Time For Another Nuclear Neophyte President?

Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a stroke on April 12, 1945, just a month before the end of World War II in Europe. At that time, the Pacific war was still being hard fought, and the Manhattan project was thought to provide the solution to victory in Japan in the form of an atomic bomb. Secrecy was so tight that Vice President Harry Truman knew nothing about the atomic bomb until he was sworn in as president. He did well, despite his deficiency in knowledge, didn't he?

It's of historical significance because the current front runner for President, Donald Trump, has a striking deficiency of knowledge surrounding nuclear weapons. Today (December 22, 2015) Trump is polling from 28% to 33% to 39% (Real Clear Politics; USA Today; http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/latest-polls-set-stage-unprecedented-circumstances). His next closest competitor, Ted Cruz, comes in at 18% to 24%.

So, who says Mr. Trump is not so up on SLBMs, ACMs, MIRVs, and other such goodies? Well, he did.

Last Tuesday night, during the last Republican debate of 2015, Hugh Hewitt asked Mr. Trump to indicate which leg of the nuclear triad he (Mr. Trump) would prioritize. Here is the question Mr. Hewitt asked:

"Mr. Trump, Dr. Carson just referenced the single most important job of the president, the command, the control and the care of our nuclear forces. And he mentioned the triad. The B-52s are older than I am. The missiles are old. The submarines are aging out. It's an executive order. It's a commander-in-chief decision.

"What's your priority among our nuclear triad?"

I am just going to point out that Hewitt gave Mr. Trump a summary of the triad (hint: three!) when he listed the three legs of the triad: B-52 (bombers), missles, and submarines. And also obvious was Hewitt's emphasis on the age of the components of the nuclear triad. So Mr. Trump's response?

"Well, first of all, I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible, who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important."

"And one of the things that I'm frankly most proud of is that in 2003, 2004, I was totally against going into Iraq because you're going to destabilize the Middle East. I called it. I called it very strongly. And it was very important."

"But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ballgame. Frankly, I would have said get out of Syria; get out – if we didn't have the power of weaponry today. The power is so massive that we can't just leave areas that 50 years ago or 75 years ago we wouldn't care. It was hand-to-hand combat."

"The biggest problem this world has today is not President Obama with global warming, which is inconceivable, this is what he's saying. The biggest problem we have is nuclear – nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon. That's in my opinion, that is the single biggest problem that our country faces right now."

Hewitt wasn't satisfied with Mr. Trump's non-answer, so he sought clarification:

"Of the three legs of the triad, though, do you have a priority? I want to go to Sen. Rubio after that and ask him."

And here is Mr. Trump's key point:

"I think – I think, for me, nuclear is just the power, the devastation is very important to me."

O.K. Mr. Trump is convinced that the most important component of the nuclear triad is the devastation.

I must say that I do agree with some of what Mr. Trump said. Specifically:

...I think we need somebody absolutely that we can trust, who is totally responsible, who really knows what he or she is doing. That is so powerful and so important."

The biggest problem we have is nuclear – nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon. That's in my opinion, that is the single biggest problem that our country faces right now."

Amen, brother Trump! The single biggest problem we face is some maniac getting his hands on a nuclear weapon, or the codes for those weapons. Or some maniac that knows nothing about nuclear weapons.

Perhaps, during the 1940's, things were stable enough and the number of atomic weapons so small (three!) that we could afford to have our President learn about atomic weapons on the job. After all, pretty much everyone else was also learning about them. But now, I think, things have changed a bit. The potential for damage is a bit larger. I think that now we need a president that already knows about nuclear weapons, has already thought about foreign policy, and has been involved with protecting our country. There are very few requirements that the Federal Government must perform; protecting the people is one of them, and learning on the job is something best avoided now. It's no longer a century ago.

There is a sickness in the land...and it is time we studied it, to understand it, and treat it.

Three days ago there was another mass shooting in America, in San Bernardino, CA. It is too early to determine the cause of this shooting. It may never be known. But it is time to start solving the problem, so that the number and frequency of these shootings will decline, and one day, hopefully, stop.

There are at least two major world views surrounding guns. One involves gun freedom. One involves gun control. They are polarizing. But even across that large divide, there is at least the common belief that mass shootings are the work of the mentally ill, or terrorists.

Even with that commonality of belief, the U.S. does not perform research on gun violence. A lot of people are throwing around a bunch of assertions about mass shootings and mental illness with no basis. No one knows. Because the research isn't being done.

Here is the history: In 1996 the NRA accused the CDC of advocating gun control. So a Congressman stripped the CDC of $2.6M of funding, the exact amount of money the agency had funded research in gun violence the previous year. The money was returned, with language that stated “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” The CDC interpreted that language as not allowing them to do research on guns and health. And since then, none has been done.

The CDC is responsible for researching disease in America. If the CDC imposes a ban on research in America, then research isn't done. Careers are changed or not started on the basis of CDC funding policies.

