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	What? Discuss Gun Laws?, by Robert Walker, John Rosenthal Huffington Post USA   Dec 2012   What? Discuss Gun Laws?, by Robert Walker.   In less time than it takes to fire off two 9 millimeter handguns and kill dozens of people, the politicians, from the White House on down, will be putting out public statements deploring the school shooting in Connecticut, calling it tragic, and immediately adding that "now is not the time" to discuss new gun laws. When it comes to the deplorable state of America''s gun laws, it''s always "maρana."   It''s always tomorrow, never today, because the gun lobby would not have it any other way. It doesn''t matter how many people are killed or how innocent the victims, now is not the time to talk about sensible gun laws. It does not matter what the motive of the shooter is, or the age of the victims; it''s never time to address the never ending carnage of guns in America. Nor does it matter how the shooter acquired his gun or how many rounds of ammunition were in the magazine; now is not the time to do anything. There will be plenty of time to do something after countless more tragedies like this one take place.   Yes, Americans must grieve for the victims and their families. Having counseled dozens of grief-stricken victims and their families during the seven years that I worked on this issue, I know all too well the enormous anguish that they are going through, and I cannot begin to conceive the terrible sense of loss that they must feel. But observing a never-ending political silence about new gun laws will do nothing to diminish their sorrow; it will only ensure that others will suffer a similar fate.   Yes, I fault our political leaders for their lack of courage on this issue, but politicians will not do or say anything about the weakness of America''s gun laws until the American people demand it. If your heart go out to the victims of this shooting, it''s also time to raise your voice.   Apr 2012   Standing Your Ground in the NRA"s America, by John Rosenthal.   The National Rifle Association (NRA) has systematically manipulated Congress and many State Legislatures into adopting dangerous gun policies, allowing virtually unrestricted and undetectable access to powerful firearms by criminals including gang members, convicted felons and terrorists. These policies combined with the Stand Your Ground (Shoot First and Ask Questions Later) laws enacted in 23 Republican controlled "Red" states result in state sponsored vigilantism, more gun violence, and an increase in unprosecuted homicides. In the process, legislators have tied the hands of law enforcement and rendered prosecutors powerless thereby allowing more criminals and vigilantes to get away with murder. The result: over 30,000 Americans die and more than 100,000 are injured every year from largely preventable gun violence. In fact, over the past 30 years more Americans have died from gun violence, than all U.S. service men and women killed in all foreign wars combined!   The NRA and the gun industry have intentionally created an atmosphere of fear and paranoia designed to sell more guns. A sad result of this fear mongering has been the perpetuation of a cultural war between urban black and suburban white Americans. In 23 states anyone can literally "kill at will" if they simply claim they feel threatened. These NRA inspired racist gun policies overwhelmingly impact urban black Americans and the recent Trayvon Martin and Tulsa, Oklahoma killings are just two of many examples.   A recent Children"s Defense Fund report states that in 2008 and 2009 black males 15-19 years old were eight times as likely as white males to be gun homicide victims. Additionally, black children and teens, while only 15 percent of the population, accounted for 45 percent of the 5,740 child and teen gun deaths during the same period. Further, since the 2005 Stand Your Ground law went into effect in Florida there has been a tripling of homicides that could not be prosecuted.   Sound crazy? Yes. Here are the facts about local and national gun policies the NRA and their supporters in Congress and State Legislatures have successfully opposed and supported.   NRA OPPOSED Federal and State laws requiring criminal background checks or proof of identification for all gun sales. Only federally licensed gun dealers are required to perform criminal background checks, and 33 States do not require background checks for private gun sales. For years, domestic criminals and international terrorists such as al Qaeda and Hezbollah have legally bought assault rifles at U.S. gun shows without detection. Thanks to NRA lobbying efforts even people on suspected Terrorist Watch/No Fly lists are allowed to legally purchase firearms.   NRA OPPOSED a federal ban on military style assault weapons and high capacity ammunition clips like the firearm used to shoot Rep. Gabby Giffords and those used at most school shootings. The NRA has even opposed a ban on .50 caliber sniper rifles capable of disabling an armored vehicle, an airplane or a helicopter at distances of over a mile.   NRA OPPOSED National Consumer Product Safety Commission manufacturing and marketing standards for firearms. Toy guns, teddy bears and every other consumer product, except real guns, are regulated by the federal government. Guns are legally marketed as being "capable of penetrating 48 layers of soft body armor," having finishes "resistant to finger prints" and "capable of taking down an aircraft." These lax standards result in manufacturers marketing directly to criminals.   NRA OPPOSED Federal and State gun licensing and registration laws.   NRA OPPOSED national Safe Storage/Child Access Prevention requirements for firearms.   NRA OPPOSED a ban on armor piercing ammunition designed to penetrate the soft body armor worn by police.   NRA OPPOSED funding for personalized gun technology -- even though 17 percent of police officers are killed by criminals with their own service weapon. Additionally, many children"s lives could be saved by simple and inexpensive safety devices.   NRA OPPOSED Federal and State permitting requirements for gun purchases including concealed handguns and military-style assault weapons.   NRA OPPOSED strict sentencing requirements for gun traffickers. The federal maximum sentence for illegal gun trafficking of 200 guns in one year is less than five years in jail.   NRA HELPED ENACT restrictions on law enforcement; the FBI must destroy gun purchase records after 24 hours, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is prohibited from regulating gun shows, flea markets and private gun sales. Police agencies are prohibited from sharing critical crime gun trace data -- even with other law enforcement agencies. Until recently, police (not criminals who use guns) could face 10 years in jail if they violated this law.   