CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SIX: BACK TO MUSKETS! BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS!

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SIX: BACK TO MUSKETS! BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS!

It’s Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 2015, and so far, there have been no new mass shootings reported on American soil today. What a state of affairs it is that we view each day warily to find out if any more American citizens or their imported spouses have been “radicalized” by ISIS to the point of converting semi-automatic assault weapons into automatic machine guns, stockpiling ammo and building pipe bombs in their garage, under the watchful eyes of their relatives. And if that’s not enough to watch out for: How about the American citizens who arm themselves to the hilt and head to their nearest Planned Parenthood building to wipe out the staff and patients? Then there are the non-ideologues who acquire guns and ammo and go to target practice in order to descend upon our schools to kill children and teachers. But, as “Crazy Don” Trump would say, if only those children had been armed, they could have shot back and saved themselves and others. Oh yes, only in America would there be a very wild and crazy – and loud – minority of men (mostly) screaming for MORE GUNS as the proper response to mass killings by men and women using assault weapons and/or huge magazines and/or very powerful bullets which should be outlawed everywhere. Fight insanity with MORE insanity. That should be “Crazy Don’s” slogan, not “Make America Great Again”.

The Admiral and I were in the desert near Tucson with my sister and brother-in-law when the mass slaying in San Bernardino was committed. At the start, before any investigation began into the shooters, the Admiral said that it was likely the female shooter had instigated the attack. That may turn out to be the case, but today the reports are that one of the people killed in the attack was a devout Jewish man who championed Israel and who had had some heated discussions with the male shooter about Israel. At this point, it appears that the male and female shooters had drunk the jihadist juice and found each other on a dating web site – like minded killers with a common interest in massacring a lot of non-believers in the United States. Where does the 6 month old baby fit into this scenario? Did either one really expect to get out of this alive? We could chalk it up to the lack of birth control or to their narcissistic desire for martyrdom, which annihilated all interest in others, including their own child.

But enough about them. The county employees who were murdered and injured deserve our attention. They did not deserve to die or be wounded. And they should not be criticized or blamed for their own deaths and injuries because they did not carry firearms to the training day and holiday party. The day one has to carry a loaded firearm to work is the day one should find another job, in another country if necessary. Think about the folks you work with too. Would you want any of them to be “packing”? I’m not talking about law enforcement front line jobs – but even in that case, as England has shown, front line police officers need not carry guns to enforce the law. Of course, that’s in a civilized society where there is gun control and gun crimes are a very small part of the crime statistics. Does anyone remember my blog about the history of the 2^nd Amendment, the wording of which was dictated by slave owners? It took a long time – and a very bloody Civil War—to rid ourselves of slavery. How long will it take to rid ourselves of the completely wrong-headed interpretation of the 2^nd Amendment so that we can return to its original intent, which was to allow citizens to join militias to protect the central government, not to hole up in a cabin somewhere with a private armory to have a shootout with federal agents? Talk about standing an idea on its head! James Madison has to be rolling over and over and over in his grave. Read Aaron Burger’s article in the Christian Science Monitor, December 17, 2012, which states in part:

“The weapons with which Madison was familiar were essentially muskets, in addition to rudimentary pistols and rifles. A competent user could generally only take a single wildly inaccurate shot, and then would likely find himself rummaging around with a ram-rod (and a powder bag he had to tear with his teeth) for as much as a minute before being able to take another. There was virtually no way an individual could maim two people before being subdued, let alone 32 as at Virginia Tech, or 26 in Sandy Hook Elementary…”, -- or 35 (14 dead, 21 wounded) in San Bernardino. Burger wrote further: “The beauty of Madison’s musket was that, without being truly dangerous in large scale, it remained effective for personal defense. In addition to the propulsion mechanism, muskets were also outfitted with bayonets for issuing blows at short range, which could be used to subdue an attacker without killing them. When people did die from these weapons, it was often because of lead poisoning or bacterial infection. While the weapons of Madison’s era could be used for offense, and could certainly inflict deadly damage, they were only advantageous in situations involving group combat – not for an individual shooter to inflict quick and wide-scale harm.” (emphasis added)

All right. We’re way beyond muskets, but you get the idea. Muskets were what Madison was thinking of when he wrote the 2^nd Amendment giving us the right to bear arms, in order to support our militia. And so, it is the height of intellectual dishonesty for someone like, say Justice Scalia, to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the 2^nd Amendment to cover the weapons of mass destruction which 21st century shooters obtain and which should be banned. Back to muskets, if you want to be true to the 2^nd Amendment. It was not written to cover assault rifles, and it should not be interpreted to cover assault rifles or any kind of automatic weapon. The musket clearly was not automatic, and Madison clearly did not envision that one person could wipe out an entire classroom or conference room of people with a weapon “protected” by the 2^nd Amendment. No such weapon existed. Therefore, no such right to possess it exists under the 2^nd Amendment. Are we clear?