Does Hillary Clinton Want To Abolish The 2nd Amendment?

It took just twenty-four hours for Donald Trump to torpedo his latest “reboot.” One day after an economic speech intended to put his campaign back on track, Trump suggested “Second Amendment people” might be able to stop Hillary Clinton from appointing “judges.” While his comment could be viewed as ambiguous in a sanitized context, it’s hardly a stretch for someone to interpret it to mean an armed uprising against a U.S. president. Even if it was just a joke, and even if we can debate the meaning, the problem is not the intent, the problem is that it was said at all.

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Guns Are The X Factor In American-Style Mass Murder

Car accidents kill people. Construction accidents kill people. Even a slip and fall in the shower has been known to occasionally kill a person. There is a limitless list of things that can kill a person, but we accept life has risks. We accept the convenience and commerce offered by automobiles all while acknowledging the negative side effect of vehicle fatalities, although regulations have made cars safer than decades ago. We accept building roads, bridges, and other infrastructure also comes with a negative side effect, although in this area we have done a lot to decrease construction fatalities through safety regulations. And yes, we accept that even the most mundane of things, taking a shower, could lead to death.

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There’s No Off Position On The Gun Rights Switch

We often hear about elderly who crash their car because they confused the gas pedal for the brake pedal (I witnessed this years ago in Burger King parking lot), or any number of other reasons why someone of advanced age could wreck their car. And we hope in these cases the only people they hurt are themselves (at worst). And of course, many people say there needs to be an age limit on driving or there needs to be required driving tests for people once they get to a certain age. And of course, we do nothing about this because, well, it’s a touchy subject.

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Here’s The Thing, Gun Nuts And Their Supreme Court Justice Cohorts Are A Lost Cause

When we talk about gun safety, yes, even the term “gun control,” what we need to recognize is that the gun nuts are a lost cause. The people who call themselves gun rights advocates, or protectors of the Second Amendment, well, they are not the minds we are trying to change. That’s what we have to acknowledge. You cannot change a closed mind. They are dogmatic. They will not be swayed. There is no argument a gun safety proponent can articulate that will permeate the impenetrable fortress that is the mind of the ideologue.

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The AR-15 Semi-Automatic Assault Rifle Was Used At Sandy Hook, Aurora, And Now The Navy Yard Shooting

EDIT: Early reports indicated an AR-15 was involved in the Navy Yard shooting. That turns out to be false, but it hardly changes anything. If Aaron Alexis was able to so easily kill 12 people without an AR-15, I don’t want to think what would have happened had he used an assault rifle (yes, that’s what it is). The amount of carnage possible even with less potent weapons lends even greater support to banning assault style weapons.

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Does The Second Amendment Simply Say, ‘A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed’?

It’s true that we all carry baggage when engaged in a debate. We all have our own ideas about how things should work and what things mean. So when it comes to a debate on guns and the Second Amendment, my baggage is “regulation.” A gun rights advocate will haul around their “unfettered access to firearms” attaché.  So it’s likely our interpretations, in a parsing of the Second Amendment, will be quite different.

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Boston Marathon Bombing: Terror And Fear In America

Fear - photo by dryheadWith some reflection on the tragedy a week ago at the Boston Marathon, it’s clear America is still deeply scarred by the events of 9/11 over a decade ago. Why is it so clearly obvious to so many Americans that we should label last week’s bombing as a terrorist act, but not the Newtown school shooting? What is our definition of terrorism? Was Newtown not sufficiently terrifying? On the contrary, while many more people were wounded from last week’s bombing, last December’s school shooting saw many more fatalities. On that measure, we should consider the Newtown shooting to be at least on the same level as the Boston Marathon bombing, yet we do not, at least not from a perspective of public safety.

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