Another Word On Gun Control

Since I am a writer and I have a blog, and since I am American and human and disgusted at the violence against children we value so highly, I'm going to weigh in on the gun control debate that is consuming our country. (Spoiler alert: gun nuts may want to stop reading right about now.)

The gun control debate is a distraction.

That we're even arguing about gun control and gun rights in the wake of 20 dead children and 8 dead adults is ridiculous. I've been reading about guns and gun rights and gun ownership and gun violence every day for a week and have heard the full range of opinion from all sides. In the end, I've decided "gun rights" is an oxymoron. Americans should not have the right to own a gun. No one should have the right to own something designed exclusively to kill.

But what about protection? While guns may be purchased under the assumption that they will only be used in cases of self defense (for example, in a home invasion or robbery), guns are not typically used for protection. Guns settle escalating arguments (hardly a noble motive), guns provide a means for letting out anger against another person, guns are used against friends and family members, and guns are fired accidentally during play or cleaning or "empty" threats. But guns are not used - widely, at least - to protect their owners. Sure, there are some people who are able to defend their lives and property against someone else with a gun because they have a gun, but those people are in the extreme minority.

But what about hunters? I don't know many hunters, but the ones I do know use more traditional weapons - single bullet rifles (or bird shot), knives, single line fishing rods, etc. I do not know of a hunter who uses or claims to need an automatic weapon for hunting. Nor have I ever heard of a hunter who claims to rely on an automatic weapon. In fact, hunters widely take pride in their skill at killing a fleeing animal with a single shot (or maybe two). Blindly shooting into a forest to kill a deer and anything else in your path is not a skill, and is not the point of hunting (any hunters out there are welcome to correct me). There are rules, regulations, and etiquette that hunters follow, and those who deviate are fined, banned and/or ridiculed by their fellow hunters. A "hunter" who shoots up a deer half a dozen times and uses absolutely no stealth, strength or aim to kill is not the same as a hunter who tracks and cleanly kills a deer causing almost no disruption to the rest of the forest. A hunting rifle will have 5 or 6 bullets in the magazine, while a military style automatic weapon (of similar structure) will have a magazine that can hold dozens, if not hundreds, of bullets.

But what about the second amendment? Bullshit. In all likeliness, the 2nd amendment was not created so that all citizens can freely carry automatic weapons, hidden in coats in public places armed with bullet proof vests and military armor, it was created to ensure a prepared military. Which we have. In fact, we have the most highly trained military in the world, full of fucking volunteers, who want to do nothing but be in the military. Our country spends more money arming and preparing the several branches of our military to respond to any situation imaginable. There's no chance that many millions of people, most of whom probably join the military to protect the American people, would go along with a government take-over that the seemingly paranoid NRA believes could happen.

But what about my freedom and right to own a gun? If your freedom to own a gun - something that's sole purpose is to kill - means that my freedom and right to live is at risk, I'm going to argue that your freedom is less important than mine. Because by law it is. The NRA saying that we need more civilians to be armed with guns to prevent murders from happening means I need to rely on others to protect me. Since no one is saying every American should have and carry a gun those who are uncomfortable with that prospect don't have to carry one. But it also means that we can't stop certain people from having and carrying guns, if it's a right bestowed on all Americans, which means I'm at the mercy of all those potentially unstable gun toting citizens. But hey, that's their right, right?

