By David Glenn Cox
What is wrong with us? Why this desire not only to kill but to kill strangers who have done us no harm? To inflict insufferable pain and misery upon strangers and their families expanding like ripples of pain across a societal pool. Yes, it’s the guns. But guns have been around for a long time, and we didn’t senselessly murder each other and the kill the innocent until recently.
To express our own pain and multiply it until the police come and kill them in a death by cop scenario. When Charles Whitman locked himself into a clock tower in 1966 and killed 17 it made national news and was on the cover of Life Magazine. Today it has become a daily tragic event across America.
Children killing as a first grader shoots his teacher. Absolute negligence, but even so, why does a child take a gun to school in the first place? Even at six years of age, I knew guns were dangerous. I knew if my parents found me with a gun I’d be in big, big trouble. I was afraid of the police and didn’t want to go to jail. I knew right from wrong.
Children repaying petty vendettas because the cool kids made fun of them in the lunch room. Murdering church congregations for no other reason than because they can. Sitting smugly in the courtroom ignorantly unaware of what life in prison really means for a teenager. What’s going on here?
Obviously, mental illness is a factor as a sane person would never murder strangers for no reason other than because they’re unhappy. Of course, common-sense gun legislation is required but even more so is gun responsibility legislation. If you sell heroin and people die from it and they catch you, you are held responsible for those deaths. If you put a gun in a minor’s hands and they kill someone it is no different than dealing a deadly drug.
Law enforcement seems powerless to contain the pandemic of murderous rage. As most of these murderers are suicidal anyway and want to be killed. The others ignorant of time’s price on decades of prison ahead. Those on the left demand immediate and meaningful restrictions on gun ownership. That is a step in the right direction but ignores the source of the violence. What is the impetus for murdering whole groups of strangers?
The Republicans shout themselves hoarse about their Second Amendment rights and then offering only thoughts and prayers to the grieving survivors. The right to swing your arm ends at my nose! The victims and their families have rights too. The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness denied to them by someone with a gun.
Most gun owners are responsible, and law abiding and will never cause one minute of trouble. But until we can determine by an accurate barometer just who those people are the murder pandemic continues.
The urban streets have become a battlefield as those locked out of society seek respect and acclaim through violence. That part of the equation is easy. Al Capone took over the gang in a shootout in a south Chicago bar. The drug trade like the illegal liquor trade requires weapons when you can’t call the cops and must protect themselves.
But the Republicans have made gun ownership a bedrock article of Republican faith. They refuse to even negotiate on simple common-sense legislation. The Republican Florida Senate is considering permit less gun ownership. Radically irresponsible as then gang members will have nothing to fear from the cops. But in all honesty, what can you expect from Republicans?
From 1929 until 1932, the Republicans were confident that the economy would recover all by itself. Those starving and suffering Americans should just pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Herbert Hoover offered $2 billion dollars to corporations to reopen factories when the factories first closed because their customers had no money.
The Republicans have a track record that rivals the Catholic Church in backwardness and cultural ineptness. The Party of law and order has become the Party of lawlessness and murder. The champions of the murder’s rights and willing to fight to the death over it.
Republicans opposed Civil Rights Amendment and the Voter’s Rights Amendment. They opposed seat belts in cars and said that airbags were too expensive to force the poor automakers to install. The Republicans opposed Social Security and Medicare. The Republicans were champions of big tobacco and fought against even placing warning labels on cigarette packages. They were more concerned about Rap lyrics threatening to kill cops to worry about the guns actually killing cops.
Republicans opposed the Equal Rights Amendment. Republicans opposed Gay Rights, and Republicans opposed Transgender Rights to point of even outlawing medical care. These patriarchs of murderer’s rights call themselves the conservators of freedom while banning books and Drag shows. I don’t know if the Democrats can solve the murder pandemic. I don’t know if anyone can. But I do know with a rock-solid certainty, that as long as the Republicans have a seat at the table it won’t happen now or ever.
The rampage will go on and the thoughts and prayers will be poured out in abundance. Republicans to this day support a man who tried to overthrow our democracy. So, what can you actually expect from the Republicans? Nothing is what you can expect and on that promise they will deliver. So, until you get rid of that roadblock, we can never ever move forward.
