- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Guns Kill People
Date: December 31st, 2014
Published in: CSQ Common Sense 101, Page 333Over the centuries, there are a number of examples of dogma left over from the days when special interest groups took too much license with the text or interpretation of a lot of good common sense principles in religion. Most writings on religion were originally intended to train the young in how to build a happy and healthy society; how to raise families, and how to treat one another well.
Some confusions came of translation errors, like in the use of the word “Blood”; one of the most powerful words in any language. “Blood” signifies life, death, family, war, history, and – the red stuff that delivers oxygen to the cells in our bodies.
Some confusions came of errors or liberties taken in interpretation and context. Examples of this can be seen in lobbyist discussions often. For example, from the British Bill of Rights from 1689, and Second Amendment to the American Bill of Rights, 1791; came the “Right to bear arms”.
The Right to Bear Arms is a snippet of a grammatically incorrect sentence that states “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”. The New Yorker reported on December 17, 2012, that NRA lobbyists supported by the firearms industry, succeeded in wrestling away a long-held Supreme Court interpretation in the 1980s. Previous to this, the first part of the Second Amendment was accepted to override the second – and individuals were only seen to have the right to bear arms in support of militia.
The financial win-fall for that industry was real enough and firearms manufacturing more than doubled in the 2000s as every citizen now was seen to have the right to bear arms. What was the social result? Do people with more guns kill more people – with guns? If statistics hold, people with more guns kill more people- with guns.
From a well-researched Mother Jones Magazine article “10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down”, January 31, 2013, “Having a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun. For every one time that a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home”.
Unfortunately, like a toxic sludge sitting one foot thick on the bottom of a lake, getting rid of guns from near every home in America, will take a 25 year concerted effort – and the problem may be irreparable as long as wealth distribution remains unaddressed. The Bill of Rights’ original ounce of prevention, was indeed worth a pound of cure – in this example.
Date: December 21st, 2015
Published in: World Peace – The Transition, Page 361Responding to Terrorism
The largest single night of casualties due to Terrorism in France since World War II took place on November 13th, 2015. The death toll of that terrible night was 160 at the time of this writing. September 11, 2001’s New York City death toll from terror attack was 2,997. Statistics on terror are kept by the U.S. Department of State.
Seeking facts on Terrorism provides an understanding sufficient to consider what are appropriate, and inappropriate, Measured Responses.
(McElroy, 2014)
2014 Highest Terrorism
Total Attacks Total Killed Total Wounded Iraq 3370 9929 15137 Pakistan 1821 1757 2837 Afghanistan 1591 4505 4699 India 763 426 643 Nigeria 662 7512 2246 Syria 232 1698 1473 Year Total Attacks People Killed People Injured People Kidnapped 2007 14,415 22,720 44,103 4,980 2008 11,663 15,709 33,901 4,680 2009 10,968 15,311 32,660 10,749 2010 11,641 13,193 30,684 6,051 2011 10,283 12,533 25,903 5,554 2012 6,771 11,098 21,652 1,283 2013 9,707 17,891 32,577 2,990 2014 13,463 32,727 34,791 9,428 (CounterTerrorism, 2014)
Tactics Used in Terrorist Attacks 2014 & 2012
(Europol, 2015)
The reasoning behind attacks.
Terrorist cells and attacks require a cause, funding, armaments, security, communications, and access to an opportunity to be successful. Opportunity for terrorists came in the form of rushed refugee screening in France’s humanitarian response to Syria’s urgent need for relief and early reports also concluded that attackers entered France through Belgium.
2015 Gun Violence Archive in the US Total Number of Incidents 45,575 Number of Deaths 12,300 Number of Injuries 23,351 Number of Children (age 0-11) Killed/Injured 609 Number of Teens (age 12-17) Killed/Injured 2,285 Mass Shooting 309 Officer Involved Shooting 3,815 Home Invasion 1,951 Defensive Use 1,049 Accidental Shooting 1,636 Gun Lobbies in the U.S. asked, and some states even mandated, that Americans arm themselves years ago against similar threats of violence. The solution was a failed one as seen in the chart above (Archive, 2015).
Statistics reveal that U.S. deaths by these guns are much higher annually (12,300 so far in 2015) than the highest per country Terrorism death rates in the world. Iraq has the highest number of Deaths by Terrorism annually; in 2014 there were 9,920 killed. Worldwide, 25 U.S. non-combatants died from a terrorist attack in 2010. Japan had just two gun deaths last year in a country of 127 million people.
