If
the people who suffer from gun violence were the same as the people
who profit from gun violence, gun control measures would be strong
and strongly enforced. Discussions about the 2nd Amendment would
center on the “well regulated militia” concept rather
than the “right to keep and bear” language.
The
reality is that our current stance on the 2nd Amendment has nothing
to do with the views of the Founding Fathers and everything to do
with the desire to keep the middle and lower classes fighting and
killing each other, while leaving a small wealthy elite in control.
It
may seem an odd idea that allowing the nation to be awash in 400
million guns is “keeping control.” But we are told that
100 million of our population own the vast majority of those 400
million guns. The average person doesn’t own or want to carry
around a gun. But with proper training, the average person can be
taught to exist in a state of apprehension that gun violence is
always just around the next corner, always a risk when visiting 7-11
or your favorite after-work bar.
The
inevitability of gun violence is an argument for allowing police to
be armed and to shoot first and ask questions later (if their targets
survive). The corporate “liberal media” produces a
constant flood of stories about cities, like Chicago, being wracked
with constant gun violence, while having grown silent about the equal
constant corruption and racism practiced by Chicago police.
A
University of Chicago study, referenced recently in the New
York Times
points
out a few salient points. Most of the shootings in the city happen in
just 4% of the city’s blocks: This isolates most Chicagoans,
and almost all white Chicagoans, from exposure to gun violence and
from the direct consequences of gun violence. For most people, even
in a “blood drenched” city like Chicago, gun violence is
what they see on TV, replayed over and over - not what really
happens.
Too
few people remember the summer of 1968 and press coverage of the
police riots promoted by Mayor Richard Dailey. Back then, newspapers
and radio and TV stations were locally owned. And they provided
different viewpoints on the police riots and corruption. They covered
investigations and prosecutions of police corruption
One
result of media “consolidation,” putting control of both
broadcast and print media into the hands of a handful of Wall Street
corporations is that reporting of what once were controversial topics
has, for most consumers, been replaced with the traditional
Republican conservatism of the three “traditional” TV
networks and the ultra-corporatist rightwing polemics of Fox News,
and the Russian controlled NewsMax, ONAN and Breitbart.
TV
and film westerns trained us to believe that bank robberies were an
everyday occurrence in the Old West. Statistics tell us that the
reality is that bank robberies were incredibly rare in the Old West.
Most people cling to the fictitious movie images. And equally
misleading “news” coverage of modern shootings drives
viewership, and sells lucrative advertising.
Corporate
news-as-entertainment is like westerns. Movies show us bank robbers
being tracked down by righteous sheriffs or vigilantes. But they
don’t show us the banks foreclosing on struggling farmers, or
railroad barons bribing congressmen for grants of vast swaths of land
to sell to those farmers so they could struggle until foreclosure,
when the land would be resold to another eager farmer.
The
news-as-entertainment shows us impoverished Black children turning to
violent crime. But doesn’t show us the same children watching
their siblings bitten by rats and roaches in apartments where
landlords collect rent without ever doing maintenance or pest
control, despite housing laws. The law violations of the wealthy
landlords are much more damaging to more people in any neighborhood
than a street robbery. But they are “less newsworthy,”
and so get little or no coverage.
Once
upon a time, we were told that they were “our” airwaves,
owned by the people, and only licensable by broadcasters willing to
provide public service, like fair access to viewpoints, in exchange
for permission to profit from using the public property. Now, as with
so much else, the public service component has been jettisoned with
profit the only remaining goal of using the people’s property.
And the best, most profitable use is to continue driving people’s
fear.
For
this election cycle, one Republican candidate is offering “hunting
licenses” in exchange for donations. Missouri senate candidate
Eric Greitens, who quit his job as governor after his wife and
child-beating behavior was publicized, now offers “no limit”
licenses to shoot “RINOs” - humans who disagree with
Greiten’s political views.
This
is not Squid
Game
or
Hunger
Game,
or some other fiction fantasy. This is a wealthy businessman,
surrounded by comprehensive security, telling his supporters that it
is OK to murder people if you disagree with their politics.
Colt,
Remington, Smith & Wesson, Winchester and all the traditional
American gunmakers are no longer American companies. Each is now the
subsidiary of a multinational corporation or hedge fund. They
merchandise tools for killing, while knowing that the hedge fund
owners and corporate bosses are safe from the weapons they sell to
the poor.
On
June 23, 2022, the John Roberts Court ruled that every person has the
right to carry concealed weapons. This decision overrules a law
passed by a radical leftist New York legislature in 1913. This
decision follows the Roberts Court holding, last week, that the 4th
Amendment protection against warrantless search and seizure no longer
applies to people living in the United States, and that no one has
any recourse against whatever force a police officer chooses to use
while conducting a warrantless search and seizure.
What
this means is that, as George Bush said, the Constitution is “just
a bunch of words on some god damn old paper.” The Constitution
may say that you are protected by the 4th Amendment. But if the
government has some special need, it can do away with those rights.
And no person has any recourse against police misconduct.
Essentially,
this tells the poor and the powerless that the government is their
enemy, and that if they want to protect their own lives or those of
their family and friends, they have to make the effort on their own.
This is the Supreme Court actively encouraging more gun violence
among the poor and powerless.
The
June 24 decision that women have no Constitutional right to control
their own reproductive functions (despite the 9th Amendment) is part
of the same logic. Large majorities of Americans, of all political
parties, support women’s rights. But six Republican “justices”
of the Supreme Court say that their Catholic theology trumps such
rights.
To
a court that pretends to favor religious freedom, the reproductive
rights of women who do not share Catholic misogynist beliefs is
simply irrelevant. The goal isn’t about people’s sex
lives or rebuilding an already too large population. Rather the goal
is to further convince people that they are not in control of their
own lives - the state is.
Control
can be by taking rights away from people, like telling women they
have to carry rape or incest babies to term and for lifetimes, or by
granting new rights, like telling every gang banger, mental patient
and frustrated warehouse or store employee that they have the
Constitutional right to express their anger with a gun. It is
specifically not about freedom but about exerting further control
over the middle and lower ranks of the population.
This
commentary is also posted on LA
Progressive
