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TechnoratiTen Years After Matthew Shepard’s Murder, We Need to Act
It has been 10 years since openly gay college student Matthew Shepard was brutally killed in Wyoming. On Oct. 6, 1998, he was beaten and strung up on a fence. He died six days later.
Unfortunately, little has been done to curb such attacks, and elected leaders at the state and federal level are largely missing-in-action when it comes to protecting our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) loved ones.
In the days and weeks immediately following Shepard's death, numerous elected leaders promised swift action to pass federal hate crimes legislation that would protect LGBT Americans.
Ten years later, the bill, which bears Shepard's name, has never become law.
The need for the law is as urgent now as it was in 1998. Hate crimes against the LGBT community increased 24 percent nationwide last year, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. Especially startling increases occurred in Michigan (up 207 percent), Minnesota (up 135 percent) and even in Los Angeles, which saw a 100 percent increase in anti-gay violence in 2007.
Anti-gay murders doubled, the coalition reported.
In California, student Lawrence King was gunned down in his school by a classmate who believed King was gay.
In Colorado, Angie Zapata, a young transgender woman, was attacked and killed while on a date.
In South Carolina, Sean Kennedy was viciously beaten outside a local gay bar, and later died from his injuries.
And right now, in the nation's capital, the gay community is on heightened alert following at least three anti-gay attacks in neighborhoods generally considered safe for LGBT Washingtonians.
Those numbers, and those stories, should shock Americans and spur them to take action.
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) recently partnered with Sean Kennedy's mother to launch a petition calling on lawmakers to pass, and President Bush to sign, the Matthew Shepard Act.
The bill would provide much-needed assistance to state and local law enforcement agencies in investigating and prosecuting violent, bias-motivated crimes. Virtually every major law enforcement organization in the country has endorsed the bill, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National District Attorneys Association, the National Sheriffs Association, the Police Executive Research Forum, and 31 state attorneys general.
Our country cannot wait another decade, and endure countless more attacks on our families, before Congress takes action.
In Matthew Shepard's name, let's get it done.
55 Comments so far
Show AllAs long we have organized patriarchal religious views and writings
abounding which continue these attacks on homosexuals --
still even from the nation's pulpits which preach hatred and intolerance
for homosexuals --- then I don't see a problem with a new law to protect
homosexuals.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
This article is so stupid it almost defies belief. The killers of Matthew Shepard are locked up in prison FOR LIFE. Since good progressives oppose the death penalty, how, exactly, would a hate crime enhancement have any affect on their sentences?
There is a Steven Pinker lecture on TED that goes into how we are actually LESS violent then we once were. I wonder if its possible that the violence around us disturbs us so greatly because we are actually more evolved than we once were therefore our care for others has grown and so has our awareness. That said, getting guns off the street will never stop the violent impulses that grip us. Learning to see one another as a part of ourselves will. And in this regard I have begun to see just how ignorant the left is. They are just as guilty of the "us vs them" mentality as anyone.
here is the link to Pinkers talk
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html
Sioux Rose
WILMOOR: Thank you.
GOOD POINTS: YERCH, JACOB FREEZE, GOOSE 2.
There are many causes for violence. MATTI mentioned the US income disparities, and certainly that factors in, as does our media that uses violence ON STEROIDS and keeps upping the ante on what the public can tolerate, like a drug FOR keeping aggression in the bloodstreams of its citizens.
The reason for Black on Black violence is partly due to the frustrations, like trapped animals, of ghetto life. When life has no hope, when it's run by despair, then it's easy to snap. I am not justifying the behavior, but explaining it. There is no nation more violent than the US and we need to ask why... why for all the bounty given us, all the inherent blessings, is this land of the free so angry? I think religion plays a HUGE role, for this nation in polls calls itself predominantly Christian, and CHRIST unequivocally taught FORGIVENESS and turning the other cheek. Instead we see vengeance as the predominant emotion, and like it or not, the gun makes its execution cheap and convenient. So the entire mixture is lethal, hence the statistics. A true love of life, a respect for diplomacy, an understanding that PEACE and peacemaking are not effeminite, or weak, or sissy behaviors would help. In many respects this is a nation without balls, as it has to constantly prove its macho prowess, usually by bombing 3rd world nations that don't have an iota of our military hardware. SICK and SICKENING.
