The individual “right” to bear arms never existed before the Supreme Court 2008 Heller ruling. Originalist and texturalist Republican jurors indeed! As if! Guns need to simply be highly restricted and regulated, and yes militias will be armed as necessary… the national guard of each state. Beyond that it is pure ridiculous. That individual “right” needs to be repealed for the actual original definition and lives need to be saved by banning assault weapons, high capacity magazines, bump stocks, and large boxes of bullets. Weapons can be stored at gun clubs, and not homes.
“I do not believe that anyone outside the military and police (and frankly, as in the UK, we don’t need to arm all the police) has any need for a gun.” 100% agree. Australia had one mass shooting in 1986 and the PM John Howard, in response, did just one good thing in his time as PM, he banned semi automatic weapons, had a gun buy back amnesty program, and made it difficult for people to get a license to own guns. My friends with kids in Australia today look at America and give thanks for John Howard and Australia’s gun laws.
First off, David, thank you for saying so eloquently and explicitly what crosses the minds of every one of us who are sorrowfully weary of daily reports of children cut down at school.
Secondly, I want to point to the difference between VP Kamala Harris going off script and Agent Orange doing the same. She went on to make a heartfelt, empathetic appeal to parents and families to join her in combatting mass gun deaths. TFG hurls childish taunts and goes on repetitive, soporific rants about Hannibal Lecter.
We mourn children being bombed during war in Ukrainian classrooms. Yet, we are forced to endure the shoulder shrugs and obstruction of protective measures by the gun obsessed, when children are mowed down in classrooms in this country during peacetime. Harris is right: it doesn't have to be like this.
DR wrote: "Gun owners give plenty of reasons for owning guns. One is self-defense." Follow-up question for these gun owners, especially the white men among them: "Self-defense against *what*, exactly? Or should I say 'whom'?" Consider George Zimmerman, who in 2012 shot and killed the unarmed Trayvon Martin in, he claimed, self-defense. Consider all the unarmed Black men and not a few Black women who have been killed by (armed) police officers who claim they were acting in self-defense. Consider the 2022 shooting at a Buffalo, NY, supermarket, in which Black people were targeted. Or the 2019 shooting at an El Paso, TX, Walmart, in which Latinos/as were targeted. Or the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, where the targets were Jewish. Or the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, FL, in which gay people, many of them Latino, were targeted. I could go on (and on, and on, and on), but you get the idea.
As to the 2nd Amendment -- well, it's more complicated than we might like to admit. Around the time the Bill of Rights was drafted and for decades thereafter, a main function of "the militia" in many parts of the country was to keep the enslaved in line and chase down runaways. In most places, Black people, either enslaved or free, had no "right to bear arms." It's not hard to see how today's vociferous defense of the 2nd Amendment, and the power of the gun lobby, might actually be related to the militia as it developed in the early decades of the Republic. The modern-day militia isn't exactly well regulated, but certain Americans seem to think it's their best bet for upholding white supremacy. For a deep dive into the history, I recommend Carol Anderson's THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.
The mischaracterization of the 2nd Amendment is an absolute abomination. What an indictment of our business practices and values, that we prioritize the sale of weapons of war over the lives of our children. This is not just beyond belief, it is barbaric.
The 2nd Amendment was essentially written (and in a hurry, which accounts for its bad wording) when States, such as Virginia, were considering joining the Union. The right for each State to maintain an armed militia was written into law to allow those States to have the muscle to withdraw from the Union if they so chose.
However, the 2nd Amendment, just like the electoral college, is an anachronism now. Are we, as a people, going to remain shackled to the past forever? The framers of the Amendment would hang their heads in shame if they knew that their words were being used to promote the slaughter of innocent children.
The 2nd Amendment may have had resisting tyranny (both from within and from without) as an initial rationale for the militia, but, as Carol Anderson points out in THE SECOND, the militia "had actually proved to be too unreliable and ill-equipped for those roles. They were adept, however, in buttressing slave patrols to hunt down, capture, and return back to their owners Blacks who had fled bondage. More important, state militias quashed slave rebellions." And that, I suggest, is what's driving defense of the 2nd Amendment today. Gun manufacturers and the gun lobby are benefiting handsomely from white people's fear of Black people, and non-white people more generally. To them, and to the SCOTUS majority, it's not an anachronism at all. As far as they're concerned, "the slaughter of innocent children" is collateral damage -- not just the victims of school shootings but also the toddlers and young children who get hold of a parent's unsecured firearm and kill either themselves or a sibling.
It also occurs to me that by doing nothing to stop the slaughter of children in schools, the rightwing fascists are doing everything they can to undermine confidence in public schools by instilling fear. It doesn't matter that they are doing so in the most evil of ways.
