Four Bills, No Sale

Last week Democratic Senator Chris Murphy brought the Senate to a halt with a filibuster on new gun legislation in the wake of the Orlando massacre of 49 people. It ended successfully with Republicans agreeing to bring some bills to the floor for a vote.

Yesterday two Republican and two Democratic bills were voted on. They all failed. None of the bills were particularly radical so why no action? Mind you nothing they would have passed would have survived in the House but still it begs the question why?

A super majority of Americans support some form of gun reform including better background checks, closing various loopholes and even banning some categories of military grade weapons. The majority of the National Rifle Association's five million members also support serious common sense reforms. The N.R.A. executive leadership does not because they are in reality a critical mouthpiece for gun manufacters. Those forces don't want anything to interfere with their business, so they have spent decades weaving a campaign of deceit portraying all gun legislation as an attack on the Second Amendment.

Freedom of speech is not an absolute right, you cannot say anything you want. We have established Iimits such as the oft quoted yelling fire in a crowded theater. Freedom of religion is not absolute if it calls for forcing others to follow you and the right to keep and bare arms is certainly not a suicide pact. You may not own a bazooka or a nuclear warhead.

There are people on both sides of the issue who muddy the waters with inaccurate and misleading statements.

Until the Heller Case in recent years the U.S. Supreme Court had never weighed in on the Second Amendment but in that case they finally spoke and upheld that a person did have a constitutional right to keep and bare arms. I heard a lawyer on a program make the statement a few days ago that all lawyers know there is no right. She used the same argument that always gets used and it hinges on the word militia. She's wrong, all lawyers do not agree and that includes constitutional lawyers and scholars but you don't have to be any of those exalted folks to draw the correct conclusion. You need to be able to read and comprehend what you're reading, you need to be able to reason and apply logic and understand the times in which the architects of the Constitution wrote it. At the founding of this country there were no standing armies, therefore all citizens were in fact the militia. The founders did not want an unarmed populace which could not fight the British Crown or any other invader. The musket was used for hunting as well as the bow because let's face it vegetarianism was not all the rage in 1789.

We ultimately created permanent standing armies and organized police forces but that does not mean individual citizens have no need to own a gun or guns. Hunting and more importantly personal protection are very real things. While the founding fathers had no fear of personal ownership of guns they also provided an escape clause for future generations. It's called the amendment process. But we don't have to even go there. Congress has all the authority it needs to pass laws restricting gun ownership by certain people and to pass national laws strengthening background checks and to ban specific types of guns which represent a grave threat to the general public. It's called common sense, which we are sorely lacking.

Crackpots like Donald Trump who continue to suggest that everyone should be armed everywhere and it would prevent these mass shootings which employ assault weapons, prove through their suggestions that they don't understand guns, how to shoot them, human psychology and private property rights. A nightclub like Pulse in Orlando, Florida is a dark, strobe flashing and loud environment where no one would have been able to know who they were shooting at. It's also private property and your right to carry a gun anywhere ends if the owners of private property say no weapons are allowed. The majority of gun owners are poor shots and do not have the training necessary to deal with a stressful mass shooting incident except for maybe Special Forces soldiers or C.I.A. Field Agents. Are you one of those people?

Another reason those four bills failed is because it's an election year. Sad but true.

The hands get wrung, the prayers are said, the sympathy is expressed and we move on to the next issue and never acknowledge our refusal to behave as reasonable, logical beings. Perhaps, because we are not.