The Orlando Carnage, where a trigger happy youth, Omar Mateen killed 50 and injured 53, during a shootout at the LGBT nightclub, Pulse, has triggered anger and debate. One section feels that guns should be banned and American laws amended. Lisa argues otherwise. She reasons stop shifting blame. Look the truth in its face: weak, broken people sometimes use their free will to strike and break others. Take away one weapon, and they will find another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB8Mkpe-CWQ
The 2nd Amendment is in the US Constitution for two major purposes: to arm the citizenry against an oppressive government (think Britain, remember?) and to allow for self-provision and self-protection in a vast, rural country.
Let’s get one thing on the table. As of 2016, most Americans will not support the repeal of the 2nd Amendment. Most Americans do not believe ‘guns’ kill people because the majority of us (myself included) grew up handling guns for hunting and farming. We believe people kill people. We believe people must be held responsible when they kill other people. We do not believe the fault lies with some faceless ‘culture’ or spiritless object.
Most Americans believe it is their responsibility to maintain control of their guns, precisely to protect vulnerable children and adults.
Most Americans believe only law-abiding people will submit to laws. We believe criminals and powerful people will keep their guns – allowing corrupt people and corrupt governments to have the guns and therefore, fatal control over law-abiding people.
The United States is not a central federal democracy, ruled from Washington, DC. The US is a federation of states with sovereign rights, each ruled from their elected government in their elected capital. The US has New York City, which we all love, and it has Louisville, Kentucky, and Williamstown, West Virginia. Which we all love. Most Americans do not want DC to rule them; most of us see that DC has trouble ruling itself with success. The current election cycle is sad evidence of the grave dismay of most Americans for the values and decision-making of Washington DC. Most Americans do not believe DC knows best.
Most Americans believe DC makes rules to support their own enrichment. Most Americans know the political class makes laws to control Americans while exempting themselves as elite.
The European Union has aspects of the US model, and because it is demanding central laws enacted from Brussels, it is in danger of cracking apart. The members of the EU do not all share the same values. Neither do the states of the US.
If America does as the ruling political class and countries beyond our state borders ask – as their outsider demands rise up in their judgment of ‘Americans’ to ‘see reason’ and agree with the minority morality – if most Americans agree to finally grow up and “give up their guns” – most American know that the criminals and the powerful will keep their guns.
Those people will use that extra power to inflict harm on others, just as we see happening now in Chicago, and Baltimore. As we have seen in Mao’s China, Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany. As we watched in Batiste’s and Castro’s Cuba. Fascism comes from those who seek power. It comes from every political persuasion. Fascism comes when the good people give up or lose their power, and criminals take over. Yet, we all know it isn’t just obvious criminal activity that seeks control and takes by force of violence. We know it from eons of crusading dominators, seeking to spread their power and control. History is replete with the behaviour, which is seen in every race, every religion, and every excuse.
The people – criminals – who choose to seek control by inflicting hurt, who choose murder, have certainly used guns, but they have also used bombs, gas, knives, arrows, poison and vehicles, such as airplanes and automobiles. They have used their hands, they have used their feet. They have used their power to silence the voices of their opposition. There are many weapons to choose for abuse.
Take away guns to stop murder?
Chicago’s murder rates are not caused by responsible, law-abiding citizens owning guns any more than rape is caused by responsible, law-abiding men having penises. Sears selling pressure cookers did not cause the Boston Marathon bombing. Mature ladies who want to knit on flights do not open the door to terror any more than the business person, who uses the metal pen to take notes in the aisle seat on the same flight.
Violence of every kind occurs for the same reasons: broken, lost, corrupt people who choose to use violence as a means to control or punish others. People become criminals and choose to join gangs, choose to sell drugs. People choose to rape. People choose to enact terror, to murder. Penises don’t act independently of the men who wield them as weapons to harm and control. Pressure cookers and fertilizer do not simply become bombs. Guns do not murder without the hand that pulls the trigger. Inanimate and inherently dependent objects do not choose. People choose.
Face the realities of the ‘culture’. Stop shifting blame. Look the truth in its face: weak, broken people sometimes use their free will to strike and break others. Take away one weapon, and they will find another. There is one close by.
Arguing excuses for weak, criminal humans who choose mayhem and destruction to impose their view of personal glory or power is morally corrupt.
I say it’s time to stop making excuses and deal with the real problem: a break-down in the culture of self-respect and personal responsibility. The rise of a culture that celebrates with massive attention and dollars the objectification of half the population as nothing more than tools for the sexual gratification of the other half. The eminence of money over morals. The glorification of narcissism. The deification of every instance of self-interest.
The screeching about guns is a political twinkle purposely distracting us from all the truths no one wants to see. I’m not buying it.
©Lisa Blanton
Pix from Net.
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