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History is being distorted. The ‘gun lobby’ is the dissembling.
It is not true that the government of George III even contemplated banning guns from any of the 13 colonies. Never.
Because the colonialists needed their weapons to also help the British paid-for army to defeat the French and Dutch forces and various indian tribes.
If ‘bearing arms’ was ever needed to defend against a rapacious government – and that it is not – then that government would be any of the State or Federal governments of the United States. Or maybe either Canada or Mexico. Moreover, the 2nd amendment links that right to service in militia. Does that mean that the 2nd amendment only applies to militia men? Why doesn’t that right extend to artillery or F14s?
Maybe the Supreme Court should rule on these issues?
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From the English Bill of Rights of 1688
“Subjects’ Arms.
That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.”
The rights in this statue form the basis of the American Constitution. It regards every citizen as a potential militia member. To discuss whether this is valid in the 21st Century on only has to look at how Switzerland, with its very heavily armed populace, has remained untouched through the turbulence of the 20th.
Britain has a patronising attitude to the US, treating it a wayward English county somewhat to the west of Cornwall. This is a mistake. It has values and a culture very much its own and we would do well to recognise that fact.
When the NRA says that there is a Mental Health and a Violent Games Culture to be brought into the equation, British commentators jump on their one-trick ponies and ignore these issues.
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I don’t know how Matt Frei keeps his face straight when interviewing members of the gun toting lobby.
This parochial nation are not aware of history, nor the meaning and intent of their Constitution. Debate based on sound logic is not their forte.
For instance, the moron being interviewed this week who agreed that “background checks” were okay – just as long (apparently) as these checks did not apply to him or – one assumes – anyone else who figures they are “normal, decent folk” who just want to have a gun for their own protection on the grounds that it invades ‘privacy’ and is undemocratic.
Arming teachers as a way of preventing massacres in schools? Let’s hope none of these teachers ever have a “bad day” and decide to blow their young charges to Kingdom Come.
I found no more nauseating sight this week than the “Mums and Daughters” – with little girls literally as bright-eyed as chipmunks over the idea of shooting someone dead (target practice is not shooting someone dead but what is the ultimate aim?) The Mums were saying it is to teach the girls to “use” a gun safely. How is that possible?? If you “use” a gun at all you are either intending to kill someone/some creature, otherwise why have it?
The playgrounds in American will clearly be safer havens if each kid is packing a pistol to school. No more bullying in your yards eh, USA if the bully can just be taken out but some “decent” kids who uses his/her gun safely for his/her defence!
Is no one ever going to be ‘taken by surprise’ in this increasingly “armed” USA. I can imagine a stroppy kid in the morning facing off against a Dad who may be under threat of a lay-off at work and, with both parents and kids armed, it could lead to ‘Killings over the Cornflakes’ in many “happy, peaceful, normal American homes”. Goodbye to getting Super Nanny in eh?
And, by the way, the aforementioned moron who suggested that the UK with around 50 ‘murders’ a year is (per capita) a ‘more violent society’ than the US with 8,000 (average) shootings per annum (isn’t ‘murder’ what killing someone with a gun is called in the US?) clearly doesn’t know the meaning of either violence or murder.
Does everyone in the US go to their door with a gun in hand each time someone calls? Will the person at the door (e.g. a postman) in turn have to be armed against possible whacky/twitchy gun-fingered householders?
I cannot foresee this situation improving and my heart goes out to anyone who tries to deal with this general level of ignorance, inability to ‘join up the dots’ and project scenarios into the future.
Crime, violence and murder exist everywhere, but where there are the most weapons there is the most violence.
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Matt,
Where US gun-maniacs are concerned a quotation springs to mind.
It is by great and good Pastor Dietrich Bonhoffer who was murdered in a Nazi concentration camp. He said, “I stopped arguing with the Nazis when they became too stupid to argue with.”
I am also reminded of Lawrence Reese’s great TV series, “The Nazis: A Warning From History.” Each episode begins with a chilling still photo of a little boy no older than some of the gun-wielding cherubim in your report. He is dressed in a Nazi outfit, complete with swastika armband, his right arm extended in a Nazi salute.
If Barack Obama has any regard for his place in history he will take on the murderous gun lobby head on. He will make it clear their paranoid madness has no place in a peaceful and democratic US society. He will provoke the NRA to the full fury of an open, public debate where they and their lobbyists can be exposed for what they are: an evil obstacle to social progress and democratic decency. They must be defeated the way racism was beaten by the Civil Rights Movement.
That is the stage we are at and if Obama misses his cue, history will judge him accordingly.
He has to prove US society is not the worthless, paranoid, lethal, thieving anarchy that has become the despair of its friends world-wide. I believe he can do it. I believe the vast majority of US citizens want their society to be free of this curse.
But it can only happen if President Obama has the courage to seize the day.
Carpe Diem, indeed.
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Very interesting series by Matt Frei.
The overriding feeling is that democracy and guns are not meant to work. In fact, as Larry Pratt smugly admitted, ‘if you like to live in a violent society, be my guest’. Kind of precludes any progress towards persuading individuals to accept gun control.
So many people have been duped by the gun lobbies over many years:the Second Amendment has been declared ‘untouchable’, just at the time when it needs to be amended!
The words that follow give you a flavour of the founder of ALEC – The American Legislative Exchange Council, Paul Weyrich.
“I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
Larry Pratt was a board member of ALEC which prepares legislation for corporate US interests including the NRA, (see The United States of Alec, a special report by Bill Moyers).
Maybe Matt Frei will do a report on ALEC soon?
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