The People who murdered Matthew Shepard were caught, tried and convicted (and they are where they should be)...why do we need more laws?...the system worked as it was supposed to.
I sympathize with Gay people but giving you the status of some protected special group does not help you in your quest for acceptance...
Equality means just that...Equality
There are so many unenlightened, pathetically ignorant, self-serving rationalizations to this article, it is no wonder this country is in the trashcan.
As is said, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
And Amerika has traveled to the dead end of it.
The United States is a fear-driven, hate-filled country full of ignorance and violence. What a horrible, sorry bullying nation we have become. It saddens me. I have pretty much given up hope as well. Whats the use? I've been around 58 years and I just see things getting worse and worse. Its every man for himself and if you don't agree then you are a rotten socialist. No thought is given to the idea that we are all in this short life together and maybe we should help each other out once in awhile. No. Just go for that bottom line. He who dies with the biggest bank account wins and screw everyone else.
-- EKATON --
if you are interested in why rightwing nuts will NOT change their views, even in the face of mountains of evidence and facts that prove beyond a doubt they are dead wrong, i suggest reading "The Authoritarians" by Bob altemeyer.
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:P1nCWRsubpwJ:members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/Introduction_link...
not only does it explain the hate and ignorance that abounds , it is a road map to how the us has gotten to where we are today.
enjoy the enlightenment
herb@jdz.ca
If none of these gay murders were solved.
If law enforcement refused to prosecute murderers of gays like other murderers.
If juries refused to sentence murderers of gays like other murderers.
Then maybe I could understand the need for a specific law against gay murder.
Otherwise, I don't get it. Murder is already against the law, despising people for whatever reason(so long as it doesn't lead to some crime) is not.
Poet
I agree with you 100%
Are you familiar with what the killers did to this poor man? It doesn't sound like it. I suggest you look it up. And while you are at it look up the rate of crime against gays and lesbians in this country. Talk to some of the redneck assholes that go around to gay bars and wait for an opportunity to 'prove their virility' with 3 on 1 in a dark alley for laughs and whatever cash is in his wallet/pocket. Nine times out of ten not being provoked. Just like snakes lying in wait.
Those assholes beat this poor soul, dragged him behind a pickup then lashed him to barb wire range fencing with more barbed wire. And that is just for starters.
DogLeg wonders:
Are you familiar with what the killers did to this poor man? It doesn't sound like it. I suggest you look it up. And while you are at it look up the rate of crime against gays and lesbians in this country...
***********
I am familiar with this crime and the contempt with which gays are treated in the US.
I agree that this crime is indicative of a serious problem. The problem is not the hate of the perpetrator as much as the attitude of law-enforcement in general towards investigating and prosecutimg crimes of violence against homosexuals and transgendered people. The same apathy also applies towards women who are victims of rape and domestic partners or spouses who are victims of battering and other non-physical abuse.
The point of my comment to which you responded was that, if anything, laws against the crime of investigative and prosecutional apathy would do more good than "hate crime" legislation. If Pflag and similar advocacy groups really wanted to make an impact on this problem there, in my opinion, is where they need to begin.
Poet
Poet-"Then maybe I could understand the need for a specific law against gay murder."
Well don't hate crime laws cover every crime that is committed against someone based on their sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.? I would think gay bashing would fall under that. Isn't part of a larger agenda for lack of a better word?
thegreatrockyhill observes:
Well don't hate crime laws cover every crime that is committed against someone based on their sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.? I would think gay bashing would fall under that. Isn't part of a larger agenda for lack of a better word
****************
Every crime committed against homosexual and transgenered people is also committed against those not of that designation. The greater problem, as I told DogLeg, is the comparative apathy with which these crimes are investigated and prosecuted, rather than the hate which motivated the perpetrator.
Poet
Don't forget that this all "federalizes" certain crimes and certain criminal prosecution.
