Serious weapons

Quigley/Counterpunch

""Question: How does a mentally unstable man who was kicked out of school and had run-ins with the law buy such a serious weapon?

The weapon reportedly used in the mass murders in Tucson was a serious weapon - a Glock 19, semi-automatic pistol, with an extended magazine. Some weapons like that were illegal to sell in the US from 1994 to 2004 under the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. It is now legal to sell and own them. The National Rifle Association reports there are tens of millions of assault weapons in private hands in the US.

The federal background check for people purchasing such weapons only prohibits selling such weapons to people who have been legally determined to be mentally defective or found insane or convicted of crimes. This man had not been found legally mentally defective or convicted so he was legally entitled to purchase an assault weapon. In Arizona he was legally entitled to carry the weapon in a concealed manner.

The US has well over 250 million guns in private hands according to the National Rifle Association. That is more, according to the BBC, than any country in the world. In one year, guns murdered 17 people in Finland, 35 in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada, and 9,484 in the United States according to the Brady Campaign.

Does the US really need tens of millions of assault weapons and hundreds of millions of other guns? We already put more of our people in prison than any country in the world and we spend more on our military than all the rest of the world together. How fearful must we be? ""

Quigley raises an important if somewhat obvious point, concerning, shall we say, contemporary Crackerness. Crackerness might be defined as the mindstate of the ...protestant caucasian. The Cracker is generally not an ivy league WASP snob ala WF Buckley, but a rustic from the South--a hick in other words. Yokel. Hayseed. Swift's Yahoo's are related to crackers as well.

Crackers might not be completely illiterate--Jared Loughner supposedly read Hitler, Ayn Rand and even Ken Kesey (tho' Lemaitre he was not: basic algebra the extent of his math/science knowledge, apparently) . Crackers tend to be baptists--though perhaps other related WASP denominations at times. Mormon crackers are not unknown. Crackers generally are not ...catholics, however. Many catholics may be corrupt hypocrites, but they generally are not terrorists (excepting a few abortion clinic destroyers). And...we would have to grant that other non-catholic, non-protestant terrorists exist--muslim, and jew, and even atheist.

Ergo, Quigley may be sort of correct: whiteness played a factor. But that's....we suggest, protestant-cracker whiteness. The Altar Boy, even caucasian or irish sort, studying Latin or spanish along with his geometry and other studies tends to be well-behaved, IMHE (and evidence exists showing that students from private catholic schools outperform the public school students). Perhaps not quite grunt material as are the baptist-crackers...and zionists. But...a slightly superior human and citizen. How do we take on, or begin to eliminate Crackerness (or other gangster afflictions)? Bring back...Latin, for starters.

Mens sana in corpore sano -