POEM ABOUT GUN MASSACRES AND THEIR PERPETRATORS

 we act shocked 

 at something we didn’t foresee 

 offer thoughts and prayers

 and do nothing after this one

 repeating this broken cycle

 too many times

 in too many lifetimes

 of victims, families and survivors 

Post-Lafayette.

This morning, I heard Chris Cuomo on CNN's NEW DAY voicing the Conventional Wisdom about gun control being a Non-Starter.

Here are some articles I'm passing along:
THE NATION on Bobby Jindal's gun-and-gun-owner-friendly Louisiana:
http://www.thenation.com/article/bobby-jindal-does-louisiana-love-us-some-guns-now/

THE DAILY BEAST on murderer John Russell Houser, who allegedly ranted about the "90% immoral population" and, in the same online forum post, said "Filth is rampant.":
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/24/inside-the-mind-of-john-russel-houser.html?via=newsletter&source=CSPMedition

Rebecca Leber article for THE NEW REPUBLIC on Gov. Bobby Jindal:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122365/bobby-jindal-enabled-louisianas-gun-violence-problem

Quote from the National Rifle Association's homepage:
The National Rifle Association is America's longest-standing civil rights organization. We're proud defenders of history's patriots and diligent protectors of the Second Amendment.

Gwyneth Kelly article for THE NEW REPUBLIC titled Right-Wingers' Solution to Movie Theater Shootings: More Guns:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122364/right-wingers-solution-movie-theater-shootings-more-guns

ROCK AND RAP CONFIDENTIAL on Ted Nugent, conservative role model.

RRC Extra No. 36 / May 2013:

Ted Nugent’s Double Standards

 

 

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DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO… Ted Nugent spent the hours before his speech at the National Rifle Association’s recent national convention as just another vendor, hawking his books to the public. Then, as the confab’s final speaker, he gave his stock speech about his love of guns and his eagerness to kill people (“if you dare attempt to argue with me about my right to self-defense, I will just have to destroy you”). But the truth of the matter is that Ted’s never killed anyone and when he had a chance to, he bailed. Ted Nugent is just another chicken hawk.

 

He was born in 1948, so he was eligible to enlist in 1966 or early 1967. Why didn't he? Not because his family didn't want him to--his father was professional military, a staff sergeant. In 1977, Nugent described to High Times his efforts to evade conscription. Later he claimed to have a 1Y deferment because he was enrolled at Oakland Community College. It would be interesting to know how many times he entered a classroom, considering that by 1967 his band, The Amboy Dukes, had a record contract, which tends to make the band members pretty busy.  Nugent also claims he lied to a gullible High Times reporter. Why would he do that? Was it macho to be a draft dodger back then?

 

Nugent likes to brag about jamming with fellow veteran Jimi Hendrix…oh, that's right, Jimi enlisted as a paratrooper, while Ted fled. As for his “support for the troops,” which he trumpeted again at the NRA’s Houston convention, in 1977 he said that “If I would have gone over there, I’d have killed all the hippies in the foxholes.” Now he’s an avid supporter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least Nugent’s consistent—in all these cases Americans are being killed while Ted lives a protected life out of harm’s way.

 

Nugent also brags about his deep Christian faith, which by his own account hasn’t prevented him from screwing hundreds of teenage girls, often well after he'd reached the outer fringes of middle age. More recently, Nugent couldn’t marry his third wife, Pele Massa, because she was underage so Ted arranged (at what price one wonders) for Pele's parents to sign legal guardianship over to him until she legally ripened. Three of his children were born out of wedlock. Wonder what Christian splinter group he's found to endorse all that?

 

 Nugent's first hit was with the Amboy Dukes on "Journey to the Center of the Mind," which he claims not to know was about drugs, making him a unique teenager who wasn’t able to decode psychedelic drug references in 1968. Did he also not know it when he played the song at a Dukes reunion in Detroit in 2009?

 

In 2007, Nugent went on the Hannity and Colmes TV show to complain that at the Coachella festival Zach de la Rocha said that the Bush administration should be "hung and tried and shot." On April 17, 2012, Nugent said that if Obama was re-elected he would “either be dead or in jail by this time next year." This proved to be a lie. Or maybe he's filed for an extension.

 

Anyway, Ted couldn't die because he remains on Federal probation until next April. Seems the great sportsman killed more bears than he was entitled to in Alaska. (Nugent has a previous conviction for deer baiting in California.) His other monumental achievement as a nature lover is his support for Massey Energy's mountain removal program: "On behalf of the Nugent family, I say, start up the bulldozers and get me some more coal, Massey." Might as well, since he couldn't go hunting around there--the mountain removal devastates all wildlife.

 

Come to think of it, maybe  if Nugent took a closer look at the actual record of Barack Obama, he’d see a kindred spirit. After all, both Ted and Barack are big fans of fossil fuels. Nugent hates immigrants (“We should put razor wire around our borders and give the finger to any piece of shit who wants to come here”) and Obama has deported more immigrants than any President in U.S. history. Ted Nugent likes to kill defenseless creatures (animals), while Barack Obama is the world’s leading proponent of drone warfare. Maybe Ted should go over to the Pentagon with the President and spend an afternoon using a computer mouse to target and destroy a wedding party in Afghanistan. All would be forgiven. Except by us.

 

Before we forget Newtown tragedy: another posting of poem ANOTHER POEM ABOUT GUNS.