And just what problem do you have with that? If a hate crime is committed, it, indeed becomes a federal offense, based on civil rights laws. And this crime is, assuredly, a hate crime. The fact it has been shuffled by the homophobics, since the Repukes control the Attorney Generals office, both at the state and the federal level, is just more evidence of a non-representational government that should be removed.
If people don't like gays, ignore them. What threat are they to society anyway?
Whom are we to ignore in this statement? Your sentence structure is misleading, if not downright illiterate. Would you care for a lesson in the English language?
"If people don't like gays, ignore them. What threat are they to society anyway?"
This is what you wrote. Your first word is a preposition, 'If.' From that point the entire structure of your statement becomes a prepositional phrase containing a subject 'people,' a predicate 'don't like,' a verb object, 'gays,' then the actual verb 'ignore' used as an adverb describing the pronoun 'them.' All this in the first sentence. Since 'ignore them' becomes an adverbial phrase, normally describing a predicate.
A more lucid phrasing would look like this:
Ignore people who don't like gays. Or,
Gays should ignore people who don't like them. Or,
People who don't like gays should ignore them.
However, your second statement is one of intimidation, since you used the word 'threat.' Your usage of the pronoun 'they' is impossible to reconcile with the first sentence, which contains the subject 'people,' an adverbial phrase for 'gays,' then the verb 'ignore,' and it's object, the pronoun, 'them.'
This analysis is not entirely accurate, but it should enable you to see the incongruity of the two sentences.
For more help, see your local high school English teacher.
“It seems that the vast majority of comments on Common Dreams are Republicans pretending to be Liberals or Progressives supporting third party candidates. There are, however, a few down right scary characters that bend toward very violent right wing ideologies. Thoughtful dialog is missing because of this phenomenon.” – Dr. Robert
Thanks for contributing to "thoughtful dialog".
Which am I? A "scary character" or a "Republican pretending to be Liberal or Progressive"?
I'd LOVE to know.
Who can tell with the phrasing YOU used?
Was Mathew Shepard's murder even a "hate crime"?
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=277685&page=2
I don't need ABC to tell me what qualifies. I have seen numerous articles and graphic photos with statements from the perpetrators.
But thanks, anyway.
double post, sorry.
Z-I saw that special too. It doesn't take away from how heinous the crime was though. Those guys deserve to rot in jail regardless of whether or not they hated gays.
Personally, I think Matt Shepard was also targeted because he had money. He was gay, a drug user, a rich kid, and his attackers probably thought he was an easy target because of those things. It was the result of homphobia and the desperation drug abuse causes.
I used to be against hate crime legislation simply because I felt that it treated minorities like endangered species and based the severity of a crime on a motive, but over the past 10 years, I've encountered so many hateful people that it has caused me to change my position. It's so obvious that hate crimes are designed to spread fear within certain groups and tension between others which can trigger more incidents.
What that idiotic ABC story fails to mention is that Matthew's murderers came back into Laramie afterward and immediately tried to attack a Mexican kid. Nor does it explain why you don't often see drug related killings that involve taking someone outside of town, tying them to a fence like a scarecrow, beating them within an inch of their life and then letting slowly die in the Wyoming outdoors. Does this really strike anyone as being a robbery gone wrong? Is this truly what robberies look like in your neighborhood?
No. You know better. This had nothing to do with his money or his use of drugs. Laramie is full of better targets for that. They made an example of him. They turned him into a scarecrow. His death was intended to send a message. They could have dumped his body in any number of canyons, rivers, etc. in the Laramie area where he wouldn't have been found - if at all - until springtime. Instead they tied him to a fence as a symbol. This was no drug crime.
It is a perfect example of why we need hate crime legislation. This is not like other murder. This is murder as a terrorist act. It is intended to frighten people. It is murder with a message. We need to send a message back to the freakish, disgusting psychopaths who perpetrate this kind of heinous crime. We will not tolerate it. Period.
Good comment, yerch. And here comes 'snowflake' regurgitating the same shit. HE should be...:)
Murder is a heinous crime...no doubt...
