Guns

[Artguy]

Don't give a damn about anyone's perceived right to bare arms...IT'S F.....NG WRONG!!!!!
It is time to stop compromising. I have great deal of respect for hunting culture especially amongst the first nations that we share turtle island with. Hand guns, automatic weapons and assault rifles can only do one thing..kill other people. Ban them, ban the manufacturing, import and export of them. Fuck what the right say, and those hypocrites the NRA. Stop killing our children...our brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers....Gun culture sickens me.

[stilltrucking]

I feel sickened too, sickened by what is being said about the tragedy by our preachers cum politicians.

Former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee continued to speak out on Monday about the recent school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., days after making controversial statements suggesting the massacre was somehow tied to the lack of religious expression in public school.

Following the shooting on Friday, Huckabee asked why we should "be so surprised" at the violence when "we have systematically removed God from our schools."

[still.trucking]

I am sickened by the media coverage, that also includes liberal public radio network too.
If I hear one more call for gun control I am blowing up my computer with a bazooka. More guns, less guns, we are not so much a country anymore as an asylum for the eternally brokenhearted.

meanwhile I have a pattern I fall into after each mass murder— I will search the internet for any new information about the shooter. And I also try to imagine his mind set. I am a happy go luck kind of guy. Sometimes I wonder if Hunter S. Thompson heard the click of the mechanism?

So he had Aspergers,
yeah "the little professor syndrome"
I got that too
I believe Jesus broke that wild horse in my heart, been years and years since I have had those thoughts, those urges.
Also the killer had a very bad hair cut.
I think about Anne Sexton for some reason now and then, I guess because the only thoughts of murder I have anymore are for my own self annihilation.

Help Help I am ranting and raving and I can't stop
'
What do I know about it, maybe Huckabe is right but
You know I worry more about the fact that we have removed G d from our churches than I am about the schools.

I never did like that one nation under god part of the pledge.

Do Canadian school children have to pledge their allegiance to God and the flag everyday?

[tarbaby]

A Modest Proposal to keep children safe in their schools.
Build the schools like super max prisons
Make our children the prisoners


sorry about all my replies
I am numb with grief but so much anger too
the blame
oh man I know so much about this already more than I want to know,

he smashed the shit out of his hard drive, forerensic can't recover what was on it, surprised he left no tracks on the net, very smart geeky kid, he was in a computer club where they played non violent computer games or so they say
everyone wants to know why it happened and who to blame



I can't think of the victims
I can't stand to look at their beautiful happy faces
i fight back the tears
the grief overwhelms me
so I think about the killer
part of my autism maybe

sorry
I think about how many children are killed every day, how many my country is killing in Afghanistan for example. Somehow it keeps me almost centered.

I sincerely hope I am done with your thread now. Only good thing on it is the song you posted.

Wish we could have a cup of coffee some time and maybe a bowl or two of tea and talk about what it is like living in the US and Living in Canada. The news media here jump on the story and within 15 minutes comes a deluge of talk, repeating itself over and over.

The subject is Gun control, it seems like the solution, but it is not going to happen here. That is just the way it is here. I do not want to judge but the reason she had all those guns laying around was fear.

Since Obama's election applications for gun permits have increased 61%(gotta fact check that amount)

We are on nation under fear. No way any gun legislation is going to get done any time soon. I guess things could we worse here. We could be like Sweden where everyone must have a gun. That is the law there I think.

Pardon me while I reload my Bible. Yep we are one nation under a fearful God.

[still.trucking]

NRA ‘shocked, saddened,’ will hold news conference Friday

The National Rifle Association will hold a “major” news conference Friday, the organization announced in a statement Tuesday afternoon, promising “meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/pos ... y/?hpid=z2

[mnaz]

amen brudda ...

[stilltrucking]

Antidepressants Are a Prescription for Mass Shootings

Before the late nineteen eighties, mass shootings and acts of senseless violence were relatively unheard of. Prozac, the most well known SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressant, was not yet on the market. When Prozac did arrive, it was marketed as a panacea for depression which resulted in huge profits for its manufacturer Eli Lilly. Of course other drug companies had to create their own cash cow and followed suit by marketing their own SSRI antidepressants.

Subsequently, mass shootings and other violent incidents started to be reported. More often than not, the common denominator was that the shooters were on an antidepressant, or withdrawing from one. This is not about an isolated incident or two but numerous shootings. The question is, during the past twenty years is the use of antidepressants here a coincidence or a causation?

