The Dumps

Christopher Dorner was in the navy, was dismissed, and went on a murder spree.  Aaron Alexis was in the navy, was dismissed, and went on a murder spree.  Is the military dumping, rather than treating it's mentally ill members?  If so, I wish they'd be a little more responsible and think about the consequences of their actions.  And by the way, it's not just the possibility of a man with a gun, and the training to use it effectively.  It's also about the homeless veteran, domestic violence, and self medication that results in alcoholism and drug addiction.

Speaking of bat shit crazy, NRA nutter Wayne LaPierre is at it again.  The mantra of the gun crowd is that bad guys with guns are stopped by good guys with guns.  The Washington Navy Yard was crawling with armed good guys,  two of whom were shot by Mr. Alexis, their guns added to his collection.  So what was crazy Wayne's response?  Not enough good guys with guns.  I can't believe that people actually take that guy seriously.

Guns and the Ordinary

President Obama and VP Joe Biden have begun to offer up some proposals for new gun legislation and the right, predictably, is fretting that we're going too fast.  Meanwhile, James Holmes, the Aurora, Colorado theater shooter has made his first court appearances, and the NRA is once again pointing out that it's not guns, it's mental illness.

On quick question for the gun lobby.  Does that mean that they support a not guilty by reason of insanity finding  for Holmes?  If so, I congratulate them and add my support for that position.  Of course, that's highly unlikely.  Knowing the far right, I suspect that they'll try and have it both ways.  The insanity of the shooter means that the easy access to guns is not relevant to what happened at Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, and Sandy Hook Elementary, but by god, we'll take that nut out and hang his ass by the neck until dead.  (Or shove in the needle as the case may be.)  I have to say, though, the gun nuts may be right.  The crazies will out.  But, are the anomalous mass shootings, tragic though they may be, the real gun problem?  I think not.  The real gun problem is.....

Husband shoots wife, wife kills husband, six year old finds family gun and shoots four year old sibling,  fender bender and one guy pulls his nine mil from under the front seat, drunk gets asked to leave party and  returns with his shot gun, drug deal gone bad, drive-by, man looses job and he decides to kill himself, wife and kids,  stupid young man feels disrespected, scared neighborhood watch member shoots young black man wearing a hoodie, and it goes on and on and on and on.  Start dealing with the ordinary, day by day gun violence, and I'll be impressed.

Just A Reminder.....

In the 1920s Congress banned private ownership of the Thompson sub-machine gun, and no, Capone and the other gangsters didn't turn in their Tommy guns.  But, in time, the Thompson disappeared from the American scene.  The police seized some when they arrested criminals.  Some got turned in or destroyed by their owners.  Others just got old and unusable.  If we were to ban large capacity clips, at first it wouldn't make a difference.  But in time, those clips would go the way of the Tommy gun.  It might take twenty years for them to go away, but sooner or latter, the thirty, forty, fifty and sixty shot clips would no longer be part of American gun culture.

The New Nazis

I've never liked Nazi analogies. Anyone who conflates Saddam with Hitler or George W. Bush with the Nazi Party is an idiot. Still, I'm having a hard time in not seeing similarities between the Tea Party movement and the rise of National Socialism.
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No, I'm not saying that the Tea Party is the new Nazi Party of America. What I am saying is that the Nazis rose to power because so many people who should have known better saw the Nazis as useful tools and gave them support. I've always assumed that German businessmen who helped Hitler's rise to power because Hitler was willing to suppress independent unions, the social democrats who stood by because the Nazis would neuter the hard core communists, and the many intellectuals who supported Nazism because of the mystical, nationalistic elements of the movement all assumed that when the time came Hitler and his thugs could be controlled and then suppressed. The similarity I see is that mainstream Republicans, American business interests, and others on the right are willing to champion a fringe, hate movement in order to when a political battle.
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Today's news story of Tea Party supporters, standing in the halls of congress, yelling nigger, faggot, and spitting on legislators is truly disturbing. When Barack Obama was running for president and many of the people I knew said that sooner or latter someone was going to shoot the guy, I dismissed those fears. Yes, I admitted, there might be some lone gunman, insane, with some imaginary grievance, who could go off the deep end, but the whole idea that there was a large segment of the American public wanting to kill a president because of either his race or his politics seemed silly to me. Not anymore. Now I'm convinced that it is only a matter of time before some Tea Party supporter makes the attempt. The only question I have is this: Will we blame that lone gunman, or will we blame the movement and it's supporters? People like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and even House member Michele Bachmann have walked right up to the edge of calling for violence against President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi, and other Democratic and liberal leaders. I have a great deal of faith in the Secret Service, and am confident that they are up to the task of protecting the lives of our leaders. It just bothers me that when they make the arrest or, unfortunately, are put in the position of having to kill an attacker, that the hate leaders of the far right won't be sitting in a jail cell for inciting such a treasonous act.