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A License To Murder
Blasting the NRA for endorsing "civilian gun play," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and civil rights leaders have launched a national grassroots campaign, Second Chance on Shoot First, aimed at states with ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws like the one that left Trayvon Martin dead and George Zimmerman free too long. They cited soaring rates of "justifiable homicide" in states with either Stand Your Ground laws or weak gun control laws in general.
"Florida was the NRA’s first target, and it succeeded in pushing the bill through the legislature over the objections of leading police and law enforcement… In reality, the NRA’s leaders weren’t interested in public safety. They were interesting in promoting a culture where people take the law into their own hands and face no consequences for it. Let’s call that by its real name: Vigilantism."
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Show AllWhile this may gain traction in cosmopolitan places like New York city, it is unlikely to go anywhere in 'God & Guns' country.
That's it, isn't it? Coup of tea?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qAFVTpWz90
That's it, isn't it? Coup of tea?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qAFVTpWz90
The headline bears repeating over and over again. I find it odd so many defending Zimmerman claim he needs his day in court to prove his guilt or innocence and that no one else has the right to "try him in the court of public opinion" yet Trayvon Martin was executed with no such trial.
Zimmerman does have the right to his 'day in court' based on 'presumption of innocence'- BUT he certainly forgot all about Trayvon's right to a 'Presumption of Innocence'!
And People so worried about Zimmerman being tried in the 'Court of Public Opinion' apparently weren't so concerned about Trayvon's [the victim] reputation being assaulted by the Faux News / FOX Noise type MSNM media in attempting to tarnish his image in the 'Court of Public Opinion'!
GW, the case against Zimmerman does appear strong. However, the Constitution wisely guaranteed (past tense for some offenses in the Bush-Obama era) a fair, public, adversarial trial to ensure that the innocent not be convicted and punished, and we've all seen cases that appeared open-and-shut, but were later found to be anything but.
The hallmark of a just and civilized society is that it applies the same rules to the popular and unpopular, likeable and loathsome, citizen or foreigner, ethnic or religious majority or minority.
Zimmerman deserves his day in court and, if convicted, a long prison sentence.
My favorite are the ones who believe all drugs should be legal. I owned a business and employed my fair share of meth addicts - for REAL - and no that drug should not be legal. On top of that, my 23 yo niece had a heroin overdose the weekend before last. She spends her time between OD's breaking in and stealing from houses with her boyfriend for drug money. I know she won't live much longer. And, no, you pro drug idiots, that drug should not be legal either. I know the reason why will escape some people - mostly drug addicts. I believe it's the same for the no-gun-laws crowd. It takes a certain kind of person to not want any regulations on fire arms and that person does not have anyone's but their own very f'ed-up interest in mind.
Yes lets make sure we have a uniform and controlled populace, after all all the showy rhetoric about "diversity" among progressives, is just pretend isn't it? You want diversity, but within the narrow bounds of a middle class acceptable Colors of Benetton standins in the boardroom, eh? If you wonder why young people are leaving the left for variants of anti statism there is your answer, this generation of young people doesn't want to be controlled anymore than the anarchic hippies of the 60s did when they were young and full of unstoppable creative vitality.
http://www.coyotescorner.com/images/LDSCN1361.jpg
Some people used their eeeeek scary guns to fight colonialism.
What next, murder should be legal or it's repression cause you can't do it? Oh right, that's what the gun nuts do want. No, you do not think straight.
Answer this one question do you think the cops should be disarmed or just the public? I for one trust my friends and neighbors FAR more with guns than I do the officer John Pikes of the world. Nicey, nice "liberals," like you would leave the public wholly in control of the blue gang which is nothing but the enforcement arm of state capitalism, fuck that!
Well said, Sundome.
CassandraSpeaks -- "The hallmark of a just and civilized society is that it applies the same rules to the popular and unpopular, likeable and loathsome, citizen or foreigner, ethnic or religious majority or minority." True enough. This reminds me of another truth: Anatole France’s observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.”
Here we have a law that clearly was imposed on the citizens of Florida to satisfy the immature prejudices of the gun lobby. I'll bet you some changes will be made when people wise up.
