Ebola - the threat, the heroes, the politics

On Friday of last week, the World Health Organization raised the number of confirmed or suspected deaths from the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak to 4,033 - greater than the death toll from all previous outbreaks.  And unlike previous outbreaks, generally confined to the villages where the disease appeared, the 2014 outbreak has spread to cities and countries outside the epicenter.  As reported by AP and carried by Huffington's World Post: "David Nabarro, the U.N. special envoy for Ebola, said the number of Ebola cases is probably doubling every three-to-four weeks and the response needs to be 20 times greater than it was at the beginning of October. He warned the U.N. General Assembly that without the mass mobilization of the world to support the affected countries in West Africa, 'it will be impossible to get this disease quickly under control, and the world will have to live with the Ebola virus forever.' "  Mathematical models performed by numerous researchers suggest that anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 people globally could contract the virus by December of this year.  With the virus' 50% fatality rate, 10,000 to 50,000 could be killed by the epidemic. Hopefully, the world's governments will respond to this plea for mass mobilization and the worst case scenarios will be prevented.

There is no cure for the disease and no vaccine against the virus. Prevention and containment are the best defense.  Basic interventions, when provided early enough, can increase an infected patient's chances of survival,  From the CDC website:  Symptoms of Ebola are treated as they appear. The following basic interventions, when used early, can significantly improve the chances of survival:

• Providing intravenous fluids (IV)and balancing electrolytes (body salts)
• Maintaining oxygen status and blood pressure
• Treating other infections if they occur

Recovery from Ebola depends on good supportive care and the patient’s immune response. People who recover from Ebola infection develop antibodies that last for at least 10 years, possibly longer. 

The heroes of this battle are the men and women fighting every day to save Ebola patients.  They are the ones putting themselves at risk to keep the epidemic in check.  The slightest imperfection in protective equipment or procedure can lead to infection and death.  Even when procedures are followed and protective equipment is used, it's possible to become infected as happened with one of the nurses treating the Dallas Ebola patient.  Whether they be part of the local response or the UN or Doctors Without Borders medical staff or the medical teams sent by countries like Cuba, they put their lives on the line every day.  The US is sending at least 4,000 troops to West Africa improving the infrastructure, helping with logistics and building treatment units.  The 101st Airborne is currently undergoing intensive safety training before joining the 350 troops already on the ground in West Africa.

Screening procedures are being put in place in many international airports - London's Heathrow, New York's JFK, Chicago’s O’Hare International, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International and Newark Liberty International - to help stop the spread of the disease from countries with the highest level of infection.  The Economist notes that "African and Asian countries have been screening air passengers for months, with some using infrared cameras to detect fevers. This is in addition to the screening of all departing air travellers in the affected countries."  While these measures may help calm people, they will not completely stop the spread of the disease.   The article concludes "...the best way to stop Ebola from spreading, say health experts, is to drain the reservoir of the disease, which means tackling it in west Africa. Doing that presents an entirely different set of challenges. When it comes to stopping Ebola, the rich world's self-interest aligns neatly with the needs of the developing world. But countries in a position to help have been slow to act."

Here in the US, politics has raised its ugly head. Most recently, a key Republican Senator was blocking the transfer of $750 million (of the $1 billion requested by Obama) in Department of Defense funds to fight the disease because, among other things, the Defense budget was "thin". After realizing how ridiculous his position was, he dropped his objections.  Reuters reported Friday : "The U.S. Defense Department won permission to shift $750 million in war funds to fight Ebola in West Africa as a Republican senator on Friday lifted his remaining objections to the transfer.  The action by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma will give the Pentagon enough funding for about six months of operations in West Africa, including the deployment of up to 4,000 troops and the establishment some 17 Ebola treatment facilities with 100 beds each."  The bad news is that Republicans are still holding up $250 million of the original $1 billion request for transfer.

Inhofe says that "it will be difficult to support any further last-minute funding requests using military resources,"  Really? With 40% of the world's total military expenditures, we can surely find something we don't need in that bloated budget.  Inhofe asks for a "more appropriate" source of funding while we are still feeling the impact of the domestic program budget cuts that Republicans love so much.

The main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're "hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester."  Sequestration caused budget cuts in the National Institute of Health's budget affecting every area of medical research.  Cuts to international aid budgets and to USAID totaling $700 million affected the detection and containment of the disease.  Dr. Beth Bell of the CDC testifying before a Senate committee, "argued that the epidemic could have been stopped if more had been done sooner to build global health security... 'If even modest investments had been made to build a public health infrastructure in West Africa previously, the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained.'" [Mother Jones, October 1]

The head of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, pointed out the impact of a decade of stagnant funding for the agency (down 23% in current dollars).  "has 'slowed down' research on all items, including vaccinations for infectious diseases. As a result, he said, the international community has been left playing catch-up on a potentially avoidable humanitarian catastrophe.  'NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,' Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. 'Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready.' " [Huffington Post, October 12]

The US media have done a pretty good job of stirring up fears of a devastating outbreak of the virus here in the US despite statements from medical experts that there is little reason for that fear. Normally, the Surgeon General of the United States would be advising Americans and addressing the health concerns of the nation - what's real, what's not, what can be done, what precautions to take. But here too politics has had an impact.  Thanks to the NRA, we are without a Surgeon General overseeing the Ebola threat. "Last November 14th, the President nominated Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, an extremely qualified candidate to replace ‘acting’ Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin. It took three months, but the Senate finally got around to holding a confirmation hearing for Dr. Murthy’s appointment. However, the National Rifle Association exerted its very substantial legislative prerogative and blocked Murthy’s confirmation because he...called for sane gun restrictions to prevent more Americans from dying unnecessarily from the gun violence epidemic. It is exactly what a real medical professional, and highly-qualified potential Surgeon General of the United States, is supposed to do; help prevent a deadly epidemic from spreading to save American lives." [PoliticsUSA, October 14]  More than 30,000 people are killed by gun violence each year.  The devastation caused by gun violence is order of magnitudes more devastating than the Ebola virus will ever be in this country.

Sunday Roundup - August 3, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US corporate mainstream media. Today we look at Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, and US gun laws. 

“Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced."

- UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Kahenbuhl, 

after the Israeli shelling of a sixth UN refugee shelter Wednesday

Gaza
After two brief lulls in the fighting in the past week, Israel's siege of Gaza continued. Palestinian civilian casualties continue to rise and the devastating destruction of Gaza by Israeli military strikes continues. As of Saturday, August 2, the Palestinian death toll now exceeds 1600; more than 8300 have been wounded. UN sources estimate 80 percent of the Palestinian dead - more than 1200 - are civilians.  300 of the dead are children.  Israeli deaths stand at 67, including 64 soldiers and 3 civilians. 

Monday - Missiles...struck several sites in Gaza, including a park inside a refugee camp and an outpatient building of the strip's largest hospital, disrupting a relative lull at the start of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday. The IDF denied responsibility.  Hamas denied it had fired any rockets in the area and said it was "categorically an airstrike by Israel". It said it had collected schrapnel from the scene that it could prove was from an Israeli munition.  Medics said that an Israeli missile also hit a building, believed to be an outpatient clinic, close to the main gate of Shifa hospital, the same hospital where the victims of the playground strike were taken.  [Al Jazeera, July 29]

Tuesday - Israel broadened its assault on Gaza on Tuesday, wrecking the region's only power plant and killing more than 125 Palestinians.  Barrages "destroyed Hamas's media offices, the home of a top leader and what Palestinians said was a devastating hit on the only electricity plant," The New York Times reports....With Tuesday's bombings, which the Guardian described as "the most relentless and widespread" of the three-week-old conflict, the Palestinian death toll has exceeded 1,200. The shelling of the power plant, which Palestinian officials described as taking a devastating hit, will bring additional hardship. The lack of electricity will make existing problems with water and sewage far worse. "We need at least one year to repair the power plant, the turbines, the fuel tanks and the control room," Fathi Sheik Khalil of the Gaza energy authority told the Guardian. "Everything was burned."  [NPR, July 29]  The lack of electricity also boosts the need for increased fuel in Gaza to power water and sewage pumps and run backup generators, the U.N. said. Hospitals are especially vulnerable to electricity and water cuts as they try to cope with the influx of the injured and dead in addition to medical supply shortages.  Ninety percent of the population is without electricity, sharply affecting water and sanitation services, with only 5 percent of Gaza’s water fit for drinking. This has raised fears of an imminent public health crisis, according to the United Nations...And without electricity, communication with the outside world for many Palestinians in Gaza has slowed to a trickle....Some 20 percent of Gaza’s population has been internally displaced by the crisis. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is housing about 220,000 of them, according to Chris McGrath, its Washington liaison. But it’s unclear how much more the agency can do. “We’re stretched thin, and our supplies are running out,” he said. “There’s very little space left in our facilities.” [Al Jazeera, August 2]

Aftermath of the strike on a UN school in Gaza City.
Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images
Image appeared in The Guardian

Wednesday - At least 19 Palestinians were killed and about 90 injured early on Wednesday when a UN school sheltering displaced people was hit by shells during a second night of relentless bombardment that followed an Israeli warning of a protracted military campaign.  Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, condemned “in in the strongest possible terms this serious violation of international law by Israeli forces”.  He said in a statement: “Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN-designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep; this is an affront to all of us, a source of universal shame. Today the world stands disgraced." [The Guardian, July 30]

A cease fire failed after just several hours on Friday morning.  The West blames Hamas for the collapse of the cease fire and, as usual, says little about the gross overreaction by the Israeli military.  The current cause for the intensification of the assault against Gaza is a missing Israeli soldier that Israelis believe was captured by Hamas.   Around 100 people have been killed and hundreds more injured in Rafah since fighting restarted following the collapse of an internationally brokered ceasefire Friday morning. At least a dozen have been killed elsewhere in Gaza and scores wounded. Health officials said the main hospital in Rafah had to be evacuated because of shelling on Friday afternoon....Early on Saturday, the Hamas military wing said in a statement on its website that it was "not aware until this moment of a missing soldier or his whereabouts or the circumstances of his disappearance". The group said it believed the soldier might have been killed in a clash with Hamas fighters about an hour before the start of the ceasefire...The United States and the United Nations supported Israeli accounts that Hamas had taken advantage of the 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire to ambush IDF soldiers near the entrance to a tunnel outside Rafah, on the southern end of the Gaza Strip on the Egyptian border, killing two soldiers at the same time as seizing Goldin.  [The Guardian, August 2]
Update:  Israel confirmed on Saturday August 2 that the soldier presumed captured had been killed in action. 

Why the Ceasefires Aren't Working
International efforts to secure a cease fire in the current conflict have failed repeatedly.  The only way to secure a lasting cease fire is to end the blockade on Gaza and for the Israeli troops to return home.  This is something that Israel, Egypt and the West so far have refused to consider.  The world has rightly condemned the Hamas rocket attacks into Israel, which have killed 35 Israelis in the past 10 years.  However, the rocket attacks, according to Britain Eakin, a symptom of deeper issues that must be addressed as part of a comprehensive peace process. In that regard, any cease-fire that does not contain provisions to end the blockade will merely be a Band-Aid.  In an opinion piece for Al Jazeera, Eakin quotes Chris McGrath, the UNWRA liaison in Washington.  “The situation [in Gaza] was bleak before this conflict, and if something is not done to address those longer-term challenges,” McGrath cautioned, “conflict is likely to flare up again in the future...Is Gaza going to be a place where people can actually live in 2020?” McGrath asked. “The answer under current circumstances is no.”  Eakin notes, Hamas has recently signaled its willingness to consider Israel’s legitimate security concerns. It put forth conditions for a 10-year truce that would allow for international monitors in areas of concern for Israel, including at border crossings, along the borders and at Gaza’s yet-to-be developed airport and seaport. Now is the time for cooler heads to prevail. Palestinians, like Israelis, deserve to live in peace and security and must be allowed to develop their economy. Any cease-fire that does not treat the parties equally will fall far short of addressing the legitimate security needs of both people — and consequently won’t be sustainable.

Links
The Nation, "Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza - Debunked" - a good article to keep in front of you as you watch network and cable news "coverage".

