Guns For Everybody

The Constitution of the United States is the framework for our federal government. It's amendments, including the Bill of Rights, guarantees the rights of its citizens. Amendments have been added and removed over the years, but it is a very difficult process, requiring a two thirds majority in both houses of Congress, the signature of the President, and ratification by the legislatures of three fourths of the States. In other words, we don’t screw around with the constitution unless it’s important stuff.

For example, we admitted the founding fathers got it wrong when they allowed slavery, so we added the thirteenth amendment to abolish it. The fourteenth amendment gave Blacks citizenship, erased the provision to count blacks as three fifths of a person, and gave blacks the right to vote. The sixteenth amendment was ratified when we realized the country needed the revenue from income taxes. The eighteenth amendment outlawed beer, wine, and anything else that could get you drunk! The nineteenth amendment decided that maybe we should let women vote. The twenty first amendment decided that the eighteenth amendment was stupid and unenforceable, so it said sorry about that one, forget about it.

In other words, the founding fathers, nor the other politicians that have been elected to office are perfect. Sometimes they make mistakes, and in order to “form a more perfect union” or to “ensure domestic tranquility”, those mistakes need to be corrected.

The most famous amendment to the Constitution is the second. It states, “A WELL REGULTED MILITIA, BEING NECESSARY TO THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE, the right of the people to bear Arms, shall not be infringed”. The Constitutional Convention ratified the Constitution in September of 1787. At that time, the United States did not have a standing army.  The defense of the nation depended on a “citizen army”. Each state had its own “militia”, men who lived and worked at home who had agreed to get together and help defend the State whenever necessary. They used their own personal weapons, the same weapons that they used to provide meat for their families to eat. If their right to own those weapons were not guaranteed, the new nation would have been defenseless. That is certainly not the case today.

On December 14, 2012 I was in my office at my high school in Maryland. The television on the wall was tuned to CNN when the first news bulletin flashed on the screen informing us of what was happening at Sandy Hook Elementary school. When I comprehended the fact that children were being killed in an elementary school I felt like I was having a heart attack. I could hardly breathe. My legs felt as if they could no longer hold me up. I closed the door to my office and sat down at my desk. As the toll continued to mount I felt physically sick. My heart ached for those little children. I thought of their parents and the unspeakable horror I knew they were experiencing. I knew that what was happening there could have easily been happening in my school. I knew that what was happening to their sons and daughters could easily be happening to my own daughter.

My greatest stress factor as a Principal was the never ending responsibility to keep more than a thousand children safe every day. You take every possible precaution but what makes your hair gray are those things you cannot control. The most difficult thing I have ever had to do was deliver a eulogy at the funeral for one of my students. More than once I have found myself in trauma centers with parents and family members, praying to God to spare the life of their child. Nothing is more precious than the lives of our children.

According to The Guardian, in 2011 the United States had 9,146 people killed by guns. Italy – 417, Germany – 158, France – 35, England and Wales – 41, Canada – 173. This is madness.

Why does a nation like ours tolerate this annual slaughter? Many would say “we have a right to our guns because the Constitution says we do”. What it REALLY says is if you are in a militia (which no longer exists) you are entitled to a gun to defend the country. Besides, the Constitution once said I should be a slave, and could not vote, and should be counted as three fifths of a person. It once did not allow women to vote. It once said beer was illegal. It was wrong then. Rational people must decide if it is wrong now.

I believe that the American people have been persuaded that the status quo that relates to guns is inviolable. The gun rights advocates will not be satisfied until guns for everyone is a reality. To quote Malcolm X, I think the American people “have been took, bamboozled, led astray, run amok… We’ve been hoodwinked”, into thinking there is no solution to watching our children, friends, and loved ones butchered every day.

My grandmother would say, “Baby, I know you’re upset, now, what are you going to do about it?”