This is an unplanned post. But recently I received an e-mail from VP Biden beginning to outline the White House Plan to reduce gun violence, shooting tragedies such as those at Sandy Hook CT, or Aurora CO., as well as other schools, malls and public places.
This is a snippet of the letter I received from the VP:
"We're going to give law enforcement more tools and resources to prevent and prosecute gun crimes, and we're going to end the freeze on gun violence research that prevents the Center from Disease Control from looking at the causes of gun violence." The rest can be found here:
I don't usually write about guns or the 2nd Amendment. And sorry this post is so long - but it is. I know how to use a gun, and respect them for the tool they are. To me, a gun is a gun no matter what it looks like, or how many bullets are loaded. Being that the theme of my blog is to stop the hurt, like many other Americans I question what happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary school with 20 children slaughtered as well as 6 adults by one 20 years old person. We ask ourselves, what motivates a person to do such a thing?
The mass murderer is dead, as is common in mass killings he took his own life. But enough is known about the killer to suggest he was reacting to what he perceived to be a threat to his own freedom, that being there is talk that he suffered from a form of autism and his mother was attempting to get a court order to procure involuntary treatment, in a hospital, for his behavior issues. How much he knew about this alleged plan by his mother isn't known. Apparently enough, as his actions to shoot her multiple times while she slept, and to go Sandy Hook Elementary school where he knew his mother contributed after stealing several of her weapons makes it fairly clear he was angry. He took his anger to an extreme. Denotes to me a lack of communication between himself and his mother, a lack of alternative actions, and an image of a person backed into his own self-imaged nightmare style corner.
So why didn't he seek mental health intervention if things were so bad? I did at age twenty, though I wasn't a violent type - I didn't think thoughts of shooting people and children at a school. I wanted freedom to live my life and my mother was doing everything possible to invoke changes to how i actually did that. Plus, by then I worked at a college and therapy was free, a benefit of the job. I continued in therapy for the next 25 years, while my mother never sought therapy but rather, continued her quest to reset me on the one road that she believed was life, by using shame and guilt strategies to sway me and intervene as if I was in some sort of cult.
Troubling, to say the least. My opinion, it was not I who should have sought out therapy, but her. However that's a mute point, and it's good and smart on my part that I did not feel adverse to getting therapy. As I said, violent behavior on my part was never an issue - for me it was to free myself from my mother's tactic to force shame and guilt on me because I liked women, liked sex, and I worked as a custodian at the city college, which was in her words a disgrace to the family. My mother was fixated with the idea that her son cleaned toilets. That her son had a very good job, received good benefits and good pay never occurred to her.
Lest I stray from my goal here, it's not about me, but rather, a solution in general to the apparent surge in mass killings. Did I know about guns? Of course I did - my father owned guns, and took me shooting around age 10. I used to go hunting with my friends for ducks. I can recall having shot around 3 ducks and watching as my grandmother labored plucking their feathers so we could eat them. To me it looked like way too much work. Eventually I gave up hunting as I really felt no desire to kill wildlife when I could simply go to a grocery store for meat. That and the fact that when I first got stoned on pot I remember feelings of being peaceful took over, as in Peace and Love.
So I read with sadness that one of President Obama's solutions to random mass murders was to require a mental health provider to notify law enforcement if a client speaks of anger or suggested violence towards others. The source no doubt, is the Aurora Colorado shooter James Holmes, and his reported confessions while in therapy.
James Holmes survived, yet nothing significant has yet to come out about his motives or ways in which his violence could have been prevented. Instead, a future James Holmes need not seek therapy, as the therapist will now be required by law to report him to authorities. In this one singular example that may seem like a good thing. However in general, many people experience feelings of anger and hostility towards others - most often never resulting in a mass killing. Or even a single death. Most notable is in cases where there are deaths due to these hostile feelings, the perp rarely sought therapy in the first place. Like my mother, they weren't the one's with the problem, the victims were.
Under President Obama's new initiative to prevent future Sandy Hooks, or Aurora cinema mass killings is the requirement of a therapist to notify law enforcement of expressed anger and for the then notified authorities to seize any guns the client may own, and their family might own.