Americans for Peace Now's  Alert and Petition Supporting John Kerry's Efforts to Obtain A Ceasefire

Hamas conditions for a 10-year truce with Israel


Ukraine
Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko ...announced a unilateral cease-fire in a 20 km radius of the crash site of the MH17 flight in a telephone conversation with the PMs of Netherlands and Australia, according to his press-service.  Earlier in the day [July 30] US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed Kiev was ready for a cease-fire “now,” following a meeting with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin in Washington. Kerry added that President Poroshenko is also ready to start talks with the militia in the southeast of the country. Russia has called on Kiev numerous times to establish a cease-fire and start talks. The local militia in the south-east offered a bilateral cease-fire last week. Kiev refused. [Russia Times, July 30]

Russia
On Tuesday, the EU and the US announced new sanctions against Russia for its support of the Ukrainian separatists.  The EU has agreed on a package of "significant" additional restrictive measures targeting Russia's finance, defense and energy sectors, said the European Council in a statement....These decisions will limit access of Russian state-owned financial institutions to EU capital markets, impose an arms embargo, establish an export ban on dual-use goods for military end users, and curtail Russian access to sensitive technologies particularly in the field of the oil sector, according to the statement....Following its European allies, Obama announced an expansion of U.S. penalties targeting key sectors of Russia's economy.  Building on measures unveiled two weeks ago, the United States expanded its sanctions to more Russian banks and defense companies, and blocked the export of specific goods and technology to Russia's energy sector. [Xinhuanet, July 30]

Guns and Domestic Violence

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding its first-ever hearing on domestic violence and guns...Several Democrat-backed bills that aim to strengthen federal law when it comes to gun ownership and domestic abuse are languishing in Congress...The gun lobby has fought back against [Sen. Klobuchar's] bill...But not all gun-owners are siding with the NRA to fight these stricter gun controls. "I am a gun owner. I was shot and left for dead by my own gun," says Christy Martin, a former championship boxer whose ex-husband was sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in prison for attempting to murder her with a firearm....Elvin Daniel is a gun-owner and self-described NRA member who is testifying at the hearing in support of efforts to curb gun ownership for stalkers and abusers. He accuses the NRA of employing "a scare tactic" to prevent Klobuchar's bill from advancing. His sister was shot and killed by her estranged husband in 2012. [Mother Jones, July 30]

Sunday Roundup - June 15, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today we look at Syria, pro-gun antics, the State Senator sellout and the Tea Party victory in Virginia, and Iraq.

Syria
According to the UN, more than 160,000 people have been killed in Syria's civil war.  Nearly three million refugees have sought sanctuary abroad and six million people have been displaced inside the country.  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was re-elected to his third seven-year term on June 3 in an election held in government controlled areas.  On June 9, Assad announced a wide-ranging amnesty.  As reported by the Reuters news agency: In a decree published by state media, Assad commuted some death sentences to life imprisonment, reduced jail terms for many offences and canceled some others altogether.  Foreigners who entered the country "to join a terrorist group or perpetrate a terrorist act" would receive an amnesty if they surrender to authorities within a month, the decree said. Kidnappers who free their hostages and army deserters would also be covered.   On June 10, Reuters reported on the  internecine fighting among Assad's mainly Sunni Muslim opponents.  A six-week offensive by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against rival Islamists in eastern Syria has killed 600 fighters and driven 130,000 people from their homes...The group follows al Qaeda's jihadist ideology but its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has defied orders by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri to stop fighting in Syria and focus on Iraq. The UK-based Observatory said 241 fighters from ISIL and 354 from Nusra and other Islamic brigades had been killed in fighting since ISIL launched its offensive in Syria's Deir al-Zor province, seizing four oilfields from its rivals. Civilian deaths are estimated at 39.

Gun Violence
Mass shootings continue in the US with no Congressional action to even establish standards for universal background checks anywhere in sight.  Among other shootings in the past several weeks, a couple allegedly at the Cliven Bundy ranch shot to death two Las Vegas police officers and a bystander.  In a June 10 post, The Daily Kos analyzes the disappearance of the Tea Party terrorist story from Fox News reports after just one day.  Ordinarily, Fox, or any news operation, would grasp dearly to a story that had the emotional punch of police officers murdered in an ambush. It has the drama of a horrific crime and the sympathy reserved for a community's fallen heroes. For Fox to forgo all of that makes it clear that they are afraid of their own audience. They are not going to risk upsetting them with a story that indicts their most closely held principles. And Fox is surely not going to indulge in a story that contradicts everything they have stood for over the last seventeen years.

Meanwhile just when you thought the anti-gun-control fanatics couldn't get any nuttier, we are treated to the spectacle of packs of Open Carry Texas members carrying their rifles into commercial establishments and hounding gun control advocates, the NRA criticizing OCT actions and then retracting its criticism, "Joe the Plumber" insisting to parents of children killed at UC-Santa Barbara that the deaths of innocent people "don't trump" his constitutional rights, and a loaded gun being found in the toy aisle of a Target in South Carolina. Perhaps some of these pro-gun activists are afraid of universal background checks because they act so bat-shit crazy that, in any civilized society, they would be deemed unsuited to carry weapons.  President Obama asked for us as a nation to do some soul-searching and that may be all that happens for the foreseeable future on a Federal level.  With NRA money backing so many in Congress and with Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, don't expect too much by way of courageous action to stop the American gun slaughter.  

Virginia Doings
Referring to what appears to have been the bribery of a Democratic state senator by Virginia Republicans, Zoe Carpenter writing in The Nation wonders "What won't the GOP do to keep the poor uninsured?" Phillip Puckett, who served as a Democratic state senator for one of Virginia's poorest districts, resigned suddenly on Monday. His decision to step down appears to have been the result of a bribe offered by Republican colleagues bent on stopping the expansion of Medicaid. Puckett’s resignation gave Republicans the one seat they needed to take control of the Senate; it also put him in the running for a paid post on a state tobacco commission that is controlled by some of the very same Republicans. And it cleared the way for the chamber to appoint his daughter to a state judgeship. Turns out Puckett, in view of the uproar, may not be taking the post at the state tobacco commission.  But the damage was done.  By stepping down, Puckett effectively ended a months-long battle over the fate of the 400,000 Virginians who are too poor to buy insurance but don’t meet the state’s restrictive eligibility requirements for Medicaid. The state Senate had been on course to vote to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act, setting up a budget showdown with the Republican-controlled House. But with the GOP now in control of the Senate, both chambers are expected to pass a spending plan on Thursday that does not include the expansion.  Virginia is not the only state where Republicans have gone to insane lengths to keep millions uninsured, or to justify doing so.  Carpenter cites Missouri, Louisiana, Utah and Arkansas as examples of these Republican efforts.

