Guns and Private Prisons

There are many people in jail and many of them used guns in the commission of their crime. This led me to wonder whether there is a connection between the gun industry and the prison industry.

It is pretty clear that the private prison industry benefits from crime created by poverty, drugs and personal desperation. The more people incarcerated the more money they make. The less private prison companies have to spend per prisoner the more money they make. This leads to substandard conditions in private prisons as the company tries to hold costs down. Prisons that can pack them in stand to profit the most as do prisons which don't spend as much on medical care, rehabilitation, food etc.

In general, private prisons profit off people's misery and pain. And there is plenty of human misery to go around. The rate things are going, there may soon be more of us behind bars than on the outside. Already 1 in approximately 30 people either are in jail/prison, are out on parole or otherwise in the prison/court system (1,2).


 Since exposure to violence increases the risk of violence in teenagers (3) one wonders if the vicious cycle this implies can ever be broken. If not, the private prison industry will continue to thrive. Indeed, I cannot help wondering if there is a connection between the NRA, the gun industry, the promotion of guns and private prison companies. The more guns, the more violence. The more violence, the more crimes prosecuted. The more convictions, the more prison space required.

All these parties seem to benefit from the cycle of guns and violence. On the gun industry's part, the more violence, the more people are frightened. The more frightened people are, the more likely they are to buy a gun for protection. The more guns for protection, the more people get shot. The more people get shot the more people end up in prison. It is such an intriguing correlation that I can't help wondering if someone, somewhere, isn't intentionally seeking to profit from it.

The answer, apparently is, "Yes":

" It sounded like a throwaway line. Toward the end of a four-hour Senate hearing on gun violence last week, Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president of over two decades, took a break from extolling the virtues of assault rifles and waded briefly into new territory: criminal justice reform. "We've supported prison building," LaPierre said" (4).

Quite literally, the NRA went on a campaign to push for more prisons: 

"Starting in 1992, as part of a now-defunct program called CrimeStrike, the NRA spent millions of dollars pushing a slate of supposedly anti-crime measures across the country that kept America's prisons full—and built new ones to meet the demand. CrimeStrike's legacy is everywhere these days" (5). 

"LaPierre launched CrimeStrike that spring with $2 million in seed money from the parent organization and a simple platform: mandatory minimums, harsher parole standards, adult sentences for juveniles, and, critically, more prisons. "Our prisons are overcrowded. Our bail laws are atrocious. We'll be the bad guy," he announced." (6).

Wayne LaPierre, NRA

They are not even hiding their connections. The NRA and the Prison Industry are hand and glove and profit is their motive. No matter how they word it, the truth is there for all to see. The NRA and prison corporations both profit from violent crime: Guns create violence which create the demand for more guns. The gun violence results in criminal convictions and thus more people in prison. That means more money for both the gun industry (NRA) and prison corporations. What we have are entire industries profiting from violence, death and dying: The new Merchants of Death. 

For more see:  http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/wayne-lapierre-crime-strike-three-strikes

ENDNOTES

1.    Probation and Parole in the United States, 2006. By Lauren E. Glaze and Thomas P. Bonczar. Quoted from Wikipedia, "United States Incarceration Rate."

2.    U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), US Department of Justice. Quoted from Wikipedia "United States Incarceration Rate."

3.   Exposure to Gun Violence Increases Teen Violence by Charles Montaldo, About.com Guide May 26, 

2005.

4.    Tim Murphy, "The Big House That Wayne LaPierre Built" Mother Jones, 2/8/2013, quoted from the Democratic Underground, 2/10/2013).

5.   Ibid.

6.   Ibid. 

Christianity, Guns and the Constitution

What part of the Constitution do we NOT understand? Apparently, all of it. There has been holy hell to pay by gun folks over proposed universal background checks because the Second Amendment says: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". Guns should not be regulated in any manner  according to these Second Amendment fundamentalists. The only problem is that their literal reading is a mistaken reading. In Article I, Section 8, the Constitution says this about Congress' responsibilities:

15:  To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
16:  To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

According to the Constitution, Congress has the responsibility to call forth the Militia, the same Militia referred to in the Second Amendment which is the reason for the right to keep and bear Arms. The Militia in Article I, Section 8  is more akin to the National Guard: they are called up to suppress insurrections and repel invasions. This Militia is to be well- regulated (by Congress). It is to be well organized and CONGRESS is responsible for arming them. The words "well-regulated" are crucial. Congress has the DUTY to regulate the ARMS kept by the people. You cannot understand the Second Amendment without the context of Article I, Section 8.  To quote the Amendment without the context is misleading and specious.

