Showing posts sorted by relevance for query guns. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query guns. Sort by date Show all posts

Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Buddhist attitude toward guns? (video)

Seth MacFarlane, Family Guy ("Gun Safety" cartoon); Khawa Karpo (Tibet); Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, Sheldon S., Dhr. Seven, Crystal Q., Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY
Tibetan Buddhist monks beat guns into ploughshares to the playing of trumpets to welcome peace.

Oh, the CIA? They paid me and helped us.
It's easy to guess the Buddhist attitude toward guns because of Buddhism's attitude toward killing. Abstain from all killing -- of animals (mammals, fish, birds), humans (all), nonhumans (monsters, demons, ghouls, ghosts), and insects (even the annoying biting kind). Its whole orientation is one of nonharming (ahimsa).

Instead of grasping at what we like, pushing away what we dislike, and being bored or perplexed by things we're neutral toward, the Buddha shows the way to SEE our own greatest benefit, the benefit of others, and the mutual benefit of both (the community).

Big Brother is watching, so watch it (1984).
Pro-gun advocates will say that we should all be for guns for some of these very same reasons -- to preserve our freedoms, safety, property and slaves, and to enforce laws that favor some "superior" groups and massively harm and take advantage of other "inferior" groups. Choose a side.

Whichever side you choose, don't shoot. Guns don't kill people, guns don't kill people; it's mostly the bullets. And behind the ammo is the mind of aversion, fear, hatred, resistance that leads to heavy bad karma, sin, missing the mark of how to live.

I don't want to be shot...or aborted please.
When all guns are gathered up, only police, paramilitary, and militant forces will have guns to enforce the dictates of a police state. So how can we allow the powers that be to confiscate all guns? There are two sides to this argument.

City-dwelling cosmopolitan-types like us will take one side, and rural salt-of-the-earth types the other. It would be better if we talked and understood one another. Whichever side is right or wrong, BOTH sides have valid points and concerns. If we quiet down and listen, we will hear their side.

Guns in and of themselves are NOT the problem, because if they were Canada would have all the gun violence problems we in the U.S. do. Their gun ownership rates are at or above U.S. rates. Yet, Canada has only a miniscule fraction of U.S. rates of gun crime.

Did Canadians learn to respect guns at a young age? Do they not have Hollywood (via Westerns and shoot 'em blockbusters) spurring them on to horrific acts of public carnage? Do they not play first-person-shooter games like "Fortnite" all day until they're in a hypnagogic stupor of suggestible gun-loving, gun-needing phobia that when exhausted and pushed will result in someone getting shot?

The peaceful make peace not war.
Are they not deadened to the feelings of others by an opiate crisis that not only numbs physical pain but also empathy and sympathy for others just like OTC preparations? When all guns are finally rounded up in an Orwellian dream, will Americans not have access to other weapons and means of killing others on a mass scale? Of course, we will.

No one wants to be shot, but being shot is likely to be preferable to the way people are going to harm one another then unless we do something radical (from Latin radix, "root") now. Guns are not radical, gun buy backs are not radical, gun control is not radical. Let's be radical.

"The revolution will not be televised," like our infiltrated and undermined Occupy Movement. It will be internal. In the meantime, two camps of fools with argue with each other with bad arguments that each side takes as convincing.

Whatever groups of fools decide, each individual must decide because it is our own karma we must concern ourselves with for the sake of our phala/vipaka (fruits and karmic results).

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Guns n' Roses: countdown to Coachella (video)

Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; BU; Nicole Alvarez (KROQ.com); TMZ.com

TMZ cameras are everywhere in Hollywood, including the Troubadour for GNR.
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Guns n' Roses -- with Axl and Slash side by side (but in their own primadonna worlds) -- played a small club in Hollywood recently as the ramp up for two massive Coachella shows.

We thought Chinese Democracy would never arrive! Has it? Has what? That album. Who knows, who cares, people just want to hear the oldies. GNR played almost 20 songs for a crowd made up almost exclusively of celebrities like Jim Carey and Lenny Kravitz and diehard fans who paid $10 (plus fees).
  • Coachella is sold out, but get tickets on Craigslist, on site (from fans), or from professional ticket resellers (with a major bump in price). Or just watch it here live.
There was no way fans could actually get in. Line up all night long and get bupkis for the trouble. Try to sneak in and get bounced. Try to show a ticket and be bumped for someone famous showing up at the door with nothing but star power. It was an old-time concert for Hollywood bigwigs and insiders.

