California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

A Superpower in Decline

by John Lawrence

1) Rights taken away from women. The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to outlaw nearly all abortions in Arizona will likely lead to an influx of patients fleeing the state to find care in California, abortion rights activists said.

2) The world's policeman can't police its own borders. The asylum law lets anyone setting foot on American soil ask for asylum. Court dates for asylum cases are, on average, more than four years out in the future, and even longer for final decisions. Over 3 million cases were pending before immigration courts near the end of 2023, with the backlog growing by 1 million since 2022.

3) The archaic electoral college has never been replaced by a direct popular vote for President. The result is that the winner of the popular vote has not been elected President. Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but Bush was elected President. The Florida Supreme Court sided with Gore, but Bush appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ultimately voted 5 to 4 to reverse the Florida court’s decision and halt the recount. With Florida in hand, Bush won the Electoral College 271 to 266, while Gore ended up getting 500,000 more votes in the popular vote. As a result Gore's push for limits on global warming was lost as Bush promoted fossil fuels. Also Bush lied the US into a disastrous war in Iraq that resulted in Iraq becoming an ally of Iran.

4) 750 military bases in 80 countries are sitting ducks for an attack by Iran or its proxies. The largest U.S. base in the Middle East is located in Qatar, known as Al Udeid Air Base and built in 1996. Other countries where the U.S. has a presence include Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The US spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. Three American service members were killed and dozens more were injured in an unmanned aerial drone attack on a base known as Tower 22 in Jordan on January 28, 2024. Now that the US is expecting an attack by Iran, which sitting duck will be next?

5) An insurrectionist with several dozen indictments is allowed to run for President. Last year, Donald Trump became the first former president of the United States to be criminally indicted. Over the span of five months, he was indicted in four separate criminal cases and charged on a total of 91 felony counts.

6) Futile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush lied us into war in Iraq. Osama bin Laden eventually killed in Obama administration by small Seal team, proving futility of invading Afghanistan

7) Wealth inequality. The United States exhibits wider disparities of wealth between rich and poor than any other major developed nation. There are now more billionaires than ever: 2,781 in all, 141 more than last year and 26 more than the record set in 2021. They’re richer than ever, worth $14.2 trillion in aggregate, up by $2 trillion from 2023 and $1.1 trillion above the previous record, also set in 2021. 

8) Housing unaffordability. San Diego families need an income of nearly $275,000 a year to afford a mortgage on a home, which is nearly double what it was before the pandemic, according to a new report from the real estate website Zillow.

9) Homelessness is an intractable problem. On any given night in the United States, more than half a million people experience homelessness.

10) The filibuster rule and the bicameral legislature. Nothing much can get done unless one party controls both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. President Biden looks stupid since he can't even keep his commitments to NATO because the Republican controlled House won't vote the funds Biden has promised. This means Ukraine will lose the war with Russia, and other countries cannot trust the US to keep its commitments.

11) The Second Amendment. No other country allows the uncontrolled proliferation of guns. More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That included record numbers of both gun murders and gun suicides.

Off the Top of My Head

Four Things That Would Make America a Better Democracy That Will Never Be Implemented

by John Lawrence

They are 1) Elect the President based on popular vote. Eliminate the electoral college. 2) Eliminate gerrymandering. 3) Eliminate the filibuster. 4) Eliminate the Second Amendment. These four things could all be done; there is nothing structurally standing in the way. It's just that the only practical way that they could be accomplished is to scrap the whole Constitution and start over. Many other countries have done just that. Sometimes that's accomplished by having a revolution, but a revolution is not always necessary. Numerous countries change their constitution each year. Already this year we have observed new constitutions in Fiji and Zimbabwe and constitutional amendments in Brazil, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Mexico, Switzerland and Tonga. A typical constitution lasts only 19 years, which means that, on average, 5 constitutions are replaced and 30 are amended each year.

The US Constitution is 236 years old. Is it outdated? You bet. But the obstacles to amending it or replacing it are all but impassable, not to mention unthinkable. The result is that the US as a political system is getting to the point of being unworkable. Right now the government is planning to shut down as the Republican controlled House cannot come up with a budget. The two parties are completely at odds. Biden is seemingly the last person capable of constructing a compromise between the parties that has allowed the country to move forward at least on some levels. The US voting system known as first-past-the-post practically guarantees that there will be a two party system. Third parties, while almost never successful at electing their candidates, act as spoilers to the other two major parties. This distorts the democratic will of the people by electing the party least favored. Another voting system could rectify this defect, but the US will never implement another kind of voting system at the national level although some entities have done so at the local level.

The US Constitution is regarded by many as the political equivalent of the Bible. It is unthinkable that it should be revised or amended. Thomas Jefferson made an effort to revise the Bible. The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, was completed in 1820 by cutting and pasting with a razor and glue numerous sections from the New Testament as extractions of the doctrine of Jesus. Jefferson's condensed composition excludes all miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural, including sections of the four gospels that contain the Resurrection and most other miracles, and passages that portray Jesus as divine. Needless to say the Jefferson Bible did not make the New York Times best sellers list or the eighteenth century version of that. There are various groups working on a new Constitution for the US, but there is no consensus that a new one is necessary just as there is no consensus that a new and revised version of the Bible is necessary.

Off the Top of My Head

The Difference Between Chinese and US Philosophy

by John Lawrence

Western philosophy is predicated on the individual and the philosophy that the best society is one in which the individual is completely and totally free. Freedom of the individual is the bedrock of the US Constitution which spells out individual rights but not individual responsibilities. Freedom is spelled out in John Stuart Mill's book On Liberty, but it goes back even further than that all the way to the life of Jesus who, as demonstrated in the New King James version of Luke, when his mother was looking for him famously said to her,  “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” So for Jesus the freedom to pursue his career took precedence over familial responsibilities. Chinese philosophy places the emphasis on the fact that familial responsibilities should take precedence over individual freedom. That is the basic philosophical difference between US and Chinese philosophy. Confucius, who is the penultimate philosopher for Chinese society, had a different view regarding the relations of human beings to society. According to Roger T. Ames, Theorizing the Person in Confucian Ethics,"How or in what way (dao) do persons in their roles become consummately humane (ren)? This was the perennial Confucian question asked explicitly in all of the Four Books: in the Great Learning, in the Analects of Confucius, in the Mencius, and again in the Zhongyong. And from the time of Confucius onward, the answer was a moral, aesthetic, and ultimately religious one. Persons (necessarily plural) become humane by cultivating those thick, intrinsic relations that constitute our initial conditions that locate the trajectory of our life narrative - its whence and whither - within family, community, and cosmos."

The Chinese emphasis is on harmony and stability whether at the familial level or at the societal level. Western society emphasizes individual liberty in the hope that the societal level will take care of itself. The US Constitution emphasizes individual rights; there is no mention of individual responsibilities. There is the hope that individuals competing among themselves will end up with the result that society will flourish, but there is no direct connection as there is in Chinese philosophy. Article 53 of the Chinese Constitution states: "Citizens of the People's Republic of China must abide by the Constitution and the law, keep state secrets, protect public property, observe discipline in the workplace, observe public order, and respect social morality." Article 54 states: "Citizens of the People's Republic of China shall have the obligation to safeguard the security, honor and interests of the motherland; they must not behave in any way that endangers the motherland's security, honor or interests."

While the Chinese Constitution also grants political rights such as freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, and religion and also economic rights, the Constitution also emphasizes obligations and responsibilities. Article 51 states: "When exercising their freedoms and rights, citizens of the People's Republic of China shall not undermine the interests of the state, society or collectives, or infringe upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens."

There is an emphasis on order, social morality, not infringing on the interests of others or society in general. Americans find this emphasis on social cohesiveness and stability too restraining and inhibiting of their rights as guaranteed in the American Constitution. The US Constitution's emphasis on individual rights without a concomitant emphasis on responsibilities has produced major instabilities in American society. The fall back position for the US is complete dependence on the rule of law and the preservation of American institutions rather than a libertarian view of freedom. Basically, the US, in order to preserve US democracy has had to come up with an almost Chinese position regarding societal stability. The January 6 insurrection and subsequent indulgence in free speech by certain actors to and beyond the point of truth telling has resulted in a continuing threat to US democracy. Certain members of American society are pushing Constitutional guarantees of free speech and gun rights to the point of undermining US democracy in general. Perhaps the American Constitution needs to be rethunk or at least amended. The Republican party threatens the destruction of American society unless they get their way.

Off the Top of My Head

Mass Murderers Get Much More Than Their 15 Minutes of Fame

by John Lawrence

The perpetrator of the recent mass murder in the Q night club wants to be addressed as "they" and "them" because he is "non-binary." How about if we address him as "you sonofabitch." Barely, have we gotten done with one mass murder in the news cycle than another one comes along to take precedence. The news these days consists mainly of covering one mass murder after another. Mass murderers are lining up. Next? Better make sure the news cycle is clear so that your atrocity takes over the headlines. Then we hear all about the perpetrator's messed up childhood, and, if there is a court trial, the news media dutifully covers it giving the murderer another 15 minutes of fame at least. Recently, families of the victims were upset when a mass murderer was given a sentence of free room and board for life with no possibility of ever having to make a living for himself rather than the death penalty. The news media and a coterie of lawyers, not to mention gun manufacturers and merchandisers are making a small fortune off of the mass murder business. Here's an idea; mass murderers caught in the act should immediately be taken out and shot thus avoiding the news cycle, numerous lawyers, pundits pontificating, authors hawking books and displays of grieving and mourning. It's all become a predictable big business. Yes, the GDP would decrease slightly, but who cares. We have become a mass culture of mass murder spectacles.

So the Second Amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." What is well-regulated, much less militia-like about individuals going out and buying an AK-47 and committing mass murder over some real or perceived grievance? By the way, the news media informs us that "the police have not yet discovered a motive." They never do. What possible motive could there be for mass murder that would justify it? The motive is the fact that the mass murderer is fucked up. Saying that he - and it always is a "he" - is mentally ill, is a means of evoking sympathy for someone who deserves none. But if individual mass murderers are fucked up, so is the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court decided in the Heller case that the Second Amendment gave individuals the right to own (and use) guns. What about the "well regulated militia" bullshit? The Supreme Court basically backed the rights of mass murderers. Now according to recent reports: Six million Americans carried guns daily in 2019, twice as many as in 2015. And this: "The trend is expected to continue, after the supreme court ruling earlier this year overturning strict limits on public gun-carrying." Whose side is the Supreme Court on? 

Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us." True. The enemy is not "out there." It is the very wonderful American people themselves and the very vaunted Supreme Court which is so concerned about preserving life in the womb and so unconcerned about preserving life once it's outside the womb. After spending a trillion dollars a year on our military and military-industrial complex, it seems we as a nation are powerless to stop Americans from self immolating. So Americans have to come to expect one mass killing after another in assembly line like fashion. Next? They are already getting in line. Fame and fortune and a free meal ticket for life awaits. Meanwhile, the rest of us are reminded of John Milton's poem: "we also serve who only stand and wait." The rest of us go to our boring jobs, take care of our traumatized families and hope for a better life for us and our children if the world doesn't burn up due to global warming. Please, President Biden, do something about assault rifles.

Off the Top of My Head

Problem of American Democracy: Constitution Guarantees Freedoms Without Demanding Responsibilities

by John Lawrence

There is nothing asked of an American citizen by the Constitution. It just gives citizens all kinds of freedoms - freedom of speech, assembly etc - without saying what the responsibilities or obligations of citizens are. It is just a free lunch for citizens. They have no responsibility either to the state or to their fellow citizens. This has led to the situation where every free agent is totally in it for theirself without regard to the interests or plight of anyone else. For instance the rich have no responsibility to alleviate the suffering of the poor. The poor must independently pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. This is the philosophy of liberal individualism. There is no responsibility for any American to the community as a whole. The 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights enumerated the many rights which enlightened governments should guarantee to their citizens. The US guarantees the political and civil rights, but stops short of guaranteeing Article 25: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

Article 25 is a step too far for the American way of life which guarantees political and civil liberties, but not economic liberties because that would encumber some better off individuals to be responsible for some less better off individuals, and the philosophy of liberal individualism promotes individual initiative without any sense of responsibility for anyone else. What's mine is mine, and no one else including the government has a right to take any of my stuff away from me and give it to anyone else even if they are starving, homeless and sick.

