Gun Violence In The Movies, For Dad

Source

Violence in movies, just like that of video games, has been beaten to death as being the catalyst of violence in society, particularly gun violence; but who doesn't know that.

Like mental illness, film is just another scapegoat for people who don't dare take personal or collective responsibility, just another name to throw under the bus; while statistically people with mental illness are four times more likely to be the victim of violence, than the perpetrator (1).

Rather than blame bad parenting (sometimes by bad people), lack of supervision, love, and attention, which fosters poor self-worth, poor self-esteem and leads to school yard bullying, and even being a victim of bullying; a general decrease in compassion and caring in society; and the increase of greed, poverty, hate, intolerance and anxieties in the nation, which trickles down to the youth; increasingly easy access to guns with very little real regulation from state to state and across the country; not to mention the glorification of war and violence in the world...but no, you're right, it's easier to blame Hollywood, and video games. It's the coward's way out.

So, why are we even addressing it then?

After a "light gun debate" with The Father the past Friday, we awoke today to the following message (we made a second Facebook account for extended family to keep in contact with us after Christmas, and don't check it often because it tends to cause anxiety):

We started to reply to the message, and thought: You know what. THIS is our blog entry. This is all we really have to say about it.

So, here you go, Dad. We're putting it here. This entry is your requested blog entry, what follows was our response. We'll just leave it here for you to read.

We could talk about gun violence in the movies...

Or maybe how we were watching a Looney Tunes cartoon from the 60's (that been syndicated over and over) staring Foghorn Leghorn on TV last Friday. He kept shooting the bill off of two ducks, and it would twist it around in a funny fashion. He tried to trick them into shooting each other in the face. Then tried to lock them in a TNT shed and "kill them", yet they never bled or died. Sure is funny, violence that doesn't produce blood, hey? Never too early to start them on the humour of guns and violence, is it.



Oh, don't be silly. (we can hear you, Dad)

It's just as logical; or are you saying a child is smart enough to tell the difference between cartoon violence and real violence, but an adult is not smart enough to respect the difference between graphic movie/video violence and real violence - and that now all of sudden that's the problem.

...Or we could write about the violence in the Bible, and how killing people who simply didn't believe in the same God were glorified by being considered righteous for doing so. Violence as "old as time itself". And even after that, in the Crusades.

...Or mass genocide and violence in ALL of History, including and not limited to the "settlement" of the United States.

...Or compare the exposure to violent video games and violent movies in every other developed country, and juxtapose their violent gun crimes to the USA; where, according to FBI statics on violent deaths in the USA, guns are responsible for more homicides than all other means of killing people combined. And in some states, up to 75%. (FBI Uniform Crime Reports - 2011: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-20)

You know who else glorifies guns and violence? America, government and the media.

(...as an afterthought...)

Or we could just say: I'm (we're) part of the problem, you're part of the problem, the population of the world is part of the problem - and it's not sin (as you are fond of saying, Dad), the concept of sin isn't new. There is just as much sin now, there are just more people. The problem is people only caring about themselves, it's the lack of compassion for other people and their lives, it's people only watching out for themselves the "screw everyone else, I'm getting mine" attitude - being so self-absorbed, so wrapped up in ones own needs, that they put the needs (and safety) of others, below their own.

</end FB message>

Source

That's our opinion, of course, and our decision to take a little responsibility, being a member of this society, being part of the problem; just like some people choose to blame movies, and video games (and "they" used to blame music too) is the opinion and decision of people who shirk responsibility.

Our stance on guns isn't secret.
We're pro-gun.
We also tend to be pro-responsibility; and for us, responsibility triumphs.

There needs to be regulation, the Constitution says so; and not just regulation, but regulation done well. Of course the Supreme Court ruled to change the meanings/interpretations of the words 'regulated' and 'militia' (2)(3)(4), to better the agenda of the NRA. And we could fight all day, every day to the grave, arguing about what it really means.
So we digress.

There is no question in a rational persons mind that there should be regulation. Why shouldn't there be? Cars are regulated by speed limit and traffic laws; Knives and blades are regulated by type and length of blade, and some of the laws are absurd. For Example, the crime of simply carrying a box cutter, in the State of Virginia, is punishable by a year in jail and a $2,500 fine(5) (see notation in resources). The laws vary from state-to-state; Drugs are regulated, prescription vs. non-prescription, alcohol, tobacco - and in growing variation from state-to-state. All most people want is a little rationality.

Back to the point.

It's not Hollywood, it's not video games...it's not Foghorn Leghorn, it's not Bugs Bunny (maybe Yosemite Sam a little though *winks*).

Source

It's society, it's you, it's me, it's your neighbour. It's life.

