On Memorial Day, it seems appropriate to dig further into our ever-growing body count due to US gun culture. Those victims deserve remembrance.

Our tragic national misunderstanding of the 2nd Amendment goes way back. From Digby:

“The Second Amendment has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime,” said Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger in January 1990.

The Burger quote continues, “The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies – the militia – 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.”

The NRA’s “twisted interpretation” has warped the court majority, twisted people’s minds, and maimed and killed uncounted thousands. We are all less secure as a byproduct.

When you think about it for a minute, it’s so clear. The Constitution’s authors wanted a check on the Federal government’s power, and decided that state militias would be that check. “Well-regulated militias”, in fact. Teenage depressed malcontents with military-grade weapons are NOT a “well-regulated militia”.

And how in the world did the Supreme Court with its “originalists” get hijacked by the NRA into their perverse interpretation of The Second? It’s clear as day, that phrase “well-regulated militia”. How can they continue to ignore it?

We need a national movement, an awakening, to reverse the cultural brainwashing we’ve been subjected to. It’s not about taking away ALL the guns. If you’re a gun lover, sure, you can likely own and fire a gun – just join your state’s “well regulated militia”. And get some training. And get evaluated. And be subject to regulation.

We’ve fallen so far down the “everyone has a right to own a gun, lots of guns, and carry them all the time” rabbit hole that it will be very hard to find our way back. But we managed to break the national cigarette smoking habit – there are still smokers, it’s still legal, but we changed the culture and the norms. So it can be done. Maybe the next generation will have the willpower and the vision to tackle gun culture successfully. (I’m not just kicking the can down the road, but I have to be practical about the amount of runway my generation has remaining. We Boomers are on our way out, leaving this awful legacy for our children.)