Quote of the Day -- On America, Americans and Assault Weapons

"After Bill Clinton banned assault weapons in 1994, mass shooting deaths dropped by 43%.

After the Republican Congress let the ban expire in 2004, they shot up by 239%. This isn't rocket science: we need to ban assault weapons again." --Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, Pennsylvania Democratic Party candidate for the US Senate.

Check Out How Callous and Cynical and Ugly Kris Kobach Has Gotten

A friend emailed me this. I could nearly not believe how low, how, again, callous and cynical and ugly and heartless it is. Kris Kobach, out of Kansas, sent around this email this week for his event.

On April 20, the anniversary of the slaughter of innocents at Columbine, Kris Kobach has decided to have a rally to support "gun rights."  What he's proposing:

Secretary Kobach has offered to host a pro-gun rally for the Kansas State Rifle Association in his official capacity as Kansas Secretary of State.

Help us get supporters to Topeka on April 20th to defend the 2nd Amendment and promote our shared pro-gun values!

For anyone who doesn't know or remember:

Twelve students and one teacher were killed at Columbine that day. Gunned down. Slaughtered. The Columbine shootings rank as one of the worst mass shootings in US history as well as one of the deadliest episodes of school violence.

At approximately 11:19 a.m., two students, Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18, carrying guns and bombs, open fire inside Columbine High School, killing 13 and wounding 23 others.

And it's on the anniversary of this day Kris Kobach wants to push for yet more "gun rights."

If that isn't cold, heartless, callous and even sick, I don't know what is.

Links:

Columbine High School Shootings Fast Facts - CNN - CNN.com

Columbine High School massacre - Wikipedia

And the Children Shall Lead Them...

I saw this post today, this morning, on Facebook. The parent of one of the children, one of the students in Parkland, Florida posted this letter.

Lenny Kaufman
February 20 at 7:54pm ·

As many of you know, my daughter Sari is a sophomore at Stoneman Douglas in Parkland. She wrote the letter below and has sent it to many government officials. She has asked me to share her message with as many people as possibe. Please feel free to re-post and share on your own timeline.

Hello, my name is Sari Kaufman and I attend Stoneman Douglas. I am a sophomore and I am a survivor of the 2/14 attack. 

The morning of the attack seemed like a normal day. The weather was very nice and I was excited to receive carnations for Valentines Day. Sadly, this all changed at the sound of a routine fire drill. 

I remember leaving my classroom at 2:22 pm. This was the second fire drill of the day so it seemed abnormal. Once I went outside I heard five consistent noises that sounded like gunshots but my mind did not let me accept the fact that it were sounds that caused 17 lives to be lost. My memory from this day is a little vague but I remember my teacher saying this is not a drill. 

We ran behind a fence and made sure we did not fall in a canal while we were running for our lives. There was so much confusion and we did not know what was going on. The only clear thing I remember which made me feel at ease was when a police officer protected us and helped us to safety. I was able to run to a nearby restaurant and watch the unthinkable news story develop in my 5th period classroom. 

Unfortunately, some of my friends are not able to share their story today. 

My city and school will be forever changed and even some of my closest friends are forever changed due to this traumatizing event that has affected them, not just physically, but also mentally/emotionally. I have had to go to funerals and watch parents bury their 14 year old sons and daughters. 

Following the attack, I wanted to talk to the news right away, but at the same time, I first wanted to understand the gun control debate a little more in-depth. Now, after a few days and after this traumatizing event is not feeling like a dream anymore and the fact that we lost 17 people including coaches, teachers, administrators, and classmates, I want to make a change. 

In November, I researched about the NICS (the gun database background check system) and about universal gun background checks for the November Public Forum debate topic. I remember finding many flaws in our system. For example, according to “The Trace” in 2015, the NICS Improvement Amendment Act was introduced in the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. The legislation gave more than a billion dollars in grants to states and territories to improve record keeping systems and reportings to NICS. This seemed like a very common sense and great way to fix a robust system. 

