Tags
McCarthyism, National Rifle Association, NRA, Pledge of Allegiance, Sandy Hook, Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, Stanley McChrystal, United States
The recent Sandy Hook massacre blasted open a fractious debate about solutions to gun violence in America. This is a good and logical outcome of such an unthinkable tragedy. Some of the proposed solutions are real head-scratchers.
I pledge allegiance: One line of defense against gun violence is the notion that our country has somehow failed our children by dropping the morning recital of the Pledge of Allegiance. Or if the pledge is still recited, the inflaming words, “under God,” have been sanitized out of it. Oh my God, we have shut the school doors to God; violence and mayhem are the result! This argument has holes like a road sign on the Wyoming prairie.
- Here is the original pledge, as written by Edward Bellamy to be used in a Columbus Day school celebration in 1892: I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. In later years “my Flag” was changed to “the Flag of the United States.” The words “under God” where not added until 1954, during the height of our country’s infamous period of McCarthyism.
- This argument assumes that a lack of patriotism is at the heart of random acts of mass murder perpetrated by a handful of confused and/or deranged individuals.
- The “under God” reference assumes that it is impossible to be a patriotic American without also believing in God. I beg to differ and I resent the accusation.
Arm the good guys: The NRA‘s perplexing solution is more armed citizens. Yes, we can build the economy while we’re at it, outfitting every Good American with a semi-automatic weapon. But . . .
- What defines a Good American? How do we decide who is good and who is bad? Will I be a Bad American because I’m an atheist? Will every armed American be subject to a battery of psychological tests to determine the degree of their patriotism, their honesty, their sanity? McCarthyism revisited?
- It is interesting to note that the NRA of the 1920s and 1930s proposed gun legislation based on the following three goals:
- no concealed handguns in public without a permit from the local police
- required gun dealers to report to law enforcement every sale of a handgun
- imposed a two-day waiting period on handgun sales.
- Embracing the anarchistic wild west mythology will not create stability and safety. The west was tamed by law enforcement which resulted in far fewer people carrying firearms. Arming more citizens is a giant leap backwards.
Expanded background checks for gun purchases: The theory here is that guns too easily land in the hands of criminals or mentally unstable individuals. By mandating that ALL weapon’s purchases require an official background check, only sane and law abiding citizens will be able to carry assault rifles and concealed weapons.
On the face of it, this seems like a move in the right direction. However, we can never predict when a sane person hits a bump in the road. Here’s a potential scenario to consider: My beloved neighbor is hurt in a car accident and falls victim to pain relievers; life spirals out of control for him. He’s got a house full of AR-15s, purchased when he was in fine shape. Now, however, he is prone to fits of rage and paranoia. But he has all those weapons . . . .
It’s the second amendment, Stupid! Yes. This is the bomb, isn’t it? We can argue till the cows turn purple about how to interpret this amendment and its reference to an armed militia. I thought I was paying taxes to support my armed militia in the form of the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and all their various components. Some Americans apparently feel that they, as individuals, are also part of a universal American militia. Have they received training in weapons management, anger control, situational assessment, or crowd dispersal? If we are paying taxes for military protection, why should non-military citizens carry assault weapons?
I suspect an inherent fear of our own government underpins this philosophy. While I agree that our government is guilty of many horrendous gaps in logic and ethics and that we must keep our eyes on what is going on in the government, I do not believe that arming ourselves against our government is possible or logical. Where is every citizen going to store their armored tank? How will we ever afford the fuel to run an armored tank for every family or even for every city block? How will we manage the nuclear and chemical weaponry necessary to fight off our well-stocked government? It’s a ludicrous notion.
The weapon we hold to rein in our government is the ballot box. Yeah, I know, it’s not as quick, as final, nor as satisfying as a vote with gun. Our government was designed to be of the people and for the people. That means the people must step up to the plate and take ownership, do the hard work of citizenship. It goes deeper than the ballot box. Don’t like what’s going on? Stop whining and pointing a finger. Go to a city council meeting; you may be there most of the night, but you will see your government in action and you will learn a lot about the process and sacrifices involved in governing. Sit on a local board or an agency. Run for office, volunteer, observe a trial, participate in a jury summons rather than dreaming up reasons to be excused.
