|
Topics on this site |
> |
N3: |
Nordin Net Newsletter |
> | Contact me |
Issue No. 4: July 15, 1999: The 2nd amendment and our rights
by John P. Nordin
Friday's Denver post in its Colorado voices section contained yet another rant by the gun advocates claiming that their right to kill squirrels with an AK-47 is an essential piece of protecting all our liberties. Why, they claim, that 2nd amendment isn't just about a state and its militia when it says, "a well-regulated militia" it's actually about a well organized NRA protecting us from over zealous FBI agents and putting the federal government on notice that one more tax break for millionaires and its all over.
It takes little to show that this is blatant hypocrisy and that the gun advocates care little about rights other than their right to feed their erotic fantasies of power by arming themselves to the teeth. It's really a concern about all our rights? Well that would mean that the NRA is a big advocate of protecting a woman's right to an abortion? Oh sure. The NRA has lobbied hard for campaign finance reform to control how wealthy corporations take away our political power? Yea right. The NRA is leading the charge for tax simplification? The hunting groups are arguing for limits on grand jury abuses of citizens? The gun collector magazines run articles about how we need better enforcement of laws that protect credit records? The firearms magazines are full of careful analysis of how our U.S. constitution has no protection against concentrations of economic power? Charlton Heston is speaking out against how lower middle-class fascination with "international Jewish conspiracies" actually diverts energy from dealing with the real threats to liberty? OK, stop laughing.
In fact, I would be hard pressed to think of a single thing done by the NRA or any other gun group that wasn't utterly and simply about their own right to own their own guns.
But it is worse. What do NRA members and other gun control opponents do with their own guns? They claim that this is about limiting abuses of the government, so are they planning on using their guns to stop the abuses that take place every day? Are they saying that they are actively engaged in organizing to resist the federal government with force? Perhaps they want to own up to being behind the various militia groups, the Aryan nation and so on. Do they publish articles on using their weapons to kill over zealous Fish and Game agents and debate the best tactics foiling federal SWAT team assaults? Of course they don't. So even this claim is -- fortunately -- nonsense. It's clear, the NRA is no more about saving our liberties than the Ku Klux Klan was - and the KKK called themselves a defender of liberties also.
The NRA and the 2nd amendment are fossils of a previous era when the peasants could take up pitchforks and go after the Lord of the castle if he raped more peasant women than was allowed by tradition. It has nothing to do with protecting our rights in the 21st century.
And, make no mistake, our rights need protecting. We have no words in the constitution giving us a clear right of privacy. We have little protecting us against monopoly economic power. We still have police that think "driving while black" is a felony. We have a tax code even the IRS can't understand. And heaven forbid if you are a 17 year old kid who isn't into sports, baseball caps and burping.
And one more thing. We've heard it over and over again since April 20th that an armed English teacher with Chaucer in one hand and an assault pistol in the other could have shot down the two Littleton killers. So, one more time: there was an armed guard at Columbine High School. This police officer was professionally trained to use his weapon. He shot at the killers. He missed. Given that the SWAT team spent three hours chasing their shadows around the school after Harris and Klybold were dead, it boggles the mind that the official gun advocate position is that good old Ms. Jones is expected to launch herself into the hall and take down the killers and return in time to issue homework assignments. Get a grip.
If we care about real threats to liberties than we need two things. We need an amendment to the U. S. constitution that gives the state governments the clear right to have their national guard units and local police agencies and protects those against being taken over by the federal government. That should replace the 2nd amendment and would save us against the unlikely event of a federal coup. Then, we need every NRA member to promise to join the ACLU and contribute money to the groups struggling in the political arena to really protect our rights.
So, NRA, you say this is about protecting our rights? Put up or shut up: either
launch a broadbased effort to understand where our liberties are being eroded
and get involved, or just go away.
1999 John P. Nordin. Do not copy except to quote in reviews.