Sunday, January 20, 2013

Making my voice heard, for all the good it will do

I finally got my letters...well, my emails...off to my congressional representatives on the hot topic of stricter gun laws. It was hard to get myself to do this, even though I wanted to do this, felt it was important to add my voice to those who are clamoring for changes in our gun laws, to at least try to cut down on the all-but-constant murderous rampages by people with guns. We are the least civilized of the civilized nations, because of our continuing tolerance for this kind of violence. We just shake our heads, say what a tragedy, and go on letting the National Rifle Association run this country.

So, yes, I wanted to put in my two cents worth, but it was hard to make myself do that, because it was so damn depressing. The whole topic is depressing. And it's not just the topic of "we need stricter gun laws but there are many people in this country opposed to the very idea;" it is the larger topic of this country's passion for guns, and violence. I have to say that with all the putrid proselytizing we've heard from the NRA in the last few weeks, I'd have to agree with their condemnation of the way we glorify violence -- particularly violence with guns -- in movies (and presumably video games, though I'm hardly an expert on those). When I was at a showing of the film "Lincoln" recently, I saw a trailer for the new movie "Gangster Squad," which would seem to be everything the NRA was condemning: policemen "leaving their badges at home" so they wouldn't be hampered by the law, in their attempts to do away with the bad guys. People being shot with automatic weapons, right and left, and it not appearing to bother anybody in the least. And we have endless movies like that.  What can I say, our culture depresses me.

So yes, we have the big deal Second Amendment that declares that, 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. But this S.A. says nothing about how many guns one may have, what kinds of guns one may have, how much ammunition, what types of ammunition, whether or not you must register your gun, etc., etc. Surely the government has the right, in order to preserve the safety of its citizens (the first responsibility of a government), to makes rules concerning these aspects of gun ownership. The idea that our much-vaunted freedom means anybody can have as many and whatever kinds of firearms s/he may desire is ludicrous, and it is simple common sense to know that our forefathers did not intend that. They had no way of knowing that this country would become essentially an armed camp, full of automatic and semi-automatic weapons! This is surely one of the disadvantages of slavishly adhering to a document that is 225 years old (the Bill of Rights, of which the S. A. is a part, is 223 years old). The times change, and we need to be able to change with it.

Every time one of these massacres of innocent people by people with guns occurs, and we do nothing but shake our heads, it makes me ashamed to be an American. For here's what gets me: this country is full of people who consider their freedom to have whatever weapons of violence they wish, to be more important than insuring that the kinds of mass shootings we are treated to every few weeks -- or indeed, to the gun violence we are subjected to on our streets and in our homes, every day of the year -- do not occur, or at the very least, are reduced. The selfishness within this country, as well as the anti-government paranoia, never ceases to amaze me.

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