Biden administration weighs declaring monkeypox a health emergency + Break Out the Condoms to Fight Monkeypox

Biden administration weighs declaring monkeypox a health emergency

Related:

Doctors treating monkeypox complain of ‘daunting’ paperwork, obstacles

D.C. shifts monkeypox vaccine policy to focus on first dose

Break Out the Condoms to Fight Monkeypox (archived if you can read behind the advertisements)*

But we should also remember that we have never vaccinated our way out of any pandemic. In the West, measles, scarlet fever, and other childhood diseases stopped killing kids decades before vaccines—our preferred tool of mass salvation—arrived in the late 1950s. Smallpox was similarly largely controlled by the turn of the 20th century through public health measures.

We need to stop subordinating people to the virus. A single approach of surveillance, isolation, contact tracing, and vaccination worked very well for smallpox, which relied exclusively on a human host, could be diagnosed at 10 paces, and was prevented with a single vaccination. But even that approach relied not only on tests and vaccines but also, most of all, on trust—to be tested and vaccinated. Candor is a prerequisite for trust.

*Just a little deception behind the headline. Still touting vaccines (Jynneos), as a solution, though! Just use condoms, for prevention, and prescribe antivirals (TPOXX), for treatment, if needed!

The Flaw in the Progressive Stance on Guns + AOC Suggests Checking Juvenile Criminal Records To Be Able To Buy A Gun Could Be Racist

The flaw in the progressive stance on guns

Fulminating at congressional inaction in the face of spree killers may be satisfying and even necessary. But it is unlikely to persuade them to change the law. Continuing to insist on new rules while shying away from enforcing existing ones, meanwhile, burns credibility with conservative voters, who see a left that’s eager to penalize their hobby and reluctant to punish criminals.

Considerable progress against gun violence is politically and logistically feasible with more quality-of-life policing and vigorous prosecution of illegal gun possession — and the increased levels of incarceration both would require. If progressives want to make guns harder to get but don’t want to prosecute those who have guns illegally, then … it’s almost as if they’re inviting a future in which only outlaws will have guns.

Related:

AOC Suggests Checking Juvenile Criminal Records To Be Able To Buy A Gun Could Be Racist

The racial politics of gun control

Gun control’s racist reality: The liberal argument against giving police more power

THE (REALLY, REALLY) RACIST HISTORY OF GUN CONTROL IN AMERICA

The Racist Origin of America’s Gun Control Laws

Marksman who is Asian American says gun control laws are racist, puts Asians at risk

The Contagion Effect: From Buffalo to Uvalde, 16 Mass Shootings in Just 10 Days

The latest mass shootings in Texas and New York highlight the frequency of such attacks — and how they can spread like a disease

The Contagion Effect: From Buffalo to Uvalde, 16 Mass Shootings in Just 10 Days

Related:

Our Narrative of Mass Shootings Is Killing Us

Mass Shootings Are Contagious:

The idea that violence might be contagious is not new. Suicides often cluster, in a phenomenon known as suicide contagion, in which vulnerable people are inspired to take their own lives after reading about the details of previous suicides. In an attempt to stop the contagion, many media outlets abide by voluntary reporting standards to not sensationalize suicides.

“The contagion that appears to be apparent in the mass killings and school shootings may have something to do with the media coverage,” Towers said.

This doesn’t mean the media shouldn’t report on mass shootings, Towers said. But voluntary efforts to de-emphasize the killer’s name and portrait might help stave off additional shootings.

American Shooter: The Intersection of Alienation and Desperation Under Capitalism

American Shooter: The Intersection of Alienation and Desperation Under Capitalism

Universal Healthcare and Easy Access Mental Health Services

59% of gun deaths are suicides. Getting healthcare in the United States is nigh impossible for many people whether it be the cost of services, lack of insurance, or the stigmatization that comes from seeking medically necessary mental health services. We need to make concerted efforts to ensure that anyone who needs healthcare can walk into a facility and get the help they need with no questions asked nor strings attached. Whether it is nationalizing healthcare or instituting dual power healthcare structures we need to get this done and we need to do it now. Getting people the healthcare they need drastically reduces rates of mental illness while also reducing the rates of economically motivated crime which is sometimes violent in nature.

In May 2002, The Secret Service published a report that examined school shootings. Among much else, they found that the majority of school shooters had difficulty coping with loss and personal failures, attempted suicide, felt persecuted, and exhibited alarming behaviors toward those around them. All of these are signs to immediately provide accessible healthcare, particularly mental healthcare. We need to be proactive about getting people the help they need. Simply scapegoating mental health issues as the conservative gun lobby does is about as helpful as thoughts and prayers. We need to directly address mental healthcare and build the systems that prevent violence.

