I was glad to see an editorial today in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper calling for a ban for semi-automatic weapons which have no hunting purpose but are meant to kill persons. What about all hand guns, what purpose do they serve outside of harming people? But any attempt to control the use of gun is opposed by the National Rifle Association and politicians, Democrat and Republican.

Looking deeper we can see we are a nation of guns and other weapons. The same newspaper with today’s editorial about guns feature an article on the front of the business section yesterday: State firms could benefit from Senate Defense Bill. Our economy is built on war, guns and violence. Guns for all are a symbol of this faith.

On a pubic military site that I monitor there was an article today about the Army beginning a search for a compact sniper rifle.

Weapons and guns are glorified everywhere. There is a medical doctor at the Medical College of Wisconsin who for years, with others, has been calling for gun violence to be treated as a public health problem. Treating gun violence as we would any other disease would give us control over this illness of our society. The simple facts are ”Before a child in the U.S. reaches 15, when compared to a child in the rest of the industrialized world, he or she is: 5 times more likely to be murdered, Twice as likely to commit suicide, 12 times more likely to die a gun related death”. (Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Matthew Miller: Journal of Trauma, February 2002).

Why do we tolerate this epidemic of gun violence? Hermann Göring, a German politician, military leader, and leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in an interview from his prison cell after World II has part of the answer: “Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Fear feeds the epidemic of gun violence.

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