Cherokee activist Albert Bender believes that guns are the root of America’s problems

Albert Bender is a journalist and Cherokee activist taking the position that you can blame guns for most problems that face Americans today.  From slavery to Native Americans, it is a gun culture in the U.S. fostered by white Americans that has created the dilemma that we are in.  Bender, as many others are beginning to do, is bringing the crisis with gun violence closer and closer to the health care system, particularly mental health.  Mr. Bender takes aim at what he calls a “monolithic” weapons industry that is “opting for profit over humanity.” 

 

Gun control pieces missing in health care

And now public health experts are saying a gun is like a virus, a car, tobacco or alcohol.  It is a social disease that needs to be treated, and they liken it to reducing car crashes and deaths years ago with safety measures, product changes and driving laws that improved automobile safety dramatically.  When you compare this with the firearms industry, they have resisted safety changes due to cost and the NRA has prevented any research on gun deaths as well as stopped all gun control legislation in its tracks.  All accomplished through buying off Congress and spreading fear among its membership.

 

Although mass shootings don’t account for most of the gun deaths, they are the most visible in the media, and even more so when the victims are 20 little children ages 6 and 7.  Unfortunately, police reporting of these incidents often lags by more than a year, so we don’t really have the true picture.  This follows suit to the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) efforts that have prevented any reliable research on gun violence for years.  Even the automobile industry was solidly behind the research that brought down car deaths.  In comparison, the gun lobby fights gun violence research with millions of dollars.

 

Here’s another shocker on how the gun lobby has prevented firearms violence research:

 

One source reports, “The Consumer Product Safety Commission regulates over 15,000 products in all, but federal law prohibits them from controlling the safety of firearms.  In fact, there is next to no regulation of firearm manufacture, and only the gun manufacturers themselves can issue recalls.  What's more, gun makers, dealers and trade groups are immune from negligence and product liability lawsuits.” 

 

In this public health approach, “One recent study found firearm owners were more likely than those with no firearms at home to binge drink or to drink and drive, and other research has tied alcohol and gun violence. That suggests that people with driving under the influence convictions should be barred from buying a gun,” said  Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine professor who directs the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.  This group once again quoted the study that says 40% of guns are purchased without a background check.

 

Daniel Webster, a health policy expert and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore says "There's sort of a contagion phenomenon" following a shooting.  I liken this to when the gun bubbas come out of the woodwork screaming 2^nd Amendment rights and rushing out to buy several more guns for a household that already closely resembles a military arsenal.  It is all so ludicrous that one might wonder about the mentality level of a group of fanatics who have to repeatedly re-live the Revolutionary War to justify their worship of guns.

 

Dr. Mark Rosenberg, president and CEO of the Task Force for Global Health, an Atlanta-based nonprofit public health organization along with Jay W. Dickey Jr., a former Arkansas congressman, says, “The same evidence-based approach that is saving millions of lives from motor-vehicle crashes, as well as from smoking, cancer and HIV/AIDS, can help reduce the toll of deaths and injuries from gun violence.”  Dickey was once the point-person in Congress for the NRA.  Rosenberg at the time was director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which had conducted firearms research.

 

The CDC has all the data necessary to analyze gun violence and draw several conclusions on how it could be prevented.  But, “The CDC doesn’t analyze gun violence because it can’t use federal money to advocate or promote gun control.”  And that comes to your regular mass shootings and every day gun murders compliments of Wayne LaPierre and his National Rifle Assn. (NRA).  There is no excuse for this negligence but it will continue as long as the American public refuses to react and allow the NRA-controlled Republicans and Democrats to stay in Congress.  Amen!

New surveys confirm Americans want more gun control…even NRA members

The studies keep pouring in on gun control vs. gun rights and they keep saying the same thing.  The American public wants more gun regulations, and this includes members of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).  The time has come for the gun rights fanatics like Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, to prove these studies bogus or admit defeat and get on with saving people’s lives with reasonable gun control laws.  LaPierre’s “absolutist” hogwash on gun owners’ rights under the 2^nd Amendment is long overdue for an overhaul, and wacky Wayne knows it; except he’s trying to save his cushy million dollar job.

In the most recent poll by Johns Hopkins University, “89 percent of all respondents, and 75 percent of those identified as NRA members, support universal background checks for gun sales.”  Now this would include private sales at gun shows where 40% of U.S. gun sales come from.  Since there were 10,800,000guns sold in 2011 in the U.S., that means that 4,320,000 of those firearms went on the street knowing absolutely nothing about the individual buying them.  He or she just walked in, made the purchase, and walked out the door with a means to kill someone.  That is scary as hell.

