Armed and Very Dangerous

The recent shoot-out in Waco, Texas, prompts me to share some observations about the ubiquity of guns in America, and the near-religious fervor with which an unrestricted right to bear arms is defended. (I’m well aware that I may regret writing this; my only previous foray into the issue, on this blog, prompted responses that were by far the most uncivil and threatening I have ever received. And I used to run Indiana’s ACLU.)

A couple of caveats: Perfectly reasonable people may have different opinions about the purpose and reach of the Second Amendment, and what restrictions on gun ownership are both socially prudent and constitutional. Many responsible people own firearms, for a variety of eminently defensible reasons.

This blog isn’t about those people.

In fact, even though this post was triggered by the motorcycle gang violence in Waco, it isn’t intended to be directly responsive to that event, either; rather, you might think of it as a meditation on America’s inability to approach even the most reasonable discussions of gun rights and public safety with anything other than hysteria and hyperbole.

This hasn’t always been the case. In 1968, for example, President Johnson signed a sweeping national gun control law; in 1993, Congress passed the Brady Act. There have been others.

But during the past few decades, these federal laws have been substantially weakened and the gun lobby has advanced multiple state-level initiatives expanding gun “rights” well beyond what my generation considered reasonable– measures to permit concealed weapons, to allow people to take weapons into businesses (including bars and despite the objections of the property owners), and to invalidate campus rules against weapons. Iowa even passed a measure allowing people who are blind to obtain gun permits.

Perhaps the most troubling element of this landscape has been the growth of so-called “open carry” laws. Want to sling your AK47 over your shoulder when you go to the grocery? Sure thing!  In the wake of passage of these laws, groups of heavily armed men have “exercised their constitutional rights” by showing up in the aisles of establishments like Target and Walmart.

These displays of machismo are not unconnected to the (increasingly bizarre) conspiracy theories that have mushroomed in the wake of President Obama’s election. “Obama is going to confiscate our guns!”  “Jade Helm is a plot—Obama is planning to bring in the U.N. and take over Texas!”

Racism is clearly a factor in these and similar conspiracies being promoted in the more fetid precincts of the Internet, but racism doesn’t explain all of the paranoia.

Fear does.

We live in a time of dramatic and unprecedented social change, with a corresponding loss of what scholars call agency. Agency is personal efficacy, confidence that we are in charge of our own lives, the masters of our own fates, in possession of a measure of control over what happens to us.

Americans wake up every morning to a world that is less familiar and more disorienting; a world resistant to attempts at control. Meanwhile, the Internet inundates us with evidence that our social institutions—especially but not exclusively government—cannot be trusted. People who’ve been told their whole lives that they’ll do well if they work hard and play by the rules—most of  whom have dutifully proceeded to work hard and play by the rules—have seen their wages stagnate and their life prospects dim.

Some Americans respond to this social landscape by “opting out,” by retreating from civic life. Others– frightened people trying to make sense of an unfamiliar world– take refuge in “explanations” for their distress: a War on Christians, welfare mothers, Sharia law…  At the extreme, folks with paranoid tendencies believe their lives depend upon their ability to arm themselves against the “enemy,” the United Nations, immigrants, terrorists, the federal government….and especially, the terrifying unknown.

So they swagger down the aisles of the local Target with guns over their shoulders and strapped to their hips, and tee-shirts that say “Don’t Tread on Me.”

Sad. And very dangerous.

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Lone Star Lunatics

Okay–I really wanted to ignore this whole thing.

I mean, what can you say about people who are freaked out because the Department of Defense is mounting  a  military training exercise (with the admittedly bizarre name Operation Jade Helm)–because they think it’s all a plot to declare martial law and “take over” Texas?

Obama’s bringing in the U.N. or ISIS (depending on which loony you believe), and will round up Texans and put them in camps which are (inexplicably) located in abandoned Walmarts that are connected by underground tunnels that were somehow constructed without anyone noticing (and without, evidently, generating any large deposits of dirt to attract anyone’s attention).

And aliens have landed in Lubbock and are having sex with antelopes….

I suppose I should be over letting weird stuff that happens in Texas surprise me. After all, Texans keep electing Louis Gohmert, and the Texas legislature recently passed a bill to
“protect” churches from having to officiate at gay weddings, communicating to one and all that none of them had ever read the First Amendment, which already does that.

And it’s not even like Texas lunacy is new. I still remember Molly Ivins’ explanation of how members of the Texas “lege” had handled reports  that more Texans died annually from gunshots than on state highways. They raised the speed limit.

Still.

It’s bad enough when paranoia grips ordinary Texans (I started to say “ordinary citizens,” but ordinary, sane folks evidently live elsewhere. Like Utah, for example, where the menacing Jade Helm is also taking place, and everyone’s ignoring it), but Governor Greg Abbott has called up the Texas Guard (a group of interesting folks who probably shouldn’t be armed and shouldn’t be confused with the National Guard) to ensure that Obama won’t impose martial law. Then reliable nut job Ted Cruz promised to “look into it.” Because, if there were some plot, DOD would surely share that information with Ted Cruz if he asked nicely.

The utter insanity of all this boggles the mind.

News flash, Texas! You’ve already been assimilated by the Borg…er, U.S. (though I personally would like to reconsider the decision to make you a state–I wonder if Mexico would take you back?), so we have no reason to “conquer” you. And if for some reason the Army did roll in, do you really think your ragtag Guard could stop tanks and missiles?

I’d ask what you could possibly be thinking, if I thought you could think.