Before there were Muslims (recall that the Muslim faith is only here since 700 AD), there were Persians, Germanics, and others groups that attacked the Roman Empire consistently over hundreds of years. The problem persists through history today because islands of well-fed haves will always be the target of starving have-nots struggling to feed themselves on local, regional and now international stage.
Terrorist Militias make up a small percentage of a community. Muslim non-combatants in Iraq are terrorized by a murder rate that is ten times higher than the U.S. murder rate.
People are people; by nature – and also by nurture for the most part. People in Iraq, Syria and Somalia are educated in a way similar to Christian Americans. Fathers in the Bible belt are the head of their households and try to do the honorable thing by raising good families and educating their children not to question wisdom taught by their elders, leaders or Church. Many Americans fought against the Suffragette movement eighty years ago; and 300,000 Americans died in part, in defense of anti-slavery laws 100 years before that.
Jumping to the 100 km view of the planet mentioned in Chapter 1, many of our regions sit at different levels with their minimum levels of human rights, and this is true among the G7 countries where even America could be seen to have more challenges than other countries with high homeless rates, veteran unemployment, incarceration rates five times higher than the next highest G7 country, and the highest population of people in the world, 80%, who believe in Angels.
Even the word “Jihad” – to strive – is misunderstood and misused. The term “Jihad” was a concept to defend Good, but was hijacked by political and religious groups over the centuries to justify various forms of violence (KABBANI, 2015)(Strobel, 2010). “Jihad” is a non-violent concept that can be defended in legal, diplomatic, and economic sanctions to deliver a just outcome. If the use of force is required, female non-combatants must not be harmed, and peaceful overtures must be accepted. The word for war is “al-harb”.
War too – is not a Measured Response. The Iraq War killed one million mostly non-combatants, made a handful of Oil companies and countries very modestly richer, and it also created ISIS by removing the policing infrastructure that managed militias within Iraq.
The French attack on ISIS training centers and armaments in the days that followed the Paris assault was a Measured Response.
ISIS is a militia of mercenaries, and relatively few in Syria, Iraq, and Somalia are Holy Warriors. Following the money – answers important questions about who are the parties responsible for paying these mercenary salaries. When ISIS took Syrian Oil fields, who bought the oil? Proceeds from captured Syrian Oil and support by a terrorized public pumped millions of dollars into a war chest that allowed them to buy weapons. Who sold them weapons? Looting yields little usually, so which are the bank accounts from which paychecks and cash originated?
Putting an End to Terrorism
Young men get on planes from the west to join this Anarchic lifestyle because they do not feel as though they are important at home. They cannot start lives, families, find a home, food, income and other basics of life.
These problems can, however, be fixed by social projects here at home. When solving social projects, consider the following:
- Feed a man a fish – and he can eat for a day. This is the Top-Down example project discussed in Chapter 1. It works, but benefits are often unsustainable over time.
- Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. This is a Bottom-Up plan that ensures self-sufficiency and food for a family for a lifetime.
- Build automated tools that deliver fish automatically to everyone. This plan is a Sustainable Bottom-Up plan because he will have food and he will not be a “have” among “have-nots”. I mentioned in Chapter 6 that Capitalism could provide this as well, but that wealth distribution between countries requires a solid World Peace Agenda, Peace, and solid Transition Economics to make work sustainably.
First Step is to allow security forces to fix the top-down problem – as they are already working on through Measured Responses. Next, as a community, we need to get to work fixing the bottom-up projects that are detailed in Chapter 6 and 7 above, and begin automating our production economies quickly. These are all straightforward projects to run and would solve the problems once and for all.
That is what good leadership looks like; no fear, and no confusion about what are the next right steps. It’s the reason that I attend meetings and write books training others to build worthwhile projects.
Instead of hearing media fear-mongering that pushes us closer to a WW3 and the end of mankind, give our engineers and communities the support to start a World Peace Agenda and worthwhile projects – to “Jihad” – to strive forward.
My deepest sympathies extend to the families of victims of terror. To the 160 killed this week in France, and to the 2,997 killed Sept 11, 2001. In Iraq, 9900 are killed annually by terrorists, in America 12,000 are killed with guns every year, and to the many more families who were born into a part of the world that does not permit enough security to know if they or their families will awake in the morning.
Taking away the root cause of Terrorism is in the providing a Good Life of importance and meaning, filled with worthwhile Top-down and Bottom-Up projects, and strong families for all. The “How” – the process that accomplishes these projects – is described in Chapter 17 and after you run a few projects successfully, you too may come to agree with the approach.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.