Bill Moyers: "Even as sadness turns to outrage over the Newtown tragedy, and powerful coalitions of leaders and celebrities speak out, those who produce, push, and promote guns continue unfazed and unabated."
Portrait, Bill Moyers. (photo: PBS)
The Gun Lobby's Firepower
08 January 13
BILL MOYERS: You may remember that we spoke about guns just a few days before Christmas, following the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. So did Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association.
WAYNE LAPIERRE: The only way, the only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
BILL MOYERS: Listening to LaPierre, my jaw dropped, and it occurred to me that he might well have plagiarized his vision of a wholly armed nation from another "man of the people" of forty years ago, the protagonist in the famous sit-com "All In the Family." When a local TV station comes out in favor of gun control, Archie Bunker hits the airwaves with a rebuttal, which he watches at home with his family.
ARCHIE BUNKER in All In The Family: Good evening, everybody. This here is Archie Bunker of 704 Hauser Street, veteran of the big war, speaking on behalf of guns for everybody[…]
Now I want to talk about another thing that's on everybody's minds today, and that's your stick-ups and your skyjackings, which, if that were up to me, I could end the skyjackings tomorrow.
MICHAEL 'MEATHEAD' STIVIC in All In The Family: You could?
ARCHIE BUNKER in All In The Family: All you got to do is arm all your passengers. He ain't got no more moral superiority there, and he ain't going to dare to pull out no rod. And then your airlines, they wouldn't have to search the passengers on the ground no more, they just pass out the pistols at the beginning of the trip, and they just pick them up at the end! Case closed.
BILL MOYERS: Case closed. Except that Archie Bunker's a fictional character, created by Norman Lear, who knew better. Not Wayne LaPierre - he's real and he means business. Big business. Every time we have another of these mass slayings and speak of gun control, weapon sales go up. And guess what? As the journalist Lee Fang reports in The Nation magazine, "For every gun or package of ammunition sold at participating stores, a dollar is donated to the NRA."
So naturally, in a country where even life and death are measured by the profit margin, the cure for gun violence becomes, yes, more guns. Bigger profits. Never mind that just before LaPierre spoke, three people were shot and killed outside Altoona, Pennsylvania. Or that early on Christmas Eve morning, in Webster, New York, two volunteer firemen were called to the scene of a fire, then executed by an ex-con who allegedly set the blaze and murdered them with the same kind of assault rifle used against those school kids and their teachers in Newtown. Or that on New Year's Eve, in Sacramento, California, reportedly in a fight over a spilled drink, a 22-year-old opened fire in a bar, killing two and wounding two others. In fact, in just those few weeks since the Newtown slaughter of the innocent, more than 400 people have died from guns in America. That should boost the last quarter profit margins. So not surprising, the merchants of death are experiencing a happy new year.
We can't forget. We mustn't relent. We have to keep talking about this, because Wayne LaPierre and the NRA are insidious and powerful predators. Have you seen the reports in both the Journal of the American Medical Association and The Washington Post of how, 16 years ago, the NRA managed to get Congress to pull funding on gun violence studies at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? And just two years ago, NRA henchmen even snuck a provision into the Affordable Care Act that prevents doctors from collecting information on their patients' gun use.
As Wayne LaPierre's brazen call for an armed populace makes clear, the odds don't favor common sense. There are always members of Congress willing to do the gun lobby's bidding as they profess their love of the second amendment and wait like hungry house pets for the next NRA campaign donation.
Every American a gun-toter is a frightening vision of our future. It doesn't have to be, if only we stop and think about where the Wayne LaPierre's would take us. That's what a fellow named Frank James did. He stopped, he thought, he changed directions. He's a pawn shop owner in Seminole, Florida, his youngest child is six. Frank James told a local ABC station he has decided to stop selling guns.
FRANK JAMES on ABC Local News: It'll probably cause my business to go out of business because it was a big part of it, but I just couldn't live with myself. I thought, wow, this is crazy. As a gun dealer myself, I'm like, yes, we need more gun control. Guns are getting into the wrong hands of the wrong people.
BILL MOYERS: He also said "I'm not going to be a part of it anymore. Conscience wins over making money." Thank you, Mr. James.
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Comments
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Indeed! It works for your cars, doesn't it? Should cars be armed with "drone-like" guns to shoot anyone trying to break into them?
I think its time for all of us to use our heads AND our hearts in this country, to use our consciences as Mr. James did, and STOP the madness!
400 deaths in America by guns since the Newtown shootings! That is untenable, and how many of them were done "protecting ones home" with something other than an assault rifle?
N.
Safe may be when the NRA is stamped out of existance. This will happen when their treasury is emptied by a never-ending flood of lawsuits. It's guaranteed that this will finally get their attention without having to depend on wing-nut politicians.
About suing the gun industry. Suspenseful peek into the dark back rooms of court manipulation.
1. hope Scalia (and the RATS) retire or go
2. call all congress people AND President Obama to take the NRA to the highest court and move up to the Supreme Court - oh dear, I forgot: The NRA puts $$ into the election campaigns of most of our congress people.
Anyone have an idea HOW WE SUE?
Anyone can sue them. Tie up their $500/hr lawyers
in depositions for years, if necessary.
If the NRA resist all of the suggestions or laws that may come out of the latest shooting. Then I think the families of the many victims in the shootings should sue them.
There are a LOT of people organizing right now. The fury is red hot. Governor Cuomo of New York Will have new laws ready in a few days. There is no time to waste...It is important to get rolling before NRA get organized.
We just may see some action this time. But we need to do a lot more than outlawing assault weapons, and that should also start NOW.
That was how Morris Dee of the "Southern
Poverty Law Center" destroyed the Ku Klux Clan. He and they... sued the monsters out of existence. Morris Dee is one of the most courageous people I know of. He did what few have the courage to do. Stand up to the worst of the worst. His life is in constant danger.
The Second Amendment was not established to guarantee success in hunting. The Founders intended it to be the leveling process to keep government fearful of the people, one of the first of the checks and balances to ensure freedom and liberty.
It was NOT created for first checks and balances. How our govt is formed is its first checks and balances. People taking part in the democratic process is the next. Getting out your boom-stick should be of last resort and not because you simply are part of Romney's 47% who voted for him and do not like Obama.
Actually in crime studies it has shown crime goes down when cops actually patrol.
More people and kids are killed with a families guns than are an intruders.
You need a gun loaded and ready at your side at all times, to really be protected. IF you HAVE that, the chances of a horrible accident is greater than you shooting a criminal.
There is also the case of armor piercing bullets????? They are made for penetrating a bullet proof west. Who wear those?? The police!!! It should be a no brainer that they should ONLY be used by the military.
I think the police chiefs should be speaking out about this gun problem. for police are certainly targets too. Some years back, bank robbers were in a big shoot out with the police.
Get this ...The robbers had much more powerful weapons than the police?? The stand off was not solved until the police brought in heavier fire power.
These military weapons should not be available to ANYBODY but the military. it should not be possible for criminals or anybody else to get their hands on them or on these mega clips.
No hunter would be using automatic or semi automatic weapons to hunt dear or pheasants.
It borders on the insane to think a law will do that!!!
Chicago had 500 murders last year, perhaps they should lower the limit to 400 in the hundreds of laws they have on the books already!
YOU WILL NEVER get rid of all of the guns because the criminals WILL NEVER turn them in!
So write a law that only stops criminals...WHA T YOU CAN'T DO IT?
Great now you woke up to reality!
The police and the government can't [proactively] protect you or stop a madman from spraying innocents with bullets. You can't do di*k with your empty hands.
So what are you going to do to protect yourself and your loved ones from crazies with guns? What exactly??
Think of how arming everyone to the teeth will help our economy. We'll sell off all the existing guns and then, of course, we'll have to re-arm everyone with increasingly powerful weapons, since you know the criminals will have them, to get a leg up on the rest of us. I guess we'll have to stop at ICBMs, though, or risk breaking some treaty, right?
Were you a contributing writer for that Archie Bunker episode?