These same people seem to want to do away with the FIRST Amendment as North Carolina tried to make Christianity the official religion in that state. It was defeated but a poll by Huffington Post shows that 31% of Americans want Christianity to be the State Religion. The First Amendment says, as we all know:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

This Amendment has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to mean that there should be separation of Church and State and it should be an absolute separation. Congress cannot make Christianity a State Religion. Period. Yet, the same people who are absolutist about the (misunderstood) Second Amendment are not so excited by the First. It seems that they want to pick and choose what part of the Constitution they want to follow. Sorry, my friends, you can't have it both ways.

The worst part would be the SORT of Christianity they want to impose on the rest of us. They want us all to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior but also to accept the rules THEY choose, like making homosexuality illegal, abortion illegal, contraception illegal, etc. They want us to be the land of the Christian Taliban, imposing their version of Sharia Law. Once again, they totally misunderstand Jesus who was, in his day and age, a radical breaking from Pharisaic legalistic religion. Jesus was the opposite of Pharisees and the present day Right Wing is the modern equivalent of the Pharisees. Jesus interpreted the Law this way: You shall love the Lord Your God and love your neighbor as yourself. Love, not Judgment. In the Gospels Jesus was a teacher of Mercy and Grace while the Pharisees were rule oriented. The modern day Pharisees would impose their rules on Christianity and make God in their own image: legalistic AND idol worshippers.

What we ALL need is Love. If you call yourself a Christian, that is what is required. In what sense is unregulated gun worship Christian? Jesus told Peter to put away the sword when he cut off the ear of a Centurion in Gethsemane. He healed the Roman soldier. Weapons were not the answer. Neither are they the answer now.

Suicide at School

We lost another child to guns today. It has been reported that an 8th grade student at Davidson Middle School in Southgate, Michigan committed suicide. According to officials, it was a self-inflicted gun shot to the head. He left a note (WDIV and WXYZ).

May he rest in peace and my condolences go out to the family. This was a tragedy in so many ways and leaves us with so many questions. How is it that this young person had such easy access to a loaded gun? Did he buy it on the street? Was it a parents weapon? If so, why was it loaded and not locked up? Or, if it was locked up, why was the key within the reach of this distraught young person? Where were the parents?  The gun being available was a crucial piece to this awful puzzle but where were the parents when the child was calling for help? My guess is that he had been depressed and desperate for awhile. Parents are not mind readers but almost every suicidal person signals their distress in any of a myriad of ways. It is, however, sometimes very difficult to read these signs. Perhaps the parents thought he was being a "moody teenager."  It is maddening that he had ready access to a loaded gun but also that he DIDN'T have access to help. Why, oh why are guns so ubiquitous while mental health resources are few and far between?

  I sincerely hope that this is not another case where the child had been bullied to the point where he couldn't take it anymore.  Bullying is so common but also devastating. It can scar a life permanently and can even lead to suicide as we have seen all too often. And suicide reaches out and grabs the survivors as well. For the classmates, there may well be guilt, that they survived, or even that they somehow caused the death of a schoolmate. I can only imagine the guilt that will fall upon their young shoulders. I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that help will be available to them now. They will need it. So will his family. According to NIMH, family history of suicide raises the risk for another suicide ( www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us ). According to Danish researchers:

"... people who had a mother, father, or sibling die from suicide were two and a half times more likely to commit suicide themselves compared with those without a similar family history. And people who had a family history of psychiatric illness that required hospital admission had a 50% higher risk of suicide, but only among those who didn't already have a history of mental illness themselves." (WebMD, October, 2002)

I am not sure of the connection between friends or schoolmates and suicide but it would not surprise me to learn that there is an increased risk for them as well.

So, what exactly happened to cause this young soul to seek an end to his apparent suffering? Was it bullying? Whatever it was, it was obviously too much for him. It is too bad that it was so easy for him to get hold of a loaded gun. Without the gun there may have been a way out for him though he couldn't see it at the time. The gun prettywell put an end to possibilities.  Yes, he may have found another way to end his life but a gun shot to the head is pretty much final.  No time for second thoughts. The combination of access to guns and the LACK of access to mental health services can be and was, deadly. When will we ever learn?