It's About Citizenship

Many of you are aware that CSGV Executive Director Josh Horwitz has a book coming out this month, Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea, that “recasts the gun debate” by “demonstrating how reasonable gun control is essential to the survival of democracy and ordered liberty."

Josh is not the only person thinking about this topic in the wake of last year’s District of Columbia v. Heller decision, however. Frequently, I will receive emails from a nonprofit organization, The Potowmack Institute, whose motto is, “It’s not about guns…it’s about citizenship.”

A recent missive from the Institute contained some very provocative ideas:

We are in the midst a crisis in gun violence and gun trafficking that is no longer simply national. It has become international … These crises can no longer be ignored … The [Senate] Judiciary Committee will have confirmation hearings on a Supreme Court nominee. It is not usual to ask nominees questions on cases, but the Parker [v. District of Columbia]/Heller gun rights cases do offer possibilities on the most fundamental concepts…

The vital arguments [have been] ignored … The substantive discussion begins with something very simple: What James Madison was really describing in Federalist Paper No. 46 was not a civil right of private individuals. It ends with something equally simple. The Parker/Heller cases were a devastating defeat for gun rights ideologies [in part because those decisions affirmed that a wide range of gun control regulation is both constitutional and permissible and because they refused to adopt a strict scrutiny standard for future regulations]. If the gun lobby does not accept the opinions of the courts, the constitutional challenge to them is to launch a campaign for a constitutional amendment. The cynical business of defeating legislation does not secure a constitutional right.

The hearings have to be directed toward the formulation of national policy. The only really important goal of national policy is to control the illegal traffic of guns between and among jurisdictions and now, between and among nations. That is empowerment policy for local jurisdictions. The Federal Government need do little more. That goal can only be accomplished by registration of ownership and reporting of private sales...

[The solution] is very simple: Resurrect the original militia concept and practices as manifest in the “Militia Act of 1792.” Registration for militia call-up—regardless that a call-up ever takes place—is a matter of military preparedness. It can have the added benefit of controlling the illegal traffic [in firearms]. We can call it the “Homeland Security Militia Reserve Act.”

The constitutional authority for such a national firearms policy is not the much overused Commerce Clause, but the militia clauses and the Second Amendment. Militia duty was conscript duty. Privately owned weapons were a public resource [used for] public duty. They were placed on inventories and reported to the president of the United States ... Can the Judiciary Committee conduct a badly needed national civics lesson? There are no libertarian individual rights in a conscript military organization. After the Parker/Heller opinions there can be no constitutional objections.

The gun rights ideologues would, I think, be very eager to get a hearing for their rights. The business of serious political leadership is to keep them honest and hold them accountable.

A policy that actually entails some real responsibilities for those who consistently clamor about their “rights”? Sounds like a great idea to me...

Wish I Had Said That

One of my favorite sources of inspiration is the excellent magazine, “The Progressive Christian.” The April 2009 edition carried an excellent article by Charles Schuster, the following sections which I would like to share with you:

In the midst of a world economic crisis, it is important to revisit what has, truly, brought us through the fire, the flood, the terror, the famine, and the pestilence of the past. We have survived because we learned that we must care for each other rather than protect ourselves from each other. We have survived because we have learned to cooperate instead of compete. The human spirit has risen to its best when it has pondered the broad horizon and has been able to look past the tree that blocked us to see the forest that surrounded our ponderings ...

For those who want to purchase weapons of miniscule destruction, let us invite them to empty the bullets from their guns and assemble to fight the real enemies of the state that are found in the human heart, and to bear witness to the real cure for what ails us, which also is found in the human heart.

The time has come for religious people to be religious. The word religion is derived from a Latin word meaning “to bind together.” This is a time to bind together even as segments of our population want to separate us from each other.

This is a time for the fittest to lead in our survival, but fitness is not defined by power and might. It is defined by tenderness and compassion.

Amen, brother Schuster. I wish that I had said that myself...

April is the Cruelest Month

I have reached the age where I sometimes have difficulty remembering what I did the day before yesterday. However, shootings over this past weekend at Hampton University and the University of Georgia have vividly brought me back to me the events of Tuesday, April 20, 1999, with precision.

I will never be able to erase the memories of visiting Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, the day after the horrific mass shooting. The things that stick in my mind are the faces of the students and parents trying to make sense of the tragedy; the sight of all those crosses placed on a hill outside the school; and the school parking lot turned into a makeshift monument with flowers, cards, signs and teddy bears from across the nation. Another image that haunts me is the media circus that surrounded the school. An added insult was a few super-righteous religious zealots who seized upon Columbine to make a faux case for religious martyrdom.

Journalist Dave Cullen has just released a comprehensive account of the massacre. The book is simply titled, Columbine. You can read a review of the book by Gary Kris from the Washington Post.

