Different Day, Same Shit.

Anyone who's bothered to read through this blog knows how I feel about gun ownership. In my opinion, there's no stark black-and-white or good/bad about it - it's your intent and the level of responsibility you take in owning one that defines whether it's a good or bad thing to own one.

On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of open carry, if only for the following reason:

Last but not least, one has to be careful not to get sucked into the "cowboy/tough guy" image that comes with certain aspects of gun ownership. For some, having the ability to end someone's life in an instant is the ultimate rush and it's one that often leads them to adopt cavalier attitudes and to do stupid things and take idiotic risks that they otherwise wouldn't have taken had they not had instant death in the palm of their hands.

Sadly, a lot of open carry advocates are prone to take a cowboy/tough guy stance whenever someone challenges them on the necessity of what they do, constitutional issues notwithstanding, even when confronted by law enforcement:



Which is where the double standard comes in. Law enforcement officials have shot unarmed people for much less, yet here are several LEOs conversing with a guy who's openly armed and near a school, no less. Considering the spate of school shootings in recent years, it's no wonder why administrators would be a bit on edge around a guy who's supposedly exercising his 2nd Amendment rights.

John Crawford III was shot for examining a BB gun in a Walmart. Could you imagine a person of color being given the same sort of leeway as the person in the video was afforded?*


*Speaking of which, the last time black men open carried in significant numbers, it provoked a fear response in an entire state legislature.

I thought about getting a gun.

Like many people, I thought about getting one for my own personal protection, especially in rough, crime-ridden areas where the onus to protect one's self becomes exceedingly great. I also thought about obtaining a concealed carry permit. It's something I've thought about doing for a while, now. Thing is, I've never had one before. As a youngun, my mother wouldn't even let me entertain the notion of playing with one of those toy cap guns. Considering how law enforcement officials tend to mistake cell phones and wallets for deadly firearms, it was probably for the best.

In my state, it's relatively easy - a simple exchange of funds (and a perfunctory background check for gun store sales) and a permit application that'll most likely be accepted without much hassle. However, I've always developed second thoughts about having a gun.

I started asking myself a few questions: "do you really need this? Can you handle the responsibility of having this around?" A purchase like this is nothing to take lightly...or perhaps I've just always talked myself out of going through with it at the last minute...

---

A gun is nothing to fuck around with. It's an instrument with one clearly defined purpose, leaving the user to decide whether to use it for protection of oneself or others, or to use it in malice. It's an easy instrument to use in anger, as tens of thousands of people currently incarcerated for firearms-related crimes could attest to. 8,583 Americans would attest to it, too, if they were alive to talk about it. It's also an easy instrument to use in despair. 19,392 Americans would attest to that fact had they managed to survive their suicide attempts with them.

One has to consider their own mental state of being when it comes to purchasing and keeping a firearm in the home or on one's person. One has to consider the well-being of others who could possibly come into contact with one, either by accident or otherwise. 1,300 Americans under the age of 25 would attest to the dangers of accidental gun discharges if they were still alive.

Last but not least, one has to be careful not to get sucked into the "cowboy/tough guy" image that comes with certain aspects of gun ownership. For some, having the ability to end someone's life in an instant is the ultimate rush and it's one that often leads them to adopt cavalier attitudes and to do stupid things and take idiotic risks that they otherwise wouldn't have taken had they not had instant death in the palm of their hands.

A gun comes with a healthy heaping of responsibility. For protection purposes, it should be treated as a means of the very last resort. Not as a tool of intimidation. Not as a trump card for dealing with otherwise trivial situations. Not as a cool accessory that makes you look tougher than you really are. A gun should not give you false courage. A gun demands a measure of respect for its abilities. Those who don't respect guns are often undone by them.

There are people who responsibly own and enjoy firearms for sport - hunting, target practice, etc. - that sort of thing. By far and large, they respect their firearms for what they're capable of and handle them accordingly. As it should be everywhere else, gun safety is paramount with these folks. Sadly, there are many people who don't share the same sort of beliefs or respect for firearms.

For now, I've put off buying that gun, especially in light of continuing gun violence from all corners.

Yesterday was "Gun Appreciation Day" as gun lovers across the U.S. flocked to ranges, gun shows and exhibitions to show that awful socialist Negro in the White House what for show their appreciation for firearms. Well, the day was capped off by a few events definitely worth noting.

To start things off, I wouldn't want to be in Dr. Charles Bizilj's shoes right now. He has to deal with the loss of his son, something that happened largely of his own carelessness:

The teenager who worked at a gun show where 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj accidentally killed himself while shooting an Uzi testified today he twice suggested the boy's father pick a less powerful weapon for the boy to shoot.

But Christopher's father, Dr. Charles Bizilj, insisted that his son be allowed to fire the automatic weapon, Michael Spano told the court. Spano was 15 at the time of the 2008 Massachusetts gun expo and was put in charge of allowing people to fire the 9 mm Micro Uzi, a submachine gun that fires 20 rounds a second.

