Make no mistake, this is a public health issue and must be addressed as one for things to change in relation to gun violence. Those in pro-gun circles do not agree with this assessment but every major medical and psychiatric organization in this nation say the same thing, it is one. Firearms are the only product that isn’t subjected to federal regulations and recalls yet it is the one that causes the most deaths.
For us to understand this public health issue we just need to listen to any medical professional speak on the topic or spend a few minutes in the emergency department of your local hospital to see how this issue impacts these communities because besides the 33k killed per year there are tens of thousands more injured by firearms and this is a strain on our health system costing billions per year, but the real cost is in the tragic loss of life.
There is something wrong with this, guns cause more damage than several other highly regulated products that are much less dangerous, especially for innocent children. For instance, Teddy bears and swimming pools are more regulated than guns in the home yet guns are what kill scores of children per year. There is not a law that requires owners to lock up their firearms and there should be as guns cause many children to die. Insurance is required for car owners and even some landlords will not rent you an apartment without apartment insurance and on down the line.
Firearms are a threat to the safety of our children as well as adults in this country and yet there are very few regulations on them. The gun people claim that there are over 20,000 gun laws on the books but that is simply not true at all, there are between 300-500 federal gun laws and not many more state and local gun laws but nowhere near the false 20,000 number they like to repeat over and over. There are some simple laws we can pass universally that will have a positive impact on this public health crisis we are facing in this nation and none of these measures will hurt gun owners.
One of the things Trump seems famous for is calling everything “fake news” when in fact he is the one who pushes fake news and he is the one who lies to get what he wants, as we talked about earlier in the chapter devoted to his role as the liar in chief and his history of twisting the truth. Still, he continues to say that every time there is a negative news report against him that it is fake news and that is all he says when something is said unfavorable against him, it is all fake news.
That is pretty funny coming from him, the fake president. The theme of his presidency has been to create fear and use that fear to divide the country and one way that he does this is by pushing fake news and bending the truth to accomplish his agenda. He will tweet that everything that is reported in the news by networks like CNN and others is “fake news” without even researching what the actual story is about and his supporters repeat that same line, fake news.
Calling everything fake news or a “hoax” as he often does is a cop-out and a way for him to deflect attention away from him and what he is doing and I have to tell you, it has worked thus far, at least with those who support him. He has made his base believe that none of the awful things that he has done as president are true and that it is simply a smear campaign by the “mainstream media” as he calls it to assassinate his character and turn America into a “socialist” nation.
He takes no responsibility for the things that he says and does and the main way that we see this is by his consistent insistance to call the media reports about him and the things he does as fake news. He believes that anything said about him in the media must be positive just because he is president but that is not how it works, not at all how it works.
Presidents have always been critiqued, this is nothing new. The problem is that the current president is thin skinned and cannot take the truth being spoken about him or any form of criticism and that is a problem right there, presidents need to accept negative media and realize that it goes with the territory but this president fails to see that and wants everyone to simply praise him just because who he is and that also is not how it works.
The real fake news are the fake news articles that were published about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential Election that basically gave Trump the presidency or the myths spread by fake news networks like Fox News and Breitbart and Alex Jones among others about liberals and the Democratic Party that help Trump while hurting America.
Another problem with fake news is that people believe these propaganda news pieces and once one person believes it then so does another and another and before you know it, it spreads and it is repeated and repeated by anyone and everyone and we saw this with the fake reports of myths like Hillary selling Uranium to Russia or Obama being born outside of the United States or that dead people and “illegals” voting and so on.
These myths are not only dangerous, but they are also irresponsible and can cause irreparable damage to our country if gone unchecked. Fake news is irresponsible and organizations like Fox and Breitbart own their callous reporting is what is the fake news, not CNN or MSNBC, but the news sources that Trump himself retweets and thinks is real news.
You see, to Trump it is only real news when it is positive news about him or supports his agendas. When it is critical of him and calls out his harmful and failing policies then all of the sudden it is “fake news” and has no factual basis when the fact is that the outrageous things he comes up with are what is fake news and what should be exposed as such. The news that is responsible and real is the news that he calls fake and that is because it doesn’t support his agenda.
There has been so much reported by him whether it be in tweets or in his speeches from the Oval Office or at his rallies that is fake. He says things like windmill noise causes cancer, or you need an ID to buy groceries or that it was Hillary who was in bed with the Russians. All of that and so much more that comes from him is fake news and has no basis in reality, but to his supporters these are considered facts as everything that he says is true to them.
Fake news largely did not exist prior to him taking office.
The term fake news was mostly unheard of prior to Trump, but now according to him everything is fake news, or at least anything that he doesn’t like. His supporters use the same logic when there is an article critical of Trump and their views, they will just respond by saying “fake news”.
