Celebrating Little

ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ISLE, members of congress are acting as though they have just participated in the greatest act of nobility and genius and have saved America, from itself. This, of course, is simply not true. What Congress has actually done is, under great public pressure, triumphantly announced its intention of passing soon a limp, lame, weak half hearted pseudo measure to protect American chidren from some American adults, aka mass shooters. The proposal, so bilaterally popular that the bare necessity ten Republican U.S. Santors have allegedly signed on to it, would require background checks for eighteen year olds for firearm purchases, raise the age for asault rifle purchase and ownershkp to twenty one, and encourage the several states through bribery to enact laws allowing guns to be taken away from suspiciously behaving people. This, as tehy say, simply aint gonna feed the bulldog. It certainly won't stop America's mass murder epidemic, but might slow it down a mite, if we are very, very lucky. Cross your fingers, knock on wood, because this flimsy legislation ain't even close to what America really needs, which, of course, is societal reform of the most funadmanetal kind, starting with strict regulations of firearms for those participating in well regulated militias, such as the U.S. Army, National Guard, and so forth. An AR-15 in every home for self defense and celebration of the second amendment? I don't think so. Not here, in the United States of Animosity, if anywhere, meaning, nowhere. But, like Biden and a few others have said, at least the new gun laws, assuming they actually ever live to see the president's pen, will be something, a start, better than nothing, if only barely. During teh ten years during which assault rifles were illegal in the U.S., (1994-2004), assault gun violence drastically declined. No matter where or when, if guns are taken out of the hands of most citizens, if the number of firearms througout socielty is reduced, gun violence is also reduced. This is simply common sense. That is why firearm regulation is a traditional American value from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, even as our modern conservative movement and Republican party move into ever more extremist ideology, practice, and legislation. This is true of the conservative position on firearms, and on nearly everything ese, including education and economics. The far right wing American movement must be defeated for the good of the country, at the ballot box, which is ultimatelly the only place that matters, or should matter, in a democracy.