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Guns
Michael Moore Pleads: “Calm Down, White People, Put Away Your Guns"
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore recently wrote on his blog that the main reasons for mass shootings in the United States are fear and racism. On Christmas Eve, he wrote, “Calm down, white people, and put away your guns.”
In his blog post entitled “Celebrating the Prince of Peace in the Land of Guns,” Moore advocated stronger gun laws, but added that when Adam Lanza "saw the guns a-coming, he stopped the bloodshed and killed himself. Guns on police officers prevented another 20 or 40 or 100 deaths from happening. Guns sometimes work."
Moore wrote, in part:
We are a country whose leaders officially sanction and carry out acts of violence as a means to often an immoral end. We invade countries who didn't attack us. We're currently using drones in a half-dozen countries, often killing civilians.
This probably shouldn't come as a surprise to us as we are a nation founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves.
We're an awfully fearful country considering that, unlike most nations, we've never been invaded. Why on earth would we need 300 million guns in our homes?”
I get why the Russians might be a little spooked (over 20 million of them died in World War II). But what's our excuse? Worried that the Indians from the casino may go on the warpath? Concerned that the Canadians seem to be amassing too many Tim Horton's donut shops on both sides of the border?
No. It's because too many white people are afraid of black people, period.
The vast majority of the guns in the U.S. are sold to white people who live in the suburbs or the country. When we fantasize about being mugged or home invaded, what's the image of the perpetrator in our heads? Is it the freckled-face kid from down the street – or is it someone who is, if not black, at least poor?
I think it would be worth it to a) do our best to eradicate poverty and re-create the middle class we used to have, and b) stop promoting the image of the black man as the boogeyman out to hurt you.
Calm down, white people, and put away your guns.
Comments
Most whites buy guns because
Most whites buy guns because they are allowed to. Metro areas inhabited by blacks have stringent gun control. They don't buy them because they can't, because they can't afford to jump through the hoops involved or simply don't have money.
"Most whites buy guns because
"Most whites buy guns because they are allowed to. Metro areas inhabited by blacks have stringent gun control. They don't buy them because they can't, because they can't afford to jump through the hoops involved or simply don't have money."
I think there's considerable truth in that, and it's a real shame. Those (law abiding) metro area blacks are the ones who would most benefit from gun ownership. HOWEVER, they're also the voters who continually reelect municipal officials who pass the laws that effectively deny them that right.
I don't think anyone else can fix "We don't trust our own law abiding citizens to own guns." Those citizens will have to do it for themselves by electing better leaders in Washington, DC, Chicago, and other very high crime cities.
Don't know WHY Mr Moore
Don't know WHY Mr Moore thinks it's blacks that drive the "gun craze". But he is right about getting GOOD PAYING jobs back for a middle class.
But he asks "Why on earth would we need 300 million guns in our homes?”
And this is after he already posted this: "We are a country whose leaders officially sanction and carry out acts of violence as a means to often an immoral end. We invade countries who didn't attack us. We're currently using drones in a half-dozen countries, often killing civilians."
Mr Moore, WE ARE CIVILIANS...yeah, so far they have 'officially' just been in foreign countries....but after this last 12 years, it's looking scarier all the time!!
"The vast majority of the
"The vast majority of the guns in the U.S. are sold to white people who live in the suburbs or the country. When we fantasize about being mugged or home invaded, what's the image of the perpetrator in our heads? Is it the freckled-face kid from down the street – or is it someone who is, if not black, at least poor? I think it would be worth it to ... stop promoting the image of the black man as the boogeyman out to hurt you."
See: http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/crime/three-boys-fatally-shoot-kayla-peterson-then-pose-guns-facebook
Shouldn't he just be required
Shouldn't he just be required to have $$$ tattooed across his forehead as a warning label?
Liberals do not hate the US
Liberals do not hate the US Constitution. They hate people who distort US history and try to distort the meaning of our US Constitution. Michael Moore is to Democrats what Rush Limbaugh is to Republicans, sometimes an embarrassment & sometimes a person who bluntly attacks "the powers that be". The media gives these psudo-celebrities coverage because controversial people boost ratings. They have about as much influence on voters as Kim Kardashian & the Housewives of..whatever.
I agree with John Dalco, that M.Moore could use his soapbox to focus attention on serious solutions, rather than rehashing Man's inhumanity to his fellow man. Not every fear has its basis in racism. Every nation was "founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves". That only proves Homosapiens were barbaric & many still are. It takes generations of evolution & education to turn savages into thinking, empathetic, tolerant beings. We're far from that!! Half the nations in this 21st century are still sanctioning minority violence, murders, rapes, torture, and slavery (predominately inflicted upon women & children). Arming every man, woman & child on the face of this Earth won't result in many more crimes than we already have today, but I thought the plan was to try to reduce gun-deaths, not sustain or increase them.
