CommentsTRUMP WATCH-Leave it to Donald Trump to parrot the most demented proposal out there to try and finally respond, even in some small way, to the epidemic of gun massacres in America. We all know the problem is too many guns. And the answer is supposed to be more and more guns out there?
The Clueless and Brainless Trumpster wants to have FOB (forward operating base) in our communities. As in the U.S. military where everyone is armed, on hair trigger, ready to repel an attack. Teachers of America stand and deliver…bullets. Have your students pass the ammunition, shoot them all, let god sort them out.
The first thing everyone needs to understand about assault rifles is that they are NOT guns, as most people think of guns. They are something more like missile launchers, with projectiles that essentially explode in a victim's body, leaving nothing behind of vital organs but unrecognizable shreds, exit wounds as big as an orange. If one hits one of your vital organs there is absolutely nothing that can be done to save you. They are essentially airborne anti-personnel mines.
This is because the impact an AR15 is nearly THREE times that of a "gun" like a 9mm. Assault weapons have absolutely no application in hunting, unless you are into pulled deer meat, or shredded trophies.
Their only purpose is to murder as many people as fast as possible.
They are a self-evident and existential threat to public health and must be taken off our streets.
“Just put an armed police officer in every school,” says the NRA, or arm a bunch of teachers with "concealed" hand guns, while Trump is good for nothing except for parroting their talking points.
Donnie wanna cracker?
Even teachers who ARE former marines are saying gun toting teachers is a lunatic idea. It is a full- time job alone, 52-weeks a year, to be trained to be combat ready, they say.
Because guess what? The school in Parkland, FL had real trained police deputies on duty who hid when they heard the assault weapons fire. Real trained police officers were not interested in confronting someone with an assault rifle. They knew that sound and knew what was going on. They were not interested in committing suicide by running to a fire fight with a hand handgun.
Trump wants to offer teachers a "bonus" for basically committing suicide, cause that's what is comes down to as long as assault weapons are out there in civilian hands. Of course, three teachers in Parkland committed suicide anyway, taking assault weapon projectiles for their own students to try to save them.
Yeah, sure, turn all our teachers, who are mostly women (in case anyone didn't not know) into lethal commandos. Not just in high schools and grade schools and kindergartens, but Sunday schools too. Trump says it's called "concealed carry." No, what it's called is dumb and dumber from a guy that is clueless and brainless. Or as my Priest calls him, Cacas Pro Cerebro (Latin, of course).
Trump made a big public show of directing Jeff Sessions to consider regulating bump stocks. Does CPC not know the ATF has already determined they have no power to promulgate any such regulation without Congress passing a new law? Apparently not.
But it isn't just his embarrassing ignorance. The insincerity of Donald Trump is so abysmal he came to the meeting with survivors last week with crib notes (captured by a photographer) to remind him to respond with "I hear you." Who needs such a reminder except a terminally insensitive creep?
What we have in America is a boat with three huge holes in it.
We'll break it down. In principle, it's real simple to understand and to fix. But you can't just plug one hole, or even worse, partially or temporarily fix one hole and expect the boat not to keep sinking.
1) The Background Check Sieve
When you hear talk about fixing the background check system, most of the time it does not even consider gun shows or online sales. The back-burner bill languishing in Congress right now, the Fix NICS bill being touted by some, would do nothing but provide additional funds to enforcing existing and and inadequate provisions; it would not cover these massive gaps. As long as anyone, even a mentally ill person, can walk into a gun show and buy anything they want no questions asked, nothing has been fixed.
2) Patchwork Gun Registration
Even if we had a truly robust background check system, it would not keep guns out of the hands of lunatics if private parties, outside of the background check system, were spreading them around. It must be illegal, nationwide, to transfer a gun without licensing. For those irrationally paranoid about jackbooted federal thugs, we are perfectly happy with state registration systems. They work perfectly fine for cars, but they must be universal, just like car registrations.
3) Obscene, Murderous Firepower
Do we allow civilians to have flame throwers, bazookas, or an Abrams tank for so-called self-protection? No, we do not, because these are weapons of war, and we don't want our streets and classrooms to be war zones. Assault rifles, even so-called semi-automatic ones, high capacity magazines and bump stocks; these are totally unacceptable in private hands in a civil society. Ban them all.
There was a time in America when a foreign army might come marching up your street at any moment, when you might need a guy on a horse riding at midnight to warn you they were coming, when you might need a "well-regulated militia" to respond to an actual armed invasion. If you want to get your hands-on weapons of war in these modern times, join a real militia, which in today's America would be the Army, the Navy, the Air Force or the Marines.
Some argue it's hard to define what to ban and what not to ban. Not so. Muzzle velocity alone can determine what is and what is not appropriate or only allow bolt action, or better, single shot rifles, in civilians’ hands.
Here's an idea: buy back all the assault weapons and give them to the real military, and we can save a bunch on our defense budget. There is a reason why our Constitution prohibits quartering of soldiers in private homes. We don't want our armed forces turned on our own citizens. But what we have today is even worse -- militias of one, mowing down our own peaceful citizens in bulk.
Each and every one of these three huge holes must be permanently patched, with laws not allowed to lapse ever again. Otherwise the massacres will just continue. The NRA knows this perfectly well, and they will fight tooth and nail to keep their gun sales booming, which is all they care about.
The NRA talks about hardening schools, because of the threat they have created by deliberately handing out assault weapons like candy to sickos. Where is this going? Having every citizen pointing a gun at every other citizen at all times? The only thing the NRA is interested in is hardening our hearts, their own already having been petrified.
Has anyone considered the unintended consequences of there being so many more guns in schools?
To wit, accidental discharges. Yes, cops and military have that happen more often than you hear about.
Ever heard of friendly fire? A teacher misreading the situation and shooting dead a student who wasn’t the shooter – or is that just collateral damage? Or maybe just shooting a kid just because he looked like he has a gun.
Any member of Congress, any member of a state legislature, any other elected official, who will not immediately stand up and stand strong for each and every one of these fixes must be removed from office…period.
Let us make this so no later than November.
This is not about keeping and bearing arms. This is about keeping and bearing mass murder.
The right not to be mass-murdered is inalienable. The right to play with assault weapons like they're sex toys is not. We say: "People with Guns Kill More Than People Without Guns."
Seen on Twitter -- A facetious tweet: Not just teachers! Arm the Lunch Lady and that guy who does the morning announcements over the intercom and have him fire off a round or two just to show he means business. Bring back driver’s ed, civics and handwriting and arm them. Arm the marching band! If they can march, they can shoot!
(Michael N. Cohen is a former board member of the Reseda Neighborhood Council, founding member of the LADWP Neighborhood Council Oversight Committee, founding member of LA Clean Sweep and a contributor to CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
