Spiral of violence

The subject of having the right to own a gun and to have the right to decide about life and death stirs the emotions and several comments have been received and published.

Including one newspaper clipping of a recent story of three young guys who burglarized a house in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, USA.
Boys of 18 and 17 years old equipped with a knife and a machete.
Who selected a house on an isolated road where a woman and her 11-year old daughter were living.
The woman, Kimberley Cates, was stabbed to death in her bed and her daughter seriously injured.
The 17 year old Steven Spader is accused of hitting the woman with the machete.

One can conclude from this story that it is a wise thing to have a gun in the house.
To say that if the unfortunate woman in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, USA would have had a gun, she could have killed the three boys and saved her life.

Although this presumption is very hypothetical and another version could be made that even having a gun would not have been very helpful, there is another side to the story.

Let's have a look at those boys.
A 17 year old boy who goes with two young friends armed with a knife and a machete to a house that is on an isolated road obviously with the intent to make amok.
How is such an idea and such a plan coming up in the head of a 17 year old?
In what context is he living that this is in his head and in those of the two others, as a viable plan to do?

One thing that is known of these boys is that they were in the possession of marijuana.
They were users of soft drugs.

That gives us revealing conclusions:

1/ There is marijuana available in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, USA: also for under 18 years old boys.

2/The boys had money to buy the stuff.

3/The parents have sons that are on dope: the parents have tolerated this or their relationships with their sons were such that they didn't know.

But more can be said of the context of these boys.

What prospects do they have currently in the USA?
The banks were allowed to wreck the economy.
The politicians made the USA virtually bankrupt.
Non-employment and therefore job opportunities are very low.
In what perspective do these boys live?
To make a decent living?
To have a career?
To have affordable health care?
Is their future looking positive or negative?

And what do these boys see when they watch TV?
Cage fighting for example.
It is allowed to show on TV in the USA men that fight barehanded and are allowed to almost do anything to the other to incapacitate.
It is very violent, cruel, degrading and animal like.
This is though the entertainment offered and tolerated by the authorities.

And what do these boys see in the movie theatre?
Many of the films show excessive violence.
An average film show many people killed in most cruel ways.
Violence is offered as entertainment and fun.

And what do these boys play as games on their computers?
Being a fighter equipped with an arsenal of weapons scoring points for each opponent killed.
Computer games played for hours and hours and what does that do to the brains and thinking of young boys?

What kind of society is that in which these boys grow up then?
Can we not expect that in such a context for sure a certain percentage of people lose balance and become as animal like as what is projected on them?

And is the solution then to buy a gun to defend your home?
Isn't the USA caught in a spiral of violence?
Instead of working together to create a better and more peaceful society?


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A family affair

Yesterday the posting ended in this way:

A burglar gets into a house to steal.
The house owner wakes up, grabs his gun and kills the intruder.
Now the house and gun owner lives knowing he has killed a man.
How will that feel?

The posting received several comments.

One of them anonymous: the person commenting decided not to make himself or herself known.
Not the most courageous attitude possible.

The comment was this:

"It would feel great. Besides, the intruder was there to torture, rape and murder your family. And take your DVD."


Imagine a burglar gets into a house to steal.
The house owner wakes up, grabs his gun and kills the intruder.
The question then is: how does the house owner know that the intention of the burglar was to also torture, rape and murder the whole family?
It is too late to ask this to the burglar: he is already killed.
Therefore, it is a presumption of the house owner.
A presumption that is come up with to justify the act of killing.
What if the burglar had no intention whatsoever to do anything else but robbing the family of their DVD-player?
Then someone was killed for the wrong reasons.
Leaving one dead.
But also having among us a killer.

The fundamental question is whether we want to live in a society where each individual is allowed to be a judge.
Whether we want a society where decisions about life and death, about respecting laws and punishment, are left exclusively to the judicial powers or not.

