Summary: Increasing wealth creates positive feedback, much like a hurricane moving over warm water. A more powerful 1% allows them to command the political and economic high ground of America, so that they can gain further wealth — and shape a New America more to their liking. This process has run for several generations; now the results are plain to see — for all that wish to look. Today we have first of three tales of New America.
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A three-part series: tales of New America
- Today – mad ideology: gunplay on our streets
- Mad ideology: billionaires play with our businesses
- Billionaires mold our schools to produce better help
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Mad ideology: gunplay on our streets
“Well in the first place, an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization.”
— From Beyond this Horizon, a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein (1942).
Despite few precedents for widespread public carrying of guns in developed nations — and no good historical precedents (compare Somalia & Japan) — our plutocrat leaders have funded a movement to overturn a century-old legal regime. They know this will work well, a faith-based public policy.
We will see the results in coming years. Will the streets run with blood, a rising tide which so far worries neither them nor our apathetic citizens? Will we see more article like this: “Pair of men with concealed-carry permits engage in shootout“, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 12 July 2013 — Excerpt:
Two Milwaukee men — each with a state permit to carry a concealed weapon — traded dozens of shots in a rolling shootout through two sides of town and down a freeway, the kind of scenario concealed-carry opponents feared would turn road rage incidents deadly. … the gunfight is bound to spark more debate over concealed carry.
… “I can assure you, he was definitely the aggressor,” said Eric Adamany, 27. … Adamany said he had just left the Taco Bell … and had pulled over to send a text message when a gold Dodge Magnum pulled up. A passenger said, “What are you looking at, white boy?” showed a chrome handgun and fired at Adamany’s car, hit the driver’s side mirror and then sped off. Adamany {said} he reached for his gun immediately but the safety was on. He said he called 911 and began following the Dodge as it headed for the freeway and said that someone in the Dodge fired a few more shots at him. He said the two cars were swerving around other traffic before the Dodge left the freeway briefly at McKinley Avenue, then re-entered, still heading north.
That’s when Adamany began emptying the magazine of his gun, shooting out the window with his left hand while driving and using the phone with his right hand, he told police. “My radiator was hit, and the car was starting to overheat, so I aimed low to shoot out the tires,”
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… According to the complaint, Roy Scott {age 27} said that he and a friend were driving near South 27th Street and West Morgan Avenue when a blue car passed him. The other driver, Scott said, “mean mugged” him and showed a black handgun. Scott grabbed his gun and displayed it before speeding away. Soon the blue car was chasing him, Scott said, firing shots. So Scott fired back out his driver’s window, pointing backward over his shoulder with his right hand, while steering with his left.
Scott said he finally had to exit I-43 at North Avenue because all of his tires had been shot out, and his car came to rest on King Drive. He said the other man was still shooting, so he and his passenger ran away until they saw the deputy on North Fourth St.
Even towns in the Wild West had laws restricting carrying guns.
For More Information
(a) Strongly recommended: “On the Decriminalization of Private Violence“, Andrew Kydd (Assoc Prof Political Science, U WI-Madison), 18 July 2013
(b) “Did Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law Increase Firearm Homicides?“, Eric Voeten (Assoc Prof Justice, Georgetown U), The Monkey Cage, 17 July 2013 — Conclusion:
So, compared to a group of states that had similar homicide rates prior to 2005 {when the law was signed}, Florida’s homicide rate shot up unusually after 2005 (and in a way that cannot easily be accounted for by observed variables).
(c) Click here for a list of mass shootings since 1982.
(d) Other posts about guns in America:
- The Founders talk to us about guns for a well-regulated militia,
24 July 2012 - Yet another mass killing in America. Watch the reactions on the Right, and learn., 17 December 2012
- “The right to shoot tyrants, not deer”, 11 January 2013
- But Hitler confiscated guns, leaving Germans helpless!, 11 January 2013
- Guns do not make us safer. Why is this not obvious?, 14 January 2013
- Let’s look at the Second Amendment, cutting through the myths and spin, 15 January 2013
- Myth-busting about gun use in the Wild West, 16 January 2013
- Second amendment scholarship (using money to reshape America), 19 January 2013
- Do guns make us more safe, or less? Let’s look at the research., 23 January 2013
- Guns in the wild west: regulated, with no fears about ripping the Constitution, 25 January 2013
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