(P.S. Love you Daddy)

------------------------------------------

More Entries We've Written on Guns....
An Afternoon Ditty on Gun Control
http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2013/01/an-afternoon-ditty-on-gun-control.html
A Mental Illness Rant
http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-mental-illness-rant.html
Guns, Guns, and Freedomhttp://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2012/07/guns-guns-gunsand-freedom_20.html
------------------------------------------
Sources and Citation for this entry:
(1) Mentally ill 'at high risk of being victim of violence, BBC Health, February 27, 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17182626(2) Supreme Court to Define ‘Well Regulated Militia’?, factcheck.org, December 20, 2007, http://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/supreme-court-to-define-well-regulated-militia/
(3) United States: Gun Ownership and the Supreme Court - Library of Congress, August 8, 2012, http://loc.gov/law/help/second-amendment.php

(4) So You Think You Know The Second Amendment, Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, December 18, 2012, http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/jeffrey-toobin-second-amendment.html

(5) End knife control: Virginia’s vague concealed-weapon statute needs reform, Editorial, The Washington Times, May 22, 2012 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/22/end-knife-control/ ( '08 Senate Bill 379 that purposed an amendment to VA State code §18.2-308(A) and ultimaltey failed at specifically adding box cutters to the list of unlawful blade)

A Mental Illness Rant

This ranted started out as this:
"Let's just make people scared of the mentally ill.Thanks media, fucking thank you for erasing years and years of work to erase the stigma."
We posted it to Twitter.
Then to Facebook.
And then we started a comment, and as the comment grew longer, we knew this was the place for it.

This rant, if you will, is related to the tragic event known as the Sandy Hook Massacre (December 15, 2012).

You can't turn on the TV without hearing about it. CNN has been gleaning every dark nook and cranny for information that can be sought. It's rating feeding frenzy  Goodness even knows what's being said on Fox News. We shudder to think.

Today, on a treadmill, we finally reached a breaking point. One of the journalists of CNN was interviewing a man who said that the mentally ill should be locked up.

Some things are better said in a Tweet.

Sure, lock up all the mentally ill; but how do you choose which ones, without including yourself. Mental illness can develop at any time.
— Just Call Me Frank™© (@JustCallMeFrank) December 19, 2012

Watching the news this last week, listening to people bang on about mental illness, we have become...deflated, sad. Maybe even a little scared.

Some think that the mentally ill should all be locked up, but how do you choose who is "too mentally ill"? The child who had one violent outburst? Two? Three?; The person on anti-depressants?; The person on anti-anxiety medication?; The person who went to a therapist once, twice, three or more times? The person with a 10 year old diagnosis of schizophrenia, who hasn't been on anti-psychotics in years...

It's not the mental illness, it's the person. A person in not their mental illness. A person is a human animal, with urges, and desires. Sometimes that's sadness, sometimes that's anger, sometimes that's frustration.

A man gets angry, and hit his wife once. Is he mentally ill?
A child gets angry, and kicks a wall. Is the child mentally ill?
A mother screams out of frustration, throws a book against a wall. Is she mentally ill?
A little girl comes home from school, locks herself in her room and cried of frustration. Is she mentally ill?
A woman goes through a divorce, and needs anti-depressants. Is she mentally ill.
A college student is anxious about their future, and finds comfort in anti-anxiety medication. Are they mentally ill?

Any one of these people could be capable of committing a violent crime. You could be capable. You just don't know it yet.

Under the sheets in an Orwellian nightmare, this country has managed to turn everything that makes a person themselves, uniquely them, into a mental illness. The only feeling and emotion not considered a mental illness is happiness...as the country shovels happy pills down their throat. A billion dollar industry.

Who is mentally ill to the point being lock-up, and who isn't. Are mere threats of violence enough? Did the boy who shot up the theater in Aurora Colorado have violent tendencies (no). Who gets to decide? Call us crazy, but the government shouldn't be the one, and neither should you, or me, or us. When you start locking people up because of your irrational media driven fears, that's just another freedom taken away.

Some people who fear the loss of their gun rights are deciding that they could easily blame the mentally ill, instead of take some responsibility, and embrace a little compromise; perhaps, we should just lock up "the crazies"...because people who hug their guns tight, despite glaring problems, are obviously the sane ones.

No, we're not anti-gun, we've written numerous times here that we aren't. We are pro-regulation. Guns have a purpose: hunting and home security. Assault weapons, and many semi-automatic, are not designed for any of that. They are designed to kill a lot of people, fast. That's it. (A real man can kill a deer/animal, with a simple rifle).

People are people, they've been killing in the name of religion, in the name of land ownership, in the name of love, in the name of war, for all of existence. And it's never been considered a mental illness before.

