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| Imagine the mentality it takes to do this. |
The US gun industry is in a bit of a predicament. Sales of firearms after Obama’s election have skyrocketed in case this “socialist” president gets elected again. Although the US government doesn’t track individual firearm sales (not openly anyway) the FBI’s criminal background check is a reasonable indicator says BusinessWeek Magazine and these have hit record numbers----15 million in 2011.
The initial increase was in tactical “Rambo” style weapons but with the entering in to the presidential race of the right wing Republican Christian candidate and gun nut Rick Perry, the pistol is king. This is especially so since the public became aware that Perry jogs packing a laser- sighted Ruger pistol and even shot a coyote that appeared to be threatening his dog. For his heroic defense of the right of domestic animals to accompany their masters on a morning run without fear of assault, the Texas State Rifle Association gave Perry an A+rating. Gun manufacturer, Sturm Ruger went even further producing a new lightweight “Coyote Special” with the words “A True Texan” engraved on the barrel says BW.
Sturm Ruger is pleased as all the manufacturers are with Obama’s election as president. Ruger’s stock price shot up 400% since the inauguration and as BW pointed out, is a better investment than gold at 113%. The problem is that the gun manufactures pump millions of dollars in to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and both groups support a candidate like Perry. But if Perry were to be elected president, this could have a very negative effect on gun sales as a major fear of this section of the population, the threat of a Democratic president restricting gun rights, would disappear.
The CEO of Ruger made this clear to the firm’s employees when he told them that, “I think half of the people in the firearms industry, if asked, would hope (Obama) is not president, but then would secretly go out and vote for him again”. This is a very revealing statement and as workers we should think hard about it. Support for the right to bear arms means one thing for us workers and another for the investors and owners of the industry----for the owners of capital. They are not in the business of making guns, but making money. If it is more profitable to have Obama as president, then that’s who they will support. The problem is, they propagate the lie that their motivations are about individual rights, personal safety and freedom. It is about freedom, their freedom to invest and make money in the manufacture of a product. For most workers it is about a right to own firearms, a right I support and believe in. If the rich and the powerful and the police have such rights, I want them. It is not a bad thing for the working class to be armed in capitalist society in order to collectively defend ourselves against their state if and when that moment should arise.
The CEO of Ruger made this clear to the firm’s employees when he told them that, “I think half of the people in the firearms industry, if asked, would hope (Obama) is not president, but then would secretly go out and vote for him again”. This is a very revealing statement and as workers we should think hard about it. Support for the right to bear arms means one thing for us workers and another for the investors and owners of the industry----for the owners of capital. They are not in the business of making guns, but making money. If it is more profitable to have Obama as president, then that’s who they will support. The problem is, they propagate the lie that their motivations are about individual rights, personal safety and freedom. It is about freedom, their freedom to invest and make money in the manufacture of a product. For most workers it is about a right to own firearms, a right I support and believe in. If the rich and the powerful and the police have such rights, I want them. It is not a bad thing for the working class to be armed in capitalist society in order to collectively defend ourselves against their state if and when that moment should arise.
Because our actual motives and interests differ, social rights for us, economic right to exploit for them, this bond between the average legal gun owner and the NRA is not in our interests; we are being used. If you go check out the NRA and who’s in it or more importantly who runs it, they are all lawyers, bankers and businessmen and women. The first woman president headed it in 1995.
The current president is Ronald Schmeits. Schmeits President and CEO of International Bank in Raton New Mexico, former president of the Raton Chamber of Commerce (there 's an anti-worker ant-Union organisation if there ever was one) and former president of the New Mexico Bankers’ Association. He is also CEO and Chairman of the International Bank in Trinidad Colorado. Former NRA president John Sigler is an ex cop and an attorney. David Keene, another one, is also part of this milieu and was a manager at a lobbying firm.
These people are not friends or workers and the poor. They manufacture a climate of fear in the United States against foreigners, people of color (blacks especially) communism, gays, and now the all-encompassing “war on terror”. This is a good one as it is not winnable and therefore eternal. We are in a war against a tactic. Many Americans see the uprisings of the youth, workers and the most deprived in society from Greece to Chile and now London and want weapons to defend ourselves against their occurrence here.
The current president is Ronald Schmeits. Schmeits President and CEO of International Bank in Raton New Mexico, former president of the Raton Chamber of Commerce (there 's an anti-worker ant-Union organisation if there ever was one) and former president of the New Mexico Bankers’ Association. He is also CEO and Chairman of the International Bank in Trinidad Colorado. Former NRA president John Sigler is an ex cop and an attorney. David Keene, another one, is also part of this milieu and was a manager at a lobbying firm.
These people are not friends or workers and the poor. They manufacture a climate of fear in the United States against foreigners, people of color (blacks especially) communism, gays, and now the all-encompassing “war on terror”. This is a good one as it is not winnable and therefore eternal. We are in a war against a tactic. Many Americans see the uprisings of the youth, workers and the most deprived in society from Greece to Chile and now London and want weapons to defend ourselves against their occurrence here.