 

 

There’s more.  Close to “70 percent of respondents supported bans on military-style semiautomatic weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines,” and “80 percent  backed measures restricting those who could buy guns, such as people with histories of domestic violence or serious juvenile crimes.”  The sampling also checked to find out if there were any differences between gun owners and non-gun owners.  There weren’t, which shows a consistency throughout the U.S. that more gun regulations are needed.

The above becomes even more significant when you consider the fact that a large majority of NRA members are included.  This majority also would prohibit, “people with recent alcohol or drug charges to purchase guns, and 70 percent supported a mandatory minimum of 2 years in prison for selling guns to persons who are not legally allowed to have one.”  The survey also found that Americans want more spending on mental health in relation to gun violence.    

But that’s not all.  A new Gallup poll found that two-thirds of the American public support heavy new restrictions on gun purchases, supporting all nine of President Obama’s key proposals.  They were:

 

• 91% for criminal background checks
• 82% want increased government spending on mental health programs
• 79% are for increased government spending for law enforcement and school officials for armed attacks
• 75% think criminal penalties should be increased for those buying guns for someone who hasn't passed background check
• 70% want the feds  to spend $4 billion to help keep 15,000 police officers on the street
• 69% would like the government to spend $30 million to help schools develop emergency response plans
• 67% want to ban the possession of armor-piercing bullets by anyone other than the military or law enforcement
• 60% would strengthen the ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004
• 54% want to limit the sale of ammunition magazines to 10 rounds or less

 

In some additional findings the respondents opted for school security over new gun laws and “Seventy-five per cent favor increasing criminal penalties for so-called 'straw purchasers', people who buy guns for others restricted from having weapons of their own.”  You might recall that it was these straw buyers in Arizona, where gun control almost doesn’t exist, that purchased firearms that ended up in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels.  Arizona not only is still passing laws to relax gun control even more, but now the state’s legislature is presenting a bill that would allow Arizona to ignore new federal gun laws.

Finally let me leave you with the fact that there have been 1,280 gun deaths since the Sandy Hook Elementary School carnage, as reported by the Huff Post. 

Newtown bereaved father just doesn’t get it

No one can feel the grief that MarkMattioli feels, except the other nineteen families whose children ages 6 and 7 were slaughtered by Adam Lanza in the Newtown Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting last December.  But the father is way off base when he said, “there are more than enough gun laws on the books.”  Although the proposed legislation by President Obama for universal background checks, including private sales at gun shows, wouldn’t have helped in this instance, it will certainly help identify responsible gun owners in the future.

 

True, Mattioli’s plea for improving the mental health system could have prevented Lanza from having access to the weapons he used; although since they belonged to his mother, that is debatable unless we extend the mental health requirements to forbidding any firearms in a home where there is a known mental health problem.  Wouldn’t that just drive wacky Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), right up the wall?  But when you think about it, there is really no other way to keep someone who is mentally incompetent away from guns.

 

Adam Lanza was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and according to the National Institute of NeurologicalDisorders and Stroke, “Some individuals with ASD are severely disabled and require very substantial support for basic activities of daily living.  Asperger syndrome is considered by many to be the mildest form of ASD and is synonymous with the most highly functioning individuals with ASD.”  And most experts agree that Asperger’s syndrome doesn’t cause violence.  Since autism, which is what AS is a part of, is not considered a mental illness, is Sandy Hook even a mental health issue?

 

Yes, that's wacky Wayne LaPierre behind the sign

 

Contrary to Mattioli’s  position, a large group of Newtown residents voiced their opinions to Connecticut lawmakers to take state action that would prevent another tragedy like the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.  But other residents were concerned about their 2^nd Amendment rights at about the same time Wayne LaPierre was frothing at the mouth again over the NRA’s “absolutist” rights, which was in response to President Obama reminding the gun fanatics you cannot “mistake absolutism for principle.”  Apparently they just don’t get it either.

 

One Newtown mother said, “there's a national misperception that Newtown residents want to repeal the Second Amendment. Rather, Newtown residents want to protect people's rights while also protecting children and their safety.”  It is this belief by the gun nuts that gun control advocates want to take their guns away that has been instilled in them by LaPierre for years.  Fear works when you are trying to initiate action, like raising more money for the NRA.  I liken it to the selling of cancer insurance by junk mail years ago.  Scare the hell out of them to induce buying the insurance.

 

And then there was this classic statement by Bill Sherlach, whose wife, Mary, the school psychologist, was killed in the carnage:

 

He said he respects the 2^nd Amendment “but it was written in a long-ago era where armaments were different.  I have no idea how long it took to reload and refire a musket," he said. "I do know that the number of shots fired in the Sandy Hook Elementary School in those few short minutes is almost incomprehensible, even in today's modern age." 

