Despite Tucson tragedy, gun ownership defines our American culture and our unique freedom in the world

I finally got time to watch President Obama’s speech at the Tucson shooting memorial on my computer and now see why he got such rave reviews, even by many, not all, of his detractors.

He is an excellent speaker and he took the high ground, unlike the ultra defensive and shrill crowd on what is often referred to as the hard right (and they really give well meaning conservatives a bad name they don’t totally deserve, except for the fact that they have not stood up often enough to the rabble rousers).

Meanwhile, despite the shooting rampage a week ago Saturday that saw a U.S. congresswoman gravely wounded and a federal judge killed along with five others, to include a nine-year-old girl, who by all reports could have been a future leader, and still many more wounded, a gun show went on as scheduled this weekend in Tucson. And even though they were reportedly taking up collections for the victims there, there were also bumper stickers critical of Obama (the implied threat: guns/Obama) available there, as well.

So Okay. I really don’t see anything wrong with holding the gun show as planned way previous to the tragedy, not really. And I am a supporter of the Second Amendment (right to keep and bear arms), even if I don’t completely understand its meaning — and if you are really honest with yourself, without some large amount of research, you could not either — I mean it defies literal translation in modern terms — it‘s kind of like the Holy Bible.

But the right to keep and bear arms is ingrained in our American society and culture (even though some people do not necessarily support it). And perhaps it does define us. It sets us apart, I think, from the rest of the world, and I mean that in a positive way.

The people in the United States of America are not granted power from the government, they have granted some powers to the government.

And even though the government is supposed to simply be made up of people holding proxies for us, not a separate entity of its own really, there is always the danger of any government assuming more control than it is supposed to. As a partial remedy to that, the people are able to keep and bear arms in their own defense. This can be debated, but I think it is understood to be at least one element of the Second Amendment, some, in fact, would say the only element.

But here lies the paradox. Even though I support the Second Amendment and I generally go along with the idea that the populace could in an extreme circumstance rise up against authoritarianism, I think that is the only cause for rebellion, that is an extreme circumstance. We have never gotten there and have not even come close, as far as I can see, but of course there is always the danger (the American Civil War is another subject, let’s don’t go there now, and really fighting for the right to own other people, c’mon). And get this: the danger of authoritarianism is no less a threat from the left (or liberal) side of the political equation than the right (conservative) side.

Tell me, what is the difference between Stalin (on the left) and Hitler (supposedly on the right)?

In our own nation, liberals might support laws against hate speech, thus endangering our First Amendment free speech rights. In the past conservatives pushed through the Alien and Sedition acts (I believe on at least two occasions), which banned speech against the government (strangely, conservatives don’t mind speaking against the government when they are out of power), and that certainly violates free speech protections.

While I heard about it, I think I must have been too busy working at the time to blog much about it (or maybe I did), but I find it reprehensible and quite alarming that people were urged to and did bring guns several months ago to congressional town hall meetings when the bane of ultra conservatives, the new health care law, was being discussed.

The gun-toters would defend their actions by saying they were sending a message to the government that the people have a right to keep and bear arms and to overthrow authoritarian rule. But like I always say, I am no more fearful of the government than I am of some self-appointed militia.

THE END

P.s.

I decided to end this post where I did because it seemed to have become an attempt to analyze the Second Amendment, and I am not prepared to do so any further than I already have at this time (and I also want to make myself breakfast). I will only add that my general understanding of this most ambiguous element of our constitution seems to grant gun ownership rights to the people (the Supreme Court seems to recognize this, with only a little qualification). But it also deals with the idea that the government’s military should not be wholly separate from the people, such as the King’s army of old. I’ll leave it there.

ADD 1:

The following is not meant to give ammunition, so to speak, to the gun-toting crowd, but quite by accident I ran across this after posting my latest blog and I think it sums up the sometimes seeming futility of legislating civility and responsible behavior: “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” Plato (427-327 B.C.)

Sarah Palin: you have a right to free speech, but have you no shame?

