Guns

Too Much, Too Long…

by MyBaconPress

Have you noticed the force around Luigi Mangione as they move him from place to place? It’s like every cop in New York is needed to escort this oh-so-dangerous man. Really, it’s one hell of a show. Yeah, he shot a guy in the back. Now, because the guy he shot was a CEO and, more importantly, rich, officials are charging him with terrorism – so they can put him to death.

Mangione was a very specific shooter. He’s not a threat to all of society. It’s not like he randomly shot up a school, killing anybody unfortunate enough to be in front of his barrel. Because he had – and achieved – a goal, I’d say he’s LESS of a threat. But 30 cops surround the guy like he’s Public Enemy Number One with a long list of murders to his name every time he gets moved.

It’s all a show. The masses are being “discouraged” from following his example by seeing the treatment Mangione receives as a result of his action. Expect it to be harsh. Publicly harsh. Expect it to end with Mangione sentenced to die. Hell, they might fast-track him to the gallows, just to make their point.

The message is, ‘don’t attack rich people’ but I’m not sure that’s the takeaway the public will go with. I haven’t seen any waning in people’s support for Mangione or his choice, despite the fact that we ALL think murder is bad. People see this killing as a kind of retribution, not murder. When they DO kill him, I suspect he’ll become a martyr, a rallying cry…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you heard about this? A congresswoman from Texas, Kay Granger (R), has been living in a care facility for dementia patients at least the last six months. Her son tried to downplay the situation: “There’s nothing wrong with someone wanting to live in a community with other folks their age,” Brandon Granger said. He’s right. There IS nothing wrong with that. More, there’s nothing wrong with battling dementia. It’s sad, but it happens.

It’s the ‘battling dementia while holding a House seat’ part that concerns me. She hasn’t voted on the House floor since July. She hasn’t shown up at all, except for one photo op pretending she was a-okay. She has stepped down from her committee assignments. Oh, and she HAS continued to accept that sweet paycheck…

I’m not ripping on Granger, herself. We see this from time to time. We last saw it from Dianne Feinstein, who was no longer aware she WAS Dianne Feinstein much of the time, but maintained her position in the Senate. Useless, possibly even dangerous to her job, but holding the seat. The thing is, in Congress, this can only be about money, right?

Had Feinstein stepped down due to health issues, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom could be expected to replace her with another Democrat, so the balance of power would not be affected. That’s the exact same situation with Kay Granger. Her Governor, Greg Abbott, would likely have appointed a Republican, so, same outcome. But they stay. And stay. And stay.

Yes, it appears Joe Biden is battling some age issues, himself, and Ronald Reagan, famously, no longer knew he was Ronald Reagan by the end of his term. It just comes up from time to time. People get old and they don’t have control over dementia. Once it hits, it hits. But they don’t leave their offices.

Theoretically, their teams take care of them by keeping them out of public view and occasionally issuing statements in their candidate’s name but it’s essentially a seat held hostage in Congress. I might go so far as to assert it’s a kind of theft. EVERYONE is getting paid – from tax dollars – but nobody is doing the job they were hired to do. It’s no different than if you went to work every day but never did your job. Well, there IS one difference. Once your employer found out you were accepting the check but never contributing, you’d be let go.

I’m not normally an advocate for age restrictions but I think I’m leaning further and further that direction when it comes to Congress critters. For one thing, FAR too many of them are FAR too old, even if they’re NOT battling dementia. One gets out of touch with things as they age. The world moves pretty fast, these days, and it gets harder and harder to keep up.

Since people clearly can NOT be trusted to just gracefully step aside when, say, health conditions demand it, there should be a defined upper age limit. I genuinely appreciate the wisdom and perspective that can come with age but it’s not guaranteed and some people end up with dementia, instead. They shouldn’t be allowed to continue in such important roles.

What if we say 70? It’s a random, round number. 70 is old, but one is still likely to be in command of one’s faculties. Yes, we WILL lose some good people early but we have an obligation to protect ourselves from being governed by people who don’t even know who they are, let alone that they’re supposed to be governing…

When You Make Peaceful Revolution Impossible…

by MyBaconPress

I wouldn’t live a life that caused people to want to celebrate if I got murdered in the streets. Early Wednesday morning, in the middle of Manhattan, a man named Brian Thompson was shot and killed by a gunman. Mr. Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, a health insurance company. The shooter is still at large, so nobody can speak to his motivations with certainty. But the truth is, when I heard the person who got shot was the CEO of a health insurance company, my first thought was, “Someone who got a claim denied.” Wasn’t that your first thought? (Tell the truth.)