However, since the bill became law, Congress has given out only 11.5 percent of that money for spending. Former Congressman James Moran explains the reason behind this. He says that the NRA worked with allies in Congress to cut off funding for these grants when the committee put each year’s budget together (July 27th, 2015). 

Unfortunately, this was a very common theme and each article I read had a recurring conclusion. It is either that the proposed bill never passes Congress due to backlash from other funding parties, or in some cases, a bill passes but Congress does not put the money where it is supposed to go due to influential organizations like the NRA.

Therefore, do I think that my friends and I protesting for a change is going to change your mind? No. But maybe real facts, research, and uniting politicians together to save lives at school will lead to a change. 

I am only 15 years old but I understand that politics are extremely complicated. However, I believe that we can fix these issues in our systems so other kids do not have to go through the same trauma I have gone through. I hope that the next time that you (government leaders) make a deal or receive money which hinders your judgment, just remember kids having their blood spilled out on classroom floors.

Also, remember that your community might be next. 

Please do not wait and just be sad for a couple of days that 17 people died and please do not think American lives are disposable. Let this shooting be the last school shooting. Do not wait until it is too late, until it happens in your community, to your daughter or son, or your friends. 

Act now. 

There is so much we can accomplish in this revolution, even if it will take several small steps. For example, after Sandy Hook, Connecticut required information on mental health records available to federal and state agencies while performing background checks. According to Giffords Law Center, federal law cannot require states to make information identifying these people available to the federal or state agencies that perform background checks, and many states fail to voluntarily report the necessary records to the FBI’s NICS. So instead of just letting Connecticut be alone and do this because they were affected, let's motivate every single state to do this on a federal level. 

I want to be optimistic about these political changes but the sad fact is that in only my 15 years of existence there have been more school shootings than someone who lived from 1910 to 1980. There is a repetitive pattern that has a very similar dialogue: Another shooting, let's improve our system, let's unite and worry about the people on each side of the political aisle. 

Children's lives are more important than our political differences. 

Let’s do something about our flawed system. Following this, very little is ever accomplished. Words are very different than actions. I want to be optimistic but the truth is I am very pessimistic about new political changes. How is this generation going to have faith in our system if time and time again it fails to protect our lives? Every day in school we learn how great the United States is, yet we are one of the only countries in the world to have classmates die in the very place we learn. There could have been so much to prevent this horrible tragedy. I am just asking for a change no matter what it is. I just want our system to improve to save lives. I hope we unite across political parties to protect my friends and future generations to be safe in school.

Best,

Sari Kaufman
Age 15

On This Day, July 2, 1917---Missouri and National History

Just some of the state and national history our society seems to go out of the way to NOT teach us.

The 1917 East St. Louis race riots

This photo ran in the St. Louis Star on July 3, 1917 with the caption: “Where the charred bodies of eight negroes burned in their homes at Eighth Street and Broadway were found today.” The bodies of some Black victims were buried in a common grave, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Others were thrown into Cahokia Creek which ran between downtown and the riverfront railyards. (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Bowen Archives).

Blacks in East St. Louis were beginning to come in from the Southern United States and were taking jobs, yes, at lower wages, from Union members. The white Union members would have nothing of it.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch did a fantastic series of articles on this important time and group of events.

Archive editorial: 'The East St. Louis Murders'

Archive article: 'Several hundred Negroes brought across river'

Editor's Note: East St. Louis riot coverage

Archive article: 'Several hundred Negroes brought across river'

Bell that warned of approaching white mobs 

amid East St. Louis riots

Keep in mind, too, this East St. Louis event, this massacre, this slaughter, was far from the only one in our nation's history. Here are two more, anyway.

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919

Tulsa Race Riot (1921)

Keeping in mind, too, that the national disgrace that was the "Trail of Tears", where we displaced thousands of Native Americans, from East to Oklahoma, also went through Southern Missouri. In fact, it went right through what is now downtown Springfield. 

