A nation attempts to exorcise a demon in the aftermath of a tragic shooting on February 14, 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed. The gunman, Nickolas Cruz, 19, is alleged to have used an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, a weapon that has virtually become synonymous with mass shootings.
Fortune.com
The increase in frequency of these events, recurring appearance of this enabling class of weapons, and the inevitable suggestion that gun control is the only logical answer to this problem, have taken America just where events like these were designed to “lead” them.
On March 24, when thousands take to the streets in Washington, DC and other cities around the country as part of the March For Our Lives, the world will witness the next example of the appearance of “democracy” at work, and “The People” speaking.
It will appear that The People are speaking up, and speaking out for life and safety by tighter control and regulation of access to certain types of guns.
While I’m sure that the vast majority of these people are sincere, this campaign, no matter how well-intended, moves world attention in the fast lane to stagnation. The “victory” that is eventually “won” (some form of gun legislation), will
do little to actually address the reasons they left classrooms, took to the streets, and raised their voices.
Elitedaily.com
For many reasons, the country will be just as polarized, if not more so; and just as fearful, if not more so. The greatest reason being that the real causes of the problem have little to do with assault weapons, gun ownership, or use.
“Guns” in the ownership of private citizens are not the threat that need to be controlled in the manner proposed, as no gun will harm anyone on its own (yet).
A far greater case could be, and should be made for government and military gun control. At least that would represent a positive example. The world wouldn’t end if that happened. In fact, it seems more likely to end if it doesn’t.
These are people who are given guns, bombs, and gizmos that are so cool, you could say they’re to die for.
Someone else, that is… an “enemy”.
They spend days, weeks, months, and years practicing, at taxpayer expense, for wars that haven’t happened, and don’t have to happen.
Has anyone noticed that politicians and diplomats make very little effort to even talk about peace?
The militarism trend has been sifting through the public consciousness, from camouflage-themed attire by the coaching staff at NFL football games to “war veterans remembrance corridors” in multiple states around the country, a subtle message celebrates and condones the past, present, and future use of force to kill people and destroy things for profit for a few, at great, great expense for many more.
The Greenville News
War and military aggression ~ of the overt and covert kind ~ is glamorized in many other ways. It’s the budget that has ballooned from $304 billion in 2000 to $710 billion for 2018.
This does not include the $8+ trillion that the Pentagon has been on record of having “misplaced” or otherwise couldn’t account for since September 10, 2001. Donald Rumsfeld reported that his department couldn’t account for $2.3 trillion on that long forgotten day in 2001. But the Defense Department Inspector General reported in July 2016 that $6.5 trillion in journal voucher adjustments “did not provide sufficient guidance”. (See the abstract for [yourself]
No one “misplaces” that kind of money, by the way.
The people behind all these actions have shown increasingly less maturity and responsibility by having such power over so many lives and weapons in their possession. This leads to “spillover” behavior by law enforcement agencies, which themselves are increasingly militarized, approaching citizens as “enemy combatants” as evidenced by their inappropriate use of force, sometimes deadly, on unarmed people, secure that they will be protected or their actions covered up by their agencies as well as the jurisprudence system.
What’s “Great” about this description of America?
The Real Problem We’re Mum About
But I digress.
The demonstrators will not be talking about these issues, but that’s not why the gun control argument, as presently crafted, puts them on the fast track to nowhere. The simple reason is that the problem that seek abatement from will not be solved by added attention or stricter oversight of gun ownership requirements.
The problem is that PEOPLE with twisted minds sometimes pick up guns and harm themselves or others. The protesters will be trying to solve the safety problem by restricting access to certain guns instead of restricting the real cause: substances we routinely ingest that twist minds.
What, pray tell, kinds of substances twist minds?
While it’s easy to talk about drugs (and we will), the truth is that ANY substance that unnaturally and adversely alters metabolic or neurological function and behavior, or psychological perception, can eventually “twist” one’s mind
That’s a pretty broad list.
I’m not talking about cannabis and its byproducts, though heroin and other recreational drugs would apply. The greater list of culprits are substances that are generally thought beneficial, if you listen to their proponents and cronies, or at the very least, “not that bad.”
Death by the proper use of medicine, referred to as iatrogenic, is the number 3 cause of death in the U.S. behind cancer and heart disease, which is caused by other habits that can easily be corrected.
The list of FDA APPROVED substances that are routinely administered by LIE-SENSED “health care” providers runs in the thousands. They are admittedly responsible for far more deaths each year than guns. They also admittedly affect the body and mind of the people who take them in ways that guns can’t do.
Protesters won’t be talking about that. There’s very little attention given to this fundamental point.
