222 years later

by mark moore june 6, 2013

well, almost 222...

think about these dates, and the span of time between them as you read this article:

from December 15, 1791 to December 14, 2012

that's almost nine generations of people, on average... a lot of time for wisdom to develop, or not.

as always, jim carrey had me rolling on the floor with laughter when i saw his "cold dead hand" music video (link to video at end of article.) but within minutes of viewing the video, i observed the "conservative media firestorm" ignited by the video. wow. jim carrey is a professional comedian among other talents, and most of his comedy is social satire. i don't remember seeing reactions like this to "ace ventura, pet detective," so i guess this is more evidence that a lot of americans love their guns. the reaction to this comical video is far more potent than the video itself, and critics of the video are fueling the fire.

this is just a personal note. everything has been said about gun rights and gun control. but like thousands of other important things i have taken for granted for nearly 52 years, the 2nd amendment to the constitution is something i had never actually read...until i observed the mad reaction over this video. now that i have read it, i believe the authors intended the "right to keep and bear arms" to refer to the building of a "regulated militia." i don't believe it was intended to enable every person in the country, present and future, to own any kind of weapon they desired. looking at the document historically, it appears to have been a remedy to a problem of the time, and gave no foresight whatsoever to the possibility of americans developing hi-tech firearms, enabling individuals to massacre large groups at schools and in their workplaces.

while reading a reference to the 2nd amendment, i followed a link to the sandy hook elementary massacre of December 14, 2012. i had heard about it, but i live in cambodia, where there are a lot of problems to keep me busy, and i simply had not previously pursued the story. i have seen some horrible things in cambodia, but this story had me holding back the tears because i am under some pressure to keep up my work. one thing i noticed, having just read the article about the 2nd amendment was that the date of the sandy hook massacre was just one day before the 221st birthday of the amendment. thinking like a programmer, i guessed that the day of the massacre must have been a friday. it's too close to be an accident. it must have been annoying to the killer that his victims would not be at school on the anniversary of his supposed constitutional right to keep and bear a XM15 assault rifle. when you look at the methodology and planning of these people who "go postal," you realize that everything is planned right up to the suicide. everything.

presumably there is much clever commentary about how different guns are in 2013 than they were in 1791. i don't have time to research this. i just have time to show a few pictures: the first two photos are of the assault weapon used to kill the children and teachers at sandy hook elementary school. the second is a picture of a typical rifle of the period 1791, when the 2nd amendment was written, nearly 222 years ago. please scroll down past the pictures for my final comments:

big bullets

the first word that comes to mind about the musket is "unwieldy." it took 20 seconds to load and fire. during the sandy hook massacre the killer fired 154 bullets at children and teachers in 17 minutes. if he had been a "musketeer" as imagined by the authors of the 2nd amendment, and if all the people in the school had waited patiently for him to reload his musket, he could have fired a maximum of 51 round lead balls with "horrible accuracy" and with "significant danger" to the operator of the musket. that is, if he could manage to get the six-foot long musket through the doors and have enough room to draw it up horizontally and fire a round.

it also occurs to me that, during this span of nearly 222 years, slavery was abolished (albeit via war,) and various human rights have become law, such as the right to vote for women, and various laws promoting civil rights. yet, in spite of numerous massacres like the one at sandy hook, legislators are not inclined to control the availability of guns. to an alien like me, it appears that the message in the madness is: you have the right to liberty, to vote, to shoot each other with sophisticated assault weapons.

i'd like to end this on a less morbid note, so... speaking of taking things for granted, boy do i feel stupid. i have read the "three musketeers" in french and english. at the bookstore in arcata, the staff often said the author's name as "dumb-ass" instead of the french "dumas." even as i look at the picture of the musket, i see images of men with swords. i have never seen an image of the "three musketeers" holding muskets. sometimes when i look at things closely and see them clearly, i feel like i am living in someone else's hallucination.

one of the reasons i came to cambodia was because i had read quite a bit about the genocide here in the late 1970s. apparently no one has a gun here these days. i have even read that there are more soldiers in the army than there are total guns in the country. this may be due to the fact that guns are expensive and cambodian people are starving and can't buy them. i am sure the wealthy cambodians who are siphoning money off of the ngos and voluntourists have guns.

finally, here is a quote from the justices who disagreed with the ruling that everyone should have an assault weapon:

"The Amendment's text does justify a different limitation: the "right to keep and bear arms" protects only a right to possess and use firearms in connection with service in a state-organized militia. Had the Framers wished to expand the meaning of the phrase "bear arms" to encompass civilian possession and use, they could have done so by the addition of phrases such as "for the defense of themselves".^[148]

2013

-1791

--------

=222 well, we still have a few more months before the 222nd bday of the 2nd amendment.

i grew up watching "hee haw" almost every saturday night at my grandmother's house, when she sat with me while my parents went out for a romantic dinner. this video is so similar to the old hee haw shows i watched when i was 8 that it had me feeling nostalgic. now i want to look back at the old shows and see if there is any of this type of satire. jim carrey and i are nearly the same age. i wonder if it was that early hee haw influence that tuned my brain to his physical and satirical comedy.. here are some links to the video:

links to "cold dead hand" video:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/0433b30576/cold-dead-hand-with-jim-carrey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Wn3Eey6dY

other references:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Dead_Hand

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

http://easycalculation.com/date-day/day-of-year.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musket#Operation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8nda8yPNbI (woman firing an XM15)