If there is one thing that the rest of the world struggles to understand about the United States it is the prevalence of gun violence. I read that a mass murder (defined as two of more victims) occurs twice every three days in America. This is in sharp contrast to other countries, like ours, where years go by without any of these incidents.
The cycle is as pathetic as it is predictable. There is a horrific mass shooting; people and especially politicians lament the loss of life, and then the incident is totally forgotten until it inevitably recurs. No change actually happens because the United States doesn’t want to change. I thought I’d take a brief stab at explaining the justification, and hypocrisy, of the “gun lobby” in the United States. DISCLAIMER – I am not a historian and if you are interested I would fact check anything I write about history!
The process of incorporating the individual states into a country was not that different from the process of establishing the European Union. There were a number of autonomous entities who were geographically connected who saw many benefits (primarily financial) to incorporating into one central entity. In the late 18th century, these individual states had just fought a bloody war to get out of the Imperialistic clutches of England and were VERY wary of giving up any autonomy.
So the meetings to try to draw up a Constitution were overlaid with this overarching fear of states not wanting to lose their independence to another central government. One of the concessions in the Constitution was to reassure states they could keep their own armies to defend themselves in the event the central government tried to illegally assert authority over them. So here is what’s written in the U.S. 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.
Clearly, this was referring to state militia and not individual gun owners. In an agrarian society, most people owned guns. It was not regulated and was accepted. This did not apply to individuals, and I think even a cursory understanding of the U.S. Constitution makes this clear. Certainly, the authors in the late 1700’s were not referring to, and could not anticipate, the existence of the high tech, massively destructive, automatic weapons that people can obtain with ease in the United States.
It raises the question whether people are too stupid to understand the words and intent of the Constitution, or they choose to twist the language to justify their desire to shoot each other?
It’s shocking, and it’s scary.
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