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The GOP Perversion of the Second Amendment [1]

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Date: 2023-07-01

“The gun lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud-I repeat the word fraud-on the American people by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.”

~Conservative Chief Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger

“I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons, I seldom carry one.”

~Karl T. Frederick, President of the National Rifle Association, 1934.

I joined the NYPD in January of 1983 and witnessed the rise of Crack and the ensuing violence that accompanied it. You couldn’t swing a dead cat in those days without hitting a crack house. With the meteoric rise in the highly addictive drug, came crime and guns. Crack vials littered the streets, victims fell prey to addiction and gun violence skyrocketed.

In 1991 the City of New York witnessed nearly 2,500 homicides. We were outgunned in terms of fire power. The bad guys had Uzi’s, Tech-9’s, Calico machine guns and other automatic weapons. We were equipped with .38 caliber revolvers, dump ammo pouches (before speed loaders) and 10 layers of Kevlar. We were bringing spit wads into this battle against drug dealers and other criminals that wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot a cop. Some of my fellow officers chose to carry automatics such as 9mm and .380 caliber pistols. These firearms were banned by department regulations, but the mantra of “carried by 6 or judged by 12” prevailed. I wasn’t one of those “buffs” as we called cops that collected guns, but I didn’t judge those that were. I had two firearms, my duty revolver and my department authorized five-shot Smith and Wesson .38 off duty gun. I never felt the need for more firepower, as I was a very good marksman and trusted my training.

In my time as a police officer, investigator, and sergeant, I arrested dozens of criminals with illegal handguns and witnessed firsthand the atrocities committed by firearms. In one such instance a ten-year old boy was struck in the femoral artery by a stray 9mm round fired in a shoot-out between rival drug dealers.

The boy was bouncing on his parents’ bed when the round pierced the front door and struck him. As I was attending to a mortally wounded combatant, the boy’s mother pulled me into her apartment to help her young child. Blood was gushing out of his artery like a geyser. I pinched the artery off with my fingers as we rushed him to Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx. There was no media coverage, no screams into the Congressional void for this boy, just the wails from his grief-stricken mother. Luckily the boy survived, and his parents were able to save enough money and move to a safer neighborhood.

Now, just imagine a child shot with an assault rifle or larger projectile. The image isn’t pretty. Now multiply that by the thousands of victims killed by firearms. The gun violence epidemic is a man-made problem, as most are, and our congressional leaders (particularly in the Republican caucus) refuse to listen to the people’s demand for gun control.

As time goes on and the proliferation of guns and gun violence continues through the fetishization of military style weapons, and the gun lobby continues to pervert the Second Amendment by buying off politicians, the death toll rises.

The death and destruction I witnessed involved plenty of innocent victims but was also comprised of criminals killing criminals. Now that I’m retired, and watch in horror with the rest of America, the slaughtering of our nation’s children and other innocent victims, I weep for the victims and their families.

I also weep for the future of my grandchildren and our country in general. As apathetic politicians insist on fighting made-up culture wars like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign against “Wokeism.” A topic that neither he nor any other Republican can explain or describe. Yet DeSantis and other Republican leaders continue to pass laws that only exacerbate the already prolific gun death rate, such as the Constitutional Carry legislation recently passed in Florida.

I always supported the Second Amendment…to a degree. If someone can pass all the legal requirements, he or she should be allowed to purchase and carry a legal firearm, with the caveat that no one needs to possess an assault rifle, stabilizing braces, high-capacity magazines, or armor piercing bullets. I now find myself rethinking my position on the Second Amendment and the need for more strict gun control.

Albert Einstein taught us that insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. This is the very position we now find ourselves in as a nation. The time has come for strict federal gun legislation that would supersede state law, lest we continue down this path of destruction and self-immolation.

President Biden signed the first bi-partisan gun legislation in the last 30 plus years. As part of the legislation is an expansion of red flag laws to keep guns out of the hands of people that may commit gun violence crimes. Among the potential suspects are individuals with domestic order of protections filed against them. Everytown for Gun Safety has compiled numbers that indicate a vast amount of mass shootings involve individuals with such orders filed against them, that kill family members or another woman in their lives.

Recently, the Supreme Court announced it will hear a case involving an individual from Texas that threatened multiple women with gun violence, and on five separate occurrences fired shots in public. The perpetrator, Zachary Rahimi, was convicted and sentenced to six years. The case, U.S. v. Rahimi was overturned by The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In their infinite wisdom this court determined that the federal charges he was convicted of was unconstitutional. The case was prosecuted by the DOJ on the grounds that Rahimi was prohibited from possessing a firearm due to the fact he had multiple domestic violence protective orders filed against him; an obvious violation of federal law, but the circuit judges in a move antithetical to the will of most Americans ruled against justice and the rule of law.

With the recent news regarding the alleged compromising of Justices Alito and Thomas, we can see where this case is heading. This “conservative” court has already filed cases in direct opposition to the will of the American people. Most Americans favor gun legislation, especially universal background checks and red flag legislation. The GOP has been bought and paid for by the NRA and the gun lobby. How many Justices do they have in their back pocket too? Stay tuned.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/1/2176326/-The-GOP-Perversion-of-the-Second-Amendment

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