Tom Toles for November 20, 2015

This is what confounds us who do not live in ‘the greatest country in the world’. These 1000’s of deaths by firearms (including 3000 children) every year are treated as ho hum whilst terrified catastrophic xenophobia kicks in at the thought of a terrorist threat??? The fear laden rhetoric led by the conservatives in your country is kinda bewildering. This ISIS mob are an opportunistic cult led by psychopaths drugging their followers into madness and death however they are not an existential threat! They are a disorganised mess of brainwashed acolytes who live in terror themselves every day.This reminds me of the right wing reaction to the Ebola thing… remember? “Do not allow anyone from Africa into the country!!!” brayed Foxnews et al. Same same. Sad.

We have become a frightened, little people to the great profit of Roger Ailes.

A Texas State Representative – Republican of course – who went off the deep end when he said that there is nothing to prevent an ISIS terrorist who has slipped into our country from buying as many guns as he wanted to so as to commit horribly violent acts of terrorism? He was aghast that it was perfectly legal in the Fantasyland of Texas. Oh if only someone would pass a law to prevent criminals from getting their hands on guns.

Seriously you can’t make this stuff up it’s so ludicrous.

A Republican TX legislator said they can take no Refugees because guns are TOO EASY TO GET! What patoots. How about that Jade Helm!

316.5 Million & 12.6 per 100,000 = 3988 (round up by .1) people dead by suicide. 51.4% of that would be 2050, I think your off by a digit…?

The idea that people who commit suicide are not really dead is one of the most cruel conservative tropes.

So if it is people who kill and not guns, would there have been 33K people stabbed to death if there were no guns??

Aw heck. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people!” Guns only make it a whole heck of a lot easier for people to kill people. Just ask that Dylann Storm Roof nebbish or that Adam Lanza cipher, et far too many al.

Like Tom Waits says…

“We are monkeys with money and guns.”

I love it how the right are trying to distract the conversation, by turning it into a gun law argument. The argument is why are we so scared of a person because propaganda claims they are terrorist without any proof of fact. And of course If I’m an Islamic radical i’m going to say that we will infiltrate through refugees. I mean it’s the same thing as you see in the movies were someone puts poison in a glass of whatever they are drinking. The poisoner then says one of these glasses is poison and the person gets so paranoid they think it’s their water that was poisoned so they take the other person’s drink. Guess what? And all because you let someone telling lies get into you’re head and make you scared. I mean with all the guns we have why should anyone be scared if a terrorist does sneak through? Don’t we have enough people with guns to shoot them on site? Oh by the way here’s some shootings that were not suicides and not committed by foreign terrorists.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data

Deadliest day of violence in France in 70 years, toll = 132 (last I checked).Number of people killed in the US in mass shootings (4 or more victims) in 15 years: 487. Most of the perpetrators were US citizens, and a substantial portion were white from Christian backgrounds. The Boston Marathon bombers were children when they came here and radicalized in the US.

Tell me again about the high risk of Muslim refugees committing acts of mass violence?

Highest number of gun deaths per capita is Alaska, followed by Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

Then there was they guy recently arrested in California with 531 Illegally Obtained Guns and 100,000 rounds of ammunition.…During a raid on Sheakalee’s home, agents seized 209 handguns, 88 shotguns, 234 rifles, 181 standard capacity magazines, 10 high-capacity magazines, 100,521 rounds of various ammunition, and 10 assault weapons including a .50 caliber bolt action rifle, which are banned under California law..He’s More than Ready to be a “Good Guy with a gun” in any Terrorists attack His House..

On suicides: women tend to choose pills or poison, and have roughly a 50% success rate. Guys tend to choose guns, and have roughly a 99% success rate; guns are simply a much more deadly tool, in homicides, suicides, and violent crimes.

I can imagine a world in which the concept of owning an invention which is solely and expressly designed to kill another person with a mere twitch of a finger is an alien and repulsive idea. I can imagine a world without fear. I can imagine a world in which every individual recognizes the intrinsic and irrevocable worth of all others. That may make me sound like a starry-eyed idealist, but as John Lennon sang, I am not the only one, and it is that ideal that the world should and I believe inevitably will strive for and achieve.

In 2013, as per CDC (or don’t die living):Number of deaths: 2,596,993Death rate: 821.5 deaths per 100,000 populationLife expectancy: 78.8 yearsInfant Mortality rate: 5.96 deaths per 1,000 live birthsNumber of deaths for leading causes of death:Heart disease: 611,105Cancer: 584,881Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 149,205Accidents (unintentional injuries): 130,557Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,978Alzheimer’s disease: 84,767Diabetes: 75,578Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,979Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 47,112Intentional self-harm (suicide): 41,149Source: Deaths: Final Data for 2013, tables 1, 7, 10, 20