We will never be able to protect ourselves from our government by laying in a supply of ammunition and weaponry. As retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal says, assault weapons belong in the hands of the military, not in the hands of everyday citizens. “The number of people killed by firearms is extraordinary compared to other nations. I don’t think we’re a bloodthirsty culture, and we need to look at everything we can do to safeguard our people.”
I don’t know the answer to how we should move forward as a nation. I am all for my friends collecting guns for their own use: for hunting, for target practice, for the sheer mechanical genius of the machine. However, I also believe that assault weapons have no place in a civilized society. The issue of gun violence in America is many faceted. The problems weave around each other: exposure to and condoning of violence as entertainment, poor reasoning skills, poor self-control, poor mental-health management, poor diet, poverty, misinformation and miscommunication. I hope we will be able to open our minds and our hearts, to listen to each other with respect and honesty, and to create new solutions to a problem that has been growing exponentially for 30 years.
Have you thought of any new solutions to this old problem?
Rangewriter 
I’m Canadian. You can pretty much guess where I stand on this. What private citizen needs a gun that fires multiple rounds ? (rhetorical question).
The American “right” scares the crap outta me.
The bumper sticker on my car sums up my view: “Republicans for Voldemort”.
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You’ve outdone yourself, Linda. This is one of the best and more thoughtful commentaries I’ve read on this exploding issue.
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Thanks, Bob.
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You have written a great, thoughtful article. I can feel your talent ooze out of every word.
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Thanks for taking the time to comment, Larry. And may I pass the compliment back to you, who fed my love of words and language in high school with daily, or was it weekly, vocabulary words. Most of them I already knew, but two reached out and grabbed me and I’ve loved them ever since: obsequious & ubiquitous.
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Liebe Linda, besser konnte der Kommentar nicht geschrieben werden und ich danke Dir. Es wird auf der ganzen Welt immer wieder Verbrecher geben, die nicht anders argumentieren können. Nur sollte es ihnen nicht so leicht gemacht werden, an Waffen zu kommen, wie in den Staaten. Aber trotz der strengen Gesetze in Deutschland, passiert es auch hier immer wieder. – Im Grunde sind es ja nicht die Waffen, sondern die Menschen, die Menschen töten. Nochmals Danke. Elmar.
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Vielen dank, Lieb Elmar, fuer dein Komment. Ja, I agree, it is the people who kill. The guns are only the tool. But with the types of guns at hand, it is like putting drivers on the Autobahn in cars that go 300 kpm. When mistakes happen, they have an exponential effect, killing SO MANY innocent people. (Sorry, I can’t say all this in German.) Perhaps this is humanities way of dealing with over population.
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Well said! The solution, as I see it, is as elusive as trying to catch smoke. And it is neither new or novel. It is simply this: Apply Common Sense.
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Great answer. However, I think most laws in a given society are based on the need to make sure everyone employs Common Sense. As we know, for a lot of reasons, many people are not ABLE to apply Common Sense, either temporarily or at any time. In a civilized society we try to protect the innocent from those who are common-sense-impaired. How should we best go about this?
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Linda, I agree with everything you said in this brilliantly-written post. The problem is that the guns are already out there, and even without them, people in the wrong frame of mind who are intent on harming others will always find a way. Regarding the Second Amendment, literal adherents should be limited to using eighteenth-century weapons. These anti-government “patriots” and guys who think they’re part of a militia are the last people who should be carrying a gun.
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I have to agree with your last statement! We do have a problem with the presence of what is already available. It’s like having let the Genie out of the bottle. We will never be able to reel all that back in. But, perhaps we could reduce the numbers of them, stop the proliferation, alter the statistical probabilities a little?
BTW, thanks for the compliment. Your first sentence will keep me walking on air all day.
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Damn I love the way you write, girl. A couple of thoughts…in the recently published study comparing health in the U.S. to other wealthy nations, a stat that really jumped out at me was that an American citizen is 20 times more likely to be shot with a gun than citizens of other wealthy countries.
Having said that though, the whole world is in a militarizing trend right now. Conflict is on the rise globally and as Bronxboy mentions, the weapons are already out there. (It’s an interesting exercise to follow the money behind it all, btw.) I suspect the cycle has more downside before it turns up again, but hope like hell I’m wrong.
I was just thinking the other day about attending some of our City council meetings over here…I always feel a little guilty that I don’t. That really should be a required part of citizenship: Participation.
