EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 GUNS

Once again, we must face our feelings toward guns. Here are mine. They are mine alone. I'm not asking anyone to agree. I just feel compelled.

I don't think gun control is THE answer. Oh, I don't think any reasonable person would agree that a troubled teenager or, for that matter, anyone not employed full-time by one of the armed forces branches, should not have access to an assault rifle. But those are common sense precautions, not solutions.

No, I don't think control is the answer. I think shame would prove more effective. As a youth, I suffered punishment, often severe punishment, from a father who inherited a Teutonic and evangelistic belief in beating children to instill compliance to arbitrary standards of conduct. It was only partially effective for I tended to repeat the assault-driven transgressions again and again. A therapist friend once suggested that it was part of the "toughening-up process" of tribal admittance.

Anyway, it proved only partially effective, sometimes.

On the other side of the marriage aisle, the fear of shame-control utilized by my Sainted Mother was effective and everlasting.

"To what degree?" you ask.

Well, once, after a long morning of contemplation sitting at the edge of the Great Tide Pool near Monterey, California, I made the decision to participate in an unholy and unjustified war, putting my life for risk not for love of country but for fear of the shame that would wash over me like the waves washing over the rocks before me.

Shame is a powerful force, so …

If you think the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America is there simply to help you obtain an erection, shame on you.

Everlasting shame on you.

Morning Thoughts: February 24, 2018

Haven’t taught at my second Alma Mater in over a year. A PhD. Teaches the course now. That’s probably a good idea. I miss it though. Being around young minds offers much satisfaction, both from the gaining of wisdom and the delight of torture.

I taught Introduction To Public Administration, and this would be an interesting time to participate. There’s an air of insanity about the topic that has even caught the attention of young folks.

Quite frankly, they showed limited interest in Marbury v. Madison, a case settled 215 years ago today by a Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Marshall, (no relation, as far as we know, to Thurgood). It established judicial review, or the principle that the Judicial Branch decides the constitutionality of a law passed by the Legislative Branch or greatly valued by the Executive Branch. It has saved the country from shame on occasion, (see Brown v. Board of Education). Despite assertions in the past, these days it shows definite signs of constituting a suicide pact. (See Citizens United).

Anyway. I woke up this morning thinking of a great assignment. Background: In a terrifically bizarre mood, even at a particularly bizarre moment in our nation’s history, by perhaps the most bizarre person to ever hold the office of President of the United States of America, our president actually proposed effecting an end to violence in our schools by arming teachers so they could be prepared to shoot terrorists before they could act. Further, we would pay said teachers a bonus for the extra service to the country.

Don’t go to Snopes. He really said that. No, not The Onion either. See the Washington Post. After all, it did save us from Richard Nixon and Tom Hanks played its editor in a recent movie. It deserves our trust for that, if nothing more.

Unsubstantiated at this point are reports that "gun bonuses" will be based on body counts, mirroring our highly successful strategy in Vietnam.  

Anyway, wouldn’t it be a neat assignment to have the kids write papers summarizing the public administration aspects of such a proposal?

One would hope they would cover the need to rewrite thousands of union contracts, probably resulting in extended and heated negotiations with, oh, say 99.67 percent of them. Now that would be fun to watch. If there is anything some unions know about, it’s guns.

One would hope for each paper to discuss budgeting aspects of the deal. Astute students would realize that, not only would the feds not allocate any money, the present administration would likely cut school funding more than it has already proposed, said cuts to be based on the avowed probability of reduced costs of emergency services and law enforcement participation once the teachers assumed responsibility. Teachers probably form the most capable group of individuals in our country. It’s best not to provoke them

Some misguided students might opt for including any costs in the Department of Defense budget. Trouble with that is … well there are many troubles with it, the main being that the DOD doesn’t favor sharing its bounty with anyone, save defense contractors. It doesn’t even include veteran’s care in its budgeting frolics.

I’m sure that even college students would recognize major problems with the Americans With Disabilities Act. There would be legal challenges flying from both directions: “Don’t tell me I must participate,” and “Don’t tell me I can’t participate.”

Oh, what about African-American teachers? Hell, they get shot down by both actual and self-proclaimed protectors of citizens, even when they don’t have guns in their hands. Would there be waivers? That should cause some heavy thinking, for we teach them that the granting of waivers is a slippery path that could lead to, oh, say, unqualified people receiving security clearances.

