The Second Amendment is failure and a mistake

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos posted a map of the territory from Kharkiv to Kyiv that Russia controlled in March. This included the cities of Sumy and Chernihiv. Russia left this area by early April. Sumner wrote there is word that Russian forces are again gathering across the border from Sumy and Chernihiv. The first question is what Russian forces? The Russian military, after three months of war, has been significantly degraded. The second question is why? Weren’t they pulled out of norther Ukraine to help the Donbas attack, which isn’t going all that well? Is Russia doing this so Ukraine must divert forces that have been pushing back the Russians threatening Kharkiv? https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/25/2100121/-Ukraine-update-As-Russia-captures-towns-in-the-east-it-s-once-again-threatening-the-north The effort to push Russians away from Kharkiv has slowed. Russia’s advance in Donbas is progressing, slowly. Sumner wrote:

Russia is in a stronger position to threaten Ukraine’s eastern cities than it has been at any time since the invasion began. The situation north of Kharkiv is far less rosy than it was two weeks ago, with Ukrainian forces apparently stalled and possibly in retreat from locations that were previously liberated. Things are looking tough. None of this means Russia is about to “win the war.” It doesn’t even mean that Russia is close to achieving the pared down goals it announced after the ignominious retreat from Kyiv. Not that achieving those goals matters, because Ukraine won’t stop fighting just because Putin declares he has filled in his checklist. It is not time for panic. Russia has been pushing their forces forward in patchwork units against defended positions. They’re still having far more failed attempts to advance than they are successful ones.

And NATO weapons are still being put in place. In response to the latest mass shooting, this one in Uvalde, Texas, Sumner discussed the history of the Second Amendment. Some of his major points: The First Amendment, the one on Free Speech, has no qualifiers within its text in the Constitution. And yet the law does put limits on it. Libel and slander are illegal. So is inciting sedition. These laws were updated when radio, movies, television, and internet came along. The boundary between what is and isn’t libel and slander are constantly fought over in court. So, of course, the Second Amendment needs limits and updating as well. The Second Amendment has a qualifier, that part of being part of a well regulated militia. At the time the Constitution was written there was fear of an authoritarian leader or of a new democracy being overthrown by the military. So the Second was written so that state militias could contribute to national defense. At the start of the war of 1812 what national military existed was far from adequate. So were the civilian militias in the states. The Second was a failure. And that was shown more than 200 years ago. In a year the national military quadrupled and state solutions were on their way out.

The Second Amendment is failure. It never worked for its intended purposes. It was born from the understandable fears of a new nation engaged in a radical new scheme. But it was a mistake.

It has been the second most costly mistake in the nation’s history – the costliest was failing to end slavery from the start. The right thing to do would be to repeal it – in the same way the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th. Yeah, Sumner knows how not likely that is to happen.

An AR-15 is not a musket, damn it. It’s not “a modern musket” or the “equivalent of a musket” or anything like a musket, and all the bulls--- in the world won’t make it so. Congress and regulators recognize that changing technology obligates them to change how they deal with other rights. They could at least do that much when it comes to guns. The idea that any government body, from the local city council to Congress, can’t pass regulations limiting the technology that can be included in a weapon is ridiculous. It’s counter to the way we treat every other right, rights that are genuinely unbounded in the Constitution.

And the nonsense that individual citizens have a right to own guns didn’t exist until it appeared in the minds of enough Supreme Court Justices in 2008. Many of them are still on the Court. When the Texas shooting happened Schumer quickly vowed there would be a vote in the Senate over a House passed bill to strengthen background checks. He wanted to make sure American voters knew where their senators stand. Yeah, that didn’t last long. Joan McCarter of Kos reported by the next day Schumer was backing down. The first reason is the Memorial Day recess – the day to mourn and remember the dead. Second reason: Americans already know the position of their senators. And the third, and most true, reason: He doesn’t have the votes and doesn’t want Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to publicly declare they will vote no on breaking the filibuster. And protecting Manchin and Sinema, and their protecting the filibuster, is more important than protecting the lives of children. It is good to see a few senators, such as John Tester of Montana and Mark Kelly of Arizona, expressing their frustration. Mark Kelly’s wife is Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot and nearly killed in 2011. Texas Republicans held a press conference at Uvalde High School. I do not want to know what they said and thankfully April Siese of Kos doesn’t tell us. I’m sure they nicest thing they said was “Thoughts and Prayers,” the rest would have been a steaming pile of ... well, never mind. At this press conference was Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Speaker Dade Phelan, Sens. Cornyn and Cruz – all of them darlings of the NRA. There was one more important person there: Beto O’Rourke the Democratic candidate for Abbott’s job. No, he wasn’t invited. He interrupted the proceedings to call out those on stage saying, “this is on you.” He was escorted from the room. He talked to the press outside, repeating his basic point and listing all the other things that could be done to support grieving Uvalde families. That included things like paying for funeral expenses. And tightening background checks. And banning 18 year olds from buying guns.