I don’t mind saying: I felt pretty badly about the fact that I didn’t feel more badly. There was even an element of “Well, that’s no surprise. The real surprise is why it doesn’t happen more often.” But I wasn’t proud of myself for a) dismissing other possible motivations so easily and b) maybe even feeling like one was struck for the little guy there, like it was a kind of justice. Who died – or is going to – because some bureaucrat sitting behind some desk someplace looked an some actuarial table and pressed the “Denied” button? (UnitedHealthcare is said to deny around one-third of all claims.)

Then we found out the shooter took the time to write “Deny,” “Defend,” and “Depose” on the bullets. That’s close to the name of an insurance industry book that teaches insurance companies how to deny claims, ‘Delay, Deny, Defend.’ Now I’m more certain that this is related to insurance denials – and I feel better about a Small-Folk “evening the score” than I feel badly about a human being getting gunned down in the streets. Oh, also? I feel a little more ashamed of myself for nurturing the schadenfreude.

Then, I saw a meme. It said, “I have seen at least 30 different news stories about one billionaire insurance company CEO’s death today. Wouldn’t it be great if every person who died today because an insurance company denied coverage got the same attention?” Okay, then. At least I’m not alone.

In fact, I’d say this is indicative of the failing nature of our health care system and, really, free market capitalism, in general. We all know that insurance companies like this exist only to add cost and extract money from people unfortunate enough to end up needing medical care. Just think about THAT for a second. One of the slogans of the United States of America is that we live in the richest, greatest country on the planet. And yet, we fear illness and think of the process as ‘unfortunate enough to end up needing medical care.’

The vast majority of Americans live one serious illness from ruin. Now, from all indicators, we’re all moving into a fascist free-for-all that promises to pit Joe Six-pack against corporate interests at every turn. That is, economically, things are about to get MUCH worse, not better. So I suspect we’re going to see more of this kind of thing going forward. In fact, I’ve been struck by how many people are rallying…around the shooter.

There are online sleuths, people who take pride in helping law enforcement find bad guys. As a group, they seem to have collectively decided to stand down. Only one stood up and offered some information – and that person was attacked by other online sleuths. To me, it looks, largely, like the rank and file people – those of us who have been victimized by some insurance company somewhere so, you know, most Americans – stand on the side of the shooter.

John F. Kennedy (the good one, not the jerk currently in Congress) said, “When you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable.” I think the vast majority of the country rooting for the shooter in this case is shades of that coming to pass. Now that our government has been handed over to the One Percent (the collective net worth of Trump’s cabinet nominees is estimated at around $340 billion dollars) and Project 2025 is a blueprint of how to attack the poor and defenseless, we can expect these out-of-touch rich prigs to inflict damage after damage.

Worse, they’ll do it blindly, because they really ARE out-of-touch. Because they really DON’T understand how decisions which don’t have any serious effect on them, nonetheless have devastating consequences to the largest numbers of Americans. Elon Musk, the wealthy, silver-spoon opportunist who has never invented anything in his life, has already warned the Small-Folk that they’re just going to have to suffer some “temporary hardship.” Not him, mind you. He’s going to get tax cuts and deregulation that makes HIS life oh-so-much easier. But you? Oh, yeah, YOU have to suffer. Suck it up, buttercup.

I can’t say when things explode. That part is always elusive in history. People put up with a lot of crap, just trying to get by. But everybody has a limit. Everybody has a moment. The One Percent have succeeded in rolling back FDR’s New Deal, which means all glory to the wealthy and the Small-Folk need to just do as they’re told and be grateful for the crumbs they get.

It’s a good thing we live in a bloodthirsty, brutal, and vicious society that’s already struggling mightily to survive on a day-to-day basis, pissed off about the inequities of America, and armed to the teeth. I mean, what could go wrong? I don’t think, long term, this shooting will prove to be an isolated event.

Right now, there are a large number of people who chose to support Trump, because they didn’t believe he’s actually going to do the things he promised he was going to do. As he DOES do those things – to them – and the work-a-day Joe’s lives are impacted, they’re going to wake up and get mad.

MAGA is a different story. MAGA was perfectly happy to kill their loved ones to keep Trump from looking bad about his horrific mishandling of Covid-19. They may well prove to be blindly loyal enough to kill themselves to protect their Precious, too. But one of the primary hallmarks of MAGA is selfishness. Killing their loved ones was one thing, a necessary sacrifice. Killing themselves?

I suspect when MAGA is asked to just forget about the Social Security they’ve paid into for so long, when they realize their gardener isn’t coming anymore because he got deported, when they lose their health care and can’t see a doctor anymore, when the price of eggs goes up, not down, when they lose their homes to some clever wall street type, when their granddaughters start dying in botched back-alley abortion attempts, they’ll start to wake up and get angry, too.

