–If President Obama really wants to reduce gun violence . . .

Mitchell’s laws:
●The more federal budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Austerity is the government’s method for widening the gap between rich and poor, which leads to civil disorder.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the upper 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
●The penalty for ignorance is slavery.
●Everything in economics devolves to motive.
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Jesus: “All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”
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In a June 22, 2011 post titled, “Actually, the 2nd Amendment doesn’t legalize private gun ownership, but so what? There is a solution to gun violence,” I wrote:

Chicago was home to one of the most murderous neighborhoods in America. It was called “Cabrini Green,” ironically named after Mother Cabrini. For three weeks, in 1981, then Mayor Jane Byrne, moved into Cabrini Green. She was surrounded by police. For that period, murders ended, demonstrating that sufficient numbers of police greatly can reduce the murder rate in even the worst area.

I also wrote:

I suggest that Congress and the individual states pass an “aid and abet” law that reads: “If a gun of any type and/or ammunition for that gun, is used in the commission of a felony, the manufacturer, distributor, importer and/or supplier of that gun and/or ammunition, shall be liable, civilly and criminally, in equal measure with the perpetrator of the felony.”</

I was wrong, or at least partially wrong, for focusing on the penal side of gun control without acknowledging the fundamental cause of gun violence.

Chicago, my hometown, notoriously has suffered from gun violence, most of it in its south and west sides, where the majority are lower income people, and where gun ownership is highest. Although more police are concentrated in these areas, their presence has not been sufficient to stop gun crime, or even slow it to reasonable levels.

Near Chicago, you’ll find a series of suburbs, together known as the “North Shore.” Aside from being north of, and close to, Chicago, they share two features: They are affluent and they are low crime, especially low violent crime.

The primary crimes seem to be exceeding the speed limit, DUI, illegal drug sales in high school and burglary. Gun crime is so rare as to rate headlines in the Chicago newspapers. In Wilmette, the southernmost of the North Shore villages, most burglaries are committed by people coming up from Evanston, a far less affluent suburb, which has a far higher crime rate.

The people on the North Shore are not killing each other. Drive-by shootings are unheard of. Very few people feel the need to carry a gun on the street, and “Stand your ground” is not an issue. Why?

The pattern is clear and undeniable: Gun crime is most often committed by people from the lower economic groups. The other pattern that is clear and undeniable: Despite NRA claims, gun ownership does not prevent gun crime; in fact, gun ownership exacerbates the problem.

In short, gun crime is due to the income/wealth gaps between the economic groups, and the lower the group, the more gun crime it will suffer.

Although periodic mass shootings in schools attract national headlines, those are not symptomatic of daily gun crime. Those mass shootings are symptomatic of individual mental breakdowns; gun crime is symptomatic of financial need – two completely unrelated problems.

When the NRA demagogs claim that arming school teachers is the best way to protect our children, they simply are wrong, and they know it. Adding guns consistently and predictably increases gun crime. Homes, neighborhoods and towns that have guns are more likely to encounter gun violence.

The NRA has the statistics, but they are paid to ignore or to lie about them. Rather than spending millions to convince America that more guns = more safety, the NRA would do its members a great service by focusing on the fundamental reason for gun crime: The gap.

It is the gap in income, the gap in wealth, the gap in education, the gap in health, the gap in food and shelter and in hope and opportunity. Those are the gaps that cause gun violence.

When President Obama and Congress eliminate jobs and cut spending on Social Security, Medicaid and other social programs, they essentially are creating criminals and putting guns in their hands. The real criminals are those who voted for deficit reduction, and those who vote for its continuance.

The focus should not be on gun ownership or gun registration or background checks or shotguns in school or on the 2nd Amendment. The focus should not be on the guns at all. Perhaps the NRA is onto something when they say, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” The focus should be on people.

If President Obama really wants to reduce gun violence, he will focus on increasing deficit spending for social programs to reduce the gaps.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

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Nine Steps to Prosperity:
1. Eliminate FICA (Click here)
2. Medicare — parts A, B & D — for everyone
3. Send every American citizen an annual check for $5,000 or give every state $5,000 per capita (Click here)
4. Long-term nursing care for everyone
5. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
6. Salary for attending school (Click here)
7. Eliminate corporate taxes
8. Increase the standard income tax deduction annually
9. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99%

No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption – Net Imports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY