"The Second Amendment is From God"

That slogan leapt out at me in from a recent Associated Press article, one chronicling a series of pro-gun demonstrations in state capitals around the country.   It was purportedly emblazoned on a sign, along with other slogans of the gun-rights movement.  "Come and Take It," said one truculently, emblazoned with a farkled up sniper rifle.  "An Armed Society is a Polite Society," said another.  "God, Guns, and Guts," said a third.

But though there were plenty of reiterated claims of that "Second Amendment" phrase, there were no images of the sign bearing that theological assertion.  I just couldn't find it, either in traditional semi-objective media or the propagandist provocateurs of left and right wings.  Huh.

But still.  It was a striking phrase.

Such a statement certainly seems in keeping with the ethos of firearm ownership that has come to define the American conversation on the subject.   Owning a firearm is a "sacred" right, or so the language of that movement tends to go.  It's woven up with theologies of conflict and nation, of struggle against tyranny and the defense of freedom.

All of that might ring bright in the ears of those who want that to be real, who desire that affirmation.

But the Second Amendment is not from God.  That is simply not true, not in any rationally defensible sense of the word.  That reality goes beyond the deep tension between the ethic of violence and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Second Amendment does not arise from the Sacred.  Here, I understand the sacred as that which involves some direct engagement with the Creator of the Universe.  To be sacred, a text must have been drawn and spoken out of a covenant relationship with God.  A sacred text is a signpost to the holy, to the deepest purpose of humankind, revealed from a deep connection to the One who forms and shapes all of being. It endeavors to articulate eternal truths that transcend place and culture and nation, and that speak instead to the deepest purpose of existence.

The Torah, the Prophets, and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as found in the Gospels are sacred texts, for example.  They are explicit articulations of that form of relationship.  Even if you do not view them as sacred, that is their clear purpose and intent.

But the Constitution of the United States is not a sacred document.  It importantly does not presume to be.  The Founders explicitly did not intend it to be.  It is a self-aware product of human reason, founded on the mutual consent of the rational individuals who comprise the citizenry of our republic.  It begins with the assertion that it does not derive itself from revelation, but is instead the creation of human beings.  "We the People" have chosen to be part of this republic, and to create these guidelines for life together.  God is not to be found in the Constitution, not directly.

Our Constitution accepts, within itself, that it is a contingent and modifiable document.  It integrates into itself the particular rules for making changes as reason and mutual consent dictate.  That's the entire purpose of Article V, eh?  Amendments can be added.  Amendments can be repealed.  Again, this is not a quality of a sacred text.

Let it be said that this is a system of governance that I voluntarily support.  As a free individual, I see the Constitution of the United States of America as establishing a form of life together in which I choose to participate.  Were I not American, I would choose to be.

Let it be also said that this is how forms of political governance best express themselves theologically.  No form of government is perfect, and none should be cast in stone.  Always reformed and reforming, eh?

Let it also be said that I hold human reason to be a gift from God.  The capacity to be reasoning beings is one of the highest gifts of sentient life.  As such, a document formed and shaped by reason is a result of God's work in us.  It is not a revealed truth, but there is truth in it.

It's just that this truth is not an absolute, nor does it have the quality of the sacred.

Sikhs and Evil Stupid People with Guns

As I walked my dog yesterday morning, I passed a neighbor.

This neighbor lives up the street, part of a family whose daughter was the Safety Patrol when my 14 year old was getting on the bus for the very first time as a kindergartener.  She's in her last year of college this year.  Man, how time flies.   Back then, I hung out a bunch with the dad from the family, a genial, hardworking guy with a warm smile and an easy laugh.

This neighboring family is Sikh.

We smiled, I said hello, and we walked on.  I found myself...yesterday morning...reflecting on how interesting that faith is.

Guru Nanak, who founded the religion, has always struck me as kind of a brother from another mother, Jesus-wise.  The faith is monotheistic, and though it springs from an utterly different culture, it has powerful spiritual resonances with the core message and ethos of Jesus of Nazareth.  Guru Nanak taught a radically egalitarian approach to social standing, which put it into strong tension with the caste system in the Hindu culture from which it sprang.   I'd been doing readings in both Christian and world mysticism for the class I taught this last week, and Sikh teachings are both potently, esoterically mystic and eminently practical and earthy.

As I read the news this morning, I thought again about my neighbor, and my heart and my prayers went out to the Sikh community.  We don't know much about this particular "shooter" yet, but from what has been gleaned, it appears the reprehensible mass murders in a Wisconsin gurudwara may have been the work of someone who mistook Sikhs for Muslims.

If they'd been Muslim, it would have been no less horrific.  There is, however, the probability that this wasn't just a massacre, but a massacre undertaken by someone too hatefully ignorant to realize he wasn't even murdering the people he thought he was murdering.  Not that he wouldn't have hated them anyway.

From what is trickling out this morning, he was apparently thrown out of the military for misconduct, which isn't surprising.

