![]() |
RONRIDENOUR.COM |
Home |
About Ron Ridenour |
Articles |
Themes |
Poems |
Short stories |
Books |
Links |
Search |
Contact |
Dansk |
Español |
Crazy Gun Stuff from the US and Denmark
[August 30, 2014]
Part 1-US
You’ve probably heard that a nine year-old girl just killed her
gun instructor, Charles Vacca, with an Israeli Uzi sub-machine gun the
Zionists use to kill Palestinians and other Arabs. We all know that
US Americans are crazy about their guns but, really, a nine-year girl
in pink shorts and pink earmuffs taking gun lessons in the Mojave Desert
in Arizona?
The unnamed girl was on vacation with her parents from New Jersey. They
thought this was a fun tourist thing to do so they filmed their daughter
getting instructions from the shooting range instructor, a former US
sergeant. As the girl squeezed the trigger after instructions, she ended
up killing him, unintentionally. The local sheriffs chalked the incident
up as an “industrial accident”, and then released the video
on You Tube, for Christ’s sake.http://mashable.com/2014/08/26/9-year-old-kills-shooting-instructor-uzi/
The Last Stop shooting range, run by Bullets and Burgers (www.bulletsandburgers.com),
is one of between 18 and 20,000 outdoor and indoor places to learn and
practice shooting skills. B&B advertises itself for having “the
best hamburgers you have ever eaten” while firing automatic weapons
with names such as: Desert Eagles, Terminator, Rambo II, and the girl’s
favourite, the cool, light Uzi.
B&B’s website makes it clear that they operate “in accordance
with national guidelines”, which prohibit the use of firearms
for human beings under eight years of age. Thank God for that. And,
of course, “everything is under control”.
Here is a taste of how “everything is under control” proceeded,
according to Denis Hamil. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/limit-u-s-gun-insanity-article-1.1919590
“First Vacca showed her how to shoot the Uzi in a single-shot
mode. ‘Allll riiiight,’ shouts Vacca, wearing camouflage
gear and dark shades.
“’All right, full auto,’ he then says, switching
the Uzi submachine gun into the automatic mode Arnold Schwarzenegger
uses when he blazes through an action flick.
“But the girl was no Arnold. And when she fired the Uzi with her
skinny little arms the recoil racked the machine gun upward and to the
left as the muzzle flamed. A bullet entered Vacca’s head. He was
airlifted to a local hospital but tragically died that night.”
Here come some statistics on how crazy US Americans are with their pet
guns. I found all this from several business and government sources.
* 310 million guns owned by US Americans, on average one per person.
* Six billion dollar business.
* 210,000 jobs.
* About 10,000 people murdered annually by non policemen using firearms.
* Police murder an additional 5000 civilians annually; the majority
are black and Latinos. A black man is murdered by police every 28 hours.
Currently, there is a national outrage over the murder of a black teenager
in Ferguson, Missouri. Police enjoy total impunity. Protect and Serve
is their motto.
* SWAT elite police teams were used around 3000 times a year in the
1980s. In 2012, they were used 50,000 times.
Now while that is a lot of guns and damage, it is nothing to what the
United States government manages every day by its military with 800
bases around the world and its numerous wars every year. According to
the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US
spent $640 billion in 2013 on armaments; the entire world’s expenses
were $1.7 trillion. Seven of the top ten arms manufacturers are US-owned
multi-nationals. Their take is half a trillion dollars, and the seven
firms employ nearly one million people. Almost one-half of the federal
budget is spent on past and contemporary wars, future ones too. This
includes daily costs for its military of one million men/women, and
for 25 million veterans’ pensions and health care.
Part 11- Little Brother Denmark
One of the US’s banana republics is Denmark where I’ve lived
for a quarter-century. Before 9/ll, Denmark had one arms company, Terma,
which didn’t produce arms per se but communication systems, such
as radar, for both Danish and US military purposes. Now, there are 25
“members” of the arms branch, according to Berlinske Tidende,
January 11, 2013. They are companies that the Defense and Aerospace
industry (FAD) uses for joining in with US’s wars since 9/11.
It is a 1.5 billion kroner (about $3 billion) industry employing 1,500
workers. This progress is, in large part, due to the former prime minister
and NATO general secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As reported by some
media these days, Denmark owes this to his consistent lies about Iraq,
in compliance with his buddy Bush.
While FAD has a long way to go to catch up with the US government, all
the political parties in the parliament (Folketinget) are doing what
they can. This includes the so-called red or socialist parties SF (Socialist
Folkepartiet) and EL (Enhedslisten or Red/Green party).
Red/Green was founded soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall by old-time
Moscow communists, some Trotskyists and the then independent left socialists.
It stood for revolution, socialism, opposition to capitalism and imperialism,
and its wars. Since its accomplice role began with the neo-liberal Social
Democrats (around 2007-8), it abandoned the anti-war movement. It then
evolved to support the subsequent “red” coalition government
by voting for annual finance budgets based on economic capitalism, including
many billions of kroner for capitalism’s military institutions
and various wars in cahoots with the US government.
Its first direct war betrayal came in 2011 when EL politicians voted
with all the capitalist parties to support US/NATO bombing of Libya,
which caused the destruction of an effective social-economic infra-structure
that benefited all the people. EL’s leadership claimed that the
other parties promised not to take the invasion beyond patrolling a
no-fly zone for Libyan planes that never took off. But, of course, nobody
kept that promise. When nearly half of its membership objected, the
leadership withdrew from the “coalition of the willing”
but stubbornly resisted learning anything decent.
Now with the war in Iraq resuming, Red/Green again has voted with the
capitalist parties to provide weaponry to the Iraqi puppet government,
mainly in the Kurdish area where one of the US/EU/NATO terrorist groups,
PKK, operate. EL has again failed to learn not to trust what has become
its permanent warring allies. EL has just voted with a unanimous juggernaut
parliament to send to Iraqi authorities a US-manufactured C-130 Hercules
aircraft, which Denmark bought from its big daddy. It is to be loaded
with armaments and 50 men.
Oh, but there is a postscript. Red/Green leaders assure us that its
capitalist allies have promised that they will not expand the war beyond
this modest assistance. But, God forbid, if the occasion were to arise,
they will surely take the matter up in the parliament.
Copyright © 2006-2012 Ronridenour.com