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Tag Archives: Gun violence

Henry Giroux on America’s Nightmare of Violence

17 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Human Behavior, Save Our Children, United States

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

Culture of violence, Fear of terrorism, Gun violence, Henry Giroux, Militarization of US Police Force, USA warfare state

Gun owners at gun-rights rally - Washington State - 15 January 2015

Gun owners at gun-rights rally
Capital, State of Washington – January 15, 2015
Photo Credit: The Washington Times/Associated Press
[See The White House Press Release, January 4, 2016, for
New Executive Actions to Reduce Gun Violence]

Violence sells. Violence wins book and movie awards. When Jamaican author, Marlon James, won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2015 for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings, I was elated. I had to read it. Set in Jamaica and New York (1976-1991), it’s a literary masterpiece on the nature of human violence and the forces that fuel it. It’s not reading for the faint of heart.

In his article, “Gun Culture and the American Nightmare of Violence,” Henry A. Giroux notes: “Popular culture not only trades in violence as entertainment, but also it delivers violence to a society addicted to a pleasure principle steeped in graphic and extreme images of human suffering, mayhem and torture.” The inculcation of such make-believe violence as a normal part of real-life, especially among our youth, concerns him. Addressing the roots of America’s culture of violence becomes more difficult. Continue reading →

Year 2015: Reflections

27 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in United States

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

Climate disruption, Global warming, Gun violence, Reflections Year 2015, Refugees, The Empire, Writers' Critique Group

Happy New Year 2016

Happy New Year 2016
Source: Esplorando Cartoline Blogspot

Year 2015 has been a tumultuous journey on Spaceship Earth. But all wasn’t bleak. In the blogosphere, friends like Cyril Bryan at the Guyanese Online Blog boosted my spirits and hits by sharing my posts and keeping me in touch with news from Guyana and the Guyanese Diaspora. In May, we welcomed the newly-elected coalition government of President David Granger and Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo. The challenges are innumerable. Clean-up goes much deeper than unclogging drains and removing trash.

Blogging friends, Dr. Gerald Stein (Chicago/USA) and Bruce Witzel (Vancouver/Canada), continue to inspire, motivate, and lift me up when passing through an asteroid field. Carol Hand, a new blogging friend from the Sokaogon Ojibwe Community (Wisconsin/USA), shares much-needed voices from the margins of Native American life.

I thank each one of you who have read and commented on my posts. You have made this year’s journey through our galaxy meaningful and brighter. Continue reading →

Can Americans Agree on Gun Control Laws?

27 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Human Behavior, United States, Urban Violence

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Firearms, Gun control, Gun violence, Irrational fears, US Second Amendment

Guns for Sale at a Wal-Mart Store - United States

Guns for sale at a Wal-Mart Store in the United States

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com

 

Under the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, I have the right to own as many guns as I consider necessary to protect my home and for my personal safety. The Second Amendment reads:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

With the ease of buying a firearm and ammunition, it is no surprise that the United States outranks all other nations in the number of privately-owned firearms – estimated at 270 million in 2007, the equivalent of 88.8 firearms per 100 people (www.gunpolicy.org).

President Obama’s call for more effective gun control laws – following the December 2012 massacre of twenty first-graders and six adults at an elementary school in Connecticut – has not only led to an outcry in defense of private gun ownership but also a rise in gun sales. Some fear that the talk of gun control is really a government ploy to take away their guns. Fear makes us irrational.

The Connecticut and other gun massacres during 2012 are resounding alerts of the consequences of firearm proliferation across our nation. During the period 1980 to 2008, more than two-thirds of victims murdered by a spouse or ex-spouse were killed with a gun (Bureau of Justice Statistics). In 2011 nationwide, firearms were used in 67.7 percent of murders, 41.3 percent of robberies, and 21.2 percent of aggravated assaults (Federal Bureau of Investigation).

Having a gun does not guarantee our survival against armed home invaders; estranged husbands or boyfriends; and psychopathic or mentally ill gunmen on the street, in our workplace, school, university, shopping mall or cinema. Before going on his killing spree, the mentally ill Connecticut killer first shot his mother with one of her own firearms.

I do not trust defenders of our Second Amendment rights who call for more guns in the hands of “the good guys” as a solution to gun violence. These defenders usually represent organizations that profit from the production and sales of firearms. They are well versed in stoking our fears of losing our right to defend and protect ourselves and loved ones.

I do not understand the significance of “a well regulated militia” for our nation in the Year 2013. Our Armed Forces are the greatest and best equipped on Planet Earth. If they cannot defend our nation against our enemies, owning a Bushmaster AR-15 high-powered semiautomatic rifle, like the one used by the Connecticut shooter, will not save me and my loved ones.

I support our president’s call for stricter gun control laws to curb gun violence and gun deaths across our nation. Do those who stand with the defenders of unrestrained gun and ammunition sales have the courage to let go of their irrational fears? Must our right “to keep and bear arms” supersede all other rights as citizens in a free society?

Threatened by a Neighbor with a Gun

20 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Brazil, Human Behavior, Urban Violence

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Armas de fogo (firearms), Disarmament in Brazil, Fortaleza/Ceará, Gun deaths in Brazil, Gun violence

Brazil - National Disarmament Campaign

“My son found my gun. He was only 8 years.” – Protect your family. Disarm-yourself.

