Don't We?

Well, the situation on Capitol Hill, it seems, is getting a bit heated. The Senate Judiciary Committee is trying to figure out what to do about a difficult question—should somebody with a criminal record or a history of mental illness including violence be allowed to buy a gun? Forty percent of guns sold in the US do NOT include a background check.

This is a difficult, difficult question for our senators, who perhaps see things in this question that we simpler souls do not. Because a large majority—is it 80%? 90%? Who cares…the numbers are ridiculous—a large majority of the American public, as I was saying, support universal background checks.

And according to the New York Times, tempers flared at a luncheon for Republican lawmakers last weekend. Senator Susan Collins was pissed—she’s getting attacked, she said, by the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) which has deep ties to Rand Paul. Then Portman got into the fray, saying that he’s spending time raising funds for Collins, and she’s obliged to use it to defend herself, instead of getting her message out or attacking the opposition. Then Ted Cruz of Texas jumped in, and said he had nothing to do with it. (Cruz, apparently, is an ideological fan of Paul.) Then Paul, offended, left in a huff (OK, the New York Times actually said “stormed out of the room.”)

According to the NAGR, the National Rifle Association (NRA) isn’t sufficiently vigilant or militant in protecting “gun rights.” Yes, you read that right—NAGR president Dudley Brown thinks that the NRA is “negotiating backroom deals with left-wing Republicans and Democrats for half a loaf of gun control.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/slew-of-gun-rights-groups-flex-muscle-89781_Page2.html#ixzz2QXPj1sCy

Some people feel differently, like former Colorado State Senator Jean White, who got shot down in the primaries, and then saw a Democratic opponent win the general election. She says the NAGR is a godsend for the Democrats; several others agree. In the meantime, the NAGR took in and spent 7 million bucks last year.

Collins is also upset because the ads—coming from out of state—suggest she doesn’t act or talk like a Mainer; she grew up in northern Maine, where everybody had guns. And the ads hit pretty low—her face doing a slow dissolve into the face of Obama. Oh, and they call her a “gun grabber.”

Guys, this is insane. And it’s a typical example of how, by trying to be reasonable with crazy people, you end up in the end in completely crazy positions.

What we should have said, those decades ago when we were worrying about “Saturday night specials” (remember those halcyon days?) was this:

1.     The Second Amendment applies to the right of the citizenry to arm themselves and form militia. You have no individual right to own a gun.

2.     OK—for historical reasons, you can own a rifle and engage in hunting.

3.     The only purpose of a handgun is to kill someone. Sales of handguns are illegal, and illegal trafficking will be strictly punished.

4.     No attack weapons, semi-automatic weapons, etc. Rifles, period.

5.     As technology evolves, you will be required to upgrade your weapon, which means, yes, a national registry. We know that you have a car—why isn’t that a big deal? So you’ll be getting letters, periodically, saying that your gun has to have a Breathalyzer, a GPS chip, a PIN lock…whatever.

6.     Duh, background checks…..

7.     Sell guns through the mail, the Internet, gun shows? What, are you crazy? Guns are sold only through licensed shops, whose records are inspected annually.

We should have said it; we didn’t. So the gun people kept claiming more ground. Eventually, they got the Supreme Court to reverse two centuries plus of constitutional history and say that the Second Amendment allows individuals to own guns. More and more laws got passed protecting gun owners and gun “rights.” Gun makers got immunity from lawsuits; it became illegal to fund research on the effect of gun policy. As everyone went farther and farther into this crazy land, the NRA and the other gun “rights” groups had to whip up the masses more and more on progressively more crazy issues. Now, they are forced into attacking their friends—like Collins—by making up absurd claims. Oh, and also by lying.

And they have now, of course, put the Republican Party in a real jam. Because they are about to show their true colors to the American people. They’re about to tell 80% (or is it 90%) of the American people to go to hell, that they don’t care what they think or how many kids get killed, because nothing, in the end, is more important than the next election.

