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Blog Post
The Diary Of A Part Time Futurist - ''The Ghosts That walk Amongst Us''
- by Yuliia Support Team Lead
- •
- 26 Mar, 2018
- •
Text By Actuarius
Arts |Culture| The Ghost That Walk Amongst Us
It is a soul destroying thing - trawling through the internet in search of data regarding gun related deaths in the USA. The sheer numbers involved is a problem in itself but, to anyone with a shred of empathy, the figures can never be simply reduced to cold statistics. You do not have to contemplate each individual to feel the cold clutch of realisation that every digit represents a real life. That, in turn, each death shatters families and communities; that every fatality harms the myriad left behind to mourn.
I write this on the 19th February 2018, coincidentally the day of a shooting in San Antonio that left 3 adults in hospital with life threatening injuries and one six year old shot in the leg. A mere 5 days earlier 17 were killed in a Florida school shooting. As much as these acts of lethal violence appal and sicken me, so do the response of some Americans. I feel sure a lot of us viewing this from around the world find it unbelievable that the problem is not tackled. The inescapable conclusion can only be that large parts of the USA love and honour their armaments before their offspring. A wilfully myopic President only serves to legitimise their position.
I suppose it is understandable that the members of the Senate who have exchanged their souls for riches forged from lead and blood feel they have to do something to earn their tainted money. The only hope I have for them is that they are destined for eternal suffering, may they rot forever in their self made pox ridden personal Hells. What I do not easily understand is the zealous defence of the current gun culture by so many “ordinary” Americans. Are they just easily led, or perhaps wrapped up in the “romance” of gun ownership after a lifetime of John Wayne and Dirty Harry swaggering their way to carefully crafted adulation? The sanitised, eagerly accepted lie of the “good guy forever prevailing and saving the innocent”?
The excuses and arguments deployed by these foot soldiers of the armament plutocrats don’t even make sense, yet they are repeatedly trotted out after every fresh atrocity. “We need armed White Hats to step in”: no mass shooting has ever been stopped by the mythical “white hat”. Any armed guard present has simply become another victim. “We should arm the teachers”: what chance of further injury from the crossfire of an active shoot out? What chance of the police identifying the criminal in such a situation? What chance of confusion and even more casualties in such a muddied scenario? “Its our constitutional right”: it was once a constitutional right to own slaves, would that still be defended with such public vehemence and by so many? “You wouldn’t understand, you’re not American”: this only makes sense if to be American is to be congenitally psychotic. The groundless excuses flow like the inevitable “thoughts and prayers” for the victims from the very same people. Sickeningly meaningless platitudes that change nothing and that mean nothing. I weigh up these people and I, in turn, find that they are nothing.
In Britain we are far from immune from terrorist attack and even mass shooting. But look at the frequency and number dead, even skewed for population. All the time America refuses to grasp this nettle it strikes a bargain: it agrees to offer up its citizens for sacrifice instead. Their rallying cry is “safeguard our freedom”, the reality is safeguarding the freedom to grieve over the blood stained body of your child, your friend or your lover.
From what I could find, in 2018 there have been 1991 deaths in America related to violent gun crime - up to the point of writing this. That doesn’t include accidental deaths or suicides. Of those 37 hadn’t even made it to seeing their 18th birthday. 1991 people in 50 days averages out to just under 40 people a day and within those 40 there are near enough 2 children murdered every 3 days. Of course in reality life and death are rarely so neat, it is a messy and chaotic business. There will be some days with fewer killings which will be lost, except with those directly affected, to the unfeeling anonymity of statistical background noise. Some days will be blighted by more and these will become the dread points of focus.
This inconsistency gives chilling perspective, it brings the reality of such wholesale slaughter home to me. If nothing is done to change this trend, and by 1st March there are not 400 more fatalities in the USA through gun crime, then there will be some people who are already dead but who simply do not know it. All the time the total is below trend their fate lies ahead as an un-escapable inevitability. People of all ages going about their lives, planning for their futures or worrying about them; either way its a futile act. From the everyday and mundane to the vital and exceptional – all endeavour will soon to be rendered meaningless in an as yet unknown, unavoidable act of brutality. I cannot help but grieve for these ghosts that walk, unsuspecting, amongst us.
