Can The Pressure From Below Overcome The Pressure From Above?

Hey Everyone!! :-)

I've got a little more of Alyce's adventure to share with you, today! Enjoy! :-)

Excerpt from sci-fi satire novel:
"So the pressure your people put on your government worked," observed Squid-boy.

I nodded. "And that's not the only recent example. There's also gun control."

"What's that?" asked Yax.

I sighed. "There are some people in our society who don't want there to be any restrictions on who is allowed to own guns or what types of guns civilians are allowed to own."

"That sounds unreasonable. Why would they make such an argument?"

"Because of a misinterpretation, which I often think is deliberate, of something written by the people who initially formed our government."

"I don't understand."

I felt a headache building again and rubbed the back of my neck. "When the United States was formed, the people who wrote our Constitution also wrote a list of amendments to our Constitution called the Bill of Rights. The second of those amendments was about the arming of militias."

"Militias?" said Squid-boy.

"Yes. At the time, my country was too new and poor to be able to afford to have a professional standing army. So, the way defense was organized was for individual states, and even local communities, to organize a way to call people to arms if they were needed to defend against a threat. And, so that those militias would have the necessary arms to call upon, the second amendment was written, which guarantees the right of people to have guns in order to serve as part of a well-regulated militia. To defend the country."

"But you do have a professional military."

I snorted. "Sugar, we have the largest professional military the planet Earth has ever seen in all of human history. A lot can change in more than 200 years. We even have a militia; it's called the National Guard."

"So then how does this amendment apply to guns in your current day society?" asked Yax.

"As I said, a misinterpretation."

"How is it being misinterpreted that would make some of your people think that there should be no rules about who can own weapons or what types of weapons non-military personnel should be allowed access to? That seems extreme, to say the least."

"Well, some people claim that the militias mentioned in the second amendment were intended by the people who wrote it to mean militias that would be available if our own government overstepped its authority and needed to be removed by force."

"Is that what it meant?" asked Squid-boy.

I shrugged. "Honestly? I don't know. It's possible. The amendment itself doesn't say anything about that, but there are other writings by the people who founded our government to suggest that at least some of them felt that way. Those writings aren't part of our legal code, but they do exist. And the people who wrote our Constitution and the Bill of Rights were revolutionaries who had fought a war to overthrow the government that had ruled over them, so it would be entirely within their character to worry about governmental excess. But, again, none of those writings were included in the legal code they wrote, only in their personal correspondence."

"But, if that's what they intended, even if they failed to explicitly state it, would that give credence to the argument being used by those in your society, now, who seek to keep your government from regulating weapons?"

I shook my head. "No. For a couple of reasons. First, even if that's what the founders meant, there's still the fact that they stipulated that guns be kept for the purpose of a well-regulated militia. Which means that being part of a militia is necessary, which most people who own guns aren't, and that the militia can and should be regulated. And part of regulation is defining who can safely be allowed access to guns and what guns are appropriate for non-military members."

"And, second, and most importantly, as I said before, a lot can change in more than 200 years. At the time the Bill of Rights was written, it was realistic to think that a citizens' militia possessing only small arms would have a chance to prevail over a professional army if the members of the militia were dedicated enough and had enough support from the populace. That's no longer the case. The advancements in weapons technology mean that, no matter how many guns regular people have or what kind of guns they are, they'll never be able to mount an effective defense against missiles launched from hundreds of miles away or bombs dropped from the sky by unmanned drones or poisonous chemicals deployed in clouds of gas or dozens of other weapons that a professional military run by a government has that a civilian militia will never have."

"So, these people you're talking about seek to rectify the problems in your society through armed insurrection?" asked Yax.

I sighed. "There are some crazies who think that way, yeah. Other people just think it's fun to play with guns. And there are other people who just want to bully people they don't like and think having guns will garner them respect they haven't earned."

"But there are people in your society who are seeking to ban guns?" asked Squid-boy.

I rolled my eyes. "No. And now you sound like the gun nuts."

"Then how does the recent increase in civil unrest apply to this issue?"

"Because there are people who are trying to get legislation passed that will regulate guns in sensible ways."

"Why not ban them, altogether?" asked Yax. "If they have caused enough trouble in your society that people feel the need to protest them, why have them at all?"

"Because the people who are protesting are generally reasonable people who just want to decrease the number of mass shootings that take place on a regular basis in public places in our country. And that can be achieved by regulating the types of guns that can be owned by civilians as well as doing a better job of making sure those who will use guns to harm others aren't able to get access to guns."

"But wouldn't it be simpler to get rid of guns completely?" asked Squid-boy.

"No. Because some people need guns to protect themselves and their livestock against predation by wild animals, or to hunt animals for food, or any number of other legitimate reasons a person might need a gun. And most of the people who have protested for better gun control laws are aware of those reasons."

"And their efforts have been successful?"

I wagged my hand back and forth. "A little. Remember when I compared our current situation to boiling water? Well, there's a lot of pressure being exerted by the corporations that manufacture guns to keep better laws from being passed. They don't seem to care how many people are murdered, so long as they keep making money. And they use quite a bit of that money so that their lobbyists can influence politicians through campaign donations."

"The corruption you talked about, before," murmured Yax.

"Yep. But the marches and other political pressure that the people who want better gun control legislation passed is starting to be strong enough to push back against the gun lobby. There have been some laws passed, at the state and local level, to try to help regulate guns more effectively. And even some politicians at the national level are starting to talk about it, which is more than they've done in the past."

"But will it work? In the final analysis, will these groups that are marching and advocating for change achieve their goals?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. What's happening now is just a start, not a finish. A lot can, and I'm sure will, happen before anything is really decided. Like I said before, we'll have to wait and see what happens."