This truism was based upon what we saw--repeated cases of gun use for, in many cases, the mere use of it. One particular case highlighted that point and coined that truism for us. A young man from a relative stable home shot a policeman and intended to kill him. He was from a relative good, stable home: his mother was a California Highway Patrol; they lived a middle class life, yet one night this teenager and some of his young friends were standing in front of a seven-Eleven store drinking into the early morning. An Oakland police came upon them and was frisking the group to send them home, if there were no weapons on them. But the young male with the gun pulled it and shot the police until there were no more bullets. After that he went to the policeman to get his gun, but the policeman was wearing a vest and was only stunned and defended himself.

At that trial, the judge asked me to sit in and give him my opinion--he called me the "social worker type." After seeing the young man revealed, as the ADA pressed him on the stand, the judge and I concluded that this kid represented others like him and that if a kid has a gun he will use it. That was the origin of our truism. We saw that a child with a gun may be too scared not to use it; he may be mean enough to use it; he may be too dumb not to use it; and/or he may be too intoxicated by that weapon to not use it.

We purposely used the colloquium "kid" instead of a child or young person because a kid is actually a goat and we were attempting to characterize that child in his self-willed ways, not making use of the prudence of experience, logic, or any other form of temperance that mature adults use to make decisions. A child rushes into a situation half-cocked and dimly, but he rushes nonetheless thinking he has enough information and judgment to make a decision that will be life-altering.

This is President Bush with the US military. He rushed into Iraq singing cowboy songs of get out of town in 48 hours, as he was intoxicated by his gun and did not considered history's lesson that Vietnam taught the French and us: Regardless of a nation's poor military posture, going into their land to oppress them is a mighty undertaking that is risky at best and a trillion dollar military cannot and will not assure victory to the invader. Yet Bush is like the "kids" seen in Juvenile Court in many ways: stubborn and dumb. But as stubborn as he is, his Republican president, Reagan, coined an expression: facts are stubborn things. And facts are as stubborn as our kid Bush.

A fact that is stubborn and relevant to Iraq and that region is this: A people will fight to the death of themselves and the invaders to free themselves from oppressors, but Bush is cocksure that no nation can overcome a trillion dollar military. He has not factored into his cocksureness the will of a people to survive and defend their homes. The US called Vietnam "Rich eaters" and "gooks" as if a name placed on a person will in fact determine who that person is. To call a man a terrorist because he defends his home does not make him a terrorist. In an objective or world of realism--when histories of fact are written--when this situation is viewed, the terrorists will not the ones who labeled others, but those who terrorized in fact. With our American glasses on, glasses that allow us to see only the myths of Americanism, this president and this people can never see reality.

Were the adventurism into Iraq that has killed and wounded thousands of Americans (30,000 physically wounded; 3030 killed) and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed (650,000--Lancet Medical Journal) this president is now poised to use his gun again in Iran and possibly Syria.

The judged asked me, "his social worker" minded administrator, "What should I do, Frank?" My answer was this: "This kid needs to be taken off the street because he has a gun and he will use it as long as he has it." This Congress was elected to bring this kid with a gun under subjection, lest the world is continually terrorized with a kid with a gun that is too dumb not to use it, mean enough to use it, and who is so intoxicated with its power that he will always use it as long as he has it without any understanding of the egregious harm being wreaked on the world for years to come.