Righteousness, Freedom, and Peace

I present here two sermons from the Rev William Tatter, 1893-1963, from the West Pullman Hungarian Baptist Church in Chicago, IL, USA for the 1958 and 1959 holiday season. He was an intellectual, living without much means on a tiny salary, unlike the megachurch evangelists of today, who have seemed to lost the true meaning of righteousness, freedom, and peace. He was committed to using and encouraging the “free pulpit”.

The Rev William Tatter was born in the Austrio-Hungarian Empire to a family of Baptist ministers, with a long history of being discriminated against and jailed for preaching and giving out bibles. This is why they came to America – for religious freedom. He was my grandfather. He preached in Chicago, Kipling Saskatchewan Canada, and in New York during WWII.

These two sermons from his mature years are worthy of renewed contemplation and renewed commitment to loving spirituality through relationships, behavior, and attitude towards our fellow man. Nourish lasting concern for the best which can be expressed in living in harmony with all others.

Why should there be exemptions to vaccines,even for health workers?

I am a retired medical researcher and physician/scientist.  My work was in immunology and immunopathology, so I know a lot of science that the general public has no understanding of and has great ignorance. Therefore, this opinion piece is well-informed, but just my opinion.

Where to take a vaccine should be personal choice. Hugh Fudenberg, who was one of the leading immunologist in the country was ostracized because he found a correlation between the number of flu shots a person gets and the chance of getting Alzheimer’s disease (increase with more flu shots was nearly linear).

Remember in Illinois alone, just one shot brings big pharm a profit of at least $33 million-15 years ago, so there is a big money interest biasing the national and state committees that determine whether to mandate a vaccine. I discovered that at one point at least 1/2 of the committee had financial connections with big pharm.

Personally, I had the Hong Kong flu, so I know I am immune to a certain strain of flu and it is rational to not take the flu vaccine when that type of influenza is circulating and the vaccine is for that type of influenza. (you can look up the strains and the strains vaccines are made to in a particular year at the CDC web site) More research is needed as I believe Dr. Fudenberg was correct. Perhaps a lawsuit is in order to protect such individual choice to lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

There are families with a genetic tendency towards life-threatening reactions to certain vaccines. I know of one family where the first and second child died within 24 hrs. of DTP vaccine administration. When the mother refused vaccine for the 3rd child, child protection tried to take custody and force the vaccine. Only because Illinois State Senator O’Malley intervened was this prevented. His daughter suffered a severe vaccine reaction with fever and stopped breathing. He performed CPR, but she remained mentally impaired for life due to hypoxic brain damage (caused by lack of oxygen due to the respirator arrest).

When a family has lost a child due to complications of vaccinations, then they likely have a genetic problem making them susceptible to these rare complications and they should not be forced to have their other children vaccinated. These families should be exempted until we understand how to identify the genes that permit such bad reactions and exempt such people carrying such genes. We need to devote more money to vaccine genetic research to solve this problem. Therefore, for a small number of people getting a flu shot is actually Russian roulette. They would be perfectly happy wearing masks during flu season and being vigilant about hand-washing.

The facts about the numbers of injured children and the federal compensation system are generally not told to the public and I believe messaged due to influence by Big Pharm and corrupt politicians and their accomplices.

All vaccines are different. All infections are different. They have different modes of infections, different hit rates or “infectiousness”, different types of immunity that the body uses to fight them. You should not generalize and make the same statement about all vaccines. Some are live virus and some dead virus vaccines. Live virus vaccines can endanger those with autoimmune disease and cancer or inherited problems with immunity.

Vaccination laws must have exceptions that protect those that are vulnerable to their complications or family members who are vulnerable to complications. Complications include death and brain damage. Making vaccine laws without exceptions are like making a law that everyone has to have their right hand amputated if they have cancer, despite the type of cancer they have. It is pure insanity.

Most measles deaths (145,000 annually) are in undeveloped countries where children have malnutrition. Without malnutrition, very few die of measles.

Most chicken pox deaths are actually deaths from overwhelming infection with bacteria that invade an open sore. Even this can be greatly reduced with education, hygiene, and vigilance.

On the other hand, polio is an overwhelmingly disastrous infection for the overall population and most people should get the polio vaccine if traveling abroad or show proof of it if entering this country until the all clear is given around the world. However, most baby boomers are not aware that the first few batches of polio vaccine injected were contaminated with a monkey virus that increases chances of cancer, so all is not well, even with this vaccine. In addition, the first rotavirus vaccines were pulled off of the market due to increased numbers of acute abdomens (life-threatening ) due to intussusception, which requires emergency surgery.

