America's Gun Violence Imbroglio

[PADA: America is a gun worshiping society. We know that from countless examples of gun violence. The idea that America will be a safe place when everyone has a gun is simply, false. There are a lot of people who just should not have a gun, they just are not mature enough / mentally stable enough / to have one. There are also a lot of people who are generally not too bad off, but if they get angry, they can "snap" and if there is a gun nearby, then what do we expect? Of course there are also criminals and gangs and etc. There is also no known method to control "stray bullets" hitting kids and other bystanders, which happens on a regular basis.   

What is interesting now is that more people are wondering what will the psychological effects be on children -- when they have to live in a culture where they have to be trained to think -- they may not be safe in a school, a shopping mall, a supermarket, or any public place, or maybe even in their own house? Clearly this is going to produce some type of ongoing anxiety and trauma for these children. You are a kid, in a war zone?

So we get what we get, if we want everyone to have a gun, there are going to be consequences, and that means -- shooting incidents going on left, right and center. That really cannot be avoided. 

I also think that ISKCON has a similar type of problem. So many children were psychologically messed up with the culture of children abuse, yet the society as a whole has failed to deal with that problem properly. That has left a lot of these children with psychological scars that have not been healed. And this gun culture will do the same type thing. It will impact the psychological well being of these kids -- unfavorably.]   

Peter W. Marty

HOW ARE THE KIDS?

I’ve written elsewhere about America’s love affair with guns. I don’t have anything new to say about the absurdity of believing that people need an assault rifle to protect themselves or hunt squirrel. I wish it were more obvious to more people how dangerous it is to make any right unconditional and absolute once it becomes an acute threat to the general welfare. But none of these concerns are on my mind at the moment. Today, I just want to think about the kids.

The kids. We’re destroying their childhoods, not because the number of school shootings has created some new statistical likelihood that they will be shot in their own school. The greater problem is that we’re asking kids to shoulder what they do not deserve to shoulder. We’re placing upon their innocence and defenseless an enormous weight – the weight of fixing our adult messes.

Active shooter drills are now the norm for classrooms across the country. Sadly so. Elementary school kids get dragged through exercises that have them running zig-zag across the playground to practice how to avoid flying bullets. School administrators put little children through drills where they're told to curl up motionless beneath their desks in locked rooms with the lights off. If someone were to break into that locked classroom, they’re taught to start throwing shoes and pencils.

I get the impulse for these strategies. We’re trying to ready kids for the worst. But the idiocy of placing this kind of psychological burden upon children is simply unjustifiable. It’s cruel in the extreme. It’s a totally misguided view of childhood. Kids have enough anxiety as it is without us grown-ups placing a burden on them that we’ve simply refused to address ourselves.

What we’re doing is fostering in kids a really dark view of the future. I’m not a psychologist, but don’t tell me that all this active shooter preparedness doesn’t have lasting consequences.

The Maasai in Africa have a standard way of greeting each other: Kasserian Ingera, which means, “How are the children?” Even those who don’t have children respond, “All the children are well.” That’s how their society indicates its priority protection of the young.

We have a long way to go in America, I’m afraid, before we can say that all the children are well. It’s not because we have more “bad” people or more mentally ill people in this country than the rest of the world. It’s only because we’re spineless when it comes to making sensible changes that would actually put children first. PWM

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https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting?

PADA: America's gun problem is really a symptom of a much larger problem, that is -- the fabric of American society is coming unglued on many fronts. We also know that Srila Prabhupada said -- because Texas has so much animal slaughter, that is what caused the Viet Nam war. In other words a society that kills animals will have violence returned back -- it is called karma reaction.

Meanwhile, the leaders of Texas are trying to blame their violence problem on "mental health." For example, the Governor of Texas first of all slashed $211,000,000 from the Texas mental health program, then he said -- the whole gun problem is due to -- lack of mental health programs. OK so we have a gun problem -- due to less mental health programs -- so we need to have less mental health programs. Makes perfect sense! OK only in the USA! 

And Texas was already way behind most other states in mental health programs before they slashed their budget. That just means they are trying to blame shift and scapegoat "not enough mental health programs." They are not serious about these issues. 

And -- right after one mass shooting is reported in Texas, yet another potential threat is found: Published May 26, 2022 9:08am EDT Donna Texas school district closes schools after receiving ‘credible threat of violence’ from armed student. 

And this is because there is not enough mental health workers? Or is this because there are too many cracker pots people out there with military grade weapons? Even worse, now they are saying the teachers, who are evidently often teaching gay, transgender and radical communist agendas, should be armed with shotguns to defend themselves and their students. 

Seriously! Except the armed police took a long time to enter the building themselves -- evidently around an hour. "They did not have the right tactical safety equipment at first." But Miss Dora, the dish washing lady in the school cafeteria, will have the right materials? OK sounds nutty, because it is. More shifting the focus. 

The School's Dishwashing Lady Will Immediately 

Confront A Shooter?

When These Guys took an Hour!  

Or how about, we need to have only one door with guards and better door locks. Fine, have only one door, and then the bad guys will simply start the place on fire and people will have only one door to get out. OK we cannot lock all the doors all the time. People need to go to the restroom! Oh oh, what happens when the gunman gets into the one single door, closes it, and then he is locked into a bulletproof school building -- free to roam around. Didn't think of that did ya guys?

But hey wait a minute! America has always had mentally ill people all along from the get go. There were mad houses in the 1800s. And there was always lots and lots of guns, but not a pattern of -- one mass shooting after another. And for that matter, every single country in the world has the same ratio of mentally ill people, and people who play violent video games etc., but -- almost no mass gun deaths and endless shootings. So it is a unique problem to the USA.

Now a number of these little kids are terrified of going to school. Teachers are quitting because it is too dangerous. So the whole system is breaking down further and further. What is the solution? Well it seems to me that since a certain percentage of the population are always going to be prone to violent acts -- due to mental illness, anger issues, or whatever it is, then -- having a society awash with lethal military grade guns might be part of the trouble. OK just maybe! 

Some of these "crazy gun guys" are people who were victimized, marginalized, ignored or maybe bullied as well. So they are upset and decide to take it out on the society, and make the whole society feel pain and grief. In other words, the society places a lot of pressure on various individuals, some of whom are not too stable to start with, and thus some people -- just can't take it anymore. There are also people in other countries who cannot take it anymore, but they have no access to military grade weapons.  

We do. Then the whole thing becomes dangerous. 

And there are already thousands of nutty street people all over San Francisco here, and we need to give them mental help, but -- what if they refuse the help -- which they often do. Apart from that, what if -- what really needs to be done -- is to round up all these crazies and put them somewhere in a supervised place that is safe for them and others. Oh well nope, that violates their freedom! There is no easy way to impose mental health controls --- in a country with numerous mentally unstable people already overflowing onto the streets everywhere.

Or! We could collect up and confiscate the assault rifles, and that might help to some extent. But then again, smaller sized handguns with multiple ammo clips can do considerable damage in a short time as well, especially in a smaller sized area or room situation. Just a regular hunter rifle fitted with a larger magazine clip can do a lot of harm in a short time as well. 

What is the solution? 

Maybe at this stage, there isn't much of one. America is simply a violent society and has been all along. And it is getting worse self evidently. We simply did not have all these mass shootings in the 1950s when I grew up. I think the mental state of the society in certain sectors is deteriorating (as in -- Kali yuga is increasing). 

One thing that would help? Maybe showing all of the citizens the actual shot up rooms and blood soaked dead bodies on the late night news (when the kids are sleeping), showing the scene where the actual shootings take place -- before the clean up crew arrives. Then people would see the slaughterhouse conditions in there. No more sanitized news. It might move people to take more action on solving this mess. 

But maybe not. It seems like many people are just getting numb to the news of all this, and they just don't think it is worth it to attempt a fix. There is certainly a lot of apathy, complacency, or even a desire to have even more guns out there to fix the gun problem. 

Everyone should have a gun! And then there will be even odds, hee hee. Nope. Many people just are not capable of being armed guards for themselves, especially children. Personally I think that all of these guns and all of these angry people -- are combining into a sort of collective karmic ball that has finally come to fruition. 

What does that mean for devotees? They should take some sensible precautions where possible, but being too paranoid won't help in any case. If someone is determined to take a person down, they will. 

So this is one of the side effects of Kali yuga, in addition to all the other problems, there are a lot of unstable people running amok with guns. This is also another failure of the Krishna society. Srila Prabhupada said the public chanting would calm the effects of Kali yuga, but the new gurus brought Kali yuga into ISKCON, and got rid of the public chanting almost wholesale. ys pd  

Let us arm the teachers? Seriously dude? That is what we are down to now?