Saturday, November 28, 2015

Gunshot Murder and Religion in America


Gunshot Murder and Religion in America
Dateline:  November 29, 2015

Put aside for a moment the terrorist horrors in Paris and in San Bernadino and in Orlando a few days ago.  The tragic event in 2015 Colorado reveals some very cruel truths about our America.  

The gunshot murders and injuries at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs are the direct result of screams for media attention by all of America’s republican candidates for President.  Words are wolves.  

The gunshot murders and injuries at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs are equally the direct result of many, many years of effort by the National Rifle Association, or the NRA, our premier gun lobby in Washington.  Guns cause gunshot murder.  

The gunshot murders and injuries at a Planned Parenthood office silenced all of America’s republican Presidential candidates for a few days.  For the first time in over a year, they halted the dog whistles and open rage for encouraging violence and the closing all Planned Parenthood offices.  

Borrowing a tactical move from the NRA, all the candidates take a break while the media sturm und drang subsides over the gunshot deaths of three and the gunshot injuries of nine others.  

Gunshot murdered Policeman Garrett Swasey, was once an Olympic class athlete.  Officer Swasey died trying to protect others in the Planned Parenthood offices.  

Gunshot murdered Jennifer Markovsky was simply a good neighbor at the clinic with a friend.  

Gunshot murdered Ke'Arre Stewart was an Iraq War veteran.  

Each of the dead victims had two children.  That's four fatherless and two motherless children.   

Maybe it is because our America has been at a corrupt and misguided war off and on since 1991, and human life is not as sacred as in the past.  Our America has more people in prison than any other nation.  Our best friends the Saudi Arabians beheaded more than thirty people last year.  Only last summer the Saudis ordered a girl to be stoned to death for infidelity.  The Saudis recently ordered 200 lashes for a girl who was gang raped.  The Saudis also privately help fund the ISIL gang.  Our collateral damage rate for drone strikes must be in the range of thirty bystanders killed for every target identified dead.  

Stoked by screams of Christian pastors, state and local legislatures and governors create laws to precisely regulate all birth control methods and thereby all women’s bodies.  

Before Roe vs. Wade in 1973 gave America legal abortions, Our Bodies Ourselves the women’s organization, estimates about five thousand women died each year from abortion attempts.  Many religious people all over America vehemently advocate a return to those murderous days.  

Over twelve thousand Americans died from gunshot over the past year excluding gunshot deaths by police and gunshot deaths by suicide.  Americans privately own over three hundred million guns adding up to about one gun for every man, woman and child in our America.  The hospital costs for gunshot injuries are approaching a billion dollars a year.  Many of the pious religious who fume about birth control and abortion, encourage the patriotic ownership of firearms for all.  

Guns are like cigarettes. Guns maim people and we all pay for it.  Guns kill people and we all pay for that also.  Because of multiple gunshot injuries every day, Americans pay for treatment in emergency rooms everywhere.  So we all are paying a hospital tax for some gun manufacturer in Europe?  How much do we taxpayers spend on police investigations and ER's for gunshot violence?  

Most Americans are sick and tired of the media playbook by NRA gun fools, and how American murder by gunshot has become so quaint and so everyday. 

The NRA and all their shills aid and abet gunshot murder every hour in our America!  

Religious zealots endorsing violence by dog whistle or by sermon are directly responsible for more and more gunshot murder and injury in our America!   

Likewise, at first all the republican candidates bide their time and wait off camera, shrewdly preparing to delight their base inhumane and racist faithful.  Every single one of the chosen then leap into close ups all over the dime store cable TV channels where they scream for more and more biblical payback.  

This is not acceptable, America!  

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Gunshot Murdered at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs

University of Colorado Police Officer Garrett Swasey


Jennifer Markovsky and Ke'Arre Stewart


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1 comment:

Stephen said...

Bravo! As they have done with abortion, the right has spent millions of dollars and unlimited resources to confuse this issue. Any mention of gun control & they suddenly embrace the constitution and invoke the 2nd amendment; whereas with almost every other issue they have what amounts to disdain for the same constitution. It serves the NRA's purpose to portray all concerns about guns as one thing, to polarize and turn any reasonable discourse into a matter of 'us against them'. But the truth is that, in the real world, it's both more complicated and less polarized than that, in my experience at least.

For example, I have a friend who is a gun owner and conservative (but not a fanatic) who totally supports the right of individuals to own guns, but he also supports gun control. In fact in talking with him I surprisingly found he thinks the laws should be more strict! In his view (and in his words) "the nut-cases who yell against all laws to regulate guns are actually screwing things up for gun owners; people think they represent the majority... they do not!" He is super-strict about training and says his mantra about guns is "safety, safety, safety... first and last". He is even for more stringent background checks, saying that if someone cannot be open about themselves and their intent then they certainly should not be able to own a gun; which is the view of most gun-control advocates, including myself.

I know every gun owner doesn't think this way but I suspect that many more do than the NRA would like to admit, because it doesn't serve their political purpose. As with religion and abortion, for the right, gun laws and the on-going debate has become an effective tool to further polarize an already divided nation, while in the process the objects of their grand schemes are killing each other, with freedom and justice for none.