In other Virginia political news, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was deemed too moderate (wow, Cantor pressured Boehner from the right!) for the likes of his constituents.  David Brat, an obscure right-wing professor of economics, supported by the Tea Party but outspent 25 to 1 by Cantor, defeated Cantor by 11 percentage points.  How did this happen? New York Magazine assessed it this way:  Brat ... benefited from the constant undercurrent of discontent emanating from the base that House Republicans had accommodated President Obama by failing to force him to accept their agenda — the still-extant pangs of anger that drove the party to shut down the government last fall.  But the biggest issue by far was immigration reform. Cantor was no reformer, really. He rejected the bipartisan immigration reform deal ...but he did hope to salvage some partial compromise, perhaps allowing some illegal immigrants who had been brought over the border as children.... Brat rejected even that. Any token of conciliation was too much. He still uses the old lingo, calling undocumented immigrants “illegals.” The chortling on the Democratic side has begun.  They are glad that Cantor has been defeated.  I wonder what they can possibly be thinking.  He was replaced on the 2014 Republican ticket in a secure Republican district by someone even further to the right than he is. Albeit this was one of the few Tea Party victories against the Republican establishment candidates in this primary season.

Map is from uniraq.org

Iraq

Iraq is facing its gravest test since the US-led invasion more than a decade ago, after its army capitulated to Islamist insurgents who have seized four cities and pillaged military bases and banks, in a lightning campaign which seems poised to fuel a cross-border insurgency endangering the entire region.  [The Guardian, June 11]  Al-Qaeda-linked extremists seized control of Nineveh province and Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city.  It puts terrorists in control of an enormous part of Iraq’s north and west.   As Bob Dreyfuss in a June 10 article in The Nation so correctly puts it: The crisis now engulfing Iraq provides the ultimate condemnation of the decision by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their cohorts—backed, of course, by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry—to invade Iraq in 2003. That action, which destroyed virtually all of Iraq’s institutions and created a power vacuum that led directly to an ethnic and sectarian civil war, is now playing out all of its terrible consequences.  The ongoing sectarian violence has taken a staggering toll in Iraq - with more than 8,000 killed in 2013 and monthly totals that suggest an even higher number of deaths this year; in May, 799 Iraqis died as the result of suicide bombings, car bombs, targeted assassinations, tit-for-tat killings and other civil war–like violence, according to the United Nations—and that data doesn’t even include Anbar province. 

Mother Jones, June 13 post: "What the Hell is Happening in Iraq Right Now?"

Stop the Madness

“I don’t care about your sympathy. I don’t give a s--t that you feel sorry for me...Get to work and do something. I’ll tell the president the same thing if he calls me. Getting a call from a politician doesn’t impress me.” - Richard Martinez, Santa Barbara gun victim's father

This weekend's tragedy in Santa Barbara leaves us wondering what will it take to get the country to confront the widespread availability of guns that lies at the heart of our developed-world-leading murder rate.  The craven toadies in Congress beholden to the NRA have done nothing - not after Sandy Hook, not after Gabby Giffords' shooting, not after the D.C. navy yard, not after any number of other recent mass shootings.  Gun lobby apologists and paranoid wing-nuts stifle any discussion of our unreasonably lax gun laws.

Comprehensive Federal gun control laws are a must if we are going to ever stop the ongoing killings in our communities.  The first and minimum step is a universal background check law with no loopholes, with annual renewal requirements for possession of a gun combined, and with severe civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance.  I'm amazed to read officials and pundits decrying how helpless we are in "identifying potential killers".  Well, if the mentally unstable and violent felons couldn't get their hands on weapons under any circumstances, you would eliminate that concern, wouldn't you?

And if the NRA complains about a national gun registry - well, tell them to go screw themselves.  That is exactly what is needed.  I mean if you have nothing to hide, why would you be against it?  If we require car registrations and driver licenses to be renewed, why shouldn't we require the same of guns and gun owners?

Then there's the disturbing trend of gun extremists threatening women.  Mother Jones reports on the attacks against paralyzed gun reform advocate Jennifer Longdon in a May 15 post and notes that these attacks are not isolated incidents:  "Ever since the Sandy Hook massacre, a small but vocal faction of the gun rights movement has been targeting women who speak up on the issue—whether to propose tighter regulations, educate about the dangers to children, or simply to sell guns with innovative security features. The vicious and often sexually degrading attacks have evolved far beyond online trolling, culminating in severe bullying, harassment, invasion of privacy, and physical aggression."

"Mother's Day" video aimed at women calling for gun reforms

(There are other videos and photos in the Mother Jones article.  This one is, believe it or not, one of the less offensive.  These videos and photos add a whole new dimension to the phrase "gun nut".)

Kudos to Chipotle and Starbucks and the others who've taken a step towards sanity by discouraging or prohibiting guns from being brought into their establishment.  But individual, private actions will never be enough to stem the country's gun violence.  Comprehensive Federal action is needed and it is needed now. Maybe there will be some movement on meaningful gun legislation in the coming days or maybe the NRA and its apologists will once again thwart even a minimal step towards restoring sanity to our gun laws.

Links
80 killed by guns in week prior to Santa Barbara

Gun Deaths, the Second Amendment and the NRA

The shooting tragedy at the Nevada middle school this Monday has brought gun violence back to the nation's attention.  A twelve year old, a seventh grader, wounded two students, killed a teacher and then killed himself.  It's not a mass shooting (there have been 16 mass shootings since Newton) so it won't stay in the news cycle for long.  But it's the kind of tragic event that should give us all pause to think what the American attitude towards guns is costing the nation.  Scott Sonner (AP/Huffington Post) reported Tuesday that the student got the gun from his home: "Washoe County School District police said they are still working to determine how the boy obtained the 9mm semi-automatic Ruger handgun used in the Monday morning spree at Sparks Middle School. The boy's parents are cooperating with authorities and could face charges in the case, police said."  The teacher who was killed, 45-year-old math teacher and former Marine Michael Landsberry, was approaching the boy asking him to hand over the gun when he was shot fatally in the chest.  Michael Landsberry's heroic actions allowed students to run to safety and saved lives.  So we have two more deaths that may have been prevented with stricter laws to prevent gun violence.

