Oh this is good stuff.

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Mike Daisey, a monologueist (think of one-person shows like Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God” or the multi-character monologue show “The Vagina Monologues”), recently had a large group of people get up and walk out of his show–which is disrespectful enough although somewhat understandable (sort of,) but one of the men in that group saw fit to pour water over Mike’s show notes, ruining them.

http://www.mikedaisey.com/2007/04/night-to-remember.sht
(The “action” begins about 6 minutes into the video clip. Warning, the show does have some rather profane language–a warning the people watching the show were also informed of when they bought their tickets.)

You can, and should, watch the video and read his commentary, but in short: the group walked out, the guy watered the desk in front of Mike with a look of pure superiority and hate, and no one from the group deigned to discuss the issue/problem/whatever.

Well, seeking some kind of answers, closure, understanding, Mike sought to contact someone from that group and the watering fellow, and got in contact with an administrator of the school group that it was (the identified themselves as a “Christian group” previously,) and did talk to the guy:

http://www.mikedaisey.com/2007/04/aftermath-and-confrontation.sht

Wow, really interesting stuff.
I’m commenting on this because I have experience in this issue, from both sides of the stage.

I went through my undergrad earning two BA’s on a theatre full-ride scholarship. I was one of two people who auditioned my high school senior year who got that scholarship, and the following six years of my life was a roller-coaster of adventure and learning and angst and wonder. Even though, it turns out, I’m really not a very good actor (except in over-the-top villainous roles. Man, I really chewed the scenery as the evil Sir Guy in “Robin Hood” (kick-a$$ sword fighting scenes!) and had a blast as King Kreon in “Antigone.”) It turns out I’m actually a better-than-descent Master Electrician, an even better sound designer, and I think a pretty not-bad-at-all director (which was what I had originally planned on going into grad school for.) So, between all the classes and texts and theory and exercises in acting, and all the plays I’d been in (somewhere around… 15 as an actor I believe,) I know all too well the concepts Mike talks about, about acting is a give-and-take with the audience.

It’s a weird symbiotic relationship live theatre performers have with the audience. Musicians will likely say the same thing. The actor draws energy from the audience. Whether it’s rapt attention, laughter, pathos…you don’t even have to be able to see the audience (you usually can’t,) to be able to feel the energy they provide. (Some would say it’s partly a psychic or metaphysical connection–and 10 years ago I would have agreed to some degree. But it’s a lot of intangibles: minutiae of noise, type or lack thereof, restlessness, glimpses of form and movement detected behind the glare of stage lights, etc.)
Them the actor uses that energy, feeds off it, brings the character into reality and brings life to the play with that energy, and gives it back to the audience in a cyclic feedback loop.
So, if the actor is getting poisoned energy, (boredom, restlessness, disdain, lack of interest, negativity), the actor has to suck him or herself dry of energy reserves to try to present a positive performance. A good energy, and the actor thrives and the audience enjoys; a bad energy and the actor is leeched like a vampire’s victim and the audience gets very likely a flat and uninspired performance.

Live performance, for an actor with passion and who cares about their craft and the audience (sure, an actor can certainly not care and just phone a performance in and invariably they’re unaffected by the play and the audience leaves with nothing,) can leave them emotionally drained and raw. Sometimes it’s good, cathartic, like (sorry to be crude but it’s true) after two hours of wild and fulfilling sex. Sometimes it just leaves you an emotional wreck and a shell, needing, like an addict, to be emotionally filled again. Actually, both good and bad, it’s addictive. When it’s good, you have to have that sublime high again, when it’s bad, you crave to have the emptiness filled again.

So what happens when an actor, such as Mike, tries after an occurrence like what happened at his show to give the audience (that remained) a good, honest performance? I can only imagine the garbage and poison he had to try to filter through. Thank goodness the crowd that remained was supportive and kind or I doubt he’d have been able to do anything except go through the motions. I absolutely empathize with him.

On the flip-side. My senior high school year. I’d been heavily involved in speech and debate and drama all through 7th through 12th grade. I had lead roles in plays, became the number 1 Lincoln-Douglas debater, was on the Cross-Ex’ B-team (because the A-team really was kick-a$$ hands down.) So, needless to say, I was a hardcore drama geek. That senior year school talent show had a sketch performed by a few guys (mostly jocks and “popular” guys) who parodied drama geeks and it involved some kind of wanton shooting of us if I recall. (This was the late 80′s, back when depictions of students shooting other students was funny and didn’t have the baggage of Columbine and other actual shootings behind it.) Of course the assembled students got a big laugh out of the sketch. But we, about 6 or 7 of us, got up and walked out in a self-important huff.

Wow, when I think back to that, was I furious at the time! It was the end of the world. Imagine, everything you were, everything you stood for, enjoyed, thought was monumentally important, mocked and laughed at. As a teenager, that’s the worst thing to possibly happen. I think it was OK to be a little mad. But now, after years of experience and wisdom (I hope,) I can say now that what would have been best would have been to laugh right along. Even though, and especially because, it was such an infinitely important and vital aspect of identity that was being mocked, returning mockery with anger simply justified the mockers, made them the stars, and made us look like idiots and self-absorbed cads. And it ate up a little piece of our souls. (Possibly some stomach lining as well.) If we had laughed at it, we’d have probably been respected. We could take a joke. We could laugh at ourselves. We could rise above the situation.

