A bridge too far?????

There is a sort of ghoulish fascination surrounding how the debate over gun possession and regulation has turned over the last few days and weeks.

In the wake of the New Town massacre, most sensible people had come to the conclusion that there might finally be some reigning in of the gun culture in the United States. But that was before the National Rifle Association began, or resumed, its campaign to make sure that there is virtually no regulation over almost any type of guns at all.

There is apparently no depths that the NRA will not plumb in its efforts to see that there are no limits on what kind of weaponry that this nations citizens can own. And, they are aided by a corporate culture and elements of the population who will buy into anything that their minds can dream up. Leading that corporate culture are companies like Wal-Mart who have turned a tidy profit since last November selling semi-automatic weapons that are really semi-automatic in name only. These are fully automated killing machines whose only real purpose is to do unbelievable damage to anything that they are aimed at, including any sort of law enforcement that might have the misfortune of getting in their way! We saw that down in Kaufman County, Texas, over the weekend when the county’s district attorney and his wife were gunned down in their home with one of these weapons, leaving fourteen spent cartridges scattered about on the floor of a residence that believed in law above all else. The D.A. always carried a weapon but it did him little good when he was caught in his pajamas! Now they are trying to decide if that killing was related in any way to the gun death of his assistance who died on the sidewalk outside of the court house after he was shot several times by two masked killers. And they think--suspicion--that it all may be the work of a white supremacist prison group who can, as many of these groups can, reach outside of their prison cells to do damage to any and all that anger or offend them in any way at all. In addition, a gun crazed ex-con who was released early from prison in Colorado was killed by police in Texas after he had shot dead the Colorado prison’s chief.

Among those aiding in the cause of the pro gun elements are five United States senators--all Republican--who have decided that this gun issue is a good way to curry to the will of the masses as they plan to use the time tested method of the filibuster to derail almost any sort of gun legislation at all. A few weeks ago it seemed that some sensible laws might be enacted to regulate the purchase of weapons by those whom everybody feels might not need to ever get their hands on them. Universal background checks seemed a sure thing to be enacted as around ninety percent of the population was in favor of them. Now some are blaming President Obama for not acting more quickly while New Town was still fresh on everyone’s minds. But, President Obama had other pressing issues created by the Republicans such as the sequester to occupy his time.

Time has gone by and the forces of the gun have mobilized themselves and nothing seems a sure thing after all.

This gun culture is an extremely ugly thing to behold! And it is evolving even further as its power increases. Instead of New Town beginning a march toward some sort of regulation, it has, instead, become a force and a catalyst for those who believe that a coercive federal government is out to get their guns. And that is really code for the belief that this is a kill or be killed situation: either the government is going to get them, or they are going to get the government! And it looks like that the government is losing the fight as it is constantly hamstrung by forces--mainly Republican--whose real desire is to end the federal government in any meaningful form.

Guns are code for regulation and there are forces inside of this nation that want absolutely no regulation of any sort at all!

These forces are led by people such as the Koch brothers and politicians such as Rand Paul and Ted Cruz who believe in a libertarian sort of world in which only the strongest and most favored can survive. They have been joined by opportunists such as Marco Rubio who see this issue as simply another way to marshal force for their insatiable desire to be president of the United States. Where we now have a president who is a gentleman and a believer in process and law, if one of these previously mentioned souls gets anywhere near the office of the presidency, God only knows what we will have on our hands. Barack Obama is being gradually changed by these Republican/neoconservative monsters into a person who has come to realize that if he is to get anything done over the next four years he must, in effect, become another version of them: a complete phony! There is nothing genuine about this group as they will say or do anything to get where they want to go. The proof is in the pudding as they have allied themselves with the likes of the N.R,A.‘s Wayne Lapiere, whom one newspaper has described as one of the biggest loons in American history.

It is McCarthyism all over again and this time it is the McCarthyism of guns! But, it is really so much more than that. It is an attack on the sensibilities of every American who does not believe in the old law west of the Pecos that used to rule parts of this nation before people came to realize just what nuts and evil people with guns could really do. We saw it in the old west and we saw it in Chicago, Illinois back in the gang days of the 1920’ when a Republican ruled nation roared along toward the disaster that was the Great Depression when it all came to an end and people came to realize that they needed laws to help them get through their lives.

There is a small town down in northern Georgia that has just enacted a law that states that every citizen of age within its borders must now own a gun. They are not the first to do this, nor will they be the last. But, will they be any better off for it than the folks down in Kaufman County were when they found their D.A. dead of multiple gunshots in those pajamas that we have previously mentioned?

When they begin to execute the law who is going to be left to execute the law?

Arizona Republican senator Jeff Flake calmly stated on one of the weekend talk shows that he felt that supporting any form of universal background checks was “a bridge too far!� It is a term that came out of the Second World War when the allies tried to mount an offensive against the Germans that was doomed to failure not all that long before the great war ended. We are in a war now and there are many dying in that war. It will end one of these days but we wonder just how horrific the toll is going to be before we come to our senses as a nation and a people. And, if there will be any sensibility left when it is over or whether we will be some sort of zombies out of the walking dead movies awaiting a hero who never seems to show up. We have a friend whose child is six years old and saw much of the coverage of the New Town massacre until she finally told her mother one night that she had simply seen all of it that she desired to see. Maybe that generation will have to deal with all of it. If that be true it is a long time coming and a long way off!

One of the saddest things that we have heard uttered lately was the comment made by a media pundit that perhaps so many, one day, will have lost someone to gun violence that they will become a political force all unto themselves!

And the killing continues daily--man, woman and child!

IOVHO,

Regards,

Joe

To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.