Tetanus is a horrible way to die and more common than one likes to see when no vaccines were available, so this vaccine falls into the probably should get it category for me. To the layman who is a natural health enthusiast. Please NEVER use any cosmetic mud for an umbilical cord (bellybutton) open wound on a baby as this often contains tetanus germs and has killed many babies over time.

I am one of the few physicians who would treat kids of parents who refused vaccinations. This is because there are some idiosyncratic reactions that can kill a child. I was often able to convince parents to give some vaccinations on a more prolonged schedule, but never would kick them out of practice for not vaccinating their kids. In addition, if the vaccines are required, they should be free. Some could not get them from local health departments and the cost was excessive.

I also believe that certain vaccines are unnecessary such as the hepatitis vaccine, unless you live in Asia, inject illicit drugs, or have unprotected sex with multiple partners.

There are many things the doctors, drug companies, and government do not tell you about vaccines, such as the enhancing antibody effect that may actually increase the chance of chronic active hepatitis B and liver cancer if your anti-hepatitis antibody titers drop and you are exposed to hepatitis B. The average person’s titers drop with time. This is an immunological phenomenon where a person who is given a cancer vaccine develops increased rather than decreased cancer growth if too little antibody is given (low zone enhancement). I believe this is the yet unknown mechanism by which babies of mothers who are hepatitis B carriers get infected and both are later susceptible to increased cancers. The vaccines are all quite different and do not necessarily give lifelong immunity as the diseases do. If you get the hepatitis vaccine, I would suggest you get your titers checked every ten years and get boosted if they drop – for at least the hepatitis B vaccine if you choose to get it.

Bottom line is that I don’t like the public being used as guinea pigs unless the evidence of risk versus benefit is overwhelming and the illness has such a high serious complication or death rate that the vaccines are rational. So, show me the data for each one over several decades. Not just the messaged data from Big Pharm. There is a long history in this country of hiding facts from the public for profit, such as in the tobacco industry and the weed killer industry.

The 99% matter – a new dedication to government by all the people entwined in equality, ruled by justice, and radiating respect and tolerance

239 years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the propositions that ALL PEOPLES ARE CREATED EQUAL AND CAN CONTINUALLY MOVE FORWARD TOGETHER UNITED IN PEACE.

Now we are engaged in a great inequality, racial, religious, and cultural war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are committed in unity to remember those we have lost, who have suffered, and are still suffering, so far in this continuing war for equality, justice, respect, and tolerance . We today rededicate our fight to uphold our original cause for which this nation was founded – equality of all peoples and justice for all, as a remembrance for those who thus far gave their lives, have suffered, or are still suffering that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not remember them– we can not thank them — we can not re-dedicate ourselves to this cause. The brave men and women, living and dead, who have struggled for the cause, and are still struggling have enshrined this cause in the fabric of our nation, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say today, but it can never forget what they did and are doing for this great cause.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated now to the unfinished work which they who fought before have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be today dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead, wounded, and still suffering we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, sacrificed so much, or are still sacrificing — that we today highly resolve that these dead, wounded, and suffering shall not have died, been wounded, or suffer in vain — that this nation, under God and in harmony with nature, shall have a new birth of freedom, equality, justice, respect, and tolerance– and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, entwined in a commitment to equality, justice, respect, and tolerance, working towards world-wide non-violence  and cooperation shall not perish from the earth.

Linda Lorincz Shelton
October 18, 2015

How & why is Darren Wilson guilty of manslaughter in killing Michael Brown?

UPDATE: 12-9-14 DOJ autopsy by  Air Force pathologists agrees with Shelton that some wounds may be re-entry wounds that hit chest after first going through forearm or  first going through forehead to cheek & out jaw (Shelton said maybe upper arm altho she did not examine body and only read autopsy reports) .  This suggests that R arm was up when shot.

Ask yourself: What is excessive force and when should deadly force be used?  If deadly force should not have been used or if it should have been used and then was used excessively, then Wilson is guilty. Also ask yourself what questions should Wilson answer about his behavior. Were they even asked? Finally, how do you interpret the autopsy reports. What do they mean.

The trajectories of the last two bullets show convincingly that Brown was already down when Wilson administered these coup de grace shots. Yet the grand jury was never told in detail about the bullet trajectories and what they indicate. (read further)

Forensic pathology can be a powerful tool. My teacher, Dr. Sandra Conradi, of the Medical University of South Carolina, former President of the American Academy of Forensic Pathologists, once proved a man innocent by self-defense of murder by lining up the trajectories of shot gun pellet wounds of the deceased with metal rods that proved the deceased was standing in a position of a man that was holding a gun. This affirmed the statement of the accused that he only fired because the dead man was holding a rifle and shooting at him.

