Hilbert Morales
EL OBSERVADOR
After the latest school massacre which happened at Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day this year, all documents regarding the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment were reviewed (sources: Wikipedia). Fellow students, parents, family members, and community all were traumatized and grieved.
School officials had to deal with the aftermath: Making grief counseling available; retirement of that school building; rescheduling issues, etc. What was most disappointing was the same platitudes and condolences by members of U.S. Congress and Trump Administration. This nation is very tired of the evidence that DARK MONEY has bought off the democratic legislative process. Today, it is all about the money.
‘We, The People’ must undertake actions ensuring that it become all about taking care of our nation’s people. We must not allow the ambiance of our communities to become similar to that of a war zone’s combat front line wherein one must be continuously in a state of anxiety or fear and always ready to fight for survival or be in flight. Such an ambiance is not the world peace we want for our youth, this community’s future leaders, to experience everywhere in this country. Yet this is the outcome of ‘do nothing’ governance which gives ‘acquisition of wealth’ its highest priority.
Too many U.S. Congress members are beholden to NRA after accepting their lobbyist’s contributions. The usual ‘we need gun control’ commentary was responded to by bringing up the 2nd Amendment’s phrases about ‘the right of an individual to own and bear arms.’ Here are what historical documents say:
“As passed by the Congress and preserved in the National Archives, with the rest of the original handwritten copy of the Bill of Rights prepared by scribe William Lambert, the (second) amendment says:
‘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.”
The National Rifle Association (NRA), as the mercenary advocate of the weapons manufacturing industry, up to now, has successfully resisted any restrictive definitions for the phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” All attempts to invoke gun control to improve community safety and security issues have not achieved any significant changes.
American public policy regarding gun control and establishment of levels of community safety and security needs a new approach which includes ‘Good Samaritan Stewardship’ factors alongside traditional ‘bottom line’ decisions.
Despite the reality that the U.S. Congressional legislative process has been thwarted by DARK MONEY, what is proposed here needs to be adequately considered and then supported by ‘We, The People’.
At the time the Founding Fathers assembled the Bill of Rights, especially its Second Amendment, individual side arms were ‘single shot pistols’. Rifles were still in their blunderbuss developmental stages.
Since each community had an organized militia which was transformed into the ‘citizen’s army’ which successfully engaged the British Redcoat army using ‘guerilla tactics’ learned from local Native American tribes, it seemed logical to allow residents to continue to have the right to own and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense & protection, hunting, and recreation.
Today, this may be interpreted to mean ‘pistols, shotguns and hunting rifles’…none of which may exceed 10 round maximum firing capability before requiring re-loading.
All firearms equipped with high capacity magazines (10 rounds or more) coupled with automatic rapid-fire features must be classified as ‘military weaponry’ whose appropriate place is in the local militia’s armories. This achieves ‘A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State’ criteria.
Existing ‘military weaponry’ must become registered and licensed so as to permit local public safety organizations (local police and sheriffs) to enforce new regulatory standards wherein local, state and federal government administratively manage and control all military weaponry, especially those needed to ensure national sovereignty and security.
These new definitions will allow ordinary individuals to continue to ‘own and bear’ a firearm suitable for self-defense, property protection, hunting and recreation purposes.
All military weaponry (including grenade launchers, artillery, machine guns, flame throwers, bazookas, rocket launchers, etc.) will be in local armories where local national guard unit personnel may have access for training purposes which is appropriate to having ‘a trained militia’ for national defense purposes. It would be appropriate to restrict ownership and use of military weaponry to this nation’s military and law enforcement agencies.
Nations like Scotland and Japan have strict licensing and regulation of gun ownership with the consequence that their societies have no public massacres. In the United Kingdom, until recently, community police carried no side arms; only a baton while performing community policing. In America, 89 weapons exist amongst every100 residents.
Let’s not allow anyone below the age of 21 to purchase any firearm. Personal temperaments should be rational, mature, and responsible by age 21. Any individual with behavioral or mental health issues must be required to undergo appropriate therapy and rehabilitation prior to becoming a lawful owner of any firearm.
Consider periodic background check-offs for re-licensing which enables denial of gun ownership to anyone who has developed behavioral or mental health issues as they get older.
The above alternatives are presented to enable this American nation to achieve the ambiance of safety and security in all communities, especially its local schools such as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida.
It’s two 17-year-old students, David Hogg and Emma Gonzales, have already demonstrated their leadership courage by organizing advocacy visits with elected officials at Florida’s state Capital at Tallahassee and also scheduled a demonstrative march on March 24, 2018 at Washington, D.C.
The issues at stake are not just community safety and security, but also FREEDOM FROM ANXIETY AND FEAR, achieved only by reduction of the probability that the next massacre will occur where we live today.
Doing the work needed to accept these proposed 2nd Amendment new definitions and standards, will remove high performance military weaponry from our communities. The current ‘gun culture’ now promoted by the NRA will be put in its proper perspective.
Hopefully, if this nation can resolve and reduce gun violence within its borders, maybe ‘We, The People’ can learn to control those natural ‘knee-jerk reactions’ which inflict violence leading to wars. Can you imagine a world where wars do not require spending resources to sustain standing military forces?
Wherein those standing military forces are used to deal with human pain and suffering rather than inflicting it. Will the current ‘military-industrial-empire resist the actions necessary to achieve ‘world peace’ wherein no resources nor lives are destroyed by weaponry’s use?
‘We, The People’ have a lot of challenges to resolve before world peace is achieved!
Let’s first address those supporting American ‘gun culture’ issues. Let’s prevent access to high performance military weaponry necessary for the next massacre incident.
Above all, let’s do the right things to memorialize the deaths of all those 17 student martyrs. Then their deaths will have become meaningful by having safety and security at every level of our society.