What also isn't surprising is that he had easy access to firearms.   If the criminally insane can get guns, why shouldn't evil stupid people who are an embarrassment to the uniform?

Lord, have mercy.

All the Best Guns

He had carefully chosen all the best guns.

There were the two Glocks, of course, which almost go without saying.  Nine millimeter has good stopping power, but they’re also well-weighted, industry standard sidearms, with great predictable handling and reliability.

The Remington 870 Tactical?  It’s legendary for its reliability and robustness, the single most successful pump action shotgun in modern history.   It may not put as many rounds through as quickly as a semi-auto or full-auto combat shotgun, but it’s stone-cold reliable. There’s a reason it’s the weapon of choice for law enforcement.

The AR-15 is the only debatable choice...for close quarters a semi-auto bullpup like the FN2000 might be arguably better, but a bullpup could lose balance and would certainly become unwieldy if you intended to use a large-capacity 100 round drum magazine.  Sure, you can change out magazines in less than two seconds, but in the absence of cover, that would be a very long two seconds.  Of course, ever since the size limitations on semi-auto magazines were allowed to
expire, this is a moot point.  Given the intended purpose, the combination was a logical choice, although the tendency for the AR-15 to jam when used with large capacity magazines did end up being a factor.

He’d done his research, I’m sure, assessing the reviews that can be found everywhere online and in enthusiast magazines.  His weapon selections show thoughtfulness and informed consideration.

He also knew that Colorado is a state where access to firearms is
easy.  In fact, Colorado has laws on the books forbidding gun
registration in any form by any locality.  It’s really easy to buy a
gun there.  Further, laws establishing concealed carry are on the
books.  There could easily have been a gun-owner with a concealed
weapon on the audience.  In anticipation of this, he did the smart
thing.

He purchased tear gas, which in a closed space would quickly render
all but those wearing gas masks unable to clearly see or focus.  He
armored himself, wearing a bulletproof vest with groin and neck
protection.  His assumption, a logical one, was that any armed member
of the audience would be unlikely to successfully acquire a target in
darkness while incapacitated by tear gas and in the chaos of a
panicked crowd.   Between the tear gas, the optimal weapons selection,
and the body armor, there is really no rationally defensible scenario
in which he could have been stopped.  Barring an audience member with
a gas mask and a long gun, there was little possibility of preventing
him...legally...from carrying out his attack.

In fact, given the location and Colorado laws about open
carry...meaning you can carry a weapon openly and in public...he was
completely within his rights right up until the instant he
opened fire.  Had someone tackled him before he first discharged his
weapon, it could have been considered an assault.

Unlike our culture’s non-response to these regularly recurring events,
it was all very well thought through.  And both our society and its
law were...right up until that moment...very much on his side.

A Second Amendment Remedy to Gun Violence

As the echoes of the Tucson shooting still ring in our ears, one thing is completely and abundantly clear.  When it comes to managing America's completely insane approach to firearms, ain't nuthin' gonna happen.  It never does. 

You can slaughter little Amish children.  You can kill dozens of high schoolers at Columbine.  You can mow down scores of promising young college students at Virginia Tech.  You can kill Federal Judges and patriotic little girls born on September 11, 2001.

What you'll get is nothing, nothing but the spokesperson for the National Rifle Association, clucking about how now is not the time, and how we should just be praying for the families.  You'll get inaction on the Hill, and in state capitols.  The echoes of gunfire will fade, until maybe six months from now, when a massacre large enough to catch our jaded eyes happens again.  Not that it doesn't always happen, many times a day, as a Vietnam-wars-worth of Americans die every year on the receiving end of a bullet. 

Gun control, as an expression of managing a murder rate that is the worst in the developed world, just is not going to occur.  Our political culture lacks the courage for it, because too many Americans own firearms and don't want to be told that somehow they are bad for doing so.  Those sane enough to see this for the problem it is might plead and reason, and point to the painfully obvious statistics, but that hasn't worked.  The essence of the debate hasn't changed since I was a middle-schooler, and still the massacres come, and the blam, blam, blam of individual shootings continue.  Kill, Equivocate, Forget, Repeat. 

Thirty-thousand dead American citizens annually means this is 1) a major issue and 2) a national disgrace, but we're just plain stuck.

So how to get out of this?  Reason isn't enough, evidently.  To steal the recent rhetoric of insane ultraconservative Sharron Angle, I think we need a Second Amendment remedy.  No, that doesn't mean opening up on NRA headquarters with that M134 you bought for home defense, as satisfyingly ironic as that might be.

What would seem more constructive is to approach regulation of firearms from an originalist Second Amendment perspective.  As Tea Party folks are fond of telling us, the purpose of the Second Amendment is national defense.  Period.  It does not, in it's plain text reading, exist so that we can get us some venison.  It does not exist so that we can menace folks with the threat of a buttload of birdshot if they don't get the [heck] offa our property.

It exists so that the citizens of our great Republic can be prepared and ready to defend the Republic from invasion and threats to our constitutional liberties.


So far, this is all Red State Red Meat.    Well, I'm just getting rolling.

