I am not shocked by the latest grisly massacre of innocents by an individual with an arsenal of guns. Why should I be? We Americans refuse to do anything to stop it, or even to limit it, so why should we be shocked? After all, it happens again ... and again ... and again ... and again ... and we do nothing to stop it.
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Isn't that the colloquial definition of insanity?
I cannot believe that most people in this country want another massacre like Colorado, Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc. Yet, we let our silence rule. We let the NRA and the so-called supporters of the Constitution's Second Amendment call the shots, both literally and figuratively. We make excuses: the shooter was deranged, mentally ill. As though that is an explanation for his having free access to an arsenal. >Some even prescribe more guns as the antidote!
The First Amendment, the most important one, has limits, according to the Supreme Court and the other branches of government. Then, why is the Second one sacrosanct? Do you even know what the Second says? Here it is:
Amendment Two. 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.
I'm going to go out on a limb here. If some court somewhere cannot find some limits to apply to these words, then it is time for the Second Amendment to be repealed. That's right. Repealed. Eliminated from our Constitution. Eliminating the right will not eliminate the guns, but it would be a start.
I grew up around guns. There were guns in our house, and they were not locked up. (They also were not loaded, while not locked up.) My father's unlocked gun cabinet was a fixture in our living room. In our household, guns were a viable means to a legitimate end: meat for our table. I learned from a very early age that guns were dangerous weapons.
I played with toy guns when I was a kid. Once, I pointed my toy cap pistol at my father. I was probably 4 or 5 years old. I was playing, as kids do. My father's reaction was swift and memorable. He said, "You do not EVER point a gun, any gun, at anything you do not want to kill!" To this day, something as seemingly benign as a kid pointing a nerf launcher at a bird makes me anxious enough to need to pass that lesson along to the young perpetrator.
Why, then, do I think that guns should be regulated, that our "right to bear arms" should be eliminated?
The simple reason is that most people don't get the lessons about guns that I did. They don't learn to respect guns like I did. More importantly, they don't learn to understand the consequences of guns like I did. If guns are in the home, they are often hidden from children, or so the parents think. If guns are in the home, they are too often handled inappropriately. (Think about how many people are shot when cleaning an "unloaded" gun.) If guns are in the home, they are often left loaded deliberately. ("What good is an unloaded one?" the thinking goes.)
Increasingly, this is how we try to "protect" ourselves and our children from harm in a society and a culture that is replete with gun violence, real and fictional. Moreover, we have a culture that somehow fails to gift our children with the lesson that guns in the wrong hands for the wrong purpose are deadly. And we make all kinds of guns available to anyone with the money to buy them. And then we are "shocked" when someone walks into a theatre or a school and sprays people with bullets.
Well, I am not shocked. I am angry that such stupidity reigns in this country.
An enduring memory of my first trip to London was seeing police officers (even those in riot gear) without guns. Another was seeing a poster in the Underground warning me of pickpockets. I laughed when I read that poster! I didn't want my pocket picked, but at that time in Washington, DC, one could be concerned about being shot just walking down the street. I lived and worked in the neighborhoods where the Washington sniper and his rifle were picking off ordinary people going about their lives. I remember driving for miles out of my way to get gas, hoping to find a gas station where I was "unlikely" to become another target.
Give me a Nation where I have to be concerned with pickpockets instead of gunmen. Please. And repealing the Second Amendment would be a place to start.
