Posts Tagged ‘gun control’

Some Thoughts On Children Lost and Children Harmed

Posted: May 8, 2013 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Reflections, Social Activism
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This week alone, several stories have surfaced in the news of American children being killed by guns in their homes. Two children, shot accidentally by their siblings. One child was killed by his uncle’s handgun hidden in a backpack. Another was shot in the crib while their 14-year-old brother was using his .22 rifle, which was given to him as a birthday gift.

The two cases listed above didn’t end in saved children. Instead, the children died en route to the hospital. The parents and siblings of these dead children, the rest of their families, the communities, and everyone who hears of these cases can only wonder, “Why?”

There are a million reasons why: negligence, misfires, simple intentions to see a gun, the belief that guns actually don’t kill, the crazy belief that giving a gun to a teenager is a good idea. However, debating the reasons why these tragedies happened won’t do any good. These children are wounded or dead, and it happened by weapons kept in the home.

Now I won’t try to argue the Second Amendment or the dangers of automatic rifles and machine guns this time. I believe that if it’s for legitimate reasons, people should have access to firearms like handguns or hunting rifles. However, when children are involved it’s a whole other issue. Children have a habit of getting into places they shouldn’t, and they think things that are dangerous are fun or sometimes cute. And even if a child seems mature, no child should be given something that’s main function is killing, be it animals or people.

The worst part of this is that these tragedies could’ve been totally preventable. The parents and adults could’ve locked up their guns better, or at least made attempts to lock them up. They could’ve waited until their kids were teenagers to teach them to use guns, and then only when they were 18 would they have been allowed their own guns. Or better yet, they could’ve never have bought the guns in the first place! After all, there’s a significantly higher chance that if you bring a gun into your home, it’ll do more damage to your family than any would-be intruder.

So the NRA may be having a party in Houston and saying that guns are here to stay, that taking away guns will lead to a dictatorship, and that the only thing protecting our children are guns. But they can’t shut out the facts, no matter how many senators they buy off. Guns are dangerous tools, and until we have some common-sense legislation, all this violence and death will only stay the same, or possibly get worse.

Change For The Dead

Posted: April 20, 2013 in Poetry, Politics and Leadership, Writing
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After this stressful week, I figured I should do something to commemorate that we all got through it. And since I’m still very upset with the Senate for its failure to pass sweeping gun control measures that would’ve benefited many people, I decided to write a poem, something I don’t do often but that I think for this situation can be very helpful to get the point across. So before I do, I’d like to remind people that you are free to agree or disagree with me, but please be civil and respectful in your comments.

So without further ado, I’d like to bring you Change For The Dead:

We say that I’m against our right to bear arms.
What about our right to feel safe on the streets?
We say after every massacre that more guns is the remedy.
Are we going to tell Boston that every citizen needs a bomb?

We say gun restrictions don’t work,
That there are people who won’t submit to them.
Tell me, if I decide not to follow our laws on stealing, drugs, or traffic,
Should the nation do away with those laws?

We say we fear a dictatorship if we change our ways.
How about the fear of children and the fear of their families?
We say this is the way of America,
But I thought that was life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Our constituents wanted action.
Why did we deny them that?
We won’t do anything for the living.
How about we bring change for the dead?

How about I do a séance on the Senate floor,
Summon the many who’ve died?
They are legions, they are many,
They want only that no more join them.

Can you hear their cries?
Can you listen to their complaints?
Many lost all potential before they could achieve it.
Are we going to let them down?

Listen to them, open your hearts.
Don’t let your fear keep us from helping them.
Something’s wrong with this world,
But now I hope we can make it right.

The Events of This Week Are Giving Me Stress

Posted: April 18, 2013 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership
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I tell you, it isn’t even blogging about this right now. I had to have a bowl of ice cream with a side of cherry cola, watch a crime show on my computer, and then listen to two hypnosis MP3s before I felt comfortable to write this blog post. After all, a lot has happened this week: Monday we had the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Tuesday showed only false news leads and a bomb threat at Ohio State that, while it turns out to be just a false alarm, freaked out the entire school. Wednesday we learned that the Senate had voted down gun restrictions that 90% of Americans had said in polls that they wanted, particularly when it came to universal background checks. And this morning, I heard about an explosion at an industrial plant in Texas. Luckily that one was just faulty equipment, but still it freaked me out. It didn’t help that Cal State LA had its own bomb threat today. And then there’s a million memes floating around the Internet, each with a thousand positive and negative comments.