In 1997 the InterAction Council decided to come up with "A Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities" to counterbalance the UN Declaration of Human Rights. They stated in the introduction: "Globalization of the world economy is matched by global problems, and global problems demand global solutions on the basis of ideas, values and norms respected by all cultures and societies. Recognition of the equal and inalienable rights of all the people requires a foundation of freedom, justice and peace – but this also demands that rights and responsibilities be given equal importance to establish an ethical base so that all men and women can live peacefully together and fulfill their potential. A better social order both nationally and internationally cannot be achieved by laws, prescriptions and conventions alone, but needs a global ethic. Human aspirations for progress can only be realized by agreed values and standards applying to all people and institutions at all times."

In other words we are all in this together so it's not enough to "get government off our back." In return for the wonderful freedoms government guarantees to us, government should ask for something in return both to the society as a whole and to our fellow citizens. It's not enough to be free and equal although the meaning of equal is up for debate. The motto of the French revolution was Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. At least there was a mention of "brotherhood", Fraternite, in the French motto even if the French have argued whether or not it means that they have any responsibility to their fellow French men and women. There is a growing realization that freedom must be balanced with responsibility. Otherwise, American democracy is just a big free lunch. You get all this stuff guaranteed by the Constitution including the rule of law with an elaborate court system which protects you from bodily harm, thievery and much else, but there are no explicit responsibilities on your part. It's as if your Dad gave you the keys to the car and said, "Here take it. It's yours" without asking for anything in return.

Article 7 of the Declaration of Human Responsibilities says: "All people have a responsibility to protect the air, water and soil of the earth for the sake of present inhabitants and future generations." There is a lack of responsibility on the part of some Americans who want to maximize quarterly profits without any consideration of the environment or global warming.The US Constitution allows them to do so. It makes no demands on them in this regard or in any other regard. The American way is to seek one's self-interest without regard to fellow Americans or the environment and self-interest in most cases means to maximize profits even when the maximizer is a billionaire with more money than they could ever hope to spend. Some Constitutions not only specify rights but duties as well. The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man adopted by the Ninth International Conference of American States in Bogota, Columbia specifies among other things that one has both a right and a duty to work if able-bodied.

Americans are only tuned into their rights, but not their responsibilities because the Constitution makes no demands on them in this regard. This leads to and is partly responsible for the break down of the American democratic system. Too many disaffected people feel lost in a society which basically tells them, "You're on your own Buddy. Don't ask me for help." Too many people don't want their tax money going to help the homeless, the mentally ill or those who are barely scraping by. Societal stability is not as important as protecting someone's right to own a gun. Too much freedom without responsibility can lead to the breakdown of democracy, but the US is not really a democracy. As Ben Franklin said, "It's a republic, if you can keep it."

Off the Top of My Head

Why None of the Proposed Federal Legislation Will Stop Gun Violence

by John Lawrence

The proposed legislation is little more than a farce even if it passes. When the most radical item is raising the legal age to 21 for purchasing an AR-15, the whole context of gun control is rendered risible. There will still be 120.5 guns in circulation for every American. None of the proposed legislation will limit the number of gun sales let alone getting guns out of circulation and off the streets. The only effective legislation would be to outlaw the sale of AR-15s completely and initiate a mandatory buy back program to get rid of these guns. This is not even thinkable in terms of the rationality of American lawmakers. The proposed legislation is just skirting around the edges, and it will do nothing to curb gun violence.

After a mass shooting in Australia in 1996, Australia not only banned the sale of AR-15 type guns, it initiated a mandatory buy back program to get these guns off the streets. New Zealand did the same thing after a mass shooting in 2019. In both cases mass shootings and gun deaths in general plummeted. These two countries have demonstrated that the only effective way to counter the American culture of gun violence is to take the drastic step of banning assault rifles and getting the ones already in circulation off the streets by initiating a buy back program. The US, of course, will not take these "radical" steps, and so mass shootings and huge numbers of gun deaths will continue unabated. In a sense legislators are facilitating by means of their inaction the next slaughter of innocent school children. These people who are supposedly running this country fail to realize that gun violence is systemic now in American culture and their "solutions" will do little or nothing to eradicate it. Thank God my parents who were educators never had to even imagine this problem.

BBC News reported:

Firearms deaths are a fixture in American life.

There were 1.5 million of them between 1968 and 2017 - that's higher than the number of soldiers killed in every US conflict since the American War for Independence in 1775.

In 2020 alone, more than 45,000 Americans died at the end of a barrel of a gun, whether by homicide or suicide, more than any other year on record. The figure represents a 25% increase from five years prior, and a 43% increase from 2010.

I for one advocate getting rid of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. No country should enshrine in its Constitution any language which can be interpreted, as these words have been, to give any citizen the absolute right to own a gun. It has been pointed out again and again that there are more restrictive laws for car ownership than there are for gun ownership. The framers of the US Constitution made a big mistake when they didn't qualify the Second Amendment. They could have saved a lot of innocent people being killed if they had. The same thing applies to the First Amendment, but that is a subject for another day. Even the legal shooting of guns is no more than a "hobby" if you want to call the slaying of innocent animals a hobby. This is a hobby that has been elevated, unfortunately, to a Constitutional right with totally devastating results. Any other hobby that killed people would be legislated out of existence. The US needs to follow the example of countries like Australia and New Zealand which have treated gun violence in a sensible manner with the result that gun deaths in those countries have drastically diminished. But this is just another Problem of American Democracy which is putting the US on a downhill slide.

Off the Top of My Head

And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. Mark 9:42

by John Lawrence

We're going to need quite a few millstones for all the Republicans (and a couple of Democrats) who won't vote to get rid of assault rifles because they are the facilitators of the next school shooting. Whoever thinks gun ownership is more important than childrens' lives is a sick, sad sack of shit. Nobody except the police needs to own a gun. Forget "sport shooting." Is that more important than a child's life? Is deer hunting or the killing of other wild animals more important than childrens' lives. There is no existential need for hunting or target shooting or any other activities involving guns that at all compares with the prevention of the destruction of childrens' lives and the lives of their families. A lot of these conservative Republicans are Christians, so they say. Well, do they give lip service to the above quote from the Bible? Do they take that literally that, if they support the sale of assault rifles, they should have a millstone hung around their neck and deposited in the depths of the ocean. Probably more than half of them don't even know what a millstone is. Well it was something used to grind wheat into flour back in the day, back in the day when water power was used instead of fossil fuel to process food.

So now in addition to the gun culture in America there is a "school shoot-em-up" culture. These people, like the gunman in Uvalde, post all their upcoming deeds on social media. Yet the authorities, who evidently can follow all the intentions of foreign countries who might do something nefarious, are incapable of following the social media explicit intentions of Americans themselves. The problem isn't with foreign terrorists. It's American terrorists who are the problem. As it turns out, the police in Uvalde weren't capable of following protocol and putting their own lives at risk. But that's what they are sworn to do - put their own lives at risk to save childrens' lives. It's a sad commentary on the courage of the 19 policemen who stood outside the classroom door for an hour while the shooter was free to wreak the destruction of childrens' lives inside the classroom. They were all cowards, plain and simple, especially the "commander" in charge. They deserve to go to jail for their dereliction of duty. None of them wanted to put their own lives at risk to save children.

Other countries have said no to guns after a mass shooting even those that had a gun culture. Well, they don't have one any more. Australia confiscated 650,000 guns. Murders and suicides plummeted. It was one of the largest mandatory gun buyback programs in recent history. So today is Memorial Day. We need to memorialize the lives of fallen children in mass shootings. Teachers don't need to carry guns. School doors just need to be locked at all times. If a teacher hadn't propped open the door through which the shooter entered, presumably, he never would have gained access to the school. In addition the school resource officer, presumably armed, was missing in action. He was supposed to be on campus, and he wasn't. Is he going to be prosecuted for dereliction of duty? There is nothing to memorialize this Memorial Day. The US is in an epidemic of gun violence and the elected leaders don't want to do anything about it because gun ownership, to them, is more important than childrens' lives, than the Grandmas' lives shot at Tops supermarket, There have been more than one mass shooting per day so far this year. Yet America, the lone outlier among nations in this regard, continues on its downward spiral of violence and destruction while it criticizes other nations for their lack of democracy.

Off the Top of My Head

Uvalde: A Good Guy With a Gun Was Not Able to Stop a Bad Guy With a Gun

by John Lawrence

Yesterday Texas Gov. Abbott held a farcical press conference in which he demonstrated he didn't even know how to pronounce Uvalde. About a dozen white men and one white woman stood up there while Abbott blathered about the tragic Uvalde mass shooting involving 20 Mexican-American children and 2 Mexican-American teachers. So it was up to a bunch of white men to cover up what actually happened in a Mexican-American community. First the school district police officer encountered the shooter outside the building. Here was a guy with an unconcealed (obviously) AK-47 on school property. Why didn't the police officer just take out his gun and shoot him right there? What did he do - try to reason with him? Second, the shooter enters through an unlocked door. Why isn't every school door locked? They are here where I live. No one can just walk into a school. You press a button and announce yourself and your business and then and only then does the door get unlocked so you can enter.

Then the loony school superintendent gets to speak. He couldn't imagine such a thing happening. What planet has he been living on? This event was "extraordinary." No, it happens every day. That makes it ordinary. As it turns out, local police officers were on the scene outside the door where the carnage took place for 40 minutes to an hour before someone went in and shot the guy. Their excuse? The door was locked. You mean to tell me they couldn't shoot off the lock? It happens all the time. A locked door shouldn't stop a good guy with a gun. Instead the gunman was free to shoot probably all the kids in the classroom plus the two teachers. Law enforcement was a total failure at the scene of a horrific crime. But Gov. Abbott wanted to talk about mental health and the fact that this guy was pure evil. Yes, let's religify the situation and ignore the fact that law enforcement (the good guys with guns) totally failed at their job. And prayer it seems won't stop the next mass shooting. It seems that God has delegated that task to the human race which is totally failing to do its job. C'est La Vie! And then Abbott was going to get all kinds of mental health down there after the one who really needed it was dead!

It took Beto O'Rourck to confront all these white men, trying to cover up a crime in a Mexican-American community, to confront them about gun control something Abbott had recently loosened up in favor of gun owners even more. This gunman who had just turned 18 got to legally by 2 AK-47s and 350 rounds of ammunition at a gun store at a price of $3500. which made the gun store owner very happy and profitable. It was a good day for him, a bad day for everybody else. But then that's what the lack of gun control is all about - profit for the gun industry and campaign donations to Republicans from their lobbyists. So gun advocates want the teachers armed? What good would that do when armed police officers who were in a position to prevent this crime weren't able to do it or chickened out, one or the other. And why in the hell didn't they simply lock their frickin doors? Thank you Mr. School Superintendant, Hal Harrell, for your supervision.

Off the Top of My Head

Another Day, Another Mass Shooting

by John Lawrence

And all because there are 2 Democratic Senators in Washington and all 50 Republicans who won't vote for comprehensive gun control legislation or voting rights or anything else on Joe Biden's agenda for that matter. Those 2 Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, won't vote to suspend the filibuster even just on the single issue of gun control. Republicans had no problem suspending the filibuster so Trump could appoint 3 nominees to the Supreme Court which will probably overturn Roe v. Wade. So it's seemingly more important to get rid of a woman's right to choose than it is to get rid of assault rifles in the hands of every unbalanced male in the society. There have been numerous carve-outs of the filibuster to get important legislation passed. But I guess getting gun control legislation passed is just not as important as getting a certain President's nominees on the Supreme Court. In other words childrens' lives are not as important as politics.