Given that the media will be focusing on avoiding the Fiscal Cliff into early January, it's appropriate to repost this poem to keep some attention on the disease of gun violence directed at random individuals:

ANOTHER POEM ABOUT GUNS




saw the four-year-old boy



with his mother



at a Target store in the Valley



and the boy had a plastic toy pistol—



black with orange painted on the barrel



to tell everyone it’s not real—



and the boy waves the gun



and yells BAM! BAM! BAM!



I hope and pray that someday



the boy’s mother



will make sure he knows



the exact place



where fantasy stops



and tragedy becomes eternal

Commenter to ATLANTIC magazine blog post guesses next move of National Rifle Association.

Spike Gomes' comment on the AtlanticWire site:
"My theory? The NRA is going to offer gun control "concessions" not explicitly outlined in return for America discussing issues with news media fueling gunman notoriety, movies and video games glorifying ultra-violence, which will seem eminently reasonable; the one thing most young mass-murderers share outside of access to firearms and mental-emotional disorders is an inordinate interest in violent video games, movies and music. This draws out the discussion, gores some of their strongest opponent's sacred cows and takes advantage of America's notoriously short (if intense) attention span. I suppose some bill will be passed, a modified version of the Brady Bill grudgingly supported by the NRA-ILA this time around, along with stronger government tracking of firearm sales and registration."

Granite hearts and minds need to change after Connecticut gun tragedy.

From a David Remnick post on yesterday's tragedy in Connecticut:

"What is needed is gun control—strict, comprehensive gun control that places the values of public safety and security before the values of deer hunting and a perverse ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment"

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/what-obama-must-do-about-guns.html#ixzz2F6fUljtp

I would amend the above to say that deer hunters who are responsible gun owners don't need assault weapons to do their hunting.

Over the years I've been alive,  everyday citizens, civil rights leaders, Presidential candidates, two Presidents, teenagers and children have been wounded or killed due to guns in the hands of mentally ill people.

That's not counting the irresponsible parents who fail to lock away or put trigger locks on their firearms--causing their children to kill themselves, their siblings, other neighborhood children.

President Obama can wipe away tears; Jay Leno can speak soberly on THE TONIGHT SHOW--but nothing affects people like the NRA head Wayne LaPierre or the friend of a college friend of mine who ranted on Facebook about "gun control freaks."

I wish something would convince people that background checks and other tightened laws governing gun show and online firearms sales won't "take their guns away", as people like LaPierre claim.

But the deaths of 20 children yesterday won't do it.

James Holmes and Wayne LaPierre: Time for the NRA to take gun control seriously.

At this writing, it looks like the usual sensitivity-driven response to the horrific rampage of James Holmes in Aurora, Coloarado will take place: both major Presidential candidates will express their empathy with the victims; Warner Bros. is pulling THE DARK KNIGHT RISES TV ads--plus the trailer for GANGSTER SQUAD, which includes a machine-gunning-in-movie-theater scene derivative of a portion of the climax of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (UPDATE 7/23/12: The movie theater scene from GANGSTER SQUAD will be removed, prompting some additional filming before its September 7 release date); theater chains will increase security for safety of opening weekend patrons; calls for gun control will increase; politicians will do absolutely nothing to offend Wayne LaPierre and the National Rifle Association.

But perhaps in a small way, it's time to have a left-and-right-meet-at-center compromise on gun control.  People from both major political parties must sit down with Mr. LaPierre and his lobbying legions and convince him that--at the very least--the Clinton-era ban on assault weapons needs to be reinstated, as well as closing the infamous loophole making it too easy to buy weapons at gun shows without background checks.  If the NRA continues to be unyielding on protecting every kind of gun ownership, then, essentially, it's in passive collusion with James Holmes' crimes of last night--including the brutal shooting of children.

This isn't "taking away the guns" of responsible, everyday nonpsychopathic gun owners--who don't need or want assault rifles.  It's a necessary action to prevent future tragedies of this scale--something that both conservatives and liberals/progressives should find common ground on.

New poem on gun control: HOSTILE ACRES

HOSTILE ACRES




I help till the soil at Hostile Acres.

Almost everyone carries a gun except me.

Tried to learn once.

Almost shot my big toe off.



Some people came looking for work the other day.

Didn't take long until the hired hands began talking:

"They're taking our jobs."

"How do you know whether or not they're American?"

"Make them carry IDs."

"What about injecting digitized guest-worker chips under their skin?"

"Let's just tattoo a citizenship barcode on their forearms."

And so on and so forth.



Then a few shots rang out.

This is what I heard a few minutes later:

"It was a lone nutcase with a gun."

"The nut's still alive."

"No, he's dead for sure."

"Thank God we can carry guns in public for protection.

The maniac got dropped

and we just let him bleed out."

"There was a little boy caught in the crossfire.

Don't know who shot him.

Don't know how he got hit."



Next day, we heard the President

on the field radio

saying that, at the very least,

automatic weapons should be banned

from use by the general public.



A chorus of disapproval:

DON'T TAKE OUR GUNS AWAY!!

NO GUNS, NO SAFETY!!!!

WE'LL BE KILLED FOR SURE!!

HE'S NOT OUR PRESIDENT!!

And so on and so forth.



Then I heard a round of gunfire.

The radio was destroyed immediately.



The overseer yelled:

PUT AWAY YOUR GUNS!



And we went back to work

tilling the soil at Hostile Acres--

happy to hear nothing

except the sounds of our own voices

voicing the beliefs

we don't need education for

because we know in our guts

how right we are.