United States - The Country

Land of the free and home of the brave. And you'd better be damned brave here, because people are free to do pretty much anything they like. Behind white picket fences and two-car garages, husbands clobber their wives silly while their kids make crack deals over the phone with Scarface on the tube. A land where the license plates of one state reads: "Live Free or Die." Nice choice.

And dying we are.

In Littleton, Colorado, a couple of pimply-faced kids too squirrely to join their high school football team, and armed like a Navy SEAL team, whack 12 of their fellow students and a teacher before doing a sword-swallowing act with their assault rifles and chowing on a lead lunch.

And that was a copycat killing.

In Chicago, a World Church of the Creator white-supremacist fruitcake goes on a two-state ethnic duck-shoot that leaves two dead and nine wounded before also dining on a .32-caliber Tootsie Roll. The victims' crime? They'd look a little out of place in a Greenwich, Connecticut, Starbucks.

In Wyoming, a kid is beaten in a pickup and his corpse then propped up on a roadside property stake like a bludgeoned scarecrow-because he's gay. In Texas, another guy is dragged behind a pickup until his limbs peel off his torso like drumsticks on a well-broiled turkey-because he's a black dude.

In Los Angeles, a couple of guys who watched DeNiro and Kilmer in Heat too much, pop a bank armed to the teeth and in full body armor, turning the streets of North Hollywood into a battlefield. Hollywood producers scramble on their Star Tacs to cut their deals for World's Scariest whatever deals as the bad boys walk around calmly, jacked up and spraying bullets. The cops are so outgunned they raid a gun shop for an arsenal usually reserved for beach landings. Was there a message? Hell Yeah! Great ratings on Fox.

This is a land where doctors kiss their wives good-bye and later lose their lives outside burning abortion clinics in Massachusetts, Virginia, Florida, Oregon, Ohio, Minnesota and California-the victims of preachers, former altar boys, and women who look more like manicurists than terrorists. Other docs doing the dishes in their suburban homes are assassinated with deer rifles.

In Idaho, Montana, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas and Utah, the pride of white America, stash a decade's worth of Spam and freeze-dried food into the hills, practice with paint guns and plot the demise of everybody from the IRS to the FBI. In this land of equality and free speech, the JDL and Nation of Islam do their part to keep the hate at a scalding pitch.

In L.A., inner-city toddlers catch stray bullets from drive-by shooters, while, in New York, Islamic whackos use a rented van full of fertilizer makings to blow up the World Trade Center. In San Diego, a despondent plumber hotwires a tank, flattens some cars, and is shot to death after high-centering on a freeway divider. Rival rapsters in New York and L.A. gun down each other in a war of the coasts.

What would Ozzie and Harriet Nelson say?

In Miami, a renowned fashion designer out to fetch his morning paper-whose only crime is penning groin-high hemlines-is blown away by a young, bar-hopping trendie from West L.A. who looks disturbingly like another young, bar-hopping trendie from West L.A.-only that one is allegedly hacked up by a famous football and movie star.

Local police are now hiring ex-SEALs to teach them how to take down entire schools instead of trailers. Things are heating up. What's that miss? Your kitten's up the tree? Boom!

A recent Gallup poll discovered that 40 percent of the American people think that "the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens." Delta Force at Waco. Black helicopters over urban cities. New World Order? Naw just your tax dollars hard at work doing something.

In Oklahoma City, the Alfred P. Murrah Building is blown up. The nondescript building has no significance other than being the headquarters for the DEA, Secret Service and the ATF. The aftermath is a nine story-hole, a crater 30 feet wide by 8 feet deep, and 168 innocent people killed. The methodology is very similar to that used in the World Trade Center bombing: a 1,000 to 1,200-pound fertilizer- and diesel-based bomb packed into a rented Ryder truck and detonated by remote control or timer. Different folks, same strokes.

Farther south, some 300 miles away in Waco, Texas, the site of the Branch Davidian compound has become a popular local tourist attraction. The bomb blast in Oklahoma City occurred two years to the day after the attack by the ATF on the cult's compound. During the ATF raid, a brainwashed prophet, with an arms cache the size of the Serbs', had his followers blow their brains out as he torched his compound-and their children. Or so the government told us he did, until they found military advisors and inflammable tear gas canisters at the scene.

Mayhem, Tabloid Style

We used to chuckle at the tabloids, as we bought them with our groceries. Now we can't figure out if it's the news we're watching or promos for the latest B movies.

Hard times breed strange heroes. The hardscrabble days of early America bred the outlaws of the Wild West. Jesse James and Billy the Kid were popularized in East Coast dime novels. The Great Depression gave us Dillinger and Capone, Bonnie and Clyde. Today, in down-on-its-luck L.A., we are hatching a new breed of famous ne'er do wells. In Los Angeles, the land of "three strikes you're out" has become "do a crime, do the prime time." Are you watching a talk show or is it a Tyson bout? Is that a mass murderer or is he just working through some "issues"? What is wrong and what is right? Film at 11. Answers, never.