My my. Aren't you just
My my. Aren't you just forever the guilt-ridden, yet smug epitome of the White Liberal, Mikey? Always ready to chastize "white people" for whatever ill in society you want to address. It makes you look so...trendy and introspective, so above the fray, so enlightened.
I wonder if this guy even knows any people of color. No, George Hamilton does not count.
Calm down liberals, put away
Calm down liberals, put away your gun control law proposals. Fear and racism are the basis of gun control.
You mean like the fear the
You mean like the fear the little kids felt before some gun nut punched holes in them with a semi-automatic? Or the fear the people in that movie theater in Aurora Colorado felt before they were mowed down by yet another gun nut with semi-automatic weapons? Or, more like the fear the firemen in Webster, New York felt when the gun nut mowed them down with the same kinds of semi-automatic weapons, or the fear the people at the Sikh temple felt just before some white supremacist mowed them down using semi-automatic hand guns? Or maybe you mean the "not real fear" of the students massacred at Virginia Tech by yet another gun nut with semi-automatic weapons? Oh, no, the fear is not real, you and your neo-con pals say...
Your sarcasm is very shallow.
Your sarcasm is very shallow. How about the fear residents of Detroit and Chicago feel when there are not enough police to do more than make a showing? *500* people were murdered in Chicago alone this year, where citizens are *not allowed* to possess firearms for self protection.
The answer(s) to crime are not some simple 'take away the guns' action. Not that I believe that would work in any but the most limited access communities: where there is very limited crime to begin with.
Why does what comes out of
Why does what comes out of his mouth...published? What, just because he's a rich fruitcake? If the killings are due to fear & racism, how is it that so many ACTUALLY are perpetrated by the mentally messed-up & ex-cons (illegal to own guns)...getting ahold of guns? Hmmm, Moore needs to THINK more...before engaging mouth.
Oh, and just WHY has the U.S. NOT been invaded? Hah, because of faith in God (by many) and our many guns in the hands of citizens! He DID get something right. He said...."that when Adam Lanza 'saw the guns a-coming, he stopped the bloodshed and killed himself. Guns on police officers prevented another 20 or 40 or 100 deaths from happening. Guns sometimes work.' "
It reads to me as though Mr
It reads to me as though Mr Moore might have been tired and emotional when he wrote that piece.
Rich fruitcake is my usual diet during the period between Christmas and New Year.
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Savannah, what does it mean
Savannah, what does it mean when you post a dot on its own?
Like Barack Obama, Michael
Like Barack Obama, Michael Moore sees every incident through the "How can this benefit me?" lens. His tainted rhetoric and tired, blame white America platitudes only resonate with the demented and weak who suck on the government tit and long for the bolshevik revolution.
logic escapes this
logic escapes this man.
"We're an awfully fearful country considering that, unlike most nations, we've never been invaded. Why on earth would we need 300 million guns in our homes?”
why do you think we have never been attacked?
why do liberals hate the constitution and freedom so much?
I am British, and I find the
I am British, and I find the way in which people from the USA use the term "liberal" to be utterly confusing. Before replying to your posting, I looked at some of the search results that came up when I entered "liberal meaning political".
I came across this reply, on Yahoo Answers, to the question, "What does politically liberal mean?"
"Internationally, it means favoring the liberty of the individual versus the authority of the State. Ironically, it means the opposite here in the U.S. Go figure." I took comfort from noting that somebody else had noticed the same weirdness about the way the adjective "liberal" is used in American political discussion.
In the late 1960s some
In the late 1960s some socialists defended their use of the word "liberal" to describe themselves by claiming that government guarantees of sustenance and support increased individual liberty, in that it gave people the freedom to choose whether they wanted to work or not.
Another way of looking at
Another way of looking at liberals in the US is this. First, propose a general idea which just about everyone will agree with in principle. Then, introduce either a law or requirement so draconian almost no one will want to adopt.
American socialists adopted
American socialists adopted the descriptive term "liberal" some time ago so that they would not be ostracized by the general public. So, in truth, American liberals are really socialists.
Moore has been spending far
Moore has been spending far too much time in his lily white progressive enclaves. He needs to actually get to know some minorities. Black, Indian, Sikh, Romany, and all the rest in this melting pot.
A few hours at the range this afternoon would have provided Moore with a cross section of the American melting pot, from the two Roma music professors, a dozen black gun collectors, a pair of Mississippi Choctaws, a misplaced Oklahoma Cheyenne, a Sikh businessman, and a couple of dozen white guys and gals, laughing and having a good time in each others company. But of course, the likes of Moore would never believe a Mississippi white guy spotting for a black man, or a Choctaw teaching a Sikh about sights.