Trail of Tears - Native American History

I know that, as I went through grade school and high school, at no point during those years was it taught this history, that this abomination went through the Southern part of our state, Missouri.

So yes, let's know our national history.

All of it.

Maybe especially now, this time of year, around our Independence Day when we only remember how good and great we are.

Happy Columbus Day

AK Press

It seems there are still some people out there who celebrate Columbus Day. If you happen to know any of them, please share this description from Bartolome de las Casas of the sort of civilized and heroic behavior Columbus brought to the "new" world:

"And the Christians, with their horses and swords and pikes began to carry out massacres and strange cruelties against them. They attacked the towns and spared neither the children nor the aged nor pregnant women nor women in childbed, not only stabbing them and dismembering them but cutting them to pieces as if dealing with sheep in the slaughter house. They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike. They took infants from their mothers' breasts, snatching them by the legs and pitching them headfirst against the crags or snatched them by the arms and threw them into the rivers, roaring with laughter and saying as the babies fell into the water, 'Boil there, you offspring of the devil!' Other infants they put to the sword along with their mothers and anyone else who happened to be nearby. They made some low wide gallows on which the hanged victim's feet almost touched the ground, stringing up their victims in lots of thirteen, in memory of Our Redeemer and His twelve Apostles, then set burning wood at their feet and thus burned them alive. To others they attached straw or wrapped their whole bodies in straw and set them afire. With still others, all those they wanted to capture alive, they cut off their hands and hung them round the victim's neck, saying, "Go now, carry the message," meaning, Take the news to the Indians who have fled to the mountains. They usually dealt with the chieftains and nobles in the following way: they made a grid of rods which they placed on forked sticks, then lashed the victims to the grid and lighted a smoldering fire underneath, so that little by little, as those captives screamed in despair and torment, their souls would leave them...."

An American History Anniversary (guest post)

The American history we don't know.

The American history we're not taught.

The American history we don't want to know.

BLACK WALL STREET - Today is the 94th anniversary of the Race Riot and Bombing of Black Wall Street in Tulsa Oklahoma, May 31st, 1921.Read The Article: You do know that Black Wall Street was rebuilt by the Black residents after the bombing took place in 1921. They rebuilt it with their own money and got no government support.

"After the riot, black Tulsans, who were living in tents and forced to wear green identification tags in order to work downtown, still managed to turn the tragedy into triumph. Without state help, they rebuilt Greenwood, and by 1942 the community had more than 240 black-owned businesses.

"If we did it once we can do it again.

http://www.theroot.com/…/greenwood_oklahoma_from_the_black_…

Sign up for The African History Network email newsletter by texting the word "Kemet" to 22828.

‪#‎TheAHNShow‬ Twitter: FB: IG: Michael Imhotep

If you want to learn more about African History and African-American History to counteract the negative images we see of ourselves on the TEL-LIE-VISION (TV), please visit www.AfricanHistoryNetwork.com. We have information to Educate, Empower and Inspire people of African Descent throughout the Diaspora and around the world.

Listen to “The African History Network Show” with host Michael Imhotep, every Thurs, 8pm-11pm EST and “The Per Ankh Hour Q & A Show” with Prof. Kaba Kamene (aka Booker T. Coleman) of “Hidden Colors 1 & 2” and Michael Imhotep of The African History Network every Wednesday 10:00pm-11:30pm EST athttp://www.blogtalkradio.com/theafricanhistorynetworkshow orwww.AfricanHistoryNetwork.com by phone, when we are LIVE at (914) 338-1375. Call in with your questions and comments. Archived episodes are available for you to listen and are also archived on www.Itunes.com.

And in our national history, it's not that isolated an incident, either, this Tulsa, Oklahoma killing and murder. Don't think for a moment that it is.