(KROQ) Who in the H is DJ Nicole Alvarez? Blink-182 interview.

On short notice, Guns n' Roses announced an old-time Troubadour club show for fans.
DJ Nicole, a big GNR fan, tells it like it is, the good, the bad, and the sh*tty (kroq.com).
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I loved it but, c'mon guys, kiss and make up.
But KROQ DJ Nicole Alvarez knows somebody who knows somebody, and she got in. She reported what she saw to Kevin and Bean:

GNR were great, only an hour and ten minutes late, Axl is not bald nor sporting that stupid corn row wig held to his scalp with a big bandana everybody loves, he can't hit all the high notes but he's energized, he did SIX costume changes one of which included bringing out the bandana. Slash is in top form, looking good and sounding great. The problem? Axl and Slash are in their own worlds, which means they're getting along at a minimal level. So don't expect a real GNR show if you're going to either of the two Coachella shows, but more a two-man showcase, each pretty good and happening at the same time but might as well be on two different planets, say, Mercury and Pluto. 

Axl Rose, the [blankest] man in rock 'n roll.
The original percussionist was not on stage. The drummer almost showed up when his current band cancelled a show at another Hollywood club, but he's sick. Is that Duff on stage, or is he turning his back on all that Coachella money? Quien sabe.

The Troubadour is a tiny, filthy club the City of West Hollywood below the Sunset Strip. It holds about 500 and was almost full by people dazzled that this show actually went off. Because even if GNR plays a show, it's never the whole band or that old spirit that was once there.

VIDEO: Guns N' Roses -- We're in the House! Well, Most of Us Are... (4/1/16) Guns N' Roses just started arriving at the famed Troubadour in West Hollywood for Friday night's epic show ... and they look like they mean business. We got video of Slash...

VIDEO: Guns N' Roses -- Celeb Fans Flocked to Reunion Gig...If They Had the Juice (PHOTOS) (4/2/16) The Guns N' Roses reunion show at the Troubadour wasn't a concert, it was really a celebrity round of..."Who's Got More Pull?" In other words, who's got enough weight in Hollywood to get a golden GNR...
Guns N' Roses -- fans trying to get THOUSANDS off a $10 investment (4/1/16) Guns N' Roses fans are turning their $10 wristbands into huge moneymakers...possibly getting up to $4,000 for just one of the golden tickets to Friday night's show.  One lucky fan who wait...
Guns N' Roses -- Cops Mobilize for L.A. Ticket Giveaway ... Not April Fools (4/1/16) Guns N' Roses just made the concert official for tonight at the Troubadour ... tickets are $10, so basically a giveaway. Fans can check out a ton of memorabilia and other GNR mer...
VIDEO: Guns N' Roses -- You Know Where You Are??!! Axl's Still Got It ... (4/2/16) This is gonna blow your mind...and ears. If you thought Guns N' Roses was coming back at less than full force...listen to Axl Rose launch into "Welcome to the Jungle." Friday night's Troubadour show...
GNR play Coachella on April 16&;23, 2016 with A$AP Rocky, Halsey, Ice Cube, Chvrches...

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Is it guns or is it Texas? (signs)

Family Guy; Daily-stuff.com; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Sal Ramos was transgender.* - That's a sexist rumor on the Right! - He was troubled? - Yes.

There are signs that Texas is one wholly f'd up place.

Guns are warmer in Texas.
There are certain signs that Texas is one googoomuthalovin place, not indications but actual signs. They're everywhere, though mostly at El Arroyo (Instagram).

Texas is big country, a wild frontier addicted to its guns. Just as the state/separate country is reeling from a horrific school shooting, it's hosting the NRA National Convention.

You been warned: TX luvs killing.
A teen named Ramos goes off the rails because of his lisp, stutter, and merciless bullying at school, on the verge of not graduating, failed by the school system, he sets out to do something about.

It's like the man with the lawnmower the Dead Kennedys sing about. The mower wouldn't start, so he shot it. Get 'er done, Texas style. There are plenty of people losing their S. Los Angeles and Chicago with all their anti-gun laws in place have some of the worst gun outcomes.

Texas can be very threatening.
It's easy as a liberal, as a political progressive, to be against guns and want them all gathered up and melted down. We'd like to see guns stripped of all police AND all criminals (and certainly from all criminal-police).

But, sadly, that's not the answer. It would be easy to do -- in a police state -- yet it would not solve the problem. People would still harm one another with another instrument. The proof that it wouldn't work is that other places, like Canada, have more guns per capita yet fewer gun crimes.
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Beware: Texan dad in house.
It isn't the number of guns. Guns as a weapon are simply more effective at inflicting harm. When anger takes the reins, the outcome will not be good. It would be better never to touch a gun.

Everyone who wants to be a cop or soldier or spy, licensed to carry a gun and shoot whomever they want, particularly people of color, should beware. We must worry about our karma, our deeds (and our motivations behind them), which we store up and reap the results of.

There's a reason it's called the Lonestar State.
Depriving Americans of rights, particularly rural types, is no way to run a country. They'll call us "cosmopolitan." We have to get at the root of the problem. And the instrument is not the root, though it would probably be better to sue the NRA and gun companies for their profiteering off human misery.

Where was country music invented? Texas?
But once guns are gone, all of them, not just those in the hands of people we don't like as a result of being exposed to the media, the problem will not end. Let's rid ourselves of cars! They do so much harm. Let's rid ourselves of processed junk foods! Their killing us. Let's rid ourselves of pesticides! They're destroying our insides. Let's get rid of all things that can cause harm...then we'll be happy?

Eat Mexican cheese (queso) or do yoga?
Let's rid ourselves of the roots of all harm -- greed, hatred/fear, and delusion. Then we'll be all right, even in the company of guns and poisons and jerks. "We have to do something," we say with urgency watching the TV news. We do. But changing the Constitution's First or Second Amendments and banning guns isn't going to do it. It can't always be our kneejerk reaction.

*Was troubled teen shooter white Latino Salvador Rolando Ramos transgender?
Trans in Texas is tough. Go to Austin.
The mainstream media propaganda machine says that question is not even allowed. This Newweek reader (Juan Vasquez) says otherwise:

(Newsweek comments, 5/25/22) "Newsweek got rid of my earlier post because it doesn't fit their politically correct narrative. There are photos online from his social accounts showing him [the shooter] as transgender. The fact that you [Newsweek] choose to ignore it, write your own version, and delete posts proves your obvious bias. Some news, can anyone say PropagandaWeek?"




Texas is gun country, hunting and killing, God's country, boozing it up.






For karma's sakes, steer clear of using guns.
According to mainstream propagandists at Newsweek, a February poll conducted by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin found that 43 percent of Texans were in favor of stricter gun laws, but 34 percent wanted the laws left as they are, and 16 percent believed the laws should be less strict, while 7 percent of respondents didn't know or had no opinion.
  • Texas has more than one million gun owners and in a 2020 study by the RAND Corporation, 45.7 percent of adults in Texas said they "live in homes with guns."
How many Texans own guns? One million. What percentage is that? We don't know. The reportage was duplicitously made to sound worse by reporting how many adults live in a home with a gun. Why? The number of owners might sound low. If a home has a gun, every adult there "lives with a gun" without access to it or possibly even knowledge that it's there. More

Is straightforward (unslanted) reporting too much to ask for from the RAND Corporation who did the survey or Newsweek who reported it?
  • Should teachers be ordered to stop being abusive to kids?
  • Should Texans be corralled and further armed to let Nature take its course?
  • Should Texas be annexed and made its own problem, kicked out of the West and forced to be only part of the South?
  • Should we stop picking on Texas over its Republican ideals?
  • Should Christians be taken to task for promoting intolerance, hatred, guns, alcohol, country music, war, right wing politics, xenophobia, and hypocrisy?
  • Should we be temperate again and let the Temperance League clean up alcohol? The Mafia and Vegas would probably appreciate it, as would the weed industry.
  • SOURCE: More Hilarious Signs Only Found in Texas (daily-stuff.com)
Don't mess with Texas. The Wild West is a place apart, trigger happy, armed, and on the hunt.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

It's not the guns, it's the... (video)

S.S. Lamb; Wisdom Quarterly; Jesse Ventura; Piers Morgan Tonight (CNN)
Shooting started as fun then got out of control; Top 10 huge personal guns (toptenz.net)
Former Governor Jesse Ventura debates and defeats soon-to-be deported British CNN host Piers Morgan, who fled the UK and is wanted for questioning in the bad journalism scandal surrounding Rupert Murdoch's illegal media activities.

