Soccer Mom: Unplugged

In the back of my parent's closet sat two or three shotguns.  If I remember the stories correctly, they belonged to my grandfather.  My younger brother and I generally ignored them as we were neither intrigued nor intimidated by their presence.  They were just there.

A few shells sat on top of my father's dresser for most of my formative years.  I don't know why.  They just sat there gathering dust.  Moving from the farm to the suburbs erased any real need for them nevertheless they rested like relics from another life on top of a cherry wardrobe until I was almost a teenager.

And that about summarizes my experience with firearms.  A neighbor taught me to hold a pistol when I was about 10 and my dad took me to a turkey shoot when I was 13 or so.  That's it.

So it is with some shock that I find myself writing about the right to bear arms.  A right I have willingly abdicated.

Many people argue that the right to bear arms is contained within the context of the provision for state militias.  This would imply that there is no individual right to bear arms and that government regulation over a citizen's gun purchases and gun use is no violation of the Bill of Rights.  Reading the exact wording, the commas being where they are, I'm inclined to agree.  What is missing from the grammatical syntax, however, is historical context. 

Early American legislators knew exactly what they meant when they demanded the right to bear arms. In fact, the text of Madison's original draft of the second amendment reads: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country." (He explains in Federalist #29 that well-regulated refers to well practiced, as in rehearsed, exercised in military arts, not as in over burded by legislation)  Clearly Madison saw the advantage of having a standing army whose precision and practiced performance would deter breeches of security.  But more pertinent to this discussion, he also saw that it was a man's inviolate right to bear arms.

I hope I'll never feel the need to own a gun.  I hope I'll never have to hunt to feed my family or to shoot to protect them.  But I respect the fact that some people do.  Apparently, our government does not.

During the evacuation of New Orleans, local police, under the guidance of local government, decided that the Constitution was irrelevant.

A local Fox affiliate out of Louisiana chronicled the brutality with which some citizens were treated as their firearms were confiscated, their homes invaded and, in some case, they themselves were injured by those sworn to protect them.  How can this happen in America?

Visit www.givethemback.com and click all the tabs on the left side of the screen to see and hear from people who were victimized and disarmed. 

Think back to the coverage during Katrina.  There were tales of looters and unspeakable violence.  Rapes in the superdome.  Madness.  Afterwards, when the public began to show less sympathy for the 'Cajuns gone wild', we were told that the reports were greatly exaggerated and that people actually behaved quite well.  I don't pretend to know what really happened in that regard but I am wondering... if the accounts of violence and unlawful chaos were untrue, then why were all the guns confiscated?  And if the horrific accounts were true, and people were out of control, then why disarm those who were prepared to defend themselves and their homes?  Didn't Madison say, after all, that gun ownership was a powerful deterrent?  What really happened in those darks days after the storm when local government failed and bureaucracies bumbled?