By MARC McDONALD
In the aftermath of the deadly shooting that killed 27, including 18 children, at a Connecticut elementary school, there's one theme you can expect the mainstream media to repeat over and over in the coming days.
That is: How could this tragedy possibly happen?
Actually, there's no mystery at all.
The problem is that America has practically zero meaningful regulations on guns, thanks to the assholes at the National Rifle Association, an organization that has had great success in pushing its extremist agenda on America over the past 30 years.
The NRA's vast power is the main reason that America today has far weaker gun restrictions than it did a century ago. For example, in my state of Texas, in the 1890s, it was illegal to carry a concealed gun, unlike today. Which raises a question: how, exactly, did Texans manage to get by back in the 1890s with gun laws that were more restrictive than what we have now?
One issue that I never hear discussed when there is a tragedy like this is (ironically enough) the Second Amendment's actual text. Oh, sure, the gun nuts regularly talk about the Second Amendment in a general sense. But nobody ever actually cites the actual wording of the amendment.
There's a good reason for this. Despite what the gun nuts would have us believe, the wording of the Second Amendment is very convoluted and vague.
Here is the text of Second Amendment:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Yes, it does contain the text, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms." But the gun nuts tend to overlook the inconvenient words that precede the latter.
"Well regulated"?
Gasp! Who wrote this? Nancy Pelosi?
Needless to say, the gun nuts quietly tiptoe away from this part of the amendment.
So what, exactly, does the Second Amendment mean? Does it mean that the government can pass absolutely no restrictions on guns whatsoever (as the NRA would have us believe)?
I'm sure the gun nuts would emphatically say "Yes!"
The problem is the Second Amendment's actual wording itself. I don't claim to be an expert on the Bill of the Rights. But in reading the Second Amendment, with its reference to a "well regulated militia," I just don't see that the amendment forbids any and all restrictions on arms, despite what the NRA would have us believe.
I'd suspect that most Americans would agree with me on this point. In fact, if more Americans were aware of the actual wording of the Second Amendment, I'd suspect even more people would agree with me.
Amazingly, even most gun nuts seem to be unaware of the actual text of their beloved Second Amendment. Here in Texas over the years, I've had countless conversations with gun nuts. Without exception, every time I've asked them to quote the Second Amendment's actual wording, they've been unable to do it. And it's not like I'm asking them to quote a lengthy passage. We're only talking about one sentence.
It's interesting to note that, before the massive wealth of the NRA helped that group achieve its iron-grip on American politics, starting around 30 years ago, gun restrictions were not even that controversial in America.
The fact is, even in the Old West, gun control was accepted as necessary. The f*cking Old West!
The Hollywood image of the Old West, where everyone is walking around with gun holsters is pure fiction. We live in truly surreal times when even the Old West had stricter gun laws that we have today.
Incidentally, a predictable argument of the gun nuts is always "This shooter would have been able to get a gun regardless of any gun control laws." It's an absurd argument. It raises a question: then why have any laws at all in America, if there are always some people out there who won't obey them?
Yes, a determined shooter could get a gun, regardless of any gun laws. But in the real world, a few sensible gun laws can and will reduce easy availability to guns. The entire rest of the industrialized world is my "Exhibit A" on this point.
A determined shooter could get a gun in a nation like England or Japan, regardless of those nations' strict anti-gun laws. But in the real world, few shooters do, and as a result those nations (like the entire rest of the First World) has a fraction of the violent gun crime that the U.S. has.
Note: when I've pointed this out to the gun nuts over the years, it's always their predictable cue to bring up the race card. "But those countries don't have as many blacks as we do," they say.
In fact, in my debates with the gun nuts over the years on the various woes afflicting U.S. society, they always bring up this point as a last resort. "But America, unlike Europe and Japan, has black people!" they always claim.
This last point confirms my belief about a lot of these NRA/GOP types. They're racists, pure and simple. They prefer to scapegoat other people for all of America's problems. It's always amusing listening to them vehemently deny that they're racist. I mean, these are the same people who pollute their minds with Rush Limbaugh's racist filth, day after day and then claim that they don't see anything racist about Rush.
