This Was The Week That Wasn't

Elaine Meinel Supkis

This week of April is 'Americans Terrorize America Week'. I don't know why Congress and the Bush person not declare this an offical holiday. Today, schools have shut down across the nation due to terrorist threats and an employee at NASA is shooting his gun at work in Florida. We should be allowed to stay at home this week, behind barbed wire and police dogs. Or travel oveseas where it is safer.

From Raw Story:

A building at NASA's Johnson Space Center has been evacuated after reports of a man with a weapon, according to news sources.

Houston's Local 2 reports, based on police communications, that "shots were fired" at Building 44, but NASA has yet to confirm that. A SWAT team is also at the scene, according to the Houston Chronicle.

A NASA subcontractor with offices in the building, Jacobs Engineering, has stated that the gunman, who has been confined to one room, is an employee of theirs, Local 2 says.

Most gun deaths are drug or gang related. Next: lovers or family members butchering each other. Then there is the terrorists: nearly 100% home-grown. Even the latest one had lived most of his life here. Back after 9/11 when our rulers told us we had to give up many of our civil liberties and things like habeas corpus, it was all done to protect us. Since then, thousands of people have died while Homeland Security, run by this Israeli who is NEVER in the news no matter how many terrorists appear or storms crash across our nation. He remains invisible, the jerk.

Aside from Chertoff, we see our politicians running from one tragedy to the next, weeping and wailing along with us but doing absolutely nothing to protect us from our own terrorists. Isn't there something wrong here?

I have been targetted by assassins and people have actually discharged guns at me or tried to run me over, I have been involved in politics for many years and stick out like a sore thumb. I haven't crawled under any rocks yet but I must say, we live in a nation that is having one big, fat nervous break-down because we are scared and we don't have the slightest idea, what to do.

From the NYT:

Tenafly High School in northern New Jersey was closed today on the eighth anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado after school officials discovered graffiti that seemed to suggest some kind of threat tied to the anniversary date.

The evacuation and closing of the school came as a variety of threats — real or just bluster — were reported across the nation, apparently tied to the Columbine anniversary and the killings on Monday at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Classes and school activities in Yuba and Sutter Counties in northern California and at Yuba College were canceled today after a 28 year old man was arrested for making threats to blow up schools. The man claimed that “he had some sort of explosive device, and he was going to make the incident at Virginia Tech look mild by comparison,” the Associated Press quoted Sutter County Sheriff Jim Denny as saying.

I didn't have to look far to see stories about terrorists terrorizing the USA. Not one of them was Muslim. Indeed, aside from the WTC, the attacks that terrorize us like the OKC bombings, have been Americans who want to destroy America for various stupid reasons such as wanting Jesus to come and kill everyone, for example.

A number of mass or serial killer terrorists have been American military men who went insane. This is seldom discussed but the truth is, war drives some people mad and then they come home and get violent here.

Here is Fox News several days ago, April 18, 2007

Schools and campuses in at least 10 states were locked down or evacuated in the aftermath of a Virginia Tech student's shooting rampage that killed 33 people.

Threats in Louisiana, Montana and Washington state on Tuesday directly mentioned the massacre in Virginia, while reports of suspicious activity surfaced in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota and Michigan.

Terrorism is fun. Mass murders are fun. This is why TV is addicted to them and needs them just as badly as the terrorists need TV. I noticed that NBC now rues trying to sell arthritis medicines in between episodes of the show, 'American Terrorist Idol' featuring the latest contestant, Cho. They blush crimson, saying, they just wanted to let us know the truth.

But the truth really is, they needed this latest terrorist in order to sell us stuff.

From Associated Press:

- President Bush said Friday that sectarian murders have dropped by half in Baghdad since the U.S.-Iraqi military buildup began in February, rejecting a Democratic leader's claim that the war is lost.

"These operations are having an important effect on this young democracy," Bush said in a speech on terrorism, his second in two days. "They're showing Iraqi citizens across the country that there will be no sanctuary for killers anywhere in a free Iraq."

You know, the very least one should say here is, what the effing HELL is this lunatic doing, talking about how safe it is in BAGHDAD (which is a lie, of course) but can't protect us from terrorists here? The whole world is not crying with us, it is now laughing sardonically. Or in the case of Iraq, snarling with rage.

Aside from his psychopatic need to lie, we lost what, 25 soldiers including Brits, this week? And how many Iraqis died violently? Anyone know? How about 2,000? We seem to be like some plague ship: everywhere we come into a harbor, we spread disease and death.

Krauthammer goes totally insane:

What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less. The lives of 32 innocents, chosen randomly and without purpose, are extinguished most brutally by a deeply disturbed gunman. With an event such as this, consisting of nothing but suffering and tragedy, the only important questions are those of theodicy, of divine justice. Unfortunately, in today's supercharged political atmosphere, there is the inevitable rush to get ideological mileage out of the carnage.

It did not take long for the perennial debate about gun control to break out, preceded by the inevitable scolding and clucking abroad about America's lax gun laws.

Bush, within an hour of the latest massacre, said he supported no laws controlling guns. The entire right wing and the crazier quarters of the conspiracy wings are all howling at us to NOT talk about gun control. Krauthammer even ordered us to not even talk about the latest massacre or else he and his buddies will do something like, say, massacre us.

These ghouls shamelessly use 9/11 to terrorize the weaker brained folk who live in fear of someone going to their local school and killing everyone with a gun bought at Walmart. This ridiculous level of fear coupled with a total inability to do even the smallest thing to stop it, can either be laughed about or viewed as clinical insanity.