Must See TV

Most closely followed news stories from 1986-1999

Challenger explosion (July '86)

80%

San Francisco earthquake (Nov. '89)

73%

Rodney King verdict (May '92)

70%

Crash of TWA (July '96)

69%

Little Girl who fell in a well (Oct. '87)

69%

Columbine High School

shootings (April '99)

68%

End of Gulf War (Mar. '91)

67%

Hurricane Andrew (Sept. '92)

66%

Southern California earthquake (Jan. '94)

63%

Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (Aug. '90)

63%

Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Here, random violence and thoughtless pain take on plot, character and movie deals, as two rich kids splatter their parents' brains against a wall with a 12-gauge for a couple of Rolexes. In Los Angeles, a former football hero and movie star is accused of nearly severing his ex-wife's head and brutally stabbing to death her acquaintance. Meanwhile, during his "getaway," traffic on plagued L.A. freeways comes to a halt; motorists emerge from their cars waving banners urging, "Go O.J.!" and "Save the Juice!" After the most publicized trial in history, the jury lets him go free.

Must See TV

Most closely followed news stories of 1999

Colombine shootings (April)

68%

Events after Colombine shootings (May)

59%

JFK Jr crash (July)

54%

Capture of 3 U.S. soldiers in Kosovo (April)

47%

NATO airstrikes against Serbia (early April)

41%

NATO airstrikes against Serbia (later April)

41%

Oklahoma and Kansas tornadoes (May)

38%

Kosovo (July)

32%

NATO strikes against Serbia (July)

32%

Impeachment trial of Clinton (February)

31%

Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Here, crime needs a subplot and linkage. A mother tosses her kids off a bridge and jumps in herself afterward. The news media immediately connects it to a woman in the South who rolled her two kids to their watery end-a woman who played the media like a fiddle in her search for her "kidnapped" children. A mother of a school shooting victim walks into a pawn shop to see a gun, loads it and shoots herself in the head.

Distraught people block crowded freeways, unfurl large banners and then blow their brains out on the freeway. Suicide by cop means clean shooting, an ambulance if they miss and wall-to-wall TV coverage. Everyone can be Hemingway now.

Crime also needs a surprise ending, a payback. Rodney King gets the crap beaten out of him, sues and gets millions. Reginald Denny gets the crap beaten out of him and hugs and kisses the mother of one of his attackers. The Unabomber's big demand is that he have his antitechnology manifesto published. We Americans like our crime. Just keep it fresh, surprising and very brutal.

Hey, America . . .

What Time Is It?

Every 2 seconds

a criminal offense

Every 3 seconds

a property crime

Every 4 seconds

a larceny-theft

Every 13 seconds

a burglary

Every 19 seconds

a violent crime

Every 23 seconds

a vehicle is stolen

Every 28 seconds

an aggravated assault

Every 60 seconds

a robbery

Every 5 minutes

a rape

Every 29 minutes

a murder

Every 30 minutes

news, sports and weather

Sources: F.B.I. Uniform Crime Report, DP

You can find out about the goings on of the Army of God on the Abortion Rights Activist web site. Check out:

Abortion Rights Activist

http://www.cais.com/agm/main/aog.htm

We live in the land of the free, the home of the brave, where everyone has a right to do something, to speak his mind, to 15 minutes of fame, to a guest appearance on the Ricki Lake Show. What is wrong with this picture? It seems that Americans are punctuating their angry sentences with bullets. The beat goes on.

Some Samplings from The Army of God (U.S. version) Manual:

¥ If terminally ill, use your final months to torch clinics; by the time the authorities identify you, you will have gone to your reward.

¥ Use a high-powered rifle to fire bullets into the engine block of a doctor's car.

¥ Never make a bomb threat from anywhere but a pay phone.

¥ Hot-wire a bulldozer at a construction site, drive it to a clinic, jump off and let the bulldozer crash through the clinic wall.

¥ Drop butyric acid into dumpsters or boxes of trash when people are in the building.

¥ Put holes through clinic windows. The problem with .22-caliber weapons is the noise-the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve are great times for gunshots.

¥ Why get out of the way of an abortionist's car? The current lawsuit-crazy attitude can be used against baby-killers, and many awards have been received.

¥ Look up magazines such as Soldier of Fortune or Survivalist. Guaranteed that you'll be amazed, if not shocked, by the materials available.

As Not Advertised on TV

In the days of Father Knows Best, 91 percent of homicides were solved. Today, when it seems there are more TV cops than real ones, only about 65.5 percent become untangled. The majority of murders are committed by family members and acquaintances against each other. The chances that you will get killed by a stranger are only two out of ten, that is, if you take into account just the solved murders. When unsolved murders are tallied, the FBI estimates that 53 percent of all homicides are being committed by strangers, and that only 12 percent of homicides take place within families. Eighty percent of crimes are committed by same-race perpetrators. Robbery is committed by strangers 75 percent of the time, and aggravated assault is committed by a stranger 58 percent of the time. Eighty-seven percent of all violent crimes are committed against whites and Hispanics. Lone white offenders select white victims 96 percent of the time, and lone black offenders select white victims 62 percent of the time. White rapists select white victims 97 percent of the time, and black rapists select white victims 48 percent of the time.