Public schools, of course, are the bedrock of our educational system. But It is no surprise that the fascists are seeking to destroy education: their agenda is to have a barely literate, but superstitious, force of citizens who are only able to work in their factories and fight in their wars.
If that's their aim, they're sacrificing the children in the religious private schools they staunchly support too. The Nashville shooting happened in a private, Christian elementary school. It seems to me that those who unquestionably support broad gun availability either don't care about children in any setting, or believe that theirs will never be endangered, hurt or killed by guns.
Agree up to a point, but what you describe isn't the exclusive province of "fascists." It's also typical of so-called "movement conservatives" and, among others, the white Southern elite before and after the Civil War.
And I believe Harris and Walz will propose gun safety laws in her first days of her administration if hopefully we win both houses. I am donating my money to down ballot candidates such as Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester and for the governor of NC
Your comments about the both the corruption of the second amendment and our toxic gun culture are the root causes that as a nation we aren’t willing to deal with. Until we can have a thoughtful discussion and have law makers in government willing to act on real solutions nothing will change. Guns should be harder to own and more tightly regulated. We do that with cars. Why not firearms?
Parents of these mass shooter teenagers need to be charged and convicted along with their children. I know it’s happened in at least one case. There’s no need for anyone to have these assault type weapons and parents/gun owners need to be held criminally responsible for what happens with these guns.
We need to hold gun owners responsible and accountable for any crimes committed with the weapons they own. If you own a weapon, it must be kept away from irresponsible and criminal control. If someone steals a gun and murders a person, the owner of the weapon should be tried for the murder. If they are found to have been reckless in storage of their weapon, they should go to jail as if they had committed tge crime. Make responsible gun owners truly responsible. Maybe folks would find it inconvenient to own so many weapons.
Newtown, the school shooting in Michigan and many others were done with unsecured firearms in reach of easily provoked youth. At the very least, the failure to keep your guns out of the hands of your child with anger management issues is manslaughter, IMO.
I wholeheartedly agree that no one outside of the military or police has any need for a gun (and their need is only when they’re actually performing their duties). There’s a guy, retired police officer, in our semi-retirement community who walks around the neighborhood with wife and dog, carrying a gun. It’s not an urban area; the area surrounding us is mostly farmland. Not sure what he’s afraid of.
I am in total agreement with all you proposed. I have 15 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren. It is unthinkable that they must suffer this. Not just mine but all. This must end by all means possible.
Thank you for your powerful words, David. I wholeheartedly agree with every word. As a member of Moms Demand Action and a grandmother, this horrific reality we are living through is infuriating and beyond tragic when we know there are common sense steps we can take if we elect officials that will heed our pleas and put our children before their “so-called” second amendment rights! We needed this to stop years ago, but we definitely need it to stop NOW. Republicans won’t do ANYTHING; we need to elect gunsense candidates up and down the ballot in every state who will take action and pass the laws the majority of us
My father was on the front lines in WWII for three years. He was raised on a farm and when he came home he ended up selling all of his guns he had as a teen he used on the farm. He told me, I've seen enough killing to last me for a life time, I have no interest to kill anymore.
I grew up in a family that hunted for groceries and I have many friends and students that do that now (AK). At $7.95/pound “on sale” even beef roast is out of budget. A group of neighbors who can go into the back country together with licenses in their pockets, can get 2-3 moose. That amount of moose fed six families last year.
Bump stocks are not a necessity outside of specially trained forces who defend the population daily. Semi-automatic weapons are barely appropriate (except for one person I know of who used that option when charged by an old, angry, very hungry grizzly boar one fall).
I suggest we make lighter weapons with which to train men & women who cannot/will not necessarily join the military but wish to have them on hand and be confident. I would go so far as to urge this training to be congruent with study of human behavior, mental health awareness/tests, and animal husbandry & proper harvest practices.
And entirely devoid of political or religious overtones.
Just training in efficient and competent use, while also being given education about the humans using them.
They have a place in our history, they need more competency and less emotion, and they will not be hidden/hoarded when the owners are given some leeway and knowledgeable support.
There are appropriate ways to use guns as tools of providing food, and
I'm not a hunter (haven't fired a gun since I was earning NRA patches at summer camp), but I agree. I'm in small-town MA. I know guys (and a couple of women) who hunt to put food on the table. What they don't have room to freeze gets donated to the local food pantry. The #1 target here is deer, and that's another reason I'm OK with hunting: the local deer herd is out of control, which affects farmers and backyard gardeners and also facilitates the transmission of tick-borne diseases, which are also out of control.
The individual “right” to bear arms never existed before the Supreme Court 2008 Heller ruling. Originalist and texturalist Republican jurors indeed! As if! Guns need to simply be highly restricted and regulated, and yes militias will be armed as necessary… the national guard of each state. Beyond that it is pure ridiculous. That individual “right” needs to be repealed for the actual original definition and lives need to be saved by banning assault weapons, high capacity magazines, bump stocks, and large boxes of bullets. Weapons can be stored at gun clubs, and not homes.
We had an assault weapons ban, and it was working.
Republicans killed it in 2004. It’s the Republicans.
Congress limited machine guns in the 1930s, and ( surprised me ) in 1986.
Machine guns belong in the armory. Period. — b.rad
“I do not believe that anyone outside the military and police (and frankly, as in the UK, we don’t need to arm all the police) has any need for a gun.” 100% agree. Australia had one mass shooting in 1986 and the PM John Howard, in response, did just one good thing in his time as PM, he banned semi automatic weapons, had a gun buy back amnesty program, and made it difficult for people to get a license to own guns. My friends with kids in Australia today look at America and give thanks for John Howard and Australia’s gun laws.
1996. Not 1986.
First off, David, thank you for saying so eloquently and explicitly what crosses the minds of every one of us who are sorrowfully weary of daily reports of children cut down at school.
Secondly, I want to point to the difference between VP Kamala Harris going off script and Agent Orange doing the same. She went on to make a heartfelt, empathetic appeal to parents and families to join her in combatting mass gun deaths. TFG hurls childish taunts and goes on repetitive, soporific rants about Hannibal Lecter.
We mourn children being bombed during war in Ukrainian classrooms. Yet, we are forced to endure the shoulder shrugs and obstruction of protective measures by the gun obsessed, when children are mowed down in classrooms in this country during peacetime. Harris is right: it doesn't have to be like this.
DR wrote: "Gun owners give plenty of reasons for owning guns. One is self-defense." Follow-up question for these gun owners, especially the white men among them: "Self-defense against *what*, exactly? Or should I say 'whom'?" Consider George Zimmerman, who in 2012 shot and killed the unarmed Trayvon Martin in, he claimed, self-defense. Consider all the unarmed Black men and not a few Black women who have been killed by (armed) police officers who claim they were acting in self-defense. Consider the 2022 shooting at a Buffalo, NY, supermarket, in which Black people were targeted. Or the 2019 shooting at an El Paso, TX, Walmart, in which Latinos/as were targeted. Or the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, where the targets were Jewish. Or the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, FL, in which gay people, many of them Latino, were targeted. I could go on (and on, and on, and on), but you get the idea.
As to the 2nd Amendment -- well, it's more complicated than we might like to admit. Around the time the Bill of Rights was drafted and for decades thereafter, a main function of "the militia" in many parts of the country was to keep the enslaved in line and chase down runaways. In most places, Black people, either enslaved or free, had no "right to bear arms." It's not hard to see how today's vociferous defense of the 2nd Amendment, and the power of the gun lobby, might actually be related to the militia as it developed in the early decades of the Republic. The modern-day militia isn't exactly well regulated, but certain Americans seem to think it's their best bet for upholding white supremacy. For a deep dive into the history, I recommend Carol Anderson's THE SECOND: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.
The mischaracterization of the 2nd Amendment is an absolute abomination. What an indictment of our business practices and values, that we prioritize the sale of weapons of war over the lives of our children. This is not just beyond belief, it is barbaric.
The 2nd Amendment was essentially written (and in a hurry, which accounts for its bad wording) when States, such as Virginia, were considering joining the Union. The right for each State to maintain an armed militia was written into law to allow those States to have the muscle to withdraw from the Union if they so chose.
However, the 2nd Amendment, just like the electoral college, is an anachronism now. Are we, as a people, going to remain shackled to the past forever? The framers of the Amendment would hang their heads in shame if they knew that their words were being used to promote the slaughter of innocent children.
The 2nd Amendment may have had resisting tyranny (both from within and from without) as an initial rationale for the militia, but, as Carol Anderson points out in THE SECOND, the militia "had actually proved to be too unreliable and ill-equipped for those roles. They were adept, however, in buttressing slave patrols to hunt down, capture, and return back to their owners Blacks who had fled bondage. More important, state militias quashed slave rebellions." And that, I suggest, is what's driving defense of the 2nd Amendment today. Gun manufacturers and the gun lobby are benefiting handsomely from white people's fear of Black people, and non-white people more generally. To them, and to the SCOTUS majority, it's not an anachronism at all. As far as they're concerned, "the slaughter of innocent children" is collateral damage -- not just the victims of school shootings but also the toddlers and young children who get hold of a parent's unsecured firearm and kill either themselves or a sibling.
You're exactly right, Susanna.
It also occurs to me that by doing nothing to stop the slaughter of children in schools, the rightwing fascists are doing everything they can to undermine confidence in public schools by instilling fear. It doesn't matter that they are doing so in the most evil of ways.