 

David Wheeler’s 6-year-old son was killed in the massacre and cited the mental health angle again:

 

"That a person with these problems could live in a home where he had access to among the most powerful firearms available to non-military personnel is unacceptable," he said. "It doesn't matter to whom these weapons were registered. It doesn't matter if they were purchased legally. What matters is that it was far too easy for another mentally unbalanced, suicidal person who had violent obsessions to have easy access to unreasonably powerful weapons."

 

If the Newtown incident is ruled to be mentally incompetent connected, it will certainly be a clear sign that it is necessary to evaluate every home in which firearms are housed.  And that would significantly apply to those having assault-type weapons since this seems to be the weapon of choice for the mass gun murderers.  Once again this raises the need for a national database of firearms owned and with the improvement of identifying the mentally challenged, there could be an instant cross-reference that would identify any potential problem households.

 

To some gun owners and wacky Wayne LaPierre, that is blasphemy toward their sacred toys.  To me it is just common sense.

Immigration reform will happen this time

 

President Obama says “Now’s the time” and he is talking about making immigration reform a reality for the U.S. in a way that will benefit both the 11-plus million who are undocumented and our country as well.  Keep in mind, this legislation does not apply just to Hispanics but also to Asians, Europeans, etc.  Those of us who came here like Obama said for a better life, which includes everyone but Native Americans.  It is easy to forget the heritage of our ancestors who came to the U.S. through Ellis or Angel Islands to work and contribute in the new country.

 

It is true of course; they were legal, at least most of them.  And the 11-plus million undocumenteds are illegal.  But according to a CNN/ORC International poll conducted this month, 53% of Americans favor allowing this group to become legal residents opposed to 43% who don’t.  And what if we followed the latter’s advice and deported the illegals?  Restaurants and the hospitality industry would be without help; there would be no gardeners to take care of your yards; no one to clean your house; and agricultural fields would have no one to work them and the crops would rot.  Do we want that?

 

FACT CHECK reports that “Economists say immigration, legal or illegal, doesn’t hurt American workers.”  But a new House Caucus, Reclaim American Jobs consisting of 41 members says otherwise.  The economists counter there is little to support their claim that these undocumenteds take American jobs.  At least those in which Americans are willing to work.  With this obstacle out of the way you would think that most states would understand the need for this group of workers.  But a clueless Arizona Governor is still fighting to prevent illegals from getting driver licenses, even under Obama’s deferred action plan.

 

The President has a plan that is a broadly sweeping outline of what needs to be accomplished in immigration reform.  He advocates focusing on enforcement while strengthening border security then insuring that businesses don’t knowingly hire illegal workers.  Obama is convinced we must deal with the 11+ million illegal immigrants, but at the same time feels this group must have hope for citizenship.  And he would update and upgrade the current immigration system to the point that it is more user-friendly in accommodating legals to get their families into the U.S.

 

The Gang of Eight Senators

 

But CNN chief political analystGloria Borger said, “…she believes Obama is playing good cop-bad cop, with his own left-leaning proposals being the bad cop and his Senate colleagues being the good cop. He's essentially saying, if you don’t deal with them, you’re going to deal with me.”  So enter the on-and-off Senator from Arizona, John McCain.  He was for immigration reform when he wasn’t running for office but changed his position radically to conform to the demands of the AZ Tea Party when a presidential candidate.  Now he’s back on the side of immigrants again.  The classic flip-flop.

 

Time’s Swampland exclaims that John McCain has been a determined opponent of Barack Obama since the scathing loss to the President in 2008.  The Gang of Eight Senators includes 4 Democrats, Bob Menendez, NJ, Dick Durbin, IL, Charles Schumer, NY, and Michael Bennet, CO.  Republicans are McCain, AZ, Marco Rubio, FL, Lindsey Graham, SC and Jeff Flake, AZ.  Swampland says this bunch has a blueprint introduced the day before Obama’s but very much a parallel to what he proposed, as follows:

 

“It would create a ‘tough but fair’ path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants while beefing up border security. It would streamline the legal immigration system and create incentives to lure sought-after tech and science whizzes. It would establish a mechanism for employers to check the immigration status of potential hires. And it would try to create ways for employers — particularly in the agricultural sector — to find low-wage undocumented workers when Americans are not available.”

 

Any bill will have a hard time getting through the GOP-held House, particularly up against the Tea Party fanatics.  The House is also apparently working on a plan of its own.  Norm Ornstein, longtime political analyst and co-author of "It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism” had reservations:

 

“Will this compromise make it through the Senate, once the details are hammered out (always more difficult than frameworks) and with a lot more than 60 votes? Next, will House Republicans, who have very different impulses and constituencies, be supportive? Finally, if not, will (House Speaker John) Boehner bring an immigration bill to the floor that will get many more Democratic votes than Republican?"