The truth is that Trump is the fake news, everything that comes out of his mouth is a joke and has no truth to it whatsoever but that does not stop those who support him from repeating these lies and trying to pass them off as facts, they hear something that he says and they run with it as if it is fact, yet none of it is and that is why I refer to him as the fake news president as that is what he has proven himself to be up to this point.
Besides calling things fake news he also calls everything that he does not like a hoax or a witch hunt. These are the terms he uses to deflect from having to own up to the things that he has said and done and the multiple messes that he has caused over his time in office. During the entire investigation into Russian collusion Trump has said over and over that it is a hoax and a witch hunt, and these are things that those who support him eat up and thrive on.
The hoax is his presidency and the fake news is coming out of the White House and from his Twitter account. Besides him pushing fake news and being dishonest with the American people, he has used others in his administration to do the exact same thing and has had a documented history during his brief time in office of using the usually reliable press briefing as an opportunity to mislead the public about what is going on within our country.
He instructs his press secretaries to lie and put out fake news during their “daily” press briefing, and I use quotation marks because they are supposed to be a daily briefing, but they have been monthly at best during his reign as President of the United States. The briefings are rare and when they do happen, they are far from informative media sessions, but rather are an opportunity for the people at the podium to push Trump’s agenda rather than the truth about the happenings in our nation.
Both Sean Spicer and Sarah Huckabee Sanders have provided fake news to the press and the public and have misled we, the American voter since day one on the job and even now with his new press secretary, the lies and fake news continue and the trend shows no sign of stopping anytime soon, in fact, the lies and propaganda from these people get worse, not better.
If you can remember when Sanders was press secretary, there was fake news coming from the press room every single day and it was no better when Spicer had the same position. The reason that the fake news does not stop no matter who had the job of informing the public is that they were getting instructions from their boss on how to conduct these pressers and the main instruction they got was to report fake news and lie to the American people and that is something that they did and something that they did often. Trump may act dumb and say stupid things, but he is smart in the sense that he knows how to manipulate people and how to get people to spread his propaganda and that is what he gets when he appoints people to spread fake news from the podium that they are supposed to be at to inform the people of this country of the facts.
The facts are rather simple. Just take what Trump says into account and the exact opposite of that is the truth. The title of this chapter is called Fake News President for a very simple reason, that reason is that he is just that. Whether he is out there calling everything fake news or is the one producing the fake news, he is the fake news commander-in-chief and proves that day after day. He proves it in his words and in his actions and has no interest in learning nor speaking factual statements and likely never will.
He is interested in one thing and that is building his brand and looking out for himself and his family, to an extent. Trump is a very self-centered individual, always has been and likely always will be. The core of this self-centeredness can be seen in his desire to call everything that is said negatively about him “fake news” and his insistence on putting out the real fake news every time he speaks to reporters or to his supporters at his events and in his speeches.
Fake news is more prevalent than ever with Trump running the show and despite what he will tell you, the “mainstream media” are not the ones producing the fake news, it is him, his supporters, and his favorite right wing propaganda networks like Fox and others. I find it absolutely astonishing that those who support him believe the type of “facts” he puts out there and even more unbelievable is that they think he is telling the truth when he blames everything that he does on the fake news media, truly.
The doesn’t take much to fool the people who voted for him and who support him, that is for sure. He for sure does fool them with his barrage of lies and broken promises and the hope he gives them for a better future. The saddest part is that they fall for all of this and have no interest in fact checking his “facts” and would much rather remain in blind ignorance and keep believing that he is doing a great job and that the mainstream media are the ones who are to blame for things and that is the furthest thing from the truth.
The facts are pretty clear when it comes to the phenomenon of fake news and where it comes from and that is that it is the people in this administration who are the fake news spreaders and the ones who are to blame for the problems in this country for the most part. They figure that if they say something then it automatically becomes fact and then they can go ahead and place blame on those in the “liberal media” for what happens from there on out and that as well is the furthest thing from the truth as we have seen over the days, weeks, months, and years that this man has been in the White House.
Fake news under this president has risen to new levels that we have never seen procured by a presidential administration before and we are unlikely to see yet again in our lifetimes. It is like the World Weekly News, the White House version being put out to us daily.
You remember the World Weekly News don’t you? It was that tabloid paper that was full of mostly fictional “news” paper you would (and sometimes still do) see in the checkout lines of your local grocery store that had outrageous fake news stories meant to outrage and interest people as they paid for their milk or bread in the checkout line.
Now, we have that brought to us by the leader of the free world. Trump’s daily fake news is the equivalent of that tabloid paper with one subtle difference, with the fake newspaper seen in chain grocery stores, people knew that it was nonsense and just entertainment, but with Trump, people think that what he says and tweets is based in reality and is a fact and that my friends is dangerous.