OK, I will concede one point. Yes, it is true that, for various reason, per capita, black people do more gun-related crime than white people do in the U.S. But if you do the math, this still doesn't account for the staggering disparity in violent gun crime rates between the U.S. and the rest of the First World.
So my message to the NRA gun nuts is this: take your extremism and ram it up your ass. (And do the same with your racism).
Oh, and despite what you retards believe, Rush Limbaugh is in fact a racist piece of sh*t. So is any gun nut who claims that America's shockingly high gun violence rates are mainly because of black people.
Thank you, NRA. The blood of these children is on your hands.
Midday Palate Cleanser
5 hours ago
13 comments:
Well said!
Americans, and us Canadians too, will have prayers, memorial services and lay flowers in all sorts of places in memory of this horrible and preventable tragedy. All that does is comfort the living. It does not help the murdered. It most certainly won't help the next bunch of victims, and there will be a next bunch, that gun culture will always have a next bunch lined up. Organizations like the NRA don't have an upper limit of deaths where they pull back the reins and say,"Hey, maybe we should do something about this!" . The NRA and people of their ilk, do actually do something when shit like this goes down, they buy more guns and ammo and hoard them "to prevent crap like that from happening again". Go on any gun site/blog/facebook page and that's what you read. It is sickening. They want to arm teachers. Unfucking beleivable. The furor of this will die down, then another event will occur, and the cycle will continue.
the NRA and gop are good at mixing things up that are not related.
example: the gun violence associated with economic crimes i.e. illegal drug business, has no relationship to the mass murder crimes that have occurred in mostly white communities.
But when te numbers are crunched they say oh look at all the shootings!.
gun violence is a occupational hazard in the illegal drug business, just like it was when alcohol was illegal.
Considering that a Supreme Court Justice, in striking down Washington, DC's ban on handguns, ignored the part about a "well regulated militia", why should we expect the average citizen to do otherwise.
In my view, the "well regulated militia" clause should be bolded and highlighted.
You really have to consider the state of arms and the intent of the Founders in this ammendment at that time. The ultimate weapons were the single shot long rifle and flint lock postols. Though the militia idea, originally to avoid the establishment of a standing army, was lost certainly by the War of 1812 we still have the "well ordered" bit of language. Which to me means registration and restrictions. However in reality this new massacre is simply another fund raising opportunity for that vile organization the NRA.
You've got to be kidding. "Well regulated" (militia) defines a well outfitted militia, clearly not one under the kinds of Government restrictions Progressives would like rewrite history to mean. Colonialists were acutely aware of the gun-grab encroachments upon them from centuries of life as subjects in England. They were acutely aware to that which delineates Citizenry from Serfdom. You Progressives need to learn your history.
And if any body has blood on its hands, it's the Administration, not the freedom-loving Americans grateful for the ILA. Witness the trend for white, disenfranchised, intelligent young men who aquire their guns through precarious means...these are the perps of these handful of mass shootings. AND THESE SHOOTERS DO THEIR CRIMES IN STATES UNFRIENDLY TO GUN OWNERSHIP. Stats show far fewer die when CCW laws are in place. The coroborating data (cf John Lott) affirms an armed society is a polite society. Progressives are incapble of the logic for the presence of 'DETERENCE'. Disarming good Citizens only empowers criminals...it's a simple, maxim really.
I dare the editor to post this. I doubt it will happen since Progressives eschew truth & veracity. You screen your blog to avoid facing facts, so it ends up being the marginalized handful here preaching to their own choir. Grow huevos and pony-up to the debate...the ILA is playing hardball & the corrupt Justice Dept. isn't going to be able to tiptoe around the stink they've created with their 'Fast & Furious' debacle.
re:
>>Grow huevos
This is rich, coming from a gun nut. I see a lot of you people here in Texas. You're scared of your own shadow. You won't even venture out of your house without your trusty gun, which you cling to like a security blanket.
In my opinion, if you're not on a battlefield and you insist on carrying a gun everywhere, you're a coward.
