The Australian Shooting in Oklahoma, Guns in America, and Racism in General
While sitting at the Tulsa Airport waiting to catch a flight, a whilte man approached me in farming clothes with a flight ticket in his Levi's and hat with a small town name on it. He asked me a question. " I was comin into this here airport and a black man stopped me and told me to hand over my suit case. So I did and he handed me this here ticket. You don't think he stole my bag, do ya?"
I told him what happened, he was then at ease. He sat down, borded his flight and was gone.
THAT is Oklahoma.
I lived in Broken Arrow, 30 miles from Tulsa Airport. One day, a farmer asked me about those shiny things that floated by " high up in the sky." ( I kid you not) I explained jet airplanes to him, the location of the Tulsa Airport, and invited him down to the American Airlines Maintenence base. Two days later I got him onboard his first DC-9. He had never seen one in all his 56 years and he lived 32 miles from the airport
THAT is Oklahoma.
My opinion as an American born, raised and educated in the " North" and having lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma's 2nd largest city - the 3 kids seen on TV are average for the Oakies I encountered while I lived there....no kidding.
My late wife and I were shot at once by a car load of kids driving by in daylight while she and I were in a park on a picnic. That was because we were Northerners, Oklahoma is parochial - strictly a southern (old south, Civil War stuff) state. The kids sped by, missed us by a mile, kept going, hollered sexual epithets and that was that. At a local restaurant, one local accused us of being "Yankee" Carpet baggers (a term used during the Civil War) against people from the North.
The largest race riot in American history happened in Tulsa in the 1920's and I'm told, caused that to bring together the foundation of the NAACP. In the riots, nearly 3 dozen black people were murdered in Tulsaht's city streets. Oklahoma personal crime stats are off the charts for incest, rape, child abuse, etc. Socially, the state is run by 7 massive churches including one founded by Oral Roberts. Make no mistake. My experience has been Oklahomans dislike black people and vice versa. Furthermore, most Oklahomans dislike anybody from the North and in general from outside Oklahoma.
Everyone has a gun. Of course that is also true in New Mexico, Texas and Arizona, the region is rock solid behind the 2nd Amendment founded in historical perspective of invasion from Mexico and the deep distrust of our own government. "Red States" (the American Southwest Republican voting areas) are more distrusting of the Federal Government in the past five years since the present administration's policies have been so unpredictable on the leaky Mexican Border, the apparent induction (read "amnesty" again, for the second time in 25 years) and the real need for self protection on their own land along the Mexican Border where Mexican drug gangs have invaded with automatic weapons and killed Americans.
Protection provided to us from our own Military Troops, county police have so far been sketchy, but the beefing up of our own Border Patrol has thus far been admirable. The border still leaks and many of us see the evidence. More than Mexicans come across. Much more.
We have a right to protect ourselves and no one is going to take that away. Not Obama, not some silly NY Mayor, not some dopey UN committee on arms control. This country was founded on different principles than any other. You can tell a great country BY THE WAY PEOPLE TRY AND GET INTO IT, NOT BY THE WAY PEOPLE TO AND GET OUT.
I've been in America all my life. So far, I haven't seen people lash inner tubes together and try to
swim out of here. They are still coming in.
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