Tag Archives: gun violence

national news

Parsing the founders’ language in the 2nd Amendment

Of all the amendments to the U.S. Constitution — all 27 of them — the one that gives me the most serious case of heartburn is the Second Amendment.

Here is what this amendment says. It’s brief, but it’s so damn confusing in my humble view: 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.

Americans are talking yet again about this amendment. Events in Las Vegas over the weekend have thrust this issue to the top of our minds once more. We’re talking about gun violence, gun control. We’re even debating whether we should be debating this issue at this time. I believe we should.

But I want to look at the Second Amendment’s sentence construction. I’ve read it thousands of times over my many years on this good Earth. I don’t understand what it’s saying.

The founders were smart men. They did a good job of developing a fairly cogent and concise bill of rights that are contained in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. The Second Amendment, though, seems to make two points that are not connected to each other.

Indeed, the first 12 words preceding the comma seem to be lacking an ending. It refers only to a “well-regulated” militia and the necessity to have one to maintain “the security of a free State.” That’s it!

The following clause could stand as a complete sentence in that it contains a subject, some verbs and a predicate.

Those who favor stricter controls on firearms point to the first clause as their rationale. Those who oppose such controls look to the clause after the comma as their rationale.

My sense is that here is where the debate over this amendment seems to break down. Those on opposing sides of this mammoth chasm place their emphases on separate clauses. One means something different from the other one.

I know that courts have ruled countless times that the amendment means that Americans can own firearms, that it’s protected in the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights was ratified Dec. 15, 1791 and thus, the Constitution was established to form a framework for our representative democracy.

The founders got it mostly right when they crafted that framework. They wrote the Bill of Rights almost without exception with sentences that make sense; nine of the 10 amendments comprising the Bill of Rights were constructed in ways that make sense to laypeople such as yours truly.

The Second Amendment, though, gives me heartburn.

national news

By all means, let’s talk about guns

Part of the debate in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre has spun into a discussion about the timing of a debate over gun violence and whether we need more laws to control the ownership of firearms.

Donald Trump believes it’s premature to talk about such matters.

The White House echoes the president’s view on the timing of that discussion.

Others, meanwhile, have kicked that debate into first gear and are shifting into higher gears quickly.

To be honest, I am with those who want to start the discussion now.

I am not dishonoring the victims of the gunman’s horrific act. I pray daily for the 59 people killed and for the 500-plus victims who were injured. I pray for our country and hope we can return to some semblance of sanity.

Moreover, I do believe we can enact some additional controls on the flow of firearms without dismembering the Second Amendment guarantees of firearm ownership. I won’t engage in that debate here.

I do want to deal briefly with the notion that we can have that discussion while mourning the loss of life in Las Vegas. It’s not too early. I am mystified at the idea that it is inappropriate to seek measures to protect us against this kind of heinous act.

TV talking heads are grilling politicians about gun control. Some of them are hedging. Others are willing to engage — right now — in that discussion.

The carnage that spilled on the floor in Las Vegas has prompted yet another national debate over how — or if — we can ever protect humanity from gun madness.

Do I have confidence that this moment will produce any action? Consider this: If the deaths of those 20 innocent children and six of their teachers, who were slaughtered in Newtown, Conn., couldn’t get politicians to budge, does anyone believe they’ll move as a result of the Las Vegas massacre?

Their likely refusal does not make a national discussion any less important.

national news

‘Even the loons’ deserve to have guns?

Bill O’Reilly isn’t on TV much these days but he still has quite a following around the nation.

I feel the need, therefore, to challenge an assertion that the former TV host made in a blog post he wrote about the Second Amendment, the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of Americans to “keep and bear arms.” He said the Las Vegas massacre this weekend is the “price of freedom” and said the “Second Amendment is clear that Americans have a right to arm themselves for protection. Even the loons.”

Even the loons?

No, Bill. The loons might have that right currently, but they do not deserve the same rights to own firearms for protection.

This cuts pretty close to the heart of a debate that’s going to rage across the nation in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre that killed 59 people and injured more than 500 others. The gunman opened fire from the 32nd floor of a hotel onto a floor filled with concert goers who were listening to a concert performance by country music star Jason Aldean.

The debate over the Second Amendment has commenced, despite what White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said today about it being “too early” to have this national discussion.

Price of freedom?

I have no specific answers to the changing the status quo. I do believe in the Second Amendment. I believe Americans’ right to own firearms should remain. However, I continue to believe that there must be some additional controls placed on those who purchase firearms to do something to keep them out of the hands of people like the Las Vegas gunman.

There are limits on certain elements of the First Amendment; you can’t yell “fire!” in a crowded theater, nor can you slander or libel someone. Yet, there are those who contend that the Second Amendment must remain untouched from what the founders wrote in the 18th century. 

I won’t accept that notion. Surely there can be a way to craft reasonable restrictions on the purchase of firearms that seek to keep them from nut jobs like the guy who opened fire in Las Vegas.

