I write these words in an agony of urgency.  Already this year, 2019, there have been 31 mass shootings in the USA; more than in any other nation.  Over half of these have been in the state of Texas.  At what is only temporarily the most recent crime scene, in Odessa, one of the victims was 17 months old. The[Read More…]

The US is in the midst of an epidemic of mass killings. In the 215 days so far this year, the US has seen 252 mass shootings – an average of more than one a day. The reasons why this is happening are pretty obvious: too many guns, inadequate gun laws, a culture of militarism that glorifies violence, misogyny, and[Read More…]

Hundreds of mothers, students and other volunteers demanding action on gun control marched on the White House and the Capitol on the heels of the deadly shooting in El Paso, Texas on Saturday. Several other similar protest demonstrations were also held across the U.S. Members of activists group Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action organized the march. The protesters[Read More…]

In the wake of the February 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 students and staff members, a teacher said the school looked “like a war zone.” And to many young Americans, that’s exactly what it felt like. But this shooting was different. Refusing to be victims, Parkland survivors disrupted the “thoughts and[Read More…]

Another mass shooting in America!  They are so frequent they are anticipated.  I favor stick gun control, and the application of the Second Amendment of the Constitution should be challenged as it now stands before weapons’ technology but continues to be interpreted along antiquated guidelines. How little is commonly known about the original purpose and history of the Second Amendment,[Read More…]

Another horrible mass shooting took place in the US on Wednesday night, the 307th such episode on the 311th day of the year, according to a website that tracks gun violence. A 28-year-old Marine Corps veteran of the Afghanistan war walked into a country music dance club in Thousand Oaks, California on Wednesday night and opened fire with a handgun,[Read More…]

We just had another mass murder in the USA. A military connected person carried it out. I know two Marines. Both have shell shock permanent brain damage AND PTSD. One shot a rifle at a medical helicopter going to a hospital across the lake where he lived when back in the USA. The other raped his own daughter, realized his[Read More…]

It’s Friday. There have been 28,420 incidents of gun violence so far this year in the US. 1,135 of those have happened since last week. Yesterday saw the 154th mass shooting—of four or more human victims—so far this year, and the year is marking its 180th day. Those numbers were reported early Friday morning by CNN. So you can expect[Read More…]

A week ago on May 18, 10 students were killed and 13 wounded at Santa Fe High school just south of Houston, within its metropolitan area.  The shooter was a student who, as can now be expected, had been bullied. While definitions of a mass shooting may vary, the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012 labels it as[Read More…]

The quaint, unassuming, elevated area south of Denver known as Columbine rarely, if ever, caught the attention of the average American residing outside the State of Colorado for just over 99% of the twentieth century. When it etched its way into the hearts and minds of shocked onlookers around the world 19 years before Friday, nobody predicted that it would[Read More…]

“People like me are not good for big business, like for animal business, medicine business and for many other businesses.  That’s why they are discriminating and censoring us.” Nasim Najafi Aghdam discussing YouTube She claimed to have detested it, issuing fiery calls on her social media outlets, and asserting that this creature was demonic in its effort to limit talent,[Read More…]

Co-Written by Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox The United States government views human rights not as the foundation of human dignity but as an impediment to corporate profits. — Haley Pedersen & Jodie Evans, AlterNet, January 11, 2018. In the United States of America it’s all about the quantity, not the quality, of so-called freedom. That may be because[Read More…]

  “Violence and other potentially criminal behaviors caused by prescription drugs are medicine’s best kept secret.” — David Healy, UK psychiatrist and author (and co-founder of www.RxISK.org)   “The establishment media ignores the scientific evidence linking psychiatric medications and violent behavior because psychiatry is the religion of the mainstream media, and they don’t want to see the dangers of psychiatrically[Read More…]

Sonoma County, Northern California: Over a million students and allies walked out of classes in the U.S., from Maine to Hawaii, and elsewhere in the world on March 14. Ten days later, March 24, hundreds of thousands of defiant marchers flooded the streets in Washington, D.C., and at more than 800 places on every continent except Antarctica. What might they[Read More…]