So why did hundreds of law enforcement officers and elected officials descend on the school in Uvalde, Texas after the massacre had already taken place and the shooter was dead? It was over for Christ's sake; there was no need for yellow crime scene tape at that point. Why are they wasting their money performing an exhaustive examination of the crime scene? And it's a very lame statement when media spokespeople say, "They will try to figure out a motive." Who gives a fuck about the motive? How many motives have they never figured out so why do they keep talking about a motive. That guy will never come back on the air and say, "Remember that school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Well they've finally figured out a motive and here it is ..." All the commentary in the aftermath is so lame. The only sane response is to hold elected officials' feet to the fire to get rid of assault rifles and other guns whose only purpose is to kill people.

Well, here is my prediction for the future: another mass shooting will occur within a couple of days. And then another and then another. And the American elected officials will do nothing about it. Hundreds of law enforcement people, FBI agents and media people will descend on the place after the fact. They were powerless to to do anything to prevent the mass shooting in the first place, but they will conduct an exhaustive examination of the crime scene. It's all entirely futile and insane. In fact American gun control is an oxymoronic exercise in futile insanity. The Second Amendment was never intended by the Founders to give unlimited rights to individual gun owners. When they talked about "a well regulated Militia" they were talking about the 18th century equivalent of the National Guard, which was more or less a voluntary organization sort of like a volunteer fire department. And yet people talk about the Second Amendment with reverence like it's a bulwark of freedom or something. It's not. It's the worst piece of shit ever perpetrated on any national society. No other nation has the equivalent of it. Most nations have sane gun control laws.

There have been more than one mass shootings per day in this Land of the Free in this year of our Lord 2022. And yet gun manufacturer's profits are more important than childrens' lives. Some 70% of Americans want gun control, but the American undemocracy is more concerned about filibuster rights and campaign donations than protecting childrens' lives. The way the Constitution has been interpreted in regards to the Second Amendment is sick. It's a manifestation of a sick society. For all intents and purposes, the Republican Senators' attitude is that murdered school children is the price we have to pay for honoring the Second Amendment.

Off the Top of My Head

Guns Don't Kill People. Too Many People With Too Many Guns Kill People

by John Lawrence

The tragedy in Buffalo represented less than 10% of the people shot by guns last weekend, but media wants to talk about everything else except gun control. Gun control is the only issue that should be talked about and done something about, but politicians and pundits have given up on the topic. The American ideal seems to be that every American should buy several guns and be fully armed to the teeth, but never harm another person. If they do, they will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Meanwhile, several families will be mourning the deaths of their loved ones. But don't be upset. The shooter will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. That's the American way. And please nobody say that we shouuld get rid of all the guns. That would be unAmerican. After all, the right to own, carry and shoot guns is guaranteed to us by the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Don't anybody go around demonizing the very ownership of guns.

The Guardian reported:

"In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot enacted a weekend curfew for unaccompanied minors at a city park after a 16-year-old boy was killed there. At least 33 people were shot, five fatally, in weekend violence across the city, police said.

The shootings, each horrific in their own way, punctuated the weekend’s main horror: an 18-year-old espousing white supremacist ideology who went to an African American neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday and – in less than two minutes – gunned down 13 people at a grocery, killing 10.

That shooting – one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent memory – has renewed scrutiny on internet-promulgated hate speech, access to assault-style guns and body armor, and the inability of law enforcement authorities, elected politicians, religious leaders and the commercial sector to stop such violence from recurring.

A grocery store, a park, a church and a flea market were among the locations where gunfire erupted over the weekend in eight U.S. cities, leaving at least 65 people shot, 17 fatally.

The shootings came over a violent 72-hour stretch and included multiple victims in all of the episodes, prompting elected leaders in two of the cities to impose new curfews.

Gendron, the Buffalo police commissioner Gramaglia said, planned to continue his assault in the surrounding neighborhood. But he was apprehended outside the grocery after removing his body armor and setting down his Bushmaster rifle with an extended 70-round magazine.

“This individual came here with the express purpose of taking as many Black lives as he possibly could,” the Buffalo mayor, Byron Brown, said on Sunday.

It also emerged on Monday that Gendron wrote as far back as November about staging a live-streamed attack on African Americans, practiced shooting from his car and traveled hours from his home in March to scout out the store, according to detailed diary entries he appears to have posted online.

The diary entries, taken from the chat platform Discord and reviewed by several media outlets including the Associated Press and Bloomberg, included hand-drawn maps of the grocery store along with tallies of the number of Black people he counted there, and recounted how a Black security guard at the supermarket confronted him that day to ask what he was up to. A Black security guard was among those killed in Saturday’s rampage."

The planning that went into the Buffalo attack was impressive. The research, the reconnoitering, the acquisition of data and equipment - more time and energy went into this than go into most college dissertations. Nevertheless, the results, though impressive, were not up to he level that the shooter had hoped for. It's only a matter of time until the next shooter comes along who does even more thorough research and planning. He will analyze where this shooter went wrong in carrying out an even more impressive attack. He will be determined to not make the same errors. The aftermath will be the same - a lot of grieving mourners talking about everything except getting guns off the streets and pretty much out of the hands of everyone. That's the only way the US will solve its gun violence problem, but don't hold your breath until this happens. The earth will probably burn up first. Well, that's a possibility too if nothing is done about global warming.

 

 

 

In the Buffalo shooting at Tops Friendly grocery, white suspect Payton Gendron is accused of specifically targeting a Black neighborhood and taking aim at Black victims – shoppers, grocery workers and a security guard.

Off the Top of My Head

The Shortcomings of Democracy

by John Lawrence

What other countries are concerned about is the specter of Trump coming back in 2024 and reversing everything Biden will have accomplished specially with regard to climate change. An American government no matter how well intentioned and competent cannot maintain itself in power for a long time. It can be replaced by a malevolent and incompetent one in relatively short order. It almost makes you look on other forms of government with envy. Angela Merkel was in power in Germany for 16 years. She was a steady hand on the tiller. Trump tried to rip the tiller out of the ship and he may come back to try and do it again. It's not only China which has long term stability, but China has been pretty consistent in delivering for the Chinese people over a fairly long term. Their government is stable no matter what else you want to say about it. They also promote the best and the brightest to high positions in the government. Trump put in place agency heads that were dedicated to destroying the agencies they were in charge of and many were incompetent political cronies to boot.

Coherence, cohesion - these are values that do not apply to the American people. The American people are freedom fanatics, freedomaholics. In most other advanced societies the value of freedom is balanced by the value of social responsibility. When freedom is way out of proportion with other values, you have a society that can come apart at the seams which is what is happening to American society. The American system engenders a two party system by its very nature, and almost inevitably it develops into two parties which are diametrically opposed to each other. A parliamentary system of government gives rise to  many parties, and that is less likely to devolve into a major societal divisions.

The other thing that contributes to the divisiveness of American society is the American predilection for guns. The supposed right of every American to own and use a gun creates a situation where angry people with a penchant for freedom are more likely to use their gun if they don't get their own way. If they sense that some people are on the other side of a divided society, they feel justified and entitled to use their guns to demand that society conform to their values much in the some way that a divided society resorted eventually to a civil war in America's past. Right now militias and paramilitary units roam the streets similar to the situation in Germany that predated World War II. If a society can't control or prohibit the private accumulation of guns, if it even encourages it, nothing good can come from this situation. All the preliminary conditions are in play for eventual uprisings which, if organized and controlled from above, can have disastrous consequences for civil society.

Off the Top of My Head

As an American, You Are Free to Be Stupid AND Carry a Gun

by John Lawrence

The definition of a rational person is one who would not go out of his way to increase the chances of his own death. The definition of a stupid person is one who would do the opposite. Right now the Republican party is advising its adherents to not get a vaccination that could save their life. Forget about protecting those around them as well which is not even on their radar. Many in the Trump wing of the Republican party are swallowing the Kool-Aid reminiscent of Jim Jones who convinced 900 Americans to commit mass suicide. Until the September 11th attacks, the tragedy in Jonestown on November 18th, 1978 represented the largest number of American civilian casualties in a single non-natural event. It is unfathomable now, as it was then, that members of a San Francisco-based religious group called the Peoples Temple died after drinking poison at the urging of their leader, the Reverend Jim Jones, in a secluded South American jungle settlement. The same thing is happening today due to Trump and his conspiracy minded followers in the Republican party like Wayne Dupree openly urging their followers not to get vaccinated after COVID has killed more than 600,000 of their fellow Americans. However, Trump evidently told his followers at CPAC half heartedly to go and get vaccinated. Let's see if that has any effect.

The Jonestown phenomenon demonstrates how a charismatic leader who holds his followers in total sway can convince them to do anything including even killing themselves. Trump has this kind of sway over his followers. They will believe and do whatever he tells them including invading the Capitol on January 6. The only thing I don't understand about that insurrection is why the insurrectionists weren't openly carrying AK-47s which evidently is their Constitutional right. Maybe next time they will be. So the Republican party has become similar to the followers of Jim Jones who believed anything he told them regardless of whether it was in their self interest or not. This is pretty close to the Trump followers who will believe anything he tells them regardless of whether or not it bears any resemblance to the factual truth or whether or not its in their self interest. You might think that Trump followers would put their self interest in preserving their own lives ahead of their interest in demonstrating their allegiance to the Republican party. The followers of Jim Jones demonstrated the opposite. People who have loyalty to a strong leader will believe anything he tells them regardless of the verifiability of his pronouncements. They don't need any verification, only belief. Even Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify."

This is a problem of religious fanatics as well. Religious fanatics such as the Jonestown crew place more stock in their beliefs than they do in verifiable facts. Time after time religious pronouncements have had to give way, at least among rational people, to verifiable facts. The Catholic church used to persuade people that the sun went around the earth. Gallileo proved the opposite yet had to renounce his proof to save his own life. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that the fact that the earth went around the sun was foolish, absurd, and heretical since it contradicted Holy Scripture. Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated both the Pope and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and forced to recant. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The Catholic church did not officially admit Gallileo was right until 1992!

The lesson here is not to believe anything that isn't subject to verification especially if it would lead you to harm yourself or others. Right now Republicans are urging their followers to harm themselves by not getting vaccinated just because Joe Biden, a Democrat, wants them to. This freedom to be contentious, of course, is allowed by the Constitution and, apparently, is endemic to the human race! Utter nonsense is allowed by the right of free speech. Ironically, in the US, which has a glut of life saving vaccines, some people are dying because of their freedom to refuse to get vaccinated while people in other countries are begging for vaccines in order to save lives. A country like China, if they had enough vaccine for every citizen, would mandate that they all get vaccinated. In America no mandate is possible because of the First Amendment. This is where a country like China will outcompete a country like the US because it will not stand for this nonsense. The US has to place limits on both the First and Second Amendments in order not only to compete with other countries but in order to just hold our own with other countries. In the mean time, the only alternative is for private companies and local governments to insist or "mandate" that people get vaccinated.

Off the Top of My Head

The Militarization of the American Mind

by John Lawrence

From seemingly rational thought processes that would make it impossible to end the war in Afghanistan to the insurrection at the Capitol to the "American movie" chock full of violence to the "well regulated militia" justification of gun proliferation, there is no end of rationalizations for the American military-industrial complex and gun culture on every level. Why does it come as a surprise to some journalists that many participants in the January 6 insurrection were current or ex military or police officers? They are exactly the ones with the mind set that believes Trump won the election, and that it was OK to do what their leader commanded them to do - invade the Capitol. The Generals who say that Biden shouldn't end the Afghanistan war on the grounds that the Kabul government will collapse are exactly the ones that argued we shouldn't end the Vietnam war because the South Vietnam government would collapse. Sure when the US sets up a puppet government and then props it up with money and a military presence, it probably will collapse when the US leaves that country which it never should have invaded in the first place. Afghanistan is Vietnam all over again or as Yogi Berra would say deja vu all over again.

