Month: December 2012

The Battle of Newtown

by digby

Michael O’Hare channels the people to whom that message is aimed and shares some reflections on “the Battle of Newtown”: 

First, the Second Amendment is not about hunting animals and punching paper, it’s about winning a war against the government, and here we have a man who didn’t whine about tyranny, or run and hide: he took up arms like a Real American, went right at the most dangerous hotbed of government freedom-killing subversion, a public school, and put a decisive end to the daily internationalist indoctrination of twenty Connecticut children. But Lanza was not able to kill even thirty people before the jackbooted thugs of blue-state Connecticut imposed their tyrannical will on him, another martyr to liberal sabotage of our Second Amendment God-given rights to insurrection. (Those rights are in the Bible, right where Jesus teaches his wussy disciples to go armed at all times, and practice quick reloading so as to really Render unto Caesar, not just mess with the odd drunk Roman soldier.) The government won the Battle of Newtown in the end, because Lanza was disarmed by the regulations people like Mayor Bloomberg want more of. Government has stuff like tanks and helicopters now, so insurrection (freedom) needs serious hardware. If Lanza (and his mother) had been allowed the belt-fed machine guns, grenades, armor-piercing rockets, and ground-to-air artillery the constitution plainly allows but our surrender-monkey disarmers do not, he could have given the UN a real warning. Patriots need stuff to take down an invisible black helicopter, not toys from an old western movie. 

Some, however, may not see Lanza’s intervention exactly as a blow for freedom but in a slightly different light, perhaps as an insane explosion of savagery. Never mind: just turn the page to the other lesson, the one about the importance of arming everyone all the time to prevent mayhem. Everyone, even the principal, went to work without so much as a little .25 caliber automatic, never mind the Uzi, slung dashingly over the shoulder for easy use, that should be a part of every responsible teacher’s equipment. (I myself have nothing but chalk on my sleeve to maintain order in the classroom, and that Uzi would be a real asset to my pedagogy.) 

But what about the kids, Professor Volokh? A safe society is one where everyone packs heat all the time: wouldn’t it build character for for citizens to learn their responsibility early on? There’s no problem finding a firearm for small hands: if every one of them had had a piece in his desk, and opened up on Lanza from all directions right away, only a few more would be dead now, maybe even fewer, and the survivors would have learned about pride and self-sufficiency instead of fear and surrender. We have fire drills; don’t we care enough about our kids to give them rapid-fire drills? And come to think of it, kindergarten is not too young to learn freedom through armed revolt (see lesson one above): what more oppressive, authoritarian institution is there than a school to its students? K-12 students with suitable weapons could be learning to fight tyranny before the school crushes their spirit and turns them into slaves of big government.

Read on …

Luckily for those guys with their fresh, crisp mancards, the Republican party is already on this:

“Having been a judge and reviewed photographs of these horrific scenes and knowing that children have these defensive wounds, gun shots through their arms and hands as they try to protect themselves, and, hearing the heroic stories of the principal, lunging, trying to protect, Chris, I wish to God she had had an M-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids.”

That is a member of congress saying that. However, most of them are cowards:

The Sunday morning news shows were dominated by discussion of what can be done after the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, which claimed 28 lives on Friday. Several strong gun control advocates, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) appeared on the morning shows to push for tighter restrictions and a new assault weapons ban. Their counterparts on the pro-gun side of the aisle, however, categorically refused to appear on MSNBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ to discuss the shooting.

But don’t worry. If Wayne LaPierre calls for a filibuster, he’ll surely get it. For freedom and liberty.

.

Shorter Ross Douhat

A note about ads

by digby

I just want everyone to know, if they don’t already, that I do not support the ads appearing on this site advertising gun paraphernalia. They’re coming through automatically based on the fact that we are writing  about guns. I have no way of stopping them short of stopping all advertising.

Please do not buy anything from any of these people.  I will make a donation to The Brady Campaign so that their money will be spent in a way they hate.

digby

All roads lead to the NRA

by digby

More evidence about the way the NRA wields its power:

Over the past two decades, the NRA has not only been able to stop gun control laws, but even debate on the subject. The Centers for Disease Control funds research into the causes of death in the United States, including firearms — or at least it used to. In 1996, after various studies funded by the agency found that guns can be dangerous, the gun lobby mobilized to punish the agency. First, Republicans tried to eliminate entirely the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the bureau responsible for the research. When that failed, Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, successfully pushed through an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget (the amount it had spent on gun research in the previous year) and outlawed research on gun control with a provision that reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

David Satcher, the then-director of the CDC, wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post in November of 1995 warning that the NRA’s “shotgun assault” on the CDC was dangerous both for public health and for our democracy:

What ought to be of wider concern, is the second argument advanced by the NRA — that firearms research funded by the CDC is so biased against gun ownership that all such funding ought to cease. Here is a prescription for inaction on a major cause of death and disability. Here is a charge that not only casts doubt on the ability of scientists to conduct research involving controversial issues but also raises basic questions about the ability, fundamental to any democracy, to have honest, searching public discussions of such issues.

