America has had a very rough couple of years on many fronts, most publicized and politicized of late is that of “mass shootings” and gun violence. As these tragedies appear to be occurring with increased frequency and repetition the acceleration of the problem of gun violence is quickly becoming an increasing national health, safety, and sanity issue as well as a “hot button” issue on both sides of the ideology. As the American left is enviously looking to our neighbors to the north as a good “first step” and the American fight is delicately tip toeing around looking too callous for supporting the Second Amendment and not turning a presumed “blind eye” to the undeniable increase in frequency of “mass shootings.” As both sides clamor to push their agenda and citizens pick sides to stand behind I am seeing once glaring omission of both arguments… the root cause of the violence, mayhem, and depravity of gun violence in America. As this is a very complex and multidimensional issues, this will be a long post.
As a strong constitutionalist, anti-federalist, and veteran I have done my fair share of research on the Second Amendment, guns in America’s founding, cultural norms and entertainment. I won’t rehash the interpretation of the Second Amendment outside of the comment on those interpreting the Constitution must maintain consistency, case in point; if the First Amendment is flexible enough to include electronic, computer, and modern speech instead of written (limited to letters, pamphlets, newspapers, books) and oral protections then the Second Amendment if flexible enough to equate the musket (most modern and powerful weapon at the time) to its modern day equivalent.
If we are to have a real, honest, and productive discussion on such a polarizing topic we have to establish some ground rules on rhetoric. For those on the left, we DO NOT have mass shootings with automatic, machine gun, M-16, AK-47, etc. firearms! The only automatic firearms available to the general public have to be manufactured prior to 1986, registered with the ATFE, take 8 months to a year background check and paperwork turnaround time and a special tax/stamp for purchase, and these are heavily monitored and followed by the ATFE. The firearms used in the “mass shootings” are NOT WEAPONS OF WAR. The firearms I was issued and the ones I issued to fellow service members were different in that the long guns had the capability to select “full auto” or “semi auto” rates of fire. Civilian firearms are Semi Automatic. There are legitimate reasons for high capacity magazines, case in point, a veteran or handicap shooter who has limited finger/hand dexterity or injury making the frequent loading of ammunition into a 5 to 10 round magazine troublesome at best or impossible at worst. Many shooting enthusiasts go to the range and shoot to keep their skills sharp these magazines allow those with special needs to participate, (the hunting argument is a dishonest straw man argument as anyone who has obtained a hunting license can attest, there are limits on firearm ammunition for game, varmints are different). For those on the right, realize we are in an increasingly urbanizing society and the culture is shifting away from the era of self reliance. Most urban dwellers have never seen a firearm in person and they are intimidated by them and those who posses and celebrate them. No matter how passionate or fervent you are toward the Second Amendment people are dying, daily, in this country and it isn’t going away. With this out of the way here are my observations on what is and isn’t being discussed.
We are not having a honest or frank discussion on gun violence due to both sides getting hung up on the points of the last paragraph. Gun violence in and of itself is NOT the underlying cause of the problem, it is s symptom. If gun control really truly worked than the locations with the strictest restrictions on firearms would be the safest and those with the lest restrictive would be the most hazardous, however we see the inverse. Again, lets not fall into the trap of “yes, but…”. Those opposed to gun control have a legitimate concern with adding MORE restrictions and regulations on firearms due to the issues seen in L.A, Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, etc. That is the fact that the black market will always cater to criminals with cash. Enhanced background checks, waiting periods, bans of this or that do not apply to the black market. On the flip side, people complaining against these solutions do NOT live in or around these areas and aren’t living with the direct impact of nightly shootings. The old adage of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” may be accurate, honest, and logical but it means little to the grieving family of a murdered child caught in crossfire. The real issue is we have a deep seated societal, cultural, and national identity problem. We have allowed our society to regress from a “melting pot” that took the best of multiple cultures and assimilated them into an overarching homogeneous one and into a patch-work-quilt type muti-cultural fabric with no common stitch work holding the patches together. In my opinion this IS the main underlying root cause for the violence and many of the other ills of this once great nation.
We have allowed ourselves to play directly into identity politics and place others as well as allow ourselves to be placed into neat little boxes where we fall victim to echo-chamber politics and become sidetracked by the never ending division, sub-division, and classification/re-classification of the society into a never ending series of nesting dolls. Who does this serve? How has this practice improved our society or the now hundreds of cultures making up the nation? Can we recover? How can we recover? I believe if we can get the root cause addressed the recovery, which will take generations, will fix and correct the issues we face today. Gun violence isn’t a single issue problem and there isn’t a single golden solution that will fix even one facet of it unless we fix the whole. Gun control will work no better then treating stage 3 cancer with band-aids and ointment cream would. How? We must start with the overall root cause, cut out the metastasized tumor, and build up after it is removed.
