Time to focus on guns again

In past years the shooting murder of an undercover policeman and trial in the massacre of 12 people in a Colorado theater would have filled the Internet with complaints about America’s love affair with guns.

Other than essays from the usual suspects, such as Mother Jones, the proliferation of guns is now generally accepted.

Only smoking costs the nation more, Mother Jones says. It puts the cost of gun violence at $229 billion annually, compared with $289 billion for smoking.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/true-cost-of-gun-violence-in-america

A huge compaign against smoking, forcing people to smoke outside their offices and severely limiting advertising, has only reduced the harm. It is even worse in other countries.

Nothing short of outlawing it would protect smokers and non-smokers. Even if it wasn’t perfect it would protect many, including victims of second-hand smoke.

Marijuana remains a Schedule 1 drug, though it kills no one.

A rush to expand gun control after the Columbine Massacre in 1999 has turned around, and gun rights expanded.

People believe they can protect themselves better than police, though there is no uncontested evidence to support that.

In a sense, some would say police have reaped what they have sewn, switching courses a few years ago and siding with the NRA on concealed carry.

Police used to argue that only they should be able to carry concealed weapons in urban areas.

The gun used to kill officer Brian Moore was stolen in Georgia. A Florida man shipped guns to New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who was convicted of murder.

The commerce in guns crosses state lines from areas where they are easily obtained to states with tigh gun laws.

The guns and bullets used to kill 12 people during a screening of a Batman movie in an Aurora theater were bought legally, including some of it online.

The handgun used to kill two officers in the borough of Brooklyn in Denver also came from Georgia.

Imagine what would happen if the resources spent on the unsuccessful “Drug War” were devoted to ending the gun trade.

Guns are so sacrosanct that the attackers of an event in Texas showing drawings of Mohammed brazenly Tweeted their feelings.

“The ISIS guys are talking to these wannabes on Twitter all day long,” a senior law enforcement official told the New York Times.

With police criticized throughout the nation after killings of unarmed blacks this might be a good time for them to join in efforts to control guns, and eliminate most of them.

There are no new arguments. The question is does America need 310 million guns? And that does not include guns in the possession of the military.

With fewer guns in the hands of civilians police could face fewer deadly threats.

Is drug war’s goal jailing blacks?

Instead of the widespread acceptance of reports blacks are jailed far more often for drug crimes, perhaps it should be given the dignity of a theory.

Perhaps the mass incarceration of blacks, and shootings that necessarily entails, is the goal.

The ACLU says: “The War on Marijuana has, quite simply, served as a vehicle for police to target communities of color.”
Some black leaders thought drugs would be used, even provided, to prevent the creation of a Black messiah.

Reciting arrest details and police shootings only show the tip of the iceberg.

Jeffrey Tobin writes in the New Yorker that prosecutors “may wield even more power than cops.” They make decisions, which result in more blacks than their population would justify, go to the jail.
“And prosecutors make these judgments almost entirely outside public scrutiny.”

There is no evidence that blacks smoke dope more than whites.

An ACLU report found “on average, a Black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though Blacks and whites use marijuana at similar rates.”

Hillary Clinton, abandoning a key principle that made her husband successful, is challenging the “broken windows” theory.

“It’s time to end the era of mass incarceration,” she said in a campaign speech.

Nothing would reduce the trend faster than legalizing marijuana. It is the carte blanche cops use to bust blacks.

Time after time the blacks who end up in jails have rap sheets that began with possession of marijuana.

Science shows that marijuana does not belong in the class of Schedule 1 drugs.

Have cops become addicted to drug arrests? It wins them awards and paramilitary equipment. Is the drug war the gateway drug that attracts thousands of cops, deputies and federal agents to a war with few boundaries?

History shows that anti-marijuana laws were boosted to the federal level to protect manufacturers of synthetic hemp.

But like drones, it flies anywhere now, and often with few real controls. Bureaucrats in Washington can’t exercise more control on their partying agents any better than drone operators can from the parking lot in Langley, Va.

Blacks leaders are loathe to push for legalization because they can see the real harm that follows.

It’s difficult to imagine it could come even close to what the drug wars are already doing to the black community.

Mexican cartels depend on marijuana sales and have already been hurt by the meager legalization schemes in four U.S. states.

Cannabis prices have crashed, and relying on heroin and other hard drugs makes targeting them more acceptable to the public.

The U.S. strategy of killing the kingpins, hasn’t been much more effective than combatting terrorism. It is like whack-a-mole.

Kingpin replacements may have less experience or they may be even more reckless and dangerous. One thing is for sure, taking them out has frequently led to increased production as farmers no longer worry about sharing their take.

Claim: Evangelical Christians may play role in police misconduct

Mikey Weinstein, a pit bull when it comes to keeping religion out of the military, says “Dominionist”

Christians likely are playing a role in police misconduct. They have a huge influence in police departments.

