Okay, this one is mine; and I’d like to make several points, right from the start.
1) I know Vermont doesn’t have a “gun problem.” The entire country has a gun problem; and, ‘last time I looked, we’re still one of fifty states…red and blue. As illustrated by the ease with which guns are transported state-to-state, single state solutions are ineffective at halting the spread of gun violence.
2) I am not advocating to do away with the Second Amendment, just for the freedom to discuss what I see as its lack of clarity and foresight.
3) I do not oppose gun ownership.
I will, however, passionately advocate against the NRA, which I think has stepped out of its formerly useful role into a very dark place.
To me, the NRA has become an enemy organization, attempting to corrupt the democratic process for their own corporate interests. I don’t see how they are any less of a threat to the stability of the nation than was the Communist Party at the height of its influence; perhaps more of a threat, because some of its accolades actually hint at justification for armed insurrection.
But where is the outrage? I suspect it’s there, but lawmakers are too cowed by things like recall threats to really give it full-throated expression; and the rest of us just don’t want to mess with gun-toting hotheads.
And before this gets anyone going, let me just add that I know there are hotheads on both sides of the argument. But, theoretically at least, only one side is armed.
If this frank analysis doesn’t make you chuckle, that may be part of the problem.
It is my opinion that the greatest danger to everyone’s Second Amendment rights comes from those who would test them to the extreme. There was a silent and self-limiting social contract in acceptance at the time of the Amendment’s adoption; one which simply no longer exists.
Anyone who insists that the eighteenth-century framing does not allow for some debate, is part of the problem.
When the NRA resists background checks at gun shows or other common sense regulations that the majority of Americans do favor; when they intimidate lawmakers and confront grieving communities following gun tragedies, they do greater damage to the heritage of the Second Amendment than I ever could by raising some common-sense questions about its parameters. Just raising the questions does not mean that I will win the debate; or that your rights will be diminished in any way.
When lawmakers in Iowa inexplicably profane both the Second Amendment and the Disability Act by declaring that the blind cannot be prohibited from carrying guns in public, and the subject can’t even be raised for debate; the spirit of the Bill of Rights has been dealt a far greater injury than my innocent questions ever could inflict.
Here is one of those gnawing questions that I’d like to ask: what have we become as a nation when an entire community (Nelson, Georgia) can be required by law to own and maintain a gun?
I thought we already had that assurance from the law of the land.
And… what happens to the family that is discovered to not have a gun, or fails to “maintain” the mandatory weapon? Just curious.
If the Second Amendment suffers a fatal blow, it will not be at the hands of those who are now asking simply for a common-sense reading. It will be at the hands of the NRA and those who would test it as extremely as possible.
Yes, I know; these are just “anecdotes” and not representative of gun culture in America as a whole; but they do affect entire communities, as few “anecdotes” are likely to do.
Yesterday on NPR, I listened to a dystopic projection by some economist on where the U.S. is headed in terms of income inequity. He saw the inequity growing and finally resolving into a society somewhat like Mexico, where roughly 17% of the population are millionaires and the remaining people live in permanent insecurity.
Not surprisingly, he forsaw that the ultimate growth industry in the future would be marketing!
He felt that we would resign ourselves to providing some sort of universal healthcare, and universal education that would uplift the meritorious; but for the most part, once you and your family landed in that lower strata, there would be no way out. He thought people would just learn to be content with less like so many have been in other societies.
Ha! thought I; you wish.
Unless you find some way to deprive the underclass of all the media opportunities to see how the other half (or in this case, the other 17%) lives, it’s just a matter of time before that vast underclass rises up to try and violently take what they cannot hope to have any other way.
Critical to this guys vision of the future was unlimited access to media (along the lines of an “opiate for the masses,” if you will); so that’s pretty much game-over.
And who will the first victims be? Not the fabulously wealthy, gated and guarded and flown from destination to destination.
As we see in our inner cities right now, the first victims will be other poor people who will endure an endless turf battle for what little is left for them.
And they will be armed like no underclass in history has been armed. Oh, the wealthy will have far more and better arms; but the poor will be armed and dangerous…no more so than to one another.
Of course the poor will still be needed to fight our wars; and there they will continue to be turned into deadly weapons themselves, courtesy of PTSD and barely rudimentary mental health care for veterans.
So let’s all try to grow up and see if we can have this difficult conversation before it’s too late…if it isn’t already too late to do so.
with false assertions, false insinuations, false accusations, and claiming your position as the only “common sense” one, don’t be surprised if you are not taken seriously.
Also, be prepared to be gently mocked and deconstructed.
Why bother?
Guns are big business. This is why the NRA can go to the ‘extreme’–also how Bernie got elected in 1990.
Regulating people’s rights is NOT the answer to gun violence. The answer is to fight for our economic rights (and “pursuit of happiness”) and demand that the Federal Government start regulating and restraining Wall St. and the Rich in their ‘pursuit of our unhappiness’.
Sue, think about it. This national gun debate is like Bush’s ‘Weapons Of Mass Distraction’. Ralph Nader in the 60s wrote a book called UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED, talking about an unsafe ‘product’ out on the American marketplace because American BIG AUTO then was like unto the NRA now.
