While the US is spending trillions on killing and being killed while we disassemble Iraq on a lie about WMD from our government – while we heckle Iran and North Korea with “homeland security” as our rationale – while we lock up and persecute “dirty bombers” for years without trial, while we lock up “high value” suspects on a Caribbean Island which it is illegal for US citizens to visit – WE REMAIN SELF-DELUSIONAL ABOUT THE REAL KILLER IN OUR LAPS.   

GUNS

When I was in grade school the teacher practiced and taught similar self-delusion to make us students safe from nuclear bombs.   We got under our little wood desks and faced away from the windows so the nuclear flash wouldn’t burn our young eyes.  If you were rich I think the IRS had deductions for building underground bomb shelters with stockpiled canned goods (I like tunafish) and a carbon filter for the breathing air. Boy did those rich guys waste their investment!  Ha Ha!

Well we came through that 50’s and 60’s nuke scare real good.  Cuz we’re smart. That’s why.

Now our government is protecting us from a smorgasbord of  real scary threats.  Not like just the simple straight forward nuke threat in the 50’s and 60’s.  Today it’s real complicated – and we have to keep all that dangerous stuff out of our country,  keep it on the other side of the border, the other side of the ocean.  We need our solders to break into people's homes in the middle of the night to see if there are any GUNS UNDER THEIR BEDS!.  There are so many foreigners with devious minds and intentions after us now.    Really too many threats to focus on - so Uncle Sam focuses for us … And once your army breaks down someone’s door in the middle of the night and tears your house apart while the father is on the floor with a gun to his head and the kids are watching while they rub the sleep out of their eyes…well after that everyone in that family will leave the US alone.  Seriously, I know a psychologist who said that it’s the best way.

All this goes to show that our government and leaders are really up to the task.  And of course our government needs all the constitutional latitude they can get.  If they are able just to peek at  your bank account, email and cell phone records, and lock you up for 4 or 5 years before you get to talk to your attorney then everything will be OK.

Oh, and there’s one more thing.  Personal Protection.  You gotta carry heat.  Just in case. You should give up all of your constitutional freedoms, except for one.  The Wrong to Carry Arms. That freedom our government will not trample.   Cuz we’re smart. That’s why. 

Yesterday morning, when the death toll was being announced at about 8 persons, I heard the woman who is Bush’s press secretary being  quoted on NPR as saying that Bush had made the following statement:   “The president expresses his horror at this tragedy, his thoughts go out to the victim's families, but the president continues to support the right to bear arms.”   As the day went on and the death toll climbed, the press secretary dropped the “right to bear arms” part of the president’s earlier announcement. Wonder why the press secretary and the president didn’t continue to press their honorable belief in the right to bear arms?

The NRA will be laying low for a while, saying it isn’t the fault of the gun. DUH.  The NRA line is “Guns don’t kill, people do”.  Real twisted.  If not to kill, WTF are guns for?

So, as I always try to do, I’ll wrap up this post with a suggestion on how we might learn from this predictable tragedy.  We need to learn a defense against school-style gun massacres.  We need teachers who practice with their students a defense against such massacres.   The gunman yesterday went into 4 separate class rooms because everyone just hunkered down.  No one wants to be the first in a line of persons charging a gunner, but sadly, that is the only defense in this type of situation.  So teachers need to teach their classes to count to 3, and then everyone charge the gunperson simultaneously.  Some of those charging will be killed, but it is the only way to overpower the gunman.  Maybe everyone can be taught to shove their classroom tables or chairs (if they are movable) at the gunman simultaneously .  Only by successful simultaneous mass attack on the gunman will a class have a chance. 

It isn’t like it was in the 50’s and 60’s.