In the wake of the shootings, while politicians tip-toe around their positions on gun control for fear of losing their payola from the gun lobby, it seems Hollywood actors are ready to step up and say no to guns. They released a video “demand a plan” asking that we stop mass shootings.
Of course, the only problem is, most have them have been shot on film, backed by millions of dollars, shooting people with the very same guns they have a problem with in their “demand a plan.”
It hasn’t taken the gun lobby long to intercut the video a million ways from Sunday with scenes of the same stars, with their simulated violence. Hypocrite is the term that comes up next on the search as the next word to go with the search.
We’ve also heard that first-person shooter video games are to blame. The violence in video games somehow turns us into wild-eyed killers. Yep, we’re being programmed- not even subliminally, to turn into whack job murderers. By the same reasoning, porn makes people into rapists, watching Fox news turns you into a right wing nut and watching cspan turns you into a politician.
I’ve been tiring of the screaming going on amongst my friends on Facebook with every slightest provocation for responsible gun ownership in this country. I believe in requiring training, testing, licensing and bonding (insurance) as part of gun ownership. I don’t think the founding fathers foresaw the future when guns would be so easy to use and as deadly as they are today. They didn’t foresee lots of things, and left them out of the Constitution, no mention of the Internet, airplanes, nuclear arms, etc. And they most certainly didn’t have an opinion on porn- maybe we should go back and ask them?
When I think back about violent movies that disturbed me, a few come to mind: Scarface, Natural Born Killers, Reservoir Dogs, Blue Velvet, American History X, Silence of the Lambs- and realize that all of these, have been “successful” by Hollywood standards. The same standards that give us “Ratings” that supposedly stop children from seeing films – PG-13, R, NC-17 and the former X. For some filmmakers, the NC-17 rating is actually a marketing ploy- they want it, to get more attention.
I’m currently watching the Showtime series “Dexter” where the “star” of the show is a serial killer. Yes, we’re glorifying a psychopath over seven seasons, with more to come. And, the reason he’s a killer- his mother was horrifically killed with a chainsaw in front of his eyes when he was a toddler. Yet, we’ve not banned chainsaws. No, I’m not a fan of a plan to ban assault rifles, large clips because as the saying went in my Army unit- if it takes you that many rounds to kill someone, they deserve to live. What I am a fan of is ending hypocrisy.
Why is it that we fear boobs on TV more than bloodbaths? Maybe, we need to relax the “high moral standards” on TV that show bloodbaths readily and breasts never. Potheads always say that alcoholics are a bigger threat to public safety, while potheads are a threat to cheetos. What would happen if we banned showing shooting on prime time the way we’ve banned boobs? Sales of “Fifty shades of gray” would go up?
To this day, the movie “Natural Born Killers” still makes me sick, just as much as the Newtown and Aurora shootings, maybe even a bit more. Maybe it’s time to create a killing tax- where Hollywood has to pay a percentage of revenue for every shooting in their films and television shows to help fund a victims fund? Because we demand a plan.
typo in lead sentence para 6
When I think back about vilent movies that disturbed me,
When I think back about violent movies that disturbed me,
“To be human, is to be inconsistent”
William JJ Herrick 1969
Thanks Bill- I appreciate the editors. Apparently my readers don’t. Fixed.
You are on the right track on this one David. Also hypocritical is our government that has no problem with the 450,000 smoking deaths on its hands every year (12,000 for guns). They of course have no problem killing us with tobacco because they make the lion’s share of the money. Our media outlets could run stories about tobacco, alcohol, aids and obesity caused deaths in the same style they use to target guns and the brainwashed masses would “demand a plan” for those problems as well. As we all have figured out our mainstream media’s job is to keep us ignorant and brainwashed so we are more easily used for political purposes.
Not to quibble but the CDC report http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf tells us about 30,000 people were killed by firearms in 2009. Of the 30,000 about 19,000 were self inflicted. Did you purposely leave out the self inflicted deaths because you don’t care about them? I didn’t try to determine how accurate your 450,000 smoking deaths number is but I suspect it is not a stretch to consider most of these as self inflicted deaths. So in one sentence you tell us you don’t care about deaths if the person takes their own life and in the same sentence you tell us the government is hypocritical for not caring about other people engaged in the same behavior.
Of course I’ve chosen to engage in a discussion with someone that is so out of touch with reality that they believe “our government that has no problem with the 450,000 smoking deaths “. As if our government wasn’t spending 100’s of millions of dollars on research to mitigate these people’s destructive behavior and billions of dollars in medicare and medicaid mitigating the effects.
And, the reason (the character Dexter is) a killer- his mother was horrifically killed with a chainsaw in front of his eyes…(David Esrati)
…don’t you hate that when that happens?…
typo in lead sentence para 6
When I think back about vilent movies that disturbed me,
When I think back about violent movies that disturbed me. (William Herrick)
…but when I think of violet movies, I find it rather pacifying…
I don’t count self inflicted with guns as that would be like blaming the golden gate bridge or niagra falls for all of the people that kill themselves by jumping off. We could explore knives, arson, cars etc in the same light as guns as well. Far more destruction is done to our people by the drugs mexicans bring into our country than al qaida but we don’t kill mexicans on the border for some reason. We are just puppets, it is the only explanation.
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