The division among Americans into two tribes can be understood in terms of the two paths Americans take after high school graduation. There are those who go to college and there are those who go into the military. Those are basically the two choices high school graduates have. Those who go to college are taught to think critically to some extent, while those who go into the military are taught to obey orders. Unfortunately, Trump, as their Commander-in-Chief gave them the order to invade the Capitol, and they felt justified in following it because that is what their training led them to do. The choice to go into the Peace Corps or AmeriCorp is not really viable for most high school graduates because the perks of going into the military greatly exceed the perks of going into more peaceful pursuits, and they are less glorious. This is also a characteristic of the militarization of the American civilian mind. The military-industrial complex including, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, profits greatly from ongoing militarization and military thought processes, employs most of the college graduates and provides debate ending rationalizations for American military preparedness despite the fact that their extremely expensive hardware doesn't work half the time, and the threats to America are primarily cyber in nature as well as domestic terrorism.

The divide and contrast between high school graduates who go into the military and are taught to follow orders and those who go to college is reflected in the political divide between those on the right and those on the left.The military is all about symbolism including snappy uniforms, medals for valor in combat, saluting the flag and honoring themselves for their patriotism. On the left results in the improvement of the lives of the American people - and not just the elite civilian Officer's Corps - are more important than symbols of glory. They are more likely to question authority rather than unquestionably following orders. The January 6 insurrectionists were following Trump's orders at least that's what they were thinking in their own minds and by their own admission. I would like to see the FBI release to the public the number of insurrectionists who were military or former military. I bet that would be most of them, especially the males. A lot of ex military go into police work because of the familiarity with weaponry which they gained in the military. Since guns are a familiar way of life for them, naturally they become arch supporters of the Second Amendment, "well regulated" or not. They are used to classifying groups of people as either friendly or the enemy, and this mind set lends itself to police work.

In the final analysis, America is so used to being the world's policeman and profiting in various ways therefrom, that it is unthinkable that we should cooperate with our supposed adversaries to forestall global warming or to thwart future pandemics let alone the current one. We must always have an enemy or at least an adversary to justify our existence. A peaceful world in which everyone gets along and cooperates to solve the problems we earthlings face and have to deal with is unthinkable. Even though the US has a glut of vaccines while the rest of the world is begging for them, Americans feel free not to have their arms jabbed because after all they are free - free to be stupid, free to ignore the safety of other Americans and free to get infected with the virus and die taking others with them.. They just want to get back to normal entertaining themselves to death and ignoring totally any responsibility to their fellow citizens not to mention fellow citizens of the world, many of which they would like to maintain in their necessary roles as the enemy.

Dr. Fauci wondered why we couldn't all unite to fight the common enemy  - COVID - instead of fighting among ourselves about taking the vaccine. Uniting to fight a common enemy like COVID or climate change just isn't the way Americans and maybe humanity in general do things. We need to disagree even about things that are crucial for our continued existence as a species. As a nation we need an enemy whether it be Russia or China seemingly to justify our existence.

Off the Top of My Head

Without Majority Rule Is The US Still a Democracy?

by John Lawrence

The US Senate is not ruled by a majority. Arguably that makes the US not a democracy or a democracy in name only. The filibuster is an artificial rule that precludes majority rule in the Senate, and, therefore, in the US since the Senate is a representative body of the people. A majority of the people want gun control, but, because the Senate is not a democratic institution, there is no gun control. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2019 found that 60% of Americans say gun laws should be tougher. Conclusion: the US is no longer a democracy. Strong majorities of voters across party lines view access to clean water, a quality public education, adequate food, and housing as basic human rights that should be secured by the federal government. A survey by Harvard University found the following: "The right to clean air and water, for example, was considered important by 93 percent of those surveyed; protection of personal data, by 93 percent; the right to a quality education, by 92 percent; racial equality, by 92 percent; affordable health care, by 89 percent; and the right to a job, by 85 percent."

The filibuster precludes democracy. It is not in the Constitution. Neither is the right to own a gun. The Second Amendment states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." At the time of the American Revolutionary War, militias were groups of able-bodied men who protected their towns, colonies, and eventually states. They were state based armed groups that later became the National Guard. It was these groups that were allowed by the Constitution to bear arms, not every idiot who came down the pike. Other more mature societies regulate gun ownership the way the US regulates drivers.

NPR reports:

"It's illegal for Russian citizens to own automatic and semi-automatic guns. It's possible to apply for a handgun or shotgun license, though citizens are required to provide reasons such as hunting or target shooting. Applicants face strict background checks, including criminal history, a full psychological evaluation and a medical exam. They must pass a test on firearm laws and safety. Each weapon is then registered by the police during a home visit. Police take bullet patterns, test bullets and cartridges so bullets can be matched if the gun is used in a crime. A license lasts five years, after which applicants must go through the whole process again."

The US is falling apart because groups with lots of money are lobbying Congress to perpetuate their income stream from gun sales regardless of what the majority of US citizens want. Yet the US lectures other countries about human rights. Is it a human right to own a gun? I don't see it listed in the UN Declaration of Human Rights. What is listed is the following:

1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

The controlling interests of US society are not the majority of the people. US society is controlled by wealthy interests which lobby Congress providing them with financial incentives to do their bidding. One of the main reason companies lobby Congress is to preserve their rights not to have to pay for externalities. Externalities are byproducts of the production process that pollute the environment. It would lower their profits if they had to pay for them. William D Nordhaus writes in The Spirit of Green:

"One prominent example is the activities associated with the Koch brothers and their companies. Koch Industries is a privately owned company holding companies with major environmental impacts and with revenues of around $115 billion in 2017. As reported by the Center for Public Integrity, one of Koch's holdings, Georgia-Pacific, is significantly impacted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision on dioxin. They write that Koch has intervened 'in various regulatory proceedings to dilute or halt tighter federal regulation of several toxic by products that could affect its bottom line, including dioxin, asbestos and formaldehyde, all of which have been linked to cancer.' According to Greenpeace, 'Koch Family Foundations have spent $145,555,197 directly financing 90 groups that have attacked climate change science and policy solutions, from 1997 - 2018.'"

So it's understandable why Republicans especially don't want Joe Biden's climate change agenda to pass even though a majority (actually two thirds!) of Americans want the government to do something about climate change according to a Pew poll. "A majority of Americans continue to say they see the effects of climate change in their own communities and believe that the federal government falls short in its efforts to reduce the impacts of climate change." But since the Koch brothers and others like them have the Republican party in their pockets, the filibuster assures them that nothing will get done. And this is happening in a democracy where democracy rule supposedly prevails? The US, sadly to say, is no longer a democracy if it ever was.

Off the Top of My Head

Can Too Much Freedom Be Toxic?

by John Lawrence

When liberty isn't balance by responsibility or concern for others, it can quickly get toxic. There can be too much liberty in a society, and that is taking place when a super market cashier gets murdered over her request for a customer to wear a mask. The non-maskers and non-vaxxers who say that their liberty trumps any responsibility to society have demonstrated that the US has emphasized liberty to the exclusion of anything else. What are reasonable limits to liberty?

Justin Holt writes in an article "What are reasonable limits to liberty?": "in the absence of a political order, our liberty is boundless, but a limitless liberty is self-canceling. If we can do anything, so can everyone else; thus, nothing can be done which is enduring and dependable. Second, in order to have enduring and dependable liberties, our range of action must be limited. For example, in order for property to exist, the actions of others to use this particular property must be limited. Third, these limitations on our actions provide a liberty that is fruitful, because our actions can be guaranteed to be enduring and dependable."

The general idea is that there is a private sphere in which full liberty is appropriate and a public sphere in which a citizen should defer to what is appropriate for the benefit of society. Where does a society draw this line? The US may draw it in one place and a society like China or Russia may draw it in a different place. The US has been verging on chaos while China values stability and continuity and draws the line in a different place. Even Russia draws the line differently. How much chaos is supported by free speech is almost out of control in the US. Free speech in the US makes possible what other countries might consider sedition. Clearly, what happened on January 6 was seditious. Sedition is defined as overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Speech on social media by organized right wing groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys was clearly seditious prior to the Januray 6 insurrection as was Trump's incitement to riot on that day. The US is very lenient on these issues as no one in that riot is being charged with sedition which is a more serious crime than mere trespassing.

What most people don't understand is that China and Russia as well as other societies draw the line in a much stricter place regarding sedition. What the US would call human rights, another society might call sedition. Other societies value stability and continuity a lot more than the US does. And then the US criticizes those societies based on its own values of free speech which resulted in a resurrection on January 6. Seditious speech on social media was tolerated by the US when it should have been sanctioned. While Joe Biden can call Putin a killer, according to public opinion surveys conducted by NGO Levada Center, Putin's approval rating was 60% in July 2020, and the highest of any leader in the world. This is not taken into account by US politicians and media. Clearly, the majority of the Russian people are very pleased with Putin's job performance. Also, while the US considers that Navalny has a human right to free speech, Russia draws the line on what is free speech and what is seditious speech in a different place. So while Joe Biden criticizes Russia on its treatment of Navalny, Putin has every right in the world to point out how free speech in the US led to the January 6 insurrection. According to Pew Research: "Russians are as satisfied with their country’s overall direction as they have been since Pew Research Center began polling Russia in 2002. A majority (58%) of Russians are satisfied with the way things are going in their country, while 37% report being dissatisfied." As for gun crime in Russia, NPR reports:

"It's illegal for Russian citizens to own automatic and semi-automatic guns. It's possible to apply for a handgun or shotgun license, though citizens are required to provide reasons such as hunting or target shooting. Applicants face strict background checks, including criminal history, a full psychological evaluation and a medical exam. They must pass a test on firearm laws and safety. Each weapon is then registered by the police during a home visit. Police take bullet patterns, test bullets and cartridges so bullets can be matched if the gun is used in a crime. A license lasts five years, after which applicants must go through the whole process again."

Pew Research reports similar approval ratings in China: "A broad majority of Chinese (89%) think things are going well with their economy, making them the happiest on this measure compared with all other 43 countries surveyed this year. And they believe things will only get better. Eight-in-ten say the economy will continue to improve over the next 12 months. And 85% think the younger generation will be better off financially than their parents. This optimism stands in stark contrast to findings in Europe and the U.S., where widespread majorities believe their children will be worse off going forward." Is everything perfect there? No, but a majority of Chinese value stability and continuity above free speech. Furthermore, in the People's Republic of China, access by the general public to firearms is subject to some of the strictest control measures in the world. With the exception of individuals with hunting permits and some ethnic minorities, civilian firearm ownership is restricted to non-individual entities. The result is a very low incidence of gun deaths although stabbings make up some of the difference. Still one can do a lot more damage with an AK-47 than they can with a knife.

Societies and governments survive by virtue of the approval of a majority of its citizens. Isn't that what democracy is all about - majority rule? Or at least majority approval of whatever form of government is ruling? The US interpretation of free speech led us to the January 6 insurrection because seditious speech was tolerated as free speech. Freedom gets toxic when citizens think they have free rein to do whatever they want without regard for others. At that point a society loses its cohesiveness and becomes unstable. The US has almost gotten to that point both in terms of the toleration of seditious speech combined with a toleration of gun violence based on the Second Amendment. The founders meant this amendment to apply to militias which were a well defined entity in the founders' day. They later became the National Guard so that the meaning of militia was lost with the result of misinterpretation of the Second Amendment and the uncontrolled proliferation of guns. So, in my opinion, the First and Second Amendments have both become toxic and need to be reformed and redefined.

