This was a headline that I came across 5 years ago now....
Original article can be found here
I still see the same type of appeal to emotion consistently used today to push an agenda and I'm sure the technique will continue to be deployed into the future because, unfortunately, it's highly effective. In this instance, emotions around gun violence were clearly trying to be manipulated, but the technique is widespread across all issues of the day.
In regards to this particular issue, I firmly believe that everyone has a right to live their life as they choose and being able to protect their life is a crucial part of that.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson encapsulates a core value in my belief system and how I approach life.
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
If life is our highest value, then our right to defend it is of equally high importance.
Below is the response to the above headline that I penned those five years ago and that still remains relevant today.
More fear and biased reporting by the media. Look at this headline and tell me they don't have an agenda...
"Americans far more likely to suffer violent deaths than peers"
Let's take a look at the facts here shall we? First let's go check out that report...
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CPOP/DBASSE_080393#violence
We can quickly see that yes indeed Americans are more likely to suffer violent deaths than those in other countries.
A full 6 of us out of every 100,000 or .00006% as compared to the average 1.5 out of every 100,000 in other countries or .000015%
How bout we just flip that to say you have a 99.99994% chance of not suffering a violent death in this country and a 99.999985% on average in other countries. All things considered, I'd say your chances of suffering a violent death are statistically about the same.
If the media actually cared about what was really killing Americans they would have noticed that in the overall category that includes the violence statistics called "intentional injuries" we are ranked 3rd with about 17 per 100,000. So, if 6 of those deaths are coming from violence, most of which by the way are a result of gang warfare and failed war on drug policies, than where is the other 11 per 100,000 coming from?
That answer is self inflicted injuries, or suicides, and war.
If we take out those 11 per 100,000. We'd be ranked as the country with the lowest amount of "intentional injuries" even with our horrible war on drug policies that create the kind of drug and gang related violence that results in those high violence statistics. And what's behind the huge amount suicides? Surprise! Psychotropic drugs. The media and corporate interests would never want you to start looking in that direction now would they, because then we find out that the drugs are also involved in every single mass murder incident as well.
Read more about that in this article titled, Medication Madness: How Psychiatric Drugs Cause Violence, Suicide, and Crime.
By the way, more of our soldiers died last year from suicide than died in combat. That's an extremely sobering fact that the media and this administration don't like to talk about, and yet it speaks volumes to the failure of our governments' foreign policy and agenda that both the corporate controlled media and administration push.
This article titled Suicide surpassed war as the military's leading cause of death is one of many that confirms the recent trend.
This has been your friendly public service announcement reminding you to think. We have real problems in this country that our current leaders and media are doing nothing about. The more educated we are about the real problems, the better equipped we are to work toward real solutions.
Mark Manson wrote an excellent article that I resonated with strongly in regards to school shootings at the time and still holds a lot of truth as to what he believes the root cause of the problem really is. You can check out the full article here, but I'll leave you with a quote from it.
Here’s what doesn’t get the headlines: Empathy. Listening to those around you. Even if you don’t like them very much. We have come to live in a culture where it’s taboo or unacceptable to simply check in with people emotionally and offer some empathy and understanding. I’m not saying this would magically fix all gun violence. I’m just saying that all of these things — the lack of gun laws, the lack of health care, the inability to have basic conversations with friends and neighbors about what’s going on with them, these are all extensions of a callous and self-absorbed culture that lacks any real empathy.
Despite being relevant and important discussions, the glamorous headlines are ultimately distractions — they just feed into the carnage and the attention and the fame the killer desired. They are distractions from what is right in front of you and me and the victims of tomorrow’s shooting: people who need help. And while we’re all fighting over whose pet cause is more right and more true and more noble, there’s likely another young man out there, maybe suicidally depressed, maybe paranoid and delusional, maybe a psychopath, and he’s researching guns and bombs and mapping out schools and recording videos and thinking every day about the anger and hate he feels for this world.
And no one is paying attention to him.