Bottoms Up!

Calhoun’s Cannons for Dec 28  2012

Twenty little kids were killed in Newtown, Connecticut and Americans were asked to give up their military style assault weapons.  America said, “No.”

That’s addiction.

Twenty children were slaughtered in Newton, and Americans feared that maybe assault weapons would be banned, so they rushed out and bought more assault weapons.

That’s not the Second Amendment, that’s addiction.

Wayne LaPierre, head of the N.R.A and chief lobbyist for the gun industry said the reason twenty children were murdered in their school by a young man with assault weapons was because Hollywood made violent movies.  He then declared that the solution to gun violence in America is MORE guns everywhere in the hands of everybody, and America said, “Sounds good to me!” and ran out to buy more guns.  

That’s not a sane gun policy, that’s addiction.

Last year firearm sales jumped up 14 percent.  In a depressed economy with massive numbers of people out of work, gun shops and gun manufacturers were thriving, business was booming and very expensive weapons were flying off the shelves.  Baby needs a new pair of shoes?  Sorry, not when I need to buy another gun.  

That’s not a well regulated militia, that’s addiction.

A Congresswoman was gunned down in Arizona and nationwide, gun sales immediately spiked.  Moviegoers were slaughtered in Colorado and gun sales jumped even higher. Twenty kids died in a hail of bullets and gun sales again went through the roof. Clearly, in gun addicted America, dead kids equal increased sales and profits. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d suspect that Wayne LaPierre was hiring shooters himself to get and keep those fourth-quarter sales numbers up. 

Now, that’s great marketing (Dead kids = higher profits) and  addiction.

Fortress America.  This is what we’ve become.  Frightened hoarders irrationally buying more and more guns, hunkered down in our basements with boxes of ammo all around us waiting for the invading armies of those scary Russian/Chinese/Negro/Women/Mexican/Muslims to come thundering down Elm Street.  We have militarized our cities and homes and streets.  We have militarized our culture, our children, our lives. We have sanctified the Second Amendment above life and liberty itself.  Instead of the New Jerusalem, we have become a paranoid, weaponized comic-opera  Sparta – a mentally unstable, untrained gang that can’t shoot straight, a nation that’s become a danger to itself and others, a nation that routinely accepts the constant slaughter of its citizenry as normal, and before the bodies are even cold goes out and buys more guns. Then says there’s no problem here.

That’s addiction and denial of addiction.

Now we have twenty dead kids and a few people are asking:  Will Newtown finally spark an intervention?  If so, who is left to do it?  

Congress?  Too many of them are wholly owned by the N. R.A. and the N.R.A’s job is to sell more guns.  We, the People?  That’s impossible since addicts in denial cannot see the problem. And if you cannot see the problem, you cannot solve the problem. And to America, twenty dead kids clearly isn’t a problem. 

So we greet a new year and wait for the next slaughter and wonder, “If twenty doesn’t do the trick, is there a number that will?” And to our everlasting shame, I suspect the answer will be, “No.”