 

If I were a Republican in Congress (God forbid) and I looked at the dynamics of the Hispanic demographic that is exploding throughout the country, I would figure some way to get on the bandwagon.  With the total Congress hovering around a 10% approval level, and Republicans who have repeatedly been identified as obstructionists, putting them at even a lower level, my gut tells me that immigration reform will happen this time.

 

 

Religious leaders say the worship of guns is a form of idolatry

 

This never occurred to me when I wrote about the gun worshippers out there that value their firearms over life itself.  These are the die-hard fanatics that refuse to negotiate at all over even the smallest new gun control laws.  Fanatics like Wayne LaPierre who heads up the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), this country’s major obstacle to enacting sane, reasonable gun control legislation.  But Rabbi David Saperstein said on CNN, “The religious community is capable of ‘mobilizing people to be a political force that we have done on issues of conscience since the beginning of this country.’” 

 

The bells of the Washington National Cathedral rang 28 times recently to honor the 28 dead in the Newtown, CT shooting.  At the same time, wide spectrums of religious leaders were asking their congregations, President Obama and congressional leaders to do something about the gun violence that has overtaken the country.  Consisting of evangelicals, mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Islamists and Sikhs, they want the outlawing of assault weapons and high capacity magazines, tightening the access on all guns and improved mental health care.  Who could argue with this, except wacky Wayne?

 

Rev. Gary Hall, dean of the Washington National Cathedral, said, “Everyone in this city {Washington} seems to be in terror of the gun lobby. But I believe the gun lobby is no match for the cross lobby.”  Rabbi Saperstein, primary organizer of the event and director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism added in quoting from Leviticus 19:16: “Do not stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is threatened.”  Then the Rabbi asked himself a question and answered it.

 

“Is the need for sensible gun control a religious issue?  Indeed, it is, for our worship of guns is a form of idolatry, the random distribution of guns is offense against God, and the only appropriate response is sustained moral outrage.”  

 

What the religious right extremists

would have you believe

 

And as you might expect, the religious right extremists “have found a new demon to slay: gun control,” reports the Sothern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch.  Quoting this group:

 

“It might seem odd that those who profess allegiance to the teachings of Jesus Christ would be so vociferous about making sure that Americans have continued, unfettered access to assault rifles. But in the wake of the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut, which ignited the most heated debate about gun control in this country in a decade, some of the religious right’s most rabid voices are joining the fight.”

 

This clearly underscores my admonition that these gun nuts love their guns more than the adults and children they kill.  To Bryan Fischer, atty. for the American Family Assn., Barack Obama is “blatantly disingenuous when he says he believes in the Second Amendment.”  Hatewatch also reports that Fischer is the guy who claims:

 

“…that Adolf Hilter’s Nazi Party relied on gay men because of their innate brutality, to turn {that} debate straight on its face.  Not only has he banned the use of the words ‘assault rifles’ on his Focal Point radio show in favor of ‘sporting rifles’ – and threatened to fine any member of his staff who uses the wrong term – he has defined the debate on gun control as a thinly veiled plot to target Christians.”

 

 These people are obviously nuts, but considering their close ties with the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), it is easy to understand where all this vicious doctrine comes from.  It is unfortunate that we have all these crackpots out there spouting off on a subject that needs sane minds in control.  However, I do not believe these fanatical efforts will undermine what the mentally sound religious leaders are proposing.  And that is what the majority of Americans want.  They want reasonable gun control that will stop the gun violence that is sweeping the country.  And they want it now.

 

Why we should really worry about some gun owners

 

Gun fanatic James Yeager

For the most part, the gun-owning-public is a safe bunch using and maintaining their guns properly and are a credit to this lifestyle.  However, in my mind at least, this does not include the cowboys with concealed carry permits that take their firearms out on the street to protect the citizenry of this country.  I don’t care if it is legal—it shouldn’t be—probably none of this group is fully trained as in law enforcement and some have no training at all.  Like in Arizona where all it takes to buy a gun is a warm body.  And there are several other states nationwide that do not require training to purchase a gun.

 

So that’s my soapbox on the concealed carry permit for the day, but there’s more to this story.  It is my way of illustrating the need for more control in the purchasing of firearms, particularly in the training the new gun owner should undergo.  In addition, a written and hands-on test should be given at the end and if the person doesn’t pass, he or she loses their gun until they do.  This should be retroactive to include all current gun owners, an unfortunate demand on states, but certainly worth the effort.  Gun owners will scream but it is the only way to insure responsible gun ownership.

 

And this need becomes so evident on a daily basis through the bizarre things that take place in relation to people and firearms. 

