Gun Rights

I am so confused.  As I read postings on a variety of media it is clear that many in our country have had strong negative reactions to the March for Our Lives event.  (Clearly many have had a strong positive reaction, but that does not confuse me.  It is the negative reaction that confuses me.) The name calling, the shaming, the put-downs, the outright bullying, the lying, the misrepresentations.  I read words like “God-given right to own guns.”  Really?  Where is that in the Bible?  Did he also give the right to health care and non-discrimination?  I have not read one single proposal that calls for taking guns out of the hands of current gun owners, and yet every gun owner rants as though people are coming to his or her door to confiscate their guns.  Who is saying that?  I can’t find it anywhere.  

I also keep hearing that people must hold on to guns to protect themselves from the government.  Right.  Most idiotic thing I have ever heard.  So I picture the National Guard rolls up in front of your house with tanks, mortars, bazookas, weaponized drones and you believe your little AR-15 is going to help hold them off?  Crazy.  Owning a gun is no more God-given than owning a car and probably less God-given than the right to food, shelter, clothing and health care.  We know God opposed discrimination and promoted peace.  We know God said fear not for I am with you.  If God is on your side why do you need an AR-15?

Is it unreasonable to suggest that anyone who defends the right to own weapons designed for the sole purpose of killing people are by definition mentally unstable enough to merit the denial of their ability to acquire such weapons?  Is it unreasonable to suggest that anyone who suffers from such fear and paranoia regarding the government of the US and fear of the confiscation of personal property by such government is by definition mentally unstable enough to merit the denial of their ability to acquire any weapons?  Is it unreasonable to suggest that anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ, a man who consistently urged followers to have no fear, love their neighbor and spread peace, but simultaneously demand the right to have weapons out of fear suffers from such cognitive dissonance as to merit the denial of their ability to acquire weapons?  Is it unreasonable to suggest that anyone who applies for a permit to carry a weapon and/or carry a concealed weapon is by definition mentally unstable enough to merit the denial of their ability to acquire weapons?  We’ve been looking at this backwards.  It appears to me that the real scary people are those who advocate having guns to protect themselves from so-called scary people.

Yes, we have shed the blood of enough children, enough innocent bystanders, and enough people who were in the wrong place and the wrong time.  We do not need to shed more.  We do not need to arm more.  A guy with a gun is neither good nor bad.  It is where he points the gun and fires that determines that.  JFK was not protected when surrounded by armed men.  Ronald Reagan was not protected when surrounded by armed men, Fort Hood was not protected when everyone there had both training and access to a weapon.  It makes no sense.  The Republican Party understands that it makes no sense as they banned guns from their convention last summer.  The Family Research Council and the Council of Conservative Citizens bans guns from their meetings.  They know what they fear to admit.  The only way to ensure there are no shootings is to ensure there are no devices that shoot.

I know saying such things results in rabid responses from those who cannot imagine their lives without arms.  It appears to me the more rabid the response the more foolhardy it is to allow such folks to have weapons.  Trusting good guys with guns to stop bad guys with guns assumes we can tell the difference.  We can’t.  People who see themselves as good guys and carry guns are also very likely to go ballistic on this topic, lose their tempers, call people names, wrap themselves in the American Flag, misquote the 2^nd Amendment, and seek to quote scripture.  All those responses are irrational.  I do not want irrational people with firearms standing next to me in line at What-a-Burger arguing that they are a good guy just looking for a bad guy to stop.  That is one of the scariest outlooks on life that I can imagine.

In fact, that is the crux of the Black Lives Matter movement:  White cops see themselves as the good guys and view Black people as bad guys therefore subject to shooting.  Way too much evidence that is true.  Worse, after White cops have shot an unarmed Black man they are still labeled the good guys.  If the race was reversed we would have riots in the street, not just kneeling at football games.

The people who are the strongest opponents to any kind of gun control are the very people who should not be allowed to purchase guns.  Their feelings and beliefs obviously take precedent over their logic and we cannot promote arming irrational people with guns.

Now let’s talk reasonable limits on the purchase of firearms in such a way as to reduce mass shootings.  Such an approach has worked everywhere it has been implemented.  Guns may not kill people, but irrational people armed with guns most certainly do kill people.  Lots of people.  Time for reason to prevail over guns.

Nightmare

I awake in a cold sweat.  Panicky.  I am the President of the United States and something is terribly wrong.  I pursued this position because I believe in America and I believed I could make it better.  But that is not what is happening.