But instead, we tried to retaliate. We spoke to the principal. When we were reminded that he was a sports supporting principal with not much interest in the academics, we spoke with the lawyer father of one of the A-team Cross-Ex debaters. For what, I don’t recall. What did we think we’d get from it? I have no idea now. All I do remember is we tried to find any legal or administrative thing to “get back” at them. Obviously, nothing came from it except years of black emotion and arrogant, self-righteous fury.

Eventually, the fury died. Eventually, the negative emotions went away, as probably all teenage experiences are want to do. Eventually, I found wisdom, and now I look back and I feel embarrassment at myself. Not shame or anything more tangible, there’s a vast distance between me and the event so I don’t feel anything about it enough to register as a blip. But that blip is not of those guys on stage, but at my own ridiculousness.

So what kind of self-righteousness, self-importance did those people feel who got up and walked out of Mike’s play? What kind of arrogance and flaming belief did they feel that compelled them to not sit for another hour of their life to hear something outside their comfort zone? What are they afraid of?
That’s a two-edged question. Should one be expected to sit and watch pornography? Or ultra-violent splatter-fest movie if that’s not what you expected? No. Should you be able to walk out of a play just as you can a film that was not what you expected and you find gross or demeaning? Certainly! It’s a free country! So I don’t blame the people who walked out, really. Even though it shows disrespect and potentially ruin the experience for everyone else who stayed, they have a right to leave.

Mike will live through this, the audience will go one and forget it even. It’s really no big deal–from either side. But I still can’t help but feel the ridiculous ones are those who got up and left like some kind of protest. They had the opportunity, ne, the obligation to find out what it was they were going to see, before putting themselves in a position to stay and hear course subjects, or leave and make a display. And of course I agree with Mike that it’s very concerning how the language of “security” in a “time of war” is being used in a vocabulary to describe the shielding of children (teens) against the dirty immorality of a stage play. The hatred some (the water guy) could show for someone that had beliefs and sensibilities different than his. The utter lack of humanity and the self-righteous certainty in the anti-social behavior he felt justified in showing another human who was different in ideology from him. That disturbs me.

Mainly because, it’s not a rare occurrence in the religious.
Hmm, and the ultra-liberal. And the neo-conservative. And the pseudo-intellectual. …and anyone filled with the self-certainty of an ideology that makes them think they’re absolutely right and others are wrong.

Here we go again. A story of a mother with a terminally ill infant with a disease with no cure on life-support, fighting to keep him alive while the hospital wants to remove the support.

Fight over baby’s life support divides ethicists

This is darkly funny: the poor infant is living on respirator tube and feeding tube provided by modern medicine. But here’s what the mother has to say:

Emilio’s mother, Catarina Gonzales, on the other hand, is fighting to keep her son on the ventilator, allowing him to die “naturally, the way God intended.”

It kills me when people don’t get the sad irony of this. They cling on to this idea of a “natural death”…while on artificial life support.
The arrogance of knowing what God wants annoys me in the first place, but then she’s additionally projecting her emotional pain onto a logical fallacy claiming it’s more natural to wait for the infant to die in agony after an artificially extended life on tubes.

As a father, I understand the emotional pain. I don’t like children, but the very day after my child was born, I napped with her sleeping on my chest and I was in love. The thought of something going wrong and losing her that day would have killed me. So I understand the mother’s pain…but she’s selfishly supplanting her own wants and emotions in place of the child’s needs and basic humanity! The infant is terminal. So trying to save herself the pain now that she’s going to experience sooner rather than later (or worse, based on some religious ideology), she’s forcing the child to exist days longer than “God desired” artificially in pain. By her own admission the child is numbed up on morphine.

What kind of ideology would rather a child, with a very short time to live, who can’t live without being on tubes down his throat, and having to live each minute on morphine, and call that “living”?

A recent article in a British Columbia ‘zine:
LSD as Therapy? Write about It, Get Barred from US
A story about a 66-year-old Canadian psychotherapist, traveling to visit friends and family in the US as he’d done many many times, got stopped at the CA/US border for a more thorough screening.
Turns out that because he took LSD a couple of times in the 60′s (when it was legal) as part of controlled psychotheraputic research, he has been labeled ” a former drug abuser” and denied admittance into the US. Permanently.
Unless he signs a statement stating he’s “reformed” and applies for a waiver: which would cost more than $3000 and lasts for about a year.

Section IV. “Anyone who is determined to be a drug abuser or user is inadmissible. A crime involving moral turpitude is inadmissible and one of those areas is a violation of controlled substances.”

“Moral turpitude“? It doesn’t even make a difference if you have a criminal record or not. if a boarder guard decides you have violated some code of moral turpitude, you’re barred from entrance.