I’ve taught them that a degree in public administration offers job opportunities in the field of consulting work. Some students from conservative families would, no doubt, mention opportunities in writing performance standards or as serving as product representatives for arms manufacturers. It would stand as a big disappointment when I had to tell them that those jobs were probably filled before the proposal was made public. Blood is thicker than water, they say, as long as it’s not someone else’s blood.

Other than ADA issues, I would caution students to tread lightly on the legal implications. First, they aren’t attorneys. Second, a supreme court with Clarence Thomas et al in the majority cannot be analyzed by any normal academic standards.

It would be fun to think about it some more, if the whole affair wasn’t so cosmically terrifying.

President Trump explains that
not all teachers must be armed.

In a strange sort of way, some who may suffer most over America’s “gun thing,” may be the harmless hobbyists, hunters, and enthusiasts.

Although I am not one, I have no great bone to pick with these folks. Some probably don’t collect banjos. To each his own I say, as I down my morning glass of buttermilk and listen to Schubert.

I view it this way. There will come a time when mothers get fed up with seeing the cold corpses of their children spread across the schoolyard. Then they will act. It won’t be because of the killing that happened this week. It won’t be the one after, nor the next one, perhaps not even the one after. The NRA won’t allow it as long as its coffers overflow and some politicians have deep hands.

But it will happen someday. Just wait and see. There will come a day when the “butcher’s bill” gets too great. And those who read history, in states where it is still revered and taught, will remember what happens when mothers get mad enough against something.

Then what will happen? There won’t be a discussion then. It will be too late for one, not too soon as the “auto-response” button puts it. Grab a history book and look up the Volstead Act of 1919, then tell me Americans won’t go to extremes when it suits them.

When that happens, as the scriptures tell us, the rain will fall on the just and the unjust. Good, decent people, of whom I am blessed to know many, will suffer along with the thugs who run the National Rifle Association, the manufacturers who own them, and the once-majority of politicians. It won’t be pretty.

What happened? How did we get into this mess? I believe good people were sold a bad bill of goods. Moreover, they failed to sense the betrayal from what once was a benign organization that taught young kids—I was one—the value of safe and sane firearms usage. Too many stayed in its ranks until it has become the tool of the purveyors of death.  Good people make bad decisions. Why?

Things change, sometimes so gradually that we don’t notice. Who can pinpoint the exact date when that benign organization became the evil, blood-soaked empire that it is today? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that innocent owners of firearms, who simply wanted to collect, hunt, compete, or protect their homes, stayed latched onto the NRA like it was the Pied Piper. And, as in that cautionary tale, blind followers may ultimately face the same end.

It will be a shame, for many going over that cliff will be, as I say, kind, generous, good-hearted people, but last seen holding hands with the imbeciles that carry loaded assault rifles into Walmart, our schools, churches, or other gatherings of the innocent.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t want your firearms. I already have some that I have inherited and don’t know what to do with. I don’t want to take any away from you, and I don’t recall right off hearing anyone else with half a brain proposing to. I simply don’t care what you do inside your home, the deep woods, or in a spot designated for discharging weapons of destruction.

If you simply can’t abide the thought, yeah there may be some, of not using your firearm to kill another human, be aware that the military is scraping the bottom of the barrel in its recruitment efforts. Your enlistment might postpone the ultimate return of the draft one more day. (Full disclosure: the animals hunted by the military do shoot back).

I just want to talk to you about not elevating your gun to the status of a religious icon. Religious icons have wreaked havoc on our planet for eons, from the fate of the Midianites to the destruction of the Twin Towers. It’s time we put those aside.

I just want reasonable people with different points of view to sit and discuss ways to prevent the carnage, and don’t say it won’t work. It works in other countries. Don’t say our “founding fathers” were infallible when they wrote the Constitution. If they were, many of my friends would still be counted as three-fifths of a human and my wife couldn’t vote at all. And let us all bear in mind that if it had been the “founding mothers” we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Imagine reasonable people sitting down to discuss a solution to a festering sore that is slaughtering our innocents. I think it could happen. Call me a dreamer if you wish, but “I’m not the only one.”

And it’s not to soon. Just a few more slaughterings, however, and it will be too late.

Grandmothers get mad too.
Best not risk it.