What kind of bullet sickness do we have in America?

[MannyGoldstein]

Papa Goldstein is visiting this weekend. We were BSing about stuff last night, and he told me something that I was sure was wrong: he heard on Bill Maher's show that in all of 2011, German police fired a total of 85 bullets against people.

80 million people, 85 bullets in a year. No way.

Yes way.

Wow.

Soon after we spoke, I read here on DU about some folks from the Florida Sheriff's office who got their man, a suspected car thief. Got him good. Real good. He seems to have been unarmed and had his hands in the air, but the cops fired 137 rounds at him anyway. More bullets in one place, at one person, in one moment than the entire German police fired in a whole year.

And then this afternoon, I watched a brutal video of an individual who felt compelled to fire 33 rounds at some police who'd stopped his car. Fortunately the cops were able to save themselves.

My cousin lives in Newtown, where so many children were recently mowed down like weeds.

What the Hell is wrong with this country, that we need to shoot at each other so much? What is it with our cult of the bullet, that ends almost 100 lives each day?

It is a sickness that runs deep. So many dead. We don't need all of these bullets, all of these guns.

Gun laws help: Here in Massachusetts, and in other places, strong gun laws greatly reduce the number of gun deaths.

But deeper than gun laws, there is a spiritual cancer here that needs attention. Why do so many have such fear, that they need such firepower?

We have a lot of work to do in fixing laws, and fixing hearts.