Slate reports that from an analysis of the "most recent CDC estimates for yearly deaths by guns in the United States, it is likely that as of today, 10/23/2013, roughly 28,177 people have died from guns in the U.S. since the Newtown shootings."  There is so much that can be done to reduce the deaths but it is stymied by the guns lobby, led by its well-funded mouthpiece, the NRA.  They had a recent success in Colorado in the recall of two State legislators involved in the passage of Colorado's tough new gun law.  People can still get wound up by the NRA's fear-mongering.  The NRA and other right-wing funding sparked the voter turnout of gun rights advocates and destroyed any chance that the Colorado legislators would be able to keep their seats. 

The gross misinterpretation of the Second Amendment given by SCOTUS (what part of "well-regulated militia" did they not understand?) is part of the problem.  Maybe that out of date amendment, written at a time when you had to re-powder and reload your musket with each shot, really should be repealed or, at the very least, modified.   Stricter licensing - at least as stringent as we do for driving licenses - may be one way to modify it so that it serves the common good.  The Second Amendment, as currently interpreted is part of the problem but the gun lobby and its deep pockets are the main issues here.

We know the elements of reducing deaths caused by gun violence - better mental health monitoring, universal background checks, strict licensing procedures, strong enforcement of gun laws, prohibition against high capacity weapons and magazines, gun safety education.  But these will never happen as long as the gun lobby's fear-mongering goes on.  Mike Bloomberg's organization, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is making a valiant effort to counteract the right-wing noise but I'm afraid that they are no match for the NRA.  It is always easier to stir up irrational fears and people hear what they want to hear.  Case in point - FOX News gives right-wingers what they want to hear so they tune in to hear the latest right-wing bias.  So, here's a message for the NRA -  shut the f**k up for the foreseeable future.  Stop your fear-mongering, erroneous Second Amendment waving, and blatant lies.  Maybe we can stop the gun madness that's afflicting the nation.

Some Updates on Previous Posts
Voter Suppression -  [Think Progress] The Texas Voter ID law, a common voter suppression law that disproportionately targets students, low-income voters and people of color, went into effect Monday as early voting begins for next month's election.  Because of its requirement that valid ID must include your current name, married women will also be affected if their ID has not been updated.  It's estimated that 2 to 3 percent of voters are disenfranchised by voter suppression laws in the various states.

Medicaid Expansion - The expansion of state Medicaid programs under the Affordable Care Act is an important part of the program since it extends help to those unable to afford it.  Thanks to the SCOTUS ruling, though, this expansion is voluntary and many Republican-controlled states are not offering this important piece of the social safety net to its residents. Republican Governor John Kasich of Ohio wanted to buck the trend.  He backed the Medicaid expansion and turned to the Ohio Controlling Board for approval after the GOP-controlled state legislature balked on the issue. But, as the Huffington Post and the Columbus Dispatch reported, "A group of [six] Republican lawmakers has filed a lawsuit over the Ohio Controlling Board's decision to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act."  This lawsuit is being filed in spite of the $400 million the state would save as a result of the expansion because of Federal assistance.  The savings were to be used as a four percent state income tax cut. 

Sunday Round-Up - September 22,2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today's topic is gun violence.  Sources include Mother Jones, Salon.com, the Daily Kos, and The Guardian.

Earlier this month, NRA-backed candidates won recall elections in Colorado against two state legislators who were instrumental in passing Colorado's tough new gun control law.  On Monday, a deranged shooter, who was able to purchase a gun legally in the state of Virginia, killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard. 

Take a look at the Mother Jones special report: "America Under the Gun: A Special Report on Gun Laws and the Rise of Mass Shootings."  It is perhaps the finest piece of research journalism on the subject that I've seen.  The report features "A Guide to Mass Shootings", a profile of the 62 mass shootings that occurred in the last 30 years ("Of the 143 guns possessed by the killers, more than three quarters were obtained legally."); "More Guns, More Mass Shootings—Coincidence?" ("In not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun. And in other recent (but less lethal) rampages in which armed civilians attempted to intervene, those civilians not only failed to stop the shooter but also were gravely wounded or killed. Moreover, we found that the rate of mass shootings has increased in recent years—at a time when America has been flooded with millions of additional firearms and a barrage of new laws has made it easier than ever to carry them in public places, including bars, parks, and schools."); 151 Victims of Mass Shootings in 2012: Here Are Their Stories; The NRA Myth of Arming the Good Guys; Mass Shootings: Maybe What We Need Is a Better Mental-Health Policy  .  In addition, there are links to other relevant MoJo articles and the report is packed with information-rich graphics and data to rebut all of the fallacious arguments proposed by gun lobbyists.

On September 18, The Daily Kos had a short post reporting columnist Frank Rich's grim assessment: "After being asked if there is any way to end the gun violence, his answer: Essentially, no. Perhaps the best thing we can do is at least call out the problem for what it is: state-sponsored terrorism. The American people and their elected representatives allow our own homegrown equivalent of suicide bombers — suicide shooters — legal access to weapons with which they can mow down innocents almost anywhere they please." Rich goes on to say that guns are ingrained in American culture and stopping gun violence may take as long as it took to end slavery.  The blogger concludes: "A grim assessment but I think Frank Rich might just have found the one argument that can move politicians back to reality "So you are saying that you are soft on domestic terrorism?"

Brian Beutler in his September 17 post "How to silence the NRA" on Salon.com writes of the "calculated strategy" by gun lobbyists used after mass shootings. "There’s one time, and only one time, you can count on the NRA to be more subdued than your average gun obsessive, and it’s the 24 to 48 hours after a mass shooting....Two entwined calculations motivate the temporary silence. The first is simple self-preservation. The gun lobby is at its weakest when crazy people use the weapons it has made so easily obtainable to slaughter innocents in public places. The second is more oblique. Mass shootings breathe new life into arguments for gun control, and one way to suffocate them is to feign propriety and indignation — to shame adherents into saying nothing until the public has moved on."  Beutler concludes his post with a comparison between two relatively rare events - mass shootings and airline accidents. " If fatal airline accidents became much more common in the U.S. than they are right now...it would be bizarre for a political movement to rise up after each tragedy to shout down anyone demanding tougher FAA safety inspections. But that’s about where gun obsessives in this country are right now."

