Statistics, 2002-2008
Domestic US Deaths by Firearm Homicide: over 80,000
Domestic US Deaths by Terrorism: 0
While people enjoy citing the fact that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed under the US Constitution (conveniently dropping the reference to the purpose being a well-armed militia that could actually stand up to the US standing army), no one really likes to mention that there are other rights enumerated in this document. For example, rights against unwarranted search and seizure (even before boarding a plane!). Or, say, the right to not be deprived of life or liberty without due process.
A story recently ran on CNN that said people were actually turning against further restrictions on firearms rather than towards them in the wake of recent upticks in mass-homicides by firearm. I guess people think they can fight gun violence with their own guns and we can turn every subway and mall into the OK Corral. Those were the days.
And even the idiots answering these surveys and fomenting public perception in America know that you can’t fight terrorism with terrorism. Or can you? That certainly seems to be the consensus method picked – seizing and torturing individuals while bombing their society into submission. For the purpose of intimidating all those who might oppose. Hm.
It’s not news to observe that people have been willing to hand their rights over to the fist of fascism as soon as the specter of terrorism is raised once, despite no renewal of the allegedly infinite threat in the last 7.5 years. What is news is that people react utterly irrationally to legitimate threats of violence, such as ubiquitous and seemingly surging shootings.
A while back, I suggested that we start referring to all quantities of deaths in terms of the unit of measure “September 11ths”. Since September 11th, we’ve seen 26 September 11ths worth of shooting deaths. When are we going to wake up to just how profound the real threats are in our society while clearing the smoke and smashing the mirrors?
We have nothing to fear but all this idiocy and obliviousness.
