Arizona

Arizona, gun violence and crime finds itself in the news on this day. And what would happen if there were no crime today, yesterday or tomorrow, would a lot of people be out of a job? The fact that another person has lost their life to gun violence, yesterday, today and tomorrow with no end in sight, for no reason at all except for the fact that guns have been invented. And though the names may change, the death industry game seems to remain the same. As it seems to be an industry that feeds upon itself. The film noir, marketing and advertising of guns and gun violence in all forms of media advertising that breeds gun violence which breeds crime, which breeds news stories about crime which breeds more marketing for crime and images of violence etc. And for what reason do crime dramas and images of gun violence make up about what seems like ninety nine percent of programming on American television. Does not advertising and programming influence and program society. Guns are the worst invention ever. If only guns could be banished from every human being on planet earth. And what would happen if all of those criminal, civil, supreme, federal, local and other kinds of court houses here on planet earth for this industry of crime would close tomorrow? Would even more people be out of a job? And is war a money racket. And who can stop the war. No one is free when others are oppressed. And I am one blogger. And of a seemingly bazillion news articles that always seem to focus on the personality of the person who has a gun instead of gun control, below in one article from the New York Times on this day that addresses the problem of gun control and gun violence instead of someones personality who has that gun that I thought to repost. No one is free when others are oppressed. Is another world possible. And what, if anything does this have to do with a No Police State?

A Right to Bear Glocks?

In 2009, "someone" was holding a “Congress on Your Corner” meeting at a Safeway supermarket in her district when a protester, who was waving a sign that said “Don’t Tread on Me,” waved a little too strenuously. The pistol he was carrying under his armpit fell out of his holster.

“It bounced. That concerned me, the father of one of "someones" college interns at the time, told me then. He had been at the event and had gotten a larger vision than he had anticipated of what a career in politics entailed. “I just thought, ‘What would happen if it had gone off? Could my daughter have gotten hurt?’ ”

"someone" brushed off the incident. “When you represent a district — the home of the O.K. Corral and Tombstone, the town too tough to die — nothing’s a surprise,” she said. At the time, it struck me as an interesting attempt to meld crisis control with a promotion of local tourist attractions.

Now, of course, the district has lost more people in a shooting in a shopping center parking lot than died at the gunfight of the O.K. Corral, and the story of the dropped pistol has a tragically different cast.

In soft-pedaling that 2009 encounter, "someone" was doing a balancing act that she’d perfected during her political career as a rather progressive Democrat in a increasingly conservative state. She was the spunky Western girl with a populist agenda mixed with down-home values, one of which was opposition to gun control. But those protesters had been following her around for a while. Her staff members were clearly scared for her, and they put me in touch with Ruiz, who told me the story.

Back then, the amazing thing about the incident in the supermarket parking lot was that the guy with a handgun in his armpit was not arrested. Since then, Arizona has completely eliminated the whole concept of requiring a concealed weapon permit. Last year, it got 2 points out of a possible 100 in "someones" Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence state score card, avoiding a zero only because its Legislature has not — so far — voted to force colleges to let people bring their guns on campuses.

Today, the amazing thing about the reaction to the "someones" shooting is that virtually all the discussion about how to prevent a recurrence has been focusing on improving the tone of our political discourse. That would certainly be great. But you do not hear much about the fact that "someone" came to "someones" sweet gathering with a semiautomatic weapon that he was able to buy legally because the law restricting their sale expired in 2004 and Congress did not have the guts to face up to the National Rifle Association and extend it.

If "someone" had gone to the Safeway carrying a regular pistol, the kind most Americans think of when they think of the right to bear arms, "someone" would probably still have been shot and we would still be having that conversation about whether it was a sane idea to put her Congressional district in the cross hairs of a rifle on the Internet.

But we might not have lost a federal judge, a 76-year-old church volunteer, two elderly women, "someones" 30-year-old constituent services director and a 9-year-old girl who had recently been elected to the student council at her school and went to the event because she wanted to see how democracy worked.

"someones" gun, a 9-millimeter Glock, is extremely easy to fire over and over, and it can carry a 30-bullet clip. It is “not suited for hunting or personal protection,” said "someone", the president of the Brady Campaign. “What it’s good for is killing and injuring a lot of people quickly.”

America has a long, terrible history of political assassinations and attempts at political assassination. What we did not have until now is a history of attempted political assassination that took the lives of a large number of innocent bystanders. The difference is not about the Second Amendment. It’s about a technology the founding fathers could never have imagined.

“If this was the modern equivalent of what "someone" used to shoot "someone" or "someone else" used to shoot "someone else", you’d be talking about one or two victims,” said "someone".

"someone" represents a pragmatic, interest-balancing form of politics that’s out of fashion. But, in that spirit, we should be able to find a way to accommodate the strong desire in many parts of the country for easy access to firearms with sane regulation of the kinds of weapons that make it easiest for crazy people to create mass slaughter. Most politicians won’t talk about it because they’re afraid of the N.R.A., whose agenda is driven by the people who sell guns and want the right to sell as many as possible.

Doesn’t it seem like the least we can do?