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| Semi-automatic pistol |
America’s act-attack-react-attack-react distraction obscures
community void
By Carolyn Bennett
This commentary was prompted by an unchallenged news clip
quoting a “right-to-bear-arms” ideologue championing magazine-fed
multiple-munitions assault weapons for a grandmother. I happen to believe we
have a crisis that is real and far deeper than the current convenient politicians’
pageant. Americans and their best-loved mass media and politicians, lunging
from crisis to crisis, regularly commit a SHOW that blinds to underlying causes
which precede and drive an endless experience of and engagement in violence.
What is remarkable to me is that news reports make “remarkable”
what is not or should not be remarkable; and within their “making-of-heroes
moments” is a glimpse into an underlying, complex, corrosive problem.
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| Right paranoia Right to kill |
t should not be “remarkable” (newsworthy), as several news
reports had it this week, that people helped one another during the Boston
Marathon incident. That is what “community” does as a Caring Community. That’s
what human beings do ─ should do ─ by virtue of their shared humanity.
A man saying (as I understood this item in a related though not linked Pacifica news report) that a “66-year-old grandmother needs a several-round
magazine to bring down a “villain” is to beg the question: Why would a
66-year-old, or for that matter, a 6-year-old, need lethal defense, worse still,
why a military-style weapon?
Wikipedia
note: military and police forces use semi-automatic pistols due to their
high magazine capacities (10 to 17 or, in some cases, over 25 rounds of
ammunition) and ability to rapidly reload by simply removing the empty magazine
and inserting a loaded one.
An automatic rifle is a
magazine-fed firearm, wielded by a single infantryman, which is chambered for
rifle cartridges and capable of automatic fire.
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| Under threat Afghanistan's children |
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he SHOW being staged in the United States by the “right to
keep and bearers” and the “background checkers” and those clouding underlying issues
with talk of filtering out “mentally ill” people from the “keeper and bearers
fail to ask the “why” of mental illness. Even more, they fail to see the connection
between violence and violence or to connect insanity and criminality with
insanity and criminality.
They fail to factor in U.S. government officials’ constant engagement
in and ordering of (what the FOX twitter twitted out loud, what other media and
government act out) torture, indefinite detention, and murder of Muslims,
Arabs, and varieties of peoples of color.
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| No Land an Island No People Apart Caring Community or not Local - Global |
Absence of “Community”
Instead of having a kindly presence in local community, instead
of doing nonviolent investigation and intelligence within the United States and/or
abroad, law enforcement and intelligence agencies threaten people, detain
people, kill people – based solely on how people look or what their age is or
appears to be, whom they associate with ─ without any recourse to the rule of
law and human rights convention, without presentation of evidence, outside processes
of prosecution and ruling at trial.
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hat is remarkable (and unremarked by mass media) is that,
far and wide ─ from local neighborhoods to foreign relations ─ there is the
very opposite of community (Caring Community): there is violence, aggression, belligerence;
the casting of blame, demonization, provocation, contrived divisiveness. This
is the nature of contemporary relations within and between the United States
and world nations and peoples.  |
| Unlawful, endless detention |
Thus, the actors in this right-to-keep-and-bear-background-checker-magazine-rounds
SHOW can make the ludicrous argument unchallenged by media: that a 66-year-old (or
even a 6-year-old) needs lethal limitless-round magazine weaponry to bring down
a “villain,” “terrorist,” “housebreaker,” or whatever happens to be media and
politicians’ current prop.
Presence of “Community”
A shared sensibility, deep internalized feeling for the common
good, regardless to and inclusive of individual difference ─ this is what I
mean by community or the core value from which a sense of “Caring Community” rises.
The people of the United States need to learn a character of
“Caring Community” ─ not feigned and captured with camera rolling but as an every-day
way of being.
Government in the United States (local to federal) needs to
care nonviolently for its own people: ensure good health care of all kinds
(mental and physical); good care facilities instead of medical marketplaces trafficking
drugs and high-tech machinery; good jobs, meaningful work; good schools and
engaging educational experiences, not business-modeled degree mills, Internet agencies
dispensing idiots, robots and bloodthirsty “Clinton-Bush-Obama-esque Ivy Leaguers”
─ Speaking of “heinous.”|
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f official and unofficial Americans practiced befriending, accepting
difference, seeking understanding of difference and of underlying issues instead
of knee-jerk acting, attacking and reacting, contriving lies and fueling hatred
and bias, attacking and reacting ─ we would not be wasting another half century or
more engaging in an endless string of distractions.