It’s too bad someone could not stand up to Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Rush Limburger Cheese and their ilk and say to them what that Army counsel said to Sen. Joseph McCarthy all those years ago: “… Have you no shame? Have you no sense of decency?…”

(Okay, I’ve now read the actual quote was, in part: “… Have you no sense of decency…? At long last have you no sense of decency?”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_N._Welch )

Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, whose head was made a symbolic target by Palin, darling of the Tea Party set, is critically wounded, a federal judge and several others, six in all, dead and some 20 people in all shot and all they can think to do is circle the wagons around their constant inflammatory rhetoric — and it is just that, rhetoric with little to no substance — and use the whole tragic event to continue to charge that people want to take guns away from American citizens, violating their Second Amendment rights, and to prevent Tea Partiers and others from exercising free speech.

It is not Sarah Palin’s fault that a deranged young man who had reportedly spouted off incomprehensible statements and posted disturbing stuff online took it upon himself to be an assassin. But certainly if she had any decency she would be contrite and publicly express some contrition (or at least shut up) about her own actions.

As everyone who follows such stuff knows, Palin had before the last election posted maps of various congressional districts with the cross hairs of gun sights overlaying the heads of various office holders, including Giffords, she felt the Republicans and Tea Party should go after (bring down in electoral defeat).

Because the issue of gun rights is such a hot button and such a draw, particularly among the far right, she used the analogy of the target range or hunting or war in her call for political victory over said opponents.

In a most tragic irony, the gravely wounded Tucson, Arizona area congresswoman, Giffords, was one of those with the Palin target on her head.

Then last Saturday (Jan. 8, 2011) one Jared Lee Loughner, 22, of Tucson, without warning, shot Congresswoman Giffords and the others in a shopping mall parking lot near a Safeway store while the congresswoman was meeting with constituents.

So does Palin lay low or offer quiet and circumspect apology? Well, she did lay low for a few days, but then in the modern, and particularly Palin style, she posted a video response where she can talk and not have to respond in person to any troubling questions.

I watched the video (as much as I could stomach). She seemed to be charging that her opponents were using the incident to stifle her — and to a limited extent she might be correct.

(In a New York Times article and elsewhere she was sniped at for using the term “blood libel” (you can look that one up), which she claimed described what she was being subjected to. On that I just felt she or her script writers were just using a little acceptable license in a kind of analogistic word play. But the disturbing thing is the fact either Palin or her detractors might see it appropriate to dwell on the ongoing political tug of war rather than the tragedy itself and how to prevent such things from happening, to the extent they can be prevented in a free and gun-toting society.

I think she could have defended her free speech rights and at the same time expressed sorrow that she had ever used the device of the targets, while assuring everyone she in no way meant it literally.

While I doubt Palin’s actions, or her actions alone at least, are what incited the nut case to act, it’s those type of actions that create an atmosphere in which certain nutcases are prompted to act. And it sets an evil, ugly tone in society that we would not want the younger and future generations to emulate or adopt. (And even though the nut case seemed to have been following  Palin’s right-wing-driven lead, some have described his rantings as left wing — but really there is not much difference between rants from the extremes.

P.s.

In a bizarre twist to this whole thing, the suspect in last Saturday’s shooting tragedy in Tucson had been pulled over for running a red light, I understand, just before the incident. Kind of similar to the Oklahoma federal building bomber being pulled over for a traffic violation after the fact with no immediate connection made by law enforcement, which is all meaningless, except that it goes to show the police are not all-knowing — would you want them to be? We don’t want the police state.

On one extreme all would carry guns and be shooting it out with each other and in the other extreme the black helicopters would be circling and all citizens would be stripped of their weapons and personal rights. It’s extremism from all the political angles that is the danger.

I see the good, the bad, and the ugly in right to pack guns in national parks…

I have mixed emotions about a totally unrelated amendment to a credit card reform bill that was just passed by the house and senate that will now allow people to carry concealed weapons in national parks and wildlife refuges.

While I am a supporter to the Second Amendment (often referred to as the right to keep and bear arms), I have a hard time imagining why it would be necessary for parks and wildlife refuge visitors to carry weapons since hunting is obviously not allowed there.

An NRA spokesman said citizens should have the right to protect themselves. I guess he means from bad people, not bears. And I guess there is some logic to that. But if it is so dangerous to go to these places that we need to pack heat, I’m not so sure I want to go there after all.