Former Pelham, Mass., police chief Edward Fleury is on trial for the boy's death because he organized the gun expo. He is charged with involuntary manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty.

The most dramatic moment of the trial came Thursday when the court watched video recorded by Charles Bizilj of the boy handling the gun. The father, who was on the stand at the time, closed his eyes as the video showed the boy struggling to handle the gun's recoil. The barrel reared up and shot the boy in the head. The court room gasped and the boy's mother left the courtroom in tears.

The family may have to relive that moment again in painstaking detail. The prosecution has asked that the video be played again, this time frame by frame. The judge has not yet ruled on that request.

It's one thing to teach a young boy how to safely handle and shoot a low-powered .22 long rifle in a safe environment. It's another to let a boy fire a submachine gun known for being a handful in the hands of a full-grown adult.

But that's not all. With the gun control debate raging, accidental discharges seem to be getting more play in the news:

A 4-year-old child was injured when hit by bullet fragments Saturday morning after a gun accidentally discharges at a Tupelo gun show.

The child was hit by fragments from a bullet that went through a wall. Also, a man was grazed in the leg in the same accident.

Tupelo Police say both were treated at North Mississippi Medical Center. Neither suffered life threatening injuries.

A preliminary investigation indicated it was an accident and no charges are expected.

And yet another accidental discharge:

At least four people -- three in North Carolina and one in Indiana -- were injured after weapons went off at gun shows Saturday, officials said, at a time when there's been renewed discussion about private gun sales at such shows.
Dixie Gun and Knife Show attendees bolted, with at least one woman wiping out in the frenetic scene, after gunfire rang out around 1 p.m., as seen on video captured by CNN affiliate WRAL.

Police later explained that a a 36-year-old man from Wilmington, North Carolina, was unfastening the case of his 12-gauge shotgun on a table near the show entrance when it accidentally discharged. The man planned to sell the shotgun at the show.
The bird shot ended up injuring three people. One was a sheriff's deputy, who suffered a slight injury to his hand and was treated and released at a local hospital before returning immediately to work, said Joel Keith, chief of police of the North Carolina State Fair.

A 54-year-old woman from Benson, North Carolina, was being treated a wound to her right torso at a local hospital, and a 50-year-old man from Durham, North Carolina, was treated for an injured left hand, Keith told reporters.

Even gun dealers are getting in on the accidental discharges:

Police in Medina say a gun dealer was checking out a semi-automatic handgun he'd bought Saturday when he accidentally pulled the trigger.

Police Chief Pat Berarducci says it appears the bullet struck the floor, then a longtime friend of the gun dealer. The man was wounded in the arm and leg.

Berarducci says the man was taken by helicopter to a Cleveland hospital. His condition isn't known.

Police say the gun's magazine had been removed from the firearm but one round remained in the chamber.

These incidents all happened at gun expos, places that offer a smorgasbord of firearms and relatively loose controls on purchases. In contrast to gun store purchases, gun expo sales are considered private transactions between individuals and thus aren't subject to background checks. Therefore, there's no Form 4473 to fill out. Making guns harder to purchase is something the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups are dead set against happening.

Meanwhile, it's easy to dismiss the above as simple accidents made by careless individuals, events that don't reflect on guns and gun ownership in a larger light. Too bad there are millions of careless individuals out there who choose to exercise their right to bear arms without knowing how to properly bear those arms. According to research performed by Dr. Arthur L. Kellermann, a gun kept in the home was 43 times more likely to be involved in the death of a member of the household than to be used in self-defense.

Kellerman's statistics were seen as a sneaky end-run around the gun control issue by having it reclassified as a health concern and subsequently squashed thanks to the efforts of NRA lobbyists. For their efforts, the Centers for Disease Control, which was responsible for funding Kellerman's findings, was fiscally cut off at the knees and told, in so many words, to stick with contagious diseases and brain injuries.

On a lighter note:

House Republicans gathering to discuss minority outreach picked an odd venue for the retreat — a former slave plantation.

Weary GOPers left Washington Wednesday for the Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va., where they’re recuperating and focusing on unity after last year’s rough-and-tumble fiscal cliff fight with Democrats.

Panels will take place in the resort’s “Burwell Plantation” room, named after the family that once owned the plantation. The luxury resort is now owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz, a conservative political donor.

[...]

On tap for Friday morning is a forum to discuss “successful communication with minorities and women.”

Republican lawmakers also hope to address the looming battle against the Obama administration over a debt limit extension and budget cuts.

I'm not surprised. The trappings of a genteel antebellum establishment that once represented the pinnacle of Southern economic power is the perfect place for Republicans to discuss “successful communication with minorities and women.” It's a lot like the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, except instead of divvying up a continent, the GOP gets to feign cluelessness about those dangblasted minorities and womenfolk.