Dickey’s clause, which remains in effect today, has had a chilling effect on all scientific research into gun safety, as gun rights advocates view “advocacy” as any research that notices that guns are dangerous. Stephen Teret, who co-directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told Salon: “They sent a message and the message was heard loud and clear. People [at the CDC], then and now, know that if they start going down that road, their budget is going to be vulnerable. And the way public agencies work, they know how this works and they’re not going to stick their necks out.”

In January, the New York Times reported that the CDC goes so far as to “ask researchers it finances to give it a heads-up anytime they are publishing studies that have anything to do with firearms. The agency, in turn, relays this information to the NRA as a courtesy.”

This has been going on since the 90s. Which means that the NRA was among the first major lobbying outfits to employ the science denial that is now emblematic of Republican strategy.

I have long said that the NRA is the most successful single issue lobby of the past 4 decades. And it would appear that they have also been showing the way for the right wing in general for many years. All roads lead to the NRA.

Update: Meteor Blades has more.  Much more.
.

Progressive Videogame Sunday: Mass Effect

by David Atkins

NOTE: This is the second in a weekend series dedicated to reviewing progressive videogames. Last week’s review focused on the brilliant Assassin’s Creed series. It’s my hope that progressives with an aversion to videogames as mindless, sexist, violent entertainments lacking in art will read these reviews with an open mind, and maybe even try out a game or two. WARNING: Major spoilers below….

The entire civilized world is locked in bureaucratic paralysis. The most industrialized nations squabble with one another, each hampered by nativists insisting they protect their own interests against the common good. Newly rising nations are advancing onto the scene and gaining power, causing resentment, economic insecurity and military conflict. Technology is advancing beyond the power of society to keep pace.

And in the middle of it all, a universally destructive threat is rising that will bring everyone to their knees unless it is stopped. But no one will act on the threat or even admit its existence because to do so would mean joining with other nations and abandoning their own petty self interest.

Does this sound like an account of the United Nations summit at Doha failing to deal with climate change? Yes, it does. But it’s also the plot of Mass Effect, an incredibly popular action role-playing videogame series and one of the greatest pieces of popular science fiction ever made.

One of the greatest gifts of science fiction is the ability to postulate a utopian universe of galactic cooperation, making subversive points about the shortsighted stupidity of petty nationalism and war in ways that are acceptable where contemporary stories would not be. Mass Effect is a great example of the genre.

Mass Effect made headlines by creating conservative outrage for its LGBT romance options and tasteful sex scenes. It’s also famous among gamers for allowing the option of a truly compelling and credible female lead. While those social innovations in videogaming are praiseworthy progressive elements of the Mass Effect franchise, they’re only the beginning of its compelling progressive value.

The basic story is as follows: in the near future humanity discovers the secret to interstellar space travel via relics of a long extinct race, the Protheans, who suddenly and mysteriously vanished 50,000 years ago leaving few traces of their existence. But humanity quickly realizes we’re not the only advanced civilization in the galaxy. Far from it. Humanity first runs afoul of the hyper-disciplined Turian race, one of the three advanced races that run the Galactic Council from The Citadel, a giant space station first discovered by the wise Asari, an all-female race that is the most technologically advanced in the galaxy. Its original creators are unknown–as of yet.

After the end of the human-Turian war, humanity obtains an embassy on the Citadel and its own piece of Galactic space, but chafes at the lack of respect from more established races. Each of the three big races has its own problems from nativists looking out for the interest of their particular species, hampering efforts at galactic cooperation. Meanwhile, the three major races oppress a myriad of more minor advanced species with soft racism born of economic and military superiority. One storyline involves some ancient history: in order to quell an invasion from a social-insect-like species (the Rachni), the Council advanced a strong and warlike race (the Krogan) who had not socially evolved beyond a belligerent state of civilization; that race beat back the insect invaders, only to become a galactic threat themselves. The Council’s “solution” to that problem was genetic sterilization of 999 out of every thousand Krogan, leaving them futureless and desperate with predictably negative consequences.

It is into this complex political mess that human Commander Shepherd walks. Shepherd is being groomed as potentially the first human “Spectre”, agents of the Council who have the power to act extralegally to counter threats when the Council’s bureaucracy fails. As you might imagine, the very essence and morality of this position are a major theme of the game.