We must have a common vision, goal, and understanding if we hope to survive as a nation. What common vision, goal, and view of America are shared today regionally, ethnically, religiously, and ideologically in America? Do we have a common “American Dream” we are striving towards? Do we have a common vision or goal we are pursuing, as a nation? If so I am not seeing it. Guess what; this is something the elected, or their appointments, cannot solve, fix, or legislate for us. We have set ourselves up for failure by having the luxury of time and lack of adversity to focus our national will towards. The pioneers of identity politics birthed in 1919 have graduated from novelty into all out conquest. We started out, as a nation, compromising between the federalists and anti-federalists to create a balance that most, if not all, could amicably live with. The rift left after the War Between the States (no it was not a civil war, look up the meaning of civil war) added the dynamic of regional politics that devolved into industrial/agricultural economic politics. Our two party system made the balancing of increasing interests more challenging, but we were able to find a way. The reason for this historical review is two fold. One, as a nation we have face just as challenging time and seemed to be on the precipice of collapse just as dire before. Two, as a nation we had enough common ground to keep the dialogue open and willingness to compromise without resorting to zero-sum outlooks. This provides hope and a guide to how to overcome our present problem but it is not political.
We must start at home, however we need a guiding principle and truth to all work toward. This is where the pessimism comes back. What rallying point do we have in the post modern era? We have as may interpretations of “truth, justice, and the American way” as we do people. These no longer transcend class, region, race, religion, or sex they way they used to. Without a unifying principle how can we expect to be a unified community, culture, people, or country? When definitions change at political lines of demarcation we are lost, aimlessly searching for meaning and desperately grasping at every snake-oil sales person who comes by promising easy fixes to complex problems. We need leadership that sees this as a driving issue, communicates it and gathers support for resolving it, and finally outlines the path and hardship required to resolve.
To me we need to have a renaissance in our founding principles and tie them into our current culture and society. If we can truly apply the Constitution to our modern experience I think we will be the better for it. Look at the past is full, not just the good but warts and all, so we can learn from the hypocrisy and mistakes of our ancestors to build a stronger present and future. We must resist the urge to divide and subdivide ourselves into pigeonholed boxes of generalized identities. We must have common ground and common interests in order to compromise and a willingness to give a little to get a little and keep working to expand the common ground, not retreat into a crystalized stand off.
From here we must return the sacred view of life, in all its forms and discomfort. This means moving past bumper sticker slogans and ensuring we provide equal and consistent messaging that life is life and it must be protected at ALL times, not when it suits a particular group or philosophy. The funny thing with hypocrisy is that it is equally visible to everyone. We have a profound “value of life” problem in this country. How can we expect everyone to treat their fellow citizen with respect when there is very little in real world examples of this at all levels of society. This next point is just as important. We must maintain consistency and across every level. When we “follow the science” we must do so full bore, whole hog, all in and especially when it isn’t convenient.
Studies demonstrate that children from two parent households have less social, educational, and cultural issues. Our divorce rates are insane. The impact of this on the children is just as traumatic and damaging as any adversity. These kids grow up and take these problems into adulthood and pass them onto their kids. Worse is single parent homes where kids grow up with a void that too often is attempted to be filled with bad actors, entertainment distorted characters of “how things are supposed” to be, drugs, or violence used to mask the pain and internal conflicts of why that parent isn’t there in their life. We have stopped holding ourselves and our neighbors accountable for failings, slight to gigantic. Not only do we allow ourselves to be placed into identity boxes, we box off our time and associations into ever decreasing circles that retard growth and foster complacency. We must all begin to follow Gandhi’s advise and become the change we wish to see.
As a nation we need to stop depending on the nameless, faceless, soulless government to solve our problems. This is why I call for a renaissance of the Constitution, so we all know the responsibilities and accountabilities of ourselves and our government. We must realize the government cannot give something without taking from us all as it makes no product, capital, or material of any kind, it only takes. Government cannot legislate or enforce morality, decency, or thought. We need to re-discover the self-reliance mindset we used to have. Government should only provide tools and protections we cannot provide ourselves. Does anyone want to live in a country where there are thought police that enforce laws on viewpoints? That is where we are headed, and the fulfillment of the 1919 movement.
We know the profile of with a high degree of accuracy of perpetrators of “mass shootings” just as we know the profiles of “gang violence” perpetrators. We need to take this information and build mechanisms to derail them proactively. There is no fundamental difference in the outcomes of a “gang hit” in a playground in a low income neighborhood and the “school shooting” in suburbia. I am not talking about harsher policing but providing solutions to derail the common threads in each of these. The common threads are different by profile but lets not let the threat of racism stop us from addressing the lack of fathers in low income neighborhoods or stigma and shame of mental health services in suburbia. Each of these problems has different solutions needed, one the government needs to get out of the way and the other it needs to engage more and expand its reach.
