;)
The Commentariat -- Dec. 16, 2012
My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is titled "Praise the Lord & Pass the Ammunition," & is a critique of Ross Douthat's & David Brooks' responses to the Newtown massacre.
An SNL cold open like no other:
Byron Tau of Politico: "New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- an outspoken advocate for stricter gun laws -- said Sunday that dealing with gun violence should be at the top of President Barack Obama's agenda.... 'If he does nothing during his second term, something like 48,000 Americans will be killed with illegal guns. That is roughly the number of Americans killed in the whole Vietnam War,' Bloomberg told host David Gregory. Bloomberg said that Obama doesn't need Congress' cooperation of everything -- he can simply enforce current law."
** Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "After the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and others in early 2011, the Justice Department drew up a detailed list of steps the government could take to expand the background-check system in order to reduce the risk of guns falling into the hands of mentally ill people and criminals. Most of the proposals, though, were shelved at the department without action against the backdrop of the election campaign and the politically charged Congressional investigation into the Operation Fast and Furious gun trafficking case...." CW: I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't a big piece of what the Fast & Furious phony outrage was all about.
Nicholas Kristof: "What do we make of the contrast between heroic teachers who stand up to a gunman and craven, feckless politicians who won't stand up to the N.R.A.?" Thanks to contributor Calyban for the link.
Nate Cohn of The New Republic: "... even though the public might not overwhelmingly favor gun control, there's reason to believe that Democrats can again feel comfortable fighting for gun control after a decade of keeping it on the back-burner. After all, they're less reliant on rural, gun-owning voters than at any time in the history of the party.... Pro-gun voters are lost to Republicans, and probably for good.... Perhaps the tragedy in Newtown will prompt [Democrats to make] an overdue reassessment." ...
... ** David Atkins of Hullabaloo: "American gun deaths are unique in their inability to generate political action: no one seemed to care much about the politicization of the deaths at Pearl Harbor or the World Trade Center.... What actually drives the desperate need to own high-priced killing machines. There is a vast, festering paranoia in conservative circles about the 'looters' and 'parasites' coming to take their hard-earned material possessions in the supposed coming debt-fueled collapse of society. There is continual worry about some dark-skinned assailant attempting to enter their home and potentially steal their property.... What this functionally means is that we as a nation are openly allowing thousands of our children to die every year so that certain segments of the population can role-play racist murder fantasies." ...
... Paul Krugman: "... the pro-gun fanatics are basically the kind of people who think that Obama is a Kenyan socialist atheistic Islamist, and the urban hordes are coming for their property any day now. People, in other words, who already vote 100 percent Republican -- and lose elections."
Patrick Keefe of the New Yorker suggests some gun control legislation that might pass Congress if the powers-that-be went against type & showed the tiniest bit of gumption.
CW: I won't be linking to many profiles of the killer & his victims. But here's one by Matt Flegenheimer & Ravi Somaiya of the New York Times on Nancy Lanza, Adam's mother & his first victim: "She was 'a big, big gun fan' who went target shooting with her children, according to friends. She enjoyed craft beers, jazz and landscaping. She was generous to strangers, but also high-strung, as if she were holding herself together."
In a comment on yesterday's Commentariat, contributor citizen625 wrote that on PBS's "News Hours," David Brooks said, "with a straight face," "Second, oddly -- and I'm not sure why -- I don't have any explanation for this -- support for gun control laws has dropped significantly over the last 20 years. I'm not sure why that is." I thought I must have misunderstood the comment. I didn't. You can check it out here at about 11 min. in. citizens625 writes, "The NRA has bought the media." That's the only plausible explanation for stunning Brooks' remark. ...
... citizens625 hit on the 2nd thing that moron Brooks said in the PBS discussion. Let's look at Brooks' first point, too: "First, gun ownership is way down." Really??? According to a report by Mark Follman of Mother Jones, assembled after the Aurora shootings, "... the increase in firearms has far outpaced population growth." Follman produces stats to back up his assertions. Brooks relies on data from Right Wing World's Fantastic Fact-Fucking Factory.
