In many ways Brazil is a poor comparison to the USA by virtue of geography alone.
By Jane Bussey and Steven Dudley
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
BOGOTA, Colombia - Chiquita Brands International's recent admission that it paid off a Colombian group on the U.S. terrorist list has spotlighted a practice once hush-hush in Colombia, Washington's closest ally in Latin America.
Several other U.S.-based corporations, including Atlanta-based Coca-Cola and the Alabama-based coal company Drummond Co., face civil lawsuits alleging their Colombian operations worked with the same group to kill several trade unionists.
But the guilty plea by Chiquita, a company with a long and infamous history in Latin America, has focused attention on the payoffs that Colombian and foreign companies make to the illegal armed groups fighting the country's 40-year-old civil war, especially in remote areas where those groups hold sway.
...Many here criticize the president, who won re-election in December, for being an autocrat, building popular militias, nationalizing key sectors of the economy and curtailing freedom of the press....
...and not just physical geography but political and economic geography as well. The entire mess Brazil finds itself is one of blackmarket gun sales facilitated by international gun runners that supply nearly anyone that wants to buy them.
The same is true for Britain. They instituted stringent gun regulations about 2002. For the most part the regulations are 'blamed' for increase in gun violence, but, once again we are looking at blackmarket weapons to a country which some would say is a small country with defensible borders; except for the long standing ability of the Irish Republican Army to gain weapons and explosives for it's civil war with the Brits. I don't consider the circumstances in the USA exactly the same. But let me find a few references to the Brits first.
Slowly, the country is learning the hard way.
LONDON — When I arrived in London, I expected to find a very depressing situation for gun rights, as the formerly robust British right-to-arms is nearing extinction. Yet there are signs that the public is waking up to the failure of gun prohibition.
LONDON — When I arrived in London, I expected to find a very depressing situation for gun rights, as the formerly robust British right-to-arms is nearing extinction. Yet there are signs that the public is waking up to the failure of gun prohibition.
Kindly note the words, 'people are learning the hard way.' When people learn the 'hard way' it serves the community of gun manufacturers whom do absolutely nothing to police themselves except what is required by law.
Kindly remember laws are simply acts of the will of the people of their legislation. To secure a nation from the ravages of gun violence there has to be enforcement of those laws with the funding to back it. Rarely, except in the case of the Brady Bill in the USA, does that take place.
The gun lobby has framed the gun violence debate perversely to its advantage - and done a powerful job of it. It is time for adults to stand up and demand that reality prevail.
Remember this guy? Heston. He's dead now. I would respect the failure of gun control laws IF the laws failed unassisted, but, everytime there is a call for gun control by most societies on Earth, what manifests is a well orchestrated scenario of how people would be far safer if 'good citizens' carried guns and protected themselves.
Huh?
Me?
Carry a gun?
I don't think so.
One of the overwhelming issues that any gun 'instructor' will tell you might be a problem, besides securing them within the home out of reach of children and young people, is the danger of having your weapon, YOUR WEAPON NOW, turned back on you when the assailant overpowers the gun owner in a physical match of wits. It doesn't always work out to the advantage of the gun owner.
Hollywood actor Charlton Heston has attacked the UK's anti-gun laws in a speech to students at Oxford University.
The Oscar-winning actor, and president of the influential National Rifle Association (NRA) in the US, said British anti-gun laws had led to an increase in gun-related crime.
In an address to the Oxford Union, he said the right to carry arms, enshrined in the US Constitution, maintained freedom and actually saved lives.
I am going to look at Brazil closer for awhile and then point to the LACK of issues presented in this ? debate ? by the Conservative media whom wants to control this aspect of society and it's public understanding.
