A Few Thoughts on Gun Control.

I know what I write is a waste of time.  It won’t change any minds, it won’t persuade those who demand legislation to ban guns or “assault-like” weapons, it won’t convince those who plead for change because some young school children, or Asians, or grocery shoppers were killed by a mad-man with a gun, nor will it change the minds of those who believe any change in gun control violates their personal freedom. But I write to appease me.

First, guns are tools.  They may be good tools or bad tools based on your personal view or immediate need, but there is an old adage that goes something like “It is a poor workman who blames his tools for his failure.”  If we substitute the word “society” for "workman" I think we come up with an accurate view of guns.  It is a poor society that blames guns for society's failure (i.e. to create an agreed-to level of safety).

Nothing brings this home for me as much as a FaceBook posting from the United States Air Force Special Tactics organization.  In Air Force Special Operations and Special Tactics, we have Doctors, Nurses and Medics trained to deal with the battlefield trauma our Airman, the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and the allied partners they support will experience in combat. 

How exactly do we train our medical personnel to be proficient in the life-threatening injuries they may find as our combat troops protect the nation and execute its foreign policy?  We send them to work in inner-city hospitals in large cities like New Orleans, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, and Los Angeles.  There they find far more combat-type trauma than we can simulate in training and they, unfortunately, experience the frightening reality of gunshot wounds and other “combat” related injuries while they help their civilian counterparts care for the neediest.

Are all these injuries a result of some single madman and a mass shooting?  No, they are the reality of an on-going war the news can’t be bothered covering and it involves people who’ve lost their moral basis for decision-making and a society that has cast them aside as just so much flotsam and jetsam.  

When we as a society have reached a point where we argue the technical details of a rifle, rather than the sanity of a gunman and how best to treat him or her, while ignoring the reality of life in the inner-cities, we have all surrendered our belief in the actual basis of our society. A belief that each of us must be responsible for ourselves, our family, and our society.  Why is this?

Is it because so many of us reject the idea of God as a higher power, and now believe ourselves god-like?  Perhaps it is because we’ve destroyed the foundation of family for the poorest among us and the young men and women grow up with the role models of the entertainment industry where outlandish style and behavior sell the next ticket? Maybe it is just a generalized sense of “it’s somebody else’s job” that leads to this, but if it is whose job is it to unite society with a purpose to protect the individual and his/her rights?  Clearly, our politicians don’t think it is their role, beyond the promises they make what can the new laws and the spending on entitlements really do to change the shape of society?

George Santayana famously wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  The one truth a study of the past teaches is civilizations come and go, falling most often to the foolishness of mankind.  The question then becomes how much longer will this modern civilization continue until it to is replaced by some dark age where all the glories of the past are buried in some tomb waiting for the reawakening of minds open to the possibilities of the future rather than the condemnation of the past?

Another Uninformed Opinion

Uninformed opinions seem to be the order of the day as we deal with more lethal violence in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH.  So here is one more.

I am reminded of a line from the movie Casablanca where Claude Raines, playing Police Captain Louis Renault, tells his deputy “Round up the usual suspects.”  It doesn’t take a genius to know that will be the same thing now.  We will have those who demand we prohibit guns and those who demand we not.  Fundamentally, I tend to come down on the side of those who would not prohibit guns. 

It’s not so much that I believe we need them to stop the government from imposing some autocratic and dictatorial regime for if that happens it will be too late and more than half of us will have voted them into office.  Nor do I believe the second amendment was etched in stone and carried down from Mount Rushmore by George Washington.  Rather, I am unconvinced it is possible to prohibit firearms and even if we did, it would not change the dynamics that are, in my opinion, the true sources of this violence.

What I hear from those who demand we eliminate guns is the angry rhetoric, opinions voiced by those who live protected lives, and little discussion of the social dynamics that cause mostly young angry men to kill others.  What I don’t hear is how a prohibition of guns would be different than the last prohibition we tried. 

You remember that one, don’t you?  Started by the progressive temperance movement in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the passage of the 18^th Amendment in 1919 issued in the age of illegal alcohol.  Its beginnings held the loftiest of ideals.  It would end poverty, child abuse, domestic violence and a whole card deck full of things caused by the evils of alcohol.  What it actually accomplished was the creation of vast networks of organized crime and civil disobedience that led consumers to disregard the laws. It was so unsuccessful it led the Democratic party to make its repeal a plank in the party's platform for the 1932 elections.  Within two years of FDR's election, the 21^st Amendment was ratified. Officially ending the short-lived social experiment.  Unfortunately, the unintended consequences or by-products of prohibition still remain with us.

What would those who wish to end this violence really be willing to do?  Since those in the social sciences seem unwilling to consider the total dynamics of a changing society, and those who vote on whatever changes we need to make, communicate in little more than 15-second sound bites it seems increasingly unlikely our federal government will ever develop an effective strategy that a majority of the population can support.  It is almost as if we are playing chess with the human lives and each side is down to having only a king and a queen.  We are in a state of perpetual check but will never achieve a checkmate.  Smart players would call it a draw and start a new game, but that's not for us.

Around and Around We Go.

There has been another mass shooting, this time in New Zealand.  At last report at least 49 are dead.  The crime took place in a Mosque in Christchurch, with the shooter being identified as an Australian “white nationalist.”  As is now the case both sides have their prepared talking points, and counter-talking points, so little beyond the usual rhetoric will actually change.

