Another letter to our rulers

It’s time to write to Susan Bonilla again. I dropped a line a while ago with the simple request that Ms Bonilla not support any of the bills that contribute to the avalanche of gun control restrictions that have surfaced in the wake of the horrible murders of school children in Connecticut. My request was simple and direct, for none of the proposed restrictions would have any impact upon criminals or upon the insane folks who choose to murder a classroom full of tiny children. These restrictions will merely, by fiat, turn good citizens into criminals, punish the innocent for the crimes of criminals, and infringe upon our Constitution and our rights.

Ms. Bonilla was kind enough to respond, although what I read was merely a prepared script. Her response suggested a need for common sense restrictions imposed upon the law-abiding folks due to the rising tide of gun violence and the epidemic of mass shootings. Wow!

That’s interesting, for how can one describe the remarkable decline in the rates of murder by firearms and in the rates of violent crimes committed with firearms, a twenty year decline to levels not seen since the 1960’s in this country, as a rising tide, an epidemic?

And what an amazing coincidence… These are the exact same phrases repeated endlessly by your president, multiple US senators and representatives, various governors and a few state representatives, and just about every other politician with a ‘D’ behind their name. These are the politicians responsible for hundreds of proposed laws, all designed to punish the law-abiding people and to restrict their Constitutional rights in the guise of common sense. But rather than acting with common sense, each and every one of these new laws is senseless, useless, and onerous. And every single one has been proposed by a democrat politician.

Your president’s recent ignominious defeat in the Senate, due entirely to the roar of irate citizens, was called by that president a dark day for Washington He claimed his opposition was driven by those seeking political gain. Yet the impetus for this voter revolt was in fact brought on by the democrat party itself, which has been seeking short-term political gain at the expense of our freedom. And sadly, while America mourns the deaths of little children, it is the democrat party that CELEBRATES these incomprehensible and monstrous murders as an opportunity to promote their political agenda. This is offensive to anyone with a shred of moral character and makes me want to puke.

So I figure I’m entitled to some explanation if Ms Bonilla chooses to support or votes for any of the oppressive and unnecessary gun control bills now working their way through the morass that is Sacramento. These would include, but not be limited to SB 47, 53,108,293,299,374,396,567, and AB 48,169,180,187,231,500,711,740,760.

None of these bills would reduce crime or prevent mass shootings. They would however negatively impact thousands of honest citizens, turning many into instant criminals. So while my government is increasing violent crime by releasing criminals from prison to prey upon the citizens of this formerly fine state, our politicians busy themselves with plots to harm everyone else.

Simply reading from the party script won’t cut it any more in this discussion. Any drone can do that. I would hope that Ms Bonilla might learn something about firearms so she will not simply parrot the same old lies. I would hope Ms Bonilla could familiarize herself with the current state of violent crime in this country and make some effort to keep the people responsible for that crime behind bars, and leave the rest of us in peace.  Please Ms Bonilla… give this some actual thought, and then decide if short-term political gain is worth the cost to the freedom of the people you are supposed to serve.

Words and Numbers

“Despite national attention to the issue of firearms violence, most Americans are unaware that gun crime is markedly lower today than two decades ago.”--- Pew Research Center

The Pew people conduct surveys, large ones about important issues, so presumably they would notice this. This survey was conducted in March, 2013, three months after the school murders in Newtown, CT.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

“I seen it with my own two eyes.”  --- TNTC

Too Numerous To Count, as in lots of people said this.

In this instance I reference the eyewitnesses, the people least likely to get things right, according to folks who follow the criminal justice system. But if you saw something, or at least think you saw something, it is very real to you, and you tend to believe it is true. And this truth will likely color your thinking, often permanently.

Some of us still read newspapers, watch the TV news programs, pick up our news off the internet, or listen to Madge in the break room. This is how we find out about all that happens in the world outside of our vision. What we see through these sources becomes our reality. We are thus eyewitness to the news. And for better or worse, we tend to believe it is true.

The two most common news stories we see, the weather and the traffic, are followed closely by the third most common news stories….crime and violence. The most repeated news story over the last several months, the school shooting at Newtown has been witnessed by just about everyone. Over and over and over again. Endlessly.

Since that mass murder, if you follow the news at all, you have also been bombarded by 24/7 incessant trumpeting of every violent act perpetrated by man upon man that the news departments can find, presented only if the story involves at least one gun. And every story ends with entreaties for our legislators to come up with some solution to the “rising tide of violence” and the “epidemic of school shootings”, some “common sense” restrictions that must be imposed upon the owners of guns.

The left half of the politicians similarly have little else to talk about. Their speeches, their newsletters, their media interviews, are all about violence, crime, mass killings, all because of guns, all recalling Newtown, and they all read directly from the same party script, using the same phrasing and catch words. Over and over and over again.

Now…read that first quote up top one more time. Please….just for me. Keep me happy.

DESPITE national attention….

No small wonder, if one follows the news or listens to that half of the politicians, how you might come away with the notion that “gun violence” is raging across America, that it is a “rising tide of violence”, an “epidemic of mass public shootings”. After all, this is all we’ve been told for five months.

DESPITE?

