The title suggests that the subject for this essay is guns. If there is a more unqualified writer on this particular subject, he is unknown to man or beast. I have never owned a firearm. I do not ever intend to buy one. Now it is true that from the early part of 1943 through the beginning months of 1945 I made my living, or nearly dying, from firearms. It was a machine gun that was owned by the United States Army. The gun was loaned to me on the condition that I kept it in good repair and at the end, returned it to the owner. The last shot that came from that borrowed gun was probably fired in late 1944 or early 1945. For the next 65 years, I have been absolutely free of any type of firearm. When I returned the machine gun to the United States Army, I was thinking that the old spiritual should apply. That of course would be “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More.”
Two events have occurred this summer that have caused me to once again think about guns. The first has to do with those who are seeking to protect their second amendment rights by carrying loaded pistols to the town meetings being held by congressmen. The second event involves a wide receiver for the New York Giants football team who had a regrettable incident at the Latin Quarter Night Club in New York City.
When guns are carried by citizens, they often proclaim that they are within the law and are fully protected by the Second Amendment to our Constitution. The Second Amendment reads as follows: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. In neither of the cases that inspired this essay is there any hint of a “well regulated militia.” But nonetheless, we have citizens showing up at town hall rallies carrying loaded pistols, followed by the incident at the Latin Quarter nightclub.
Taking first things first, it should be noted that in the month of August, politicians tend to leave Washington, DC and head back to their home districts. While they are there, they often hold town meetings to sense the pulse of the people.
Generally speaking, a high percentage of the members of the House of Representatives and a few senators contend that Washington is an evil place. In the town meetings, these representatives suggest to their constituents that only they can straighten out the evilness that pervades our capital city. In spite of the evil nature that is perceived by a good many congressmen, they tend to do everything that can be done to win re-election so that they can return to the evil city. I should think that it ought to be the other way around. If a Representative from Utah, for example, found Washington DC to be so evil, why would he want to ever go back? But the fact of the matter is that all of the Representatives and all of the Senators do everything within their power to be re-elected and to be sent back to Washington.
During the 1960s, it was my great pleasure to spend the better part of four years in our capital city lobbying for the great AT&T Company. For a man such as myself who comes from St. Louis, I found the climate to be ordinary. Of course, it gets warm in Washington during July and August, but the same could be said of Corpus Christi, Texas. In any event, the representatives and senators that we send to Washington typically tend to return to their districts after having declared themselves in recess for the month of August. This is a fairly cushy job in that our representatives, as a general rule, work only three days per week. They leave home on Monday evening, show up on Tuesday, and by Thursday evening they are headed back home. So I do not see this as a wrenching drama that drains all of their energy from them.
But in any case, when they go home in August, they often hold town meetings. What has disturbed me is that in the year of 2009, a good number of people show up at these meetings carrying firearms. They contend that the Second Amendment to the Constitution gives them that right and that they are there to exercise it. It seems to me that a good many of those who carry arms are intent upon telling the news media that they are doing so.
I may not be an expert on guns but I do claim some expertise on human behavior. I simply do not buy the argument that if everybody were armed, things would be more peaceful. I contend that if everybody were armed, there would be more killings than there are today. It is my suggestion that a speaker who exercises some passion may well arouse one of the armed persons. It has always seemed to me that a person does not go out in public carrying firearms without having the intent to use them. In my humble opinion, firearms have no place at all in a public meeting. Yet in the meetings with the representatives and senators, we find that a handful of armed men show up and brag about their armaments. To a European, this must seem like a preposterous American development. I consider it a preposterous American development as well.
Finally of course with respect to carrying arms to town meetings, I am forced to again observe that this country has a president whose father is of African descent. In the first seven months of the Obama administration, it is my belief that a percentage of the people who oppose him may do so for racial reasons. This is not a farfetched idea. This country has lost two of Kennedy brothers to assassins. Should there be more?