I’ll tell you this: I suspect the shooting of Brian Thompson and, more importantly, the ho-hum attitude people have displayed over the shooting (are we actually rooting for the shooter to get away with it?) represent an opening salvo in the impending culture wars. Trump isn’t even President, yet, and the shooting has already begun. This is going to be ugly…

Things Are Getting Crazy…

by MyBaconPress

“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”

Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I’ll bet he does. He used a bunch of AI-generated lies to pretend Taylor Swift was endorsing his criminal, raper ass. She wasn’t. In fact, because of his pretense, she felt she had to correct the record. She made a post endorsing Kamala. She’s honorable. She said everyone should do their own research and vote their conscience. It was just that HER conscience told her to avoid Trump because of how dangerous he is to society. The result?

Immediately after Taylor’s endorsement, something like 330,000 people showed up at a voter registration site! Swifties in action. Trump immediately started selling Swift rip-off merchandise. She should have her attorney’s send a cease-and-desist letter. All I DO know is that Trump hates her. Cry me a river. Oh, yeah, she’s worth more than him. A LOT more. And she didn’t grift hers or get it from daddy, she earned it.

Watch for MAGA to come out screaming. Celebrities shouldn’t endorse! They don’t mean that. They mean bigger celebrities than they can muster shouldn’t endorse Trump’s opponent. In truth, I suspect she would have endorsed Kamala sooner or later, anyway, but Trump forced her hand with his lie. I kind of feel like he got what he deserved.

But she won’t. Trump declaring, in all caps that he “HATES TAYLOR SWIFT” could be all it takes for some new nutball to try to “remove” Trump’s source of irritation – “Protect the Precious!” That could put Taylor Swift in real danger. In America, one is NOT supposed to be put in danger because the prefer a political opponent. And, yes, that DOES go both ways, in my mind…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think I should start this part by acknowledging that I don’t believe Trump ever got shot or even grazed. I know he pretended to in an effort to create sympathy. All I DO know is that the “hit in the ear” story does NOT comport with other, known facts. I can’t speak to any of the rest of it. I don’t know about the “blood.” It never looked right, to me. It was WAY too bright red. I honestly believe somebody actually died and others were actually injured. Trump just wasn’t one of them.

The lie is, a round from an AR-15 took off a piece of his ear. Nope. All you have to do is look at Evander Holyfield’s ear. Holyfield was a professional boxer. He fought a fight against Mike Tyson. Tyson wasn’t at his best and at one point, bit off a piece of Holyfield’s ear. BIT! IT! OFF! (Spoiler alert: Tyson was disqualified and lost the fight.)

To this day, Holyfield is sporting a “gap” where that piece of his ear had been. I mean, it has healed. But the ear never took on it’s old shape. The piece that was removed is still removed. Had Trump been shot in the ear, the piece that got “removed” would STILL be removed. Yeah, yeah, he wore a feminine napkin on his ear for a few days, mostly to highlight the pretense that he had been “shot.” Then he lost the pad and the ear was perfect again. Trump’s ear is pristine. It’s in perfect shape. But that is simply NOT the way ears heal – even Trump’s “god-like” ear.

I had a hard time accepting that. I couldn’t believe Trump might pull a political stunt that would actually get people killed just to gin up some sympathy. Was it a random coincidence that he just happened to look in the direction of the shooter just as the shots rang out? Or, was he watching for some signal, fully aware of what was about to transpire? I don’t know. It seems outside the realm of possibility. But Trump is the very definition of “outside the realm of possibility” and at this point? I wouldn’t put anything, no matter how horrific, past him.

Would Trump allow one (or more) of his loyal followers to actually die for political points? Well, from his point of view, the victim was ONLY “Small-folk.” He genuinely doesn’t seem to care about them at all (except to get their money). I suspect that, yes, he would risk the possibility of Small-folk dying in an effort to gain a few political points. But I don’t know any of that. All I know, for sure, is that Trump was never shot in the ear or anyplace else.

And now there are reports that there was more gunfire in the vicinity of Mr. Trump during one of his golf trips. He was never in any danger. As it happens, the gunfire was from a Secret Service agent who was patrolling one hole ahead of Trump. He spotted a rifle barrel sticking through a fence and opened fire. The guy with the rifle, reportedly, never fired a shot. When the Secret Service opened up, he ran. Somebody got a picture of his getaway car and the cops found the guy pretty quickly.

