It’s a bigger Universe than we can even imagine. Whatever exists, be it a place or set of conditions in one place is repeated countless times elsewhere. It’s only our human vanity that causes us to think we are the ONLY place that the God so many humans worship cares about. For all anyone knows God left this planet to its own devices long ago and focused attention elsewhere as some new humanity emerged. However let’s say God DOES pay attention to us, including the “thoughts and prayers” offered by conservatives after every mass/school shooting. I used to say ‘God’s not listening anymore.’ (The shootings don’t just keep happening, they increase in frequency!) Today I feel different. I think if God’s hearing the “thoughts and prayers” the answer has been apparent for a while now:
As in ‘America needs to fix its gun culture, and cut back on the number of guns out there. AND to put some serious restrictions on what types of guns people can posses, AND enact some controls on who gets to possess them!’
Look, I’ll be the first to say that plenty of people, at least responsible ones can have a handgun for home protection. They should just have to prove they know how to use it safely and properly. And periodically pass a recertification. However most have no business “packing” one in public because they don’t have either the initial or ongoing training to use one effectively if in a shooting situation.
Even LE types who get regular training miss far more often than they hit their target(s) in shooting situations! Plus, how the hell is LE supposed to, in all the chaos of a public shooting sort out who is the bad guy(s) and who is the good guy(s)? While you’re chewing on that one let’s talk military style weapons. What we think of as assault weapons have some important features that make it possible for even a semi-auto version of a military weapon able to crank out an astonishing number of bullets in a very short time.
First is that pistol grip that allows the person to keep the weapon “in shoulder” and generally aimed at where the intend to shoot while reloading. They also are designed to use high-capacity magazine that can hold twenty or thirty rounds. (In some cases more) In addition, if you look closely unlike an old-school hunting rifle with a detachable box magazine designed to hold fix or six rounds there’s a distinct difference with military assault weapons. A slight (perhaps as little as a quarter inch) “magazine well” that’s slightly larger than an actual magazine. With little training, by “feel” a person can without having to look quickly slap in a fresh, fully loaded magazine. Again, because of the pistol grip having kept the weapon “in shoulder” and aimed generally where the new bullets are intended to go.
The ONLY type of hunting these weapons are designed and made for is hunting other human beings. They have no place in civilian hands. None. Period. Handguns can also be used for mass shootings and in the hands of someone skilled quite deadly. They are easily concealed, and so are fifteen or twenty fully loaded magazines. Again, it doesn’t take much training/practice to hit the button to drop out an empty magazine and slap in a fresh one. Nor does it take much practice with either a handgun or an assault rifle to maintain a rate of fire of FORTY bullets (or more) in a single minute.
‘But the Second Amendment’ the gun goobers keep saying. They only quote the second phrase. The “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed part.” However before it says THAT the Second Amendment states ‘A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state’ and the fact is even back then there were local gun control regulations! We of course have had a SCOTUS inflicted on us that helped us lose control of the situation by striking down a couple of centuries of jurisprudence that allowed for common sense, meaningful gun regulation.
Conservative’s argument now is to talk about what was “intended” and “historical” context. Well, let’s take a look at the common firearm most people who owned one possessed back when the Second Amendment was drafted. (And muzzle loading rifles were all that existed, and the norm right through the Civil War) Imagine a “mass shooter” in these times being limited to the only type of firearm that had even been conceived and produced back then. This commercial needs to be shown EVERY time there is a mass shooting:
Kinda puts things in a different light wouldn’t you say? Oh, and while being smaller it was easier and faster to reload a pistol back then it still required pouring in some powder, then a bit of wadding and a musket ball at the opening of the barrel and mashing it all down to the breach. Then putting a powder charge back in the opening near the trigger that would ignite the whole thing and cause the bullet to fire.
Those who wrote the Second Amendment couldn’t dream of the weapons that would develop over time, but as more advance and deadly weapons were created and mass produced gun control regulations were established. And that “A well regulated militia” phrase was an important part of that. However it’s also worth remembering that back when our Constitution was drafted and ratified there was a strong and widespread sentiment against having a Standing Army. Hence the reliance on state/local militias that could be called up when necessary, and the reason why for those who could afford one gun ownership was a right. Well, we did wind up establishing a Standing Army.
You know what else we established? State Militias, only we call them the National Guard! Yep, literal citizen soldiers (and sailors and airmen) who train every month and go on full active duty two weeks a year. Not to mention being called up to help with all manner of things like responding to natural disasters, widespread riots/unrest and after Bush 41 changed policy to allow it again being deployed overseas including to combat zones. In other words the “Militia” envisioned by our founders has been replaced. And with it the need for numerous civilians to maintain “arms and powder” in their homes.
In my lifetime what we call mass shootings went from rare, and by that I mean maybe once a decade to common. When I was in grade school (and beyond) we practiced “disaster drills” as in moving to the safest part of the school or protecting ourselves as best as we could if the tornado sirens went off. Kids still I’m sure practice these things. Now however we have an entire generation that has ALSO had to regularly practice active shooter drills! Worse, the odds are actually MORE likely they will face an active shooter situation than a tornado strike! Think about that. Please.
