| Back OpEd News | |||||||
|
Original Content at https://www.opednews.com/articles/After-You-Ban-Guns-Can-Yo-by-Sister-Begonia-121229-409.html (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). |
|||||||
December 31, 2012
After You Ban Guns, Can You Ban Matches Too?
By Sister Begonia
Killing seems to be America's favorite pastime. Whether it's drones, bombs, guns, gasoline & matches or pushing people in front of trains, one thing seems evident: none kills more and better than Americans do.
::::::::
I was horrified when I heard on the news that a local woman was doused with gasoline and set on fire by her scorned lover. Wanting to find out more details, I got on my computer and Googled the phrase "woman set on fire" and, to my horror, hundredths of pages reporting incidents of women being set on fire all over the country came up. I finally stopped looking after the 21st page as I was too disgusted and sickened to read anymore. In essence, here's a sampling of what I found:
On April 3, 2011, a 31-year old Indianapolis, IN man poured lighter fluid over his 47-year old girlfriend's body and set her on fire. He abandoned the scene of his crime, leaving her to burn to death. She was in critical condition when the news of the incident was aired. No motive was given for the crime.
The article can be found here:
http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/news/Woman-critical-after-being-set-on-fire
On May 11, 2011, a woman was stopped at a convenience store and gas station in Kennesaw, GA (a suburb of Atlanta) when her 25-year old boyfriend, after being involved in a verbal argument with her, doused her with gasoline from one of the
The article can be found here:
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2011/05/11/woman-set-on-fire-in-kennesaw/
On June 3, 2011 , a 32-year old woman in Marabella , CA was set on fire by a man she loved, after an argument over money. She ran in flames from her house and collapsed on the street where a passing motorist used his shirt to smother the flames. The young woman,
The article can be found here:
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/WOMAN_SET_ON_FIRE-123146498.html
On September 06, 2011 , an Oklahoma City , OK woman was set on fire by her boyfriend after the two had a fight. He set her on fire while she was sleeping.
The article can be found here:
http://www.news9.com/story/15404242/okc-woman-set-on-fire-after-fight-with-boyfriend
On October 10, 2011 , a 38-year old woman was beaten and then set on fire in Wyoming , Michigan . Police i nvestigators said she was severely beaten until her face was unrecognizable. They believed her attacker or attackers then set her on fire to cover up their tracks.
The article can be found here:
http://wyoming.wzzm13.com/news/news/62657-woman-beaten-set-fire
Exactly 14 days later, on October 24, 2011, another woman died in San Bernardino, CA, after her ex-boyfriend set her on fire. The motive for the attack was unknown but can easily be surmised.
The article can be found here:
On December 5, 2011 , a Greenville , SC woman was intentionally set on fire by a man who later confessed to braking into the woman's house, dousing her in some kind of accelerant and then lighting her on fire.
The article can be found here:
On Sunday, December 18, 2011, a 64-year old woman burned to death in the elevator of her Brooklyn, NY
The article can be found here:
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Woman-set-on-fire-in-elevator
On May 20, 2012 , a 76-year old woman was set on fire by a 36-year old man in Garland , TX after he robbed the gas station where the grandmother was working.
The article can be found here:
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/18567260/garland-woman-set-on-fire#ixzz2FpplRSqm
Perhaps the most horrific, repugnant and brutal of all the attacks was perpetrated in Warren, MI, on May 29, 2012. A 22-year old pregnant woman was kidnapped from a movie theater by her baby's father, who set on fire and then shot her. In spite the trauma and injuries, she managed to successfully give birth to a baby boy, 3 weeks ahead of her due date. The 22-year old perpetrator was upset about the pregnancy because he did not want to have a third child with a different third woman. The young lady also had two other small children, ages 3 and 1.
The article can be found here:
http://thegrio.com/2012/05/29/pregnant-woman-set-on-fire-shot-by-ex-boyfriend-gives-birth/#47601495
On June 11, 2012, a 40-year old woman was doused with gasoline and set on fire at a Boynton Beach, FL 7-Eleven by the father of her 4-year old son. He pulled up to where she was waiting for him to drop off their son, got out of his car and began dousing her car with gas from a gas can. The woman ran inside the store and tried to hold the doors closed. The man, wielding a knife, overpowered her and dragged her outside where he set her on fire. The entire incident was caught by the store's video cameras. When she was released from the hospital, she received a bill for several hundred dollars for the towing of the cars from the scene of the crime. Both vehicles were in her name.
The article can be found here:
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/06/11/woman-set-on-fire-at-boynton-beach-7-11/
On June 20, 2012, the Albuquerque, NM police found a burnt car with a woman inside. Firefighters were able to pull the badly burned woman out but sources said she may not survive because most of her body was burned. The attack happened following a domestic dispute; the authorities suspected her boyfriend was the assailant.
The article can be found here:
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/woman-and-car-set-on-fire
On August 4, 2012, a 26-year old Lakeland, FL woman was set on fire while sitting in a chair inside her home. The man responsible for the atrocity committed several other crimes throughout the city before tips from the public helped to track him down, according to police. After a brave fight for her life, she succumbed to the injuries.
The article can be found here:
http://www.wtsp.com/news/article/266803/8/Woman-set-on-fire-family-carjacked-during-crime-spree
On December 16, 2012, a Denver, CO woman's home was broken into by 2 men who sprayed several people inside the home with a flammable liquid and then lit them on fire. "She lit up like a Christmas tree. The whole house was lit up," said a friend of the woman who miraculously escaped the inferno. "He walked in, sprayed my friend in the face, sprayed me down, and the kids. All of a sudden you hear her screaming and you hear a big old whoosh, like the noise"that was her being lit on fire. Like she was severely burned from head to toe." That is how she described the horror scene.
The article can be found here:
On December 16, 2012, an elderly Clarksdale, MS woman was robbed, murdered and then set on fire. Investigators said it was all the work of a teenager.
http://wreg.com/2012/12/16/elderly-clarksdale-woman-robbed-murdered-set-on-fire/
The next day, on December 17, 2012, a woman was set on fire in Fresno, CA by her 21-year old husband who "became emotional" while discussing his relationship with the woman in a parked car. He threw gasoline on her and lit her on fire. Their 2-year-old son, who was near the car when the fire began, was not hurt.
On December 27, 2012 , a 67-year old homeless w oman was set on fire in Los Angeles, CA as she slept on a bench. A man came out of a nearby drugstore, doused her with a flammable liquid and set her ablaze. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was listed in critical condition. The perpetrator was a 24-year old man. The reason for the attack was unknown.
http://www.mail.com/news/us/1788540-woman-set-fire-la-sleeps-bench.html#.7518-stage-subhero1-2
And there you have it, America at its best. Killing is America's favorite hobby, its national pastime, its rites of passage. Whether it's guns, matches, drones, bombs or pushing others in front of speeding trains, one thing is undeniable, no other culture on the face of the planet kills more wantonly, joyfully, deliberately, regularly and savagely than Americans. Blame it on too many guns, cheap matches, the high price of gasoline, the low price of booze, mental illness, drug addiction, lack of medical care, not enough jobs, the economy, the weather, terrorism, consumerism, pollution, propaganda, the Boogey Man, the garbage man, the repo man, the MIC, the CDC, ABC and QVC, your grandmother or the neighbor's cat but the reality is that it's all you. Look in the mirror! You are sick, twisted, inhumane savages who relish the kill. It's in your DNA, it's in your veins, it's in your subconscious. Ban guns, matches, gas cans, plastic knives, bats and speeding trains but nothing is going to stop you from fulfilling your manifest destiny. Begging Robert Zemeckis' pardon, I endeavor to paraphrase Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and I say "You're not bad. You're just drawn that way."
Authors Bio:
"I am driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." George W. Bush, Sharm el-Sheikh August 2003
Thank god he's gone!