After
watching Wayne LaPierre deliver a recent Gate-filled diatribe before
a gathering of gun enthusiasts I feel compelled to make a few
observations about personal gun ownership, the Second Amendment,
individual freedom and liberty, and contemporary American society in
general. I know there are many who would disagree with my opinions
and conclusions. But that's to be expected. After all, my purpose is
simply to express my thoughts and sentiments. Not to proselytize.
I am a gun
owner. I know I have a few of them lying about the house somewhere. I
bought them many years ago, more as a social impulse than out of any
sense of conviction. Many of my co-workers were law enforcement
officers who took their gun ownership quite seriously, and buying
guns was pretty much the thing to do. Over the years the guns became
less and less relevant to me, to the point where they are now less
important to me than my screwdrivers and pliers, which I use all the
time.
But I am no
gun enthusiast. To me a gun is simply a piece of machined metal like
any other tool. It's a simple item of utility. While some such items
are used to repair and build, the gun is used to kill. And I prefer
to live in a world that is building and repairing rather than
killing.
Now, you
take a look at parts of the world where there is a lot of killing.
Places like Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria,
Nigeria. What do you find in all these places? Guns. Everywhere there
are guns. Anyone in these blighted lands can get guns. And yet, they
have no Second Amendment. Obviously these simple tribes people have
discovered something that eludes people like LaPierre and the NRA:
you don't need a Second Amendment to have guns.
I would
hazard the opinion that it is not the Second Amendment to the
Constitution which guarantees our freedoms and liberties as a nation.
Rather, it is the Constitution itself and all the other amendments
which guarantee our rights and liberties as a free people. As well as
providing for a society of peace and plenty under law. Without this
legal foundation we would simply degenerate into the same sort of
armed anarchy that characterizes these other lands.
Because
another thing these other lands don't have is a national framework of
governance under law that does not proceed out of the barrel of a
gun. Which is the sort of society gun enthusiasts aspire to. The
profligate individual ownership of weaponry does nothing to guarantee
our liberties. It is symptomatic of a punitive and violent social
order that threatens the integrity of our governmental institutions
and our well-being as United States citizens. Fueled by the steady
repetition of lies and myths from the Right about non-existent Black
Helicopters and Jackbooted Thugs, the apotheosis of the gun simply
has police officers patrolling our own neighborhoods wearing flak
jackets and Kevlar helmets, and riding in armored vehicles. The
culture of guns has spawned the rise of hundreds of “patriotic
militias” of questionable adherence to the very Constitution they
all profess to admire, while simultaneously and eagerly plotting the
overthrow the self-same nation the Founding Fathers sought to
establish.
When I hear
someone like LaPierre resoundingly proclaim that he and his adherents
have come to “take their country back”, I think to myself, “On
the contrary, Wayne. This is your country. You never lost it, because
you've been living in it all the time. On the other hand, those who
envision the United States as both a nation of peace, plenty, and
liberty for all, they want to take their country back.”