Krauthammer wants to lock people up in the looney bin if they are violent and irrational. This is a great idea. Krauthammer and his neo con buddies like McCain and Bush and Cheney should all be locked in a secure place and let Nurse Ratchett minister to them!

And anyone who needs a gun for defense, all I can say is, join or start a street patrol! And learn the rules of the game, it is pretty simple, I used to teach this in New York City. You don't need any guns, you just need the cooperation of the police. And as for them: I said this years and years ago---they should get out of those stupid cop cars and patrol ON FOOT. Go from building to building. Get to know everyone. BE THERE. This stops things from getting out of hand!

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Comments

[JMench]

I like most of what I have read from you, but your take on firearms I just cannot agree with. You can work with the police all you want, but they are not our personal bodyguards. It is a person's job to protect themselves, and the police's job to investigate crimes. The cops response time is at least 3 minutes ( most of the time much more ), if you have a person intent on harming you or your loved ones that's 2 min and 59 sec longer than they need. If I am able to solve the problem without my firearm I will, my firearm is the last resort. Unfortunately, In more than one instance, if you have multiple assaliants jump you to beat you to death, you have only two choices, live or die. I chose to live. The cops usually showed up 5 to 10 min after the fact.

[Bernie Palmatier]

You, J. Mench, appear to be of sound mind and, when considering a threat to yourself or your "loved ones" suggest that use of your firearm would be a last resort. Hmmm...obviously your decision on a "last resort" status of a confrontation would last less than 2 minutes & 59 seconds before you would reach for your instrument of defense. I suggest that you, sir, are as capable of losing control of your temper as any other human with an level of emotions and that is where most firearm deaths occur -- conflicts between related people and friends!
Seldom are multiple people stabbed to death. Possibly a course in conflict resolution, non-deadly defense weapons (mace, stun guns, guns which fire a "knock-down" projectile, etc.)you can carry...or simply avoiding neighborhoods where "multiple assailants jump you to beat you to death" would help.
Some years ago I contemplated getting a handgun for defensive purposes. My very best friend asked me one simple question: "Could you fire without warning?" After much introspection and visualization of such a situation my answer had to be "no". "Therefore," he said, "you have now removed the options from the intruder/assailant who will then be forced to open fire if s/he is armed." Wow! I thought...even tellers in banks and cashiers in convenience stores are told to simply give the robber the money and we seldom, if ever, hear of one of them being shot or harmed.
Ghandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King proved the efficacy of passive resistance. Japan has proved how the outlawing of guns reduces the number of homicides. (They make it simple: "Anyone caught in public with a firearm is a criminal".)
So...if you don't think handguns in public should be restricted, what do you suggest we do about our wonderful reputation in the world as being the most violent country on earth? Maybe doing more of the same and expecting a different result really is the definition of insanity.
Although I hate war -- which means I qualify as a pacifist -- and abhor the fact that guns are designed to kill things I can remember several occasions in my life where I "lost it" and something bad would have happened had a gun been near.
I support regulation and registration for numerous reasons, have no problem with rifles and shotguns for hunting -- especially when kept under lock and gun until time for the target or ...ugh...game. I'd even accept some recommendation on your part for preventing the accidental deaths of children.
I am tired of the mantra "Guns don't kill people; people kill people." But without a gun the "people who kill people" would have difficulty killing 32 in a matter of minutes.
So, to defend yourself and your family you would support the right of the mass killer to have access to his weapon, right? How wrong.

[Mike]

I agree with most of your intent, but have big diferences with some of your points. I do not like either "approved" parties of the US Gov't so I speak as a free thinker. Your stance on guns is slanted to the liberal mantra of let the government protect you. We are the leader in murder and violence in the world because the USGovt and States will not enforce existing laws. For example, when someone commiting a felony is in possission of a handgun there is a mandatory 10 year sentenence for the handgun and EACH round either in the gun or on his person. Do you know that the government only procecutes about 10% of the time?? By Dept. of Justice figures 87% of violent crime committed on the streets is by someone paroled or not fully sentenced per the full extent of the law. If you want to reduce crime, put the people who deserve it in jail. I am talking about violent offenders. Do you know that the average sentence for murder in the US is less than 8 years; for rape, less than 6 years; and for child molestation, less than 4 years?? You should spend more time advocating mandatory jail sentencing.
As to your solution of non-lethal weapons, most of them are banned in a lot of states so you can't even get them. And you should do your research on multiple stabbings, they do occur more than you think.
And one more thing, it is disingenuous to compare a society like Japan's to the US. They are a mono-ethnic people steeped in family tradition and honor so they tend to think alike on a societal scale, while the US is comprised of many groups and less of a group-think society that empahsizes individuality.
And one other thing. Even one accidental child death, whether from a gun or bicycle or swimming pool is sad, but guns are the LEAST cause of child accidental deaths, and the rate has been going down for over 10 years. Ten times as many children die from drowdings and from bicycle accidents than from guns.
To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, the government should be made afraid of a well armed citizenry.

[Mike-again]

One more thing. You use Japan to make your no guns argument. But like a lot of anti-gun people and groups in America do, you avoid examples of what harm can happen when a total ban is put in effect. You should look at the figures from Britan and Australia, both of whom have banned guns, Australia just receintly. Both countries are experiencing a big surge in criminals using guns in crimes. This info is not well known in the US because it does not serve the nanny-state mindthink. You and similar thinkers on guns forget one thing, criminals don't care about gun laws, they are criminals. I live near DC and since the gun ban there, it has been the murder capital of the US almost every year. LESS GOVERNMENT - MORE FREEDOM!!