Watching footage of Saturday’s “March for Our Lives” rally, I couldn’t help but wonder where this is all going to go.
Will we listen to the young men and women who have so bravely taken up the cause of throwing a lasso around runaway gun violence? Will we take them seriously? Or will we do what we always seem to do when kids take up causes adults either cannot or will not tackle? Will we patronize them? Tap them on the head and say, “That’s nice, dear, now go back inside and keep studying those quadratic equations?”
We’ve seen both extremes to this — equal parts stomach-turning and inspiring. Somehow, critics of 17-year-old Emma Gonzalez have honed in on her sexual orientation as being relevant to a cause that began because she saw her friends and fellow students shot dead in what is supposed to be a safe haven — school.
Naturally, these kids from Florida who went through this most traumatic of experiences are branded as Communists and crisis actors. And God forbid these boys and girls be given any credit for having brains and even minimal powers of observation. No, no! They are being “indoctrinated” by the left.
Pass the tinfoil hats.
There’s a meme going around on social media where Gonzalez is seen tearing up a copy of the U.S. Constitution. It would be quite chilling, if it were true. It’s not. Someone with an agenda photoshopped the picture of her tearing up a poster with a bull’s-eye on it.
The implication, obviously, is that Gonzalez, apparently the 17-year-old reincarnation of Mata Hari, Tokyo Rose, Eva Peron and Yoko Ono all rolled into one, isn’t asking for solutions as much as she wants to abolish the Second Amendment.
At this point, we pause to genuflect. We have invoked the deity. I have come to expect to hear a heavenly chorus every time the Second Amendment is mentioned.
This poorly-written, poorly-constructed sentence is the root of all evil, at least where it concerns guns in America. It is a grammarian’s nightmare. Here it is, in its entirety: “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.”
Awkward. And that’s being kind. Convoluted is more like it. However, right there, in that sentence, are the words “well regulated.” This would signify to me that the framers of the amendment understood that there had to be some standards that went with gun ownership, and that the sentence wasn’t a permission to run around with any kind of a weapon.
Was the Second Amendment ratified because, in 1791 — when it was written — there were no centralized police forces in the U.S. (that didn’t become the case until the 1830s) and a town militia probably was a necessity?
Did the framers of the amendment have any idea of how sophisticated and ever-deadly weaponry would become?
(I don’t think that’s a firm “no,” by the way, though perhaps they couldn’t have predicted to what extent.)
However, I think it’s safe to say that the lawyers and landowners in 1791 who inserted this amendment into the Bill of Rights could not have intended it to be used as an excuse for inaction bordering on criminal as kids are being shot to death in schools.
And I’d also submit that James Madison, et al., would be horrified and beyond angry if they knew their words were being interpreted in such a way.
There’s no question that a myriad of factors have led up to this moment of crisis. Mental illness, addiction, lack of impulse control, anger, religious zealotry, and just-plain evil … they all contribute. Nobody denies that. But they are mere motivations for behavior that far too often ends with multiple gunshot victims.
And please, tinfoil-hat people, no one wants to storm your house and confiscate your guns. You want them, you can have them. But can we make sure you’re qualified — both in terms of knowledge about them and in terms of emotional stability — to own them? We’re talking about a weapon here. We quibble endlessly about the First Amendment, and I’m sad to say that there are as many people who don’t understand that anymore than they comprehend the second (if anyone can). But when it comes to the amendment governing deadly weapons, it’s sacrosanct. That is beyond absurd.
But as far as last Saturday goes, no image — pro or con — moved me more than seeing ex-Beatle Paul McCartney in New York marching for this cause.
McCartney will be 76 years old in May. He has more money than the national treasury. He could jet off to some remote island, surround himself with armed guards, and live happily ever after.
Instead, he embraced this cause Saturday.
“One of my best friends was killed in gun violence, right around here,” he said when asked why he marched. That would be John Lennon, who was shot to death 37 years ago.
All this proves is that there is no statute of limitations on the trauma that gun violence causes. It goes on and on. And it’s perhaps the No. 1 reason why I think we should listen to these kids, get busy and reverse the hold that gun-lobby groups seem to have on our government, and hold our representatives’ feet to the fire until they begin taking these concerns seriously.
The time for thoughts and prayers is over.