Thinking readers
well versed in church history understand how a chaplain posits a free
democratic society has a Second Amendment right, an obligation, to keep and
bear arms and that the reinstitution of the ban on assault weapons is a threat
to the freedom of religion. “Instances
of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military conservators of the
peace still multiply upon us” (Townshend Acts).
In 1972, the
Environmental Protection Agency invited psychoanalyst Murray Bowen, M.D. to do
a paper on human reaction to environmental problems. He identified a link between the family and
society. The link had to do, first, with
the delinquent teenage youngster, who is a responsibility for both parents and
society, and secondly, with changes in the way both the parents and the agents
of society deal with the same problem. We
are in a period of increasing chronic societal anxiety. Society responds to this with emotionally
determined decisions to allay the anxiety of the moment; this results in
symptoms of dysfunction; the efforts to relieve the symptoms result in more
emotional Band-Aid legislation, which increased the problem. We keep repeating the cycle, just as the
family goes through similar cycles, regressing to the states we call emotional
illness. Modern Americans assert it is more urgent to pass new gun control
legislation after a mass shooting of children while simultaneously insisting a
woman has the right to kill a child in the womb. It is irrational to have such incongruent and
radically opposing policies within the same society. A government that fails to hold authorities
accountable for Fast and Furious and Benghazi and considers it their
responsibility to disarm her citizens is schizophrenic.
ATF
"gunwalking" operations were, in part, a response to longstanding
criticism of the bureau for focusing on relatively minor gun violations while
failing to target high-level gun smuggling figures.
It is one of the many examples of
emotional response to societal anxiety and the lack of maturity of both
citizens and the political leaders they elect.
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42 weapons recovered by Mexican military in Naco, Sonora,
Mexico, 20 Nov 2009; these weapons were investigated by U.S. ICE. Operation Fast and Furious; suspect Uriel
Patino bought 19 of the weapons pictured one to two weeks earlier. http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2012/s1209.pdf
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The Second Amendment
As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas
Jefferson, Secretary of State:
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.
The concept is an extension of European thought during a period of conflict
between Protestants and Catholics. In an
effort to oppress the Protestants, their weapons were confiscated, rendering
them defenseless. When less anxious
leaders triumphed, a rational policy was based on six foundational assumptions
universally necessary to a free people to maintain a healthy balance between
the governed and the government:
- deterring tyrannical government;
- repelling invasion;
- suppressing insurrection;
- facilitating a natural right of self-defense;
- participating in law enforcement;
- enabling the people to organize a militia system.