Even Nobel Prize winners and intellectual social advocates have been permanently barred from the US for similar 40-year-old offenses of moral turpitude–and dodgy political views!
(Yet president shrub is a recovering drug abuser and alcoholic with a record of DUI’s (which family friend Alberto Gonzales had gotten him out of,) with delusions of emperor–and he’s “running” this country. Where’s the justice?)

By the way:
Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps

As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are “at war” in a “long war” – a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president – without US citizens realising it yet – the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.

Well, I’m going to start trying to deal with socio-political topics: capitalism, Marxism, libertarianism, socialism. The best course, I think, is to take it in small steps and take little bites. Maybe.
(No, I know sometime this week I’m going to write a zillion word diatribe with all my angst and issues over the topic.)
Well, let’s just look at one topic that I’ve been seeing recently: the police state, the security state.

I describe myself as a Marxist-libertarian (conflicting contradictions be darned!) So while I think capitalism is inherently corrupt and damaging, I’m terribly aware and afraid of a socialist police state in which everything is monitored and watched under the excuse of “protecting society.” For example, there was this recent article on BBC News:
♦ ‘Talking’ CCTV scolds offenders
Evidently England has been implementing additional cameras with speakers so that no-faced figures on the other side of the ever-present camera can address people to do things like chide them for littering.

On the one hand, sounds kind of cool, and why not? It’s out in public, where people don’t (at least not in a legal sense) have an expectation of privacy. London police have solved crimes using the cameras, and there some evidence that crime is down in neighborhoods which have a lot of cameras.
But, that’s really the point. There’s a lot of cameras! “This is London” has an article providing an interesting point of view regarding just how many cameras there are around London:
♦ George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house
There are 32 state security cameras within 200 yards of the apartment once owned by the author who predicted a society in which there would be cameras everywhere watching everyone’s every move. Where is the point in which we move from safe and secure to fascist invasion of privacy? How much of our privacy, our liberty as human beings, are we willing to hand over?
“Classically Liberal” has a very in-depth and alarming analysis of the growing fascism taking place in England currently:
England Prevails.

Problem is, we’re not just handing it over–it’s being taken from us.
Here in the US, we have a government that gives lip-service to the closely held belief in the sanctity of privacy and liberty while covertly removing it.
♦ DoJ: FBI misused Patriot act in domestic spying activities.
♦ Military Commissions Act of 2006 removes habeas corpus, the DoJ does not believe US citizens have that right.
♦ White House seeks to use the federal military for more domestic duties (which is a step away from using them as a police force,) in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

One may think, well, what’s wrong with the State getting involved in more domestic issues? Because history has shown time and again that the larger the government involvement the less effective it is at doing anything that requires quick and efficient action.
Once again, “Classically Liberal” with his analysis of the way in which government bureaucracy has failed in protection and disaster recovery, and how frighteningly para-military-esque local law enforcement is becoming–leading to a very dangerous and rights (not to mention life and property) threatening this growing over-active police state is becoming:
♦ The failure of the state and national tragedies.

Speaking as an ordinary citizen going about my life, my reply to all this would be, “We’re still the freest country in the world! If it wasn’t, would you be able to speak out against the government like this?”
First of all, the US isn’t the freest country. There are several countries, some in the south Atlantic, south Pacific, north Europe…) which have less laws restricting behavior, morality, personal liberty (and for that matter, corporate liberty, but I’m less keen on that.)
Secondly, the over-used “boiling the frog” metaphor does work. To boil a frog, you don’t just drop it in boiling water, you put it in warm water and turn up the heat and the frog will slowly fall asleep and die. This is the case in America. We’re allowed to continue to eke out meager livings (well, the bottom 95% of us that is,) and watch our mindless TV and buy our commodities and post our blogs, and most of us will never have any reason to question what rights we have. And yet, slowly, over time, we evolved from a culture where we believe our rights are inalienable and the government’s role is to protect them, to one in which we think our rights (such as “privacy”) are provided by the government and we have what freedoms and liberties we have at the government’s pleasure. Each removal of liberty, often in secret and with no fanfare, brings us one step closer to a fascist state found in 1984 or Fahrenheit 451, and we’ll not remember that there was a time when we were free citizens and not simply commodities for the State to use and control like pieces of a giant machine.

It might be a slippery-slope argument, but once we get used to a camera of every corner, and ignore the fact the government can now detain any US citizen for as long as it wants without bringing charges, aren’t aware that the federal military can be used as a domestic police force, shrug off the knowledge that our e-mails and phone calls are being monitored without oversight, won’t we get used to the next removal of freedom, and the next, and the next? At what point do we say enough is enough?

Well, unless something else comes up, I’m going to wrap up my one-sided discourse on gun control and the need for the right for self-defense.
I’ve already written about all I could think of here:
Massacre in a Gun-Free Zone
Armed Resistance
The facts about gun-control
However, I actually recommend, if you’re pressed for time and would prefer better writing, that you do not read those and instead, read the articles on this blog:
A quick index to our articles on guns, gun control and gun free zones.
It includes a letter from a Virginia Tech student who can legally carry a concealed weapon in the state of Virginia and many other states, but would be considered a criminal if he had carried it onto campus property for the purpose of defense.
An incredible story about the increase of police states and yet the decrease of actual security under these conditions.
Articles on the facts and figures, not just anecdotes and feel-good opinions, on the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of gun control and rising crime.
And another post on the same blog that must not be missed!
The failure of the state and national tragedies.
Wow. If you must read only one blog entry, read that one!
It deals with the absurdity of relying on the State to provide your personal security and rescue you from harm when the best the State can do is create bureaucracies and enforce a police state that does no one any good except the State. He includes some very compelling situations, like this one:

Government is very good a waiting when situations are dangerous. I lived in San Francisco during the “big one” (1989 not 1906). When the Cypress viaduct of Interstate Highway 880 pancaked, trapping dozens of people and killing many, the government set up a perimeter and sat there debating what to do. People were dying and bureaucrats were discussing the costs and benefits of saving them. Private citizens were rescuing people, bureaucrats were having donuts and coffee and debating the issue.

The residents of the impoverished neighborhood surrounding the viaduct improvised ladders and climbed up to the trapped people. One by one they saved lives. The professionals turned up and halted this sort of “vigilante” rescues. They ordered the people to go home and let them “do their job” and then they did nothing! Angry residents sneaked around to the other side of the highway and continued their rescues surreptitiously.

I really can’t possibly bleet on any more about this topic. Please read The failure of the state and national tragedies. It will really make you think! (If you’re not adverse to thinking, that is)

Jennifer’s “Idle Rambling Thoughts of an Abstract Thinker” has a post regarding how even though so many people did the right thing regarding VT Killer Cho, the broken system can be blamed for Cho having been out and among us instead of institutionalized:
How the Mental Health System Fails Us.
It’s a good article and I can’t say much to add to it.
She discusses how the “reformation” of the mental health system (read: “dismantling and defending”) under Reagan, thousands of people who needed institutionalization were released to the general public where they find themselves homeless or in prisons. When I was earning a psychology minor back in the mid-90′s, I had one psych’ professor who wasn’t just a teacher but whose primary career was working in the “real world” with mental illness and children. And he told us all about this problem back then–and nothing has changed since then.

This is one of those instances where I know libertarian-capitalism and anarcho-capitalism would completely fail. True Libertarians and complete privatization capitalists believe that all social services would be better served completely privatized. Money would be spent smarter and more efficiently, and citizens would take over more efficiently where the government was once responsible. But I simply can’t see that happening when it comes to mental health. As Jennifer observes, mental health is not a sexy topic. People don’t want to acknowledge it, much less deal with it (and I will readily admit, that I am very guilty of being biased and unfair about the topic myself.) But I can’t see how complete privatization would improve the already ignored, dismissed, underfunded mental health system.

Anyway, good article over there.

As I’ve mentioned, I listen mainly to “liberal” radio, Air America (because I agree with what they say 80% of the time and they have been logical, reasonable, and intelligent whereas “conservative” radio has been predominately racist, hate-filled, ignorant, and without reason.) Except in the area of gun control the last few days, in which the roles have reversed.

Except today. With NBC’s seemingly gleeful release of the VT killer’s photos and video and rambling sociopathic paranoid delusion, I have heard nothing except universal condemnation of NBC and in some cases the media at large for the obsessive coverage of the killer. Never in the couple/few years I’ve been listening to politically slanted radio (I’ve been listening to NPR for a couple decades now but I don’t consider them slanted even though some accuse them of being liberal as well,) and I can’t recall a single event in which every radio host and every caller were united in their opinion as they have had nothing but disgust and anger at NBC for the needless and pointless release of this material, and the media’s saturation of it.

Victims’ families that were set to appear in interviews on NBC have pulled out today in response to NBC’s actions and good for them! What NBC has done is exactly what Cho wanted. They have served as his tool for his delusion. What they did is unconscionable, reprehensible, irresponsible, and reckless. As I said yesterday, all this media coverage isn’t going to make someone snap and kill spree, but it does add to the probability that instead of committing suicide that they decide to go out in a blaze of legendary homicidal glee to be played out for all the world and in hi-def. You’re a messed up, paranoid, anti-social kid and you want the world to recognize you and have your name live on in infamy? The media has guaranteed you that privilege if you send them a video before you go on a rampage.

I just opened up cnn.com and looking back at me was no less than three, different images of Cho Seung-Hui (the Virginia Tech killer) looking back at me in various self-photographed poses with his guns and the NBC News logo in the corners, and sixteen links to articles about him, his past, the guns he bought, the package he sent to NBC, the “death trap” that’s the campus, etc. He got exactly what he wanted: stardom, attention, his words and message to get out. His message heard. He won.

