I was born in 1929 which gives me a perspective on violence in
America down through the years like few people in the media have ever witnessed
or know anything about.
I have been following the news reports and pundits on cable TV
talking about the Sandy Hook Elementary school slaughter when Adam Lanza used a
Bushmaster assault rifle to kill at point blank range to shoot 18 students with
between three and 11 bullets and wound two other kids who later died at the
hospital. Lanza also used his Bushmaster assault rifle to kill six school
administrators and teachers.
The Bushmaster assault rifle Lanza use was equipped to hold clips
of 30 rounds of ammunition and police found almost 100 of the 30 round clips on
Lanza's body after he committed suicide.
What has pissed off this old codger more than anything else is how
the media, especially FOX NEWS and RUSH LIMBAUGH, has bought
hook-line-and-sinker the BS WAYNE LaPIERRE, executive director of the NRA
(National Rifle Association), has tried to pin the blame for LANZA's murderous
killing spree on everything from mental illness to video games, violent movies
and television show, but not guns.
So I've got a little history lesson for WAYNE LaPIERRE, the NRA and
the media.
In the 1930s and 40s, I used to go to double-feature movies and
between showing the movies the movie theaters would play cartoons and movie
shorts.
The cartoons were filled with violence and the movie shorts also
used violence as the underlying theme of the movie short.
The feature movies many times were filled with gun violence albeit
not as graphic as the movies of today, however they depicted gangland violence
as it was in that era and not like the movies of today which depict violence
with all the special effects to jazz them up so they don't even come close to
real life.
We didn't have video games, but we did have games that had a
violence theme.
When World War II broke out, the movies that were among the most
popular were movies with a violent war theme.
Mental illness was just as prevalent in the 30s and 40s as it is
today, but the big difference is we had mental institutions that housed many of
the more severe cases of mental illness because psychiatric drugs had not yet
been introduced into our culture.
When Ronald Reagan was elected as President of the United States,
he set out to shutdown all the mental hospitals and institutions all across the
country. Hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people were tossed out into the
streets and the homeless population in the country skyrocketed.
When television made its debut in the mid-40s, the TV fare was very
tame, but then Hollywood started to come up with Western series, and series
built around cops and robbers and in both cases guns and gun violence was a
staple of every series.
All throughout the 30, 40s and 50s right up until today, cartoon
series many times featured a violence theme.
The NRA started out as an organization which was interested in
teaching gun safety, but then in the 1980s Wayne LaPierre and his NRA cohorts
saw a chance to sell more guns and thus increase the NRA's membership by
lobbying members of Congress and urging them to kill any legislation that would
be introduced that would stifle the sale of high-powered assault guns and
ammunition that would come in 30-round clips like the kind Andy Lanza used to
carryout his slaughter at the Sandy Hook Elementary school just over a week
ago.
The NRA came up with a slogan: "Guns don't kill people. People kill
people." The NRA, of course, never edited their slogan to read: "Guns don't
kill people, but people WITH GUNS kill people."
The NRA has also hidden behind the Second Amendment and have
twisted the words around so much you would think the Founding Fathers had used
the word "guns" in the amendment, but in reality the wording is "the right to
bare arms."
In the eyes of the NRA, "the right to bare arms" can mean anything
from a Bushmaster assault rifle to a nuclear bomb.
Remember Timmoth McVeigh used fertilizer and a rented truck to blow
up the building in Oklahoma City killing close to 200 people including little
kids who were attending a nursery school in the building. McVeigh was a
card-carrying member of the NRA.
Wayne LaPierre's rant on "Meet the Press" this past Sunday was more
like an infomercial for the NRA than offering any solution to the gun violence
in America that has reached epidemic proportions.
LaPierre trotted out all the same defenses the NRA has used in the
past. Blame mental illness, video games, movies and television, but never admit
that Adam Lanza was able to get his hands on a Bushmaster assault rifle, two
Glock rapid fire guns and even a shotgun which he left in his mother's car
parked out in front of the Sandy Hook Elementary school.
Lanza was able to get the guns because his mother, who he shot four
times in the face killing her from point blank range while she was asleep at
home, had purchased them within the past year and she even used to take her son
to gun ranges so he could learn to fire the weapons.
History plus personal experience is a great teacher. I grew up at
a time when gun violence was just as much a part of the American landscape as it
is today. The vast majority of us looked at the violence we saw in movies,
movie shorts and cartoons as entertainment and not a study guide for the life
style we should follow.
President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who will head up the
task force looking into what can be done about the explosion of gun violence,
have their work cut out for them in bringing any meaningful gun legislation into
existence.
Joe Boehner, Republican Speaker of the House, has already signaled
he would probably not bring up any gun legislation for a vote in the House of
Representatives.
Why should he? The House of Representatives is under the control
of Republicans and most of them are the recipients of money funneled to them by
NRA lobbyists in Washington with an unwritten note to vote "NAY" on any
legislation that would put a halt to the sale of military-style assault rifles
and ammunition that comes in 30-round clips and drums.
If history repeats itself, we are just days or weeks away from the
next mass murder spree from a copycat gun nut only this time it could be at a
shopping mall, a theater, a rock concert or a major sporting event---anywhere
where innocent Americans gather.
BREAKING NEWS: Two firefighters were SHOT this morning, Christmas
Eve day, when they responded to a fire in Rochester, New York.
