Thursday, July 20, 2006

...and frankly, next summer I'm looking forward to just chilling on patios... ;)





Hi [---],

While I'm not familiar with the book or incidents you mentioned, I'm glad I am now, and yes - I'm afraid this is "real".

We can all see our leaders appearing powerless to stop or slow down this "new" onslaught of global terrorism that appeared to come out of nowhere to replace "Communism", and the reason is they don't want to: they and their elite financial backers are greatly empowered by keeping people scared, and they can legislate significant changes in this atmosphere that may be incredibly difficult to undo later.

It's amazing to understand the "elite's" sphere of influence, and it's very similar to that of an adult and a small child: the elite are like adults who wield tremendous amounts of power and control over the systems and institutions we have in place, and can choose to freely disregard or circumvent them; we are children who are very much beholden to the structure and certainty these self-same systems provide, and can lose our grip on reality when we learn those systems are flawed and dangerous.

It's kind of like realizing you have abusive parents, and can be very traumatic.

I've been studying this for a couple of years now, and have argued various aspects with a variety of laypersons, economists, politicians, activists, journalists, PhD's, and many others. In fact, I'm being paid (but not that much) to be on a panel of experts tonite discussing "hip hop" and "dub poetry" (the latter a Jamaican style of rhythmic spoken word) and related topics of culture, activism and politics, and the people who've invited me know that I'm into exposing the above nonsense as well.

I'm also interning at a radio station, and again - they know the "other side" of what I believe. I don't have to bring it up all the time (and don't), but making it (e.g. "this is all a big lie!") an organic and natural part of my existence is a key to being at peace with it. In casual conversation I will calmly make the corrections I deem worthy of making at the appropriate times, and most people today suspect their government and media are lying to them anyway, so they're usually appreciative of being informed of any elements of "truth" they can get.

(Sometimes with friends and family I go a little nuts, but I also feel I have more latitude to speak more freely and can better gauge "public" attitudes towards this kind of information in it's rawest form.)

I don't want to be right, but I'm afraid no one that can prove me wrong, so we're in a bit of trouble.

But hey, at least I'm not confused into hating the wrong people...

Now - I'd love to be proven wrong, just so I can hang out on patios and have beers with my friends. But, I'm afraid I can't spare as much time to enjoy the beautiful (and fleeting) summer as I'd like...

There is hope however, and since [---] asked me for some and instead I doubled the despair (sorry!), I thought I'd include [---], [---] and [---] here since we're having a separate discussion already.

(Well, it's mostly just me writing or ranting thousands of words, but you know, that's just what I do... ;)

In the documentary "TerrorStorm" itself on Google Video, you saw how the people of Madrid, Spain rejected the media's portraly of their government staging "terror" attacks in the fake "Madrid Bombings". The public rallied against their media and government so strongly it forced them to admit that it was an inside job - AND - they pulled their troops out of Iraq!

You can also see the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine where the people made sure the leader they elected was selected to lead; and Hugo Chavez doling oil money and land out to poor people in Venezuela and building his own version of "CNN" to combat the CIA and other intelligence agencies influence on all the major media of the world.

Congress winning the Indian elections wasn't a bad step either, as at least there are some links to "left" or "liberal" or "progressive" groups who helped get them elected. That's also why I tried to support John Kerry in 2004: sure like all Presidents (especially since the last decent one got JFKilled) he'd be an evil servant of elite interests, but at least we'd have existing communications channels between grassroots organizations that helped put him in power and his campaign to pester him for postive change.

Now no one has Bush's phone number, not that he'd listen anyway... :(

In fact, the U.S.-backed candidate just "stole" the election in Mexico in the exact same way that Bush stole America's in 2000 and 2004 - and publicly, so what they can get away with (and historically have gotten away with) in full-view of the world boggles the mind...

Either way, we know, I've known for a while now and want to speed up the process of acting: calmly test out sharing this information with a few people, refine your approach, and confidently move forward at your own speed.

If you're happy, calm, confident, knowledgeable and passionate you'll be fine, and all you have to really do is prove that your worldview makes you "happier" than the conventional one, it's tough at first, but when you see what willfully ignorant and/or miserable messes many people are these days, it's not really that hard.

People think that learning this stuff is depressing: it's not.

