I am still kind of reeling after the shooting in Uvalde Texas. The violence will never make sense. The shooting happened on Tuesday it is now Thursday and I am still just in shock. The monster shot and killed all the kids in the classroom.
Close to where I live there is a manufacturer that builds and sells assault rifles, lots of them. Someone on Facebook posted a picture of the factory that she drives by and made a comment about the factory putting the Don’t Tread on Me flag at half mast to remember the children that were shot to death using a rifle that they more than likely built. The picture had a not so flattering comment about the company that manufactures the death devices. Someone commented that it wasn’t the guns fault it was the evil peoples fault. That comment sounded a lot like the “guns don’t kill people, people do” statement I heard over and over again. I am not a big fan of this logic.
I guess if guns don’t kill people people do then guns are not dangerous and everyone should have on and there would be few accidental deaths. There are a lot of accidental deaths when it comes to guns. There are 430 accidental deaths from guns per year in the United States. That’s insane! Its hard to get a number on who owns how many guns in the United States however I think more people use and own toasters than guns. I would go as far to say that almost everyone at over the age of 17 has used and uses a toaster regularly. The toaster is the most dangerous appliance in your house. The toaster has set house a fire and electrocuted people. Toaster accidents account for in the United States an average of 300 people per year. Wait why is that less than guns? Well guns are made to kill people and toasters are not. When a gun kills someone it is working. When a toaster kills someone it is an accident. Guns and toasters kill people. People may or may not be the cause that the gun or toaster killed someone, a toaster could short out cause a fire and kill someone and a loaded gun could fall and someone could get shot but let’s be clear guns and toasters can, have and do kill people.
When a gun doesn’t kill someone it is not being used properly. I don’t think our nation will ever be safe if we cannot agree on fundamental truths. It is a truth that guns do kill people.
The stories about the evacuation of the Titanic have the famous statement “women and children first”, when loading the life boats. The story goes that women and children were helped onto the Titanic and loaded first. Why? Well, children are our legacy. Children carry on the species through time and therefore must survive. It is natural that we protect our children. Women bare children. When the Titanic sank the gender norms basically gave the role of caring for and raising children to women. So loading the Life boats with Women and Children first made sense.
It still makes sense today to take special effort to protect and care for women and children. However as a society the United States is doing a poor job of providing for women and children.
Yesterday I was publishing my podcast and news of a school shooting was in my feed. 19 children and 2 adults were shot and killed in Texas. Every year in the United States an average of 7,957 children are shot. The mortality rate for women in the United states is among the lowest in the wealthiest countries in the world.
How can we correct this? Start caring about women and children more than we care about ourselves. There are laws that are not passed in the United States that would make it harder to buy guns. Lawmakers and voters do not support these laws. the law makers and voters say they do not support them because they would hinder their rights to buy guns. I am a simple man and what I hear is that women and children matter less to them than their rights. Women die from domestic abuse and poor health care a lot. There are laws that have been halted that would provide health care to a lot of women. The reason the lawmakers and voters choose to stop health care laws or reform? Cost is a big reason for the lack of health care reform and health care for women. People do not want to invest in the health of women or children.
You and the nation that you live in will invest in and take care of what matters the most. The number one investment in the United States is the military. The military budget surges and not the good part of the military budget. Health care for soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen takes hits every year. Military schools and housing projects suffer budget cuts and are regularly shelved. Planes, war ships, munitions, and tanks are financed and roll off the assembly lines are rapid rates. Never stopping always producing and finding new ways to kill people.
America has and is still investing in death, Big time!! The lawmakers and voters for the lawmakers make some big money on war too. In 2021 lawmakers had over 1.5 million dollars of investments in the companies that built the machines that are used in war and “peace” operations of the US Military.
45 lawmakers voted against the background check law in the senate last year and have filibustered the law. all but three of the senators have and continue to take money from the NRA an organization dedicated to making it easy to buy and sell guns.
Protecting our women and children is the right thing but it is not profitable or easy and it seems all the United States cares about is money and efficiency not people. This is sad because people matter most.
I think Orson Welles understood how important people are and should be. When asked if he ever cast a friend in a film instead of the right person he answered with frequently. When asked why…
Because I don’t regard art as the prime importance. I already told you that I prefer every other loyalty in life to arts
Orson Welles
If society is not loyal to at the very least its women and children I fear it will be lost. All that matters is each other. not profit or rights or freedom. If we have no women and children we have no future and no hope.
On Saturday 5/14/2022 a gunmen shot and killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo NY. On the same day a gunmen opened fire at a church picnic in Laguna Woods CA and killed one person.
I am not trying to bum you out but the news is pretty depressing. It really makes you sad to think about the 11 people who will not be with their loved ones here on earth anymore.
There are 137 days that have passed so far this year and the police in the United States have shot and killed 358 people.
There have been multiple news stories and editorials detailing the violence in the United States this year last year and the year before. Violence is on the rise, deaths are too and some of the editorials are trying to find correlations among the senseless cowardly violence. One thing that is abundantly clear is the lack of concern for life by those that are committing the violence.
If you ask anyone if life is valuable that will almost always say yes of course it is but, when you become more pointed with your questions the value of lie seems to drop quickly and dramatically.
What matters most above anything else you do on earth is the relationships you take part in with other humans. The number one reason people quit and leave companies are toxic work places. Another way to describe it is bad relationships with coworkers and management.
