Part of this podcast is on the topic of guns.
“The presence of guns, the ubiquity of guns, the threat of gun violence, the often rational fear of guns is the underpinning for so much of the police initiated violence. We see, for instance, police have almost total immunity when it comes to killing in the line of duty. Any fear or suspicion, they claim, almost always deemed a reasonable fear or suspicion because of guns in Louisville. Early this morning, a citizen was killed by police who said they thought they were fired upon. And who’s to say they weren’t? I mean, this isn’t the UK. This isn’t in Japan. It’s plausible that in Louisville, Kentucky, the police were fired upon after coming on a gathering, maybe a demonstration, and now a restaurant owner is dead.”
Medicynical note: As we descend into chaos let’s recognize the contribution of the Supreme Court originalists who think all guns are good guns, our paralyzed congress, and our executive branch that issues executive orders designed to undermine 90 years of unparalleled prosperity and progress.
Guns, from where I sit at 79 years of age, are a net negative in our culture. Name the positives? The pleasure of hunting–not for me but I can understand the culture. Competitive sport shooting……maybe, get your testosterone hit target shooting where you can. Defense of the home–over-rated. IMHO the risks from having guns in our homes seem as great or greater than the criminal risk. Balance those “good” aspects against the negatives. Fear of guns leading to irrational arming of the culture; unfettered access leading to all manner of mass shootings; the thousands of suicides each year from weapons: the thousands of murders in the course of criminal events; the valid fear of our police at every traffic stop and other criminal investigation leading to inadvertent and at time murderous shootings of innocents.
The US leads the industrialized world in every category of gun misadventure. Guns wide and unfettered presence in our culture distorts our lives, threatens our culture and soils our image both here and abroad.
Medicynic 