The American Slaughter

Here we go again, America. It happened again, just yesterday:

Las Vegas Shooting Kills 2 Metro Police Officers Total 5 Dead

So 20 children--innocent, grade school children--were slaughtered, assassinated, in mere moments all that long ago and what did we do? What did America do?

Not a damn thing.

Changed nothing. Zip. Zilch.

In the meantime, between then and now, more shootings, more killings, more assassinations of innocents. College campuses, more children, all kinds. Heck, even a member of the House of Representatives.

And while so many think this is either okay apparently or just not that bad or wrong or repugnant, let's never lose sight of this:

No other civilized, industrialized, educated, First World nation in the world lives or has incidents like this, let alone repeated ones, the way we in our country, here in the US does.

It is shameful.  It is irresponsible. It is, in fact, repugnant.

And that we have done nothing, to date, and that we continue to do nothing whatever about this is an obscenity and additional tragedy.

Face it, gun freaks, we're never taking your guns.

We know that. You should know that but the fear helps you whip up more frenzy and gun purchases, doesn't it?

But losing more and more of your fellow Americans--innocents, in this case, police officers--concerns you not a whit?

Work with us, for Christ's sake, for anything and everything that's good, work with us. For the good of America and for the safety of most Americans, let's reign in the weapons just a bit. There's only three things we really need to do. They are:

1) Do a background check on ALL for-profit purchases, including gun shows, for criminal history;

2) Do the same for mental stability and finally,

3) Put a top limit, per clip of 10 shots to any and all weapons, nationwide, starting now. You'd still have your weapons and we'd have a smidgen of restraint.

It's not complicated. It's very possible. They'd be effective, they'd be helpful and they'd be productive.

They'd be for the good of the nation and for the people.


Lots of data here:  Homicide | Harvard Injury Control Research Center

A huge, overlooked possibility of time travel

Imagine if, one day, there really were such a thing as a time machine, time travel, stepping through a "wormhole" to another time.

Imagine putting it to REALLY good use.

Imagine if the person went back and--forgive me--killed Adolf Hitler in, oh, what?  1925?

Now that's a beautiful thought.

Have a great weekend, y'all.

An important read on guns

An article yesterday from the conservative federal judge who oversaw the trial of the Tuscon, Arizona shooter:

A conservative case for an assault weapons ban

If we can't draw a sensible line on guns, we may as well call the American experiment in democracy a failure.

Last month, I sentenced Jared Lee Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years in federal prison for his shooting rampage in Tucson. That tragedy left six people dead, more than twice that number injured and a community shaken to its core.

Loughner deserved his punishment. But during the sentencing, I also questioned the social utility of high-capacity magazines like the one that fed his Glock. And I lamented the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004, which prohibited the manufacture and importation of certain particularly deadly guns, as well as magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

The ban wasn't all that stringent — if you already owned a banned gun or high-capacity magazine you could keep it, and you could sell it to someone else — but at least it was something.

And it says something that half of the nation's deadliest shootings occurred after the ban expired, including the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. It also says something that it has not even been two years since Loughner's rampage, and already six mass shootings have been deadlier.

I am not a social scientist, and I know that very smart ones are divided on what to do about gun violence. But reasonable, good-faith debates have boundaries, and in the debate about guns, a high-capacity magazine has always seemed to me beyond them.

Bystanders got to Loughner and subdued him only after he emptied one 31-round magazine and was trying to load another. Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter, chose as his primary weapon a semiautomatic rifle with 30-round magazines. And we don't even bother to call the 100-rounder that James Holmes is accused of emptying in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater a magazine — it is a drum. How is this not an argument for regulating the number of rounds a gun can fire?

I get it. Someone bent on mass murder who has only a 10-round magazine or revolvers at his disposal probably is not going to abandon his plan and instead try to talk his problems out. But we might be able to take the "mass" out of "mass shooting," or at least make the perpetrator's job a bit harder.

To guarantee that there would never be another Tucson or Sandy Hook, we would probably have to make it a capital offense to so much as look at a gun. And that would create serious 2nd Amendment, 8th Amendment and logistical problems.

So what's the alternative? Bring back the assault weapons ban, and bring it back with some teeth this time. Ban the manufacture, importation, sale, transfer and possession of both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Don't let people who already have them keep them. Don't let ones that have already been manufactured stay on the market. I don't care whether it's called gun control or a gun ban. I'm for it.

I say all of this as a gun owner. I say it as a conservative who was appointed to the federal bench by a Republican president. I say it as someone who prefers Fox News to MSNBC, and National Review Online to the Daily Kos. I say it as someone who thinks the Supreme Court got it right in District of Columbia vs. Heller, when it held that the 2nd Amendment gives us the right to possess guns for self-defense. (That's why I have mine.) I say it as someone who, generally speaking, is not a big fan of the regulatory state.

I even say it as someone whose feelings about the NRA mirror the left's feelings about Planned Parenthood: It has a useful advocacy function in our deliberative democracy, and much of what it does should not be controversial at all.

And I say it, finally, mindful of the arguments on the other side, at least as I understand them: that a high-capacity magazine is not that different from multiple smaller-capacity magazines; and that if we ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines one day, there's a danger we would ban guns altogether the next, and your life might depend on you having one.

But if we can't find a way to draw sensible lines with guns that balance individual rights and the public interest, we may as well call the American experiment in democracy a failure.

There is just no reason civilians need to own assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Gun enthusiasts can still have their venison chili, shoot for sport and competition, and make a home invader flee for his life without pretending they are a part of the SEAL team that took out Osama bin Laden.

It speaks horribly of the public discourse in this country that talking about gun reform in the wake of a mass shooting is regarded as inappropriate or as politicizing the tragedy. But such a conversation is political only to those who are ideologically predisposed to see regulation of any kind as the creep of tyranny. And it is inappropriate only to those delusional enough to believe it would disrespect the victims of gun violence to do anything other than sit around and mourn their passing. Mourning is important, but so is decisive action.

Congress must reinstate and toughen the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Larry Alan Burns is a federal district judge in San Diego.

Link to original article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-burns-assault-weapons-ban-20121220,0,6774314.story

America: We are better than this

We must be.



Let's work to be "better than this."

Better than the slaughter of innocents--children--in Connecticut last week.

Better than letting these mass shootings to continue to occur.



Let's end assault weapons.

Let's have a mandatory waiting period--nationwide--for weapons purchases.

Let's have a mandatory background check for mental stability and criminal history.

It's not complicated. And plenty of people will still have guns.

It will be a better--far better--America for all of us.

Return letter from Senator Pat Roberts on America's guns

I'm always about contacting and writing our legislators--specifically our Representatives and Senators in Congress--about important, pertinent issues of the day. Naturally I wrote them after the shooting slaughter in Newtown, Connecticut last week.

After writing Senator Pat Roberts, his office sent me the following note:

Thank you for your letter regarding the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. I appreciate your taking the time to write, and I value your opinion.

The horrific tragedy and the innocent loss of life that occurred on December 14, in Newtown, Connecticut is heartbreaking. As a father and grandfather, my thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends who are mourning the loss of their loved ones. Our nation grieves with them.

Law enforcement is working aggressively to determine what exactly led this obviously mentally ill person to commit such an act. Despite the death of the alleged murderer, I understand the Newtown Police and the FBI are thoroughly investigating this case as if it would go to court so that we may learn from this tragedy. As a society, we must be willing to move beyond the obvious question to really take a hard look at why these senseless acts of violence continue to play out in towns across America. It’s time to have an honest discussion about the culture of violence in America and more specifically, the root cause of this and other types of violence: mental illness. We will have a debate over gun control, however, law enforcement must do its work so that the public is informed, and we can determine appropriate and implementable solutions to prevent future acts of violence by disturbed individuals.

