a month late about the NRA response to the Newtown massacre

A week after 20 children and six adult staff members were murdered during a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, US, the NRA's Executive VP and CEO, Wayne LaPierre, read a public statement representing the NRA's response. The NRA called for installing armed security at schools, reasoning that banks, courthouses, office buildings, etc., all have armed security. The NRA's statement went on to at least partially attribute the appearance of escalating public violence to video games and movies.

In the wake LaPierre's reading, one line from the statement came to represent the whole of it:

The only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Would you rather have your 911 call bring a good guy with a gun from a mile away ... or a minute away?

Critics and detractors panned the statement, calling it paranoid and delusional. Politically, it had its strengths and weaknesses. But the takeway statement--that only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun--that part is special.

This line is special because it harmonizes the interests of the NRA's individual members with those of gun manufacturers and sellers. See, gun manufacturers and sellers accept bad guys' money as surely as they accept good guys'. In their ideal scenario, everyone is armed. Good guys have a gun; bad guys have a gun. And the industry has the cash.

Meanwhile, the NRA's individual members all imagine they are good guys--good guys armed for the benefit of all the would-be victims out there.

Giving and taking rights

Women in Saudi Arabia will be able to vote in that country's next election. Meanwhile, in America states are adding new voting barriers for the poor.

A right to life, a right to die

This week a single mother was convicted of murdering her nine year old, low-functioning autistic son by withholding his chemotherapy medication. In October 2006 he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma; by February 2008 the crime had been discovered and the boy was placed in his father's custody; a year later, he died.

In her defense the woman claimed she was overwhelmed by her own struggle with depression and her role as a depressed mother with few resources who is solely responsible for a severely sick, disabled child. In other words, she threw herself at the mercy of the court. Of course the prosecution claimed she decided to let the child die; incidentally, this could also have been her defense: That she chose death over life--life being where the state exercised its will, and death, where she exercised hers. It could have been a civil rights issue. Regardless, a few members of the jury have since made statements about their attempts to sympathize with her situation.

I come away with two primary impressions:
(1) She never really owned her child; though he lived with her a time, the state apparently had the prevailing interest in his life (for his sake, of course), making him its ward, subject to its rule;
(2) If the state has part ownership of the child, it also has a responsibility to raise the child; if it will not, then it must provide adequate resources to those who will.

The second point holds even if the facts of this specific case require us to punish the mother.

One report: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/04/15/massachusetts.mother.murder/
Another: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ghGhsTkTI_Jwn4Y7OOcEDU_gOt1Q?docId=d0923b05603b4faa8d8287fe9ebafaf7

Talking about conversation

This week's Washington Post article "Rep. Peter King's Muslim hearings: A key moment in an angry conversation" shows an example of news creating news. Such articles argue a point, create information, and fabricate historical record. This is big media's privilege, done in service of privilege.

There is something particularly egregious about this article, too. Offering a slight elaboration on their bizarre headline, authors Farenthold and Boorstein offer this:

On Thursday, the discussion about Muslims' place--and Muslims' obligations--in American society will move to Capitol Hill. The hearing, called by Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), could be a key moment in one of the country's angriest conversations.

Who is having this angry conversation? Not me. Not most people. And, of those who are regularly discussing the place and "obligations" of Muslims, only a fraction of them have it angrily. But the article goes on:

Public opinion about Muslims hasn't changed much in recent years. In the fall, a Washington Post-ABC News poll asked whether mainstream Islam "encourages violence." Among all respondents, 31 percent said yes, slightly less than the recent high of 34 percent in 2003.

What's different now is the tone of the discussion--in Congress and across the country.

As evidence, the article cites comments made by Representative King, as well as a "string of incidents"--which means two incidents within eighteen months--and an increase in arrests of "violent jihad suspects from May 2009 to November 2010".

This is a non-issue made into an issue. To my mind, the real story here is the rhetorical social and political function of articles like this and hearings such as King's. They get people talking about terrorism again. And at a time when politicians want to cut spending on public pay and services, and on the same day a mass of public workers in Wisconsin are stripped of bargaining rights, terror talk helps keep defense cuts off the table, and public attention directed towards a meaningless sideshow.

The Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/09/AR2011030905750.html