For those who wish to make this about the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment rights, I am still waiting to hear how gun confiscation will actually end these types of violent acts.  Just for the record, I think gun confiscation will be no more effective than alcohol confiscation was in the 1920s, but please feel free to educate me on how much better your ideas are than those who championed the 18^th Amendment.

When Will We As a Society End the Madness?

In the face of another mind-numbing school shooting I am watching the usual suspects say the usual things, but one question from someone who advocates for taking guns away caught my attention.  “When will we, as a society, end the madness and protect our children?”  That is a fair question, the only problem with it is the idea that society can end the problem as if there is some magic solution.  If we do X then everything will be okay.  That is the fatal flaw in the left’s approach, they think if they destroy the NRA and remove all the guns from society things will be better.

We have spent the last 60-years creating this society.  It has been formed through the social evolution of both the right and the left where we move to the extreme and each social group demands their supremacy and vilifies those who don’t support them.  We’ve funded an entertainment industry that makes billions of dollars off the violent nature of man while creating an economic elite who feel it is their right to tell the average person how life should be lived.  We’ve encouraged that same entertainment industry to vilify family and family values, suggesting on almost every medium the parents are stupid and if it wasn’t for the kid's everything would unravel, or that one race is superior to another.

At the same time, I see social postings from my generation who talk about how they were disciplined as children and today’s children have it too easy.  But where is their acknowledgment of their choice not to disciple their children, or condemn the social evolution that took place in front of their own eyes?

We want the madness to end but believe it’s someone else’s fault it exists and it is someone else’s job to fix it.  Whose job is it?  Surely not the government’s?  It can’t even implement a simple thing like a reasonable immigration standard or agree on a budget before the government shuts down.  How about the teachers?  Don’t we now want them to teach morality to a generation of children, whose parents have spent a lifetime questioning the morality of their parents?  They are the ones who’ve allowed the bullying to take place while advocating for social justice for the misunderstood.  Clearly, they can fix the problem since, according to some, they’ve created it. If we just throw them some more money the problem will go away?

Maybe we can turn to the entertainment industry who are more than happy to weigh in on the evil of guns while guarded by armed security.  They will have an answer while pushing the latest gun-filled mega-epic.

How about all the millennials who fill the social media space with thought-provoking and insightful posts like “your [sic] a whore.”  I am certain they have the solution, unfortunately, it would require our abandonment of the Constitution.

Here is an idea I’ve not heard discussed much by the experts in the media.  Maybe we should think about the role of a family in society and how important the parents are to creating a good person and start with that as a way to change the narrative.

Silly me, that would never work.  How can you get a click-bait headline out of “Child successfully integrates into society thanks to good parents.”

A Few Thoughts on Easy Versus Hard (conclusion)

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So, let’s wrap this up.

Obviously, I’ve not even scratched the surface on all the potential issues on why we see the apparent increase in violent mass murder of school children in this country.  For example, other than the potential impact of violent first person shooting games, I’ve not talked about how mental illness is diagnosed or treated, nor have I addressed, beyond a superficial level, the role of parents and teachers in guiding young minds towards a level of self-esteem, which is so vital for our maturation.  On the other hand, I have attempted to lay out the simple and I believe inescapable truth this is a much larger problem than the buying, owning and using of guns, and by insisting that is all it is we are unlikely to ever seek out, address, and fix the true root causes.  For debating  those issues require's society to reexamine individual standards and behaviors.

What I do believe is we don’t have a clue with regard to the second order effects of the political choices we have made over the past 75 years or so, and those secondary issues are now rising to the surface in ways we find unpleasant.  
 The young, who are being organized to push a fixed political agenda, have neither the experience nor understanding of the human condition to provide anything more than the emotional appeal they are being exploited for.  The people who are truly behind their involvement are using them for that purpose alone.  The rest of society has been conditioned by the media to accept their sincerity as proof of the “rightness” of their cause.

Today is March 14^th 2018, the day the behind the scenes leadership of the anti-gun movement has chosen as walk out day for high schoolers across the country to show their support that guns should be banned.  It seems the opportune time to point out that a fresh young face, with little experience is always the ideal leader for a movement controlled by some unseen force.  This movement has that, but I wonder how far beyond the symbolic rants it will really go?  They don’t seem to have the focus of say the anti-war movement of the 1960s where there was a real self-interest on the part of the radical leadership to stop a war they may be forced to fight in.

Well enough about this… now on to something else, like maybe cat videos.

A Few Thoughts on Easy Versus Hard (part 6)

Life is finite, precious, and disposable.

We’ve become a society that no longer places a measurable value on life, except when it serves a political agenda.  We can “coo” and “ah” over babies and small children, at the same time that we call for their destruction.

As I noted earlier in this series we’ve become a consumer society where we throw away the broken to get the newest and neatest thing to replace it.  Why are we surprised when people treat life with exactly the same approach? 

Under the guise of choice, we have made the killing of the unborn a woman’s right.  The women and men who support this right now argue they should have an uncontested and government funded ability to destroy the unwanted up to the moment of birth, but why should it stop there?  For that matter, why should it be only a woman’s choice?  In a society where the moral value of life is relative, what imperative says we must keep alive someone who successfully emerges from the womb and takes their first breath?  I am told there are a number of late term abortions where the fetus emerges alive and is killed, so why should we limit woman’s choice once the child is “born?”