Now we’ll get all the details. Was he left? Was he right? So far, he seems to have spent most of his life left but he’s been moving right of late. He even voted Trump in 2016, though he later regretted the choice. MOSTLY, he seems tied up in Ukraine’s war and that’s where his sympathies lay. The current working theory – and it could change by the time you read this – is that he was mad at Trump for refusing to say he wanted Ukraine to win during the debate. Trump only said he wanted the war to “stop.”

I presume the right will now pile on the Secret Service as a “security failure,” but was it? Some guy breached the perimeter, sure, but he never even glimpsed Trump. The Secret Service neutralized the threat before Trump was in any danger, just like they’re supposed to. To my mind, that was a security success.

I don’t much like that people might be shooting at Trump, or trying to. All of the violence this culture promotes along with Trump’s own tough-talk is encouraging the wrong kind of discourse in this country. Vote him out. Don’t shoot him out. But I DO have to confess, after his fake at that rally in Pennsylvania where someone shot in his direction, I’m not sure I trust any of these so-called “assassination attempts.” It has crossed my mind that this is a prelude, the warm-up to get MAGA mad enough to pick up their own guns.

He suspects he’s going to lose in November again, even with Russia’s help. THAT leaves him his January coup and in order to pull the coup off, he needs confusion. For that, a MAGA mob, ready to “fight, fight, fight!” would be useful. And an armed MAGA mob would be FAR more effective – especially if they’re just itching to “get even” for the attempts on Trump’s life. One needs to sow those seeds early so they “sprout” at the right time. The attempts could be real but they could also be trumped up, staged events to inflame his supporters to violent action.

I’ll tell you this: I know how it sounds. Get out your tin-foil hats. It’s important to remember that much of this is (possibly/probably wild-eyed) speculation. But things just keep getting crazier and crazier out there and we KEEP learning that no matter how low things might get, MAGA always seems to find a new, lower low. That makes anything possible…

Coming For Our Guns…

by MyBaconPress

Here’s a funny thought I had. For years, nay decades, we’ve been listening to gun rights advocates (GRAs) whining that the left is trying to take their guns. We’re not. We’d like to control which crazies have access to guns but I haven’t heard any serious calls to repeal the Second Amendment.

Trump, rather infamously, insisted during his J6 ‘Wind-Em-Up Rally’ that the Secret Service should remove the weapons detectors at the gates. When told that there were many credible reports of armed people in the crowd, he (again, rather infamously) retorted that they weren’t there to hurt him. Trump felt safe around all those armed people because he felt like they were all on his side. But now, one of HIS people has taken a shot at him.

Even Trump might well figure out that his reasoning on J6 may have been less than perfect. Loyalty is an unpredictable thing in crazy people. You know who Donald J. Trump loves more than anything or anybody? Donald J. Trump! On July 13th, he received instant information that, despite his preference, people with guns could, very well, constitute a threat to his oh-so-beautiful self. How do YOU think a self loving, paranoid, megalomaniac authoritarian is going to react to the possibility that some gun nut might use one of those guns to try – again – to kill him?

So guess who I predict will be coming for people’s guns. Go ahead, take a guess. If you said Donald J. Trump, you win. (There is no prize so, nice job!) Only Nixon could go to China. Only Trump can take the guns. I suspect it won’t be too long after he’s installed that he feels the paranoid need to remove the threat – that is, the guns. Especially if there’s a second attempt.

Remember, it was a gun nut conservative who took the shot. Trump may well realize that ANY gun nut, left or right, could become a serious threat – to HIM – with little or no warning. After all, the guy who kills Trump gets to live in history forever the same way the guy who killed John Lennon did it to live in history forever. It turns out? There are twisted people out there…

My head will spin as I watch MAGA media denounce gun ownership and see the new laws banning guns imposed by MAGA from sea to shining sea – all to protect their dear leader. It’s going to be fascinating watching GRAs try to decide how to respond. Will they just turn their weapons in? Some will. Will they go all “from my cold dead hands?” Maybe. Will they withdraw support from Trump? (Too late, guys. Once he’s in, he’s in – and you will be, I predict, disarmed.)

I guess the Lord DOES work in mysterious ways. Sure, the entire world suffers and burns under another Trump maladministration – but at least we will have finally managed the gun problem in this once-great nation…

Terrible is Still Terrible…

by MyBaconPress

So, yesterday, I wrote about Trump getting winged. I speculated on possible reasons, since nobody knew anything substantial at the time I was writing. One of the possibilities I mentioned was that it was NOT a political hit. It was just another in a long line of MAGAGOP/NRA shootings in which crazy people compete with each other to try to get the most horrific mass shootings and stand atop the crazy shooter pile. It turns out, this was that.

