I write about gun violence on occasion knowing full well that it’s an exercise in futility.  Why?  Easy; our elected representatives, our law enforcement organizations, and now the courts have been overtaken by weirdos and ideologues who have morphed the powers of local, state, and federal government from “law and order” to an alternate reality believing that overturning over 200 years of legal precedent and history and putting guns into the hands of everyone is somehow sane public policy.  We’re 24 days into the new year and have already had 40 mass shootings in the US, killing 74 and wounding 170.  In that same period of time, over 2,800 people have died from guns and over 2,100 have been wounded.  Gun violence has overtaken car accidents and drug overdoses as the leading cause of death in children in America.

There has been an unrelenting effort by the gun lobby to rewrite the Second Amendment from its original intent into a gun-humper’s dream.  The amendment that provided for a citizen army to protect the newly formed government in the late 1700s has been turned onto its head with junk law and fake “studies” to turn the amendment into a Guns for Everyone ideology.  In unwinding 200 years of case law, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito have relied on bullshit and junk law to justify their politically motivated rulings which included gutting Washington, DC and New York gun safety laws.  They’ve relied on a doctrine of  “originalism” which, translated from Bullshit to English, is an excuse to turn everything on its head forcing 21st century technology into an 18th century framework of law.  The Heller case was the death blow to sanity by declaring that an amendment that provided for a citizen army lead by state and local authorities was actually enumerated a person right for any idiot to carry a firearm anywhere he/she damn well pleased.  Using this insanity, even more insane state politicians use the same junk law codified by the SCOTUS to unwind centuries of gun safety laws all over the country.  As Michael Waldman, Director of the Justice Brennan Center at NYU Law, said after the Court struck down the NY gun safety law,

“The ruling Thursday says that all these judges got it wrong. Instead, the majority said, courts must assess gun rules especially focusing solely on ‘history and tradition.’ Don’t look at public safety; search for analogies to past laws from a very different time.”

Waldman has written extensively about the history of the effort to rewrite the Second Amendment.  The gun lobby did it in plain sight, pumping out bullshit and fake studies while at the same time paying Republicans to kill federal funding into gun violence for almost 40 years.  Add that to decades of gutting the ATF and attacking any authority trying to curb gun violence, and the takeover of America by gun nuts is complete.  SCOTUS has already communicated that the gun safety law debate is over and insanity won.  The Congress won’t protect us, the President can’t effectively act alone so he can’t help; red state governments have completely unraveled what gun safety law we had left, and ideologues sue local and state governments who dare try to protect their citizens.  This war is lost.

Until the Court was bought by the multi-billion dollar Federalist Society, we had a chance.  But that was lost with the triple assist from TFG.  The SCOTUS is now a zombie court that has asserted that it has no authority to protect Americans from massive gun violence, radical gerrymandering and unlimited money that has completely corrupted our elections and destroyed democracy from within.  This war is lost so we have two choices – give up and go arm ourselves and join in the chaos and carnage; OR fight back.  Grass roots is all that’s left and the job is massive.

The only solution to this dystopian alternate reality is to get rid of the Second Amendment.  I know that sounds crazy, but we’re already up to our eyeballs in crazy, so we have nothing to lose.  In 2018, Justice John Paul Stevens proposed just this in an op-ed in the NY Times.  He was right then, and remains right today.  Let’s stop niggling over definitions of assault weapons and semi-auto firearms.  The solution is to start – and win –  a new war that takes back the safety of our citizens away from the gun nuts and zealots.  I know that by no means is this going to be easy, but it’s the only solution left.

As we move through these tricky times, we find people picking and choosing which bedrock principles they will choose to follow. These choices are based on fear. They are based on things that aren’t real and have never been real. Some of these choices are based on bedrock principles that are invisible.

Keep in mind, these were the jackasses that saw a group of protesters walking down their street. None of them actually came on the property, but what the hell, the second amendment saved their lives. Those protesters kept going after the McCloskey’s were standing on their porch with their ridiculously huge guns. Someone might take their guns from their cold dead hands, but it will be after they’ve accidentally shot each other.