Those who support abortion cite the evils of the world a disadvantaged or unwanted child will face and how it is far better for all concerned if the woman makes a choice that is right for her and the life she carries, preferably without interference from third parties.  After all what does a fetus know, and how can they make an “informed” decision on their own life. 

We have become conditioned to be outraged at the loss of life, but only when the media makes a big deal about it.  Activists have created movements suggesting some lives matter more than others to help us become outraged at the loss of life, but again -- only when the media makes a big deal about it.  We are supposed to come together to condemn violence and death, but only when the media highlights it for ratings.  All other times we are told to ignore the man behind the curtain.

Within our major metropolitan centers, we see hundreds of killings a year, yet where is the national outrage against gang violence?  As I noted in the last post about this – it really and truly is about the theater the political media can create to further their agenda and financial interests, it has little to do with a true moral standard that we as a society can agree to. 

One side would have us believe because we have a constitutional right to own a gun we are a terrible nation killing each other with them, the other side suggests if it weren’t for the decay within major cities we wouldn’t have any gun deaths.  Each of these statements are demonstrably false but reflect the fact those who have deep emotions regarding the issue of guns (both against and for) choose emotional points rather than logical and supportable arguments, because logic doesn’t stir the masses to the same degree.

When we began our nation, we had a relatively homogenous Judeo-Christian morality that served as the basis for our laws.  What we see today is a widening rejection of that morality and in turn the rejection of our law.  I believe it is an unfortunate consequence of a widening belief suggesting we each get to choose what is morally acceptable and therefore we get to choose what laws we like, and what laws we reject.  This latter statement is clearly supported by the political polarization of the left in their establishment of “sanctuary cities” springing up in opposition to the deportation of immigrants who’ve entered this country illegally.

When rejection of some laws becomes a widely accepted practice, how long will it be before we question the validity of all laws?  Those who would suggest there is no such thing as a “slippery slope” argue that one small change does not mean we are forsaking all societal standards.  Their support for this assertion is almost always to point to other societies as proof, but we are vastly different from the societies they point to.  In fact, those societies are becoming more like us and are beginning to see the same issues we’ve faced for years.  The “slippery slope” argument almost always comes up when they argue courts have the right to ignore/overturn laws they disagree with, rather than reach agreement those laws should be repealed through the legislative processes of our Republic. 

As we see in the mass shootings and other violent activity – the criminals involved are unconstrained by the law, and perhaps any moral standard.  Does this mean they are mentally ill?  If they have an individual moral compass, and we as a society argue that is okay, what then should restrain them and why should we condemn their actions?

(to be continued)

A Few Thoughts on Easy Versus Hard (Part 5)

It is All Theater

The social media, including all the over the air broadcasts, internet sites, and print mediums are ablaze with celebrity condemnation of the violence we see in the world around us, well kind of ablaze, if you overlook the obvious disparity in approach.

The “Big Stars” in the film industry are happy to jump on the band wagon to condemn gun violence, yet when it comes time to put their money where their mouths are what do we see?  I took a quick look at movies that are in theaters now (including new ones released this week) to see what kind of social commentary the industry is pushing forward to create the utopian world we all desire.  Not surprisingly they seem to directly contradict the moral outrage we hear coming from their lips.  Roughly 47% of the films have guns used in violent situations, 29% have strong, violent, or abusive sexual content, and only 18% seem to be guns or violence free.  That remaining 6% is a movie about an heiress haunted by how her ancestor’s gun killed people and I wasn’t sure how to characterize that one, but it was the only one I saw that seemed to support the industry’s public narrative.

I will be the first to admit I am a cynic, but the last person I ever listen to is someone who tells me how I should believe when it is obvious they don’t have the courage of their own convictions.

In my life-time the movie industry must have fired a trillion fake rounds of ammunition to tell the stories of humanity, teach the moral lessons they thought would be profitable, condemn the violence of the real world, or just because they thought it would be entertaining.  The number of rounds fired does not include all the phaser, laser, or proton cannon shots taken in distant worlds or even in defense of future earths.  In all this fake shooting how many real deaths have occurred that are just chalked up as the cost of doing business?

It is reported that at tonight’s self-congratulatory celebration the big names will be wearing an orange American flag to signal their superiority in the moral battle over gun violence.  In the que for “Movie of the Year” is a tale about the seduction of a minor, the dramatization of the near end of England, the salvation of the British Army, a kind of remake of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” a standard about a California girl who wants to go to an Eastern College for its culture, an old man meets a young girl, a newspaper publisher’s heroic effort to destroy a President, a mute janitor discovers a nefarious government plot, and finally a woman fights a sheriff over the rape and death of her daughter.  Sadly, guns, violence and seduction of minors seem to play in a fair number of the great films of last year.  Tales of utopia, not so much, but I digress.

Clearly, virtue signaling can make up for so much in an industry that thrives on the glamorization of violence.  I will leave the speculation on whether there is a cumulative effect on young men who spend hours in violent video games up to you.

Sometimes I Can Only Laugh Out Loud.

When I was a young lad I could hunt with my own gun at 16, drink and be drafted at 18, and vote at 21.

Then things changed.

We had a war. Politicians and their experts said if young men can die for their country they should vote – and with the 26^th amendment the voting was changed to 18 years of age

Then politicians and their experts looked at alcohol-related traffic accident rates and said "golly young people aren't ready to drink until they are 21” so the minimum age for drinking was raised by the National Minimum Age for Drinking Act in 1984. (BTW the Center for Disease Control says 4,300 deaths/year still occur from underage drinking)

Today we have the on-going debate as to when young men are mature enough to own a gun and reasonably be expected not to shoot up a school. 