Stable Food and Housing

Violence is quite often a symptom of economic distress. Ensuring the stable material conditions of a community not only reduces the incentive to commit economically motivated violent crime, but it also reduces interpersonal violent crime. We need to build communities that have affordable housing and accessible food. The fastest and easiest way to work towards both is to ban R1 zoning because this form of zoning creates food deserts, makes communities car dependent, and skyrockets the cost of housing. This is not to say that we should not be working on dual power structures in housing. We also need free lunch and breakfast programs run by local radicals and community-powered housing programs.

Source: Socialist Rifle Association

Repost: Pro-Gun Activists Lie About Chinese Gun Ownership

Pro-Gun Activists Lie About Chinese Gun Ownership (archived)

In the efforts of pro gun activists to defend the 2nd Amendment from those who would take weapons out of the hands of the people, they get over zealous and fabricate certain facts to defend their position. One of those so-called facts is the often repeated claim, “commies are coming to take our guns away”. This is one of, if not, the most repeated statement. The automatic linking to gun control to communism. Therefore anyone who supports gun control with a rational (albeit incorrect) arguments is portrayed as being a communist. This kind of automatic association between those who support gun control and communism is just dishonest, and exposes the ignorance of the pro gun movement.

There is literally no law during the revolutionary period that prohibited anyone form having any guns. There is absolutely no source for claiming that the Party took people’s guns away. The claim that Mao or communism took guns away from people is completely made up. JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNERSHIP are liars, Huan Zhu is a liar. There is no trace of gun control in the revolutionary period, there is however very strict control under capitalism. This shows the pathetic lengths these defenders of gun control sink to. They have to lie about others in order to defend gun ownership. You don’t have to lie, there are perfectly good reasons for defending guns. Almost all of which I personally support.

So what are the facts surrounding Revolutionary China and gun ownership? Well this is what we do know for a fact. The Communist Party after the Long March resettled in the countryside where they began work with the peasants arming them against the government. Mao and the Communist Party armed the people against the country. As the Japanese were attacking China, the Nationalist (and I stress capitalist) Party was only interested in suppressing the peasants, not the Japanese invaders. Mao organized the defence against the invading foreign army while the capitalists were only interested in killing the people of the nation. Eventually the Nationalist party leader Chang Kai-shek realized the Japanese were destroying the country. The communists gave people guns in order to defend themselves and attack those doing harm to them.

In the revolutionary era the people were armed, people carried their guns into work. Some carried them out into the fields as they did agricultural work. Communist China didn’t ban people from having guns they were the ones that gave it out, capitalist China did ban them. Oh, and unlike certain YouTube video making Pastors and pro gun websites, I have sources in the description.

Originally posted 12-02-2020

Related:

YouTube Video by Jason Unruhe

Graham, Blumenthal say they’re making progress on “red flag” talks + Pro-gun group improving access to mental health

Graham, Blumenthal say they’re making progress on “red flag” talks

Discussions centered around offering grants to states that impose “red flag” firearm seizure laws are slowly progressing, according to Republican Lindsay Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal, who first teamed up to push the federal gun control legislation in 2019. CBS News reported on Wednesday that the pair have had multiple discussions around potential changes to their previous legislation with an eye towards attracting at least 10 Republicans, which would allow the bill to overcome a potential filibuster.

Another issue with red flag laws is the lack of mental health resources for those deemed by a judge to be a danger to themselves or others. None of the 19 red flag laws on the books in various states require the state to help that supposedly dangerous individual find treatment or counseling, and only Maine’s version of a red flag law requires a mental health evaluation from a medical professional in addition to a judge’s determination.

Red flag laws are ultimately a gun control solution to a mental health problem, which is one of the reasons I continue to oppose them. They do nothing to stop truly dangerous individuals from harming themselves or others, but they do allow lawmakers to avoid addressing our crumbling mental health systems by claiming they’re “doing something” to block dangerous people from doing bad things. Maybe Graham and Blumenthal’s final proposal will find a way to address each and every one of these fundamental flaws, but I’m not holding my breath.

Related:

Pro-gun group improving access to mental health:

While politicians in Washington D.C. are looking to find some sort of gun control “compromise” in the wake of the horrific murders in Uvalde, Texas, gun owners and Second Amendment advocates involved in the grassroots effort known as Walk The Talk America are taking on the challenge of improving access to and removing the stigma around mental health and gun ownership. I’m so glad that WTTA founder Michael Sodini could join me on today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co to talk about the program and how it’s helping to save lives, and I hope you’ll check out the entire conversation in the video window above.