My conclusion is that carrying a loaded firearm to a meeting where contentious issues may be discussed is an invitation to use the firearm against a speaker with whom one has a disagreement. And for those who nurture resentment toward people of African heritage, whether they admit it or not, it could well be that in the excitement of a public debate we might lose another official. Firearms have no place at public meetings. I wish that they could be left at home or, indeed, never bought. But the courts have construed the Second Amendment, which has to do with well-regulated militias, into citizens claiming that they have the right to carry arms both concealed and in the open. I believe that this country can do without another assassination. Carrying these guns to meetings that are contentious may well provide a short-tempered person with an opportunity to shoot somebody. We have enough shootings without inciting more.
The second reason for my concern at this date involves Plaxico Burress, the former wide receiver for the New York Giants. In February of 2007 at the Super Bowl game, it was Mr. Burress who caught a pass from his quarterback that enabled the New York Giants to gain a victory and become world champions. Now in less than two years, Mr. Burress is headed for jail, which will be his home for the better part of two years.
This whole episode started when Plaxico Burress decided that he needed a firearm to complete his outfit when he went nightclubbing at the Latin Quarter Club in New York. Now Mr. Burress, who clearly is not among the brightest people on this earth, decided that he did not need a holster to carry his pistol. Rather he stuck it in the waistband of his trousers. It may be that in dancing the tango, the gun slipped from Mr. Burress’s waistband, but one way or the other the pistol fell to the floor. This is where the music should have stopped. But in any case, when his pistol hit the floor he had not bothered to use the safety on it. On striking the floor, the pistol fired, which is what it is supposed to do when the safety is off. The bullet grazed Mr. Burress’s leg so that he needed some first aid attention and it narrowly missed an employee of the club.
It could well be that a person who is not as well known as Mr. Burress could have escaped the police attention that followed. When Burress got patched up at a hospital, the police began to investigate what had happened and so it was that Plaxico was charged with a felony which in New York State carried a three-and-a-half-year sentence upon conviction. There was a secondary charge that carried only a two-year prison sentence.
Before it was done, old Plaxico decided that he did not want to stand trial and he pleaded guilty to the secondary charge, which means that he is now an inmate of the New York state prison system for two years. He is 32 years of age and he says that he hopes to straighten his life out and that he would like to return to the National Football League. I can tell you that there are very few clubs that would sign a 34-year-old wide receiver with a prison record such as Mr. Burress will have. I believe his chances for employment on a football club are, as they say in soccer, nil.
It seems to me that people who carry loaded firearms to town meetings are as thoughtless as Plaxico Burress. Perhaps it might be that carrying a loaded pistol might increase a man’s sense of masculinity. I consider it to be an exercise in stupidity. But be that as it may, you have these laws on the books that are greatly connected to the Second Amendment to our constitution under which some people claim the right to carry loaded firearms. Perhaps the people who attend political rallies might draw a lesson or two from the Plaxico Burress incident. When that gun struck the floor, it fired a bullet that grazed Burress’s leg. It could just as well have fired that bullet into Burress’s private parts, which may well have deprived him of his manhood forever. Perhaps those who go armed to political meetings might well keep the fate of Plaxico in mind.
E. E. CARR
August 25, 2009
Essay 409
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Kevin’s commentary: Public places are bad places for guns. Bars are bad places for guns — not just due to dancing-related issues, but bars tend to have drunk people getting in fights. Barfights should not feature pistols. Lots and lots of other places are bad for guns too. In fact, basically every place that isn’t an active war zone qualifies as a bad place for a gun to be.
Honestly the only other place where it really makes sense to have a gun, if of course you’re a crazy person who decides he or she needs one, is in your house. So that way when the burglar comes, you may murder him in your foyer just like you’ve always wanted. Aside from that ‘protection’ element there is practically no use for the object. Shootings like Aurora have taught us that the “good guy with a gun will stop bad guy with a gun” line of reasoning is utter horseshit, because the person who wins a gunfight is the person who comes prepared to that fight. The aurora shooter had full bulletproof riot gear on. Some asshole with a pistol is just going to get himself killed.
Stop bringing your guns out of your house. Stop having guns at all, Jesus. They do so so so much more harm than good, it’s preposterous.
Merry Christmas!