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I have never voted Republoscum and vowed that I never would; but what the Demorats are doing is so despicable I cannot see that I have a choice.
Let the premise be clear: the Demorats do not represent ordinary Americans, whether the poor, the working poor or the distressed middle-class. The Rats as much as the Scum represent the corporate oligarchy and its coterie of vassals and hangers-on. As the British labour leader, Tony Benn, put it decades ago: “America is a One Party State; just have two of them.”
The Demorats have utterly failed to deliver on any of their so-called progressive promises. In 1992, the Demorats rejected trade-unionism in favour of free-trade, gutting welfare, and law n' order. In 2008, vowing an end to a “long night of darkness,” the Demorats flooded banks with money, continued neo-con wars, and hung the middle-class out to dry. In 2016, they rejected what they disparaged as the progressive agenda in favour of something the BitchWitch called “incremental progressivism” -- in plain English: “chicken feed.” Again, in 2020, the Demorats and the country's Liberal Establishment, led by the Slime-of-Record, left no stone unturned in order to defeat Bernie Sanders; in other-words to suppress a popular groundswell that, on the issues advocated, commanded 60% to 70% approval nation wide. And “no stone” included endorsing a woman who had crash-landed in her home state's primary and a lead candidate who was so prone to walking in circles and gumbling gaffes that he was kept out of sight in the basement. At least Benjamin Harrison had the decency to run from his front porch.
Once again, the Demorats employed their “What-you-see-is-not-the-real-me” tactic. Somehow, Joe Biden, the college varsity football player who got himself declared 4F on account of asthma, and who, throughout his career, had been pro-bank and pro-war, was peddled as Union Man Joe -- a gruff n' tumble guy who would push large chunks of the progressive agenda through Congrease.
Well... (as if it were not fully foreseeable) Bernie's My Friend Joe strategy proved as successful as Wile E. Coyote's running into a wall. (In fact, it was so foreseeable one can be excused from wondering if Bernie wasn't pogey bait for millenials all along.)
Instead of putting bread on the table for working Americans, the Demorats have offered their usual cornucopia of “cultural,” “social,” and “civil rights” issues -- all of which have the primary benefit of not in any way affecting the portfolios of the party's donor class. Even Blacks were getting tired of the game, seeing as five decades of Overcoming Promises had produced, at most, a mouse. So the Demorats went in pursuit of new issues. Suddenly transphoria issues blazed into the firmament. Concededly, public their-room access and teaching sexual-orientation alternatives to six year olds migh be of transcendental importance to the country's 0.3% transgender community, but it is of no practical benefit to the rest of us. Not with inflation raging at an official 8.5%.
Ah, but it is of great use to both the Demorats and the Republoscum. For while cultural issues are of no tangible, material, benefit to people, they have this near magickle power to get people riled up and make people forget their actual grievances. As James Madison put it,
So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. Fed. Paper No. 10.
Poor Madison! He never thought that he was writing a political manual for our two major parties. A pox on them both.
But the Demorats havetaken the matter a step further - a step which requires me to speak truth to subversion. This far, and no more!
As I have commented on before, in pursuit of their Woke Agenda, the Demorats have launched an assault on the First Amendment, getting their henchlings in Social Media to flag and block speech that is “violent,” “racist,” “sexist,” subjectively “offensive” “false” and “misleading.” These were always the rallying cries of censors and the favourite bugaboos of tyrants. Nothing more need be said.
Not content with eviscerating the First Amendment the Demorats are now going after the Second. The rallying cry in this crusade is to put an end to something called “gun violence.” The term, like most labels-of-convenience, is prejudicial to clear thinking. The term implies that guns=violence, or better yet, guns=death. But what is really at issue is violent acts committed by humans armed with guns. Why don't the Gun Prohibitionists speak of “human violence”? Because to do so would -- God forbid! -- point to the true cause at issue; and if it's anything the Demorats hate it's true causes.
With that caveat in mind, let us examine how much violence committed with guns there is. According to Pew Research, in 2002 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries. Of these, 54% were suicides (24,292), while 43% were murders (19,384) In 2020, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. "gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters." Switching between "gun" and "firearm" murders does not make for clarity, but the Pew report is unequivocaly clear that: "Rifles – including so-called assault weapons – were involved in 3% of firearm murders." Using the 19,384 number that stacks up to 581 deaths. (The Gun Violence Archive, calculates 518.)
Right off the bat, these Pew Research statistics, betray what an utter canard the hysterical campaign against military assault!!!! rifles. They, and their “high capacity” magazines are responsible for at most 581 deaths; and actually less given that not all rifles are "military assault style" guns. Of course while any death is sad, and while the occasional mass shooting event presents a horrible spectacle, policy decisions are based on gross phenomena, on major trends. From a statistical and policy point of view “MILITARY STYLE ASSAULT RIFLE VIOLENCE!!” is a non-existence category.
Aristotle wrote that the role of spectacle in drama was to use suspend judgement; to dull the mind the shock or awe. The same is true in politics.
Getting the mind back into gear, the real issue is (and always has been) hand-guns. Of course, the Demorats don't want the issue framed in that way, because to outlaw hand-guns would unequestionably void the Second Amendment. So instead, they shift gears and complain about “high capacity magazines.”
Once again, let us examine the statistics. How many bullets does it take to blow one's own brain out? Answer: “high capacity magazines” are not at issue in 54% of all gun-relate deaths.
Of the 43% of gun-related murders, how many involved the use of “high capacity magazines.” Typically, “high capacity magazines” are those which hold 20-30 rounds. But with a few rare exceptions, most pistols sold in the United States come equipped with magazines that hold between 10 and 17 rounds. Those holding 10 rounds are generally compact or subcompact models. Recent anti-gun legislation has defined a high capacity magazine as one holding more than 10 rounds. Thus, the question that has to be asked is: how many of the 43% gun-related murders have entailed the use of more than 10 rounds?
Or: how many times did you shoot your wife?
I have not found an answer. Common sense tells me that most single-person murders do not require ten or more rounds, presuming the shooter can shoot straight. One has to imagine the types of scenarious in which homicides occur: deliberated murder of a person, heated spousal quarrels, drunken fooling around, liquor store robberies and car-jackings. Most of these can be, and most likely are, accomplished with under 10 rounds. The situation in which the perpetrator will even be carrying an extra magazine in his pocket is most likely gang-related “missions.”
All of which brings us to the last question: how many shootings are mass murders anyway? The standard defintion for some years was: four or more victims. Needless to say, Gun Prohibitionists, have wratcheted the number down to three. The FBI defines “active shooter incidents,” as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” Using the FBI’s definition, 38 people – excluding the shooters – died in such incidents in 2020.
Wikipedia contains a list of mass shootings in the United States since 1949. Since year 2000, the vast majority of these “mass” shootings have involved under 10 deaths per incident. Where more have been involved, there were usually other circumstances which painted a more nuanced picture.
For example: in 2002, 17 people are listed as being killed in the so-call D.C. Sniper Attacks. However, the attacks occurred over a ten month period. In the 1987 Flight 1771 killing, 43 persons are listed as being killed; three shot the cockpit, the rest when the plane crashed. Also in 1987, the Dover Arkansas mass shooting involved eight shot by pistol, seven by strangulation and one by drowning. Turning away from creative statistics, a perousal of these incidents show that, on average, most of these mass shootings involved between 3 and 7 victims of shooting.
Thus, to conclude, the prohibition of 10+ magazines is solution in search of a problem. Of course, any “gun violence” is a problem, but there is not a gun-violence problem in the United States. Not when contrasted with the 38,824 vehicle deaths or the 71,238 deaths in 2021 from fentanyl and the 32,856 deaths from meth. In terms of policies one might think there are more important priorities than banning an “assault style” weapon that is used in 1% of gun deaths (452). To be sure, possession of fentanyl or meth is already outlawed but that only serves to show that outlawing things doesn't work.
But the prohibitionist mentality is implaccable. The alcohol prohibitionists would not be deterred until they effected a constitutional amendment and eo instante created the mob, interstate crime and gun violence such as never before had been seen. Gee thanks. But at least Carry Nation (or her successors-in-rage) bothered with an amendment. The Gun Prohibitionists prefer the snake-in-the-grass. They are trying to eviscerate the Second Amendment with a thousand “reasonable regulations.”
There is nothing reasonable about them at all. One call all but hear them cackling with glee as they scribble out section after section after paragraph, after sub-paragraph, after item, after item, of pre-requisites, prohibitions, limitations, fees requirements. They are proceeding thus because they know that they cannot repeal the Second Amendment at the ballot box; and so they proceed by stealth and back of hand. It is despicable in its cunning and dishonesty.
This sort of thing might achieve the object of desire but it does so at the price of destroying law. Law, we might well remember, is simply a form of speech. It requires a certain good faith. Or as Thucydides said, “simplicity of speech is the mark of a noble man.” Just as speech is destroyed by sophistry and by the perversion of meaning, so too law is destroyed by devices such as are being employed by the Gun Prohibitionists. They should be forwarned. For if we are turned from a nation of law into a nation of mere devices then we are undone.
In the name of equal contempt, I am constrained to say that the Republoscum gerrymandering devices are also depicable. The difference is that what the Demorat Gun Prohibitionists are doing goes one step further and targets what the Framers felt was important enough to be enshrined as the second most fundamental of all rights, and they are doing so by means of vicious technicalities the sole purpose of which is to make compliance with the law impossible. Think about that: make compliance with the law impossible.
For shame.
Had the Demorats delivered on their vaunted promise of social welfare and economic equality, one might at least feel that the price was worth the basket of fish. But they failed at even that. Throughout history, most dictators have taken away freedom but given bread. Not them. It is a stark choice indeed between two parties each of which is comprised of narcissistic, millionaire pricks who whore themselves out to a plutocratic oligarchy and who do absolutely nothing for the average working person. But when one of those wretched parties takes after two of the three most fundamental rights in our constitution, my choice is clear.
