If the NRA is a terrorist organisation, does that make the 45 a terrorist?

I have just witnessed genuine insanity, genuine unbridled insanity from the 45. He has just crossed the Rubicon. That is not hyperbole. There is no other adequate description for the 45's solution to mass shootings in America's schools. His solution is more guns in schools, to arm the staff, to licence what Americans call concealed carry's. He wants teachers to be responsible for the physical safety of the pupils in a situation where they are faced with a committed serial killer. But why stop at teachers, why not arm the administrative staff, the cleaners indeed all the adults employed in America's schools and make them responsible for the safety and security of the children thus absolving the political class for their most fundamental responsibility, the safety and security of the body politic. Such sentiments may not seem outlandish to an American audience completely socialised within a gun culture, but to people like me, raised in a European environment, indeed in a nation where the police are not even armed, it is quite insane, there are no other words to describe it. It is completely alien and indeed uncivilised.

This raises a scenario where American schools may well be turned into the modern equivalent of the Alamo or the OK Corral in the event of any further atrocities. This is an idea that has been proposed by numerous Republicans but it has been publicly endorsed by the 45, thus taking the office of the most prominent political person on the planet, not into the gutter, but right down into the sewer. He has demonstrated that he is not remotely interested in any meaningful solutions to this form of atrocity that involves any restrictions that will impact on his paymasters, the only obvious and effective solutions available. I was reminded of Bob Dylan's line "Nurse, get your pad, the boy's insane" You can only draw one sensible conclusion, the 45 and the entire Republican Party in the USA are utterly indifferent to the safety and welfare of America's children, indeed the safety and welfare of the general population, and that their only concern is profits and the money the National Rifle Association channel into their personal bank accounts. Their mindset is genuine madness. The most sensible thing I have heard all week is when one of the survivors of the Florida shooting called the National Rifle Association a terrorist organisation, because, as I said in a recent post, such events are examples of terrorism. To my European way of thinking, there is only one solution to America's deadly disease, you must amend the Constitution, because no amount of tinkering around the edges is going to relieve this situation, only a mass purge of gun ownership will address the problem. The solution is both political and legal, but above all, it is a moral issue. The Second Amendment has assumed a kind of religious significance, as if gun ownership and the 'freedom' to bear and carry arms has been borrowed from the ten commandments. This is a perfect example of how that kind of freedom impacts on other people, in this case taking away their freedom to walk the streets or go to school safely. The right to bear and carry arms in America impacts directly on other people's right to life. 

Since 1968 there have been 1,516,863 gun-related deaths on US territory. Since 1775, there have been 1,396,733 war deaths. That figure includes American lives lost in the revolutionary war, the Mexican war, the civil war (Union and Confederate, estimate), the Spanish-American war, the first world war, the second world war, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, the Gulf war, the Afghanistan war, the Iraq war, as well as other conflicts, including in Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia and Haiti. So, just since 1968 more Americans have been killed because of their obsession with guns that in all wars that Americans have been engaged in since it began its struggle for independence. That genuinely beggars belief and raises the question of what would the true figure be if we were able to calculate how many have actually died since, say, 1868, or even 1768?  What is worse is that no-one seems to care unless they themselves suffer personal tragedy. I hope this is a watershed in American life, but listening to Republican legislators and those appalling creatures who speak for the NRA, I will not hold my breath. Such people genuinely care more for their guns than the lives of their children and when you vote for people like that then you had better brace yourself for the next slaughter. You have been warned

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat