(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Manchurian Armament [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-22 Manchurian Armament As a progressive democrat, I generally try to avoid any set of ideas that smacks of conspiracy theory. That caveat being stated, I have followed gun control legislation and its failures, as have many ofus, for some time. Most of us are familiar with the words of the Second Amendment to the Constitution: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” It appears to me that the concept of a well regulated Militia would involve not only the government, for the purposes of regulation, but also entities such as the National Guard, rendering those entities entirely sufficient. The Republicans, however, appear to conveniently ignore the first phrase, and devolve interpretation merely to the right of anyone in this country to “bear arms”, (including underage children who may be “given”a gun). The right to bear arms is not, of course, mentioned in the amendment, although that phrase is vociferously used as an argument against gun control or even gun safety. Many questions may be raised here, and have been, such as “What constitutes or counts as a 'well-regulated Militia'”. For that matter, what constitutes a Militia, and what does “well regulated' even mean? The Minutemen? So I ponder these concerns.... In any event, I would propose that not only is our current system not well-regulated, but it is not particularly regulated at all. And that is what the current fight is about, primarily. Don't even ask about the concept of “Militia”, because that concern has been apparently lost to the dungeons of history, regardless of the republican constitutional ideologues, who only reference the Constitution when it suits their purposes and conveniently ignore phrases that might get in their way or don't support their arguments. That all being said, we could turn then to the question of WTF. Let me repeat that: WTF? What is really going on here? As Thom Hartmann reminds us,we have more guns than people in this country, and I would add that statistic includes small children and infants in our population, not just adults. Somebody is buying guns. Somebody is buying a LOT of guns. And ammo. We know this. These purchases are made at individual citizens' expense, which is generally considerable. Often the purchase represents a rite of passage, or a way of signaling to others belonging to the gun rights movement. As we know, there are now fewer and fewer regulations for these purchases and ownership in the law, across recent history. Nothing about owning a gun is particularly regulated at all, much less WELL regulated.Attempts at regulation, such as the banning of of semi-automatic weapons, to the statistically positive benefit of reducing mass shootings, are allowed to expire or are voted down in federal and state legislatures. We can't even pass uniform legislation that requires gun owners to lock up or otherwise safely secure their guns. Most gun owners, when mildly queried, will say that they own guns to hunt (not mentioned in the Second Amendment) or for self-defense, to protect ownership of property. Duly noted. The next question for the gun owner would be “Well, okay, I will give you that, but how many guns do you individually need, exactly?” I doubt there is a rational answer, and that for a number of gun owners, the correct number becomes something of a fetish or provides bragging rights, like owning a Leica camera might, let's say. Or ten Leica cameras. And all the equipment that goes with these cameras, again at some considerable personal expense. All right, so US citizens are allowed to purchase and maintain an unlimited number of guns, individually, by law. I won't even go into comparing gun ownership in our country to that of other countries, which has been widely covered elsewhere .So, who is buying them? Pew Research has put out a 2017 report that says, in part: “Gun ownership is more common among men than women, and white men are particularly likely to be gun owners. Among those who live in rural areas, 46% say they are gun owners, compared with 28% of those who live in the suburbs and 19% in urban areas. There are also significant differences across parties, with Republican and Republican-leaning independents more than twice as likely as Democrats and those who lean Democratic to say they own a gun (44%vs. 20%).” https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/ This research was published six years ago, which goes to a later point I hope to make. The people most likely to own guns, by nearly double the number,are white adult males identifying as Republican, who live in rural areas.This statistic should surprise no-one, of course. What could possibly, along with enculturated affinity, could be going on here? Why are we unregulated in the gun ownership arena, exactly? I propose here a theory that while it may sound obvious to others, I have not seen discussed. They are arming themselves. At their own expense, I might remind you. And the gun owners frequently, statistically speaking, own more than one gun,and often more than they need for their stated purposes. Do they know they are arming themselves? Possibly some of them do, and others may simply be caught up in exercising their political “rights”,or see others arming themselves and decide it is a good idea.Nonetheless, they are armed, and excessively so. Who else arms themselves excessively? Why, the military of course....just in case. We hear lately in the media little mentions of “civil war”, often couched in terms like ”national divorce”, recently called for by MarjorieTaylor Greene. But not civil war. Of course not.Oh no, not that. She said the quiet part out loud, while denying it... With all these guns in our possession, is it any wonder that occasionally a member of the Unconscious Militia from time to time can't take it any longer and goes rogue and slaughters other (unarmed) citizens in broad daylight at schools and shopping centers? Those mass killers are, I suspect, a fringe element of people who just couldn't manage the mind-crushing responsibility of gun ownership, lost patience, and broke loose from the fold. The Republican Party and our Republican legislators, through their actions or failure thereof, prove to us that mass killings are ultimately dismissed as collateral damage of what I propose is a much larger, underground, and often for the gun owners, unconscious movement. Mass shootings are horrific. Yet it nearly goes without saying that nothing is ”being done” by legislators, who sit in stony silence when someone as notable as Gabby Giffords, herself a victim, confronts them on the House floor and begs for change. I submit to you that for these legislators, mass shootings, as well as discussions about the NRA's latest shenanigan, and Christmas cards of children holding AR-15s, are merely theater. And a very distracting theater, at that. This theater, presented breathlessly by the news media ad infinitum, serves to mislead us smoothly and adroitly far away from the real agenda. The real agenda is, I propose, to allow supporters of the Republican Party to arm themselves with vast numbers of guns, and like a good (brainwashed) militia, be ready to show up at a minute's notice if called upon to serve by their masters. So let's call this broad wholesale excessive gun ownership what it really is, shall we? Manchurian Armament. At no cost to the Republican Party. 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