Stuff Happens

"A well regulated militia ... " -- U.S. Constitution, Second Amendment

   "Stuff happens." So said GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush, shrugging off the latest mass murder of students and faculty at a college in Oregon.
   Others chimed in with variations on the theme that nothing can be done to prevent or even reduce gun violence in America. And the leading Republican candidate trumpeted the standard lobby line that more guns means more safety. If faculty and/or students had guns in the classroom, lives would have been saved as the target victims fought back against the attacker.
   To make such a claim is preposterous. Calling for more guns in the hands of more people is ludicrous on its face, and can only result in more deaths. In a time of stress, who can tell the good guys with guns from the bad guys with guns? It's not like they wear special hats, as they did in old Hollywood movie Westerns. When bullets start flying, a person with a gun will be a target. There will be no Q & A session or classroom quiz beforehand.
   During the theater shooting incident in Aurora, Colorado, in July, 2012, there was an off-duty police officer in the audience when the shooting started. But, as a well trained policeman, he knew better than to draw his weapon in a crowded theater.
   Shooters responsible for the mass killings in America recently were not members of any militia, well regulated or otherwise. In fact, the shooter in last week's incident in Colorado was rejected by the military within weeks of beginning his service.
   Firm believers in the gun lobby claim their weapons are needed for self protection, and are opposed to registration, warning that their guns would be needed to fight an enemy invasion, and a hostile government could easily locate and confiscate their registered weapons.
   Do they really distrust their freely elected American government or the American military that much? Do they really believe the American military is incompetent?
   Many, if not most, gun owners are responsible, conscientious citizens who use their pistols, rifles and shotguns for sport and for hunting. and support legislation that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable. Weapons like the AK47 and similar military-style assault rifles are designed to be used for just one thing -- to kill people. They cannot be used for hunting. In fact, in some highly populated states, only shotgun and bow-and-arrow hunting is allowed. No rifles.
   All the while, whenever the issue of gun control comes up, supporters led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), raise the chant that the Second Amendment guarantees the "right of the people to bear arms." But in doing so, they ignore the first four words of that Amendment, which cites the need for "A well regulated militia ..." The Constitution does not guarantee or endorse an individual's right to build a personal arsenal. In fact, a counter-argument is that the Second Amendment, far from banning gun control, actually demands it, through the formation of well regulated militias, organized and operated by local governments -- that is to say, "the people," not by individuals.
   So to shrug off mass killing sprees by individuals, claiming they are done only by "the crazies," as candidate Ben Carson said, is to admit a failure to even consider any attempt to resolve a problem. And if the massacres are indeed largely done by those who are mentally unstable, that's even more reason to reach out and help them.
   Meanwhile, massacres by individuals armed with high-capacity weapons and assault rifles become "routine," as President Barack Obama angrily put it, and nothing is done to resolve the problem.
   To deny that a problem exists is moral blindness. To refuse to take a single step to deal with it is foolish. Every journey begins with a single step.