Phrase of the Day: HIGHLY LIMITED IMPORTANCE OF OUR LIVES

One of the functions of those elected into office is to protect the citizens they represent.  A mayor is supposed to protect the city's residents.  A governor is supposed to protect the citizens of his/her state.  The citizens of a state are also to be protected by Senators and Representatives, just to a larger scale.  The President, everyone.

In fact, it is often said by politicians at any level that their priority is to protect their citizens, sometimes saying it is "the most important job" they have.  Indeed, certain actions, resolutions, and laws have been for the benefit of the public at large.  Sometimes, however, those very actions, resolutions, and laws are tinkered with, largely altered, or flat-out overturned, resulting in anywhere from less benefit to the public to either likely or definite harm.

There are other times when those very laws and regulations are changed, or kept from being put into place, to benefit anybody but the public.  Those who benefit are corporations, special interests, lobbyists, and those who stand to profit in some way.  Many times, the public's well-being, health, and welfare are ignored.  In terms of firearms, that profiting in some way is at the expense of the safety of the masses.  These entities and the far-too-many politicians they are in bed with (who pocket large sums of money from those entities) are intentionally making it more dangerous for the rest of us.  In short, our lives are unimportant.

There is, however, one time when our lives are important to politicians: election day.  Yes, Congress will make it so you are more likely to be permanently injured or lose your life, but they sure do want you to show up to vote them in, or keep them in, political office.  Our lives are far more important to those companies and special interests: people keep on buying products of mass murder, increasing profits, and allowing the vicious cycle of lobbying, advertising, and payoffs to continue.

Much of this is seen as nothing more than business transactions, akin to nothing more serious than buying a house.  The United States is home to approximately 4.4% of the world's population.  And yet, Americans own almost half of all guns owned in the entire world.  

The statistics are, however, a rollercoaster of information ...
> The total percentage of Americans who own guns has gone down to 36%, down from the highest level of 53% in 1994, but the average number of guns per household has doubled from four in 1994 to around eight now.
> Only 3% of gun owners in the U.S. own half of all guns in the U.S.
> Over the past half-century, the number of mass shootings in this country is nearly three times as many as the number of the next three countries combined. 
> If the total number of guns owned was distributed to the entire U.S. population, every single person would have a firearm ... with approximately another 25 million left over.
> Two-thirds of all gun-related deaths in this U.S. are suicides.
> A whopping 89% of gun owners are in favor of not selling firearms to the mentally ill.

It is not hard to see that the views on guns and ownership are fairly mixed for the most part.  That is both the cause and effect of how firearms are treated by the government and big business.  Gun enthusiasts and death-for-profits organizations like the National Rifle Association like to lift up the importance of life by saying more guns throughout the land makes the land safer (i.e. "A good guy with a gun could have prevented this"). 

And yet, how can that be when places like El Salvador, Honduras, and Venezuela, to name just a few, have both good guys and bad guys (in massive numbers, not just one) with weapons, their homicide rates are listed among the world's highest.  (Those are the three highest rates in the world as of 2015 according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC]).  And how do these same groups of people explain countries like the United Kingdom, Japan, and the Netherlands having such low homicide rates while gun ownership is very low?  No connection ... mere happenstance. 

Recently, the NRA shocked everyone by saying it was in favor of regulations for bump stocks, in light of the Las Vegas mass murder on the first of this month.  My initial feeling was that they were going to ask for a swap of some kind to get behind it.  However, just days later, it said there was no way it would support an all-out ban on them.  If it was truly for safety, it would back a ban on them (and automatic firearms, gun show background checks, etc.), but they want this country to be a profit-gushing weaponocracy.

After every mass murder, the names and ages of the victims are released.  Each and every one of those killed is a tragedy.  Living in New Jersey, just east of Philadelphia, I hear stories of infants and toddlers being shot by stray bullets in drive-by shootings a lot.  In terms of specifically a mass murder incident, the one in recent memory that shook me the most was the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, five years ago.  The oldest victims, comprising less than one-third of the total number of victims, ranged in age from twenty-seven to fifty-six.  The youngest victims, all elementary school students, were just six and seven years old.  SIX AND SEVEN YEARS OLD!  What was done in light of this shooting?  A lot of talking.  Aside from alot of talking, what was done in light of this shooting?  Nothing, absolutely nothing! 

British columnist Dan Hodges summed it up best, albeit fatalistically, in a 2015 tweet ...

Lives, the public's lives, our lives are important for making points, gaining votes, and benefiting special interests ... but not important enough to do everything possible to save them.  That is a highly limited importance of our lives.

So, where exactly is the protection going?

Terry