Venezuelan gangs taking over buildings in Colorado? Schools performing sex change operations on kids? Trump isn’t just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, he’s throwing the dinner salad, minestrone, pasta sauce, Parmesan cheese, and salt & pepper shakers as well. Oh, and the after dinner dessert and coffee, too. My mom was a high school math teacher for 25 years and my wife was an elementary school teacher and principal for about as long and they never mentioned anything about sex change operations performed at school, so I don’t think it was on the syllabus in any classroom. Just anecdotal information, of course.
I remain amazed that the Georgia Bureau of Invesitgation, the County Sheriff and Gov Kemp only discuss mental illness and evil as the cause of the Georgia shoot.
I may be off the mark but here is my letter to the Atlanta Constitution.
“
Once again our nation is mourning the murder of innocent life in a school shooting. Regardless of political party or region of the country, all Americans are heartbroken and thinking of those killed, those physically injured and the emotional trauma of classmates, families, teachers and all Georgians.
As I watched the news last night and the comments of law officers and Governor Kemp, the blame was focused on mental illness and "evil" as it most always always is after every mass shooting.
For reference, I come at my comments below as a person who was a life-long Republican but, more importantly, as a former NRA member, hunter and hunting gun owner. My grandfather was a hunter and Registered Maine Guide. My father was a hunter, trapper and a Registered Maine Guide. Growing up, we always had hunting rifles and shotguns in our home. I received my first NRA 50 foot target proficiency pin at age 10. I still have it.
In those days, the singular focus of the NRA was gun safety. Only much later did it become principally focused on representing the interests of gun manufacturers to their financial benefit and that of the NRA and its officials.
I became a Maine Guide at age 21. This was a few years after a high school classmate in our small town of 3,500 accidentally shot and killed himself playing with a rifle with another boy in the cab of his dad's pickup. To bookend this sad history for me, my community this past year suffer the mass shooting deaths of 18 people by a National Guard serviceman who had been reported beforehand by relatives as a mass shooter risk.
My wife and I raised our 4 children on a homestead and farmland continuously in our family for over 200 years. The children were taught to respect the dangers of guns and to clean and handle hunting rifles safely.
As I think about school shootings, I am drawn to the fact that school shootings as well as gun murder rates in the US occur at many, many times the rates in countries with similar histories such as England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The differences are similarly dramatic when considering European Union countries.
It is a fact, just a fact, that states in the US with more stringent gun safety laws have lower rates of child deaths than states that have refused to pass similar measures. This is particularly true in the Southeast US, including Texas and New Mexico.
It is shocking to me that children gun deaths in America are the leading cause of death of our children and greater than occurs due to any other injury or illness, including cancer and auto accidents. The child mortality rate in the US due to gun violence doubled between 2013 and 2021 as AK rifles sales skyrocketed. And both sales and deaths continue to accelerate. The similar country coming in a distant second to the US in gun deaths of children is Canada and children gun deaths there are 10% of the rate in the US. In the UK, according to statistics from 2021, its gun deaths of children were 16% that of Canada.
So I asked myself last night, if our child gun death rates are not due to the accessibility of guns in the US, but due to mental illness or evil, is it because Americans are 10 times or 50 times more insane and more evil than the citizens of other countries? Is that what we are saying?
If we are that crazy and evil, should Americans be given access to guns at all and especially AK style guns designed to kill people as efficiently as possible? Or, at least, should assault rifles be banned as they are in the rest of the Western world, should gun ownership be restricted to people who can be certified as sane and sober, who have passed extensive gun safety training and who also keep their guns in gun safes and locked away from children. Gun manufacturers know exactly how many kids are killed by their AK rifles and bump stock altered rifles. Why has the US Congress passed laws making the gun manufactures and the NRA immune from civil suits as the killing of our children increases.
The politicians are paid handsomely to do. They follow the money.
Regarding the response of Governor Kemp. I do not agree with his politics completely but on many points I do. But since the shootings, he and his GBI officials have avoided bringing up the lack of gun safety regulations in Georgia as even a consideration in causing the deaths and injuries in the high school. It is because, if it is something to be addressed and fixed, as Massachusetts has done was great success, one would have to ask, "Why did you not do this 15 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 5 years ago or one year ago?" A question that politicians can only address by claiming that Americans are many times crazier and many times more evil than in any society in the Western world.