Public schools, of course, are the bedrock of our educational system. But It is no surprise that the fascists are seeking to destroy education: their agenda is to have a barely literate, but superstitious, force of citizens who are only able to work in their factories and fight in their wars.
If that's their aim, they're sacrificing the children in the religious private schools they staunchly support too. The Nashville shooting happened in a private, Christian elementary school. It seems to me that those who unquestionably support broad gun availability either don't care about children in any setting, or believe that theirs will never be endangered, hurt or killed by guns.
Agree up to a point, but what you describe isn't the exclusive province of "fascists." It's also typical of so-called "movement conservatives" and, among others, the white Southern elite before and after the Civil War.
And I believe Harris and Walz will propose gun safety laws in her first days of her administration if hopefully we win both houses. I am donating my money to down ballot candidates such as Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester and for the governor of NC
Hey, David. In my elementary school (1950-1960) we were provided next level cover in a nuclear attack, under our desks.
Your comments about the both the corruption of the second amendment and our toxic gun culture are the root causes that as a nation we aren’t willing to deal with. Until we can have a thoughtful discussion and have law makers in government willing to act on real solutions nothing will change. Guns should be harder to own and more tightly regulated. We do that with cars. Why not firearms?
Parents of these mass shooter teenagers need to be charged and convicted along with their children. I know it’s happened in at least one case. There’s no need for anyone to have these assault type weapons and parents/gun owners need to be held criminally responsible for what happens with these guns.
We need to hold gun owners responsible and accountable for any crimes committed with the weapons they own. If you own a weapon, it must be kept away from irresponsible and criminal control. If someone steals a gun and murders a person, the owner of the weapon should be tried for the murder. If they are found to have been reckless in storage of their weapon, they should go to jail as if they had committed tge crime. Make responsible gun owners truly responsible. Maybe folks would find it inconvenient to own so many weapons.
Newtown, the school shooting in Michigan and many others were done with unsecured firearms in reach of easily provoked youth. At the very least, the failure to keep your guns out of the hands of your child with anger management issues is manslaughter, IMO.
I wholeheartedly agree that no one outside of the military or police has any need for a gun (and their need is only when they’re actually performing their duties). There’s a guy, retired police officer, in our semi-retirement community who walks around the neighborhood with wife and dog, carrying a gun. It’s not an urban area; the area surrounding us is mostly farmland. Not sure what he’s afraid of.
I am in total agreement with all you proposed. I have 15 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren. It is unthinkable that they must suffer this. Not just mine but all. This must end by all means possible.
Thank you for your powerful words, David. I wholeheartedly agree with every word. As a member of Moms Demand Action and a grandmother, this horrific reality we are living through is infuriating and beyond tragic when we know there are common sense steps we can take if we elect officials that will heed our pleas and put our children before their “so-called” second amendment rights! We needed this to stop years ago, but we definitely need it to stop NOW. Republicans won’t do ANYTHING; we need to elect gunsense candidates up and down the ballot in every state who will take action and pass the laws the majority of us
My father was on the front lines in WWII for three years. He was raised on a farm and when he came home he ended up selling all of his guns he had as a teen he used on the farm. He told me, I've seen enough killing to last me for a life time, I have no interest to kill anymore.
Same here. My father threw his weapon in the bay of Naples when returning from serving in Italy in WWll. He never allowed guns in our home.
I grew up in a family that hunted for groceries and I have many friends and students that do that now (AK). At $7.95/pound “on sale” even beef roast is out of budget. A group of neighbors who can go into the back country together with licenses in their pockets, can get 2-3 moose. That amount of moose fed six families last year.
Bump stocks are not a necessity outside of specially trained forces who defend the population daily. Semi-automatic weapons are barely appropriate (except for one person I know of who used that option when charged by an old, angry, very hungry grizzly boar one fall).
I suggest we make lighter weapons with which to train men & women who cannot/will not necessarily join the military but wish to have them on hand and be confident. I would go so far as to urge this training to be congruent with study of human behavior, mental health awareness/tests, and animal husbandry & proper harvest practices.
And entirely devoid of political or religious overtones.
Just training in efficient and competent use, while also being given education about the humans using them.
They have a place in our history, they need more competency and less emotion, and they will not be hidden/hoarded when the owners are given some leeway and knowledgeable support.
There are appropriate ways to use guns as tools of providing food, and
I'm not a hunter (haven't fired a gun since I was earning NRA patches at summer camp), but I agree. I'm in small-town MA. I know guys (and a couple of women) who hunt to put food on the table. What they don't have room to freeze gets donated to the local food pantry. The #1 target here is deer, and that's another reason I'm OK with hunting: the local deer herd is out of control, which affects farmers and backyard gardeners and also facilitates the transmission of tick-borne diseases, which are also out of control.