Thoughts on the Aurora Shootings, Armageddon in Washington, The End of the Road and Something from Sid

Thoughts on Assault Weapons

Sadly, nothing is going to be done to reduce the availability of assault weapons to Americans, despite the killings by a deranged man in Aurora, Colorado.  The Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of citizens to bear arms.  The Supreme Court has affirmed this in a manner which even negates some local restrictions on gun ownership.  

                                                  

Personally, I disagree with the Court and believe that the purpose of the Second Amendment was simply to guarantee that Americans, if called into military service in defense of their country, would have a weapon to bring with them, a necessity in those early days when the government couldn’t provide arms to those called into service.  Others take the Amendment to mean that Americans are guaranteed a final resource, their weapons, if their government ever becomes oppressive and tyrannical.  (Didn’t Thomas Jefferson say that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”?  Such “refreshing” requires weapons.)  Most of the Amendment’s supporters today though, and this includes the Supreme Court, simply feel that Americans have the right to own weapons for sporting, collecting, hunting and if necessary, self-protection.

Politicians are very reluctant to support gun control, even if limited to assault weapons, because of the vast number of privately owned weapons in the country and the votes of their owners, including the more than four million members of the National Rifle Association.  It is believed by some that their votes cost Bill Clinton control of Congress in 1996 and lost the election for Al Gore in 2000.  So candidates for office resort to the safe political course of supporting full enforcement of whatever laws are currently on the books to make certain those who sell guns make sure that all purchases are in total compliance with such laws, with no corners being cut. That all of the purchases made by the Aurora killer were within the law illustrates the extent of the problem.  

Our lawmakers are afraid that a vote for gun control of any degree will arouse the ire of the National Rifle Association, bringing about charges that such laws take away Constitutionally guaranteed rights and putting the legislator's ability to be elected in great jeopardy.  And right now, the Supreme Court is on the NRA's side.

                                     

When we finally get around to it, and sooner or later we will, the key to tightening gun laws will be to first attempt to limit weapons which are clearly intended for much more than just hunting, sports use or self protection.  Clearly, assault weapons such as automatic rifles which can spray an area with bullets in a rapid file mode should be banned.  Their continued availability will be defended by the National Rifle Association, of course, but that will be an increasingly difficult position for them to maintain since any legitimate use of such weapons is hard to envision.  Their features include high capacity magazines, folding or collapsible stocks, pistol or thumbhole grips, barrel shrouds, flash suppressors, threaded barrels which allow for temporary attachment of suppressors, and bayonet lugs none of which enhancements are required for sports use, hunting nor personal self-defense.  

Opponents of gun control are quick to point out that the presence of such features was not really necessary for the shootings at Aurora, Columbine, Fort Hood and at Virginia Tech to have occurred.  These shootings would have taken place anyway they claim, regardless of whether or not these weapon enhancements were available to the shooters.  They believe that restricting such sophisticated weaponry, thereby taking away freedoms from all gun owners, would not have deterred the deranged perpetrators.    

Yes, but while perhaps such restrictions would have somewhat reduced the carnage, the results would still have been tragic.

                            

        I apologize for the quality of the preceding chart, but I felt it was worth reproducing

                                               
          Is this fellow (with an AR-15) hunting, "sports" shooting  or just protecting himself?
  

I still feel that ultimately, the legal climate will change sufficiently so that weapons with such features will be banned. It is hard to believe that Americans, including the majority of Supreme Court Justices, are that stupid.  

I envision that we will start with restrictions on the number of rounds of ammunition a weapon’s magazine can hold.  How many shots do you think a gun owner should be able to get off before having to reload a weapon’s magazine?  6? 10? 100?  It will probably take another tragedy, unfortunately, for the nation to begin to address that question. 

Another tack will be the long term discrediting of the NRA.  Recently, that organization pushed for legislation in Florida and some other states prohibiting pediatricians from asking parents if there were weapons in the house, in the interest of the safety of the family’s children.  Such NRA positions weaken the organization’s image because they clearly put the group’s anti-gun control agenda ahead of common sense.  It would be good for local NRA representatives to be on call to visit emergency rooms as a learning experience when wounded children, hurt while playing with a family’s guns, arrive by ambulance. 

                                                                                          

Finally, here is a question to mull over.  Rank the following organizations according to the danger each poses to democracy in the United States:

a.    The Communist Party

b.    Al Quaeda

c.    The National Rifle Association

d.    The American Civil Liberties Union

Jack Lippman                                                                 

                                                                  

                                                                        

The End of the Road

I went to a funeral the other day, and don’t ask me why, but the lyrics to Sir Harry Lauder’s signature song, The End of the Road, came into my mind as I was driving home. 