Do you think the cops and military should be disarmed or just the public? If it is just the public, what you reason can you give for trusting racist pigs and "our" genocidal military with the force of arms but not the public?
mrcrow -- I didn't say the public should be disarmed. But now that you mention it, I think much stricter controls should be imposed to keep firearms (and other dangerous things, like explosives, sources of deadly radiation, weapons of mass destruction, etc.) out of the hands of people who are criminal or mentally deficient, or not properly trained to use them and not properly supervised to insure that they use the weapons for reasonable and necessary purposes.
The main difference between "the public" and "our genocidal military" is that the latter are trained and supervised. I do question the adequacy of the supervision, but the real problem there is flawed national policies, such as those that led us into Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on.
Yes "our" military that has killed ONE MILLION innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan is certainly trustworthy with unlimited firepower aren't they? I mean hey what's a little genocide and a few massacred families compared to one tragic murder in Florida? Lack perspective much?
And people wonder why I am an anti statist and trust average citizens more with guns than cops and the military?
Sigh!
If Zimmerman is telling the truth that Martin aggrevated-assaulted him, then his right of imminent self-defense trumps dreams of a future trial. Stop the attack vs. punish crime: that's the difference.
One wonders if THIS data will have any impact on the brains of the many CD commenters who looooove their precious guns, and who often argue for prevalence and right to carry, with much anti-gubmint sentiment as justification, of course. Real world consequences be damned.
One also wonders how long it will take for another breed of CD commenter to rebut me with something like, "Focusing on XYZ just divides us and distracts us from the only fight that matters, the class war of the elites!" Yeah, well, that's very important, but real-world safety and health phenomena happening now are also very important.
How many racist pigs murdered innocent young black men in the last couple of months with NO media coverage? A dozen? More? Who knows because like I say the data isn't covered.
If you nicey, nice center right state capitalist endorsing liberals endorsed disarming the pigs FIRST, I might alt least be able to take you seriously as debate partners, but the idea of an armed state capitalist overseer class and a disarmed populace is a recipe for tyranny, no thanks.
When Bloomberg reins in the use of unreasonable force by his police department, then I'll give him some credibility. Until then I think it's so much political hot air.
+1
Boomberg's "End the Stand Your Ground Laws" only helps his police when he sics them on the OWS.
"End the Concealed Carry Laws" would prevent shootings and gun crime. "Open Carry" is the solution. Guns will only prevent crime if people can see them.
Will it turn into the Wild West? Police and military "open carry" and you don't see them shooting each other.
In this respect, the Tea Party got one thing right.
"Let us hope our weapons are never needed --but do not forget what the common people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny. If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government -- and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws."
-- Edward Abbey, "Abbey's Road", 1979
"Guns will only prevent crime if people can see them."
----------
It's really exactly the opposite. People who have good information (e.g. can see the guns) act with more confidence than those who don't know what the level of risk is.
That's why the ruling class loves to create "fuzzy-line" laws: people self-censor. Whereas when the law uses a bright line to delimit what's legal, people go right up to that line, and many go as much over as they think they can get away with (as we see with speed laws).
People (who can see the guns) act with more confidence only when they are also openly carrying a gun. They know that other people can see they can defend themselves.
"No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever before."
-- Colin Greenwood, in the study "Firearms Control", 1972
Sorry for not being clear! By the "people...confidence" I meant the would-be robbers, not ordinary people.
It's the robbers who want to know who represents a potential risk to their being able to successfully commit the robbery.
Ordinary people, if not carrying, might easily feel less confident in the presence of people obviously armed, since they can't know the intentions of such strangers. Whereas most people wouldn't worry about people secretly carrying, since that level of suspiciousness is literally exhausting to maintain.
Correct Ez, the anarchists like Edward Abbey always saw, and continue to see the big picture and refuse to get drawn into anecdotal anti-rational narratives as is being constructed around this case.
Just because the police where a blue costume gang colors does not give them carte blanche to be armed and the citizens disarmed.
Here we go with the anti-gun routine again. What's wrong with some CD commenters' heads that they don't think we should have the right to self-defense?
Out here in rural-land, which is much of the country (and world), police take an hour or more to get here - - if you even have time to get them on the phone, that is, before being attacked.
Didn't you read about that elderly (89 and 90) couple who were attacked in their home, she raped and killed, he beaten badly? If they had had a gun handy, they very well could have saved themselves from terrible harm and death to the womam.
Mostly, the anti-gun people are afraid of regular people having guns because they consider we hoi polloi inferior and unable to make good judgment calls. It's pretty much elitism amongst the intelligentsia.
They're (including Abby) wrong on this issue. I prefer to hang out with the hoi polloi for common sense rather than with ivory tower types who often know little of regular people's lives, especially those of us in rural areas (I say from knowledge and experience). .
What's so difficult about this: when someone is crashing your door down, you either have means to protect yourself or you don't. Which would you prefer?
Maybe they can sing Kumbaya or sit in the Lotus position and say OMM like Robert Downey Jr. did in Natural Born Killers before they shot him in the head.
The Liberal Gun Club
www.theliberalgunclub.com/
"Mostly, the anti-gun people are afraid of regular people having guns because they consider we hoi polloi inferior and unable to make good judgment calls. It's pretty much elitism amongst the intelligentsia."
Look at the pretty graphs you breezed by, right atop this page, for evidence about "good judgment calls".
And yeah, we'd be a better country if we didn't have guns like Britain, or France, or Canada with fewer gun deaths to the power of ten
Doesn't mean I'm not all for self defense. Trying getting past my front gate while I hit you with grizzly bear spray from 35' away. Then I'd shoot you with a shot gun shell borne tazer. If we could legally buy arms, I would buy the police version shot gun tazer weapon... but they don't sell it to civilians. Is that an infringement of my right to bear arms? If you make it past those defenses, be prepared to have your head quickly smashed in with my wooden japanese martial arts boken.
All designed to protect me, and stop you. Without putting me at risk of shooting the mailman, or neighbors kid, or someone who has the wrong address. I think non lethal technology is much better protection than bullets can ever offer. Who needs a gun? A coward... ;)
Non lethal is great if you are equally armed. If not, what are you going to do when he wakes up?
The issue isn't about whether people have a right to self-defense [that;s an undeniable human-right in the face of REAL {but NOT Imagined} Danger] or the right to own a fire-arm [unless they abolish the 2nd Amendment - Ain't gonna happen any time soon- IF EVER]. The issue is ALEC-NRA-gun-lobby legislation that in effect InCreases the RISK to Public safety [the 2nd Amendment says its purpose was to protect the Public's safety & security]!
What makes non pro-NRA / non pro gun-lobby folk suspect that those gun owners who rail against common sense gun-control laws are 'gun-nuts' is that- unless some-one is talking about an out-right gun-ban / gun-confiscation & abolishing the 2nd amendment- they keep accusing anti-NRA folk of wanting to go to their home & take away their guns. IMO that's pure BS hyped by the NRA & gun-lobby who have shown they really don't give a damn about the public's safety, but only about increasing their own profit$ by selling more guns & ammo!
Good post cleanearth, I concur real working class organizers like Joe Hill sure as hell weren't trying to disarm people, how low the left has fallen from those days of a proudly anti authoritarian stance. :(
"Look at the pretty graphs you breezed by, right atop this page, for evidence about "good judgment calls"."
Well that's the graphs Bloomberg wants you to see. Go to the raw data and see that crime in FL has dropped when comparing 2000-2005 vs. 2006-2010. One can make the assumption that the SYG law worked. Also, maybe those extra 100 justifiable homicides were murders that were prevented. Ok, there was one that might not have been. But I guess you get my point....
Whom people give the benefit of the doubt to is very revealing of their principles:
"Maybe those extra 100 justifiable homicides were murders that were prevented."
So you're asserting that the extra homicides were indeed "justifiable", and the victims were bad people who would have committed murder (before they themselves were slaughtered)? Except for that ONE of course, which happens to be getting a lot of publicity, right?
You're on board with the stand-your-ground laws, then? Good for society? They promulgate justice and social health?
Yeah, chameleon also attributes declining crime rates in Florida with the "Stand Your Ground" law. Guess what chameleon- crime is also declining in California. Yet, no Stand You Ground law there. Shall we box it out to determine whether Stand Your Ground is responsible for lowering crime rates or not? Truth is it is not responsible. Crime rates are lower nation wide and there is no correlation with Stand Your Ground.