So what if it's unlikely that I'll actually use the gun I bought for the reasons I said I bought it, I still have the right and still want the opportunity to use a gun for those reasons. Again, I have to call bullshit. If you know that a gun at home is far more likely to kill a family member (or yourself) than an intruder and you still want one, you're not thinking clearly. And anyone who is not thinking clearly should not have a gun. Let's, for argument's sake, say you buy a handgun for protection against home robbery. Let's say you wake up in the middle of the night because you  hear someone coming into your home (and let's assume it's not your kid coming back late, the dog making a racket, or someone you know doing something completely innocent) and you have your handgun at hand. Because you're worried about protecting yourself, you don't keep your gun in a safe, and it's always loaded. After arming yourself, you creep down the hall to where you hear the intruder. It's dark, but you obviously can't turn on any lights. You find the suspect in the living room, snooping around. Fortunately, he hasn't noticed you yet, so you have the advantage. You shoot. What are the odds you hit? Perhaps the gun had more of a kickback than you remembered the last time you used it. Perhaps it was darker than you thought and the suspect was the easy chair, which now has a nice hole in it. Perhaps your hand was shaking at the prospect of killing a person (even an intruder) and you missed entirely. Perhaps you hit the person but didn't kill him or her. What now? You're in your PJs, the intruder has every advantage now. Chances are the intruder will now fire at you, and because he or she is more accustomed to holding and firing a gun and because he or she has grown accustomed to the darkness, you're hit. You may not die, but now the intruder is gone and you need an ambulance. And that's the scenario if all goes well. If the "intruder" is your kid or your dog or someone you don't want to kill you're totally fucked if that bullet finds its target. If, because you want easy access to it in case of an intruder you don't keep your gun in a safe, someone else finds the gun and accidentally kills themselves or someone else, will you still advocate owning a gun for protection? No one can answer this until it happens. You absolutely cannot speculate how you would feel until your kid or your parent or your spouse, or even your dog, is dead because you had a gun.

Yes, people will still kill people even if no one has a gun. But it'll be a lot, lot harder. Kids won't accidentally die after finding a gun kept for protection, arguments won't escalate to the point that someone grabs his gun, 20 children won't die in 15 minutes because someone had a gun. Yes, we'll still have cars and knives and bombs and cross bows and even airplanes that will kill mass people. But not more than 8 thousand people in one year. And that's the point. No one is saying that we will eliminate murders or suicides if we eliminate guns.  But there will be far, far, far fewer.

To Die Young And Unhappy

(Or, how misleadingly titled "studies" create sensationalism.)

Two flawed studies today revealed that if I keep to my way of life I will die young and unhappy. Or at least younger and less happy than others.

No, not because I have a crazy wild lifestyle and party hard and make risky choices, but because I am childless and non-religious. Apparently, not having children causes a death rate of two to four times as high as those who have children and not being religious robs me of happiness.

The first study: The one that says the childless have a higher death rate than the child-bearing looked at couples in Denmark treated for infertility, and collected data from birth and death registries, IVF records, hospital admissions, psychiatric services, and labor market statistics. During the 14 year study, a large number of women and larger number of men died and a very large number of women and slightly less large number of men were diagnosed with a mental illness. "Having a child cut the risk of early death, particularly among women." Childless men and women are 2 and 4 times more likely to die from circulatory disease, cancer, or accidents than those who conceive or adopt. To their credit, the study does end by saying correlation is not causation, so I guess there's that.

The flaws: First and foremost, the title of the study is quite misleading. Death is not 2-4 times more likely for childless couples because everyone dies. Obviously that wasn't the point, but I will still point out a second flaw in the title, which is acknowledged in the study itself: there is no differentiation between voluntarily childless couples and involuntarily childless couples. It also points out a glaring problem with the whole having children quest some people are on: if mental illness (depression) and a risk of an earlier than normal death is so prevalent among the involuntarily childless, why not adopt? The study recorded that only 1,500 of 21,000 couples treated for infertility adopted (15,000 conceived). This means there were 4,500 couples who were unable to conceive a child and chose not to adopt... I'm guessing these were the couples that were diagnosed with depression and died earlier than the others. The study showed that couples that adopted could halve their risk of mental illness, which makes sense: if you spend your whole adult life lamenting your infertility but don't adopt one of the very needy children in foster care because it's not your blood? I can see how you'd get depressed. And there was the awesome inclusion of "rates of mental ill health were similar between couples with and without children of their own, with the exception of those with drug and alcohol problems." Seems a little unnecessary to include that tidbit... 

The second study: The one that says religious people are happier than non-religious people looked at why this is found to be true ("considerable" research has been done on the topic). Turns out religion gives people a sense of purpose, is a resource for coping with life and fears, and provides them with a social network. Religion is a social activity and since social connectedness is a major contributor to individual happiness it stands to reason that the religious are happier. It's not just having a social circle, though, it's having the support of that social circle. Like the previous study, they do note that correlation is not causation and religion does not predict happiness by itself. (There was also mention of a separate study that looked at the repeal of blue laws, or laws that made it illegal for stores to be open on Sunday, and it found that women were happier when blue laws existed. In an almost funny manner, the writer of the study suggested that church makes women happier than shopping does.)

