The Right to Bear Arms

Today, I’d like to take aim at the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

I don’t pretend to know everything about this amendment, but the Wikipedia article, highlighted above is a good place to start, if you want to understand the motivation behind it.

Now, something that was important to a new country in the 18th Century may no longer be applicable to 21st Century life. Except for the obvious, of course: the people want to feel that they have some protection against their own government.

We, The People

So, who are The People? This is where everything gets a bit muddied. In the original US Constitution, The People would be white adult males. And their country of origin would most likely have been England. Everyone else would have been an immigrant, in their eyes. Again, the obvious needs to be stated: these white folks were also immigrants.

The First People is the name by which some of the Native tribes knew themselves. Their land was stolen from them. Maybe, that is why the White Man (in the present) is so worried that his land will be stolen from them by the Newcomers. Hence the need for guns and rifles.

One Step Too Far?

The latest massacre in Pittsburgh has earned the condemnation of Jews everywhere. It’s not the first time that such a thing has happened there, but the killing of worshiping Jews in their synagogue on their Sabbath, just because they were Jews, seems to be a step too far.

If it were more Blacks, Whites or Muslims at their worship who were gunned down (and there have been plenty of those), the World and his uncle would have said, “Oh, well, such is (American) life!” But this has a Holocaust feel to it (at least in how it was reported in the mainstream media), and in a country that has a Nationalist as its President, Fascism is beginning to rear its ugly head again.

Conclusion

Maybe the solution to all this killing mayhem is to find a way to restrict arms: we need to keep them away from one ‘race’. We need to take them away from White Men.