There will never be an easy solution in country as large as the United States, with such a diverse population. There can be compromise, but the compromise shouldn't be blaming the mentally ill.

Gun Debates...

We're growing weary of the gun debates...

We're also becoming desensitized to all the senseless mass murders.

In the 8th grade the first boy we ever like, that liked us back, killed himself with a shotgun in school (personal story). It was sad, and tragic.

Still.

We're not anti-gun. We're pro gun control. ('Guns, Guns, Guns...and Freedom' http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2012/07/guns-guns-gunsand-freedom_20.html).

But in the last couple of years, or further back, since Columbine even...there is a growing need for something...different. 

You may "cling" to your gun (if you oppose any control, you are clinging), but so do the children of the parents who don't lock them up properly; so do the kids, and adults, who can just get them freely, with few regulation check points; so could people who accidentally find a gun in meat shipment.

They cling to the gun too, while they take the lives of others.

Something is not right in this country. Something needs to change. Taking away guns isn't the answer. Regulation and control is. Lives lost, overshadow freedoms, sometimes. When the people in the country can't act responsibly, what hope it there.

Worshiping At The Flagpole of a False Idol

Amidst the outrage over the Aurora Colorado shooting by James Holmes this past week, there has been much speculation as to "why" this has happened. Pointing fingers, people blame guns/gun law, they blame movies and television, they blame, blame, blame...anything but themselves.

However, the most interesting (if you can call it that) blame we have come across is that of religion, or more specifically the lack of it; and while the people doing it are touting the responsibilities of humans, specifically non-believers, they are not taking any blame themselves.

The "religious-right" would have you blame abortion, blame secularism[1], blame growing gay marriage rights, and to put it in Dad's words..."...ask[ing] God to leave our country."

Yes, Dad, we quoted you, not to provoke, or attack, simply because it's a theme running through many opinion articles, reports, and comment sections of anything online related to the topic that we have read the last couple of days, and you summed it up nicely.

"We have asked God to leave our country."

But have "we", really?

First, as an ex-believer and a now non-believer, I was always under the impression that not only does God give you the choice to be a believer[2], but also states that punishment for choosing "wrong" will be in the afterlife, not punishment here on earth (until the very end, and we do not believe it is to be Revelations time). Of course, there are an equal amount of scriptures and verses to contradict those ideas of choice and punishment, and many other messages, as is the nature of the bible.

Blaming the secularists is probably what right-wing Christians; likely the same ones who want less government and taught freedom, but still want to govern your personal life, home and bed; and those who want to scare you and control you with religion would prefer you do. They persuade you into believing, into fear of  not, by using unfortunate outcomes of an overpopulated society at wits end with the way the government operates and controls its society, and the mistreatment of the human population; they want to homogenize the way of thinking for their advantage. It's what they would have you think, because they are afraid of being tempted by you, they are afraid of being wrong, and they are afraid of the unknown.

So, we've "asked" God to leave and now he is punishing "us" all with violent acts, performed by humans, that can easily be prevented/reduced with a little control of self, a little regulation of society, a little less universal hate, and a lot more universal love, tolerance and understanding. He's punishing "us" on earth for exercising the right to not follow him? Does that mean we won't have the aforementioned biblical punishment after life? He's not doing too many things to draw populous by creating fear.

But if you look closer, through a lens of scripture, you may find the root of the problem, and it's evil, if you so choose (and if you want to suspend reason and believe in God, of course).

The problem may actually be with the believers themselves.

Without even looking at statistics (which, yes, means we may be incorrect, but we doubt it, and we're willing to bet body parts on it), we're confident that most of the over-patriotic, flag loving, "God-fearing" citizens of the United States tend to be right-wing Christian Republicans. The same ones who tell you that all the evil, violence and bad things that happen in the United States is because you don't believe in their God; because you are okay with people marrying people they love romantically, no matter if they are a man or a woman; because you can accept that not everyone is capable of being a fit parent, sometimes bad things happen (rape, incest) and the fundamental human rights of an unwanted child are taken from them at birth, along with those of the woman who was denied her own freedom and rights; because instead of having your choices made by religious people, you choose to make your own choices. (That's called Freedom, by the way)

But lets get past those things, lets look at worship.

The first two commandments of the Ten Commandments of the bible clearly state you should have no other God, no other idol. They are so important that they are number one, and two, on a short list of requirements of being a decent person (according to the laws of Christianity).

Now, lets return to the over-patriotic, flag loving, "God-fearing" citizens of the United States. Worshipping their country, thinking it is better than an other country, holding it higher in importance than any other land, propping servitude to the country high in the air above almost anything else, being boastful about the country, putting what they think are its needs, as a whole, above those of the people who make up the country.

