Louisiana Voice

Thus far in 2021, there have been 14 mass shootings in the U.S. that left 79 Americans dead. That includes the one yesterday in San Jose, California in which nine died.

Even a pandemic couldn’t stop the killing. In 2020, despite a lockdown and business closures, there were nearly 20,000 Americans killed by gun violence, more than any other year in at least two decades, according to the Washington Post. Another 24,000 died by suicide by self-inflicted gunshots.

There are meatheads who will read this and disparage the statistics for no other reason than because they were in the hated Washington Post but whether you accept the validity of the publication’s reporting or not, these are the cold, hard facts. As the late Sen. Daniel “Pat” Moynihan once famously said, you’re welcome to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

In case you’re still not convinced here are some STATISTICS that do not come from The Post:

Every day in the U.S., 316 people are shot. Of that number nearly half (106) will die.

Altogether, 115,551 people are shot in this country each year with 38,826 dying from gunshot wounds. Suicide accounts for 23,437 of those deaths.

But more tragic than those numbers, 22 children aged one to 17 in the U.S. are shot with five of those dying. Nearly 8,000 children and teens are shot in the U.S. each year and 1,663 of those die from gun violence. Of that 1,663 who did, 662 die from suicide by guns.

How do these numbers stack up against those of other countries? Well, the picture ain’t pretty. Click HERE for a comparison.

So, how does the State of Texas respond to these stark figures? The Lone Star State legislature passes a BILL and sends it to the governor who will doubtless sign it into law so that henceforth, anyone in Texas will be allowed carry handguns without a permit – concealed or not. State Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) said the bill was a “simple restoration of Texans’ constitutional right under the Second Amendment.”

This despite a University of Texas/Texas Tech poll that revealed that 59 percent of all Texans were opposed to the bill.

Beautiful.

Now, the esteemed Louisiana Legislature is on the cusp of passing a similar bill. Senate Bill 118 by Sen. Jay Morris (R-Monroe) specifies that any Louisiana resident who meets certain qualifications “shall not be required to possess a permit.” The bill passed the Senate by a comfortable 27-11 vote.

At the time of the vote (April 27) Democrat Troy Carter was still in the State Senate prior to taking office as the state’s 2^nd District House member. That gave the State Senate a total of 12 Democrats. The 11 nay votes on SB 118 included the vote of Carter and 10 fellow Democrats. The only Senate Democrat to vote in favor of the open carry bill was Gary Smith of Norco.

He was – and is – the only white Democrat in the State Senate. Perhaps the African-American senators know a little about gun violence that the white Republicans – and Gary Smith – just don’t get. Perhaps they are a little weary of their young people dying unnecessarily from gun violence.

Or perhaps they’re a bit wary of a bunch of megalomaniacal, deranged lunatics wearing MAGA caps strutting around with a sidearm strapped to their jeans, looking for any excuse to prove their manhood to the ghost of John Wayne.

But here’s the thing: In 2019 there were 36,096 people killed in auto accidents in the U.S. Seven hundred twenty-seven of those were in Louisiana.

Texas, 19 other states do not now require permits for either open or concealed carry of firearms. Others, including the gret stet of Looziana, are in the process of enacting similar laws.

States with NO RESTRICTIONS whatever include Idaho, Montano, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maine, New Hampshire, Alaska and Vermont.

Only five states – California, New York, Illinois, South Carolina and Florida – currently prohibit both concealed and open carry.

We license drivers in Louisiana and every other state and no one seems to have a problem with that outside of a handful of militia-types camped out in the Montana foothills of the Northern Rocky Mountains. We even have laws in place that allow for the revocation of drivers’ licenses for certain offenses. Most also require that drivers carry liability insurance on their vehicles. In short, drivers are held to some level of responsibility in every single state.

Gun totin’ however, is another story altogether.

CIGARETTE SMOKING kills more than 480,000 Americans each year, according to the CDC. That includes 41,000 who die from second-hand smoke. Deaths from SECOND-HAND SMOKE breaks down to 7,333 deaths each year from lung cancer and another 33,951 from heart disease. The 480,000 smoking deaths equate to about 1300 per day and compares with the 587,830 deaths from COVID-19 in the US in 2020.

On average, smokers die about 10 years earlier than non-smokers.

So, what was done about cigarette deaths? The attorneys general of 46 states sued on the basis of the expenses incurred in caring for smokers who depended on Medicaid for payment of their medical care. Joe the Camel and the Marlboro Man were banned, along with all cigarette advertising and the four largest US tobacco companies SETTLED for a minimum of $206 billion.

In other words, Big Tobacco was held accountable for the carnage it had inflicted.

Likewise, PURDUE PHARMA was forced into bankruptcy as a result of the company’s marketing tactics with OxyContin, which sparked the opioid epidemic. Purdue will pay about $4.2 billion and the company’s Sackler family owners will be required to pony up an additional $4.275 billion.

Like Big Tobacco, Purdue is being called to account for the damage it has inflicted on society.

But when it comes to taking affirmative action against the growing epidemic of gun violence in this country, all the Repugnantcans have to offer is TAPs (thoughts and prayers). TAPs don’t do much to stop the hemorrhaging when you have a 9 mm slug embedded deep in your chest or gut.

TAPs don’t do a damned thing to resurrect the bodies lying in an elementary school classroom. They won’t help that teacher who stepped into the line of fire to protect a student.

What has to be done is to ban assault weapons, AR15s. But Repugnantcans crap their pants every time they get a call from the NRA. If possible, they’re more afraid of the NRA than they are of Trump.

Any time there is a mass shooting and someone suggests legislation to rein in the terror, Repugnantcans say in unison, “Now is not the time.”

Well, please tell us, just when the hell IS the time?

Instead, we get that ass-clown John (no relation) Kennedy posting a video on behalf of the NRA that he promises will “blow away” the anti-gun libtards.

Now, as Brian Williams explains in his report, this is a man who was educated at Vanderbilt and Virginia School of Law and at Magdalen College at Oxford, a school founded half-a-millennium ago in 1458. Still, he can’t spell believe. To watch the Williams report, click HERE.

What’s more, he pulls out that homey cliché that he claims is indigenous to South Louisiana (it isn’t): “I belive (sic) in love, but you oughta have a gun, just in case,” he drawls as he acts as though he is cleaning a cheap prop Saturday night special that would be an accurate defense only if his target was a maximum of three feet away.

Such is the timing of this cheesy video, coming as it does with the news of the latest mass shooting in San Jose, California, which took those nine lives.

TAPs.