When is enough, enough? Warren J Blumenfeld asks the tough questions about gun control.
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Spike’s Tactical shop of Apopka, Florida has begun marketing its special AR-15 assault rifle, which company spokesperson, Former Navy SEAL Ben “Mookie” Thomas, claims was “designed to never be used by Muslim terrorists,” as the shop’s never-ending battle in the Christian Crusades.
On one side of the rifle, shop employees laser-etched the Knights Templar Long Cross of the original Crusaders when they marched to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslims in 1099 CE. On the other side, they engraved Psalm 144:1: “Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.” Called “The Crusader,” the rifle includes a three-setting trigger safety control branded “Peace,” “War,” and “God Wills It.”
“Mookie” Thomas originated the idea for the rifle, stating, “Off the cuff I said I’d like to have a gun that if a Muslim terrorist picked it up, a bolt of lightning would hit and knock him dead.”
Unfortunately, owners, employees, and customers at Spike’s Tactical seemed to have forgotten that the Christian Crusades represent one of the most horrific, shameful, and tragic scars on Christendom.
Pope Urban II summoned the First Crusade in Clermont, France to “liberate” Jerusalem from Muslims. In the summer of 1096, as the crusade began, they murdered several thousand Jews along their way in the lands along the Rhine River, looted and destroyed their homes, as the Crusaders stated, “Because why should we go off to attack the unbelievers in the Holy Land and leave the unbelievers in our midst untouched.?” They accused Jews as being treacherous auxiliaries of Muslims. According to Pope Urban II, “Let us first avenge ourselves on them [the Jews] and exterminate them from among the nations so that the name of Israel will no longer be remembered, or let them adopt our faith.”
When the Crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099, they pillaged Muslim buildings and killed thousands. The massacre of the Muslim population of Jerusalem reached epic proportions. In addition, the invaders burned the synagogue on the Temple Mount to the ground with all the Jews inside. One Crusader, an eyewitness to the event wrote: “Men rode in blood up to their knees and bridal reins. It was a just and splendid judgment by God that this place would be filled with the blood of the unbelievers.”
The Crusades lasted from 1040 – 1350. By 1204, however, the tide began to turn against the Western European invaders, as the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt drove them out of Palestine and Syria.
Spike’s Tactical shop’s newest call for a Christian Crusade represents only the latest installment in the volatile and explosive gun culture of the United States. For example, in another installment in the booming and explosive gun culture, Bergeron’s Restaurant in Louisiana, as the home of “God, Gumbo, and Guns,” offers a 10% discount to any customer who brings a gun with them to lunch or dinner. Says restaurant owner Kevin Cox: “Show it to me out of your purse, out of your back pocket….Show that you have one so if something goes wrong here today, I know you’re here to protect me.” Cox criticizes gun-free businesses like Chipotle and Target: “You make a gun-free zone,” he argued, “that’s where bad people with guns are going to go – dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Since instituting the discount this fall, business has increased approximately 25%.
Giving new meaning to the term “hunting for a wife,” Jewelry by Harold owner in North Liberty, Iowa last year gave a husband-to-be a voucher for a new Remington 870 rifle with the purchase of an engagement ring priced at $1,999 or higher. Shop owner Harold van Beek : “So say: I’m hunting deer, and here is a diamond ring, dear.” To apply for this “deal,” one must be eligible to own a gun in Iowa, and not have been convicted of a felony.
In its attempt to pull in shoppers a couple of years ago on so-called “Black Friday” (the day following Thanksgiving), the camping and outdoors superstore, Cabela’s, handed out envelopes to the first 800 people over the age of 18 who lined up in front of its stores before 5:00 a.m. for a chance to win a Browning A-Bolt Medallion .300 WSM rifle with a Cabela’s 50 anniversary gun case worth $875.
And maybe it’s not too late to go down to Nations Truck Sales in Sanford, Florida where three years ago they offered each customer a brand spanking new assault rifle with the purchase of a truck. Stated General Sales Manager, “We started on Veterans Day. Hey, so many have given so much for this right!”
