The Case Against Handguns, Or Why US Progressives Don’t Progress

Selling handguns to the civilian population, is a US specificity. Most handguns in the world, aside from military possession, are owned by US civilians. Some carry 40 bullets or so… There is no justification for it… except for killing and maiming many US residents (a laudable goal, according to some, I must admit).

Outlawing handguns for non-military, non-police, non-threatened civilians: basic civilization 101.

Don Kemerling objected ironically:

“Cause everybody knows criminals always obey the law.“

Patrice Ayme:

Law enforcement, like health care, is best done by professionals. Police rarely assassinates unjustly a la George Floyd (70 cases a year?) Civilians, though kill dozens of thousands of people they didn’t even want to kill really, once they know all the disagreements that entails… every year…)

Several points here: there were 1004 fatal police shootings in the USA in 2019. The most recent year for all shootings is 2017, and it shows 39,773 deaths from guns. Most gun deaths (including self-inflicted) are from a significant other. In the case of Black Lives Matter, more than 90% of male Black Lives killed violently are killed by other male Black Lives. Some will say; Oh, but Black Lives live among Black Lives, so Black Lives live, cook, sleep and kill together, this is completely normal.

The Black Lives Matter Movement, formed in 2013, financed by plutocrats and their corporations, has protested police brutality in the U.S. by organizing “die-ins”, marches, and demonstrations in response to the killings of black men and women by police. There are around 200 Black Lives killed by police a year in the USA. In 2017, 457 whites were killed by police.

Those who are anti-police think Black Lives Matter so much, they should be free to kill each other as much as they want…

As Black Homicide Victimization puts it:…”black homicide victimization rate is four times the national homicide victimization rate, and more than six times the homicide victimization rate for whites. More than 85 percent of black homicide victims are shot and killed with guns. These facts are both appalling and unacceptable. An important part of ending the gun violence epidemic is to reduce homicides in the African-American community.“

So one would think that great progressive Sanders is against handguns. Think again. But he will not tell you this outright. Instead, Bernie is a master of dissimulation. (Don’t accuse me to hate Bernie Sanders, I don’t have Political Derangement Syndrome, PDS: I voted for Bernie Sanders several times…) Here is Bernie Sanders’ gun program, from his web site, it’s most significant for what it doesn’t say:

• Take on the NRA and its corrupting effect on Washington.
• Expand background checks.
• End the gun show loophole. All gun purchases should be subject to the same background check standards.
• Ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons. Assault weapons are designed and sold as tools of war. There is absolutely no reason why these firearms should be sold to civilians.
• Prohibit high-capacity ammunition magazines.
• Implement a buyback program to get assault weapons off the streets.
• Regulate assault weapons in the same way that we currently regulate fully automatic weapons — a system that essentially makes them unlawful to own.
• Crack down on “straw purchases” where people buy guns for criminals.
• Support “red flag” laws and legislation to ensure we keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and stalkers
• Ban the 3-D printing of firearms and bump stocks

(Bump stocks can make automatic weapons of any gun.) I approve all these measures, of course. But they are all about military weapons… The sort of weapons explaining why US police tends to be trigger happy… There are at least 20 million assault rifles in the USA.

But handguns? Progressive Bernie has never heard of them, he won’t progress that way. The Small Arms Survey stated that U.S. civilians alone account for 393 million (about 46 percent) of the worldwide total of civilian held firearms. This amounts to “120.5 firearms for every 100 residents.”

More than 85 percent of black homicide victims are shot and killed with guns. Bernie Sanders does not mind. The guns. Black Lives Matter not as much as guns.

So today Bernie spoke at the Democratic Convention, supporting for president a guy who didn’t just crucially collaborate to invade Iraq in 2003, but also avoided 500,000 dollars of healthcare tax in two years by posing as an S Corporation. Hey Biden made only 13 million dollars in these two years.

Bernie Sanders attacks the National Rifle Association (see above). It reminds me of Hitler attacking plutocrats (who got him elected). Indeed the NRA financed Bernie Sanders. Official enemies, but, actually collaborators! The NRA did this by handsomely financing attack ads against Sanders opponents…

Sanders lies about guns. Biden lies about health care, or even having common decency. With progressives like that, who needs regression?

How to get out of this mess? By telling the truth. But if one tells the truth about Trump or the Democrats, one gets badly insulted by ignorant, hateful people, so it hurts. But it can be sustained, precisely because they are hateful, ignorant people, similar to mosquitoes, those stinging, ignorant creatures.

Truth hurts, but it is the Truth. And that’s the truth. 

(Trump spent most of his life as a very noisy anti-establishment, anti-globalization Democrat; things got sour when Obama personally attacked him… Then Trump took over the Republican Party; this is why the Republican plutocratic establishment prefers Biden: they hate the We The People agenda of Trump… and love Bernie, or Biden aptitude for lying…)

The truth shall not make us free, but it is a divinity worth worshipping.

Patrice Ayme

Tags: Biden, Black Lives Matter, Guns, Sanders