“No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.”
---Senator Robert F. Kennedy April 5, 1968
“Only In America” sang Jay and the Americans now more than half century ago. Today, the refrain has achieved an entirely different meaning. The 'land of opportunity', has become a killing field. It has become so bad that my daughter told me that when she was in Europe travel warnings were issued about visiting the United States, citing gun violence. She should know, she moved in diplomatic circles working first for the United Nations International Development Organization and then later for the International Atomic Energy Agency.
We have visited this issue before; we have visited this issue repeatedly. Today, Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day, the nation is presented with yet another senseless act of bloodshed.
Today it is nearly a score dead in a Florida High School. There have been 18 school shootings (1) in this country on this the 45th day of the year. Nearly every day there are shootings involving multiple casualties. We lose more people to guns in this country than in automobile accidents. Since Robert Kennedy lost his life a half century ago, more Americans have died at the hands of guns than we have lost in all our wars put together.
Rivers of blood, years of darkness. And still the killing goes on.
We have visited this issue before, it is de ja vu all over again., (2) and in the interregnum, from Sandy Hook, to movie theatres, to Churches in Tennessee, Virginia and Texas, to a concert in Las Vegas, to schools across the land the blood continues to run through the streets of America.
It is wrong to say that nothing has been done in the wake of this carnage. Indeed, in the aftermath, the Scums have been working assiduously to weaken gun laws. Several Rescumlican controlled legislatures have, for instance, made it illegal for cities to enact gun control laws, have made it easier to purchase guns, have made it easier to carry concealed weapons, made it easier to purchase handguns and—protecting the “gun show loophole' have thwarted meaningful background checks. They have even—in the case of Iowa—made it legal for children to bear arms.
On the national level, the NRA has worked tirelessly to push these measures through state legislatures and has pressured Congress to do nothing. It has resisted the banning of assault weapons, now the weapon of choice among mass murderers. It has resisted banning armor piercing and hollow point bullets. It has resisted safety measures like technology that reads fingerprints so as to prevent someone else from firing your gun. It has instead stood foursquare for the absolute removal of any meaningful regulation.
"The N.R.A is a terrorist organization"
----from the "Quotations of Chairman Joe"
The NRA, it has been reported, was used to funnel Russian money into the tRUMP campaign, perhaps the Rescumlican National Committee as well. Certain Congressmen, like Dana Rohrabacher, a former Reagan speechwriter and now Congressman from California is rumored to have received money from the Kremlin and was reported by The New York Times to have been warned by the FBI that he was perceived by the Kremlin as an intelligence source. (3) It appears that the Russians have achieved deep penetration of the Rescumlican Party and are using organizations like the NRA as conduits through which financial support can be funneled. (4) The NRA further serves the foreign policy interests of the Kremlin by spreading terror throughout the land as well as paying lip service to every tin-hat conspiracy theory questioning the legitimate use of police power by the state.
Caesar Disgustus who received perhaps upward of 70 million dollars from the NRA (5) will, of course, tell the nation that this is a 'mental health' issue, not a gun issue. But this ignores the fact that it is the gun that enables the slaughter. There are no drive-by stabbings or stabbings from the window of Las Vegas hotel, or mass stabbing at a church, theatre or school. Indeed, the first act pertaining to 'gun control' of this administration put the lie to the fraud. It was to overturn an Obama ban on selling arms to those on Social Security Disability receiving payments for reasons of mental disability.
Only in America. Nowhere else in the world would this be tolerated. “And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours”.
“An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh”.
Impeach and Imprison
___________
1. That number is in dispute. see https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/breakingnews/no-there-haven’t-been-18-school-shootings-in-2018-that-number-is-flat-wrong/. What isn't in dispute is the level of trauma. The Washington Post article while correcting the number downward nevertheless points out that "Gun violence is a crisis in the United States, especially for children, and a huge number — one that needs no exaggeration — have been affected by school shootings. An ongoing Washington Post analysis has found that more than 150,000 students attending at least 170 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. That figure, which comes from a review of online archives, state and federal enrollment figures and news stories, is a conservative calculation and does not include dozens of suicides, accidents and after-school assaults that have also exposed youths to gunfire."
2. see January 29, 2013: The NRA is a Terrorist Organization, Clear and Present Danger, None Dare Call it Treason. Also, January 28, 2013: A Well Regulated Militia, It Hasn’t Always Been This way, Awash in Weaponry . In addition, January 30, 2013: There Are No Drive-By Stabbings, Cold Dead Fingers, My Wife...
3.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/politics/dana-rohrabacher-putin-trump-kremlin-under-fire.html
4.https://www.salon.com/2018/01/19/did-the-kremlin-funnel-money-to-the-nra-to-help-trump-its-bizarre-but-conceivable/
5.https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-trump-russia-nra-connection-heres-what-you-need-to-know-w515615
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