Thoughts about the Second Amendment and it's 'Remedies'

The title, obviously, refers to the famous quote by Sharon Angles, a candidate who I hope won't win her campaign to take Harry Reid's seat in the US Senate. She proudly sides herself with the right on the right to bear arms. This brings into play the conservative movement dream wedge issue, one of several they dip into whenever they have tough elections ahead, and that is the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.

One of the things that is disturbing about the rhetoric that Angles uses, which allies her with the explicit language used by militia and anti-government paramilitary groups around the country, is the idea that one of the principle reasons for us to be able to own and use weapons as private citizens is to overthrow a 'tyrannical' government. Of course this endears her to the radical fringe that has been a primary source of energy for the Tea Party, but it also brings to the mainstream the perspective of those people who agree with that premise and illustrates exactly how fringe their overall political views are.

As with all the articles and amendments in the US Constitution, the Second Amendment has received review and interpretation by the courts and especially by the Supreme Court. The high court has dealt with a number of aspects of this issue regarding regulation and detailing legal uses of guns. It also has had a handful of landmark cases which set important precedents in the way we interpret constitutional rights as a whole.

I think it is interesting, however, to think about the understanding of warfare and the vision of a civil society that the founders had when designing the Constitution. I think that it is important for us to recognize our necessary participation in shaping our democracy, in determining those who would represent us and in providing a balance through our votes against those who would radically alter our society to all our detriment.

It is important to consider the vision of those founders when we are in a post-nuclear age. A professor of mine in college described the change in the literature and art of the late-Victorian to early modernist periods at the end of the 19th and early 20th century as arising out of the effect industrialization had on the world. In particular, the effect that the horrors of 'modern' warfare had on a whole generation of young people during WWI. That war was famous for millions of miles of trenches, and the development of trench warfare, which would often create 'killing fields' between trench positions where enemy forces could be held in stand still for months.

This modern war also saw mass production of machines that had been developing as weapons during the previous decades and their use across the theater of war. These machines put horrifying and inhuman faces on a world changing far more quickly than people could have imagined. That inhumanity of war-machines and weaponry only continued to develop so that by the time of the Pacific campaigns of WWII, we had developed weapons with the potential to kill millions with a single bomb.

There are also some very important differences between the facts around gun ownership now as then. For one, the standards of weaponry were such that a single-shot rifle was high-tech. Also, at least during the Revolutionary War and sometimes afterward, members of the military were usually required to provide their own arms. Neither of these things are true anymore. We no longer use single-shot guns, and the process of reloading the gun is quick. And while there are weapons that are legal only for members of law enforcement or for those in active military service, the technology of the arms available to the civilian population is remarkable.

That, more than anything, is what gives me problems with the idea of the right to bear arms. Why would someone, for the purposes of home protection or for hunting, need any kind of automatic weapon? If the right to bear arms was intended for and still is of a purpose to provide personal protection, how does an Uzi accomplish that anymore than a simple handgun? Considering the potential for 'accidents', which often means children finding a parent's gun and setting it off, doesn't the state have a vested interest in providing some standards of regulation? If the argument is that a responsible gun owner would teach their children not to handle the weapon or to handle the weapon safely, isn't teaching them how to use the weapon inviting them to use it? One could argue that point all they want but it is a commonly true generality that if you forbid a child something they will want it or do it.

People always seem to want 'freedom', or at least lack of government involvement, until something goes wrong and then they want to know why the government didn't step in. They don't want the government regulating their right to gun ownership, but then when their children are killed by gunfire, especially in the frighteningly frequent episodes of children bringing guns to school and opening fire, or when the same thing happens with adults in the workplace, there is always an outcry for why the shooter was allowed access to a gun.

The most famous school example is of course Columbine, the high school in Colorado where two disturbed teenagers held hostage and killed numerous classmates before killing themselves. There are obviously many other issues revolving around the two youths choosing to take such action, but ultimately the mantra that 'guns don't kill people, people kill people,' is little comfort for the families of the teens killed that day. The fact is that if those two hadn't had access to guns they wouldn't have been able to shoot up the school. Psychological and social issues aside, which of course played a role but were far more complex in trying to address, the simplest and most expedient solution would have been taking away their guns.