I am against "hate crime" laws only because I think they violate the constitution "equal protection" clause (laws that cover one special group) ...it is already illegal to assault...its already illegal to murder (its a capital offense by the way) ....
In the rare case where perhaps a jury doesn't want to convict someone for the murder of a gay person...then the Feds can always step in and prosecute for civil rights violations as they did in the mississippi freedom riders case.
A link to the petition online
http://www.matthewshepard.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Erase_Hate_Crimes_Erase_Hate_Petition
In the ten years since Matthew Shepard died, about 150,000 Americans have been murdered.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_12.html
In New Orleans, on one four-block stretch of Josephine Street, four people were murdered last year.
To get some idea of the misery of New Orleans, it's instructive to compare its murder-rate with the murder-rate in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, often voted the worst city in the world by diplomats.
"With gangs called “raskols” controlling the city centers and unemployment rates hovering around 80 percent, it’s easy to see how Port Moresby beat out the 130 other survey contenders."
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4480
In Port Moresby, the murder-rate is 54 per 100,000. In New Orleans, it's 95 per 100,000.
In Toronto, it's 2 per 100,000.
Pressure for hate-crimes legislation by gay activists is just another aspect of fragmented pandering to various political clienteles in a terminal "democracy." Removing handguns from the streets would be an infinitely more effective way to protect gay Americans, along with everybody else, than hate-crimes legislation, which absurdly decrees that a murder based on gender-preference is more heinous than other murders... as if there were a whole slate of excellent reasons for slaughtering other human beings.
But gay activists can't score points with their clientele for advocating a national ban on handguns, and thousands of Americans will continue to die every year because handgun owners are a compact pressure group, and their various victims are too self-absorbed to work together.
Jacob Freeze
Shepherd was BEATEN to death. No gun was used. So STFU.
Gun bans aren't going to work and they are unconstitutional. Hate crime laws are problematic, but probably the best thing we have to work with.
Guns are not the problem here, the problem is that we have been taught to kill here in the US. Used to be that two people would beat the crap out of one another and be done with it. Now we kill, we know no moderation to our violence. Now if you aren't armed, you can't protect yourself because you're afraid that they are going to come back and kill you.
My daughter has a restraining order out on a guy and the cop after the third violation told her to go get a gun because they couldn't do anything to protect her. So we went and bought her a Glock 9mm and started going to the range every weekend. We are now part of the armed half of society. Sort of sad, but we all feel safer and will probably buy one for ourselves as well.
Yada yada...
The only solution for a society saturated with handguns is more handguns...
Harharharhar!!!
And in countries where it's almost impossible to buy a handgun, there are almost no murders.
What a weird coincidence!
The other plausible factor in this equation is that Americans are so abjectly stupid that they can't understand the sort of elementary statistical reasoning that children in other countries master in the fifth grade.
If you ever happen to travel to Europe or a developed country in Asia, and unlike 99.99999% of American tourists you aren't so abjectly stupid that you can't speak a word of any foreign language, you might notice a peculiar genre of TV program that's popular from London to Tokyo:
A journalist asks average Americans simple questions that a Japanese or British fifth-grader could answer without missing a beat, and the American dummies blather out some ridiculous non-answer...
Sitting in a hotel bar with fifty foreigners laughing their heads off at a program with a title like "Stupid America"... It only makes it more embarassing when a dozen other Americans in the same bar have no idea what's going on, because they don't speak a word of the local lingo!
So it isn't surprising to hear Americans spout ridiculous, warmed-over gibberish from the NRA. That's why we have ten times as many murders per capita as any other developed country, except Russia, an (almost) equally primitive and brutal land-mass in Asia, FYI.
Jacob Freeze
If only you could see... the complete parody you are of your claim to be so urbane, so globally sophisticated and informed of. I appreciate the humor.
You know. I spent a lot of time overseas in Europe, Africa and the South Pacific. It isn't really much like what you say. There are a lot of dumb Americans, but most are a lot smarter than you paint them and the locals in every country weren't all that enlightened either. There are biggoted dummies in every culture without exception. The violence issue though is something else and it is not gun related per se. Again the issue is that here we are all taught to finish every fight to the death really.