Again thank you for taking the time to contact me. If you would like more information on issues before the Senate, please visit my website at http://roberts.senate.gov. You may also sign up on my home page for a monthly electronic newsletter as well as follow me on Facebook at Facebook.com/SenPatRoberts and Twitter at Twitter.com/SenPatRoberts for additional updates on my work for Kansas.

With every best wish,

Sincerely,

Pat Roberts

I was heartened by this part that "...we must be willing to move beyond the obvious question to really take a hard look at why these senseless acts of violence continue to play out in towns across America..." What seems to point out a possible trend, however, shows itself here. Senator Roberts next line that "...the root cause of this and other types of violence: mental illness" is just nonsense.

Sure, mental illness leads to some of these mass shootings. You have to be, to an extent, either crazy or angry or both to do such a thing. But to blame this shooting on "mental illness" and make that the point takes far too much pressure off the fact that assault weapons are a culprit and need to be banned, thoroughly and simply. They serve no good purpose for hunting nor for anything else positive. They are only good for mowing down large quantities of people very quickly. It looks like mental illness will "take the fall", so to speak, for this insane slaughter.

What's ironic is that the gun supporters and Right Wing and "conservatives" and Republicans that do this will be laying it on our health care system, in spite of the fact that they slash health care funding, public and otherwise, repeatedly.

We are one crazy nation.

An open letter to the NRA

Ladies and gentlemen,

Once more, now, after yet one more mass slaughter of Americans, the time has come, a lot of us believe, to change at least some things in America so we can reduce these, at minimum, in the future. We would ask that you support the following four ideas:

1) Background checks for weapons purchases for mental stability and criminal history;

2) Closing the "gun show loophole" so the background checks can be done;

3) Mandatory 30-day waiting periods for weapons purchases so "crimes of passion" can be avoided and finally,

4) A true ban on assault weapons since they only exist to mow down people and rapidly. They're not good for hunting or any other purpose.

No one connected to reality thinks there will be no weapons in America and no one is realistically pushing for that. The above isn't "gun control" since not that much would change in America. This is just sensible, logical restrictions for the benefit of the country.

I and a lot of Americans out here would appreciate your support for these 4 logical, sensible and enforceable pieces of legislation.

Thank you,

Kevin Evans
Mission, Kansas

We don't need any further restrictions on guns?

Look at this child and tell me we don't need any further sensible, enforceable restrictions on guns in this country.

This is Ana Marquez-Greene.

At least it was.

Her father is Canadian jazz musician Jimmy Greene.

Ana lost her life to a mad man's bullet while sitting in her kindergarten classroom on Friday.

And there were 19 more, just like her.

Columbus Day, indeed

Here's your Christopher Columbus:

What we should do, instead: http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/native-americans-day

Guns and America (guest post)

From and by Michael Moore


Friends,

Since Cain went nuts and whacked Abel, there have always been those humans who, for one reason or another, go temporarily or permanently insane and commit unspeakable acts of violence. There was the Roman Emperor Tiberius, who during the first century A.D. enjoyed throwing victims off a cliff on the Mediterranean island of Capri. Gilles de Rais, a French knight and ally of Joan of Arc during the middle ages, went cuckoo-for-Cocoa Puffs one day and ended up murdering hundreds of children. Just a few decades later Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Dracula, was killing people in Transylvania in numberless horrifying ways.

In modern times, nearly every nation has had a psychopath or two commit a mass murder, regardless of how strict their gun laws are – the crazed white supremacist in Norway one year ago Sunday, the schoolyard butcher in Dunblane, Scotland, the École Polytechnique killer in Montreal, the mass murderer in Erfurt, Germany … the list seems endless.

And now the Aurora shooter last Friday. There have always been insane people, and there always will be.

