Eric Zuesse<\/p>\n
The Las Vegas gunman wasn\u2019t operating merely as a gunman but as a sniper, and yet the U.S. Constitution\u2019s 2nd Amendment makes no distinctions whatsoever regarding handguns versus snipers\u2019 weapons \u2014 automatic (or semi-automatic) rifles which spew bullets so fast the Las Vegas shooter was able in the brief time-span of only around ten minutes<\/span><\/a> to murder at least 59 people and to injure another 527<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n So long as the 2nd Amendment continues to exist \u2014 not to be abolished \u2014 the only thing that the Las Vegas shooter did (and which others will do) that was (is) illegal was (is) to murder and injure people, but his purchase and possession of those weapons, which made this mass-slaughter possible, were (and will be) perfectly legal; and, furthermore \u2014 very importantly \u2014 the shooter had no criminal record nor other prior personal history that excluded him from purchasing the 23 rifles and guns that were in his hotel room, nor the 19 other guns, which were in his home.<\/span><\/p>\n In other words: the problem isn\u2019t just<\/i> \u2018mentally deranged individuals\u2019; it is also our legal system.<\/span><\/p>\n This incident therefore proves that, either the 2nd Amendment must be nullified, or else any entertainment-event or other event that attracts a mass of people, is an open invitation to anyone who wants to commit mass-murder \u2014 that the only access the law (the government) has in order to deal with such attacks is after<\/i>-the-fact, once all of those murders and injuries have already been perpetrated. Nothing can be done in advance<\/i>, so as to prevent<\/i> any such attack.<\/span><\/p>\n Hiring more police officers won\u2019t do it.<\/span><\/p>\n Building more prisons (and America already has the world\u2019s highest percentage of its population in prison, a higher percentage than does any other nation<\/span><\/a>) won\u2019t do it.<\/span><\/p>\n This sickness, in our society, doesn\u2019t consist only<\/i> of allegedly demented people (and Stephen Paddock, the perpetrator, had no such record)<\/i>\u00a0 <\/span>who might perpetrate such acts \u2014 it consists also<\/i> of our laws, and of the consequent mass-availability of weapons-of-mass-destruction, under our laws. And, guns aren\u2019t the only problem; Timothy McVeigh and others have already proven this, quite amply. No mere \u201cgun laws\u201d can deal with that. <\/span><\/p>\n Nothing can be done to prevent people such as Timothy McVeigh or Stephen Paddock from wanting to do what they do, but much can be done to make more difficult and rare their doing<\/i> it \u2014 and, an essential thing which must be done, the prerequisite to all of the others, is the passage of a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution:<\/span><\/p>\n 28th Amendment: The 2nd Amendment is hereby repealed. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t need to be replaced by anything, merely<\/i> repealed, because, according to the 2nd Amendment itself, the reason that the Amendment was being proposed, when it was, was stated in the Amendment\u2019s own opening clause, \u201cA well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,\u201d and those \u201cwell regulated militias\u201d no longer even exist \u2014 the U.S. has long had, instead, a standing army \u2014 and navy, and air force, and National Guard (despite the Founders\u2019 opposition to any of those except the National Guard). And, abolishing the 2nd Amendment won\u2019t affect those<\/i> people (operating in their official capacity), at all.<\/span><\/p>\n Under the 2nd Amendment, as interpreted by Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court, in his landmark 2008 majority-decision in District of Columbia v. Heller<\/i><\/span><\/a>, there is no Constitutional way to restrict any person\u2019s right to any weapons at all: \u201cthe right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.\u201d<\/b> That is the Amendment\u2019s second and final clause. Scalia said that the Amendment\u2019s first clause, which states that this Amendment\u2019s purpose was \u201cA well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,\u201d<\/b> is irrelevant \u2014 that, instead, this Amendment\u2019s right is a right that any<\/i> American possesses, regardless<\/i> of whether or not that person is a member of a well-regulated militia. Scalia then contradicted himself (as he routinely did) by saying that \u201cnothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.\u201d The Second Amendment does not limit itself to some people and not others, but says simply (and if we ignore the Amendment\u2019s purpose, as he did, then it does say this without any reference to a \u201cmilitia\u201d) that \u201cthe right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.\u201d The 2nd Amendment doesn\u2019t say \u201cthe right of sane people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.\u201d It doesn\u2019t say that \u201cthe right of people who have no criminal record, to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.\u201d (But it does<\/i> say that the right of any member of a \u201cwell regulated\u201d \u2014 which in that time meant state-controlled<\/b><\/span><\/a> \u2014 militia, to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed; but Scalia ignored that<\/i> restriction, entirely<\/i>.) Scalia simply lied there, because no logically internally consistent way exists to affirm, as he did (even going so far there as to strip away the Amendment\u2019s actual stated purpose) \u201cthe right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,\u201d and also<\/i> to say that \u201cnothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.\u201d His (and that Court\u2019s) interpretation of the 2nd Amendment doesn\u2019t just \u201ccast doubt\u201d on those \u201clongstanding prohibitions\u201d: it nullifies them \u2014 but he (and they) said it didn\u2019t, and they therefore wrote the laws on this, instead of honestly interpreting the U.S. Constitution as they had sworn to do \u2014 these were activist far-rightwing jurists. He knew when he wrote the Court\u2019s decision, that, until then, the U.S. Supreme Court had always denied<\/i> that the Second Amendment was to be interpreted apart from its first clause, and had instead imposed upon the second clause the first clause as limiting the scope of that right, to apply only to members of well-organized state militias. But Scalia, who personally reveled in killing, and was the Court\u2019s most impassioned defender of capital punishment, and was himself an avid hunter who especially enjoyed killing non<\/i>-human animals \u2018for sport\u2019, have opened the floodgates \u2014 and, by his (and their) doing so, he (and that Court) made absolutely impossible any constructive response to the Las Vegas massacre other than passage of the 28th Amendment that is here proposed.<\/span><\/p>\n They did it, with their lies and self-contradictions, and it now needs to be undone \u2014 by abolishing the 2nd Amendment altogether. After all: those \u201cwell regulated [state] militias\u201d no longer even exist.<\/span><\/p>\n But abolishing the 2nd Amendment is no solution to the problem of mass-murders in the United States. Criminals will always find ways around the laws \u2014 just look at what the banksters who crashed the global economy in 2008 got away with; and skillful criminals who operate by means of guns, instead of by means of pens, always will, too. It is instead a necessary, but not sufficient, condition in order to make possible governmental policies that will reduce such carnages. Opponents of laws and regulations restricting certain weapons might as well argue that there should be no laws, and no regulations at all, since there will always be evil persons who will get around whatever restrictions exist. The basic argument of the National Rifle Association (a business organization that produces a fortune for its executives by defending the 2nd Amendment<\/span><\/a>) is that the problem is these evil individuals and not their weapons. However, the problem is actually both<\/i>. And America isn\u2019t dealing effectively with either one. Furthermore, as the Las Vegas massacre makes clear, relying only on individuals\u2019 criminal records and on psychologists\u2019 assertions regarding individuals\u2019 mental and emotional fitness to possess these weapons (or, at least, to possess guns<\/i>), would also fail. The NRA position is simply an excuse to enable its members to buy as many and as bad guns (even snipers\u2019 rifles) as they want. It\u2019s that ridiculous. Beyond a certain point, however, such as where Stephen Paddock acquired allegedly 42 rifles and guns, it should be presumed to be no longer merely a private matter (which it never actually was). Government has a role to play in providing for the safety of all residents. The NRA, fundamentally, but not explicitly, is denying that. The NRA is not saying that anarchy and only non<\/i>-governmental armaments will advance public safety, but their position does support that position (of \u2018the government is the enemy\u2019), which is the reason why police departments are strongly anti-NRA, even though politically conservative. But they\u2019re also terrorized by the NRA\u2019s membership so that police opinions about the matter<\/span><\/a> are publicly expressed only timidly<\/span><\/a>. Open-carry laws are the flashpoint there, because these types of laws implicitly challenge the exclusivity of police officers\u2019 right to intimidate people by the public display of their guns. However, police also, as employees of the public, cannot afford to \u201cgo public\u201d about their political views, so openly, as to oppose the NRA in a public way. Instead, police officials dance around the problem \u2014 the problem that\u2019s created by the 2nd Amendment.<\/span><\/p>\n Everyone who disagrees with this position is supporting anarchy, and, whereas libertarians might happen to think that anarchy will increase public safety, no one else does. Supporters of the 2nd Amendment are supporters of anarchy, in accord with Scalia\u2019s majority Supreme Court decision, and they have the rich NRA (and the 2nd Amendment, which makes them rich) to thank for increasing the salaries of NRA executives and lobbyists, but not to thank for increasing anyone\u2019s safety. If anyone\u2019s safety will be increased by privately possessed automatic and semi-automatic rifles, that person is in a war-zone, and \u2014 since the person is only a private individual \u2014 is a terrorist, and is not conducive to the safety of anyone but him-or-her-self (if, really, even that). <\/span><\/p>\n If you want a civil war, you won\u2019t win it by privatizing public safety. The delusion that that\u2019s the way to go, would be hilarious, if it were not so tragic. But some people profit off of that delusion, and pump it to the hilt \u2014 which is why the delusion is so widespread. <\/span><\/p>\n Civil war is not the way to achieve freedom. Only democracy can do it. We don\u2019t have one<\/span><\/a>, but \u201ctaking up arms against the government\u201d won\u2019t achieve it. (Those public officials might represent the oligarchs; but they\u2019re not the oligarchs; and pretending that they are, won\u2019t make them so, and will never achieve freedom \u2014 nor democracy. And it certainly won\u2019t enhance public safety.) The delusion is profitable for some persons, but very destructive for the entire society.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of\u00a0 They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eric Zuesse The Las Vegas gunman wasn\u2019t operating merely as a gunman but as a sniper, and yet the U.S. Constitution\u2019s 2nd Amendment makes no distinctions whatsoever regarding handguns versus snipers\u2019 weapons \u2014 automatic (or semi-automatic) rifles which spew bullets so fast the Las Vegas shooter was able in the brief time-span of only around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":328989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[30,1036,96,29,3604,6637,698,11722,753,540],"class_list":{"0":"post-328988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"tag-big-brother","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-cover-up","11":"tag-democrats","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-guns","14":"tag-hillary-clinton","15":"tag-nra","16":"tag-police-state","17":"tag-republicans"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}