ANY substance that disrupts the body’s natural and optimal balance will change its ecological balance, which adversely affects metabolism, then function, and perception, thereby influencing behavior. That’s why we get statements such as “may cause thoughts of suicide” in the “fine print” of television ads for certain prescription drugs.
If we don’t take steps to restore the balance ~ a rare occasion presently ~ health eventually becomes a distant memory, replaced by disease pathologies of the physical, emotional, or mental kind.
We tell ourselves that disease is inevitable (and pay insurance premiums to prove it), that we rarely see our own hand in its creation, nor realize our power to restore health.
As pathologies begin to compound and multiply, health care practitioners routinely treat patients with caustic concoctions to “fight” the “bad” disease that are specific to the pathology. They are trained to act as though the body’s other biological systems cannot be adversely affected.
Unless we know better, we allow them to do it.
That says nothing about how the chemicals in other parts of our social order, such as in the water, or nutrition-poor and genetically modified, pesticide-rich foods, will interact with the prescribed medicines.
NPR.org
Virtually all those children marching for gun control, will have had to submit to a battery of injections of substances outlined above as a condition of admission into public schools.
If they were born in a hospital, they most likely also had to submit to an insanely long list of chemicals starting right after birth by 6 months of age.
verywellfamily.com
In some city school systems around America, inoculation policies, which originated in England in the early 1800's, had been in force for decades by the turn of the century. These substances do more to lower IQ and act as “time-release” capsules for future diseases than protect or enhance health or well-being.
Far easier to give up more civil liberties with a scapegoat excuse than admit the real and more pervasive problem and do something positive about it; starting with calling it out for what it is.
“You’re Free to Speak All You Want as Long as It’s Mindless; Otherwise Shut the F*%k Up!”
An inquisitive, energetic child that asks questions is often an inconvenience to teaching systems that grade higher for mindless intellectual conformity than rewarding originality, resourcefulness, and self-esteem.
Unaware of how popular processed drinks can unnaturally “amp” them up, children in public schools are ever at risk of being labeled “having learning difficulties” or “hyperactivity”, for which more concoctions that “depress” such proclivities to make them more “manageable,” are given.
No wonder so many kids are either restless in school or have difficulty staying awake. They’re minds are not engaged, their unique gifts, not encouraged to reveal itself, be exercised, and strengthened.
Some “leaders” suggest turning schools into armed camps. Doing so would have children to grow up seeing such environments to be “normal.”
Yet, even in your social media feed, you’ll see ads for “first person” video games that celebrate war and killing, putting players behind a gun to get accustomed to pointing at another human being and pulling the trigger.
windowscentral.com
This is war porn of the first order; far worse than the kind most people get up in arms about… but little protesting here, even though glamorizing conflict, killing, death, and destruction with little in the way of counterpoint, is how minds are twisted.
We glamorize killing to young, impressionable minds while saying that we value life. It is the ultimate irony that the lives of the soldiers who are sent to kill and destroy aren’t valued enough for those who would put them in harm’s way would show restraint and extreme reluctance to use deadly force, as well as the open willingness to work out differences peacefully.
What hypocrisy.
Drugs are used to treat depression, which is one byproduct of social hypocrisy. The psychological problem is that the child grows up convinced he or she is “messed up”, when it’s actually the system and its practices.
However, even the depression that too many children as well as adults grapple with is reversible, but we can’t rely on a health care, $cience, or government to inform the public.
A Broken System Can’t Fix Itself
Believing that it is informed, the public ~ and certainly the children ~ don’t suspect that the institutions that many dream of growing up to be part of, is, for all practical purposes, using them (as well as the rest of the population) for cannon fodder.
Personally, I do not use, nor care to use guns. I do not share these thoughts to support the 2nd Amendment. There are so many ways to kill innocent people that don’t involve guns to make the entire exercise laughable, if it weren’t so sad.
The leaders who flirt with and threaten war think that they can send others to kill and destroy on their behalf, and that they won’t be inconvenienced. They think that they can send remote control “robots” to target humans, but preserve structures, and “win”. But there are no winners to war. Just ask the veterans that are committing suicide each day when they can’t reconcile the trauma that they caused others, as well as suffered themselves… and for what “a safer” world?
We should help them ~ and we can ~ by marching for peace, not higher military budgets, and helping those who have been traumatized by their war experiences to heal. They should neither be abandoned nor ostracized.
IF gun control legislation is passed, the student protesters, and all the people pushing for gun control, will have a false sense of security as though they “won” something, while the real problem, which IS solvable, goes unnoticed and unaddressed.
Unless we start now.