We have a mental health crisis in this country and the Republicans generously offer lip service rather than funding. They are as constant as the morning star in offering non-monetary solutions. Instead, they offer more guns in schools and speedier executions. But a person with a gun even with security guards in the building only needs a minute or two to create murder and mayhem.
The Party that doesn’t support education in general offers only lip service and will continue to offer only lip service, along with truck loads of thoughts and prayers. The Party of religious oppression and bigotry loves babies but only until they reach school age.
I don’t claim to know the answer to gun violence, but I can see a major part of the problem. Step one, get rid of the Republicans. Look at the picture above, blue from sea to shining sea. That is what is possible to accomplish. This has been done before once suffering Americans got sick and tired meaningless platitudes and thoughts and prayers. Step one, get rid of the Republicans or continue to sit back and watch the carnage.
“Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home–but not for housing. They are strong for labor–but they are stronger for restricting labor’s rights. They favor minimum wage–the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all–but they won’t spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine–for people who can afford them. They consider electrical power a great blessing–but only when the private power companies get their rake-off. They think American standard of living is a fine thing–so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.”
― Harry S. Truman
This Carbon Based Life 
Thank you for another home run.
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You call for “common sense” gun legislation, but nothing proposed by Democrats makes any sense at all, as none of it works.
If you want to reduce suicides, improve mental health services. To reduce murders, crack down on crime, especially gang- and drug trade related crime.
The handful of perps who commit public mass shootings — which kill <100 people each year — are easily identified prior to their acts, as they share common traits and give many warning signs. Yet these warnings are routinely ignored by schools, law enforcement, and our mental health system.
Further restrictions on the 99.98% of gun owners who'll never harm an innocent person, is not the answer.
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Commons sense means just that. Close the gun show loophole. In the words of Sir Arthur Harris, “We don’t know that it won’t work, it’s never been tried.” But it works in other countries.
I never said anything about reducing suicides. If someone want to kill themselves that’s their business..
I would love to increase Mental Health spending but your friends the Republicans are trying to reduce access to Mental Health.. They fight against all forms of public health.
Crack down on crime you say? We already imprison more people than any country in the world and it’s not working. Gang and drug crime is rooted in poverty. How come countries without our wealth don’t have our slums?
Further restrictions? I get it, you don’t want to be inconvenienced. You’re content to let the carnage continue as long as it’s not your kids. . It’s too much bother to get .a federal firearms license. Inconvenience someone else, you say. You don’t want to be bothered. You’d rather the senseless killings before being inconvenience or changing our spending priorities . Your response is typical, you don’t want to be bothered.
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There is no ‘gun show loophole.’ Sales at gun shows are subject to the same requirements as any others.
Suicides comprise 60% of gun deaths, murders nearly all the rest. Handguns are used in nearly all of both. So banning a long gun makes no sense. Magazine capacity limits makes won’t reduce suicides, for obvious reasons.
Your friends the Democrats are letting hardened criminals go free, and routinely dropping weapons violations charges, as was done for the MSU killer.
What’s typical is your assumption that anyone who disagrees with your proposals is ‘content to let the carnage continue.’ No one wants that to continue, but not all of us are as ignorant and misinformed as you on the subject.
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I gave you a chance to answer once. I’m not here to argue with you. You have had your say now go away
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To get rid of republicans you gave to convince them that what they believe is not correct. To do that you have to offer them something better. So far, that has not happened and we still have republicans. They believe their ideas are better.
People do what they see other people doing. There are more mass shootings this year because there were more last year. As there are more and more reported in the news then the number grows. Trends somehow get started and they gain momentum. How to stop that trend or cycle is a difficult question to answer. More gun control would be the first step. Not as many guns would help reduce the number. Outlawing all semi-automatic would be a good place to start. Mass behavior changes when the vast majority of people want it to change. That means convincing people that your ideas are better and changing their minds. That takes hard work and time.
Being liberal or conservative is a continuum. Along the line there is a point where fifty per cent are on one side and fifty per cent are on the other. That is why we gave a liberal party and a conservative party. We will always have that.
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