The flaws: The study points out that religion is only associated with greater happiness in countries where most of the people are religious, like in the United States (we also have the great fortune of equating Christianity with patriotism). The study is based on the premise that if most people form social ties through their religion, and you're not religious, you will have a hard time finding social support and will be less happy because of it. This also assumes that religious people won't want to befriend a non-religious person. The study does end by saying that it's not religion that makes people happy, it's the social ties religion facilitates that makes people happy, but I guarantee you a lot of people don't get past that goddamn sensationalist title.

My bottom line: Taking these titles to heart, I'll have a 4 times higher risk of death by cancer, an accident or circulatory disease if I remain childless and I'll waste away my remaining days unhappy with my life due to lack of social support. Which actually kind of makes sense: religious people have more kids than average, so if I'm childless I'm already kind of out of the loop, and if I'm childless and non-religious I'm pretty much just screwed.

Proud To Be An American

Speaking out.

Some time ago I re-read The Jungle, which everyone remembers to be about the meat industry in the early 1900s but is really about the building of America. Sure, there was a lot about how meat was processed and packaged and sold to the mostly unsuspecting public, but there was a lot more about race, prejudice, corruption, and wealth and poverty. 

We have this image of America, of the brave outcasts who dreamed of a better life for everyone, who came to this unconquered (but not uninhabited) continent and set up a society in which every man, woman and child would have the ability to rise to wealth and comfort through hard work, and care for himself and his family without extreme hardship. 

The upcoming presidential election has brought up what it means to work hard, and what it means to be comfortable. Everyone who was in the race was wealthy from the very beginning, and those who claimed to have worked their way to the top did so because of family connections or by living off of stock gains while they got their footings. Regular Americans? If they have stock it's not enough to live off the gains while they set out to chase their dreams, and more families today need two incomes to provide for the children, especially as healthcare costs increase year to year. There's the mostly unspoken idea that if you're unable to rise up into the ranks of the 1% you're just not working hard enough (mostly unspoken because it's been said, despite it still being highly taboo to bring that up). Obviously if the existing 1% got there (and obviously they got there by working hard and being smart), anyone can get there, so the poor and the struggling middle class should just stop whining. 

But I work in a country where it's uncommon to be rewarded for your efforts, where those who make the most money within a company receive financial rewards that would make it appear they're benefitting the company when the reality is they're failing at their job, and where those on the bottom rung of the ladder work hard and long and with sometimes harsh demands because they're constantly under the threat of being fired and losing the things they're already only hanging onto by a thread. Employees have to prove themselves in order to get a modest (or deserved or well overdue) raise while CEOs and presidents pocket buckets of cash because it's expected, regardless of whether it's deserved. 

The higher ups are also hiding behind the recession (which is over, apparently?), telling the workers that we're all struggling right now and promising things will get better once the economy does, you just have to wait it out like everybody else. And if it's obvious the company is doing well, or at least the CEOs aren't struggling, then it's unpatriotic to complain about your wage or your working conditions. All you have to do is put in your time and things will work out just like it did for the wealthy- don't complain when you're living in the greatest country on Earth.

In The Jungle, families came here using the very last of their life savings, after selling the farm and every single one of their possessions, save for some clothes and the things they can carry, because of the stories of prosperity and opportunity that this great new country provides. They came here willing to work hard and failed because working hard wasn't nearly enough, and wasn't even the issue. They were dumb and were taken advantage of, and nothing's changed since then. We're still willing to work hard, to give it our all, to build up the company that hired us, but we also want a little acknowledgement so that we, too, can make a life. It doesn't seem too much to ask for, especially when that's what the country has promised us. I am proud to be an American, but not always for the right reasons.

Patriotism

You're either with us or a fucking terrorist.