The politicians and their experts now say 21 years old is the age when that occurs.  Even though we can arm 18-year olds with rifles, fully automatic weapons, grenades and grenade launchers, guided and unguided rockets, and tanks with 50-caliber and 120mm weapons (if they have adult supervision). 

I find this amusing since recent history suggests if age is the true variable it should probably be over 64 if we want to account for the violence of people like Stephen Paddock.

Since it seems unlikely we will ever have enough agreement to amend the constitution again how can we ever decide when a whole population is mature enough to do something?  Maybe we should have a test?  Like a driving test or “common sense” test where if the candidate fails he or she receives a “not mature enough” stamp that remains until they are retested at 40.

Déjà vu, All Over Again

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Well here we are, watching the horror unfold after another public-school shooting, and nothing will change because we as a society cannot reasonably talk about simple things so the hard things are impossible.  Thanks to all who’ve chosen to be offended by views they don’t like, micro-aggressions, and gender specific pronouns -- you've taken the ability to debate this issue off the table.  Thanks also to the lobbying efforts of the special interest groups like the NRA or Anti-Gun groups who have shouted so long and so loudly there is no middle ground that offers possible choices.  There is only vilification and counter-condemnation.

Those who’ve read my posts on this subject know I don’t believe writing a new law will solve the gun violence issue in the nation.  We have all kinds of laws on the books that have done little to keep killers from killing, all they do is give us an opportunity to punish the offenders IF (and that is a big IF): the prosecutor choses to prosecute, the judge decides to judge fairly (putting personal agenda aside), and the defense attorney is not sharp enough to convince the judge and jury that his client is only a victim of society and it’s not his/her fault.  We now parse the laws with so many circumstances and uniqueness’s it is impossible to know if true justice is achieved.

The premise of our society is we are a nation of laws, but each day fewer and fewer of us actually believe we should follow the law.  As we see on the nightly news this holds true for even those who aspire or attain the highest elected and law enforcement offices of the land.  So, if laws no longer serve to restrain our actions, and we’ve established a morality that supports individual choice how do we convince people those individual choices should not include killing?

Those who cry loudest about the tragic rise in gun violence are the ones who have historically believed the answer is banning all guns.  It is as if they refuse to understand the human psyche that makes a banned item all the more attractive.  We attempted to ban the manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors with the 18^th Amendment.  How did that work out? The words “speakeasy, bootleggers and organized crime” entered our language.  A completely sober USA, not so much. 

When the past President attempted to explain who the average rural American is by saying “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” He set a tone for his entire administration that said we know better than you what is right for the country.  As a result of that sentiment what happened with gun sales during his eight years in office?

Those who oppose the anti-gun side always seem to suggest the problem of people who are killing other people is obviously a mental illness issue and if we were to just treat that everything would be okay, the guns are never the issue.  While mental illness is undoubtedly a contributing, and perhaps causal factor in many of the shooting, what happens when the media gives so much air time to the individuals, and next to no air time when it comes time for them to face the consequences of their actions which, if they survive, may not come until decades later?

Now I am just guessing, but I bet that the anti-gun folks will plaster social media with their outrage since emotional reaction is pretty easy.  ABC news tonight made it a point that each time President Trump responded to a shooting he said that immediately following the event was not the right time to discuss the issue, they did this as a not so subtle condemnation. 

Anyone who thinks rationally about this will know two things.  Unique to this instance, until we know what actually happened what is there to talk about, other than the emotional outrage?  The second point is really what the pro-gun groups are working towards, the news media will forget about this in a week or so and it will move to the back burner, at least until the next shooting, where the cycle will start all over again.  Our agenda driven society, and especially the two mainstream parties cannot engage in reasonable talk without suffering the wrath of their most extreme advocates, so they won’t.

The fact we have no middle ground on this issue will mean it will never be fixed.  Whether that is improved mental health care, a realignment of our moral compasses, universal gun awareness training, or perhaps increased armed presence in the schools. 

There are a number of problems with that last option that makes it an unattractive choice, but of the ones I mentioned it is the only one likely to be sought because it is the simplest and keeps in place most of the status quo.  At the end of the day, I don’t think any of the choices I’ve heard mentioned will actually eliminate the threat.  That can only come if we as a society choose a different morality where our young are not taught on a daily basis that gun violence is acceptable, where the family unit is rebuilt to provide stability for growing minds, and we abandon the idea the government is responsible for fixing everything that disturbs us.  That seems an impossible path at this point.

Because I Know It’s Coming

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Over the next weeks and months, we will again engage in what is a never-ending debate on the issue of guns and gun ownership here in America.  It is unlikely to go any further than it has gone before, because each side will get wrapped up in the emotional arguments for and against that have colored every debate since the first Presidential assassination.

If you doubt me, look at the immediate visceral response of the liberal media and anti-gun advocates, and the equally emotion driven reactions of the opposition.  Of course, all the politicians pushing their party’s agenda, either for or against, will be fighting for air time over the coming weeks.  They will mock or vilify depending on what they believe sells best to their sponsors and voters.  Both sides will trot out their tried and true talking points, to enrage and inflame their supporters and critics alike.  In the end, we will continue with the status quo, until the next carnage.