National Disarmament Campaign – Brazil

Source: Brazil’s Ministry of Justice Blog

 

I should have known better. On local and national TV and in the local newspapers, reports abound of people shot to death during arguments between motorists on the streets, in bars, and disputes between neighbors.

I was watching a popular eight o’clock novella (soap opera) when a neighbor arrived in the courtyard below our third-floor apartment. Music blasted from his car. Our TV appeared mute. After a stressful day at work, I could not handle such inconsiderate behavior and, in anger, stormed down the stairs to ask him to lower the volume. I should have exercised self-restraint.

There were two men standing behind the vehicle when I approached. Before I could say anything, one of the men went inside the ground-floor apartment and returned holding a revolver at his side.

A woman, presumably his wife, rushed out behind him. “Ari, don’t do anything crazy,” she said.

Ari came at me like a pit bull. “I have the right to play music,” he shouted.

I glanced at the revolver, five inches away from my hand. Survival mode kicked in. I looked up at him and said in a calm voice: “Senhor, all I’m asking is that you kindly lower the volume. Only this.”

After telling the other man to lower the music, he ranted about being harassed by his neighbors, intent in driving him from his home. I listened. I had stepped into a fight that was not mine. When I suggested that he speak with the sindico of our condominium, he lambasted management for siding with his tormentors.

“Ari, come inside. Let the woman leave,” the woman said. “You’re frightening her sons.”

In the shadows, about ten feet away, my two sons clung to each other. I had put my life at risk, and their future in jeopardy. Never again could I make such flawed judgment.

Ari turned off the music and went inside.

A week later, Ari and his wife moved out. Perhaps, he learned that fighting with neighbors was a battle lost. I learned that some of my neighbors owned guns and were prepared to use it at the slightest provocation.

Stress, anger, and guns make a deadly cocktail.

After the Brazilian government sanctioned the Statute of Disarmament in December 2003, national campaigns for disarming the population collected almost one million weapons over the next seven years (Brazilian Forum of Public Security, Ministry of Justice). While deaths by armas de fogo have fallen, the Executive-Secretary of the Ministry of Justice considers the continuing high levels of extreme concern.

In 2010, over 35,000 people – 70.5 percent of homicides in Brazil – died from gunshot wounds. This number rises to 38,000 when you add gun deaths caused by accidents, suicide, and undetermined intention (Ministry of Health – pdf file).

In Fortaleza, Ceará – where refusal to hand over your Nike running shoes to an armed robber can cost you your life – I maneuvered the streets like an unarmed soldier in a combat zone.

 

Doomsday 12.21.12

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Rosaliene Bacchus in Family Life, Human Behavior, United States

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

21 December 2012, Adam Lanza, Connecticut Shooting December 2012, Disconnectedness, Doomsday, Gun violence

Connection Shooting - 14 December 2012

Family in shock after Connecticut Shooting – 14 December 2012

Source: news.yahoo.com

 

I had already drafted my article for this week’s blog about Doomsday 12.21.12 when gun violence reached a new high on Friday, December 14, here in the United States. I am still in shock at the senseless massacre of 20 first-grade children and 6 adults at an elementary school located in a quiet, upscale, suburban neighborhood in Connecticut. Regardless of where we live, our children are not safe.

Something is definitely not right with our world when a “brilliant and remote” 20-year-old Adam Lanza kills his mother and then goes after defenseless children.

The word “remote” used by someone who knew Adam Lanza is telling. In spite of our advances in communication technology and online social networks that connect us 24/7, we are more disconnected than ever before. Even his older brother, by four years, has not had contact with him since 2010. Disconnectedness between brothers. He turned against his mother, a divorcee, the person who was there for him each day of his struggle. Disconnectedness between parents and their children.

When our family unit collapses, we are left to make it on our own the best we can. Some of us – especially those already struggling with emotional and social disabilities – may fall apart.

The tragedy at the elementary school in Connecticut is a visceral manifestation of the way our destructive behavior shatters the lives of others in our path. In an instant, a gun armed with bullets can take the life of another, while a tongue armed with hate speech destroys lives a day at a time.

On Friday, 21 December 2012, when winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere and our planet once again aligns with the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, we will not face annihilation. At least, so NASA assures us. But Doomsday has arrived for the families touched by Adam Lanza’s killing rampage. Doomsday has arrived for every family controlled by fear and violence. Doomsday has arrived for every family that faces homelessness, hunger, and despair.

In a wealthy nation such as ours, it is shameful that millions of families – the roots that hold our society together – are suffering needlessly. There is an urgent need for more jobs: jobs that pay a living wage. Americans need to get back to work. More and more of our men, of all ages, will resort to violence under the strain of joblessness, loss of self-esteem, and loss of purpose in their lives. More families will be ripped apart.

In his poem, “Let There Be Light,” Rex Sexton, an American Surrealist painter and poet laments (excerpt):

            Everything is gone. There is no reason

            to go on. For too many of us, faith, hope,

            charity, compassion, liberty, equality,

            fraternity, have all died in a country

            that lost its dream of decency.

On Friday, 21 December 2012, let us begin a new life of awareness, connectedness, and decency towards others. Let us work to restore decency in our nation, in our communities, in our work places, in our schools, in our homes. Let decency begin with me.

 

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