Pity the poor members of the gun lobby, the NRA, and gun manufacturers. Think of how terrible they must feel knowing the products they are pushing in Congress have been used for such unspeakable crimes. Killing the kids at Newtown, the concert-goers in Las Vegas, the night-clubbers in Orlando. One could go on and on. Misuse of a fine product made for self-defense and hunting and employed instead to kill innocent people by deranged maniacs. How could these innocuous assault weapons, so sleek and so modern, and so easily converted to fire like machine guns, have been used for such nefarious purposes?
The members of the gun lobby and their paymasters must be deeply depressed by what has happened. And of course, the effects are cumulative. So each time there is a mass killing with an assault weapon, the depression is exacerbated. And mass killings do seem to be coming more frequently, or is that just a mirage because of the emphasis by the media.
We also must not forget the members of Congress who have been so impotent; unable to stop the scourge of mass killings and gang killings. They must also be terribly despondent, the virus caught by close contact with the gun lobby. But what can they do to end these killings. There really is no reasonable solution to the problem. Getting rid of the bump stocks that convert semi-automatic to automatic weapons might help a tiny bit, but members of Congress must first wait to see what the NRA thinks about that. Banning assault weapons and enhanced ammunition clips would help a lot, but cannot even be considered. Even though they are sad and outraged by the recent killings, the NRA would be even more unhappy if assault weapons were made illegal. In fact, they would go berserk and take away funding from the politicians who supported the bill. Might even support insurgents who challenged those members of Congress. Guns of every kind are an American right, supported by the 2nd Amendment. Right!! Though that only happened relatively recently.
And think of all the poor weapons addicts who get their kicks firing off their guns. Should that pleasure be eliminated? And of course, they need their assault weapons to protect their homes and families in case terrorists overwhelm the Army and National Guard and attack patriotic Americans in their residences. ISIS is still out there. Those poor members of Congress, depressed, despondent and powerless, unable to protect the majority of Americans from maniacs with guns.
In the past, most conservatives did not believe the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to possess arms, as opposed to the state’s ability to raise militias. Though the courts changed their minds on the Second Amendment, there are judges and historians who disagree with their interpretation. Whatever the courts and individual justices believe, however, the possession of guns is ingrained in American culture and major changes at this time would be extremely difficult no matter how depressed those in power may have become.
Though the Supreme Court now supports gun rights, Chief Justice Burger, a conservative, stated unequivocally in the past that the individual-rights interpretation of the Second Amendment was “a fraud” perpetrated on the American people by the gun lobby. When hardline members gained control of the NRA in 1977, they began an effort to make the right to bear arms universal in the United States so the manufacturers could sell more guns to the public. Initially, they lobbied the states to change their laws, as most gun laws fell under state aegis. Over time, states passed provisions protecting the right to bear arms and concealed weapons unless there were specific disqualifications. Immunity from tort liability for gun makers was also provided. Congress and the executive branch came to agree with these interpretations as well. It then became easier for the Supreme Court to validate these rights since they were the law in most of the nation. Boy, think how depressed the Supreme Court members must be. After all, they were the final arbiters of the gun laws that allowed anyone to get assault weapons.
Americans should worry that members of the gun lobby, the NRA, members of Congress and the Supreme Court may cease functioning because they are so very depressed. In fact, there may even be a danger of suicide, with these individuals shooting themselves and dying in fits of despondency. After all, there are 21,000 suicides every year from guns in addition to 9,000 or so homicides. Another few deaths won’t matter. It’s so easy to pull the trigger and end it all, perhaps killing a few others on the way.
Resurrecting Democracy
www.robertlevinebooks.com
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Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020