But the owners of the firearms industry and their allies that run run the NRA support policies that wage economic terrorism against American workers every day. Bankers? CEO’s? Attorneys? (Labor attorneys excluded). The uprisings that occur in the ghetto’s and poor communities do not always take the form that is the most productive and it is not unnatural for those workers that are a little better off to be concerned that they will be targets. Small businesses are often the victims of social upheavals as they are normally the first section of the capitalist class that workers have to deal with day in day out and have access to as they are in the community. But these events are driven by the poverty, lack of opportunity and racism that is a product of the policies the actual folks who run the NRA support. The best way for those workers that are somewhat better off (and this group is rapidly declining) to maintain a secure existence is to recognize that the poor, the disposed and the youth are not our enemies, they are our allies. Without an organization and a thought out and developed strategy and platform, people react solely through anger with unpleasant consequences all round.
The bankers, lobbyists and gun manufacturers---the capitalist class in general propagates this fear of the poor and dispossessed, the communists and the black youth, the gays and the foreigners, in order to sell their products and keep us divided even though they know its dangers as society can become unstable and not good for profit making. Believe me, if workers weren’t shooting each other, Iraq vets wiping out their families, gang members in the inner cities etc. and were instead targeting CEO’s, bankers, hedge fund managers the cops (if they could find all these people) the owners of the gun industry and the folks that run the NRA would have no problem trying to restrict workers’ gun rights. (I want to stress that I do not advocate such activity as it doesn't work)
The bankers, lobbyists and gun manufacturers---the capitalist class in general propagates this fear of the poor and dispossessed, the communists and the black youth, the gays and the foreigners, in order to sell their products and keep us divided even though they know its dangers as society can become unstable and not good for profit making. Believe me, if workers weren’t shooting each other, Iraq vets wiping out their families, gang members in the inner cities etc. and were instead targeting CEO’s, bankers, hedge fund managers the cops (if they could find all these people) the owners of the gun industry and the folks that run the NRA would have no problem trying to restrict workers’ gun rights. (I want to stress that I do not advocate such activity as it doesn't work)
The best defense we have is class unity. That means unity with the unemployed, the forever unemployed and the youth in the inner cities. It means those of us not directly affected by an issue to defend openly and in our activity those who are, which means openly confronting racism and sexism especially and recognizing that all workers are oppressed in some way and by the same forces (not in a moral, guilt-ridden way the liberals do but by fighting for issues that are concrete and unite people) this is what scares the bosses and why they use divide and rule tactics to prevent it. And this unity is the best way to defend our second amendment right. It is a united working class that can ensure we have the right to own a gun, not CEO’s of banks, lobbyists and attorneys.
The fear that they whip up about Obama, he's black first off. He's not really American. He wasn't born here. He's a Muslim, a socialist, it's all designed to create fear and divide us. Don't be fooled. Yes, there are differnces between sections of the capitalist class that have broadened a bit since the financial collapse and the responses to it around the world. But Obama is a consummate bourgeois politician.
He has reneged as the Democrats usually do on all the promises he made to the leadership of organized Labor so they would give him their members' money and resources. He went in to hiding when 100,000 were on the streets of Madison Wisconsin. He hired Arne Duncan and is friends with Eli Broad with whose assistance the privatization of education and destruction of the teachers Union can move ahead apace. No, the bourgeois trust him well enough, he has shown his class allegiance is unshakeable.
Now lets go up the range and shoot some targets.
The fear that they whip up about Obama, he's black first off. He's not really American. He wasn't born here. He's a Muslim, a socialist, it's all designed to create fear and divide us. Don't be fooled. Yes, there are differnces between sections of the capitalist class that have broadened a bit since the financial collapse and the responses to it around the world. But Obama is a consummate bourgeois politician.
He has reneged as the Democrats usually do on all the promises he made to the leadership of organized Labor so they would give him their members' money and resources. He went in to hiding when 100,000 were on the streets of Madison Wisconsin. He hired Arne Duncan and is friends with Eli Broad with whose assistance the privatization of education and destruction of the teachers Union can move ahead apace. No, the bourgeois trust him well enough, he has shown his class allegiance is unshakeable.
Now lets go up the range and shoot some targets.
2 comments:
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_gun_control_got_murdered
This article in the American Prospect says that gun control has been taken off the table by the Supreme Court in a recent ruling that nullifies Washington D.C.'s law restricting hand guns. The defunct law actually decreases homicide, and studies have shown. Gun homicide is 3 times greater (per 100,000) in states with loose laws than in states with strict restrictions. And in Germany, Denmark, Japan and other places 1 homicide there versus 6 homicides in the U.S. I read this article last night, so your essay is on time.
Ben;The murder rate in the US has much more to do with the over-all socioeconomic structure and prevaling culture, then it does the absence or presence of gun laws.Our culture,more than any of the aformentioned cultures,features a mandate of continual socioeconomic compitition.
Rampant violence is only a natural consequence of the continuance of a socioeconomic system which forces people to be in continual compitition with one another.
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