The 'Right-to-bare- arms' or each of us rolling up our sleeves to pitch-in for making the world a better place, each of us not bogged down in heavy body-armour & armaments. We need to liberate ourselves & our loved ones from the perpetual fear of scarcity through each in our own way contributing to an abundant world where people understand that mutual-aid is the greatest factor of human-society & evolution. Tell us about your own efforts. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/home/9-right-to-bare-arms
He was found dead in the school with handguns...but the medical examiner said all deaths were attributed to a long gun. Where was the long gun? They found one in the trunk of a car outside. How could Adam Lanza have killed people with a long gun that was not in his possession at the time of his death? Where was the long gun that did the killing? Did it have his fingerprints on it?
Did Adam Lanza use mind-altering drugs as part of his therapy to deal with depression? Are not SSRIs possibly responsible for Adam pulling the trigger? Without the anti-depressant s would Adam have killed his mom and all those kids?
Yes we need to work on that ideal of an abundant world. Our forefathers were in the process of doing that...under a Constitution that protected them from government intrusion. THERE is an ideal that has been left behind and politicians have been permitted to gut our bill of rights and undercut the Constitution for whatever convenient reason that suit their purpose. We should not stumble again in defense of liberty.
Guns merely fire high-speed projectiles which inflict structural damage (marked, considerable, or massive) on the object they strike.
So, expanding LaPierre's mantra: "Guns don't kill people. People, using guns as they are designed and intended to be used, kill people".
We need to ask if Adam Lanza was taking the mind-altering anti-depressant s that have been found to stimulate suicidal and homicidal behavior. His brother described him as having mental health problems.
We need to ask how Adam Lanza was able to shoot all those people with a rifle when there was no rifle in his possession when he was found dead in the school. How could all those handguns he had with him have caused all those rifleshot wounds that the medical examiner described?
One rifle was found outside in someone else's trunk...but there was no connection to the alleged shooter who lay dead in the school.
We don't yet have the evidence to make public policy decisions but for the emotion that has been aroused and managed to manipulate our opinion in accordance with someone's agenda. That agenda is not necessarily in the best interests of Americans.
We know that Adam Lanza had mental problems, So did a number of the others in the mass shootings before this last one.
Soooooooo obviously we need to do something about the mental illness .... Good luck with that. We KNOW it is needed.
We WANT it addressed. Many people are desperately seeking help for their sons and daughters....al though it is young men who are doing these horrible shootings.
These parents are looking in vain for help. For the budget cuts are hitting any and all health care. So if you hope for help in that direction. You are OUT OF LUCK.
We HAVE to protect ourselves by getting rid of these mega clips and the assault weapons. We do NOT have the luxury of waiting for action in the mental care field...A LOT more cuts are coming... soon and they will most certainly hit mental care.
So we Must start with the weapon and the many things that CAN be done without curbing the rights of hunters and people who like going to shooting ranges. Let's see what Joe Biden and his group will come up with.
1) A mass shooting at "X" triggers shock and disbelief, then a surge of outrage crying for weapon control to halt these brutal, senseless attacks on innocents.
2) The wave of protest crashes against the massive bulwark of the gun lobby which decries the "knee-jerk, feel-good" petition for tighter control; the N.R.A. denounces this brutal, senseless attack on Second Amendment Freedoms.
3) Among the soul-searching swirl of proposed remedies: renewing the bans on automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines which in turn triggers a sales boom in automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Meanwhile, the damage-tabulate d massacre jostles for ranking as the killings at "X" weigh on a wearying public... more victims than Aurora? More than Columbine? Not so many as Virginia Tech?
Body armor sales spike. Kevlar-lined backpacks (on sale for $199 at bulletblocker.c om) offer comfort to some parents; most find solace in simply sighing "So sad... ...so glad it wasn't my child...".
Gradually, the killings at "X" ebb from memory.
4) Repeat as needed.
They also found that people could not hold a position very well in the face of an onslaught of stimuli. As a result the bits of the puzzle could never be brought together in a pattern that could be useful, as long as the deluge of information and stimuli displaced the THOUGHT.
Repetition and emotionalism are necessary ingredients for manipulating public opinion. Edward Bernays was one of those two Americans who attended the Tavistock Institute and wrote the propaganda classic, "Manipulating Public Opinion" We've all been subject to the tenets of this book our whole lives.
