Blind Love

Calhoun's Cannons for Sept 19, 2013

 The US seems a country hell-bent on its own failure

                                      Clive Crook

Did you know that in Iowa, the very heartland of America, a legally blind man can go into a gun store and buy any kind of weapon he wants?  It's true.  And it's delicious to think about.  The white cane.  The guide dog.  The AR-15.  It's the perfect symbol for what America has become.

It's perfect because it's absurd, its potential for pointless, bloody death is extremely high, and nobody with a lick of sense seems to think that this was not a good idea.  That's because, in America, guns trump public safety, trump common sense, trump everything.  And the public's appetite for pointless, bloody death is still not slaked. Far from it.  Our blood lust seems limitless.

Twenty-two little slaughtered kids didn't do the trick.  Now, 12 more killings at the Washington Navy Yard hardly caused a ripple, except for the usual media hand-wringing: A few days of, Oh, Dear, sigh, well, nothing to be done, our hearts go out to the families, time for closure, let's move on. And we got a few days of the usual questions -- How did a deranged man get his hands on weapons without even a background check? The answers  remain buried in the back pages, but I'll give you a hint: With the NRA's help, all sensible gun laws have carefully crafted loopholes built in to them to make the laws basically moot -- mere window dressing to shut up the noisy grieving parents and heart-broken, outraged communities.

That's because, in a country that finds nothing absurd in selling guns to blind people, gun ownership trumps everything. After all, it's a "right," and "rights" can always be demagogued even into absurdity -- one town's mandatory own/carry law that forces even blind fools into being gun-toting vigilantes. What can possibly go wrong with that?

And so we plod on, the body count growing, day by day.  And that's clearly O.K. with us.  That's how much we love our guns.  More than our children, more than our fellow citizens.  So we pretend to write gun laws that are more sieve than shield, then shift the blame for the mayhem to video games and mental health and poverty and poor schools, all of which can be ignored utterly since doing something about those interlocked and complicated things will require higher taxes and a heavy-lift commitment to create (and pay for) a decent society.  So, that's off the table. Who wants a decent society when we can have a society that sells guns to blind people?

So America turns itself into one big "Jackass" movie.  Absurd, idiotic, with a high potential for pointless, bloody, sophomoric mayhem.  Which is why I now find myself turning the page and changing channels when news of another slaughter appears.  It's not "compassion fatigue," really.  More like "rerun fatigue."  It's all become annoying background noise, like a loud lawnmower motor on a quiet Sunday morning;  You know you can't do anything about it since your neighbor has a "right" to mow his lawn anytime he wants to, and his "right" to mow his lawn trumps your "right" to peace and quiet.  So you block the sound from your mind since nothing will be done to change the situation.  

It's a hell of a way to live, especially since We the People have the tools and the capacity to create a different country, but choose not to.  And so we end up with a country that sees no problem in selling guns even to blind people. And then keeps wondering why things keep going so terribly wrong.

       

O.K. Aurora, Time To Move On

O.K. Aurora, enough with the boo-hooing.  The President has shown up and felt your pain.  The Pols have nattered on about the strength of the community and how it will come together to heal.  The Pols and yakking TV heads have all said that now is not the time to mention the word "gun." God forbid anyone discuss the issue or start asking questions.  Noooo, can't have that discussion.  Need to mop the blood off the floor first.  And by that time the topic will be soooo yesterday that nobody will bother.

At the I-Feel-Your-Pain memorial service, Aurora mayor, Steve Hogan, read out the names of the dead and asked the crowd to respond to each name by calling out,"We will remember."

Really?  Remember?

The next day the headline in the L.A. Times Calendar entertainment section said, "Moviegoers undeterred by tragedy," and noted that the Batman movie broke all records and continues to break records.  Nothing like a little killing to goose the ratings.  Lots of money to be made in them there multi-plexes.  Lots of money.

The radio news reports that sales of guns have skyrocketed.  The reporter says it's a fear-fueled spike.  Nothing like more guns in the hands of unstable, scared crazy people to fix the problem of too many guns in the hands of unstable, scared crazy people. 

Over at the website "Rotten Tomatoes," anonymous bloggers started posting ugly, threatening remarks about the few critics who dared offer an opinion of the Batman film that was less than glowing.  The web editor had to suspend user comments, so ugly and hateful had the anonymous posters had become.