Reverent honour. Love. Devotion. Adoring regard. Allegiance. Ceremonious rendering.

Can you decipher those words between worship, and patriotism? Looks like the creation of a false idol of worship. If those words don't detail the worship of a false idol then I don't know what does.

Stand before the flag, devote yourself to the worship of the United States of America, in all it's glory.

In a country where even "the believers", (some might argue, the Christian government) encourage staunch consumerism, a worship of material wealth and money, "keeping up with the Joneses'" (Coveting, the breaking of a Ten Commandment).
Where Sunday afternoons you can find believers worshipping television, or working, or shopping, any number of non-religious activities (An unholy Sabbath day, and another Ten Commandment broken).
Where we will go to war with other countries, sometimes erroneously, and kill innocent* people (Though shall not kill...another Ten Commandment, broken).
And in a country where it's not illegal to lie, to bear false witness [Fact: It Is Not Illegal To Falsify News or Lie http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2012/06/fact-it-is-not-illegal-to-falsify-news.html] even about big things (another one of those commandments)...[3]

Those things break biblical rules, by the believers themselves; to say they have been broken by non-believers would be false, as religious rule applies only to those willing to adopt them as part of the religious path they choose. Those who have taken a stand for their choice, knowing the rules and guidelines set by their deity, and have broken them, are at faultm and therefore should cease pointing fingers at those who have chosen a different path, and take responsibility for the mixed messages they are feeding as example.

Perhaps it's not, in the end, a lack of God, or a banishment of him, but a mistreatment of the guidelines given to those who have chosen to follow Him; and even if it's is because "we" have asked God to leave our country; lets not even touch on the fact that is wholly arrogant that God views the world by country, and favours one over another; it is only those who have accepted him who have the power to deny him.

In addition, in the eyes of Him, a sinner, is a sinner, is a sinner, whether a non-believer or not, so to blame one group, over another, is ignorant.

Maybe it has nothing to do with a human contruction of religious ideals, created 2000 years ago based in mythologies far older than Christianity; maybe it has everything to do with humans being animals (a scientific classification based on set criteria**) with guns, with the capacity for higher-thinking and the ability to take responsibility, but the propensity to point fingers like children, and shroud ourselves in hate.

The bible teaches that God is patient and kind, yet teaches he is forceful and vengeful.
Teaches you killing is wrong, but to kill in his name is divine.
Teaches you that believing in him is a private and personal matter, yet calls for you to force upon others your personal beliefs.
Teaches you to love, and then to turn a cheek and hate people who are different (don't have the same beliefs).

Why would you want to worship a vengeful God anyway, if given the choice, peace, respect and responsibility to others seems, for me, a much more devin road.

Respect what other's believe, don't demonize them for their beliefs.

~ Frank et al

Please note: we don't believe in God, so this has simply been an exercise in thought and writing. As we do not beleive in God, we cannot at all think that God is punishing his believers, however, in the face that secularists are being blamed for all the ill in the world, then the argument above serves as just a valid hypothesis of blame.
These are the things that keep us up at night.

P.S. Dad, thanks for the inspiration, even if it wasn't the kind you hoped for, I love you, and even though we will never see eye to eye, you will always be our inspiration.
-----------------
Resources:
[1] Religious Right Blames Colorado Shootings on Evolution, Secularism and Abortion, The Examiner, Hugh Kramer, July 21, 2012 http://www.examiner.com/article/religious-right-blames-colorado-shootings-on-evolution-secularism-and-abortion

[2] Joshua 25:15, The Bible (choose your version) 'But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.' [It should be noted that the message that they are trying to get across in this verse is that the only real Lord, is the Lord that the speaker/writer of this text believes to be the only true one, so any other worship is false, and non-existent, and you have basically choose not to believe in the 'one true Lord', and might as well be a non-believer in whole.]

[3] The Ten Commandments Listed, Gods Ten Laws, http://godstenlaws.com/ten-commandments/index.html#.UA7FOLTy9Lc

*Being a citizen of a country does not make one guilty, anymore than being a member of the United States makes it citizens guilty of the atrocities of the country as a whole by default, and therefore deserving of death. 

**Popular is also the teaching of humans as animals (evolution) and the misconception (by religions) that an animal must be dumb, and without thought, and the rejection that humans, while animals, can be simply of a higher order of animals with different abilities, yet no less animals. The wild is full of animals with different sets of abilities, and evolutionary advancements. That's all we have to say about that...for now.

We are thankful for the freedoms that actually exist in the United States, while acknowledging they actually exist, some in greater form, in other countries of the world.