I’ve heard about people being shot from canons, but for those who want to remain active hunters well after they have “bought the farm,” now their wishes have come true. Be the first on your block to kill long after you have died. For the sum of only $1250, your loved ones can have you cremated with a pound of your ashes stuffed inside genuine bullets, resurrecting you as live ammunition.
For that measly sum, you can metamorphose as 250 shot shells, 100 rifles cartridges, or 250 pistol cartridges. For only $100 extra, until you come alive again as a killing apparatus, your bullet ashes can rest in peace in a decorative wooden coffin-like box.
The company, Holy Smoke Bullet Urns of Stockton, Alabama, has taken quite literally Shylock’s claim in Shakespeare’s 1596 Merchant of Venice “The pound of flesh which I demand of him is deerely bought, ‘tis mine, and I will have it.”
According to the company’s cofounder, Clem Parnell: You know I’ve thought about this for some time and I want to be cremated. Then I want my ashes put into some turkey load shotgun shells and have someone that knows how to turkey hunt use the shotgun shells with my ashes to shoot a turkey. That way I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second.”
Wow, in this way, you will obtain virtual immortality in the elk antlers hung over your family’s fire place or in the stuffed duck sitting on their living room side table. In addition to the decimation of wild game, the company offers this alternative to traditional burial as a means to “continue to protect your home and family even after you are gone.” So just think of it; now you can kill a home intruder by shooting them right in the gut with your Great Uncle Henry or Aunt Gert!
And just in time for the holiday season, the Scottsdale, Arizona gun club now offers its members the service of sending out their with family members, including infants, posing with Santa while holding pistols and military grade automatic weapons, fa la la la la, la la la la. Joy to the world?
I would ask, though, have so many in fact given so much for the right for us to turn our bodies literally into killing devices or for the right to own a “free” assault or hunting rifle? Do we really want “the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second.” Do residents of our nation really so many guns, assault rifles and others?
The very first thing that caught my eye as I entered the grounds of the Iowa Republican Party Presidential Straw Poll in the summer of 2011 were three young children, I estimated between the ages of 4 -7, wearing day-glow orange baseball caps with “NRA” [National Rifle Association] scrawled atop, and round stickers on their T-shirts announcing “GUNS SAVE LIVES.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though, gun related violence has reached epidemic proportions in our country by snuffing out the lives of upwards of 30,000 people and wounding many more annually. Each year, over 100,000 people are affected in some way by gun violence. Many of the guns used in these killings reach military level weapons power, guns which currently remain legal. Of the mass murders in the United States since 1982, most of the shooters obtained their weapons
Certainly, Bergeron’s, Jewelry by Harold, Cabela’s, Holy Smoke Bullet Urns of Stockton, Alabama Nation’s Truck Sales of Sanford, Florida, and gun clubs hold the constitutional right to market their devices of death, but what type of messages are they communicating? Are we really “free” as a society when our right “to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”?
I propose that we reevaluate the political right’s obsession with the so-called “freedom” to bear arms because it is only “criminals who kill people” as Second Amendment advocates claim, and counter NRA Executive VP Wayne LaPierre that “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
What will it take for us to cease fighting insanity with insanity? How many more of our precious people of all ages will have their lives cut short under the banner of “freedom to bear arms”? What will it take for us to reverse the unholy alliance between corporate America and powerful pressure groups controlling politicians in the service of firearms manufacturers?
When is enough, enough?!
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Photo credit: Getty Images
Ok, the population demographics you tend attack in these articles are about as violent as most Western European countries. The super scary Remington 870 is a basic pump shotgun known for its reliability. AR weapons, despite their fearsome appearance, account for a very small percentage of firearm crimes. NRA members aren’t exactly violent either.
Why do you feature them?
