TruthToTell, Monday Sept 3 - 9AM: GUNS: Rampant Killing Is Now a Pandemic; TruthToTell Aug 27: WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR SENIORS?: Costs of aging in Minnesota

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The world's gone mad.
 
No, make that the United States of America. With nearly 14,000 people dying
from gun-related killings every year in this country – and lately we've
witnessed some blatantly public series of killings - too often than not by
ex-military personnel - almost every week for months now, outspoken voices in
almost every sector - but Washington - are calling for some - SOME – kind of
control over the incredible arsenals being sold and acquired as in no other
nation in the world.
 
Consider, as if you could forget:
 
There have been at least 60 mass killings in the last 30 years—and most of the
killers got their guns legally.
 
In addition to the shootings occurring in cities across the US every day in
pockets of urban poverty, where the law of desperate, resigned and survivalist
reigns, demanding an eye for an eye in street terms, come these more visible
realities that have thus far moved no one to action:
 
• Five-year-old Nizzel George was shot and killed through the wall while he
slept on a couch in his grandmother's north Minneapolis home. Two teenagers
have been charged with murder in connection with the shooting. Even now, the
victim’s and accused’s families have been at each other’s throats inside and
outside the courtroom.
 
• And recently, Malcolm Jackson, 16, was sent to prison for 25 years for the
gun murder of Trequan Sykes, 16.
 
• An 8-year-old rural Dassel boy (condition unknown at this moment) was taken
by ambulance to Meeker Memorial Hospital and later transported to Children’s
Hospital in Minneapolis on Thursday afternoon after he was accidentally shot in
the head at his home with a black powder .44-caliber handgun by a sibling. The
bullet had ricocheted off the ground and then hit the boy in the head.
 
• After work on Aug 14, Hamline University computer engineer student Aung Thu
Bo and his girlfriend went to meet Steven Lewis, a convicted felon at a
public location to buy a iPhone listed for sale on Craigslist, his mother said.
Steven E. Lewis, 26, of Maplewood was charged in Ramsey County District Court
with second-degree murder and aggravated robbery in connection.
 
• We still don't know precisely what led a radical right gunman to murder six
people at a Sikh templein Milwaukee slightly over a week ago. The murders were
an assault on peace, and on a religion that values complete equality and
non-confrontation and which gives women equal status.
 
• A disgruntled former apparel designer, 58-year-old Jeffrey Johnson, was
killed August 24 in a hail of police gunfire in front of the Empire State
Building after he shot and killed a co-worker and engaged in a gun battle with
two officers. At least nine others were wounded in the incident as the officers
unloaded 14 rounds at the gunman, who apparently turned his weapon against them
in one of Manhattan's busiest neighborhoods. The violence erupted just as
visitors began to queue up to ascend the famous New York skyscraper.
 
• Just this past Thursday or Friday, three more people died after an employee
at the Old Bridge, NJ, Pathmark store, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle and an
automatic pistol opened fire inside the store early this morning, killing two
young store workers before turning one of the weapons on himself.
 
• James Holmes murders 12 moviegoers and wounds umpteen others in a Colorado
movie theater showing a Batman film last month.
 
• The January 8, 2011, wounding of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in Tucson
(not to mention the several bystanders – some children – who were killed).
 
• Then – all the school shootings and the McDonald’s massacre – over and over
in many parts of the country. The mentally ill Army officer at Fort Hood,
Texas. All over the last decade or so.
Deadly weapons – guns of every shape and character and capability – are
amazingly simple to buy or acquire.
 
As one commentator extolled, the hate and intolerance in a nation built on the
precepts of equality and diversity are an equal threat, and, by extension, to
our very democracy itself.
 
And not a whimper from this President or any of the 435 Congressman cowering
from theNRA as if giving license to more of the truly sick men settling grudges
with one of the - get this now - 8,500,000 guns being made here or imported
EVERY YEAR in this country.Japan - who kicked off the Pacific Theater of World
War II with its very successful attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 now
BANS firearms for its millions of citizens and there are TWO gun-related
killings there per year.
 
More than 129,817 federally licensed firearms dealers peddle these
weapons,according to the latest Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives (ATF)numbers (Aug. 1) – almost as many dealers as there are grocery
stores in the United States. Of those, 51,438 are retail gun stores, 7,356 are
pawn shops and 61,562 are collectors (who buy and sell guns on a regular
basis). This is not to mention the unlicensed and unregulated sales of weapons
at gun shows, thousands sold without required background checks.
 
Needless to say, as so many observers have noted: gun murders – none of them in
defense of hearth and home, as the conceal and carry bunch insist justifies the
freedom to wield weapons of indiscriminate destruction – have become epidemic
in the United States – the fourth highest rate of gun fatalities on the planet
– and the highest among the top industrial nations by the thousands.
 
Public support for reform of gun laws seesaws back and forth – waxes and wanes
– as one of the very public mass killings is first reported, then moves off the
front page. Not so with those up for election this year – and that’s just about
every office in the land, except some governors, including Minnesota’s. What
might happen once the General Election is behind them – and us – is anyone’s
guess. Will courage not present now suddenly surface after November 4th?
 