"Give us easy answers," the public demands. Piers Morgan and B.S. Obama say, "Okay, let's take away the guns!" Although this leaves us open to exactly the kind of tyranny the revolutionary founders of this country were trying to prevent, that is the best these two dishonest leaders offer. For now. Soon much more will happen -- and in the absence of any effective means of self-defense, who is going to stop the rising police state?
  
It’s not the guns; it's the gunners
Steven S. Lamb (pasadenaweekly.com); edited by Pat Macpherson Wisdom Quarterly
Dig two graves before you pull the trigger.
Another tragedy has befallen our nation. Each of us hangs our head in shame, and our hearts grieve. Twenty children and six teachers lie dead, executed by a [heavily medicated and managed] "madman" because [we were first told] he felt his mother loved those children and that school more than him. 
  
[This piece of propaganda was soon withdrawn but not until it served its function: leading people to label the gunner as a "madman" and close the book on this tragic episode without looking more deeply to what's really going on and why.]
 
The anti-gun lobby demands prohibition while screaming about the lives of the innocent.
  
The pro-gun lobby calls for armed guards on every school campus, also invoking the lives of the innocent.
 
No one dares speak the unspeakable truth, and that is that We, The People, are the problem. 
 
We, as a people, have failed our children, 
failed each other, and even failed our madmen.
  
Yes, almost seven of 10 American households have at least one gun. [There are more guns than people, if all the policing, paramilitary, military, and illegal arms are also counted.]
It’s not the guns. It is not one simple thing. No single legislative act will change madmen killing people.
  
Banning guns means more crime
What? (damnhangover.com)
Some believe if we just outlaw all the guns, the problem will go away. Clearly, this is not so.  
  
Mexico, for example, makes it almost impossible for a private citizen to legally own firearms, yet Mexico has a gun homicide rate of 5.11 per 100,000. The US has a rate of 3.94 per 100,000.

Even with more guns, there are fewer gun homicides per person [in the US].
 
Canada has as many guns per person as the US and almost no gun homicides, with a rate of .65 per 100,000.
  
[Switzerland] The Swiss have a gun homicide rate of .94 and every home has a full military assault rifle, a military pistol, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. On every block, there is a designated home with grenades.
 
The mere presence of guns does NOT lead to gun homicide. Moreover, the prohibition of guns does not end gun homicide.
 
Anyone who looks at the figures published by the United Nations knows this fact.
 
The real problem and solution
Killing guns (badideatshirts.com)
When looking at the United Nations gun homicide figures, what leaps off the page is that no matter what the legislative scheme may be, nations that have broad but tightly woven safety nets and lower economic disparity rates have lower rates of gun homicide.
 
[Economic disparity refers to the difference between the higher and lower earners/inheritors, between the haves and have-nots in a society.]
Nations with weak safety nets and high income disparities have higher rates of gun homicide, no matter what prohibitions against gun ownership are enacted.
 
Since 1966, when then-Governor Ronald Reagan emptied state [psychiatric] facilities that treated the mentally ill, getting help for someone with a mental disability has become extremely difficult. 
 
While this was astounding and seemed like democratic deference toward individual freedom and freewill, it was mostly a [Republican] cost-cutting measure. The idea went national.
 
In the 1960s, it was too easy to commit people against their will. But now it is almost impossible to commit a manifestly "insane" or trouble people until they harm either themselves or someone else.
 
Is it a wonder that the number of insane people damaging themselves and others has skyrocketed in our society?
 
When attempting to discuss the relationship between gun homicide rates and economic disparity, anti-gun lobbyists begin to scream, to insult, and to say I don’t love the children. They become totally irrational.
 
When discussing gun homicide rates, pro-gun lobbyists gladly accept that gun control doesn’t work, but they refuse to discuss the nexus between gun homicide rates, the quality of the safety net, and the giant size of our national economic disparity. They then accuse me of being a socialist, a Big Government liberal, or some other terrible thing Wisdom Quarterly won’t print.
 
We cannot ever stop the shootings of children by crazy people without some kind of discussion and action on societal reform.
  
Why are most gun advocates manufacturers? $
Just outlawing guns or giving every adult in a school a gun and tactical training will never eliminate the problem. But we cannot have that discussion until we stop irrationally insulting and/or screaming at each other.
  
A safe society is one that is broadly middle class. We used to be that society. Until we reverse big corporate deregulation, the push toward globalization, and our economic race to the bottom, we will not be a safe society, no matter what kind of “gun control” is forced on us at our request.