In New Zealand, if two people have a fight, there are a lot of bruises and some blood. The police come, take everyone to the station, talk to them, let them out and that is pretty much it. In Germany people get in fights all the time. They simply don't finish it off like we do. Here there is a fight and one guy gets a knife and the other doesn't want to be at a disadvantage so they get their gun. Admittedly, they find a gun where they might not otherwise, but without one they are going to try to kill the other.
Guns make the killing easier, but they aren't the cause, they're simply the easiest tool to end a life. If they were gone, there would still be a whole order of magnitude of death in the US over any other culture.
Look at our entertainment. Look at our police. Look at our sports. Everything is geared towards total victory and domination. That is the problem. And when half the people are playing to win, you have to do the same to survive.
Thanks, Goose 2, for your typically "American" comment.
Claiming that handguns aren't really the problem because Americans belong to a violent culture is like claiming that a gun doesn't make a lunatic much more dangerous, because he has a violent personality anyway.
If you "think" that people who kill with handguns would find another way to kill, it just means you haven't thought about the issue at all.
To take a real example, let's consider Jamiel Shaw Jr, an outstanding high school athlete in Los Angeles who was killed with a handgun in March 2008. How would his killer have gotten this particular job done without a gun?
If Jamiel had run, the killer couldn't have caught him. If the killer had attacked Jamiel with a knife, Jamiel might have fought him off, and even if he were losing, he would have probably shouted for help, since he was less than a block from home. His father heard the shot that killed him. He would have also heard Jamiel calling for help, and rushed to help him.
If you had been through basic training, or paid any real attrention to this issue, you would know that it isn't easy to kill someone with a knife, especially in the middle of a big city with ER doctors only a few minutes away. You basically have to hit a major artery or the heart, and if your intended victim is an outstanding athlete who isn't standing still, hitting exactly the right target is beyond the competence of the average thug.
If Jamiel Shaw Jr's killer hadn't had a gun, Jamiel would be alive today, and the gun-perverts of the National Rifle Association are at least partially culpable for his death.
This is obviously a special case, but every murder with a handgun is infinitely special to the victim and his or her family. The NRA and its propaganda machine are accomplices in the deaths of 4000 black teenagers by handgun violence every year, and reciting NRA talking-points on Common Dreams is more obscene than a whole page of four-letter words.
Jacob Freeze
>>The NRA and its propaganda machine are accomplices in the deaths of 4000 black teenagers by handgun violence every year, and reciting NRA talking-points on Common Dreams is more obscene than a whole page of four-letter words.<<
What an asshat. You actually wrote this. The responsibility for killing 4000 black teenagers is not in the hands of the people killing them, but in the hands of the NRA.
Here's a nice fact for you...
>>Since 1964 approximately half of the violent crime committed each year in the United States is attributable to young black males, who represent less than 3 percent of the total population. In 1992 the violent crime rate for blacks was the highest ever recorded by National Crime Victimization Survey. That year, for example, the homicide rate for black males between the ages of twelve and twenty-four was 114.9 per 100,000, nearly ten times the rate for white males of the same ages and fourteen times the national average.
Blacks, who account for less than 13 percent of the population, account for more than 45 percent of all spousal homicides; the rates for such crimes are nearly nine times white rates. Young black women who live in cities and have never married are also the most likely to be harmed or killed by male intimates, acquaintances, and strangers alike. Battering frequently precedes death in these crimes, and victims fight back: It is the male abuser, as often as not, who dies in the struggle.
By the 1930s, both W. E. B. Du Bois and E. Franklin Frazier acknowledged that wherever statistics were recorded, black males were killing one another with withering frequency, at rates far exceeding those of whites. Nowhere was the carnage more evident than in the swelling ghettos of U.S. cities. Evidence from a wide variety of sources consistently reveals that already high levels of violence within the black community rose sharply in the early twentieth century, especially in urban areas.
In nineteenth-century Philadelphia, for example, black homicides occurred at a rate of 7.5 per 100,000, compared to a white rate of 2.8.