For most it is important to recognize that; our emotions are information on a meta (transcending) level. Much of human mind is unconscious. Emotions represent quantities & qualities of information beyond the ability of immediate processing or understanding, but still holding an important role as part of our analysis. Emotions give each of us overall assessment upon which we can act in precautionary ways & but which must be verified with more detailed point-by-point analysis.
In keeping with Marshall McLuhan's 'The medium is the message', human mind as well considers data across both content & process instinctually comparing whether both are speaking the same message & thus the veracity whether one is out of sync & disingenuous.
Traditionally human societies use 'dialectic' (literally 'both-sides') rights & analysis as an instituted process for media, government, law, education (Socrates) & every aspect of human society. Unfortunately mainstream media & all of our social & economic institutions have degraded dialectic rights in human relations. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/structure/both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
The American constitution, Bill-of-rights & other articles are framed by genocidal colonial land & slave-owning male-dominated societies which to this day doesn't recognize its travesty.
You hit the nail squarely on the head.
We are ALL desensitized. Example: Sometime ago, the announcer on a news program, told of a shooting in which, a man at a funeral, shot and killed his wife.
He warned, ...you may want to look away ..... It was shown at least 150 feet away, but you could see, in the distance, the woman fall down.
I did see it and I was shocked at,... how shocked I was NOT.... It really upset me. But we see so much murder and mayhem on a daily basis, that we DO get numbed to it.
I do not go to any of the movies that are obvious violent movies. But even in a NON Quentin Tarantino movie there is violence, and it is hard to find a movie without car chases, and on TV there is way more violence now..... So yes, we are desensitized.
But don't, under any circumstances, look at our National Preponderance for World -Wide violence. We the 'Peace-Keepers' . Oh, sure!
Talk about Gun Sales!
The U S Defense Budget, alone, speaks for itself. And, No, we don't really know the 'All' of it. It's 'A Secret'!
It is breaking the Nation, financially, and arming the world, deliberately, methodically, at the same time. (talk about a few crazies getting weapons!)
It is unaudited. Do tell! The weapons are amazingly complex, inherently expensive, and often soon out-dated. Design/Purchase more!.
'Unaudted', and 'Top Secret' translate easily into exaggerated billions, if not trillions. And 'Rogues, armed to the teeth', whom we then get to 'Deal With'. (read 'spend more money into certain pockets')
Yes, that ugly.
And our Citizens reflect this oh-so-'sanctifi ed' approach to International Living.
Who said 'As above, So below.'?
We set a National Standard of acceptable excessive Violence, including Video Game Desensitization , and then wonder why citizens also act similarly.
So the reason to cling to unrestricted gun ownership is to allow people to "protect" themselves from the government they elected? That would be questionable even if it weren't the case that the government has more and deadlier weapons--tanks, bombers, missiles, etc.
As for Mexico--EVERYBO DY'S got a gun there.
NRA defenders of high-capacity magazines should perhaps invest in squeezing off a few more practice shots at their local firing range to steady their aim; in the long run, it'll save them ammo money if they can drop their trophy buck sooner than the 27th round.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4KRYRhSbSs
Take the time to past this into your web browser and you will be amazed. Cabell
Fantasy 101. You'll last 30 seconds against any military unit.
To play this game it's important to know the rules and those were published in 1928 by Edward Bernays in his classic, Manipulating Public Opinion. The Tavistock Institute that he attended with Walter Lippman found that the emotions were the key to grabbing attention and that repetition was necessary for people to hold a thought. Only 13% of humanity had the capacity to think for themselves and the rest would seek out authority on which to base their own opinion. Bill Moyers and Alex Jones are opinion leaders. They are both gatekeepers, each with his own flock to shepherd.
You keep repeating yourself, but it doesn't looks like you are convincing anyone.
Guns do not kill people kill. Well bullets do not kill either the shock of the cavity well typically kills people. Followed by the fall does not kill you the sudden stop.
If more guns made us safer then why has crime not continued to go down? We have more guns than we had 10 years ago. Are not enough guns being sold to counter balance more crime being done? It must be gun control that is causing more crime so we need to get rid of it and arm more people. This is the constant rational so then should we arm gang-bangers? Put aside any criminal activities they may have performed and look at the premise of the gunman will think twice if the other guy is armed rationale. It appears not to stop gang-bangers from shooting each other. Columbine had a deputy sheriff on staff. He was a target. He was not in his normal place that day and that saved his life. What saved lives was that those two gunmen were bad shots and suck at making bombs. A lot more people could had died.
