Every Now and Again

When you strip away all the nonsense, and get to the point of it all… I believe we’re NOT as far apart as it might seem. Or rather, as divided as they would WANT us to believe…

I find it disturbing to see Americans openly carry Arms in peaceful protest against gun safety laws, especially at events organized by PARENTS who have lost CHILDREN due to gun violence. Those parents are not the problem, and intimidating grieving parents and school children to exercise your Constitutional Rights does not help SOLVE this problem.

I also find it disturbing to see public support has GROWN for ending our Right to Bear Arms. But at this moment, considering the inaction of our elected officials, can you blame them? In the eyes of many, when you weight the costs vs. the benefits… how many lives have been SAVED because of our Second Amendment?

Right now, those parents only have PROOF of the lives that were NOT.

In this Modern Era of Digital Entanglement, of KNOWLEDGE gaining ground over FEAR and OPPRESSION, I began to question if it were even possible for another country to successfully mount an invasion of the United States. Consider the international outrage that would come before a single shot had been fired, or landing craft deployed.

In the YEARS following the school shooting at Sandy Hook, I found myself questioning if we should. The inaction of legislators had put me in such a negative state of mind, every time I saw the flag flying at half-mast due to ANOTHER mass shooting, I would ask, “WHY? Does it even MATTER?” We all knew the inevitable routine:

Thoughts and prayers… not while emotions are still raw… the Right to Bear Arms shall NOT be infringed.

Speaker Ryan had it down to a science.

… but that was BEFORE 2016.

That was BEFORE the Active Measures Campaign was carried out by the Russian Government in our elections. And now, we see the seeds that were sown in the years preceding the Second World War… being planted again TODAY.

It seems that every now and again, we need a little reminder of how important our Right to Bear Arms truly is, and how convenient it would be for a foreign adversary to impose THEIR will upon us… if only we were all UNARMED.

But as I said, I do not believe we are that far apart! We have to strip it down and simplify it to find the answer. WE MUST! There are eyes upon us RIGHT NOW watching, waiting… wanting us to FAIL. Stoking our emotions around an already emotional subject, creating a divisive narrative that pits our Health and Safety AGAINST our National Security.

That is a losing strategy.

Any laws or legislation we decide to enact must PAIR our Health and Safety WITH our National Security, as both are necessary if our Union is to survive.

Any requirements we enact beyond those of license, registration, and insurance, must not serve to create a financial burden for gun ownership; but MONEY should not decide what is or is not in our best interests.

Any punishments or preventative measures deemed necessary by the courts to prevent imminent harm, must have a CLEARLY DEFINED PATH for the Restoration of Rights; but we must accept that some crimes are worthy of losing the Right to Bear Arms.

A ‘three strikes’ policy is unacceptable when LIVES are lost or PERSONAL SANCTITY is VIOLATED by force. The Right to Bear Arms should not violate my Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It should SECURE these Rights for EVERYONE… equally.

…

I was raised to believe that our Right to Bear Arms is a vital piece of securing our nation against an attack from a hostile foreign adversary… this article seems to call that conclusion into question.

How the NRA Rewrote The Second Amendment (05-20-2014)

(Quotes are from the article above)

“From 1888, when law review articles first were indexed, through 1959, every single one on the Second Amendment concluded it did not guarantee an individual right to a gun. The first to argue otherwise, written by a William and Mary law student named Stuart R. Hays, appeared in 1960. He began by citing an article in the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine and argued that the amendment enforced a “right of revolution,” of which the Southern states availed themselves during what the author called “The War Between the States.”

“At first, only a few articles echoed that view. Then, starting in the late 1970s, a squad of attorneys and professors began to churn out law review submissions, dozens of them, at a prodigious rate. Funds—much of them from the NRA—flowed freely. An essay contest, grants to write book reviews, the creation of “Academics for the Second Amendment,” all followed. In 2003, the NRA Foundation provided $1 million to endow the Patrick Henry professorship in constitutional law and the Second Amendment at George Mason University Law School.

This fusillade of scholarship and pseudo-scholarship insisted that the traditional view—shared by courts and historians—was wrong. There had been a colossal constitutional mistake. Two centuries of legal consensus, they argued, must be overturned.”

“The National Rifle Association’s long crusade to bring its interpretation of the Constitution into the mainstream teaches… Constitutional change is the product of public argument and political maneuvering.”

…

Minute Men, carrying long rifles and charging into battle against the Red Coats… that is the image of Patriotism that springs to my mind when I think of our Right to Bear Arms. Well trained militias… CITIZENS, defending our Country against those who seek to undo what has been created.

“These militias were the product of a world of civic duty and governmental compulsion utterly alien to us today. Every white man age 16 to 60 was enrolled. He was actually required to own—and bring—a musket or other military weapon.”