Ludicrous as most of the time the person plotting violence will not seek out therapy as that denotes accepting there may be something wrong with them-self. What the new strategies to curb gun violence do is to further alienate a troubled person from seeking mental health treatment. As my mother said often - only sick people seek help. Or their victims since the troubled person was convinced it was not themselves with the issues, but rather the victims.
Other measures the President plans to enact to stem mass killings:
A renewed ban on assault rifles and high capacity clips. When the last one expired in 2004 I think it was, there was no surge in overall gun violence, especially associated with civilian assault style weapons or high capacity clips. Overall gun violence went down according to FBI statistics. Granted, the high profile cases aforementioned do involve these devices, but they are essentially anomalies, not very common. What both restrictions accomplish in effect ie to target and regulate the liberties of law abiding citizens who own such devices. It will do nothing to stem the random, heinous acts of mass murder we've recently become to be aware of.
Recent statistics I read supporting gun control were that there are deaths due to firearms at the rate of 32 people per day. Statistics are interesting, like the fact several thousand die every day from tobacco use, or falling down stairs. Suicide, wow, more deaths by suicide have occurred of late due to taking of one's own life in the military than actual battlefield causalities. Sobering statistics. So what's being done to correct or alleviate this issue? The military has enacted new drug and alcohol tests. That's about it. Like my mother, the military leaders and the structure of the military has nothing to do with soldiers taking their own life. It must be drugs. The victim is at fault!
I found the following video to be of interest. There are questions as to what makes a civilian weapon into an assault weapon? There are kits one can purchase to modernize a standard rifle, like the Ruger 10-22. Such a rifle is a very common and reliable gun that shoots 22 caliper bullets most commonly at squirrels. A 22 caliper bullet is not a great defensive tool against a predator. It is the kind of bullet that is very small and one would have to be very lucky to stop a home invasion with such a weapon, let alone use it in a mass killing spree. The following video puts into perspective the inane new regulations the WH plans to implement to curb mass violence with guns:
In particular, again I must emphasize that any stigma to mental health resources is a very serious problem and yet, VP Biden states in the quote above that the CDC has been restricted and not able to conduct research into acts of violence involving guns. Who's brainchild of an idea was that? A "freeze" on research into gun violence and why? Were they too busy trying to locate someone who died of cannabis use? Or, maybe the NRA convinced someone in Washington to enact the freeze or an anti-gun group wanted the inevitable violence to occur so they could then rally support for anti-gun laws? ... but again why? Why a freeze, like a freeze into medical uses of cannabis?
Stupidity and special interests. There is no question that progress and a new world order that involves personal liberty and freedom is being stifled. Rational regulations are not a part of the public safety initiatives being invoked by our state and federal law-makers. Smoke and mirrors is. For example, I put colonial style shutters on my windows at home to repel home invasion attacks, rifle slots in my wall to shoot the invaders, and night-vision video cameras outside my home to see any intruders. Makes my home a military style fort. That along with my "military style" Ruger 10-22 makes this a fortress. Not. Who could be so stupid as to believe that? And yet, this is the strategy the federal government is taking to stem mass shootings.
The NRA had it right when it proposed armed guards at all public schools. Airports have armed guards, and extensive screening processes, court houses have the same. Politicians are provided armed security. Why not public schools? And why put a burden on mental heath assistance? So you hate your husband or wife? They bully you - and all you can think is your only way out is to kill them? Does this mean you're actually going to do it? You could seek out the help of a psychologist... or at least, in the past you could have. Now that therapist is required by law to be a mole.
There is violence in America, but we're not alone. We're simply different. And of course we're different. We always have been. This country was founded by Christian Puritans and Pagans. Very near to where I live is the site of the Maypole of Merrymount. They were people escaping Puritan England for a place where they could freely pursue their religious beliefs. Much persecution followed... many people were killed to bring this nation to where we are today. I'm told not one Quaker survives today - they were hunted to extinction. Quakers were a prominent religious group present in Colonial America.
Violence in America... of course there's violence! We are not civilized - we don't yet know what being civilized entails. Does it mean no guns. Does it mean no one breaking societal laws? Does it mean we should all become vegetarians? Or does it imply rationality - as when we hear the word wolf, we don't jump up with our shotguns to kill it to extinction, or we don't slaughter elephants, rhinos's and sharks to extinction because of their horns or fins?