Cliff Notes
Thomas Ferraro & Steve Holland of Reuters: "President Barack Obama is not ready to accept a new offer from the Republican leader of the U.S. the House of Representatives to raise taxes on top earners in exchange for major cuts in entitlement programs, a source said late Saturday. The shape and details of Boehner's offer were uncertain Saturday night, as was the exact reason the president was prepared to reject it."
Teresa Tritch of the New York Times: "... Mr. Obama needs a [Treasury] secretary who will champion and execute an agenda in which the interests of Wall Street give way, at long last, to the public need for broad and shared prosperity.... The Treasury's main client would no longer be Wall Street..., [but] must be the low- and middle-income working Americans who last saw any real income gains in the 1990s; the 12 million Americans who can't find work; the 8.2 million who can find only part-time jobs; the 12 million borrowers who are underwater on their mortgages."
In Saturday's Ledes, I linked to a story which reports that Secretary of State Clinton sustained a concussion when she fell after fainting caused by dehydration brought on by stomach virus. As an afterthought, I wrote, "cue the conspiracy theorists." Aah, they're way ahead of me. ...
... Here's Ann Althouse, a right-wing law professor: "I'm sorry if she's really sick and that she hurt herself, but I do not accept her weaseling out of the Benghazi hearings.... I can only think of 2 reasons why her people would let us hear this story that she fainted, addled her pate, and can't face up to Congress on Benghazi: 1. She's not going to run for President, or 2. What she would have to say about Benghazi is more damaging than this effort to avoid testifying."
Jim Sterba in the Washington Post: to cut down on the whitetail deer population, we need to shoot some of them.
Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "Packed into hand luggage and tucked into jacket pockets, roughly hewed bars of gold are being flown out of Kabul with increasing regularity, confounding Afghan and American officials who fear money launderers have found a new way to spirit funds from the country."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Japan's voters handed a landslide victory to the Liberal Democratic Party in national parliamentary elections on Sunday, giving power back to the conservative party that had governed Japan for decades until a historic defeat three years ago."
AP: "... details emerged suggesting that Adam Lanza had planned an even more gruesome massacre but was stopped short." ...
... AP: as some information about the Newtown, Connecticut killings becomes available, Sandy Hook school staff are being hailed for their acts of heroism. ...
... NBC News Connecticut: "President Barack Obama will attend an interfaith memorial service Sunday in Newtown and meet with victims' families and first responders. The vigil is tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. at Newtown High School."
New York Times: "Millions of Egyptians voted peacefully on Saturday in a referendum on an Islamist-backed draft constitution, hoping that the results would end three weeks of violence, division and distrust between the Islamists and their opponents over the ground rules of Egypt's promised democracy."
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Reader Comments (14)
Nick Kristoff has a terrific piece entitled: Do we have the courage to stop this? The only quibble I have with the piece is that Kristoff only mentions two of the many, many gun regulations in Canada (including outlawing semi-automatics, armor piercing ammunition, requiring trigger locks, mandatory safety courses, etc. etc. etc.):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-do-we-have-the-courage-to-stop-this.html?hp
Several years ago I was listening to NPR -- "All Things Considered," I think -- & they had on a young man who was a schizophrenic. He helped the audio people approximate the voices he heard in his head all the time, & they played the sound. It was horrible. Absolute torture. The voices were loud & there were lots of them. The noise was constant. You couldn't make out what most of them were saying, but some were louder & gave instructions. The young man said that he would sometimes answer the voices or talk back to them because they seemed real.
NPR only played that audio for a minute or two. But I couldn't have stood it for much longer. Of course, the voices weren't in my head & I knew they weren't real, but I think being put in a room with that going on all day would have made me suicidal or driven me mad. We've all heard of people's "hearing voices," but until I heard that segment, I had no idea how unbearable it was.
I don't think most of us have any idea how terrible some mental illnesses can be. I didn't.
Marie
In watching the interview on PBS with Brooks and Shields, Mark Shields notes, while talking about gun laws, "We did ban machine guns in this country, and bazookas. We have had success in certain weapons, but it requires enormous national will."
