The head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says he fears that a drumbeat of mass shootings and other gun violence across the United States could make Americans numb to the bloodshed, fostering apathy to finding solutions rather than galvanizing communities to act.
Director Steve Dettelbach’s comments to The Associated Press came after he met this past week with family members of some of the 18 people killed in October at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston, Maine by a U.S. Army reservist who later took his own life.
He said people must not accept that gun violence is a prevalent part of American life.
When I visited the Netherlands, there was something I felt that I couldn’t really find the words for at the time. It was a lightness, that upon stepping off the train and embarking down the steps to Amsterdam proper, my soul just felt light.
Later on, I’m in a weed cafe when an American couple walk in. The man walks towards the back restroom after making a purchase, leaving his significant other at the counter. She smiles with her whole body, and says loudly, perhaps louder than she realized, “you don’t have a gun!” she laughs, “I feel safe!”
And that’s what it was. That lightness. When we arrived, unbeknownst to us, the burden of thought that surrounds you in the U.S. where every chance encounter could lead to a violent death, where every supermarket or corner store holds within it the potential for a mass shooting. This ever prevalent threat of gun violence that surrounds us everyday, we get used to it. So used to it, that when we find ourselves somewhere without it, the feeling of peace and safety that accompany this loss is felt in your soul.
But you don’t realize it’s there until you feel what life can be without it. Tally it up as just another burden we carry, beholden to gun manufacturers. The toll is not just in the loss of life, but also the loss of peace within ourselves and our communities.
I’m not following, who did she think might have a gun? You? Why would she have thought that?
Also, where in the US do you live that gun violence is actually surrounding you personally? I’ve lived in different parts of the US all my life and I’ve never felt that, nor a marked difference when traveling internationally.
We keep trying, but the courts and legislatures are packed with 2A nutters who believe that “a well regulated militia” means there shouldn’t be any restrictions on gun ownership.
To be fair to those legislators, that amendment is fairly clear with its ‘shall not be infringed’ statement. The only way out of that issue is to pass a new amendment invalidating the old one.
Except that’s not how it was interpreted until District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008.
Up until then, the right to bear arms was directly connected to the necessity of a well regulated militia. Then the Court reinterpreted it to say that the right is completely unconnected to service in a militia, and now guns are much more difficult to regulate.
Don’t fall for the propaganda. The Supreme Court can just make up whatever shit they want. All that matters is who the Justices are.
Well regulated obviously means not regulated at all.
I am still confused what militia is supposed to mean.
It’s the common definition, part-time military, not a standing army. The founders of the United States didn’t want a permanent military. The Constitution itself says “no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years”. They felt it would tend toward militaristic authoritarianism. They wanted the national defense to be the people in general, and those people would obviously need to be armed. Thus, the second amendment, to ensure that Congress could not say “okay now only our guys can have weapons” and oppress the people.
Of course that didn’t really last because it wasn’t realistic, and a regular army was created almost right away.
Ok so why is it a right? Seems to me you are describing basically a volunteer fire department and if that is the case clearly 90 years old aren’t going to be part of it. I don’t know any other right that you lose by being too old.
Samuel Whittemore was fighting the British at 80. He got shot in the face but lived to 98.
That case is a bit unusual, but in times of war, anyone who can fight, does. And not everyone is a front-line infantryman; any military needs something like six to ten times as much support staff as fighting force. Those people are usually armed in combat zones too, because the fighting might come to them (and like the Marines say, every Marine a rifleman).
Cool. Now I am just going to point to the blind. Got some anecdote from history about a blind soldier?
Also if they aren’t frontline I am a bit confused about why they need a gun. I have done a bit of work on some Navy stuff as a civilian and a rifle wouldn’t have help me much in that task.
Can you name another right that vanishes based on physical fitness?
I’m sure there have been blind soldiers, but I don’t know any off the top of my head.
Like I said, any servicemember in a combat zone might be armed, because the fight could come to them. If the other guys try to overrun your defense, you don’t want all those people sitting around helpless, you want them to fight back.
It’s not specifically dependent on physical fitness, it’s about service in a militia, despite what SCOTUS said in Heller. Conscientious objectors, for example, would probably not be militiamen and therefore would be looked at with suspicion if they didn’t have another good reason to own firearms (e.g. sport shooting, gunsmithing, or hunting, though I’m not sure they’d want to participate in those either).