Although 51 percent of prison inmates are black, the balance is out of whack, since African-Americans make up about 12.3 percent of the U.S. population. The number of black males in prison between the ages of 25 and 29 is 7,210 per 100,000. A statistic that should shock and sadden. According to the Department of Justice, the homicide rate for whites is 5.2 per 100,000 and for blacks about 44.7 per 100,000. Urban killers tend to be male (90 percent) and young (15-29). Something is very wrong.

In 1960, 12 percent of the population reported owning one or more handguns. In 1976, 21 percent owned a handgun. Today there are well over 200 million handguns, with 4 million new guns being manufactured each year. Professor Gary Kleck of Florida State University estimates that 1500 citizens used guns to kill criminals in 1980. Police only kill about 500 criminals each year.

U.S. Incarceration Rate

(per 100,000 people)

States with Highest Incarceration Rate

Texas

659

Louisiana

573

Oklahoma

536

Arizona

473

States with Lowest Incarceration Rate

Vermont

135

West Virginia

134

Maine

112

Minnesota

103

North Dakota

90

In America one in every 175 people are in jail. Prison populations have doubled in the last 15 years. Maybe we should move to Chechnya, it's safer isn't it?

Within the next year or so the United States is expected to overtake Russia as the country with the highest per capita rate of prisoners, according to a March 1999 report by the private nonprofit group Sentencing Project. The United States, which already has the largest prison population in the world, houses some 1.8 million prison inmates, an incarceration rate five to eight times those of other industrialized nations. According to numbers released by the Justice Department that same month, the United States has 668 prison inmates for every 100,000 residents while Russia currently has 685 inmates for every 100,000 residents.

Cable Killa'

Should we blame the entertainment industry? Entertainment is no family affair. A cable industry-sponsored report says that 57 percent of shows feature violence. In 1995, the three major networks ran 2,574 stories on crime, four times the number they ran in 1991.

Top-10 Talk Show Subjects

Parent-child relations

48%

Dating

36%

Marital relations

35%

Sexual activity

34%

Reconciliations

25%

Physical health

24%

Abuse

23%

Alienation

23%

Physical appearance

23%

Criminal acts

22%

Bang Bang Boogie, or Chock Full o' Nuts?

Americans know it's a jungle out there because they see it on TV; if it bleeds it leads, if it booms, we zoom.

Rocky Mountain Media Watch estimates that crime disaster and war coverage make up an average of 42 percent of all newscasts. On any given night the amount of violence is between 21 percent and 41 percent. UCLA researchers say that even though murders make up 2 percent of all felonies in Los Angeles, the news devotes 27 percent of its coverage to them. In the same study, it was disclosed that 50 percent of crimes committed by blacks in L.A. are violent and that 47 percent of crimes committed by whites are violent. There were about 30 percent more stories on black crimes involving violence than white crimes. Even though homicides have declined by 13 percent between 1990 and 1995 the number of crime stories on the three networks went up 336 percent-after being de-OJed. Oops, time to get Andy and Barney out of the newsroom.

We like crime, it gives Chuck Norris something to fight about every week. America is the land of the tough guy, people who don't take any crap, and will gun you down if you give them any lip. In New York, Bernard Goetz gets slammed in a $41 million lawsuit for gunning down thugs (while Eastwood makes millions in movies doing the same thing). Meanwhile, on the other coast, prosecutors won't file murder charges against a white man who guns down Latino taggers. Go west young man.

Being the boss man of the land of the free is no picnic. In America, four presidents have been assassinated. Two others have been shot. There have been nearly successful assassination attempts on three others. Three serious contenders for the presidency have been critically shot, two dead. They might even have to move the White House to Bogotn where we have more security and a nicer neighborhood.

The venerable building has been riddled with the bullets of drive-by shootings, bad snipers, even a crashed airplane. America is not a Pepsi commercial or the Brady Bunch. America is a dangerous place.

The president has called crime "the great crisis of the spirit that is gripping America today." He didn't say who was gripping at the time and whether it was a crime if you fired your gun but didn't aim. Viewers of films like the Matrix or Basketball Diaries wonder if reality is weirder than fantasy or if the two just collide in school shootings, suicide by cops, and terrorist acts. The number of crimes recorded by police in the United States has risen by more than 60 percent since 1973. Violent crime, by the most conservative estimates, has risen by nearly 25 percent during that same period. The Statue of Liberty may well want to pull her arm down and take in the welcoming mat. In the United States, nearly 10 of every 100,000 people are the victims of a homicide. In 1900, only one person in every 100,000 could expect to become a murder victim.