In New York City, where from 1865 to 1900 black rates of homicide were more than twice the rates of whites.
In Philadelphia during the 1920s, the black homicide rate was twelve times the rate for whites. By that decade, national estimates suggest that blacks were killing one another at nearly seven times the rate for whites.
Between 1918 and 1927, in the midst of the Great Migration North, the national mean annual homicide rate for blacks was 37 deaths per 100,000 persons, compared to a white rate of 5. The trend continued, reaching unprecedented levels in the 1930s. By that time, the national homicide rate for black males was over 75 deaths per 100,000 population. White male homicide rates nationally also peaked at that time, but they were much lower, at fewer than 10 deaths per 100,000 population. <<
That all due to guns being available? There is a problem, but it isn't with guns, it's with people, our people. Start working on that.
Damn Jacob. You're right. I take it all back. It *ISN'T* what's in the heart of the criminal, it's what's in his hand. I see the light.
Typical zealot liberal. Blinders on, not listening to what others say. Closed minded and simple.
I have been in areas with gang violence in four countries. In every one but the US, (and Africa) the gangs simply don't kill one another, but they certainly have the means. In NZ, the weapon of choice is the machete. They are cheap and everyone can get one. No age limits, no nothing. When there is a fight, and there are all the time, the machetes get brandished, but the damage is fists and boots. People get badly beaten and sometimes killed, but rarely. There are killings, mostly with machetes, but those are not following from simple violence, but from real sycopathic individuals.
In the US and South Africa where I lived, there is a culture of "getting the job done". When there's a fight, you make sure that that guy doesn't come back to get you and yours. That is the problem.
In the US 80 years ago, there were handguns everywhere. You could get them from the Sears catalog sent to your home. I have my grandfathers old colt auto. It wasn't a .45 or a .44 mag or a .357 mag or a .50 Action Express, or a .40 SW or even a 9mm. it is a little tiny .32 acp. Very low energy. The damage caused is a tenth of a 9mm. He had that gun in the house and he was going to defend it. If he had shot someone, they would have been hurt, maybe to the point of surgery. If my grandfather had been REALLY lucky (or not depending on how you view it...) he *might* have killed them.
Back then the police carried 6 shot .32 revolvers and .38 revolvers. Both could stop you but would probably not kill you. (even today 80% of all handgun victims survive) Only the army carried .45 autos and then they were only with 8 shots. In the rest of the world that holds true as well. Handguns were easily available in Europe and they were all small and low power because the idea was to deter or stop but not necessarily kill. Mauser HSc, Walther PPK, Webley revolvers, it goes on...
Now handguns are sometimes 10x more powerful than the guns 80 years ago with magazines of from 10 (in California) to 18 shots. They are all autos that work flawlessly, they never jam, and so accurate that you can put all 10 shots into a single, ragged hole on the target. I did that yesterday, without practice or even touching a gun for maybe 15 years. These things are absolutely deadly and designed to kill.
Why? There were guns everywhere 80 years ago. They worked to stop and hurt, but probably not kill. Why the change? Why can I now buy a Glock with 15 shots in .357 SIG that can penetrate car doors and some body armor? They don't make these guns and calibers just because they can, they make them because people demand them and they demand them because they don't want to stop someone, they want to kill them dead and maybe their attacker's friends and family too.
We are scared to the point of hysteria...
...and this is the real point, so read carefully,
we are scared to the point of hysteria because... those that may attack us are scared to the point of hysteria as well.
They watch CSI and Flashpoint and the Wire, and NCIS and every other thing on TV. They watch the movies and see Bruce Willis blow people away. We even get our news telling us of cops that fire on people 30 or 40 times. WTF? Is every criminal John Dillenger? (who carried a .45 caliber six shooter BTW) Heck. Most of the time they are unarmed or have a knife.
80 years ago, there would have been one or two cops, they would have talked to the guy and if needed maybe shoot once and see if that took care of the problem before shooting a second time. Now there are three or four cops that each unload all 15 rounds and then reload.
