Weaponized Society: Interior and Exterior

Tucson, Arizona, Gun Buyback Event

I feel as if I am living in some nightmare world:  a world of guns and violence and a constant weak and half hearted litany against Weaponized Society. But there are monsters from the conscious and subconscious which are calling the shots, and we are constantly going into that dark corridor all alone...

The mantra goes that criminals are not subject to gun control laws, yet how many people are actually shot by criminals in the pursuit of criminal activity each year? How many children under the age of 12 are shot by criminals each year?

The Senate did not pass a law to toughen gun laws. Did anyone think they actually... could?

Now Arizona is seeking to re-sell guns that had been turned in at buyback events. This goes beyond ending buybacks of guns, which are probably not effective. This is actually the government becoming a weapon shop... and everyone who has read A. E. Van Vogt knows the government cannot be a weapon shop, neither in Isher nor here in the USA.

Yahoo News 04/18/2013:

There is research showing that such events don't have much impact, said Michael Scott, a University of Wisconsin Law School professor who is director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing.

"The main reason that's the case is that most gun buybacks tend to yield guns that are highly unlikely to be used in crimes," including old, broken or worn-out firearms, he said...

"There's just so many guns in private hands in the country that collecting a relative few of them at any one time is not going to have a big impact on their availability," he said.

And the last sentence underscore what startled me one day: the realization that guns are everywhere.

Automobiles are everywhere; we spend billions of dollars to support them by building free roads. Yet autos cannot be used in criminal pursuits... other than as a get-away car. And autos do not kill in criminal pursuits... unless the get-away car runs into someone.

Guns are everywhere, and we support them by law:
(1)  There is collateral damage from automobiles: so many casualties every year due to accidents.
(2)  There is collateral damage from guns: so many casualties every year due to accidents.
But beyond the gun accidents, there are gun crimes. Beyond crimes, there are killings among families due to anger and passion. Beyond passion, there are the role-playing figures of perfect revenge, as evidenced by the affection that the Columbine killers had for the film Natural Born Killers, reciting dialogue from it frequently.

What is obvious now to me is that, just as in the film Forbidden Planet, we are playing the role of the Krel.
We believe ourselves to be moral and intelligent, yet we are playing with a dangerous Weaponized Society World View which will destroy much of the world and our own homeland, just as the Krel destroyed Altair IV when they achieved matter-from-mind and released their own monstrous subconscious passions into the world.

Some may say my understanding comes from stories. Maybe so.
I agree my understanding comes from stories and narratives; that is why I am able to spot a plot a mile away. Writers should be able to see at least dimly the general trend of normal events, certainly gun events in a Weaponized Society are easy to forecast:
No great miracles will occur in weaponry in the near term, other than becoming more deadly.
There will be more slaughter.
There will be more outcry.
There will be more treason of politicians.

The Violence of the Weaponized Society will breed a Perfect Storm of Violence.

Weaponized Society needs "enemies" at home - criminals or the government itself - and guns to "protect" ourselves; Weaponized Society needs enemies abroad, and explains why we are blindly supporting factions in Syria which swear allegiance to Al Qai'da. (Indeed, which explains why we supported bin Laden in Afghanistan in the first place many years ago.)

Weaponized Society breeds not only its interior of violent acts, but also its exterior of violent weather events due to exacerbation of Climate Change.
The Society where the hand (with a gun in it) of each man and woman is raised against each other - the Weaponized Society - is the Society that wreaks violence against the Environment and the Earth.

Phoenix, Arizona, Dust Storm 2011

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