We need to realize “gun free zones” and other layers upon layers of laws and regulations do nothing to stop a determined person from acting out their fantasies and attempting to ease their pain through excitement. We are unique in that our founding was principled on the restrictions of government and outlining the restrictions of the government on its citizens. We overcame a great struggle of a tyrannical government and were very suspicious that the current government would eventually grow into a new tyrannical beast requiring to be dealt with at any cost. Do not be fooled by the hubris of modern sensibilities that “it can never happen now days” as the current reality shows exactly that it is possible and can happen with no warning with lightning fast. The citizens of this country hold the unique place in history in that our government serves us, not the other way around. And is this government did become tyrannical how could we oppose it with 5 shot hunting weapons? Do you expect your State Guard to stand up against a standing military without fellow citizen support? While a popular refrain is that armed citizens with semi-auto “weapons of war” are no match against tanks, planes, and nuclear bombs is a self defeating argument at best and at worst makes the case we need more robust weapons. Haven’t we seen how well armed civilians can fend off an oppressive professional military in Ukraine?
So what am I willing to compromise on? We currently have background checks but they have been found to be lacking and make big misses. There is real room for improvement here but remember the goal is to have an ultimate check on a tyrannical government forming and oppressing the citizens so I do not trust nor want any centralized database of firearm owners, firearms, or cohabitation with medical records in this system. We can improve on and modernize the current system to close the gaps identified this far. Firearm safety is greatly needed. Not only for children to know what to do and most importantly what NOT to do if they ever encounter a firearm but just as we make kids go through health class and driver’s education before we give them keys to a 3,000 pound rolling liquid fueled bomb, we should use public money to bring back shooting teams into schools, as an elective of course. Transfer of firearms between private citizens (including estates) should be facilitated through a licensed firearms dealer for background checks. We have red-flag laws currently in place. Each state should decide to what extent these laws should be enforced but I would agree anytime a restraining order, protection order, or welfare order is provided that there is an extensive search for and securing of ALL weapons while the due process works itself out. We need better access to mental health and therapy in middle school, high school and college in order to identify at risk individuals and ensure fast actions can be taken if needed. There must be a mechanism to protect against abuse and vendettas however. I would be fine to bring the waiting period back and include all firearms. Is there ever really a need to get a firearm the same day? Ok, if you are on a hunting trip and the airline “loses” your rifle or one of your firearms breaks at the shooting range how often would this happen? Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency for my part. Serious policing reform. By serious I mean better training and requirements to become a peace officer and better tools and tactics. Taking a page from the opposition’s mantra, look at Europe. Many of their police forces require 4 year degrees, much longer training requirements, stricter controls, and better continuing education. As a dangerous, highly skilled profession why are we accepting such a low bar for our police? Minimum 4 year degree, 1 year of de-escalation training, annual continuing education electives.
What would I like to see from the opposition? Mandatory federal and state firearm law enforcement and sentencing. You use a firearm in the commission of a crime, you get a stiff sentence ON TOP of other charges, NOT running concurrently. Never plea deal any weapons charges, ever! Make grants to harden public places of gathering to deter mass causality events. This includes schools, sports/entertainment venues, monuments, museums, etc. Just as we mandate handicap access we should look at the best physical barriers and practices that can offer protection with minimal sacrifice to convenience. Case in point, all schools have auto locking doors that cannot be bypassed/defeated for convenience sake. Allow “good people armed” to be in places that have been historical targets. The problem with Robb Elementary was while there were good guys with guns on campus, the didn’t engage with or try to stop the shooter! I heard too many politicians spew the lie of “well this goes to show that the good guy with a gun narrative doesn’t hold true.” when in fact it did, once they engaged the perpetrator. I would love something that would prevent the “identification and glorification” of individuals that institute these despicable acts, if nothing else to deter copy cats. Reverse 7 decades of nuclear family deterring government programs and policies and instead incentivize the restoration of traditional family structures for communities where this is lacking. In tandem, take all the passion and fervor and work to actively improve areas lacking opportunity. Where do illicit drugs benefit, help out the communities plagued with these with outreach instead of accepting it as a non issue.
We need to have a honest and real debate about this issue, not just the symptom of gun violence but about why those behind the guns feel the need and desire to engage in it. We must be willing to follow the rabbit hole down through the weeds to where it is all coming from. Outlawing the tool will only cause the afflicted to work their way down the ladder to the next “most useful” tool. IEDs, autos, poisons, chemical devices, structural sabotage, who knows as one of the few things each had in common was plenty of time to devise and plan out their actions and rationalize their self justification enough to act. Without addressing this and getting to the heart of the matter today’s gun control will become tomorrow’s car/knife/pressure cooker/pool chemical control.
The Bravo Blog 