(May 06, 2014)
Unload Your 401(k), a powerful three-minute film from Grey New York, takes aim at a new target in the debate over guns in America: the pocketbooks of firearms companies.
The video supports UnloadYour401K.com, a site where consumers can find out if their retirement portfolios include gun manufacturers. A coalition of 20 organizations, led by Campaign to Unload and States United to Prevent Gun Violence, is behind the initiative.
The film doesn't waste time trying to persuade gun rights advocates. Instead it makes its appeal to those already passionately opposed to gun violence, and perhaps those on the fence, imploring them to take action. The case for divestment, a tactic that played a role in ending South African Apartheid and changing U.S. tobacco policy, is mainly made by the parents, relatives and teachers of young people killed and maimed at by gun violence.
"They're making money off the backs of dead people," says Lori Haas, whose daughter was shot at Virginia Tech. "I just can't tolerate it. And I won't let my money support it."
"This industry is not going to respond to moral sentiments, that's clear," says Eric Milgram, the father of two Sandy Hook survivors. "They will respond to economic pain."
Unfortunately ... these outraged people are setting their sights on the wrong people. Firearms Manufacturers are not the source of Gun Violence; the criminals and the madmen who think it's a good idea to go kill a bunch of innocent people are the source.
And it's not "gun violence". It's "Violence". Witness the recent outbreak of murder in China, Canada and the United States of America where knives were the sole instrument of murder.
The sad fact is, madness will occur no matter what instruments are available.
These well-intentioned people are driven by passion and emotion .. hysteria. They see their fellow citizens, and their children, being cut down and they choose the only 'villain' with big pockets; the people who make the guns.
They could attack.. oh, say "Buck Knives" (as a random sample) as easily. But they don't.
It's not the manufacturer who is responsible. It's not the dealers. It's often not even the end-user ... the people who bought the guns.
It's the sad, mad or bad man who wants to get his name in the papers and go out with a BANG! who is directly responsible for the murder and mayhem.
Who is responsible for the murders?
Oh, it's the people who are railing against firearms manufacturers. It's the people who are up in arms (figuratively) against the people who are up in arms (literally). These protestors are JUST like the legislators whom they elect. They have found that it is easier to blame the gun, and the people who make the gun, than to accept that the problem of "Gun Violence" is not about guns; it's about Violence.
It's not a Legislative problem. It's a Societal problem.
We have Lost Boys out there, who know no better way to express their rage than to commit violence against their fellow citizens than explosively. They may have been taught better, but they were too far gone to respond to the best efforts of their family, their psychoanalysts, their religious leaders, or their legislators.
Because .. until we address the societal ills which make a boy a murderer, we won't stop the killings.
But that's too hard. Let's just blame the gun makers. It doesn't actually help, but it allows us to express our OWN rage without actually ... you know ... killing anybody?
So far.
No comments:
Post a Comment