A grand jury is not to determine innocence or guilt, yet that is how prosecutor McCullough used the St. Louis grand jury. That is prosecutorial misconduct. His father was murdered by an offender when he was a cop and many of his relatives are cops. He was biased and should have recused himself and recommended that a special prosecutor be appointed.

The role of the grand jury is only to determine probable cause. The grand jury is a one-sided presentation of evidence supposedly against the defendant and is meant as a rubber stamp for approving hearsay and allegations, not to determine innocence or guilt.  Only one side is presented and that is the  side determined by the state’s attorney. If the state’s attorney wants an indictment, he gets it almost universally. If, like with McCullough, he does not want an indictment, then he won’t get one because he can selectively manipulate the presentation of evidence and enhance rather than diminish confirmatory bias. Thus, even the fictional Mickey Mouse or a ham sandwich can be indicted. The grand jury system is fundamentally flawed and should be reworked by Congress and by constitutional amendment.

Please note that it is almost  unheard of for the prosecutor to call the defendant as a witness at the grand jury, especially to call him for the main purpose of demonizing the victim. This is gross abuse of prosecutorial discretion as the victim can not defend his reputation and is a slick manipulation of the tools of psychology to  bias the jury against the victim. For a detailed explanation how the prosecutor who is skilled can manipulate a jury read here.

When Wilson called out to Brown to get on the sidewalk, if he meant to follow that up with a jaywalking ticket or arrest for the shoplifting, then he should have gotten out of his car.  He apparently did not connect the shoplifting with Brown, or he would have called for back-up, simply followed Brown with his car and then with help of colleagues arrested Brown.

Instead it is apparent, that he simply used his car to intimidate Brown by backing up so that he was next to Brown and Johnson. Then the testimony varies. Some believe Wilson grabbed Brown through the window and then Brown slapped Wilson with an open palm which enraged Wilson who pulled his gun and threatened to shoot Brown if he did not comply. Others say Brown slammed against door and beat Wilson viciously with his fists, to the point that Wilson said he  feared for his life and pulled his gun. Pictures of red-cheeked Wilson comport with a slap and not a punch with a fist. The stories then further vary with some stating Brown was grabbing Wilson’s gun to shoot him, but others stating he was just grabbing the barrel of the gun to push it away from pointing at Brown. Unfortunately, the gun was wiped clean so that fingerprints could not be lifted from it to determine where Brown’s hand may have touched it. We only know it was shot in the car and a bullet hit Brown’s hand.

The state’s attorney did not ask Brown why he did not simply move his car to get away from Brown instead of pulling his gun. He did not ask Wilson why he didn’t just follow Brown in his car and call for back-up. Did he ask him if at that point he connected Brown with the shoplifting and if he did so, why he did not await back-up?  The slight redness of Wilson’s cheeks and no documented injuries were not used by the state’s attorney to question the veracity of his story that he was viciously beaten to within an inch of his life by Brown forcing Wilson to pull his gun and shoot.  The grand jury by then was so biased by the one-sided presentation from McCullough and the demonizing of Brown that they didn’t question these obvious inconsistencies making Wilson a clear liar to the grand jury. We cannot believe anything Wilson said due to the fact that his story that he feared for his life after such minimal redness to his cheeks and likely deep injury to his pride does not match his “injuries”.

It is because McCullough failed to ask these questions that the bias is so crystal clear.

Then when the forensic autopsy evidence was presented, no one emphasized that at 15 ft away Wilson admitted he let out a volley of shots with at least two of these chest shots in a downward trajectory proving that Brown was already falling down at 15 feet away from Wilson.

No pathologist bothered to state that the back to front forearm wound may line up with the front to back upper arm wound on Brown proving that his right arm was in the air with his hand at shoulder level when he was shot at 15 ft away.

No pathologist bothered to then state that Brown was not just falling down, but nearly on the ground when the last two shots were fired and Brown was 8-10 feet away from Wilson. Wilson admitted that he “sited . . . [Brown’s] head . . .” and fired and the trajectory of the last two shots was (A) through the forehead down through the cheek and out the jaw proving top of head down towards toes trajectory and (B) through top of head with towards toes trajectory.

As Wilson and Brown were the same height, 6′ 4″, this  means that Brown was either on his knees falling down or nearly completely having fallen down, when Wilson made the final head shot in a coup de grace manner.

There is no way Wilson saw Brown’s face at the last two shots as the trajectories prove Brown was looking down, not at Wilson. So how could Wilson say Brown looked like a mad demon or whatever if he couldn’t see his face? Wilson was looking at the top of Brown’s head when  he fired the last two shots at 8-10 ft away. It is unlikely that a Brown was “charging” at Wilson without looking at him.

Have someone make a computer animation of how Wilson could shoot Brown with a downward trajectory as explained in the autopsy notes that does not suggest excessive force and/or intentional coup de grace.  Just try! The pathologist could have passed a straight rod through the wounds and taken pictures to show the trajectories more clearly. He Could have even positioned the body for the last four shots and the arm shots to prove what I am stating about what the body position  was likely to have been when Brown was hit. I hate to suggest this, but I would even like to see the body of Brown exhumed and this done so that my allegations can be proven.

The U.S. Attorney should investigate this case for prosecutorial misconduct, civil rights violations, and perjury by Wilson. The Gov. should look into how a  new grand jury can be convened with a special prosecutor. Congress should call hearings about  court, judicial, prosecutorial, and police corruption and misuse of grand juries. The people must rise up unite not under racism but under judicial reform and fight the system until it is reformed.

This is because Wilson in my book is guilty of manslaughter, as are so many other officers. We must change training of officers and laws so that shooting is the last resort and that it must stop when the person falls or is no longer a threat.

 

Private correctional contracts a disaster, costing excessive tax dollars, abusing detainees, incentive for excessive sentencing

Read the Sentencing Projects’s report: Dollars and Detainees: the Growth of For Profit Detention, and you will find confirmed that when profit is introduced into public services the result is increased costs, decreased quality, and cover-up of corruption.

“The companies with which ICE and USMS contract, including CCA and the GEO Group, are largely the same ones that have been criticized for their handling of prison operations. More importantly, these companies operate off of the same business models employed in prison privatization that have led to understaffing, negligence, and abuse.107, 108, 109 In addition to harming those housed in contract facilities, private prison companies fail to save taxpayers money, can have a deleterious financial effect on communities,110 and contribute to the continuation of America’s use of mass incarceration and detention.111, 112 These private companies operate within complex and sometimes opaque systems where public and private officials cannot clearly answer questions and where the private companies managing federal detainees are not subject to Freedom of Information requests.113”

The only solution is massive reform of our justice  system which today is an injustice system. Read about the Myth of American Justice as seen in Illinois at this blog and the links listed in it: http://cookcountyjudges.wordpress.com.

As a wrongfully convicted felon who was sentenced to 2 yrs in prison and 1 yr parole in 2007, I can tell you about abuse, as well as a totally dysfunctional parole system – READ THIS:

Illinois Department of Corrections Runs Sham Parole Operation – FBI Where are You?

http://illinoiscorruption.blogspot.com/2012/01/torture-of-dr-linda-shelton-in-illinois.html

Fox News Megyn Kelly tries to smear cop victim Brown with false statement about autopsy

It is really disturbing to me for arrogant hate-mongers like Megyn Kelly to jump to false conclusions based on her layman interpretation of autopsy reports, as she did when she interviewed the Brown family attorney, Mr. Crump on The Kelly File on Fox News a few days ago.

The autopsy of cop shooting victim Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, by Dr. Norfleet, says that he had a wound in his forearm from the back to front. Kelly said (and falsely assumed) based on some statement from another pathologist, Dr. Melinek, that this means he did not have his hands up. This is a false statement. (Note: that the front of the hand is the palm on an anatomic drawing with the arms down at the side of the  body). Also, Dr. Melinek states that she was misquoted in a pathology expert blog here.

Michael Brown could have had his elbow bent and his palm facing his face trying to reflexively protect his face and body from the volley of shots fired at him that seems clearly excessive and perhaps murderous by Officer Wilson.

Every shot is an isolated moment in time.  Each shot does not explain what happened before or after, nor does it explain motivation behind each shot or action.

The autopsy report is also consistent with an innocent person being grabbed by a wildly violent and bullying cop who threatened Brown by pulling out his gun while he had Mr. Brown at his car door, and then Brown with his hand trying to push the gun a way, before getting away from the car.

The witnesses said Brown had his hands up and was 20 feet from the officer’s car when he was hit by a volley of shots, after getting away from the car where the first shot to his hand occurred.

