Dallas is a truly low point in our countries sadness due to gun violence. Today, we all weep for the dead, for the families, for the communities which will never be the same.
The image below is of, yeah I know, cops from the 60's and a suburban cop of today watching a fallen tree being cleared away after a wind storm. On the left is the classic police tunic, covering their "tools of the trade". On the right we have the militarized cop of today, a heck of a nice guy by the way. He wears a kevlar vest and his weapons are exposed. We have gone down the rabbit hole of escalating violence that Dr. King put into perspective, before he himself was gunned down.
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The escalation of the American gun culture, brought on by the NRA, has brought us from a time when cops worried about gangs with illegal stiletto knives to our time when every American is encouraged to go and buy an assault weapon. Today once again, gun sales will be huge and the evil bosses of the NRA will be gleefully counting their donations from the gun manufacturers.
That Stiletto in the pic is the thing cops of the sixties feared. It is the weapon of West Side Story fame.
Today's American cops live every day in every town with the knowledge that each and every one of us may be carrying a lethal gun. And as we've gone down this 40 year old rabbit hole, cops have needed to protect themselves and bring on the militarization of our police forces.
All, not because we are more violent today. Black kids and white kids both were just as violent in the sixties. The difference is that back then we fought with fists and at worst, knives. The only ones anyone knew with a rifle were hunters and those long guns were not meant for secreting into a city with the goal of sniping.
It is truly guns and the gun culture that has brought us to this point. Guns serve only one purpose, Killing. The NRA serves only one master, the manufacturers. We have to stop it and all say Enough is Enough. #KilledByTheNRA #GunsKill #StopTheInsanity #Dallas #BlackLiveMatter
NOTE: Cross posted from my site www.newhampster.com/...