We will not engage in the larger question of what has changed in our country to cause the escalation of hate, anger, and insanity that are, in my opinion, the true causal factors for the death and destruction we see on the nightly news, or wake to with our morning coffee.  We won’t engage in that discussion for there is no simple answer that fits into the 15-second sound bite that fuels the news reporting, and because we are becoming a me-ocracy, where our values of self and our society no longer have a common basis in a fixed code, but are formed based on whatever suits us at the time.

Unfortunately, I hold these truths to be self-evident: 

A gun is a tool, just as an automobile is a tool, a knife is a tool, and a bed is a tool.  It has no intelligence, no conscience, no morality.  It can be physically modified to suit the needs of its user, and electronic and manual safeguards can be installed, but if they are installed by humans they can be corrupted and defeated by humans.

Laws are only effective if they are obeyed.  If people choose to ignore the law, there are not enough enforcement officials to insure it is universally upheld.  There is, within society, a significant group of people who ignore the established laws of the nation.

Men and women of good conscience seeking a moderate solution will be condemned and vilified by the extremes who seek will only settle for an “all or nothing” approach.  On the one side, it would be physically impossible to remove all guns from individual owners, but on the other side -- allowing unrestricted gun sales and ownership would clearly allow for greater access by those who have no moral self-restraint in their use.

In conclusion:

It is unfortunate, in the shadow of the latest mass killings, we cannot put the failed political debate aside for a brief time, grieve for the dead, and seek to find common ground on a solution to improve the moral fabric of our society so that guns are no longer the center of the debate, but identification and care for those who would misuse them is.  This is a complex and frightening debate for all concerned.  For on the one hand it would lead to a corrosive potential for abuse by the state, while on the other it would require a significant outlay of funds for a medical treatment with unknown benefit.   

While I am not optimistic, I think this is the only path to prevent a continuation of this type of tragedy, but I am just a small voice drowned out by the hysteria that is before us.

10 Things I Don't Expect to Change in 2017

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1.     De-legitimizing the President.  For the past eight years’ supporters of the President have decried as fiction any criticism that questioned the legitimacy of the man for the role.  For the next four years those same defenders will do everything they complained about to the new President.  The irony of this transference will be lost on most people.

2.    The current trajectory of civil conversation

3.    The size of the Federal Government

4.    The use of government departments as overt political tools

5.     An honest public-assessment of the DNC goals, objectives, and its approach to helping the lives of the poor improve to escape the oppression of poverty and achieve a sense of worth

6.    Violence in the major cities

7.     Global climate change...

8.    Government spending greater than government income

9.    Terror as a political tool in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, North and South America, Asia, the sub-continent, and Australia.  I think Antarctica may be safe.

10.  The number of human beings who've landed on the moon

It’s All About the Narrative

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On Monday, November 28, 2016, there was a terror event on the campus of Ohio State University.  It involved an OSU student, a young Somali immigrant, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, attacking others with his car, and then a knife.  This attack was similar to what we’ve seen in Palestinian attacks in Israel. He was engaged and killed by an OSU police officer, Alan Horujko, who reported “shots fired” as he called for assistance.  This led the OSU emergency response team to declare an active shooter event and broadcast it via social media to all the students.  Its Twitter message read, “Buckeye Alert: Active Shooter on campus. Run Hide Fight. Watts Hall. 19th and College.”

It took about an hour from the first notification for the OSU administration to determine the only shooter was the police officer, and the student body should be notified of the all clear, but the twitter responses make a rather telling commentary on the thinking of the average student, others who followed the feed, as well as those who will use any such event to push their political narrative.

On the one hand, there were a significant number of individuals who could not fathom why the OSU team would advocate “fight” as one of the responses.  If someone has a gun how could you possibly fight them?  The concept of actively participating in their own defense appeared to be completely alien to them.

For the record, the advice advocating fight comes only if there are no other options.  You are trapped and about to be shot.  In this instance the advice is to be as violent as possible to disrupt the shooter and either disarm them or escape.

Then there were those who used the events of the day to talk about the need for everyone to have a gun and how OSU should not be a gun free zone.  @Tradecraft Ltd offered this great opinion, “Apparently colleges would prefer their innocent students to just be good little victims.”

Finally, there were politicians and others from California, Virginia, and elsewhere around the world, who weighed in about how too many people have guns and that this never would have happened if we had better gun control laws.

Senator Tim Kaine, D-VA (Clinton VP candidate), found it necessary to weigh in before he had the facts (I assume) with “Deeply saddened by the senseless act of gun violence at Ohio State this morning. Praying for the injured and the entire Buckeye community”

I am not a twitter user, and looking at the dialogues on this medium I am convinced my choice was a good one, for civility and respect don’t seem to be its forte. 

In the Darkness.

Yesterday, June 12, 2016, was a milestone day for the US.  It marked the largest mass shooting (by a lone gunman) in our history.  The targets for this were the revelers at a popular LGBT nightspot in Orlando.  I am writing this approximately 24 hours after the horrific event.  It is dark outside, and my thoughts like the night are dark.  In the hours following the event the political leadership of the nation and the state have spoken, the entertainment and television news industries have spoken, the internet has spoken and various LGBT communities have spoken.  Each with their own take on this act.  As I listen, attempting to sort out the facts from the agenda driven rhetoric, I am struck by how locked into denial we are.

It really doesn’t matter if it is the President of the United States, or the President of the National Rifle Association.  Each has their position and nothing that happened can alter their language.  The event must be shaped to support the narrative.

