Our current epidemic of lunatics slaughtering their neighbors at movie theaters, malls, restaurants & old work places:
Depressing beyond the point of shocking.
So should our 2nd Amendment–the right to bear arms–be repealed?
Would it do us any good?
What would make us any safer?
A little-understood fact about the 2nd Amendment:
It was passed in part to guarantee all states’ citizens the right to defend themselves against a too-centralized, totalitarian government like the British one they’d kicked out. Also, to guarantee the right to hunt for their own food in the country & wilderness–
and for self defense against criminals by more than slingshots, karate chops & begging for your family’s life on your hands & knees.
Way back in the late 17th & early 18th centuries, gun possession made groups of American citizens armed about as well as the government–
which forced a respect that kept our bureaucrats from passing & enforcing taxes & rules as vile & strangling as the European monarchies did.
Our revolutionary American philosophy kept governmental powers & taxation low, and personal & community responsibilities high, so the country thrived.
Both the government’s meager armies & the citizens’ ever-readiness-to-form militias balanced each other out. Also, most parties tended to focus on prospering by whatever means available, wherever available, so guns were a natural part of that national semi-rural culture.
Our imperfect national culture unfortunately included systematically destroying the lives, families, religions & powers of Native Americans and of “imported” Africans–
all the while painting them as oppressive enemies to be feared, controlled & squabbled over along with land, water & other resource rights within the new states & opening territories, as “Manifest Destiny” pushed across the continent.
But again, owning a gun was considered, and was, a reasonable, practical part of American life. Almost every farmer & rural person owned one. Kids were taught by parents to use them responsibly, safely and ethically. This was the polar opposite of now being looked down upon by media, society or police as a possible “gun nut”.
But the massive urbanization and over-mechanization of most of our society, with its economic & social stresses, combined with disastrous results of our endless so-called War on Drugs, has concentrated private weaponry in the hands of the imbalanced and desperate as well as the responsible, leading us to our national split personality regarding guns…
Now of course, with many police departments armed to the teeth with military surplus & high tech weapons as if they’re running private fiefdoms–
with you as their untrustworthy subjects, to be looked upon as guilty unless proven innocent–
and with our culture also having overdosed on glorifying violence–
would you really feel safer if the law-abiding citizenry was completely disarmed?
In Australia for example, completely disarming the law-abiding populace recently led to what? Peace and daisies?
No way! It brought far more murderous criminal behavior by thugs emboldened with the knowledge that only they (& the cops) have guns!
Let me ask you:
Do you really think you can trust your govt–
that has invaded and seeks to control & regulate (so as to keep the rich, rich & the powerful, powerful) every aspect of your privacy & your actions–
do you trust that government to act with greater benevolence & wisdom, or think of you as anything but another SHEEP–
if you have NO WAY to even think of protecting yourself?
Obviously, you’re not going to head off the revenooers single-handedly, or cure the ills of exploitation by vicious over-regulation & money grabs by city, state & feds–
but do you really want to surrender yet another historical practical right of an ordinary sane citizenry?
Also:
What about the cities now cutting their police departments in half–
or ditching them entirely–
because they’re going bankrupt?
Who will protect you, the good-hearted but completely weaponless citizen in a land with no Second Amendment rights:
If our soon-to-be-bankrupted country spirals into hard social & economic lessons from our time-honored personal and institutional greed?
If the decades-old restructuring of our EVERY SYSTEM from economic, legal, military and education, to agriculture, energy use, taxation and transportation, makes those systems work as expensively, wastefully & unsustainably as possible–
in order to drain away yet more cash at every step for the rich & powerful and all their wanna be’s–
and leaves you high and dry?
Who will protect you then?
Those who can’t see that our federal & state governments and the military we’ve been seduced into worshiping & obeying are now far too centralized, way too concentrated as they edge towards totalitarianism in their self-appointed legal & technological powers over you–
(whether they so benevolently choose to refrain from using those rights & powers now or not)–
those unfortunates cannot see that we as the American Community have chosen the omnipresent corporate kiss and whip, the all-calculating, all-seeing computer chip & the marvels of the military as our ROLE MODELS for SOLVING our problems–
but with one result being lunatics blasting away at their bosses, their neighbors & fellow shoppers.
All this provides us with a TERRIBLE, CLEARLY FOCUSED MICROCOSMIC VIEW of our national belief systems’ flaws, coming home to roost!
UNCOMFORTABLE CONCLUSION:
WE as a nation and as individuals CAN NO LONGER THROW DOLLARS, THREATS, BULLETS or BOMBS at our problems. We have to get MORE HUMAN.
We have to EVOLVE our country past this crisis of uncomfortably realizing our corrupt comfort zones are scurrying away forever–
and they aren’t coming back.
Maniacs’ murderous rampages, again, are just little local signs in our nation’s unhealthy big picture.
Doesn’t this mean we have to get more self-knowing, more NATURAL and REAL in our SYSTEMS for sustaining and fulfilling our lives and our civilization?
Don’t we have to get more honest, more creative, more generous, more disciplined to create SOLUTIONS that REALLY WORK?
I think so.
What does this “GET MORE HUMAN” mean?
Who knows for sure?
But what other choice do we have?
Do we surrender to our obstacles & our fears?
Do we sink, or do we learn better ways to swim?
Are we not alive today to find our great new answers?
PEACE AND HOPE TO YOU,
Rev. Scott Ufford
Copyright 2012
