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   From: NOT-SURE@idiocracy.gov   
      
   On 6/15/22 3:59 PM, Bill Press - MOVE TO MEXICO YOU PUSSY! wrote:   
   > Bill Press is former co-host of CNN's "Crossfire" and host of   
   > The Bill Press Pod. Follow him on Twitter. He tweets   
   > @BillPressPod. The views expressed in this commentary are his   
   > own. Read more opinion at CNN.   
   >   
   > (CNN)Who says history doesn't repeat itself? It sure does when   
   > it comes to the aftermath of mass shootings.   
   >   
   > After Columbine, Aurora, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Virginia Tech,   
   > Margery Stoneman Douglas, El Paso, Buffalo, Uvalde and so many   
   > others, it's always the same.   
   >   
   > First, shock. Then, grief. Then, a demand for action. Then, the   
   > phony claim: Too bad, but we can't do anything about guns   
   > because of the Second Amendment. And then, nothing is done to   
   > prevent the next attack.   
   >   
   > This time, could things be different? After the senseless   
   > assassination of 19 elementary school students and two teachers   
   > in Uvalde, Texas, senators of both parties are actually talking   
   > about a compromise on guns.   
   >   
   > But don't hold your breath. No matter what they come up with,   
   > chances are still slim that there will be 10 Republicans willing   
   > to override the filibuster. (A total of 60 votes are needed to   
   > end a filibuster in the evenly-divided US Senate.)   
   >   
   > Anything they agree on will probably just nibble around the   
   > edges of the gun issue. Sen. John Cornyn, the lead Republican   
   > negotiator, has already vetoed one of the most sensible   
   > proposals: raising the legal age for buying an assault weapon   
   > from 18 to 21 years.   
   >   
   > There's no way, especially in this election year, that   
   > Republicans will let anything out of the Senate that would   
   > ruffle the feathers of the National Rifle Association.   
   >   
   > President Joe Biden's proposals come close to what's really   
   > needed, with his bold call for universal background checks,   
   > eliminating ghost guns and renewing the ban on assault weapons.   
   > But even that's not enough to convince some conservative   
   > Americans that the Second Amendment is an open license arm   
   > themselves, even with weapons that belong on the battlefield.   
   >   
   > Let's face it. The way many judges and conservatives interpret   
   > the Second Amendment is a total con job. And, as wildly   
   > misinterpreted today, it is, for all intents and purposes, a   
   > license to kill as many people as you want with as many guns as   
   > you want.   
   >   
   > The only effective way to deal with the Second Amendment is to   
   > repeal it — and then replace it with something that makes sense   
   > in a civilized society.   
   >   
   > I'm hardly the first person to say that the Second Amendment has   
   > been a disaster for this country. In fact, two Supreme Court   
   > justices — justices appointed by Republican presidents — have   
   > said as much.   
   >   
   > In a March 2018 opinion piece for the New York Times, former   
   > Justice John Paul Stevens, who was appointed by then-President   
   > Gerald Ford, wrote that Americans protesting the massacre of 17   
   > people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School "should demand a   
   > repeal of the Second Amendment."   
   >   
   > He explained: "A constitutional amendment to get rid of the   
   > Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the   
   > NRA's ability to stymie legislative debate and block   
   > constructive gun control legislation than any other available   
   > option."   
   >   
   > And decades earlier, in 1991, former Chief Justice Warren   
   > Burger, appointed by President Richard Nixon, told the PBS   
   > Newshour: "If I were writing the Bill of Rights now, there   
   > wouldn't be any such thing as the Second Amendment.   
   >   
   > Burger called the Second Amendment "one of the greatest pieces   
   > of fraud — I repeat the word 'fraud' — on the American people by   
   > special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."   
   >   
   > Indeed, you only have to read the Second Amendment to see what a   
   > fraud it's become. Here it is, all 27 words: "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."   
   >   
   > Read it again. There's no way you can logically leap from those   
   > 27 words about the existence of a state militia to the   
   > unfettered right of any citizen to buy as many guns — and any   
   > kind of gun — that they want, without the government being able   
   > to do anything about it.   
   >   
   > It's clear from the wording of the Second Amendment itself that   
   > it has nothing to do with individual gun ownership; nothing to   
   > do with self-defense; and nothing to do with assault weapons.   
   > The amendment speaks, not to the rights of well-armed individual   
   > citizens, but only to citizens as members of a group, a "well   
   > regulated militia."   
   >   
   > And its history is well-known. The founders saw no need to   
   > mention guns in the original Constitution. As many   
   > constitutional scholars and American historians have shown, the   
   > Second Amendment was added later by James Madison as part of a   
   > deal to secure the support of Patrick Henry and other White   
   > racist Virginians for confirmation of the Constitution. Noted   
   > academic Carol Anderson, for one, describes the "anti-Blackness"   
   > that lies at the heart of the Second Amendment in her book "The   
   > Second," as well as its "architecture of repression."   
   >   
   > As such, it was not about self-defense. It was, in the opinion   
   > of these historians, about reassuring White plantation owners   
   > that the new federal government would not interfere with their   
   > practice of forming White militias to patrol the South, ready to   
   > put down rebellion by disgruntled Black slaves or chase down   
   > slaves who tried to flee.   
   >   
   > And again, the amendment has nothing to do with self-defense or   
   > allowing ownership of any kind of gun. As Stevens noted in his   
   > New York Times op-ed: "For over 200 years after the adoption of   
   > the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing   
   > any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun   
   > control legislation."   
   >   
   > Two things changed that. First, a band of gun extremists took   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)