calimary
calimary's JournalWelcome to DU, Sissyk and dmoyer!
Glad you're here - each of you! This is a wonderful and healing thread. I think it's one we all need, pretty badly, these days. We have a dog and four cats. I can't imagine life without them.
Damn. This made me cry. Hard.
I hope there are lots of animals upstairs to greet those Newtown Connecticut kids.
I think we all could.
We don't have a golden. We have a Goldie. She's a mutt from the pound and she's the best dog you could ever hope for. She makes people feel better and she's not even trained as a comfort dog. Guess some critters are just born that way. Cats too. This is a wonderful idea and a VERY important program. I hope it spreads to all 50 states.
Welcome to DU, hopemountain!
Glad you're here! It is indeed time. Call them what they are - weapons of mass destruction. Call their use domestic terrorism. I mean - how does it make you feel, to think about how many people in any given group - might be packing heat? I think about that every time my kid's band goes out on the road. In any average show, in any average crowd, maybe one in ten, on average, might be carrying a gun into that venue? What happens when something suddenly spins out of control?
Welcome to DU, lupinella!
Great to have you here - we need you! It's a rather amazing time we're going through at the moment. NEVER did I expect that by now we'd all be sinking our teeth into the gun issue - with the wind at OUR backs for a change. NEVER.
We've been at this for years, meeting nothing but resistance. Our positions were always doomed to be non-starters. Until now. Now, I think we might actually have a chance to get something done. Circumstances of late actually have put the standard group of adversaries with their standard group of talking points - on the run. The NRA is silent, the usual suspects and pro-gun apologists are on defense, treading carefully, measuring their words, and trying to avoid stirring things up, when they show their faces and/or dare to speak up at all. Some of them are even changing their minds, or backing off their rigid refusal to give an inch. And those of us on the other side - are on offense for a change, forging ahead with boldness, and with public opinion finally tilting OUR way. The momentum is with OUR side for a change, instead of it being our side that has to tread carefully and pick our words gingerly and back off some of the positions we really believe in, because we know we won't get anywhere in advancing them.
AND we have a President who's just made it clear, he's throwing the power of his office behind this, too, because he also says enough is enough. I never thought I'd hear a presidential speech dealing so directly with this, and in the way I'd personally want that direction to go. Never thought I'd hear such a thing. Trying to speak about gun controls and tightening restrictions on access and ownership - it was always a non-starter. It was always dead on arrival, stopped cold before it could even get started. Wouldn't even get close to having a fair hearing. More often than not, we wondered to ourselves - why even bother bringing it up? We knew our efforts were born futile, and that we were on the losing end before we even began.
Now, not so much! Whooda thunkit?
The sad part is, though, it took the gun massacre of 20 INNOCENT CHILDREN and several of their teachers for us to get to this point.
No, Bake, actually I don't know that. From every conversation I've had with
gun apologists - this is inevitably where they go. Absolute insistence that their access to firearms is sacrosanct - granted by the 2nd Amendment and shalt not be impinged upon, in any way. No compromise, but a lot of "...from my cold dead hands" stuff. Slippery slope, and all that. It's no straw man at all. It's the default position they always go to, at least from my own personal experience. They'll support regulating churches, and among the males, regulating their own penises, before they'll even consider accepting any such thing for guns. As a matter of fact, they tend to go WAY overboard and start down the road of "if there'd been MORE guns, we wouldn't have had this carnage 'cause the bad-gun-guy would have been stopped by all the good-gun-guys." Which most realistic people would see is just completely nonsensical.
I don't think many people HERE would argue for unrestricted access to guns. You're quite correct about that. But beyond DU, it's out there. Perhaps I've just found myself in arguments with people you're fortunate not to have to deal with or stumble over too much, Bake. And more power to you! But I've found that I might as well be talking to a bunch of M.C. Hammers - all singing "You Can't Touch This."
But I intend to fight for this from EVERY and ANY point of departure I can think of. I'm going at this from every way I can think of.
Blessings to you, my friend! 
The best thing is that we're all talking about it actively again, not just here but all across the country. This issue has come back to life after a long period of dormancy because nobody thought there was any point in bringing it up because restricting access to guns was always a nonstarter. Not anymore!!! This issue is back on ACTIVE, HIGH-PRIORITY mode.
It ABSOLUTELY IS Domestic Terrorism!!!!
I've been pushing for that one myself for awhile now. These people should be labeled domestic terrorists. "Well, then, I guess you side with the domestic terrorists." "So you support domestic terrorism then?"
And these assault rifles need to be referred to by a new name: The REAL Weapons of Mass Destruction. How could anybody look at what happened with the mass murder on Friday - and NOT recognize them as such?