What is terrorism and what is a terrorist?  The Oxford dictionary defines a terrorist as “a person who uses or favors violent and intimidating methods of coercing a government or community.[i] 

After 9/11 the US Government passed the “Patriot Act” and created a broad definition of  domestic terrorism.  The definition is found in 18 U.S. Code § 2331, which reads in part “activities that –

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State;

(B) appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”[ii]

In this particular event 18 U.S. Code § 249 – Hate crimes acts, has also been used by the government to classify the actions of the shooter.  Section 249 identifies a special class of offense when the acts are targeting, or are perceived to target, “individuals based on race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.”[iii]

Here is where the words really do matter.  The President has been reluctant to ever link Islam with terrorism, and his supporters are on-board with the idea that radical Islamic terrorist organizations like ISIS/ISIL or Al-Qaeda are not likely to be in the US, and if they were we would be able to identify them before they acted.  The idea of a few radicalized individuals acting as “lone-wolfs” without guidance is a much more palatable answer.  So we see in the Presidents statement yesterday the reluctant use of the word terror, from some unknown source, and the use of the word “hate” since the specific targets were largely, if not exclusively, from the LGBT community.  I don’t believe this was accidental and if he had been able to avoid the use of the word terror he would have.

While we could debate whether the terrorist organizations reflect the fundamental philosophy of Islam there is, in my opinion, little to be gained in that discussion.  There is enough evidence to show a tolerance for violence by all concerned to call into question the near impossibility of determining a "radicalized" individual from the larger church.  As a person familiar with the problem stated, the 98% of law abiding individuals are irrelevant.  They have little to no ability to stop the violent 1-2 percent.

Of course the President pointed out this violence was done with guns and if we had greater control this might have been prevented.  All the reporting yesterday brought to light the shooter had “assault weapons” or “assault like weapons like the AR-15” and the gun rights supporters were quick to respond with accusations the President is seeking to take our rights away, and of course the old chestnut, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

ABC news on their 20/20 coverage was able to find the shooters wife who said she had told authorities about his violent outbursts, he had been investigated by the FBI at least twice for potential terrorist links, and yet he was still able to buy the guns he used to kill 50 individuals and wound another 53.  Clearly, the laws we have today are failing us.  The question is why?  Is it because we are not enforcing them, or is it the more likely reason we don’t have the resources necessary to implement them?

Mental illness seems to be an increasingly prevalent thing in today’s world.  We have Psychiatrists and Clinical Psychologists struggling to help people cope with all the problems their patients face.  They are guided by a complex and ever-changing medical landscape and the philosophies of patient care.  They must balance the rights of the patient against the larger needs of society, but at the same time are often restricted by their profession’s ethical standards on what they can and should do to report potentially dangerous individuals.  Then, of course, there is the legal problems associated with incarcerating an individual based on a professional’s judgement.  It seems to me the dilemma in the mystic arts of Psychiatry is for every professional opinion there seems to be an equal and opposite professional opinion.  You just need to find the right professional.

So suppose Omar Siddiqui Mateen had been identified as a potentially violent individual with a desire to kill gays.  What should the government have done while protecting the rights of the individual?  Unfortunately, that debate is unlikely to happen since everyone is certain they are right in their beliefs.

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[i]  The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus, American Edition, Oxford University Press, 1996

[ii] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2331

[iii] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/249

Gun Control, a Counter Offer

For those who would advocate stricter gun laws and challenge the second amendment I have a proposal.  Let’s first abandon the protections of the 1st amendment and outlaw every movie, TV show, book, video game, song, internet event, and article of clothing that has a gun or depicts the use of a gun.  If you are serious about changing the culture of violence, then why not start with the people who make their livings glorifying it?

So what if so many of their profits of violent expression go to fund the democratic campaigns, if we are serious about changing the culture than just making more gun laws isn’t going to do a darn thing, just look at NYC, LA, DC, and Chicago.  Cities with among the strictest laws and largest rates of gun violence.

Where is the outrage over Die Hard 1,2, and 3, the Terminator, Robocop, Batman, Superman, Fury, most Rap songs, not to mention all the violence in video games.  According to Procon.org “Violent video games have been blamed for school shootings, increases in bullying, and violence towards women. Critics argue that these games desensitize players to violence, reward players for simulating violence, and teach children that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflicts.”

Why is it okay to allow this $21.5-billion-dollar industry to go with only minor wrist slaps when US gun manufacturers get hammered in the press and by democratic politicians on a daily basis?  By the way, maybe they are paying for these politicians to slam them because over the past 6 years we have seen gun sales soar from 3.9 million weapons/year to over 10.8 million in 2013.  I think it would be fair to say the President has done more to spur a sagging gun industry than any other president since Franklin Roosevelt.

Since it seems most liberal college students don’t like the First Amendment anyway, let's start there as we abandon our protections to change America.  Maybe Michael Moore can do a docudrama on it or something.

Guns and Laws, or Laws and Guns

Disclaimer:  I believe understanding firearms is a valuable point of education whether or not you choose to own a gun.  I was fortunate enough to have had that education when I was younger.  I also believe the right to maintain arms is specified in the Constitution’s Second Amendment, and if we want to outlaw all firearms it will require a correction to the Constitution.  In other words guns cannot be outlawed through law or executive order, but having said that, is there sensible regulation, beyond what we have today, that could be effective in reducing gun related injuries or death?