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." George Bernard Shaw

This must be necessarily true in order for a person to be a good and loyal patriot. Americans seem to take it to heart; we really believe we're the best despite the shit we pull on other countries (though, to be fair, no country is good and pure). Now we're in this thing against Muslims and people are so uptight and afraid over silly little things. A school group, studying the world's religions, visited a synagogue, attended a gospel, and met Hindus. But people don't get all upset until they visit a mosque. And they don't even get upset when they visit the mosque- they wait until there's all this renewed tension surrounding Muslims to release a video of some of the students participating in the prayer to get all upset. The cool thing is the parents aren't upset at all- school officials are saying it was a bad move on the teacher's part. Which is silly: they can visit holy places of other religions, but the very fact that people got upset over them visiting a mosque is the whole point of the class, called "Enduring Beliefs and the World Today."

"The backlash against the visit... underscored the need for such exchanges."

Um, exactly. How can Christians, who are supposed to turn the other cheek and be accepting of others in the name of the Lord, be so hard hearted against another group of people, for no reason? I understand the flaw in my rhetorical question: humans are flawed, religion or not. But when the religion you profess to follow preaches such humble traits, aren't you a little more of a hypocrite if you don't follow?

These maps are awesome!

Also, this is interesting:

1. Fox is the Devil's station.

F = 6th letter

O = 15th letter (1+5=6)

X = 24th letter (2+4=6)

2. Sarah Palin is an anagram of Sharia Plan. Think about it. (Thanks, Reddit!)

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

This is unusual.

First, let me say that it's wonderful that we live in a country where we can peacefully protest our government without fear. We can gather in the hundreds of thousands and carry signs to the very steps of the White House to protest what the President and Congress are doing.

We can even do so with poorly made, misspelled, grammatically incorrect, politically incorrect and downright stupid signs. Honestly, America, we have this great freedom to march and protest the hell out of our government and you're going to take misspelled signs with incorrect information? If you're going to go so far as to plan this march, fly to Washington (take time off work, buy a ticket for the day after 9/11, book a hotel, call a house sitter), and put up with mid-September Washington weather for a day or two, why on Earth wouldn't you proofread your sign or make a practice sign first? Is being correct "elitist?" Please oh please set a good example for your country and protest intelligently.

My observations: the protesters were almost all middle aged white people with their young children and a few redneck 20-somethings still bent out of shape over the North winning the Civil War. They forget that America was founded for freedom of religion and somehow think we're a Christian nation and are convinced the world was perfect before January 20, 2009. The protesters aren't fans of condoms or abortion but also don't want welfare and they left the city with overflowing trash cans government workers will have to clean up. Oh, and fuck you for implying I choose not to work. Today is Day 2 of my second round of unemployment (this year) and it's all I can do to ward off anxiety and depression.

I swear my IQ dropped a point after watching the slideshow. Good thing it was Caturday; I was able to repair some of the damage the stupid did to my mood with silly cat pictures. I love Fark.

Love Of Country

Irony: when Americans give up their unalienable rights and constitutional freedoms in order to protect and preserve their unalienable rights and constitutional freedoms as Americans.

For reasons I don't understand, Dick Cheney has been in the news more in the months since he left office than when he was in office. This time it's because he created an executive program to "assassinate al-Qaida operatives in friendly countries without the knowledge of their governments."

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Seriously.

Now, Cheney can hide behind the "it's for the good of the country" excuse. But counter terrorism is still terrorism, especially if it's done behind the backs of our friends on their land. If the tables were turned I highly doubt we'd be OK with countries like Kenya or Israel killing terrorists on our streets without asking first.

Though done under the guise of protecting the country, I believe Dick is missing the days of being the schoolyard bully. He does shitty things under the public impression that he is a superhero defending their babies and lawns. He was (almost) the man in charge and, since he wasn't part of the executive branch, he could quite literally get away with murder.

Before anyone gets on me for being unpatriotic and not wanting to do anything possible (regardless of legality) to get those bastards who killed our citizens on September 11th, 2001, doesn't it feel a little backwards that we have to give up our freedoms in order to protect our freedoms? Does it make you feel safer knowing that the government might be listening in on your private phone conversations or that the guy next to you threw away his Diet Coke in the airport security line? Are these the things making us safe now?

Personally, I'd rather take my chances with the airlines and my cell phone and the guy in the turban teaching biology section. I'd rather my government focus on real solutions to nationwide fear. I'd rather wave my flag on our Independence Day and be proud we're following our own ideals because those ideals are more important than anything, even our lives. If America is taking this new direction, I don't want to live here.