[Warning: Graphic animal photo below. May be disquieting to some readers.]
We have slowly inured ourselves to unspeakable horror. And now it goes down as smooth as that latté frappuccino on the morning commute.
It started out as a reasonable thing — as all such things do. But something happened along the way and we fell prey to that most devastating and commonplace seductions of the creative mind (other, perhaps, than the penchant for having invisible friends): the need to create the reality we like, rather than liking the reality we see.
And, with television, we create an ever more seductive simulation of reality, neatly shorn of gore and grit, predators bloodlessly taking prey, murder scenes of white and flashing lights, nary a drop of blood to be seen. We are willing to fall prey to the seduction that we are in the back streets of a town being shelled in Syria, but we are sanitized from the sickening sweet smell of death, of the flies buzzing in our faces, the heat, the lack of what we could call drinkable water and the deprivation of all resources, from diapers to fast food.
And in falling to that seduction of the spirit, we have forgotten what death looks like, and it doesn’t touch us in our video domain. Make no mistake: death is the only inevitability.
Pro-gun Sen. Joe Manchin: Time to act
Kevin Robillard / PoliticoWest Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin — who has an “A” rating from the NRA and is a lifetime member of the pro-gun rights group — said Monday that it was time to “move beyond rhetoric” on gun control. — “I just came with my family from deer hunting,” Manchin said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” ….
Yeah. The GOPs had the weekend to huddle with their NRA masters and the lickspittle talking point that came out was this:
We should have someone with a high-powered weapon (trained, of course, and not in uniform, since that would make them a ‘target’) in each and every school in America.
Oh, and more people should carry concealed weapons. That’ll fix it.
“I don’t know anyone in the hunting or sporting arena that goes out with an assault rifle,” he [Manchin] said. “I don’t know anybody that needs 30 rounds in the clip to go hunting. I mean, these are things that need to be talked about.”
Again, the number of bullets is outrageous, and that’s certainly a problem, but it’s the TYPE of bullets (not regulated by the Second Amendment, please note) that are the real concern, as noted yesterday. The dum-dum and/or hollow point bullets used literally tore those kids to pieces.
dum-dum round used on coyote (see yesterday)
What’s worse, this isn’t particularly notable to the news media nor the senators nor the debate. But listen, just from LAST YEAR:
Gunman used ‘exploding’ dum-dum bullets on deadly rampage as picture shows how desperate victims barricaded themselves in with mattresses
By DAILY MAIL [UK] REPORTER
UPDATED: 12:46 EST, 25 July 2011Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik used dum-dum bullets – which explode inside the body and often kill their targets instantly – on his deadly rampage around the idyllic holiday island of Utoya.
The revelation by a surgeon comes as these incredible photographs emerge of children using mattresses to barricade themselves into their rooms.
Eyewitnesses have described how the mass-murderer was ‘calm and collected’ during his spree, and and explained how they pretended to play dead to escape death.
[…]
And the chief surgeon at a hospital treating victims of Norway’s camp massacre said the killer used special bullets designed to disintegrate inside the body and cause maximum internal damage.
Dr Colin Poole, head of surgery at Ringriket Hospital in Honefoss north west of Oslo, said surgeons treating 16 gunshot victims have recovered no full bullets.
He said: ‘These bullets more or less exploded inside the body. These bullets inflicted internal damage that’s absolutely horrible.’
Ballistics experts say so-called dum-dum bullets also are lighter in weight and can be fired with greater accuracy over varying distances.
They commonly are used by air marshals on aeroplanes and hunters of small animals…
As noted yesterday, dum-dums are banned in warfare because of their horrific wounds … since 1898.
But perfectly OK for “sportsmen” to pick up?
Dum-dums before – 2012
High capacity ammo magazines AND dum-dum bullets caused the incredibly low survival rate at the Newtown school. Don’t make any mistake about it.
Take a look at that damned coyote and then think of your kid or grandkid shot by a nut using THAT bullet.
And ask yourself: WHO needs such a weapon of bodymass destruction?
Or, hell, why don’t we just store our loose nukes in the schools?
That would be a deterrent, for sure.
Wake up, people. If we could SEE the sanitized gore, we’d know what to do.
before and after (1870)
But, as it stands, the idea of having a “designated Rambo” in each and every public school in America is what the NRA/GOP has come up, as even Oregon’s own slimy Dennis Richardson was parroting on Jefferson Public Radio this morning.*
[This is, in part, what he sent out to his mailing list this afternoon:
Establish a program of Campus Responders.
Campus Responders could be two or three responsible adult volunteers in every school (administrators, staff members, teachers or members of the community such as retired law enforcement or military personnel), who are enlisted and encouraged to obtain additional training and regular practice in the use of firearms. Each Campus Responder would have a firearm concealed on their person or locked and concealed in a secure metal gun box bolted in their desks. School district employees with prior military or law enforcement experience would be the initial candidates for this voluntary assignment. No one outside of school and district administration would know the identity of these volunteers.
In short, having armed and trained personnel in every school would enable immediate response with lethal force if and when the lives of our children and teachers were endangered by a mass murderer.
Uh, isn’t this sort of weapons “shell game” Reagan’s old MX Missile program? Or perhaps a very twisted version of “Secret Santa.” Seriously, Dennis?]
If dum-dums aren’t part of the problem, and banning them part of the solution, then we’re the dum-dums.
Tragically and fatally so.
Courage.
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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, an honorary Texan, Clown (ditto) and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.