First The Washington Post suggests that my commentary on the tragic shooting death of Veronica Jean Rutledge by her two-year old son in an Idaho Walmart as using “the accident as an excuse to grandstand on gun rights,” then the website Raw Story writes that my post is “a talking point for both sides in the gun rights debate.” Neither is true; neither is remotely true. The post wasn’t even about guns: the topic is accountability for reckless and irresponsible conduct by parents and their consequences. Do journalists even read the stuff they link to?
The comments to the post, however, are another matter. Naturally some of them opine on gun policy, and an interesting query arrived from a reader in India, who wrote:
Hello all… I’m from India and we don’t have such gun laws here.. but it looks like, the only news that I see concerning America are “school shootings” and “accidental ones” every week. I have nothing against America and I love your country .. but owning a gun, seems to be a sign of insecurity to me. and I repeat, the only news I see is a regular pattern: “kid goes on shooting spree” or “kid accidentally discharges weapon”.. Don’t you see what’s happening b’coz of these Gun laws ? anybody can be careless about anything… nobody is perfect. I’m only airing my views about this.
This prompted an excellent Second Amendment explanation from 2014 New Prolific Commenter of the Year joed68. Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “Hard Lesson Of The Walmart Tragedy: Bad Ethics Kills”:
Good morning, sir.
Our second amendment was essentially a reaffirmation of a natural right; the right to exist. In our Declaration of Independence, we stated that people have the right to throw off the yoke of a government that has descended into tyranny. Having just fought a revolution, we were very aware of the importance of retaining the practical means of doing so. Since then, we’ve observed other nations succumb to mass democide, which for many of us, hardens our resolve to never go down their path. I would agree with you that we are insecure, with the modification that it is a healthy mistrust of what we regard as a necessary evil (government). Responsible people should always be alert, aware, and uneasy. If not, we have no one to blame but ourselves if we wake up one day to realize that far too many of our essential liberties are gone, and once these are gone, they usually don’t return.
Legislation enacted in recent decades proves that, yes, it CAN happen here. Some will argue that it would be an exercise in futility to resist if it ever came to this, but I disagree. One has only to look at the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan to realize that people fighting for their lives, on their soil, retain a distinct advantage that no amount of technology and unlimited resources can cancel out. Regardless of this consideration, there is the fact that, in this unlikely but possible scenario, many people would rather go out fighting than meekly submitting.
For some people, it’s about self-protection. The simple fact here is that police have no legal obligation to protect individual life, even in the unlikely event that they arrived quickly enough to help. Many people feel that it’s not only their right, but a duty to protect themselves and their loved ones from the predators among us. To people who haven’t been mugged (for example), the need for protection seems remote or nonexistent.As far as our exported propaganda, understand that there is an ideological war going on in America between conservatives and the misguided (guess which one I am). The misguided, who are terrified to shreds by even a pop-tart (a piece of sugar and cholesterol that you put into a toaster) chewed into the shape of a gun, also suffer from the delusion that it is their God-given mandate to force others to live as they see fit, without the slightest sense of irony or of their hypocrisy.
Unfortunately, they also have taken control of our media and learning institutions. These school shootings do happen, and they are always tragic, but what you see is sensationalized, distorted, and cherry-picked out of all proportion in ways too numerous to list. A very useful propaganda tool is the polished ability to make isolated incidents look like epidemics. I have to stop for now; work to be done.
Ethics Alarms 
but owning a gun, seems to be a sign of insecurity to me
****************
My guess is India would be a different place for women if they were able to arm themselves.
How so?
WooHoo !!
“s far as our exported propaganda, understand that there is an ideological war going on in America between conservatives and the misguided (guess which one I am). The misguided, who are terrified to shreds by even a pop-tart (a piece of sugar and cholesterol that you put into a toaster) chewed into the shape of a gun, also suffer from the delusion that it is their God-given mandate to force others to live as they see fit, without the slightest sense of irony or of their hypocrisy.”
You should google search the various videos of “liberals shooting guns for the first time”. I can’t believe that people have been so deluded their whole lives by the Media, Pop Culture and Big Education to actually have a PHYSIOLOGICAL reaction to *just* seeing or holding a firearm.
Like this?:
Well done by the way.
Thanks, Tex!
I’ll echo Tex on that, Joe. Well said, indeed. In fact, you got it in a nutshell.
I agree fully with joed68 as to the reasoning of our forefathers behind the right to bear arms clause. I agree with everything he has said. I disagree that, should our citizenry today become threatened by a government bent on tyranny, weapons in the hands of that citizenry would right the situation.