"Crime rates are lower nation wide and there is no correlation with Stand Your Ground."
See it's easier if you figure it out yourself. So I guess SYG doesn't have a real discernible effect on crime. How about that?
You know you can't have it both ways. Either SYG creates some kind of wild west where everyone shoots each other or is does not influence crime rates at all. Which one is it?
When did I ever ask to have it both ways? States where SYG is in effect... crime is still down just like states that don't have SYG. Yet shooting someone is legal, if you claim SYG, in SYG states. So per that legal loophole, crime is not up even though we're having more people get shot in SYG states. Should be up (right wingers shooting suspicous people) but it's not. And the number of cases being brought to court are now up two fold (from 30 to 100 a year) for cases claiming the right to shoot an unarmed person based on SYG and misinterpreting a 'threatening' situation.
Don't put me in a box.
And per your two examples... either SYG has "no influence on crime at all", or, crime is worse (per "some kind of wild west")... neither of those is a good argument in favor of codifying SYG into law. Their just neutral or negative. Where's the benefit? Nothing positive to say about carrying guns around in public and shooting suspects, chameleon7?
I see what you are trying to say.
My point was everyone is somehow focusing on this SYG law that doesn't amount too much in the big scheme of things. Crime rates are down everywhere including the states which enacted SYG laws.
SYG is there to protect people after the fact anyway. When push comes to shove everyone will do whatever they think is necessary to protect themselves, SYG or not. I really doubt it when someone has gun pointed at them and are asked for their wallet they start pondering the legal consequences of blowing the perps head off if they get a chance.
The crime rate in Canada dropped during that period too.
Thus one can not make such an assumption. Frankly I do not understand why every Canadian has not been murdered or raped given the stand that only a person with a gun can prevent such from occuring.(this seems the reasoning of so many )
Millions of citizens here in the United States own and shoot and are NRA Members. All are not criminals or killers or run around the streets shooting at suspicious folks. That is why we dial 911.
Gun's are a part of our society since the founding of this Country. True we are a very violent World in general but guns can save lives. Recently in Oklahoma a young women shot and killed a home invader who busted into her home. That action saved her life.
A general condemnation is really unfair to a lot of us.
Thanks Mayor Bloomberg! But no thanks! You have been lousy for the 99% in your city and great for the one per cent. All this I'm for gun control misdirection play just won't play with those in that fair city who surely know your record of not backing the 99%.
They know your record. "You can run/run/run/ But you still can't hide" from that record.
My apoloigies to the artists if any words are incorrect.
Guns can save lives in Nicraragua or did when fighting the war criminal US backed contras, but let's not go crazy. Those guns the government gave to them when they knew those people were absoutely under mass threat of mass killing as did the people. What part of this country has that? Please! Don't say Watts. Unless it's changed, that's bull. I've been in neighborhoods where I was at least the only person who pass for white and had no problem and even have bloods come up to me and tell me to watch my step to look out for me. I've never had that happen to me in white neighborhood. I'll guarantee you go into Stockton CA which is big time white, and you sure as hell better watch your step. Same and worse in Miami with all the CIA subsized drug dealers and the worst unsolved crime rate for the whole USA! Likely thanks to the same fanatical anti Castro Cuban exiles!. The real Cubans in Havanna are OK. They are the real deal.
Anybody who fought against these criminals deserves our backing. Also remember the great USSR. How many times were they ever on the side of other than the angels? Let's hear it for our best allies and show a newsreel of that April 1945 meeting between Ivans and GIs shaking hands and embracing with background music by Paul Robeson singing "Shall We Gather at the River" as the close up of the Elbe River comes into view. Now why can't Hollywood make a movie about that? All this sucking up to Maggie Thatcher is bull. Hollywood had some real feminists at the Elbe at that time, Red Army tankers, and they were real heroes. Thanks for taking down the Third Reich!
