The Second Amendment has become a right to murder

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported on a pronouncement:

We have got to figure out some way to identify these troubled young men & it's very complicated because after every one of these shootings there are people who say ‘Oh you know I thought he was pretty strange. I wish I notified somebody about it,’

In the case of the Highland Park members of the shooter’s family called police on him twice. Which makes it quite infuriating that the guy who spoke those words was Moscow Mitch – the guy who, because of his position in the Senate, has done the most to keep gun restrictions from passing. Which means he hopes we’ll see a tiny drop of compassion in his words. He’s doing it to prevent passage of more restrictive gun laws. Hunter of Kos wrote a great essay on America’s gun culture. We all heard about the shooting in Highland Park. But that was only one of eleven mass shootings over the holiday weekend. Through the rest of the essay Hunter discussed a tweet by Sen. Ted Cruz who declared the Second Amendment is about the right to defend your right and your family. Which has become a right to murder. Hunter wrote:

A "good guy" with a gun decides that people he personally knows need murdering, so he does it. ... This, after all, is the very premise of American gun ownership. If some other American does something you simply cannot abide, then militia movements, the National Rifle Association, and Republican would-be presidential candidates all agree that you must be given access to a gun so that you can respond. It is called “self-defense.” ... The Ted Cruz argument is that all Americans have the right to determine whether they need to shoot six, 10, or 60 such people in order to "defend" themselves against a perceived threat, and the right to stock weapons capable of doing it, and the only role of policing is to sort out whether or not the law justifies the killing after the bodies are stacked up and carted away. But Americans have the right to make the choice to kill, Ted Cruz and the other argue, and their right to decide for themselves who needs killing and when must be given absolute precedence over the rights of everyone else around them.

When that gun is aimed at you your choices come down to shoot back – or die. Their right to shoot you trumps your right to not die. Those that advocate the “Good Murder Theory” saw the shooting in Uvalde as an ideal scenario – the shooter has plenty of time to identify those that need murdering and kill them before police intervene. And the police hesitate because they’re afraid of the gunman. The point of gun ownership is to kill dozens before being taken out. Nope, other countries don’t do it this way. Their definition of self defense means actually being physically threatened at the moment. And a person doesn’t get access to guns. And if you do have one that’s proof you’re a threat and the police have the right to subdue you. The American version is seditious. It is a belief that the right to murder trumps government itself. That means the murderer is given total access to guns and society judges whether the it was a “good” murder after the victim is dead.

We are the only one that looks at the victims inside a bloody grade school classroom or alongside a 4th of July parade route and declares that it is good that the murderer was able to accomplish that much because it shows future "good" killers could do at least that much, in an imagined future in which the nation might depend on a sea of "good" killers to set things right. It is deranged. Prioritizing the rights of murderers to murder on impulse and with maximum efficiency in order to prepare for a future in which "good" murderers can dominate their enemies is absolutely deranged. The only people who would advocate for it are those that truly believe their personal or political enemies may someday need murdering, if push comes to shove. People like Ted Cruz.

In thinking about what Hunter wrote – about the claim such murders are self defense – I note the civilians who end up dead are not in the moment threatening the physical safety of the shooter. What they feel is being threatened is their position (or its lack) in the social hierarchy. That they value more than their own lives. As for killers to “set things right” I know quite well who they want to kill to make that happen. April Siese of Kos discussed an article from Rolling Stone. Peggy Nienaber is the vice president of the anti-abortion group Faith & Liberty and the executive director of Liberty Counsel’s DC Ministry. Liberty Counsel is cited as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The news is that Nienaber was caught on video saying she prays with some of the Supreme Court justices (though she’s disappointed it’s not all) and does it in the Supreme Court building. This is a big problem, even if they don’t discuss specific cases, for two reasons: First, it violates the separation of church and state because it clearly invites one particular religion into government action. Second, Liberty Counsel frequently brings cases before the Court. And the members of the Court who participate in these prayers are highly biased in their favor. Sawyer Hackett tweeted that video. Kos of Kos again discussed the tankies, those that believe only America is imperialist and no one else has free agency. They believe Sweden and Finland didn’t ask to join NATO to avoid Russian imperialism but because America tricked them into it. I’ll let you read the rest of what Kos has to say about them. I’m only posting this because near the top is a good thing – a map of Europe showing NATO in 1998 and in 2022 (before Sweden and Finland applied). The only European countries west of Ukraine not in NATO are Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Bosnia, and Serbia. For several years now NPR hosts and reporters have read the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July. This year they broke from that tradition to explore the phrase “All men are created equal.” Host Steve Inskeep led the discussion. We get caught up in the limits of the word “men” in that phrase, but historian Jill Lepore says for the 18th century this was quite radical. These men were from a highly ranked culture and to challenge and throw away that ranking is revolutionary. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed says Jefferson understood the contradiction of equality amongst white people but not between white and black. Jefferson’s plan was to give black people their own country and government “because he didn't think Blacks would forgive whites for what they had done, and whites would never give up their prejudices. So we would constantly be in a state of conflict.” And that state of conflict endures. By 1791 people not included in the original claim of equality threw Jefferson’s words back at him. Benjamin Banneker, a black naturalist and writer, did it that year. The women at the 1848 Seneca Falls, NY convention rewrote the phrase to add “and women” to it. By the time of Frederick Douglass the goal shifted from denouncing the phrase to saying include us in it. As part of seceding the South said that phrase is wrong, that the black man is not equal. The South lost and equality (at least racial equality) finally became a part of the Constitution as the 14th amendment. And as part of the Constitution over the decades other groups demanded inclusion – natives, women, blacks, people wanting to be free of huge corporate monopolies, and LGBTQ people. The debate over the meaning of equality continues. Does a woman have equal control over her body? Who is, and is not, allowed to vote? Some claim that certain people are more equal than others. We need to keep the debate going.