That simply doesn't happen anywhere else in the world yet. They are like we were 80 years ago. Here is the chilling part though, they are *becoming* like us because they accept and dine on our cultural faire.
It is *not* that violence in man has followed the development of the gun, it is that the gun has followed the development of violence in man.
"The NRA and its propaganda machine are accomplices in the deaths of 4000 black teenagers by handgun violence every year, and reciting NRA talking-points on Common Dreams is more obscene than a whole page of four-letter words."
I haven't seen an NRA handout in 20 years. I don't look for them and I avoid even places where I might see one. Ah... but I do think critically.
What a simpleton you are Jacob. You read some "fact" and then never question it. Never look behind it. You are a part of a problem more vast and far more obscene than the NRA ever was. You, Jacob, are an American sheeple that believes everything you're fed and then regurgitates it here. The only difference between you and a Republican is the side of the slop trough you feed from.
Common Dreams needs people that can think critically, not ideological slaves who parrot shit fed them by their masters-of-choice.
Free your mind Jacob and join us.
You are so fucking ignorant on this subject...Really, you need to gather up some experience teaching in a California prison. You do not know what the fuck you are talking about.
I spent 17 years talking to cons of every gang, race, committing offense and sexual orientation. I know every motivation, weapon, method and game. I know so many people and am trusted by so many people that would cause you to wet your pants just seeing them. You are joke.
Don't forget the disparity of wealth and lack of social protections in the U.S..
I think that with this underlying situation, things are made worse than they would be with just the entertainment, sports, etc. that you mention.
Also when the police are seen as the protectors not of the Citizens but of this unjust situation, their role in the violence is made more clear.
I think all of this combines into the "culture of violence" in the U.S.
More anti-gun nonsense.
What an excellent idea - to alienate gun owners who might be gay or are sympathetic to the gay plight. no wonder that nothing meaningful is ever done. the solution to anti-gay violence? GUN CONTROL. if that is the case then we also need Bat Control, Knife Control, Tire Iron control.
if you don't want a gun, don't own one, but a "Ban"? give me a break.
you better believe we are a compact group, we care about the rights of the 2nd amendment
"...we also need Bat Control, Knife Control, Tire Iron control."
There are just as many bats, knives, and tire irons per capita in Toronto as in New Orleans, but there are almost no handguns.
The result is 2 murders per 100,000, instead of 95, and in case you haven't noticed, almost none of the murders in New Orleans were committed with knives, bats, or tire irons, and almost all of them were committed with handguns.
Gun owners actually concerned with the Second Amendement know that rifles and shotguns, which cannot be easily concealed and carried in an urban environment, are perfectly sufficient to guarantee a continuing "right to bear arms."
Jacob Freeze
Blah, Blah.
My elderly uncle was murdered in 1977 in his home in Cleveland, by 3 black teenagers who strangled him with a lamp cord, kicked him so hard they broke his ribs, stole his retirement watch and his new car, and drove off - he was their third "white" kill as they worked toward eliminating the remaining white people in their neighborhood. They had a 3rd kill (another old man) before finally being caught and imprisoned. I hope this discussion keeps in mind that all groups can be victimized ... but for some damned reason the idea of someone loving someone who looks like themselves really pisses some people off.
I was living in Western Nebraska, the son of a loved one had just started school in Laramie, when Matthew Shepard was murdered. We immediately drove to Laramie to see how our young man was, and I've wept many tears over Matthew and others like him since. I come from a long line of people who say they believe in peace (saying you "believe in it" but take no action is where they're at - hence my wording). At age 57 I have come to believe it's naive to think we'll ever attain the nonviolence so many want, that it's not in any animal's (including human) nature, and that thousands of years from now the situation will still be the same. I guess I've lost hope.
I was listening to one of Caroline Myss's CDs on archetypes - briefly - she met 9-10 years or so ago with a group that had isolated itself in order to peacefully prepare for the devastation anticipated with Y2K. They were idyllic in belief and expected to *overcome* by taking care of one another. Myss spoke to the group, asked how many new mothers were present, there were quite a number - and she said "I have one bottle of milk here. One baby will receive it, and survive. How many of you peace-loving mothers will kill to be sure YOUR baby receives this one bottle of milk?"
