"And they Walk Among Us"

 

                                  And They Walk Among Us

 

The human cesspool of people who should be disemboweled with a set of rusty salad tongs just keeps widening. It’s bad enough when it’s a delusional “red hatter” like a Trumpette whom I recently saw interviewed. She said, (and apparently believes) in part: “Yes, Donald Trump ‘came in’ and he invented SpaceX (surprise Elon!) and he ‘put up’ the biggest satellite ever. Then when the election happened, all of them votes went up to the satellite and when they came down, they were changed to Biden votes.” At this point the interviewer, after getting his breath, asked her what happened next, and she alleged that the votes “Come back down and went to Berlin and Italy and then got sent back here for counting.” When the reporter asked her source for all this she turned and walked away. In her defense, she had to spit out her gum before she could walk away.

Far more devious and divisive are the almost reflexive continuing claims of “false flag” hoaxes following mass shootings. The latest were Social Media posts following the horrific Highland Park murders of July 4th, which said, in part:  

"Here we go, folks. This is CLEARLY another op by the Dems."  Another proclaimed. "Pray against false flag events today and this month," another said. "Pray they will be stopped and exposed. Pray that the real perpetrators will be caught! (“#notbuyingtheirlies #falseflags #exposed.)"  This means there are actually morons out there who believe Uvalde, Parkland, Highland Park, etc. were all either fakes, invented or, perhaps the most bizarre, committed by liberal persons wanting stronger gun laws. Ultra conservative radio host Alex Smith, several years ago, proclaimed on his radio show that the Sandy Hook shootings never even happened. It’s a slippery slope from the lunatic “It never happened” to “The Democrats did it.”  Tragically, some will believe this sort of thing even though the Highland Park shooter confessed when captured.

This conspiracy theory terrorism is even more sinister when a member of the US Congress stokes these fires. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a clearly doctored image featuring the Highland Park shooting suspect, falsely claiming it was a photo that showed him “in jail or rehab or a psychiatric center.”  It was not. What her object in posting it was, exactly, will never be known to us, since she herself is devoid of reasoning power. In the image, which Greene first tweeted July 4 alongside other photos of confessed shooter, Robert Crimo, he (Crimo) looks as if he’s seated in a compact, windowless cell, holding a Bible, and grinning. Experts have determined the photo is fake. Greene reposted the image on July 5, when she posted a Twitter thread arguing that the attack and other recent mass shootings should not be blamed on lax gun laws. Note: In 2019, police in Highland Park confiscated sixteen knives, a dagger, and a sword from Crimo’s home after a family member called claiming he “was going to kill everyone.” In spite of this Crimo’s father, later that same year, signed an affidavit allowing his son to apply to obtain a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) Card -- needed in the state of Illinois to purchase firearms or ammunition.

Compounding the flood of (largely NRA driven) pro gun rhetoric from the far right are Faux News mouthpieces whose words are treated by far too many viewers as gospel. When a Greg Gutfeld states on air, "I don't believe — and someone correct me later, I won't listen — but I don't believe anybody with a concealed carry permit ever committed a mass shooting.” The average viewer just files that away as data, never questioning. In truth, even statistics in Fox News files show that in at least 37 US mass shootings, the shooter had a concealed carry permit.

So how about some reality? For some reason, large swaths of Americans, and particularly Republicans, are incredibly, fanatically, protective of guns — more so, it seems, than of school children. And as such, after every mass shooting, the same old rhetoric gets barfed out once more. And why not? That rhetoric has proven to be quite effective, given that the U.S. Congress hasn’t passed a truly meaningful piece of gun legislation despite overseeing the only country on earth where school children are slaughtered in classrooms on a fairly routine basis. Even the recent new law is far less rigorous than it ought to be.

Then NRA loves the part of the 2nd amendment which says, “shall not infringe”! Still, it never ceases to amaze me how many half-literate buffoons can recite the back end of the 2nd Amendment but seem completely befuddled by the first half: “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state ….” I've dealt with this conundrum in several earlier pieces so I'll keep it as brief as possible. 

Alexander Hamilton had served as George Washington's chief of staff during the Revolutionary War and had seen too many badly trained state militias perform poorly and, in some cases, simply leave and go home when it was time to harvest crops. In spite of this there was no enthusiasm at the time of the Constitution’s proposed ratification for a standing federal army because the memory of a standing British Army, actually housed in some cases in colonial homes at the expense of the owner, still lingered. The Founders didn’t want a bunch of hillbillies roaming through Target with assault rifles over their shoulders. They wanted a trained and capable militia in each state — in place of a standing federal army. Hamilton wrote these reflections down, and he and (primarily) James Madison hammered out in the Second Amendment what was seen as an alternative if the need arose, and those with brains had every anticipation that the need would arise. And arise it did, with Britain, before too many years passed. They were correct. “Mr. Madison's War” better known as the War of 1812, proved them correct. At the beginning of the war the vast percentage of U.S. military forces were again, as they were in the Revolutionary War, state militia. The U.S. Army was poorly trained and led and had significant logistical weaknesses. Although it was established in 1802, West Point, its early years, featured very few standards for admission or length of study. Cadets ranged in age from 10 years to 37 years and attended between 6 months to 6 years. There was no such thing as a standardized enlisted basic training.

In 1817, realizing, finally, that a well-trained standing Army was a national necessity, curriculum was upgraded, standardized and admission requirements toughened. By 1815, a 15,000 strong  national professional army existed. The Army National Guard became a standard nationwide militia title in 1903 and has specifically indicated reserve forces under mixed state and federal control since 1933.The days of civilian “militia” as a necessary national military protection force are effectively over, and along with it, the need for the Second Amendment as some still interpret it. And by the way: A 1792 federal law (passed just one year after the 2^nd Amendment was ratified!) required that every man eligible for militia service register his gun ownership on public records! What would the NRA say?