The Second Amendment has failed, is failing, will fail, is a failure

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote:

States like Texas, Tennessee, and Iowa are using the record gun violence as an excuse to … make sure there are more guns. The Second Amendment is a failure. If it was intended to provide Americans with some level of personal protection, it has failed. If it was intended to provide a national stability, it has failed. If it was intended to prevent crime, it has absolutely failed. It has failed, is failing, will fail, is a failure. And any reasonable people would admit this and work diligently to revise the model of firearm availability in the United States, seeking a way to walk back from a system that is bringing unbelievable levels of violence and death. There is no point on which the widespread presence of firearms had made life in America in any sense better than in other democratic nations that do not allow their states to be overrun with a plague of gun violence. For those who insist that the only solution is still more weapons—I am sorry you are afraid, and sorry that we let things get to this point. But it’s time to make things better, not worse. And the only way to make things better is by having fewer guns. Guns don’t create freedom. They promote gun violence, and absolutely nothing else.

I see another aspect of the story. The primary purpose of a gun (outside of hunting) is to enforce a social hierarchy. Hierarchy enforcement is highly important for many citizens of a country created on a social hierarchy so strong those at the bottom were enslaved or displaced. Laura Clawson of Kos wrote that:

Republicans are planning to use crime—translation: racist dog whistles—as a major part of their message for the 2022 midterm elections, NBC News reports.

They’ll emphasis the cry to defund police as a public safety issue. Meaning it will be radically misrepresented. Black Lives Matter will be accused as being a source of violence, never mind the facts.

As Republicans gear up to run on a crime-crime-crime-we-are-the-party-that-can-prevent-crime (psst, crime means Black people) platform, there were more than 400 shootings in the United States over the Fourth of July weekend, with at least 150 people killed. Republicans continue to fiercely oppose even the most minor tweaks to gun laws as part of reducing the crime they claim to think is such an enormous problem. Republicans want you to be afraid of a stereotypical racist dog whistle of a criminal, but they want to keep hands in the guns of men who stalk and abuse women they’re dating. The fear they want you to feel doesn’t extend to action on school shootings. Until recently, Republicans even blocked funding for research into gun violence to promote a better understanding of, and better solutions to, the problem. The Republican plan is all about supporting the same old police tactics and blaming the groups of people Republicans blame for everything, rather than considering what would actually work. They hope to ride that to victory in 2022.

Kerry Eleveld noted a number of Republican candidates for 2022 are campaigning on the Big Lie.

The entire party is now overrun with candidates peddling the Big Lie as a path to higher office and, in some cases, more control over the elections themselves. Voting for any Republican now, regardless of what their personal beliefs may be, is tantamount to handing over control of government to an entire party living in an alternative reality.