We would be better off decriminalizing g drugs, reducing prison sentences for certain non violent crimes, raising sentences for firearm crimes and investing in job training. Unfortunately that doesn’t interest you- only attacking law abiding fire arm enthusiasts
HOMICIDE death rates by assault firearms per country, the U.S. leads.
http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2015/10/visualizing-gun-deaths-comparing-u-s-rest-world/
You know you’re showing the exact same data that you’ve shown above. Still haven’t answered why you only ever talk about non violent demographics who own guns. I cannot figure out what the progressive point is here- they don’t want to save lives because they never talk about the bulk of lives that are lost or the people who are committing those violent acts. They only wail about white conservatives who enjoy firearms (and who tend to be non-violent). I’ve laid out 4 points to you that would do more to reduce firearm violence than anything you propose while reducing… Read more »
For Tom and others:
Let’s compare the United States with other western Democratic countries plus other allies. This is the most current rate per 100,000 residents per country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
United States: 3.55
Canada: 0.51
U.K.: 0.05
France: 0.22
Germany: 0.20
Israel: 0.94
Greece: 0.59
India: 0.30
Ukraine: 0.20
Denmark: 0.22
Sweden: 0.23
Norway: 0.04
Spain: 0.15
Romania: 0.04
Qatar: 0.15
Portugal: 0.48
Poland: 0.02
New Zealand: 0.26
Japan: 0.00
Australia: 0.11
Bulgaria: 0.20
Also see: http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2015/10/visualizing-gun-deaths-comparing-u-s-rest-world/
Apples and oranges. Chicago alone has had 216 murders through the first half of 2015. 100% of them were with illegal guns. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.
Also, if you take Chicago, LA, New York and Detroit out of the equation, I think you’d see some very different numbers
UK currently trying to ban knives: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-28/knife-murders-spiking-after-gun-ban-uk-urges-save-life-surrender-your-knife
US Murder rate falling faster than UK http://40.media.tumblr.com/17493e847060dd3864b731b26702acce/tumblr_inline_nxd5z7wvkE1ts0je5_500.png
From 1997-2011 US’s murder rate has dropped by almost a third, (and is still falling, btw) UK’s rate remains relatively unchanged.
Visualizing road fatalities Comparing the U.S. What should we do now? we’re double and almost triple some countries …
Country Road fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year /- Road fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles
Australia
5.6 / 7.6
Austria
5.3/ 7.2
Canada
6 / 9.3
Denmark
3.0 /5.7
Finland
4.7/ 6.6
France
4.9 /8.5
Germany
4.3 /6.9
Iceland
3.8 /4.9
Ireland
4.2/ 8.1
Italy
6.2 /7.6
Japan
4.8 /7.3
Luxembourg
6.5 /8.1
Netherlands
3.9 /6.9
Norway
2.9 /4.4
Spain
3.6/ 5.2
Sweden
3/ 5.1
Switzerland
3.4 /4.7
United Kingdom
3.5 /6.2
United States
11.6 /13.6
It’s fun, isn’t it, to write articles based on cherry-picked ‘facts”. You forgot to mention that there are millions of gun owners in the US who never cause any trouble and whose political, religious, and cultural opinions are not particularly controversial. Of course, painting with the broadest brush possible was your intent, wasn’t it?
My son, when asked what he wanted to do with his Dad over Christmas Break said 2 things: play basketball and go to the shooting range. We’ll do both and have a great time bonding. He’s a great kid- smart, kind hearted, and loving. If you eliminated all the specific instances in this article – banned all AR 15 type weapons and Remington 870s you wouldn’t make a statistical dent in firearm violence. Tin cans, dove, quail, turkey and paper targets might breathe a sigh of relief though. What are you really against here? It’s not saving lives or you… Read more »
12/09/15 … Chicago. “According to recent reports, a veteran with a concealed carry permit was forced to shoot a man who started firing on him and a group of friends on a Friday night.”
12 Times Mass Shootings Were Stopped by Good Guys With Guns http://controversialtimes.com/issues/constitutional-rights/12-times-mass-shootings-were-stopped-by-good-guys-with-guns/
When is enough, enough? You tell me
According to Pew research “National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s” Yet gun ownership is the highest ever.