The taken-down signs. (Photo: Dan Barton)
UPDATE: According to a source close to the matter, Mayor Shayne Gallo spoke with festival organizers and said the removal was due to a misunderstanding, as he thought the signs were put up by anti-SAFE act people and that he didn’t know the signs were part of an art installation. The mayor, the source said, told organizers he was against gun violence, calling it “a horror.”
Portions of an anti-gun violence art installation — part of this weekend’s O-Positive (O+) Festival — were removed from city property Friday afternoon, reportedly on orders from Mayor Shayne Gallo.
The artwork by Tatana Kellner and Ann Kalmbach consisted of dozens of signs commemorating mass shootings and endorsing the New York Secure Firearms and Ammunition Enforcement Act (NYSAFE), the tough 2013 gun control law passed in the wake of the Sandy Hook school massacre. The law has met resistance in upstate New York and Kellner and Kalmbach’s artworks were designed to mimic the “Repeal the S.A.F.E Act” lawn signs that dot the region. Festival organizer Denise Orzo and other members of the O+ art committee approved the installation because, she said, it fit in with this year’s theme of “The Other.”
“It’s the other point of view,” said Orzo. “Just to put it out there.”
A city worker with the signs. (Photo: Dan Barton)
The signs had been up for barely an hour, however, when a city employee and at least one Uptown business owner began removing them parking meters, light poles and other city property. The signs remained posted on a wooden fence outside a Wall Street business under construction. A city employee said the order to remove the artworks came “from the mayor directly” before declining further comment because he was not authorized to speak to the press. Gallo did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.
Festival organizers said that the art would go up on private property, including RUPCO’s Kirkland building on Main Street and a building that houses Outdated Café and Chronogram magazine, instead.
“Successful art makes people feel something whether you like it or not,” said Orzo, who was confronted by an angry gun-control opponent on Wall Street over the signs. “If you feel, it worked.”
I don’t know whether the weather has anything to do with this
Would seem to be a bit of a misunderstanding.
whether not weather
Thanks so much for reporting on this. We realized that this would be a controversial, and that the signs might not last the weekend, but only a couple of hours really isn’t acceptable in a democracy. As law enforcement officials, the city should be supporting not only the S.A.F.E. Act but also protecting free speech. We want to thank the private businesses who stepped up to support us and our freedom to speak.
You’re welcome – according to a voice mail left to me by the mayor, he had gotten calls from neighborhood businesses who thought the signs were ANTI-SAFE act and ordered them removed on that basis. He stressed, in no uncertain terms, his opposition to gun violence and support of the SAFE Act. – Dan Barton, editor, Kingston Times
What’s there not to understand? Keep the S.A.F.E. Act, Guns Kill. Any of these four letter words too hard?
Bring them over to AIR Studio Gallery & it’ll fit in with my B+ Beatle Bash for John Lennon & a fund raiser for Bernie Sanders, Saturday evening.
I think the title of this article is misleading. The work is only going back up because of private property owners, not the Mayor. Misunderstanding or no, he doesn’t have the courage of his supposed convictions.
Free Speech is fine and appreciation for art is good too.
Everyone of us (including festival directors) are entitled to free speech, BUT are not free to just install signage (even if we call them an “art installation”) wherever and whenever we want to. There is a permit process for that which supercedes artistic license and free speech.
The mayors quote indicates he didn’t know anything about it, so obviously took them down because there was no permit in place. How could there be a permit if he knew nothing about it. Clearly the festival organizers overstepped. Moving the signage to private property is a good idea.
Your post-article comment mentions shop owners who were “confused”. However, the message, while ideologically incorrect or at a minimum grammatically incorrect, was pretty clear. So it’s not as much about confusion of the message, it’s more like confusion about the reason for the installation. And lack of consideration that not ALL of us want to be subjected to art in the uptown district, especially one sided controversial issue themed. Not ALL of us want our associates, clientele and/or children, to be subjected to one sided issue based signage and messaging either.
Maybe making signage designed to tap into strong emotions would be more palatable if public “installations” like this are clearly marked as an art exhibit with appropriate permissions so as not to be confused with some kind of a propaganda shock campaign.
And one other thought, maybe it would be a good idea to at least give advance notice to business owners.
And a final thought would be to say actions speak louder than words… Your reporter and photographer conducted a one-sided interview, of event organizers only as I waited with the thought that I would be interviewed as well.
-Not So Angry, Just Trying To Have A 2-Way Conversation Using Facts As Opposed To Emotions, Gun-Control Opponent
We understand that putting signs up to express opinions in one’s yard is totally acceptable But doesn’t it seem strange that on one never sees a Keep the S.A.F.E. Act sign? Acts of mass murder are daily occurrences in the US. The signs only listed mass murders and statistics about gun violence directed at women. Maybe public space is exactly where this conversation could be SAFELY held.
It is not as rampant as the media and the anti gun propagandists would have us believe. The facts are that the trend for violence is actually dropping. Most of the gun violence is gang related, and with respect to gun violence outside of that is is mental health related and the number pale in comparison to other causes offatality… Even killings with blunt instruments is higher than guns. There is FBI data to back that statement up.
Here is a data page that shows that the trend for violence is dropping annually…
http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/
As far as the fact that no one ever sees supportive SAFE ACT signage is because there is really nothing to support other than the well chosen acronym… So no, I don’t find it strange.
The SAFE ACT is becoming known as the unSAFE ACT because is really does nothing to inhibit the criminal element, (in fact it creates criminals probably by a couple hundred thousand people who refused to register their firearms as required by that law), and it actually only dissuades the good guys so the reality is it makes the criminals more safe.
Most people who support the SAFE ACT are only responding to 2nd hand knowledge of what it is and what it does… And therefore don’t have enough knowledge of it to actually take a strong stance and post in support…
Another thing you should take away from your experience of seeing all those signs against the SAFE ACT and none for them should be more obvious and that is that around here most people don’t want it. The metropolis areas where population density is higher is where the support for high restrictions that sacrifice personal capability to own, carry and/or use firearms is more popular, and unfortunately these metro areas have forced restrictions that are more popular in their legislative districts in the rest of the state.
Ulster County was the first county to pass a legislative resolution in opposition to the unSAFE ACT, and then 51 of the 61 other counties in NY followed suit and did the same thing.
As far as a public conversation goes, I don’t equate the unapproved art installation as a conversation. And if anything it is a biased presentation that is divisionary, not conducive to conversation. I will post an email I sent to organizers of the festival after the signs had been taken down.
I can’t paste it into this window so I will send it separately.
I’d rather be subjected to art than killed by a gun.
We are so inundated with reverse language double-talk, backwards narrative appropriations peddled by cynical candidates, we are now at a place where we must doubt every written word. Is it the actual meaning or the flipped meaning? The words aren’t allowed to speak for themselves. We need a bullshit translator for every message now. This art made people wonder what the simplest words mean.
Hey to all the O Positive folks I encountered in uptown Kingston today,
I don’t have an address for Frank, but I think I have Theresa, Denise and Chrissy’s email correct.
I am truly sorry that your signs had to come down.
I will say flatly up front, I am truly happy also because I feel the message is one sided and runs the risk of being accepted as fact, as opposed to being presented as an artist’s interpretation of fact. The presentation was not in a manner that would indicate art and it’s presentation was more like opinionated propaganda in a sort of guerilla marketing campaign.
I do believe, as Denise said, we all have to live together… And further, in my words, engaging in conversation is not only healthy, but necessary…
I feel objective minds putting emotion aside and having logical fact based discussion is the only way to find the common ground that we can build on together and not in spite of each other.
I also respect the right for free speech and the right for posting signs, messages, art, etc… when done within the permitted process’.
I hope that your organization will have that same respect when deciding what to do with the signs that have been removed by the city and returned to your possession…
I am aware of at least one sign that was taken down and repositioned against a headstone in the cemetary. I know it was not placed there in the original installation, as it was seen being placed there after the signs were taken down in the plaza…
The graveyard placement’s intended message is clear, sobering and striking… but again boundaries have been crossed in order to utilize the signage to dispense a message.
I was sincere in my offer to sit down with people to provide and to receive education, experience and exposure to firearms from the vantage point of an Other.
I have two ears and one mouth and I try to remember that is the case in order to listen more than to talk… So I will come into an exchange with an open mind with anyone who is willing to do the same.
I have found that many people do not have the benefit of exposure, experience or education related to firearms and as a result the default is pretty much a reflexive knee-jerk reaction to buy into anti-gun fear-based propaganda that portrays gun owners with negative and scary stereotypes… And on the other side, many who were born into firearms families have an opposing knee-jerk reaction when it comes to the threat of confiscation or outlawing ownership from Others.
The fact is that there is inaccurate agenda on both sides and probably 10 percent on either pole that won’t nudge an inch, and about 80 percent somewhere in the middle…
Anyway… Back to the point… if, as Denise says, you are truly looking to elicite a conversation in the community under the banner of “Others” then a one sided blast of opinion, especially with incorrect or maybe better to say gramatically incorrect information is probably only going to incite polarity and division… And result in a desire to either fight or defend the position that the artist is portraying. An art exhibit of political messaging art signs in a campaign about bringing Others together, that is truly designed to promote conversation, would have a counter balance to elicite positive discussion not force polarity.
I would be happy to work with anyone to find common ground to build on and would appreciate an opportunity to relocate or request the appropriate permissions to reinstall the exhibit so long as it would include a counter balancee message… And I would even be willing to discuss the creation and implementation of a town hall style discussion, either to accompany the exhibit, or separate from the exhibit, that would push forward healthy community discussion.
Thank you,
Elmer LeSuer
To the best of my knowledge this is the first time in this community that there has been any kind of vigorous gun conversation. And putting up 14 posters for an hour in Kingston could hardly be considered a vigorous conversation. Actually the signs say absolutely nothing about the right to bear arms. They simply memorialize the victims of just a few recent mass shootings. Four of the posters address general statistics about gun violence. Guns were created to kill. They can be used for sport as well. These sign simply innumerate situations, all too common, where guns were used to kill. I guess an even sided look would have been to include posters supporting gun ownership, and there are lots of them around the county.
In this instance what actually happened was one point of view was eliminated from the cultural dialog because someone objected to what it seems to have said, or what they interpreted it said, not even actually what it said. The mass murders occurred, guns kill, and violence against women is rampant.
People will always argue about what art is. One thing it should be is thought provoking. I guess we were successful.
Congrats to Ann and Tatana for their thought provoking piece. As a citizen of Kingston who has to run the gamut of NRA sponsored anti-SAFE act signage on a daily basis, I am absolutely thrilled to see a counter dialogue occur within public space. I think it is especially important to note that civil discourse was exactly the original function ascribed to public space by the framers of the constitution and that it is only under the increased dominance of the corporate sector that we’ve seen both this function and the very existence of public space evaporate. All art has always been political (yes, even the Impressionists), whether it reaffirms existing narratives or challenges them, and to think and act otherwise is to engage in the worst form of mystification. For those of you interested in this topic I would highly recommend attending some of the fantastic classes and public lectures at SUNY New Paltz (full disclosure, I work there). It makes me incredibly proud of Kingston to know that it supports this type of work and the incredibly successful O+ festival.
Ann, do you mean art should provoke thoughts as in stimulate teamwork toward solutions or implant thoughts as in divisionary one sided propaganda pitting people against each other? Well, whatever your goal you are correct, your installation was thought provoking… Think how much more productive it could have been though had it been done legally and in a manner that was + instead.
As far as the first vigorous conversation… Maybe you missed the vigorous conversations at the County Legislative meetings where one flooded the room the halls and down the stairs of the glass walled county building in uptown, and another that was moved to UPAC on upper Broadway in anticipation of a large attendance that did in fact did receive a large attendance of 1,000 plus people.
As far as Gun Kill?… Guns dont kill… (guns are inanimate objects incapable of taking an action.) One people realize that guns are not the enemy we can move on to solutions.