Joan McCarter of Kos showed a map from the U.S. Drought Monitor that shows all of Utah, most of Nevada, and significant chunks of Arizona, New Mexico, and California as Exceptional Drought or Extreme Drought. McCarter and her sources say “drought” isn’t the right word. It implies the condition is temporary. A better word is “aridification,” meaning a transformation to a drier environment. Less snow and its runoff that keeps the rivers flowing, rain that is fleeting, which means not enough water for irrigation. Our produce will get more expensive. Mark Sumner listed a few civilizations that ended because of drought. The Chaco Canyon and related sites of Pueblo people learned to manage water, until there wasn’t enough water to manage. The Aztecs, the Sumerians, and the Akkadians all fell because of drought. Even much of the civil war in modern Syria was because of drought – the 11 million people who have left Syria aren’t war refugees, they’re climate refugees. And it looks like the West will be hit again. It won’t just be fountains turned off and lawns not watered. It will be the loss of irrigated agriculture and no electricity generated by Hoover Dam. Sumner wrote, “The word for this is: unsustainable.” This looks more like climate change than a weather phenomenon. And there are people, like Moscow Mitch, ready to turn the crisis into a political opportunity, no matter the increased misery. In response to Sumner’s post JekyllnHyde included a cartoon of a climate summit. The speaker has bullet points such as sustainability, green jobs, livable cities, clean water and air, and healthy children. Someone in the audience says, “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?” McCarter showed the Drought Monitor map of the West. Sumner showed a map of the whole country. In spite of the thunderstorms that have been passing through here (some today) the Lower Peninsula of Michigan is colored abnormally dry and moderate drought with a couple touches of severe drought. Kos community member bluedogsd visited Lake Powell, Arizona in August 2020 and June 2021. The lake is part of the Colorado River, which is the most important water source in the West. They included photos to show the water level of the lake had gone down 30 feet in ten months. A favorite swimming area was now blocked by a 20 foot cliff. There is no more water entering the river in 2021. The snow melt for this year is done. The lake level can only go lower. Nathan Rott of NPR reported that the deadliest fire in American history was not in the West. It was the Peshtigo fire in Wisconsin. It was on the same day as the Great Chicago Fire and a few places in Michigan on October 8, 1871. Everywhere can be hit with a drought so bad it can feed a fire. In another post Joan McCarter discussed the plans in Congress to do something about climate change. We know it has to be a Democrat only bill. We also know ExxonMobil has been donating to Democrats and encouraging them to weaken or eliminate the climate action parts of the Democrat’s bill. I heard a segment on NPR about various media outlets issuing a subscription weather service. One can now get weather info for free. Would customers pay? Some said yes to be able to listen to their favorite weatherman. Leah McElrath added a bit more as she quoted and linked to an article in the New York Times:

“Murdoch is set to debut Fox Weather, a 24-hour streaming channel that promises to do for seven-day forecasts what Fox has done for American politics.” In other words: Fox Weather will create an alternate reality to obfuscate the impact of global warming.

Hunter of Kos discussed a study by the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California at Berkeley. They looked at American cities with more than 200,000 residents and determined 80% of them are more segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990. Instead of looking at cities as a whole, the study looked at much smaller census tracts. City wide data may indicate the city is integrated, but the census tract data says there are separate white and black enclaves. Some of the findings Hunter reported: 83 percent of neighborhoods that were given poor ratings (or "redlined") in the 1930s by a

federal mortgage policy were as of 2010 highly segregated communities of color. The most segregated regions are the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, followed by the West Coast. Southern states have lower overall levels of segregation, and the Mountain West and Plains states have the least. Segregated Black neighborhoods have fully three times the poverty rate of segregated white neighborhoods.

Biden may be trying to do something about this segregation. He’s up against racists intent on sabotaging whatever programs he comes up with. Sam Deutsch tweeted two images. One is the states colored by whether they met the goal of getting at least one dose of the vaccine into 70% of adults. The other is the states colored by which presidential candidate they voted for in the 2020 election. The patterns of color are quite similar. McElrath tweeted a map of China. Inside it are outlines of various other countries sized according to their population. It shows that the 1.44 billion people of China is more than the populations of South America, USA and Canada, Europe (excluding Russia), Australia, and New Zealand combined. China is similar in size to India at 1.38 billion, and to all of Africa at 1.34 billion. Marissa Higgins of Kos told the story of Stephanie Robertson of Paris, Arkansas. She displayed a rainbow flag outside her home during Pride Month. On July 2 she found a note, written in a child’s hand. It said:

Hello this is probably kind of weird but I walk past your house everyday and I’ve noticed your flag and I’m glad to know there is at least one ally in this little town —from a young LGBTQ+ person

Robertson’s son Levi tweeted an image of the note. Several people responded, praising the child and Robertson. One of those responses was from Mafhoney:

I am often asked "Why be so vocal when you could lose friends and create enemies. This right here is why. YOU NEVER KNOW WHO NEEDS YOUR VOICE. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT COMFORT AND AID YOU CAN GIVE TO A STRANGER SO THEY FEEL LESS ALONE. HERO OF THE DAY.