And, no, I am acutely aware that no additional law is going to deter every single monster from obtaining a weapon, just as laws against murder haven’t eliminated that crime from occurring.

As we move forward with this discussion, my hope is that we can find a way to keep this debate as calm as possible and look as dispassionately as we can at alternatives to the status quo.

national news

Mounting a small form of protest over shooting violence

My head continues to spin. My gut continues to roil in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre.

I have no answers. I have no solutions. Plenty of questions abound. They are overwhelming. The nation faces yet another daunting task in debating and discussing how to end this spasm of gun violence.

My own recourse is limited. I run this blog. I use it to comment on issues of the day. I also am able to use it to mount a form of protest.

I continue using High Plains Blogger to offer a voice against gun violence.

Some time ago, probably two or three gun massacres ago, I decided to quit referencing shooters by name. I’m doing so with the Las Vegas madman. Yes, the shooter is dead; he killed himself as police were closing in on his Mandalay Bay hotel room.

My protest of omission won’t affect this monster. He is burning in hell somewhere, along with the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter, the Columbine High School shooters, the University of Texas Tower gunman, and any of the other seemingly countless list of mass murderers. When the Army major who killed all those folks in Killeen, Texas, or when the Charleston, S.C., church murderer get put down, they’ll join them all in hell.

My type of protest won’t solve any problems. It won’t bring any solutions. It only gives me a tiny scintilla of satisfaction that I won’t publish their names here, committing them to some form of blogosphere immortality.

national news

Another tragedy likely to ignite another debate on guns

Americans awoke this morning to horrifying news.

At least 58 people are dead, hundreds more injured and a nation is shaken to its core because of gun violence. This time is occurred from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev.

A gunman opened fire with a fully automatic rifle from high over the ground floor where revelers were enjoying a country music festival.

What in the name of all that is supposed to make sense do we think about this?

The shooter is dead; he reportedly took his own life as police were closing in on the room where he was holed up. The FBI is assisting local police in investigating what drove this monster to do what he did. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, called this an act of “pure evil,” which it most certainly is.

Somehow, in a macabre sort of way, any discussion of what to call this dastardly act seems pointless so early as we have become consumed by our national grief. I’ll call it what I believe it is: an act of domestic terrorism. I will let others debate how this should be labeled; I won’t join that debate.

Make no mistake, too, that this act is going to spawn yet another “national conversation” about gun violence and how — or if — we can ever enact reasonable, tighter gun control laws that do not infringe on people’s constitutional guarantees to the ownership of firearms.

I’ve long believed the Second Amendment is not wholly sacrosanct. I believe there can be restrictions placed on weapons of the type used in the Mandalay Bay massacre. That debate will be joined in due course.

Meanwhile, I am going to collect my breath and say my prayers for a nation that has been thrust into mourning once again by the insane act of a gun-toting madman.

International news

U.S. gives up title of ‘Beacon of Hope’

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Let’s ponder this for a moment.

This United States of America used to be seen around the world as the place where everyone wanted to go. To visit. Or … to live.

It didn’t matter from where you came. You saw the U.S. of A. as the international beacon of hope. We have that statue in New York harbor that welcomes the poor and dispossessed.

That’s all changed, according to the current president of the United States. Donald J. Trump says if you come from certain countries and perhaps adhere to a certain religion, you are no longer welcome. The welcome mat has been rolled up, the door has been slammed shut and we won’t answer the bell when you ring it.

How in the world does this happen?

International terrorists? They’re to blame? No. We’ve had them in our midst for decades, if not centuries. Terrorists reside here at home, too. The president and his team say they want to protect us from those who would do us harm.

Really? What about the crazed corn-fed American-born morons who open fire in movie theaters, or at night clubs, or — for God’s sake! — in elementary schools! Or, say, the anti-government sociopath who blew up that federal courthouse in Oklahoma City.

The Trump administration has pushed the panic button. It has elevated the fear factor to new levels by excluding refugees from several Muslim-majority nations. But the president insists he isn’t invoking an anti-Muslim policy.

Well, Mr. President, it doesn’t look that way to me.

What’s next? Will he now send crews into the NYC harbor to remove that inscription on the statue?

national news, political news

We still have our guns … imagine that

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Plenty of doomsday scenarios were put forward by Barack Obama’s enemies when he became president in 2009. Most of them made no sense. One of them was particularly absurd.

I refer to politically active groups, such as the National Rifle Association, which fomented fear among the ranks of gun owners that the president was going to order federal agents to disarm us all. He would flout the Second Amendment and push legislation through Congress that would deprive of us of our constitutional right to “keep and bear arms” … they said.

Do you remember all that crap? I do.

It was all meant to scare the daylights out of us, to suggest that this president — who really isn’t one of “us,” if you’ll recall that other “birther” baloney as well — was hell bent on coming after our guns.