In a study of thirty-one drugs that are disproportionately linked to reports of violence toward others, five of the top ten are antidepressants. These are Prozac, Paxil, Luvox, Effexor and Pristiq. Two other drugs that are for treating ADHD are also in the top ten which means these are being given to children who could then become violent. One could conclude from this study alone that antidepressants cause both suicidal thoughts and violent behavior. This is a prescription for mass shootings.
http://www.cchrflorida.org/blog/antidep ... shootings/

[Artguy]

This is an article by a Psychiatrist I met a couple of years ago. In the 20 minutes that I sat in front of him I was profoundly effected. The very first thing he said to me was..."You look like a pretty tough guy that could beat the shit out of me...." My self image is of course the exact opposite. http://www.macleans.ca/science/technolo ... 182_128182
He wrote 2 books, one of which I read in which he argues that the chemical treatment of mental illness is bunk... http://www.amazon.com/Daggers-Mind-Psyc ... me+daggers

I agree, and he postulates further on the true nature of mental illness being how the mentally ill are perceived by ya well conditioned society. He is absolutely brilliant.

Psychiatry is the magic of exploring the core...not taking a pill and call me in the morning.

[stilltrucking]

A physician who practices the art of medicine

“The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head. Often the best part of your work will have nothing to do with potions and powders, but with the exercise of an influence of the strong upon the weak, of the righteous upon the wicked, of the wise upon the foolish.”
William Osler quotes (Canadian Physician, 1849-1919)

[Arcadia]

I´m not for pills for "deppression" ... I guess serotonin or the meaning or not meaning of life can be rised, lowered, appreciated or bared by other means, if that´s the cause or that´s the illness ...

And about drugs: according to my parents and other people of the same age I know, it seems here Lexotanil was easily delivered by doctors during the seventies and early eighties ... no idea about "scientific" studies about its side-effects ...

artguy: you are a lucky man! , your doctor seems a good interlocutor for you and I have to say he was also lucky having you as a "paciente" (we don´t say here "client" and the word "paciente" with its passive-like pointing it´s not very liked also among we could name a new? medicine conception... but who knows...! you have to be a little "paciente" sometimes...! )

And this is very beautifully and clearly said:

Human suffering is eternal, Warme believes -- there will never be a biological, drug-based fine tuning that will end it. Warme has no objection to any relief that can be offered without serious side effects, from drugs to electroshock to sacrificed chickens. But as a rational humanist skeptic, what he really believes in is the aesthetic cure. "In films, books and operas, we discover human nature writ large, with complexities, blemishes and perversities included. Like psychiatrists, art invites you to wrestle with ghosts. I listen to my patients and they tell me the same archetypical stories I read in Homer." His job, Warme figures, is to convince patients to become more conscious creators of their own selves, "to look over the way they have lived their lives, to tell them that the story you have lived up to now -- you might benefit from a different story."

[Atehequa]

I've a few rifles and pay them no mind until hunting season. Although some of my coworkers have suggested I join the NRA, I really see no need. These NRA gun freaks can be of no assistance to me while deep in the woods hunting deer or turkey.

Being a member of a British poetry forum, I was somewhat taken aback by some of their hateful remarks regarding American hunters who hunt only to put fresh meat on the table. Some of us couldn't survive on beef, mutton or 'fish and chips'.

I really don't have a problem with the vegan lifestyle but can't understand why they have to overly rag upon hunters, especially those who have a long heritage of hunting. They wonder why their dogs and cats get sick or die living off meatless pet food. Cruel punishment forcing a carnivore to go without meat.

[Artguy]

The hunt is a long honoured right of the human species that is still carried by those closest to the living cycles of the earth...The seasons change and the geese are in the air and the caribou are on the move to uncovered pastures. As part of the natural world we take care of them insuring they are healthy, so as the wolf we cull the herd...

[Atehequa]

Understandably following such a horrible tragedy like the one that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School, much ere has fallen upon America’s gun culture as well it should. This culture has existed since the first Europeans stepped upon the mainland some 500 years ago. Children and other unarmed non combatants have been shot down in this land for centuries. Spanish conquistadors and explorers such as Hernando de Soto had fleeing children shot as to allow his soldiers target practice when not having these young prisoners ripped apart by his pack of mastiffs. Most of us know what occurred all through America’s colonial period, European kingdoms shooting it out in attempt to control large swaths of the ‘new world’ only to be followed by a colonial revolt. The United States of America born of war and from infancy to present swaddled and later shrouded in blood. Over 236 years of children being shot and blasted into bits by Americans. Following Britain’s defeat The United States government then waged a war of extermination against native tribes east of the Mississippi. Those not completely wiped out were removed west of the great river. Upon their exile to ‘Indian Territory’ thousands of children, elderly and infirmed perished. Then there was the conquest of the west. Americans shooting it out with Indians and Mestizos, more children being killed in the process by all sides, but that was before radio and television news reports.