The bad guys are determined. They're not gonna give up the ground they've gained willingly or easily. But our determination MUST be stronger and greater than theirs.
Then maybe he has to be forced to make his stand public.
If you stand by the NRA and insist that all gun ownership of any kind is sacrosanct and untouchable, then man up and say so. Let us all see in the light of day how you feel and how instantly out of touch you are. If you still embrace this shit, then you need to be outed about it. You need to stand in the sunshine and own it full-on, SO EVERYONE CAN SEE. We need to know if these reps of ours stand on the Dark Side. And we need to spread the word about it. Maybe they should start fearing US - being primaried by US, 'eh? They never take us seriously, and usually, this just all goes away after awhile because of benign neglect, because people get tired of fighting and give up after one adverse response or setback, or they think others will do the hard work so they can just roll over and go back to sleep. Hey, it might be THEIR kid next time!
We need to put it in their faces. Put them on the spot. Shine a light on the cockroaches so everybody can see who and where they are and watch where they try to scatter and hide. Let's put it out there in the public square - where are they getting their money? Whose back pocket are they living in? Who do they work for - the NRA or the potential innocent shooting victims we ALL are, in this country? They don't want to talk about this now, all they've got is - "now is not the time blah-blah-blah..." Because they know this is a BAD time to talk about the issue since the public is so - pardon the pun - fired up about it. They want the noise to die down so they can go back to business as usual and not worry about being held accountable. They want to stay under the radar so they can keep taking money from the NRA and keep defending wanton, reckless free access to guns. The last thing they want is for the light to shine on them and for people to start asking them "who's yer daddy?" and "who do you work for?" and "who owns yer ass?" DRAG THEM OUT INTO THE OPEN AND FORCE THEM TO FACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR ACTIONS AND AFFILIATIONS AND FINANCIAL BACKING.
NO MORE!!!!!!!!!!! DAMMIT!!!!!! NO MORE!!!!!!!
Okay then, you've identified another aspect of that which needs to be addressed.
Problem? Okay then. Game on! Let's do what the republi-CONS always do - figure out a way AROUND the problem. Figure out a way to GET RID of the problem. Figure out a way to PLOW THROUGH the problem or change the terms of the problem or reframe the problem and CHANGE it.
Put your thinking cap on and get creative. AND DON'T GIVE UP if you meet with obstruction at first.
If nothing else - offer calcium supplement to the backbones of people like Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who's actually stepping up with a bill to introduce in the Senate. Send a thank-you to people like Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia for changing and opening his mind - AWAY from his staunch knee-jerk anything-you-want support of the NRA. Send an attaboy message to Mayor Bloomberg because he's definitely among the good guys in this department and he's showing some wonderfully loud and vehement and high-profile leadership on this. Find the ones whose opinions are changing for the better and encourage them. Identify the waverers in Congress and the Senate and join a pile-on to push them to get with OUR program instead of the NRA's, because the tide is now noticeably turning and we need to capitalize on it. There are TONS of ways to get at this and get some good results. TONS of ways. And every time you run into somebody who has a discouraging word (I did last night on the phone with a friend), just plow straight through that. It's just their comfort zone - "aw, nothing's gonna happen. We can't do anything. The other guys have too much money and power. There's nothing gonna change." BULLSHIT. This issue has so many facets that, okay - if you can't get through the front door on one of 'em, find another one and go through the front door there. Or find a back door or a side window if you can't get through the front door.
Why not? It's a GREAT idea. Another great idea - that deserves attention and action.
This is good stuff! Because we need to attack this problem from ALL SIDES, not just one or two. It's a multi-pronged problem that involves taking as many guns away as possible, cracking down legislatively, USE the increasing public support for raising taxes - to point out that among the first things that get cut at the state level, after education, are mental health funding and funding for mental health facilities. ronald reagan cut the funding for the California state mental hospitals, and all of a sudden, in Santa Monica for example, there literally were mounds of homeless people on the sidewalks and parks and in doorways. Because of reagan's cheapskate, heartless, penny-wise/pound-foolish funding cuts, these people abruptly had nowhere to go and they were literally turned out onto the streets. I still hate ronald reagan for that.
I tell ya - if I were in a position of power, I'd be the one on a never-ending holy quest to UN-name all those freeways and schools and institutions and memorial bridges and libraries and airports and centers that were renamed for him by CONservative zealots. I'd rip all those ronald reagan labels off and restore them to their former names and try to erase his name from the public arena as much as possible. He's the LAST person on earth who should be glorified like that. I'd start with the stupid-ass ronald reagan freeway out here, and what should STILL be Washington National Airport in Washington DC. That man's policies did more damage and injury to Americans than just about anybody else before or since, except for maybe george w. dry-drunk.
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Current location: Oregon
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