But Commander Shepherd quickly discovers a disturbing truth: the ancient Prothean race didn’t disappear, but were slaughtered en masse by a race of machines called the Reapers. Their motives are uncertain, but it seems that for reasons that only become clear later in the series they return every 50,000 years to cull every advanced species in the galaxy, and in fact control and shape the very development of advanced civilization itself.

Shepherd desperately attempts to inform the Council and his/her human superiors of the truth, but few will listen: they are far too busy fighting one another and worrying about their own selfish, petty territorial concerns to even believe Shepherd, much less act. But Shepherd does become a Spectre, with authority from the Council to investigate (partly as a way to get out of their hair.) In the process of Shepherd’s investigation h/she must deal with a series of evil corporations exploiting their workers and native species; determine the fate of the last living Rachni queen with significant repercussions for the galaxy, make a series of moral decisions concerning the Genophage and the warlike Krogan, manage solutions to a major war between illegal advanced intelligences and the migrant species that created them while dealing with the inconvenient and provocative reality that the machines have taken on religion by worshiping the Reapers as deities, navigate a hyperlibertarian world of corporate intrigue, all while managing both the Council’s wishes and his/her own racist human command and media becoming increasingly upset at the “alien” influences and allies Shepherd is taking on. And that’s all just a taste of only the first game of the series. Things only get more morally ambiguous and complex from there, but all of them interlaced with the same anti-corporate, anti-racist, anti-nativist message.

When the worst does inevitably come to pass and the Reaper threat attacks the Citadel at the climax of the first game, Shepherd’s actions do save the day but only at great cost–and one of the decisions Shepherd must make it whether to sacrifice many human lives and ships in order to save the Council, or allow the Council to die so that humanity can take sole leadership of the galaxy. The choice, with its enormous consequences for the events of the later games, is yours to make.

Yes, this is a videogame. And yes, it’s even an even better story and experience than it sounds. It’s well worth the time to enjoy, and a beautiful allegory for the same problems the world faces today.

.

Saturday Night at the Movies


Blu Xmas: Top 10 Blu-ray reissues of 2012

By Dennis Hartley

Since procrastinators (you know who you are) still have a little window to send packages in time for Christmas delivery (through the 21st for priority mail, according to the USPS), I thought I’d toss out some gift ideas for you, with ten Blu-rays to consider. Most titles also have a concurrent standard DVD edition available, so if you don’t have a Blu-ray player, don’t despair. As per usual, my list is presented in alphabetical, not preferential order. But first, we need to talk (awkward silence). Well, just a gentle reminder. Any time of the year you click a film title link from this feature and end up making a purchase (any Amazon item), you help your favorite starving bloggers get a little something more than just a lump of coal in their Christmas/Hanukah stockings… (*cough*). Happy holidays!

Chinatown – There are so many Deep Thoughts that I have gleaned over the years via repeated viewings of Roman Polanski’s 1974 “sunshine noir”.  Here are my top five:

1. Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water.
2. Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough.
3. You may think you know what you’re dealing with, but, believe me, you don’t.
4. He owns the police.
5. She’s my sister AND my daughter.

Of course, I’ve also learned that if you assemble a great director (Polanski), a killer screenplay (by Robert Towne), two lead actors at the top of their game (Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway), an ace cinematographer (John A. Alonzo) and top it off with a perfect music score (by Jerry Goldsmith), you’ll likely produce a film that deserves to be called a “classic”, in every sense of the word. Paramount’s Blu-ray has a beautiful transfer, and ports over the extras and commentary track from their previous SD edition.

The Deer Hunter – “If anything happens…don’t leave me over there. You gotta promise me that, Mike.” 1978 was a pivotal year for American films dealing head on with the country’s deep scars (social, political and emotional) from the nightmare of the war in Vietnam; that one year alone saw the release of The Boys in Company C, Go Tell the Spartans, Coming Home, and Michael Cimino’s shattering drama, which was (perhaps arguably) the most intensely affecting of the four. Cimino’s sprawling 3 hour film is essentially a character study about three blue collar buddies (Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and Jon Savage) from a Pennsylvania steel town who enlist in the military, share a harrowing P.O.W. experience in Vietnam, and suffer through P.T.S.D. (each in their own unique fashion). I still remember the first time I saw this film in a theater. I sat all the way through the end credits, and continued sitting for at least five minutes. I literally had to “collect myself”, and no film has ever affected me like that, before or since. Amazing performances from the aforementioned players, as well as from Meryl Streep, John Cazale, Chuch Aspegren and George Dzundza. The film has been long overdue on Blu-ray, and Universal’s hi-def transfer really showcases the exemplary Oscar-nominated lens work by Vilmos Zsigmond (the film did end up winning in five other categories, including Best Picture and Director). It’s a little skimpy on extras, but still worth owning.