Listen to any second amendment fanatic long enough and you will hear two inevitable “truths”. They need those big guns to protect them in case of a home invasion. They need those guns to protect them when the government goes rogue. Lost in the translation is the extreme unlikelihood of either of those things actually happening.

Lost in the translation is the near complete cancellation of portions of the first amendment. In particular, movement conservatives now want to cancel the establishment clause and want to tear down the walls between church and state. This isn’t rumor. This isn’t innuendo. They are saying this explicitly out loud.

We’ve discussed gun control and gun rights before. Certainly we can produce commentary from the framers that would seem to indicate a desire for unfettered access, but a broader look at history doesn’t back it up. Boil it all down and it’s all pure fantasy. It is about as meaningful as the need to protect ourselves from a rogue government or rogue home invader.

What we haven’t touched on is the seemingly randomness of holding some rights sacrosanct while others are ignored. Freedom of speech, religion, expression, and assembly is at the very heart of our political culture. The ability to travel freely and unfettered is there too. But by all means let’s have those big guns so we can protect ourselves from our neighbors and “others.” By all means, let’s protect us from a rogue government that would attack us while opening the door for them to take away our privacy and dominion over our bodies.

Thoughts and prayers. When one hears that phrase they have to suppress the rage that exists inside them. After all, there is nothing inherently wrong with thoughts and prayers. Surely you would rather have someone think about you and pray for you then do nothing at all. Moreover, everyone seems to offer that in these times and not everyone can be a bad actor.

There are three levels of response to these kinds of things. The first level is a gut reaction to the event. We hold our loved ones a little longer. We hug them a little more strongly. We seek the comfort of a beloved family pet and thank our lucky stars if no one we personally know was involved.

The second visceral reaction is one of unadulterated anger. My initial reaction was the same as Sandy Hook. It was the same as Santa Fe. It was the same as Columbine and Florida. It’s the exact same as Virginia Tech and Boulder as well. It was the same as Vegas. It was definitely the same as Buffalo.

People doing nothing other than going about their daily lives don’t deserve this. No one deserves this. It’s particularly cruel when it involves children. They had their whole lives in front of them. My first immediate thought is that the right can take their second amendment and shove it up their sanctimonious ass. They can take their thoughts and prayers and shove it up their sanctimonious ass. They can take their pro life hypocrisy and shove it up their sanctimonious ass. They don’t get to speak anymore. They get to sit down and shut the hell up so the adults can get to work.

Admittedly, as great as that feels to say, it doesn’t help the situation either. Sadness doesn’t help prevent the next one. Anger doesn’t help prevent the next one. Only action will help prevent the next one. So, any overtures to repeal the second amendment are going nowhere. We know that. The only thing it does is provide the other side with a juicy soundbite to play on the campaign trail. It’s time for adults to sit down and figure this thing out.

Universal background checks should be a thing. The assault weapons ban should be a thing. Mandatory waiting periods should be a thing. Gun registration should be a thing. Let the right prattle on about how this is a mental health issue. Great. Get up off your ass and actually do something about mental health then.

You don’t get to make excuses you have no intention of following through on just to deflect from the obvious gun problem we have. You don’t get to offer platitudes about this, that, and the other without offering real solutions. We pay you for solutions. We don’t pay you for thoughts and prayers. We don’t pay you to flee to Cancun. We don’t pay you to make excuses, obfuscate, or derail the legislative process. We pay you to make our lives better. We pay you to make our lives safer.

Maybe repealing the second amendment isn’t reasonable. We are allowed our immediate thoughts as we process yet another one of these. We are allowed our outward signs of anger after one of these that never should have happened in the first place. We are allowed to dream of a world where the United States can manage to be like every other industrialized nation in the world. So, no I will not take your guns. Joe Biden will not take your guns. Kamala Harris and every other Democrat will not take your guns. Just understand that deep down inside many of us want to.

This is one of those topics that seems to be hitting me a lot lately. It is especially acute when holidays like Independence Day come rolling around. People fly their flags and you can see all kinds of posts and personal messages about how much they love freedom, their religion, and their guns. Heck, I love two out of three of those. I’ve talked about the first two, so it is time to address the last one.

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.