Agenda:  Every time I hear someone say there should be something based on “common sense” I cringe.  Saying something should be based on common sense is saying something should be the way you want it, for you clearly have common sense.  This piece is driven by the current debate between the left and the right, and the President’s decision to again interject his office into the middle of a tragedy and push his long-standing agenda of outlawing guns in America.  I realize it will change no ones mind and those with strong views either way will continue to believe as they chose and spout the half-truths they are so fond in hurdling around.  Those on the public stage will continue to feed those willing idiots with the propaganda they clamor for.

My purpose here is to attempt to understand what is real and what is BS in all the propaganda, and document my findings in the event my grandchildren ever wonder about this time in America and what I thought.  If you are reading this you can choose to accept or disagree with anything I have to say.  

Let’s start with a basic question, are we concerned with guns and gun violence because they are used to kill other people (homicides), are used in self-destruction (suicides), or present a risk of accidental use?  As you will see, deciding that question is essential in understanding the problem and how it should be dealt with.

Within hours of the shootings at Roseburg, Oregon, the President[i] came forward with a public statement calling for action to reduce the availability of guns and establish “common sense gun safety laws,” noting that those states with the strictest laws have the fewest deaths.  He closed with a recommendation that gun owners should reject the position of the National Rifle Association. Of course the political opposition came out strongly to condemn the President, and the mainstream media leaped to his defense.  In checking his comments Politifact said his comments were “mostly true.” I am struck by the number times Politifact cite studies that did not support his specific statements or look at the context they were made in, but still at the end of the day felt rather than a neutral rating the President was correct.  Among the discordant facts noted were simple things like the study he based his statements on failed to point out that suicide accounts for over half the deaths, or that once you get beyond the top five states with the strictness of the laws does not seem to be the distinguishing variable, leaving unanswered the question, what is the driving consideration?

As Ms. Carroll of Politifact[ii] notes:

“The problem is, however, that this is an overly general statement. The research doesn’t prove a universal cause-and-effect relationship between gun laws and fewer gun deaths; it might just be a correlation. Some laws are more effective than others, and other cultural, demographic or socioeconomic factors might be the driving force behind the number of gun deaths in different states.”

So even with the obvious overreach in pushing fewer laws as causation Ms. Carroll gives the President a “Mostly True.”  I believe there is a personal bias involved in this assessment.  Especially in light of criticism of the original National Journal Report the President and Ms. Carroll cite as the source of the position.

Now let's look at the National Journal[iii] article that both the President and Ms. Carroll use as the basis for their statements.  In this 28 August article, Ms. Libby Isenstein shows data compiled from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Center for Disease Control, NRA-Institute for Legislative Action, and staff reports.  The article was written as a response to the murders of Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward, from WDBJ.  In her analysis Ms. Isenstein asserts, “states that impose the most restrictions on gun users also have the lowest rates of gun-related deaths.”  She shows legal restrictions like requiring a permit to purchase, a universal background check, must hand guns be registered, waiting period between purchase and possession, difficulty in obtaining concealed carry and of course the always popular “stand your ground” law. In her article she speculates that the five states with the lowest gun-related death rate per 100,000 (Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and Road Island) also have the most restrictive laws and the five states with the least restrictions (Wyoming, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Alaska) have the highest.  Of course in this she blends all gun deaths except for “legal interventions involving firearms.”

Her article then goes on to show three tables to demonstrate the impacts of the laws.  Her table on background checks shows a comparative difference of .76 deaths/100,000 between those with and those without.  She does note that 11 states had too few homicides to provide statistically reliable numbers.  Nine of those states were in the no background check required, so if they had been counted would the comparative difference been significant?   For that matter is the .76/100,000 outside the margin of error statistically?

So, what do others say in rebuttal?

From Reason.com[iv] we see the following:

"According to National Journal, the six states with the lowest rates of gun-related deaths in 2013, ranging from 2.6 to 5.7 per 100,000, were Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, which do indeed have relatively strict gun policies as measured by requirements for buying and carrying handguns. National Journal also considered whether states impose a duty to retreat on people attacked in public places, which all six of these states do.

Once you get past those six states, the hypothesis that low gun death rates go hand in hand with strict gun control starts to break down. New Hampshire, with a gun death rate just a little higher than New Jersey's, has permissive gun policies. Likewise Minnesota, Washington, Vermont, Wisconsin, and South Dakota, all of which have gun death rates of 10 or less per 100,000. New Hampshire and Minnesota have lower rates than California, Illinois, the District of Columbia, and Maryland, all of which have substantially stricter gun rules.

At the other end of the list, Alaska, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and Wyoming have both permissive gun policies and high gun death rates, ranging from around 17 to nearly 20 per 100,000. But of these six states, only Louisiana has a very high gun murder rate (based on 2010 data). The rate in Mississippi is fairly high but still lower than in D.C. or Maryland, which have much stricter gun laws. Alaska, Wyoming, Alabama, and Arkansas have lower gun murder rates than California, which has more gun restrictions."

From the NRA[v]

"Mere correlation, even if one existed, wouldn’t necessarily mean causation. Isenstein claimed that there is a “correlation” between gun control laws and firearm-related death rates. However, even if there were such a correlation, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that gun control reduces deaths. If it were that simple, it could be claimed that roosters crowing at dawn proves that crowing causes the sun to rise"

Clearly we would expect critical comments from the NRA, and you can make your own determination about the organization, but if you read the review I believe it offers substantive rational to support its assessment that Isenstein’s analysis is deeply flawed and agenda driven.