You can see why I’m stressed. I see destruction, carnage, and fear everywhere and only so much being done about it (or in the case of the Senate, nothing being done). It makes me worry, it makes me stress. This sort of stuff, in my opinion, shouldn’t happen outside of books and movies. And yet it’s happening.

But after all my stress relief, I realize that when I look back on this years from now, I’ll realize that I survived this horrible week, that afterwards I did great on my finals (I’m assuming, at the very least), and it can be a story I can tell my kids (I’m assuming I have kids at this stage) about bad weeks and that they go away.

Still…that doesn’t excuse the fact that two men (they do have suspects now, says the FBI, and sorry Jon King, they’re not “dark-skinned” as you thought) caused three deaths and several injuries. And the Senate placed reelection ahead of common sense solutions to gun violence, only passing a “privacy clause” for firearms and funding for mental health services (only the latter I really agree with, though I have a feeling its help will be limited). And the NRA probably played a huge role in keeping those solutions from passing, all in the name of their paranoia. I’m very upset, but I’m not going to let it get in the way of my life and living happily.

Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to do some editing work that’s long overdue. I need to do it and it’ll relax me, I’m sure.

I Can’t Believe The Entertainment Industry Is Taking Most Of The Flack

Posted: February 10, 2013 in Politics and Leadership, Reflections
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Today on the bus downtown I was reading my latest Entertainment Weekly, and there was an article talking about how the entertainment industry is under increasing scrutiny for gun violence in the United States and different perspectives on the debate. Not long after that, my friend and fellow blogger Matt Williams posts an article about how two Swiss human rights organizations have recommended taking certain aspects out of video game violence because in the real world those same aspects might constitute war crimes if performed (for said post, please click this link: http://storiesbywilliams.com/2013/02/10/war-crimes-in-video-games/#comment-8258).

Has the world lost its mind?

First off, the movies, TV shows, books and video games are all fictional. FICTIONAL! Not real, never happened, the product of someone’s imagination and transferred to us using words, visuals, and (increasingly) technological gizmos. If you can mistake something in a movie or a video game for real, I think that points to some underlying psychological disorder.

And that’s the problem here, isn’t it? People with psychological problems getting their hands on guns, and often they get them through legal means more often than they get them illegally. In fact I read the other day an article about a man who was released from a mental institution after being incarcerated for murdering his mother. Not long after he got out, he bought up a ton of assault weapons and wrote in an online diary that he thought about killing all the time. It wasn’t until a police officer noticed the man had bought the guns, realized who the man was, and that he shouldn’t have guns in the first place did the man get arrested again. Seriously folks, we need more help for the mentally ill and better protection from dangerous weapons.

By the way, nowhere in this article did video game violence come up.

In fact, not a lot of killers are actually influenced by the entertainment industry to become killers, if any at all. Eric Harris was a sociopath who influenced Dylan Klebold, a manic depressive, into becoming a killer. Adam Lanza seemed to have Asperger’s syndrome and a few other problems, plus access to a bunch of guns in his mother’s house. The guy who shot the Sikh temple in Wisconsin was a neo-Nazi who believed he was doing the world a favor. The guy who shot up the first responders in New York was inspired to kill by Adam Lanza! The guy who kidnapped the child off the bus in Alabama seemed to have a thing for conservative pundits on the radio (not very entertaining, right?) and possibly suffered from a persecution complex. And James Holmes? Well, I’m not so sure The Dark Knight is wholly responsible (I have my own theories on what drove him to murder, but I’m not a psychologist, so unless asked to tell I’ll just hold off).

In fact, our psychological state of mind is based on biological, sociocultural, and environmental factors. So if James Holmes’s biology, culture, environment, and his social circle was defined by The Dark Knight, then maybe we might have to examine the entertainment industry. Besides, there are no studies that indicate a link between video games and gun violence. Not even a correlation, which is only a possible indicator of causation. Emphasis on possible. And the people who say that there is a link that just hasn’t been found yet, such as Wayne LaPierre, are usually in favor of gun rights or are actually paid to advocate for gun companies. Should we really believe these guys when they say the guns they own and try to sell say that guns can’t be apart of the problem our society is facing?

Besides, I still believe that humans are rational beings with the power of choice. Most people know that killing is wrong, that firing a bullet at someone means they probably won’t get up again if they’re hit, and that the soldiers in video games or the serial killer I created or Bruce Willis’s character in the Die Hard films are not real and therefore so is the gun violence, which means the cool gun violence in those examples are as real as the tooth fairy. And most people choose not to kill others. Those who do, and do it with assault weapons are, like I’ve said before, are mentally ill and need pscyhological counseling.