And a minute ago I received this e-mail from my college president:

I want to inform all members of the University community that at 7:48am this morning, the Office of the President received an email that contained threats against various categories of individuals. The email had been sent first to an instructor of a Spanish class and to the Head of the Modern and Classical Languages Department. The individual believed to be responsible for sending the threatening email was detained in Craig Hall by [local] Police and University security officers. He has been removed from the building and is being questioned. Craig Hall was locked down briefly so officers could search the building. They determined that Craig Hall is safe to be reopened and classes are being conducted as scheduled. We believe this threat has been responded to quickly and effectively and that it no longer poses a risk to the campus. [-snip-]

As I understand, over the last few days there have been threats and bomb scares on campuses all over the country. Cho got exactly what he wanted, he became the Christ-figure for disturbed and marginalized people with violent fantasies who think in their paranoid delusion that they can become “someone important” through violent acts. He’s a star!

So what do we do? The news has an obligation to report the news and VT was certainly news. But at what point does the 24-hour/7-days-a-week news machines like CNN and MSNBC become part of the problem by aggrandizing, celebritizing these wackos and giving legitimacy to their delusions? Making it more inviting for on-the-edge behavior/mentally disturbed people to follow suit? What responsibility does the news companies have in keeping these mass murderers from getting what they want? How do we prevent it?

I don’t know. I have no answers. Nothing grounded in reality, that is. Do we just let it continue as it will, and just think of “gun-free zones” as game preserves for the violently disturbed?

Let’s put the 2nd Amendment aside. It’s irrelevant. If it needs to be changed or removed, we can do that. if we couldn’t change the Constitution, we’d still have slavery and women couldn’t vote. Let’s just talk about facts and figures and reality, politics and Founding Fathers aside.

To do this, we have to put aside emotion. For example, the VT massacre is a horrendous, terrible, emotional devastation. Mistakes were made by many, wrong decisions made, fingers can be pointed, blame can be shifted, and the bottom line is still 33 dead and 21 wounded. But we can’t base decisions about social policy on emotion. Gun laws and gun control is one of those topics that sparks strong emotion but of all things must be looked at objectively and dispassionately.

I tried looking for statistics regarding crime rates and gun control, and honestly, the only things I could find that said there was less crime in countries with stricter gun control either a) did not have any facts to back that up, or b) presented a couple of numbers out of context that are meaningless with that needed context. The US has had more crime than Denmark and England 200 years ago, so saying the US still has more crime than those countries today is meaningless (and as we’ll see, most likely false!) You have to look at trends to see whether crime is falling or growing comparatively and over what periods in time, as well as look at HOW crime is reported! As we’ll see, that makes a huge difference if the US Justice Dept. reports ALL homicide from the police and does not change that number as that crime may get pleaded down or thrown out of court later, vs. England which changes its homicide rates to reflect only homicide convictions. Or Japan which has an epidemic of under-reported crime to the police, and then systematic under-reporting of crime from the government to the UN and media services.

So, here’s what I found. First was a commentary, as I blogged before, by “Classically Liberal” regarding citizen defense using firearms and rising crime rates in Great Britain following their outlawing of nearly all civilian firearms:
When mass killers meet armed resistance.
Reason Magazine’s “Gun control’s twisted outcome.” which examines in great detail the crime rates of the US vs. the UK and the disparity in reporting, the trends, which shows that the UK has one of the worst crime rates comparable to the US and worse than the US in some cases despite their extremist anti-gun laws.
Wikipedia’s entry (don’t freakin’ dump on Wikipedia. Yes it has problems, but is it any less valid than the New York Times which has come under repeated scrutiny for made-up articles and poor to non-existent fact-checking? Studies have shown Wikipedia to be no less accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica…) on crime statistics and facts regarding states with restrictive laws vs. their crime rates.
American Enterprise Institute’s John Lott Jr.s article regarding the failure of gun control laws.
Michigan New’s article comparing Canada’s higher than realized crime rates and their tough anti-gun laws.
An extensive article with an extensive bibliography on “Doctor’s for Sensible Gun Laws” regarding Canada’s crime rates vs. their gun laws.
The NRA’s (yeah, the NRA. If it was just them I’d pass them off as unreadably biased, but their facts match up with so many other sources’) fact sheet on crime rates in countries with high gun control laws.
And finally, a PDF (see link as bottom of the page) with a ridiculous amount of facts and statistics regarding crime rates and gun laws with a ridiculous amount of stated sources, many from governmental and independent sources.

It’s an overused statement, but it’s true: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. All these facts bear that out. If you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns and crime will not go down!
If you want to stop gun crime, you HAVE to fix the problem at the source! The same is true for this “Drug War” and so-called “War on Terrorism.” People commit crimes not because they have a gun available to them, but because of sociological ills. Poverty, social disempowerment, drugs, mental instability…. Removing guns is not going to stop people from killing, raping, robbing, suicide, killing sprees. It will simply make it so that the only people with guns are those already willing to break laws in the first place.

As I believe “Classically Liberal” stated, the police cannot be trusted to protect you. The police are not personal body-guards. Criminals go to great pains to commit crimes where police are nowhere around, and they prefer victims that can’t fight back. Police, gods bless them for doing a job I never could!, come around after the crime is already committed and try to catch the criminals after the damage is already done. This isn’t a slam against the police (I have GREAT respect for them!) this is a statement of fact.