Witnesses said Brown was facing Ofc. Wilson at that point. The two shots to his chest and shot to his upper arm are consistent with that story.

If his right elbow was bent and his palm faced his face then the forearm wound would be “back to front”. It proves nothing about the position of his arms just before being shot by the volley from Ofc. Wilson’s weapon.

The fact that the chest wounds were somewhat  downward and both head wounds were clearly from the top downward means that Brown was either falling down with his head below the level of Ofc. Wilson’s gun or nearly crawling towards Wilson when Brown was shot in the head twice (one bullet at the top of his head downward and one from the forehead down through his face and out his jaw – not straight on backward, but downward).

The pathologist who made statements about the autopsy by Dr. Norfleet, Dr. Judy Melinek, cautioned that her statements were not definitive and that there were many possible explanations for the wound to his hand and arm.

The forearm wound could also have occurred if Brown was running away from Ofc. Wilson and had his arm down at his side, but who runs with their  palms facing forward?  This is unlikely.

The wound to his hand does not prove Brown was trying to grab the gun and shoot Ofc. Wilson.  It could also mean that Ofc. Wilson was trying to shoot unarmed Brown and Brown was trying to save his life by pushing the gun away!

Brown could have had his hands up, but when he started to be shot with the first bullets then turned his palm towards his face as he was falling down on his face.

The autopsy report can only collaborate the reports of witnesses.  I believe a half-dozen witnesses would not all lie about what they saw.

Clearly, the only way Brown could be shot in the very top of his head downward (as a tall man) by an officer, is if  his head was lower than the gun or at the level of the gun, which would have easily occurred as Brown was collapsing from the chest wounds and falling on his face.

Why would the  Ofc. shoot a man twice in the head when he is nearly on the ground after already shooting him five times?  That to me is homicide.

If Brown was committing a crime is not the issue. The degree of force used by Officer Wilson is the issue. Brown was unarmed! Whether Brown was 100 lbs or 300 lbs should also not make too much of a difference if, as the witnesses appear to be saying, Brown was not within arms reach of Wilson, so did not pose an immediate threat to him after he ran away from the police car.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that it is not legal for an officer to use lethal force against a nondangerous suspect running away in the following case where police shot a 15 yr old in the back of the head and killed him, when he was trying to climb over a fence and flee after attempting a buglary: Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985).

Memphis, Tennessee, 1974. Police are looking for a prowler. They spot an unarmed teenager in the back yard. He tries to get away, climbing over a chain-link fence. A policeman shoots the boy in the back of the head.

“The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable. It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape. Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so. It is no doubt unfortunate when a suspect who is in sight escapes, but the fact that the police arrive a little late or are a little slower afoot does not always justify killing the suspect. A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead.”  Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985).

Autopsy proves NYP killed Eric Garner

UPDATE: The New York Medical Examiner has ruled Eric Garner’s death a homicide [ clearly by cop – so lets get an arrest!].

Autopsy result reveal Mr. Garner died of being placed in a chokehold and his chest  compressed during arrest, with contributing factors his asthma, obesity, the position he was in and heart disease.   As a physician and pathologist I am convinced after viewing the video that not only did they kill him with illegal chokehold, but they were grossly negligent in not immediately starting CPR. This is such an egregious situation and willful and knowing misconduct that I believe anything less than severe criminal charges and penalties, plus a civil rights  suit with a huge award to the family would be total injustice.

This should teach paramedics that when a life is concerned they must intervene and ignore the police. These paramedics by REFUSING to do their job are accomplices and should also be punished and never again allowed to work as paramedics.

Death of Eric Garner in NYC gross negligence of officers and paramedics

I just finished viewing the videos of the arrest and death of Eric Garner. I believe he was not given sufficient time and space to comply with the officers. They appeared to gang up on him and bully him rather than tell him he was under arrest and for what and then allow him a little space and time to comply. They just vigorously acted like a dog  pack to bring him to the ground. He did not seem to provoke them on the video.

As a physician and medical researcher I believe that he was choked until he was struggling to breath and then his chest was compressed by position (forced hands behind his back when he was so obese they should have considered using more handcuffs or cuffing him in front as he did not seem to be resisting.  He complained about having difficulty breathing and they did nothing (didn’t help him sit up or take off the cuffs or put extra cuffs on to lengthen them so he wasn’t squeezed so much.

Then as he was  dying and losing his  pulse, becoming clearly unresponsive and not answering the officers, not one officer or  paramedic made any effort to carefully assess his level of consciousness, do mouth to mouth resuscitation or take an ambu bag and breath for him.  There was no CPR for more than five minutes on the video while he lay unconscious, totally unresponsive.