There are those who believe we are already well on our way down that path to tyranny–and not without some justification. At what point should they grab guns and storm the seat of government? And how many shoot-outs will they have along the way with those who approve the actions of the government and think those on the other side are alarmists, conspiracy theorists, and home-grown terrorists?
There are those who see law enforcement as nothing but an arm of tyranny and would start assassinating policemen at every opportunity–a horrible solution that surely would be met with every attempt to bring down these outlaws by the armed law-and-order citizens.
It worked a couple of centuries ago. It would not work now. We are too huge. We are too diverse. We have no single, unified ideology nor a statesman or leader supported by a large majority behind whom to rally. Too many of us are convinced that we and those who think just like us are the only ones who are right. I do support the second amendment, but if we are actually justifying it with the same reasons for which it was originally framed, we are deluding ourselves.
Happy New Year.
I also agree with you, to a point. I agree that armed insurrection with our government would be a terrible and complicated thing; terrible mainly because of technology, the enormous disparity between weapons in the hands of civilians and government, population density and the scarcity of resources, greatly reduced self-reliance and survival skills, and numerous other factors. I shake my head when I listen to people itching for a fight; people who have no earthly idea of just how terrible such a war would be, and the ausere conditions under which it would be fought. Some people watch too many movies. There would also be the problem of deciding, agreeing on, and coordinating a jumping-off point. I think we embarked on the path of tyranny long ago, and it seems likely to me that many of us would literally be in shackles long before we collectively decided that it was time for action. I have no illusions about that. I think that there would be a great deal of power from around brought to bear against us, power that is currently propping up the system as it now exists. I pray that this sort of thing never has to happen.
Where I disagree with you is about the futility of fighting. I disagree about differences in ideology and loyalty being and absolute obstacle. We had these same differences during and after the revolution, and somehow we still pulled it off. I also disagree about your statement concerning the police. I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion, at least. I think you’d see a great number of them staying home to watch over their families in the event of such a calamity. Then there’s the fact that a great number of our police and military have openly stated that they’re just as disturbed by the current state of things, and that they’d never align themselves with the government against the citizenry if push came to shove. You also have to consider the fact that, as I stated above, things would be pretty bad before there was any consensus about fighting. By this point, I doubt you’d have an enormous number of holdouts, at least not due to ambivalence about where their alliegances lay.
Most important are the moral and spiritual considerations. What our founders gave us is well worth fighting for to the last man, regardless of the likelihood of success. It is right and just to fight an oppressor, and to not do so makes you directly complicit in his actions, past, present, and future. It is corrosive to the human spirit and horribly defeatist to unequivocally state that it would not work within earshot of others in whom hope still kindles. I would rather fight and perish than ever live as a slave.
Well stated, sir; I agree with most you have said, and I agree with your last sentence with every fiber of my being. I still believe, and I think you do too if I am correctly interpreting your sub-text, that the resulting chaos from such action would leave us so broken and destroyed that we might well never recover.
I do. Not only are we much softer and less mutually cooperative than we used to be, but our swelling numbers rely on a fragile infrastructure that would probably collapse. Nothing would be the same. It could only be hoped that God or luck would intervene, and give us something better than many of the possible outcomes.
Then overthrowing a tyrannical government, should it ever be necessary, could be more easily accomplished today than in 1800, by targeting banks, aqueducts, reservoirs, power stations, rail yards, resulting in a collapse of all civilized society.
We are fortunate that the civil Rights movements did not have to resort to that.
Good point. Certainly a vulnerability. Do you remember when those nutjobs shot up a substation in California, and shut down a swath of grid?
Ideally one overthrows the government, not the society. That’s where the French revolution, the Russian Revolution, well, pretty much all the revolutions except for the US revolution got it wrong.
Brings to mind a quote from Robert Heinlein. “You can’t enslave a free man. The worst you can do is kill him.” In his day, he was considered a radical liberal. Today, he would be considered a radical conservative.
Too bad no one can grok that opinion today.
“I disagree that, should our citizenry today become threatened by a government bent on tyranny, weapons in the hands of that citizenry would right the situation.”
Wait. What????
So, you are saying that IF we truly faced a tyrannical government at home THEN we aren’t supposed to do anything about it to overthrow it. And that’s precisely what you are saying if you think weapons in the hands of citizens isn’t the right situation.
