Here’s Some Ideas For Local Gun Control Initiatives That I’m Pulling Out Of My Ass

Okay I’m a bit stressed for time today as I have spent most of the morning talking with Dana Rohrabacher about Benghazi (SPOILER ALERT: he’s a fucking lunatic). However if you were watching TV around lunch today you probably saw the Wayne Lapierre, President of the NRA and arguably the country’s most hated man right now, give a self-serving shit sandwich of a press conference. While President Gunnutz offered his usual insanity in the form of red meat bullet points to his base, the rest of the non asshole world was less than impressed with Lapierre’s “solutions” to the issues of mass shootings (which mainly involved turning the country into a fascistic police state).

The problem that people are mainly focusing on in terms of how to craft a sensible and pragmatic gun law, is the Constitutional issue that supposedly will prevent any substantive changes to the current national blood orgy. It is true that the Supreme Court did establish that an individual does have a right to bear arms under the Second Amendment and has in fact nuked a few city wide guns bans for this very reason. However the “Constitutional Crisis” regarding the Second Amendment is overblown. In reality the problem in terms of passing the legislation that a majority of people and experts on this subject want to see, has and will remain grounded in the political cynicism of our policymakers. The threat of a SCOTUS veto is a smoke screen for apathy on the part of recalcitrant conservatives in both parties who wish to avoid attracting the eye of Sauron from the NRA (lest they release their army of rednecks against them in a primary).

In other words, don’t wait for Federal or even the State legislators to do the right thing. This will have to be process that is born on the local level.

The problem with this course of action will of course be money and power. A hundred thousand dollar campaign against gun control is useless on the national stage, but can be devastating when applied in opposition to a local initiative. However local governments are also more susceptible to the changing attitudes of individual citizens, so perhaps the new found sense of disgust across the country can quickly manifest themselves within the towns and cities across America before they reach the States and the Federal government.

So here are a few of my more or less un-reasearched ideas for how a local city (perhaps one with over a million people in between LA Metro and Orange County that rhymes with “Wrong Peach”) could adopt with little to no resistance from enterprising wannabe constitutional scholars from the NRA, and without necessarily spending money that is necessary for other things (like caring for people who get shot).

1) Licensing: I’m not sure if state law specifically prohibits this, but I would imagine that a local government could, purely as an extension of their tax and spend powers, decided to “register” and “license” firearms in order to collect revenue. I mean I have to register my dog every year with the local animal control, and I’m sure that money goes towards the general fund of the city. Perhaps if this license was punitive enough, we could as a city at least tone down the incentive to keep a gun within the city limits (the rich assholes in OC can have as many guns as they like misfiring during RNC fundraisers).

2) Sales Tax: Again a punitive sales tax for every gun sold here, whether it from a sporting good store, a gun dealer, or even a private sale could disincentive the desire to purchase a gun and destroy the current THRIVING marketplace for those disgusting toys.

3) An extension of “gun free zones”: This one makes the lizard brains of gun nuts short circuit more than anything, but they are sound legally and politically non-controversial. If a city can create buffer zones for the sale of drugs (legal or illegal), porn, or the disposal of hazardous waste they could certainly be applied for this purpose. Perhaps zoning laws can become the new way to force gun enthusiasts to their true paradise of liberty: SOMALIA!

4) Gun Buybacks: hey rich dudes who want to appear to be magnanimous in their communities (looking at you Gary), maybe you could donate a 50K or so to bribe the gun nuts into giving their stashes away for cash. It’s relatively cheap, it’s popular, and it’s based on the free market, EVERYONE WINS!!!

The GOP’s Fake War on Voter Fraud

Jane Mayer is, as usual, essential reading as she mercilessly dismantles Republican pretenses of protecting the ballot box. I particularly admire the way Mayer tracks down the bullshit sources cited as justification for disenfranchising and intimidating voters (note the McCarthy-esque trick of treating initial accusations and reports as conclusive proof of fraud, even after those claims have been fully examined and rejected). I’m also happy to see that I’m not the only person who still remembers that the Bush administration fired US Attorneys for refusing to bring trumped up charges of voter fraud.

Think about that for a moment: (1) Accusations of voter fraud are so fake that lifelong Republicans appointed specifically to represent the Bush administration in federal cases refused to bring charges and (2) The Republican response was to fire those attorneys. That should tell you everything you need to know about Republican respect for the right to vote and the rule of law.

Everybody Wants To Be Batman

I had the displeasure of finding this yesterday morning while walking the dogs around my neighborhood in Long Beach:

This moron has been dropping similar flyers for the past year. All of them center around this concept of “gang stalking” and seem to indicate Baxter’s self-appointed mission to monitor the non-existent gang problem in our part of the LBC. When I talked to the police about it yesterday, they were understandably not thrilled that some proto-George Zimmerman has now volunteered to defend the block against our most fearsome threats (which I would guess include the aggressive skateboarders and that one drunk who passes out in front of the Rite Aid everyday at 10:00am).

