Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Anger, Revisionism and Terrorism

People who know me, either in real life or maybe just online, know I have a bad temper.

In response to a particularly egregious court verdict in 1995, I wrote the following:

In response to my anger, I won't go out and get a gun. I won't bomb a building. I won't hack my parents or husband or child to death. I'll just write, talk and keep writing and talking until this passes.

The mass shooting by a domestic terrorist in Arizona on January 8 makes me very angry for a number of reasons. Its chilling effect on societal freedoms. Its sheer waste. Its reason for happening.

I do not believe the Tea Party is completely culpable for this event, but they are partially responsible. Ultimate, the shooter himself is responsible for buying a legal semi-automatic weapon (with help from the NRA and the Republican party for keeping gun laws so loose), taking it to a public event, trying to kill Gabreille Giffords, a moderate Democratic Representative, then spraying the audience with the gun, killing at least six and wounding a total of 19. A Federal judge (ironically, who'd ruled against background checks for gun buyers), a 9-year-old child (ironically, born on 9/11/01) and four others were murdered in cold blood - but seem to have been "collateral damage."

So how is this not a terrorist act? If an Islamic man did this, Americans wouldn't hesitate to call this an act of terrorism. They'd scream for vengence.

But if people point out:

that the Arizona shooter was an anti-government type [[who praised Palin -- the Palin comment may be a rumor; I was wrong to have included an unverified rumor]]

that Sarah Palin had marked 20 Democratic Congressional
representatives for electoral removal - by using the
cross-hairs symbol (this graphic was, of course,
removed from Palin's Website by late in day on 1/8,
but we should never forget that it was up for many
months and was seen by many thousands if not
millions of people) [[her later "surveyor's symbols" comments have been generally denied by surveyors]]

that Jesse Kelly, Gabrielle's opponent in the 2010 election,
held a campaign event that was advertised with
this line: "Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office
Shoot a fully automatic F16 with Jesse Kelly." This
archival calendar item was removed on 1/8.

that the atmosphere in Arizon is so poisonous that even the
sheriff of Pima county has said that political vitriol
was partially responsible for the shooter's rampage.

We're accused of politicizing a tragedy.

I don't believe that. The same people who think America should be run by the Tea Partiers also don't hesitate to blame Obama for every problem this country's had over the last two years, seeming to forget that the wars and the economic catastrophe started in the Bush administration.

[[Added later]] And, frankly, I think many Tea Partiers would love to see a revolution in this country - but don't have the legitimate political clout to do anything more than be obstructionists and cause problems locally.

So should we thank them for the reassurance that the attempted murder of Congressional Representative who'd been "targeted" by Palin and the Tea Partiers and shot by an anti-government white guy who then kept shooting is in no way political and is in no way terroristic?

I have a bad temper, and another thing that brings it out is revisionism. Usually, if I've gotten mad or been wrong about the wrong person/thing online/in real life, I've never gone back and re-edited my Website or my life. When real people are involved, I've often had to apologize. Sometimes, I've said, "I was wrong about X." Sometimes, I've changed my behavior about X. But I will always admit to and own my anger - I might have been wrong, but I won't lie about it. But it's amazing how quickly the Tea Partiers have been scrubbing their old publicity to make it seem that they never tried to equate guns with removing people from office.

I don't hear or see the Tea Partiers apologizing for any of the inciting speech they've been engaged in. Because they will never take any responsibility for their part in this act of domestic terrorism. [[Added later]] The one good thing about this horrific event was the way that Sarah Palin has finally demonstrated that she is completely unelectable, and most Republicans may finally realize this. Her attempts to make herself a victim in all this is simply appalling. She's done nothing but demonstrate she has no grasp of history. Eight years of Bush should have proven that it's dangerous to have an ignorant person as president.

A few months ago, I attended the Rally 4 Sanity in Washington. It was a great day for people who want to try to find solutions to our country's problems rather than encourage constant vitriol.

After an event like the Arizona terrorism incident, we do have every right to be angry. But I don't think we should be eterally angry. We should try to channel our anger in rational ways, not in terroristic ways.

[[Added later]] I was relieved to see the rational way many Arizonans welcomed President Obama to Arizona when he attended a service in honor of the shooting victims. I hope many of them become more politically active so Arizona has more balanced leadership.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Guys with Guns Strike Again...

Yeah, I know, guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Tell that to the 20(+?) dead at Virginia Tech and the other 20(+?) injured.

How many do you think this idiot (or these idiots) would have killed without some sort of high-powered rifle??

Monday, May 27, 2002

On Living in a "Safe" Suburb

We live on a busy street in a nice suburb of Pittsburgh. We moved here in 1993 because we were looking for an area with an excellent school system, close to town, with a house we could afford. We really weren't all that concerned with "safety" issues per se. We lock doors out of habit no matter where we've lived, and aside from petty theft from a pair of break-ins, have been lucky to not been victims of real crime.

Over the last few years, major crime has seeped into our suburb. In April 2000, a guy in a nearby neighborhood went on a shooting spree. His first victim was his neighbor, a Jewish woman. He drove to the next town and started shooting Indian people at a grocery. He shot-out the windows of two synagogues. He murdered a man in a Chinese restaurant, and finally shot a black karate instructor. When he was done, five people had been murdered, one man was left paralyzed from the neck down.

I wasn't very surprised, in some ways, because folks in Pennsylvania love their guns and there's a fairly ugly current of racism among some people. In fairness to my home, some folks in the town have started to deal with diversity issues and are at least talking about them.

More recently, though, the pace of murders has quickened. Two young men whom my daughter went to high school with, "allegedly" killed another man in what, "allegedly," was a drug deal gone wrong. While this murder did not happen in our town, it "allegedly" involved people who do.

A few weeks ago, a young man murdered his girlfriend. We don't need the "allegedlys" in this case - he killed himself before the police could arrest him.

Just last night, a policeman was shot during a domestic disbute. While the policeman was shot in the chest, he was wearing a bullet-proof vest and is expected to recover.

This level of violence in a "safe" suburb is depressing. I suppose it's just a reminder that nowhere is safe. It doesn't mean we should panic and crawl in our homes and never emerged - it just means we need to be vigilant everywhere.