Showing posts with label Lance Armstrong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lance Armstrong. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

How does Lance Armstrong situation coincide with gun control?

I do not know whether or not Lance Armstrong is guilty of doping charges.  He gave up his fight against the U.S Anti-Doping Agency which could mean he is tired of the struggle or maybe he’s guilty.  Michael Rosenberg of Sports Illustrated said: “Doping charges are serious, the evidence is significant and some credible people have accused Armstrong. (I mean, how much of a jerk would Armstrong have to be for this many people to want to frame him?)”


Lance Armstrong
But the meat of the SI article isn’t the fact that Armstrong might or might not have been using performance-enhancing drugs while winning his Tour de France races, but rather the fact that the public is apathetic about the fact.  One way or the other.  Rosenberg thinks this is the case.  And does it sound like a parallel to the same attitude against gun violence by Americans?  Only 45% were for more regulation of firearms, 50% against in a 2010 study by Pew Research.

But there are those of us who won’t give up on the issue and Sanjay Sanghoee is one of those writing in the Huff Post.  Described in some media as a “dispute,” Sanghoee says the Empire State Bldg. shooting was “barbarism and insanity.”  And he thinks many American gun owners use their guns to experience a “sense of control and power that only a firearm can impart.”  I agree and must add that in many cases a firearm is carried to replace or bolster a man’s masculinity.

Amy Sullivan in The New Republic states: “Barack Obama and Mitt Romney may not want to talk about gun control, but events are conspiring against them.”  Both have voiced their opposition to the mass shootings, apparently without a clue that something needs to be done right now.  And if they are aware, it’s all put on the backburner until after the November elections while many more are likely to be shot and killed before then.  In this respect, politics stink.   


But that's what the NRA told me to say
Sullivan adds a comment by Mitt Romney to Brian Williams of NBC News: “We can sometimes hope that just changing the law will make all bad things go away. It won’t.  Changing the heart of the American people may well be what’s essential, to improve the lots of the American people.”  To that Amy Sullivan replies “Poppycock.”  My opinion is that by the time Romney’s concept comes to fruition, hundreds of thousands more innocent people will be killed by guns.

But there are improvements in public attitudes toward gun control sounded by an August 2012 study by the Public Religion Research Institute.  In that poll, 52% favor stricter firearms regulation compared to 44% against.  However, this study was done following a series of recent mass shootings and is likely to mellow considerably after the shock wears off.  Support of gun control has dropped significantly since its high of 66% back in 2000.

The Institute for Economics and Peace has ranked states according to which are the most violent based on homicide, violent crime, incarceration rates, as well as the availability of firearms.  The top five are Louisiana (#1 20th year in a row), Tennessee, Nevada, Florida and Arizona.  Only one of these states, Arizona, experienced one of the recent mass killings; the Tucson massacre in Jan. of 2011 where 6 died, 13 wounded including former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.

Not a surprise since Arizona has the loosest gun laws in the country; a state where anyone can buy a gun and carry it around anywhere they want to.  All because of a bunch of Republican misfits that let the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) tell them every move to make.  It is this radical conservative culture that is killing thousands of innocent Americans each year, all because they love their guns more than human life.

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