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That is an interesting, frightening, and not surprising statistic. You are right about the militarizing trend. I wonder if the relative shrinking of our planet, the increased crowding and struggle for resources might lie at the heart of this uptick in violence.
I need to return to the political process too. In the 80’s I belonged to a neighborhood organization that forced me to attend many city council and P&Z meetings. I came away from those both frustrated by the process of having to listen to poorly articulated and rambling citizen commentary but also impressed by the patience and fortitude of elected officials who work late into the night and read reams of text for what is billed a part-time job. My former husband used to sit in on court cases when time allowed and when a particular case piqued his interest. I always claimed I’d do this too, after I retired, but so far, I’ve simply sat on my fat ass. I need to take my own advice.
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I agree that the problem is multi-faceted. Because of that, I suspect that I would be against any simple, linear solution.
Government regulation so often looks good, to me, on paper. The problem is that, once implemented, these regulations tend to grow into something entirely different than what they were when the idea of them was sold to me.
One example is Bush’s silly “No Child Left Behind” (I use that example because it was written into law by a “conservative” president, and it is a reminder that a simple title is very little indication of a person’s character). That legislation looked great, but it was shit. Really wasn’t worth a damn.
I would love a comprehensive solution that would always remain as it was when it was sold to us. The problem is that all too often new regulations are regulated by some bureaucratic branch of the government. A bureaucratic branch that has already grown so far beyond their original identity that power has gone to their heads, and a confusion of boundaries has ensued.
I’ve thought a good bit about the idea of god being taken out of our public institutions here in the US. First, I’ll say that dishonesty frustrates me (this doesn’t apply to you). I’m okay with differing opinions, as long as I believe that the opposing view was reached through an honest thought process. Using The Constitution as a basis for taking God out of our schools and other places is dishonest and frustrating.
Beyond that, I think it’s interesting that, allegedly, part of the motivation to remove god is an attempt to cater to all walks of life; to not offend. Here’s a quote from me –
“I can think of nothing that could more firmly hold a man back in his pursuit of life, love and happiness than doing his best not to offend people. Every strong leader has offended people. Sometimes just by his presence.
Every decision that we make will win some and offend others. Every religious, political, and moral belief is exclusive and thus will offend some people. Every time we buy something, wear something, say something; every time we progress, get a raise, or intervene on someones behalf, we offend someone.
If we all really did our best to not offend anyone, we simply could never believe anything or make any decision ever again. A perfect example of how out of hand this concept could get is the boycott of the term “Christmas”.”
So, like I was saying, any belief that we could possibly hold to is exclusive; otherwise we would not believe it at all. And this attempt, by our government and pop culture, to be all-enclusive simply cannot hold up for long. In our attempt to not offend, we’ve decided that everybody is right. Nobody’s wrong. And that cannot be. Unfortunately, somebody has to be wrong. We try to my moralists and we become silly.
Also, in our attempts to be moralists we’ve erased our lines of morality and haven’t drawn any new ones. This is dangerous.
I think about the example, here, of the Amish girl who leaves her roots. She decides that it’s all been a farce, so she sets out for a new life. To her, at first, coolots would seem no different than nudity. Both are beyond the newly erased line ethics. Once that line is erased, she’d better draw a new one soon, or she may be in for a bit of a ride… if not a lot of trouble at some point.
In our situation, we’ve erased the line and hidden the source. If we even were to draw new lines of morality, what do we have to base them on? Our laws? Can you mandate morality? Only to some degree, then it starts to not work.
You may not believe in God ( I myself detest the god of America’s churches), but His ethics are safe; His laws are freeing; His instructions bring order, and He is a basis for our expectations of good behavior from our nation’s citizens.
Just so you know, this response was written with a strong note of respect for you. If I had just been talking to you in person, I would’ve been searching your eyes for unspoken responses, and adjusting my tone as needed. Text offers no such luxury.
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So glad to hear from you Dinkerson. I was hoping you’d drop by. Let me say this right off the top, your response was delightfully well-thought out, civil, inclusive, and sensitive. Had you seen my eyes as I read, you’d have seen points of surprise, thoughtfulness and a big smile.
You have raised some of the very same points that trouble me. We come at these issues from slightly different directions, but it is uncanny how
similarly we feel about them at the core. This is, in my opinion, the type of debate…no, exploration, that is missing from American political and social exchanges.
I absolutely agree with you about how government regulation is like a viral bloom. Rarely do our regulations drive the intended results. Your NCLB
example is right on target. Another example: Just yesterday I was talking to a friend who owns a dredging business. I asked if he’d been involved in any of the flood damage mitigation after Katrina. He explained how crazy the process was, how many levels of bureaucracy wedge between the need and the potential providers. “There’s so much money skimmed off during that bureaucratic process that by the time I got there with my equipment and my employees, I’d be working for free.”
But, on the other hand, I can point to government regulations that have transformed this country and how it does business. For example, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the EEOC, which was put into place the following year to insure that the Act was enforced, are directly responsible for my 36 year career at the USPS. Without that regulation, chances are slim to non that I would have found employment as a letter carrier. I would not be having this conversation with you because I would have spent the last 40+ years scraping to make a living out of waiting tables or some other such poor wage employment. Has EEOC caused problems, headaches, nightmares, inequities? Of course. During my career I saw this in action, with people being hired over others because of gender or race, people being over-sensitive and running to EEOC to complain about trivialities (which drives the political correctness which you also address). These things drove me nuts. But I think if you look at overall results, you find that our country is blessed to be able to harness the energy and talent of different ethnicities and genders. Unfortunately, the more populated the world becomes, the more regulations we must endure to insure a civil and safe society. And I suspect that the very size of government is what contributes to the astronomical obesity of the regulations we end up with.
I love how you say this: “In our attempts to be moralists we’ve erased our lines of morality and haven’t drawn any new ones.” Another riff on the theme is this quote by Florence King: “The more immoral we become in big ways, the more puritanical we become in little ways.” Can we mandate morality? Dang it, we shouldn’t have to. Our mandates should be moral, but we shouldn’t have to mandate morality. Morality should be taught at home, by parents, molded by whatever creed they use to establish their conduct. If followers of all the religions were to actually follow the tenets of their faith, we’d have a really workable society. The rest of us, outside of religion? It’s not that complicated to establish your own moral values. For me, the foundation of my moral code is to treat others as I hope they would treat me.
This brings me to a conversation I had yesterday with a recently retired educator who complained, her eyes nearly welling over, that parents have absolutely wrecked the educational system. (Well, her ideas are not this simplistic, believe me, but boiling it all down…) Parents have demanded that their kids aren’t singled out for punishment, not given burdensome homework, but by God, they can’t be failed! Rather than working with teachers and supporting them, parents have begun looking over their shoulders, micro-managing classroom practices. Parents elect school boards, so policies follow parental direction rather than best practices educational doctrine. How can we expect solid moral behavior and erudite thinking given this dumbed-down approach to education?
I fear you and I have both strayed slightly off topic, here. (It’s been fun though.) Getting back to my original question about gun violence. Are you proposing that by bringing God back into the schools we could avert some of the violence? Truthfully, I’m not completely opposed to this idea. In most of Europe, religion is taught in the schools. I don’t mean religious dogma or doctrine. I mean theology, the history of the world includes the history of religion, from pagan on up to all Abrahamic religions, Buddhist and Hindi. How can we understand our place in the world without understand the various forces that have shaped us as people, as nations, and as cultures? Just as we need to understand the geology of our planet and how it functions in our solar system to live safely on its surface, we also need to understand that forces of our history, which includes to a huge degree, religion. There is nothing wrong with introducing a Christian child to the theology of a Buddhist. Nor the reverse. And Christians need also to understand that Muslims and Christians shared a prophet in the beginning. The story of the world is so large, so interesting, so intricate. It is a shame to see it through a tiny tunnel.
Maybe increased understanding could eliminate some of the anger at the heart of the violence. But I fear there is much more going on. I think we have inequality, hunger, poverty, poverty of the soul, disenfranchisement, and maybe even environmentally-based mental illness to address, as well.
Again, Thanks for taking the time to share your insights. I should have made this a new blog post! ;-o
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Sadly, I feel there isn’t enough emphasis on mental illness and that if we take away guns, homemade bombs and cars driven into crowds or some other heinous crime, will take their place in the mad minds of the criminally insane. If I thought it would solve the problem, I would support it. But Tim McVey (may have mispelled) and Terry Nichols blew up a federal building with fertilizer and amonia. Any thoughts??