If a society allows simple citizens to also be part of the judicial system, a kind of wild west is tolerated.
To posses weapons and the use of them is then a result.

A man returns home late at night.
His brother wakes up of the noise and believes it is a burglar.
He grabs his gun, goes downstairs, sees a shadow moving around in the living room and shoots the intruder.
His own brother.


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A life is a DVD-player

Recently a conversation with an American friend.
Who made a blunt statement when talking about having guns.
He said that if a burglar enters his garage to steal, he wouldn't mind.
But if that burglar enters his house, he would shoot him.

The friend is probably not the only American who has the opinion that the right to have a gun and to use it to defend property is a fundamental right.
Including the right to decide about life and death of another human being if for example that person wants to steal the DVD-player.

This idea to have the right to carry a gun to defend oneself originates from the beginnings of the USA.
But we should ask ourselves if this did not get out of hands.

We may wonder for example if the weapons that are for sale these days in the USA are all designed for defending life and property.
If a catalogue of a weapon shop is studied, one sees many weapons not to defend but to make war.

Another vital issue is that to have the right to posses guns to defend life and property is not as Thomas Jefferson envisaged it.
He said:

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334.

Clearly he states that the weapons one is to have are to protect against the tyranny in government.
Not against the DVD-player thief.

And check what George Washington had to say about this matter:

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good"
-- George Washington

His concept that a society where firearms are anywhere and everywhere, paints a militaristic state.
Where people keep themselves in control through fear, violence and killing.
Washington's is a barbaric way of thinking falsely supposing that evil interference can be neutralized and stopped by firearms.
"All that is good" is never thinking in terms of firearms, and conflict solving through brute violence.
A society is likely to be harmonious and peaceful without that anywhere and everywhere are firearms.

A burglar gets into a house to steal.
The house owner wakes up, grabs his gun and kills the intruder.
Now the house and gun owner lives knowing he has killed a man.
How will that feel?




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Shots in Starbucks

One of the delights when traveling in the United States is to go in the morning g to a Starbucks coffeeshop to have a café latté, a chocolate chip cookie and a New York Times newspaper.
This all costs a lot of money but it is worthwhile the treat.
But next time when the United States is visited more thought will be given whether to visit a Starbucks
coffeeshop.
The reason lies in the fact that in 43 of the 50 states of the United States it is allowed to openly carry a gun.
Many similar places like Starbucks do not allow customers to come into the shop with a gun on the hip.
But Starbucks recently agreed that in their coffeeshops it is no problem.
After having been put under pressure by a pro weapon lobby.
Members of which would go to a Starbucks with a revolver and legally challenge the coffeeshop.
Claiming that the law was on their side and Starbucks had to allow customers with weapons.
And now the pro weapon lobby i.c. OpenCarry.org, is happy and satisfied.
You can have a coffee in Starbucks and use a gun if needed.

This decision of Starbucks to allow customers to carry a gun when coming in to the coffeeshop was in spite of protests from anti-weapon organizations like "The Brady Campaign" who delivered a petition to the headquarters of Starbucks with 28.000 signatures saying "Offer espresso shots, not gunshots".

But Starbucks says in a statement on their website:

"Were we to adopt a policy different from local laws allowing open carry, we would be forced to require our partners to ask law abiding customers to leave our stores, putting our partners in an unfair and potentially unsafe position."

The United States is one of the rare civilized and developed countries where it is a constitutional right to have a gun.
Or even to have a whole arsenal of guns.
And in 43 states out of 50 it is allowed to go around carrying a gun.
A device that can potentially damage the health and/or end the life of another human being.

The core of the matter that involves Starbucks these days is a simple question.
Why would anyone want to walk around carrying a gun?
What is the purpose of doing this?
Are there circumstances in the United States society that requires people to have a weapon with them?
Isn't it a civilized and developed nation then?
Aren't the days of the Wild West over?



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http://news.starbucks.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=332




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