New Public Policy: Protect our Citizen

New Public Policy:   Guns in the hands of the civilian population banned in this country, effective immediately.  300 million privately held weapons and billions of rounds of ammunition confiscated and destroyed or donated to Local and National law enforcement agencies.  Immediate release of everyone in prison convicted on drug charges, so we have room in our prisons for anyone arrested with a gun.   

There was a time when many people in this country ‘believed’ that segregation was Constitutional and worked with great diligence to protect that notion; they bombed churches and innocent children, they turned water cannons on innocent people in the streets, they beat riders to freedom,  and they lynched beloved fathers and brothers.  Today, my 17 year old son cannot fathom that time of horrors bestowed by and upon our own citizens just because of the color or their skin.  He can see today, with benefit of hindsight given to him by decades of pain, that segregation was blatantly wrong and immoral.  He cannot imagine a world any different than the one he lives in now.

Today the ‘belief’ that citizens of this country have a Constitutional right to obtain and use a hand gun with 30 round clips is equally preposterous.  Just because the NRA has plastered lies all over the media, pandered to its members for over 130 years, and spends millions of dollars each year in national and state legislatures to protect their lies does NOT mean their interpretation of the Constitution is correct or moral.

Read the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, don’t just listen to the rhetoric of the NRA. There is a reason why the founders of this country started that amendment with the words ‘A well regulated militia.’  They expected this country to have a citizen militia that was well trained and well regulated.  They had NO intention for anyone to be wondering around in public places with side arms like they were Jesse James or Adam Lanza.

The social implications and dynamics of such a ‘free-wheeling’ gun culture as we have today is immoral and is killing us. The cycle of violence it has created is killing our children and offering a false sense of security to the fearful.   Suggestions to escalate gun use, train MORE people to use and carry weapons, put more armed guards in our schools and permit concealed weapons in our most sacred spaces is a dangerous and desperate act by an organization who knows it’s time is done and is struggling to hold off the inevitable. 

Just because the NRA says it’s so, does not make it so. The NRA is a sham organization heavily supported and used as a mouthpiece by an industry that makes hundreds of billions of dollars every year in the manufacturing of weapons and ammunition and has NO other interest except to protect its own existence.  The arrogant NRA missed the opportunity a long time ago to advocate for better regulation and tracking of weapons and ammunition and now it is scrambling for its very existence.   Now it’s time for us to stop listening to its lies and fear-mongering rhetoric. 

Now is the time to protect our children.  

Now is the time to do the hard work. 

If we take action NOW then perhaps our children’s children will one day look back, the way my son does today, and feel a chill to their bone when they think how we once lived in a society that was so dangerous to its own citizens.