Explosive Thoughts

Guns!  Scared yet?  No? 

Guns and Killin'!!!!!!!!!!  Still not scared?

OK, so maybe not scared, but uncomfortable?  Definitely.  Why?  Because when it comes to guns, no one wants to be disagreed with.  Why else would so much money be spent on trying to sway public opinion in either direction?


So why guns???  You, Mr. ToTs are a self-proclaimed gun-totting liberal (aka, a 'Southern Democrat').  What gives?


Well that's an excellent question.  As a living, thinking person, my mind is subject to change.  And from time to time, thoughts are known to occur within the walls of my skull that cause me to consider changing.  These thoughts don't always force change, but they do inspire the possibility.  So what happened this time?


On Saturday, the attempted assassination of a congresswoman in Tucson, AZ, left a 9 year old girl, as well as 5 others, dead.  We went a whole 30 years without a political assassination attempt.  That just may be a record for us 'free' and 'brave' peoples.  Thus begins the great internal debate on:


The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands...oh...shit...sorry...i got carried away...




Throughout the great debate that has since overtaken nearly every television and radio broadcast, as well as news and social networking sites, I began to question points that were being made on both sides.  When so many people are talking so loudly, a lot of it is guaranteed to be bullshit.  We'll look at a little of that, and maybe even create some of our own.


It took about 14 seconds following the news break about this little girl for anti-gun nuts to start the same tired-ass debate about guns, what they do to our society, and the price we pay for having them so easily and readily available.  Then within .14 seconds, the pro-gun nuts retorted back with even less comprehensible gibberish.  My personal favorite bit of regurgitation was this:  "If other people in the crowd had had guns, those people wouldn't be dead."


Why am I picking (almost exclusively) on this poorly constructed bit of bullshit, when there are so many other flawed arguments flying back and forth?  The same reason pro-gun nuts like to sit up in trees and wait for big ass deer to stroll by:  it's an easy target. 


You see, AZ is an open-carry state.  What's that mean?  That means you can walk around with a visible, loaded firearm in your possession in broad daylight, granted you have the appropriate license.  And since there are more guns than adults in the US of A, and AZ has an unusually high concentration of said guns, statistically speaking someone in that crowd did have a gun.  Unfortunately, it was an assassin.  But someone else, most likely, had one.  And did nothing.  Or at least, didn't do something fast enough. 


So, are you saying that we are a nation of cowards, Mr. ToTs?  No, no, no, you're missing the point.  In fact, I think everyone is missing the point.  Let's discuss...


Numbers don't lie.  We are a war-like people.  Always have been.  We even built protections for our pugilistic nature into our constitution.  And we need that Second Amendment, right?  We have to protect ourselves from our government!  So no matter what, we keep our guns!  Right?  Right????  Well...probably.  But are we keeping them for the wrong reasons?


Here I go again, bein' a thinker...  We have this Second Amendment to protect us from our government.  Check.  But how successful has it been?  A theory that can't be tested and proven or disproved is called an assumption. 


Bush 2 left office with a 28% approval rating.  He peaked on his 9th month in office, and went straight down from there.  Obama's has been on a plane-landing-esque descent since...pretty much day 2.  It bobbles up for just the briefest of moments, then sinks without warning like the fish took the bait.  The 111th Congress officially adjourned with an approval rating of...wait...that can't be right?  No way.  13%????  Only 13% of people said that have done "Excellent" or even "Good"????  That's awful.  This congress's AVERAGE approval rating was 25%.  And as we discussed in my first post, that's what statistician types would refer to as a 'dismal failure'.


But do they deserve the rep?  Or is it just another symptom of America's love for hyperbole and extremism?  Let's dig deeper, shall we?  Whichever side of the aisle you sit on, you cannot in good conscience dispute the following (how you feel about them will vary, but they are truth):


-Our lands, water, even airwaves, are bought and sold without our consent, and generate no profit for us. 
-Wall Street was bailed out at the expense of Main Street.  (For better or worse, it happened.)
-Oil companies defile our lands, violate our laws, and endanger our people, while literally getting paid by our government to do it.  They then resell the product, which technically belongs to us, back to us.  For billions of dollars.  Really?  Yes, really. 
-We pay farmers not to grow food while our own people go hungry.
-45-60 Million people go without basic medical care while insurance companies write the laws that govern them, and post record profits along with record rate hikes nearly every year. 
-Our food supply has become a system that fits the needs of big agribusiness, not the grower, grocer, or the consumer.  At best it is considered inefficient.  At worst it is considered a self-serving waste disposal system. 
-The Patriot Act stripped us of basic civil liberties, most of which have still not been given back (again, you may think this is fine, I don't care about that.  I'm dealing in facts right now)
-Economic stratification is at extremely high levels. Some say ever, other say since the Great Depression. 
-The majority of the country has been unhappy with the majority of the government for the majority of the past 11 years.  Its been even longer than that since there was true consensus of any kind. 
-Our economy sucks, and every time a little hope pops up another major city, state, or soveriegn nation goes bankrupt. 
-Our military has become the enforcement wing for a foreign policy that the vast majority of the country, and the world, disapproves of.


Again, again, again, again...stop the arguing inside your head, reader.  Now is not the time for that.  Not one opinion appeared on that list.  You may say "of course they sell us oil for profit.  Business without profit is socialism, which is the devil's whore...and..."  Then I may interrupt you and say, "I don't give a damn.  I'm just stating facts."  Your opinion is yours, but the truth belongs to everyone. 


So...our country's in the pooper socially, economically, and politically.  We allow ourselves to be exploited constantly by corporations that we work for.  We're falling behind (and fast) as a global power on the fronts of education and industry.  Our jobs move overseas while 10% remain in a near-permanent state of unemployment.  Our debt is owned by ideological enemies.  Our gluttony is financed by those who have an interest in weakening us.  And pretty much everyone agrees (although for different reasons) that our government is to blame.  If you believe any news program you have watched on any channel since Bush 2's inauguration, you know that our government is destroying our country. 


And our kids are dying at the hands of the instrument that was allegedly meant to prevent all that. 


Funny how that works.  That is, it would be if "funny" meant 'my stomach just turned'.

Now here's the legal disclaimer:  I'm not advocating violence or anarchy.  I'm not advocating assassination or extremism of any kind. I'm not advocating a repeal of the Second Amendment.

I'm advocating thought.  When it comes to guns, like so many other things in our lives, do we get what we pay for?   I don't mean that in the typical benefit to cost ratio schema that the anti-gun nuts love to flip chart.  See, they are answering the wrong question.  We don't outlaw liquor or cars when the combination of the two may have fatal consequences.  I think there is a place for guns in civil society, but as we discuss that position moving forward, let's clear the air of all the bullshit.  Also consider, as we define the direction we take following this tragedy, sound advice for a happy marriage may also stand as sound advice for a civil society:  Never make big decisions while upset. 

Thanks for reading.  Agree or disagree, I hope you thought.