One of the social media themes that made the rounds not long ago was that the president had endorsed the Australia law that essentially took away everyone’s gun. The result of that law was a precipitous decline in gun violence Down Under; Obama thought that was a good result.

That never happened. It won’t happen, either, as long as we have a Constitution that includes the Second Amendment.

What the gun-owner-rights fearmongers ignored, too, was that the president lacks absolute power to impose his will over the nation. I hope the new president understands that, too. The president has that other co-equal government arm with which he must deal: Congress, which is populated by members who get lots of campaign dough from the gun lobby.

I mention this — as we draw closer to the end of President Obama’s time in office — to remind us all of the fearmongering that at times can overcome reasonable discussion of serious public policy issues.

national news, political news

‘Gun cops’ are nowhere to be seen

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I am hurtling toward my 70th year on this Earth and for most of that time I’ve been fairly politically attuned to the various debates of the time.

One debate that seems to have outlasted many of the others has been about guns.

Gun violence breaks out and we hear the squeals of gloom and doom from the gun lobby that politicians are going to call on the cops to break down our doors and confiscate all our weapons. Those nasty pols simply hate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and they’re going to do away with it. They’re going to steal our civil liberties and deny us the right to “keep and bear arms.”

Such nonsense came flying out of the mouth last night of Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump. The Democrats’ nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton, wants to do away with the Second Amendment, he said, and by gosh-and-by-darn, he won’t let that happen.

The pro-gun-rights lobby has been saying the same thing about President Obama. They said it about the first President Clinton, and about President Carter, President Johnson and President Kennedy.

What do all these pols have in common? They’re all Democrats, the gun-hating, squishy liberal political party that wants to disarm Americans and leave us vulnerable to a government takeover of all our rights.

If any of that were true, wouldn’t any one of those aforementioned individuals have done so already?

Of course not!

They can’t. Congress won’t allow it. The gun lobby — which has sunk its teeth deeply into lawmakers’ necks — won’t allow it. The Constitution won’t allow it.

Yet the fear-mongering continues — as it did from the podium on the final night Wednesday at the Republican National Convention.

I do believe there are ways to regulate firearms a bit more tightly while remaining faithful to the Second Amendment. The merchants of fear, though — now led by Donald Trump — won’t allow it.

national news

Now it’s Baton Rouge PD under fire … literally!

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I am going to pray that we haven’t started another list of communities where we attach them immediately to random acts of unspeakable violence.

We have places like Newtown, Charleston, Aurora, Blacksburg, Killeen, Littleton, Springfield, Orlando, you name it, where violence has broken out, claiming the lives of innocent people at the hands of hideous monsters.

Just two weeks ago, another such monster opened fire in Dallas, killing five police officers. Today? It happened again … in Baton Rouge.

Three officers are dead; several others are wounded.

What I haven’t yet been able to read is anything that starts to explain the motive behind this latest attack on law enforcement.

The big question? Is it race-related?

Baton Rouge police, you must recall, were involved in the shooting death of an African-American man. The officers, who are white, have been put on leave. Demonstrations have broken out.

It’s reasonable, I reckon, to believe that today’s shooting was in response to that earlier incident. But we don’t know.

One gunman is dead. Police today have said he is dressed in black, but no one is identifying him, either by name or by his ethnicity.

No matter the motivation, this kind of attack on law enforcement must not stand.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/breakingnews/3-baton-rouge-police-killed-in-shooting-1-suspect-dead/ar-BBuq8lz?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

President Obama has condemned it. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has as well. So has the leader of the Black Lives Matter movement that has led the demonstrations.

Let us all pray for an immediate end to this kind of tragedy.

I don’t know how we’re ever going to repair hearts that keep getting broken by this kind of cruel senselessness.

national news, political news, State news

Welcome, Mr. President, but please … no politics

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President Barack Obama isn’t likely to get the message I’m about to deliver — but I’m going to deliver it anyway.

The president is coming to Dallas on Tuesday to attend an interfaith memorial service in honor of the five law enforcement officers who were slain this past week by the gunman who opened fire at the end of a Black Lives Matter-sponsored march downtown.

I want him to steer away from politics. By that I mean I hope the president speaks exclusively about the officers’ lives, their heroism, their dedication to duty and to their community and to the love of their grieving families.

He might be tempted to veer — if only briefly — into the realm of gun violence and the lethality of the weapon used by the shooter. He might be drawn to say something about the need to tighten rules and laws that allow people to obtain these weapons.

My wish is for the president to save that speech for another time, another venue, another context.

Dallas is hurting. The nation is hurting over the senseless loss of life.

A memorial service by definition is designed to pay tribute to the fallen and, if possible, to celebrate the contributions they brought to this earthly world.

I share the desire to welcome the president to Texas. I’m glad he cut short his NATO summit to come here.

Barack Obama is a wise man who will be guided by his conscience — not to mention by his team of political advisers. I hope they tell him: Mr. President, stick to the matter at hand, which as we see it is to help this community heal its grievous emotional wounds.