'Right to keep and bear arms' doesn't mean with no 'inconvenience'

If there's one thing certain in this life, it's that every time another lunatic loser breaks loose and kills other Americans, the Amen Chorus of the gun nuts will be all over the media standing up for their rights.

So a shooter (fill in name here) killed some (fill in number here) people in an American city or town (fill in place here), and wounded a number (fill in number here) of others before reportedly taking his own life (usually). The only thing shocking about this is that no one is shocked anymore. It happens at least two or three times a week.

We literally expect things like this to happen from time to time, and we also expect the loons of the far right to ignore all the statistics and say that guns don't kill people.

Michael Moore nailed it when he said "Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people."

Sadly, no matter what happens anymore, nothing gets done. A large majority of Americans think there should be tougher gun laws, but there aren't many of them who make gun control the single issue on which they cast their vote.


Those on the other side, however ...

The people who are truly fanatical about gun ownership would vote for a gay feminist Socialist who supported the Second Amendment if his or her opponent was calling for restrictions. All this despite the fact that until 1968 even the National Rifle Association didn't claim that Americans had an absolute right to own whatever weapons they wanted.

The NRA supported sensible restrictions.

What changed it?

The assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the ensuing riots in many American cities. Black people started buying guns and white people got frightened.

Not at all coincidentally, that was the year Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy and the dog-whistle "law and order" became GOP strategy.

The great irony of all this is that Nixon personally believed in strong gun control. He said all along guns should be registered and licensed, and that no one should be allowed to own handguns, which he called "an abomination."

Fortunately for him, gun control was not an issue in either his 1968 or 1972 campaigns, and after he resigned his office in 1974, nobody much cared what he had to say.

With a few exceptions, the US has become totally ridiculous on the subject of guns. Many so-called "red" states have passed laws making it easy for gun owners to carry their weapons in public.

Kennesaw, Georgia, which is in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, passed an ordinance that made gun ownership mandatory.

Then there are the silly states with so-called "stand your ground" laws, which basically seem to make it hunting season if white men want to shoot someone other than a white man. This led to the Zimmerman/Martin case in Florida, where a cop wannabe shot and killed a young black man in a hoodie.

The funniest thing about it -- and there wasn't much funny – was how many gun nuts answered by saying that no, Zimmerman wasn't white.

But I'd like to ask a question that never seems to be asked:

Why would the Second Amendment right of gun ownership be absolute when none of the First Amendment rights are?

Although I know the gun absolutists will disagree on this, it seems a logical assumption that the Founding Fathers considered the First Amendment to be the one that mattered most. Hey, that's why it was first.

But Freedom of Speech is far from absolute. The old "shout fire in a crowded theater" example, to name just one.

Freedom of Religion isn't absolute. We don't allow human sacrifice in religious rites, and the Latter Day Saints had to modify some of their religious practices in order to win statehood for Utah.

Freedom of the Press isn't absolute. First of all, there's libel. Second, there is censorship in wartime.

The Right of Assembly isn't absolute. Witness the so-called "free speech areas" at conventions.

The Right to Petition for Grievances is only absolute if the people you're petitioning have to listen. Otherwise, it isn't worth much.

So why is gun ownership absolute? The paranoids will tell you it is so they can overthrow a despotic government, but the meaning of the word "militia" is far different now than what it meant in 1789.

The Founders supported the idea of militias -- think National Guard -- so that the fledgling new nation wouldn't need a large standing army. They feared that a lot more than they feared themselves.

 I'm not an absolutist on gun control, although I do believe every gun owned in this country should be registered and licensed. I also believe keeping guns away from lunatics would be a good idea.

The true horror of the people who oppose the background checks that might keep lunatics and terrorists from buying guns is that they say their reason is that law-abiding Americans who want guns should not have to be inconvenienced.

Inconvenienced?

I'll tell you what's an inconvenience? Getting shot and killed. That can ruin your whole summer.

The one thing the gun nuts never want to concede is that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were never a suicide pact.

The Founders may have feared bad men, but they didn't hate the idea of government. Remember, they thought they were creating the best government on Earth. They would hardly make it easier for people to overthrow it.

Are we ever going to have sanity on this issue?