What???? God knows in the face of a tyrannical government, sit-ins, hunger strikes, and demonstrations accomplish precisely nothing. Certainly no external forces would come to our succor — the UN, populated by precisely the kind of tyrannies we don’t want? No. Western Europe, which can’t even be bothered to solve it’s own problems? No…
Come now…
Is your solution to just sit back and be subjugated if worse came to worse? Isn’t that sort of like what Clayton Williams idiotically said when he said that one may as well lay back and enjoy rape if you can’t stop it?
“At what point should they grab guns and storm the seat of government?”
Considering that every rebellion that starts this way doesn’t last or doesn’t end well, I’d say this is a gross mischaracterization of the way revolutions work (real revolutions with good ideals, not the pathetic blood baths some people call revolutions). To be clear, the American Revolution didn’t start this way. It started with petitions & protests, before advancing to petitions & demonstrations, before expanding to petitions & organizing local self-defense (safety) organizations, before getting into petitions & minor acts of sabotage, prior to petitions & open acts of defiance and the inevitable “come and take it” moment. Did I mention petitions?
Even the Founding Fathers programmed into the Federal balance of power the notion that any future insurrections, were they deemed necessary by the citizenry, would not just be “grab the pitch forks and march on Washington, DC” actions. In the Federalist Papers, it is made clear that while the body of citizens has the right to overthrow it’s government, it should do so only after clearly appealing to reason and due process, much like the Founders did for OVER A DECADE prior to Lexington and Concord. Then, even, the Founders never saw a rabble marching on the capital as a revolution. Explained in the Federalist Papers, it was seen, that as the Militias answered to the State Governments OR to the National Government depending on the situation, that if there came the time to oppose a particular government with Force, then the Citizens would have succor from other levels of government. Should the National Government become tyrannical, then the the People could appeal to the Force available to the States… vice versa, should the State Government become tyrannical, then the people could appeal to the Force available to the Nation.
Relevant
Also relevant
Also relevant
“And how many shoot-outs will they have along the way with those who approve the actions of the government and think those on the other side are alarmists, conspiracy theorists, and home-grown terrorists?”
Probably scant few. Ordinarily those who “approve the actions of the government” don’t rally in arms to support the government until later, they merely sit back and let the government do the fighting.
“There are those who see law enforcement as nothing but an arm of tyranny and would start assassinating policemen at every opportunity–a horrible solution that surely would be met with every attempt to bring down these outlaws by the armed law-and-order citizens.”
Yep, but let’s not obfuscate. There is a line where complex outlawry and legitimate armed inssurection for a good cause differentiate.
“It worked a couple of centuries ago. It would not work now. We are too huge. We are too diverse. We have no single, unified ideology nor a statesman or leader supported by a large majority behind whom to rally. Too many of us are convinced that we and those who think just like us are the only ones who are right. I do support the second amendment, but if we are actually justifying it with the same reasons for which it was originally framed, we are deluding ourselves.”
Nonsense. Did we miss the Ukrainian overthrow a year ago? Did we miss the still in question overthrow of the Alawite regime in Syria? Revolutions are ALWAYS possible. Yes they are also ALWAYS upheavals to economies and communities. So?
As for support, there’s a good rule of thumb for revolutions – 1/3 support, 1/3 oppose, 1/3 don’t care. That was roughly the break down in the American Revolution also…yep, initially the Revolution was NOT a popular action, centered primarily around New England, the Southern States, although discontent with England’s methods were not ready to break with them and generally opposed the break until later in the Revolution.
So no, I don’t think we are deluding ourselves that if it came to it, a body of armed citizens could FORCE change if necessary.
Showing off? Here I flag you as the most prolific commenter, and you launch 2015 with a grand slam Comment of the Day.
But I’m changing “couldn’t” to “could” in the last sentence. Right? Let me know before I repost.
Yes, good catch. The hazards of tossing in so many negatives into one sentence.
And Thanks!
Um, yeah; that’s what I meant to say. No, seriously; my kid hit “send” before I could write this. Wow, man ! Bravo Zulu !
Your second to last paragraph brings something else to mind. Even after we were well-engaged in war on multiple fronts, we remained far from a general consensus in our congress. Many states still wanted to sue for peace and throw themselves at the mercy of George III. A good portion of our population, even those not loyal to the King, thought of the fighters as terrorists who could only make things much worse.
Like Joed, I would worry a bit about the aftermath. Historically, no revolution has ever succeeded without outside help. If we had that outside help, what would be the price we had to pay? Not saying it shouldn’t happen, just that, if it does, we should put some serious thought into it, and the unintended consequences.
Way to go, Joe. Good one.
Beautifully written. The world needs more calm, reasoned explanations of social / political positions like this. Makes me feel bad for being such a snarky, nasty cynic as of late.