. . . So, when it comes to regulating gun ownership, if anyone suggests that we should require the kind of safety, training, and personal responsibility that we demand of anyone getting behind the wheel of a car, we can say... Absolutely. Why not? . . .
This list was so long, I had to take two screen shots, and stitch them together. Image from Huffington Post. (Click to embiggen)
I keep saying that I didn't used to be particularly "anti gun." But I'm getting there.
[Excerpt] U.S. Shooting Deaths Since Sandy Hook Top 100
The night after Sandy Hook,
a gunman pulled behind a car in Kansas City's east side and opened
fire, striking 4-year-old Aydan Perea in the head. The boy had just
gotten into his father's car.
“He was innocent and he was just lifeless,” said the first bystander
to reach Aydan. “All my life I’ve never seen nothing so devastating.
I’m unable to eat, I’m unable to sleep because I see this baby in my
head. . ."
Though I'm known as a liberal, loony, lefty, moon bat. . .the truth is, I used to be a Republican. I won't lie to you and say I was an arch conservative, but I voted for Reagan (1984) and Bush I (in 1988). And though my conservatism wasn't deep, it took me a long while after 1992 (when I voted for Clinton, after the hatefest RNC that year) before I officially became a Democrat. And in the eight years or so since I officially switched, I've still held on to a few conservative "values":
- English as the default language
- Not anti- but not pro-union
- Gun rights
The older I get, the more neutral I've gotten on even those issues, and as we progress into the Obama era, I'm finding myself losing my Switzerland status on every last conservative issue. I find it impossible to hold on to values that are espoused by jackasses and idiots. It becomes increasingly clear--when you see the people who hold such values, and the meanness with which they present them--that I do not want to align myself with such individuals, even if I have a modicum of sympathy for their ideals. [Story continues below]
Such is the case with the National Rifle Association. It has become clear that they are less about pro-2nd amendment rights for citizens, and more about unfettered sales opportunities for gun manufacturers. The NRA was silent on our most recent shooting spree (before today in Pennsylvania, anyway) until Friday. Spokesman Wayne LaPierre finally gave a press conference (with no questions from the press, of course), a ridiculous laundry list of everything that was to blame. . .except for guns. He listed video games and movies from a generation ago, for crying out loud. American Psycho, for instance, is from 2000, and Natural Born Killers from freakin' 1994. The Newtown killer was born in 1992, dumbass!
So, the deeper we get into this, the more I'm on board with guns being on the table as we look for solutions to this problem. The retorts that a) guns don't kill people, people kill people*; b) gun laws only take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens; c) more guns are needed to protect us against guns; d) you can't fix this problem, don't even try all sound rather hollow and somewhat paranoid and whiny to me now. I've actually heard that access to guns is a "God given right" in recent days! Really! Chapter and verse, please?
[Excerpt] NRA blames media, music and more for culture of violence National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre blamed Hollywood, video games music, the courts and more on Friday for creating a culture of violence in the United States.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said at a Washington press event, adding, “With all the money in the federal budget can’t we afford to put a police officer in every single school? . . .”
Joe Scarborough was a US Congressman for four terms before he was a cable news personality. He was one of the NRA's favorite members of Congress at the time. He's changed his mind. Check it out.
One of the weirder aspects of the series of mass shootings we've gone through, is the constant retort that if there were more guns, we'd be safer. We've already got almost as many guns as we have people, but even more will prevent those already out there from killing as many people. Aside from sounding nutty, it presupposes that teachers, movie patrons, mall shoppers and every other kind of citizen should have combat training. Not only that, but we're expected to perform under pressure, like Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson, only without a script. It's bananas.