Pageantry in rights or not
to “bear arms,” “bear children,” “bear the burden of marriage” or “bear up
under the cruelty of religionists” ─ as real suffering goes unchecked, uncared for: the environment worsened by powerful deniers of scientific inquiry; people
dying of preventable diseases, suffering homelessness and the perils and consequences
of endless war and conflict.
Sources and notes
Wikipedia on guns
By the end of the 20th century, most handguns carried
regularly by military, police and civilians were semi-automatic, although
revolvers were still widely used.
Semi-automatics, Revolvers
Generally speaking, military and police forces use
semi-automatic pistols due to their high magazine capacities (10 to 17 or, in
some cases, over 25 rounds of ammunition) and ability to rapidly reload by
simply removing the empty magazine and inserting a loaded one.
Revolvers are very common among handgun hunters because
revolver cartridges are usually more powerful than similar caliber
semi-automatic pistol cartridges (which are designed for self-defense) and the
strength, simplicity and durability of the revolver design is well-suited to
outdoor use. … Both designs are common among civilian gun owners, depending on
the owner’s intention (self-defense, hunting, target shooting, competitions,
collecting, etc.).
Clip
A clip is a device that is used to store multiple rounds of
ammunition together as a unit, ready for insertion into the magazine or
cylinder of a firearm. This speeds up the process of loading and reloading the
firearm as several rounds can be loaded at once, rather than one round being
loaded at a time.
Magazine-fed
An automatic rifle is a magazine-fed firearm, wielded by a
single infantryman, which is chambered for rifle cartridges and capable of
automatic fire.
German forces fielded the Sturmgewehr 44 during World War
II, a light automatic rifle firing a reduced power ‘intermediate cartridge.’
This design became the model basis for the ‘assault rifle’ subclass of automatic
weapons, as contrasted with ‘battle rifles’ which generally fire a traditional ‘full-power’
rifle cartridge.
Military and Assault rifles
The development behind firearms accelerated during the 1800s
and 1900s. Breech-loading became more or less a universal standard for the
reloading of most hand-held firearms and continues to be so with some notable
exceptions (such as mortars).
Instead of loading individual rounds into weapons, magazines
holding multiple munitions were adopted—these aided rapid reloading.
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utomatic and semi-automatic firing mechanisms meant that a
single soldier could fire many more rounds in a minute than a vintage weapon
could fire over the course of a battle.
… More than any single factor, firearms have proliferated
due to the advent of mass production—enabling arms manufacturers to produce
large quantities of weaponry to a consistent standard.
Firearm Law
Britain
In the U.K., firearms law generally prohibits the ownership
of virtually all handguns and semi-automatic or repeating-action center-fire
rifles, as well as machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades etc.
Rim-fire rifles such as .22s are generally legal, as are
shotguns of any type provided the firearm cannot hold more than three rounds.
Legal possession of a firearm requires a Firearm Certificate
or Shotgun Certificate (depending on the type of weapon).
Case law in the United Kingdom generally makes it a crime to
cause the death of another person by any means, with little or no provision for
justifiable homicide.
As such, firearms are kept primarily for sporting purposes
including range shooting and hunting.
Europe
Western European nations tend to have more restrictions on
gun ownership and use than Eastern European nations. One notable exception to
this general trend, Switzerland, mandates the possession of a personal,
government-issued firearm by members of the militia (typically males between 20
and 30).
Possession of a fully automatic firearm is prohibited in virtually all European
countries except for members of the military/militia and collectors.
Middle East
In the Middle East, gun laws again vary, but are generally
restrictive among Arab nations, with most countries banning civilian ownership
of firearms.
Despite this, arms smuggling is rampant and black-market
small arms, usually Russian-made, are bought and sold by various non-government
organizations ranging from paramilitary groups to terrorist organizations.
Israel does not recognize the possession of firearms as a right,
and requires a license for the possession of a gun; however, the circumstances
in which one is eligible for a license are generally broader than most
surrounding states. A license typically allows the holder to carry one handgun,
in some cases a long gun, and residents in certain settlements such as the West
Bank are issued firearms by the government and given civil defense training.
Central/South Asia
In most of central and southern Asia, firearms ownership is
very tightly restricted.
In China, firearms ownership is generally prohibited, with
certain exceptions made for government agents including the military, sport
shooters and farmers.
Japan prohibits handguns entirely and long guns are
restricted to shotguns and single-shot or semi-automatic rifles holding up to
no more than five rounds within the magazine.
Fully automatic firearms are restricted to law enforcement
and the Self-Defense Forces.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_(weapon)
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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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