Facepalm

Another day, another shooting. This time, two people having an argument decided it was important enough to attempt to take the other’s life.

Watching coverage on MNSBC, I just saw two different guests focus their attention on television, video games, and the ‘culture’ contributing to gun violence.

I am sick of this lazy thinking. First, as the graph above helps remind you, WE ARE NOT THE ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD WHO WATCHES THESE FILMS AND PLAYS THESE GAMES. We are, however, the only country in the world that has 300 million guns, a patchwork structure of regulations for them, and numerous loopholes. Seems to me the only difference between us and the rest of the developed countries isn’t the episodes of 24 or a Sunday matinee of Django Unchained or an extended weekend of playing Call of Duty 4…

…the difference between those countries and 10,000 gun deaths a year is the guns.

(graph source)

There’s a scene in Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated film Lincoln featuring an old Derringer muzzle-loading pistol. It’s meant to be a comic scene, within a montage in which James Spader’s character has been relentlessly persuading members of Congress to vote for the 13th Amendment. He’s weary, tired from all the people he’s been talking to, and falling asleep at a table next to a Congressman reading over the bill.

Once the Congressman realizes what it is, he draws his pistol. Spader panics, they wrestle, and the gun fires into the air. Spader starts to run away, then realizes the bill is on the ground, he needs it, stops, turns, runs back, picks it up, bumbling, turns, and takes off again.

Within that little bit of schtick, which takes maybe 8 seconds, the shooter is reloading: bringing out his gunpowder, pouring some in, loading it, cocking it, pointing it. He fires again, but Spader is long gone.

This scene takes place in 1865, 74 years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, containing the 2nd Amendement.  So this handgun, that required time enough to load to allow a bit of comic slapstick from James Spader, is three-quarters of a century further along in firearms technology from when our forefathers decided to allow a well-regulated militia to bear arms. 

Imagining how that scene might have played out, had the shooter had an AR-15 with a 30-round clip, I find it hard to believe that John Adams and James Madison would have said, “Yeah, let’s let everyone have one of those. Or as many as they wish.”

And poor James Spader would’ve had a much smaller role in the film.

Sure, the platinum coin idea is silly. But yes, it seems to be legal, and threatening not to raise the debt ceiling is also silly (and dangerous).

But come on, let’s at least have an discussion based in reality. 

- No, you do not need $1 trillion in platinum for a $1 trillion platinum coin.  Do you think there’s $100 worth of cotton in each $100 bill? Fiat currency: look it up.

- It’s not to “pay for [Obama’s} spending”. The President does not have the power to spend money, Congress does. The debt ceiling raise merely allows Treasury to borrow more money to pay for the things Congress already voted for.

To the people saying “it’s the culture, it’s those violent video games”. Newsflash, the US doesn’t live in a bubble. Those same video games are played in other countries around the world. And guess what: no correlation with gun violence.

(Source: WaPo)

think-progress:

Corporate profits are at an all-time high. Worker wages are at an all-time low.

Read more at ThinkProgress.