Tucson Billboard

Gee, what is it like to live in Tuscon? Is all interaction, all communication about shooting? (This comes from HuffPost.) Are right wingers incapable of thinking without reference to this sort of metaphor or analogy?

Kelly-Giffords Campaign Messages

In my post yesterday I speculated, without evidence, that the electoral campaign last fall in the 8th Arizona Congressional District was likely to have involved themes of weapons and violence and that Jared Loughner would not have had to try hard to encounter such language or imagery. Well, here are a couple of examples from the the fellow who ran against Gabrielle Giffords. He is tea party darling Jesse Kelly. The top image is an announcement that reportedly appeared on Kelly's web page - I am not sure whether the event actually ever took place. The bottom image is of the candidate himself going to war, presumably against the dastardly liberals. (Thanks to Stan Banos for the links.. And no do not support the buffoon Matt Drudge!)

If you visit Kelly's defunct campaign web page now you find a standard comment deploring senseless violence. No mention there about this sort of campaign tactic.

Assault Weapons, Violence and Anger.

(Above: Glock handgun with an extended magazine of bullets)

Why does anyone need an assault weapon except to kill people? True, it can be used at a gun range but the potential for misuse by an unstable person is too high. We need to re-ban assault weapons. They aren't needed or wanted when hunting. I'm all for protecting the 2nd amendment but believe that sensible restrictions should be in place too.

The shooter in AZ who killed or wounded a dozen people, including a duly elected Congresswoman, had an extended clip to his pistol, which means he had 30 bullets per clip!! That means he transformed a regular pistol into an assault weapon. Such a clip was banned under the assault weapons ban in America until 2004. It could have prevented this shooter from having 30 bullets, which would have greatly limited the damage. He was only tackled after he ran out of bullets. That would have been sooner had he only had a regular clip. I'm I'll for the right to have weapons and the right to hunt but I don't believe I'm a "radical" for wanting sensible restrictions.

Can assault weapons and extended clips still be found and/or bought? Yes, but it would make it harder and any thing we can do to make it harder will help reduce violence; not end it because that's nearly impossible but reduce it. It would also lower the lethality of an attack. Will it solve the problem completely? No, but we must do something to help curb the lethality of these attacks. In addition, we need to do better about screening people who shouldn't be allowed to carry weapons such as the mentally ill; for their own safety too due to high suicide rates. It's harder to get into college than it is to get a gun in some places!!

I don't think it's infringing upon anyone's right to bear arms to have sensible restrictions on a device that has the potential to kill mass people. Where do gun advocates suggest we draw the line? We don't allow people to have tanks or fighter jets that cause mass destruction but assault weapons of mass destruction are o.k.??? I don't want to ban your hunting rifle, your shotgun or your pistol, so don't accuse me of being anti-gun. I have many family members who own and enjoy guns--that's not my problem. I just want to make it harder for the unstable to get these kind of mass lethality causing weapons.

As a Buddhist who abhors violence, I struggle with how extensive gun laws should be. There is already enough violence and weapons on this planet to kill and evaporate every last man, woman and child. So, allowing people to own weapons and clips of bullets that add to that potential for mass death seems ludicrous. At the same time, it's important not to attach onto anger toward those who support the use of such weapons; anger never solves anything. If anything, it makes differences harder to reconcile.

The advisement from Buddha to avoid violence must extend to our speech but too often we (myself included) allow ourselves to wield angry words toward one another. In physical violence the person dies and thus the violence upon them is short but with angry words the violence upon them lasts sometimes for years. This is not to say physical violence is any less damaging but rather to show how angry words can do nearly as much damage to individuals. I struggle with anger and all too often succumb to it's primitive instinct but I will never give up in working to reduce and eliminate angry words. That doesn't mean we always have to agree with one another but we can disagree without being angry and disagreeable.

~Peace to all beings~

Graphic Politics, The Full Monty

Since apparently, many of the right wing agitators like Palin are scrambling to take down the incriminating evidence regarding how they promote violence, I figure it is important to provide an archive. Here, I've lifted the full graphic created by those lost in Sarah-land. As expected, Sarah sends condolences but takes no responsibility. Indeed, according to her minions she is totally not responsible for the acts of an insane person. Here is the post from The Caucus blog at The Times:

One of Sarah Palin's top aides responded Sunday to mounting criticism that she had helped to incite the kind of violence that exploded in Arizona at a meet-and-greet by Ms. Giffords, wounding 20 and killing six.

In the wake of the shooting, many people drew attention to a map of the United States that had been part of one of Ms. Palin's Web sites that showed targets on the districts of lawmakers who supported President Obama's health care legislation.

Ms. Giffords was one of the targeted lawmakers, as she noted in an interview on MSNBC last year.