Did I really say professional athletes should be fired for protesting?  Did I really say that there are some good people in the White Supremacist groups?  Did I really say my inaugural crowd was bigger than Obama’s?  Did I really promise to hire the best people but hire unqualified family members and friends who function out of loyalty to me rather than loyalty to the nation, and have I really lost 22 of those appointees through resignation and firings, more than any other President in history?  Do I really have the lowest Presidential support rating in the history of the Presidency?  Have I really failed to implement Congressional approved sanctions against Russia?  Have I really bragged about grabbing women by their genitals?  Have I really made fun of a disabled reporter?  Have I really attacked individual members of the press, actors, and members of Congress?  Did I really have an affair and pay to cover it up?  Are there really 17 women who have filed sexual assault charges against me?  Did I really support a tax plan that helps CEOs and the very wealthy?  Have I failed to release my tax returns?  Am I really backsliding on my promise to not touch Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid?  Have I offended our British, German, French, Canadian and NATO allies?  Am I going forward with plans to build a wall?  Have I really requested a military parade in my own honor?  Have I really slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum?  Have I really played golf for over 100 days in my first year as President?  Have 19 people been indicted on charges arising from my campaign, and have 4 of them already pled guilty?  Have I sided more with the NRA than those who support gun control legislation?  Have I failed to generate as many jobs in my first year as Obama did in his last year?  Have I dramatically contributed to the National Debt after Obama was shrinking it?  Have I really undone a host of environment protections to allow the fossil fuel industry and producers in general greater leeway?  Are there really over 2,000 documented lies that I have uttered?  Have professors of political science already dubbed me the worst President in US history?  Has a panel of psychologists and psychiatrists already taken a stand that I am mentally unstable? 

If I am honest with myself, if I truly want to serve all the American people, if I truly believe in our form of government, if I truly value honesty and integrity above self-service, there is but one course of action open to me.  I must resign.  But if my motives are pure self-serving I will not leave this office without a fight.

I would resign and beg the American people for forgiveness.  He won’t.

What a nightmare.

Fear of Government

I have been engaged in some really interesting exchanges with a person I respect and count as a friend.  He is very conservative.  I am not.  He reflects what I have heard from many others, including family members.  They fear “the government”.  They fear losing control.  They fear losing their rights.  They fear losing their freedom.  They fear the government will take over everything.  They fear the government is breeding dependent citizens.  They are sincere.  But I believe they are seriously misguided.

Who and what is this “government” they fear?  It is not the local school board, the local city council, the local county government, maybe not even the state government.  It is the federal government they fear.  And if we break that down, it is not so much the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the EPA, the armed services, ICE, the DEA, or any of the federal law enforcement branches.  It does not include the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security, the Department of Education, the Treasury, Department of Commerce, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veteran Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Energy, the Department of State, the Department of Labor, the Department of Transportation, etc.  In other words, they do not fear the departments and agencies in the Executive Branch.  They do not fear the Legislative branch, though they express frustration about that branch.  They do not fear the Judicial branch because they have little dealings with that branch even though it is important in safeguarding the rights of Americans.  So what do they fear?

They fear the nebulous, ubiquitous, undefined “government.”  As best as I can tell after pushing and prodding, what they are really afraid of is taxation, and having those taxes support people they see as misfit co-dependents, and they fear somebody somewhere is going to show up at their door and take away their property, or worse, their guns.  When asked about the “swamp” they refer globally to all those government officials that are running their lives as they see it.  But pressed on that they have few if any specifics. 

They are just afraid.  Afraid of losing something.  Afraid of paying taxes so that others can get what they have or worse, get something they do not have.  Afraid of recognizing people of color, women, people with different religious beliefs, people with different sexual orientations, people who are not white conservative males.  It appears they have a mental model of the US that harkens back to a day when minorities were suppressed, women knew their place, and “deviants” were beat up if they did not stay in the closet.  They are willing to do the most un-American things to return to those days because they see those days as “great.”

They are wrong.  They fear a boogeyman.  In fact, their fears are the reverse of what they should be.  I believe they should fear any step by the government to allow discrimination against any identifiable group of humans.  If the government can discriminate against gay folks, transgender folks, Black, Hispanic, female, disabled then we are all at risk.  Human rights, civil rights, must be protected for all or they will not be available to any.  The current direction of the nation and the courts is in fact scary.  We are moving back in time.  Back to an era that complies with the mental model of the fearful.  We cannot allow that to happen.

In what I see as a strange twist of logic, those who have fear of government syndrome are promoting a government that merits fearing.  We simply cannot allow ourselves to say that some people just have to live under the bridge, go hungry, go without health care, go without education because they do not fit our mental model of who Americans are or should be.  Those in need are Americans.  The only moral thing to do is to provide them the necessities and protect their rights.  The really scary thing to me is the people who would hurt others and promote themselves because they have a false fear of the government.  Those people merit fear.