La Grande Illusion-While it may be hard for some to fathom in this oh so cynical age we live in, there was a time when there were these thingies called honor, loyalty, sacrifice, faith in your fellow man, and (what’s that other one?) basic human decency. While ostensibly an anti-war film, Jean Renoir’s 1937 classic is at its heart a timeless treatise about the aforementioned attributes. Erich von Stroheim nearly steals the movie (no small feat, considering all the formidable acting talent on board) as an aristocratic WWI German POW camp commandant. Jean Gabin and Pierre Fresnay are also outstanding as French POWs of disparate class backgrounds. The narrative follows the prisoners’ attempt to escape, and the fateful paths that await each. Lions Gate’s Blu-ray release is part of their StudioCanal collection (their answer to Criterion). This edition sports an excellent transfer and illuminating supplements, particularly one covering the fascinating history of the film’s original negative, which somehow survived a circuitous journey (from WW2 to present-day) from France to Germany to Russia, and then back to France.

Harold and Maude – Harold loves Maude. And Maude loves Harold. It’s a match made in heaven-if only “society” would agree. Because Harold (Bud Cort) is a teenager, and Maude (Ruth Gordon) is about to turn 80. Falling in love with a woman old enough to be his great-grandmother is the least of Harold’s quirks. He’s a chronically depressed trustafarian who amuses himself by staging fake suicides to freak out his patrician mother (the wonderful Vivian Pickles). He also “enjoys” attending funerals-which is where they Meet Cute. The effervescent Maude is Harold’s diametric opposite; while he wallows in morbid speculation how any day could be your last, she seizes each day as if it actually were. Obviously, she has something to teach him. Despite dark undertones, this is one “midnight movie” that actually manages to be life-affirming. The late Hal Ashby directed, and Colin Higgins wrote the screenplay. The memorable soundtrack is by Cat Stevens (a disc extra features a recent interview with the reclusive musician, who for the first time talks about how all the songs came together). Criterion’s transfer is outstanding.

The Qatsi Trilogy(box set)-In 1982, an innovative, genre-defying film called Koyaanisqatsi quietly made its way around the art house circuit. Directed by progressive political activist/lapsed Christian monk Godfrey Reggio, with beautiful cinematography by Ron Fricke (who would himself later direct Chronos, Baraka, and Samsara) and music by Philip Glass (who also scored Reggio’s two sequels), the film was considered a transcendent experience by some; New Age hokum by others (count me as a fan). The title, taken from the ancient Hopi language, translates as “life of balance”. The narrative-free imagery, running the gamut from natural vistas to scenes of First World urban decay, is open for interpretation (depends on who you ask). Reggio followed up in 1988 with the equally compelling Powaqqatsi (Hopi for “parasitic way of life”), which focused on the Southern Hemisphere and the First World’s drain on Third World resources, then bookened his trilogy with the 2002 release of Naqoyqatsi (Hopi for “life as war”). The third film (arguably the weakest) takes a kind of Warholian approach, eschewing the organic imagery of its predecessors for a more obtuse collage of digitally manipulated archival footage, making some kind of point about how we are becoming the Borg (I think). Criterion has done its usual exemplary job with picture and sound restoration for all three films. The remixed audio pays off particularly well for Koyannisqatsi; I detected ambient sounds (wind, water, urban white noise, etc.) that I’ve never noticed before, as well as enhanced vibrancy for Glass’ score. Criterion has ported over the extras from the MGM and Miramax SD editions, and added some new 2012 interviews with the director.

Quadrophenia -The Who’s eponymous 1973 double-LP rock opera, Pete Towshend’s musical love letter to the band’s first g-g-generation of most rabid British fans (aka the “Mods”) provided the inspiration for this memorable 1979 film from director Franc Roddam. With the 1964 “youth riots” that took place at the seaside resort town of Brighton as his catalyst, Roddam fires up a raw, visceral character study in the tradition of the British “kitchen sink” dramas that flourished in the early 1960s. Phil Daniels gives an explosive, James Dean-worthy performance as teenaged “Mod” Jimmy. Bedecked in their trademark designer suits and Parka jackets, Jimmy and his Who (and ska)-loving compatriots cruise around London on their Vespa and Lambretta scooters, looking for pills to pop, parties to crash and “Rockers” to rumble with. The Rockers are identifiable by their greased-back hair, leathers, motorbikes, and their musical preference for likes of Elvis and Gene Vincent. Look for a very young (and much less beefier) Ray Winstone (as a Rocker) and Sting (as a Mod bell-boy, no less). Wonderfully acted by a spirited cast, it’s a heady mix of youthful angst and raging hormones, supercharged by the power chord-infused grandeur of the Who’s music. I’m so happy that Criterion was able to get their hands on this one; previous editions suffered from beat-up prints and poorly equalized audio. With a meticulously restored hi-def transfer and a new 5.1 sound mix, the film looks and sounds fabulous. The director commentary track is quite enlightening.