MAGA thinks the Dems have to tone down the violent rhetoric, though. Yeah, cause Dems are the party of shooting beer to protest an ad they don’t like. Wait, is it the Dems who run political campaigns by shooting… anything they can think of that they relate to liberalism? No, that’s right. I mean, that’s THE right.

MAGA also thinks their god protected their guy. Apparently, their god didn’t give two figs about the others who got shot. Quick question, if god is out there protecting certain people from becoming victims, why does he allow innocent seven-year-olds to be cut to pieces but saves the life of the personification of the Seven Deadly Sins? I mean, which “god” are you people praying to? Because it seems to stink of Sulpher…

At least one guy suggested BIDEN should be arrested for attempting a political assassination. If he would tune in to reality for even a second, he would know that a) Biden had nothing to do with it and b) even if he had, Biden enjoys perfect immunity for official acts, thanks to the conservative Kangaroos on the way-high court.

All Biden would have to say is he was “testing the effectiveness of the Secret Service” as part of his official duties. You know, the same story Trump tells about his attempt to steal the election. Besides, if Biden was going to attempt an assassination, do you really think he’d send a poor shooting kid? Biden has access to the best snipers in the world, people who know how to account for windage. Why would he send that failed human being?

But, alas (because when does one get a chance to use ‘alas’) it was just a run-of-the-mill standard conservative nutball trying to make the record books…

So then the other question is, how is this going to affect the race? Did Trump just win? If anything, Trump won on debate night. I don’t think getting winged is going to offer him much, long-term. Sure, he’ll play it up as much as possible. (Be honest, Dems would, too.) MAGA will rend clothing and clutch pearls and swoon but now that we know the shooter was just a standard crazy doing MAGA-endorsed crazy stuff, we’re kind of back to normal.

I saw an article in the Guardian suggesting some of Biden’s talking points were now muted. I disagree. Trump is still an existential threat to democracy and to the health of America. Am I really not allowed to say so because of some conservative crazy? Are we on the left not allowed to mention the Trump inspired violence of J6 because of the MAGA enabled violence at ONE political rally?

Yeah, sure, MAGA is going to try to blame the left. MAGA always blames the left. MAGA has not proven itself a very well informed group. I can’t see standing down on facts because of one event. Especially when (with respect for those who were seriously hurt or killed) it’s a such a non-event for MAGA. The only one who counts for them is Trump – and he was only scraped.

Of course Trump will see a bump in his support. I hear shares of his struggling media venture have gone up in value. Polls might bump in his favor for a short time. But Trump is still who he is. He has still done what he has done. Having a bullet whiz past him isn’t going to change that and there’s still time to remind everyone of the threat.

As an example, on the same page where the Guardian is doing the inevitable post-shooting stuff, there’s an article from leading economists warning that Trump’s proposed economic plan is going to do FAR more harm to the US than not. One guy is even from the far-right conservative stink-tank American Enterprise Institute, so it’s not just lefties ripping on their opponent.

I have to confess, he DID get a pretty good photo out of it. He did. But he’ll plaster it on T-shirts and mugs and sell it for way too much money and the photo will become as hackneyed as his “never surrender” surrender photo. Yes, MAGA is going to get a little “chubby” every time they look at it but the rest of us?

Since, like everything, it was NOT what MAGA will say it was, to my mind, it’s already yesterday’s news. I don’t think people will jump aboard the crazy train because of a cool photograph and his policies still suck. Saying the shooting won Trump the election is like saying the shooting made women comfortable about losing bodily autonomy and that, maybe, rampant, outright racism isn’t so bad.

I’ll tell you this: Terrible is still terrible, cool photo or not…

A Republican Shot At Trump…

by MyBaconPress

I just finished a book called ‘Blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell. It takes the position that sometimes one’s first impression is far stronger, and more correct, than in-depth analysis and study. As strange as it is to say, based on that thinking, I feel like there is something amiss in yesterday’s “assassination attempt.” I can’t put my finger on it. It just doesn’t feel right.

There’s something about the angle that confuses me. As the shooting started, Trump’s head was turned nearly 90 degrees. That means the shooter had to be on the sides of event for the bullet to whizz past (or through) his ear. Otherwise, it would have gone into his head. The thing is, I didn’t see any buildings to the side of the rally in any of the photos. I’d like to see a better map of the area. I also thought the blood looked wrong – too red. But what the hell do I know about blood? Note: I’ve since seen a better map. The shooter was, in fact, to the side of event…

Like I say, it’s just a feeling and a bit of a paranoid one, at that. Did they stage a rally shooting that actually killed someone and seriously injured others just to boost Trump’s standing in the polls? No. That’s too cynical, even for me. I still can’t shake the feeling, though, that Trump wouldn’t hesitate to kill some “little person” he doesn’t even know if he thought it would win him the White House.