And as far as you say one side was eliminated from a dialogue, but the fact is that you only presented one side of a dialogue in your installation. And in truth signage labelled as art does not constitute a real dialogue.
My offer to have a conversation with O+ organizers extends to you and anyone else.
I think understanding what common ground we have instead of assuming and sensationalizing the extreme points of either side will allow for real dialogue and finding common ground that can be built on to find real solutions…
I understand that most people who support the unSAFE ACT do not fully understand that it is or why it is really ineffective at deterring criminals from performing gun violence. Many people are exposed to extremist propaganda and as a result only see a stereotype of gun owners that is negative for many reasons… But engaging and interacting with good gun owners will advance vigorous conversation that will be more productive than divisionary issue based propaganda.
Based on the final product, and the engulfing style of the installation, I don’t believe that you actually intended to or are interested in provoking thought or a 2-way conversation. However, I have an open mind and if I am wrong, my email is posted here. I encourage you and anyone else to contact me, and I will be happy to work toward whatever mutually respectful two sided conversation that you would like to have… Big, small, public, private, with Art, without Art, etc…
Guns are designed to injure severely and kill. All they need is a human being pulling a trigger. Don’t give us that bulldump about guns are inanimate objects. So are knives, so are boulders rolling down a steep hill, and so, supposedly, are automobiles. Put human beings together with any of them and the danger becomes increased–better expressed in terms of the term “risk.”
Now as for the Mayor, he reacted apparently instantly to a wrong report. This is so definitional of Kingston, the gossip and the folks reacting to it(which is more often than not, wrong to begin with, but nobody seems to care about this). Mayor Gallo appears to be behaving not as a man in his 50’s but as a child of 5. Those impulses perhaps need some checking–or at least, please, let’s not allow HIM to have a gun in HIS hands!!
A few last thoughts. Our little signs are in response the the ubiquitous Repeal the SAFE act signs that dot our landscape. That would be one hour of Keep SAFE to years of Repeal SAFE, not my idea of a dialog. I believe the reason that no one has posted KEEP the SAFE act signs before is that the Repeal signs imply a threat. Just like the one that occurred when an open carry fellow parked himself in front of the home of one of the O+ staffers for seven hours once our signs had already been taken down. Putting up those signs was a personal risk. Frankly O+ represented an opportunity to safely make a statement, that didn’t work. After a brief review of city codes no permits are required to place temporary signs. On the issue of what is art. Text as art has a long contemporary history, take a look at Barbara Kurger, Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Rusha, and perhaps our last project the Golden Rule where texts from 13 religions were written in sand along the Wallkill Valley Rail trail.
Less than 1% of AR-15 owners have complied with the SAFE Act’s mandatory registration in NY. Limiting law abiding citizens to 10 round magazines makes no sense to me after I just read of another home invasion with four perpatrators. Why not have an honest debate about the number of beds available to institutionalize, either voluntarily or non voluntarily, people with serious mental health issues. We have one-tenth the capacity to treat compared to Austria, Finland Sweden, England, etc. The number of beds per 100,000 Americans has declined from 374 in 1955 – to just 17 today. Our big pharma’s anti-depresents and anti-psychotic drugs have violent side effects. China just had another 29 innocents butchered with a knife wielding psycho and Australia just had a police officer executed with a gun. You pro SAFE Act people will never be able to confiscate, register or ban evil. Circumventing the Second Ammendment and disarming the American people is immoral. Why else do you think Cuomo pushed the SAFE Act through in the middle of the night without any public comment period? It is a bad law that resulted in resolutions to oppose it from 95% of county legislatures.
NoPolitics, you are arguing out of emotion…
Facts are that guns ARE inanimate objects incapable of taking any action… They don’t need anything… They only exist because we create them… They are a tool that we employ…
I think your point is that they are a tool that can be used to injure severely and kill… But in saying that, they can also be used to defend oneself by pulling the trigger, and sometimes just by presentation without actually even pulling the trigger…
And just as they can put off the threat of invasion from a Japanese general, just the thought of knowing that there may be a firearm present behind every blade of grass can be enough to dissuade a personal attacker, a rapist, a would be home invader, or overzealous tyrant.