In a radio interview Saturday night, one of Ms. Palin's top aides, Rebecca Mansour, said of the map of lawmakers: "We never, ever, ever intended it to be gun sights." Ms Mansour said attemps to tie Ms. Palin to the violence were "obscene" and "appalling."

"I don't understand how anyone can be held responsible for someone who is completely mentally unstable like this," Ms. Mansour said. "Where I come from the person who is actually shooting is culpable. We had nothing whatsoever to do with this."

She added: "People who knew him said that he is left wing and very liberal. But that is not to say that I am blaming the left for him either."

Ms. Mansour, who helps run SarahPAC, Ms. Palin's political action committee, made the remarks to Tammy Bruce, a radio talk show host, on a podcast made public on the internet. Ms. Bruce is introduced at the beginning of her show as "a chick with a gun and a microphone."

Ms. Bruce complained on her show that liberals were incorrectly politicizing the shooting by blaming conservatives.

"We all know that the liberals, there's something wrong with them," Ms. Bruce said. "The reaction on the left was to start blaming somebody."

Ms. Bruce added that: "Saying that a mass murdering crazy guy is representative somehow of the political dialogue going on, especially with the non violent Tea Party movement....and yet there are attach this to the tea party and other politicians."

I'd characterize this as the obtuse making excuses for the obtuse. The shooter in Tuscon clearly had a screw (or two) loose. But he didn't dream this scenario up on his own. And, the Palin crowd are hardly alone; think of all the nutters wearing their guns to political meetings last year. But here is the question to Palin and others: if there is no connection between the assassination of the federal judge and the attempted assassination of the Congresswoman and the murder of the nine year old girl, then why remove the graphic? If it was OK to run that graphic last fall, why not keep it available now?

Graphic Politics

Well, how should we interpret this sort of graphic? I suppose that it is an innocent picture and that anyone who takes it seriously is an insane madman? Guns don't kill people, and pictures don't either. Right. And, of course, firearms belong in church and coffee shops and public meetings. Right, again. I've commented on such nuttiness here before. So where is the responsibility? That is a term that conservatives love to toss around - as though they are committed to values. Is it time yet for conservatives to stand up and not just decry 'senseless violence,' but say 'our rhetoric and our politics inform and contribute to the violence'? I'm guessing that will not happen.

Best Shots (129) ~ Zed Nelson

(156) Zed Nelson ~ ... portrait of a gun owner ... (1 September 2010).

For my views on guns, Americans, and their 'constitutional right' to endanger themselves and their families or to try to intimidate others in public spaces ... see these posts.

Conservatives with Guns and their Fantasies of Revolution

"When American men talk like this, they are usually giving voice to fantasy. Only in fantasy, after all, are governments overthrown by men trained to do nothing more than shoot long-distance targets in a controlled environment. Some of these men seek out unlikely battlefields, where they can be warriors of the future, warriors of the imagination or reluctant warriors in waiting who are passing their time on the Internet. The power of a gun to take a life is not so much a threat as a talisman connecting these fantasies to the real world."

In The New York Times you can find this article on the 'Appleseed Project' which is (despite the preposterous disavowals) a right wing project meant to prepare 'regular Americans' to take up guns in defense of liberty. I find the impulse to own guns pretty inscrutable, sort of like liking Lima Beans. As I've said here several times, I just don't get it. I also have said before that I find the conservative mind pretty much misguided. These folks are not just gun owners, they're paid up subscribers to the rigid, paranoid conservative style [1] [2] [3]. Combine that style with guns and things start to get worrying - even though the reporter from The Times has done his best to persuade us that it's all just magical thinking. Fantasies can be dangerous too.

Speak Out Against Political Violence

Read this report in The New York Times. Ask yourself why the Republican political establishment - elected and otherwise - is not falling over themselves to condemn threats of violence. I find it especially disgusting that my own Congressional Representative "Louise M. Slaughter, a senior Democrat from New York, received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families."

Doonesbury Offers Free Advertising to Starbucks

I don't read Doonesbury much - but Trudeau seems to be focusing his wit on the knuckleheads. Last weekend it was the tea-party contingent. Both strips © Gary Trudeau .... you can find the strip here. I presume this one will go on a few days. And I suspect the guy in the red plaid shirt is pretty much the median gun-toter on line for a soy latte - a 50 year old whose store of adjectives runs out with "Awesome."

A Rant About Guns and Stupidity ~ Coming to a Starbucks Near You!

