guns

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America the Violent: It is Time We Curbed Our Gun Preoccupation


Scholars debate the meaning behind the second amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court has chosen to take up a 2nd Amendment suit on only 3 occasions in its entire history. It is not that the 2nd amendment is sacred, it is just that there is no consensus on the writers’ intendent. Scalia commented on “original intent” as that was his belief. But he never spoke on the 2nd.

I did my graduate work on U.S. history, and while the Revolutionary War was not my focus, I was required to be more than just conversant in it. And because of that, I like to point to what the colonists called the “Townsend Act.” They detested all of them. But if you look at the Townsend Acts and the other acts instituted between 1765 and 1774, you will find they directly correspond to the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. When the writers were constructing the Constitution they knew it would need amending and they also knew what those amendments would look like. But for the sake of expedience, getting 9 colonies to agree upon the document, they wrote the main document exactly as you see it today. The Bill of Rights, 10 amendments, were all passed in the first year of America’s existence. George Mason and James Madison, a Virginian wrote them, but we had already added a state, Vermont, which meant they needed 10 of the 14 to ratify. Mason actually wrote 12 amendments. The 11th Amendment was how states were represented in the house. Madison wanted a set small constituency for each congressman. This amendment failed. But the 12th amendment was one we can relate to today even better. It forbade Congress from giving itself pay raises. Of course that one failed.

But back to the 2nd Amendment. It is brief: “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.” The colonists had, from their earliest days in America, maintained a colonial militia. This was made up of men who assembled once a month on the town’s green, practiced a bit and went back home. Because the colonial governments were always strapped for cash, the members of the militia were required to supply their own guns, which they did.

About 1765, the British government began a concerted effort to “control” the colonists in what they perceived as acts contrary to the desires of the crown. The British government sent British soldiers and British Marines to take the place of the militia and maintain the peace, as they saw fit. At the same time, they replaced the duly elected governors of the colonies with governor-general, their own men. Additionally, they replaced judges hearing admiralty (seagoing) cases with their own extremely biased judges.

Governor Hutchinson of Massachusetts, a British appointee, declared that the storage of weapons and gun powder to be illegal and sent numerous forays to Plymouth, Salem, Portsmouth, NH and other locales, before ordering out his troops on the fateful day of April 19, 1775. The troop commander was ordered to capture all arms and powder known to be stored in Concord and bring into British possession. We all know how that worked out.

And so in the late 1780s when the Constitution and its amendments were being considered and written, the idea that a government could outlaw a state’s right to maintain its own militia was particularly sour in their mouths. It is important at this point to state that each colony joining the central Federal Government made it known that it desired as much autonomy as possible. The 1792 Massachusetts Militia was formed under the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment strictly outlawed the Federal Government from disallowing such an action.

In 1792, people who possessed guns tended to be members of the militia. And those people tended to be farmers, although certainly not exclusively so. But by that time the state government was suppling the guns necessary for its militia. The militia of 1792 is the National Guard of today. There is a direct lineage. Some states, however, maintain both, a National Guard force which can be called up to federal duty and a militia force which cannot be called up to federal status. In both cases, however, the governor is the commander-in-chief of such forces.

It is my belief that when Madison wrote “the right of the people” he was simply echoing the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence which starts “We the people.” People is being used in a plural sense and was never intended to mean the individual. I am certain it did not occur to Madison that people might grasp this amendment as an individual’s right. But Madison’s intent is clear. He meant the amendment to only apply to military forces.

Now, consider the fact that as of 1986 the purchase of machine guns was made illegal. In a curious twist, it is not, however, illegal to possess one but it cannot be made after 1986. And according to the ATF, as of 1986 there were only 182,619 that were transferable.

Now the only difference between a machine gun and an AR-15, civilian version of the M-16 rifle, is the number of rounds it can shoot with one pull of the trigger. Some machine guns use the same caliber round although most of the older ones use either the old NATO round, 7.62 or a larger round. I bring this up because no one is complaining about the machine gun law but try to restrict the usage of an almost equally lethal weapon and the push back is enormous. It makes no sense.

I do not think that a complete ban on assault weapons is necessary but I do think that any person desiring to own one should have to jump through a series of hoops prior to being allowed to purchase one. Getting such a gun should require legalities akin to gaining a security clearance and in turn, many will find themselves turned away, but for just cause.

I like guns and am an expert marksman. But it is difficult for me to understand why any responsible gun owner and prospective purchaser would object to more strict rules for ownership than now exist. These rules would never keep the responsible owner from purchasing a gun but it would certainly curb the illegal sales of guns and illegal ownership.

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A New American Polical Party: The Moderate Party


 

This country has been a two party nation since Thomas Jefferson ran for president.   He called himself a Democratic Republican in opposition to the Federalists and John Adams in particular who he ran against. Since then we have always had two major political parties. Since 1858 it has been Democrats and Republicans. Prior to the present day Republicans there was the Whig party.

I am personally tired of the self-serving rhetoric coming out of both parties. Each party has its own fringe although the Republicans seem a bit splintered. The Tea Party of today is just a reincarnation of the Moral Majority of 20 years ago. The wrapping is different but the message is the same; they will settle for nothing less than a Christian nation.

I am hereby inaugurating the Moderate Party. It is my belief that such a party will actually represent the general views of well over 50% of the people of this nation at any given moment. We will take what we believe to be the best of both parties and embrace them. We will as political aspirants sign a pledge to never take a single penny from any PAC. We will listen to those PACs but we will never compromise ourselves by taking money from them to support our election.

Today’s Moderate Party will neither embrace the socialist views of Sen. Bernie Sanders nor the Xenophobic racist views of Donald Trump.   We will not make campaign promises of going to war in any part of this world as a solution to regional or world problems. We will look for ways to reduce the tax burden on the middle class. We will end federal subsidies to otherwise profitable corporation. We will tighten the tax laws to close all loopholes available only to the rich or to large corporations.   We will impose a minimum tax rate on all persons and corporations that realize a certain level of income after reasonable expenses have been accounted for. We will vigorously support the second amendment while putting into place gun laws which afford the general public a reasonable feeling that all guns are being sold only to those who have photo IDs showing themselves as legitimate buyers and they will not be kept from buying any gun they desire to include assault weapons. We will also require all gun dealers to be federally licensed and be required to complete a simple background check on all customers. They will be required to keep extremely accurate records of all gun sales.

At the start we will neither support nor withhold support for abortion or the death penalty. The position of each will be decided by a caucus of representatives of all 50 states and 4 territories.

We will look for ways to reduce the size of our government without eliminating existing services. For example, all parts of the Department of Homeland Security can be folded into the Department of Defense. And where it is necessary for such jobs as airport security come into play, those jobs will be held by the military police of the Army, Navy, and Air Force however their will wear a non-traditional military uniform. These men and women will be entirely made up of reservists and national guardsmen. The Veterans Administration will be transferred to the Department of Defense and all veterans with an honorable military discharge will be able to avail themselves of the medical services on any military installation. Veterans educational programs will become an extension of civilian oriented military training.

We will re-write the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) so that access to it and what it offers will be close to what Americans who are part of group plans can expect. We will also require all insurance companies offer health benefits under this act or be sanctioned.

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What you see above is what is referred to as a standard bell curve. The way to read it is simple. Look at the straight line at the bottom. The -3 to +3 represents an entire population, of anything, but in this case I am using it for American citizens. The points between -0.5 and +0.5 are where you will find the position most Americans on any given subject. I believe that we can actually extend this between -1 and +1. The slope of the curve represents how strongly people feel in one direction or another about any particular subject. It is my belief that the 68% represented by these two points is where you can find most Americans and their willingness to work together. The remaining 16% on each side are those so deeply entrenched in an idea that you would be hard pressed to get them to change.

This bell curve is extremely important right now because it is my belief that the beleaguered Republican Party is being ruled by the 16% on their side of the curve. To be certain, many of Bernie Sanders’ ideas lie well within the 16% of the Democrat side and are simply not palatable to the other 84% of Americans, regardless of how hard he pushes.

I believe 68% of Americans are not interested in any particular groups religious beliefs, gun beliefs, money making beliefs or philosophical beliefs. They hold and want recognized their reasonable and moderate view of the world, the United States, and the town the live in to be respected. This is something that is not now happening.

I only wish I had the resources available to start such a party because I would. As a registered Democrat I embrace certain Republican views and find that among my Republican friends, we generally agree on most things. This, to me, epitomizes what the Moderate Party represents.

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How to Curb Gun Violence in America


I am going to start by saying that I am not against the possession of any sort of gun by an individual. That includes assault rifles and other guns that people have railed against.  I live in the city but if I lived in the countryside I would probably like to own a rifle or two.  In my years in the US Army I always shot expert and really enjoyed shooting and so I am not predisposed to the banning of guns.

The NRA and others are quick to point out that the overwhelming number of gun owners are law abiding citizens. I agree with that generality but it is incomplete.  What I want them to also say is that they are responsible gun owners.  A responsible gun owner knows his weapon well and is well versed in its use, its upkeep and its safety.  A part of that safety includes securing so that children have no possible access to it and that even a burglar would have great difficulty in stealing one.  I do not believe for a second that most gun owners are that observant.

The other thing the NRA loves to state is that we do not need more gun laws, we just need to enforce the ones we have. On its face that sounds perfectly reasonable and to some extent it is.  But our existing laws in certain case fall far short of what is needed to keep the general public safe.

Recently, in Wisconsin I believe it was, a man bought a rifle and then turned it over to another man who could not have legally purchased a gun. Such transactions are of course illegal but expecting the police to prevent such actions is ridiculous.  They cannot possibly do it.  The other lacking law is what is referred to as the “gun show loophole.”  That simply means that any person can make a non-commercial gun transaction at a gun show.  Simply put, the seller has none of the obligations that a retail gun seller has.  The seller is under no obligation to do a background check of the buyer, to require positive identification or to make any determination of the buyer being prohibited from buying a weapon.  Only 18 states have enacted laws to at least curb such activities.  The other 32 states and 4 territories have no such provision.  Which means a person who is otherwise prohibited from purchasing a gun who lives in one of the 18 states that have laws covering private sales, need only go to a bordering state that has no such law and make his purchase.

The states with the highest rates of gun violence are also the states with the most unrestrictive gun laws, basically the entire south, except Kentucky. Alaska is also among the most violent. The next lower grouping of violent states are Indiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming and Montana. To its credit, Texas has “only” a moderate gun violence rate, meaning it is about middle-of-the-pack.  Least violent state are without exception those states with the toughest guns laws.  This included almost the entire Northeast, except Pennsylvania, the entire west coast, along with Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio and Utah.  (This data was gleaned from www.thinkprogress.org)

The NRA used to rant that if gun laws were to become more restrictive then only the criminals would have gun. That is some of the worst logic I have ever heard.  Ironically, it was the NRA itself in the late 1930s which advocated for stronger and more probative gun laws.  Maybe that was the logical reaction to the spate of gun killings by gangsters of the 1920s and 1930s.  They were key in passing a particular legislation in the 1920s called the “Uniform Firearms Act.”  Its president at the time, Karl Frederick said, “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons… I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.”  I do believe in the “sharply restrictive” portion of his statement but the licensing portion bears much consideration.

It seems to me that the ability of criminals to secure guns is far too easy. This says to me that there are far too many “law abiding citizens,” as the NRA and their followers would have us believe, who are selling their weapon with impunity to whomever they want.  These law abiding citizens in fact not the responsible gun owner the NRA would have us believe.  But the existing laws are far too weak or non-existent to prevent such transfers.

What I do believe is that the overwhelming majority of gun owners would have little to no problem with certain law that would in no way restrict which or how many guns they owned but which would make 100% gun accountability in the United States the standard way of doing business.

The NRA uses fear to mislead the general public. It broadcasts that certain legislations will restrict the law abiding citizen from purchasing a gun.  That, of course, is pure poppycock.

What I am suggesting is that any person purchasing a gun for the first time accept a background check which would include their name being run through the NCIC database. That is simply a database of all convicted felons.  This would be done though their local police office, sheriff’s office or state police office.  They in turn would be issued a license to purchase and possess weapons.  This, at least in part, already happens.  When they purchase a weapon they would have to present a photo ID.  The gun dealer would then enter his name along with the gun’s serial number into a national database and present the purchaser with a title for the gun, exact same thing as happens with automotive sales and ownership.  That information would be shunted directly to his local police department.  If at some future point he decides to sell the gun he need only go with the purchaser to his police station where the transaction would be completed with the gun’s title officially transferred.

Such legislation should happen at a national level but at least at the state level. Written into such laws can be language certifying and guaranteeing the truly law abiding and responsible citizen his continued right to access whatever weapons he wishes to purchase from whatever source.  It would, however, put an end to gun sales over the Internet and through the mail.  But more importantly, it would greatly increase the ability of criminals to come into possession of weapons.  A person who had had a weapon stolen from him need only turn over the title to his local police department and let them take it from there.  When that gun is finally recovered, the criminal would automatically face a felony charge of gun theft and illegal ownership.

I do not think these are unreasonable suggestions and definitely need better definition. But I believe that it is necessary to bring about a safer America and a big reduction in the amount of crime which includes gun violence.

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Thoughts on the Marathon Bombing


On the day of the Marathon bombings, I was out exercising, taking a 50-mile bicycle ride, which meant I did not know of the bombing until almost 2 hours after they occurred.  I was stunned, and glued to the television for hours afterwards.  When I first saw, and heard, the recording of the bombs going off, my first reaction was that they were small.  My thought was that they power was approximately that of a single artillery round.  That told me we were not dealing with a well-organized terrorist, although I knew immediately it was a terrorist.  We are fortunate that these men, Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev, could not carry out an attack with IEDs such as are known in Iraq and Afghanistan, was quite fortunate.  Not to minimalized the deaths of those 3 who were killed by these bombs, but it certainly could have been a lot worse.

The picture were are getting of the Tsarnaev brothers leads us to believe that Tamerlan embraced some sort of radical Islam on a trip in 2009 to Chechnya.  By 2011 he was on the FBI’s radar after a, as yet unknown, foreign country requested information on him.  But all accounts of his brother, Tsarnaev, suggests a youth who was drawn in by his brothers radicalism, and not of his own undertaking.  Still, he is guilty of acts that should land him in prison for the rest of his natural life if the government choses not to pursue the death penalty.

But at this point I feel it only responsible to point out that long standing positions of the NRA and conservative members of Congress aided Tsarnaev.  How so?  Massachusetts has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation and yet Tsarnaev had a sizeable cache’ of weapons.  They were probably legally procured too.  Or were they?  Tamerlan was a legal permanent resident but not a naturalized US citizen.  That being so, Massachusetts law prohibits the sale of guns to non-US citizens.  The loophole, of course, is the internet.  Massachusetts law requires a background check using the NICS (National Instant Check System) prior to the sale of any gun.  This database is used to identify individuals who are barred from gun purchases.  Had there been no loopholes, and better laws, the FBI could have, in 2011, flagged Tamerlan in the database as someone they would want to know about should he attempt a gun purchase.  But for some reason, we do not know yet, that did not happen.  Furthermore, the NRA and its cronies, have doggedly blocked all attempts to require gun powder makers to put a marker in their product to identify who produced it.

The gun lobby’s declaration that background checks and registration denies access to guns to law abiding citizens should ring rather hollow by now.  By all accounts, these two men were, prior to April 15 2011, law abiding citizens.  And yet, one of them was a person of interest to the FBI who, it appears, eluded detection because of a lack of laws and controls.

The violence of Columbine, Sandy Hook and Boston is not only going to continue but with increasing frequency if we do not put controls into place.  The simple fact is, truly law abiding citizens who harbor no ill-intent have nothing to fear of comprehensive background checks and gun registrations.  Law abiding gun dealers have nothing to fear either.  But right now, commerce is trumping public safety.  There really is, and never was, a good argument against comprehensive background checks and registration.  And while this may not have stopped the bombing, it would certainly have given Tamerland Tsarnaev reason to pause before he attempted to purchase what became weapons of mass destruction.

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Open Gun Carry in Oklahoma?


Right now the Oklahoma legislature is considering a bill that would allow Oklahomans to openly carry guns.  The logic behind this bill is the idea that a person who is openly carrying a weapon is much less likely to become the victim of a crime.  The idea is also to level the playing field, so to speak, with criminals.

I find two problems with this thinking.  First, it assumes the carrier will be trained in the usage of the gun and its safety.  But right now Oklahoma only requires a very brief course on gun safety for concealed weapons.  The course hardly inspires confidence that these gun owners could be counted on to act safely and reasonably in all situations.  It also does not assure for the safety of innocents who might get caught in the crossfire.  The other question is begs is how do you insure that these guns will not be taken from these people by criminals and then used in their criminal behavior.  Certainly a person on the street wearing a gun on his hip is open to being stripped of the gun by a thief.  It is hard to imagine any police force or public safety individuals supporting this bill and yet the discussion goes on.

The reason the open carry laws died in the early 20th century is obvious.  People wanted peace on their streets and the images of the old west did not sit well with them.  It was obvious to them that all people could not be counted upon to act reasonably and responsibly in all situations.  Too many innocent people were dying as the result of gun fights.  It also allowed for vigilantes, people like George Zimmerman in Florida, to take the law into their own hands.  If anything, Zimmerman shows us exactly the problems that exist in America today with the current laws.  The NRA has overreached in its efforts to keep as many guns on the street as possible.  Cases like Zimmerman will only increase if an open carry law is passed.

This is not a 2nd Amendment issue, as some will try to point out.  This is a common sense issue.  Our society is too violent as it is.  We certainly do not need to make it any more so by allowing open carry law.