Thoughts are with the victims, teachers, first responders and their families. The politicians, however, owe us American more, much more. We cannot expect it from the gun manufactures or the NRA. But you and all of us can from our politicians. Guns vs kids. I choose kids. Time for honest bi-partician discussion. Food for Thought and Prayers soon.
As a PS, I honestly believe that if we put 15 grandfathers and hunters from Maine and 15 grandfathers and hunters from Georgia in the same spot for three days, allowing ample time for story telling, breaking bread together and exchanging photos of grandkids, we could get a long way toward providing solid agreements that would make our communities safer. Just a Thought. Will keep Praying for the families and Georgia tonight. God bless.”
Thanks for this! You empower us with historical memory we might not otherwise have, plus detailed intel of what’s happening, in context of comparable past events.
I love the connection established with RT contracting through third parties to have conservative American influencers and mouthpieces regurgitate Russian disinformation and propaganda, as if they (example, Tucker Carlson), don’t have a clue that they are being used to promote Russian style fascism (see Ukraine - Slavs Ukraine!).
I see a connection among all these dictators and potentates: they all have a similar world view seeing themselves as a messiah or gift from god (narcissism); irresistibly attracted to power and then want more than they have; and so ambitious as to abandon any moral standards or norms if that’s what it takes to seize and hold power. So why don’t they work together? I’m thinkin’ Russia, China, Iran, NK, and possibly some middle eastern countries that might all stand to gain by creating more chaos and destruction for any countries that are not on “The Team”. Or maybe just countries sitting on mineral riches; or adversaries collectively called “The West”.
Speaking of that, I’d love to learn more about the Trump family’s pastor, I believe, Norman Vincent Peale; and the connections with a conservative Christian group “The Family”, if any are extensive.
So, it turns out there really is a “deep state” that is trying to destroy our country. The only problem is that the deep state is in Russia, and their MAGA stooges in the USA, that are doing it.
Venezuelan gangs taking over buildings in Colorado? Schools performing sex change operations on kids? Trump isn’t just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, he’s throwing the dinner salad, minestrone, pasta sauce, Parmesan cheese, and salt & pepper shakers as well. Oh, and the after dinner dessert and coffee, too. My mom was a high school math teacher for 25 years and my wife was an elementary school teacher and principal for about as long and they never mentioned anything about sex change operations performed at school, so I don’t think it was on the syllabus in any classroom. Just anecdotal information, of course.
I remain amazed that the Georgia Bureau of Invesitgation, the County Sheriff and Gov Kemp only discuss mental illness and evil as the cause of the Georgia shoot.
I may be off the mark but here is my letter to the Atlanta Constitution.
“
Once again our nation is mourning the murder of innocent life in a school shooting. Regardless of political party or region of the country, all Americans are heartbroken and thinking of those killed, those physically injured and the emotional trauma of classmates, families, teachers and all Georgians.
As I watched the news last night and the comments of law officers and Governor Kemp, the blame was focused on mental illness and "evil" as it most always always is after every mass shooting.
For reference, I come at my comments below as a person who was a life-long Republican but, more importantly, as a former NRA member, hunter and hunting gun owner. My grandfather was a hunter and Registered Maine Guide. My father was a hunter, trapper and a Registered Maine Guide. Growing up, we always had hunting rifles and shotguns in our home. I received my first NRA 50 foot target proficiency pin at age 10. I still have it.
In those days, the singular focus of the NRA was gun safety. Only much later did it become principally focused on representing the interests of gun manufacturers to their financial benefit and that of the NRA and its officials.
I became a Maine Guide at age 21. This was a few years after a high school classmate in our small town of 3,500 accidentally shot and killed himself playing with a rifle with another boy in the cab of his dad's pickup. To bookend this sad history for me, my community this past year suffer the mass shooting deaths of 18 people by a National Guard serviceman who had been reported beforehand by relatives as a mass shooter risk.
My wife and I raised our 4 children on a homestead and farmland continuously in our family for over 200 years. The children were taught to respect the dangers of guns and to clean and handle hunting rifles safely.