Cullen claims to expose several myths about the Columbine tragedy, but one piece of reporting that was true was the ease with which Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were able to acquire the guns used in the shootings. Harris and Klebold had young friends of theirs purchase these weapons at Denver-area gun shows from private sellers—cash and carry, no questions asked. One of these friends, Robyn Anderson, later said, "It was too easy. I wish it would have been more difficult. I wouldn't have helped them buy the guns if I had faced a criminal background check."

Colorado closed the Gun Show Loophole by referendum one year after the shootings, and for that we can credit the courageous work of many of the students and parents of the victims at Columbine. They banded together to take positive action to stem the easy availability of guns in our society and we should learn from their example. Now that federal legislation to close the loophole has been introduced in Congress by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), we have an opportunity to prevent thousands of criminals and other dangerous individuals from buying guns with no oversight whatsoever.

We should seize it, and ensure that we will have something positive to reflect upon as a country when the twentieth anniversary of Columbine is observed ten years from now.


April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain...
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Playing with (FOX)fire

The FOX television network and the Republican Party were major promoters of the “Tea Parties” that were held around the nation on April 15. These events, which were promoted as protests against tax policies, seem to have turned into a foul mix of anti-Obama and anti-government diatribes.

According to Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank, here in Washington, D.C., demonstrators carried signs with such slogans as “The Audacity of the Dope,” “One Big Awful Mistake America,” “Napolitano—Obama’s Gestapo Queen,” “Obama Bin Lyin” and “Hey Big Brother: Show us Your Real Birth Certificate.”

While such verbal assaults on the President and/or the government are fully within bounds of political dissent—and can even be clever—many of the things said at the various events bordered on incitement to insurrection. At a rally in Austin, Texas Governor Rick Perry suggested that Texans might at some point get so fed up they would secede from the Union. Here in the District, radio talk show host Mike Church treated the crowd to a mock fascist salute and said that “It’s time to have a little revolution, I think. We don’t have to fire weapons. You should own them, you should have a lot of ammo to go with them, but you don’t have to shoot them.” “Unless we have to!” someone yelled back.

My esteemed colleague, CSGV Executive Director Josh Horwitz, is publishing an exciting new book on this topic next month, “Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea.” He also has a marvelous new blog on the Huffington Post, “Insurrection Goes ‘Mainstream.’”

The blog focuses on the role of national news media outlets in promoting insurrection. In addition to the endless promotion of the “Tea Parties” on all of FOX’s “Fair & Balanced” programs, Fox News personalities Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto and Tobin Smith were among the featured speakers at various Tea Party sites. Smith even began his presentation at the District of Columbia event by saying “On behalf of the Fox News Channel, I want to say welcome to the Comedy Channel of America, Washington, D.C.” He ended his speech by exhorting the audience to “Keep watching FOX, will you?”

I cannot help but wonder if the Fox News Channel—in its relentless and forceful denigration of our current government—is not playing with fire.

Overlooking the Obvious

The writer of the Book of Matthew in chapter 23, verse 25 scoffs at “You blind guides, that strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” It is certain that the writer did not have in mind today’s news and headline writers, but he certainly could have...

This past week the American news media ran stories about the latest installment of the annual Gallup crime poll. The survey in question was conducted last October—before the recent spate of mass shootings in America. The headlines and TV news intros all blared: “Gun Control Support at an All-Time Low.”

The poll results of 1,011 adults surveyed showed that 29% of Americans favor a law banning the possession of handguns by private citizens. Without explanation, the poll totally disregarded the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2008 that the Second Amendment prohibits such a ban, thereby taking it completely off the table as a policy option. Nonetheless the response to this now irrelevant question was touted by several media outlets as “proof” that Americans don’t support gun control.

A closer look at the Gallup poll, however, reveals something far different. The survey found that 49% of respondents said they want laws on firearms sales to be stricter than they are now. Only 8% said that gun laws should be made less strict.

Let’s look at that ratio again. 49% want stronger gun laws—8% want weaker laws. And again, this was before a horrific series of mass shootings that began in Alabama on March 10.

In what universe is that a ringing endorsement for the gun lobby’s position? Why not carry a headline that states the obvious fact that last fall only 8% of the population supported weakening the nation’s gun laws? Why not stories about how the Congress of the United States is supporting that small minority of 8% over the 49% who want tougher gun laws?

Additionally, a quick look at recent polls commissioned by Mayors Against Illegal Guns and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence demonstrates overwhelming majority support for new laws to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals.

This is a friendly reminder that the next time you read a story about the demise of the movement to reduce gun violence, be sure to read the whole story and not swallow the camel.

Does Anybody Hear?

As we prepare for Passover and Holy Week, we are mindful of the fact that over the past month there have been seven horrendous, high-profile mass shootings in our nation. These seven shootings have resulted in the death of 53 people. This is on top of the “normal” grisly daily total of 82 gun deaths.

There are two constants in these killings. First, all of the shooters have been men who were laid off from their jobs. Second, all of them had easy access to guns.

There is a third constant that rarely gets discussed in the media. Every one of those 53 victims left behind family and friends who are deeply scarred by their deaths. Over the years, I have been shocked and saddened by the aftermath of shooting deaths. I have seen families torn apart by the shooting death of a child. Children traumatized by the shooting of a parent—perhaps for life. Entire schools and communities scarred by tragedies. The pain continues to ripple out like waves from a pebble thrown into still water.

You can see anguish when you speak to people who lost loved ones at Virginia Tech or Columbine High School or any of the myriad of other similar events. Just listen to the voices on the news of the people of Binghamton, New York, as they express shock over the senseless horror that just occurred in their midst.

Gun violence spreads a pall over our entire nation. I remember the anguished cry of one young survivor of a shooting who asked, “Does anybody hear my cry?”

Does Congress hear these anguished voices or see the outward ripple of violence? Or will our elected leaders continue to ignore the results of the easy availability of guns in this nation?

Lest We Forget

My dear friends Jim and Sarah Brady have issued a call for Americans across the country to join them on Monday, March 30, at noon for a National Day of Prayer to End Gun Violence. They are asking for prayers “for a peaceable society where all children have the opportunity to grow and prosper, and where everyone can live without fear of being cut down by firearm violence.” 280 people are shot every day in the United States.

This day is of special significance as it is the day that Jim was wounded in the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan and it leads us into a month of anniversaries of gun violence that are all too familiar: April 4—Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated; April 16—Virginia Tech tragedy; and April 20—shooting at Columbine High School. Because every day in America brings new tragedies, we must now, sadly, add another to this list: March 29—Massacre at nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina.

President Reagan’s experience with gun violence, while horrifying, was far from unique. In the brief history of our nation, we have had 44 Presidents. Four of them were assassinated with guns while in office; six others were the victims of attempted assassinations:

Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed on April 14, 1865.

James A. Garfield was shot and killed on July 2, 1881.

William McKinley was shot and killed on Sept. 6, 1901.

John F. Kennedy was shot and killed on Nov 22, 1963.

Ronald Reagan was shot and severely wounded on March 31, 1981.

Andrew Jackson was shot at in the Capitol building on January 30, 1835, but avoided injury.

Theodore Roosevelt was shot in 1912 while campaigning for president.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was shot at on February 15, 1933, in Miami, Florida, just three weeks before his inauguration.

Assassins attempted to shoot and kill Harry Truman on November 1, 1950 but were stopped in a gunfight outside the Blair House.

Not one, but two, disturbed individuals attempted to shoot and kill Gerald Ford during his brief time as president.

As Sarah Brady has said in issuing the call for a Day of Prayer: “In this new day of hope and optimism, let us acknowledge our individual and collective power to create change through prayer.” Let us all do our part at noon today, as we envision a better future for America, “a future where criminals and dangerous individuals attempt to obtain guns and find it difficult or impossible to do so.”

Hobson's Choice a Faustian Bargain

Way back in June of 1783, nearly 400 soldiers of the Continental Army marched on the U.S. Congress in Philadelphia demanding back pay for their duty during the Revolution. The Congress called upon the Executive Council of Pennsylvania to stop the mutiny.

Pennsylvania's subsequent failure to protect the institutions of the national government, however, was a primary reason why the framers of the Constitution decided to create a federal district distinct from the states, where Congress could provide for its own security. The delegates therefore agreed in Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution to give the Congress the power "to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States."

In 1790, Congress created the District of Columbia to serve as the new federal capital. The small seat of government foreseen by the Congress has now grown into a major international city with more than half a million residents.

Unfortunately, the District of Columbia is the only jurisdiction in the United States where Americans fulfill all the responsibilities of citizenship but are denied equal rights. Americans living in Washington, D.C., have no voting representation in either chamber of Congress. They truly suffer from “Taxation Without Representation.”

Recently, Congress took up the “D.C. House Voting Rights Act” (H.R.157/S.160), bipartisan legislation that would grant one voting Representative to District residents for the first time ever.

This act of democratic sanity somehow struck a chord of fear and opportunism in the National Rifle Association (NRA) leadership in Virginia. The NRA quickly convinced lawmakers to attach an amendment to the Voting Rights Act which would remove the city's firearm registration requirements, repeal the District's ban on assault weapons, and prohibit the D.C. Council from regulating firearms in the future. The Senate then passed the bill with the NRA amendment, prompting this response from D.C. Council Member Phil Mendelson: "The irony here is that on one hand they vote to give us voting representation, but on the other hand they strip any local representation in regards to our gun laws."