As deeply as I care about the issue, it may be time to focus on the way our campaigns are funded. Because now, we have a terrible example of how a single-issue constituency can completely subvert the democratic process by injecting twin amounts of money and lies into campaigns. Add to that the fact that corporations can now contribute freely and we have a looming disaster.

It may be time, it may be well past time, to do what Norway does. About 74% of campaigns are publically funded. Oh, and another wonderful piece of news: political ads are banned on television and radio.

I’d go further, of course. It seems crazy to me that a candidate can opt out of accepting campaign funds. Level the playing field—give everybody the same amount of dough, and let the best candidate win.

I mean we all do want an honest government, don’t we?

Didn’t hear the answer—don’t we?

Don’t we? 

A Voice That Cryeth?

Is everybody crazy?

There is a retired guy in Midland, Alabama, who has killed a school bus driver, abducted a kid, and held him hostage for over six days. The community is outraged, in pain, holding vigils. Law enforcement people apparently can’t go in because the guy is heavily armed. However, they are in contact with the abductor, who has agreed to provide coloring books and medication for the child, who has Asperger’s Syndrome. For these actions, the sheriff—as you can see in the clip below—took the liberty of thanking the abductor for caring for the kid.

I’m having a disconnect, here.

Well, how about yesterday’s news? A navy seal, a guy who killed 150 people in Iraq, came home, wrote a bestselling book about it, and is shot on a shooting range. Another guy was shot as well, and the killer took off in Kyle’s car (he being the seal), went to his sister’s house, confessed and then went home. The sister called the cops, who apprehended the killer some hours later.

You’ll have guessed my reaction. Simply put, if a gun cannot protect a navy seal who is an expert sniper from what I presume is a surprise attack, well…what’s the point of having a gun? Actually, it gets a bit worse. Who knows which of the two people was the first to be dispatched, but presumably there had to be at least a second when the second victim could have turned, drew a weapon, shot the assailant.

Unless you’re trained to respond instantly and reactively, your reaction to a sudden and shocking violent act is stupor. You’re stunned. You stand there with your mouth open looking down at your slain friend and you don’t do the obvious thing. Which is, of course, to take the assailant out before he takes you out.

Right, so we’ve got an insane guy in Alabama with an Asperger’s child in a heavily armed tornado shelter. (This, by the way, seems like the least pleasant way for anyone to spend six days—it may tell you how crazy the guy is….) We’ve got a sniper who couldn’t defend himself.

And we’ve got a whole bunch of nuts who believe that the government is out to get them, and their only defense is to have as many guns as possible. And the quote the second amendment, which runs as follows:

The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.[97]

OK, Educated Reader, I know you caught it. Here’s the complete version:

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.[97]

It was probably those famously radical Madison Public Schools in the dangerous days of the late fifties and early sixties that put the idea in my mind: the second amendment was not about telling people it was just fine to have semi-automatic weapons, it was about ensuring that the citizens could grab their muskets and fight in a well regulated militia. Short form: individuals don’t have a right to bear arms—the state does.

Well, was I busy daydreaming of boys in high school? Was that the class I skipped, in order to play chamber music with a friend? It was forty years ago, after all.

What I didn’t know, until I tracked it down just now, is that the US Supreme Court only decided that the second amendment protected an individual’s right to bear arms in 2008. Yup—that’s four and a half years ago. And as you can imagine, it was a five / four decision—with all the justices that you’d expect piling up to protect this “right.” And here, of course, is the voice of reason, John Paul Stevens:

In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens stated that the court's judgment was "a strained and unpersuasive reading" which overturned longstanding precedent, and that the court had "bestowed a dramatic upheaval in the law".[49] Stevens also stated that the amendment was notable for the "omission of any statement of purpose related to the right to use firearms for hunting or personal self-defense" which was present in the Declarations of Rights of Pennsylvania and Vermont.[49]

So now we’re stuck. It’s a curious thing, how people who have a visceral, knee-jerk hatred paranoia of the federal government have no trouble jumping on the bandwagon and rushing off to Washington when it fits their purpose. And of course it’s no surprise that of the 47 amicus curiae briefs, most of congress, John McCain, and—no surprise here—Dick Cheney came out swinging for this “right.” Obama did not, nor, interestingly, did the United States Department of Justice.