Suddenly -One of the earliest entries in the “conspiracy-a-go-go” genre (about which I expounded in much greater detail here), this relatively obscure 1954 low-budget noir stars Frank Sinatra as a sociopathic hit man who is hired to assassinate the POTUS during a scheduled whistle-stop in a sleepy California burg. Lewis Allen’s film is eerily prescient of JFK’s assassination; Sinatra’s character is an ex-military sharpshooter, zeroes down on his target from a high window, and utilizes a rifle of European-make (these uncomfortable parallels were certainly not lost on Sinatra, who, according to one of the commentary tracks on the new Blu-ray, fired off an angry missive to the head of programming for a TV network that planned to air the film a little more than a week after JFK’s murder). There have been countless public domain SD editions issued over the past decade, all of dubious quality, so Image Entertainment’s Blu-ray, with its transfer taken from an original 35mm studio fine grain master print, is most welcome. There are two commentary tracks, by Frank Sinatra, Jr. (including childhood recollections of being on set) and by Dr. Drew Casper (a professor of film studies at USC, not the shrink on CNN).

The 39 Steps – Along with The Lady Vanishes, this 1935 gem represents the best of Alfred Hitchcock’s pre-Hollywood period. In fact, many of the tropes that would come to be known as “Hitchcockian” are already fomenting in this early entry: an icy blonde love interest, a meticulously constructed, edge-of-your-seat finale, and most notably, the “wrong man” scenario. In this suspenseful, breezy, and wryly amusing spy thriller, .Robert Donat stars as a Canadian tourist in London who is approached by a jittery woman after a music hall show. She begs refuge in his flat for the night, but won’t tell him why. Intrigued, he offers her his hospitality, but imagine his surprise when he awakens the next morning, just in time to watch her collapse on the floor, with a knife in her back and a mysterious map clutched in her hand. Before he knows it, he’s on the run from the police and embroiled with shady assassins, foreign spies and people who are not who they seem to be. Fate and circumstance throw him in with a reluctant female “accomplice” (Madeleine Carroll). Criterion’s new Blu-ray transfer is as good as a 77 year-old film is going to look. The biggest improvement is in the audio quality, which has been problematic in previous DVD versions. A highlight amongst the extras is a 1966 TV interview, wherein Hitchcock shares some candid backstage tales about his early career.

Tokyo Drifter – The key to understanding what makes this existential hit man thriller from Japan’s Nikkatsu studios so uniquely entertaining…is to not try to understand it. Don’t get hung up on silly conventions like “narrative coherence”; just turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. If that sounds like the reassuring counsel someone might give to a friend who is taking their first acid trip…you’re right. Because when this film was made (1966), an awful lot of people were taking their first acid trip, including director Seijun Suzuki (at least that’s my theory). The “drifter” of the title is a yakuza with a strong personal code (and really cool Ray-Bans) who is trying to go legit…but of course, “they pull him back in”. But as he does not wish to dishonor his boss/mentor, who is also trying to get out of the game, he splits the big city to wander Japan and let the chips fall where they may, as members of various rival gangs dog his every step. Highly stylized and visually exhilarating, this is a real treat for lovers of pure cinema. Suzuki’s wild mash-up of genres, which quotes everything from French New Wave to James Bond and westerns to film noir, was pretty bold stuff for its time, and it’s obvious that postmodernists like Tarantino have watched it once or twice. Criterion’s Blu-ray transfer dazzles the senses.

