Police have shot and killed a 6 year old boy multiple times in Louisiana. The proliferation of gun violence in our country and the rampant police brutality are directly related. They are all part of a culture of violence that this country has had since its founding.
The Advocate reports, that the 6-year-old, Jeremy David Mardis, of Effie, “was killed by multiple gunshot wounds to the head and torso. He was pronounced dead at the scene, Avoyelles Parish Coroner L.J. Mayeaux said Wednesday. The boy was a student at Lafargue Elementary in Effie.”
The shooting took place on Martin Luther King Drive in Marksville. It happened “at the end of a pursuit and involved multiple city marshals from Ward 2,” according to Louisiana State Police spokesman Trooper Daniel “Scott” Moreau.
Typically for such "official story" accounts, the police blame the father for running from the police in the first place.
Police shootings like this one and shootings like this one in San Diego, where a gunman in a domestic violence dispute grounded flights going into that city, are directly related. After all, if people see folks in authority committing acts of violence, then that sends the message to certain people that violence is an acceptable way of solving problems.
Much of the discussion about violence has focused on guns. But violence and serial killings have taken place well before guns were thought up in the Western world. For instance, the legendary Guy of Gisborne, in certain accounts about Robin Hood, was reputed to be a notorious killer who would savagely murder anyone for pay. One recent attack involved a person who attacked and stabbed five different people before he was shot and killed by police. Therefore, we have to focus on the causes of violence in and of itself, not just on guns, although that is important as well.
While access and availability to guns is one of the main factors causing gun violence, poverty was also listed as a factor in an article from USA Today from last year.
Economic factors also appear to be related to firearm deaths. The poverty rate in eight of the 10 states with the most gun violence was above the national rate of 15.8%. Mississippi, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Arkansas, the states with the four highest poverty rates in the country, were among the states with the most gun violence.
Educational attainment rates also tended to be lower in states with the most gun violence. The share of adults with at least a bachelor's degree was lower than the national rate of 29.6% in all 10 states on this list.
Other research done has shown that mental health is not a factor in gun violence; in fact, people with mental health issues are much more likely to be victims than perpetrators. But even if you don't agree that access and availability to guns causes gun violence, reasonable people can agree that focusing on lifting people out of poverty along with raising the levels of education will reduce the rate of gun violence in this country.
However, since we are focusing on violence in general, we have to start with our government. And in that regard, our government is setting a terrible example; case in point being Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and the push by the GOP along with certain corporate "Democrats" to start a war with Iran. People do not look at words; they look at examples. So if our government and our politicians are constantly advocating violence as a means of solving our world problems, then how can we reasonably expect our people to steer clear of violence in solving their personal problems?
And if the saying is true that bad company corrupts good character, we need look no farther than Israel, which is not our friend in any way, shape, or form. Case in point -- they have developed a seven pound drone that they are selling to anybody, including Russia and China, willing to upgrade their military weaponry.
It's been clear for years that the next phase in military drone technology would be to go small, because the game-changing potential of these tiny drones is clear: In the past, soldiers have been able to take cover behind a wall or a ridge, or by digging a foxhole. Loitering munitions like Hero, which can attack from any direction, strip away this cover. The only place to hide would be inside a bunker. With other weapons you know when someone is firing at you, and where they are. With Hero there is no muzzle flash or report and it can be launched from miles away. Enemy snipers and mortar teams can be engaged from a safe distance and behind cover.
These days, the Israeli drone industry produces a wide range of aircraft and is believed to have exported them to some 49 countries. The list includes not only the U.S. and U.K., but also Russia and China. With the Hero-30, Baron says, the company has had interest from "armies from all around the world."
And so if Israel is to be sacrosanct and above criticism, then no wonder people are applying that to their own dealings. The gun industry is doing the same thing as Israel is doing, by selling to any and all comers. And if you think that the examples of our leaders are not carrying over to our population, then I've got a bridge to sell you.
Last year, US News did an article about a book by Gary Haugen, "The Locust Effect." While other studies focus on poverty as a cause of violence, Mr. Haugen argues in his book that it is the other way around as well. He focuses on international aid programs:
This is what we call everyday violence in the developing world. So, it’s not the result of armies or massive conflicts. It’s actually the result of daily violence perpetrated by criminals in poor communities: stronger people in the community who commit sexual assaults, business [owners] who hold poor people in slavery, local police officers who extort money. And this violence is unleashed by the absence of any functioning law enforcement to restrain these perpetrators.