But here's the difference between the rest of the world and us: We have TWO Auroras that take place every single day of every single year! At least 24 Americans every day (8-9,000 a year) are killed by people with guns – and that doesn't count the ones accidentally killed by guns or who commit suicide with a gun. Count them and you can triple that number to over 25,000.

That means the United States is responsible for over 80% of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest countries combined. Considering that the people of those countries, as human beings, are no better or worse than any of us, well, then, why us?

Both conservatives and liberals in America operate with firmly held beliefs as to "the why" of this problem. And the reason neither can find their way out of the box toward a real solution is because, in fact, they're both half right.

The right believes that the Founding Fathers, through some sort of divine decree, have guaranteed them the absolute right to own as many guns as they desire. And they will ceaselessly remind you that a gun cannot fire itself – that "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Of course, they know they're being intellectually dishonest (if I can use that word) when they say that about the Second Amendment because they know the men who wrote the constitution just wanted to make sure a militia could be quickly called up from amongst the farmers and merchants should the Brits decide to return and wreak some havoc.

But they are half right when they say "Guns don't kill people." I would just alter that slogan slightly to speak the real truth: "Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people."

Because we're the only ones in the first world who do this en masse. And you'll hear all stripes of Americans come up with a host of reasons so that they don't have to deal with what's really behind all this murder and mayhem.

They'll say it's the violent movies and video games that are responsible. Last time I checked, the movies and video games in Japan are more violent than ours – and yet usually fewer than 20 people a year are killed there with guns – and in 2006 the number was two!

Others will say it's the number of broken homes that lead to all this killing. I hate to break this to you, but there are almost as many single-parent homes in the U.K. as there are here – and yet, in Great Britain, there are usually fewer than 40 gun murders a year.

People like me will say this is all the result of the U.S. having a history and a culture of men with guns, "cowboys and Indians," "shoot first and ask questions later." And while it is true that the mass genocide of the Native Americans set a pretty ugly model to found a country on, I think it's safe to say we're not the only ones with a violent past or a penchant for genocide. Hello, Germany! That's right I'm talking about you and your history, from the Huns to the Nazis, just loving a good slaughter (as did the Japanese, and the British who ruled the world for hundreds of years – and they didn't achieve that through planting daisies). And yet in Germany, a nation of 80 million people, there are only around 200 gun murders a year.

So those countries (and many others) are just like us – except for the fact that more people here believe in God and go to church than any other Western nation.

My liberal compatriots will tell you if we just had less guns, there would be less gun deaths. And, mathematically, that would be true. If you have less arsenic in the water supply, it will kill less people. Less of anything bad – calories, smoking, reality TV – will kill far fewer people. And if we had strong gun laws that prohibited automatic and semi-automatic weapons and banned the sale of large magazines that can hold a gazillion bullets, well, then shooters like the man in Aurora would not be able to shoot so many people in just a few minutes.

But this, too, has a problem. There are plenty of guns in Canada (mostly hunting rifles) – and yet the annual gun murder count in Canada is around 200 deaths. In fact, because of its proximity, Canada's culture is very similar to ours – the kids play the same violent video games, watch the same movies and TV shows, and yet they don't grow up wanting to kill each other. Switzerland has the third-highest number of guns per capita on earth, but still a low murder rate.

So – why us?

I posed this question a decade ago in my film 'Bowling for Columbine,' and this week, I have had little to say because I feel I said what I had to say ten years ago – and it doesn't seem to have done a whole lot of good other than to now look like it was actually a crystal ball posing as a movie.

This is what I said then, and it is what I will say again today:

1. We Americans are incredibly good killers. We believe in killing as a way of accomplishing our goals. Three-quarters of our states execute criminals, even though the states with the lower murder rates are generally the states with no death penalty.