Immersion is the fastest way to learn a new language. We learn other things this same way, and if you haven’t noticed, we have been immersed. We have been inundated with news reports of crime, gun violence, and murder. Our president and his supporting cast, from senate members down to the lackeys in our little towns have lectured us. All from the party script. We’ve been instructed to think that crime and violence are getting worse. This is not a despite thing. It is a because thing. It’s been done deliberately.

This is national attention driven by a clear and pervasive agenda.

The lessons have been well taught when a Pew survey finds that 56% of Americans believe that crime committed with guns is getting far worse. Only 12% of the American public know that crime numbers and crimes committed with guns have been dropping for twenty years, and that they are at low levels not seen since the Sixties.

According to Pew, since 1993 the rate of homicides committed with firearms has fallen 49%. Overall the rate of violent crime committed with firearms is down 75%. Not your usual rising tide, nor epidemic.

Why do only 12% of the people know the truth? Well…perhaps that’s because somebody has made a concerted effort to indoctrinate people into believing that violence, and particularly mass public shootings, are far more common than they are.

Words and numbers. We have been eyewitness to words and numbers presented by one party’s politicians and the media. And many people now believe that which has been presented to them. An embarrassing portion of these words and numbers that the people have seen has been tainted. Notice I didn’t say lies. Wanted to.

Sure, often the politicians lie. The media lies. Those groups out there who lobby to ban guns lie. Other times they simply repeat any bad news they can find, over and over until it seems to overwhelm. They taint because they want to change how all of us out here think. They taint because the truth won’t change our opinion. Our Attorney General Holder has referred to this as propaganda, and he has called for more. They want us to believe that crime and violence are on the rise, and guns are the cause of this rise.

Nothing new here.

Far too much of what we people use to form opinion is tainted these days. After a while, ya learn to spot these things, if you are looking. But most people aren’t looking. They trust their media and politicians, the two groups in America least worthy of our trust.

Politicians and media convince the people that America is awash in mass killings, all caused by guns of course. Awash. The propaganda has clearly been working. We hear about mass killings most every day even though they are uncommon events. Senseless mass murder, crazed gunman spraying bullets about the place, innocents dying. Soon enough we believe this happens all the time. We are then told that something must be done to stop the carnage. Common sense they call it.

Our own government has departments that keep track of crime statistics. One group counts as mass public shootings those times three or more people are killed by a crazed gunman. Others count only from 4 victims and up. In the last twenty years, the three and up version, the version with the greater number, has accounted for less than one percent of all the murders in this country. Oh, but yeah, it is getting worse. We’ve gone from 0.5% all the way up to 0.8% of all murders. And that’s with the total number of murders going down, which actually distorts the percentage higher. That’s your “rising tide”.

Counting only those 4 and up mass killings, from 1983 until 2012, would ya like to hazard a guess on how many innocent Americans have been slaughtered en mass by guns? Notice I said by guns, for we’ve been taught that it is the guns doing the killing, and not the angry crazy people.

547

In thirty years of mass public shootings.

(That’s roughly the death toll for criminals killing criminals on the streets of Chicago, each and every year, despite some of the harshest gun control in the nation, if you are looking for some balance in the argument. And yeah, you might not see 24/7 media obsession over young dead black males in Chicago. The politicians from the president’s party cannot hide from the blame for this tragedy. So they pretend this doesn’t happen. Or they try to shift the blame to the people who had nothing to do with the carnage. And that would be…us.)

African Americans make up 12% of our population, but they participate in 55% of our murders, but don’t wait for president hope and change to pay more than token attention to this….he’s all about the mass murderers (of little rich white kids). Because the murder of lrwk gets people stirred up. The president invited the parents of dead lrwk to the White House. He sent Michelle to Chicago.

547

That’s our epidemic of violence. Oh, and most every year the flu kills thousands in this country, but we only call that an epidemic when it gets far worse than only a few thousands in a single year.

Americans are being taught that the sky is falling, and therefore we must alter the Bill of Rights, the very foundation of freedom in this country. Half of our politicians want us to think differently about our freedom, our protection from oppression by our own government. Half of our politicians think we should trade in that Constitutional protection because of a trumped up Chicken Little version of panic. And yeah, it would be the president’s half of the politicians.

Now 547 is a lot of innocent people killed for no reason. Not a good thing, even by my standards. But if they’re telling us we need to change the Constitution for our own protection because of mass public shootings, maybe we should introduce some perspective, rather than much hysteria.

Some perspective:

Thirty years of people killed…

(rough estimates )

By mass public shooters: 547

By swimming pools: 90,000

By medical mistakes: 2,700,000

By house fires: 70,000

By cigarettes: 12,000,000

By dog attacks: 600

Yeah, I know…those are not weapons

OK How about:

By knives and other edged weapons: 45,000

By blunt objects, rocks hammers baseball bats: 12,000

By bare hands and various feet: 21,000

Scary numbers, but do we subvert the Constitution because of these? Not often. I’m thinking that Americans should be learning a different lesson here than the one the president’s party is trying to teach. We can start by keeping an eye on the folks who “taint” the words and numbers about crime and guns, and mass public shootings. Because right now we actually need more protection from this bunch.