Jason Martin: Liars, Gun Control and Money in a Culture of Violence

Gun control is a hot topic right now. As usual, Cointelpro is in full force, trying to control and define the debate within the narrowest possible field, limiting the questions people ask, and presenting loud and obnoxious pundits, who are supposed to represent "the people." We doubt the people are this mentally backwards. Gun and weapon control has a long and illustrious history. It has never led to any tangible results. Murders are just as prevalent, if not more, than at any other time in history, rates of murders and violence tend to rise and fall throughout history. If history is taken as a lesson, reliance on gun control, in the forms of registration of ownership. and limiting of the types of arms and ammunitions, has caused more deaths than it has ever prevented. People are focused on the now. The collective memory of a civilization is very short. I have heard the number 3 years suggested as the average duration of recall for the ordinary person. Sometimes it is more, sometimes less. I really don't know. I only know that it is shorter than it should be. Each successive generation appears to feel as if they have moved beyond the influence of the problems of their forebears, in a poorly defined and mentally retarded concept called 'progress'. There is no such thing as progress. Man is a bit like a hamster in a cage. Eventually he always comes full circle. No matter how hard he runs, he's never going to get anywhere, until he learns to step off the damned wheel. It's the same dance, just a different tune. The problems of gun control are best understood, if we break down the topic into its main lines of force. First we will need to talk about the 'now', that is the context of the current discussion. Next, we will need to talk about the 'past', what has been tried before, finally we will need to talk about the 'then', what we can reasonably assume will be the eventual outcome. Civilizations can be generalized and described by their fixations, what is prominently displayed, usually in their art and laws. We can say that a certain civilization was a culture of luxury, or epicureanism, greed, or in our present case, one of violence.