If I shoot someone, I could always say that saved my life. But the only known is that it took someone else's life. It might be the person was in the right. We don't know that. Dead people tell no tales. That's what happened in Florida. We don't need more of that. Also if guns saved lives, what about Fred Hampden and Mark Clark in Chicago. It didn't seem to save their lives. When the bad guys are with the government, what good is a pop gun. A tank might have helped with a machine gun and maybe an attack helicopter. Oh, that's right! The right to bear arms! Now we're talking. Real arms. How about a bazooka? That's an arm. If it wasn't how would our army use it? A 50 caliber machine gun and hand grenades along with mines and all like that could really put some protection on a person along with an Abrams tank. Now that's a real right to bear arms. Now when's the last time any of us has actually seen any of our neighbors with that kind of arms along with say anti tank missiles, and anti air craft missiles. If we have a "right to bear arms" which is absolute then these weapons are just part of the stock and trade. Just think how the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement along with the Weathermen could have protected themselves. The constitutions doesn't say one word about guns, but refers to arms. Now arms to today include nuclear weapons including land launched, air launched, and submarine launched. Thus we "must have a right to that as well How's that for saving some lives? The Samson Option! Damn! Yeah, I guess "that would really make us all secure" or blow us all the hell up.
Yea the biggest problem I also have w this challenge to ALEC / NRA /Gun-Lobby sponsored 'Shoot First & Ask Questions Later' Laws is that it's NYC's Billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg making it! Before he goes mouthing off about & pointing fingers at the Sanford Police mis-handling of Travon's murder & Florida's 'Shoot First & Ask Questions Later' Law- he needs to answer for the NYPD's policy of racial profiling of Blacks & Browns w its notorious Stop & Frisk [aka 'Driving while Black'] policy -&- definitely for the NYPD killings of these unarmed Black victims On HIS Watch- Ramarley Graham, Sean Bell, Timothy Stansbury, Ousmane Zongo, etc! And then there's Bloomberg's NYDP's policy of racially profiling NYC's entire Islamic community- even going out of state into Newark NJ to spy on Islamic schools for grade-school girls!
With a track record as bad as His NYPD's on this matter- Bloomberg's rhetoric on this issue is cynical, empty & hypocritical!
That was really unfair to ASSume the poster was a Bloomberg supporter because they are pro gun rights. Does that mean armed Zapitista in Chiapas are pro state capitalist too?
Get a grip...
In Afghanistan, private gun ownership has led to the defeat of the United State military. Every day, Afghans kill US soldiers and they will continue killing them so long as they remain, because the Afghans, unlike most Americans, do not fear death.
As Bruno Bettelheim said about the Jews who went to the gas chambers like lambs to the slaughter, "There is little doubt that the Jews, who were able to provide themselves with so much, could have provided themselves with a gun or two had they wished. They could have shot down one or two of the SS men who came for them. The loss of an SS with every Jew arrested would have noticeably hindered the functioning of the police state." p. xi, Forward to Auswitchz by Miklos Nyiszli.
Freedom loving people like Michael Bloomberg and wary want only the State to have guns, because freedom means doing what the State tells you to do.
When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun
The Clash, Guns of Brixton.
Bruno Bettelheim was full of baloney. It was clear that he was into promoting fallacy over fact. Don't kid yourself.
Yes, Bettelheim has pretty much been discredited as a psychologist - moreso even than Freud.
But he was right about the resistance issue quoted by TC.
+1 Tomcarberry advocating disarming the population when we live in the sort of police state where the SOCTUS has ruled the police can strip search jaywalkers is mindless idiocy. Hurray for a passive and docile population! Not...
I *like* the fact that the pigs never know if someone is waiting for them behind the door with a .357 magnum. Fuck the gestapo motherfuckers!
The way bloomberg had his, deputy dawg ray whats his face, bashing the occupiers heads, I am surprised he didn't authorized on the spot 'shoot first ' orders or just tell his security to shoot first and don't worry about it because bloomberg has never been a nice person to other people unless they have as much money or more than he has which is just what one would expect from psychopath acting efficiently.
Here goes Zimet again... on fake priorities.
Who is the real danger as "judge, jury and executioner"?
Your precious President Obama!
The one who proclaims an illegal right, asserts it and exerts it.
Possibly the first openly fascist president.
The war criminal who slaughters people by the thousands.
No gun laws for his shameless official murders.
And Zimet is going to vote again to bring us 4 more years of dictatorship.