Gun Control

Guns, Guns, and more Guns. I keep trying to get my head around this controversial issue. What do we mean today by guns? What did the Founding Fathers mean by arms in 1791? What did “the right to bear arms” mean when they wrote the Second Amendment? “To bear” means what one individual could carry, which in 1791 meant a musket or handgun, along with black powder and bullets. The speed with which one could load and fire a round depended on how fast one could insert the powder and bullet, I’m guessing about twenty seconds between each firing. The Second Amendment is such a slippery little devil, one for which the writers laboriously chose each word and comma to make sure their meaning was absolutely clear. “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.” A militia then meant a citizen group which could be brought together to repel invaders or to fight against any leader who might try to enslave its citizenry. There was no standing army back then because the framers of the Constitution feared that the president or leader of the nation might use a supporting army to take over the government and the people. Such a militia would arm themselves and in time of need come together temporarily in emergencies or to defend the country. Thus, back then it was not only a right to bear arms but a duty for each male citizen to have his weapons handy in case they were needed for  bringing this well-regulated militia together. Today, we have a standing army as well as the other armed forces to do the defending, backed up by each state’s National Guard units. In 1791, the Founding Fathers couldn’t have envisioned the kinds of weapons one could carry or the speed with which those weapons could be fired.

Why do any of us now want to own firearms? I can think of only three reasons: for hunting game, for sports shooting and marksmanship, and for defending ourselves and our homes against bad guys, and for that we have rifles, shotguns, and handguns. Gun proponents argue, “If you take away our right to have AR15’s, only the bad guys will have them and how will we defend ourselves against them?” That’s why we have good guys who are allowed to have assault weapons. We call them cops. Gun proponents argue, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” The counter argument is that people kill people in any number of different ways, but killing someone with a knife or a club or a bow and arrow pretty much limits the number of people killed at any one time. That limit with an AR15 seems to be somewhere just under a hundred before the perpetrator is caught or killed, and the perp doesn't even need to be a marksman. He just aims it in the general direction of those he wants to kill and pulls the trigger. And, yes, a car or truck driven into a crowd would kill quite a few. But banning cars and trucks is impossible. Others, who think we should have even more guns than we now have, say, “What’s the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun? A good guy with a gun.” In other words, as in the old West, we should all carry guns either concealed or openly to use whenever someone draws down intending to kill someone specific or kill large numbers randomly. High Noon, here we come. It seems to me we might have bullets flying all over the place with all kinds of people being accidentally shot. And then we have President Trump’s solution for stopping school shootings—to arm qualified teachers and administrators to protect their students. First, where would schools find enough teachers and administrators who were qualified in the use of guns? And where would these guns be kept? I can see it now: The sound of gunfire alerts all teachers and students that a bad guy is somewhere in the school. These teacher guns would have to be so securely locked up that no student could ever get to them. The teacher would have to find the key to unlock the gun drawer and then unlock the box inside the drawer, all the while hearing the sound of approaching gunfire. Would that teacher be nervous? You bet. This proposed scenario makes absolutely no sense.

Would we be infringing upon the rights of our citizenry if we disallowed gun ownership by any and all? I don't think any of those who wrote this amendment intended guns should be available to absolutely everyone. Would we be infringing if we disallowed ownership to anyone, say, under 21, or anyone with a history of mental instability, or convicted felons? And why not ban everyone from owning semi-automatic rifles like the AR15, which can very easily and inexpensively (but illegally) be converted into a fully automatic rifle and modified to hold a clip that can spit out as many as 100 rounds in less than a minute? Why would anyone need that many rounds fired at that speed if we were hunting game or shooting at a target? The AR15 and other rifles like it were designed as military weapons, not sporting guns. The capacity and speed made it an ideal weapon to kill as many of the enemy in as short a time as possible, but for hunting game, sports shooting, or defending our homes we don’t need that kind of weapon. Why is the NRA so adamant about protecting the sale and use of such weapons under the guise of protecting the Second Amendment? Almost every motive for almost any action comes down to money. The sales of guns of all kinds generate huge profits for gun manufacturers. Does money also motivate the NRA? Should we allow a lobby group like the NRA to so control our elected officials that we will never see any curbing of gun violence and mass murders? The kids all over the country who are now protesting the government’s lack of action about gun control have it right. And many of them will soon be old enough to vote. Too bad they weren’t old enough about a year ago.

Countdown: I might just as easily have called this a metronome. Countdown sounds too much like a Doomsday clock approaching a personal midnight. But a metronome keeps a tempo that can be made faster or slower. A metronome better describes how my days are going. The more things I have to do during the day, the slower the tempo. The fewer things I have to do during the day, the faster it goes back and forth. This illness has pretty much confined me to the house, so my activities are limited. I’ve found that during this two weeks of feeling not so good, my days go really fast. I’m now sleeping almost ten hours a night. I get up and do my juice and coffee, a piece or two of toast, read the paper. Bang! It’s now noon. Then I may nap a bit. Then I may write a blog and a countdown or read a book. Then another nap. Then it’s time for a cocktail before we decide what really simple meal we may have for dinner. Bang! It’s now 5:30 and time for the Nightly News with Lester Holt. Then on to the tv shows we love. Then, Bang! It’s time to go to bed. Another really short day has passed. I saw my cardiologist a few days ago. She told me, assured me, that when I was finally done with this virus I would regain most of the energy I had just a month or so ago. That was really good news because I want my days to slow down, to lengthen. I miss our trips to see a movie or our several dinners out each week, even my trips to the grocery store just to get out of here for a while. I want my metronome to slow down. I want my countdown to slow down. I’m not quite ready to meet my maker. I may not rage against the coming of the night, but I also won’t just lie down to a peaceful death in the night. I still have too many things to do.