And beneath all of this uber-armed citizenry is the odd belief that the 2nd amendment is all about rising up and taking on the United States Government. For Constitutional "strict constructionists," they don't seem to know much about history, do they? The right to bear arms wasn't to take on our government, it was to protect it and ourselves. It was also written in a time when we didn't have a standing army, nor did we have the assorted killing machines we have now. But even with AK-47s we're not capable of fighting the assembled United States Military, I don't care what delusion you've dreamed up, or what arsenal you've amassed. It's a simplistic, poorly thought out idea.
[Excerpt] Gun Lobbyist: Americans Should Be ‘Prepared’ To Take On Elected Officials With Guns
While the National Rife Association has remained silent about Friday’s tragic shooting in Newtown, CT, Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, is arguing that Americans should bear arms to protect themselves against an ever-expanding government and elected officials. . .
One of my favorite bloggers, actor Steven Weber, has done it again. He took what bugs me most about our gun-loving society, and put it in words I couldn't hope to match. Likening our society's relationship with guns to the town drunk from The Andy Griffith Show, Weber manages to turn a tragedy into an excellent lesson, and even manages to be entertaining doing it. That's good writing.
[Excerpt]
Myth Addiction . . .Of course, it ain't the gun which causes the damage, it's the person wielding it (untouched, Otis's caustic rotgut was only damaging to, perhaps, the inside of the bottle in which it came). But just as culpable is an environment which consistently pardons the gun's misuse and abuse and even tacitly supports it, an environment which fetishizes, ennobles and enables it. It's the perfect environment to breed a nation of gun junkies. . .
The Westboro Baptist Church is a motley collection of mostly related-to-each-other wackjob cult members. They exist to torment Americans of all stripes, but they are most often drawn to national tragedies. Whether it's a military funeral, a terrorist attack or a mass shooting, WBC will be there (or threaten to be), using their patented "God Hates Fags" protest signs and banners. There need not be any "gay" connection to the event, the WBC will strain to allege one. Why they focus like a laser upon a "sin" that is pretty low on the biblical prohibitions list, and which is argued even to some bible scholars is anyone's guess.
The Rev. Fred Phelps and his family are trained in law, and totally dig it if you lash out at them. They're ready to sue, sue, sue ya, baby! That may actually be their business model. And they've gotten some help from the courts of late, who have said that the WBC has first amendment protections. So, when the law doesn't work, what do you do? Well, Anonymous may have a plan. But before you watch the video, be warned that it's kind of freaky.
[Excerpt] Hackers target Westboro Baptist Church after Newtown threat
A group attached to the online hacktivist group Anonymous claims to have
hacked the Westboro Baptist Church Web site in response to plans by the
controversial church to picket the funerals of those massacred Friday
at a school in Newtown, Conn. . .
Wow, we just had a shooting in a mall this week, and already a school shooting? And now I'm hearing that the teachers should have been armed, if it hadn't been a gun-free zone, blah, blah, on and on. And it's only considered "politicizing" a tragedy if you have even the mildest interest in discussing what could be done to prevent these tragedies. If you're pro-gun (and by that, I mostly mean the gun nuts, the fetishists), you're allowed to drone on about "gun grabbers" and whatnot, that's okay. Somehow, that's not "politicizing." [Story continues below]
Well, I'm tired of the line that nothing can be done. Guns are such an important part of America, the 2nd amendment so much more important than any other law, any other anything, we've just got to live with occasional (and much more frequent) shooting sprees? And it is particularly odd that it is conservatives who are adamant that nothing be done to make it harder to buy or own guns, or at least to track gun and ammunition buyers better. It's odd because they go entirely the other way if it is Muslims with any kind of weapons. If it's terrorism, than by golly, we'll give up all kinds of freedom and gut the Constitution to "keep us safe." Well, how are shooting sprees not terrorism? Why to we just shrug these things off a day or so after they happen?
[Excerpt] Police: 20 children among 26 victims of Connecticut school shooting Dressed in black fatigues and a military vest, a heavily armed man walked into a Connecticut elementary school Friday and interrupted the start of a typical school day, opening fire on two classrooms. . .
