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Been A While
Since I’ve fisked something. Let’s see if I still have what it takes. Of course, I’m starting back with an easy target – maybe it is white privilege; everything defaults to ‘easy’.
CNN)Last month, a gunman in a Louisiana movie theater killed two people and injured nine others before shooting himself with a gun he’d legally purchased.
Okay, let’s talk about a month old incident that has been thoroughly covered and dissected while ignoring the violence that occurs day and day out. Let’s ignore the number of times firearms have been used to stop a crime or save a life.…oh no, what is important is dancing in the blood of the dead.
On Wednesday, a man with what looked like a real semi-automatic pistol in a Nashville movie theater sprayed patrons with pepper spray and hit one with a hatchet before police — apparently believing he had a real gun — shot him dead.
Armed with ‘what looked like a real semi-automatic pistol’ — that is what you lead with? Not the one person actually injured with the hatchet? Gee, can you say fixated?
Summer is high season for movie-going, but who among us will not carry in the back of our minds — as we settle into our seats in a darkened roomful of strangers — that anything is possible in a society so saturated with guns.
You probably don’t mean that a firearm I carry can save my life or that a firearm I keep at home can keep my family safe type “anything is possible”. You probably don’t mean that in our ‘society so saturated with guns’ firearm related crime, deaths and injuries have been trending down.
That the alleged assailant in Nashville, Vincente David Montano, was wielding a pellet gun that only, quite convincingly, looked like a real gun changes the outcome, but not the terror. Some of us may decide going out to the movies isn’t worth it.
So unlike many gun owners and those who carry in public; it seems that you are advocating living in fear and changing your to reflect that. While we can agree that avoiding bad places is a good strategy; those who carry make rational decision (carry) and continue to interact in public; not hide away because of the actions of a few.
This would constitute a change in our consumer habits. And it has an economic effect. This is something that has gone largely unspoken in the debates about gun control and concealed carry that follow upon each shooting: the ever-rising economic toll of gun violence in our country and the role that American business can play in advocating for more stringent gun controls.
Again let’s not look at the positives – Kroger stock up after Moms Demanding Attention called for a boycott because of Open Carry.
The total economic impact of the firearms and ammunition industry in the United States increased from $19.1 billion in 2008 to $42.9 billion in 2014, a 125 percent increase, while the total number of full-time equivalent jobs* rose from approximately 166,000 to more than 263,000, a 58 percent increase in that period, according to a new report released today by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the industry’s trade association
How much are companies actually losing due to firearm related crimes? Probably not nearly as much as the industry generates.
Imagine, for example, that gun death was so rare in America, that the bizarre Nashville incident could be viewed as just an aberration, not a chilling reminder of our ongoing reality. Americans are killing each other with guns in staggering numbers, and yet American business has failed to seriously engage with the negative effects of gun violence on national well-being, productivity and prosperity. Ted Miller, a researcher at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, crunched the numbers for a Mother Jones report and came up with a $229 billion a year price tag for direct and indirect costs of gun violence.
Never mind the incredible number of issues with the Mother Jones Report. Let’s talk about how you conflate the every day violence in our community with the ‘aberration’ that mass shootings like Nashville truly are. Let’s talk about how we can address the violence in our communities without restricting our rights…..we can do that but that isn’t what you want, is it?
Both small-business owners and human resources executives in large corporations know the economic ripple effect these broad figures reflect: consumers shunning businesses touched by gun violence, days lost from work while families grieve, businesses closed temporarily after shootings, good workers diminished by the physical or mental consequences of witnessing or being direct victims of gun violence.
Care to talk about the number of lives saved, crimes stopped, property protected by gun owners? Nope. I love that ‘witnessing or being direct victims of gun violence’ — under 400,000 firearm related violent crimes a year — let’s be generous and say 3 victims each crime and 5 witnesses? 2.1 million people affected out of 122 Million people employed — 1,72%. Really a huge impact eh? Never mind that 18.9 million people are affect directly by non-firearm related crime at least each year.
The strength of the gun lobby in America and the fears of some that they will lose rights conferred, they say, by the Second Amendment are only part of the reason such topics are mostly avoided in the business world, including in the business media. Our attachment to guns crosses lines of race, gender and sexual orientation: it is a national disposition. Who wants to mess with that?
You knew the “gun lobby” was going to make a showing here sometimes and she doesn’t disappoint. Who was it that said “there is strength in numbers”? The Gun lobby is made up of millions and millions of gun owners. Heck the NRA alone has over 4 million members !
And NO – our rights are not conferred by the 2nd Amendment; they are protected by it. A huge difference. And it isn’t just us saying this ! 5 Supreme Court Justices agree
c. Meaning of the Operative Clause. Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment . We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment , like the First and Fourth Amendment s, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendmentimplicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553(1876) , “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed … .”16
So what part of that is hard to understand? Did Scalia use too big of words for you?
And many exercise their rights to open carry, never thinking they are creating alarm in their fellow citizens and creating disruptive security situations. In June, a man brought a fully loaded rifle into the Atlanta airport — a major hub of business travel — when he and his wife dropped off their daughter for a flight.
My right to keep and bear arms does not end at the start of your fears or anyone else’s – sorry to be rude but Screw you if you think it does. There are no good numbers on how many people Open Carry day in and day out – without people panicking. I find it illustrative of how weak your argument is there is only one incident listed. That there are so few reports; usually of people over reacting, to common people doing a common event – Open Carrying. Shouldn’t that tell you people might not be as be fearful as you think?
We have changed our collective mind about large social issues in the past: women now have the right to vote, racial intermarriage is no longer forbidden, homosexuality is no longer considered an illness, same-sex marriage is now a right and smoking is no longer chic.
On those topics, business has helped to set a new tone for America. But on the issue of gun control, there has so far been no tipping point. We continue to mow down our leaders (Charleston), our children (Newtown) and our work force (Louisiana, most recently), with collateral damage that harms the economy and weakens us as a nation.
Gee — I thought that facts that 50 states having some form of Carry, that 8 states now or soon will be Constitutional Carry, that 45 states now allow Open Carry (Finally Texas !!!) — and millions of people have carry licenses, 55 million people or more own firearms –might be a clue that we have made up our ‘collective mind’ about the Right to Keep and Bear Arms ! What you really mean, in my opinion, is we haven’t came to the conclusion you want and give up our firearms.
America’s economic leaders should apply the boldness and tenacity that fuel national enterprise to the task of shifting the conversation about gun control in this country. They will face opposition at first, but they will be making a necessary investment in our human capital and in our collective prosperity.
I agree ! We need economic leaders to apply that boldness and tenacity to push for less gun control. For greater freedom in our right to keep and bear arms; let’s reduce the number of mandated ‘gun free zones’ where people are disarmed victims, Let’s make it easier for people to carry firearms across state lines without risking arrest. Let’s make it easier for people to buy firearms – we can put the criminals in jail and the mentally ill in hospitals to get help so we the ‘good guys’ with guns aren’t confused with the ‘bad guys’ or mentally ill. I don’t think the economic impact will be as bad as you anticipate; name a successful boycott by the gun control crowd.
Just my two cents…..please join the conversation.
Source: http://3bxsofbs.infamousanime.net/?p=9469