This is gross incompetence or willful medical neglect  or even negligent homicide.

I am appalled, but not stunned. The  Chicago Police and Cook County Sheriff as well as Cook County jail staff are just as bad. I am a victim of unlawful arrest, unlawful incarceration and medical neglect and abuse. I am lucky to be alive.

Hearings should be held in Congress and every state legislature about such cases which are far too common.  Any officer or paramedic who fails to intervene and attempt to save a life,  or attempt to at least keep a person breathing should be fired. There is no excuse for every officer on the scene and every paramedic on the scene not rapidly intervening. They are all trained in CPR and how to recognize when someone is unconscious or not breathing.  Apparently they are either prejudiced, incompetent, or inadequately trained.  I cannot rule out that the medical neglect was intentional on the part of some of the officers.

See:

http://illinoiscorruption.blogspot.com/2012/01/torture-of-dr-linda-shelton-in-illinois.html

http://cookcountyjudges.wordpress.com

http://cookcountysheriffdeputies.wordpress.com

 

 

 

Suggested plan to stop gun violence in America

SUGGESTED PLAN TO STOP GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA –

TO BE DEBATED AND DISCUSSED BY EXPERTS IN ALL FIELDS

INCLUDING LAW, MILITARY, NRA, HEALTHCARE, MENTAL HEALTH, POLICE, PRISONS  AND JAILS, RELIGIOUS LEADERS, AND PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS ON ALL SIDES OF THE DEBATE IN A TRANSPARENT MANNER!

1. America has 5% of the world population but its citizens own 50% of the privately owned guns the world. Tax ammunition outrageously like we tax cigarettes. Considering outlawing owning more than a few weapons needed by one person to be a member of a militia unless they have extensive mental health examination and background check.
2. Half of gun deaths are suicides.  Triple mental healthcare spending and  vastly improve access to mental healthcare.
3. Vastly increase opportunities for teens and young adults for jobs and after school activities. Idle minds are the devil’s  playground. Re-instate the Civilian Conservation Corps started in the Roosevelt era.
4. Outlaw high capacity ammunition magazines and give deadline to turn them in – do not grandfather them. An untrained person having      to change clips would slow down mass murders.
5. Find better high tech way to ID guns so that if their numbers are filed off they can still be traced.
6. Research and discuss ways of tracking and controlling the sale of ammunition and the sale of more dangerous types of ammunition, with consideration of putting limits on certain types of ammunition or finding ways of tracing the sale and usage of certain types of ammunition that are more deadly or meant for military mass murder situations, rather than hunting.
7. Tax guns at enormous rate with goal of decreasing ratio of guns to number of Americans to half as many within 5 years. Increase availability of voluntary turn in of weapons without consequences.  Destroy weapons turned in and do not resell them.
8. Outlaw semi-automatic rifles and handguns. Have a panel of experts including military and NRA representatives determine this issue. No grandfather clause.  Maybe allow some stored in gun clubs to mentally certified people, who have  undergone careful background check as to mental health as well as had an  interview by a trained psychologist. Do not allow storage of these weapons in a home where everyone is not certified.
9. Massive education effort to teach not to stigmatize  mentally ill and to recognize need for mental healthcare.  Teach that most mentally ill people are  harmless, most gun deaths are NOT caused by the mentally ill, but that serious mass murders may be caused by a few very disturbed people who need  help BEFORE they murder someone.
10. Research and find ways to identify loners and help them integrate into society, as well as find ways to identify when they are falling into psychotic mental illness and becoming dangerous to society like with the shooters in Oregon & at the Colorado theater.
11. Massively increase training requirements for law enforcement officers and prison guards to include training about mental illness and psychology (at least one year of classes and rotation through  mental health facilities as part of code gray teams and counseling teams).  Three months of post high school      training is not adequate to be employed as a jail or prison guard.  This will take a 5-10 year transition as our police forces are so incredibly undertrained. Parole officers should be required even more training. Study how many peace officers were involved in murder with their own guns or whose guns were used for suicide or accidental shootings.
12. Vastly improve our education system in the U.S. to  include domestic violence and pre-marital counseling, financial  responsibility, and child development, as well as mental health issues.  Require students to volunteer to help the elderly, the disabled, or the mentally challenged so they understand that the disabled and mentally  challenged are not automatically dangerous.
13. Close loopholes so that NO gun may be exchanged or sold without check with a national database.
14. Have intense discussion/analysis as to what diagnoses or mental certification should cause inclusion in database as the vast majority of the mentally ill are not dangerous. Forcing all that  have been treated or hospitalized for mental illness into a database would be grossly unfair.
15. Judicial reform to take corruption out of our court system and vastly reform family courts thus lowering the extreme suicide rate among veterans and the population due to false defamation of character and wrongful termination of child custody rights.
16. Do not put all felons in database as most are not  dangerous concerning guns – analyze this more carefully.
17. Make national effort to put in place system to help wrongfully convicted felons overturn their convictions so that the database is not overtaxed by excessive numbers of people who are mentally  stable but wrongfully accused of being mentally ill or have been defamed and wrongfully convicted felons, or non-violent felons.
18. Make higher penalties for storing weapons without trigger locks and other appropriate safety measures.

