Dear Readers,
A revealing side-door view of how much damage conservative policies have done to
daily life in the USA of 2013:
"China Censures America on Human Rights" [recent Boston Globe headline]
The Chinese count the ways:
1. US military operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen. [The Bush administration's March 2003 preemptive strike on Iraq prolonged and enabled the crises in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen.]
2. Political donations to election campaigns have undue influence on US policy.
3. "American citizens do not enjoy a genuinely equal right to vote." Decreased turnout in the 2012 presidential election and a voting rate of just 57.5 %.
4. Serious sex, racial, and religious discrimination in the USA.
5. Gun violence is a serious threat to the lives & safety of America's citizens.
Conservatives in US politics are almost entirely responsible for all 5 of these human rights violations.
_________________________________________________________________________
But issue #5 seems particularly avoidable & senseless.
Item: A New Hampshire police chief left a loaded Glock handgun on top of a safe in a closet at his home.
Then, he left to run errands. While he was out, a 15-year-old son of his girlfriend turned the gun on
himself.
Item: Texas prosecutors, openly threatened by a man who eventually shot & killed them, regularly carried
handguns to protect themselves from this man. Gun-rights folks emphasize the right to carry your own
gun for self-protection. SOME PROTECTION! A lot of good "the 2nd Amendment" did these Texas
prosecutors.
Item: Gun rights people keep claiming that ANY gun laws violate the 2nd Amendment.
One rural town historian says, "there's probably the same percentage of people who are in favor of the
Second Amendment as those who are in favor of these stringent laws." [SO: ANYONE
FAVORING ANY GUN SAFETY IS FAVORING BACKGROUND CHECKS IS FAVORING
"STRINGENT LAWS"? AND, YOU'RE EITHER FOR THE 2ND AMENDMENT, OR YOU'RE
AGAINST IT -- CAN'T HAVE BOTH!]`
Item: Arkansas's Senator Mark Pryor said, "As a general rule, people in Arkansas do not want any gun
control." North Dakota's Senator Heidi Heitkamp said, "It's not what any other senator believes. It's
about what the people of North Dakota believe."
WELL HERE'S AN IDEA: HOW ABOUT SENATORS TRYING TO EDUCATE & LEAD
THEIR CONSTITUENTS ON THE CONCEPT THAT THEY CAN HAVE THEIR 2ND
AMENDMENT, KEEP THEIR GUNS, AND, SIMULTANEOUSLY, GAIN MORE PUBLIC
SAFETY ALL AT ONCE THROUGH COMMON-SENSE SAFEGUARDS!
Item: This is what University of Texas author Zachary Elkins in, "Rewrite The Second Amendment":
Strengthen the language of guaranteed right to bear arms, AND, increase public safety with
background checks, trafficking checks, gun-safes, mental health screens, et alia.
Item: Boston Globe columnist James Carroll writes,
"What makes democracy as fragile as it is precious -- and Athens reminds us of this, too -- is that a minority of self-obsessed citizens can destroy it. The Constitution will not survive if its Second Amendment is made to count for more than all the others."
Item: The NRA once supported an expansion of background checks. But after Newtown, it changed its mind, AND NO ONE HAS FORCED IT TO EXPLAIN WHY THIS CHANGE.
Item: The NRA's buffoonish spokesman Wayne LaPierre is "effective" because his supporters say his
main strength is that he is "a guy who will never fold." WHAT A VIRTUE! A MAN WHO WILL NEVER GIVE AN INCH. Just what we need in this nation of ideological gridlock.
Item: Fox News always cuts away, if any footage might undermine the credibility of gun-rights extremism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/19/business/media/fox-news-msnbc-and-the-gun-debate.html
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, FURIOUS OVER THE SENATE'S COWARDLY REJECTION OF A GUN SAFETY BILL, SUGGESTS AN ANTIDOTE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/a-senate-in-the-gun-lobbys-grip.html
3 PARANOID WORDS ARE ALL THE NRA NEEDS TO DEFEAT ANY GUN BILLS:
"NATIONAL GUN REGISTRY"
7 MORE WORDS WILL DO IT, TOO:
"OBAMA WANTS TO TAKE OUR GUNS AWAY."
No comments:
Post a Comment