As for risk I agree that there is always risk when putting people together with any potentially deadly inanimate tool…
Did you know that according to the FBI’s Publicly published report, in 2011 there were significantly more (like ~60% more) killings by blunt instruments like hammers than by rifles? There were over twice as many by bare hands, and 5X as many by knives…
From The CDC alcohol related deaths were almost 200,000 while all firearm related deaths were almost 34,000… That means alcohol is 6 times more deadly.
Twice as many people have unintentional slip and falls resulting in death than gun murders… 3 times as many die from accidental poisoning, 10 times from unintentional injuries, 17 TIMES AS MANY FROM A MEDICAL ERROR!!!
And while Ann presents above that Violence against women is rampant, it shouldn’t be part of this conversation, because there was only one instance of using a firearm to murder a rape victim in the FBI’s report for 2011. I am not celebrating that fact… The fact that there are any victims is sobering. But it is not a good reason to leave other women who want to defend themselves and their children at a disadvantage. 200,000 women use a firearm to prevent sexual abuse each year.
Here is a source that may surprise you…
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/08/foghorn/infographic-u-s-gun-usage-and-death-statistics/
And whether you believe in Choice or not…
Gun murders are a drop in the bucket compared to Abortions in the United States.
Total number of abortions in the U.S. 1973-2011: 54.5 million+
234 abortions per 1,000 live births (according to the Centers for Disease Control)
Abortions per year: 1.2 million
Abortions per day: 3,288
Abortions per hour: 137
9 abortions every 4 minutes
1 abortion every 26 seconds
-Source: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2969876/posts
And last about the Mayor, I think it is pretty clear that his position is aligned with those of us who would like to reduce and eliminate gun violence. And I am sure once he found out who posted the signs and why they posted the signs, he knew he was in a political pickle. But the fact is that the festival did not have permits that allowed that “Guerilla Marketing” style of installation and with the potential for a lawsuit, he probably saved the city a good chunk of money. He did give them back their signs, rather than confiscating or destroying them, and they were able to be repositioned. So I would say good job Mr. Mayor (At least on this one!) 🙂
I resemble your remark that I am arguing out of emotion(and you are not, simply because you present buchu statistics as a means of misdirecting attention away from focus on the reality, which is that guns are made to injure and kill and they do that rather well). Of course, I’m not arguing your statistics are wrong, but only that you use them as a means of misdirection of attention.
Your argument that a would be attacker just knowing there could be a gun in a house is enough to deter him or her has been shown to be wrong, wrong, wrong. There is no such a meaningful deterrence in either war or conditions where firearm numbers and potential usage. My father was a lawyer and he had so many cases of injuries and so called accidental deaths from firearms it boggles the mind–and this was in an era when we didn’t really have this societal debate as we do today on firearms. He knew very well what the dangers were as did others in the legal profession who had to defend, or in the case of judges, hear such cases. So your argument ignores all of that as well, which is of course convenient for your side of the argument.
Finally, a little history just to re-route the silliness of our conspiracy culture on the death of JFK:the firearm used by Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of President Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 was a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, an Italian rifle that although cheap(less than $13 to purchase in 1963), and used ammunition that was designed to be particularly lethal. We would have been better off as a culture to have started this debate Nov. 22,1963;instead, we are still spinning our wheels, masturbating our minds in continuing to avoid reality as to just how dangerous a society we allow by default, either clinging to or misunderstanding the meaning, history, and purpose of the 2nd Amendment, or preferring the notion that to grasp and obtain straws is at least something, even though these are still straws….
The Aurora shooter traveled past several other movie theaters to get to the one where guns were specifically banned…
Murdering shooters look for sitting ducks, (Just as all criminals look for easy marks and will pass up a potentially tougher target in search of easy pickings…
So yes, the potential for armed resistance to violence does have an effect…
I myself can attest to this as I have been in a position where a very angry aggressor suddenly stopped and retreated upon discovering that I had a firearm… And I did not even take it out of the holster…
The debate goes much further back than 1963… I could suggest a date or two for consideration also… Like primarily December 15, 1791 when the debate on whether American citizens should have the right to bear arms or not was settled with the passage of the 2nd Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights.
You speak about masturbating our minds to avoid reality, yet after acknowledging a bookoo facts (which are a nothing but a countenance of reality), you call them a distraction. If a countenance of reality is a distraction from reality for you, I’d say maybe a break from all the masturbation is in order. 🙂
All puns aside, one of the most frustrating things from a legal gun owners perspective is when people who don’t have education, experience and/or exposure to firearms, set facts aside and buy into the abolitionists agenda propaganda painting a fairy tale land where criminals who will have guns (or other arms/weapons) even if the rest of us do not.
It is also frustrating to see constant ignorance of the reality that the problem is not to be blamed on the firearms, but rather the people using the firearms. Just as spoons don’t cause obesity, and needles don’t create addicts, guns don’t kill people. I am certain that when we see the first instance where a deranged person flies a drone strapped with a can full of nails and explosives right into the stadium and detonates it in the highest populated are possible, we will see a reconsideration of the stance on the reality that the tools used to implement violence are the problem, nor the solution.
And I am also certain that when the cadre of ISIS terrorists storm through a US neighborhood, people will be happy they have firearms both for defense AND FOR OFFENSE.
Like President John F. Kennedy said on January 29, 1961, (another date you may wish to record): “In my own native state of Massachusetts, the battle for American freedom was begun by the thousands of farmers and tradesmen who made up the Minute Men — citizens who were ready to defend their liberty at a moment’s notice. Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. The cause of liberty, the cause of American, cannot succeed with any lesser effort.” Source – http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2983472/posts
JFK Was known to possess two AR’s, (The firearms which were the primary target of the unSAFE ACT), one of which he kept on his boat.
Since we are talking about JFK quotes and dates, here’s one more from SENATOR John F. Kennedy’s statement, “Know Your Lawmakers”, Guns, April 1960, p. 4 (1960): “By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia,’ the ‘security’ of the nation, and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms,’ our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.” Source – http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/2amteach/sources.htm
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And since most people who take umbrage to Not-So Angry Gun Control Opponents like myself, who shatter the abolitionist propaganda that would have you believe the gun violence on women is rampant and criminal gun murders are out of control, I will give another reference to a study that shows gun violence has been dropping for decades.
More fodder for the mental masturbation…
“most Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, today 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% think it is lower.”
“Mass shootings are a matter of great public interest and concern. They also are a relatively small share of shootings overall.”
“there were 31,672 deaths from guns in the U.S. in 2010. Most (19,392) were suicides;”
“The firearm suicide rate (6.3 per 100,000 people) is higher than the firearm homicide rate and has come down less sharply. The number of gun suicide deaths (19,392 in 2010) outnumbered gun homicides, as has been true since at least 1981.”
And there is a lot more…
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/
Interesting, yet more mental masturbation:what Kennedy said was in reference to the military-civilian relationship–not defending one’s person, as the biggest supporters of this crap policy contend. He said it in relation to defending the nation–not defending against criminals, drug dealers, gangs of drug dealers, personal vendettas among wealthy people or powerful people, machinations of Organized Crime(of which he was well aware and his brother formed most of his public policy thereupon). You know, you have no sense of reality in what you say here, no real sense of history, and only cull quotes to make it appear to support your position. And, statistics don’t refute what I said, which is it only takes a person under minimal stress with a firearm to be a deadly weapon. So NONE of what you said in your lengthy tome above makes a dime’s worth of difference in refuting what I said. “When a cadre of ISIS terrorists storm through a US neighborhood….” Oh yeah? This is going to HAPPEN, right? If you are selling this as something that IS going to happen, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale–and it’s very cheap and you can charge tolls on it to get your brain deprogrammed from your political religion here.
The murder rate being down from guns didn’t make it go away, nor will it. And the more guns around the greater the chances it will continue to exist and rise up again. You can count on that too. The main point you make and hit with is the one on abortion and yes, to a lesser extent, hospital errors. However, both are deflection techniques from the core issue of the dangers of guns. Hitler repeated a bunch of lies mixed with some truth as often as you do also, and eventually these became accepted as truth. Nothing new there, either. Kennedy said that the most dangerous thing was not the lie–obvious in its deceit and openly seen for what it is–but the myth, deceptive in nature, mixing truth with falsehood, so as to obscure reality. Congratulations for your mythmaking skills.
And thanks for playing, and we have lovely parting gifts–or will you insist on sticking like Elmer’s Glue?
Thanks Nopolitics, Nothing Elmer has to say can justify maintaining the Status Quo. Getting to a national policy & data base on folks that shouldn’t have access to guns, is a no brainer for most intelligent people. The false, fear mongering NRA notion that “they’re coming for your guns” is obsurd. The Feds could give a sh*t how many “pea shooters” you have, if & when they wanna take you out, you’ll never see it coming.
I’d love to learn more about NoPolitics ” ammunition that was designed to be particularly lethal.” What kind and how was it designed to be particularly lethal?
You can look it up online and find it in one of those forensic studies that set about to evaluate the Warren Commission’s findings scientifically(as opposed to one of those conspiracy oriented, he was shot from the sewer, from the Dal-Tex building, and from five different angles with the Mafia, the CIA, Anti-Castro Cubans, and Joe The Plumber all in on the action- type propaganda). The design of the Mannlicher-Carcano bullets is such that it is thin mixed with thick, and somehow this leads to a particularly lethal strike on a person’s body. The Mannlicher-Carcano was made in Italy, and was the weapon used by Oswald to shoot JFK to death and wound John Connally. The “single bullet theory”(or so called “theory”) has been scientifically proven multiple times, and one of the reasons is this ammunition shot by this rifle is particularly good at passing through bodies. So all of that has been proven, much to the chagrin of the profiteering and popular conspiracy ideas of the JFK Assassination. Now as far as guns being merely a “tool we employ” –so is a screwdriver. Most of the time a screwdriver is not lethal. But if I use a hammer instead the risk of lethality goes up. If I use an axe it goes up even more. If I use a handgun, even more. And if I use a rifle–still more yet. Lesuer doesn”t grasp this concept.
Anyone can see JFK being lifted up & back by the bullet striking his throat as he emerges from behind the sign in the Zapruda film. The ER doctors, still living, all testified that the throat wound was an “entrance” wound, info that the Warren Commission suppressed. Completely blows the “single bullet theory” out the window. From JFK to 9/11, Coup d’tat in Amerika by the CIA & Military Industrial Complex is still relevant. The same scum that took out JFK are still at work. The systematic murder of liberal leaders since then has been no tragic accident, RIP; JFK, MLK, RFK, JFKjr, Lennon & Paul Wellstone, among many other unsung heros of the left.
Well, all standard conspiracy thinking, but all completely wrong. A bullet from a rifle slowed down by ace bandages–that’s a real DOOZY(please don’t go into forensic medicine)!! The “pristine” slug was not pristine at all–standard conspiracy lie 1. Because something is wobbling and rolling travelling at high speed such as a bullet makes it MORE damaging to the body–not less(no reality in that statement either). The doctors never had time to do a great analysis of whether this was an entrance wound or not–they were trying to save his life and that’s why the wound was destroyed by a tracheotomy(wasn’t to cover up the vast conspiracy). Get real and then come back to voices of reason. We’ll be here–maybe, but this is Kingston so….you may have to find us with a magnifying glass….LOL “Unsung” heroes of the left? MLK is an unsung hero? JFK is an “unsung hero”? RFK is an “unsung hero”? And JFK Jr.–he is an unsung hero, granted, but what did HE do that would have made him so much of an image of a hero? Attempt to fly a small plane at night as an inexperienced pilot as a playboy type individual? Man, the ridiculousness here oozes and oozes.
