Freedom, American Style

MOST, IF NOT VIRTUALLY ALL OF YOU who read Fish & Game are gun owners. Therefore, we speak to a predominantly pro-gun audience. That makes it tricky to bring up the mass shooting that occurred in Uvalde. Tricky, because we do not intend to just repeat standard pro-gun reactions and let it go with “thoughts and prayers.”

Our hearts broke at the thought of what those innocent children and their heroic teachers went through in their final moments. The devastation left on families, survivors, and fellow students is unimaginable. No words can capture the depth of grief and despair these horrific events leave in their wake. So we won’t even try. That hasn’t stopped countless others from taking up their bullhorns and keyboards to weigh in on what this tragedy means in the ongoing battle over Second Amendment rights and the uniquely American problem of gun violence.

Why do tragedies like the school massacre in Uvalde keep happening in the United States, when they just don’t happen in any other developed nation?

Why does the rest of the world come up short in comparison to this country in almost every other category but the one glaring exception of gun violence?

Why are American young people more likely to die from gunshot than from motor vehicle crashes, drug overdoses, or any other cause?

It is stupid to expect simple answers to questions like these. They have gone unanswered for decades, as case after case of horrific acts continue to pile up with increasing frequency. But a single word does cut through the fog of confusion, fear, doubt, frustration, self-interest, and anger that clouds all efforts to make sense of the violence in our country.

The word is Freedom.

Freedom is the one-word definition of America, the founding principle of the nation. Its meaning has been debated, dissected, and devalued. It weathered challenges from the beginning, when the founders left slaves and women out of their “created equal” declaration. It survived Civil and World Wars, lynchings, Red Scare witch hunts, race riots, Viet Nam, 9/11, pandemics.

Freedom, as a fundamental principle in any society, offers as many dangers as protections. People can’t be totally free without accepting a degree of risk. It comes with the territory. If freedom out ranks personal safety, free people can and will be hurt by other free people.

Risk also comes as one of the costs of self-government by proxy. Legal steps to minimize the dangers of one group of free people tormenting other free people must navigate difficult channels before ever yielding meaningful protection. They flow through filters installed by special interests and members of the representative government who have learned that Power is more fun than Service. Even when they survive this gauntlet, legal measures—by their nature—can’t provide much of a shield against violent acts. Bulging prisons are testament to that.

So, why is this Land of Freedom more free and more dangerous than other lands of freedom? Perhaps it is because, in the quest for freedom, our founders emphasized the right to self protection as one of its fundamental tenets, enshrined in our Second Amendment. It is a truly American God-given right.

The actual wording of the Second Amendment is almost infuriatingly ambiguous. Can one individual comprise a militia? Is the phrase “well regulated” code for Gun Control? Thus far, that wording has been interpreted so that U.S. citizens may possess firepower just shy of machine guns. This has kept proposed laws to “control” the owning and brandishing of arms deemed Constitutional at bay. After all, gun restrictions only restrict those who are law-abiding. Right?

But what about laws to keep bad guys from getting their guns legally? That’s how most recent mass shooters obtained their weapons.

Would tougher background checks or red flag laws keep another deranged 18-year-old, like the kid in Uvalde, from walking out of a gun store armed for war? Maybe. Maybe not. The truth is, we will likely never know. Our ponderous Congress has put forth a superficial “breakthrough” bipartisan bill. But you shouldn’t expect any consequential legislative solutions—or gun grabs—any time soon.

Let’s get real. If you’ve been sweating through your jockeys worrying that government agents are going to confiscate your AR 15s, or if you fear “the government” is going to ban high capacity magazines, relax. Given the Hatfield and McCoy level of cooperation in Washington, the odds of that happening are about the same as the Dallas Cowboys moving to Oakland. On the other side of the political barbed wire fence, if you think that everything more deadly than a .410 shotgun should be melted down — and used to make, what, participation trophies? — that’s about as realistic as… well… as that thinking sounds.

Problem is, it appears that half the country is pro-gun and the other half pro-gun control. There are extreme positions on both sides. But there are voices of reason on both sides as well. The majority of gun owners want to keep firearms out of the hands of the wrong people. Most gun control advocates have no interest in abolishing the Second Amendment. Somewhere in the middle a common ground should exist to make it harder for the wrong people to get their hands on guns and carry out their sick fantasies of violence. But the way we’ve cultivated the political system driving our government—plus the universal adoption of social media as our preferred information source—the voices from the extremes have drowned out any voices of reason.

Meanwhile, thousands more “troubled” teens and sick individuals of all ages are festering out there, urged on by social media. Damn straight they’re mentally ill. Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix for the emotional instability or psychopathic and sociopathic personality disorders that seem to be trending upward lately—no matter how much money we suddenly decide to throw at them.

Some say we need to put God back in classrooms. We’re not fans of Sharia Law in its home countries… are we okay with an Americanized version? Besides, there’s another Top Ten Amendment that tells us we shouldn’t. Pray, yes. Demand others pray with you? Not so fast.

The sad reality is, there is no easy way out of this, despite the jabbering we hear from officials, pundits and the self-proclaimed authorities on Facebook and Twitter.

Freedom, American Style, requires us to live with inherent risks, laid before us by centuries of Constitutional interpretation.

We can barricade schools. We can arm janitors. But there will be more tragedy.

It may or may not make sense to add friction to the ease with which bad guys get ahold of guns. But voices of conflict in our leadership, in our media, and around our dinner tables will likely always suppress such notions, applying the friction to any constructive dialogue instead.

E-mail Roy at rneves@fishgame.com and Ardia at aneves@fishgame.com

 

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