 

As an example, a mother in New York added some interesting items to her 7-year-old kid’s lunch in his backpack.  Along with a peanut butter sandwich, she placed a flare gun, a 22-caliber pistol, a loaded magazine, and 14 extra bullets, just in case.  The mother, Deborah Farley, said she had been out walking the streets of Queens earlier in the week when she had placed the guns in her son’s backpack, forgetting to take them out.  She was arrested for child endangerment and criminal possession of an unregistered firearm.  Police also found marijuana in her home.  So where did she get the gun?

 

And then those who are so eager to protect all of us by packing heat on the streets, can’t even participate in a rally for the support of gun rights without accidentally injuring themselves and others around them with their firearms.  

 

In Raleigh, NC, at the Dixie Gun and Knife Show, Gary Lynn Wilson had brought his 12-gauge shotgun to the event to sell to a private buyer; it discharged when being inspected at the entrance to the show.  Three people were injured.  The show shut down early.

 

Emory L. Cozee was loading his 45-caliber semi-automatic when he shot himself in the hand at the Indy 500 Gun and Knife Show.  What is interesting is that loaded personal weapons aren’t allowed inside the show.

 

Then in Ohio, a gun dealer was checking a semi-automatic handgun he had purchased when he accidentally pulled the trigger injuring his friend when the bullet ricocheted off the floor hitting him in the arm and the leg.

 

Now, I am certainly no expert on firearms but common sense does ring through loudly in all the above cases.  Shouldn’t Wilson have emptied the shotgun of all ammunition before even packing it up to bring to the show?  Shouldn’t Cozee have known loaded weapons were not allowed in the show and removed the rounds from his 45?  And shouldn’t the Ohio gun dealer have had the proper firearms training and known to be more careful in the handling of his weapon in public?  This is exactly why I worry about these gunslingers walking the streets with guns many have no idea how to use.

 

And then the ultimate example.  James Yeager, a wacko from Tennessee who is the CEO of Tactical Response, a firearms and tactical training company, said he would start killing people if further gun control policies are passed.  It was in a video posted on You Tube and Facebook, later revised to take out the killing part.  The Tenn. Dept. of Safety has now suspended Yeager’s handgun carry permit.  He was called irresponsible, dangerous, and deserving immediate attention by the Dept. Commissioner.  If ever there was a case of a disturbed individual with a firearm, Mr. Yeager fits the bill.

 

But all of the above no doubt continue to walk around with their weapons, except for Yeager, who probably still maintains an arsenal at his business and home.  Equally as wacky as Yeager, the head of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), Wayne LaPierre, has instilled the kind of absolutist mentality in some gun owners, the gun nuts, that produces the fanatical reactions to any kind of gun control as evidenced by Yeager.  Another fanatic that comes to mind is Larry Pratt, exec. Dir. Of Gun Owners of America, a group known to be even more radical on gun rights than the NRA. 

 

The time for gun control has definitely arrived.

 

Calif. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is right, NRA is venal…and more

Lee Fang recently in The Nation asked: “Does the NRA represent gun manufacturers or gunowners?”  He doesn’t answer the question specifically but does point out, “Is the NRA working for casual gun-owners, many of whom, according to polling, support tougher restrictions on gun ownership— or is the NRA serving the gunmaker lobby— which is purely interested in policies that will promote greater gun sales and more profits?”  The answer should be blatantly obvious to any rational human being who has followed the unswerving radicalism of Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).

 

Wacky Wayne laPierre

Wacky Wayne and his 2^nd Amendment rights absolutism has become ad nauseum but what is absolute is the fact that LaPierre’s zany antics are clearly in favor of promoting gun manufacturer profits, along with his near-million dollar annual salary, and not what a majority of gun owners want.  And it is pretty clear that the NRA now has financial ties to the $12 billion a year gun industry based on their donations to the NRA since 2005 of almost $39 million. 

 

As an example, Freedom Group, which owns Bushmaster, the company that made the AR-15 military-style rifle used by Adam Lanza in his bloody assault on Sandy Hook has donated between $25,000 and $49,000 to the National Rifle Assn. (NRA).

 

In the Huff Post, Josh Sugarman, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, said, “I think it’s much easier for policymakers to defend the NRA when they’re perceived as efforts on behalf of gun owners. That equation changes dramatically when they’re seen as defending the gun industry.”  So we have a triple threat going here.  1.) The possibility the NRA’s recent shenanigans will turn off Congress.  2.) The possibility the same will turn off some NRA members.  3.) And finally it will turn off the America public.  All in all it adds up to real trouble for Wayne LaPierre and his minion gun nuts.