Off the Top of My Head

Future Generations Will Analyze This Era and Judge Whether Autocracy or Democracy Was More Successful

by John Lawrence

So far autocracy is winning. The vast majority of the Chinese people are on the same page as the Chinese government while the US is a nation divided - one half diametrically opposed to the other half. The Constitution itself needs to be revised as its First and Second amendments are causing many of the problems. The Second amendment is contributing to the US being the mass murder capitol of the world, but the First amendment is also insidious as it has morphed into something perverted and toxic in the form of social media and spun out of control allowing the spread of vicious gossip and lies gone viral. This has given vent to the worst impulses among the American people. Facebook's very business model has contributed mightily to this outcome as it allows hate groups to identify one another and come together on a common platform provided all too profitably by Facebook.

Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state warns of the danger to democracy of lies flourishing online – and says big tech’s wings must be clipped in an article in The Guardian. She of course has been the victim of outrageous character assassination perpetrated by lies on social media over the course of 30 years or more. The Guardian reports:

"Her bid for the White House was engulfed by a tidal wave of fabricated news and false conspiracy theories. Now Hillary Clinton is calling for a “global reckoning” with disinformation that includes reining in the power of big tech.

"The former secretary of state and first lady warns that the breakdown of a shared truth, and the divisiveness that surely follows, poses a danger to democracy at a moment when China is selling the conceit that autocracy works."

Uncontrolled social media makes more money by perpetrating lies than it does the truth because the truth is often boring, bu lies especially when shared by a large group of people are often very entertaining, and the American people demand constantly to be entertained. Maybe this is because their lives are otherwise quite boring. Anyway boredom is the crux of the matter. The “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, which made the preposterous claim that Clinton ran a child sex trafficking ring at a Washington pizza restaurant, entertained the masses in a viral manner. This segment of society loves them a reality show TV star like Donald Trump or even a B movie star like Ronald Reagan. They would rather have the impersonation of a competent leader than a competent leader him or herself, but then Hitler was very entertaining as well. So are most autocrats. Social media represents the First amendment run amok.

The Guardian continues:

"Far-right Republicans have become openly anti-democratic, endorsing Trump’s falsehoods and seeking to suppress voters of color.

"The traditional the-truth-is-somewhere-in-the-middle approach will no longer do, Clinton argues.

“They’ve got to rid themselves of both-sidesism,” she says. “It is not the same to say something critical of somebody on the other side of the aisle and to instigate an attack on the Capitol and to vote against certifying the election. Those are not comparable, and it goes back to the problem of the press actually coming to grips with how out of bounds and dangerous the new political philosophy on the right happens to be.”

"The press cannot be expected to restore a common baseline of truth on its own, however.

“The technology platforms are so much more powerful than any organ of the so-called mainstream press, and I do think that there has to be not just an American reckoning but a global reckoning with the disinformation, with the monopolistic power and control, with the lack of accountability that the platforms currently enjoy,” Clinton said."

News shows on TV need sponsors and sponsors want eyeballs glued to the tube. What is more gluing than some outrageous lie such as the ones Qanon perpetrates. So the "business of America is business" crowd is out there perpetrating lies because that is more profitable than perpetrating the boring truth. Entertainment is everything. We are entertained to death and that had resulted prepandemic in a full employment society where the lower 50% serve, bartend, cater, cook, work as baristas, housekeep, provide security, take tickets for the upper 50%. Profitable business decisions have made lies and deception profitable. Every day during the Trump administration, the media covered Trump's outrageous lies and behavior because it was more profitable than reporting the dull facts. Even Trump's adulterous affairs were "forgiven" because they made him a more vivid character providing juicy gossipy entertainment even for the tsk tsk crowd.

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argued presciently 35 years ago that television was reshaping our culture and trivializing public life—news, politics, religion, education, and business—by turning it into entertainment. He warned that we would become so inundated with irrelevant information that we’d lose sight of what was important—even worse, we wouldn’t care as long as we felt entertained. With the proliferation of digital media today and worries about excessive “screen time,” his analysis still resonates.

Hillary added: “In particular Facebook, which has the worst track record for enabling mistruths, misinformation, extremism, conspiracy, for goodness’ sake, even genocide in Myanmar against the Rohingya. So governments are going to have to decide right now that the platforms have to be held to some kind of standard, and it’s tricky.” So do the Chinese have a better idea to control the out of control lies perpetrated in the West? For one thing they wouldn't stand for it. Freedom of speech has morphed into something sinister and out of control. The same could be said about the Second Amendment. Maybe the moral of the story is that constitutions need to be updated at least once a century in order to keep up with new technological developments. The US Constitution is 233 years old.

Off the Top of My Head

Our Grandchildren Won't Have to Pay Back Money Spent on a Green New Deal, But They Will Pay With Their Lives if We Don't Do It Now

by John Lawrence

It's a myth that a sovereign country with a sovereign currency and a floating exchange rate has to borrow money to pay its bills. The US can just issue the money. It doesn't need to tax in order to spend. So why isn't the US as well as all the other nations with sovereign currencies such as Japan, Britain and China going all out to supply as much money as necessary to prevent global warming from "going viral" as they say? The only restraint is the question of whether the human and physical resources to do the work are available. In a society such as China, if the government wanted its people to stop whatever they were doing and become part of the work force to forestall global warming, it would be done. In the US it would not be so easy to commandeer workers to leave their jobs as servers, bartenders, chefs, dealers, workers at Disneyland, workers on cruise ships etc to leave their jobs and go to work in Joe Biden's global warming and infrastructure rebuilding work force. The businesses large and small would have a conniption fit like they're having now getting these workers back to work because their pandemic unemployment has not run out.

The only time when workers went all out to solve a major global problem was World War II. Rosie the Riveter and all the others joined the work force to defeat Hitler. They even were willing to defer consumption so that the financial and material resources that were necessary weren't spent in the consumption market thus letting the necessary physical resources be available for the war effort. Today we have a nation consisting of a bunch of spoiled brats who wouldn't do anything the government asked them to do crying that their "freedom" to do whatever they wanted was paramount. We live in a society composed of consumers who demand to be endlessly entertained by movies, TV, theme parks cruise ships, athletes, restaurants, social media and Las Vegas. Half the country works as servers, baristas, bartenders, housekeepers, actors, athletes, dealers, entertainers and such like jobs to entertain the top half. Some of these are highly paid; most are not. Such was the nature of the "full employment" society before COVID hit. It was a full employment society consisting of trivial jobs at minimum wages for the most part. Biden will have to persuade workers to leave their jobs in the "entertainment" industry in order to create actual results in the real world such as building green infrastructure. The entertainment industry will not be pleased nor will the upper half of society which demands to be continually entertained. 70% of US GNP is consumption and a lot of what people want to consume is encompassed by sports bars, travel and tourism, the leisure and hospitality industry in general. The spoiled brats think its their birthright to have such services available, and the last thing they want to do is to roll up their sleeves and join a union.

Together with the presumed right to be entertained, we have a large percentage of the country that has been processed through the military and developed this consciousness that military prerogatives should prevail uber alles. These are the insurrectionists and Trump supporters that want civilian society to reinforce military values such as command and control. They want an autocrat for President. Freedom is the only value that counts for them. Democracy, equality, fraternity, social equity don't matter. They want to preserve the American way of life which, in addition to a right to be entertained wherever and whenever they have the resources to consume, includes also the right to exclude the prerogatives of minorities for social justice. Is it any wonder that the insurrectionists in January 6 contained a large number of current and former members of the military and police forces? Their attitude is that whatever is good for the military is good for American society in general. The military has become a way of life and consciousness for them. They think that, because they served, they are entitled. Spoiled brat militarists I'll call them. The endless wars, bloated military-industrial complex budget and the military bases in practically every country in the world provides the economic and job base of the nation unfortunately.

Biden thinks he is out to prove that American democracy can compete in the civilian world on an equally competent basis with other countries. That will be a hard nut to crack. The US is dooming itself in two ways: the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. Let's take the Second Amendment first. In no other major country in the world do citizens have a right to unlimited uncontrolled gun ownership including military style weapons. This is producing news cycles when, hardly is one mass murder out of the way, than another one comes along to dominate the news. The news channels can hardly keep up with them all. No other society including The US' major competitors would tolerate such a situation. The Second Amendment has become toxic and perverted, and in and of itself is enough to doom the US to second class status. In addition to that the First Amendment has become toxic and perverted, and the major reason for that is social media. Social media makes possible the vicious spread of toxic lies and untruths. Witness Trump's use of Twitter to corral and consolidate his followers around the thesis that he, not Biden, actually won the election. Social media allowed him to rally his supporters based on angry themes and memes connected with white supremacy and a return to the good old days when white, Protestant Anglo Saxons ran the country, the good old days when Negroes knew their place in society, the good old days when you didn't have multiple nationalities and religious groups asserting their rights under the Constitution to live freely and enjoy all the perquisites of American society, the good old days when gas guzzlers were the only vehicles in town and no one need be concerned about anything except maximizing their profits and living the American Dream, where the American Dream consisted of having more stuff than your parents did.

Joe Biden's first 100 days have been remarkable in that he has been able to get as much accomplished with slim majorities in both Houses of Congress. Is this enough though to move America forward at the pace that China, for instance, is moving? China is a more or less unified society. 99% or more of Chinese citizens are on the same page as the Chinese government. China is winning friends and allies all over the world with its Belt and Road initiative while the US withers away its resources on endless wars and confuses its allies with the possibility of radical swings with each change of administrations. China's military budget of $183.5 billion is dwarfed by a US military budget 5 times that amount. The US is a divided country where one of the major parties base their appeal on lies and deception, and its supporters are only too willing to eat it up because it's entertaining and represents military values of command and control. Good government, as Biden has illustrated, is somewhat boring because it is based on solving real human problems. Let's hope that Biden's version of reality based on truth and problem solving wins out over the lies based reality of the other side, and the US, even if it doesn't remain the world's dominant power, can become a constructive member of the world community helping to solve problems at home and abroad.

Off the Top of My Head

Sadness for a Good Man Leaving After a Life Well Lived Contrasted With the Sadness for Victims of Mass Murders Gone Before Their Time

by John Lawrence

Prince Philip lived a good, successful and honorable life to the age of 99. It is sad to see him go, but that is tempered by the nobility of his life and the fact that we all have to go at some time. On the other hand, the US is in the throes of mass murders on a daily basis killing people senselessly before their time on earth was up. Is there nostalgia for a monarchy to replace the chaos that the descendants of the rebels against the British monarchy have created? Did the emphasis on liberty and the Second Amendment make this inevitable? Now we have politicians whose sole purpose in life is to fund raise off the chaos that they themselves have created. The First and Second Amendments are killing us. That includes the "peaceful protests" that turn into rioting and looting when the sum goes down. God save the queen.

The US is alone in the civilized world with an unrestricted right to gun ownership. The only other countries which have a right to bear arms written into their Constitution are Mexico and Guatemala, Six other countries used to have a constitutional right to bear arms, but they've since repealed those laws. The US should do the same. The US is the only country with a right to keep and bear arms with no constitutional restrictions. Americans own nearly half of all the civilian-owned guns in the world, and on a per capita basis, the US has far more guns than any other nation.

Just south of the US border, the Mexican government has a strict hold over civilian gun ownership. Although Mexicans have a right to buy a gun, bureaucratic hurdles, long delays, and narrow restrictions make it extremely difficult to do so. Article 10 of the 1857 Mexican Constitution guaranteed that "every man has the right to keep and to carry arms for his security and legitimate defense." But 60 years later in 1917, lawmakers amended it following Mexico's bloody revolution. During the rewriting of the constitution, the government placed more severe restrictions on the right to buy guns. The law precluded citizens from buying firearms "reserved for use by the military" and forbid them from carrying "arms within inhabited places without complying with police regulations." Today, Mexicans still have a right to buy guns, but they must contend with a vague federal law that determines "the cases, conditions, requirements, and places in which the carrying of arms will be authorized."