So, we should DEMAND of our lawmakers the regulations on big business that will protect our safety–economic, social, and environmental. If we had not been derailed by a ‘magic bullet’ in 1963 perhaps now we would have a sane and humane society that cared about its people, its future generations, and the Planet. But, instead we have the Rule of the Robber Barons, allowed to plunder for the sake of the few. Guns are a product–of Capitalism. The only good way to have gun control is to put Wall St. and the Banks and the Rich ‘under control’. Once people get back (if they ever had it) their power to demand (in a buyers market) products that are safe and sensible at a cost affordable to all without massive profit for the few as the bottom line, I think you’ll see Americans taking a look at the ‘gun product’ and saying: “There should be restrictions on this product or that one. These products are unsafe, unnecessary, and…well…stupid. Who is making a profit marketing guns that belong on the battlefield, rather than in the woods or in the home?”
We will still be able to buy automatic and semi-auto rifles, etc., but there will be a new and sensible mindset about it. The kind of mindset I think that was behind the Second Amendment in the first place.
So, as far as I’m concerned, this Gun Debate is wasting a whole lot of energy and ‘activism’ that could be put to better use. To me, I look at it as all part of the piece of ‘behavioral regulating’ that includes smoking and other ‘politically correct’ targets–such as words, language and critical thought (books in schools, etc.). Vital protections have been stripped from the Voting Rights Act, and Republicans in many states are now on campaign to ‘clean up’, if not ‘purge’ Americans’ right to vote. This is as bad as it gets and that’s where our focus should be.
The Gun Control Debate is like those American ‘vigilers who don’t want war because their plane might get bombed on their way to Jamaica. Gun Control is like Peace Without Justice. Without Justice, there will never be Peace.
Think about Justice when you argue about guns. More Injustice begets more WAR. A revision of the Second Amendment sets the PRECEDENT for a revision and gutting of the entire Constitution. Doesn’t it? Or am I missing something here? And who are the people who will make the revisions? Sorry, Sue, but I land on Ed’s side in this, although without the Black Helicopters. Because it seems like, with the Gun Debate, Americans have forgotten about Afghanistan, Sequestration, Global Warming, you name it. And maybe that’s THE PLAN.
…is that CRIMINALS will always have guns. The poor criminals and the Rich criminals. And the Cops and the Drug Dealers and the Assholes. So, what lib-er-als like Dianne Feinstein are saying is: “We QUALITY PEOPLE will depend on the Police State to keep us safe. But all the rest of you have to PAY MORE for the PRIVILEGE of owning a gun if you want to protect yourselves from what’s coming at you from all ends. Fuck you. I don’t want you to be able to have a gun because…well, because…I can just do it…I have that power. And if I get MORE POWER, I especially don’t want you to have a gun.”
Naval Yard massacre? How many, Ms. Feinstein, were massacred in Afghanistan that day?
Oh, and hey, Ed–Feinstein (& Boxer) SUPPORTS Obama about bombing Syria. When you get on her case you should mention this in your posts (or have you already?).
Gun Control, but no WAR CONTROL.
Shit. Sue, do you really want people like Dianne Feinstein ‘regulating’ Americans so she can vote for WAR?
And, one final note on the Navy Yard massacre (can’t resist)–“IN THE NAVY”–The Village People.
Sue, the problem with guns is not the guns, it’s people.
Guns don’t lobby for lax gun laws, guns don’t lobby and call their representatives to allow blind folks to have gun permits, guns don’t fulminate and hysterically rage and temper-tantrum about “Obama’s gonna git your guns”, guns don’t go on about “libruls” taking away their rights, guns don’t slop their misogyny over folks like Boxer, Feinstein, and/or Pelosi (seriously, Sue, do you even know what a clip is, little lady?), guns don’t market themselves as “man-cards” for hapless wonders, guns don’t go on and on about their murder-suicide pacts (“cold dead hands”), guns don’t arm themselves for highly unlikely home invasions, guns don’t run to the gun store and gun shows to build up an arsenal of semi-automatic weapons and bullets to last them through this Armageddon and the next, guns don’t make a run on Walmart bullets when a black man gets elected president, guns don’t advocate and flag-wave for half-nekkid people to open carry in a residential neighborhood, guns don’t go to the polls in their camo and NRA t-shirts and intimidate voters…
People do. Gun owners do. Gundies are the new christianists (there is a big overlap). Like the louder-mouthed amongst the evangelical and mega-church crowd, they appeal to hate and fear – and misogyny, homophobia, and racism – and the lowest common denominators.
The good news is that gun owners are the new smokers. Social opprobrium is working – the percentage of Americans that own guns is decreasing. Despite the master debating by the gundies, it isn’t working, other than rallying the crazy faithful.
(Ridicule is part of the opprobrium, so I make no excuses for my words. Tough shit. Like you said, Sue, the gundies are the ones waving the guns. Besides, the gundies on the other side loooove ridicule, too – until you double down on them.
And, you know, FIRST Amendment and all that.)
Go play on Kestrel’s diary.