 

This long-standing ability of the NRA to bulldoze congressional leaders is already on the wane as evidenced by the last election.  During the presidential and congressional elections, the NRA spent $17.4 million, while President Obama was reelected and the organization failed to win six out of seven Senate races.  Nowhere was the heat on to defeat Obama like its pursuit by the NRA’s head Wayne LaPierre, except maybe with Sen. Minority leader Mitch McConnell four years ago.  When the President took office, McConnell said the main goal of the GOP was to see that Barack Obama was not reelected.

 

So what does all this have to do with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (left picture) calling the NRA “venal?”  First, the definition of venal is: “Willing to sell one’s influence, especially in return for a bribe; open to bribery; mercenary.”  Further, the explanation of “mercenary” is: “Working or acting merely for money or other reward.”  Wayne LaPierre has taken an organization that has a record of supporting reasonable gun control laws and turned it into a façade that gives a new meaning to corruption and unscrupulous lobbying.  And it is time that the NRA should be investigated based on its non-profit status.

 

In 2012 GOP pollster Frank Luntz conducted a survey for Mayors Against Illegal Guns and found that 74% of NRA members support mandatory background checks for all gun purchases.  Wacky Wayne LaPierre and his NRA gun nuts have been adamantly against this and any new gun law, no matter how reasonable.  In 2004 the NRA fought successfully for Congress not to renew the assault weapons ban, the kind of weapons used in many of the recent mass gun massacres.  It was Dianne Feinstein that pushed through this law originally passed in 1994 under Bill Clinton’s administration. 

 

The NRA is constantly instilling fear into its members telling them that President Obama is going to take away their guns.  Many of them gullible enough to buy this crap run right out and buy more guns.  And that makes the NRA and gun manufacturers both happy and wealthy, but simply leaves these members with less in their bank account.  If this kind of momentum is allowed to continue, it will be necessary to eventually pass a law on how many guns are allowed in one household.  By now the absurdity of this whole issue should be obvious, even to the gun nuts.

Obama gets tough in opening second term

 

 

Mitch McConnell doing Obama

It looks like the President is tired of taking the crap that the Republicans have been dishing out for the last 4 years.  It started with a comment by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in October of 2011.  He said: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”   He wasn’t, and McConnell turns out to be the idiot he looked like for the last four years.  He and House Speaker John Boehner, since the GOP took over the house in 2010, have spewed a non-stop diatribe of what a failure Barack Obama had been.  They were wrong and the American people knew it.

 

And because the Republicans were trounced last November in the elections, Boehner now is taking a new approach.  He is saying that “Obama’sfocus is to annihilate the Republican Party.”  Actually, Obama doesn’t have to do anything.  The GOP, led by the Tea Party, is doing that all on their own without any help.  The remark from Boehner made at a Ripon Society luncheon was confirmed by the Speaker’s spokesperson.  Even with a Republican majority in the House that can block the President’s legislation, it is obvious that this gang of obstructionists is running scared, as they should be.

 

David Gergen, who has advised four Presidents, said: “Years from now, historians are likely to look back upon Barack Obama's second inaugural address as a rich treasure trove for understanding his presidency and possibly the course of American politics.”  It’s the sort of thing you say about a great President.  Another interesting comment by Gergen was that not only was Obama more confident, but that he was also “liberated.”  Gergen thinks that refers to the comfort of a second term and not having to run again, as well as showing that Republicans are not willing to compromise.  Either way it is very promising.

 

Obama’s inauguration speech reminds us of Lyndon Johnson’s brand of liberalism and the Great Society.  It is a welcome return to values that espouse equality with the emphasis off the wealthy and now directed at middle America, lower income brackets and the needy.  Another famous Mitch McConnell comment following Obama’s speech was: “The era of liberalism is back.”  How fitting that it comes at a time when we must pass new laws on gun control, comprehensive immigration reform and improving the environment.  The President also plans to work on his 2010 Obamacare.

 

Gergen says, “He emerged as an unapologetic, unabashed liberal -- just what the left has long wanted him to be and exactly what the right has feared.”     

 

Pulitzer Prize winner Historian Gary Willis writes about Lincoln’s maneuvering of the Declaration of Independence into the “founding creed of the country.”  In it, Lincoln says, we are all created equal, which was mirrored by Martin Luther King 100 years later in 1963, and what President Obama was talking about when referring to the declaration as our “founding creed.”  Gergen maintains that Obama has made equal opportunity the “central goal of his presidency.”  He adds that the GOP expected a plea for partisanship but received something of an ultimatum to cooperate, or else.

 

The question is whether Americans support Barack Obama in what he wants to accomplish in his second term.  According to a CNN/ORCInternational survey released Jan. 22, the percentage of those believing global warming is a fact resulting from cars, power plants and factories has doubled to 49%.  On immigration, 53% want a path for illegal immigrants to legal residents compared to 43% who want to deport them. Today, 51% favor all or most of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) with 44% opposed to all or most of it.  Is there any doubt why the President would demand cooperation from Republicans?

