Martinez is right

Time to declare

Richard Martinez, grieving over his son who was killed by a deranged person with easy access to weapons of mass destruction, is the first parent to rise up and speak the truth. He has challenged the craven politicians of all persuasions who are cowed by the well-organized gun lobby to, finally, do the right thing.

The idea that an armed society is a civil society defies common sense. We have been told by the NRA that the only bad gun owners are crazy people and criminals and that we would all be safer if every citizen carried, as if what we see in movies are reality. Really? Want to go to a mall or walk into a bar where literally everyone has a side-arm? Want to find an armed society? Try Dara Adam Khel in Western Pakistan where the main industry is the manufacture of guns that explode after the third shot and where everyone carries. Have a nice day.

The idea that the Founding Fathers imagined random killings and mass murders when they wote “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.” They did not contemplate that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” would be carved out and used for these purposes. They did not imagine that every citizen in the republic would have the right to own and use weapons of mass destruction.

The NRA has two messages: one is that we all need to bear arms because there may come a day when our elected government — think jackbooted thugs in black helicopters — will come for us and we need to defend ourselves like the minutemen of old and the second is that there will come a time when mobs will rise — think people of any color but your own — and we need to protect ourselves against them. So we all need guns because of the simultaneous dangers of overreaching and inadequate governments. Great logic.

It’s time, people. This defines us as much as anything else. What is the meaning of America? What is the example that we set for the world? How do we think of ourselves? Are we people of courage and common sense and compassion or are we crazy ideologues protected by a pathetic and apathetic population?

I can tell you which side I’m on. Which side are you on?