Wars and more wars. Planes bombing cities, millions of non combatants being blasted into hamburger. The horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, carpet bombing of the Vietnam War to the bunker busting bombs dropped on Baghdad. Throughout these wars many non-combatants were mowed down by small arms fire. How soon people forget or never come to know of the My Lai massacre ? More recently the insane American marine who raped that Iraqi girl then him and his buddies killed her along with her whole family. More recent than that a whacked out American soldier gunning down Afghani families.

Yes a culture of guns which transcends the American military into civilian life. Duelists, citizen ’Injun fighters’ outlaws, gunslingers, gangsters, law enforcement, militias, collectors and sportsmen, like the ones who hunt animals into extinction. Then there are those living in a land of so many firearms who keep guns to defend themselves from other gun owners.

Dodge City ?

More closer to home every morning while I watch local news from the urban areas across a few rivers, there are at least one gun related death every day. Mostly criminals possessing guns. Then there was the more nationalized reporting of Travon Martin death, another child killed by an American gun owner.

Now back closer to home and a more personal observation -

Angry and fearful people are extremely dangerous. No big surprise there, but existing in a rural setting northwest and a few broad rivers away from the more racially mixed urban area of what is called Hampton Roads, my family and I live among a population which is 87% white. The descendants of English colonists make up the biggest part of that white population. Now before anyone thinks I’m taking this into racist rant about white people,, well yeah, but in regards to America’s redneck culture now quite modernized, televised and seemingly at present in full bloom. Pride, anger and fear allows this blossoming. Guns are a big part of America’s redneck culture which is dominate in my area. Stuck on the back glass of many pickup trucks, NRA stickers. Now the NRA has been awhile for awhile, but these days that organization holds more political power and sway over the blossoming redneck culture. At the job and during my off work hours I come into close contact with these blossoming rednecks, some of them transplants to Virginia, all owners of numerous firearms, all overly prideful, angry and fearful. People who are quite proud to be white, quite angry at who they perceive will take away their guns thus rendering them defenseless from what they are told to fear. Not only the NRA nurtures this blossoming. Conservative think tanks that not only assist the NRA, but hold sway over the news, advertisement and entertainment specifically targeting part of the white working middle and lower class. This targeting was at an all time high during the George W. Bush administration, especially after September 11, 2001 and continuing with a vengeance into the Barack Obama presidency. In the area in which I live and at my job people who were once for the most part, regular rural people have now assimilated into this brand new blossoming culture. People who once owned a few shotguns, pistols and rifles are now buying many more, some attaining these assault weapons. I've heard much talk from these people concerning the stocking up of guns and ammunition. Their gun magazines, favorite internet sites along with the NRA seem to be conveying this message. It’s not only the guns, it’s a mindset terribly altered by the propaganda spewing right-wing news organizations and dumbed down by a portion entertainment industry glorifying violence, stupidity and shallowness. I remember one of these coworkers attempting to tell me all about him and his family seeing Kellie Pickler in concert. Do a Google search on this entertainment wonder. Personally I blame the country music industry for a lot of this dumbing down. Amazingly enough many Virginians have adopted the ‘Larry the Cable Guy’, or Ted Nugent look and philosophy. I’m half way scared to go out into the woods to hunt as there are these types who now hunt deer off of ATVs while using radios and semi-automatic assault rifles, often so kill crazy they will shoot anything that moves. That’s why I do most of my hunting during the black powder and bow season.

But back to my coworkers and even childhood friends who have bought into this new blossoming redneck culture. They are armed to the teeth and some of them have children who are not all that mentally stable. Influenced by violent movies and video games along with parents who have fully embraced this culture of guns. Hell, I work with individuals who talk more about their guns than their kids. What happens if one of them or their kids snap and want to carve a niche in hell with the lives of others before they are taken out by the law, or else blow their own brains out ? Another Sandy Hook or some other horrific work place massacre ? Just look at the statistics, 99% of these spree killers are Caucasian males, just like Adam Lanza, a very disturbed son of someone who had embraced this culture of guns.

Perhaps it’s time for America to become a more peaceful nation, do away with all these violent ‘shoot em up’ movies and video games, put more funds into education and ban all military like weapons from the public as it has been proven that no good can come from them.

Remember, America’s 2nd amendment was written in a time when flintlock rifles were the standard firearms.

[Doreen Peri]

Great rant, Atehequa. Well said. You're a fine writer.

Where are you in Virginia? I'm in Virginia, too.

[Atehequa]

In the river country between the Chesapeake and Appalachians.

And you are in Northern Virginia ?