 

 

Arizona now selling guns on the street…and other stupid stuff

It’s my state and I love it but Arizona does have the largest gang of nincompoops in the country running the state government, and that’s all the way from the Governor down to the Republican legislature.  Jan Brewer, the finger waggin’ Gov. who has been in office since 2003 still does not have a clue about what she is doing.  I have to admit she has lucked into some good decisions—one was the sales tax measure to help Arizona’s economy—but stupid moves like denying qualified illegal immigrants driver licenses is more indicative of her style of bungling government.

Jan Brewer

She is supported by the biggest bunch of incompetent Republican state legislators ever assembled in one state, a clique of gun loving cowboys and cowgirls that have succeeded in passing the loosest gun control measures in the country and which have made Arizona a laughing stock.  The latest example is the reaction to a voluntary gun buyback program organized by Tucson’s vice mayor, Steve Kozachik, at the time a Republican.  When the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) had been successful in quelling any gun control since Jared Loughner’s Tucson gun massacre, Kozachik jumped into action.

In the two weeks leading up to the gun buyback, Kozachik received threats and was referred to as “Hitler,” just because he wanted to take back firearms from people who no longer felt comfortable with them in their house.  Sounds simple enough, and they were given in return a $50 gift card.  As an example of the program’s success, $10,000 in gift cards was distributed during the event.  Kozachik was a Republican at the time but switched parties one week after the buyback.  His contention is that there are some in the GOP who want to do right but the party is still being led by the GOP far right.

During Kozachik’s gun buyback program success, the NRA couldn’t stand the heat so in defiance of Kozachik, a group of gun nuts set up a “cash for guns” firearms flea market close by and right on the boundary of the police department where the buyback was taking place.  Kozachik comments, “In Arizona, it is legal for a person to walk up to another on a street corner, hand him cash for a firearm and simply walk off with it, with no need for a background check into his psychological or criminal history.”  And that’s exactly what this brazen bunch of gun worshippers did.

In talking further about his change from Republican to Democrat, Kozachik said, “It is that rigid ideology that is driving the party into irrelevancy.”

But Arizona’s gun culture could also mean that when the Obama/Biden gun control laws start going on the books, it could be the hardest hit of all the states.  A state law has already been proposed in Arizona saying it does not have to comply with any federal laws it chooses not to.  That’s my state, but I still love it. Charles Heller, co-founder of the Tucson-based Arizona Citizens Defense League, another gang of radical gun nuts, resurrected the now cliché 2^nd Amendment argument making a bizarre comment:

“The idea of the Second Amendment was so we could shoot the cops and the soldiers ... who are trying to overthrow the U.S. Constitution.”  It’s like these people are on another planet.    

 

Dennis Wagner, in the ArizonaRepublic, says, “The National Rifle Association does not maintain a ranking list for states, but its website shows Arizona conforming to nearly every NRA barometer for Second Amendment support.”  Arizona also gets an “F” in firearms safety regulation by The California-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “Out of 50 states, Arizona came in 49th behind only South Dakota,” said Lindsay Nichols, an attorney who worked on the report card. “It has some of the weakest gun laws in the country.”

The Brady Campaign gives Arizona a “0” score, last along with Utah and Alaska, for firearms safety provisions.

One can only try and imagine what goes through the minds of such a group of nitwit state legislators who pass these laws and the bonehead Governor who signs them into law.  The term double-digit IQs comes to mind.

Examining US mental health system critical precursor to gun control

It does not make sense that this country is not working feverishly to improve the mental health system when it accounts for so many gun deaths.  In all the mass shootings from columbine to Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School, this predictable demon continues to raise its ugly head and kill innocent people.  In the case of Newtown, 20 little children only six and seven.  There are two groups that will always get guns somehow, the mentally ill and the bad guys, but we must at least make it harder for each to obtain the weapons with which they do their destruction.

As an example, just a few days ago, Christian Oberender from Minnesota was arrested for having an arsenal of guns in his home including an AK-47 assault rifle.  He was able to get a gun permit just last year and build this arsenal of 12 weapons in less than a year.  The catch is that at age 14, in 1995, he had killed his mother with a shotgun, shooting her five times.  Oberender was determined to be mentally ill and dangerous at the time and was placed in an institution for an extended stay.  He has again been diagnosed with a serious mental illness and “potential schizophrenia.” 

Here’s an example of his ramblings in a letter from Oberender to his mother thought to have been recently written:

“I am so homicide,'' and "I think about killing all the time. The monster want out. He only been out one time and someone die.''

Minnesota has a law that requires sending mental health records to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).  Either the state was negligent in its transfer of the data, or those approving gun permits were negligent in either receiving or retrieving the data.  In any case, this is a prime example of how the system failed and must be fixed.