The truth is that there are people in this country who believe everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth and never question a single word of it, they take him at his word and with a man with a history of dishonesty like Donald Trump has, that is in itself dangerous. The man has never told the truth in his life and I went into that in the chapter on his lies, so to say that his news is real and fact and reputable news organizations like CNN and others is fake is intellectually dishonest and irresponsible to say the least.
Unfortunately, the pro-gun people just care about keeping their toys, they do not care about preventing gun violence or about the many lives lost to it on a yearly basis nor have they ever. This is a public health crisis of epic levels and there are things we can do and we must do to change it and save people from dying. Thousands die every year due to gun murders, accidents, and suicides but that can change, it is up to we the people to change it though.
I indeed wear orange on that day every June to spread awareness on this issue and write about it quite often as the truth needs to be told about guns and how they take countless lives day by day. I am not sure just yet what can be done to fix this problem but I will speak on this issue and that is the epidemic of gun violence that must be dealt with in this country and it very soon as even in the thirty minutes or so I have taken to write this blog post countless of our innocent citizens have been shot and killed by a bullet from a gun and that is unacceptable.
Over a million Americans have lost their lives since John Lennon was gunned down some 37 years ago. Over a MILLION! Now if that is not a public health crisis then I do not know what is. Gun violence has reached epidemic levels and yet the pro-gun people like to lie and say that gun violence is at a “50-year low”, it is not but even if it was it doesn’t matter to the families that do lose loved ones to this health crisis. After the tragic attacks on September 11th, 2001 steps were taken to prevent that from happening again, we secured the cockpits on commercial aircraft and upped airport security.
There are steps to fix almost every issue in this country, laws are changed to reduce drownings, to reduce auto fatalities, drug overdoses, and so many more public health issues yet with gun deaths we do nothing. In fact, we have made it easier to get a gun not harder over the years and now with Trump in office the laws are becoming even more lax. There is something wrong with this and it must change, it must change now too. The lives of Americans are at risk and while Trump wants to demonize Muslims and immigrants and build walls and deport people to make us “safe”, we the people know who the real threat is and that is those with guns and the National Rifle Association.
The American Medical Association and countless other medical organizations state the obvious and that is that gun violence is a public health issue and it must be addressed now. No, we are not “Anti-American” for wanting to restrict who can have guns and what guns they can have, no we do not want people to die, no we do not hate the constitution. What we do want is to save precious lives and prevent people from dying, we want to fix this health issue and prevent even more violence and death.
We must keep fighting to end gun violence and I hope on June 2nd you will do your part, wear orange, and have your voice heard. I also hope that you will contact your representatives and senators and demand change on this issue because our children, our parents, our friends lives matter and this will not change without action, massive action.
Guns save lives the NRA says. “Law abiding citizens” have a right to “protect” themselves and their families they go on saying as well as the so many other things they try to feed the people into scaring them so they buy more guns but the facts are there, guns do not save lives, they take them. We know this by the thousands killed by guns every single year and the many more who are injured and broken. The NRA has blood on their hands and now they want to have a guns everywhere agenda that will make us all less safe and our country much more dangerous, but we cannot say anything about it or we are labeled as a “traitor” or “Un-American”. I am sorry but I refuse to be silent about an issue that is so deadly and destructive for our country, I just will not be quiet as our fellow Americans are dying.
This is a hot topic and the one I am most passionate about and that is gun violence and what we can do to prevent it, this is a topic that I get an awful lot of flack for. I care about many issues but perhaps this one is the issue that I care most about and there is good reason for that, for me it is more than policy, for me it is personal.
Why is it personal?
I have had gun violence personally impact my own life and have lost someone to gun violence. I care deeply about this issue because of this as well as the fact that we have more mass shootings and gun deaths than any developed nation on earth and someone must do something about it. Now, I know that I cannot change this issue on my own but I can do what I am can to have an impact and you my fellow citizens can do the same. We all can make a difference and change things on this and every issue but to do so we must speak up and fight for our beliefs, even when the bullies in the pro-gun movement call us names and try to silence us with threats.
Just like I always say, protect people, not guns. This is what we should do in this country but far too often those in charge of public policy and the American voter defends the gun rather than the lives that gun takes and that is something that needs to change. There is something clearly wrong when people value an inanimate object over a human life but that is what happens in America on this issue, they want to defend the firearms while ignoring the lives those weapons take from this earth. Not me though, I value life over guns and intend on always fighting to end gun violence in America and educate people on what an epidemic this issue is and fight to change it and I hope you will join me in this fight.
When I wrote my two previous books on this issue (Gunsense Nation and Debunking Common Pro Gun Myths) I had one goal in mind and it wasn’t to get rich or get good reviews but it was to get the conversation going and get people to see what a big problem guns in this country are and that is what I will continue to do going forward. Those in pro-gun circles attack me and my books by pointing out the fake reviews from gun “rights” activists but they will not sway me from the work I am doing, my books and my posts on my blog have a goal and that is to educate people about gun violence in this nation and nothing will stop me from fighting to end it or at least reduce it because after all, who in their right mind would not want to fix this problem?
