I’m no expert in the US Constitution but the latest chatter about the second amendment has led me to do some thinking. Here is what the second amendment says: “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”
The first bit of history is to note the amendment was ratified in 1791. At that time the States had no professional, trained army and so it fell to citizens to form the militia and of course they needed to be armed to carry out what would be an expectation of protection (‘...as necessary to the security of a free state’) . Today the United States has fully functioning armed forces which is armed and trained. This begs the question why the citizenry needs to be armed and why the second amendment in intent needs to exist. There is no obligation on any of the States to follow the amendment as it is not included in any other amendments which mandate a State follow it. It is questionable whether my right to own a gun has much to do with the security of a free state.
James Holmes in Colorado and his hideous, murderous assault could be seen as personifying what the NRA and its ilk support. He was exercising what they say is his unalienable right to bear arms. He was sure as hell bearing arms to the max. One might wonder why no one else in the cinema was bearing arms but one might in many ways be thankful they weren’t or at least chose to bear arms but not use them.
I am always at a loss to understand why Americans believe they need to bear arms, own guns, protect themselves with firearms etc while most other countries get by without it. I am further at a loss to understand why Americans see no correlation between their belief and the breathtaking number of gun related deaths/crimes/murders/assaults each year. 8775 murders in 2010 were caused by firearms – that’s 24 a day (Britain 600 for the same period or 1.6 a day, Australia 250 –one death every second day, 1% considered suicide).
NRA spokesman David Britt suggests “None of us in the free world would have what we have if it were not for guns. It’s about freedom, it's not about violence." He also suggests that gun control is a threat to liberty. Well when someone puts a bullet through my brains I’m just not sure where my freedom and liberty lies. When you feel your home is under threat and you need a gun to protect it when such a threat has not yet occurred I’m not convinced that is exercising freedom, aren’t you in some way entrapping yourself? If you are suspicious of your fellow humans to the extent that your country has more guns than citizens where is the liberty, isn’t liberty about thought and fairness and respect and acceptance as well? Being a slave to paranoia or prejudice or irrationality is not freedom, is not liberty, it is a form of incarceration of thought which is insidious and dangerous.
I am persuaded to the argument that government should serve the people rather than the people be subservient to government but I don’t believe that argument or philosophy is served well by a community of people who believes the first response, the best response is to shoot and kill. When the argument is reduced to ‘guns don’t kill, people do’ (ridiculous) or fascist sloganeering ‘out of my cold dead hand’ or even dick waving ‘The war is coming to the streets of America and if you are not keeping and bearing and practicing with your arms then you will be helpless and you will be the victim of evil.’ (Ted Nugent), it’s hard to take seriously but you still cringe.
By the way isn’t Mitt Romney a member of the NRA?
To Mr Holmes himself; he is being described as evil and I wonder if this is not an overused reflexive term. I can see what he did can validly be called an evil act but I’m not sure the person themselves can be called evil, what is the criteria? Repulsive because it repulses me, revolting because I am revolted by it, heinous because it is an atrocity and mystifying because we don’t know why. Evil has its own context and its own uniqueness. I suspect it makes us cope better if we use a darker term and assign a label more suggestive of something demonic or satanic than the act of a (possible, yet to be proved) disturbed young man. We have no doubt James Holmes committed this awful crime but we don’t know why. We can judge him and we can ponder as that seems appropriate. BUT unless and until we find that out the nature of the crime is very much up for debate.
Just sayin...
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