[Redbadbear] School Shootings

['Hunter Gray' [e-mail] [marxist]]

From an RBB discussion -- in case anyone is interested. I've rounded out this of mine just a bit. (H)



Thanks for that, Greg. I'm not jumping to get into the gun rights/gun control issue. My arguments in favor of gun rights are well known on this discussion list. If they need refreshing, see this of mine:
http://hunterbear.org/BLOODSTAINED%20TRAIL.htm

BTW, I've taken the rifle I am holding in the lead photo on that webpage -- a High Grade Browning/Winchester 45/70 lever action -- from its seclusion with my other firearms (other than my revolver on a table by my bed), along with two boxes of ammunition, out into the open in our home. I am planning not only target shooting but, very possibly, some fall hunting.

I think a very, very basic factor in these school shootings goes back into the now often unstable nature of the American family -- a condition found frequently in large urban areas. Stable families tend much to produce stable kids.

The cliche of the gun control people -- "gun violence" -- is obviously 'way off target. We're looking at "people violence."

In the last several generations, a vast number of American families, especially in the large urban settings, have lost the tight cohesion -- solidarity -- that is still found generally in rural and small town and small city settings. In the inner cities, economic deprivation, often racism, poor schooling, are among the obvious factors.

In the more affluent sections of large cities, and certainly suburbia, American families have delegated their old rural/small town (gemeinschaft) functions -- economic, education, religion, and some others -- to external institutions. (A noteworthy example in these more affluent quarters is the delegation of life decisions to psychiatrists.) The increasingly egalitarian nature of these more well to do families, frequently with both parents working, has diminished the very necessary strong parental roles and influence. Divorce situations are frequent. Their kids often simply "drift." In this milieu, almost all kids still won't practice serious violence, but some obviously do.

And, of course, there is a host of other youthful ills -- "lesser" in nature than serious violence -- that flows from unstable family situations.

It's time to take a very hard and critical and public national look at the condition of The Family in this country -- and to act accordingly on family and governmental fronts, slow as that process may be.

And, of course, the now much mentioned preventative steps such as signicant economic relief in inner cities, much increased mental health training for teachers, and parents if possible; (parental -- not governmental) censorship re violence on television; increased and well trained security within the schools -- are all among the critical necessities.

There may be as many as one hundred million gun owners in this country and a vast, vast number of firearms. Even if, in "defiance" of the Second Amendment and the USSC gun rights rulings, various gun control proposals were enacted, it wouldn't reduce the tragic violence we're seeing. The roots of that are, as I've indicated, deep.

And I strongly suspect that the last thing any politician in this country would want now -- with the exception of some in the central Atlantic seaboard and the higher eschelons in Chicago -- is to be labeled a gun control advocate.

H




HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /
St. Francis Abenaki / St. Regis Mohawk
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO

Check out our massive social justice website
www.hunterbear.org The site is dedicated to our
one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray, and to Sky Gray:
http://hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm

See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE (Mississippi et al.):
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

See our very full COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
page -- with a great deal of practical material:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm

See my new expanded/updated "Organizer's Book,"
JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- with a new 10,000 word
introduction by me. This page lists many reviews.
And this book is also an activist's how-to manual:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm:
(Photos)
----- Original Message -----
From: Greg McDonald ***@gmail.com [Redbadbear]
To: redbadbear
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 3:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Redbadbear] School Shootings




first thing is to get the stats right.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/11/us/school-shootings-cnn-number/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+Most+Recent%29




On Thu, Jun 12, 2014 at 12:43 AM, Reber Boult ***@earthlink.net [Redbadbear] <***@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


https://portside.org/2014-06-11/qa-expert-relationship-between-mental-illness-and-violence

So what, if anything, do we think should be done about all the
shootings? Some 70+ since Sandy Hook?

- Reber Boult