Again, as always, I would MUCH prefer if there were no guns at all ever anywhere in the world. Even if that happened, people would go back to knives, swords, clubs, glass, clubs, whatever, and still commit crimes. It’s a fantasy to believe that removing guns from legal ownership will reduce crime. Logic refutes that, the facts refute that.

I’m just astonished the reversal of reason I’m hearing on “liberal” radio. Most of the time I listen to liberal radio like Air America because they make rational sense. And the “conservative” radio people are emotional pit-bulls spewing hate mongering and fear and irrational illogic. But, the last couple of days, I’ve been entirely ashamed of liberal radio for their devolving into emotionally based ideologues and complete twisting of the gun control issues.

For example, just last night I was listening to a conservative radio show where a fellow was talking about a school shooting that was stopped by an armed assistant principal (more on that in a sec,) and talked about the Israeli professor at VT who put himself between the gunman and his students, trying to give them time to escape. That professor, being an Israeli and most likely trained as most Israeli’s are in dealing with armed assailants and terrorists, if he was armed he’d probably have been able to end the slaughter. And they very rationally and calmly discussed the issue of allowing teachers and faculty to carry guns on school grounds. I switch over to liberal radio, in within 5 minutes the host was asking someone about the “conservative plan” to “allow all kids to bring guns to school.” Not once in my listening to conservative radio did I hear anyone suggest allowing kids to bring guns to school (with one slight exception: One host had mentioned how back in the 50′s his high school had a gun club, and back then when there were no gun laws, no one was afraid of guns. People brought guns to school and no one thought anything of it. But he admitted that was a different culture, and he was not advocating going back to that–he was just pining for those days.) There’s a lot of talk on conservative radio about training teachers and faculty and allowing them to voluntarily carry, but nothing about kids. Yet, that’s all the liberal radio can seem to parrot is this idea that the “gun nuts” want all the kids with their partying and relationships issues to start “packin’.”

So, I’d heard here and there about some examples of where armed resistance by civilians stopped shooting sprees, and it interested me that in the two examples I heard, the armed citizens never fired a shot, there was not big shootout and chaos, and disarmed the gunman. I started looking for these examples, and found that Classically Liberal already found them for me. *grin* Check out the post: When mass killers meet armed resistance. He discusses four instances in which armed civilians (and one off-duty police officer not in his jurisdiction who just happened to be on the scene) stopped mass murder, and without the scene devolving into mass chaos and anarchy.

I checked out the requirements for a concealed-carry permit in Missouri, and here’s is part of the training you must receive before you qualify for the permit:

1. Handgun safety in the classroom, home, firing range, and while carrying the firearm in a holster.
2. Physical demonstration by the applicant demonstrating ability to safely load and unload a revolver and a semiautomatic pistol.
3. The basic principles of marksmanship. This will include information on different techniques.*
4. Instruction on the “care and cleaning of concealable firearms”.
5. Safe storage of firearms at home. This may include different types of storage devices.
6. Missouri’s requirements for getting a license to carry. This includes legal requirements.*
7. The laws relating to firearms in chapter 571 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri. This involves the transfer of firearms, who can possess firearms, and what firearms are prohibited or restricted.
8. Laws relating to “justifiable use of force as prescribed in chapter 563, Revised Statutes of Missouri”.

The liberals (it’s so weird for me to use that term in a pejorative sense) want to paint people who carry as “gun-tottin’ wild west vigilantes.” I’ve read gun advocacy newsgroups and forums, and the majority of sentiment I see is people who want to protect themselves and their loved ones, who pray and hope they never have to draw their gun. Most people on newsgroups and boards talk with pride about never having to draw their firearm. They want to be secure, not just be told they’re secure.

As for gun laws, Great Britain has outlawed all private possession of guns, period. Yet their crime rate is soaring and the UN has declared Great Britain has the worst gun black market of any western nation. Again, if that magic wand could be found that made ALL guns disappear and never made again, I’d love that to happen. But it can’t, it won’t, never will. And so long as criminals have access to guns (and they always will no matter how many laws are in place,) the people should also have access AND be properly trained in their use and keeping!

(An update at bottom.)

Yesterday 32 students and teachers were killed, another 30 injured, by a Virginia Tech student (who killed himself) using two illegally obtained handguns. I’m not going to bother summarizing events as anyone capable of turning on a computer is being inundated via Internet, TV, radio, with all the facts and opinions, and speculations regarding how such a massive tragedy could have happened and how it may have been prevented or what mistakes may have been made allowing it to be as bad as it is.

The son of someone prominent in the IAFA regulars was killed. Chances are the deeper I go in my education and networking and conference attending and so on, the closer the inevitable future campus shootings will more directly affect me. It may even be the campus I’m on that may have a shooting like this, one day. I take modest comfort in knowledge of the numbers and odds and seeing that chances are likely I’ll never be anywhere near a shooting–but like I said, the number of people I know in various colleges around the country is growing…and then there’s my daughter who will be attending college sooner than I want to figure.