But the sheer frequency of such episodes now seems to be taking hold of reason
among the masses – likely, even, among supporters of the Second Amendment’s
so-called right to bear arms. The question may be whether the NRA’s hammerlock
on the nation’s elected officials and other policymakers has been loosened by
the rapidly increasing carnage by possibly deranged young and not-so-young men
(all of them thus far are men), most of whom seem to have served on the killing
fields of one war or another and have come home in a deadly state of mind.
 
TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI talk with two of those active and
immersed in the area of gun ownership and misuse:
 
GUESTS:
 
HEATHER MARTENS – President, ProtectMinnesota (or Citizens for a Safer
Minnesota).
 
STATE SEN. JOHN HARRINGTON – newly appointed Chief of the Metropolitan Transit
Police; former Chief of Police for St. Paul, MN; and Founder/Board Chair,
Ujamaa Place (for retrieving young African American men from a downward spiral
and breeding success).
 
MOST RECENT SHOW::
 
TruthToTell Aug 27: WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR SENIORS?: Costs of aging in
Minnesota - PODCAST HERE: <http://bit​.ly​/TTT​-ElderIssues>
 
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It’s the been the talk of demographers and advocates for many years: Boomers
are aging, becoming part of the dominant demographic of our time while the
economy continues to tank and conservative political pressures seem hell-bent
on keeping it that way – as long as the 1% gets theirs.
 
Even as the economics of aging are playing against self-sufficiency, especially
in a job market committed to younger, if less stable, workers, life expectancy
expands for various reasons. It grows more difficult for aging Minnesotans to
find work, retain jobs and contribute to the economy well beyond that very
arbitrary retirement deadline set by science society a very long time ago – and
long since rendered by nature as generally too young to wrap up one’s working
life – with the exception of those rare birds who can both afford and wish to
live another thirty to fifty years in the lap of luxury and/or leisure.
 
If 60 if the new 50 and 70 is the new 55, what the hell are all these people
going to do for the rest of their much longer lives? While the gap separating
men and women’s life expectancy has narrowed, women are still many years longer
the men on average.
 
And what about women, in particular, who remain too far behind men in the wages
and salaries earned, but who are and always have lived up to 20% longer than
men, in general, and are thus needing even more opportunity for taking home
enough money to stay alive, live independently in their own homes or
apartments? Women are struggling mightily against economic pressures that
multiply as they age.
 
We have a strange norm at work here. Because age 65 has been for the longest
time a benchmark for retirement, Social Security and Medicare, we have
developed a society that labels its citizens 65 and over as all but senile when
well more than half of us are perfectly suited to productive work. And we vote.
And we remember. Why, even 3M – the granddaddy of Minnesota’s largest
corporations – still forces its chief executive out at age 65.
 
Judges must retire by age 70. Some do so earlier, but with the exponential rise
in caseloads for every level of the courts, instead of raising the mandatory
retirement age to more like 75 or 80 (with caveats for some of the exigencies
of aging as a militating factor), they turn most retired judges into “senior
judges.” Senior status keeps these men and women on the bench long after
officially retiring.
 
These are just examples. And some of the other issues confronting seniors in
direct relation to their aging are the costs of prescription drugs. Part D
Medicare still requires that the so-called Medicare gap be filled with
out-of-pocket burdens that can break the bank for the next few years - although
the Affordable Healthcare Act appears to eliminate the gap and provide
continuous drug coverage starting a couple of years from now.
 
Still, the cost of these drugs, especially some brand name pharmaceuticals not
yet lapsing into generics and often suffered by the chronically ill. For
example: there is NO generic substitute for the very effective AdVair asthma
steroidal inhaler – so, without insurance coverage, the total cost per month
can exceed $200 for each diskus. Its worse for the most effective inhalant for
chronic pulmonary patients – those with emphysema and other breathing disorders
– where, without insurance, the monthly cost is almost $300. There are worse
examples, but if a doctor were to say to a patient with COPD that he or she
should use both drugs, that’s a $500 bill for just two of the drugs that may be
keeping some patients alive and independent.
 
That’s why US drug companies hate the Canadian connection where the same – and
generic – version (tiotropium) – IS available for about $22 per month through
RxRights.org. Even the brand, Spiriva, costs less than $68 a month..
 
Employment and economic security for seniors and, especially women, but for all
of our aging population as well as the costs associated with maintaining good
health under the United States medical system fairly scream for reform – reform
resisted by those who work on behalf corporate interests of one kind or another
– are this week’s topics of discussion with advocates from ElderNomics and
Mature Voices/RxRights.org.
 
TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI carry on this conversation with
ourguests:
 
BONNIE WATKINS, Executive Director, Eldernomics Minnesota; former Executive
Director, Minnesota Women’s Consortium
 
LEE GRACZYK, Executive Director, Mature Voices Minnesota and RxRights.org
 
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