As far as why we have "active killers," anyone who wants to kill as many as they can before they either suicide or force someone to kill them is not sane. Whether that insanity is natural or induced is another matter. But one thing is certain. In his own way, Moore has as many screws loose as Adam Lanza.
Stranger
It's the TV NEWS, people!
It's the TV NEWS, people! Watch enough TV news and you'll be afraid to walk out of your house at night - regardless of the fact that the crime rate was higher in the 1970s than it is now. Fear sells.
It certainly sells a lot of guns.
If suburban Americans fear
If suburban Americans fear black people, Michael Moore can think liberals like himself for that, including black liberals such as former NYC Mayor David Dinkins.
Back in the 1970s, when people complained about rising rates of burglary and armed robbery these liberals insisted that there wasn't much the police could do about it until we as a society eliminated racism, poverty and economic inequality -- claiming that those were the root causes of crime.
Well, who in this country suffers from racism, poverty and economic inequality more than black people? If those are the root causes of crime, then how could it NOT create an unusually high rate of crime among that population?
So we fled to the suburbs where we would rarely encounter people affected by the root causes of crime. (Yeah, a few suburbanites might be black, but at least they wouldn't be suffering from poverty and economic inequality.) But with Section 8 Housing programs crime followed, chasing us into the exurbs.
We're not going to be turned into a nation of "wandering Jews" chased by the threat of violence from one temporary refuge to another, vainly attempting to "trade land for peace." If the police will not return the robbery and burglary rates back down to 1950s levels despite all the racism, poverty and economic inequality -- then until we have a general agreement that these problems have all been solved we're simply going to have to protect ourselves.
When everything else has been
When everything else has been eliminated, what is left must be true. When the soaring crime rates of the 1960's, 70's and '80's are examined in detail and every cause is eliminated what is left is the gun control laws. The evil combination of stiffened State gun laws and the Gun Control Act of 1968 sent our homicide rate from 4.6 per 100,000 Americans to as much as 10.2; and other violent crimes increased in lockstep with murder.
When States started passing 'must issue' concealed weapons permits in 1986 violent crime started to come back down. Per the FBI numbers at disaster center dot com/crime homicide rates are down by more than half, violent crime by 49%, robbery by 48.5%, and so on. According the the Department of Justice's National Crime Survey for 2011, violent crimes are actually down by 75% in 18 years.
And over that 18 year span, Americans have purchased more than 150 million new guns. Now, the gun control nuts want to go back to the crime rates of the 1990's. In one word, NO.
Stranger
If suburban Americans fear
If suburban Americans fear black people, Michael Moore can think liberals like himself for that, including black liberals such as former NYC Mayor David Dinkins.
Back in the 1970s, when people complained about rising rates of burglary and armed robbery these liberals insisted that there wasn't much the police could do about it until we as a society eliminated racism, poverty and economic inequality -- claiming that those were the root causes of crime.
Well, who in this country suffers from racism, poverty and economic inequality more than black people? If those are the root causes of crime, then how could it NOT create an unusually high rate of crime among that population?
So we fled to the suburbs where we would rarely encounter people affected by the root causes of crime. (Yeah, a few suburbanites might be black, but at least they wouldn't be suffering from poverty and economic inequality.) But with Section 8 Housing programs crime followed, chasing us into the exurbs.
We're not going to be turned into a nation of "wandering Jews" chased by the threat of violence from one temporary refuge to another, vainly attempting to "trade land for peace." If the police will not return the robbery and burglary rates back down to 1950s levels despite all the racism, poverty and economic inequality -- then until we have a general agreement that these problems have all been solved we're simply going to have to protect ourselves.
Here's a real curve ball,
Here's a real curve ball, something that none of the politicians and talking heads are discussing:
What if the person blowing away scores of people and then committing suicide were not a young man but always a young woman?
The politicians and talking heads would talk very little, I believe, about guns but a lot about what drives young women to these extremes. They would opine endlessly about what could be done to help these young women escape the despair that pushes them to such a disastrous end. Many liberals, especially feminists, might see a heavy focus on controlling guns as missing the point and sexist.
Even many liberal men, likely feeling pressured to show devotion to females and their causes, show that devotion by expressing little or no concern for males. (See, for example: "Taking Apart the Walmart Sex-base Class-action Lawsuit" http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/taking-apart-the-walmart-sex-bias-class-action-lawsuit/) Thus, they virtually never discuss the young male's experiences of life. Here are just two:
-Males ages 15-24 have an extremely high suicide rate, 4-6 times higher than that for females. (20-year-old Adam Lanza was smack in the middle of that age group.) There are probably three times as many suicides as homicides. Yet this is rarely discussed. Is that the way it would be if females did the killings?
-Young males are more likely to develop schizophrenia than young females.
There seem to be few liberals in the U.S. who are aware of these two male experiences, and even fewer who care. But if the shooters were female, the liberal network news such as ABC, CBS, and NBC would almost nightly cover the disastrous lives of young women the way they cover women's health more than men's (despite men's poorer health).
I strongly believe we don't need a discussion about guns nearly as much as we need a dialog about young males in the way we dialog about females. Two experts: William Pollack, author of "Real Boys," and Warren Farrell, author of "The Myth of Male Power" and a paper titled "Boys To Men," which he sent to the White House many months ago and which has been ignored by the president, who, like virtually all Democrats, show their loyalty to women and girls by showing their disloyalty of men and boys.
I don't disagree with your
I don't disagree with your contentions, I've argued the same thing countless times myself however I do disagree with your conclusion. "Mangina""Liberal" Democrats won't ignore these issues any more than "White Knight" "Conservative" Republicans would; they'll just ignore them for different reasons.
Just brilliant.
Just brilliant.
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Calm down, moron, and put
Calm down, moron, and put down the turkey leg. And the apple pie. And the triple-scoop hot fudge sundae. And...
MM is such a fool, I don't think I can even respond. Besides, most of you have done a good job so far!!
In fact, Mr. Moore, the
In fact, Mr. Moore, the population doing most of the killing by firearm in the USA are young black men killing other young black men.
Look it up: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/race.cfm
So...just cut the crap with your racist, white guilt rants.
Don't confuse him with FACTS.
Don't confuse him with FACTS. The really sad thing is that there are people out there who eat this stuff up and think he is brilliant.
Uh huh, massacres due to
Uh huh, massacres due to racism? I desperately want to see him try to prove that point. The UT shootings? Lunatical rage. Columbine? Tormented kids who finally snapped. Connecticut? More lunatical rage. I don't think there has been any racially motivated mass shooting for half a century at least. Michael Moore likes to put blame on white people because in his fantasy world it makes him appear unbiased. "look at me I can bash my own race(Even though it has nothing to do with anything) LOVE ME AND BELIEVE MY LIES!" Also, do we carry guns because we fear our homes being invaded by black people? No, we carry because we are afraid of our homes being invaded PERIOD. Even if you imagine your future home invader as black, it bears no influence on the fact that it is the ACT that you are defending yourself from, not the race of the aggressor. Also, vast majority of guns being sold to white suburbanites? I would LOVE to know where he got the data to back up this argument and I'd like to see him explain the fact that the only reliable data could be gathered on LEGAL gun sales. If he is basing this statement on ANY evidence then he is doing so whilst IGNORING the illegal arms trade. Just wait, this cat is MORE than a little off...we should watch out lest he snap and come after us.
"massacres due to racism?" I
"massacres due to racism?"
I saw a movie about just such a massacre. It was called Rosewood. It was based on real historical events.
I don't think it's about race
I don't think it's about race for him. It's all about pushing the class and racial warfare component of the radical Marxist. Remember the movie he made about how good the health care system was in Cuba? It was great. The had a doctor on every corner bu absolutely nothing to treat you with if you got sick or were injured.
Good grief ... this isn't the
Good grief ... this isn't the dumbest idea I've ever heard, but I hope it tops the list for today. To make gun ownership into a racist thing you'd have to argue that a greater fraction of white people own guns because of fear of blacks than is the case for black people who fear blacks ... is that likely to be true?
People who own guns for protection are worried about whatever people are dangerous where they live: That's not a skin color thing, it's a where you live thing.
Among people I know who own guns the most common reason is they enjoy shooting followed by they hunt. Then we get down to those who own for various defensive reasons.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; sometimes people of whatever color do something without 'race' being the reason. I think Mr. Moore needs to get over HIS race problem.
White people can take comfort
White people can take comfort in the fact that there's way more black-on-black crime than there is black-on-white....but the news networks are only interested in black-on-white (or vice-versa) crime.
Michael, have you told your
Michael, have you told your bodyguard, the one who was arrested in New York with an unregistered gun in 2005, to put down HIS gun? You're typical of the elitist fatherless sons who want the average citizen helpless and dependent upon government protection while making sure you've got plenty of personal security for yourself. Hypocrite!
And your attempt to turn this into a racist issue is despicable. I live in a part of the country that's so white it looks like it rains Clorox. One of the very few blacks I know who lives here I met while we were both taking 4-H training to teach youths firearm safety. But there's plenty of meth heads and "white trash"; I had a neighbor five years ago stabbed and left for dead by three white home invading strangers. Self defense is self defense whether one is attacked by Caucasions, Blacks, Indians, or Martians.