But to suppress research of any kind, as the CDC was told to freeze all research into causes of gun violence... when it comes to protecting the public well-being, that's plain wrong.Perhaps whoever ordered that freeze should be in front of a judge right now, facing accessory to murder charges?
It is unfortunate, unlikely that we could have prevented the past tragedies with gun violence had new regulations been in place. What could have prevented some of the tragedy would have been common-sense safeguards. Classroom that actually locked-down. Security resources at the schools like police officers. Administrators and teachers able to protect themselves and others with their own firearm. Advanced security systems. And yes, advanced mental health reforms.
While we've been pursuing, the pot-head, well we've completely abandoned common-sense, have not learned from the past, and are now enacting useless regulations that only benefit the ignorant and promote a comfy feeling that "something is being done". If someone wants to conduct mass murder, or even a single murder, the regulations now being introduced will have little effect.
The problem is with society, and I don't mean that by saying we are now an immoral society. It has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with our family structure,gay couples wishing to marry and raise a child. But rather, it has everything to do with being a society that lives rationally and realistically.
Quite frankly - what President Obama and VP Biden have decided is an embarrassment and like fighting HIV with a toothbrush. Pure stupidity and shows a lack of understanding or even caring. It is smoke and mirrors... mirrors and smoke...
It's no different than book-banning... Henry Miller and the Tropic of Cancer; Norman Mailer; Anais Nin; Jack Kerouac; George Orwell; John Fowles; Hemingway; etc...
This is a snippet of the letter I received from the VP:
"We're going to give law enforcement more tools and resources to prevent and prosecute gun crimes, and we're going to end the freeze on gun violence research that prevents the Center from Disease Control from looking at the causes of gun violence." The rest can be found here:
I don't usually write about guns or the 2nd Amendment. And sorry this post is so long - but it is. I know how to use a gun, and respect them for the tool they are. To me, a gun is a gun no matter what it looks like, or how many bullets are loaded. Being that the theme of my blog is to stop the hurt, like many other Americans I question what happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary school with 20 children slaughtered as well as 6 adults by one 20 years old person. We ask ourselves, what motivates a person to do such a thing?
The mass murderer is dead, as is common in mass killings he took his own life. But enough is known about the killer to suggest he was reacting to what he perceived to be a threat to his own freedom, that being there is talk that he suffered from a form of autism and his mother was attempting to get a court order to procure involuntary treatment, in a hospital, for his behavior issues. How much he knew about this alleged plan by his mother isn't known. Apparently enough, as his actions to shoot her multiple times while she slept, and to go Sandy Hook Elementary school where he knew his mother contributed after stealing several of her weapons makes it fairly clear he was angry. He took his anger to an extreme. Denotes to me a lack of communication between himself and his mother, a lack of alternative actions, and an image of a person backed into his own self-imaged nightmare style corner.
So why didn't he seek mental health intervention if things were so bad? I did at age twenty, though I wasn't a violent type - I didn't think thoughts of shooting people and children at a school. I wanted freedom to live my life and my mother was doing everything possible to invoke changes to how i actually did that. Plus, by then I worked at a college and therapy was free, a benefit of the job. I continued in therapy for the next 25 years, while my mother never sought therapy but rather, continued her quest to reset me on the one road that she believed was life, by using shame and guilt strategies to sway me and intervene as if I was in some sort of cult.
Troubling, to say the least. My opinion, it was not I who should have sought out therapy, but her. However that's a mute point, and it's good and smart on my part that I did not feel adverse to getting therapy. As I said, violent behavior on my part was never an issue - for me it was to free myself from my mother's tactic to force shame and guilt on me because I liked women, liked sex, and I worked as a custodian at the city college, which was in her words a disgrace to the family. My mother was fixated with the idea that her son cleaned toilets. That her son had a very good job, received good benefits and good pay never occurred to her.