So stop blaming the entertainment industry. Yes, there’s more violence in media these days, but that’s a response to both the world and what the world wants in its media, but if we start censoring our TV shows and video games and movies, I think we’re doing more to set up a totalitarian state than we are by confiscating dangerous weapons. And where does the censorship end? When media is dull and boring? It’s a horrible direction to go down.

So let’s not censor. Instead, let’s actually work to create a safety net for those with mental illnesses that make them dangers to themselves or to others, keep military-grade weapons out of the hands of citizens (even well-intentioned ones), and institute universal background checks. That’s a responsible response to the wave of violence the United States is facing right now.

Another Shooting Happens, Yet Some Are Still Not Seeing The Point

Posted: February 1, 2013 in Politics and Leadership, Reflections
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Yesterday, a shooting occurred at a junior high school in Atlanta, Georgia. According to the news reports, the working theory is that two students got into some sort of fight, one pulled out a gun, and started shooting. The student who fired the gun is currently in custody, while one student who was shot in the neck survived, is in the hospital, and at last update, was in good condition, thank God. There were other minor injuries, but thank God no deaths. The school itself, as well as neighboring elementary and high schools were placed on lock down for two hours before students were released to their anxious, loving parents.

It seems President Obama was correct when he said we are suffering from an epidemic of violence. And speaking of the President, deliberations over gun control are still raging in Congress, where some still deny that we need stricter gun control. I mean come on! A kid nearly died of injuries because another student somehow got access to a gun and brought it to school with him! And yet there are people who use the craziest arguments to say that we need looser laws on guns. Let me repeat that: looser laws on gun control. And I italicize that for a reason: because it’s nuts, and it’s not a solution.

Now I know conservatives fear that stricter gun control laws will immediately lead to a dictatorship where guns are only held by the authroities and the people are powerless. This phobia of theirs is the basis of all their arguments. For this phobia, I recommend seeing a psychiatrist, because it’s just not going to happen. America is not going to turn into Nazi Germany, because Nazi Germany was the result of a madman taking advantage of a system with way more flaws than our system and a people who were unused to democracy and thought it was decadent. Does that sound like our system? Does that sound like our President?

Oh, and Mr. LaPierre, you said nearly fifteen years ago that you supported universal background checks (and so does a majority of the organization you head, by the way). What changed? All those checks from gun manufacturers go to your head? And to Ms. Treyor, the woman who told the thrilling story of a woman who used her legally-bought home weapon to defend herself against attackers, the woman in your story used a shotgun, not an assault rifle. The weapon in question would be allowed under an assault weapons ban. How can you not know this before you tell your story?

Honestly, I find the fact that I’m compelled to write these posts every now and again ludicrous. I mean seriously, we regulate driving and women’s uteruses more than we regulate guns! The last I checked, guns were killing more people than cars or uteruses! There needs to be some consistency here, folks! We need to stop this epidemic of violence.

And not only do we need stricter regulations on guns, we also need to do something for those with severe mental illnesses, especially those whose illnesses make them a danger either to themselves or others. Ever since deinstitutionalization in the fifties and sixties, there’s been no safety net for those with mental illnesses that aren’t helped by drugs. We need to reestablish a safety net, if only to see that these people can get the help they need. Sure it might cost us a little more in taxes, but it’s better than having another Sandy Hook, isn’t it?

So Congress, stop listening to the fear-mongering and the lobbyists with the checkbooks, and get to work doing your jobs, which is helping the American people. Because sitting around and quibbling over whether or not an imaginary dictatorship waiting to rise from Clint Eastwood’s friend the chair does not help us with our actual, not-imaginary problems.

The Gun Control Debate Is Heating Up

Posted: January 17, 2013 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Progress Report, Social Activism
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I wanted to hold off a little on writing this post, but now I find I can’t hold back anymore.

Yesterday, President Barack Obama announced a number of ideas he wants to implement in order to stop the wave of gun violence our country has been plagued with this past year, and that has been building up for years. Among the ideas he put forth, created in part by Vice Presdient Joe Biden , are required criminal background checks for all gun sales; reinstating the assault weapons ban; banning armor-piercing rounds; providing mental-health services in schools; and establishing a federal gun-trafficking statute, among others.