Wow, we managed to ban bazookas. Let's give ourselves a big pat on the back.
The rush to get out the story.on the Newtown murders caused several errors.
At first, we were told the rifle was left in the car, now we are told it was used in the crime.
The killer was misidentified.
We were told the killer's mother was a teacher at the school, but she wasn't.
We were told the killer was let into the school, but he shot his way in.
How many more details will turn out to be untrue?
Re; The cancer of US; We have a malignancy metastasizing itself through our body. Like all cancers it is of us; our flesh, our blood, our cells. It will grow, feeding upon its host; hollowing out the good until nothing but the disease itself remains. Call this cancer; Fear.
Fear; fed by the NRA, nurtured by the media, inoculated into all of us each and every day.
So few of us need a gun; but for Fear, every mother's son wants one.
In times of the unexplainable I often link the words of Shakespeare because there is no action of man that he has not explored.
In "Macbeth" at the end of Act 4, scene 3, MacDuff is informed that his wife and children have been "Savagely slaughter'd".
MacDuff ; a battle-tested warrior, accustomed to the horrors of war is stunned; "My children too?"
"Wife, children, servants, all that could be found."
"...My wife kill'd too?"
"All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop?"
Even a bloody man as MacDuff is brought to his knees when confronted by evil that is incomprehensible.
I am brought to my knees.
Re: Those corrupt, greedy Afghanis.
How could they, we ask? Smuggle wealth in gold bars out of their country? Have they no concern for anyone but themselves, spiriting a nation's lifeblood to havens far away? What's the matter with these ethically challenged people? Gold bars? It's so primitive.
How could they behave this way after all we've done for them, when we all know simple morality and efficiency dictate all they have to do is set up off shore tax havens and riddle their laws with loopholes like sophisticated nations have done? Our army of lawyers would be happy to help create the tax code they need. All they have to do is ask. We'd even pay for the service. Just one more necessary step to bring their benighted nation into the modern world. Sure, paying taxes is for chumps, but there's a right way to avoid paying them and a wrong way.
They should be ashamed of themselves. Is there no hope for these people?
I'd like to start by saying that I'm not anti gun. I have a rifle to protect my livestock, it has a 5 shot magazine which is actually 3 extra shots. If you miss the predator (or the creature you're hunting) you probably don't get a second shot anyway, if you hit it but fail to kill it the second shot is one of mercy. A Carol for the season:
O come all ye hateful
Craven and intol'rant
Come ye O come ye
To Columbine
Then onward to Newtown
Twenty children Mowed down
Will we learn the lesson
It's time for the suppression
Of military weapons
In citizens' hands.
Thumping the bible
Preachers spew their libel
Hating the "sinner"
Embracing the sin
The semi automatic
Is what makes them ecstatic.
O come let us Ignore Him
Although we claim we're for Him
O come let us Ignore Him
The Prince of Peace.
Making excuses
The NRA produces
Unending sophistries
That carry the day.
The 2nd Amendment
Is really the defendant
Come let us enforce it
The bloodthirsty endorse it
Sacrificing innocents
To what they do pray.
It is unfortunate that gun control is opposed not only by the militia freaks believing that black helicopters are coming but by regular, conservative hunters some of whom may be Democrats. Those that think only wing nuts hunt should see who is actually hunting.
A survey at the Makinaw Bridge to find out who is going deer hunting might surprise everyone. Shop stewards and small business owners may be hunting in the same woods. Michigan comes to a halt when deer season starts and people of all persuasions get excited.
Many hunters, Republican, Democrat, and wing nut oppose gun control and are supportive of the NRA because they think the NRA is the only thing keeping the bunny huggers from taking their guns. They may be right.
If you can't get the bunny huggers out of the picture you will never get support for gun control in the Mid-West.