Not learning it, and being poisoned by a mass media system that's deliberately trying to anger and confuse you into supporting endless wars, domestic tyranny, and the killing of millions of innocent people, well... to me that's just waaaay more depressing.

It took me a long time to come around, but I realize what's at stake: history tells us that "dark" periods have lasted for hundreds of years with half the tools and weapons our current leaders have to enslave us.

However, today we have twice as many tools and weapons (non-violent ones like email and Google Video!) to help us remain "free", and frankly next summer I'm looking forward to just chilling on patios... ;)

Love, BK







Peace by preparing for peace...
BK

______________________

...

Black Krishna Brand

Philosophy - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/

Music - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/blackkrishna.htm

...

P.S. Watch "TerrorStorm" on Google Video!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5948263607579389947


P.P.S. Check this out too while you still can!

Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment -- a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you -- based on what site pays them the most. If the public doesn't speak up now, our elected officials will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/











Wednesday, July 19, 2006

It appears we have to turn to each other for help, and that's not such a bad idea... ;)

The Metro, Weekend Edition, July 14 - 16, 2006

Page 06







The Metro, Weekend Edition, July 14 - 16, 2006

Page 06 - close up






Hi [---],

The glass is certainly half-full, and much like a great big swimming pool we can certainly enjoy splashing around and having fun in it.

I just had a nice lunch of Greek food and a coffee with a buddy, and this morning a couple of us had a wonderful meeting with an executive who says that giving our project more money isn't a problem, and that if we want more we can ask and he'll see what he can do. So, it's been a great day, and seeing great friends on the weekend made it a great weekend too.

The problem is the glass is being emptied - and a lot faster than we think, and these days it's not "in style" to discuss it - which is an excellent way to keep something from being discussed.

Hey, it is what it is.

They say "you shouldn't talk about politics or religion at a party", and I'm trying to figure out who "they" are.

I think if we discussed this stuff without getting angry (which is "in style") and in relaxed and convivial settings, we'd be able to come to grips with what's happening and support each other in dealing with it. Also, by re-learning to trust each other enough to freely trade the handfulls of half-knowledge (or pieces of the puzzle) we randomly collect with open hearts and minds, we'd probably figure a lot of stuff out too (like the puzzle).

Certain people don't want us to do any of this, and that's why ancient tactics used to foment bitter tribalism between otherwise like-minded groups (e.g. Liberal and Conservative Americans who want to peacefully break bread and if they break a leg have healthcare) are being re-invented and sold to us by the elite (as is historically usual).

This whole "talk about positive things!" mantra is being used to disguise all the negative things happening behind the scenes, and I've heard it pitched a bunch of times as a means of ensuring one has a "balanced" set of opinions. Otherwise, when you say "25% of Africa has AIDS - this is horrible - ahhh!!!" then you're clearly a "radical"; whereas if you say "but I also saw a special on Oprah about a school for the blind being built over there!" then the person you're dealing with can feel happy again, relaxed in knowing the natural order of good vs. evil is playing out just fine as usual.

The problem is it isn't, as while the Oprah special shows a group taking care of a handful of kids (if that), millions still suffer from a disease billions of dollars can't seem to cure.

This technique also gives us a false sense of stability and security that prevents most people from doing anything about it - by design, and leads to increasing feelings of powerlessness. That's why there is such a general feeling of paranoia and guilt: we know we're avoiding the truth, we know we continue to habitually consume media that lies to us, we know that the same media sources (and by extension ourselves) support an all-powerful and undeniably criminal government that lies to us, and we can't stand ourselves for it.

It's a strange paradox: knowing the world is getting worse and insisting on artificially equivocating the positives to cheer us up.

It's kind of like discussing how beautiful the chandeliers are on the sinking Titanic: well sure, I mean, I guess they're beautiful, but is this really the right time to bring it up? Do I have to mention THAT when the Titanic is sinking? Do I have to weight THAT fact equally with the "sinking"? Doesn't THAT defeat the purpose of choosing to value the "sinking" of the ship as the most important fact to deal with at the moment - making all the others superfluous?

Artificial equivocation is "in style" right now, and reinforced by the mass media: "they say this, the other side says that, it's all equal, and everyone has a right to their opinion."

It's crap.

It's just not true.

There is no "Right" and "Left", only "right and wrong".

While everyone has an "agenda": certain "agenda's" benefit "people" and their enablers; while certain others benefit "power" and their enablers.

