GUN VIOLENCE AND OWNERSHIP

 

 

The following is a comment I made on YELLOWDOG GRANNY’s   post.  

 

 

It is not about mass shooters, it is not about cop killing black people, it is not about dangerous militia; It is about guns: the availability of guns, the gun slinger attitude, the acceptance of a gun culture.   Yes, there are social, racist, anarchist, police militarization and mental illness factions that need to be addressed.   But it is the guns.  Guns are killing people.

 

I have lost count of the shootings this week.   Gun violence is now the normal.

 

I am not against gun ownership; but I am against guns being owned for the purpose of killing people. 

 

The answers are simple; but when half of the United States still believe that Donald Trump is the President in exile, there is no hope of common sense ever bringing about changes.

 

We don’t need to restrict guns; we need to address the need for them.  The only reason to own a gun in the United states is for hunting and home protection.  With that in mind, rifle and shotgun ownership should require a hunting license.  Pistol ownership should require a gun permit and background check.

 

Hunting rifles should be bolt-action and a maximum capacity of five rounds.   If you can’t take you prey with five shots you shouldn’t be out in the woods armed.  Shotguns should be single shot, double barreled, or pump with a three-shot capacity.  Handguns should be limited to a six-round capacity.

 

Military type assault weapons designed specifically to kill humans should be banned.

 

Police training, armament and use of force are a total other subject that should be addressed separately. 

 

This, of course, is pie-in-the-sky.  No common-sense gun regulation will ever be accomplished in the United States in the 21^st century.  We are a gun violent society.

 

How many hours before the next gun death, or should the question be in minutes?

the Ol’Buzzard   

 

 

THE STATE OF THE NATION

Seventeen kids killed in Florida in yet another school shooting.   The White House in confusion trying to cover for an infantile President.   Gun nuts raving in letters-to-the-editor in local newspapers.  Climate change regulations being undermined by deniers.  Nuclear war being threatened by both the United States and North Korea.    A ridiculous crisis unfolding every day.  

And I am thinking about posting a slow cooker recipe!

Forgetaboutit

the Ol’Buzzard

THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTING IS A ONE-UP

I know this sounds tactless, but the carnage in Las Vegas is a one-up.  

If the Nation did not get incensed, and pass stricter gun control laws after the killing of elementary school children at Sandy Hook, then this mass shooting will just be another momentary outrage before going back to business as usual.  

To say that the easy availability of military type weaponry and semi-automatic pistols with large clip capacity is not the catalyst for all the killings that take place in the U.S. daily, and mass killings that now occur with some regularity, is like denying that tobacco causes cancer. 

No civilian needs to own a military assault weapon that is designed for the sole purpose of kill humans, and no civilian needs a semi-automatic pistol to protect his home.  A 44 mag. or 357 mag. six shot revolver is more than adequate home protection, and bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns with limited magazine capacity are adequate for hunting any game on the face of this earth.  

Assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols with large clip capacity make the action of mass carnage possible.

There is no justification for a civilian to own these weapons.

The bloody state of the Nation today, including this latest mass killing, is the direct culpability of Republican law makers who have been willing to whore themselves to the wing nut (Donald Trump) base of their party and the NRA.    Republicans are more concerned about their next election than what is obviously in the best interest of the Country.  Now they are proposing to allow the purchase of silencers.   

What civilian in this country needs to own a weapon with a silencer? 

This is where the Republican Party has taken the United States to today. 

the Ol’Buzzard

AMERICA'S CULTURE OF VIOLENCE

MRMacrum (Lost in the Bozone) posted about the violence in American society today.

I have witnessed a cultural change over the last sixty years that has brought us to the dysfunctional chaos that is twenty-first century America.

I was raised in the south during the 1950 by my grandmother.  I owned and hunted with a shotgun and a 22 rifle throughout my teen years.   Every boy in my school owned guns and every man I knew owned guns and hunted.   But, in that era the idea of shooting up a school, or public venue, or mass killing wasn't even imaginable.   When some violent crime occurred it was immediately denounced and people were horrified.

Today gun violence, shootings and even mass shootings are so commonplace that we talk of them for a few days and then move on.   We are a more violent society today then we were sixty years ago.  We are a different society, a people and with different value, and the ready availability of military type weapons  has unleashed a dark place in our psyche.

I don't glorify 'the old days' for there were many social injustices and the world as a whole was still fucked up; but we didn't live in fear of our neighbors.

Back then I thought the human race would become smarter into the future; but that doesn't seem to fit the trend.

the Ol'Buzzard