Drawing any larger conclusion concerning current social trends from this one guy’s silly-ass fantasy is probably a very bad idea. Nevertheless, I take comfort that I live in a state that does not permit concealed weapons and does not embrace the insane “Stand Your Ground” concept (which is now in the national GOP 2012 platform by the way) as a matter addressing crime in the community. The ideas of deregulation and privatization for public functions are dangerous enough when they have been applied to staffing public welfare agencies, but trusting individual citizens with the power to arrest or potentially use deadly force is beyond negligent- it is simply insane.

However let’s not also fall into the Bloomberg-esque trap of just supporting the continuing arms race with regards to law enforcement. As last week’s Empire State shooting demonstrates, even those who are “trained” to use weapons sometimes (and I would argue more often than not) make mistakes and shoot nine innocent people. The solution for preventing death and destruction on the domestic front is for us to demand a unilateral disarmament for both individuals and the state. Policing can and must be done in a manner that preserves life, and treating our neighborhoods as occupied territories is inappropriate no matter who is taking up the cause.

All Abortions Are Necessary

For those of us who believe in the fundamental right to privacy Todd Akin, Paul Ryan, and Bob McDonnell have each provided a strong lesson in how to properly defend issues relating to reproductive health. From now we need to stop distinguishing between different groups of people who “deserve” certain medical procedures. There is no common ground on which proponents of access to contraception and abortion services can meet and agree with the other side. “Safe, legal, and rare” as a political strategy has proven to be ineffective in stopping the zealots. Appeasement is over, and it is time to go on the offensive in assuring this essential aspect of individual liberty.

Akin’s asinine idea concerning the fecundity of rape victims is just the latest example of the decades long Republican resistance to allowing this particular group of women access to abortion services. The “no exceptions” idea has been on the national Republican platform since 1976. The desire to force women into giving birth was never analyzed by conservatives. Their position has always been about control, and their zealotry has only metastasized into even more disgusting versions of extremism, including the justification and facilitation of outright terrorism.

Democrats on the other hand decided, perhaps in the hopes of stemming the rising levels of violence from the other side, to equivocate. However by agreeing to sacrifice the singular legal and moral position from which the right to an abortion was established (the right to privacy for all), we in effect divided those who seek abortions into separate and unequal camps. On one side there were women who deserved to exercise the right to choose, and then there were the “others” whose reasons for terminating a pregnancy were not seen as valuable or morally defensible for some untold reason (i.e. they are poor or happen to engage in a lifestyle which we disapproved of).

By placating to the prejudices and adopting the insane line of thinking as the other side we allowed the worst elements of the festering extremism within the right wing to become an acceptable political position in the 21st century. By refusing to properly defend the morality inherent in preserving the right to choose, we enabled the “moderate” position to continually shift rightward. As a result, access to abortion is becoming increasingly rare in many parts of this country, to the point that the unsafe back-alley procedures of the past are now once again becoming the only options for many women suffering from an unwanted pregnancy.

This line of thinking ends now. The right to decide to undergo an abortion needs to be reaffirmed by the Democratic party with no reservations, with no exceptions, and with no further need to justify our position. Access to abortion is part of a basic human right to proper healthcare, and it is further guaranteed by the 14th Amendment’s right to privacy. There is no ambiguity in this stance, and there is no need to expound or debate the nuances within this assertion. Furthermore a pregnant rape victim might be more sympathetic for some people who would otherwise oppose abortion, but they should be treated the same under the law as a person who became pregnant as a result of consensual sex. All that matters is whether or not individual who is pregnant consents to the procedure to end their pregnancy.

This position is not only easier to defend constitutionally in the judicial system, it is also a sounder electoral strategy for progressives. While the other side features raving psychopaths like Randall Terry, buffoons like Todd Akin, and terrorists like Eric Robert Rudolph, the people defending the right to abortion include well reasoned individuals who tend to justify their opinions using actual science, basic forms of empathy, and common sense. As a society we should finally admit that raising a child is not an absolutely wonderful “blessing” for everyone who becomes pregnant. We should encourage adoption, contraception, and “planning”, but for the sake of a child’s life and proper development we should also refuse to stigmatize those who choose not undertake the commitment necessary to raise a child.

Allies of the abortion rights movement need to seize this opportunity provided to us by the lunatics trying to justify forced birth in a society that celebrates our Bill of Rights. Equivocation was a worthless endeavor, as it allowed the division and weakening of the popular consensus and legal basis necessary to support our position. This year supporters of this right need to be present themselves as morally righteous and politically certain in campaigning for an expansion of abortion services across the country. At this point we really have nothing left to lose, and the weakness within the other side is becoming more obvious everyday. There is a war on women, and it is time to declare that we will accept nothing less than a total victory over those who wish to keep 51% of this country as 2nd class citizens.