Newton, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine – type shootings WILL NOT STOP and WILL ESCALATE until we educate about, make access easy to, and fund mental health care

I am a retired pediatrician in Chicago.  I also have a PhD in pathology and trained for six months in forensic pathology observing and participating in autopsies including many gunshot victims. In addition I was medical director of a mental health care group practice. I know what I am talking about as I have treated babies and children who have been boiled, beaten, shot, and shaken.  I have smelled their burned flesh and held their brain tissue in my hand.  I have attended their autopsies. The destruction of tissue by high-powered weapons is unbelievable.  Tissues explode inside of you as the tissue is vaporized and the bullets wobble and gas from heated vaporized tissue expands the damage. There is absolutely no reason for high-powered, high magazine capacity weapons for civilian use. I fear though that it will take decades to confiscate them all as there are millions out there and millions of high capacity magazines.  Too many people do not secure their weapons and too many can buy them without background checks. The ratio of weapons to people in this country is so astonishing it is beyond belief.  No weapons ban will fully work until we start taking this ratio down.

However we have to start somewhere like limiting the availability of high-capacity magazines and certain types of bullets.  Although limiting guns in UK and Australia has worked well, it won’t work so easily in America where 5% of the world population has 50% of weapons owned  by civilians!  What are we going to do?  Have a massive confiscation campaign?  Eliminate the 2nd Amendment? NO!  We must close the loopholes concerning background checks.  We must start banning semiautomatic weapons to some extent and slow down their  proliferation.  The number in this country already is more than we will ever need. We must link all background registries at the national level. BUT! How are we going to  define mental illness that makes a person dangerous and that deserves to put them on the registry?  How are we going to help wrongfully convicted felons clear their names.  Are all felons deserving of having a ban on owning fire arms?  I think NOT!

I was wrongfully  convicted of aggravated battery of an officer for “bumping” him with my wheelchair and sentenced to two years in prison, a false charge as Sgt. Anthony Salemi actually attacked me in my wheelchair, falsified his records and committed perjury. Now Chief Judge Evans in Cook County is banning all cell phones from courthouses as the eavesdropping law was declared unconstitutional so no citizen can document corruption of Sheriff officers and judges in courthouses even outside of the courtrooms!

We have no choice with this amount of weapons in our country and t he impossibility of banning them due to the numbers already out there, but to make schools as secure as courthouses.  This is the sorry reality and it will cost us dearly – causing fear in our children and enormous government expenditures. Our 2nd Amendment with the technological advances in weapons and astonishing proliferation of weapons in the hands of citizens in America make us a dangerous overly armed population.

We MUST increase the requirements for police officers training and education.  We have a pitifully under trained and corrupt law enforcement legacy in this country. Read my blogs in the following.  We are now even killing a whole lot of people unnecessarily with Tasers!

We also must MASSIVELY increase our funding for mental health care.  We need 30,000 certified child psychiatrists but only have about 5,000 in this country.  We have been forced to choose between drugging people and providing cognitive or talking therapy.  Drugging won as our healthcare system won’t pay to talk to anyone.  I believe however that talking therapies are critical and drugging often does more harm than good!

Those doctors who do procedures (cardiac and ortho surgery for example) get obscenely high payments while psychiatrists, psychologists, and general practitioners, as well as pediatricians and family practitioners are the lowest paid.  We also pay by the pound.  My patients (Vincent triplets) are in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “lightest triplets in the world” (1997 edition), yet I was paid $50 to put in central lines into ultra premees while vascular surgeons were paid $500 to put in central lines into adults! Go figure! Our priorities are goofy.