By losing hope that there's even the POSSIBILITY of peace on earth - I've started a relationship with reality. And the reality is - the majority of people not only don't read CD - they wouldn't give you a fig for what most of you say you believe in. Maybe that's the key to believing in *the rapture* - maybe the people who believe in it just really really really want to die but are so horrified at the desire for suicide that they have to mask it in this "rapture" fantasy to accept what is under the surface of their thoughts. I dunno.
Friday night - a sixpack of beer and a pack of smokes. And "from my cold, dead hands" is the only way you'll get my gun away from me. THAT is the reality of America. (I can't believe I'm writing this - this, the polar opposite of anything I've posted before on CD. Have I finally grown up or finally grown too weary?)
I've lost the false hope I had for 50+ years. No more Pollyanna. It's tough to fight ignorance. I'll continue with everything I have. I just know it's not going to be enough.
Juliann
Juliann,
Remember that most of the crud here is from essentially, children. Oh, they might say their age being whatever it is that makes them a peer, at least in appearance with words. There are some good people here. Most are just shoving a pile of dogma around to see who bites for their own entertainment.
I could elucidate on the behavior of puberty with a flashlight, under the covers, in mommy's house. You know whats up.
Before giving up all hope forever, you might want to ask yourself why Toronto has a murder-rate of 2 per 100,000, and in New Orleans the rate is 95 per 100,000.
There aren't any absolute victories in the struggle again human violence, but some partial victories are highly significant.
Jacob Freeze
I recall from Michael Moore's movie "Bowling for Columbine" - the film he shot in Canada - just as many guns there as in the U.S. but a VERY low crime rate. The leading news that night was speed bumps. No "war on terror war on terror" ribbons across the TV, no constant reporting about violence and murder.
Actually we do get to watch all the violent shows that come from the states, includiing the news. Anytime there's a murder up here there's massive coverage by the shills in the media, mostly asking - fearfully - if we're becoming more violent due to the proximity of the states... In some eras we've been just as violent as you guys are, so there's got to be another reason for the lack of killings up here.
Perhaps it's the idea expressed by most up here that violence isn't going to solve any problem you really have. Down south, you guys seem to think that blowing things up will fix everything, that killing people for killing people will stop people from killing people. You need better weed.
>>Perhaps it's the idea expressed by most up here that violence isn't going to solve any problem you really have. Down south, you guys seem to think that blowing things up will fix everything, that killing people for killing people will stop people from killing people. You need better weed.<<
You are correct sir! On all counts!
Sadly over time you will become more like us though.
It is disparity of income and wealth combined with lack of social services or protections that make the United States a more violent place than Canada on the fundamental level.
Look: we ARE a violent society. Look at our complicity in the murders of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc., etc., etc. When people are willing to vote for Obama without seeing the complicity in furthering the violence he advocates shows how far off the mark we are as a nation. How about phone calls and e-mails to support the Matthew Shepard Act????
What is the root of the problem? Ignorance. Pure and simple. We as a society could go out on a limb and call pastors, priests and parents on their stupidity .... ? .... Call a spade a spade perhaps?
No, we are supposed to believe in the richness found in the diversity of ideas....
The absurd and violent behavior of those two men who killed Matthew Shepard is a direct result of American culture and the alleged superiority and ideal of the heterosexual lifestyle. And where does that stem from? Man-made religion.
So right on Sioux Rose.
Having known good christian people, including some in my own family, who've rejected their children for being gay; and having heard the visceral hatred of gays in the voices of otherwise good, kind people, I can't see any Acts, laws, or other help coming about for gays at all.
Sioux Rose
The Matthew Shepard Act would be a good thing, but so long as our society runs rampant in imagery that supports violent behavior and "solutions," it's a cry in the dark, a drop in the bucket. So long as people are programmed to think in terms of us versus them, to mistrust outsiders, to compete rather than cooperate, to show brute force rather than intelligence, and to glamorize Hollywood's emblems of martial response... this, too, will prove insufficient.