DARK KNIGHT RISING MASSACRE: CONTEMPLATING THE SECOND AMENDMENT

INTRODUCTION RATIONALE

The mass killing outrage at the Aurora Colorado cineplex brings to mind all sorts of bad memories associated with another mass murder incident which took place in the Columbine public high school in Littleton, Colorado, back in 1999.    

It should be noted clearly that in both cases, people willingly sold weapons to these unbalanced – maybe crazy –  individuals. 

The ironies of the Aurora atrocity compound before our eyes.   A bunch of citizens come together at a cineplex at midnight to watch a famously violent movie in which people (one character in particular) die.   Instead dozens of them become the victim of a violent person.   It will be interesting to see if Dark Knight Rising gets associated in history with this event the way Manhattan Melodrama still brings to mind that authorities killed Dillinger as he left a showing of that Gable-Loy-Powell romantic drama. 

In the wake of this outrage, certain Utah leaders talk about increasing gun availability and  concealed weapons permitting.  What a pretty picture of civility that paints. 

It does not seem to occur to any of  them to promote the use and research-improvement of non-lethal weaponry. I suspect their fascination with guns must have something to do with the sexiness or violence of them.


BACKGROUND

The Second Amendment guaranteed the rights of a community to create militias.    Militias fell out of favor in favor of professional militaries rather early on.    It is ironic that Constitutional purists use this amendment in modern times to guarantee a person’s right to own as many deadly weapons as he or she wants, when this was not the original meaning at all. 

The Second Amendment guarantees the exercise of power and dominion in  militias.

The Amendment barely made sense in the 1790s when police forces did not exist, and many citizens lived in isolation or small villages.  In those days the weapons were primitive.   One had to load the powder, then the shot, and maybe the weapon would fire correctly and maybe hit someone if one was a good shot under pressure.    And maybe not.

In 2012, The Second Amendment guarantees the right of a citizen to stop a person from shedding the citizen’s blood by giving the citizen the means to kill or disable the person.   Instead of the person bearing responsibility for shedding the citizen’s blood, the citizen gets to take responsibility for killing the person.   This really does not open up much by way of a choice. 

Now the military industrial complex builds bigger, more sophisticated, and deadly weapons.  One person can do a lot of mayhem without much effort.  Unfortunately, many merchants happily sell automatic weapons to just anyone who has the money.  Thus the atrocity that occurred in the Tucson Safeway parking lot is not one of those things that just happens.   There are cause and effects; there are reasons why. 

The Second Amendment is not about hunting.  English common law addressed that topic back in 1791.

The Second Amendment  is not about self defense.   The Old Testament guaranteed that. English common law covered that as well.   We should not rely on the Hebrew Covenant and English common law for this particular point of law.

As a result, gun enthusiasts hang their rights on an amendment that has nothing relevant about twenty-first century conditions.


THE CALL TO ACTION

1 Both the Utah Legislature and Congress should encourage research-improvement on non-lethal weaponry.

2 Congress and The States really should  replace the outdated Second Amendment with two new amendments. 

One should address the limits of American military power.  It should limit soldiers’ minimum ages to 19 (preferably 20).   It should ban conscription. 

The other should guarantee the right of citizens to self defense with non-lethal weaponry.

3 State and federal laws should require gun owners to buy insurance for their guns.  The gun owners –  not the governments -- should pay for cleaning up messes caused by misuse of guns.

Federal and local law should require people who want to buy guns and/or concealed weapons to submit four notarized affidavits.  Those documents should specifically endorse, for the public record, prospective gun owners as law-abiding,  mentally, emotionally,  physically competent to own and use a gun.  Government should charge people with perjury if they lie.  All four documents need to agree on the particulars. 

I would like Romney and Hatch and Herbert state for the record How long will Republican Constitutional conservatives misuse an amendment that guaranteed civic militias to justify and guarantee mayhem