In Guatemala individuals who want to purchase a gun for private security purposes need approval from the government. They are also limited in how much ammunition they can own, and they must re-apply and re-qualify for their firearm licenses every one to three years, according to GunPolicy.org. A license also requires proof that the applicant has a clean police record, does not suffer from mental illness, and has not deserted the army or police. Although Guatemalans are not allowed to own fully automatic weapons, they are allowed to buy semi-automatic weapons, handguns, rifles, and shotguns if they obtain a permit. Still, that can be difficult.

Although Mexico and Guatemala both have a constitutional right to bear arms, the US is in a league of its own, because it is the only country without any restrictions on gun ownership in its Constitution. The US makes up 4.4 percent of the world’s population but has almost half of the civilian-owned guns around the world. The horror show of mass violence will continue until there is gun control at the Federal level or gun restrictions are written into the Constitution. The latter is probably not possible. The Second Amendment to the Constitution in and of itself is probably enough to doom the US to the fate of a second class nation or worse. In the People's Republic of China, access by the general public to firearms is subject to some of the strictest control measures in the world. With the exception of individuals with hunting permits and some ethnic minorities, civilian firearm ownership is restricted to non-individual entities. China is surging ahead of the US economically and doesn't have to deal on a daily basis with the spectacle of mass violence committed by its citizens on other citizens. As Joe Biden said, mass murders are a national embarrassment.

The conclusion is that most of the world's nations are much more sensible about gun control. The US is the outlier, and it's turning the US into a police state not because police own all the weapons but because the citizens own so many of them and are using them on fellow citizens with increasing frequency. This is having a destabilizing effect on the whole citizenry because no one knows who may be next to suffer a random act of mass violence. Lenin once famously remarked that businessmen would happily sell for a profit the rope that would later be used to hang them. American businessmen who sell guns and ammunition are now happily selling American citizens the guns with which on a daily basis they are slaughtering each other senselessly and for no reason at all. The US is degenerating into a nation dragging itself down and destabilizing itself into a black hole that seemingly it can't recover from.

Off the Top of My Head

What If: Trump Had Asked Supporters to Bring Guns to Rally January 6?

by John Lawrence

Trump was a big supporter of the 2nd Amendment. Did we just dodge a bullet so to speak when he didn't encourage his followers to open carry at his January 6 rally? Most, if not all, Trump supporters are gun advocates. Things might have turned out very differently if they had had their guns with them when they invaded the Capitol. Thank God that for whatever reason most of the insurrectionists didn't have their guns with them although even without guns that many people bent on mayhem could have done a lot more damage, especially to human lives, than they actually did. As it ended, American democracy was still intact unlike the situation in Myanmar where they really know how to put on a coup. But let January 6 be a wake up call for Americans that want to preserve our time honored system and the rule of law.

Fast Company reported:

"Days before the chaos, according to The Washington Post, it became clear from discussions on far-right internet forums that mobs would transport guns with them to Washington D.C., which has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. That was correct: during and after the mayhem, arrests were made for weapons possession, and authorities recovered at least five handguns and long guns from the scene. ...

"Gun laws are relatively tight in the nation’s capital. Open carry is forbidden; concealed carry is only allowed with a permit from D.C., and not from any other state. Guns must be registered, and there’s an assault weapons ban in place. The Capitol itself is a gun-free zone. (Which is why, earlier this week, D.C.’s chief of police said he planned to inform Lauren Boebert, an incoming Colorado congresswoman who claimed she would be bringing her Glock to work, that she would face penalties if she did so.)

"Of course, the far-right mobs ignored those laws, and the Capitol’s metal detectors, by smashing the windows and climbing through. But, gun laws still matter, Brady says, certain that the damage would have been a lot worse had laws been looser. In May, disrupters in Michigan, an open-carry state, marched into the State Capitol to protest pandemic lockdowns, armed with semi-automatic rifles, which are typically rigged to fire rapidly. “If we had had that scene yesterday,” she says, “it would have been absolutely lethal.”'

So do we have to thank the fact that Washington DC has strict gun laws and open carry is forbidden, presumably even at Trump's rally, that America is still a democracy? Let that sink in. If American democracy is to fail, which it came so close to doing on January 6, it will probably be because of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution and how it's been interpreted by the courts.

So the 2nd Amendment in and of itself could be the downfall of American democracy if we get another Trump like actual gun nut elected as President. Trump himself was only a gun nut in rhetoric only. I doubt if he ever killed a deer or a possum or a rabbit being a city kid from New York City. But some of these more rural southern politicians are not gun nuts in name only. They are the type who invaded the Michigan Capitol carrying firearms. If that was the rehearsal for the insurrection in DC, it was a rehearsal that didn't materialize in a better performance thanks to Washington's strict gun laws. Let that be a lesson to all of us.

Switzerland has a stunningly high rate of gun ownership. yet it has very few mass shootings or gun violence. Why? The Swiss have strict rules for who can get a gun, and take firearm training very seriously. Most Swiss men are required to learn how to use a gun. So it isn't like the US where any bird brained or mentally deranged wahoo can exercise his privilege to own a gun. The Swiss require gun owners to be trained and licensed just like we require drivers of automobiles to be in the US. Maybe we should take a page out of their book.

Off the Top of My Head

The Police Are Trying to Figure Out a Motive

by John Lawrence, January 4, 2020

It seems like the conclusion of every news report about another senseless killing. Why are the police even figuring? It won't do anything to prevent another senseless killing. If only we could figure out a motive, they think, it would prevent another gun nut with an arsenal from going berserk? Or a mentally ill person from gunning down innocents? Basically it comes down to one thing: we live in a sick society, a society which glamorizes guns and criminal activities. While we spend a trillion dollars a year fighting foreign terrorism, we spent nothing on fighting domestic terrorism. Domestic terrorists have been responsible for more American deaths than foreign terrorists in recent years.

In an article entitled "The Enemy Within: Why Domestic Terrorism Poses a Greater Threat than Foreign Terrorism," David Chipman writes:

Americans are much, much more likely to lose their lives to gun violence, which kills 36,000 people in the United States each year, than foreign terrorism. Despite the outsized fear of foreign terrorism in our post-9/11 world, you’re twice as likely to be shot and killed by a toddler than you are to be murdered by a terrorist. And despite the rhetoric we often hear from President Trump, Muslim Americans are more likely to be victims of terrorism than perpetrators.

[FBI Director Christopher] Wray’s statement highlights a dangerous trend—one that requires immediate action. In attacks like the bombing in Oklahoma City and the mass shooting at a concert in Las Vegas, shooters targeted their neighbors for slaughter. As this administration continues to focus its rhetoric and resources on enemies abroad, we must recognize that more frequently, the enemy is one of us.

...

We make it far too easy for hateful people to acquire weaponry they can use to hurt others. Investing more resources in ATF would help keep guns out of the hands of domestic terrorists. Its agents need further support to face the threats we face. ATF’s annual budget is only $1.2 billion, while the last aircraft carrier purchased for the Navy cost $13 billion. We have only 2,600 ATF agents to defend this nation against gun violence but 28,500 troops in South Korea alone.

At the root of the problem is the proliferation of guns, guns that are accessible to the average nutcase in his [and it's usually his, hmmm] quest to prove something to himself or society or to gain his 15 minutes of fame in an otherwise dull, uneventful and uninteresting life devoid of any constructive activity, a life that needs an act of violence in order to stand out from the crowd, a life fueled by a fantasy life filled with violence made to seem normal by movies, TV and video games.

While the FBI claims to have stepped up its efforts to combat domestic terrorism attacks in recent years and months, evidence suggests that these efforts are falling short. The FBI’s most recent hate crimes report indicates that while hate crimes dipped slightly in 2018, violent hate crimes reached a 16-year high. The US is not spending its money where it needs to to create a more sane and violence free society. Many of the perpetrators have come out of the military where violence is the norm. Spending less money on military activities and more to end poverty and combat mental illness might help to end the senseless violence that the US is in the grip of. Especially in schools and places of worship, where people are most vulnerable, the perpetrators, knowing this, step up their targeting opportunities.

But even more important is the elimination of guns from our society, especially high power, military style guns. They should be outlawed as well as large capacity ammunition magazines. There will still be nuts around attempting to hurt or kill other people, but if these guns were eliminated, they would just not be able to do as much damage. Reducing the size of our military and spending the money on more peaceful pursuits would also help to set a different tone in society than the militaristic one being set now.

Why Isn't Hate Group Website Taken Down?

by John Lawrence

The creator of the website 8chan is where all the haters and white supremacists post their manifestos. Even the creator of the site who doesn't own it any more wants it taken down. It exemplifies the problem that social media is bringing to the fore which is is there a limit to free speech? Should some types of speech, namely hate speech, be banned? The US is stuck with two freedoms which are increasingly problematical: free speech and right to own a gun, any gun. These two "freedoms" should not be absolute as most societies would concur. Hate speech on social media should not be tolerated. Is this censorship? You betcha. Should ownership of an assault rifle like the AK-47 be banned? You betcha although the gun nuts would disagree. They don't want any limits on gun ownership nor do they want any limits on their free hate speech.

The US Constitution is coming up against limits which are actually destroying the country unless those limits are acknowledged and action taken. The US Constitution is reaching its limits of usefulness and should be revised like many other countries have done without creating a crisis. Gun control is essential unless the US wants to have a mass murder a day or more than one a day. Gun ownership needs to be cracked down on. There are too many angry men out there with toxic agendas. Their "cells" need to be taken down. They are as evil as Ku Klux Klan cells or any other terrorist cell or organization. The web needs to be monitored and hate sites taken down, but is Facebook doing this? Facebook can't be trusted because they are a private entity not really beholden to the government. Their objective is to make as much money as possible for their shareholders, and taking down a site eliminates all the money they would be making from that site.

TPM reported:

The founder of the site 8chan, where a shooter may have posted a racist, anti-immigrant screed before killing 20 people at a Walmart in El Paso, called for the messaging board to be shut down on Sunday.

Fredrick Brennan, who created the site in 2013, told the New York Times that the current owner of the unmoderated, often hate-filled chat site needs to shutter it.

“Shut the site down,” Brennan said. “It’s not doing the world any good. It’s a complete negative to everybody except the users that are there.”

“And you know what? It’s a negative to them, too,” he added. “They just don’t realize it.”

Investigators believe that Patrick Crusius, the suspected gunman, may be behind a hate-filled manifesto that was posted on 8chan shortly before he allegedly began shooting up the Walmart.

8chan was also where the New Zealand mosque shooter and the San Diego synagogue shooter posted their plans for violence earlier this year.

I speculate that China wouldn't hesitate to take down hate oriented websites. There's no absolute right of free speech there, and the government has the last word, not some private corporation. They wouldn't stand for it one minute, and the perpetrator of hate speech would be in jail no fooling around with protecting his or her rights. So how many hate filled websites will go up in the next election mainly targeting Democrats? Should a website which espouses "Lock Her Up" be tolerated? Be legal? There is no government censorship in America so anything goes no matter how untrue, no matter how hateful, no matter how far removed from the issues. And can anyone anywhere in the world contribute to Facebook posts. In particular who is in charge of distinguishing whether or not a Russian entity would put up an ad or a post like "Lock Her Up" or "Send Her Back" or whether it was put up by an American? Does it make any difference? Is Facebook policing this? I don't think so. So it's the wild west and anyone anywhere in the world is free to join in.

'What Real Action to Stop Gun Violence Looks Like': New Zealand PM Announces Ban on Assault Rifles After Christchurch Massacre

Published on Thursday, March 21, 2019 by Common Dreams

"On 15 March, our history changed forever. Now, our laws will, too," said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

53 Comments

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks to media during a press conference at Parliament on March 15, 2019 in Wellington, New Zealand. (Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

Just six days after a white supremacist gunman killed 50 people and injured dozens more at two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Thursday that the country will ban all military-style semi-automatic weapons, assault rifles, and high-capacity magazines.