Unfortunately, getting any of these proposals through our famously dysfunctional Congress is going to be tough, which is why President Obama ordered 23 executive actions, including requiring federal agencies to hand over relevant information for background checks; providing better training for law enforcement and first responders; and requiring the CDC to research the causes and prevention of gun violence, among others.

Of course, there are those who immediately cry foul over these new proposals, the NRA being the loudest (I’ve got a nickname for these guys that uses the same acronym, but I’m not going to say it so as not to offend any readers who are possibly NRA members). The NRA’s president, Wayne LaPierre, has accused Obama of attacking guns and forgetting children, and the organization’s advertising division (or propaganda machine, depending on which angle you look at it from) has released an ad saying that the President doesn’t want to protect kids other than his own by giving Sasha and Malia Secret Service protection in schools. Has it ever occurred to these guys that other people’s kids are not always at risk for being used in terrorist plots? Obviously not.

There’s also the guy from Texas I talked about in an earlier post, the guy who wants to impeach Obama if he makes any moves on guns (good luck with that). And Governor Rick Perry of Texas says that instead of gun control measures, we should “pray for protection”. Um, I think praying and spirituality is nice and all, but I’m pretty sure the gun control proposals might be God’s answer. You want to wipe your butt with it? And honestly, prayers are not going to shield you from a mentally unstable shooter’s bullets if, God forbid, he should point his gun at you.

There’s a rocky road ahead, whatever the case, for these gun control proposals of President Obama. However I think they should be passed. Otherwise Republicans in the House and in the Senate might lose many of their seats as the people become more pro-gun control. Well, let’s see what happens, and hope for a better future, whatever the outcome happens to be.

New York Takes The Lead on Gun Control

Posted: January 15, 2013 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Progress Report, Social Activism
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The shooting at Sandy Hook that took 20 children and six adults was a tragedy that should never have happened. But thankfully, it seems that something good may be coming out of the tragedy: today, New York leaders passed the first new gun control laws since the tragedy in early December. The bill was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Republican who has embraced gun control and made it a central part of his agenda, saying “At what point do we say, ‘No more loss of innocent life’?”

Frankly I agree, so I’m glad that the new law comes with so many provisions meant to protect our citizens (not take away guns as 2nd Amendment fundamentalists believe). In addition to an assault weapons ban that prohibits the further sales of any guns with one military feature and the registration of those already in private ownership, the law requires immediate background checks, bars assault weapon sales over the Internet, and, because of the shooting of firefighters in Webster last month, lengthens the sentence of those convicted of shooting first responders.

Plus, the number of rounds in a magazine has been decreased from 10 to 7, put tougher restrictions on the sales of ammunitions and guns and, in what I see as a very good move, requires therapists to notify authorities if they feel a patient made a credible threat to use a gun illegally would be required by law to report it to the authorities.

That last part I see as the basis for a new episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

As other states are considering bills with new gun control measures, I hope they follow New York in example. I’m talking to you, Ohio Governor Jon Kasich. Seriously, you signed a bill that allows firearms in the garage of the statehouse. Do you want to play a video game or reenact a movie scene in the statehouse garage with actual guns? Are you insane?

However, not everyone seems to be thrilled with the new spirit of gun control. Representative Steve Stockman, a Republican from Texas whose last term of office was in the 1990s, says that he’s willing to go as far as filing articles of impeachment if President Obama threatens his Second Amendment rights with new gun control legislation. Hate to break it to you, Mr. Representative, but the last time you were in term, there was an assault weapons ban, and the world did not end and the 2nd Amendment did not die during the ten years it existed. If anything, it came out stronger after the law expired.

Oh well. Here’s to a safer country and less lunatics running around trying to kill us or arm us all.

An Episode With A Point

Posted: December 24, 2012 in Living and Life, Reflections
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I’m sitting in the kitchen at my dad’s place, writing and watching reruns of Family Guy. The episode they played today, I felt was aired for a reason: Peter realizes he’s got a smaller phallis than his son Chris, and joins a parody of the National Rifle Association in order to make himself feel like a bigger man. Let me tell you, I found myself laughing as I thought to myself, “Did they decide to air this particular episode as a response to some of the s&^t that the president of the NRA has been saying in light of the Newtown shooting and the new push from all sides to get guns under control?”