All of us are busy placating. “No,” we tell the gun crazies, “we’re not after all your guns—just the semiautomatics and the assault weapons, and please—couldn’t you go along with background checks at gun shows?” Obama claims that he shoots skeet at Camp David, and then has to release a picture of him with—literally—a smoking gun to prove it. Hasn’t he learned? Half of the population “knows” only two things about him: that he wasn’t born in the state of Hawaii and that he’s a Muslim.

In fairness, interpreting the United States Constitution is nothing you do on a Saturday afternoon while drinking beer with the boys. I’m just as glad not to have to do it. How does free speech as comprehended by the founders apply to something like the Internet? Don’t have a clue. But I do have a thought about the guns that individuals have a “right” to own. Sure! Let’s be a strict literalist here. Of course you can have a gun.

A musket!

My Crazy Country

It’s one of those weird things about living in a place that is and isn’t my country.

I ran into the story on El Nuevo Dia’s online edition. So I read in Spanish the story of an eleven-year-old kid who took a gun to school in Utah. He was brandishing it in the playground at recess, and threatening to kill a group of kids. They took the advisable step of alerting the teacher, who, along with several others, approached the kid and asked for the gun. The child gave it up, after saying that his parents had suggested the idea—never too early to keep a kid safe!

Right—so now we have parents giving guns to their eleven-year-old kids?

My original reaction was ‘nah, can’t be.’

Now, I think it’s probable.

Until you meet one, it’s impossible to imagine the depth of craziness of a gun fanatic. Or the level of fear and suspicion that they exude. And for anyone wondering whether the fabled frontier mentality—trust no one; shoot first, ask questions later; hate those bastards in Washington; you get the picture—is dead, I can tell you, it’s not.

And it leads to the question—will we ever change? How long has it been since the Pilgrims, whom even the Dutch couldn’t put up with, came over to a virgin land, and here we still are, centuries later: just as extreme, as antisocial, as suspicious and untrusting as they.

Look, there’s a lot to like in my country. Living in another land, another place, gives you that perspective. And—a nod to Mr. Fernández here—the fifty states manage to weld some very diverse cultures. Rural Iowa versus Las Angeles Watts, for example.

But there’s a group of us that are very, very fearful. They really think they’re under attack, that their existence is threatened. They’re convinced that Obama was born in Kenya, is a Muslim, and that their kids are gonna be forced to watch Satanic sex films in kindergarten, the way things are going. And suggesting that anybody put any limits on arms is psychic castration.

Right—so we have the crazies. The rest of us? We’re tiptoeing around them.

Maybe it’s sensible—these guys do have guns, after all.

But when an eleven-year-old takes a gun to school because his parents—gee, was it his mother or father?—suggested it, and I read about in Puerto Rico but not on CNN, and nobody apparently is talking about it or discussing it, well, maybe we have gone too far.

It’s a serious question in my mind. Should we stop being reasonable? Or rather, should we start?

I had thought, earlier in the week, that we could at least have a dialogue on assault weapons, background checks at gun fairs, psychiatric evaluations, etc.

But now I think having a rational discussion with a true gun-lover is impossible. And maybe it’s time just to say fuck it, this is crazy. In other words….

You don’t have a right to own a gun. Period. And the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to individuals but to the right of the people collectively—you hear that?—to form militias to protect themselves. And guess what? That applies to hunting, because listen—man is not the only living creature on this earth, and no, you don’t have a right to kill them either. So right now we have a choice between protecting children and mollifying a bunch of crazies who are seriously armed and whom we’ve put up with all these years.

And guess what?

I’m going with the children.