And I don’t totally discount the possibility of danger from bad actors in the parks. Years ago my wife and I and the kids camped with my folks – I think it may have been in a National Forest Service camp – and there was this creepy stranger from another campsite who came to visit and stayed too long and didn’t even seem to want to go once we all headed for our sleeping bags. I had thoughts then that it sure might be a good idea to pack some protection.

But the logic that people ought to be able to protect themselves would indicate that the only safe thing is for us all to pack around at least a side  arm at all times. And gee, why should we need to conceal them? Maybe we could all go around with low-slung holsters like in the westerns, ready to duel at a second’s notice.

Some people even want students to be able to carry guns to school under the reasoning it would give them protection in the case of school shooting rampages (maybe, but I imagine it would end up in a free for all with even more carnage, not to mention the accidental gun discharges in classes).

While I do support the Second Amendment I also recognize that we have a severe problem in this country concerning indiscriminate use of firearms. They say guns don’t kill people, people do. But really people kill other people with guns.

No, I don’t think we ought to take away the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. And I do think, as dangerous at it might be to the innocent, citizens should have a right to protect themselves, especially when they are in their own home or on their own property (and they also must accept the liability when they make a mistake).

But I have mixed emotions about the real need to carry guns in to national parks and wildlife refuges, places where it would be nice to be able to get away from this crazy world and all the noise and violence.

I would expect the majority of those who voted for the amendment were not for it but they were so eager to get that credit card reform bill through that they voted for it anyway. And the NRA was clever to get their amendment tacked on.

Personally I would have been in favor of voting against both the bill and its amendment.

My reasoning: a better way to reform credit cards is to not use them. The former ban on firearms in national parks and refuges was an administrative rule. Even with the Second Amendment we have various controls on firearms. Whether this control was needed, I can only say some at the time of of its making must have thought so. And I understand that was in Ronald Reagan’s administration under the notorious Interior Secretary James Watt, hardy a liberal – liberal usually being connected with anti-Second Amendment charges from the reactionary crowd).

Anyway, if you see me comin’ at you the next time you visit your favorite national park, step aside, I just might be packin’ iron.

Easy to jump to conclusions in Binghamton-like incidents; I still cling to gun ownership rights, though…

It’s so easy to jump to conclusions in these mass killings as the one today in upstate New York. I thought maybe it was a disgruntled white man going after immigrant targets and then I heard the suspect (presumed dead now) was perhaps a Vietnamese immigrant himself.

Also I read that he was carrying false I.D. and that he was recently let go from a job at IBM, implying that he kind of went postal.

There’s been so many mass shootings here in the United States recently, and one in Germany — not counting the usual terrorist acts overseas — that one almost becomes numb to the news — almost.

It’s still a developing story in Binghamton, N.Y., but apparently at least 13 people were killed or 14 including the gunman. It took place at a facility where immigrants were taking citizenship tests and English classes, it was reported.

And while I am a supporter of Second Amendment gun owner rights (although I find the wording of that provision highly ambiguous), I always wonder why we seem as a society helpless to keep obviously demented folks from obtaining weapons and going on shooting rampages. And the problem is even worse when you consider how easily criminals can get hold of weapons, often with a firepower that outmatches the police. But I cling to gun ownership rights, primarily due to the historical aspect of Americans being free to protect themselves from bad guys and bad government if need be (read the Declaration of Independence). I know full well, though, that most folks don’t have guns and don’t plan to get any.

The only societies that seem to be relatively free of gun violence, among the populace at least, are dictatorships who run police states.

Even Israel where the authorities and the citizenry have had to be ever vigilent against terrorism for more than half a century because its neighbors have often vowed to do way with that country cannot stop terrorist violence.

We’ll find out more later today or tomorrow about the facts and possible motives in the  case, hopefully.

Meanwhile, we have to ask ourselves is all this gun violence on a radical increase — it can’t be all due to more reporting via the internet — and if so, why and what can we do about it?

Do we just have to accept it all as the hazards of everyday life?

(Catch my contribution to the German-American experience and call up http://vonwalther.wordpress.com )