This idea is not alien to the brave men and women who have served this nation in uniform, or the families they were brought up in. It is not alien to the communities across the nation that SUPPORT the families of service members as they serve their country abroad. Nor is it alien in a city like Leavenworth, KS, where military life and civilian life co-exist daily.

“In 1959, according to a Gallup poll, 60 percent of Americans favored banning handguns; that dropped to 41 percent by 1975 and 24 percent in 2012. By early 2008, according to Gallup, 73 percent of Americans believed the Second Amendment “guaranteed the rights of Americans to own guns” outside the militia.”

Any observant person will note that I’ve omitted something. Our Right to Bear Arms serves to protect us from ALL enemies… both foreign and domestic. Some would say they fear an overreaching Federal Government, and our Founders did bear witness to the abuses that come from a tyrannical leader. Our Rule of Law is structured in such a way that it makes it almost impossible for our military to be deployed on OUR CITY STREETS. The checks and balances of our Legislatures and Judicial Branch, makes it almost impossible to target CITIZENS en masse and seize their property or incarcerate them on trumped-up charges.

During the first year of the Trump Administration, we were sailing adrift at sea. Still unable to fully understand how government WORKED, he was flailing about, unable to make any real changes happen. FAST-FORWARD two more years and now he’s learned how to take people out by DRONE…

What happens in FOUR MORE YEARS.

Before 2016, I would have said that it’s IMPOSSIBLE for our government to be used in such a way… Before 2016, I did not KNOW how easy it was to manipulate it. The perception of THE PEOPLE, the manipulation of the LEGISLATORS, the manipulation of the JUDGES… all secured by those who can AFFORD IT… $$$.

“There was the ringing declaration from Patrick Henry: “The great object is, that every man be armed.”

The quote has been plucked from Henry’s speech at Virginia’s ratifying convention for the Constitution in 1788. But if you look at the full text, he was complaining about the cost of both the federal government and the state arming the militia. (“The great object is, that every man be armed,” he said. “At a very great cost, we shall be doubly armed.”) In other words: Sure, let every man be armed, but only once! Far from a ringing statement of individual gun-toting freedom,

It was an early American example of a local politician complaining about government waste.”

…

AT THIS MOMENT, we are all being manipulated… the left AND the right. VAST amounts of MONEY have been spent over DECADES to shape public opinion, prey on our FEARS, and motivate us to SPEND MONEY. In order to make us VOTE a certain way. To make us believe that our enemy is our NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR, and since the Federal Government is horribly mismanaged and unable to protect us… we should BUY MORE GUNS.

Our enemy THRIVES when we are fighting amongst OURSELVES, and not focused on the legislators who run successful campaigns CORRUPTED by DARK MONEY. Funded by SuperPACs. Political organizations that are funded by wealthy individuals, who have profited from the sale of MORE GUNS and NO REGULATIONS.

Safety is EXPENSIVE! and it chips away at the BOTTOM LINE. In the eyes of a gun manufacturer, it’s better for business to spend a few MILLION DOLLARS on a handful of political campaigns, than it would be to spend HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS on new technology and manufacturing equipment to make their products SAFER.

Our enemy in this fight is not the government, it’s the CORRUPT influence of MONEY on legislators within our government.

US Department of State- Foreign Service employees: 13,000
Civil Service employees: 11,000
Local employees: 45,000

US DOJ- Number of employees: 113,114

US Armed Forces- Active personnel: 1,380,895
Reserve personnel: 845,600
Deployed personnel: 210,000

CIA- Number of employees: 21,575 (estimate)

Who FILLS these posts? Who is appointed to LEAD them? Who carries out the WORK and shoulders the burden each and every day… we do, THE PEOPLE. Administrations come, and Administrations go, meanwhile the agenda of The United States carries on.

Though ill-informed it may be, it is now the opinion of the MAJORITY of this nation that our Right to Bear Arms is for EVERYONE and shall not be infringed. If we are to continue to support this Originalist Interpretation, we must RESURRECT the full intent of the Law.

We must demand personal responsibility on a level equal to that required of our Service Members. ANNUAL proficiency and safety evaluations; license and insurance requirements for all gun owners; title and registration for all legally purchased guns; and yearly mental health evaluations, conducted by a mental health professional, for all gun owners, paid for by the United States Government. We should not straddle working class families with more financial burdens, but no price should be seen as too high when it comes to preventing loss of LIFE.

Being in the interest of the Nation as a whole, these mental health evaluations must happen. We must ensure that they DO. IF every man be ARMED, then we will make SURE they are MENTALLY STABLE as well.

If not for OURSELVES… then for our CHILDREN.

JC

…

(Edited spelling error on May 29, 2022)