Last year I read a series of reports in The New York Times [0] [1] [2] [3] about the pastor of an evangelical congregation in Kentucky who was encouraging not just gun ownership, but actively inviting his congregants to wear sidearms to church. And, of course, in Tennessee and Arizona the authorities have passed laws [4] allowing concealed weapons in bars, so long as the bearer of arms refrains from drinking (of course, if a customer has his weapon concealed isn't there some sort of problem identifying who should be refused service?). As a writer for The Times quipped, by imposing that restriction the new laws were successful primarily at "in effect, creating a new category of customer, the designated shooter."

I have written about what I take to be the lunacy of gun ownership here many times before. It is not so much that I am opposed to guns and gun owners. I live in an area where lots of people own guns for hunting. Some people, too, also own guns 'just because' they can or they want to. Sort of like collecting postage stamps or (as I've said before) liking lima beans or not. I'm not worried too much about those folks. I don't hunt and I know that having a gun in the house means it is more likely to be used against a family member or oneself than an intruder. But that is not my problem.

What worries me are people who feel the need to parade their fear and inadequacy in public places where there is no plausible reason to carry a gun. They proclaim 'I don't need a reason, its my right' - but that is not a reason. It is petulance and posturing. We get lots of rhetoric, of course, that there is no need to fear law abiding citizens bringing their guns to political meetings, or church services, or schools, or into bars. But it seems to me a sign of cognitive deficiency to think you need to bring guns into any of those places. Sure you can because in many cases the law allows you to do so. So what? The laws allow you to drive 7-and-a-half-miles per hour in a 45 MPH zone at rush hour too.

If you are going to church to pray, do you think your handgun will protect you from God's wrath? If you are going to a political meeting, do you think your side arm makes people take you more seriously or makes your arguments more cogent. If you don't plan to use it lock it in a drawer someplace safe. If you do plan to use it, don't protest otherwise. It makes you look like an idiot.* What I am worried about is what happens when people with incredibly poor judgment bring guns to places where they are totally out of place. And one pretty good indicator of poor judgment would be bringing guns to any of the places I've mentioned above.

I don't go to church. So I suppose if the faithful want to shoot one another there - or at least be prepared to do so - it is none of my affair. But now, it turns out that a place where I do go pretty regularly is allowing customers to carry sidearms. That place? Starbucks. You can read a report here at The Guardian, where the disdainful writer is not nearly disdainful enough. I need my handgun at the coffee shop because .... why? The barrista hasn't made my decaf, extra-hot, vente, non-fat, soy, mocha to my liking? Or, maybe the kid behind me in line looks dangerous? This is pathetic.

Go here and tell the Starbucks brass that they are catering to idiots and that you won't spend a dime in their stores until they stop doing so.
__________
* Speaking of looking like an idiot, defending your inappropriate behavior by referring to what the founding fathers or the pioneer ancestors did (e.g., bringing guns to church, etc.) is especially dim. Those same forebears treated blacks as slaves and counted them as 3/5 of a person. They denied women the vote. It is a sign of progress that we no longer do those things, among many others. Make the analogy.

Some Burmese Monks Take up Arms.

The Dalai Lama has said repeatedly that war is an outdated policy but some Buddhist monks in Burma aren't listening to His Holiness nor their senior monks. They are tired of peaceful protests and want to take up arms (weapons).

Rangoon, Burma -- If Ashin Zawta has his way, the next time the government of Burma (Myanmar) clamps down on dissent it will have to deal with a new force: monks with guns. "Last September the Army proved too powerful for us and defeated our nonviolent tactics," says the young monk, whose real name, like those of other activists in this story, has been changed for security reasons. "We need weapons. That is the only way we can bring down this regime."

James: This is troubling news in my mind because monks have traditionally been pacifists and urged waring parties to put down guns instead of picking them up. War is a disturbing reality in this world of samsara but it is the practice of those who are not monks though war should be avoided at all costs by everyone if possible. The Sangha is where many lay followers turn too for spiritual guidance in troubled times such as in Burma. The monks are to be examples of the power of peace and non-violence which is the inheritance of all monks from Buddha.

However, that gift is lost and lineage tarnished once monks embrace their anger so fully that they are willing to kill. Can a monk shooting guns still consider himself a monk? I say no. Look at the example of the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh. The Dalai Lama never condones violence to resist the Chinese oppression in Tibet as it only breeds more violence and suffering. Thich Nhat Hanh was hated by both sides in the Vietnam war because he refused to side with Americans nor the Communists. He opposed violence from all sides.

How can we solve and reduce violence as Buddhists committed to non-violence (especially ordained monks who take additional vows from the laity) when our Buddhist leaders and teachers take up weapons despite teaching us non-monks to practice non-violence as taught by Buddha? It would be tragic to see robed monks shooting bullets in the streets of Burma. I hope they retake refuge in Buddha and not in the desire of revenge which only causes more suffering for all involved.

~Peace to all beings~