Make a habit of to things: to help; or at least to do no harm
Hippocrates
We have to value everyone. Every person everywhere we have to value them. In July 2013 a unarmed young black man was shot to death. The killer was found not guilty and upon further investigations society realized that black Americans were being slaughtered at a much higher rate than any other race in the country and much of the murder ended the same way as the death of the young man without justice. This realization started the movement Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter works to bring social justice to the forefront and supports the black community in the United States with scholarships and community service projects.
Black lives do matter, however it does not seem like they do. There is almost no justice for the death of black men and women. There is little respect in the United States for life and less respect in the United States for the lives of minorities.
How can this be fixed? It has to start with me and you and then our families.
No death should ever be considered justified ( I will try my best to make sure that I never promote or believe this concept. Life is a precious gift and should never be taken from anyone that has been rewarded it)
Take an interest in everyone. (everyone matters and everyone is interesting. everyone has a story to tell and is doing something that matters if we learn about this we will place more value on this person)
Invest in others (I try to give regularly to charities that seem to make a difference and I want to give more. When I give I like to think of this as not just charity but an investment. I am investing in a better world for the next generation)
Make time for everyone. (It is easy to “be too busy” no one and everyone is “too busy” if someone or something really matters you and I will make time for them. I am going to strike the words too busy from my vocabulary it is always a lie and there is really truly no way to measure it)
Let people be great. (Sometimes getting out of the way and letting people impress you is one of the best and coolest things you can do. Letting people impress you requires trust and practice. Some one will tell you they will do something 10 times before they actually do it but you have to let them try and fail at least 10 times)
Let us all work together for a better future that will not include so much violence. I promise that it is possible but only if we value life, others as well as our own.
When you get the chance you should watch the video on this post. It is a dark humor type of video and when I watch it I am taken back to my junior year of high school . I was in Mr. Millers U.S. history class in Lorain Ohio. I cant remember exactly how the discussion was started but I remember Mr. Miller telling one of the students that soldiers in war believe that they are fighting for just causes on each side of the war.
I grew up and joined the U.S. Army and I got to say Mr. Miller was right. I never once thought that I was involved in something wrong. I am not sure if it was patriotism, or duty but I always felt like the United States was the just party.
Look at that two videos in one post. I love that song and the lyrics are pretty interesting. They speak to how many nations use the blinders of patriotism to get citizens to go to war. It doesn’t mention one particular nation, I assume that is because this is done by all nations throughout time. St. Augustine struggled with the concept of just war and came up with philosophy surrounding making war as just as possible. Many argue that this just war theory or philosophy is where modern day war crimes originated.
You know that you have devolved as a species when you are coming up with the most humane way to wage war. To go to war a nation must convince its citizens that war is necessary. Conscription is used but then there is desertion to deal with and traitors. The best way is to convince someone that they are fighting evil or bad guys.
The gun lobby promotes gun ownership as self defense because of “bad guys” with guns. Since you are a good guy you should buy a gun register the gun and when someone breaks into your house shot the bad guy with that gun. In Louisville Kentucky men with guns kicked in the door to Kenneth Walkers house. Kenneth Walker had bought and registered a gun for self defense he thought he was a good guy. Kenneth the good guy with the gun shot at the bad guys with guns. In effort to defend his girlfriend. You can read an article about Kenneths actions here .
Kenneth didn’t stop the bad guys with guns, they killed his girlfriend with their guns and shot Kenneth. Kenneth’s girlfriend was Breonna Taylor and the bad guys who shot and killed her were; Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove. You can read about them here. These guys thought they were good guys.
In the video there is a scene where everyone is pointing guns at everyone else and someone asks a woman who the bad guys are and she says something like you all seem terrible to me.
Shooting someone is bad full stop. That is a great rule to live by. Shooting someone is wrong. The police officers were wrong and they murdered Breonna Taylor. Honestly Kenneth was also wrong. In hindsight maybe if Kenneth were to not have fired at the police they would have only kicked in the door and arrested the wrong couple (yeah the police kicked in the wrong door it was the wrong address!). We will never know though because Kenneth thought he was shooting bad guys with guns and police thought they were shooting a bad guy with a gun (even though they did kick in the door to this guys house, breached his inner sanctum in a violent manner).
The bad guys with guns who murdered Breonna Taylor and tried to murder Kenneth Walker, were not sent to prison. It breaks the heart truly that Breonna is dead and there is no justice. The jury and broken justice system that could not find a fault with the bad guys is a problem. I think maybe a big part of the problem is that the justice system itself is a “bad guy’ with a gun. Anytime you must use violence to enforce justice I would argue that you are far from policing by consent. There is no one that would want a police officer to kick in there door to their home ever and shot their significant other.
I think maybe that is what makes someone a good or bad guy. Inflicting ones will on someone without consent. Sadly throughout the world this is happening everyday by millions of people.
Breaking the cycle is painful but possible I hope and it has to start with someone. It doesn’t look like it will start with those in authority anytime soon so I will try to have it start with me. I will work towards respect and empathy for others in all my actions and when I get the chance (which I should in a democracy) I will vote for authority that has respect and empathy for others and not in one that declares “good guys and bad guys”. It is this good versus evil reductive nonsense that has and continues to hold our species back for forever. There are no good guys or bad guys when everyone is holding a gun period.
A good guy finds a way to help others that doesn’t involve shooting them or kicking in the door their home and shooting them.
The Corrigan Encore 