The Guardian featured an emotional appeal from the chief medical officer at a Washington, D.C., hospital that treated victims of the Washington navy yard shooting.  Janis Orlowski "has become a rallying point for gun campaigners, calling on Americans to eradicate the 'evil in our society' that led to the tragedy.  'I would like you to put my trauma center out of business,' Janis Orlowski, chief medical officer at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, told reporters in the aftermath of the massacre. 'I would like to not be an expert on gunshots. Let's get rid of this. This is not America."
In an emotional address to the cameras, she added: "We just cannot have, you know, one more shooting with, you know, so many people killed. We've got to figure this out. We've got to be able to help each other.'  The Guardian September 17 post has a video of Orlowski's comments.

Sunday Round-Up - May 26, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today we look at Secretary Kerry's Israeli-Palestinian peace effort, the German press's dawning understanding that austerity "may not be working" in Europe, Pope Francis' comments on the world's poor, the NRA convention, Obama's counter-terrorism speech, and preparations for the Syrian peace talks. Sources: Haaretz, Der Spiegel, Pravda, Opera Mundi, Mother Jones, and Al Jazeera.

Kerry and the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks

Haaretz reported Friday that US Secretary of State John Kerry, in the Middle East for the fourth time in two months had "considered holding another round of talks with two sides on Monday, but said now is not the right time....'Netanyahu and Abbas have to take a week or two to make some difficult
decisions that would allow peace talks to resume', Kerry said before his departure. He urged both sides to exhibit leadership in order for that to happen." Kerry made clear (again) the US position on the Israeli settlements on Palestinian land: "construction must end." A senior Israeli official was quoted as saying "we are prepared to launch direct negotiations with the Palestinians immediately."

 

 

 

 

[Map is from Wikimedia Commons.]

 

 

German Media on the Euro-recession

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported on the increasing number of German newspapers acknowledging that the austerity policies put in place by the European central banks and supported by Merkel's government "may not be working." Charles Hawley writing in the May 16 post of Spiegel Online points to France's "new membership in the recession club as just the latest indication that the current strategy may not be working." The German business daily Handelsblatt comments on the austerity measures: "That one slides into a recession at the beginning is part of the plan. But the fact that it is lasting so horrifically long leads one to suspect that Europe's path is making the Continent sicker rather than healthier." While the center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung focusses on France's situation and asks "where are the ideas or the visions for how the EU can exist in our highly competitive world?", the left-leaning Die Tageszeitung notes that "alternative models for how to stimulate Europe's economy and fairly tax wealth exist only on paper and must be finalized."

 

The Pope, the Chancellor and European Youth

[Link to the Washington Post article on the rally at St. Peter's]

Pope Francis met with Angela Merkel, Germany's leader, recently selected again by Forbes magazine as the world's most powerful woman and "a leader largely identified by Europe’s economically suffering citizens as a champion of debt reduction, including painful austerity across much of the continent." The timing was exquisite. They met right after a 200,000 strong rally in St. Peter's square at which Pope Francis said “If investments, the banks plunge, this is a tragedy, if families are hurting, if they have nothing to eat, well, this is nothing, this is our crisis today.” Francis said his church “opposes this mentality” and pledged that it will be dedicated to “the poor people.” After the meeting, Merkel "joined the pope in expressing concern about the many victims of Europe’s economic crisis."  In a May 20 article Der Spiegel noted the particular hardships of the young people in Europe during the recession. With unemployment above 23%, the youth of Europe are in danger of becoming "a lost generation."  Unemployment is even worse in Spain (upper 50's%) and Greece (over 60%). Although almost nothing has been done either in the South or the North, the continually escalating unemployment numbers appear to have had an impact at last: "Suddenly Europe is scrambling to address the problem. Youth unemployment will top the agenda of a summit of European leaders in June. And Italy's new prime minister, Enrico Letta, is demanding that the fight against youth unemployment become an 'obsession' for the EU."

Guns, Kids, and the NRA

The United States' idolization of guns is covered in a May 15 Pravda article on the NRA's 142nd annual convention in Houston, Texas. Noting the attempt to appeal to young people, the article relates several cameos from the gun show at the convention, including this one: "Nearby, Sandy holds a small rifle. Pointing to the ceiling, concentrating. Closing one eye. Breathe. Shoot. Reload. The trebuchet is pink, small, looks like a toy. It has a plastic butt, but the metal pipe is black. Sandy smiles. At age four, she and her father, Eric, are choosing their first rifle. In a few months a birthday and, consequently, they will be able to bring the "gift" home....A rifle exactly like the one Sandy has caused a tragedy on April 30, in Cumberland County, State of Kentucky. A five year old boy shot his twin sister by accident, killing her. The gun had been given as a gift a year earlier." Frightening, huh? The article (translated from the Portuguese language "Opera Mundi" where it originally appeared) concludes: "The end of the first day of the convention in Houston is reached, participants are ready to sleep armed to the teeth. Like the rest of the U.S."

Obama's Counter-Terrorism Speech

David Corn in a May 23 post in MotherJones sees a glimmer of hope for civil liberties in President Obama's speech on counter-terrorism policies. Obama made the speech a day after the Administration admitted to the killing of four US citizens by drones. I'm not sure I see as much of a glimmer of hope as Corn does but at least it's better than what probably would have happened under a Republican administration. The President placed new restrictions on the use of drones and talked again about the necessity of closing Guantanamo. Corn admits that "Obama is not renouncing his administration's claim that it possesses the authority to kill an American overseas without full due process" and "not declaring an end to the dicey practice of indefinite detention or a conclusion to the fight against terrorism". But he concludes: "Obama, at the least, is showing that he does ponder these difficult issues in a deliberative manner and is still attempting to steer the nation into a post-9/11 period.." Two of the more positive highlights from the speech:

• The call for an end to "the post-9/11 authority to wage war Congress granted the president: 'I intend to engage Congress about the existing Authorization to Use Military Force, or AUMF, to determine how we can continue to fight terrorists without keeping America on a perpetual war-time footing."
• The unreasonableness of the Congressional restrictions on closing the Guantanamo prison: "These restrictions make no sense. After all, under President Bush, some 530 detainees were transferred from Gitmo with Congress’s support. When I ran for President the first time, John McCain supported closing Gitmo. No person has ever escaped from one of our super-max or military prisons in the United States. Our courts have convicted hundreds of people for terrorism-related offenses, including some who are more dangerous than most Gitmo detainees." Obama is appointing " a new, senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries" and he is lifting the restrictions on detainee transfers to Yemen (86 of the 166 still imprisoned are from Yemen).