Some keep want to point out that some off duty cop killed this guy or that guy as examples of see how guns save people. How many stray bullets hit bystanders? It does not matter who the bullet comes from a stray is a stray or even a direct shot.
How many cars had them? None originally. Then someone got one. And this may had deterred a would be car thief who went to another car and stole it. What happens when all cars are armed with car alarms? Did they stop car thefts? Or did car thieves learn how to bypass the systems? Now we have key-less and biometric cars. Will this stop car thieves or once when everyone has them will they just learn to bypass them. Car alarms do not harm other people in spite of being annoying sometimes.
At best these may deter a crime which is what may actually be happening in states with gun control as those who cannot get those guns in those states go to states with lax gun control laws. Humans tend to go for least path of resistance.
Next we hear the rationale of well you just take them away from law abiding citizens. How do criminals get their guns? Do they all steal them? Some do but who do they steal them from? Only other criminals? All the guns they have were originally bought legally. Some of the guns they have may had been sold to them from law abiding citizens.
That is why I am not a member of the NRA anymore. When the NRA objected to increased fees for gun dealer licenses, renewal fees of licenses and issues about gun dealers selling out of their trucks I said wait a minute. I watched undercover film of just such sales.
Now onward to right to carry. So I own a store and some guy comes in with a sidearm. How do I tell he is a criminal or not? How do I know the guy is stable of mind?
I am touching briefly on this but from seeing other comments you gotta love aaheart and his own misdirection.
aaheart wants us to question the need for control. So let us get rid of all control. Control only hurts the law abiding? Remember the rationale of they will just find another way to kill you.
Of course the word is deterrent.
Thank you for your sane remarks. You sound like a big strong Scott. Whatever you are. I thank you. You have seen what war is and don't want all these guns around, as another brave man said too. General MC Chrystal was very clear that assault weapons do not belong in civilian settings. He said so on "Morning Joe"
2. No one against gun control can explain why they need assault rifles, magazines with many shots, or gun shows lacking background checks. Their response seems always to be, don't take my guns away, or you're defying the constitution. Those aren't answers. I haven't heard one real answer to that question.
I do believe that the great majority of people in the U.S. want basic gun control. We also need to educate people to the motivation of the gun control lobby: the fact that they get $1. for every gun sold, and the rest of the overriding role of money in their lobby.
3. What are the facts concerning home protection? How often is a serious crime prevented by a resident with a gun, or even a business owner with a gun?
How often are crimes committed in homes in which a resident owned a gun but never got to it, or how often was danger and violence increased because of residents' owning guns? We need to get real information to the people, and here is a job for the media. How to insist they do this job is a big question.
If you want to add a bayonette (spelling) to the musket = go ahead.
So - to those who say "rewrite" the 2nd amendment (Yes - ok) but all we really need is for the Supremes (haha - not this one of RATS) to interpret the actual meaning of a "musket" - and .... tell the NRA that the 30-100 bullet guns are not part of the 2nd amendment.
I too hate that I don't know the names of these different guns. I'd say a 38 caliber gun is near maximum to be legal (or something on that order)
The war on terror and on drugs lost its punch so now we have a new war on guns to make people forget that the rich are getting richer at an ever faster pace.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/sunday-review/more-guns-more-killing.html?hpw&_r=0
Now as a 28 year old United States Marine Corps combat veteran I have been shot at, watched people die (good and bad), and have taken life in order to preserve my own life, and the lives of my comrades and innocent civilians. I have lived in many countries in this world and have seen and experienced more than people twice my age. While living in Iwakuni Japan for 3 years I saw first hand what gun control is. Japan is very strict on weapons and even pocket knives cannot have blades longer than a few inches or it is a violation of the law. In Japan not all Police officers carry firearms. So there must be no guns right? No Mexico for the cartels to smuggle in illegal weapons. Hell it's a damn island! Wrong. The criminals are so well armed its unbelievable. In fact the Police are frightened by the Yakuza, who somehow have automatic weapons, and not just chopsticks to fight with.
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