Most NRA/GOP types I know are indeed cowards. Sure, they love their guns (it's clear what they're compensating for). But very few of them that I've know have ever actually served in the military. Most of them (like chickenhawk cowards such as Ted Nugent and Dick Cheney) worked hard to avoid serving.
All murders are horrific, but the mass murder of children and teachers in Conn. is almost incomprehensible.
Almost all of these mass murders have been committed by young men with assault weapons. The writers of the Second Amendment could not possibly have foreseen the development of such deadly weapons.Yet, the NRA thinks we should all be able to have such firearms designed only to kill as many human beings as possible in a matter of moments. Those of us who despise guns need to start a national campaign to ban assault weapons. It would be a start to curtail the power of the NRA and all other gun nuts.
What does the NRA have to do with an insane man killing children? Yes, the NRA wants low gun control, but they did not say or tell anyone to go and kill innocent children. Your article explicitly blames the NRA but it was the insane man. Lets get mad at the govt for not having any kind of regulation on the sanity of people. lets have screenings every month to make sure that every man and women in this country is sane. I am not saying i am all pro-NRA, but it is certainly not their fault. Even if only few people could have guns, it would take just one person to snap, and go on a rampage like this. Even if a shooter didnt own a gun, they could potentially steal one. This man was cold and calculating. Allegedly the overwhelming majority of the victims were shot in the head. He was calm and steady while doing this. I am sure a person who is just as "dedicated" to say to kill as many people as possible could just as easily have used a home-made bomb, or maybe a knife. Strict gun laws can only cut down on single killings, like gang violence. But not events like this. To simply put it, no one, but the shooter, was responsible or able to stop this terrible tragedy from occurring.
GereMarc,
EXCELLENT job on pointing out the true, and in my mind, ONLY accurate interpretation of this amendment! How the NRA and dangerously paranoid far-right crackpots could misconstrue this amendment as to actually saying that individual ownership of assault weapons and semi-automatics is unfathomable. NO ONE, for ANY purpose, needs weapons of this nature! All these people do through their insane advocacy efforts is guarantee more massacres of innocent people. It is shameful, and I don't think I can stand another brutal murder of innocent young children as was done at Sandy Hook Elementary!
Hi Jack, thanks as always for your comment and kind words.
re:
>>"I don't think I can stand
<>innocent young children as was
>>done at Sandy Hook Elementary!"
Yes, and the sad thing is that the horror of this incident will eventually start to fade and that, ultimately, nothing will ever be done. I'm baffled as to why Obama doesn't take firm action---it's not like the NRA isn't going to despise him no matter what he does.
Got to hand it to you that you are great at twisting words just as most liberals are. I don't own a gun, not part of the NRA or have any particular agenda to grind on. I will, however, stand true for why this country was founded in the first place and the protections put in place to keep it from falling back into the traps of "the motherland". You need to go get the officially ratified 2nd amendment which has just one comma in it. It states that the forming of militias is protected and the reference to well regulated meant that it can not be a rogue unit or tied into one particular political body. Imagine if the Republican party decided to put together its own militia. This is the type of tyranny they came out of and exists in many soveriegn reign countries now. That is one item of two protected in the amendment. The second protected the citizens from being overrun by just such a situation because each individual in thie country is given the right to have a gun in order to rise up against such a tyranny. In other words, the 2nd amendment states "NEVER AGAIN SHALL THIS HAPPEN". We have the laws on the books to regulate...they simply need to be enforced. Those that commit crimes with guns should not be sitting in jail but taken out by those same weapons. Justice but quick, swift and done so as an example. THe most peaceful society in western Europe is Switzerland. EVERY person at age 18 is issued a gun in that country and taught how to properly use it. They are also dealt with swiftly if that gun is ever used to commit a crime.
Hi Anon, you know, I hear a lot of the right-wingers babbling on about how the 2nd Amendment supposedly protects "freedom."
The reality is different, though.
Actually, the 2nd Amendment was passed to preserve slavery.
Read about it here:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery
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