Aurora Colorado Massacre

Threatened Filibuster On Vote On Gun Regulation Should Lead To Filibuster Reform In Response

The threatened filibuster of having a vote on gun regulations, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Massacre, should be enough to lead to filibuster reform in response!

Five Tea Party affiliated Senators should be ashamed of themselves for not allowing a vote at the least, since the likelihood of major reform is highly unlikely. But in honor of the 20 dead children and six educators at Sandy Hook, plus the victims in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater and other tragedies, why not let a vote take place? How obscene and heartless can these five Senators be?

The five Senators who should be roundly vilified and condemned are :

James Inhofe of Oklahoma
Mike Lee of Utah
Rand Paul of Kentucky
Ted Cruz of Texas
Marco Rubio of Florida.

The latter three have Presidential ambitions, but if the GOP were to nominate Paul, Cruz, or Rubio after not allowing a vote by a threatened filibuster on the gun issue, then they are most certainly dooming themselves for the long term future, as a party being led by heartless lunatics of the far right!

Majority Leader Harry Reid is threatening filibuster reform, which is a simple majority of the Senate, if the extreme right wing stands in the way of a vote on background checks for gun purchases, supported by 90 percent of the nation and 80 percent of Republicans in recent polls. And John McCain has protested the idea of a filibuster, and even Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania seems ready to promote some kind of gun regulation reform.

The GOP cannot allow its fringe members to destroy the party’s future, which is what the threatened filibuster would do!

More Deaths From Gun Violence 1968-2011 Than All American Wars Combined!

From 1968 to 2011, there were close to 1.4 million deaths from gun violence, and this is before the massacres in Aurora, Colorado; Newtown, Connecticut; and elsewhere in the past year.

But when one looks at all deaths from American wars, we discover the total is slightly less than 1.2 million!

With gun violence escalating in recent years, we had over 32,000 deaths in 2011, about equal to the losses in the three year long Korean War from 1950-1953.

From 1999 to 2010, we had about 365,000 gun deaths, almost equal to the 400,000 losses in the four years of World War II.

The years 1981 to 1998 saw 620,000 deaths from guns, about the same as in both sides of the four year Civil War.

With 2,500 to 3,000 deaths per month on the average now, it means in a year we match the totals of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, the Persian Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War combined!

Anyone looking at these statistics would have to be troubled by the fact that we are the most violent Western nation by far, and yet there are those who believe nothing can or should be done about this tragedy!

August 6th: The Ultimate Violence Remembered, As We See More Domestic Violence With Guns Than Even September 11 Represents!

Today, August 6th, is the day that Hiroshima, Japan was attacked by the first atomic bomb unleased by the United States, to end the Second World War, followed by a second atomic bomb on August 9 on Nagasaki, Japan.

It is important to commemorate this event 67 years ago, two thirds of a century ago, without criticizing what President Harry Truman did, as in wartime one must do many things that may be seen as objectionable, but necessary to end the conflict. Certainly, many American lives, British and other allied lives, and even Japanese lives were saved. But we should still acknowledge the loss of life, no matter what.

But today is also a day to reflect on domestic violence caused by lack of any real regulation of guns in American society. We are reminded of this just weeks after the Aurora, Colorado movie theatre massacre, with the killing of six members of a Sikh temple outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Sunday by a neo Nazi named Wade Michael Page, who had served in the military, and also engaged in the subspecialty in music known as Hate Rock, a genre that exploits and glorifies violence against any ethnic or religious minority that does not fit the description of white supremacy.

When one realized that it is expected, by statistics, that 48,000 Americans will be killed by guns in the next Presidential term, as compared to the approximate 3,000 killed on September 11 in New York City, Washington, DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, how can one react other than in mourning and disbelief?

We have an insidious disease in America–gun worship–which is causing the death in four years of nearly the entire loss in the Vietnam War, more than the Korean War, more than the Spanish American War, more than the Mexican War, more than the War of 1812, more than the American Revolution, and of course, more than the losses in the Iraq War or the Afghanistan War!

Somehow, something must be done to stop the blood letting in America, and to justify it on “the right to bear arms”!

A Joint Statement And Press Conference Of The Four Former Presidents Now Needed To Call For Action Against Mass Murder Epidemic In America!

The crisis that America faces now after the Aurora, Colorado Massacre last Friday requires courage, principle, and determination being expressed by the men who have held the Presidency, and know of the need for some gun regulation, including banning of assault weapons and large capacity magazines.

Therefore, former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, crossing party lines and doing what is moral, ethical, and essential, need to issue a joint statement, and go further.

They need to meet together in public in Washington, DC, hold a press conference, and all four need to make comments to the nation at large on the essential need for both political conventions to adopt resolutions at their national convention five and six weeks from now of the need for gun regulations to stop the mass murder going on in our nation!

Yes, this will stir controversy, and anger the National Rifle Association, but it is time for our former Presidents to forget politics, and bring their stature and dignity onto their parties, and put the opponents of such resolutions and actions on the spot, fully exposed for who they are, and embarrass the anti gun regulation opponents at the least!

This is a national emergency, really more significant than the economy, foreign policy or just about anything else. This is a “war” on America, a “terrorist” attack from within, more dangerous than Islamic terrorism, and it is time for action, and for our four former Presidents to be statesmen, not politicians!

James Holmes’ Education And “Loner” Personality Should Not Be Over Analyzed By Media!

James Holmes, the 24 year old man who created the greatest number of casualties in any mass murder in American history, at the movie multiplex in Aurora, Colorado, yesterday, is being described as a “loner” and a highly educated, “book smart” person, who was pursuing a doctorate in neuroscience at the University of Colorado.

While both details are true, there is already the sense that if one is a “loner” or highly educated, that will be used as a new weapon in the news media to label all people who are one or the other characteristic as automatically a danger to society.

Being a “loner”, being shy, is no more a danger sign than a person who is the “life of the party”, a “jock”, or a “social butterfly”, as many such cases also lead to criminal activities.

And just because someone is “book smart”, an intellectual, does not mean that he or she is dangerous either.

If we are going to attack the concept of educated, quiet scholars as dangerous, we will undermine our future in this nation, as being the opposite of these traits is not something we need to have more of, and to glorify, as media and the general public tend to do much too often!