This week on CounterSpin: The US undoubtedly needs better health care, including mental health care, and blithely violent cultural media is nothing to celebrate; but there is no actual mystery about the main reason behind the gun violence this country sees every day of the year—and that sometimes explodes into mass shootings, like those in El Paso and Dayton: It’s. the. guns. US law and policy undeniably reflects a greater value on the ability of some people to own weapons than on the ability of all people to be safe from gun violence. Vast majorities of Americans support serious regulation, but corporate media debate still seems to revolve around the supposed “rights” of the few, rather than the right of the many to live a life free from this scourge. We’ll talk about what it means to apply a human rights framework to gun violence with Ernest Coverson, End Gun Violence campaign manager at Amnesty International USA.
(photo: USDA)
Also on the show: Monsanto didn’t find any factual errors in Carey Gillam’s book, Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science, or in her reporting for Reuters about the agrochemical behemoth’s products or practices. But Gillam’s work highlights concerns about Monsanto’s popular weed killer Roundup and the corporation’s vigorous efforts to kill not just criticism of it, but any efforts to investigate its potential harms. Carey Gillam is now research director at the group US Right to Know. We talk to her about Monsanto’s work to undermine your right to know, and why we should see it as emblematic.
Well, that was a disappointing exercise in partisan political propaganda.
What happened to “fair and accurate?”
Whether this argument is or is not partisan has no bearing on the truthfulness of this report. The idea of partisan is not opposite to the idea of fairness. It is possible to be both. Your argument is invalid.
The first question to ask is, given our government’s history of false flags, are these manufactured events to consolidate government power?
The second question to ask is, in similar societies like Britain and Australia, is the general populace being more oppressed, including economically oppressed, than the US? If so, does the general distribution of guns keep our populace freer?
I hope you’re a troll and don’t seriously entertain the idea that some branch of the US government (USG) is behind all or even some-of these mass shootings? Like the so-called “911 truthers” who believe that the USG brought down the twin towers? Because those kind of conspiracy theories are right up there with the lizard people nonsense as far as plausibility. Just think about it for a second — even IF someone in the USG entertained such an idea, it would be killed by higher-ups (like Operation Northwoods was) because the blowback would be MUCH too risky IF it was exposed, which — given the insane number of ‘uncommitted’ people who would be involved—- would be inevitable. Have you ever worked with a group of people, and asked people to keep something quiet/secret? It lasts for a few weeks at best, UNLESS you have a fanatical band of zealots, as during wartime, or a religious cult. And how would you secretly recruit the hundreds (possibly thousands) of people needed to pull-off this conspiracy — put an ad online? And IF nobody really died, where/how would they be relocated without anyone ever contacting them again? And what in the hell would the USG supposedly want to do this elaborate charade (multiple times) for anyway?
No, Occam’s razor is obviously applicable here — sick, twisted individuals having access (legally or illegally) to firearms, especially high capacity semi-automatic ones are responsible for these mass shootings. If they had easy access to grenades, tanks, SAMs, nuclear weapons, etc, they’d also be using those and would possibly have even higher body-counts, but they DON’T have easy access to those so we rarely if-ever hear about those type of mass killings, thankfully.
Media, music, movies, video games, news…and lack of education is more of a reason for gun violence/violence in general than guns themselves. If what you are saying is true, why aren’t you doing s report on the effects of operation fast and furious on society? Why aren’t you covering the violence in Palestine every time it happens? I grew up in a very violent town in California, my dad was an honest small business owner that had multiple robberies attempted at him in his 40 years of business ownership. He never had a gun at his business but he definitely had one at home. It was absolutely necessary to be able to protect yourself in the town I grew up in, I’m grateful we have been able to move since. We were educated on gun use and my dad would hunt to supplement his income so we could eat before he had his own business. It’s easy to say people should not own guns from your gated communities. Please don’t fall for the weekly propaganda, where is the counter spin to what is going on in the media in this report about guns? Even though I grew up around guns, I used to be anti gun up until my 30s, after years of research and studying and eventually getting multiple degrees in history and political science, I’ve realized that every one should be able to defend themselves. Please be fair and objective.
People are justified in wanting to protect themselves, but are you justifying any laymen having access to an assault rifle? Because that’s at the core of the argument – people have access to guns that they do not understand the ramifications of. I’m glad your father educated you about gun use – that’s not the reality for most people with guns.
Enrique, your argument has nothing to do with the points made in the episode. At no time did anyone advocate to restrict a person’s right to self defense. In the same way that Americans are not allowed to own nuclear weapons or fighter jets, the argument being made is that assault rifles are too deadly for Americans to own.