Let me tell you, the episode made some good points. For example, the guy who recruits Peter to the National Gun Association (NGA), says that how much of a man you are depends on the size of your assault rifle (no wonder people don’t want to give up their guns; they’re worried about their penis size…unless they’re women, in which case they’re tyring to show they’re as macho as the men without losing any chance of getting laid). Then, when Lois worries that Peter taking Chris on a hunting trip is a bad idea, they show a video that shows, among other things, Jesus and Moses using AR-17s on Romans, giving the Second Amendment the same sacredness as the Bible in the gun nuts’ minds, telling kids if they hug a pistol they can get rid of bad guys, and then saying that guns are good and safe, before showing a disclaimer that says that guns aren’t the safest thing in the world.

You know, I really love Seth MacFarlene; he really can take everything and show its stupid side in ways no one else can. And in this early episode, from season 3 and well before our current plague of gun violence and anger over gun violence, it surely is a perfect response to Wayne LaPierre and his NRA leadership buddies, who are not only out of touch, they are out of touch with their own members, who apparently do believe in some restrictions in guns (imagine that!).

Now, with politicians on both sides of the aisle working towards gun control legislation, we can expect the NRA to put up a huge fight. In fact, LaPierre has already called a reinstated ban on assault rifles “an evil bill based on lies” (or something along those lines). Well NRA members who do believe in some gun control, I hope you can put some sense intl your leadership. The nation needs it.

And I Heard Something Dumber Than What Huckabee Said

Posted: December 17, 2012 in Politics and Leadership, Reflections
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During the election, I got incensed when politicians and media personalities said idiotic crap about women’s bodies. Now, I have plenty of material on politicians and gun control! For example, Mike Huckabee said that “systematically removing God” from public schools was the reason behind the massacre, and that he “wasn’t surprised” that the shooting happened. He tried to clarify his views later by saying that he meant “God’s name is only invoked after the tragedy”. That’s sometimes true, but we all understood what you meant the first time you said it.

However, I just heard something worse: Representative Dennis Richardson of Oregon said that teachers should be allowed to carry guns on campus and in the classroom, and if he’d been a teacher, he’d have shot Adam Lanza. Yes, he is a Republican, and no, I have no idea if he’s had psychological testing.

Still, I have to ask: WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING?! DID YOU GO UPSTATE FOR SOME WEED THIS WEEKEND?

If you didn’t get that last question, you haven’t been paying attention to the drugs debate enough and you need to brush up on your US geography.

But seriously, what the heck are you suggesting? That teachers have guns? That’s a stupid idea. A tattoo or a piercing is okay, it may be a little garish or obscene to some people, but tattoos or piercings don’t have negative effects on children, they don’t harm children. Guns though, can harm children. And even if you lock the guns up, there’s always the one kid, even in kindergarten, who can get into places they shouldn’t. And every time a gun gets in a school, it always causes chaos, as this past weekend demonstrated well enough. How does putting guns in school for the teachers supposed to protect anyone?

I really don’t understand how giving people more access to weapons of death and destruction is supposed to protect others and stop the killing that comes from these same weapons. It’s counterintuitive, if you ask me, and I also think Representative Richardson is not going to be reelected because of this comment. If anything, we need less guns, especially the powerful assault rifles. Like Senator Feinstein from California said, those guns aren’t for hunting deer, they’re for hunting people!

Looks Like Someone Got The Message

Posted: December 16, 2012 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Progress Report, Reflections, Social Activism
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This morning I wrote a post calling for everyone reading this blog to contact every politician they can think of and ask them to work for stricter measures against gun violence. Afterwards I saw an article on HuffPost.com on how a man in Indiana threatened to kill his wife and then go into a local elementary school and shoot them up. Thankfully yesterday he was arrested and is being held on felony intimidation charges, but it still had me spooked. I mean, it’s enough to make you think this coming Friday really is the end of the world!

But when I got back home from my meditation class, I saw an article that said on the first day of the new Congress, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California plans to introduce a bill that’ll stop the sale of assault weapons to civilians. As she said on her campaign website, “Who needs these military-style assault weapons? Who needs an ammunition feeding device capable of holding 100 rounds? These weapons are not for hunting deer — they’re for hunting people.”

So true, Senator Feinstein. So true.

So at least someone in Washington has the guts to step up and speak out on the gun problem in the United States. I hope soon we can see some progress, and I wish Senator Feinstein the best of luck in getting this bill through Congress.

However this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep emailing our elected officials. On the contrary, we should email them more, because if a bill like this is going to get through Congress, it’s going to need all the popular support it can get, and I’m hoping you’ll help support it. So email away; I’ve got to email the senator herself and thank her for saying she’ll introduce this bill, because as you can tell it means a lot to me.

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