Instead of supporting common sense gun laws that require responsibility and accountability on the part of gun owners, dealers, manufacturers and law enforcement, the gun industry uses the NRA as a conduit for special interest political contributions that fund the campaigns of officials willing to provide ever expanding firearm markets to criminals. At the same time, the NRA has vilified law enforcement as enemies of gun rights and restricted their ability to investigate and prosecute criminal activity. Not only has the NRA exposed law enforcement to greater risk by arming criminals with weapons often more powerful than police issued weapons, they have made it impossible to protect the public from gun violence. It"s no wonder over 150 Americans are shot and 83 die every day from firearms.   It"s Open Season in the NRA"s America. Criminals can legally buy guns without detection, vigilantes can kill people "at will" for no reason other than the color of one"s skin, their religion or being in "the wrong neighborhood." The NRA"s racist gun strategy provides a deadly recipe for more gun violence which disproportionately impacts urban and non-white communities and Congress doesn"t care. The NRA and their indentured servants in Congress and State Legislatures are simply more concerned with selling guns and preserving their power than in public safety and social justice. Visit the related web page
	Arab Spring has washed the region"s racism out of the news by Robert Fisk The Independent   How many tracts, books, documentaries, speeches and doctoral theses have been written and produced about Islamophobia? How many denunciations have been made against the Sarkozys and the Le Pens and the Wilders for their anti-immigration (for which, read largely anti-Muslim) policies or – let us go down far darker paths – against the plague of Breivik-style racism?   The problem with all this is that Muslim societies – or shall we whittle this down to Middle Eastern societies? – are allowed to appear squeaky-clean in the face of such trash, and innocent of any racism themselves.   A health warning, therefore, to all Arab readers of this column: you may not like this week"s rant from yours truly. Because I fear very much that the video of Alem Dechasa"s recent torment in Beirut is all too typical of the treatment meted out to foreign domestic workers across the Arab world (there are 200,000 in Lebanon alone).   Many hundreds of thousands have now seen the footage of 33-year-old Ms Dechasa being abused and humiliated and pushed into a taxi by Ali Mahfouz, the Lebanese agent who brought her to Lebanon as a domestic worker. Ms Dechasa was transported to hospital where she was placed in the psychiatric wing and where, on 14 March, she hanged herself. She was a mother of two and could not stand the thought of being deported back to her native Ethiopia. That may not have been the only reason for her mental agony.   Lebanese women protested in the centre of Beirut, the UN protested, everyone protested. Ali Mahfouz has been formally accused of contributing to her death. But that"s it.   The Syrian revolt, the Bahraini revolution, the Arab Awakening, have simply washed Alem Dechasa"s tragedy out of the news. How many readers know – for example – that not long before Ms Dechasa"s death, a Bengali domestic worker was raped by a policeman guarding her at a courthouse in the south Lebanese town of Nabatieh, after she had been caught fleeing an allegedly abusive employer?   As the Lebanese journalist Anne-Marie El-Hage has eloquently written, Ms Dechasa belonged to "those who submit in silence to the injustice of a Lebanese system that ignores their human rights, a system which literally closes its eyes to conditions of hiring and work often close to slavery". All too true.   How well I recall the Sri Lankan girl who turned up in Commodore Street at the height of the Israeli siege and shelling of West Beirut in 1982, pleading for help and protection. Like tens of thousands of other domestic workers from the sub-continent, her passport had been taken from her the moment she began her work as a domestic "slave" in the city; and her employers had then fled abroad to safety – taking the girl"s passport with them so she could not leave herself. She was rescued by a hotel proprietor when he discovered that local taxi drivers were offering her a "bed" in their vehicles in return for sex.   Everyone who lives in Lebanon or Jordan or Egypt or Syria, for that matter, or – especially – the Gulf, is well aware of this outrage, albeit cloaked in a pious silence by the politicians and prelates and businessmen of these societies.   In Cairo, I once remarked to the Egyptian hosts at a dinner on the awful scars on the face of the young woman serving food to us. I was ostracised for the rest of the meal and – thankfully – never invited again.   Arab societies are dependent on servants. Twenty-five per cent of Lebanese families have a live-in migrant worker, according to Professor Ray Jureidini of the Lebanese American University in Beirut. They are essential not only for the social lives of their employers (housework and caring for children) but for the broader Lebanese economy.   Yet in the Arab Gulf, the treatment of migrant labour – male as well as female – has long been a scandal. Men from the subcontinent often live eight to a room in slums – even in the billionaires paradise of Kuwait – and are consistently harassed, treated as third-class citizens, and arrested on the meanest of charges.   Saudi Arabia long ago fell into the habit of chopping off the heads of migrant workers who were accused of assault or murder or drug-running, after trials that bore no relation to international justice. In 1993, for example, a Christian Filipino woman accused of killing her employer and his family was dragged into a public square in Dammam and forced to kneel on the ground where her executioner pulled her scarf from her head before decapitating her with a sword.   Then there was 19-year old Sithi Farouq, a Sri Lankan housemaid accused of killing her employer"s four-year-old daughter in 1994. She claimed her employer"s aunt had accidentally killed the girl. On 13 April, 1995, she was led from her prison cell in the United Arab Emirates to stand in a courtyard in a white abaya gown, crying uncontrollably, before a nine-man firing squad which shot her down. It was her 20th birthday. God"s mercy, enshrined in the first words of the Koran, could not be extended to her, it seems, in her hour of need.
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