Lest I stray from my goal here, it's not about me, but rather, a solution in general to the apparent surge in mass killings. Did I know about guns? Of course I did - my father owned guns, and took me shooting around age 10. I used to go hunting with my friends for ducks. I can recall having shot around 3 ducks and watching as my grandmother labored plucking their feathers so we could eat them. To me it looked like way too much work. Eventually I gave up hunting as I really felt no desire to kill wildlife when I could simply go to a grocery store for meat. That and the fact that when I first got stoned on pot I remember feelings of being peaceful took over, as in Peace and Love.
So I read with sadness that one of President Obama's solutions to random mass murders was to require a mental health provider to notify law enforcement if a client speaks of anger or suggested violence towards others. The source no doubt, is the Aurora Colorado shooter James Holmes, and his reported confessions while in therapy.
James Holmes survived, yet nothing significant has yet to come out about his motives or ways in which his violence could have been prevented. Instead, a future James Holmes need not seek therapy, as the therapist will now be required by law to report him to authorities. In this one singular example that may seem like a good thing. However in general, many people experience feelings of anger and hostility towards others - most often never resulting in a mass killing. Or even a single death. Most notable is in cases where there are deaths due to these hostile feelings, the perp rarely sought therapy in the first place. Like my mother, they weren't the one's with the problem, the victims were.
Under President Obama's new initiative to prevent future Sandy Hooks, or Aurora cinema mass killings is the requirement of a therapist to notify law enforcement of expressed anger and for the then notified authorities to seize any guns the client may own, and their family might own.
Ludicrous as most of the time the person plotting violence will not seek out therapy as that denotes accepting there may be something wrong with them-self. What the new strategies to curb gun violence do is to further alienate a troubled person from seeking mental health treatment. As my mother said often - only sick people seek help. Or their victims since the troubled person was convinced it was not themselves with the issues, but rather the victims.
Other measures the President plans to enact to stem mass killings:
A renewed ban on assault rifles and high capacity clips. When the last one expired in 2004 I think it was, there was no surge in overall gun violence, especially associated with civilian assault style weapons or high capacity clips. Overall gun violence went down according to FBI statistics. Granted, the high profile cases aforementioned do involve these devices, but they are essentially anomalies, not very common. What both restrictions accomplish in effect ie to target and regulate the liberties of law abiding citizens who own such devices. It will do nothing to stem the random, heinous acts of mass murder we've recently become to be aware of.
Recent statistics I read supporting gun control were that there are deaths due to firearms at the rate of 32 people per day. Statistics are interesting, like the fact several thousand die every day from tobacco use, or falling down stairs. Suicide, wow, more deaths by suicide have occurred of late due to taking of one's own life in the military than actual battlefield causalities. Sobering statistics. So what's being done to correct or alleviate this issue? The military has enacted new drug and alcohol tests. That's about it. Like my mother, the military leaders and the structure of the military has nothing to do with soldiers taking their own life. It must be drugs. The victim is at fault!
I found the following video to be of interest. There are questions as to what makes a civilian weapon into an assault weapon? There are kits one can purchase to modernize a standard rifle, like the Ruger 10-22. Such a rifle is a very common and reliable gun that shoots 22 caliper bullets most commonly at squirrels. A 22 caliper bullet is not a great defensive tool against a predator. It is the kind of bullet that is very small and one would have to be very lucky to stop a home invasion with such a weapon, let alone use it in a mass killing spree. The following video puts into perspective the inane new regulations the WH plans to implement to curb mass violence with guns:
I own a Ruger 10-22, and ironically I converted it to the Nomad Style. I like building things. The gun was a gift. Does it shoot any differently than it did before I made the conversion? No. It's still a squirrel gun. According to the video, adding one "military style" modification to a gun is making it a military weapon. With logic like that I plan on adding an armor plate to my car and a tank turret on top as a sun-roof. That creates a military style tank. If drunk drivers that kill people did the same we might get a ban on military style assault cars. The problem is driving under the influence, not the car. Duh!
In particular, again I must emphasize that any stigma to mental health resources is a very serious problem and yet, VP Biden states in the quote above that the CDC has been restricted and not able to conduct research into acts of violence involving guns. Who's brainchild of an idea was that? A "freeze" on research into gun violence and why? Were they too busy trying to locate someone who died of cannabis use? Or, maybe the NRA convinced someone in Washington to enact the freeze or an anti-gun group wanted the inevitable violence to occur so they could then rally support for anti-gun laws? ... but again why? Why a freeze, like a freeze into medical uses of cannabis?
Stupidity and special interests. There is no question that progress and a new world order that involves personal liberty and freedom is being stifled. Rational regulations are not a part of the public safety initiatives being invoked by our state and federal law-makers. Smoke and mirrors is. For example, I put colonial style shutters on my windows at home to repel home invasion attacks, rifle slots in my wall to shoot the invaders, and night-vision video cameras outside my home to see any intruders. Makes my home a military style fort. That along with my "military style" Ruger 10-22 makes this a fortress. Not. Who could be so stupid as to believe that? And yet, this is the strategy the federal government is taking to stem mass shootings.
The NRA had it right when it proposed armed guards at all public schools. Airports have armed guards, and extensive screening processes, court houses have the same. Politicians are provided armed security. Why not public schools? And why put a burden on mental heath assistance? So you hate your husband or wife? They bully you - and all you can think is your only way out is to kill them? Does this mean you're actually going to do it? You could seek out the help of a psychologist... or at least, in the past you could have. Now that therapist is required by law to be a mole.
There is violence in America, but we're not alone. We're simply different. And of course we're different. We always have been. This country was founded by Christian Puritans and Pagans. Very near to where I live is the site of the Maypole of Merrymount. They were people escaping Puritan England for a place where they could freely pursue their religious beliefs. Much persecution followed... many people were killed to bring this nation to where we are today. I'm told not one Quaker survives today - they were hunted to extinction. Quakers were a prominent religious group present in Colonial America.
Violence in America... of course there's violence! We are not civilized - we don't yet know what being civilized entails. Does it mean no guns. Does it mean no one breaking societal laws? Does it mean we should all become vegetarians? Or does it imply rationality - as when we hear the word wolf, we don't jump up with our shotguns to kill it to extinction, or we don't slaughter elephants, rhinos's and sharks to extinction because of their horns or fins?
But to suppress research of any kind, as the CDC was told to freeze all research into causes of gun violence... when it comes to protecting the public well-being, that's plain wrong.Perhaps whoever ordered that freeze should be in front of a judge right now, facing accessory to murder charges?
It is unfortunate, unlikely that we could have prevented the past tragedies with gun violence had new regulations been in place. What could have prevented some of the tragedy would have been common-sense safeguards. Classroom that actually locked-down. Security resources at the schools like police officers. Administrators and teachers able to protect themselves and others with their own firearm. Advanced security systems. And yes, advanced mental health reforms.
While we've been pursuing, the pot-head, well we've completely abandoned common-sense, have not learned from the past, and are now enacting useless regulations that only benefit the ignorant and promote a comfy feeling that "something is being done". If someone wants to conduct mass murder, or even a single murder, the regulations now being introduced will have little effect.
The problem is with society, and I don't mean that by saying we are now an immoral society. It has nothing to do with religion, nothing to do with our family structure,gay couples wishing to marry and raise a child. But rather, it has everything to do with being a society that lives rationally and realistically.
Quite frankly - what President Obama and VP Biden have decided is an embarrassment and like fighting HIV with a toothbrush. Pure stupidity and shows a lack of understanding or even caring. It is smoke and mirrors... mirrors and smoke...
It's no different than book-banning... Henry Miller and the Tropic of Cancer; Norman Mailer; Anais Nin; Jack Kerouac; George Orwell; John Fowles; Hemingway; etc...
One doesn't prevent the Charlie Manson murders; The In Cold Blood murders; the Aurora CO killings or the Green River killings by enactment of such laws and regulations currently being offered up by our President. Offering an immediate response to the Sandy Hook murders such as what the WH is doing is a sham. It's an embarrassing example of a lack of leadership and logic. A reaction to drum up sympathetic support. It accomplishes nothing.
At least they're not going after my favorite computer games like Half-Life; Max Payne; Battle-Field 1942; Bethesda's Morrowind; Oblivian; etc including movies and TV.
The reality is... we need to make mental health therapy as popular as video games. And the President did just the opposite!
Stop the Hurt!!!
