I find the Republicans are making it harder and harder to live without violence in the USA. On this blog, I don't recall the year but it has to be at least ten years ago I did a "It's Something Night" and featured what has occurred across the globe when the gun lobbies have been successful in instilling fear and arming in large numbers the citizens. In those entries what was occurring in other countries is now occurring in the USA. The entries that night were to serve as a warning to the potential of what could happen in the USA. We have arrived now.
The United States, no different from Europe and other Free World allies, is not immune from the impact of the personal power within a firearm. In the beginning there are people that will arm to protect from regional or neighborhood violence. But, then the handling of the gun(s) becomes familiar. The gun then is no longer a threat so much as a trusted friend and the owner or user then believes they can handle anything in their lives. That translates into settling their own arguments. Why wait for a judge and the cost of lawyers, when it is so much more easy to pick up a weapon and emotionally release the hate and frustration. Don't say that doesn't happen. It happens everyday in the USA. Perfectly sane people are killing other people because they feel self-righteous to pulling the trigger.
The laws like the Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground not only carry very liberal gun laws, but, allow enforcement of personal boundary issues. The signs saying "No Trespassing" can now be enforced by a gun. It isn't enough to make a complaint to the police about trespassers, the landowner can use their own weapons to settle the issue.
Up to recent years with the pandemic I think most Americans associated guns with war. There are hunters, of course, but, the number of hunting licenses in the USA has been fairly steady at an average of 35 million annually since 2004 (click here). So, in realizing hunters' purchases of guns and ammo is consistent it is easy to make the estimation that the rest of the guns sold in growing numbers are for personal protection or home invasion.
The point is Americans have emotions and when they become familiar with an object it becomes part of them. The most dramatic example is the computer. Right? First it was a desktop, then a laptop and then a mobile phone all the way up to a cell phone being the primary telephone for everyone in the USA. Not only the primary phone, but, also a platform for the interests of the owner, including, politics. One has to wonder if the issue of cell phones and their use only exacerbates the issue of violence. OMG, I just heard Wall Street quake. Other people give gun owners the right to feel exonerated for the violence a gun inherently carries with it. In other words, it is okay to kill.
I think that is where we are. We have a society saturated with violence and personal weapons. The result is daily mass shootings of four or more people gunned down by a single gunman with a grudge and/or moral issues. The moral issues for gun violence is, of course, to teach everyone a lesson for some odd personal ideology and/or vendetta against society. In actuality, the only lesson gun violence brings to the American public is the chronic political struggle between owning guns and controlling guns.
I will say this one more time, when people feel threatened by the "unknown" there is a special feeling that life is not secure. Life itself becomes a political fight to win the day to continue to either own or control guns, fight the virus or not and succumb to disease or worry about becoming pregnant so abortion is not an issue.
The uncivilized society of which the USA is entering if not already arrived, is a problem. The uncivilized society is not livable.
Let's say women are looking at the Supreme Court as grossly irresponsible because they are now afraid of becoming pregnant. It isn't just getting pregnant at inconvenient times that is the worry, but, just getting pregnant in general. I don't believe we are at that juncture, but, inevitably it will occur. As women worry now within the boundaries of the USA whether or not they can receive an abortion, the pregnancy takes on an identity of death. Why become pregnant if there is even a remote chance I could die because I can't have an abortion? What happens to the population of the USA when young people decide to become sterile? What a political folly that is.
If I were an enemy of the USA, I would have created the perfect diatribe that will bring the end to democracy and the USA Constitution without firing a shot. I have provided dialogue that has instilled fear, armed that fear and now watch as a political theocracy is taking over to remove freedom from Americans. Ask yourself, is there greater freedom with safety or not? Is there greater freedom with guns or not? Is there greater freedom with contraception and abortion or not? Is there greater freedom of religion when an American can choose to be a member of a faith or not? If a theocracy results in the USA because of Justices without a clue to what they are doing to the people and just lament their decisions in ideology, is there greater freedom in that? Take any aspect of American life and ask, Is there greater freedom with ... or not?
The analogy below should be obvious. But, in case it isn't, it is my opinion the USA is as polluted with power and death as China was at the time of Tienanmen Square. The government is not rolling tanks out to stop peaceful protests, but, the political dogma of the Republicans is achieving the exact same content. Who is going to step out in front of an Open-Carry Gunman to say he or she is an insult to the USA democracy?
By Mike McIntire
Historian and journalist T.D. Allman, who witnessed the uprising from the balcony of a Beijing hotel room, has described him as the “true exemplar” of the Chinese protesters’ heroism.
Across the country, (click here) openly carrying a gun in public is no longer just an exercise in self-defense — increasingly it is a soapbox for elevating one’s voice and, just as often, quieting someone else’s.
This month, armed protesters appeared outside an elections center in Phoenix, hurling baseless accusations that the election for governor had been stolen from the Republican, Kari Lake. In October, Proud Boys with guns joined a rally in Nashville where conservative lawmakers spoke against transgender medical treatments for minors.
In June, armed demonstrations around the United States amounted to nearly one a day. A group led by a former Republican state legislator protested a gay pride event in a public park in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Men with guns interrupted a Juneteenth festival in Franklin, Tenn., handing out fliers claiming that white people were being replaced. Among the others were rallies in support of gun rights in Delaware and abortion rights in Georgia.
Whether at the local library, in a park or on Main Street, most of these incidents happen where Republicans have fought to expand the ability to bear arms in public, a movement bolstered by a recent Supreme Court ruling on the right to carry firearms outside the home. The loosening of limits has occurred as violent political rhetoric rises and the police in some places fear bloodshed among an armed populace on a hair trigger....