I know. It’s insane thinking. Then again, look at who this is about. Insanity, personified. Honestly, do you really think Trump is beyond staging a shooting and cutting his own ear for political advantage? I wish I could say, for sure, that he would never – but I can’t.

Then again, Trump likely won the election the night of that disastrous debate. He didn’t NEED to stage anything like this. Besides, will anybody vote for Trump just because someone tried to shoot him? I don’t think so. Trump is STILL an existential threat to the United States and everybody who lives there, let alone the world, and thinking people still know that and MAGA still doesn’t care. I doubt even a stunt like this would win him any new supporters.

Maybe all of that is just me, expressing my ongoing inability to grasp the death of our once-great nation. I’ve been writing and trying to warn people about what I see coming for a long time. I’ve had very little success convincing anybody of anything. These days, with the end in sight, I find myself walking around in a kind of a fugue state, operating but not fully in charge, you know? It’s a kind of low-grade shock. I would never have believed Americans would let this happen at all, let alone that so many Americans would so gleefully cheer it along.

Trump took to holding rallies outdoors, I suspect, because it was cheaper than lining up indoor venues and his campaign is trying to save money for his many criminal trials. They even held some in Arizona (rallies, not trials) and it was so hot several of his devotees passed out in the heat. (Old people just don’t tolerate heat like younger people.) Having the rallies outside, though, is what allowed this shooter to get into position in the first place. I’d guess, going forward, future rallies will be strictly indoor events…

It’s also possible this was just some random, nut-ball shooting. We’ve seen them at all kinds of events from schools to concerts. Why NOT a political rally? He’s dead, now, so we’ll never get to ask him why he did it or what he was thinking, but the shooter was a 20 year old boy. He used an AR-15, the preferred gun of mass murderers around the nation, thanks, ironically, to the MAGAGOP and the NRA. He didn’t get a lot of shots in before he was “eliminated” himself.

He was a registered Republican but gave $15 bucks to a progressive political group in 2021. Those two events likely happened in the reverse order, though. Based on his age and the timeline, he would have given the money when he was 17. Then he turned 18 and registered Republican. Law enforcement and the media will be tearing into this guy’s life for the next few weeks so we’ll know everything about him that it’s possible to know in a short time.

I don’t want violence. I have to condemn this shooting in the strongest possible terms. You may have noticed, I don’t like Trump, even a little bit. I don’t support violence against him or anyone else. Maybe the shooter was trying to kick off the “culture war,” once and for all. You know, make it look like some “libtard” tried to kill Trump so the right would pick up their guns and start shooting, too. They still might.

Trump and his MAGA followers have been advocating violence for a long time, now. Their voices have been calling for another civil war. They are the people advocating retribution and revenge on their “enemies.” (Read: fellow Americans) It can’t be a total surprise that it’s coming out and it shouldn’t be surprising that it is, perhaps, coming home to roost. Violence is rarely a one-way street…

I’ll tell you this: I fear this will not be a one-time thing. I think those shots were just the first shots. JFK’s words are screaming in my ears, now. “When you make peaceful revolution impossible, you make violent revolution inevitable.” We the people still have a choice about which way this whole thing plays out. Here’s hoping we choose more wisely than that 20 year old boy…

Activating Empathy…

by MyBaconPress

Every time this gun debate happens, sooner or later, some frustrated soul says, “Well, I hope one of THEIR kids ends up on the wrong end of a gun!”  The speaker invariably looks horrified by what they’ve just suggested, retracts the statement, and begins apologizing profusely to whatever higher power they claim.  They don’t REALLY mean it.  After all, what kind of blithering, blind fool would wish harm on children because of the sins of the father?  But they ARE reacting to something many people know: there’s a large swath of people on this planet who lack empathy and the only way to get them to understand a thing is for them to experience it.

My American Heritage Dictionary defines empathy as “Identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives.”  Basically, empathy is the capacity to accurately place oneself in another person’s shoes.  Because people who lack empathy cannot properly relate to another person’s position, they often come to erroneous conclusions about things – but only while those things remain abstract.  Once the “empathy-challenged” gain personal experience in a given subject, they often have a more…applicable attitude…

Gabby Giffords is one of the more obvious examples today.  She was a Congresswoman from Arizona.  She didn’t get a high grade from the NRA because she supported an assault weapons ban but, according to Foxnews.com, she has been “vocal about her support for gun owners’ rights.”  She supported and signed an amicus brief in support of gun owners’ rights in DC vs Heller.  These days, however, she fronts a gun-control group she founded with her husband.  What changed?  A bullet to the head.  Apparently, getting shot in the head is a very convincing argument for gun control.  For her, the entire gun debate left the world of “philosophical positions” and became very real, indeed.  It got me to thinking…

