On The Events Last Friday

It was a hot summer’s day at Fort Bliss, Texas during my basic training in 1984 when the drill sergeants herded the other trainees and me into the old building serving as the place for our instruction on the fundamentals of combat first aid. If I remember correctly, it was rather late in the afternoon and after a horrendous session where Drill Sergeant Bogen and Garcia smoked the hell out of us with a couple of hundred push-ups and the same amount of mountain climber exercises for some stupid transgression. Because of the heat and activity, all of us trainees were slightly nauseous and ready for the forthcoming period where all we were supposed to do was sit at desks and listen to the army medic acting as an instructor and watch a slideshow.

As much as I was personally ready to sit at my desk and go into my patented daze which even the toughest and smartest DI’s could not tell if I was awake and paying attention or asleep with my eyes open the material we had to watch kept my full attention. The slideshow turned out to be pictures of human bodied suffering from various wounds by assault rifles including the M-16A1.

To avoid all the gory details I will simply write that most assault rifles, and specifically the M-16 and ALL its derivative models use rounds designed to fragment inside body tissue producing massive wounds. The pictures I saw that day were both horrendous and terrifying. The wounds they showed had more in common with what comes out of a slaughter house meat grinder than human beings whether they were friend or foe. Even for a bunch of guys who for weeks had been indoctrinated in the glories of being a soldier the pictures of massive gaping wounds was enough to not only wake us up but turn our already raw stomachs. 

Simply put modern assault weapons are meant to serious maim more than kill. This produces a side “benefit” of forcing another trooper to provide care resulting in two people rendered combat ineffective. When you combine the destructive power of modern assault weapons with their enormous rate of fire for soldiers in a combat situation it makes them highly effective.

Unfortunately, we have an extremely surreal situation in America where fools living under delusional ideas of patriotism or manhood and others suffering from apocalyptic paranoia have created a market for such weapons among civilians. I write surreal because I cannot go to a drug store and buy a full-strength sinus medicine without having to show my identification and some record of my purchase being made.

Of course, this is because criminals have in the past bought mass quantities to make highly addictive methamphetamine. But you can buy all the ammunition for any pistol or rifle you want and talented right-wing media types and fancy lawyers will proclaim it a right protected under the Second Amendment. I will not even begin to write about how all sorts of professionals working with much safer equipment than a weapon have to go through periodic recertification and evaluation. Somehow, a weapon of mass killing is thought of along the same lines as a computer or microwave oven.

As anyone can guess, I am writing this over the terrible events that happened in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday when an insane individual using a Bushmaster assault weapon his mother legally bought slaughtered twenty children and seven adults. The Bushmaster is a civilian version of the M-16 family of weapons and with the high capacity, thirty-round magazines the assailant used he turned those children and adults into pictures of carnage I remember from my basic training days.

As the days since that massacre have passed whole collections of misguided idiots and paranoid fools have come out of the woodwork screaming about how unfair or wrong it would be to ban their favorite adult play toys. The misguided idiots wrap themselves up in the American flag crying about their Constitutional rights even as the blood of those children lay drying in their classroom floors while those who believe in black helicopters and rampaging zombie hordes huddle in their bunkers with their precious firearms waiting for some doomsday.

The funny and disgusting thing for me in all this is that at one time I bought into all the mass hysteria over civilian assault weapons and the “right” to own one for protection. Time and more constructive interests like SCUBA diving and surfing took me and my money away from that insanity. Still though since I was raised in the southern gun culture where it is a religion in every since of the word I generally ignored those who continued with the crazed pursuit even though they often irritated the Hell out of me with their zealotry. This included several close family members who have now effectively disowned me.

Like many others, the events in Newtown have shattered my casual indifference and I will join or work with any group that seeks to ban further civilian purchase of assault weapons and the outright elimination of high capacity magazines that allows such rapid-fire carnage. Rabid Second Amendment types will of course whine about their rights and how the purposed assault weapons ban will leave those weapons only in the hands of nasty criminals. That would be a valid point if the Newtown massacre and the ones before that were the result of someone using an illegally procured weapon.

For the possible, but very few right-wing types who read my crap I am not talking about repealing the Second Amendment, I own a semi-automatic pistol and a small caliber rifle that I keep hidden along with my tiny amount of ammo, which is in a separate location. A total ban on all civilian ownership of firearms is both impossible and wrong; countless millions of responsible adults hunt and own a weapon for protection. I say again, I am all for the Second Amendment as I am all for free speech which is protected under the First Amendment but like everyone knows no one has the right to yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater. I believe the same thing about the Second Amendment, while responsible adults have a right to own a pistol or rifle military grade firearms DO NOT belong in the hands of civilians under any circumstance and I will work to see them banned. I cannot deal with seeing any more pictures of slaughtered innocent children because of the fears and delusions of a few.