Excellent video from Bloomberg on guns and mental health:

Former Arkansas Gov. and presidential contender Mike Huckabee believes that since "we have systematically removed God from our schools, should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?"  This is the kind of crap you would expect from a conservative trying to take the focus off gun control.  Michael Kimmel on CNN said, “As if those heathen children deserved it?”  Kimmel also reminds us that almost all the recent mass murderers targeting non-work settings—like schools—were middle class white boys.  Not from the ghetto.  From upscale middle America.

Here are some more facts that Kimmel has collected.  Men and boys are responsible for 95% of all violent crimes and there is concern why so many of these young mass murderers are white.  While black kids are killing each other in the ghettos, it “seems to be nearly the exclusive province of white boys to so dramatically expand the range of their revenge and seek to destroy the entire world, not simply the person or group that committed the supposed offense.”  Not that race and gender are the primary concern; that remains the lax gun laws and mental illness.

So the only conclusion to be reached here is that a combination of federal and state laws must be enacted that will require the reporting of the mental health records of those people affected to NCIS and any other appropriate databases that are involved in determining whether or not a person should possess a firearm.  The laws must be stringent enough to discourage any lax participation by those charged with enforcement resulting in the proper punishment for those who don’t comply.  Only then will we be secure in at least knowing we’ve done all we can.

Albuquerque family massacre…just one more begging reason for stricter gun control

Gun bubbas masculinity

It happened on Jan. 19, a Sat. night, in the home of the Griego family living in a suburb of Albuquerque.  Nehemiah Griego, 15 years old, was charged with the murder of two adults and three children.  The killing of the children was described as “child abuse resulting in death.”  Authorities should define their meaning of “abuse” because there are several interpretations of what this could represent.  Several guns were found at the shooting, one an assault rifle that police said was used in the killings.  One described the weapon as an AR-15, also used by Adam Lanza in Newtown and James Holmes in Aurora.

Here we go again.  How many more mass killings will it take to convince a Congress and the general public that strict gun control is needed now?  A majority of Americans support most gun measures but are skeptical on some.  It’s 51% vs. 45% for more gun control over protecting gun rights.  It’s 52% to 35% for favoring some forms of gun control in a Pew Research poll.  But the country as a whole is still divided at about 50-50 on gun control, according to CNN Senior Political Analyst and National Journal Group's Editorial Director Ron Brownstein.  Naturally, Democrats are in favor of, Republicans against.

In more support figures, 85% to 90% want background checks for everyone, even private sales at gun shows.  80% want more laws to stop the mentally ill from getting a gun and an overall majority wants the feds to create a database to track gun sales, a ban on assault style weapons, high capacity magazine clips and online ammunition sales.  But there is a significant difference between Democrats and Republicans.  As an example, on banning semi-automatic weapons, two-thirds of women support the ban; the men are divided. 

With 44% of the public having an unfavorable view of the National Rifle Assn. (NRA), only 36% favorable, you would think that this would give Congress yet another reason to vote for more gun control.  But there is an obvious reason why they do not.  Two reasons actually, both based on money.  First, the money that will be used against them for voting for gun control.  Second, the contributions they will lose to their next political campaign.  This is in itself a glaring example of why we should have term limits.  Another 38% say the NRA has “too much influence.”  That is the understatement of the century.

The Huff Post laments that the day before president Obama laid out his plans for gun control:

• A student with mental illness and a violent past shot a downtown St. Louis business official yesterday after he lost his financial aid, before shooting himself, according to authorities.

• A gunman firing into a parked car at a Kentucky Community College killed a man and woman sitting inside and wounded a girl who was with them. Police suspect it was a domestic dispute, although they haven't made an arrest.

• A dramatic increase in gun violence in Baltimore so far this year continued with three shootings, including the killing of a 17-year-old girl in an alley. No one was arrested.

A typical day includes 30 gun-related murders and 162 wounded by firearms in this country.  Another 53 commit suicide with a firearm every day.  That breaks down to three people killed by a gun every hour and around 60 people shot during the same time period. The FBI reports that a violent crime occurs every 25.3 seconds.  And I’ve reported these figures before, there were 11,422 homicides and 19,392 suicides in 2010 using guns, according to the CDC, and guns were also used either intentionally or accidentally to wound 59,208 people in 2011.  And we’re supposed to be a civilized country.

There is no excuse for this carnage except an incompetent Congress and an apathetic public that still refuses to pressure Washington to do something about these unnecessary and innocent deaths.  Until they do, there will be more Albuquerques, Newtowns, Auroras, Tucsons and ad infinitum. Contact your congressional representatives: Senate; House of Representatives.