Yes as I said the mass shootings including and especially in schools not only keeps happening, it is increasing in rate. Worse, the weapons used are increasingly civilian variants of weapons that were designed specifically for WAR. Yet the gun goobers prattle on about their freedom to ‘by gawd have my gawd and constitutional right to have any damned gun I please.’ Something has gone badly wrong and from where I sit it’s a combination of more guns in this country than actual citizens combined with a MAGA or MAGA-Lite attitude of ‘don’t mess with me or I’ll get my gun’ AND parents who don’t do what my dad and other dads used to do:
Put the fear of god into us when it came to gun safety. They were ONLY taken out of the closet or gun case/safe for hunting, target practice or cleaning/oiling. Getting caught messing around with a gun was a recipe for a fate worse than death. Now? Parents refuse to put locks on their guns or otherwise secure them. And their kids take those guns to schools and kill other kids. Or more recently decide to become famous by trying to kill a Presidential candidate.
So today I realized I’ve changed my mind. If a creator of our Universe, be it God or by some other name has been paying attention the “thoughts and prayers” have in fact been heard. It’s often said God speaks in mysterious ways. Less talked about is that sometimes people don’t like the answers God provides. So I go back to where I started. I think God’s message is ‘Get a f**king grip on your gun worship and start controlling WHO gets to have them and WHAT types of guns are those allowed to possess firearms allowed to actually have! And if you don’t I’ll keep giving you reminders with these mass shooting until you FINALLY get the message!’
That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
This is a problem of our own making and of course, within our own ability to solve. I think most of the time God doesn’t interfere when we need to learn lessons like this.
The change I’m also really aware of is the changes in the NRA. My two boys were taken to Gun Safety classes which was given by NRA. The organization was smaller, had less funds, and less political than the criminals that run it today. Great article Denis!
I was brought up in the era too Denis. And I was raised in a hunting family, I was taught how to actually handle a firearm, but I choose, not the have one, though if I can move where I want to I may need one. Bears and such ya know. I would love to have enough land to plant what I need and be able to hunt and fish for what I need and nothing more. My uncle would go bow hunting and man he was good.
First…I didn’t go to Divinity school, because arguing with, or trying to match, the general population’s ignorance, coupled with arrogance, concerning things they can’t possibly know, didn’t look like a good path. Extremely few people have bothered to study ancient cultures, the records humans have recorded in the past 5,000 years, biblical texts in light of scholarship, or even taken into account the PROVEN vastness of our known universe. Yet every phucking body is an ‘expert’ on ‘God’. Given light will travel seven times around the earth in one second, yet takes 8 1/2 minutes to reach us from the sun, and has been traveling approximately 14 billion years across the universe, it’s abundantly clear we DON’T HAVE ANY IDEA WHERE WE ARE, yet so many think they KNOW ALL ABOUT WHO AND WHAT PROCESS MADE THIS PLACE. Cue up thoughts and prayers to the half assed ‘God’ who is apparently fine with us killing each other, turning our children into murderers and victims. Japan with a population around 125 million on much less land has less than a handful of gun deaths PER YEAR! Why? Because the have strict gun laws. The gop and the NRA are primarily responsible for putting 400 million guns on the street. The gop has blocked assault rifle bans and gun control legislation. Everytime I see another gop asshole on tv with their impotent ‘thoughts and prayers’, I also want to shoot someone…those greedy nazi loving child killing religious hypocrites. I should have been on the beach in Normandy…then having a gun made sense. It stopped making sense long ago. The only way to stop it is to stop voting for these child killers. When you do…be sure everytime you send your child, family member, friend, parent, etc., out the door…don’t count on them coming home. There are broken hearted families in Georgia who know this to the marrow of their bones. Their congresswoman wears an AR-15 pin to work. She’s proud of all the mass shootings. I wonder how much blood money she’s taken from the NRA?
Who is their representative in the house? I’d thought kooky pants but Barrow County is in north central GA.
Spike…too literal. The entire gop caucus wore those pins…proudly!
When you look at the vast array of regulations set up to control all the many things that affect all our safety in so many areas, but particularly safety for children, (lead in paint or petrol, food additives, seat belts, vaccines, restrictions on herbicides, age restrictions for various products, etc), it really beggars belief that some nutters resist the controlling of a product THAT IS THE LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH IN CHILDREN in the USA today. A death-rate that is not even approached anywhere else on the planet, including actual war zones like Ukraine or Yemen!
When a product that is not just harming but actually killing children on this scale is freely available – and these effects are ONLY seen in the USA, with it’s uniquely stupid gun legislation – it is blindingly obvious that controls on gun ownership and use are way past overdue.
I saw a talking head earlier call this a uniquely American problem. It is. We used to have plenty of guns out there but not all these mass shootings. However, the radicalization of the NRA from a gun safety and hunter education organization with a separate (and smaller) lobbying wing into one drive by the ILA (the lobbying wing) partnering up with manufacturers to push certain weapons AND easy access to them changed everything. It was a reaction to the assault weapons ban back in the early 1990s and once that was allowed to expire look what’s happened since.
It IS possible to protect gun rights/ownership in this country AND regulate certain guns that are a threat to public safety. It will take a massive effort but it can be done. It’s a matter of summoning the will for a hard, and yes at times violent fight. However with each mass shooting it becomes more clear we have no choice but to try.
I’m reminded of a line from the movie The Confession where Ben Kingsley’s character tells Alec Baldwin’s: “It’s not hard to do the right thing. It’s hard to know what the right thing is to do. But once you know, It’s hard NOT to do it.”