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I absolutely agree that mental health is one of the neglected elements that contributes to violence. It is quite clear that a huge majority of the shooters in these events suffer from undetected or untreated forms of mental illness. I’m not exactly sure how we could effectively ensure detection, but surely there is a way to do a better job of it. And, sometimes a person who functions normally for years, hits a bump in the road that throws everything out of wack. The idea of going to the doctor for a high fever is never questioned. But too many of us try to struggle through dark times on our own, without seeking counseling or medical help. A stigma still dogs the idea of mental illness. I’m sure I’ll make some people angry by bringing this up, but as fine as the American medical complex can be, it is clearly not available to everybody. All the talk about mental health care is a mute point until all medical care is available to all Americans.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion, writingfeemail.
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The 2nd 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.”
Gracious! How well regulated is our militia?
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Yeah, well, I don’t even want to get into the various flavors of interpretation. The constitution is a bit like the bible, different depending upon who translates it. Yeah, I know, it’s in ENGLISH! Shouldn’t require translation, but I’m afraid that’s what happens more often than not. And there is the whole contingent of conspiracy theorists who fear that our regulated militia may be turned against them/us.
In any event, I think gun control is only one facet of the any possible solution to violence in America. But I also wonder if this isn’t a lost cause. Maybe violence to each other, along with global warming, is the planet’s response to our overpopulation and pillaging of resources, the great rebalancing. We have no predators except ourselves.
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Recently, a girl was raped by 5 men in a bus. Ever since then, our country has been under a muted debate of whether the possession of firearms should become easier in India. For the sake of self-protection. Especially for women.
The problem in this suggestion is that it overlooks the fact that humans include people who choose to be or become deranged. Such people are every where. In your country and mine. To forget that such people will continue to wield their paintbrush and paint an innocent canvas red would be foolish.
I do not know what made your constitution choose this for its citizens, but perhaps a reminder that liberty is best experienced in chains is in order?
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Yes, Priya, the rape of the girl on the bus and the resulting debates and protests has been quite widely reported here. I did not realize, however, that it had sparked a discussion in India about possession of firearms. In a country as crowded as India, I can only imagine the consternation of inserting firearms into the masses. I think that is a genie best left in the bottle.
The historical background for the second amendment is rich and logical and open for interpretation. Our country was young and newly independent from Britain when this amendment to the Constitution was added. At the time, our “armed forces” consisted of pretty much every able-bodied man in the country. It was important in that setting, that these men had access to weapons in the event that the militia would be needed for any threat to the nation, as a whole. The debate about the amendment today centers around what is meant by an armed militia. As Sagebrush and Spuds points out above, some of us believe that we already have one of the best armed and trained militias in the world in the form of our army, navy, air force, and coast guard. But there are a contingent of people who fear a government controlled militia. They do not trust their own government, (quite understandable at times) and fear the possibility of the government becoming a dictatorship or a tool of fascism. These people believe that the term, armed militia, implies an armed citizenry, capable of defending itself against all threats, internal or external. It’s a complicated issue, one that divides and polarizes us and makes reasonable dialogue very difficult.
Priya, I am somewhat surprised by this statement: liberty is best experienced in chains … Could you elaborate on that idea? I think this is a very foreign notion to Americans, myself included. Thanks for contributing to the discussion!
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I read it somewhere as a kid, Linda — something about liberty in chains being the best possible kind. I have begun to agree with it with time.
When there is an absolute of anything — let’s take liberty in this case — there is an automatic misuse of its sanctity. I think it is largely because people do not know any other way. When you take something for granted, you misuse it. If there are sanctions (stoppers for the wine bottle, if you will), there will be an appreciation of the essence at hand. No?
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Interesting. I think I understand. Without cloudy, (rainy, cold, sad) days, we would never appreciated the sunny, (dry, warm, happy) days.
Actually, in the case of American freedoms, this is really a pertinent concept to consider. Many people use the 2nd sentence of our Declaration of Independence, adopted in 1776, as reason to believe that Americans have unlimited “freedom.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” What is then not taken into consideration is the potential of one person’s liberty to interfere with the liberty of another person. My cranky neighbor’s right to own an assault rifle has the potential of interfering with my right to pursue happiness if I am afraid to leave my house for fear of his unbalanced state and the arsenal at his immediate fingertips.
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