Radically Anti-Radical..... A Moderate's View On the 2nd Amendment and A National Crisis

For those who didn't already know this, I'm a teacher. Pretty much all my life, I've been in education in one way or another. One of the things that I tell my students when they want my political views is that "I'm radically Anti-Radical". Maybe it's an Asian thing, or that I come from a family of professionals. But the fact is that I believe we'd be able to solve many of the worlds problems if we weren't so dogmatic. How does this have to do with this blog?

Before we go further, let me make it clear that I support the 2nd amendment..... but I'm about to steer left a little bit. I've studied and taught government, and to the best of my understanding, the reason that our Constitution is structured the way it is, is that the founding fathers knew they didn't know what the future held. Therefore, making the lawmaking apparatus open ended in order to deal with eventualities.A good case in point is the 18th amendment and the resulting Voltead Act that created Prohibition...... and the 21 amendment nullifying it.

The mechanism that has made it work over the years have been the process of legislative debate and compromise. However, this process has gone off the rails. 

Increasingly, our society has gone toward the extremes on all viewpoints. This has created a paralysis in virtually all aspect of governance because no one is willing to compromise on their stance. I've looking at the various claims on the current crisis of mass shootings, and frankly, I've found a lot of stupidity and a lot of sense delivered by both sides. 

Being a Texan and teaching Texas History for roughly a decade, nobody has to point out the role of an armed citizenry has in guarding against tyranny. 

But, at the same time; I'm somebody that grew up in a Mayberry RFD-like small town of the 60's and 70's rural America. And from where I sit, there's not a good way to look at the situation and say that access to weapons capable of (and designed for) killing a lot of people in a short amount of time doesn't play a role.

How did we get here?

.... from here? Sure, Mayberry is fictional, but if anyone was alive in the late 50's early 60's, they'd know that it wasn't far from reality. Even when I was a teenager in the 70's, it was more this than today. Police went around with a revolver and a shotgun in the cruiser. That's because they didn't need to be able to outgun somebody armed with a 15 to 18 round handgun and/or an AR which takes 30 round mags. 

Yes. I get it and actually believe that in the current environment, a ban on any sort of weapon would only serve to keep it out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. But here's the thing. Virtually all of the horrific mass shootings that have occurred in the last few years have been committed by people where were law-abiding right up until they went off the edge! Don't believe me? Look it up. Almost all of the guns used were bought legally. I don't even know what to say about this?

The sad thing is that I grew up in a world where this was the norm. Half the vehicles in my high school's student parking lot were trucks and probably half of them had one or more guns in the rack behind the seat. So, clearly, I'm not saying that we need to ban guns!

What I'm saying is that we have to come together and put everything on the table and get something done. We can't just stand around pointing fingers at each other while some "off-the-rail" teen shoots up a school every (or every other) week. 

Sure, I believe that this thing is absolutely an out-growth of societal issues that run deep. And we talking everything from bad parenting to mass media, to social media, but aren't we being ridiculous if we refuse to discuss the access that these messed up people had to the gun(s). And I hate to say this, but the role that the type of gun had in making it 17 people killed versus 3 or 4? Any number is tragic, but can we not discuss ways to limit the damage? Would it be considered radical if the moderates stood up and spoke out?