"One failed attempt at a shoe bomb and we all take off our shoes at the airport. Thirty-one school shootings since Columbine and no change in our regulation of guns." -- John Oliver
@Calyban:
Semi-automatic rifles are not restricted in Canada unless they are derived from fully automatic weapons. Prohibited 'armour piercing bullets' might refer to handgun ammunition available in the states which is designed to penetrate the protective vests worn by law enforcement. Ammunition magazines which have a higher capacity than is provided by the standard gun are prohibited. The weaponry used in the Norwegian massacre is legally available in Canada. You can make it difficult for them but you can't stop them. The worst school massacre in the US used explosives.
Canada also makes it difficult for citizens wishing to use non-lethal devices to defend their homes. Chemicals like mace and electrical devices like Tasers are prohibited weapons. Bear spray in various strengths is available. You can use a baseball bat but not a nunchuck or any other kung fu weapon. One of our Prime Ministers was protected from a home invader by his wife who armed herself with a stone Eskimo sculpture. The RCMP were embarrassed.
You are right about the mandatory safety course which forms part of the required documentation for a firearms possession, acquisition licence. As I remember it took 5 or 6 nights of classroom plus a written exam. The rest of the licence application was identical to a passport application except for the section requiring the approval of your significant other or ex for you to possess a gun. This summer a large RCMP officer appeared at the front door, informed me that my licence had expired, and asked whether I was going to renew it or surrender my firearms. Five years had elapsed. The renewal required the same jumping through hoops involved in the original application except for the safety course which need not be repeated.
https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/279773872033763328
High powered ammunition to use against the gun lobby.
'I supposed we should be thankful that, unlike some on the right, Brooks is not urging schoolteachers to strap on some armaments “because policemen can’t be everywhere.” '
—Marie Burns on NYTimes eXaminer
And who on the right is saying so? Ahhh, it's Bill Bennett, former Education Secretary, who says schools should consider arming employees.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/bill-bennett-education-secretary-connecticut-shooting_n_2311774.html
The old gambler can't be playing with a full deck!
@cowichan's opinion--
Thanks for the enlightening information regarding restrictions on firearms ownership in Canada. They seem not to be as onerous as the NRA make them out to be.
Is there any truth to the occasional assertion by the NRA that while in lawful possession of firearms, Canadians' homes can be inspected without warning for "safe storage" of their firearms?
Where can I find more reliable information about Canadian firearms laws in laymens' terms without wading through incomprehensible "legalese?"
Also,
@carlyle--
I hope that some of the participants in this forum are listening to your words of wisdom regarding hunters--along with other sportsmen--and their firm belief that the NRA is the only organization standing between them and confiscation of their weapons.
Unhelpful suggestions such as that by James Singer at the outset of yesterday's (Dec. 15) thread, viz. "Ban All Private Gun Ownership" do not constitute a good start to a "national debate on guns and gun ownership" with respect to hunters and other legitimate sportsmen (and sportswomen).
PS:
@cowichan's opinion--
I also appreciated your thoughtful remarks on the previous thread (Dec. 15) immediately following those of James Singer. It is nice to know that there is at least one participant in this forum--OK, maybe two or three more--who acknowledge that there are "sporting uses" for firearms ownership beyond hunting.
Zee: for a list of prohibited weapons see this http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/fs-fd/prohibited-prohibe-eng.htm
This official RCMP site is written as clearly and simply as is possible...no excuses for misinterpretation. In like vein the list of prohibited weapons isn't just "automatic assault rifles" it lists them. Not just AK47 but also 40 variants thereof. It doesn't just ban 50 caliber sniper rifles it lists each model currently available as in McMillan M87. For the rest of the regulations you must wade through the RCMP regulations which aren't written in any arcane legalese but are mind numbingly repetitive.
Neither I nor anyone I know has ever experienced a home invasion by a swat team just to check up whether our guns are secured per para312.3 sub etc. As I stated an RCMP officer came to the door because of my lapsed licence ...and did so twice more to check on my progress in reapplying. Not once did he ask to see my rifle which was entered in the firearm registry which the conservative government has since closed.
Shooting in its various guises is one of those pursuits that is incomprehensible to the uninitiated. "What! You really spent all day shooting holes in a piece of paper so far away you couldn't even see it without binoculars? Idiot! You could have been with us trying to put a little white ball into holes in the ground using a stick." To each his own.