So, obviously, after something like this, the discussion turns to gun control. But before I discuss, or rant, or angst over the subject, let me get the topic of religion done and out of the way quickly (as of course with me, all things have some way to connect negatively to religion.) Memoirs of a Skepchick blog has an article Oh, God. Not again. She brings up how one survivor thanks God for looking out for her, claiming she lived because God was watching out for her. What people so often ignore is the unstated major premise of statements and belief like that: The 32 (33 if you want to count the killer) dead and 30 injured were not worthy of being watched by God, God killed them by being omniscient and omnipotent but doing nothing to prevent their death, pain, suffering, and suffering of their families. This person who escaped harm and praises God as her protector may be a nice, generous, wonderful, humble person for all I know. Even so, the incredible arrogance that underlies her belief is astounding and mind-boggling. That for some reason she is so special as deserving of God to directly interfere in reality and specifically watch out for her while 60 innocent people and their families are evidently not worthy of being watched over. Sickening.

OK, that done with: guns.
This is a mindbendingly tough subject. Last night I listened to conservative, Republican radio and this morning to liberal radio–and the attitudes and sentiments and calls to action were almost absurdly humorously diametrically opposed. Rarely have I ever heard such directly opposite viewpoints so adamantly expressed and forcefully defending with all resources of both reason and emotion.

On the “right” side is talk of the absurdity of gun control. The point is brought up that these massacres that happen: Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Amish church/school shootings, dozens of others over 10 years, happen in so-called “gun-free zones.” They point up, and it seems to make sense, that by the time the police have time to respond and attempt to secure the location, the slaughter is already done with and the perpetrator either has killed themselves or is just waiting around for suicide-by-cop having controlled the situation and fulfilled his terrible purpose. They claim that if only a few trained teachers with legal permits to carry, were on campus, the death could be minimized. Also it’s possible that the knowledge that there may be trained persons with concealed weapons on campus could even prevent these kinds of shootings because the potential shooter would know they would not be able to have such control over the scene. They wouldn’t be able to go around and leisure killing and terrorizing. Their rampage could be cut short, even immediately. And these people do what they do partly for revenge of some perceived slight, but also because it’s a way of ultimate control they psychotically crave. They know they can lord over cowering and helpless people, taking their time before the heroes in uniforms can respond to the confusion they create. They know they can get away with it, possibly until that last bullet, in a “gun-free zone.”

The “left” call for even tighter gun control, more legislation, more enforcement. They bring up the point that more guns around mean more chances of accidental death and injury. Also, they make a good point that when police arrive on a scene that has civilians with guns, it’s insane trying to secure the area. They don’t know who is the killer and who is a vigilante. What kind of even greater chaos could ensue with multiple people pull guns trying to stop one killer? What terrible tragedy could result from confusions and heat-of-the-moment?

What are the statistics?
Classically Liberal has an article: The high cost of gun control. (While I’m really starting to despise his uber-capitalist ideology of privilege, his opinions on personal liberty I think are dead-on.) He did some research back in February after the Salt Lake City shooting, and found the following:
Over the last 10 years, violent crime rates have dropped in the U.S. It’s been approximately 10 that many states have been allowing concealed carry permits. To say that is the cause of the drop in crime would be a “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy. However, the fact remains that in states that have concealed carry laws, the crime and accident rates have not risen like many on the left scream they would.
On the other hand, each time Britain has draconianly increased gun control, the violent crime rates there have spiked. Again, to say one caused the other would be post hoc, but it does beg the question: Why does crime rise at the same time as when the citizenry have their guns taken away, and crime drops when the citizenry is allowed to carry on their person? Is there a correlation?

Another point to be made is that events like Columbine and the recent Virginia Tech shooting, existing laws were broken in order to get the weapons used in the murders. Would more laws have prevented these psychotics from getting guns they already are willing to break laws to get?!

An emotional appeal on the left is, tell these statistics to the parents of the kid who was killed by an unprotected gun in the house. As a father, that argument does affect me. It’s the reason, the ONLY reason I do not currently own any guns despite me high desire to do so. There is no doubt that accidents do happen, and would continue to do so, so long as people own guns. Terrible, tragic accidents have always happened, always will. But the argument from reason, not emotion, proposes that the problem isn’t gun but the lack of ownership responsibility. Far more, FAR more deaths of children occur due to irresponsible auto accidents. The distasteful answer may be, in order to lower the rate of assaults, murder, rape, home break-ins, carjackings, and killing sprees, thus saving hundreds or even thousands of lives a year, the risk of a few more tragic accidents may be the price to pay. If the focus is put on training people to be responsible gun owners instead of making guns illegal, we might be able to lower crime and accidents, both!

The issue of the 2nd Amendment poses a bit of a problem on the subject. It reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

As you can read in the Wikipedia entry, this Amendment has caused no end of consternation, and the “left” and “right” radio stations are laughably polar-opposites in the way they interpret this.