Wizards-Within the realm of animated feature film, Ralph Bakshi’s name may not be as instantly recognizable (or universally revered) as Walt Disney or Studio Ghibli, but I would consider him no less of an important figure in the development of the genre. During his heyday (1972-1983) the director pumped out 8 full-length features (including Fritz the Cat, The Lord of the Rings and American Pop) using his patented blend of live-action, rotoscoping, and traditional cel animation. While I will grant that it is not for all tastes, I’ve always had a particular soft spot for his 1977 film, Wizards. Steamrolled during its original theatrical run due to a combination of limp promotion by 20th Century Fox and an unfortunate proximity to the release of that very same studio’s own Star Wars (much to Bakshi’s chagrin, as he bitterly recounts on the commentary track) the film has picked up a cult following, thanks to home video. It’s an elemental tale of two warring brothers, one good and one evil, who are both endowed with the magical powers of natural-born wizards. A familiar trope, to be sure, but Bakshi renders the story with originality, verve, and a fair amount of dark (and adult) humor (oh…and there’s a really hot elf princess!). Fox’s Blu-ray skimps on extras, but has outstanding picture and sound.

Previous posts with related themes:

Casablanca and I, Claudius BD & SD reissue reviews

Magical Mystery Tour BD reissue review

Saturday Night at the Movies review archives

How many more do we need, anyway?

by digby

If more guns really were the answer you’d think we would have seen some improvement by now:

[E]ven as more Americans now own more guns than ever before and can easily and legally obtain powerful firearms in almost all of the states, mass shootings have continued unabated. 2012 now has the highest number of incidents, with six mass shootings.

In 1995, “there were an estimated 200 million guns in private hands. Today, there are around 300 million” — a 50 percent jump during a period when the population grew by just 20 percent, but gun laws were drastically loosened. In the past four years alone, “across 37 states, the NRA and its political allies have pushed through 99 laws making guns easier to own, easier to carry in public, and harder for the government to track.” Eight states now allow firearms in bars. Permit holders in Kansas “can carry concealed weapons inside K-12 schools, and Louisiana allows them in houses of worship.” Michigan may soon “make it easier for people to receive a gun permit and open up “gun free zones,” including schools. 

Since 1982, the nation has experienced at least 62 mass murders in 30 states and in at least 49 cases, “the gunmen obtained the weapons legally, and the majority of those weapons used were semi-automatic.” 

A Mother Jones analysis of 61 mass murders over the last 30 years found that “in not a single case was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun.” As one leading expert explained, “given that civilian shooters are less likely to hit their targets than police in these circumstances,” arming civilians could often lead to more chaos and deaths.

If this is their proposed solution, I think we’ve seen enough evidence.  It isn’t working.

.

Chris Hayes on the Democratic retreat on guns

by digby

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We now know that the gun used to kill those 20 tiny children was this:

At a news conference in Newtown, Dr. H. Wayne Carver told reporters that the victims had all been identified and their bodies released. Carver said the victims he had examined had all been shot by a Bushmaster .223 caliber assault rifle, one of at least two weapons 20-year old Adam Lanza used to commit one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

“This is probably the worst I have seen, or that any of my colleagues have seen,” Carver said of the killings.

What’s the story on the Bushmaster .223 caliber assault rifle? Lee Fang has the answer:

The National Rifle Association portrays itself as an organization that represents “4 million members” who simply love the Second Amendment. The truth is much more murky.

In reality, the NRA is composed of half a dozen legal entities; some designed to run undisclosed attack ads in political campaigns, others to lobby and collect tens of millions in undisclosed, tax-deductible sums. This power has only been enhanced in the era of Citizens United, with large GOP donors in the last election reportedly funneling money to the NRA simply to use the group as a brand to pummel Democrats with nasty ads. (As The Huffington Post’s Peter Stone reported, even the Koch network now provides an undisclosed amount to the NRA.) 

Despite the grassroots façade, there is much evidence to suggest that corporations that profit from unregulated gun use are propping up the NRA’s activities, much like how the tobacco lobby secretly funded “Smokers Rights’” fronts and libertarian anti-tax groups, or how polluters currently finance much of the climate change skepticism movement.

In a “special thanks” to their donors, the National Rifle Association Foundation lists Bushmaster Firearms Inc., the company that makes the assault rifle reportedly found with the shooter responsible for the mass murder today in Newtown, Connecticut. How much Bushmaster Firearms Inc. (a firm now known as Windham) contributes is left unsaid. 

The Violence Policy Center has estimated that since 2005, gun manufacturers have contributed up to $38.9 million to the NRA. Those numbers, however, are based on publicly listed “sponsorship” levels on NRA fundraising pamphlets. The real figures could be much bigger. Like Crossroads GPS or Americans for Prosperity, or the Sierra Club for that matter, the NRA does not disclose any donor information even though it spends millions on federal elections.

That’s where the NRA’s political power lies. But until their moneyed benefactors succeed in completely dismantling our electoral system, they cannot protect their elected puppets from the voters. So register your horror at the politicians in the congress who dance to their tune.

.

Tactical fantasy

by digby

I hope Josh won’t mind my printing this entire letter from his site. (Please click over there for all the great journalism on this and other topics if you haven’t already.)