There is hope emerging though. The young - tired and angry at paying the price - are rising. They are confronting those in power, their elders and “betters” (how that term sticks in the throat), and it would appear that they are having an effect. How do I know? I know because the smear campaigns have started. The jackals in Congress are snarling and baring their teeth, it is my hope that soon they will turn and then they will run. There will be accusations made, there will be pressures brought to bear. The proud gun owner who would rather you die than they should lose their weapons must be humbled, humiliated and shamed. It is time for change, it is time to remove these malign influences that support the status quo. To those who are striving for change I say do not hesitate, do not waver, give no quarter. You fight for your survival.
I write this on the 19th February 2018, coincidentally the day of a shooting in San Antonio that left 3 adults in hospital with life threatening injuries and one six year old shot in the leg. A mere 5 days earlier 17 were killed in a Florida school shooting. As much as these acts of lethal violence appal and sicken me, so do the response of some Americans. I feel sure a lot of us viewing this from around the world find it unbelievable that the problem is not tackled. The inescapable conclusion can only be that large parts of the USA love and honour their armaments before their offspring. A wilfully myopic President only serves to legitimise their position.
I suppose it is understandable that the members of the Senate who have exchanged their souls for riches forged from lead and blood feel they have to do something to earn their tainted money. The only hope I have for them is that they are destined for eternal suffering, may they rot forever in their self made pox ridden personal Hells. What I do not easily understand is the zealous defence of the current gun culture by so many “ordinary” Americans. Are they just easily led, or perhaps wrapped up in the “romance” of gun ownership after a lifetime of John Wayne and Dirty Harry swaggering their way to carefully crafted adulation? The sanitised, eagerly accepted lie of the “good guy forever prevailing and saving the innocent”?
The excuses and arguments deployed by these foot soldiers of the armament plutocrats don’t even make sense, yet they are repeatedly trotted out after every fresh atrocity. “We need armed White Hats to step in”: no mass shooting has ever been stopped by the mythical “white hat”. Any armed guard present has simply become another victim. “We should arm the teachers”: what chance of further injury from the crossfire of an active shoot out? What chance of the police identifying the criminal in such a situation? What chance of confusion and even more casualties in such a muddied scenario? “Its our constitutional right”: it was once a constitutional right to own slaves, would that still be defended with such public vehemence and by so many? “You wouldn’t understand, you’re not American”: this only makes sense if to be American is to be congenitally psychotic. The groundless excuses flow like the inevitable “thoughts and prayers” for the victims from the very same people. Sickeningly meaningless platitudes that change nothing and that mean nothing. I weigh up these people and I, in turn, find that they are nothing.
In Britain we are far from immune from terrorist attack and even mass shooting. But look at the frequency and number dead, even skewed for population. All the time America refuses to grasp this nettle it strikes a bargain: it agrees to offer up its citizens for sacrifice instead. Their rallying cry is “safeguard our freedom”, the reality is safeguarding the freedom to grieve over the blood stained body of your child, your friend or your lover.
From what I could find, in 2018 there have been 1991 deaths in America related to violent gun crime - up to the point of writing this. That doesn’t include accidental deaths or suicides. Of those 37 hadn’t even made it to seeing their 18th birthday. 1991 people in 50 days averages out to just under 40 people a day and within those 40 there are near enough 2 children murdered every 3 days. Of course in reality life and death are rarely so neat, it is a messy and chaotic business. There will be some days with fewer killings which will be lost, except with those directly affected, to the unfeeling anonymity of statistical background noise. Some days will be blighted by more and these will become the dread points of focus.
This inconsistency gives chilling perspective, it brings the reality of such wholesale slaughter home to me. If nothing is done to change this trend, and by 1st March there are not 400 more fatalities in the USA through gun crime, then there will be some people who are already dead but who simply do not know it. All the time the total is below trend their fate lies ahead as an un-escapable inevitability. People of all ages going about their lives, planning for their futures or worrying about them; either way its a futile act. From the everyday and mundane to the vital and exceptional – all endeavour will soon to be rendered meaningless in an as yet unknown, unavoidable act of brutality. I cannot help but grieve for these ghosts that walk, unsuspecting, amongst us.
There is hope emerging though. The young - tired and angry at paying the price - are rising. They are confronting those in power, their elders and “betters” (how that term sticks in the throat), and it would appear that they are having an effect. How do I know? I know because the smear campaigns have started. The jackals in Congress are snarling and baring their teeth, it is my hope that soon they will turn and then they will run. There will be accusations made, there will be pressures brought to bear. The proud gun owner who would rather you die than they should lose their weapons must be humbled, humiliated and shamed. It is time for change, it is time to remove these malign influences that support the status quo. To those who are striving for change I say do not hesitate, do not waver, give no quarter. You fight for your survival.