On the one hand it can be argued that the intent of “bear arms” in addition to the initial clause “A well regulated Militia,” is a military one and not a private ownership issue. There is linguistic tradition in “to bear arms” being a military term. The “left” desperately see the Amendment as being a call to maintain a federal (and possibly state) military (or National Guard) in order to protect the State from invading forces.

That’s a good point. But the way it’s been interpreted by 200 years of precedence is this: The Founding Fathers just won a war to win liberty from a tyrannical government. They did this because the people had the same rifles and muskets as did the soldiers of the State. They codified their intent in the Declaration of Independence stating as a vital right of any free people is the right, and responsibility, to be rise up and remove a government from power–with force if necessary–any time that government no longer represents the people.
Now, riddle me this: If the only intended legally armed people were the military controlled and regulated by the State, would this right and responsibility the Founding Fathers so adamantly believed in be remotely possible?
The people must have the ability to depose a corrupt government, and just as important, the government must always know that it’s possible for the people to rise up against its tyranny! In that way, there’s more of a chance the government will remain by the people, for the people, as intended.

Now, although I believe that with all my heart, here’s a problem with that which I’ve been consternating over for some time: In this day and age is it even possible to revolt against the government?
During the Revolutionary War, the people and the Brits had the same weapons. Even access to cannons. The arms race between State and people were tied. Today, the people have rifles and shotguns and some pistols; the government has Abrams tanks, fighter jets, Apache helicopters, fully automatic machine guns, NBC weapons, etc. etc. Granted, the bloodshed would be so horrendous it would put Iraq to shame, if the American people found the need to rise up against its government, and the people may ultimately loose–but some say that very potential helps keep something like that from ever happening in the first place. I don’t know, I honestly don’t. As much as I believe in the 2nd Amendment, as much as I believe the people must be able to put down a tyrannical government, if the 2nd Amendment is about fighting against and protecting yourself from your government and yet it’s no longer possible to do so, perhaps the 2nd Amendment is meaningless and should be repealed? It’s not like the Constitution is written in stone by the hand of God, and the fact there are built-in rules for amending the Constitution (which has used 27 times so far,) means parts that are worthless or no longer valid can be removed. In fact, Thomas Jefferson (who used to be my hero for years, but I’m rethinking the status of this ubercapitalist pig-dog,) believed the entire Constitution should be thrown out and remade every generation in order to reflect the needs and culture of that different era. Well, that might be a little much! After all, Jefferson was an uber(I use that a lot)libertarian capitalist who believed all debts should be wiped out every 14 years–and he was a man who owed debts.

Anyway, there we go. The extreme “left” and “right” believe in black-and-white worlds where their particular solutions are perfect and will work in today’s world and reality without fail–if only people would listen to them. But the world doesn’t work that way, but to many people’s chagrin (and head in the sand ignoring of reality–I’m talking to you, fundies.) The world is complicated, people are complex, situations are never black-and-white. If a magic wand could be waved and ALL guns magically eliminated and tools of violence were magically never able to be made, that’d be nice. I’d love that world. If a magic wand could be waved and psychos and sociopaths didn’t exist and didn’t seek to break laws in order to get guns and break more laws in order to do acts of violence, then that’d be great too. But we do live in a world with guns, and crime, and wackos. Is more and more laws going to ever stop criminals (who by definition don’t give a damn about what laws there are?) Are more laws going to stop people from committing violent crimes? No and no! Would less gun laws allow lawful citizens to help reduce crime, possibly. Would accidents go up, maybe.

But here’s how I see it: With super-tight gun restrictions and laws and gun-free zones, you have exactly what happened at VT. Someone with illegal guns freaks out, shoots people, people cower and run and try to hide, the police take time to respond and deploy and secure, while the killer leisurely executes scared people trying to hide–even while police circle and approach.
If just a few citizens there on campus had a gun, what’s the worst that would happen? People would get killed. Hmm. But what would also be possible, is the tragedy wouldn’t happen in the first place because the killer (who was thoughtful enough and thinking enough to have chains to bar the doors and multiple clips for reloading,) would know he might not have free rein to kill as he pleased. Or, he might only be able to get a few shots off, maybe still killing a couple or a few people, before he’s brought down. A few people, still tragic, is better than 32 dead!

So that’s the nut point of view, I guess.

Update: As I said, any death is tragic! I hate Death as a mortal enemy, pun intended. Any one person is valuable, but at risk of sounding elitist, consider this person the shooter yesterday removed from this world: “Kevin Granata… was one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy, the head of Engineering Science and Mechanics Department at Virginia Tech said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.” This lone shooter, with unstable mind and several clips of ammunition, killed someone that may have helped and possibly would have helped, countless people and families dealing with CP and maybe other conditions and illness. This worthless, yes, worthless waste of human life has damaged and destroyed 32, 60, scores of families, perhaps countless other people because of some of the people he killed.
Where is the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God of Christianity in this?
Oh, and those were LEGALLY bought guns, not illegal as I said at the top. Which prompts me to state that the problem is the broken background check system, not the 2nd Amendment.