As long as we say the "Right" and "Left" are "equal", and that both have a point, then we give to much credit to supporters of:

- Pre-emptive wars: The "supreme crime" according to The Nuremberg Tribunals after Hitler did it a bunch of times in WWII, and a great excuse to attack anyone at anytime including Iran, Syria, Venezuela and several others on the list. It's remarkable how this is STILL publicly acceptable public policy even AFTER the War in Iraq was proven to be completely based on lies!

- "Torture", "Renditions", "Disappearances" and "Secret Prisons": As advocated by Attorney General's Ashcroft and Gonzales and the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate and U.S. Military and U.S. Intelligence and The White House and a whole army of White House lawyers dedicated to preserving, centralizing and expanding the powers of the corrupt and tyrannical Executive Branch, including lead Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Yoo, who says it's even okay to torture children if the President says so.

- "The Patriot Act": And "Patriot Act 2 and 3" which utterly eviscerate massive sections of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights - permanently, and they're even worse than Hitler's "The Enabling Act" laws which set up fascist Germany. Incidentally, most Germans were fine during much of WWII, and blissfully unaware of just how evil their government was acting in a fairly prosperous society. Most people at the time didn't "see" their concentration camps, whereas we've seen several pictures and videos of ours.

The "neo-cons" or "neo-fascists" have opinions and actions that fundamentally subvert the values, rights and freedoms of people around the world.

Their die-hard opponents by definition have the exact opposite set of opinions and actions: so how are they "equal"?

Why do I have to respect them at all?

I can take their propaganda seriously enough to understand it, deconstruct it, and argue against it, but I absolutely refuse to "respect" willful malice disguised as defensible public policy. None of their actions are worthy of "respect" when judged using any objective and universal standard of morality, including their hypocrisy in invoking "religion" to justify them.

Somehow they've managed to get us to demand from each other neutralizing responses designed to weaken the impact of any analysis, and further weakening the position of activists and advocates everywhere.

I've seen it dozens of times, and your email asking for "good news" is exactly my point: instead of reacting to the bad news with a desire to act on it or speak on it or challenge it or seek clarification, as a reasonable individual who generally trusts my intelligence and judgment, you merely accepted that it's probably true and requested that I provide some good news as well.

This isn't new to me, and it's just a symptom of the bigger disease.

Not having a TV for a couple of years means I haven't learned to react to horrible half-knowledge by changing the channel to something mindlessly amusing - like many of my peers have. Instead I choose better news sources that inform and educate me on what's being done to stop the descent into full-blown fascism, as opposed to quickly depressing and confusing me like CNN does.

My sources stay with topics and analyse them to the point where I actually understand what's going on - and interview those who've figured out ways to fight against it that I can either relate or emulate in some fashion. At the very least I'm happier people are fighting to preserve our freedom, while if you watch the mainstream media, they either ignore them and reinforce the idea that they don't exist, or demonize them and reinforce the idea that they're "terrorists" in some fashion.

I'm very happy and very much at peace with the world, and because of that I can handle the worst aspects of it unlike nearly everyone I know.

I mean, when one "dead white girl" in the Caribbean (or wherever) can be used by the media to scare and depress you for a few weeks every few months, then the genocide in Iraq as sold by the same people will obviously be too much to bear paying attention to. This lack of curiousity means the isolation of your government from any accountability only increases, and their actions become progressively more dangerous and less comprehensible from any position but the neo-con fascist one.

So, if you stay with the corporate media you have two choices:

1) Have them warp your values until you learn to emulate neo-con thinking, and learn to justify actions that are clearly immoral by any standard you'd apply to anyone else with any compassion.

2) As a responsible adult who obviously wants to stay "informed", you can continue watching the bare minimum of confusing and depressing news you can barely stand while the rest of the time ignoring the horrible world as much as possible.

Liberals point out corruption, that's just what we do.

Conservatives protect corruption, that's just what they do with creative arguments that use lies to defend the status quo and deny the value of looking at any opinion but theirs.

Patronizing tactics like "oh, you just don't understand how the world works!" are used to avoid engaging in honest debate and defending morally indefensible positions - e.g. "welfare moms" vs. "we have a deficit!"