Ugly, hateful anonymous posters filled with rage, posted by unstable, scared crazy people seething with fury.  That's now our zeitgeist.  But, we can't talk about that either.  Not now.  Remember, now is the time to focus on the families of the dead.  Oh, and keep moping up the blood.  So much blood.  So many mops. Better order more to get ready for the next gun slaughter, which will come like clockwork. Especially since there's now even more guns in the hands of even more unstable, scared, crazy angry people.

Yes, it's our National Wack-A-Mole Game and it's being played in Alzheimer Nation!  Can't beat it for blood AND constant short-term-memory surprise! Woa! did you see that?  12 dead.  Who could predict that!  Woa! 8 dead. That's never happened before!  Woa! 18 dead. Who knew that could happen!  Woa!  32 dead.  Never saw that coming!  Woa! . . . .  

But let's not talk about that either, time to move on, let the healing begin, we'll remember, blah-blah, blah.

Right. 

  

 

Another View

Chris Boyle, a friend of mine who lives up north, wrote the following in response to the recent Colorado slaughter and I am posting this with permission.  There is so much that can be said about this issue, so many questions that can be asked, so much that can be done. If only . . . 

Violence in America: The Enemy Within!

The Denver Theater, Trayvon Martin, Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords, Virginia Tech, Columbine . . . why do we continue to gun down people in movie theaters, urban projects, suburbs, grocery stores, schools and universities? Is killing innocent men, women and children part of the “American Way”?  The answer, unfortunately, seems to be "yes."  It’s true that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," but it's also true that it's significantly easier for people to kill people if they use guns.

The depth of the commitment to the right to own fire arms means that we're not going to see the end of guns on sale at Wal-Mart, and local sporting stores, any time soon.  In fact the opposite is true.  Just last year the retail giant decided to resume the sale of guns to attract more male buyers and revive its appeal as a “one-stop shopping” destination.  I bet that if you listen closely, you can hear, “Honey, can you pick up some diapers and milk at the store?  And while you’re there, can you pick up a Remington 12-gauge shot gun?

Yes, our culture has taught us that there’s not much of a difference between diapers and guns.  Violence is as American as Mom’s apple pie.  The recent tragedy at the suburban Denver multiplex theater brings this into sharp focus.  As the new and highly anticipated Batman release from Warner’s, "The Dark Knight Rises” played on the screen, a gunman dressed in black and wearing a helmet, body armor and a gas mask entered the theater from a side door and stood there – his shape outlined by the streetlights outside the door. According to witnesses, so blurred was the division between fantasy and reality, that some of the audience thought that the killer was part of a promotional stunt for the movie.

 

Like nearly all superhero films made today, the movie has several violent scenes of public mayhem. In which criminals and murderers target innocent citizens and the police.  In one scene, the villain Bane leads an attack on the stock exchange and, in another, leads a shooting and bombing rampage on a packed football stadium, much like the multiplex theater.  One law-enforcement official on the scene said that the 24-year-old grad student, suspected of murdering 12 and leaving 59 others injured during a midnight screening, "had his hair painted red...he was the Joker."  Can the violence in “Dark Knight Rises” or Batman video games be blamed for this?

Yes, I think they’re a big part of the problem.  To be clear, the guns used by students, or gangs, or unhinged, delusional individuals have certainly killed people.  However, that’s only half of the story.  The real truth is closer than you think.  They are our kids who have been fed an endless stream of violent video games, music, movies and prescription psychotropic drugs. It is well known that many of the student mass murderers were being prescribed mind-altering psychiatric drugs. T.J. Solomon, the 15-year-old from Conyers, Georgia who shot six classmates in May 1999, was on Ritalin; Eric Harris, 18 years old, the Columbine killer, was being prescribed the anti-depressant Luvox; and Kip Kinkel, the 15-year-old from Springfield, Oregon who killed both parents, two schoolmates, and wounded 20 other students on May 21, 1998, was being prescribed Prozac, one of the most widely prescribed among the anti-depressants.

It’s also about Baby-Boomers, members of my generation who have abandoned their families and divorcing in record numbers.  One of the unfortunate legacies of the “Me Generation” are these overly prescribed, often spoiled, unsupervised and undisciplined children who have learned the being disrespectful is cool.  Raised with a sense of entitlement, many are also angry because they can’t find jobs in a down economy, and need a focus and outlet for their rage.  The most troubled end up as “Stone- Cold Nintendo Killers,” but in many ways, they are victims too.  It’s worth noting that the gunman in Denver was only 24 years of age and the 4 weapons, 6,000 rounds of ammo and SWAT protective gear he used were all legally purchased. 

These are some of the real issues informing our “gun-toting” culture of violence.  It’s true that "guns don't kill people, people kill people," but it's also true that it's significantly easier for the angry and alienated among us to kill people if they use guns.

 Chris Boyle

Carmel, CA

Just Another Day

Calhoun’s Can(n)ons for January 14, 10

The shooting was nothing special. Just another unbalanced, angry young man with a gun. A rapid-fire Glock-9 with a 30-round clip that can kill a great many people in a very short amount of time. In this case, six people, including a 9 year-old girl. Nothing special in a country awash with gun deaths.

Except for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. That was a bit unusual. But not enough to make a real change in how easy it is for unbalanced angry young men to get rapid-fire guns. This particular shooting took place in Arizona, the Tombstone state, a state with one of the most lax gun laws in the nation, a state where armed citizens no longer even need a permit to carry concealed weapons. And Arizona likes it that way. It has even proposed a law that would allow college students to carry weapons to school. And the Congresswoman herself had a Glock-9 and noted that she was “a pretty good shot.”

Since it was a Congresswoman who was shot, the talk turned immediately to the possibility that this unbalanced young man’s anger had been fueled by the angry political rhetoric sloshing around in our polarized, angry nation. Clips and sound bites of “reload,” and being “armed and ready,” “blood of patriots,” “the Second Amendment remedy,” “if ballots don’t work, bullets will,” and Sarah Palin’s now infamous web page showing gun-sight “targets” zeroing in on various contested congressional races, including the Arizona district where Congresswoman Giffords was running for election. Indeed, a few weeks before the shooting Ms. Giffords herself was on TV complaining about Ms. Palin’s “targets,” saying that rhetoric like that was likely to result in “consequences.”

For Congresswoman Giffords, it certainly may have. A bullet through the brain. And six dead.

But Americans love their toxic talk and both sides of the political spectrum got busy pointing fingers at the other, though by sheer sound-bite numbers, the right wing won that contest. You can’t beat TV clips of armed “tea-party” folks showing up at political rallies wearing weapons and carrying signs lauding blood-spilling “patriots.” And those targets on a map, about which, Palin’s spokespeople spent a great deal of time explaining they weren’t, uh, gun sights, no, they were just “target marks” like you would use on a survey map. Thereby illustrating that the Palin camp must think Americans are truly dumb because nobody with any sense was buying that story. Not from the Moose-shooting Mama with her own “reality” show featuring her blasting away at furry animals for her cook-pot. If a person knows what a gun sight looks like, it’s Palin.

So, no, it was a lock ‘n load gun sight and part of the “armed and dangerous” right-wing rhetorical meme: We’re angry, aggrieved and armed and we’re gonna target and take “our” country back from, well, all those people, and if we have to use bullets instead of ballots, so be it. But that didn’t stop our Sarah from going on Facebook to play the appalling inappropriate “blood libel” victim card in response to left wing finger pointing. Then everyone ran for cover, pretending they knew nothing about anything.

So that discussion will soon fade from the airwaves and it’ll be back to attack-dog business as usual. Toxic, poisonous, raging talk radio is both popular and highly profitable to the sponsors and stations that carry it, and to the stations’ corporate owners. Asking people like Limbaugh or Beck to “tone it down” might cut into the bottom line, so that won’t happen. Rage sells. Fear sells. And paranoia is the American Style.

Lost in much of the partisan rhetoric was the mentally unstable young man. Speaker of the House, John Boehner has stated that America has the finest health care in the world. But I suspect that the shooter, the unstable young man with voices in his head, found that in his America, his finest health care in the world likely didn’t cover treating mental illness. Few insurance policies do and state-run mental health facilities are under-funded, or broke and failing. This is in part because in finest-health-care-America, we have the odd notion that somehow the mentally ill “choose” to be mentally ill and while completely insane have the right to refuse treatment, have the right to live under bridges, and the right to starve in the streets while talking to non-existent people. And, of course, the right to buy guns.

So there it all was. The usual suspects. Guns. A toxic, angry culture. A mentally disturbed angry young man. Lousy mental health care. Nothing special. Nothing unusual. It was just another day in America. Nothing has changed and nothing will change.

Except for six people, including a 9 year- old girl.