Guns in the Wrong Hands: Enemy of the People, Country & Common Decency

 

This issue: Typical Congressional Pastime

The Rightwing Old-time Religion

Washington Post Report (June 14, 2021) with this headline:

“2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in decades. So far, 2021 is worse”

Key elements from the article shows gun violence this year cutting cut through various celebrations, funerals, work sites, places of worship, grocery stores, and in a fast-food drive-through lane.

Most of all, it has unfolded on city streets and in family homes away from the cameras and far from the national spotlight. 

By almost every measurement, 2021 has already been a terrible year for gun violence.

Many fear it will get worse.

A recent single weekend, more than 120 people died in shootings with three especially dangerous incidents in Austin; Chicago; and Savannah.

Through the first five months of 2021, gunfire killed more than 8,100 people in the United States – that is about 54 lives per day, and it is 14 more deaths per day than the average toll during the same period of the previous six years.

In July 2020, shooting deaths reached a peak of roughly 58 per day and continued, nearly unabated, around that level until early 2021. Now, the numbers are rising again.

In the nation’s capital, 2020 set a recent record for homicides — mostly from gun violence — and that number is rising again.

Seventy-nine people were killed in DC during the first five months of 2021, a 23% increase over the previous year.

My 2 cents: I note that on June 18, the DOW closed 500 points down; Chevron and Walgreens both were down as well as Gold prices, but guess what: Smith-Wesson gun sales were up some 17%. 

How ironic is that. 

The so-called bottom line: As always, gun nuts of course will turn a blind eye and say: “Hey, more guns work against getting more bad guys off the streets – yep (like Hell they do). 

Simply stated, more guns beget more guns and that results in more deaths as seen in this 2015 article.

FYI: I am not anti-gun, I am pro-common sense and rational public policy to stop this mass killing now nearly out of control.

There are simple policy proposals out there, but the gun lobbyists and the NRA with tons of money want no part of any change. 

Less gun policy means more guns, that means more PAC money from more gun-toting voters and the gun industry, and that works to keep policy gurus in power to deliver favors to those who keep them in office (so at least that’s what they think and practice).

Thanks for stopping by.