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John Lennon was a prolific songwriter, along with his compatriots The Beatles. His wonderful metaphor, from their great ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ (1968 White Album), still resonates today in this crazy violence infected US empire:
When I hold you in my arms
and feel my finger on your trigger
I know nobody can do me no harm
because ‘Happiness is a warm gun’
Bang Bang shoot shoot!’
Many listeners, this writer included, originally felt it was purely a sexual reference. Now, years later, I can see the metaphor of mixing the sexual with the symbolism of gun violence. Regardless of what John Lennon intended to express, as Ed Norton from the Honeymooners episode stated: “Maybe the phrase fits Ralph?” Too many of our fellow citizens are ‘Packing guns’, mostly legally.
How in the hell many of them get these ‘Concealed Weapon’ permits is beyond me. In most instances, like the one in Clearwater, Florida recently, the shooter, 48 year old white male Michael Drejka, was in no way involved in any sort of self defense mode for fear of robbery… as is the reason why so many get these permits, as business protections. Drejka, who was known to act like a throwback to the famous Seinfeld ‘Soup Nazi’ character, in this case was behaving as the ‘Handicapped Parking Nazi’.
The Afro – American lady sitting in the illegally parked car in a handicap space with her five year old son was waiting for her boyfriend to return to the car. Drejka came upon her and got into an argument with her about their car being parked in the space. Her boyfriend, 28 year old Afro- American Markeis McGlockton, saw the scene unfolding, and did what most physically fit younger men would do.
That is he ‘got into the face’ of the other guy. Yelling ensued and McGlockton pushed Drejka to the ground, who then pulled out his gun and killed him. It took the authorities too long in this writer’s opinion to finally charge the shooter with manslaughter. Here’s my point: If the ‘Handicapped Parking Nazi’ did not have a gun, maybe there wouldn’t have been much of a scene at all.
Is this the George Zimmerman case all over? Zimmerman, for those who forgot, in February 2012 was acting as a ‘Neighborhood Watch’ volunteer. He told the cops that a ‘suspicious’ black kid (17 year old Trayvon Martin) was walking around his development. The cops instructed Zimmerman to not pursue… and he did anyway. When the kid noticed that he was being followed by Zimmerman, he confronted him. Who knows what was said etc, but the ‘out of shape’ Zimmerman found himself on the ground with the kid on top of him, something that has been happening with fist fights for centuries. Zimmerman was carrying, and the next thing was that he shot the kid dead. Zimmerman got off. What if? What if he did not have that ‘Concealed Weapon’ permit? How about this? What if Zimmerman had to do time, and not just a year or two? Just maybe that Clearwater shooter would not be so quick to pull that trigger?
As far as police officers go, one cannot make any sort of generalization. However, to this writer there really are just two categories of police officers. There are those who do their job, and truly believe they are there to ‘Protect and Serve’, and have no ‘Psycho – Sexual’ feelings about the GUN. They know how dangerous and deadly a gun can be, and they don’t see it as an extension of their penis! These officers never get hung up with the ‘Power trip’ of being a cop.
Sadly, the other category of officers is 180 degrees off from that mindset. These cops are the ones who do the heinous deeds to the many unarmed civilians. There are only a few ways to counteract that deviancy, and it is just that, deviancy. First off, justice should come down ‘fair and hard’ on cops who shoot too quickly with deadly force. When cops nationwide read and hear of harsh consequences levied out, the deterrent card will be played. Secondly, ALL police officers should be four year college graduates, needing at least a minor in Sociology or Psychology. Period!
Mr. Trump wishes to have his Military parade in November. Let me elaborate: We are not at war since WW2! All the remainder of our ‘foreign excursions’ have been this Military Industrial Empire firing its Big Weapons on the rest of the Third World. Enough already!
Cut this drastic military spending (over half of your tax dollars), get most of our foreign bases closed, send our boys and girls in uniform home and fix our economy! This ‘warm gun’ mentality is literally killing us… and the rest of the world!
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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust, whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected].