No, I’m not thinking we should shoot anybody who supports gun rights.  Listen, I support gun rights, though I acknowledge it might be a little difficult to tell from this particular piece.  But that’s because I’m tired of mass shootings and I’m tired of people standing in the way of common sense gun controls that might prevent them.  Yes, I know, they might not.  But suggesting that something shouldn’t be tried because it might not work perfectly in every possible situation just sounds stupid.  Because it is…

I know that more than 99% of gun owners are “responsible.”  But in fighting every suggestion – many proven by application in other countries – that comes down the line as an attempt to take away all guns, the 99+% aren’t doing anything to help society deal with the less than one percent.  It seems to me, the very best way to ensure that eventually, society will demand confiscation is to continue to protect and defend the people who misuse their weapons and the (lack of) process that makes it so easy.  It remains true: the few always ruin it for the many.

Yes, it’s a “mental health problem.”  But our society has decided to destroy itself through endless war so there’s no money to deal with mental health problems.  If we’re not going to treat those with mental health problems, we’re going to be left with no alternative but to take away the devices they use to express their mental health problems.  You feel free to cite all the pseudo-facts and “massaged” statistics you want.  No matter what you say, the other side of the ledger shows children cut to pieces by lead.  You want to deride that as an “emotional response?”  Have at it.  It won’t change a thing.  When a loved one is cut to pieces in a way that could have been prevented, statistics have no meaning…

But I digress.  This is about empathy.  To that end, I’d like to pass a law called ‘Giving The Finger To Shooters Act.’  It provides that every time there’s a shooting with six or more deaths, society gets to take one of Evil Wayne’s fingers.  (“Evil Wayne” is Wayne LaPierre, the current bastar…uh…CEO of the NRA.)  Look, I know it sounds harsh.  I’m not trying to be cruel.  I mean, we wouldn’t use garden shears.  We’d have a doctor do the work.  We wouldn’t start with “important” fingers, either.  We would start with the pinky of his non-dominant hand and work in from there, one at a time, as the qualified shootings occur.  Real-life practice currently identifies a mass shooting as four or more victims.  The ‘Giving The Finger To Shooters Act’ calls for six or more deaths, so there’s some grace there, too.

When you think about it, the proposal provides Evil Wayne greater opportunity to protect his fingers (and toes, eventually) than his rhetoric provides for children.  Besides, said law isn’t really aimed at Evil Wayne.  It would apply to whoever the CEO of the NRA is a the time of the shooting.  But I’ll tell you this; I’ve got to believe that if Evil Wayne had to give up a digit every time someone killed six or more people in one shooting, the NRA would have an entirely different attitude about gun control.  You see, Evil Wayne would have something tangible on the line.  His empathy would be activated.  These shootings are not abstract to the victims’ families and they wouldn’t be abstract for the currently carefully protected Wayne anymore, either.

I know.  I’m not going to get such a law – and I shouldn’t – because of civilization.  Evil Wayne is protected by (and gets to profit from) the reality that I don’t get to BE a barbarian in an attempt to stop barbarianism.  So let me, instead, try to activate some empathy by using a metaphor that a certain segment of our society once found oh-so-convincing.  Imagine you have a bowl of Skittles…

To the best of my knowledge, Skittles are nothing more than an enjoyable snack manufactured by conscientious people in a clean and safe environment.  (That’s my disclaimer for the people at Wrigley…)  In our bowl of Skittles, though, through some unknown anomaly of the manufacturing process, two of the Skittles contain pure poison with no known antidote.  They’re slightly misshapen, so if you could examine them closely enough, they COULD be routed out before anyone consumed them.  But you’re not allowed to look.  And those are the two we might have caught.  There’s also one Skittle that started out just fine but, again, through some unknown group of pressures, that Skittle has “broken” and morphed from being a “responsible” Skittle, to being pure poison, with no known antidote.  No one will find out about that Skittle until someone dies.  That’s just the risk we take for enjoying Skittles…

Now…and you don’t get to choose zero…how many Skittles are you going to put in your child’s lunch today?

