More News About the Shooting in Washington State

Hi Humans.
More news has come out about the shooting in Washington State. The shooter was a popular student, a hunter, a football player, a homecoming prince, not an obvious screwball to his surroundings. His parents had given him a rifle as a gift (not the handgun used in the shooting). His victims were his cousins. He was ultimately stopped, not by a private citizen with a gun, but by an unarmed female teacher who tried to grab the gun away from him before he shot himself. This event is the opposite picture of what the NRA would like to present, but consistent with the facts reported in the American Journal of Public Health (The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Stranger and Nonstranger Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981-2010. Siegel M¹, Negussie Y, Vanture S, Pleskunas J, Ross CS, King C 3rd).  The shooter was not an intruder or a robber. He was a kid who grew up in a culture where gun ownership is the norm who became very angry and in a moment of passion acted out that anger with an easily available gun.
Chloe

School Shooting in Washington State

Hi Humans,

Breaking news! Another shooting has just happened in the cafeteria of a school in a town in Washington State. This is too common because of the easy access to guns in the USA. Yet, the NRA and the gun lobby continue to fight any attempt to control access of guns to screwballs. 

Chloe

Politics, Reality, and Ebola

Hi Humans,
You have this thing called politics. I realize politics are necessary in a Democracy so that the government can sort things out and come to conclusions, hopefully giving the ordinary humans some ability to influence the actions of their representatives. However, some politicians will and say anything no matter how silly to make the opposite party look bad. Many of the members of the Republican Party have become especially guilty of that since President Obama has taken office. Some just don't like Democrats, but it seems like more than that. I think they don't like the President because he is half Black and more than that because he is intelligent. The Republican Congress has obstructed legislation which the President has supported even to the detriment of their own constituents as long as it they could make the President look bad. Today on CNN a Republican congresswoman named Marsha Blackburn claimed that the President is doing a poor job of keeping America safe from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Actually, while Ms. Blackburn and her friends have been promoting useless harmful measures like keeping American medical personnel from traveling to Africa and banning flights between the USA and West Africa. The American government under the present administration has sent medial teams to West Africa and has helped coordinate an international effort to give humanitarian help. Controlling the epidemic locally in Africa is the best way to contain the epidemic and keep it from spreading out to the rest of us. Making a scare campaign like what Ms. Blackburn and friends promote will accomplish nothing.
If we dogs could vote, we would support reality and not just what is politically expedient.
Chloe

Pistorius and a Gun

Hi Humans,
They are saying in the news that this human, Oscar Pistorius who shot and killed his girl friend was convicted of negligent homicide (not premeditated). Well, if that is true, that just illustrates what bad results can come from private gun ownership. Pistorius claims he thought he was shooting an intruder in the night. If a private individual is given the privilege of owning a killing machine, it is his responsibility to use it safely, and thinking there might be an intruder on the other side of the door does not excuse killing a friend or relative. He should get the maximum sentence for negligent homicide. Maybe it's different in South Africa where Pistorius lives, but here in the USA this sort of thing happens too frequently because of our anarchic lack of gun laws.
Chloe

Words and Apologies

Hi Humans,
You humans attach more importance to words than to deeds, and you make so much more out of them than reality. Some of you get all unglued if some one says something that you perceive to be offensive. The sayer says something which he or she perceives to be innocent and of no importance, but the sayee perceives it to be an extreme insult and will remember it for years causing a rift between the two. The sayee demands an apology which is rejected unless it is in the exact words which will satisfy the sayee. After repeated attempts to satisfy the sayee, the sayer gives up and the feud goes on endlessly. Fortunately I am a dog and don't have to deal with such nonsense.
Chloe

Election

Hi Humans,
I live in Porter Ranch, California. There is an election coming up. The Member of the State Assembly for the 38th District which contains Porter Ranch is Scott Wilk who is up for re-election. On the Official Sample Ballot sent out by Los Angeles County, it says Wilk's party preference is Republican, but on the Party Endorsement page Wilk is listed as being endorsed by the American Independent Party. His name is not present in the list of candidates endorsed by the Republican Party. The American Independent Party is a radical right party, particularly strong in the deep South, which has nominated segregationists like George Wallace and Lester Maddox for president in the past. Wilk on his web site asks if one is for or against the Second Amendment which is the mantra of the gun lobby and the NRA. All of this shows Wilk to be not a real Conservative but a radical rightist and gun anarchist. If I were not just a dog, I would vote for his opponent Jorge Salomon Fuentes. My human Dad and Mom will.
Chloe

Gun Show Loophole

Hi Humans,
Did you know that only 10 states in the USA have laws requiring background checks at gun shows? Federal law only requires background checks at sales in licensed gun stores. That means a human with a criminal record or history of mental disease can just waltz in to a gun show and buy all kinds of killing machines like going to a candy store. The sane states are California, Oregon, and Colorado in the West, Illinois in the Upper Mid-West, and a cluster of states in the Northeast. The other 40 states have glaring gun show loopholes in their laws. Actually, all transfers of guns, whether by gift or sale, should be very much regulated and highly taxed. We dogs unfortunately have to live with you anarchic gun crazy humans.
Chloe

Gun Restraining Law

Hi Humans,
Kudos to Governor Brown of California for signing a law that allows a family to request the seizure of guns from a relative whom they believe might be about to cause harm. A law like this might have prevented the tragic mass killing by a gunman in the Santa Barbara area a few months ago. Of course the NRA cronies complained as usual. For them guns are more important than lives. Unfortunately, Governor Brown vetoed a law that would have required registration of home made guns. Home made guns kill just like manufactured ones. Any gun should be regulated firmly no matter who makes it.

 

Chloe