As I think about school shootings, I am drawn to the fact that school shootings as well as gun murder rates in the US occur at many, many times the rates in countries with similar histories such as England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The differences are similarly dramatic when considering European Union countries.
It is a fact, just a fact, that states in the US with more stringent gun safety laws have lower rates of child deaths than states that have refused to pass similar measures. This is particularly true in the Southeast US, including Texas and New Mexico.
It is shocking to me that children gun deaths in America are the leading cause of death of our children and greater than occurs due to any other injury or illness, including cancer and auto accidents. The child mortality rate in the US due to gun violence doubled between 2013 and 2021 as AK rifles sales skyrocketed. And both sales and deaths continue to accelerate. The similar country coming in a distant second to the US in gun deaths of children is Canada and children gun deaths there are 10% of the rate in the US. In the UK, according to statistics from 2021, its gun deaths of children were 16% that of Canada.
So I asked myself last night, if our child gun death rates are not due to the accessibility of guns in the US, but due to mental illness or evil, is it because Americans are 10 times or 50 times more insane and more evil than the citizens of other countries? Is that what we are saying?
If we are that crazy and evil, should Americans be given access to guns at all and especially AK style guns designed to kill people as efficiently as possible? Or, at least, should assault rifles be banned as they are in the rest of the Western world, should gun ownership be restricted to people who can be certified as sane and sober, who have passed extensive gun safety training and who also keep their guns in gun safes and locked away from children. Gun manufacturers know exactly how many kids are killed by their AK rifles and bump stock altered rifles. Why has the US Congress passed laws making the gun manufactures and the NRA immune from civil suits as the killing of our children increases.
The politicians are paid handsomely to do. They follow the money.
Regarding the response of Governor Kemp. I do not agree with his politics completely but on many points I do. But since the shootings, he and his GBI officials have avoided bringing up the lack of gun safety regulations in Georgia as even a consideration in causing the deaths and injuries in the high school. It is because, if it is something to be addressed and fixed, as Massachusetts has done was great success, one would have to ask, "Why did you not do this 15 years ago, or 10 years ago, or 5 years ago or one year ago?" A question that politicians can only address by claiming that Americans are many times crazier and many times more evil than in any society in the Western world.
Thoughts are with the victims, teachers, first responders and their families. The politicians, however, owe us American more, much more. We cannot expect it from the gun manufactures or the NRA. But you and all of us can from our politicians. Guns vs kids. I choose kids. Time for honest bi-partician discussion. Food for Thought and Prayers soon.
As a PS, I honestly believe that if we put 15 grandfathers and hunters from Maine and 15 grandfathers and hunters from Georgia in the same spot for three days, allowing ample time for story telling, breaking bread together and exchanging photos of grandkids, we could get a long way toward providing solid agreements that would make our communities safer. Just a Thought. Will keep Praying for the families and Georgia tonight. God bless.”
Thanks for this! You empower us with historical memory we might not otherwise have, plus detailed intel of what’s happening, in context of comparable past events.
I love the connection established with RT contracting through third parties to have conservative American influencers and mouthpieces regurgitate Russian disinformation and propaganda, as if they (example, Tucker Carlson), don’t have a clue that they are being used to promote Russian style fascism (see Ukraine - Slavs Ukraine!).
I see a connection among all these dictators and potentates: they all have a similar world view seeing themselves as a messiah or gift from god (narcissism); irresistibly attracted to power and then want more than they have; and so ambitious as to abandon any moral standards or norms if that’s what it takes to seize and hold power. So why don’t they work together? I’m thinkin’ Russia, China, Iran, NK, and possibly some middle eastern countries that might all stand to gain by creating more chaos and destruction for any countries that are not on “The Team”. Or maybe just countries sitting on mineral riches; or adversaries collectively called “The West”.
Speaking of that, I’d love to learn more about the Trump family’s pastor, I believe, Norman Vincent Peale; and the connections with a conservative Christian group “The Family”, if any are extensive.
So, it turns out there really is a “deep state” that is trying to destroy our country. The only problem is that the deep state is in Russia, and their MAGA stooges in the USA, that are doing it.
I am not getting yr letters and I subscribe. They have stopped coming ! Tonilawrence@mac.com
I am in the same boat. Thank you for posting. I just want my newsletter.
Me too what do we do? I used to get it daily!