The Keep Your Gun Act…

by MyBaconPress

This piece is about guns so I’m forced to start with the obligatory disclaimer: I’m not against guns and I’m not interested in taking everybody’s guns away from them.  Statistically, I believe the data indicate that MOST gun owners qualify as “responsible.”  I know, statistics.  I’m not fond of them, either.  They’re so…malleable.  So I won’t try throwing a bunch of stats at you to prove one point or the other.  Let’s go with ‘anecdotal’ instead, since it’s so much more reliable.  (Okay, the truth is, the actual numbers are less important than the general idea I’m trying to express so ‘anecdotal’ is good enough…)  Just think about the number of people you know who own guns and have NOT killed anybody or been in any kind of gun incident.  Lots, right?  Most, in fact…

But because the subject is guns people’s knees started jerking.  My Gun Rights Advocates (GRA’s) will be certain my first sentence was a feint.  My Gun Control Advocates (GCA’s) will insist that every gun owner is a danger to himself and society.  I say the truth lies somewhere in between.  The NRA has championed the term “responsible gun owners” but they use it as a blanket term, as though “gun owner” naturally equates to “responsible.”  The thing is – and yes, I’m repeating myself – most gun owners ARE “responsible.”  The OTHER thing is, though, some are not.

Recently, here in the bay area, an eight year old took a loaded handgun to school in his backpack.  I’m not prepared to consider an eight year old a responsible gun owner.  (Taking the weapon to school surely makes the point, yes?)  Okay, so the gun didn’t belong to the kid and an arrest has been made.  The ACTUAL “responsible” gun owner will have his day in court.  And that – right there – the “responsible” part…that’s the part I want to address.

In my mind, this gun owner is clearly irresponsible.  I mean, come on; he left his loaded gun where an eight year old could get it.  GRA’s have a tendency to dismiss such incidents as accidents or isolated events.  I would bet money I don’t have (I wouldn’t really) that the guy who actually owns the gun STILL considers himself a “responsible gun owner.”  That’s because people deceive themselves into believing they’re awesome all the time.  (We’re really a very confused species…)

So, to me, it doesn’t make sense to allow people to designate themselves “responsible gun owners” any more than it does to denigrate actual responsible gun owners as the result of some anti-social behavior committed by the smaller number of irresponsible gun owners.  Then I got this idea: what if we pass a law that sets a standard and violating that law self-identifies “irresponsible” gun owners.  We take THEIR guns (because they DO endanger everybody, after all) and leave everyone else out of it.  I toyed with some ideas about how to implement such a thing and then I realized I’d already been given the answer – by the NRA no less!

Have you ever heard of the Four Rules of Gun Safety?  They’re really good.  They work.  Here, take a look:
1)  All guns are always loaded and should be treated as such.
2)  Never point a gun at something you aren’t willing to destroy.
3)  Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target.
4)  Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.
Strange as it seems, if everyone followed these rules there would never (okay, rarely) be accidental gun deaths.  They’re good rules…

Perhaps you’ve noticed they don’t cover an eight year old getting hold of the gun.  I did, too.  But in fairness, IF the eight year old obeyed those rules (he didn’t) he couldn’t hurt anybody, either.  So, today, I’d like to introduce ‘The Keep Your Gun Act’ – an effort to allow irresponsible gun owners to identify themselves…

Basically, it’s a two-part law.  The first part elevates the Four Rules of Gun Safety to the Four LAWS of Gun Safety and prohibits law enforcement agencies from dismissing violations as “accidents.”  There are no “accidents” with guns.  If somebody’s gun “goes off”?  They clearly violated Part 1, section 3 of the ‘Keep Your Gun Act.’  If the round goes through a wall and kills some kid sleeping in his bed?  It’s NOT a “tragic accident.”  It’s negligent homicide.  The Keep Your Gun Act requires the “incident” to be charged appropriately…

Part 2 requires gun owners to keep their guns.  If someone takes off with one (or some) of your guns – be it an eight year old boy who wants to show off for friends or some crackhead burgling your home for a quick influx of cash – you clearly didn’t have the weapon properly secured.  You didn’t keep your gun.

Violations of ‘The Keep Your Gun Act’ result in – at minimum – a substantial fine for each violation and surrendering your weapons…because if you couldn’t even KEEP your gun, you’re clearly NOT a “responsible gun owner.”  A legitimate defense would consist of proving you had secured the weapon in a reasonable and prudent way.  “I stuck it in the nightstand drawer!” isn’t going to fly…

Now, I’d be okay giving people one chance.  That is, a first violation would result in confiscation of weapons but a person could recover the right by participating in an approved gun safety course and proving their ability to secure the weapon.  A second violation, though, and one loses their guns for good – that is, the good of the community.

So there you have it: ‘The Keep Your Gun Act.’  An effort to allow irresponsible gun owners to identify themselves.  I’d like to hear thoughts on the topic but I would ask that people think about ‘The Keep Your Gun Act’ and not just throw out the standard tropes because I’ll tell you this: We’ve all heard them all and we can repeat them all by rote…