When I pointed out to a Conservative friend that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's "$1200 tax credit for every child under age 6" to make up for canceling subsidized daycare actually only works out to $5/day (and how much private daycare will that buy you?), he quickly responded "see - you don't get it, the government has a massive debt..."

It's nonsense.

Conservatives brand "idealists" who transcend established norms and practices as worthless - and as if they haven't spearheaded every significant stage of humanitarian evolution in history.

As a few Liberal thinkers have noted, these neo-fascists have realized that with the power of the state and corporate media behind them they don't even have to "win" arguments anymore, they merely have to muddle the debate to the point where no one can tell who's telling the truth, e.g. "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth", "domestic surveillance vs. terror surveillance", "WMD's/Plame/Wilson/Miller/Fitzgerald/Rovegate", "enemy combatants vs. prisoners", etc., etc...

This also birthed the ludicrous idea that: "if you say something bad about Bush, then you have to say something good about Bush, because there's always another side!"

I'm afraid there's not always another side.

At least not always one that makes any sense.

And I'm afraid there's nothing good to say about this administration.

No really, absolutely nothing.

They're secretive liars who force us to do most of the work for them in justifying their decisions, and in getting us to make their imperial ambitions and domestic insanity seem rational.

Hitler's media did the same thing, and Germans happily endorsed the protection of their "homeland" and attacks on their growing list of "enemies" abroad under the spectre of "fear".

Some Germans resisted, but obviously not enough.

There are certain "battleground" states where your rights are being taken away - just like in the civil rights era when they were being won, including:

* New Orleans

The City was federalized a few years ago, and all that talk about the mayor and governor being slow to respond to Katrina was bunk - it was always a Federal responsibility. They also passed a law saying they have a right to search homes for weapons without probable cause, it made a huge ripple in "legal" circles but not in the mainstream press. I caught a local paper's article on it at infowars.com, and it's among the biggest legal decisions in history which resulted in 3 am visits by police and soldiers working together to break down the doors of suburban homes. The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act states that using the military for domestic law enforcement illegal - and with damn good reason, especially since a cursory view of history shows it leads to tyranny. But, since Reagan in 1980 started using the Army and Navy in the (fake) war on drugs (see: Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News for the "fact" it's "fake") it's been a full-court press, and the military and our police forces are being steadily integrated into one unit.

* New Jersey

Eminent domain is being used by the U.S. government to confiscate private homes and farms and businesses for far less than their commercial value, and to keep open the option of selling them to real estate developers as opposed to using the property for the public good. New Jersey is of particular interest as that's where they're waging this particular attack on Americans and their "property" rights, but much like New Orleans it's merely to establish "legal" precedents for future actions nationwide. Here's a link to articles with a video clip showing a family asking everyone to get together and pitch their tents and trailers on the family farm which has been in their family for 80 years, and which the government took away on July 10th.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/eminent_domain_family_protests_over_eviction.htm

There are dozens of other examples of being attacked by the government, and if you look carefully you'll even see die-hard conservatives in the mainstream media (there are no liberals) are getting scared: CNN's Lou Dobbs is now doing numerous reports on voter fraud and the unreliability of the new machines involved; the lies about open borders and using illegal immigrants as an endless supply of soldiers and/or to drive down wages and destroy the economy; and the plan to unify North America into one super-state run by Washington.

I hope this clears up my problem for you, and why I can't just answer your request in a linear way: that's part of the problem.

Still, my "good news" is another highly respected and qualified 9/11 whistleblower has come forward, the article on Daniel Ellsberg is at:

http://www.infowars.com/articles/terror/pentagon_papers_author_gov_maybe_did_911.htm

There was even an article on the movie "Loose Change" and it's filmmakers in Vanity Fair recently. You can watch it on Google Video as well, and apparently it's been downloaded over 10 million times.

More "good news" is that they bad guys have made this problem incredibly easy to solve: 9/11 is their foundational event, and all we have to do is prove to everyone (especially police and soldiers) that it was an inside job and their rushed neo-con agenda will crumble.

The "bad news" is the more we rush to prove it the more they rush to change laws (e.g. "free speech zones") and render us unable to get the information out there, or even dissent in general.

So, we're in a bit of a race against time here, and in this information war (which is what the military calls their attack on "us") we can't turn to conventional sources like the law or Bush's Supreme Court, we can't turn to violence because the Government has bigger and better guns, and we can't turn to the media because they're either bought or scared.

It appears we have to turn to each other for help, and that's not such a bad idea... ;)

Cheers,
BK

P.S. I've attached a scanned close-up picture of the small news story that I'd mentioned in my last email, and in the same daily "free" mini-newspaper there are 5 - 10 full pages of fluff...



The Metro, Weekend Edition, July 14 - 16, 2006

Page 34







The Metro, Weekend Edition, July 14 - 16, 2006

Page 35







Peace by pissing on the press, playing with each other, and playing to win...
BK

______________________

...

Black Krishna Brand

Philosophy - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/

Music - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/blackkrishna.htm

...

P.S. Watch "TerrorStorm" on Google Video!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5948263607579389947


P.P.S. Check this out too while you still can!

Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment -- a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you -- based on what site pays them the most. If the public doesn't speak up now, our elected officials will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/



Monday, July 17, 2006

The way I figure, smart people with smart opinions are Enemy #1 anyway.





















Hi [---],

No worries, I was just in the mood to make phone calls and thought I'd attack my interest with a little extra zest. I hope you're right about the young people, though I've gotta say, in a practical sense, it's not really fair nor does it seem wise to thrust all the responsibility of Saving The World upon those who are so young and inexperienced in the ways of the World.

The way I figure, smart people with smart opinions are Enemy #1 anyway. They often reinforce the worst and most destructive and most complicated (and celebrated) propaganda, while adding their own unique twists and analysis and reasonable assumptions to brand the theory intellectually theirs. It then spreads like mutating bird-flu, with newly resistant strains of creative argumentation and denial trumping old info-cures: remember "Fahrenheit 9/11"?

(I mean, until they stop torturing people I personally refuse to believe a bloody thing they say, and refuse to believe anybody who tells me to take them seriously either, as it doesn't seem to be helping things...)

The uniquely infected minds in turn further transform the infovirus through their own bits'n'bytes of apocrypha gleaned from a busy week, adding their temporal analysis and stealing from the careful trickle of "facts" allowed, making finding new cures more difficult: where do you get the "facts" from when people just won't believe YOU? What - are we all gestapo-era Nazi's, Communists and Terrorists who can't trust each other to relay the "facts" now?

(BTW, "bird flu" is another hoax: all the 20th Century "pandemics" originate at U.S. army bases (CBC's "The Passionate Eye"), Nixon tried "pig flu" in the 1970's (CBC's "The Passionate Eye"), and Rumsfeld owns shares in Gilead = the company that makes Tamiflu vaccine.)

Anyone who's a leader in their social circles ought to obligate themselves to inform their friends of new and relevant life-changing information, just like if you learned God really exists and he's working at The Olive Garden around the corner. I just changed the life of my buddy (a Sri Lankan married 40'ish emigre) in about 10 minutes (or the first 10 minutes of the documentary "TerrorStorm" on Google Video), and while he looked at me strange, he gets it, and we'll be cool tomorrow.

It's amazing how much respect you get for actually caring about this stuff if you're half-way well spoken about it, and I'm having fun with that from discounts and free stuff to the odd speaking engagement among other things. In general it's helping with all of my analysis of everything and subsequent happiness - I make "peace" with "stuff" in seconds, and nothing really bugs me much since nothing really should.

It's also kind of neat to fit "history" into "history", as it were.

I told another friend of mine about the three levels of history: either you don't know jack, you know the facts, or you know the facts about the facts.

To wit:

My friend said World War II, as anybody who knows anything about history would know, helped build up the U.S. economy, which helped make the U.S. the World's superpower.

I said he didn't realize the economy was built on debt - it takes a lot of money to fund a war, and the banks who established that relationship wield a tremendous amount of control over the U.S. and the World's economy to this day, you can judge for yourself what they're doing with it.

I mean, when a country contains 5% of the World's population and does 50% of it's military spending, it's probably up to no good. After all, if you're not making thousands of enemies, then why would you keep hundreds of guns?

(NOTE: Not that I'm against gun ownership as it's outlined in the 2nd Amendment, that whole "well-armed militia against federal tyranny" is starting to seem like much more of a reasonable option to keep handy these days. And heck - even Gandhi wrote in his autobiography that "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." Unfortunately history doesn't, but I think Gandhi implied and hoped that it should, and that we should learn from it...)

So yeah, it is what it is, and as long as we can make peace with it than we'll beat anyone who's in a paranoid state about the state of the world.

I think that's one of the keys really: does your worldview make you happier than mine does? Does your worldview make more sense to you? Not to everyone else - we know the world is full of idiots anyway, but to you?

I really think all practical philosophy must boil down to individual happiness, and as long as I know what's going on beneath the surface then the headlines don't "confuse" me. Sure, Israel setting Lebanon on fire and the mass-media condoning of the same "depresses" me, but it doesn't "confuse" me into half-believing they're justified in doing any of this, and neither does the Bombay Bombings and subsequent "Al-Qaeda just moved into Kashmir - Hare Ram, what timing!"

I mean, I just saw a tiny 10-word mini-article in the local daily Metro mini-newspaper on Canada passing legislation making it much more difficult for politicians and civil servants to get "fired" - it was clumped in with three other tiny 10-word news briefs. Then I saw a giant picture of Lindsay Lohan's head, and across from her a collage of other "it" girls taking up the page in some sort of "who's hot!" face-off. Two. Full. Pages.

Things are getting pretty wild, and in order not to be driven crazy it helps to make sense of the "why". At least that's what I think, but hey, it's been said and I generally agree, I might also think too much... ;P

Love, BK























Peace by making peace with petty pretty problems...
BK

_______________________

...

Black Krishna Brand

Philosophy - http://blackkrishna.blogspot.com/

Music - http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/blackkrishna.htm

...

P.S. Watch "TerrorStorm" on Google Video!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5948263607579389947


P.P.S. Check this out too while you still can!

Congress is pushing a law that would abandon the Internet's First Amendment -- a principle called Network Neutrality that prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you -- based on what site pays them the most. If the public doesn't speak up now, our elected officials will cave to a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign.

http://www.savetheinternet.com/







BONUS: Check out the guns on her...








Commercial Appeal / Infowars.com

Law-abiding citizens turn in firearms to keep them out of lawbreakers' hands

Commercial Appeal | July 16, 2006
By Lindsay Melvin

Homeowners once looking for protection, ex-hunters and wary parents were among those who pulled up to The Pyramid Saturday to unload their rifles, semiautomatics, shotguns and revolvers.

The gun turn-in program that ran throughout the day was held by the Memphis Police Department in cooperation with WMC TV-5 and Soul Classics 103.5.

Not intended to round up the firearms of lawbreakers, the event was aimed at law-abiding citizens who have the power to stop their own guns from falling into violent hands, said Sgt. Vince Higgins, spokesman for Memphis police.


"Ninety percent of the guns we get from criminals are stolen in burglaries," said Higgins, who added that most of those guns are sold on the street.

"A criminal is not walking around with a gun that's registered to him; it's a gun he's obtained illegally," he said.

The recent shootings that have taken the lives of local children, including 12-year-old Melissa Robertson, who was shot in the head at a Binghamton playground, spurred the gun-collecting campaign.

Over the years, there have been several other gun turn-in programs in Memphis. They've resulted in collections that have ranged anywhere from 22 to more than 1,000 guns. In the first hour of Saturday's collection, police had already cataloged 18 guns.


"If we get one gun that's one less gun possibly used in a crime," said Higgins.

In the week leading up to the gun turn-in, the sergeant said he received dozens of calls inquiring how to dispose of unwanted firearms left to them by deceased relatives.

"When we're dead and gone, nobody has to worry about what to do with them," said Edith Taylor, 64, of her husband's three-gun collection.

She beamed as a specialist with the Firearms Training Unit inspected her husband's rifle chamber over a bucket lined with bullet-proof vests -- a precaution in case one goes off.

"I've been after him for 40 years to get rid of it," said Taylor, who was relieved to finally get the guns out of her Cordova home.

"We've talked about selling them but then where do they end up? Here I know they'll be destroyed," she said.

All of the guns were cataloged and eventually will be melted down, said Higgins.

The first hundred people to turn in a gun received a $100 gift card to the New York Suit Exchange. Other vouchers to local merchants were also handed out.



- INFOWARS: BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND -



ORIGINAL SOURCE - http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local/article/0,2845,MCA_25340_4847721,00.html


SOURCE FOR SOURCES - http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/second_amendment_citizens_turn_in_firearms.htm