The founder of the Military Religion Freedom Foundation says that with the growing paramilitarization of police he has seen it personally with the failure to provide effective protection from violence against his family in Albuquerque, though most of his experiences with police have been positive.

He is labor intensive, getting virtually daily threats on his life, hate emails and his family has to use the same bodyguard service as Angelina Jolie. His home windows have been broken and rabbits and other animals who live nearby mutilated. Feces has been thrown at his home, tires slashed and the Swastikas remind him that he is Jewish, no matter how agnostic.

All because he has sought to keep religion out of his alma mater, the Air Force Academy, and the rest of the military.

Asked whether he thinks there are links between the police violence in Baltimore and the infiltration of Christian evangelists into the military, Weinstein says the trend is growing throughout the government.

“Yes, it is in police departments. It is enormous.”

It is important that it be stopped, just as his organization is trying to stop it in the military because if “people are allowed to drive 150 mph between Denver and Colorado Springs they will.” He had just driven up that road, and it is pretty hard to get a ticket. Too much traffic. Any patrolman pulling someone over is likely to be run over.

Weinstein says Christians who believe non-believers will burn in hell have many times more support in America than Hitler or Stalin did in their homelands, estimating it at 48 million.

One thing that has played into the hands of the proselytizers in the military is the end of the draft.

“It left a tremendous hole in the soul of the military,” said Weinstein during a visit to Denver’s Iliff School of Theology. Preachers from Red States flooded into the ranks like rabbits on steroids.

Perhaps the only way to control this is to remove chaplains from the ranks and give the job to civilians, and include atheists and agnostics.

Looking at the bigger picture, Weinstein says many of the evangelical Christians are afraid of what is going on in the country, fearful of change. “People don’t like change.”

Still, same-sex marriage is unstoppable, and could be legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court as early as next month.

For those who say it is banned in the Bible, Weinstein notes that the two books, Old and New testaments, say thousands of things, sometimes conflicting.

And the weed train is picking up speed.

In Colorado and three other states marijuana has been legalized and many more states allow medicinal marijuana.

“Look at a cloud in the sky. It is always moving … Fish in an aquarium can’t see the water,” the former Reagan lawyer said.

Paramilitarization of Police

Mercy, mercy what we would we be without black Americans

It goes without saying that their contributions are too numerous to mention, but the death of Ben E. King is a place to start.

Where would be without music by American blacks, including jazz, hip hop and rap?

Perhaps this is the time to “Standby” them, after all they have paid their dues.

Right now many of them are fearful. They are targets of racial profiling, and some die for switchblade knife in their waistband.

In the Ben E. King song:

“If the sky, that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
And the mountain should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry
No, I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me.”
King died Thursday at age 76.

Are we standing by them in Baltimore, or Ferguson, or countless other cities?

Sam Cooke sang that change would come:

“I was born by the river in a little tent
Oh, and just like the river I've been running ever since

It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change gon' come, oh yes it will

It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die
Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky.”

The Cooke song showed that not only blacks are singing in gospel churches, happy to second-class citizens.

And the song showed that instead of just dancing to their music or making love we should listen to the lyrics.

Yes, they can be quarterbacks, and call plays. And surgeons and rocket scientists and presidents.

With all that was doing on during the unrest of the 1960s perhaps it is not a surprise that Marvin Gaye, one of the great singers of any race in America, didn’t get a lot of attention for political lyrics.

Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)

Woo ah, mercy mercy me
Ah things ain't what they used to be, no no
Where did all the blue skies go?
Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east
Woo mercy, mercy me, mercy father
Ah things ain't what they used to be, no no
Oil wasted on the ocean and upon our seas, fish full of mercury
Ah oh mercy, mercy me
Ah things ain't what they used to be, no no
Radiation under ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying
Oh mercy, mercy me
Ah things ain't what they used.”

 to be
What about this overcrowded land
How much more abuse from man can she stand?”

And before you fall back to the lamentable deaths of black singers keep in mind what happened to Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Or John Belushi.

To steal a line from the Broadway music Hair, blacks remain “prisoners in niggertown…”

Think about it. Their gift of music alone qualifies them as first class Americans.

Like people everywhere, when oppressed they find outlets. It can be in literature, music or virtually any endeavor.

Many believe that Teddy Pendergrass sang more beautiful after he was paralyzed in a car wreck.

“I've won some and I've lost some
But us dreamers don't complain
We keep reaching out for passion
No matter what the pain…”

Pendergass, just like white actor Christopher Reeve, campaigned for helping improve medical care and offer solutions to those who were left in wheel chairs.

Hip hop and rappers shouldn't be ignored. We honkeys just know less about them. And they seem awfully repetitive, like white heavy metalists.

It is hard to forget James Brown, who was black and proud, and had his problems with the law.