The gun issue in the USA.

It was with considerable frustration that I watched the live broadcast of the latest Town Hall debate on this issue, prompted by yet another mass killing ... and once again the slaughter of none other than children.

I watched and heard politicians, the National Rifle Association representative and other personages wriggle, squirm, obfuscate, lie and confuse the issue in just about every imaginable way.
There is an entrenched culture of trying to "fool all of the people all of the time".

However it is blindingly obvious that Americans, as a whole, are terribly confused about the fundamental driver of the problem they have ... despite the lesson available from what Australia did and the situations in other first world countries. [See image above]

The elephant in the room is the much revered 2nd Amendment that is regarded as sacrosanct and entitling every citizen to a firearm. The fact that this amendment could ONLY have had the right to possessing muskets in mind is completely glossed over and ignored.

The fact that no right can ever be upheld in a way that prejudices other fundamental rights is completely ignored.

There are no rights that are UNLIMITED OR ABSOLUTE.

Example: - Everyone has a fundamental right to own property. However ownership, possession and use of a motor vehicle is strictly controlled because of the potential of enormous harm.
If it is correct that the 2nd Amendment right is absolute why is it that Americans are not allowed on air flights in possession of a gun? They certainly are restricted from possession in any number of places starting with the White House.
As regards flights Trump's answer would be that you arm all the passengers.

All rights are subject to the limitation that they do NOT prejudice other fundamental rights.

The evidence that the reverence in which the 2nd Amendment is held IS virtually demolishing Amendment 5 - Protection of Rights to Life, Liberty, and Property, is simply glossed over ... except as was raised by ONE attendee at the meeting.

Symptomatic of the problem in "American thinking" as regards the issue has been furnished by none other than its prize buffoon, President Donald Trump, who proposed that teachers be armed and that "background checks" be ramped up.

a) The idea that arming teachers is a "solution" borders on lunacy. Teachers are teachers ... NOT soldiers. Even I, as a trained soldier, would have real difficulties saving lives when the School I am at is spontaneously attacked. By the time I would get to the gunman he could well have already killed 15 kids when armed ONLY with a pistol ... and dozens more if armed with an assault weapon. And there would be no guarantee that he would not also kill me.
This proposition by Trump whilst facing affected families virges on the moronic.
When it goes wrong he will say that the kids must all be armed!!!

Currently the possession of pistols is not even being mentioned even though one of these can be used to kill and maim up to 15 humans in as many seconds.

b) "Background checks", even if superbly executed will only provide a snapshot of a moment in time. The human being that presents as a model citizen in that moment in time may well become a raving lunatic at any time thereafter. No "background check" would have prevented that Las Vegas massacre in which 58 people were killed and hundreds injured.

c) So too as regards vetting supposedly mentally disordered people. There is no government on this planet that has ever been able to contain mental disorder. I lost a  brother to gunshot suicide, even though he was under the best treatment for ONLY depression.


These are the type of "solutions" you going to get from someone who dodged military service five times and knows nothing about guns or their use in anger, except that they can be used to kill.

It is obvious that there is a need for a paradigm shift/change in the way Americans, as a whole, perceive the issue of gun possession. 

There will never be complete protection. However as is the case in other countries the possession of a gun needs to be subjected to common sense management. 

For a start, possession needs to be licensed in terms of a regime that ensures responsible restricted possession, training and checking thereafter.

The problem will never be completely disposed of, but it will have been greatly reduced.

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This image sets out the reality with the telling simplicity of truth.

Mankind is as dom as ever

Yes we are the species known as homo sapiens because we have the power of reason but undoubtedly our default mode is to be dumb.

This dumbness is very successfully masked, concealed, submerged on account of our very aggressive education systems, so most of the time we manage not to do really stupid things.

However every so often someone comes along and gets us back to our natural state of idiocy.

That is the hard evidence as unpalatable and regrettable as it might be. 

That is why the very smart people of Germany fell for a diminutive ranting maniac, Adolph Hitler, and his diabolical “Nazism”.

It is why Africans danced in the street for a genocidal maniac like Idi Amin Dada.

Otherwise very smart White Rhodesians were led like sheep down an obviously disastrous path by Ian Douglas Smith.

Then the supposedly smartest Africans, being Zimbabweans, repeatedly kept a really bad leader, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, in power.

In South Africa the people have kept a cheap crook like Jacob Zuma in power even after they were fully informed about his perverse Nkandla enrichment to the tune of R245 million.

Now we see that the supposedly most advanced people on the planet, being the Americans, have voted in the biggest recorded buffoon in history, Donald J Trump, as their President.

And then we have people supporting a diabolical entity like ISIS. As said it must be the case that our natural default mode is to be stupid, naïve, irrational, dense, dumb, dom … as much as this is covered up by education.

However the likes of Hitler, Mugabe … and Trump have had the knack of getting us back to our natural stupid state.

I started life in an orphanage and institution for deprived children, Sacred Heart Home. That school and the secondary school I attended were the most under-resourced in the Colony of Southern Rhodesia. But I now realize that I actually received a most fantastic education because, as much as I have done really dumb things, I could never fall for the stuff spewed out by the likes of Hitler, Smith, Amin, Mugabe, Zuma and Donald Trump. NEVER!!! NEVER NEVER EVER!!! ... and yes ISIS ... NEVER ... NEVER ... NEVER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I realize that I had the best teachers on this planet in Sister Mare SND, Richard Brown, Danny Pillay, Vernon Bowers and others. They are my heroes.

To my mind it is unimaginable that supposedly sentient beings can even start to believe Trump’s bleating that 194 other nations all conspired to diddle, cheat and laugh at “poor” America as regards the Paris Climate Accord.

At the High School I attended, Embakwe Coloured School, a person like Trump would have got a very good hiding for trying to “eat us in the ear and hurt us in the brain”.

So understand that we are all dom, but if you are a fan of any of the buggers I have listed above and paid for your education, you need to go and get your money back.

Of course it might also be the case that we are not all descendants of the rather smart homo sapiens but that most of us have evolved from the rather thick homo heidelbergensis, homo erectus, homo habilis, Australopithecus afarensis or the Neanderstals.

What proves my point beyond all doubt is the way the current debate is being framed. Everyone is into arguing, quarrelling and going bla bla bla about “climate change”.

Scientifically climate change can always be disputed. What cannot be disputed is that “dirty energy” like coal mining is no good for our children, the planet and its creatures as compared to “clean energy” like solar. It is a simple matter of choosing which is the more responsible way to manage planetary resources; which increases rather than decreases survivability of the planet and its inhabitants.

It is like choosing between an e-cigarette and the traditional tobacco fag. Does a surgeon use a kitchen knife or a scalpel? Why do we now use seat belts?

As Arnold Schwarzenegger says - “Does Donald Trump not know what is it that causes tuberculosis and emphysema”?
Pumping black smoke into the air is just not smart if you can use solar instead.

However, except for Arnold it seems, nobody is framing the issue in these obvious terms. We are not doing this because we are dom.

If you imagine that I am wrong ask yourself a very simple question – do you think, imagine or suppose that our current management of the planet and its resources is at all sustainable in the longer term?

We know that it is not … but we all acquiesce, connive and collude at this ruination of the planet because, as said, we are as thick as planks. No question!!

We Goffals (Coloured folk) in Rhodesia used to have a saying - “It is in the Levis” referencing Levi Jeans , i.e, human genes ... lol.