So, as a society, we've tried to argue back and forth between what we feel is right and what we feel are our rights. Do we allow private citizens to own weapons that a could be considered military-grade? If we do that, how do we decide what weapons are appropriate for military and law enforcement use but not for civilian use? And then how do we convince people who think that's a decision they should make for themselves that it is actually for all of us to decide? If we are going to argue about whether society should approve of same-sex marriage or on issues of immigration, why can't we insist that we as a society gets to decide on whether or not everyone should have access to automatic firearms?

I was watching tonight/s episode of The Rachel Maddow Show and she stopped by a prominent gun shop in Las Vegas, trying out several automatic weapons. For some the main argument for having automatic weapons is for the purposes of sportsmanship. If a hunter needs to be able to spray multiple rounds a second at an animal, they are a terrible hunter and should be doing target practice and not hunting with an Uzi. And it is a problem, to me, when I see what is basically a quasi-paramilitary culture being promoted or proliferating through gun culture. Are they enthusiasts because they romanticize the idea of owning a gun and being a soldier when for whatever reason they did not enter service themselves?

To me it is simple. If you are a hunter, there are weapons that are appropriate, even with advanced technology, for sportsmanship/hunting purposes. They do not include automatic assault rifles. My family owns hunting rifles, I know people who hunt, and there is nothing wrong with a gun with an easier reload or less jerk back or a better scope or site or with the ability to shoot several rounds in a quick succession. That's not the same as hunting with an Uzi.

I also don't necessarily have a problem with the idea of guns among law enforcement and military personnel. They are trained, and their behavior and psychological situations under some scrutiny so that we have few renegade cops, though the Army's recent standards seems to have led to an increase in number of disturbed people entering service or with criminal assaults and murders among service members. But either way, they are trained and understand the idea of appropriate and inappropriate use of weapons.

Weapons are for killing, pure and simple. While there may be design elements to them that are appealing, I find swords, knives and historical weaponry to be very interesting, and while there is some collectible or aesthetic value to antique firearms, even these were designed for the purpose of harming others and can be of some danger. If we treat weapons with a cavalier attitude, especially if someone with children treat them with such, than we pass that cavalier attitude on to others and help to foster this concept that somehow it is 'safe' to use them. Weapons are never safe, maybe they are safe for the user as they don't backfire, but they are never 'safe'.

Returning to Angles and the idea of 'Second Amendment remedies', it is clear she's talking about violent overthrow of the government, or acts of domestic terrorism like taking out legitimately elected officials. This is a danger to our democracy and is the kind of sponsorship of civil strife you see among many of the nations we consider 'Third World'. That is one reason why the woman and why the conservative Tea Party members are so dangerous.

In a time when anxiety is so high and people are suffering across the country, they scapegoat groups like Latino people and the issue of illegal immigration, or they scapegoat LGBT people and the issue of same-sex marriage, then paint all people who sympathize or are even rational about those groups and issues as 'enemies', using rhetorical devices to identify them as illegitimate like 'socialist' or 'communist', and then describe solutions involving violence, they are fueling the fires of domestic terrorism and civil unrest. They are encouraging those among them who send toxic substances to Congressmen, try to cause an explosion by cutting the gas line at the home of another Congressman's family member, and go armed to political rallies held by the president. All of this has been documented as happening this year.

For the rest of us, who are legitimately upset about the political process, who are afraid of our personal financial situations and those of friends and family, and who see the rhetoric of this election cycle as one more step to total anarchy, it is frightening. Most Americans do not feel the extreme anger of those lashing out with violence. While we sympathize with the sentiments, the vast majority of us choose to exercise our rights through voting, through protest and free speech. We know that if we get worked up that we can yell and shout about the issues important to us. We do not, however, believe in the kind of physical violence that extremists in this country want to promote as normal, rational, understandable, excusable and mainstream.

Our founders fought against a true tyrant, the kind of tyrant that very few in this country could really recognize. They were given no representation and were being drained of revenue by a foreign power that took direct military action to enforce its policies. Those who identify Obama with this type of dictator belittle the efforts of our founders. They also belittle the lives of so many in nations that still suffer under true dictators today, who have no freedom of speech or religion, who cannot gather in protest, and who are not allowed to oppose the government's policies in any way. These people should go and try to live in one of these many other countries to see how bad it really gets. They should suffer under dictators who would imprison, torture or even kill them for their opinions. Then they would have a legitimate understanding of what it means to be an American.