Technically speaking I’m not an English teacher. I primarily support English teachers and I did teach it for three years, but I would be remiss to call myself an expert on grammar. At one grammar workshop, the instrusctor admitted that the two weeks we had was not nearly enough time. I’ve always been an intuitive writer, so diagraming sentences is not my strength. That being said, I will give the second amendment my best shot.

It is made up of a dependent clause and an independent clause. The technical term for this is a complex sentence. In this case, the independent clause relies on the dependent clause. In plain English, the right of the people to keep and bear arms is dependent on a well-regulated militia befing necessary for the security of a free state. Obviously, one cannot know precisely whether a majority intended for guns to be necessary in the absence of a well-regulated militia. It should be noted that case law is at the very best divided on this as well.

Ignorance of the law bothers me, but it is understandable. Ignorance of history is also understandable. That bothers me even more as a historian. Blatantly flauting both the law and history in a faux expression of patiotism is enough to make me lose my lunch. The same people that are so gung ho to respect and appreciate the original intent of the framers have no idea how offbase they are.

If we look at the Bill of Rights we see that both the second and third amendments address large standing armies directly. This was the forefathers biggest fear. They addressed it in multiple amendments and one of them is seen as a throwaway now. Students always asked me why it was even there. Admittedly, the idea of how the framers felt about private gun ownership of guns on their own is murky at best. It is hard to separate people from the realities they exist in.

In addition to large standing armies encroaching on people’s freedoms, they were virtually useless in defending private citizens. So, guns were in fact necessary. Yet, today we have the largest standing army (counting advanced technology) in the history of the planet. So, we are supposed to follow the letter of the law and the original intent of the framers on guns and yet we should ignore it on large standing armies. Furthermore, how would the framers have felt about the state of policing we have now?

So, it is wrong to infringe on the rights of private citizens to own and operate guns, but it is perfectly fine to trample all of the framers and their desire to limit large standing armies. The same folks that argue for private gun ownership and against limits on the same also argue for more defense spending and are first in line to argue for more policing and against police reform. Interesting isn’t it?

There is nothing worse than hypocrisy. If one wants to be an originalist they need to be an originalist. If one wants to pick and choose what precepts they want to follow they need to be up front about that. That’s the world most of us live in. We allow circumstances to mold our beliefs on any number of issues. As long as we admit that we can have discussions in good faith. It should be added that case law is consistent on legislatures rights to regulate gun ownership. If we can stop wrapping ourselves in the flag long enough maybe we can finally have some frank conversations about private gun ownership.

Gun nuts from all over the country crowded around the Virginia statehouse yesterday (on Martin Luther King Day) to protest laws that no one has proposed.  Their main objections that caused their fake outrage was that the new Democratic majority was going to…I kid you not…to “shut down the internet”, “have no-knock raids on gun owners”, and to “start confiscating everyone’s guns”.  This is in response to the state legislature’s consideration of improved background checks and limitations on the number of guns on can purchase in one month.  That’s real tyranny, right?  Generally, I find that those who parade around like this are either 1.  Criminals who can’t legally own a firearm, 2. Right wing racists who try to piss off normal people by co-opting holidays like MLK day, 3. Mentally unstable, and 4. Compensating for a physical deficiency.  Namely:

Most of said demonstrators yesterday were all dressed up in body armor, helmets, radio headsets, multiple firearms and vests that hold multiple high-capacity magazines.  Many claimed they were members of “militias”.  A news flash for these fine fellows – you’re not a member of a militia.  You are a member of an armed mob.  Militias come under federal, state and local authorities, and not just any group of idiots can dress up, and run around in the woods playing Army.  Here’s a really good explanation of the laws surrounding actual militias.

I’ve found these folks impossible to talk with about their gun obsession.  Their minds are so full on nonsense about the Second Amendment that they believe it was written to allow individual citizens to attack the government if they disagree with what their government is doing.  The Second Amendment was added for the opposite reason, which was to provide a structure for federal, state, and local governments to protect from insurrections and attacks from standing armies (like the British).  So much bullshit has been pumped into the public domain about guns that we have the result today of thousands of gun nuts protesting laws that are not proposed.  And most of the media let them get away with that.