The Obsolescence Of The 2nd Amendment

Appendix: A Brief Word On The NRA

The myth that the “right to bear arms” is a pre-condition for freedom was the invention of a teenage acolyte of Barry Goldwater in the 1960’s, who first put forth the wild-eyed supposition in the NRA’s periodical, “The American Rifleman”.  The notion that the 2nd Amendment was anything other than a provision for civilian militias (to serve at the pleasure of the State) was not entertained by any serious person until the late 1970’s, when the NRA made the daffy idea part of its plank.

This is not to say that the case can’t possibly be made for certain people under certain circumstances to “keep and bear” certain lethal weapons.  It is simply to say that, should such a case ever be made, it would have nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment.

Those who have even a rudimentary understanding of the relevant history understand the the 2nd Amendment has been obsolete since at least the National Security Act of 1947, when the War Department was re-branded as the Department of Defense (an Orwellian onomastic for what is, in reality, the Department of Offense).

Not a single founding document even alluded to a perceived need to have a civilian militia for the purpose of rising up AGAINST the State.  Consider the Federalist Papers—composed during the period of intense deliberations preceding the Constitutional Convention to address every feasible exigency.  At no point in any of the 85 essays is it mentioned—even in passing—that a right of the People to bear arms would be needed in order to stage a coup in the event the State’s activities happened to become unpalatable to a segment of the polity.  Surely, if that had been a serious idea, it would have been clearly expressed at some point, somewhere, by someone.  It wasn’t.  But this does not dissuade some Americans from pursuing their fantasies of being a 21st-century Wyatt Earp.  As they bask in their fever-dreams of being swaggering super-patriots, they are willing to engage in exegetical acrobatics…thereby fulfilling the wildest dreams of America’s gun- and ammo-manufacturing companies.

It should come as little surprise, then, that in the late 1970’s, the NRA underwent a drastic transformation. Before, it had merely been an association of outdoorsmen, which actually FAVORED regulations. Only later was it hijacked by the gun / ammo manufacturers, and transformed into a propaganda outlet. The NRA is now a business lobby masquerading as a civil rights organization–protecting one particular (chimerical) right; and–so the thinking goes–thereby protecting PEOPLE. In reality, the only thing the NRA is protecting is the profits of the firearms industry. The sham is predicated on the supposition that gun rights trump human rights…or that gun rights somehow ARE human rights. This is a reminder that industry lobbies will go to great lengths to ensure nobody hampers their cash cows–the commonweal be damned. 

The absurdity of habitual genuflections to the NRA is analogous to, say, the obligatory kow-towing to AIPAC by proponents of Revisionist Zionism.  The entire enterprise is a boondoggle (see Footnote 14 above).

As discussed in the Postscripts below, it is the fetishization of the 2nd Amendment for engendering today’s collective neurosis.  (Errant thinking on the matter is the result of some combination of ignorance and obsequiousness.) But we can hardly begrudge the Founders for what became of this particular provision. The NRA is precisely the sort of thing James Madison warned about in his Federalist no. 10, wherein he spoke of the dangers of factions (the proponents of which, he recognized, would care only about their own narrow interests). As Madison saw it, factions pursue their own self-serving agenda, breaking down the social cohesion requisite for a well-functioning democracy.

Factionalism occurs to the detriment of the commonweal (in this case: just so some can derive the hallow gratification of “bearing arms”). The fact that the NRA has become little other than a propaganda arm for financial interests (under the guise of protecting an inalienable right) would surely make Madison and the other Founders cringe.

Also put forth is the outlandish proposition that the 2nd Amendment is somehow required to ensure the efficacy of the 1st Amendment. The proposition here is that there can be no freedom of speech / assembly / religion without the ability to kill. The entire developed world is a gargantuan counterfactual to this claim. Pace Switzerland, the countries with the least number of firearms proliferating amongst the citizenry are consistently the most civil.

Bottom line: Firearm-mania is antithetical to civic-mindedness, not a prerequisite for it.

Behold an operation that uses fear to separate rubes from their money.  “Gun rights” rackets–from the NAGR to the NAAGA–prey on people’s insecurities.  (The most extreme case of this is the GOA.)  Politicians who exploit “wedge issues” are thereby afforded a way to keep the right-wing base on edge…and thus riled up (see “siege mentality”; “persecution complex”), leading to a kind of mass hysteria.  The trick is to get every disaffected country bumpkin to fixate on imagined perils–persuading him that he must take drastic measures to survive in a world that is, he is convinced, extremely threatening.  Participants in this charade get to give their lives meaning by casting themselves as the gun-toting star in an apocalyptic action movie…where, presumably, they will vanquish all the bad guys in a hail of well-placed bullets.

This is delusive thinking. But–as we find with other lucrative industries that game the system–such delusion can be monetized by special interests.

NRA members are useful idiots.  They gleefully pay their NRA dues are under the impression they are contributing to a noble cause; but they are, in fact, only siphoning their money into the coffers of the gun lobby.  Members believe that they’re protecting “freedom”; but they’re really just funding the lavish lifestyle of perfidious NRA execs—replete with expensive designer suits, fancy cars, and large mansions.  This is not just about insiders allotting themselves exorbitant salaries; membership dues are paying for other treats with which they shower themselves: charter flights on private jets, luxury accommodations, and fine dining during their vacations…er, um…junkets.  And, of course, the balance of these contributions goes toward legalized graft on Capitol Hill—effectively bribing politicians to support pro-gun legislation (and quash any proposals for gun regulation).  Why?  So that gun / ammo manufacturers can sell more wares.

Such gimmickry is a reminder that the best way to bamboozle people is to convince them that they are being empowered…while you’re taking advantage of them.

Boondoggles like this are nothing new.  However, this instance is so egregious, it boarders on fraud.  (As I write, the NRA is being prosecuted by the New York A.G.)  The NRA is a scam; and its members are suckers. It is no wonder that in 1991, retired Supreme Court Justice, Warren Burger referred to the contorted interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as “the greatest piece of fraud—I repeat the word ‘FRAUD’—on the American public that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”  The fraud, he noted, was perpetrated “by special interest groups”.  Burger was no bleeding-heart liberal.  He was a life-long Republican who was anti-choice, virulently homophobic, and notoriously pompous.  He was also an enthusiastic gun-owner.  Yet EVEN HE recognized the absurdity of the right wing’s treatment of the 2nd Amendment.

When Wayne LaPierre Jr. glibly averred that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” (a statement that is demonstrably false), he failed to consider what enabled the bad guy to come into possession of the gun in the first place.  His recommendation (increase the accessibility–and thus the circulation–of guns) was, ironically, the very thing that created the problem in the first place.

The point is to PRECLUDE scenarios in which there are bad guys with guns; not get into shoot-outs with them after the fact.

In sum: The NRA seeks to mitigate access to guns in the same way that the Corrections Corporation of America seeks to minimize incarceration. It cares about the general welfare about as much as PhRMA, AHIP, and the AMA care about public health. That is: Not in the least. To fail to understand the motivations of the NRA is to fail to recognize why its propaganda exists.