California's Gun Capital

The lead article in San Jose Mercury News, I mean the front page, was "California's Gun Capital".

In one fell swoop, Redding,  California and with it, Shasta County, was relegated to the dust heap of California backwaters, a laughingstock for the entire state!  The article mocks us!

The San Jose Mercury News is the primary source of news for the Silicon Valley, the peninsula, and even parts of San Francisco.  The paper has won a Pulitzer Prize.

And Redding California, thanks to its vice-mayor, Sheriff of Shasta County, and assorted other citizens, has been nominated for the dubious distinction because:  1.  It has 12 times more concealed-weapons permits as are in L.A. County (which has many times the population of Shasta County).  2.  Redding's leadership are unabashed right wingers, some of whom  are gun store owners, and  blatantly use their leadership positions to increase gun sales and drive up their profits.  We used to call people like that violence merchants, or "merchants of death".  We used to not respect gun runners.     3.  The county's gun death rate is significantly higher than California's, and higher than Alameda County (Oakland is in Alameda County!).  Oakland for God's Sake!    4.  75% of gun deaths in Shasta County are suicides.   So buy a gun, stay unemployed, get drugged up and blow your head off!

And finally, the author of the articles introduces Redding and Shasta County as "red Texas county deep in the heart of California".  By the way, the rest of California that has people in it, are blue, Democratic territory, with ethnic diversity.  Redding is far right and white!

Great, just great!  What a boom for the Redding Chamber of Commerce!  What an incentive to attract an innovative, global economy business, with ethnic diversity and gun sanity.

Just imagine, luring technology giants like Apple, or HP to the "Gun Capital of California", that acts like a county in Texas!   And, add to the allure for young families, a concealed weapon rate more than south central L.A., and a gun violence rate higher than Oakland!

Recently, I did a letter to the editor to the Record Searchlight, asking pointed questions about issues surrounding the Turtle Bay Hotel Development.  Specifically, I questioned political motivations behind the quarrel over prevailing wage, and how it played into the Redding Tea Party attempts to control the politics of the city.  It seems to me, the right wingers are trying to use Turtle Bay to make political points.

And now, Patrick Henry Jones, Tea Party extraordinaire,  contributes significantly  to the San Jose Mercury News "California's Gun Capital" article; bragging about his gun sales, bemoaning federal "interference", and even hinting that "revolution" (part of his store's brand) is alive and well in Red Neck Redding.  Next he will be organizing a militia (if he hasn't already)!

This is the deal.  Redding is dead!  Shasta County is dead!  Finished.  This article killed us!

Both have died of moral decay, political radicalism, peppered with bullets.  Anybody in their right mind will stay out of the territory, because literally you risk your life by coming here.

We have allowed a radical, far right wing element, based on self aggrandizing weapons' sales, to take over the town.

And now, the largest newspaper in an area Redding desperately needs to court economically, has run a devastating article that basically says, "Stay away, these guys are nuts".

I have been warning about this crowd for years.  They took what was basic hunting and fishing territory, and have made it into a "join the revolution" mecca; and are running good people away, and  are certainly discouraging sane people to move here.

Would you like to live in the "Gun Capital of California" that has a gun violence rate higher than Oakland, and has more concealed weapons that L.A.?

Oh, we also  have a radio station called "Free Fire Radio".  Unbelievable!

The San Jose Mercury News is screaming---Stay out of Redding, or get the hell out if you happen to think that Westerns were really make believe; and that democracy is still a viable form of self-government.

It's all we needed up here, verification in front of the whole state, that we are a bunch of nuts!