After the Newtown Shooting, President Obama issued an executive order telling the CDC to get back to studying the causes of gun violence. And nothing has happened. In two years the CDC has issued an agenda of possible research but says they lack the dedicated funding to perform any research.¹

In my lifetime, I have owned four firearms. I have owned three handguns and one semi-automatic rifle. I will purchase more. But the idea that anyone or any organization that owns or advocates any tool should be able to prevent research on health issues that involve that tool is bizarre.

Should the Aerospace Industry Associate be able to prevent the CDC from performing research surrounding the use of an airplane to ram the World Trade Center? Should the American Postal Workers Union be able to prevent the CDC from performing research on Postal Workers going postal? Should the Automobile Manufacturers Association be able to prevent the CDC from doing research on auto deaths. Should the Cigarette manufacturers be able to prevent the CDC from doing research on cigarettes? Why the hell should the NRA be able to prevent the CDC from doing research on gun violence?

When a plane crashes we study the hell out of the accident. Why? So that it won't happen again. So that any systems or hardware or software can be made better. No one advocates banning airplanes because of a crash. Same thing with auto accidents. They happen all the time. And we study them thoroughly to improve the safety of cars, to make them better. Why do we treat the whole area of gun violence the same way? Why is the NRA so paranoid? We aren't even studying guns, per se.

Guns are different. Guns are in the Constitution. Guns are necessary to prevent government tyranny. Bullshit! Guns are a tool. The sooner we treat guns like any other tool with rights and responsibilities no different that cars or airplanes or chain saws is the day that we start doing research to understand how and why they are misused and abused just like any other man made tool

And the sooner we start treating the NRA like any other trade association with its own axes to grind like any other organization, instead of believing it is some mystical organization that will preserve our "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" the sooner we will get on with doing that ourselves, as we are guaranteed in the Constitution, rather than abdicating that duty to an organization that does no such thing.

^{1. Washington Post. Why the CDC still isn’t researching gun violence, despite the ban being lifted two years ago.↩}

The Term "Mass Shooting" Confuses Public: Jodi Upton in USA Today Friday December 4, 2015

Two days after the latest incident of someone using multiple weapons to shoot and kill multiple people, this time in San Bernardino, CA, Jodi Upton wrote an article on the last page of the 'A' section of USA today. Entitled 'The Term "Mass Shooting" Confuses Public' the article indicates that, because we don't have a common definition for a mass shooting, the public my be more concerned than they should be:

"... the problem is one of definitions, sometimes used sloppily and interchangeably. The result: a very confused, and possibly hyperventilating public."

The FBI and the Congressional Research Service use definitions approximately that of four or more people killed with a firearm, not including the killer. Using that definition, the San Bernardino shooting was the 22nd mass shooting of the year.

The Stanford Mass Shootings and the Mass Shooting Tracker use the definition of three or four (respectively) people shot, not necessarily killed, and that may include the killer. Using those definitions, the San Bernardino shooting was one of more than 300 this year.

That is a big difference, as Jodi Upton states. She goes on to state that the use of the headline "Mass Shooting" is misleading, because the public sees "mass shooting" and thinks four or more killed, where in reality, three or more may have only been shot, not killed. Therefore, by her evaluation, the public is necessarily overly concerned and being mislead.

What planet is she living on? For her to apply her journalistic credentials to decide what the public should be or not be concerned with is the epitome of bad journalism, and crosses over into value judgements and editorialization. Journalists are supposed to present the facts and let the public decide what is important. For decades journalists have used their credentials to shape the news, not report it, and Upton continues that long line of journalistic over reach.

She continues with the following:

"Mass killings -- by firearm or other means -- have not increased since 2006; they are consistently about two dozen a year."

Fine. I absolutely agree with her that we should adopt clear, commonly accepted definitions for these kinds of events. But did she read her own title? The term she claims is confusing was "Mass Shooting", not "Mass Killing".

I would be perfectly happy if she called to task her own journalistic cabal for trying to sell more papers by substituting "Mass Killing" for a mass shooting, but for her to claim that the public should't hyperventilate because there aren't more mass killings, just more mass shootings, is bizarre.

Perhaps she should go interview the families of the people who were just shot, not killed, and tell them they should feel better, because their loved ones weren't killed. Perhaps she should hang up her journalistic creds and become another Republican candidate and tell the public not to worry, because the "Mass Shootings" aren't "Mass Killings". I should point out that her article ran directly under a graphic showing a map of the US with dots for the killings since Newtown, with the title "Hundreds Killed In Shootings Since Newtown".

BTW, her article quotes a Criminology professor, James Alan Fox, who states "That definition of four or more shot, rarely translates to four or more killed. One-third of these 'mass shootings' result in no fatalities, and only 5% are mass killings. However, this scary one-a-day statistic is rolled out whenever there is a large-scale mass killing, allowing unsophisticated readers to make the wrong connection."

So maybe that's the real target of the article: all those unsophisticated readers out there who don't have the sophistication to parse english and understand the difference between "shooting" and "killing". We need experts of the like of Fox and Upton to take the facts and spoon feed them to us in language so simple as to prevent us from possibly making a mistake in interpretation. And who will tell us when to be worried or not.

Please! Spare me from such experts!