Our justice system is so corrupt that honest  harmless people like me are wrongfully convicted (in my case in retaliation for whistle blowing against corrupt police and officials – see my other blogs links to the right) and criminals know all the loopholes.  Some of the most dangerous people are very intelligent and also mentally ill yet are not even in the mental healthcare system.

I fear the backlash against most mentally ill people who are harmless.

I fear that people with post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD) will be discriminated against and labeled wrongfully as dangerous. I suffer from PTSD and although I am a non-violent pacifist, I cower and swing my arms in front of my head trying to defend myself against flashbacks of being beaten by corrupt  police (I have been beaten several times and falsely accused of attacking these officers – see my blogs: http://cookcountysheriffdeputies.wordpress.com and http://cookcountyjudges.wordpress.com). This massacre in Newtown has caused me to have more flashbacks revisiting seeing wounded and dying children in the emergency rooms where I worked in Chicago 10-20 years ago.

There is NO mental health care in America; no understanding, respect and compassion for the mentally ill; no support for their families; no help available; just disdain, disrespect, hatred, blame, and ignorance. LaPierre’s and others’ descriptions of mentally ill shooters as “lunatics” and other derogatory terms I would rather not repeat makes the defamation against the mentally ill even worse.

Would you blame a person for becoming sick with cancer or being born with a deformity?  Yet we blame the criminally insane and defame them as evil!  We are a very sick society!

I treated a boy who attempted suicide and when I was releasing him from the hospital, the major university children’s hospitals in Chicago and its suburbs said they didn’t take these kids in transfer who didn’t have insurance (Loyola University, Northwestern University Medical Center, Rush Medical Center, Christ Hospital affiliated with the United Church of Christ and part of Advocate Healthcare) they had a year-long waiting list (Mt. Sinai Hospital and Medical Center), they only took transfers to their mental health unit of persons on Medicaid who lived in their zip  code (University of Chicago); or such other lame excuses all due to the country refusing to pay for mental health care.

I tried to testify in juvenile court that an aunt who was trying to help her nephew, whose parents were in prison for murder, had a child who was dangerous due to his mental illness, a liar and that the aunt was not a child abuser. Instead the child needed hospitalization and mental health care for life. He may grow up to be a mass murderer.  His aunt was falsely labeled a child abuser due to the child’s lies without a legitimate fair due process court hearing. The aunt lost custody of the boy and his brothers. The children were placed in foster care or given to their criminal drug dealing and gang member relatives who the aunt had protected them from. He has already become a rapist and was in prison for a year. His brothers have become burglars and teen drug dealers under the wings of their relatives and the lives of the brother who were doing well with the aunt have been ruined by the Cook County judges and court system.   We need extensive judicial reform!  I would love to testify before Congress.

Instead the judge threw me out of the courtroom, declared I was not a reliable witness, instead listened to a child welfare worker who had a few months training after getting a bachelor’s degree in psychology, ended up destroying my career and now corrupt officials arrested me on many false criminal charges and jailed me in retaliation after I began this campaign to get help for these  people.  Read my other blogs: here, here, here, here & here. The corrupt officials who divert Social Security Title IV-D funds from helping families to judicial pensions and fees for incompetent court-appoint hacks who claim to do mental health evaluations and claim to evaluate family situations (child representatives and guardian ad litums in divorce and custody cases), vilify anyone who tries to change the system and get the country to really look at mental health care, custody decisions, divorce courts, and misuse of government funds because we threaten their illegal funding stream. Read about that here.

Until the Affordable Care Act (ACA) known as “Obamacare”, patterned after “Romneycare” in Massachusetts, is in full swing and expanded to deal with mental health care and cover all Americans as a universal single  payer health care system, none of these mothers will have help and the shootings will continue. Victims also need access to mental health care.

See my suggested 15 point plan to address gun violence and gun deaths in America here: https://twitter.com/DrLindaShelton (1/2 of them are suicides and most are not mass murders but are murders by people known to the victims – 11,000 per year in the U.S.  – compared to about 35-50 in either England or Australia who have both banned and confiscated weapons after mass murders in schools).

Please consider joining the group “Newtown United” on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/NewtownUnited

The following is a MUST READ that has begun this conversation: http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/12/thinking-unthinkable.html

The following poem expresses all of our grief and sadness: http://newtown.patch.com/blog_posts/dear-santa-7cbef59a

Statement by former Representative and victim of shooting Gabby Giffords husband Kelly at her shooter’s sentencing excoriating the government and Gov. for not dealing with gun violence and mental illness: http://jezebel.com/5959149/gabby-giffords-husband-stares-down-her-shooter-gabby-and-i-are-done-thinking-about-you