More school shootings and more youngsters are killed by guns in the hands of other youngsters. Kendrick Castillo (18) was killed yesterday at STEM School Highlands Ranch, in Colorado, and Riley Howell (21) was killed last week at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, in North Carolina.
Castillo and Howell have the noble, albeit unenviable distinction of being murdered while trying to stop the shooters at their respective schools. Some call them heroes, and they undoubtedly are, but they are fundamentally victims of entrenched greed for money and power at the expense of the most defenseless amongst us, school kids. Will this carnage ever stop?
Let us not fool ourselves, as long as the National Rifle Association (NRA) OWNS the Second Amendment and OWNS the Republican Party, nothing will change. School and other mass shootings will go on, indefinitely. (Even my iPhone knows this! Whenever I type the word ‘school’ and click space, the phone’s Predictive Text suggests the word ‘shootings.’) These massacres are devastating and must move the issue of gun control to the top of every politician’s agenda.
Every politician needs to stand up & speak out; most importantly, politicians must come together and work on writing and enacting legislations which would strengthen gun-control laws. The laws should not only address sales and ownership of high power rifles, automatic or semiautomatic, but also of handguns which can be extremely efficient in killing many people in a very short span of time.
American schools have become high risk zones and all Washington, DC, can do is tab out time after time, after time, after time, under the crushing locomotive of “donations” (bribes) that is grinding the moral compass of over-ambitious politicians and shredding the flesh and bones of America’s children. The only implications which matters to GOP donors, including major bundlers, is to rake as much money from the NRA as possible. Of course, the only implication for the NRA is to sell as many guns as possible, regardless of who gets hurt in the end.
The overall goal of the NRA is to grow its profits and the profits of the powerful gun cartel it represents and its wide-ranging affiliates. The merchants of death can not be persuaded to change their ways, it is the people who must remove them and their protectors and sponsors from all four halls of power: House, Senate, White House, and Judiciary. People who are eligible to vote can, through voting for Democrats who are for stricter gun control laws, bring about the change necessary to ending the slaughter of unsuspecting children, teenagers, and other innocent bystanders.
Kids in school should be pre-occupied with school work, sports, lunch choices, annoying or cool apps, who’s cute and who’s super cute, superhero movies, sleepovers, harmless pranks, travel ideas, holidays, and summer plans. Kids in school should not be pre-occupied with what to do in case someone walks into the classroom and unleashes a fiery hell from a high power rifle or handgun and if such shooting breaks out, whether to tackle the shooter, or call mom for the last time, whether to huddle under a desk or jump out of the window, whether to pretend to be dead or to beg the cold-blooded shooter for mercy.
The names of Kendrick Castillo and Riley Howell are now added to the long, long list of the hundreds of schoolchildren, mall shoppers, moviegoers, and other people who are murdered every year for no reason other than being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Of course, as a parent, it’s hard for me to accept that any of those places is the wrong place at any time, ever. The blood of these two young people, and of all the equally precious victims who passed on before them and those who will undoubtedly follow, is on hands of Republican politicians. The blood of those victims is equally on the hands of Republican voters who walked into voting booths across the country and so callously pulled the lever for politicians who are no more than acquiescent NRA lap-poodles. Shame on you, Republican voters. Don’t you love your children? Well? Yes? Then, show it.
Finally, regarding the Second Amendment, the “A well regulated Militia” which is referenced in the amendment at the time the amendment was crafted refers to militias which fought against the tyranny of England’s Union Jack and Crown, and ultimately came together and constituted the national guard. The upper case M in the word “Militia” serves to reference specific militia, a well regulated militia, and not any random group or groups of armed individuals. The original 1779 draft of the amendment (National Archives) features the word with the upper case M, although a version of the 1791-ratified draft removes all upper case letters from the internal words: militia, state, and army. These changes in the aggregate do not undermine the specificity conveyed by capitalization because of the specificity is conferred upon the intent of the entire amendment by the words “A well regulated.”
An expanded definition of “A well regulated Militia” nowadays would encompass those in uniform, including military, law enforcement, and national guard. “A well regulated Militia” doesn’t extend to average citizens, hunters who relish blowing up dear brains into a million pieces with an M4 riffle, or some doomsday enthusiasts who wants to add to his carnage equipment reserve. “A well regulated Militia” certainly does not refer to a disgruntled high school kid, or a troubled teenager or a gambler in his sixties who is reached the end of hope and decides to make a “grand” exit.
And if “A well regulated Militia” does in fact include all those trigger-prone maniacs, then, it is time to shred the Second Amendment to pieces, or keep it preserved at the National Archives as a historic relic, in much the same way we preserve a dinosaur skeleton. Its time has come and gone; the Redcoats have fully withdrawn and are no longer a threat, King George is dead, and Theresa May is firmly mired in the colossal blunder of Brexit. Then, we will need to replace the Second Amendment with an Amendment that is pro-children, all children, regardless of their parents political affiliations or belief system. Enough hiding behind a centuries old bumper sticker. Let’s come up with something better. Now.
Azzam Elayan
Thursday, May 9, 2019