  In the first 11 weeks of 2018, there have been 12 school shootings. Although shootings on school campuses only make up a tiny fraction of gun injuries and deaths annually, a March report from the Giffords Law Center focuses on the deep impact of gun violence on children in the USA, elaborating on how it extends far beyond the classroom.[Read More…]

Yesterday, in solidarity with the 17 students killed in Parkland, FL., students all across the country left their classes for 17 minutes.  These students echoed the moral determination of their grandparents, almost fifty years ago, in nationwide student strikes following the murder of four student antiwar protesters at Kent State.  Check the Congressional Record, and you’ll find one speech  commemorating[Read More…]

  Sonoma County, California: Driving through small-town Sebastopol on March 14 toward the Senior Center, this 73-year-old noticed groups of young students with signs gathering on downtown street corners and waving to motorists. These active participants in direct democracy joined thousands who walked out of schools across the U.S. and the world, organized by the Women’s March Youth branch. As[Read More…]

A superintendent threatens to suspend students protesting gun laws. But that’s not legal. Curtis Rhodes, the superintendent of the school district in Needville, a small town southwest of Houston, wrote a letter to students and parents that was distributed Tuesday on the social media page for the town’s high school. It began with a reference to the protests around the country[Read More…]

That there is a change in the air is evident this time.  Since the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida on February 14, there have been demonstrations by school kids, their parents and others, confrontations of politicians including the president, and a general feeling that enough is enough. The most prominent opposition to gun control, the National Rifle Association (NRA)[Read More…]

It had been in the works.  Instead of engaging in the traditional revulsion associated with a mass shooting, or even digesting the grief of outraged students and grieving parents, US President Donald Trump’s solution to guns violence was elementary.  To target the perpetrator, it was necessary to arm instructors, mount the barricades, and raise the stakes. His address of February[Read More…]

  On February 14, 2018, it happened again. Young people, full of potential, their futures before them, shot down… at school, supposedly a place for learning, growing, having fun, making friends, even falling in love. This time the murderous violence struck Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. A former student wielding a semiautomatic rifle massacred 17 people—14 students,[Read More…]

The scene is the House of Commons; the date May 7, 1940.  A simple motion to adjourn for the ten-day Whitsun recess is of little concern to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who has a comfortable 213 seat majority.  Then things take a turn.  A plan approved by the first First Lord pf the Admiralty Winston Churchill to land troops in[Read More…]

“Sixty-eight percent of U.S. citizens believe that ‘better mental health screening’ would help to reduce the number of school shootings, but one has to ask what’s considered mentally healthy in our spiritually-anemic, sick society.” — Richard Martin Oxman Relationships and loyalties within a family are the strongest and most important ones, say most people. [Pause.] Yes, blood is thicker than[Read More…]

Seventeen people were killed and at least 14 more wounded Wednesday afternoon in the latest horrific school shooting in the United States. The tragedy unfolded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, located some 30 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale, in Broward County. According to reports, a former student started shooting from outside and then entered the school[Read More…]

  The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was written into the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in 1787 as the replacement-Constitution for this country, replacing the prior Articles of Confederation, which had bound the United States together as the nation’s first Constitution. We Americans live under America’s second Constitution, but the terms-of-reference in it are the same as[Read More…]

  The Las Vegas gunman wasn’t operating merely as a gunman but as a sniper, and yet the U.S. Constitution’s 2nd Amendment makes no distinctions whatsoever regarding handguns versus snipers’ weapons — automatic (or semi-automatic) rifles which spew bullets so fast the Las Vegas shooter was able in the brief time-span of only around ten minutes to murder at least[Read More…]

Introduction Contrary to the Hegelian assumption that civilization progresses in a linear mode, the contradictions of capitalism between the promise of prosperity for all, on the one hand, and the reality of perpetual capital concentration, on the other, undermines bourgeois democracy and leads toward a more militaristic-police state. The nexus of structural and behavioral violence has not been lost even[Read More…]

Yet another mass shooting in the U.S., this time at Ft. Lauderdale airport, Florida’s second largest.  A certain Esteban Santiago flew from Alaska changing planes en route at Minneapolis.  Arriving, he headed to the baggage collection area, claimed his suitcase, opened it in the privacy of a toilet, removed a gun, methodically loaded it, and began shooting in the baggage[Read More…]