Tag: NRA

What’s wrong with this picture?

Posted on by kathiemm
Sandy Hook Memorial
Sandy Hook Memorial
Photo by Bbjeter, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

On the one hand:

  • Under our beautiful for spacious skies, 20-year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, on December 14, 2012—a horrifying number for one time and one place but apparently not horrifying enough.
  • Guns continue to be among the leading causes of death in the lives of American children and a large number of gun deaths go unreported.
  • From sea to shining sea, there were 23 more mass killings in the year after the massacre at Sandy Hook
  • In our land where purple mountains are majesties, daily and weekend reports of gun deaths of innocent people including children are available to all.  Read and weep.

On the other hand:

  • Although “America the Beautiful” urges Americans to “confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law!” liberty seems to have bamboozled law in Georgia’s new Safe Carry Protection Act of 2014 (also known as the “guns everywhere bill”), which will come into effect on July 1, 2014.

This bill, cloaked in the euphemistic language of “defending ourselves,” allows citizens with concealed carry permits , even if they have committed previous gun crimes, to take guns into some bars, churches, school zones, government buildings, and certain parts of airports. Will this make you feel more secure if you live in or travel to Georgia?

The NRA, thrilled with the law, will not be crowning our good with brotherhood; there’s too much innocent blood on their hands.

For further consideration:

Check out this horror story: Just one weekend’s worth of gun shootings.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

The first American gun control law: the Second Amendment

Posted on by kathiemm

Second AmendmentThe arms manufacturers and the NRA lobbyists have it all backwards. The Second Amendment was not created to guarantee an individual right to bear and use arms for whatever purposes desired. Instead, the Amendment can be considered the nation’s first national gun control law, designed to keep arms out of the hands of insurrectionists.

The Second Amendment’s national gun control effort was preceded by state gun control laws. For example, in the 1750s, Georgia statutes required slave patrol militias to make monthly searches of “all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition,” that is, to keep guns out of the hands of slaves.

Although James Madison’s original wording of the Second Amendment stressed the importance of “a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country,” the word “country” was replaced by “state,” in order to win the approval of Virginia and other slave-owning states for the new Constitution.

In its final wording–“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 Second Amendment:

  • Granted the federal government the right to use armed militias to protect the security of the new nation, and
  • Left untouched the state right to use militias to prevent slaves from obtaining and using weapons.

To learn more, read this article or watch this powerful interview with Thom Hartman.

For more than 100 years, the judgments of state and federal courts as well as the United States Supreme Court held sway: the Second Amendment did not guarantee an individual’s right to buy and use guns outside the context of a state-controlled militia.

Then as recently as 1977, at a meeting of the National Rifle Association, a concerted effort was undertaken by ultraconservatives to sell the country on a reframed version of the Second Amendment establishing those rights.

The arms industry has now gained control over enough of the government to usurp arms control, undermining the democratic processes by which ordinary citizens seek to reinstate reasonable restrictions on weapons sales.

So ask yourself, do you want arms manufacturers rewriting our history and our Constitution, especially when their lobbying has contributed to the U.S. having the world’s highest gun fatality rate?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Valentine’s Day messages for peace

Posted on by kathiemm

Today is Valentine’s Day, a day to embrace love over hate, non-violence over death and destruction, peace over war.

Many groups that embrace an ethic of peace and social justice focus some of their creative energy and dedication to Valentine’s Day messages, and these are particularly appropriate during the Season of Nonviolence.

The V-Day movement, an international effort to end violence against women, began in 1998 with one event and this year involves more than 1500 events in at least 140 countries. Working with other organizations dedicated to non-violent social change, they are the sponsors of One Billion Rising.

One Billion Rising is urging “ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to violence against women” today and every day.

United to End Genocide plans to deliver a valentine to the National Rifle Association (NRA) saying, “Have a heart: Don’t Kill the Arms Trade Treaty.” My name will be on that valentine. How about yours?  You can learn more about United to End Genocide by watching this video.

United to End Genocide is joined in this Valentine’s Day Plan by the Win Without War Coalition, which includes groups such as the American Friends Service Committee, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Council for a Livable World, Greenpeace,  the NAACP, NOW, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

The Women’s Human Rights Program of Amnesty International USA plans to deliver a Valentine’s Day message to Congress, reminding them that all women deserve to live a life free from violence. So do all men.

Enjoy the day, spread love, and find a way to join the singing and dancing of the One Billion Rising movement.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

The holy text of the NRA

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Dr. Mike Corgan

The Second Amendment’s 27 words are the holiest of holy texts to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its supporters. “We get to have guns” is an absolute right, says the NRA.

Assault rifle
Photo by 82josh used under CCA-SA 3.0 Unported license.

Is the Second or any of the other Bill of Rights Amendments absolute? Not so in the case of the First Amendment–freedom of speech. Federal courts have said you can’t “falsely call fire in a theater.”

But gun advocates seem to think differently, i.e., any infringement begins the “slippery slope” to confiscation.

Of all the Amendments in the Bill Of Rights, only the Second has an introductory clause that states its purpose: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State….”

In this Amendment, the words Militia, State, and Arms are capitalized, but “people” is not. Does this suggest an emphasis on what was deemed important, as writers of those days usually intended?

A number of federal courts have held that that the introductory clause is not itself  restrictive, yet it does stand alone in the Bill.

A recent article in the New York Times reported that the U.S. Constitution is no longer the model for new democracies around the globe. The reason? The Second Amendment.

Gun violence is still one of of the areas in which the U.S. leads the world. Another recent article in the Times noted that American buyers are keeping the Kalashnikov assault rifle factory in Russia going strong.

Is this how we want to be known?

Michael T. Corgan, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
Department of International Relations, Boston University