Pro-gun mantra feigns love of “family,” veils anti-society reality

Selfish argument betrays contempt: denies freedom while claiming to champion it

By Carolyn Bennett

Society at the mercy of the individual

 

Yesterday I sent this 436-word piece to the local newspaper. It was pegged to a shtick by a pro-weapons (arm the children) radio host.

This week I heard an AM radio “right to bear” talker on a tear about young people’s “right” to possess guns in order to shoot objects on their grandfathers’ farms and blah blah blah-ing about “protecting ‘our’ families.” I am so tired of these fallacious grounds for individuals’ unrestricted possession and use of lethal weaponry.

Wrapped in the colors
USA! USA! USA!
Wrapped in violence

THE FIRST FALSEHOOD is the feigned “concern for families,” more precisely, “my family,” as pro-

Lt. Col.,
the accused
the crime:
assault on "family"

gun ranters couch this falsehood. If families cared for their own families, there would be no domestic violence, no incest, no priestly assaults on children; in the U.S. military “family,” no sexual assault.  True justice, kindness, love begins at home.

I

f any family or individual is at risk in this country, that risk is created by the family in which that individual lives; and, in the case of the military and some boardrooms, works. The armed forces “family” not unlike “families” of any sort which the ranter wants to “protect” by arming to the hilt are themselves the central and most immediate perpetrator of harm.

THE SECOND FALSEHOOD is the concern for “protection” itself. We are only as secure as we make our society (all of us) secure. We really are in this together, whether we embrace this reality or resist it.

At work
Family assaulted
by "Family"

Laws and statutes and regulations and ordnances ─ from local communities to the global context of international laws and conventions ─ are designed or should be designed to protect and preserve society, as small as a neighborhood, as large as the world. Restrictions, prohibitions, limitations (subject to review and abolition as America’s 19th century legalized slavery) preserve freedom for all by necessarily limiting selfish desire, recklessness, excess or caprice.  For the sake of maintaining society, we have rules concerning human behavior: rules regarding access (a person cannot legally or without permission walk into another person's residence or office and drink the coffee or leave with the jewels), regarding roadways, traffic and motorists, leash laws and treatment of animals; restrictions regarding the under-age young. International rules attempt to protect sovereignty and protect against torture, unlawful detention, and targeted assassination.

One cannot reasonably compartmentalize gun violence as "theirs" but not "ours" or define criminals as "those" people but not "our people" just because it is expedient or convenient or suits individual or partisan or a national leader's desire at any given time or place. 

W

e live in a world not of farms as the ranter suggested (few “family farms” exist thanks to the same policy sources this ranter would gleefully support). Not even of old-fashioned communities where all people know each other, respect each other, and help to care for and raise the children well ─ but a world rife with “selfish” card carrying members and leaders of the Deliberately Selfish-blind Party (DSBP) who use, abuse and discard; a world of unhealthy people and institutions, bored navel-watching “smart”- phoning-facebooking-twitterer heads and altered consciousnesses; a world graphically imaged in televised, 3D, webbed virtualsphere spewing 24-7 bloodletting human transaction conducted at the point of lethal weaponry.

CAREFULLY TAUGHT
Children take adult example

Children take adult example

Virginia Tech

Against this backdrop, it is critically imperative that gun (drone, UAVs, missiles, and other lethal weapons) possession, use and abuse be monitored and restricted. Anything short of this is criminally irresponsible. [end of essay]

Apropos  

Washington D.C. ─ “Gun rights activist Adam Kokesh to stay in jail after refusing to speak to judge,” published time: July 11, 2013 16:18, Edited time: July 11, 2013 17:09, http://rt.com/usa/kokesh-bond-jail-hearing-960/

Children take adult example

Kokesh told the press:

Children take adult example

‘I loaded a shotgun on Independence Day, but I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t drone any children … I didn’t steal any children’s future. I didn’t sell this country into debt. I didn’t do any of the crimes that the man two blocks over at the White House is responsible for.’

New York State ─ “Gov. Andrew Cuomo signs amendment to NY Safe Act allowing exceptions [ownership of NYS-banned guns and ammunition magazines]  for retired police” (by Teri Weaver), July 8, 2013 4:18 PM, updated July 08, 2013 at 5:19 PM, http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/07/gov_andrew_cuomo_signs_amendment_to_ny_safe_act_allowing_exceptions_for_retired.html

Children take
adult example

U.S. assault on world

Qualified retired law enforcement officers are now exempt from some restrictions under an amendment to the NY Safe Act signed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo late last week. The change allows retired law enforcement officers who have met certain training requirements to own guns and ammunition magazines now banned under New York's tougher gun laws.

To qualify, this category of retired people must have worked on the force for at least a decade and left their positions in good standing.

Newtown

Law Enforcement

Those who qualify could keep the guns and magazines purchased as a part of official duties. Those guns must be registered with the state within 60 days of retirement.

H

ow ridiculous is this? How are these retired police officers 

different from others in the population? They are not different. How many in the course of their duties and or in their homes have abused the rights of others?

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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