From TPM Reader SS …

I’m a pretty left-of-center liberal. Read TPM regularly. Donated nearly $1,000 to BHO’s re-election campaign. But I was raised with guns. More to the point, my childhood was steeped in gun lore: I learned to hand-load ammunition when I was 10 and 11, and – by the time I was 14 – my dad was trusting me to prepare my own handloads. I could (and to some extent, still can) recite chapter and verse of firearms arcana, from muzzle velocities – a product of the type of gunpowder used in one’s handloads; of the weight (in grains) of a projectile; of the length of a gun’s barrel (the longer, the faster); of the temperature and elevation at which one is shooting – to impact energy (measured in footpounds), to trajectories (flatter for heavier bullets; some calibers have an innate advantage over others), and so on.
I bring this up to establish my bona-fides.

The gun culture that we have today in the U.S. is not the gun culture, so to speak, that I remember from my youth. It’s too simple to say that it’s “sick;” it’s more accurately an absurd fetishization. I suppose that the American Gunfighter, in all of his avatars, is inescapably fetishistic, but (to my point) somewhere along the way – maybe in, uh, 1994? – we crossed over into Something Else: let’s call it Gonzo Fetishization. The American Gunfighter as caricature.
The guns that I grew up with (in the late-1970’s and 1980’s) were bolt-action rifles: non-automatic weapons, with organic fixtures – i.e., stocks – and limited magazine capacities. As a pre-adolescent, weaned on the A-Team and the nationalist inanity of the Reagan years, I still remember marveling at the gorgeous glossiness – at the beauty – of my dad’s Sako “Vixen” .222 Remington, with its hand-checkered French walnut stock.

I was raised nominally to hunt, although we didn’t do much of that: once a year, at most. More frequently, we’d go to the range and shoot at targets. So I grew up practicing, and enjoying, what’s commonly called benchrest rifle shooting. I still do so (to a limited extent) today.

Most of the men and children (of both sexes) I met were interested in hunting, too. Almost exclusively, they used traditional hunting rifles: bolt-actions, mostly, but also a smattering of pump-action, lever-action, and (thanks primarily to Browning) semi-automatic hunting rifles. They talked about gun ownership primarily as a function of hunting; the idea of “self-defense,” while always an operative concern, never seemed to be of paramount importance. It was a factor in gun ownership – and for some sizeable minority of gun owners, it was of outsized (or of decisive) importance – but it wasn’t the factor. The folks I interacted with as a pre-adolescent and – less so – as a teen owned guns because their fathers had owned guns before them; because they’d grown up hunting and shooting; and because – for most of them – it was an experience (and a connection) that they wanted to pass on to their sons and daughters.

And that’s my point: I can’t remember seeing a semi-automatic weapon of any kind at a shooting range until the mid-1980’s. Even through the early-1990’s, I don’t remember the idea of “personal defense” being a decisive factor in gun ownership. The reverse is true today: I have college-educated friends – all of whom, interestingly, came to guns in their adult lives – for whom gun ownership is unquestionably (and irreducibly) an issue of personal defense. For whom the semi-automatic rifle or pistol – with its matte-black finish, laser site, flashlight mount, and other “tactical” accoutrements – effectively circumscribe what’s meant by the word “gun.” At least one of these friends has what some folks – e.g., my fiancee, along with most of my non-gun-owning friends – might regard as an obsessive fixation on guns; a kind of paraphilia that (in its appetite for all things tactical) seems not a little bit creepy. Not “creepy” in the sense that he’s a ticking time bomb; “creepy” in the sense of…alternate reality. Let’s call it “tactical reality.”

The “tactical” turn is what I want to flag here. It has what I take to be a very specific use-case, but it’s used – liberally – by gun owners outside of the military, outside of law enforcement, outside (if you’ll indulge me) of any conceivable reality-based community: these folks talk in terms of “tactical” weapons, “tactical” scenarios, “tactical applications,” and so on. It’s the lingua franca of gun shops, gun ranges, gun forums, and gun-oriented Youtube videos. (My god, you should see what’s out there on You Tube!) Which begs my question: in precisely which “tactical” scenarios do all of these lunatics imagine that they’re going to use their matte-black, suppressor-fitted, flashlight-ready tactical weapons? They tend to speak of the “tactical” as if it were a fait accompli; as a kind of apodeictic fact: as something that everyone – their customers, interlocutors, fellow forum members, or YouTube viewers – experiences on a regular basis, in everyday life. They tend to speak of the tactical as reality.

And I think there’s a sense in which they’ve constructured their own (batshit insane) reality.