Our killing is not just historical (the slaughter of Indians and slaves and each other in a "civil" war). It is our current way of resolving whatever it is we're afraid of. It's invasion as foreign policy. Sure there's Iraq and Afghanistan – but we've been invaders since we "conquered the wild west" and now we're hooked so bad we don't even know where to invade (bin Laden wasn't hiding in Afghanistan, he was in Pakistan) or what to invade for (Saddam had zero weapons of mass destruction and nothing to do with 9/11). We send our lower classes off to do the killing, and the rest of us who don't have a loved one over there don't spend a single minute of any given day thinking about the carnage. And now we send in remote pilotless planes to kill, planes that are being controlled by faceless men in a lush, air conditioned studio in suburban Las Vegas. It is madness.

2. We are an easily frightened people and it is easy to manipulate us with fear. What are we so afraid of that we need to have 300 million guns in our homes? Who do we think is going to hurt us? Why are most of these guns in white suburban and rural homes? Maybe we should fix our race problem and our poverty problem (again, #1 in the industrialized world) and then maybe there would be fewer frustrated, frightened, angry people reaching for the gun in the drawer. Maybe we would take better care of each other (here's a good example of what I mean).

Those are my thoughts about Aurora and the violent country I am a citizen of. Like I said, I spelled it all out here if you'd like to watch it or share it for free with others. All we're lacking here, my friends, is the courage and the resolve. I'm in if you are.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com
@MMFlint
MichaelMoore.com

Missouri in the news, for better or worse

Yes, we're in the news, all right:

Missouri town hopes to have first U.S. horse slaughter plant

Oh, joy.

(Reuters) - "A town in Missouri is trying to be the first of several in the United States to get a new plant to slaughter horses now that Congress has overruled animal rights groups to allow the killing for the first time in five years.

U.S. slaughter of horses ended in 2007 when Congress, at the urging of animal rights groups, halted funding to inspect processing plants. The unintended result was thousands of horses abandoned or neglected, and even more enduring hundreds of miles of travel to Mexico and Canada for slaughter.

After a government report last year detailed the abuses of horses, Congress restored inspection money to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for this year.

"People are giving away horses every day because they can't sell them," said Wayne White, president of the Missouri Equine Council. "All the rescue places are over-populated."

Horse meat is sold for human consumption in China, Russia, Mexico and other foreign countries, according to Unified Equine, a Wyoming company proposing to open a horse-slaughter plant in Rockville, Missouri. Horse meat is also used for zoo animals...

...Residents of Rockville, a town of about 150 people 100 miles south of Kansas City, turned out in force at a meeting last month to support the new plant, said Mayor Dave Moore."

Face it, some of us will do anything for a job.

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/11/us-usa-horses-idUSBRE86A1GT20120711

But like the Sudan, they don't have oil

Gov't says forces loyal to Gbagbo kill 220 in Ivory Coast

So naturally, we aren't going to do a thing about it.

Chicken killing controversy in Concordia, Kansas

It seems a student, one Whitney Hillman of Concordia, Kansas is a good student, making good grades, attending school regularly and then, all of a sudden, went off the chart.

You see, Whitney took an "Animal Science and Food Production" class and in it "...each student would be given a baby chick to raise for six weeks in preparation for slaughter."

And I have to say, I think that's sick, having a kid to raise a chicken, virtually as a pet, and then slaughter it in class.

No wonder she reacted the way she did.

I have a friend and had a Grandfather who both went, as children, to a meat-packing plant and that was it for them for the rest of their lives--no meat.  (At least the Grandfather couldn't touch beef.  He'd eat pork only but only then if it were cooked so dry as to make it nearly flavorless).

For clarification, I'm like Whitney's Mom, according to the story.  She questioned "...why students essentially were allowed to bond with the chicks, only to be asked to kill them later."

I know if we all had to do this--kill our own meat as children--a whole lot more of us would be vegetarians.

And we'd be healthier, too, for it, singularly and as a nation.

Now, where's that little Mexican place I like so much?

Link to original story:  http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/22/2344581_teen-saves-pet-chicken-from-slaughter.html?storylink=omni_popular