Gun crazy nation....

I begin today by pointing to a posting I made a few days ago from Truthdig...

"Those who retreat into fantasy cannot be engaged in rational discussion  for fantasy is all that is left of their tattered self-esteem.  When their myths are attacked as untrue it triggers not a discussion of facts and evidence but a ferocious emotional backlash."
---Chris Hedges

From Daily Kos...

[The following from Neal Boortz]

[Atlanta] harbors an urban culture of violence. And I want you to look around. You drive into the city. The railroad overpass is on the downtown connector covered with graffiti. And that-- That is just an advertisement for everybody coming into this town that we really don't give a damn about those who would screw up our quality of life around here. We really just don't care. We don't care enough to paint over graffiti on the overpasses that come into our city, advertising welcome to Atlanta, here's some of our finest graffiti, from some of our finest urban thugs and their little gang signs. And pick up the paper tomorrow morning. Read about all the carjackings. Read about the innocent people shot for the pure de-hell of it.

This town is starting to look like a garbage heap. And we got too damn many urban thugs, yo, ruining the quality of life for everybody. And I'll tell you what it's gonna take. You people, you are - you need to have a gun. You need to have training. You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta. We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city. And let their -- let their mommas -- let their mommas say, "He was a good boy. He just fell in with the good crowd." And then lock her ass up.
--Neal Boortz, June 14, 2011

[And this from Daily Kos in response]

On the evening of Jan. 28, a group of four young Latinos, three of them local high school students in the Atlanta suburb of Lilburn, drove into the driveway of who they thought was a friend they were going to pick up to go ice skating. Unfortunately, their navigation system took them to the wrong house, and they paid a horrible price for their mistake when the homeowner came out of his house with a pistol, killed the driver, and held the three terrified passengers at gunpoint until police arrived to sort out the situation.

The assailant, 69-year-old war veteran and former pastor Phillip Sailors, claims to be horrified at the loss of life: He claims that he simply assumed that the young men were there to invade his house, and maintains his innocence on that basis. Unfortunately for Sailors, self-defense cannot possibly justify his actions, at least according to the narrative of the incident produced by the three passengers who were lucky to escape with their own lives: