Tag: assassination

Vote for Democracy #6

(Photo by Lucas Sankey on Unsplash)

I can’t quite believe that I am compelled to write this but I feel I must after yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing on whether or not blanket presidential immunity exists.

Donald Trump’s lawyer was arguing that a president shouldn’t be able to be prosecuted by the judicial system for criminal acts, including ordering the assassination of a political rival, if it was considered an official presidential act.

He is saying that, literally, a United States president should be able to get away with murder.

That is wrong legally, ethically, and morally.

Every person, citizen or not, elected official or not, is subject to the laws of the United States and whatever state or other jurisdiction they find themselves.

Period.

Do not vote for Donald Trump or any other candidate who believes that any person should be above the law.

It’s different in Japan

When I wrote this post about gun violence in the US yesterday, I intended to move on to another topic, but news of the assassination of former Prime Minister Abe of Japan broke here this morning and I was struck by the stark contrast in the level of gun violence in the two countries.

Part of the terrible shock to the Japanese public is that shootings are incredibly rare there. Firearm possession in Japan is highly regulated. Apparently, the gunman had built his own weapon, evading the strict process in place.

Last year in Japan, there were only ten shootings, eight of which were connected to the yakuza, an organized crime network. There was one death and four injuries from gun violence.

That’s 10 shootings in a country of 125 million people.

In a year.

The United States has 332 million people. I can’t even find the statistic for the number of shootings, but the statistics from Gun Violence Archive record 45,034 deaths and 40,585 injuries from guns in 2021.

Yes, America. Guns are the problem.