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We have a problem with gun violence in this country as again demonstrated on Tuesday in Maine, a problem that halfway measures will not solve. It comes from the proliferation of dangerous weapons allowed by a gross misinterpretation of that Amendment by the Supreme Court.
In D.C. vs Heller in 2008, the Supreme Court
ruled that the final 14 words of the Amendment can stand alone and not be tied
to its first 13 words, which originally enunciated the Amendment’s purpose.
This, and subsequent SCOTUS decisions resulted in the proliferation of guns,
including military style assault weapons, and thousands of deaths over the
years since 2008 in this country.
It is time to address this problem, and not in
a half-way manner, such as blaming mental health issues or waiting periods on
gun purchases. The best solution would
be a repeal of the Second Amendment and its replacement by one more
realistically worded. That,
unfortunately, according to the Constitution’s provisions, would take broad
congressional and State approval and take many decades to bring about. We do
not have time for that.
The best answer rests with the Supreme
Court. Because its size is not mandated
by the Constitution, the President, with the approval of the Senate, can
appoint additional Justices. Four more
would effectively balance the SCOTUS, the majority of whose Justices either
voted for the misinterpretation back in
2008 or have been since appointed and have chosen not to challenge opinions
based upon it. Only
then, with an expanded Supreme Court, can there be an attempt to eliminate gun
violence in this country.
This would open the way to a SCOTUS decision
(a) banning civilian possession of military assault weapons but still (b) allowing civilians to possess weapons for use in hunting, sports activities, and
personal or business protection, all within careful federal, rather than State,
guidelines. State legislatures, hotbeds
of political rivalries, cannot be trusted in regard to this subject. Maine, for example, had few if any gun control regulations. This is too important to leave to the States. Lives are at stake.
Four steps are necessary on your
part to accomplish this:
1. Writing
to President Biden and your Senators demanding expansion of the Supreme Court
by at least four new Justices. Do it today.
2. Donating
to organizations presently working hard to curtail gun violence. Two of them
are Giffords.org and Bradyunited.org, both named for public servants who were
the victims of gun violence. Do it today.
3. And
most important of all, your personal and continuing involvement is required. (Step 4 will follow in a few paragraphs.)
That involvement would include talking to
people about the necessity of gun control, as discussed above. Talk about Parkland, Uvalde, Sandy Hook,
Lewiston, Buffalo, El Paso, etc., massacres that might have involved them or
their children or relatives if they had been on the scene. All of the
arguments are on your side, with only the misinterpretation of the Second
Amendment on the side of those opposed to gun controls. Be careful though. Many who oppose gun controls also
harbor anti-government sentiments, which they feel justifies their being armed.
Personally, ever since the tragic
shootings at nearby Marjorie Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018, I have
been doing two things.
First, I still have a tee shirt from a
demonstration I attended at the time, reading ‘Grandparents Against Assault Weapons.’ I wear it on days like yesterday, when there is a
shooting in the news, as took place in Lewiston, Maine. People see it and raise
a fist in agreement. They should do
more. They don’t.
Also for the past five years, since Parkland, I have had a sign
in my car’s rear window reading ‘Want an Assault
Rifle? Join the Army.’ I believe it is the only such sign in
Palm Beach and Broward Counties, where people just don’t seem to care. Some have given me dirty looks but there has
not been any tire slashing nor ‘keying.’
Here’s what it looks like:
Make a copy. (Copy and paste the words above as a document, save it, print it out and then) mount it on a piece of cardboard and put where it can be seen through your car’s rear window.
The Fourth Step: Please pass this message on to
about a dozen friends, neighbors, or relatives, people to whom you do not usually
forward messages. It is that important
that the word be spread. And do that today.
JL
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There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a comment from you. Each will receive a link to the textual portion only of the blog that you are now reading, but without the illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the 'sidebar' features such as access to the blog's archives.
Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend sending them the link.
Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.
JL
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