I will tell you who, those who have an agenda to keep laws from being passed to restrict gun ownership and that is the gun lobby and their consumers. They have an agenda and it for sure is not saving lives, it is to sell and buy more guns and prevent laws that restrict those guns from being sold. Our agenda is one thing and one thing only and that is to end the violence and protect people from being shot, that is not a bad agenda but one that is a good hearted one and a noble one. I know, they will say that I am spitting on the graves of the dead but that is not what I am doing at all, I am fighting so more do not die from guns and I hope others will join me in this fight as when our citizens are dying from gun violence, doing nothing is not an option.
The question now is, where do we start?
This is a good question because even with the good work that we have done by passing laws and changing public policy in some areas of the country, there are other places who have gone in the opposite direction and passed pro-gun laws that make the public less safe and creating an environment that isn’t about freedom as they say but about endangering public safety and putting the lives of their citizens at risk. In California, New York, Hawaii, and some other states laws have been passed to increase public safety by restricting access to firearms and I am proud to have been a part of that fight and those successes but much more can and must be done nationwide and on a federal level and I will mention some of those steps that we must take briefly, taking these steps will keep the public safe on a federal level and when all is said and done that is why we fight, isn’t it? I believe so!
In the middle of writing this earlier and after that last paragraph I had to stop and run some errands and while I was doing so there was yet another tragic shooting at an elementary school here in California that left an 8-year old child dead along with others, this is all too familiar in this country and sadly will happen again and again until we make some drastic changes to our gun laws. I was saddened by this shooting like I am about all shootings but this brought back memories of Newtown which was when I really started to speak up and get involved in the gunsense community and the fight for gun reform in this country. Today, I remembered how I felt that day as a parent and as a human being and I remember how I wanted to hug those parents who lost children when Newtown happened, I cannot imagine what they are going through today as well as in Newtown.
I believe that we can have change on this issue but it will take a major effort from both sides of the aisle, it will take unity to fight for our children and our fellow citizens over guns.
I know that when I saw that shooting today it hit home for me and reminded me why we do what we do as advocates for gun reform in America. I believe that for us to have change we must take certain steps and make some hard choices, I hope even gun owners can agree on this as gun owners in other countries have done. We must protect people and that does include our precious children, they are our future and they are our everything and must be protected above all else. I believe in protecting people over guns or these so-called gun “rights” but there are so many who disagree with me and are against any changes and a whole list of leaders in our local, state, and federal government who agree with them, that is why we are where we are on this very divisive issue.
I debate a lot on this issue and I get very frustrated with how these people who are against change with our gun laws continue to repeat the same usual myths that I debunked in my last book on gun control when they could have some compassion for the innocent lives lost. That is the humane thing to do, try defending children and others taken by gun violence instead of standing up for the gun and making excuses.
They say the usual things like “guns don’t kill, people kill” and “If the teachers were armed lives would be saved” and “ban cars and spoons, they kill too”. They repeat what others say and cannot have an original thought but most of all they show no empathy for the lives lost and that is the real problem.
Now, we know that a spoon cannot kill multiple people like that or even one person very easily and we also know that cars are meant to transport and while at times are used as weapons, most times they are not. The fact is that guns are used in over 68% of murders in the United States and so many more accidents and suicides too. It is obvious that guns are the problem and most effective at killing people, otherwise they would not own them, they would have a spoon or a baseball bat. We need some compassion as well as some common sense on this issue to have any hope at change, so far we don’t have either with pro-gun people in America.
I believe by banning guns outright lives would be saved but short of that we need some federally uniformed policies that would allow people to keep their guns while protecting the public including our precious children. I would go for a ban on high capacity magazines (over 10 rounds), banning semi-auto rifles like the AR-15 and Sig Sauer MCX, requiring a mandatory mental health exam for all gun purchases with a licensed mental health professional, metal detectors in all schools and other public places, gun registration in a monitored national database, and most importantly education on guns with the goal of getting rid of this gun culture that has so many obsessed with firearms.
I believe that by doing these things we can have some real change in this nation on this issue and I believe that it is time for massive action, I say that we stop this madness and stop defending guns over the lives that they take and fight for the victims, not the guns. When we protect guns more than we protect our children or other human beings then we in fact become uncivilized and lose our core values as a country.
The first responsibility of a government is to protect their citizens but in this country they do that when it comes to demonizing Muslims or immigrants but with guns they ignore the safety and well-being of the public, they rater cater to the NRA and America’s gun owners while ignoring gun violence victims and the safety of the general public. That is not the country that I know, I know a nation that wants the best for everyone not just a select few but in the NRA’s America that is not the case, they do not value the lives of gun violence victims, it is obvious.
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