On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart noted that similar military exercises seven or eight years ago had generated absolutely no reaction, saying “I wonder what’s different?”

A picture of President Obama flashed on the screen, and he said “Ah, yes.”

Racism explains a lot of crazy.

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On the Other Hand….

Yesterday’s blog bemoaned the skepticism–and the sound reasons for that skepticism– with which so many of us have come to view media reports.  A couple of commenters noted what we might call “the flip side” of that phenomenon–people  distrustful of both government and the media who are anything but skeptical when it comes to wild and crazy conspiracy theories.

One of my regular reads is Juanita Jean’s: The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc., written by a Molly Ivins-like Texan. A recent post began

If you haven’t heard, there’s going to be a large military exercise around the country from July 15th to September 15th. It’s called Jade Helm 15 because all military trainings have names and that one wasn’t taken, I suppose. Texas has five counties involved and the rightwing is damn sure that it means Obama is taking over and gonna put all them in a concentration camp Just! Like! Hitler!

The post included a local newspaper’s report of a public meeting in Bastrop County, where the exercise was to take place.

Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria answered questions for two hours from a crowd of more than 150 people at a special meeting of the Bastrop County Commissioners, hoping to allay locals’ concerns that the training operation is a way for the federal government to take over Texas and much of the Southwest. Instead, Lastoria was told that he couldn’t be trusted and was asked whether Jade Helm 15 will involve bringing foreign fighters from the Islamic State to Texas, whether U.S. troops will confiscate Texans’ guns and whether the Army intends to implement martial law through the exercise. (The answer for all three was no.)

As Juanita Jean noted,

Cowboy! Think about it. If the military wanted to take over, they would not ask your permission first. They would just do it because I do not care a hill of beans how many guns you have, they have tanks. And bombers. And stuff you have never even heard of.

How lost and terrified must people be in order to believe things like this? How paranoid?

And how much do they have to hate having an African-American President?

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We’re All Becoming Texas

My husband says I’ve been in a bad mood since 2000. I’m entitled.

On Monday, the Republican-led Texas House passed HB 1076 , a bill that would ban state agencies from enforcing any new federal gun laws, including background checks. The self-satisfied know-nothings who voted for this bill are very pleased with themselves.

Talk about embarrassing. Every student who participated in the We the People competition I referenced earlier this week would know better.

I don’t know whether this bit of unconstitutional stupidity is the product of grandstanding or ignorance, but really–how much dumber can state lawmakers get? Granted, Texas is in a league of its own, but there are plenty of other states–largely but not exclusively in the south–where similarly ridiculous measures are being solemnly debated and enacted. (Next-door Louisiana, where several loony laws championed by boy Governor Bobby Jindal have been struck down by the courts is a case in point. And the Indiana General Assembly keeps trying to equal its signal accomplishment–passage of a law in 1897 changing the value of pi.)

Read my lips: nullification runs afoul of the Supremacy Clause. In language even Texas legislators should be able to understand, that means that there is a provision in the U.S. Constitution that says federal laws trump inconsistent state laws. States don’t get to decide which federal laws they’ll obey.

I’m so tired of these posturing morons–and so disappointed in the voters who elected them. Gerrymandering can only explain so much.

America is currently experiencing the “perfect storm”–paranoia and anti-intellectualism have combined to destroy any semblance of rationality.  The adults have left the room; the inmates are running the asylum.

We are left with only self-parody.

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And the Black Helicopters Circle Above….

Just shoot me now.

Indiana has all kinds of real problems. Our education system is pretty much a wasteland. Our per-capita income levels are among the nation’s lowest. College graduates continue to leave the state in droves. Job creation is robust only in the imagination of the Indiana Economic Development agency’s PR flacks.

So what weighty issues occupy our genius legislators? How do they propose to solve these problems?

Well, the measure that would mandate the teaching of cursive has been moving through the process. The House Resolution that would place a ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions in the state constitution is once again a hot topic.  Yesterday, the Indiana Senate unanimously passed a bill to make switchblades legal in Indiana. (And no, I am not making that up. The vote was 47-0.)

And also yesterday, a colleague helpfully sent me a link to this example of our legislature’s priorities:

A bill to prohibit implementation of Agenda 21. Provides that an Indiana governmental entity may not adopt or implement: (1) any policy recommendations relating to the United Nations’ 1992 “Agenda 21” conference on the environment and development that deliberately or inadvertently infringe on or restrict private property rights without due process; or (2) any other international law or ancillary plan of action that contravenes the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of Indiana. Provides that an Indiana governmental entity may not enter into any agreement with, expend any sum of money received from, or pay any money to, an “Agenda 21 organization”. Provides that any such actions are void.

For those who have somehow failed to encounter the threat that is “Agenda 21,” the reference is to a toothless measure passed back in 1992 by the United Nations, encouraging members of that body to care for the environment and urging members to consider various approaches to sustainable development. It included references to energy-saving strategies like mass transit. (The “21” stands for “21st Century.) To the crazy fringe, this modest set of non-binding proposals was and is an obvious communist/socialist/fascist plot–and an attack on American sovereignty. (Don’t ask me to explain the logic of this. There is no logic–just paranoia.)

These proposals join previously discussed efforts to make public school children recite the Lord’s Prayer, and to teach creationism in science classrooms. These are the pressing issues with which our elected officials occupy their time, at least when they aren’t searching the skies for those black UN helicopters…..

It’s embarrassing to be a Hoosier during the legislative session.

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