A Well Regulated Militia

"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."

Amendment II to the Constitution of the United States

Back in the mid-eighties, I taught a Head Start class in what was the biggest high school in the United States. Clifton Park High School in Baltimore City was in a poor neighborhood and like many high schools in Baltimore had a reputation for violence. Since the school never attracted enough students to approach capacity the city put part of its Pre K program and Morgan State University's Head Start program in the lower floors in the back of the school. 

The whole pre school section of the Clifton Park was off limits to the high school students as was the back of the school where our students were dropped and picked up. Within weeks of the semester two murders of high school students by classmates occurred. Both deaths were caused by handguns- a 357 Magnum (Dirty Harry's massive pistol) and a 38 cal.  And both occurred right outside the door our children used just minutes before their release. 

Shooting deaths in and around Baltimore public schools were not uncommon and no action was taken to my knowledge to remedy the high school students violating our area. The police had a regular presence in the front of the massive building where the older students were supposed to enter and exit but I felt that the troublemakers were almost forced to our back side for their gang, drug and violent activities. 

I was shocked after the second shooting to find administrators explaining that we did not need a police presence outside our doors at the end of the school day because the high schoolers were not supposed to be there. 

I raised hell threatening to go to editors I had worked with as a freelance journalist and alienated the few allies I had in the program. In the anxious days following the second shooting I contemplated bringing a handgun with me to school to protect the children in my charge. Finally, we got our patrol car and I could go back to worrying about the educational and social needs of the kids. 

I relate this story to you in light of the recent massacre in New Town, Connecticut. I listen to the experts and politicians speculate on how we might better protect our children and I don't hear any answers. And I don't have any answers though it is a topic I have mulled in my heart and mind for decades. 

The Supreme Court has recently interpreted the Second Amendment to our Constitution as granting a right to individuals to own and bear arms. I'm not sure how they reasoned it so and personally do not care. The amendment is a grammatical disaster composed of four clauses linked by commas. The term "the people" is a collective term seen in the Preamble as "We the people of the United States." When the Constitution refers to the rights of individuals it usually uses the term "citizens."

How a right not to be infringed can be extracted from a sentence that begins with "A well regulated Militia" followed by a subordinate clause "being necessary to the security of a free State" I can't imagine. I am not a Constitutional scholar nor can I read the minds of the long dead framers of our founding document though Justice Scalia and Thomas claim to. 

That said, I do believe that Americans with full citizenship rights should be able to own a hand gun or simple hunting rifle. When our founding fathers were alive it took around a minute to load a single shot into a rifle or pistol. Nothing short of an artillery piece of their time could have produced anything near the slaughter we are seeing increasing in our society.

I am not against gun ownership but against semi and fully automatic weapons, large magazines and any other weapon that was developed for battlefield conditions being in hands of private citizens. Though background checks probably are helpful the shooter at New Town shot and stole the weapons of his first victim, his mother. Her sanity did not keep the weapons out of the hands of her disturbed son.

If you feel that you can not protect your home without a machine gun you probably should move. If you have fought for this country I regret that you do not have a right to a weapon similar to the one you used in that service anymore than you have a right to a tank or fighter plane. 

These are my thoughts and feelings and the only expertise I can claim is that I know what it is to worry about having children in my charge shot down. It is not something that happened somewhere else to someone else. It was my kids. In my backyard. 

As always, I invite your comments to my blog. 

Don Arrup

Satire1

Right Brain Left Hand

President Obama addressed the nation on national radio.

My fellow Americans, as we are all aware a sizable portion of our neighbors are still struggling and those who always struggle are in desperate straights. We here in Washington, both Republicans and Democrats, are trying our best to deal with the country’s wars and crises and we are not getting the job done.

The first thing that both parties have to do now is throw away the masks and own up to our true political natures. Only then with all the cards on the table can we have a true political dialog and begin to address the nation’s problems.

Democrats are not socialists. Democrats are communists. Not totalitarian communists but democratic communists. There is certainly not a dictatorship of the proletariat but a dictatorship of special interests and lobbyists. We are elected and if the majority of voters are unhappy with us we surrender our office and return home to meddle in our communities.

The Republicans are the socialists. National Socialists. They allow industries to write their own regulations, are devoted to the military industrial complex and promote the idea that every household is a militia.

We godless hippie tree huggers would rather destroy the entire economy of the Pacific Northwest than endanger an owl even PBS can’t get a picture of while the Bible thumping politically correct racists want the government out of our pockets but checking our genitals if we wish to marry.

These are legitimate political differences that accurately reflect the views of the American people. There is no easy solution but America doesn’t quit when the going gets tough. America gets violent.

I have spoken to Senator Reid and Ex-Speaker Pelosi and together we have invited the Republican leaders to a closed-door session to see if we can find an equitable division of sovereignty between the parties. For instance, the Republicans will control legislation concerning firearms which means there will be no gun control while the Democrats will be free to completely nationalize the health care system.

Republicans can eliminate income, capital gains and death taxes while Democrats raise Social Security and Medicare contributions to the roof. Corporations can continue to regulate themselves while poor people continue to fend for themselves. Our armed services will begin collecting protection funds directly from the American people through their federalized National Guard units. Customs, DEA, FBI, CIA and the federal courts will operate off of confiscations. Air Traffic Control will be eliminated and I doubt anyone will notice.

National Parks will of course have to raise fees to become self sufficient and the States will have to buy disaster area insurance from the private sector. Good luck to Florida and Louisiana. The State Department will become the nation’s sole travel agency and passports will have to be renewed with each trip.

With these changes your entire federal government within ten years time could be running as smoothly and efficiently as Amtrak, the Post Office, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

We are currently in negotiations to sell Alaska back to Russia at a handsome profit and China is considering relieving a sizable portion of our debt in exchange for Hawaii. Neither of these territories ever truly became part of the union as evidenced in their lack of professional ball clubs. They were mistakenly given statehood at the height of Cold War hysteria and with the Berlin Wall long gone it is time to dump these welfare states. And I am a son of Hawaii.

This may sound crazy to the columnists and talking heads but right now we are not willing to do what is necessary to either stimulate the economy or control the debt. Both our economy and war efforts are on life support and we’re compromising every treatment down to an aspirin tablet. Our inaction is turning the America we hand over to our children into a Chinese debtor’s prison. This is not what our Founding Fathers, Marx and Hitler, intended.

Don Arrup

Satire1

2013 No

Tea Party favorite Chris Christie used his power as governor of New Jersey to cancel Halloween in the Garden State to protect children from falling tree limbs and downed power lines left in the wake of super storm Sandy. So far, there is no indication the governor will outlaw Christmas. 

The fate of the new year of 2013 though is sealed. By executive order Governor Christie has cancelled both the New Year and all years following until it can be determined that they present no danger to the citizens of NJ. 

"Our state has just suffered a terrible wallop from Sandy and it will be years before many of our communities will recover. What we don't need just as we start to pick up the debris of 2012 is the thirteenth year of the millennium.  So I have instructed our state and local governments to ignore the standard calendar which was never voted on by the people of New Jersey and simply assign the days, weeks and months following December 31st as 2012 Two."

"I think the people of New Jersey deserve another shot at 2012. We were doing well, recovering from the Great Recession, until an unelected supernatural bureaucrat mother of nature committed this act of terrorism on us."

"President Obama, who has been outstanding in coordinating federal relief with our state and local agencies, supports canceling 2013 if we drop the ball on 2014 the following year."

"This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. This is a I just don't want to face a new year issue."

Don Arrup

Satire1