Gun Nation

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.”