The bill is currently pending in the House of Representatives, where the Democratic Leadership is unwilling at this time to press for a vote, fearing that the NRA amendment will pass as well. Millions of D.C. residents are now facing a Hobson’s Choice: get one vote in the House of Representatives and sacrifice public safety in your city, or remain totally unrepresented in the People’s House. As an American citizen who has resided in the District of Columbia for the past 50 years, I deeply resent the attempt of a partisan right-wing political lobby to force such a choice on me and my fellow D.C. residents.

One thing is certain: the NRA’s “Ensign Amendment” is a clear and grave threat to public safety in the District of Columbia. Now is the time to fight back against the gun lobby’s cynical and cold-blooded ploy and stand together for the principle that is at the foundation of the “D.C. House Voting Rights Act”: self-determination.

March Madness

I can't help being struck by the irony of American college students being warned by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to stay out of Mexico during Spring Break because of the danger of gun violence created by the assault weapons that are being trafficked south of the border from our own country. Authorities have confirmed that U.S. guns stores and gun shows are the source of more than 90% of Mexico’s crime guns. The American weapons of choice for Mexico’s drug cartels? 9mm pistols, .38 Super pistols, 5.7mm pistols, .45-caliber pistols, AR-15 type rifles, and AK-47 type rifles.

Just four days before the ATF travel alert, 22 Democrats joined Republicans in the U.S. Senate to approve a National Rifle Association-drafted amendment to the D.C. voting rights bill that would force the 600,000 residents of Washington, D.C. to legalize assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines in the city. The bill, which is supposed to stand for the principle of self-determination, has since been stalled in the House of Representatives because Democratic leaders cannot figure out a way to overcome their own party’s supplication to the gun lobby.

Then, last Tuesday—in what can no longer be called a coincidence in our gun-obsessed and violence-ridden nation—a man who had failed in his dreams to become a U.S. Marine and police officer went on an assault weapons shooting spree in the Alabama countryside. Discharging more than 200 rounds from two assault rifles with high-capacity magazines that were taped together, Michael McClendon killed 10 people and then himself.

The term "March Madness" is taking on new meaning this year.

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

The Duty of Every Individual

The U.S. Senate has always embraced tradition and precedent, and one of the chamber’s great traditions is to read George Washington’s Farewell Address every year on the birthday of our extraordinary first president. This year, the honor of reciting this wonderful speech went to newly-elected Senator Mike Johanns of Nebraska.

Washington’s Address is a remarkable commentary on the virtues of our Constitutional Government which seems as relevant today as it was 212 years ago. In the speech, Washington makes clear our duties and responsibilities as American citizens:

“This Government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true Liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government.”

Indeed, Washington advised American citizens that “your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.”

Listening to the Address again, I couldn’t help but think of the current debate over gun control in America. One of the ideas that has gained great currency among right-wing commentators in our country is that the Second Amendment grants individuals the right to stockpile firearms against our Government and take violent action should it become “tyrannical.” This disturbing argument was advanced by the National Rifle Association (NRA) in its amicus brief in D.C. v. Heller (“The Framers sought to effectuate their purpose of guarding against federal overreaching by guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms … Arms dispersed among the people would prove far more difficult to confiscate”) and even gained currency with Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion in the case (“When the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist tyranny”).

I wonder if Justice Scalia has ever surfed the Internet. If he had, he might have seen comments like this one left on my blog by a pro-gun activist last week:

“The 2nd Amendment was written so that ‘the People’ will NOT be ‘outgunned’ by ANY military/police force, foreign or domestic … Military and police have access to weapons civilians are ‘forbidden’ to own i.e. machine guns etc. How is a civilian with a bolt action rifle or revolver or semi-auto handgun with a magazine restriction supposed to combat against someone else with better weapons and a larger magazine capacity?????”

What would Washington have thought of this insurrectionist chest-beating? Well, his reaction to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 provides us with clear answers to that question. The rebellion involved a series of violent attacks on excise agents that were launched by farmers in the western counties of Pennsylvania. The rebels were angered by a new federal tax that had been imposed on whiskey in 1791.

In a proclamation, President Washington described the rebels as “insurgents” and condemned their “overt acts of levying war against the United States.” Nearly 13,000 state militiamen were called up by the president, and they marched into Pennsylvania and quickly quelled the rebellion. The incident, however, was still on President Washington’s mind two years later in his Farewell Address:

“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government ... All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Washington’s warning still rings in our ears today as the gun lobby continues to encourage Americans to arm themselves against our Government. Let us hope that our Members of Congress, who pay tribute to our great Founding Father annually, take his words to heart and explore the publicly-stated rationale for opposition to sensible gun laws in this country.