Posted inUncategorized

Making a killing

(With update below)

The killers are among us. In exurban Washington state, a man with a stormy marriage reacts to his wife leaving him by killing his five children — with multiple gunshots — and then killing himself. This came the same day as a nutjob in Pittsburgh escalated a fight with his mother over a dog peeing in the house into the murder of three police officers. Days before, a man burst into a center that helps immigrants in Binghampton, N.Y. and shot 13 to death before committing suicide. Last month it was eight shot to death in North Carolina, another 10 shot to death in Alabama, and four Oakland officers murdered after a routine traffic stop.

In many cases, the gunmen had recently lost jobs. There were histories of instability and alienation among the suspects (the Oakland case was simply a murderous ex-con). And what our age now calls "anger management problems." All this happened during the Great Depression, too. America had plenty of guns then, and not a few demagogues whipping up the gullible. But in my relatively extensive study of the era I can't find one example of these kinds of mass shootings of innocent people. (I know my literate readers will disabuse me of my ignorance here; but the shootings certainly were not widespread). When America faced mass slaughter, it was events such as the now all-but-forgotten natural gas explosion at a rural Texas school in 1937. It killed nearly 300 students. The outpouring of support and volunteers was immense. (Even Adolf Hitler is said to have sent a telegram of condolence).

But we were a different nation then.

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Posted inUncategorized

Gunslingers, sheriffs and the militarization of law enforcement

By Cal Lash, Guest Rogue

Human social evolution created the gunslinger.

Human Cowardice bought us the political lawman.

Since the beginning of socialization and the family unit, group control has been administered by the dominant figure in a group. Groups grew larger and became villages, towns, cities, states, kingdoms and empires.

In Europe, royalty hired out tax collection, to the “High Sheriff.”  The Sheriff also attended to other civil disputes, attended royal ceremonies and was responsible the enforcement of some criminal statutes. As Europe grew, municipalities provided their own law enforcement constabulary and contemporary High Sheriffs now have few genuine responsibilities and their functions are largely representational.

Marshal Wyatt Earp may or may not have been the best thing for Tombstone, Arizona, but he set the tone for paid protection along with other gunslingers and companies like Pinkerton. These hired “lawmen” were given a badge and the responsibility of making a town safe for the people who out of fear believed this was the way to create a safe environment. Different versions exist of the deeds and the resultant benefits or determents of people like Wyatt Earp and Tom Horn, who was a hired killer for cattleman. Horn’s killing of “rustlers” was tolerated until he allegedly shot a young boy.  Eventually many citizens in the old west began to wonder if the hired gunslinger was not worse than the problem they hired the gunman to solve.

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