The NRA uses its own tables to show the District of Columbia, with the most restrictive laws in the nation far exceeds the rest of the nation in murder rates, and that states with right to carry laws in place are 20% low than the national average. 

There is an old saying, you can make statistics prove anything; you just need to use the right statistics.  This was wonderfully illustrated this week (Oct 5-13) with competing headlines from CNN and FOX.  Using the same data from the same poll we saw “Hillary Continues to Lead Sanders” and “Sanders Closes the Gap.”

There is a website called Gun Violence Archive[vi] whose mission in their words “is to document incidents of gun violence and gun crime to provide raw, verified data to those who need to use it in their research, advocacy or writing.” It offers a number of statistical databases that reflect the totality of “gun-violence” in America.   It too combines suicides, accidental incidents and assault/murder in one conglomeration. It shows that so far in 2015 (as of Oct 11) there have been 40,666 incidents, 10,262 deaths, 20,825 injuries, 561 children killed/injured, 2,037 teens (12-17) killed/injured, etc.  As compelling as these numbers are, for a population of 350,000,000 how does this compare to the lethality of other tools?

Looking at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety[vii] for 2013, the last year data is available, there were 30,057 fatal accidents resulting in 32,719 deaths.  The rate per 100,000 ranged from a low 3.1 in the District of Columbia to a high of 22.6 in Montana.  So in simple terms the rates are actually slightly higher for vehicular death than from gun violence.  We have seen over the past 75 years the federal government impose a number of measures to improve vehicle safety, but as of yet there has not been a huge outcry to make all vehicle regulation a federal issue. Why not?

So, to summarize, by most reasonable measures gun deaths in America amount to roughly 10,000 annually, and of these over half occur from self-inflicted, either through accident or suicide.[viii][ix]While these are tragically high numbers, they are not greatly different from the numbers of American’s killed each year in private business[x] where 4, 251 individuals died in 2014.

If we are concerned the availability of guns encourages their use in suicides,[xi] then the question is what regulations can we write to effectively determine the mental state of the person when they purchase a gun, and ensure that mental state will not change in the passing years?  The curious thing in my mind is that a lot of people who demand the removal of access to guns are also the same ones who support assisted suicide and the right to choose to end a pregnancy at will.  Perhaps I am simplistic in my view but these seem contradictory positions.

Then we have the issue of accidental discharge or misuse by children.  If that were really a concern then why don't we teach our children rather than make guns the forbidden fruit and entice them to try something they've been warned not to do?  Either we fail to recognize the human nature of children or we really don't care because it serves a greater agenda.

So what should we do?  Those who wish for greater gun control claim we need new laws.  Those who oppose new laws claim federal over-reach, and point out that no matter what laws we impose, they will have little affect on those who would break them.  On this last point I’ve got to agree.  We have laws outlawing a hundred thousand different things, and those laws are ignored on a daily basis.  Whether it is distilling alcohol, driving drunk, or even employees washing their hands before leaving the rest rooms, having a law, regulation or executive order and truly protecting the innocent are not the same thing.

If we actually wanted to reduce the homicide rates in this country then we would have an open, not politically correct debate on society, that did not start with the polarizing issue of guns, but rather debate the influences that are causing this apparent escalation of violence.  I don’t hear those who propose new laws coming out in condemnation of the violence in the movies, or the indoctrination of our young through violent video games.  Why is that?

How about concern for our minorities?  The President willingly interjects when race is an issue and blacks are killed, but how about the overwhelming intra-racial violence?[xii]  Within the inner cities crime and violence most often affect those who are at the greatest disadvantage and only rarely is it one race against another. Where is the President's concern on this issue?

Finally, we come to the role of Government in establishing morality.  When we became a nation the vast majority of our citizens share a common understanding of morality and the consequences of immoral acts.  As we move further and further from those original unifying concepts the question then becomes what replaces them?  Those who reject the Judeo-Christian principles, or who believe that Science becomes their morality what now serves as the bedrock for law and common principles of social behavior?  As we see in our laws, we can write any law, we can hire sufficient numbers of individuals to impose that law, but unless the population as a significant majority accept the premise and moral basis for that law it will be avoided and circumvented.  Prohibition should stand as a lesson learned. 

It is my position the Government has no role in morality; it is a social construct brought to being by parents teaching their children, and can only be reinforced or destroyed by the public and church institutions.  When parents abandon that role, or when society condemns those values, we will lose the basis for self-governance as self-interest overwhelms the value of common-good.

So in conclusion, without that common sense of morality; there can be no effective common-sense laws in gun control with an actual chance to save the unwilling victims of gun violence.

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[i] President Obama's Statement

[ii] Fact Check - President Obama Statements

[iii] National Journal, 28 Aug 2015

[iv] Reason.com, 2 Sep 2015, Do Strict Firearm Laws Give States Lower Gun Death Rates

[v] NRA Institute for Legislative Action, Article 20150904 National Journal Promoting Gun Control, f stands for fail

[vi] Gun Violence Archive 2015 Data

[vii] http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview

[viii] http://www.vocativ.com/usa/guns/suicides-outnumber-homicides-comes-gun-violence/

[ix] Washington Post, January 14, 2015, Many More People are dying from Gun Suicides Than Homicides

[x] https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/commonstats.html

[xi] Pew Research May 24, 2013, Suicides Account for Most Gun Deaths

[xii] Washington Post, Sept 19, 2014, The Racial Divide in America's Gun Deaths