One in which we have to live.

Thanks for reading. I apologize for having gone on for so long. Hope that you’ve found it interesting,

I’m fairly sure that a lot of this relates to what David wrote this morning, unfortunately.

.

Shut down the pump: a little parable for our time

by digby

Here is an interesting story for you to read today:

British doctor John Snow couldn’t convince other doctors and scientists that cholera, a deadly disease, was spread when people drank contaminated water until a mother washed her baby’s diaper in a town well in 1854 and touched off an epidemic that killed 616 people.
[…]
Dr. Snow believed sewage dumped into the river or into cesspools near town wells could contaminate the water supply, leading to a rapid spread of disease.

In August of 1854 Soho, a suburb of London, was hit hard by a terrible outbreak of cholera. Dr. Snows himself lived near Soho, and immediately went to work to prove his theory that contaminated water was the cause of the outbreak.

“Within 250 yards of the spot where Cambridge Street joins Broad Street there were upwards of 500 fatal attacks of cholera in 10 days,” Dr. Snow wrote “As soon as I became acquainted with the situation and extent of this irruption (sic) of cholera, I suspected some contamination of the water of the much-frequented street-pump in Broad Street.”

Dr. Snow worked around the clock to track down information from hospital and public records on when the outbreak began and whether the victims drank water from the Broad Street pump. Snow suspected that those who lived or worked near the pump were the most likely to use the pump and thus, contract cholera. His pioneering medical research paid off. By using a geographical grid to chart deaths from the outbreak and investigating each case to determine access to the pump water, Snow developed what he considered positive proof the pump was the source of the epidemic… Snow was able to prove that the cholera was not a problem in Soho except among people who were in the habit of drinking water from the Broad Street pump. He also studied samples of water from the pump and found white flecks floating in it, which he believed were the source of contamination.

On 7 September 1854, Snow took his research to the town officials and convinced them to take the handle off the pump, making it impossible to draw water. The officials were reluctant to believe him, but took the handle off as a trial only to find the outbreak of cholera almost immediately trickled to a stop. Little by little, people who had left their homes and businesses in the Broad Street area out of fear of getting cholera began to return.

It took many more years before it was widely accepted that cholera came from the water. (In fact, it took a priest trying to prove that it was God’s will to finally do it!)

But here’s the relevant takeaway: they didn’t need to cure the disease to end the epidemic. What ended it was shutting down the pump.

Here’s another story for you to think about today:

From 1984 to 1996, multiple killings aroused public concern. The 1984 Milperra massacre was a major incident in a series of conflicts between various ‘outlaw motorcycle gangs’. In 1987, the Hoddle Street massacre and the Queen Street massacre took place in Melbourne. In response, several states required the registration of all guns, and restricted the availability of self-loading rifles and shotguns. In the Strathfield massacre in New South Wales, 1991, two were killed with a knife, and five more with a firearm. Tasmania passed a law in 1991 for firearm purchasers to obtain a licence, though enforcement was light. Firearm laws in Tasmania and Queensland remained relatively relaxed for longarms. In 1995, Tasmania had the second lowest rate of homicides per head of population.

The Port Arthur massacre in 1996 transformed gun control legislation in Australia. Thirty five people were killed and 21 wounded when a man with a history of violent and erratic behaviour beginning in early childhood opened fire on shop owners and tourists with two military style semi-automatic rifles. Six weeks after the Dunblane massacre in Scotland, this mass killing at the notorious former convict prison at Port Arthur horrified the Australian public and had powerful political consequences.
The Port Arthur perpetrator said he bought his firearms from a gun dealer without holding the required firearms licence.

Prime Minister John Howard, then newly elected, immediately took the gun law proposals developed from the report of the 1988 National Committee on Violence and forced the states to adopt them under a National Firearms Agreement. This was necessary because the Australian Constitution does not give the Commonwealth power to enact gun laws. The proposals included a ban on all semi-automatic rifles and all semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns, and a tightly restrictive system of licensing and ownership controls.

Some discussion of measures to allow owners to undertake modifications to reduce the capacity of magazine-fed shotguns (“crimping”) occurred, but the government refused to permit this.

Surveys showed up to 85% of Australians supported gun control,but some farmers and sporting shooters strongly opposed the new laws.

This did not solve the problem of mental illness or end the primitive capacity of human beings to commit murder and mayhem. Those are huge problems that their society, like all societies, is still grappling with every day. But it did end the epidemic of mass shootings. They have not had even one since then.

The lesson is this: End the epidemic and then we can — and must — talk about root causes and mental health facilities and our violent culture. But first things first — shut down the damned pump.