We see this in places like Baltimore as well, where the police are refusing to enforce laws in response to the outcry against police brutality there.
[There’s been a failure] to address the violence that steals the benefits of aid away. The reason we call this the locust effect is that the locusts come through, and they not only destroy the fruits of farm work, but it’s also true that the farm work doesn’t stop the locusts. In the same way, our traditional poverty alleviation efforts – of education, hunger programs, clean water and shelter – the fruits of those efforts [are] frequently stolen away by violent bullies in the community. We need to face that those traditional efforts to help the poor just are never designed to stop the violence. So the poor – who are finding themselves with their income stolen, their opportunity stolen, their freedom stolen, their health stolen by violence – will not be able to move forward, and are not moving forward, without justice systems that will protect them.
We see this problem here in the US. Like the third world countries that Mr. Haugen focuses on, the Police State apparatus here in the US is increasingly focused on protecting the government and the corporate interests from the people, not the people from crime.
The first thing that must happen is the developed world must throw off its colonial law enforcement systems: The systems of policing and courts which have been set up to protect the government from the common people rather than to protect the common people from crime, need to be re-engineered for this new post-colonial purpose. Secondly, people with wealth and power must stop their withdrawal from the public justice system and reinvest in [it] instead of building up a parallel private system of security. Thirdly, the international community needs to prioritize investment in criminal justice systems in the developing world that will actual help poor people.
We see this withdrawal by the 1% from our communities here in the US as well. More and more are living in gated communities, trying to "reform" our schools through privatization, moving trillions of dollars offshore to tax havens elsewhere, hiring private security firms instead of investing in the police, and extracting as much as possible from the have-nots.
If we are to end the cycle of poverty and violence, we have to focus on the structural violence that our government is permitting as well as the physical violence that Mr. Haugen addresses in his book. As one example, UK students hit the streets in protest against the structural violence that the Cameron government is committing against them through requiring them to borrow more money to pay for college. In response, the London police engaged in rioting against the students, a perfect example of them protecting the government against the people rather than protecting the people against those who would exploit them for profit.
Another example that we are not supposed to talk about that I will talk about anyway -- millions of Americans are now denied access to banking services because they are somehow deemed disposable by the big shots in the banking industry. If you overdraw a checking account or have filed for bankruptcy, certain banks will say, "screw you, we're not doing any business with you," and refuse to let you open an account with them. That's not the exact language they will use, but the meaning is clear. They share information into one of two major reporting systems that is similar to the credit score system used to evaluate customers for loans and credit, but one that is much more secretive. One person, for instance, could not get a banking account simply because they had written a single $40 overdraft check several years before. This, incidentally, can be used as a backdoor effort by certain banks to engage in discrimination against Blacks, for instance.
Since money is now apparently free speech in the eyes of the Supreme Court, the priorities of our Republican politicians in Washington are abundantly clear -- create a massive corporate welfare state for the 1% while the rest of us can either sink or swim. The Koch Brothers, for instance, while ranting and raving about the evils of Big Government, are happy to take in millions of dollars in federal money annually. I wrote about a plan to give us all a basic income dividend worth around $30,000 a year; however, even a smaller plan based on licensing and regulatory fees for public spectrum and property worth several thousand a year would work. Since money is now free speech, that would be a moral position to take, unlike the fake outrage that Republican politicians show over the alleged destruction of babies through abortion and parallel lack of concern for babies who are actually brought into this world. Basic Income, a living wage, and single payer healthcare would lift people out of poverty and address the problem of violence in our country.
However, these policies, although necessary, would not solve all our problems with gun violence or other forms. That is because access to guns is another factor in gun violence; for instance, Alaska (according to the USA Today link) has the highest violent crime rate in the country even though it also has one of the lowest poverty rates in the country. That state does not require a permit to buy a handgun, which is a major factor. Also, another factor is specific to the state; since Alaska is the most remote state in the union, many people do not have access to law enforcement, which means they are much more likely to take matters into their own hands.
This means that effectively solving the problem of violence in our country involves demilitarizing our country, renouncing the use of regime change to topple foreign governments along with the use of drones, and changing the mission of our law enforcement so that their mission is to protect the people from violent crime rather than to perpetuate a system wherein they protect the government and the 1% from the people. Furthermore, while President Obama's recent steps in this regard are steps in the right direction, we must change the nature and mission of our prison system -- it must be used to house the violent criminals and white collar criminals who have the potential to steal from millions behind a corporate desk rather than the non-violent criminals who we are currently housing.