"Most of the officers I interviewed say that guns poison policing in America. 'They're literally everywhere,...''
Peggy Hubbard’s first video is a rage against violence in the heat of the moment:
Peggy Hubbard’s second video is, I think, the eloquence of ordinary black woman. Women forged by life.
Most of the black women I know have the very same sentiments. In the high finance world arms manufacturers live in Black lives don't matter, White lives don't matter. What matters to arms dealers is money, death for profit.
The Atlantic
Peggy Hubbard's Attack on Black Lives Matter
CONOR FRIEDERSDORF
AUG 24, 2015
AUG 24, 2015
The Atlantic
The Myth of Police Reform
The real problem is the belief that all our social problems can be solved with force.
TA-NEHISI COATES APR 15, 2015
“Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.”
TA-NEHISI COATES JUL 4, 2015
ALL OF THE ABOVE IS DANCING
AROUND THE REAL PROBLEM:
“Second, cops think that the public underestimates the threats to their life—and why the use of force is sometimes necessary. Most of the officers I interviewed say that guns poison policing in America. 'They’re literally everywhere,' says one. 'And the problem with dealing with guns is that if I’m talking to you and you’ve got a gun, action always beats reaction.' One female street cop points that having to carry a firearm automatically escalates violent situations. 'If I take a punch and I’m knocked out, they could take my gun,' she says. 'We need to stay a step ahead of them, so we sometimes use a higher-level of force.' Another worries that the fear of being criticised or indicted for using force may make cops put themselves in danger. 'I think what’s happening now is that some younger officers are more reluctant to use force and they might lose a tactical advantage and be killed.”
FROM:
Policing in America
What the cops say
Apr 27th 2015, 19:13 BY D.K. | WASHINGTON, DC
How a 50 caliber U.S. made sniper rifle purchased in a gun shop in St. Mary’s Pennsylvania is sold to a guerrilla army in Kosovo.
The Brooklyn Connection:
Americans are not unusually violent. Unusual violence is what happens in a country where guns outnumber people.
When the "Right to Bear Arms" was written ordinary people could manufacture muskets and rifles in a barn. Firearms were a necessity to defend against hostile Native Americans on the frontier and slave states needed state militias to keep their property under control.
When the "Right to Bear Arms" was written the only corporation was the "East India Tea Company". That same corporation's tea was thrown into Boston Harbor at the "Boston Tea Party".
When the "Right to Bear Arms" was written few people imagined the mechanized death machines that we now call firearms.
When the "Right to Bear Arms" was written, nobody imagined arms manufacturing companies with a world wide market and with raw power exceeding that of most countries on earth.
In the high finance world of international arms manufacturers Black lives don't matter, White lives don't matter. What matters to international arms dealers is money. They sell death machines for profit.
Arms manufacturers market their weapons as protection from violent criminals. But a sniper rifle sold at a Pennsylvania sporting guns shop can wind up in the hands of guerrilla army in Kosovo.
The U.S. is the major gunrunning country on earth. U.S. guns are trafficked worldwide. They wind up in the hands of criminals and terrorists not by accident but by the designs of firearms manufacturers.
If arms manufacturers were concerned about criminals and terrorists using their guns they would back tracing of guns by the ATF. But they block tracing of guns by the ATF. They would allow the National Institute of Health to track shootings. They don't. They only care about selling death.
It makes no difference if a policeman buys their guns, or a terrorist buys their guns, or a criminal buys their guns, or a drug cartel buys their guns. International arms companies sell death. Death for profit to all and any who have a need to for death machines.
In a burst of creativity and greed U.S. arms dealers decided to use our pre-Industrial Revolution "Right to Bear Arms" to sell guns and ammunition. The result is unprecedented violence in the U.S.
We need to confront the source of violence here and that is international arms manufacturers.
The people that operate arms and ammunition companies are in the same moral category as the criminals and terrorists they cater to.
The shots we hear at night, the climbing murder rates and the calls of police brutality and "Black Lives Matter" are the results of living in a country that sells mechanized death to the world. And uses the profits from selling mechanized death to control our Federal and state governments.
MORE AT:
THE BROOKLYN CONNECTION
"Florin Krasniqi leads a double life. To most of his Brooklyn neighbors, he is an Albanian immigrant from Kosovo who owns a successful roofing company. But to the Kosovo Liberation Army, a guerrilla group fighting for Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, Krasniqi is a major fundraiser and arms supplier.
The Brooklyn Connection, a feature-length (60 min.) documentary based on material from Stacy Sullivan’s book, Be Not Afraid, For You Have Sons in America, follows Krasniqi as he raises money, solicits political support, purchases arms and supplies, smuggles his purchases into Kosovo, and, like any normal father, celebrates his child’s birthday with a family barbeque on the roof of his Brooklyn home.
Krasniqi’s ability to easily and legally purchase weapons suitable for a guerrilla army raises questions about U.S. policy. Can the United States broker peaceful solutions to conflicts like the one in Kosovo when the conflict is being sustained by arms obtained through American gun shows, retailers, catalogues, and websites?
As The Brooklyn Connection provokes viewers to examine the worldwide impact of U.S. firearms laws, it also challenges people to consider their own ideas about patriotism, national identity, and independence. As an outreach tool, the film can spark frank discussions about the connections between human rights, U.S. foreign policy, the value of gun ownership, and the ultimate safety of American citizens...
The filmmaker asks Florin, 'Do you think the Americans are victims of their own weapons?' Florin points to examples like the Columbine shootings and says that “they are victims of their own weapons every day.”
MORE AT:
