Jerk
1/19/2007, 10:26 AM
Posted on Wed, Jan. 17, 2007
Where's the outrage about gun violence?
By Karen Heller
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Any fool can kill a deer. I know, because I've almost done it several times. All that's required is a car driven at a relatively good speed, 30 miles an hour should do it, near a wooded area around dusk or later.
Voila, venison a la Camry.
As for pen-raised fowl, released on exclusive preserves for desk-bound potentates, that doesn't require much skill, either, simply money and will, though it's preferable not to spray deep-pocketed supporters with birdshot.
The less "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State" rings true in contemporary America, the more the gun culture revs up its high-caliber lobbying and propaganda machine.
We've made smokers pariah, forcing them out to the street. Alcoholism and drug abuse, once private demons, have become public crusades. Abolishing trans fats is a civic battle legislated by urban councils.
Guns, however, reign supreme. Criticize the need for guns, the obsession with guns, and you're labeled unpatriotic, anti-Constitution or - horrors - a liberal.
Any politician running for higher office has to kiss the long barrel of the NRA and gun fetishists, preferably by praising gun ownership and going hunting - a dwindling passion - to show how authentically American he is.
"This is trying to perpetuate the myth of Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, the legacy of Buffalo Bill," says Joan Burbick, author of "Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy." "Tying gun rights to civil rights, transforming Americans into an armed citizenry, coincided with the civil rights riots."
Race, she argues, has plenty to do with it.
As we head into the new year, let's hold on to the one number that trumps all others: 406.
That's how many people were murdered in Philadelphia last year. And here's where generalizations hold up. Most of the victims were young. Most of them were poor. Most of them were black. Most of them were killed with guns.
Our problems are bigger than guns. But guns are our problem.
Armed Americans have more guns than they could possibly need. Guns, as Burbick points out, "are durable goods that don't tend to wear out." So the gun industry keeps producing more terrorizing models that satisfy macho fantasies, outsized security fears, and haven't a thing to do with hunting quail. As if anyone cares about quail.
The myth of the fighter permeates throughout consumerism, Gap Kids fatigues in blue and pink.
Second Amendment militiamen tirelessly argue that guns don't kill people, people do. But guns kill people far more efficiently than people without them do. Guns allow disturbed people to shoot up Amish schools. And thugs to shoot children in front of city schools. And distraught kids to terrorize suburban schools.
Why aren't local governments as obsessed with guns and crime as they are with partially hydrogenated oils? Why aren't the pious as worried about violence as they are about gay marriage? Where is the PETA for people being senselessly killed? Where are the celebrities clamoring for assistance to make this country a safer place?
We need a crusade for peace at home, too. We need to attack guns and the all-too-powerful lobbyists and manufacturers the way cigarettes came under siege. In the modern world, among "civilized democracies," America is a repository of shame when it comes to gun violence. We're modeling ourselves on antiquated ideals, holding on to values that are firing us back to the Wild West.
Four hundred and six is a hideous number no one in this region should forget. And then, just to reinforce the horror of it all, a minute - only one minute - into the new year, the death tally started anew.
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Where's the outrage about gun violence?
By Karen Heller
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Any fool can kill a deer. I know, because I've almost done it several times. All that's required is a car driven at a relatively good speed, 30 miles an hour should do it, near a wooded area around dusk or later.
Voila, venison a la Camry.
As for pen-raised fowl, released on exclusive preserves for desk-bound potentates, that doesn't require much skill, either, simply money and will, though it's preferable not to spray deep-pocketed supporters with birdshot.
The less "a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State" rings true in contemporary America, the more the gun culture revs up its high-caliber lobbying and propaganda machine.
We've made smokers pariah, forcing them out to the street. Alcoholism and drug abuse, once private demons, have become public crusades. Abolishing trans fats is a civic battle legislated by urban councils.
Guns, however, reign supreme. Criticize the need for guns, the obsession with guns, and you're labeled unpatriotic, anti-Constitution or - horrors - a liberal.
Any politician running for higher office has to kiss the long barrel of the NRA and gun fetishists, preferably by praising gun ownership and going hunting - a dwindling passion - to show how authentically American he is.
"This is trying to perpetuate the myth of Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, the legacy of Buffalo Bill," says Joan Burbick, author of "Gun Show Nation: Gun Culture and American Democracy." "Tying gun rights to civil rights, transforming Americans into an armed citizenry, coincided with the civil rights riots."
Race, she argues, has plenty to do with it.
As we head into the new year, let's hold on to the one number that trumps all others: 406.
That's how many people were murdered in Philadelphia last year. And here's where generalizations hold up. Most of the victims were young. Most of them were poor. Most of them were black. Most of them were killed with guns.
Our problems are bigger than guns. But guns are our problem.
Armed Americans have more guns than they could possibly need. Guns, as Burbick points out, "are durable goods that don't tend to wear out." So the gun industry keeps producing more terrorizing models that satisfy macho fantasies, outsized security fears, and haven't a thing to do with hunting quail. As if anyone cares about quail.
The myth of the fighter permeates throughout consumerism, Gap Kids fatigues in blue and pink.
Second Amendment militiamen tirelessly argue that guns don't kill people, people do. But guns kill people far more efficiently than people without them do. Guns allow disturbed people to shoot up Amish schools. And thugs to shoot children in front of city schools. And distraught kids to terrorize suburban schools.
Why aren't local governments as obsessed with guns and crime as they are with partially hydrogenated oils? Why aren't the pious as worried about violence as they are about gay marriage? Where is the PETA for people being senselessly killed? Where are the celebrities clamoring for assistance to make this country a safer place?
We need a crusade for peace at home, too. We need to attack guns and the all-too-powerful lobbyists and manufacturers the way cigarettes came under siege. In the modern world, among "civilized democracies," America is a repository of shame when it comes to gun violence. We're modeling ourselves on antiquated ideals, holding on to values that are firing us back to the Wild West.
Four hundred and six is a hideous number no one in this region should forget. And then, just to reinforce the horror of it all, a minute - only one minute - into the new year, the death tally started anew.
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