Syrian Peace Talks

More than 80,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict since the March 2011 uprising. 1.5 million have fled the country. On May 21, Al Jazeera reported that "Syria's opposition and government are preparing to take part in an internationally-sponsored peace conference, according to Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations-Arab League mediator....Meanwhile, Moaz al-Khtaib, the former president of the Syrian National Coalition, said the opposition is open to negotiating with the government of President Assad. At a meeting of Syrian opposition groups in Spain on Tuesday, Khtaib said the opposition forces have no objection to a political solution to the conflict."   Several days later (May 24), the NYT reported that a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman had stated that the "Syrian government has agreed to participate in an international peace conference coordinated by Russia and the United States."

 

Sunday Round-Up April 21. 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the mainstream media. Today we look at the Senate vote on universal background checks for gun sales and, on a more pleasant note, Earth Day 2013.

US Gun Control

What can you say about a political system where the will of 80-90% of the country is thwarted by a minority filibuster vote ? In one of its more gutless acts, the US Senate was unable to muster the required 60 votes to pass universal background checks designed to keep guns out of the hands of felons and the mentally disturbed. The lies and robocalls of the NRA did their job. But why? The huge amount of money the NRA spent trying to defeat Obama in 2012 was ineffective. He won. They lost. What are the Senators afraid of ?

Mother Jones has a series of excellent short articles related to the debacle:

Here's their main article on the failure of the measure to pass the filibuster limit.

Cerberus Capital Management is trying to sell its ownership of  Freedom Group, the manufacturer of the gun used in the Newton CT tragedy.  Relating the difficulty of finding investors to buy them out MJ writes:  "In this case, it seems that Wall Street has a better sense of American public opinion than the Senate, which failed to pass a bipartisan background check bill on Wednesday."

They also look at the four Democrats who voted no on backegroundchecks - turns out they are all up for election in 2014 and all hail from states that went for Romney in 2012.  [Kudos on the other hand to John McCain and the other 5 Republicans who votesd for the background checks.]

 

MJ then takes on the gun lobby myth that guns stop crime. Charts are provided that show, among other myths, that "that less than 3 percent of gun-related homicides are committed in self-defense " and that the "typical gun is more likely to be stolen than to be used in an attempt to stop a crime".

 

They then give you some screen shots of the Mitch McConnell Facebook Page posted "after the defeat of the watered-down Manchin-Toomey background checks compromise".

Finally there's an update on other gun bills soon to be voted on (or not).

 

This TomDispatch article explores the actual causes of violent crime as opposed to the fear-mongering of the right. "To acknowledge what really threatens us is to upset two of the most guarded citadels in this country: the military and masculinity. They are perhaps the same force on different scales. Armed intervention is imperial machismo in the same way a raging husband or father is the military dictator of a household."

 

 

Earth Day 2013

 

News from Europe, Asia, and Africa on plans for Earth Day 2013...

The town of Cefalu on the north coast of Sicily is organizing three days of activities - among them "a Conference on sustainable issues, guided excursions on the rock of Cefalù, concerts, wine tasting of organic products, sports performances, environmental awareness-raising campaigns also at the various schools, and a photographic exhibition on planet Earth, designed as a multi-sensory experience (images, sounds, scents '), which will be held at the St. Catherine's Octagon."

[From the Earth Day Italia website as translated by Microsoft Bing.]

 

 

 

In Japan Kids Weekend at Earth Day Tokyo is again organizing a recreational tour for children from Fukushima (the site of the 2011 tsunami-caused nuclear accident).

And in South Africa, the day is being used to raise environmental awareness. The Greenworks South Africa website asks people to commit to "a billion acts of green" while nicely summarizing the world's and South Africa's environmental challenges: "Earth Day is a global movement to highlight and address environmental issues. These are just some of the major environmental issues our Planet faces: global warming and climate change... destructive energy sources... toxic waste... groundwater contamination, abuse of water resources, wetland destruction, and pollution of waterways and the oceans... litter... overfishing and unsustainable fishing...destruction of rainforests...and expanding deserts."

 

A Good Start On Gun Violence

President Obama unveiled the recommendations from the Joe Biden-led commission formed to reduce gun violence in the wake of the massacre in Newton, Connecticut.  In what has been called "the biggest gun control push in decades", the President urged Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban, tighten up and close loopholes in background checks, and pass a new Federal gun-trafficking law.  In addition, he announced "23 steps he intends to take immediately without congressional approval. These include improving the existing system for background checks, lifting the ban on federal research on gun violence, putting more counselors...in schools and better access to mental health services." [Reuters]  I didn't even know there was a ban on federal research on gun violence.  It is a really sad statement on the power of the gun lobby and arms dealers in our political process.

The proposals are a good start but will need to be pushed against the fierce opposition of the NRA and their supporters in Congress.  As a sign of things to come, the NRA, in one of its most despicable ads in years, attacked Obama for proposing gun control legislation while his daughters were being protected by the Secret Service.  The legislative proposals will also soon be competing for legislative attention with the debt ceiling negotiations and the automatic budget cut discussions ("the sequester"). 

The rabid reaction of the pro-gun wing of the American public to these modest proposals gives one cause to fervently hope that the laws are enacted with all due haste.  Anyone who can react so bizarrely should probably not have access to assault rifles and armor-penetratrating ammunition.  In fact there is no reason on earth why any Joe Average Citizen should own high capacity weapons.  But such is the level of fear stoked by the gun lobby and the fear-and-hate-mongering crowd that those I would consider normally sane people argue that there should not be an assault weapons ban in the United States.  The fact that we are having a debate on this at all is shameful.  No other developed country would even consider allowing such armaments in the hands of ordinary (and sometimes deranged) citizens.  Then again no other developed nation has a death penalty.  But that's for another time.

Will Congress pass the required legislation including the much-needed assault weapons ban? (I'm talking to you, House of Representatives majority, filibuster-abusing Senate Republicans, and gutless pro-gun Democrats.)   Or will we let the deaths of innocents again be in vain?  We'll need to keep the pressure up over the next weeks and months if there is to be any chance at all for comprehensive reform.

I wish I could agree with former Republican Congessman/now MSNBC political commentator Joe Scarborough that either Republicans get in touch with reality on this issue or they will lose control of the House.  On Andrea Mitchell Reports today, Scarborough "laid out what he saw as the GOP's two choices in the House of Representatives. 'They can either pass a comprehensive gun control package right now and shape it under Speaker Boehner, or they can wait two years when they lose the majority and have Nancy Pelosi write that bill...there are no other choices.' " [Huffington Post]  Unfortunately, with the post-2010 gerrymandered Congressional districts providing a majority of safe districts for Republicans, Scarborough's projection appears to be unrealistic. 

So convinced are they of the "safety" of  their Congressional districts, some Republican strategists are proposing changes to the way Electoral College votes are counted.  Several Republican-controlled swing states that voted for Obama in 2012 are considering proposals that would award an electoral vote to the winner of  the Congressional district. The primary objective is to allow a Republican to win the Presidency in 2016.  Perhaps because they think they waited too long with their voter suppression laws (the "strategy" for 2012), they are getting an early start for 2016.   [Mother Jones]

Kudos to the State of New York for passing the toughest gun control legislation in the country this week.  But state laws can only do so much - it's a short hop down I-95 to areas where guns can be purchased more easily. 

As for the Second Amendment, if the Supreme Court cannot figure out how to parse subordinate clauses (as in "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State"), maybe it's time to repeal this albatross from the eighteenth century.  Let's just hope the right wing bozos on the Court don't overturn New York's tough new gun law before then. 

Gun Madness

Sportscaster Bob Costas ignited a firestorm when he referenced a piece by former NFL player Jason Whitlock on the murder-suicide by a Kansas City Chief linebacker.  Whitlock's primary point was that the Chiefs' game should not have been played the day after the tragedy.  His secondary point was that our gun culture is out out of control.  Costas, paraphrasing Whitlock, said during his halftime editorial: "“If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”  The response from the right-wing echo chamber and Second Amenment rights nuts was as expected.  Outrage.  Costas knows nothing. He should be fired.  Etc. Etc. Etc.

Actually Costas was just stating a fact.  It's easier to kill someone and yourself with a gun than almost any other weapon.  Domestic disputes, arguments - these can escalate easily.  That the ready availability of guns increases the murder rates is uncontestable.  A 2003 study of gun violence in 23 populous high- income countries found the following:

• The United States has more firearms per capita than the other countries, more handguns per capita, and has the most permissive gun control laws of all the countries.
• Among the 23 countries studied, 80% of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States; 86 % of women killed by firearms were U.S. women, and 87% of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.
• U.S. homicide rates were 6.9 times higher than rates in the other high-income countries, despite similar non-lethal crime and violence rates. The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. was 19.5 times higher. 
• For 15-year olds to 24-year olds, firearm homicide rates in the United States were 42.7 times higher than in the other countries.
• For U.S. males, firearm homicide rates were 22.0 times higher, and for U.S. females, firearm homicide rates were 11.4 times higher.
• U.S. suicide rates overall were 30 percent lower than the other countries, but the U.S. firearm suicide rate was 5.8 times higher.
• The U.S. unintentional firearm death rate was 5.2 times higher than that of the other high-income countries combined.

Need a gun for protection?  Think again.  A family member is twelve times more likely to die than for you to use it on a violent intruder. 

Somewhere in the ballpark of 10,000 murders per year in the US are caused by guns, NRA money bankrolls elections, and gun nuts control the national conversation on this deadly issue.  There was hardly a whisper about the inadequacy of our gun control laws during the Presidential campaign.  Senator Frank Lautenberg's bill to reinstate the assault weapons ban didn't even make it to the floor of the Senate. 

December 8 marks the 32 nd anniversary of John Lennon's murder by a crazed gunman in New York.  By my count, that makes more than 300,000 gun murders committed since then.  It's time to stop the madness.

Links

Useful organizations
Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
Mayors Against Illegal Guns

What the Rest of the Civilized World Thinks and How It Acts
A Land Without Guns: How Japan Has Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths
The Rest of the First World Is Astounded by America's Enduring Gun Culture



  

  

A Deafening Silence

If there was ever a time that spoke to the intimidating power of NRA money, this is it.  If there was ever a time when the poisoning influence of political funding was apparent, this is it.  NRA's millions in campaign donations over the years have effectively silenced all debate on rational gun laws in this country.  Even after this weekend's tragedy, only a few politicians, such as New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg, are calling for tightening the nation's gun laws.  Even in something as basic as renewing the ban on assault weapons, Congress is intimidated. 

You can pretty much expect the Republican choir to sing out variations on the insane refrain that "guns don't kill people, people kill people."  Frankly, I'm not sure how 70 people would have been stabbed and 12 of them killed in Colorado if the deranged young man had attacked with a knife.  Many leading Democrats are also sitting this out for now.  An aide to Senate Majority Leader Reid says that the press of other business may prevent the Senate from taking up Lautenberg's legislation in the immediate future.  President Obama, whose ever shrinking lead over Romney has to be a cause of concern, has asked that we not "politicize" this tragedy. An Obama aide said that the focus should be on keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them by enforcing the existing gun laws.  Evidently this was not sufficient and did nothing to prevent the Colorado tragedy.

 In a hard-hitting HuffPost blog on Saturday, Cenk Uygur asks if we do not "politicize" guns now, then when?  What can you say about a country that's number 1 in per capita gun ownership, in child deaths by gunfire, and in overall gun violence?

Maybe politicization is not the right word.  We are long past that point.  The NRA has politicized gun control over the past few decades and they will not stop sending their millions to those that oppose gun control legislation.  Mayors Against Illegal Guns  stand in opposition to the NRA but have had only limited success in achieving any legislative victories. 

Maybe leadership is the right word.  That is what is needed now.  A leader shows people the way when they do not see it for themselves.  A leader stands up to moneyed interests and calls them out on their self-serving claims.  So far though...a deafening silence.