A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. – 2nd Amendment, Adopted December 15, 1791Florida’s February 15, shooting where gunman 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 high school students and faculty is without saying an unimaginable tragedy or is it? Was it or is it really unimaginable? If it was unimaginable why did Nikolas Cruz come up with the idea as a way of self expression?
My thought is what Nikolas Cruz did has become all too imaginable. Today we are exposed to imaginary and very real ideas, which have created our common social standards. Some of these ideas are new progressive ideas. These ideas are being used to shape what our society considers to be acceptable or not acceptable. Songs and mannerisms from recording artist of today were unimaginable fifty short years ago. Movies, Television, Games were held to standards, back in the day, that today’s guardians of social freedoms would poo poo.
Our society has undergone a fundamental transformation, that is undeniable, but did we really think this change would be without a cost? Interestingly, and before I go any further, one of only constants during this period of time is that of guns and gun ownership. Guns have always been a part of our society from our country’s inception until now.
I know of a story of a family, which moved into a neighborhood. The house they purchased was beautiful as was the neighborhood. One minor thing annoyed them. A old ratty fence blocked the view of majestic scenery just below their property line so they removed the fence to get a better look at the scenic view from inside the house. Several months past then one evening a hurried knock at the door. When the door was opened they were met with an emotional commotion. The family was informed that two children visiting next door wondered over to their yard and had fallen to their deaths from their yard.
I have always been a proponent of never removing fences before knowing why they were put there in the first place.
The Bill of Rights is like an old ratty fence. Some of the rights listed seem to be blocking our views of a more progressive society. However, in light of the present calls for restricting or completely repealing the second amendment the questions go begging, did the founders make a mistake adopting the second amendment and would society be safer without it?
They who can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety – Benjamin Franklin 1775
Whether derived from the rule of popular opinion, what we witness so much of today (and better known again as the tyranny of the majority) or to the rule of our government, if our government violates it’s constitutional mandate to be subservient to the people. The founders thought it wise for individuals to have the ways and means to protect ourselves from those who would use force or power to subjugate us.
In discussing the need for the second amendment the founders considered that every government ever known to them eventually became a tyrannical threat to the individual. In addition they knew that governments were eventually conquered. The conquerors were usually governed by tyrants who violated individual rights. Therefore, based on this knowledge of world history the individual fundamental right to self protection was recognized and codified into what we know today as the second amendment. Much of the background for the thinking, which when into the 2nd amendment is found in Federalist paper #46 (see here) Even so, those who hold anti-second amendment opinions, in the wake of the horrific Florida attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have all but forgotten our history and persists on a temporary remedy, which they feel is, gun control or banning guns altogether, to feel safe. We have already been warned of this misconception by one of the greatest American minds to have ever lived Benjamin Franklin. Mr. Franklin presciently warned that, a people who would willingly give up their rights for what they think is safety would have neither their rights nor their safety!
If the justification of the Tyranny of the Majority or anti-gun advocates is to ban guns to feel safe, that is not an adequate or even reasonable ground to give up the constitutional right to bear arms.
Yes I want our schools to be safe but I will not be bullied into a decision by the majority to ban guns based on pure group consensus, emotionalism and political manipulation.
Gun control is like a cheap teenage date. No wonder so many High school students are drawn to it. It sounds sexy, it’s cheap and its an easy solution but it’s not what you’d select later in life! Yes I understand that everyone of the Douglas High school students have gone through an horrific and traumatic experience. Yet I also know that decisions made in a knee jerk fashion to a traumatic experience are rarely solutions to real problems. Making decisions under conditions of trauma are hard for any adult and almost impossible for children.
In normal times, grief counselors would be bused in by the tons to help the Douglas High children deal effectively with their grief and loss. But these are not normal times. No these are highly charged partisan times. These are times of Antifa organizing, Pink Knit hat organizing and grieving high school students organizing. Instead of a bus load of grief counselors getting sent to the school, what we are witnessing instead are hundreds of grieving kids organized for action, then put on buses and sent to carry a message that may be partially theirs but not totally because the message has been politicized.
"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." - Rahm Emanuel, Former Barack Obama Chief of Staff
So what is the answer to school shootings or violence in our society. In the terminology of fences, we have taken down a gate which kept the barbarians at bay. That was the first line of defense against heinous crimes such as school mass murders as well as most of our social ills. That gate is Virtue. Or has the second President of the United States said, “morals and religion.” President John Adams said…
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”-- President John Adams, 1976-1800
W. Cleon Skousen,in his book The Five Thousand Year Leap, tells of the heated debates occurring in the thirteen colonies between 1775 and 1776 over the issue of morality. Self-government was generally referred to as “republicanism,” and it was universally acknowledged that a corrupt and selfish people could never make the principles of republicanism operate successfully. These early Americans were, in essence, debating whether or not the people (citizens of the thirteen colonies) were sufficiently moral and virtuous to govern themselves.
George Washington declared in his Farewell Address, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Later in his Farewell Address Washington went on to say, “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.”
Did the founders make a mistake adopting the second amendment? No! Yet, in all of the discussions we will entertain in the upcoming days about how to keep schools safe I venture to say the actual problem and solution will never be mentioned. We have taken down fences and opened our gates to all sorts of immorality and have allowed the barbarians of our non restraints to come crashing through. And then we self righteously point our fingers at guns or at the NRA as the problem.
But as with all finger pointing three fingers always point back at us!