What do you want to bet if this was a picture of a black man, with a Black Liberation flag hanging in the background, watching The New Black Panther Party on TV, surrounded by weapons, calling for black people to take up arms against the government, accusing the government of trying to take their guns away and calling it tyranny, we would have us some gun control legislation quick, fast and in a hurry?

Oh Redeye, you and I know full well that gun control bills would be flying out of the anuses of every Republican senator and representative on Capitol Hill if that ever happened. It's the reason Madame J. Edgar came up with COINTELPRO in the first place. Well, that and those dangblasted commies.

America's excessive fascination with guns transforms into abject fear whenever they end up in the hands of blacks, Latinos or any other vaguely threatening minority groups. Ironically, the whole idea of gun control was to keep guns out of the hands of those awful Negros and other assorted "undesirables" in the first place:

In the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s, the slave population successfully threw off their French masters, but the Revolution degenerated into a race war, aggravating existing fears in the French Louisiana colony, and among whites in the slave states of the United States. When the first U. S. official arrived in New Orleans in 1803 to take charge of this new American possession, the planters sought to have the existing free black militia disarmed, and otherwise exclude "free blacks from positions in which they were required to bear arms," including such non-military functions as slave-catching crews. The New Orleans city government also stopped whites from teaching fencing to free blacks, and then, when free blacks sought to teach fencing, similarly prohibited their efforts as well. [4]

It is not surprising that the first North American English colonies, then the states of the new republic, remained in dread fear of armed blacks, for slave revolts against slave owners often degenerated into less selective forms of racial warfare. The perception that free blacks were sympathetic to the plight of their enslaved brothers, and the dangerous example that "a Negro could be free" also caused the slave states to pass laws designed to disarm all blacks, both slave and free. Unlike the gun control laws passed after the Civil War, these antebellum statutes were for blacks alone. In Maryland, these prohibitions went so far as to prohibit free blacks from owning dogs without a license, and authorizing any white to kill an unlicensed dog owned by a free black, for fear that blacks would use dogs as weapons. Mississippi went further, and prohibited any ownership of a dog by a black person. [5]

Understandably, restrictions on slave possession of arms go back a very long way. While arms restrictions on free blacks predate it, these restrictions increased dramatically after Nat Turner's Rebellion in 1831, a revolt that caused the South to become increasingly irrational in its fears. [6] Virginia's response to Turner's Rebellion prohibited free blacks "to keep or carry any firelock of any kind, any military weapon, or any powder or lead..." The existing laws under which free blacks were occasionally licensed to possess or carry arms was also repealed, making arms possession completely illegal for free blacks.[7] But even before this action by the Virginia Legislature, in the aftermath of Turner's Rebellion, the discovery that a free black family possessed lead shot for use as scale weights, without powder or weapon in which to fire it, was considered sufficient reason for a frenzied mob to discuss summary execution of the owner. [8] The analogy to the current hysteria where mere possession of ammunition in some states without a firearms license may lead to jail time, should be obvious.

One example of the increasing fear of armed blacks is the 1834 change to the Tennessee Constitution, where Article XI, 26 of the 1796 Tennessee Constitution was revised from: "That the freemen of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence," [9] to: "That the free white men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence." [10] [emphasis added] It is not clear what motivated this change, other than Turner's bloody insurrection. The year before, the Tennessee Supreme Court had recognized the right to bear arms as an individual guarantee, but there is nothing in that decision that touches on the subject of race. [11]

Ardent gun lovers will go as far as threaten to commit mass murder or contemplate treason to maintain their "God-given" right to own as many AR-15s, Calicos and SKSs as their budgets and dwelling spaces allow. These same people wouldn't hesitate to talk up coups de tat, revolutions and even breaking away from the U.S. if they don't get their way. All of this, just to keep gun control off the table.

Add blacks to the equation and the tone suddenly shifts. You'll start hearing millions of reasons why black Americans shouldn't have guns. You'll have reams of crime statistics thrown in your face by "race realists" who use data to bolster their beliefs and validate their theories. Listen long enough and you'll hear talk of RaHoWa - race wars that aim to "purify" the nation of its supposed "filth." You start with a white American spending hours in his basement caressing his gun collection and you end with Algiers Point.

Fear - that's the main active ingredient in the potion whipped up by certain pro-gun advocates, lobbyists and self-proclaimed militia organizers, an ever-present element that's literally driving this country to the brink of psychotic collapse. Only the gun manufacturers seem to benefit - every time gun nuts hear a rumor about the scary black guy in office taking their guns away, they buy more of them. It's a lovely racket as long as you have enough lawyers on hand to keep your business distanced from what your buyers do with your product.

Fear of what black Americans might do in masse if they ever got the sense to do as their WASP gun-loving brethren are doing is what historically drove - and continues to drive - efforts to keep themselves armed to the teeth and efforts to keep blacks and other minorities perpetually disarmed and perpetually vulnerable. History is a great tool for figuring out America's peculiarities when it comes to gun ownership. Without it, it would be a lot easier to swallow the assumption that stockpiling guns is a sure-fire sign of liberty.