"We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place."
—Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand Prime Minister

"Cabinet agreed to overhaul the law when it met on Monday, 72 hours after the horrific terrorism act in Christchurch. Now... we are announcing a ban on all military-style semi-automatics and assault rifles in New Zealand," Ardern said at a press conference. "Every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country."

"On 15 March, our history changed forever. Now, our laws will, too," she added. "We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place."

New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern moves to ban all military style weapons, effective immediately: "Every semi-automatic weapon used in the [Christchurch] terrorist attack will be banned in this country." Via BBC pic.twitter.com/S6xE2vKy0C

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 21, 2019

Ardern's quick and decisive action following the Christchurch attack was praised by progressives in the United States, where even the most modest proposals to change America's gun laws following frequent mass shootings are met with fervid opposition from the Republican Party and the powerful gun lobby.

"This is what real action to stop gun violence looks like," tweeted U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 presidential candidate. "We must follow New Zealand's lead, take on the NRA, and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in the United States."

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) added:

Sandy Hook happened 6 years ago and we can’t even get the Senate to hold a vote on universal background checks w/ #HR8.

Christchurch happened, and within days New Zealand acted to get weapons of war out of the consumer market.

This is what leadership looks like ⬇️ https://t.co/TcdR63anBt

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 21, 2019

New Zealand's new reforms—which are supported by the leader of the country's opposition National Party—will officially take effect in three weeks, and interim measures are expected to stop a flood of assault rifle purchases in the meantime.

"I can assure you that'd be a fairly pointless exercise," Ardern said of attempts to buy assault weapons before the new legislation takes effect.

As for assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons already in circulation, Ardern announced a gun buyback program that resembles the plan Australia implemented following the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.

In addition to taking the lead on bold gun law reforms, Ardern issued a "global call" to fight white nationalism in the aftermath of last week's terrorist attack, which appears to have been motivated by Islamophobic ideas and rhetoric.

Addressing other world leaders in an interview this week, Ardern said white nationalism must be confronted "where it exists," and nations must make sure they "never create an environment where it can flourish."

"If we want to make sure globally that we are a safe and tolerant and inclusive world, we cannot think about this in terms of boundaries," she said.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Off the Top of My Head

Killing of Innocents Reprehensible Whether by Random Individuals or US Military

by John Lawrence, March 19, 2019

Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 50 innocent civilians in New Zealand, was fighting a war just as much as any nation that has murdered innocents anywhere. There is always an outpouring of emotion - candles, flowers and notes - and media coverage. When innocent civilians are killed by US bombs, however, there is no similar outpouring or media coverage. Such was the case for the wedding party on July 6, 2008 in Haska Meyna, Afghanistan when 47 innocents were killed. This was a similar tragic event but was just considered collateral damage by the US military. There is no similar outpouring as thousands of innocent children are killed and starved to death in Yemen either. Thank God, the US Democrat controlled House of Representatives has voted to end US involvement in that travesty. But it won't stop until the Democrats control the Senate as well.

White nationalist attacks like the one in New Zealand are terrorism pure and simple. However, they are not talked about in the same way as attacks by Muslims. President Trump is all too eager to talk about Muslim terrorists, but not so eager to talk about white supremacist terrorists like the one who carried out the attack in New Zealand even referring to Trump by name in his manifesto. The Washington Post reported:

The White House’s response to the New Zealand attack more broadly fits into a by-now expected pattern. When an apparent terrorist or hate attack has been committed by a Muslim, Trump is quick to draw attention to it. When it targets Muslims, however, Trump’s responses are slower and tonally different. That pattern itself helps bolster questions about Trump’s willingness to condemn violence against Muslims.

The murder of innocent civilians should be condemned wherever it happens and whoever is the perpetrator including the US military. It just can't be written off as collateral damage as Timothy McVeigh did after killing innocent children in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. That blast killed at least 168 people, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one-third of the building. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius, shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings, and destroyed or burned 86 cars, causing an estimated $652 million worth of damage.

It's obvious that terrorist attacks can occur anywhere and can be perpetrated by people with widely varying motives. However, since Trump took office, more Americans have been killed by white American men with no connection to Islam than by Muslim terrorists or foreigners. The International Criminal Court also wants to look into US war crimes in Afghanistan, but the US is doing whatever it can to impede them. The Wall Street Journal reported that "Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. is imposing visa restrictions against International Criminal Court officials, citing investigations by the ICC into the activities of Americans and their allies in Afghanistan." The slaughtering of innocents by the US military is just as much a threat to peace and civility in the world as the random acts of terrorists like religious or ethnic bigots. Therefore, an investigation into US war crimes is completely warranted. Pompeo is not only threatening visa restrictions. He's threatening sanctions as well as the US ramps up the sanctions war against anyone and everyone who disagrees with it.

The Guardian reported:

“I’m announcing a policy of US visa restrictions on those individuals directly responsible for any ICC investigation of US personnel,” [Pompeo] said.

This would include anyone who takes, or has taken, action to request or further an investigation, he told reporters.

“If you’re responsible for the proposed ICC investigation of US personnel in connection with the situation in Afghanistan you should not assume that you still have, or will get, a visa or that you will permitted to enter the United States,” Pompeo added.

The secretary of state said visas could also be withheld from ICC personnel involved in conducting probes of US allies, specifically Israel.

Pompeo said “implementation” of the policy has already begun but he did not provide any details, citing confidentiality surrounding visa applications.

“These visa restrictions will not be the end of our efforts,” Pompeo said. “We’re prepared to take additional steps, including economic sanctions, if the ICC does not change its course.”

So the US isn't to be held accountable for its crimes including supporting the Saudi war effort that has killed and starved thousands of children in Yemen which is going on today. And the US needs to broaden its outlook on terrorism within the US to include white nationalist and white supremicist murderers. When innocents are murdered either by random individuals or by the US military, the perpetrators need to be held accountable. As for Brenton Tarrant, the New Zealand murderer, since New Zealand doesn't have the death penalty, perhaps he should be extradited to Saudi Arabia where he will rue the day he ever became a white supremicist.

New Zealand's prime minister has promised to change the gun laws. Let's hope she sets an example by outlawing military style weapons and instituting a strict licensing procedure that would make it 100 times more difficult to own a gun than to drive a car. In my opinion that would still be within Second Amendment rights in the US.

Off the Top of My Head

Doctors Take on the NRA Over Gun Control

by John Lawrence, November 10, 2018

Now doctors fed up with mass killings are expressing the fact that they are tired of treating victims of gun violence. One doctor said she was tired of pulling bullets out of corpses. The NRA said words to the effect that doctors should tend to their own business and not say anything about a subject - guns - that they know nothing about. They told doctors "stay in your own lane." According to the NRA, doctors shouldn't speak out on a subject they know nothing about. As if the NRA knew everything there was to know about guns.

The Daily Beast reported:

Immediately after 12 people were killed in a mass shooting in  Thousand Oaks, California on Thursday, doctors and medical professionals posted on social media their experiences treating victims of gun violence.

It continued a trend that started the night before after a tweet by the NRA mocked the medical community’s call for the reduction of firearms, telling “anti-gun doctors to stay in their own lane.”

Here is what the NRA's tweet said:

"Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves."

Here is what Jay W Lee, MD tweeted back:

"@NRA We’ll give you our 1st amendment right to discuss gun safety with our patients and the communities we serve when you pry it from our cold, dead hands.#TrustUs #WeAreAmericasDoctors #MakeHealthPrimary #GunViolence #PublicHealth #SwimmingInOurLane #FMRevolution"

Dana Bussing, MD tweeted:

"After treating countless patients with life altering spinal cord injuries and brain injuries secondary to gun shot wounds, I would have to say this is my lane."

David Gorski, MD, PhD tweeted:

"Firearms take a similar number of lives per year as automobile crashes (guns: ~32,000/yr; cars: ~35,000 to 40,000/yr) and are thus a huge public health problem. Doctors and public health officials are obligated to try to reduce the death toll from such causes."

So the point is that you don't have a Constitutional right to drive a car. Why should you have one to own a gun? You have to be licensed to drive a car. Why shouldn't you have to be licensed to shoot a gun? The problem is that gun rights freaks are too dumb to consider statistics that show that gun violence in other civilized countries where they do have gun control is way down compared to the US. Americans have more to fear from domestic mass murderers than they do from terrorists. One lady whose son was killed in the latest mass murder in California said, "I don't want any more of your damn prayers. I want gun control." Amen to that!

 

Off the Top of My Head

Gun Violence in America: "I Wonder When This Will Ever End"

by John Lawrence, November 9, 2018

NBC news anchor Luther Holt said something like this at the end of his newscast last night. I've got news for you Mr. Holt, IT AIN'T NEVER GOING TO END as long as there is a gun culture in America. You want to get to the root cause of this problem? It's simple: GUNS. No need to keep wondering. No need to check the shooter's social media and try to figure out what his motive was. As long as there is a proliferation of guns, there will be gun violence.

The militarization of the US also contributes to the gun culture. The California shooter was a retired Marine. No thank you for your service, sir. This meme that, if you could only find out what is bothering these shooters and then correct that, we would all be free of gun violence and free to enjoy our Second Amendment rights. Sorry, but that is not the solution. All these mass shooters have purchased their guns legally, and very few have criminal records that amount to anything.

Mental health is certainly an issue, but what is the good old USA doing about mental health? Why making any kind of health care including mental health care prohibitively expensive, that's what. All these shooters had preexisting conditions, preexisting conditions of anger and rage. Nobody seems to give a damn until they go out and shoot somebody or a lot of somebodies. Those shooters that survive the shootings themselves go on to bask in tons of media and legal attention, go to jail, get 3 squares a day and an hour of exercise plus in some cases marriage proposals from infatuous women who never gave them the time of day before they shot up some joint. Guys caught redhanded in the act of shooting people should just be taken out and shot themselves without further ado like they would probably do in most countries in the world. Why waste legal resources on them? Why waste prison resources which purportedly cost $60K per inmate on them?

The other source of American violence is that condoned and glamorized by movies and television. You can't even channel surf without seeing someone draw a gun and shoot someone. No wonder English sitcoms are gaining in popularity. They don't have the gun violence that American sitcoms do, and not every American wants to sit there and watch people murdering each other and the glorification of criminality. Some impressionable souls who hate their fellow man, have no morals or scruples and hate themselves figure they have nothing to lose in engaging in suicide in the course of mass murdering others. This is a product of American culture and will continue unabated until the culture changes.

There have been over 300 mass murders this year alone, a little over one a day. Why is anyone surprised any more? This is a mundane, prosaic feature of American life at this time. Wasting time on it on the evening news sucks all the oxygen out of the room for more important matters like what the US is doing to Yemeni women and children. In case you haven't heard, in a nutshell, bombing them and starving them to death.

Off the Top of My Head

New Gun Technology Will Let Anyone Print a Gun

by John Lawrence, August 18, 2018

3-D printing was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread or beer in cans. Yet we find that one of the major uses of it is to print out handguns and AR-15s. So now everyone who wants a gun can have one. These plastic guns have no serial numbers and so can not be traced. They can easily go through security at airports and other places. MNetal detectors can't detect them. What's next? Plastic detectors? 

One guy is even putting the plans on the internet so now every enterprising 8 year old can make his or her own gun. Isn't that grand? It gives free speech a bad name. First of all it shouldn't be allowed to put the plans on the internet. That free speech should be curtailed.

In a sane society the benign uses of technology should be encouraged and the malign uses should be verboten. Whoever is running this or any society should steer it in the right direction and not just let it proceed willy nilly. These guns will use real bullets and will kill people just like conventionally built guns.

CNN reported:

Do-it-yourself firearms like The Liberator have been nicknamed "Ghost Guns" because they don't have serial numbers and are untraceable.

 

Wilson has built a website where people will be able to download The Liberator and digital files for an AR-15 lower receiver, a complete Baretta M9 handgun and other firearms. Users will also be able to share their own designs for guns, magazines and other accessories.