Why Suicide Demonstrates The Need For Ambiguity In Policy

Tony Scott, the acclaimed director of movies like Top Gun, Enemy of the State, and Man on Fire, recently took his own life by jumping off of a bridge here in California. When the news was first reported the natural human desire to axttach a reason behind Scott’s decision eventually came to an end when it was revealed that the man had recently been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. I am uncomfortable with simply settling on this rather easy explanation for Scott’s decision (especially as the family is denying the veracity of the report), as the various factors affecting the Scott’s life were undoubtedly more complex than just “I’m gonna die anyway so what the hell”. However in saying that, I think that a discussion regarding the horrible rigidity within our legal system does in fact need to take place, especially in the context of the individual choice to take ones own life.

The sole underlying reason behind my pursuit of understanding the law, history, and politics can be summed in my own personal desire to help reduce the inherent suffering for people within the world that I could possibly influence. It is my belief that “suffering” in the broadest sense of the word, can in fact be lessened for people via the decisions of a democratically created set of laws that are influenced by other academic realms, particularly the natural sciences and history. For many people the concept of religion serves this same purpose of providing individuals with the time-tested techniques for living a better and less horrible life (many other people believe that the pursuit of capital and wealth can solve all of these problems, and while I disagree with that sentiment I am going to ignore that argument for the purpose of this post).

The religious path, in my opinion, can in fact produce many of the same results as the democratic solution for suffering reduction. However the religious path is also inherently flawed by both its institutional rigidity and the impossibility of performing a “quality control” assessment on its procedure. A further travesty therefore is created when the religious path leaches into the democratic legislative process. When a law is created in order to mirror the morality of an individual or group that believes that their ideology exists as the undeniable and unambiguous “truth”, then the entire point of the democratic process is therefore nothing more than a veneer for continuing the status quo.

This defense of keeping religious zealotry out of the democratic legislative process can (and frankly should) be applied to any of the plethora of issues facing society today. However I think that it is particularly important to use in justifying the need to allow assisted suicide inside of the United States.

The arguments against allowing the procedure are valid and numerous. How do we set up the necessary regulatory framework to support a system that prevents the nasty pseudoscience of eugenics? By what standard do we judge people as having “suffered enough” to justify allowing them to die? How do we judge someone’s ability to consent to death, when such a thought is so antithetical to reason that someone considering it could be seen as inherently incapable of making such a decision?

While those questions, as well as the myriad of other tangential issues raised by legalized end-of-life services, are important (and essential), they are still short-sighted in their framing of the original problem that assisted suicide is meant to solve. When a society is built literally on the principle that suffering should be alleviated via democratically created law, it seems unnecessarily cruel to require someone to prolong their life when they are suffering from a excruciating and debilitating pain or illness. A country cannot collectively decide that human rights include the right to be free from torture while at the same time denying someone the ability to remove themselves (even permanently) from a tortuous situation where no other solution exists.

We will never know what went through Tony Scott’s head when he made the decision to jump off of that bridge. Suicide, even when facing a fatal illness still seems like an illogical decision that someone makes without sufficient reasoning. However based on what little we do know about what Scott was facing I still wonder about how I would respond to his situation. Cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and the accompanying side effects and stress of treating a malignant tumor are tortuous situations in their own right, and even undergoing that journey does not guarantee that someone will not eventually experience degenerative effects of the disease on their body. Who are we to say that jumping to ones death when being diagnosed with such a horrible immediate future is not a rational choice?

The arguments against allowing assisted suicide are based on the manichaean world of spiritual morality, especially the belief that life exists as a gift from god that which we mere humans are simply not allowed to reject whenever we feel like it. Again this is a completely valid belief, but it is not only inadequate as a defense against allowing people to end their lives in a place where religious beliefs are not supposed to exist as the basis for our laws, it is also way to inflexible to work as an enforceable law inside of modern society. Despite the understandable reservations that people might have with the government bureaucracy and the judicial system, we as a country are capable of addressing and even solving the complex problems inherent with human interactions. Every day decisions concerning custody arrangements for children, the division of property after a divorce or death, and the proper sentencing for a criminal offender are carefully discussed and decided on by capable individuals based on laws designed by (hopefully) properly deliberating legislatures. Our systems of governing do have the capacity to make (or assist in) life and death decisions, and to pretend otherwise is frankly disingenuous. An incalculable number of government organizations perform actions that are at least partially as important as end of life care every single day.

Despite whatever hysterical (and politically motivated) shrieks come from the right about “death panels”, and whatever the flawed leadership of the Catholic Church has to say about this issue, we should as a society embrace the “right” to end one’s life when they choose to do so. We can in fact legislate something establishing the nuanced idea of when it is “appropriate” to die, and the benefit to society (and individual lives) far outweighs whatever consequences come as a result of allowing these procedures to occur.

Someday I might be faced with a life-threatening disease or injury that will require me to consider whether or not my life is worth living. I hope like hell that I fight against the urge to die and instead persevere against the odds and triumph over the pain and suffering. However I also take solace in perhaps knowing that the option to peacefully end my life exists, and I hope that such a choice is available for me. Denying others with that choice in the meantime seems just heartless, if not bordering on sadistic.

If you are interested in this subject, you should check out this unforgettable Frontline documentary on “suicide tourism”.