"Guns are bad, I tell you." -Eminem

Another school shooting. Another eight of our beautiful children gone forever, along with two of their devoted teachers, in Santa Fe, Texas.

I'm not sure I can add any more to the dialogue. So much has been said already about the epidemic in our country.  But Little Sister has not been known to keep her fingers idle on this subject.

I have been an advocate for gun control for many years. One of my early arguments was that guns do nothing to help create. They only help to destroy. Destruction is not a value I hold. HUNTING! They cry. We do not need animal protein to live healthy lives, I reply.  PROTECTION AGAINST TYRANNICAL FORCES, they cry. Seriously? Just no, I say. We have a rule of law. SELF PROTECTION they cry. It's hard to determine the statistics, since gun violence is a U.S. officially banned research subject, but I suspect the incidents of actual self- or home-defense is actually quite low. (The LA Times has some statistics in a 2015 article). We are more likely to have one or two degrees of separation from someone who is a victim of gun violence, or who was threatened by gun violence, than someone who has protected him/herself with a firearm.

Me? I have zero degrees of separation - and if you know me, therefore, you have one. And right off the top of my head, I can think of three people who I knew personally who were shot, one of whom survived the gunshot wound. I know no one who has ever used a gun to protect themselves.

That's just outrageous. And sickening.

This topic for a blog post has been on my mind for a long time. It was more urgently on my mind after Parkland, when the kids began to rise up. A lot of people were chiming in then, and I wanted to also say my piece. But life interfered, time passed, and I got too busy to write a timely essay. And you know what I disgustingly thought? I thought to myself, "I'll just wait until the next school shooting and it will be more relevant."

I'll just wait until the next school shooting.

I'm ashamed to have that thought, and I'm ashamed of our society that allows that kind of thought to be the reality.

And here we are. Barely two months after Parkland, and we have another school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. Ten more lives snuffed out.

Of course there are multiple issues surrounding school shootings. And of course school shootings are not the only form of gun violence that desecrates our Land. But I'm not going to go into depth about the culture of violence, the tragic state of entitled young men in our country, the misogyny that thrives in the 21st century, mental illness, the culture of fear, nor video games. I'm not going to look at toddler-related gun deaths, suicide by gun, accidental firearm discharges, domestic violence, nor hate violence.  All those issues are important factors in the gun violence epidemic in our society.  I could write for months on all of those issues, and maybe some day I'll pick apart some of those. But tonight I want to just look at the heart of the gun violence problem:  Guns and Money.

These 27 words are at the crux of the issue:

Article II: 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.

Let's ignore that this amendment seems to be composed by someone without a firm command of English language composition. Even for 18th century writing style, this is a nightmare. But let's put that aside. This amendment has been parsed and discussed from here to Tuesday. Still, let me give my two cents. The gun proponents focus on the third clause, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."  But our forefathers did not write the amendment, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." There are 13 more words. They included language about a militia. They included language about security.  They included language about freedom.

I started doing some reading. What did they mean when they referred to a Militia? Is the militia mentioned anywhere else in the Constitution? What was a militia then, and what were our forefathers getting at, mentioning it in the Bill of Rights?

The Constitution itself refers to the Militia five times.

In Section Eight, which details the responsibilities of the Congress:

15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

In Article Two, outlining the duties of the Executive Branch:

1: The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

In Amendment Two:

Article [II] (Amendment 2 - Bearing Arms)
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.

And in Amendment Five:

Article [V] (Amendment 5 - Rights of Persons)
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Just reading these sections of the U.S. Constitution, it is obvious that Militia, true to its word root, is a military body. It's not a private citizen.

Younger Little Sister Resister wrote the following letter to the editor in year 2000. I'll let her words stand here.

Dear Editor: 

In discussions about the government's role and the Constitution's role in gun control, the following has never been addressed. In the main body of the U.S. Constitution, in Article One, Section Eight, it very clearly defines the "militia," to which it later refers in the Second Amendment. The U.S. Constitution reads in Article One, Section 8 that "The Congress shall have power:

"To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." 

To my understanding, this gives a very strict definition of "militia." 

The Second Amendment reads, "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." 

If the government has the duty, clearly stated in Article One of the Constitution, to "organize, arm and discipline ... and train" this militia, this clearly does not give the implicit right for every Tom, Dick and Michael to own and use firearms. In fact, it says the very opposite. Furthermore, the Second Amendment refers to a "well-regulated" militia, which again implies strong governmental regulations. 

Clearly, if the NRA and others want to rely on the Constitution for their arguments and want to broaden the definition of "militia" to mean the common man, they should realize that the wording of the U.S. Constitution promotes more government control and regulations, not less. 

The first step in the government's responsibilities to "organize, arm, discipline and train" is to register every weapon and license every user. For such a deadly and powerful item as a firearm, this is only prudent. In licensing, individuals should be required to be trained thoroughly. Trigger locks should be required on every single firearm. New technology needs to be developed and technology that already exists needs to be used to promote one gun -- one user. 

The sales of firearms should be carefully monitored, with thorough background checks wherever guns are sold. In addition, we need to strengthen enforcement of laws that are already on the books to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of the wrong individuals. 

Perhaps Bill Clinton's new proposals can help this meet this goal. But surely, the government should have a very strong role in gun control, as outlined in the U.S. Constitution. 

Little Sister Resister, Santa Barbara

And a political cartoon by Tom Toles, my favorite cartoonist, from back in year 2000 Little Sister Resister's pocket. (Note the date of the cartoon is 1998, the year before Columbine)

This week, I went searching a bit for information about what our forefathers meant by "well-regulated" and "militia."

Well-regulated in 18th century meaning means that the thing is in good working order. It does not mean having rules and regulations applied to it. Fair enough.

A militia, however, was, in the 18th century, an organized military group, made up of citizens, but not a standing army, which as a separate body.

I found this balanced article in the Washington Post. The Founding Fathers wanted every white citizen to be a member of the militia, and they wanted each of those citizens to be armed. Interestingly, the ideas of the 18th century about arming citizens had very much to do with disarming non-whites, as much as it was about ensuring that every white person was armed.

Quotes from the article:

At its best, the Second Amendment was a commitment to citizen participation in public life and a way to keep military power under civil control. At its worst, it was a way for whites to maintain their social domination.

The United States still seems willing to tolerate a significant degree of instability and violence on the part of white American men, the demographic group responsible for the majority of mass shootings.

And yes, from the 18th century, fast forward to the 20th and 21st Century. White people in control of guns is still very much the reality. White people in control of the money is very much the reality of U.S. politics as well. And that's the second part of the problem, to my mind.

The National Rifle Association is a powerful group. It's hard to know the demographics of the members, as the NRA does not ask about gender, race, age, or religion. We do know, however, that it is made up of mostly Republicans, with 77% of members being Republican, according to Pew. And as such, I think it's safe to say that it is primarily a white, male group. It's also a very rich organization, and they use their riches to further gun rights and fight gun control legislation. Pew also has found that, by far, not all gun owners are members of the NRA, and many of those disagree with the NRA's stances and actions.

In any case, we know that there is a lot of money flowing through the NRA, and much of it goes directly into the pockets of our lawmakers. They lobby hard, and they lobby well. Much of their money is Dark Money.

And this month, as part of a congressional probe, it has come out that Russian money may have been funneled through the NRA and directly into TЯUMP's coffers to further Russia's political agenda in the USA. We aren't sure yet, as the NRA is no longer cooperating with the investigation, but we do know that the NRA contributed $30 Million into the SCROTUS campaign, while, according to the New York Times, writing in the year 2000, "In the last year, it has donated more than $540,000 in so-called soft money to Republican Party committees, while giving nothing in soft money, or unregulated donations, to the Democrats. In 1996 the NRA gave less than $100,000 in soft money to the Republican Party."

But not only does the NRA spend money to line lawmakers' pockets, they spend money to defeat candidates who even whisper about laws to control guns. Where the money comes from, and the ways in which the money flows, is complex. This is a long read from Quartz Media, but it's a good one. It explains a bit about how NRA money controls Republicans. This article from Yahoo Finance describes that the NRA is so powerful because there is no opposing organization.

(As an aside, Politifact has a great run-down of fact-checking gun and NRA claims)

Money in politics perverts our Republic, put simply. All corporate money should be out of politics, not just NRA money. The Citizens United ruling, which helps to foster the interests of Corporations over the interests of the People, should also be overturned.  We are a nation of citizens, each of whom have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is without question that gun entitlements take away these basic citizen rights.

Money in politics is a huge issue and the root of what is wrong with our system. Before Citizens United, but more so after, money from the hands of the few that influence laws that affect the many, is a problem. If we can fix that, if we can stop money from influencing the decisions of our lawmakers, we will be better off. It's a difficult task, as you have to take the teat from their mouths. They won't let go willingly.

Back to my thought about waiting for "the next school shooting." Why is it so easy to toss around ideas like that? Perhaps we are being desensitized, or at the very least, becoming more detached. With all the pain and sorrow that these events create, the psyche has to protect itself, and so it detaches. We would be walking puddles of goo (and some of us are) if we didn't separate ourselves from the awful atrocities. The horror becomes "over there."  And there is the thought that this desensitization is actually one of the root causes of the gun violence epidemic. This excellent essay by David French of the National Review refers to an earlier essay in the New Yorker about the Threshold of Violence. It is asserted that one of the chief reasons for the mass shooting epidemic is because of a form of desensitization. More and more are reaching their violence threshold. It is becoming the norm. "Everyone is doing it!" Read both essays. It's quite a sobering outlook.

There is no one easy answer, no one path to navigate. It is complex, and the issues and the money are so very deeply entrenched, that it seems there is no way to dig out. But we must try. And that starts at the ballot box. There is where our power lies. Resist, think, and VOTE!

Thanks for reading.

Drew Sheneman