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| comment | | "parent_author":"",<br>"parent_permlink":"guns",<br>"author":"generalspecific",<br>"permlink":"people-shoot-cops-cops-shoot-people-people-shoot-people-it-s-a-vicious-cycle-with-only-one-thing-at-the-center-guns",<br>"title":"People shoot cops,<br> cops shoot people,<br> people shoot people...it's a vicious cycle with only one thing at the center: guns",<br>"body":"http:\/\/az616578.vo.msecnd.net\/files\/2016\/05\/07\/635982302167612911-751496920_gun-violence.jpg\n\nThe past few months have been rife with gun violence in America,<br> and everyone's looking for someone to blame. At this stage,<br> it's difficult to tell just who that should be.\n\nOrlando. Dallas. Miami. Houston. Baton Rouge. South Carolina. The list goes on. It seems like every day there's a new story about gun violence in America (not to mention the rest of the world),<br> and if you follow the news,<br> you'll see that's almost not an exaggeration. More often than not,<br> the story involves a police officer and a person of colour. It's all become a depressing,<br> horrific narrative of an epidemic so severe that people barely have time to come to terms with the last incident before the next one is reported. While there's a fitting (if fleeting) amount of outrage following each blood-spattered newscast,<br> one can't help but wonder if the American people can possibly avoid becoming desensitized to it all. In fact,<br> the horrible truth is that it's almost become normal.\n\nhttp:\/\/assets.motherjones.com\/politics\/2015\/04\/chart-1-gun.jpeg\n\nWhat's also become normal,<br> of course,<br> is the legal and incredibly easy purchase of firearms. So normal,<br> in fact,<br> that a thirteen-year-old boy can walk into a gun store and walk out with a lethal weapon - but can't do the same with a six-pack of beer,<br> or even a lottery ticket.\n\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fB7MwvqCtlk\n\nIt goes without saying that debate rages on this subject each and every day in America. The right to bear arms is enshrined in the nation's constitution,<br> after all. The NRA has deep pockets and huge stakes in the top levels of government. And they're very good at making their point. Criminals will get guns one way or another,<br> they say. Who's to stop the madmen and terrorists if we take guns away from law-abiding citizens?\n\nThe logical answer to this question is,<br> of course: the police. Disturbingly,<br> however,<br> we're seeing clearly that the police themselves are becoming part of the problem,<br> as both victims and perpetrators. Just a few weeks ago we saw police officers directly targeted and murdered in retribution for the simple fact that their brothers in blue had made mistakes (intentional or otherwise) that resulted in the deaths of innocents. Just this week,<br> we saw a police officer shoot (though,<br> thankfully,<br> not kill) an unarmed man who was complying with instructions and attempting to assist the police in resolving a tense situation. When asked why he shot the man,<br> the officer in question responded simply: \"I don't know\".\n\nhttp:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.3688338.1469063665!\/fileImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/16x9_460\/shootingclip.jpg\n\n**This is the problem: the police don't know what to do.** They are almost as powerless as the rest of the American people to combat the gun epidemic that's ever more rapidly taking over the once great nation. They've been given a huge responsibility to prevent violence by a government that's making it incredibly difficult to do so by allowing the average citizen to arm themselves with weapons of mass murder - in many cases,<br> without so much as background check. Police officers are only human. They freak out. Under the circumstances,<br> they must be freaking out a great deal.\n\nNow,<br> I'm by no means defending those officers who have intentionally abused their authority and taken innocent lives any more than I'm defending the vile madmen who do the same without a badge. I'm also no expert on all the legislation involved in gun control. But,<br> from an outsider's perspective (I'm a dual citizen of America and South Africa currently living in Cape Town),<br> as opposed to one from inside the American media machine that's so saturated with this kind of story,<br> the situation is ludicrous. Hell,<br> South Africa's pretty well known for its relatively high level of crime,<br> but not mass murder. It's getting to the point where I actually feel safer living here - and until recently,<br> I never thought I'd say that.\n\nOf course,<br> there's no simple solution to this problem,<br> or presumably the American people would have found it already. But,<br> to my mind,<br> it's more of a psychological problem than it is a legislative one. For a start,<br> it's no secret that America has a problem with mental illness. The Orlando shooter,<br> by many accounts,<br> [may have been not a terrorist or a malcontent,<br> but a disturbed individual who needed help (http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/06\/26\/us\/was-the-orlando-gunman-gay-the-answer-continues-to-elude-the-fbi.html?_r=0). But it was easier for him to get a gun,<br> so he did that instead.\n\nhttp:\/\/www.dispatch.com\/content\/graphics\/2011\/01\/23\/bc-health-mentallyill-vi-art-gj2bbm9j-1mental-illness2.jpg\n\nThe American people could also do with a lesson in history. When the Second Amendment was adopted,<br> the year was 1791. The country was very different,<br> which you'd expect to be the case over two hundred years ago. The nation was not even ten years old,<br> having just emerged out of a bloody revolution from which tensions still lingered. Laws and their enforcers were not nearly as effective,<br> and people needed to be able to protect their homes and families. Very few thought the right to bear arms was unreasonable under the circumstances.\n\nAnd yet the NRA and their supporters still cling to this outdated piece of legislation as if it were a holy text. It forms the centrepiece of an argument that,<br> while it has some valid points,<br> turns a blind eye to the evidence all around America that something desperately needs to change. It's very true that \"guns don't kill people,<br> people kill people\" - but they'd surely have a much harder time doing it without being given these lethal weapons so freely.\n\nI leave you with this quote from Thomas Jefferson himself,<br> which is enshrined on one of the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington,<br> DC:\n\nhttps:\/\/s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com\/236x\/d8\/c9\/64\/d8c964ba5e23fb58003c65b3f4c2fce5.jpg\n> \"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions,<br> but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed,<br> more enlightened,<br> as new discoveries are made,<br> new truths discovered and manners and opinions change,<br> with the change of circumstances,<br> institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.\"",<br>"json_metadata":" \"tags\":[\"guns\",<br>\"gunviolence\",<br>\"violence\",<br>\"police\",<br>\"debate\",<br>\"america\" ,<br>\"links\":[\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fB7MwvqCtlk\" " |
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