 

He says the files will be a good resource for builders, even though it's not yet practical for most people to 3-D print most of the guns.

 

"It's still out of reach for them. We'll get to watch it all develop," Wilson said. "The plans will be here when that moment comes."

 

[Avery] Gardiner, the co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, fears it will make it easier for terrorists and people who are too dangerous to pass criminal background checks to get their hands on guns.

 

"I think everybody in America ought to be terrified about that."

 

The American Gun fetish has gone too far. It just allows gun nuts and psychopaths to plan their next destructive act. They are the equivalent of arsonists who just want to cause destruction. Besides that it gives impetus to gangs who want to carry out criminal acts. It shouldn't be encouraged, but the Second Amendment does encourage it. Every gang banger can rest assured that the Second Amendment givers them the right to one and use a gun. They are just true Americans and patriots. The minute some situation gets out of hand someone pulls out a gun and that resolves things.

 

Like that man (white) that was pushed to the ground by another man (black). He pulled out a gun and killed the man that pushed him down. That's the Florida "stand your ground" law in action. Better not go pushing somebody around or they might stand their ground, pull out a gun and kill you.

 

The Obama administration fought the release of these blueprints online, but the Trump administration said "go ahead." It remains to be seen how the NRA which is a lobbying group for gun manufacturers will react. After all, if anyone can make their own gun, the gun manufacturers will lose business.

 

At the last minute as of July 31 a Federal judge in Seattle has put a stay on the release of the plastic gun plans online. Stay tuned.

Off the Top of My Head

REPEAL THE SECOND AMENDMENT

by John Lawrence, May 20, 2018

Nobody should have a right to own a gun. Those who want a gun for hunting purposes, which is the only reason I would allow them to have one, should go through a lengthy application process and be over the age of 25. That being said, if I ruled the world which I don't, the Texas school shooter and others like him would be taken out and shot immediately if they didn't die at the scene. Instead, unbelievably, he's getting a court appointed lawyer, at taxpayer expense, to defend him in a court of law, to work up a defense for the poor guy that somehow explains that he deserves to live despite being caught in the act of killing innocent children.

I'm tired of the "be-ins" that seem to come about when everyone commiserates with each other when these things happen and the President sends thoughts and prayers. The only people in these situations who I respect are those who would get before the camera and say that guns should be taken away except for law enforcement, hunters and those who have gone through a lengthy application process and that the NRA should be outlawed. The same thing holds for climate change. If they get before the camera after a natural disaster and demand that the US do more to fight climate change, they have my respect. Instead, most of them say, "Gee whiz, I never saw anything like this in my whole life." But maybe those who didn't have these sentiments both about guns and climate change would never be given permission to step in front of a national media camera.

The US is already becoming a laughing stock among nations for its antiquated laws regarding guns and climate change. It is incapable of any enlightened response to either situation. The Texas shooter "wants his story told." Bullshit. He doesn't deserve to have his story told. Any person who hasn't done this is more deserving of having their story told. No, he should be unceremoniously taken out and shot. Oh, but he's white so taxpayers will pay for his court defense while they hug each other in an orgy of commiseration over what happened. In my opinion he's an arch criminal having committed the worst possible crime and having been caught at it red handed. Jesus said anyone who harms a child should have a millstone tied around his neck and be dropped in the deepest part of the ocean. And he was the Prince of Peace!

Even the mafia has more to commend it than do these copy cat school shooters. When asked if he ever whacked anyone, a mafia enforcer said, "No one that didn't deserve it." Most criminals have more of a sense of ethics than school shooters who do what they do by dint of the fact that others have done it and it has been normalized as a media event. In effect the media has normalized crime and criminal activity. Their excuse is that they're just reporting the facts. Especially rap music which glorifies violence is just telling it how it is in the 'hood. Shooting and killing on TV, in movies and video games is normalized. War has been normalized as a perquisite of empire, an empire which used to have moral leadership and now is considered a fool by the world community.

To Defeat NRA and Curb Gun Violence, Former Supreme Court Justice Says 'Repeal the 2nd Amendment'

Published on

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

by

Common Dreams

 

 

 

"That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday's marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform."

by

Julia Conley, staff writer

 145 Comments

The NRA has actively twisted the meaning of the Second Amendment through aggressive propaganda campaigns, wrote retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on Tuesday, leaving some Americans with the belief that the Founding Fathers fought for an individual right to bear arms. (Photo: Rodney Dunning/Flickr/cc)

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens took to the New York Times op-ed pages on Tuesday to call for a full repeal of the Second Amendment, calling it a "relic of the 18th century" wielded by the gun lobby as a "propaganda weapon of immense power."

Though championing other demands for stricter gun control laws receiving attention amid outcry over mass shootings and gun violence, Stevens said "demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform."

"They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment," the judge argued. "That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday's marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform."

Though the amendment is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has been able to deploy massive political and cultural influence over recent decades in order to twist its meaning and has pushed the notion that any regulation of firearms is an infringement of an unalienable right.

Stevens reminded readers of the views of former Chief Justice Warren Burger, who led the Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986. Burger said in 1991 that the NRA's efforts amounted to "one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."

"There wouldn't be any such thing as the Second Amendment," if he were writing the Bill of Rights in the present day, said Burger at the time.

Amid the dissent of Stevens and three other justices, in 2008 the Supreme Court decided that the Second Amendment should be understood to guarantee individual civilians the right to bear arms.

"Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.'s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option," wrote Stevens. "It would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States—unlike every other market in the world. It would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence."

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Off the Top of My Head

A Supreme Court Justice Says We Should Get Rid of the Second Amendment

by John Lawrence, March 31, 2018

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has called for repeal of the Second Amendment in an opinion piece in the New York Times:

Rarely in my lifetime have I seen the type of civic engagement schoolchildren and their supporters demonstrated in Washington and other major cities throughout the country this past Saturday. These demonstrations demand our respect. They reveal the broad public support for legislation to minimize the risk of mass killings of schoolchildren and others in our society.

That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms. But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.

Concern that a national standing army might pose a threat to the security of the separate states led to the adoption of that amendment, which provides that “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Today that concern is a relic of the 18th century.

Finally someone (other than myself) has the guts to stand up and say the obvious: the second amendment is a relic of the eighteenth century. The idea that the citizenry are going to rise up with their guns and quell a tyrannical Federal government is just absurd in today's world. With 85% of Americans living in an urban environment, the need for guns to kill deer or pheasants or wild turkeys or ducks for food is pretty much a thing of the past although the use of guns for hunting shouldn't be entirely ruled out. It need not be even if the Second amendment is repealed. Instead of a well regulated militia we should have a well regulated procedure for insuring that those licensed to own hunting rifles have been trained and educated in their care and use and are of sound mind. The equivalent of a high school course should be required. As much training should go into acquiring a gun permit as goes into driver training.

Justice Stevens continued:

During the years when Warren Burger was our chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge, federal or state, as far as I am aware, expressed any doubt as to the limited coverage of that amendment. When organizations like the National Rifle Association disagreed with that position and began their campaign claiming that federal regulation of firearms curtailed Second Amendment rights, Chief Justice Burger publicly characterized the N.R.A. as perpetrating “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

In 2008, the Supreme Court overturned Chief Justice Burger’s and others’ long-settled understanding of the Second Amendment’s limited reach by ruling, in District of Columbia v. Heller, that there was an individual right to bear arms. I was among the four dissenters.

That decision — which I remain convinced was wrong and certainly was debatable — has provided the N.R.A. with a propaganda weapon of immense power. Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.

That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday’s marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform. It would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States — unlike every other market in the world. It would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence.

Any rational person would agree. The second amendment is garbage and should be thrown out. It just gives toxic, angry males the impetus to do what every American movie advocates and glorifies: kill anyone who angers you or gets in your way.

Off the Top of My Head

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, The Second Amendment Has Got to Go

by John Lawrence, March 9, 2018

Let's start by taking Wayne LaPierre's guns away. The US is a friggin' armed camp. 300 million guns for 300 million people. A school shooting every couple of weeks. Every idiot can go out and legally buy a gun, shoot up a school, get his 15 minutes of fame, cause a huge national spectacle and get free room and board for life. Externally the US has made am armed camp of the world with 1000 military bases ringing every country. Gun manufacturers and defense contractors have created a culture in which no one even questions whether every effort is made for a peaceful solution externally or every effort is being made to dissuade people from murdering others internally.

Quite the contrary. I had to sit through several previews at the movies, each one being more violent than the one before with incredibly huge and powerful guns, explosions, car wrecks, torture. These are the visual sensations Americans are supposed to absorb and get accommodated and adjusted to. This has been normalized. The American ethos: guns, armies, planes, tanks, bombs, nuclear weapons. How long will it be until some creative criminal attaches a bomb to a drone and takes out some major building in some major city? Violence begets violence.

No attempt is being made to quell gun violence. Is it taught in school that guns are a vile evil? I think not. They probably have nothing but praise for the Second Amendment. Let's all get down on the ground and worship the Second Amendment that gives every nut the right to buy an AK-47 and mass murder innocent school children. Whoever thought that for going to school you would have to pay with your life?

And it's all about lobbying and campaign contributions. The NRA lobbies Congress and gives them campaign contributions. Angry citizens support this nonsense because many of them are one hare trigger away from taking out their frustrations with a gun themselves. Ordinary citizens do not have the means to lobby and make huge campaign contributions. This is not a democracy.

Gun ownership should be discouraged in the schools. Shooting animals for fun should be a thing of the past - so 20th century. The Second Amendment should be analyzed in the terms of the 18th century thinking that went into it. The Founding Fathers would not support it today.

 

Repeal the Second Amendment

From the New York Times:

Bret Stephens OCT. 5, 2017

 

I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment.

From a law-and-order standpoint, more guns means more murder. “States with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides,” noted one exhaustive 2013 study in the American Journal of Public Health.

From a personal-safety standpoint, more guns means less safety. The F.B.I. counted a total of 268 “justifiable homicides” by private citizens involving firearms in 2015; that is, felons killed in the course of committing a felony. Yet that same year, there were 489 “unintentional firearms deaths” in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Between 77 and 141 of those killed were children.

From a national-security standpoint, the Amendment’s suggestion that a “well-regulated militia” is “necessary to the security of a free State,” is quaint. The Minutemen that will deter Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un are based in missile silos in Minot, N.D., not farmhouses in Lexington, Mass.

In fact, the more closely one looks at what passes for “common sense” gun laws, the more feckless they appear. Americans who claim to be outraged by gun crimes should want to do something more than tinker at the margins of a legal regime that most of the developed world rightly considers nuts. They should want to change it fundamentally and permanently. There is only one way to do this: Repeal the Second Amendment.

From a personal liberty standpoint, the idea that an armed citizenry is the ultimate check on the ambitions and encroachments of government power is curious. The Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s, the New York draft riots of 1863, the coal miners’ rebellion of 1921, the Brink’s robbery of 1981 — does any serious conservative think of these as great moments in Second Amendment activism?

And now we have the relatively new and now ubiquitous “active shooter” phenomenon, something that remains extremely rare in the rest of the world. Conservatives often say that the right response to these horrors is to do more on the mental-health front. Yet by all accounts Stephen Paddock would not have raised an eyebrow with a mental-health professional before he murdered 58 people in Las Vegas last week.

What might have raised a red flag? I’m not the first pundit to point out that if a “Mohammad Paddock” had purchased dozens of firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition and then checked himself into a suite at the Mandalay Bay with direct views to a nearby music festival, somebody at the local F.B.I. field office would have noticed.

Given all of this, why do liberals keep losing the gun control debate?

Maybe it’s because they argue their case badly and — let’s face it — in bad faith. Democratic politicians routinely profess their fidelity to the Second Amendment — or rather, “a nuanced reading” of it — with all the conviction of Barack Obama’s support for traditional marriage, circa 2008. People recognize lip service for what it is.