Lauder was the biggest star on the English stage for over a quarter of a century, achieving world-wide acclaim.  He passed away in 1950, but many of us may recall seeing him on the old “Ed Sullivan Show.”  Lauder composed this song after being told of his son’s death in battle during the First World War.  I have an old 33 1/3 LP recording of Lauder singing this and some of his other hits and will gladly play them for you.  (There is nothing comparable around today.  Actually, all of his songs sound better with a “wee deoch an doris.”  Feel free to Google that.}

The End of the Road  

Verse 1
Ev'ry road thro' life is a long, long road,
Fill'd with joys and sorrows too,
As you journey on, how your heart will yearn,
For the things most dear to you.
With wealth and love 'tis so,
But onward we must go.

Chorus
Keep right on to the end of the road, keep right on to the end,
If the way be long, let your heart be strong, keep right on round the bend.
If you're tired and weary, still journey on, till you come to your happy abode,
Where all you love you've been dreaming of will be there at the end of the road.

Verse 2
With a big stout heart to a long steep hill,
We may get there with a smile,
With a good kind thought and an end in view,
We may cut short many a mile.
So let courage ev'ry day,
Be your guiding star alway.

Repeat Chorus twice      

JL

                                                                   

Armageddon in Washington Looms

Way back last year when Congress was debating increasing the debt ceiling, they finally agreed to do so, but without increasing taxes nor cutting services, at the price of instituting drastic changes to take effect on January 1, 2013 which would do two things:  
1. The Bush tax cuts would be allowed to expire, raising every American's taxes, and 
2. Crippling spending cuts would go into effect hampering almost everything government does including military and social spending. 

With this "Armageddon" type threat hanging over the nation, a bi-partisan Congressional panel was formed to come up with a solution.  It failed to do anything, so right now, the United States of America is heading for a suicidal economic disaster in about five months.  If that happens, we will become a third world country.

                 

What will happen?  I predict that Congress will approve a last-minute, short-term extension of our present tax system and spending patterns, either before the Presidential election, or shortly thereafter, and leave the tough decision-making to the newly elected Congress and Administration to tackle in early 2013.  
JL

  

                                                                   

Sid’s Corner

Choices, Choices, and More Choices

Sid Bolotin

Psychologist, Barry Schwartz, in his 2004 book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less states:

“Our brains — already over-worked & exhausted — cannot cope with too many choices. We’re asked if we want small, medium or large; full fat, half & half, soy or almond milk; vanilla, strawberry or chocolate; skinny, bootleg, boyfriend or bellbottom. Actually, being presented with too many options stresses our brain. It gives it too many things to compare & contrast. The problem with being given a lot of choices is that we simply don’t have the time to research or investigate all of them… & then we feel like we have failed.”

The above was crystallized for me recently when I was in Sears’ Electronics section waiting for an elderly customer to comprehend the youngish salesman’s explanation of the options available for the gentleman’s desire to get a “prepaid” cell phone. The customer looked to be in his late eighties or early nineties, slight of build, and sported a jaunty yacht captain’s white cap with a black visor. His younger, but still elderly companion was trying to help decipher the salesman’s rapid-fire description of options available from the array of choices hanging on the display rack. TracFone and Jitterbug were just two of the types available along with seemingly endless prepaid minute plans.

                                                           

Because I had recently gone through my own search for a “pay as you go” plan for my needs, I empathized greatly with the poor man’s confusion as he repeated his pleas to his friend that he only needed a phone for emergencies, that he’d never be giving out the number for chit-chat, and that he wanted the most economical plan for his needs. He didn’t want to spend $100 for a Jitterbug, plus $14 per month. He was struggling to make his “best” choice.

Ironically I was at Sears with my wife because we were going through our own “tip-toe-through-the-tulips” adventure to find the “best” replacement for our defunct television. Costco, BJ’s, Brands Mart, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, et al were all on our list for exploration for the best deal.

Clearly, Mark, the salesman was anxious to be done with the phone guy. So, during a quiet moment while the elderly gentleman queried his friend as what the hell the salesman was saying, we told Mark that we were there to actually buy a television that was on sale for the “best” price we had found. With that knowledge Mark went into his final explanation of cost per minute of use represented by the multitude of pre-paid-minute cards with a blizzard of information that only served to intensify the old man’s bewilderment. Like a drowning man clutching at life preservers in the water, the glassy-eyed, exhausted customer collected brochures to take home, and staggered away…muttering, “Too much information that I don’t understand. I’ll have to study these at home.”

A final word from Publisher’s Weekly:

"Whether choosing a health-care plan, choosing a college class or even buying a pair of   jeans, Schwartz shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us."

                                                             


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