If you are an American, you have the right to possess a firearm.  But it's more than a right, about which you selfishly whine.  It's a duty.  It's the duty to use that firearm in defense of this country should the need arise.   If you are unwilling to fulfill that duty, inadequately trained to fulfill that duty, or mentally incapable of fulfilling that duty, then you should not be in possession of a firearm.

What?  You don't love America enough to stand up and defend her in time of crisis?  You gonna go there, son?

I thought not.

My humble legislative proposal...which will go no further than this blog and the three people who read it...would be to register firearms and owners.  Further, I'd require gun owners to receive both training and clearance.   But we're not calling this gun control.  Of course not.  This isn't about law enforcement.  It would not be viewed or described as licensing of a semi-illicit activity.

Instead, it seems more...um...constitutional...to have the registration to be tied in to the D.O.D.  Specifically, through the newly formed Homeland Defense Reserve sub-agency of the National Guard.  How can our men and women in uniform call on patriotic American gun-owners to stand with them in a time of national crisis if they don't know who they are or how to reach them?  So of course you need to register, and have your weapon registered.  That data would be shared with DHS and law enforcement, of course.  After the lessons we learned on September 11th, you can't have it any other way.

With registration and the background checks that insure your preparedness to protect the Homeland would come training.  It would have to be renewed every other year, just to keep your skills honed.  That mandatory training in firearms use and basic squad tactics, of course, would be conducted through a public/private partnership between the HDR and the National Rifle Association.  'Cause you know, that means some serious new revenue and membership opportunities.

This would weed out the crazies and the criminals and those unpatriotic enough to not be willing to prepare themselves to protect America.  It would serve the purposes of national defense and law enforcement.  And it would...I am convinced...cut down on the shameful slaughter that makes us a global laughingstock. 

Is it going to happen?  Goodness no.  No more than the next stage, which would be using such a plan as part of the process of standing down our imperial military to levels more befitting a constitutional republic. 

But it is, as Shaggy might say, so crazy it just might work.  If only we'd try it.

Toy Guns

This last weekend, I served as the Party Bus Dad for a minivan full of boys. My little guy was turning 10, and rather than one event, he wanted a smorgasbord of a party, a great heaping tapas plate of fun.

Stop number one on this multi-event delight involved unloading my bad self and six fired-up pre-teens at the local laser tag emporium. Both of my boys, and their dad, are most fond of laser tag. It's a hoot. The tactics and strategery of simulated combat are exhilarating. It doesn't hurt that we're not half-bad at it. Of the 45 players in the arena that afternoon, my oldest son rocked the highest score, my little guy came in slightly behind, and yours truly...who specializes in lower-scoring base defense...came in third. Our team, "Team Green," managed to completely rout our opponents. Of course, they were mostly panicked clusters of eight year olds whose grasp of close quarters combat tactics were woefully lacking, but why let a little detail like that dilute the glory? Hoooah!

That fascination with things martial extends deeply into the games my boys play. And, frankly, the games I play. Unlike many progressive parents, who hover and micromanage and try to get their boys to play with happy homemaker sets, I'm quite happy to have my pups charging around with giant squirtguns, or firing Nerf projectiles at one another. I, too, was once a boy. So long as they're aware of the difference between toys and real weapons, aware of the deep difference in cost between play combat and the blood and muck of real war, they know what they need to know.

I do wonder, though, just how many Americans grasp that difference. That wondering particularly applies to members of our Tea Party movement. One of the more dominant threads in American conservatism is the Second Amendment thread. It asserts, as was the intent of the folks who wrote that portion of our constitution, that unrestricted ownership of firearms is necessary if citizen soldiers are to be prepared to defend our nation. Every once in a while, one of the more...um...earnest folks who are affiliated with that movement will darkly grumble about the need for us to have that Glock in our dresser drawer to throw off the yoke of tyrants.

I understand that desire to defend the homestead and the nation. I also understand that fascination with weapons. What I can't quite understand is how you can 1) support gun ownership on the basis of the second amendment and 2) be utterly and uncritically supportive of our current approach to national security. America's warfighters are, by the standards of militaries throughout history, without parallel. Our immense and sprawling defense budget may include a whole bunch of waste, but it has also produced the single most ferocious fighting force in human history.

Because of our engagement in Afghanistan, that budget is increasingly dedicated to developing tools for use against insurgent populations and local militia. Sophisticated drones and Joint Direct Attack Munitions are really rather effective at disposing of little groups of human beings bearing small arms. We're a very short step away from a revolution in military robotics, one that is being actively funded and pursued and could be the biggest game-changer since iron swords sliced through bronze shields like they was buttah. The fantasy of local militia being able to put up any kind of meaningful resistance against an unfettered mid-21st century army is just that. A fantasy.

What I just can't quite figure out is how folks who ferociously proclaim that they own small arms because they don't trust the government to provide health care are simultaneously eager to provide that same government with the most impressive destructive tools in the history of humankind.

Human beings are strange, strange creatures.