PS: The Mannlicher-Carcano Italian rifle was known by the Allies as a great “humanitarian” rifle due to it’s slow & inacurate qualities. The bullets all tend to wobble & roll, so if you were lucky enough to hit something, yea, it could do some damage, but not much. The “pristine” slug they pulled off JFKs cart, had no doubt fallen out of the 1st shot that hit him nearly 5 inches below the neck line & incapable of exiting through his throat. It had been slowed down further by the many layers of ace bandage that JFK was wrapped in, from his thighs to his chest, for his back pain.
Oh, and let me clarify your observation that the Zapruder(correct spelling of the man who took the film, ie, Abraham Zapruder) film shows JFK being lifted up. Not at all. JFK’s arms are lifted to his throat and his coat in the back was already bunched up because he was waving(which explains the bullet entry in the shirt and coat, which conspiracy freaks also get wrong)and he was wearing a back brace. He also lurches backwards after the fatal shot to the head, which is evidence of a neurospasm, which happens to be good science. After he is hit in the back, he moves forward a bit and then to the left(but not dramatically since the back brace is holding him up). So you are wrong again, but only because the conspiracy culture wants to you be wrong and posits lie after lie to make you believe in this baloney). Forensic testing of that rifle and bullets make it plain JFK could NOT have been struck that day from the front, and the wounds he received recorded in the manner they were. Just wasn’t possible. So despite all the ways the conspiracy freaks try to convince folks otherwise, it just never happened. Oswald did it. WHY he did it is still open to some question, inasmuch as there was all kinds of intrigue and motives from anti-Castro Cubans as well as pro-Castro Cubans, and there is one credible story used by conspiracists to show that Oswald had contact with Anti-Castro Cubans prior to the assassination. Otherwise, there is zero evidence of conspiracy. J. Edgar Hoover’s whole baby, ie, the FBI, was on the line and he would never have risked losing credibility by missing something. Folks fail to think of that, but the FBI was Hoover’s own creation and his lifelong dedication. Only a fool would claim that after all that, Hoover would have taken such a risk. He didn’t. No conspiracy. Motive not clear? Yeah–but no conspiracy in carrying out the deed.
Disinformation aside, the entrance wound in his back was at T-3, no where near his neck. You can’t blow off the ER nurses & doc’s written reports that easily. You must be in a deep state of denial if you can’t see JFK being lifted up & back after emerging from behind the sign. It’s quite obvious he’s been hit in the throat as he starts clutching at it, even Jackie stated how he started making gurgling noises as he fell forward at that point. So clearly, even if the bullet was possible to pass thru & hit Connolly, you still can’t account for the numerous frames later that it took Connolly to react to being hit. The “unsung” heros are the ones we don’t know about. JFKjr, quit George Mag & declared his intentions to go into politics, the MIC couldn’t allow that.
Conspiratorial disinformation aside, the nurses and doctors in the ER were trying to save the man’s life– not run a forensic autopsy. Texas authorities were supposed to do that and in fact by law were responsible for doing that, but instead, the Secret Service fought hospital personnel and basically stole the body. That was the first forensic mistake of some magnitude. Was it done to cover up some deep dark secret? No. It was done in the heat of the moment to assuage the loss by the family and nation. As for the numerous frames it took Connally to react to being hit, this is accounted for twofold:numerous frames is not that long a time–just a couple seconds at most–and there is some delay, although granted not that much, in reaction time. So your insistence this “proves” anything besides Oswald and Oswald alone remains wrong. And your insinuation the single bullet has NOT been proven–and proven beyond ANY doubt(not merely a “shadow of a doubt”).
But take heart, friend, there IS hope for you–and all like you in this regard, for I was too once enthralled by the suspicions surrounding the thing as you are. Join my support group and you CAN recover from your conspiratorial delusions in the JFK Assassination–many of us HAVE!!
Your statements make things easy for coercive Psychiatry to paint you as “paranoid and delusional.” You just stated things that could easily get you about five years on the mental ward on Mary’s Ave. in Kingston–maybe ten, if John Mitchell were doing the ‘sentencing.”
I guess that settles it, lol.
Oh touche’—you got me there. Bang and I’m dowwwwn!!