Get rid of the guns. In Kansas, Missouri, everywhere. Amend the Constitution and protect our kids. (detached from reality alert)

Kansas Reflector ^ | February 20, 2024 | Clay Wirestone

[DoodleBob]

Get rid of the guns.

Change the U.S. Constitution, which we as a nation have managed 27 times already in this evolving democracy. Restore the Second Amendment to its original meaning — ensuring a well-regulated militia — and get rid of the guns.

Take deadly arsenals out of private hands, no matter the firearm. No assault weapons. No handguns. No rifles. Melt them down and throw them somewhere deep in the ocean.

Protect ourselves and our futures.

People will break the law, you say. That may be. But we continue to make crack cocaine and recreational fentanyl illegal. Republicans claim they want to bomb Mexico over opioid trafficking.

So pursue guns owned by individuals across this bloodstained nation with the same single-minded determination. Get rid of them, here and now, from everyone who would embark upon shooting sprees and those who fancy themselves responsible gun owners alike.

Owning a lethal firearm, however carefully, invites lethal violence. It increases the likelihood of death by suicide. It increases the likelihood that one day, sometime far in the future, you don’t behave quite so carefully and that gun falls into the hands of a toddler or criminal.

That’s all it takes.

I’m tired, bone tired, of watching children slain and adults’ bodies riddled with bullets. I’m tired of watching random people fall to a crazed attacker’s military-grade weapon. I’m tired of watching and waiting for the day when someone I know will meet their end.

This cannot be freedom. Freedom means freedom from random death, from the fear that your neighbors are accumulating arsenals of destruction that serve no other purpose than juicing their ever-dwindling supplies of testosterone.

 

What exhausts me

You might assume I wrote the proceeding words after the mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, on Wednesday.

You would be incorrect.

I wrote the first section of this column (a few minor edits aside) nine months ago. That was after a shooter in the Dallas suburb of Allen, Texas, killed eight people and hurt seven at a mall. You’ve probably forgotten all about it.

Since then, the United States has endured 507 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That database includes any event in which four or more people were wounded or slain, excluding the shooter.

I left the piece unfinished. It seemed too extreme to deploy such rhetoric about a shooting two states away. Soon enough, I told my editor, a shooting would take place closer to home and we could run it then. We shuffled our feet and changed the subject, not because my statement sounded extreme, but because it sounded inevitable.

The “debate” about guns, you see, doesn’t respond to impassioned words. It doesn’t respond to everyday citizens making their voices heard. It only moves, however haltingly, when those with firearms spill the blood of others.

So I waited, watched the months pass, occasionally passing the file while scrolling through notes on my phone. On Thursday, shooters at the Kansas City parade wounded 22 and killed one.

And here we are.

 

Stevens speaks

The founders designed our government to evolve and reshape itself as citizens and their representatives desired.

That’s why amendments exist in the first place. Hardcore conservatives assemble at the Kansas Statehouse every session to advocate for a “convention of the states” — an untested maneuver meant to make it easier to amend the Constitution. Liberals across the nation still harbor hope for enacting the Equal Rights Amendment to finally outlaw gender-based discrimination.

Folks from across the political spectrum don’t make these moves because they hate the country. They do so because they love it.

I don’t expect the Constitution to evolve overnight. But former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens suggested just that in a New York Times op-ed shortly before his death. He had opposed the court’s ruling in 2008 that the Constitution guards an individual’s right to bear arms and lived to see the consequences.

Stevens wrote of repealing the Second Amendment: “That simple but dramatic action would move (activists) closer to their objective than any other possible reform. It would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States — unlike every other market in the world. It would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence.”

I understand the deep hold that guns and gun culture have on people and their families. My grandfather owned several hunting rifles and left me $400 in his will to buy a gun.

I purchased a surround sound speaker system instead.

Listen, I don’t expect that the United States will ever ban the individual ownership of firearms. But those who value guns over the lives of children and their families deploy extreme rhetoric, while those who want peace and security for their families search for compromise where none can be found.

If those seeking a safer country shy away from speaking out, clearly and forcefully, change will never come. Not for children, not for their parents, not for any of us.

Get rid of the guns.

[DoodleBob]

Gays are increasingly arming themselves.

Clay’s over-the-top holophobia is coming from somewhere else.

[gundog]

What about life-long Canadian stoners?

[DoodleBob]

Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
Skinner: No problem. We simply release wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?
Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Lisa: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

[proxy_user]

This is at least the proper way to do it. The founding fathers provided a procedure to modify the Constitution, with the expectation that there would be frequent changes as history progressed and everything change.

All you need is 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate, and 3/4 of the states.

Good luck!

[Boomer]

It takes a lot of high-powered street drugs taken over a long period of time to turn someone’s brain into mush like this. So sad. Another life wasted doing drugs and drinking far too much hard alcohol.

[DoodleBob]

Actually, the first 10 Amendments happened in one stroke.

This, we’ve changed the Constitution 17 times, technically.

[Nervous Tick]

Yeah, point taken. I was just quoting the squishy douchebag, but I see I forgot the quote mark punctuation, so my bad.

[Noumenon]

No. Your move.

[peggybac]

The KC incident wasn’t a mass shooting. Just a bunch of thugs thugging and folks were in the way. Unfortunately, a beautiful woman was killed. Also, many of the “kids” injured were thugs involved as well.

[peggybac]

Lawrence is a cesspool of liberals.

[hanamizu]

Clay, first of all our rights don’t come from the Constitution, the Constitution merely rights we inherently have ‘from the laws of nature and nature’s God’. So even if your wish came true, we’d still have those rights.

Secondly, to amend the Constitution, requires a 2/3rds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by 3/4ths of the states’ legislatures. This means that it takes only 12 states to block your stupid idea. Since 27 states, including Kansas, now allow permit less concealed carry, it seems likely that any attempt to outlaw private possession of firearms via the Constitution is not going to happen soon.

And then there’s the whole ‘well-regulated militia’ bit. The militia at the time of the Bill of Rights was every able-bodied man in a community (with a few exceptions) capable of defending against attack. The Indian attacks of King Phillip’s War were relatively recent history and of course it was the militias that first confronted the Brits in New England during the Revolution. Of course the authors of the 2nd Amendment wanted the people to be able to keep and bear arms.

So, no, we’ll keep our firearms, thank you very much. If they scare you, you can move to Canada where firearms are restricted or move to Mexico where there is only one gun store in the whole country. You and your kids will be safe there.

[No name given]

So am I. They can all go to hell.

[No name given]

You and me both.

[No name given]

My thoughts exactly.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

At the very end of the article:

Clay graduated from the University of Kansas and lives in Lawrence with his husband and son.

I will not listen to/hear another word from these perverted people. Done.

[lightman]

+101

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Get rid of the journalists.

Change the U.S. Constitution, which we as a nation have managed 27 times already in this evolving democracy. Restore the First Amendment to its original meaning — ensuring the right to speak freely, and get rid of the Marxist hacks “journalists” that have taken the place of news reporters.

[lizma2]

Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story sums it up well.

https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIIs10.html

3 Reasons for the 2nd.

Protect our property.

Protect our borders. (Well that’s over but worked in WWII.)

PROTECT US FROM OUR GOVERMENT!!!!

[Georgia Girl 2]

Can’t wait to get up to our rural compound this weekend and do some shooting on our little gun range that Mr. GG2 has set up. 😉

[gundog]

And it would not have been ratified had the Second Amendment not been enshrined in the BOR.