Wherein I Revisit The 2nd Amendment

Few things in life make one appreciate what one has (or used to have) more than having it taken away. Though they haven't come for our guns yet, the federal government is building the capability to have private gun ownership become another nugget in the vast database that will one day track our every move, online and off.

Now I know, using the phrase "come for our guns" elicits the specter of Charlton Heston, proclaiming they can have his gun "...only when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers!" What a nut, huh. Yeah, I used to think so too. Gun control laws always seemed reasonable to me, what with increases in firearm lethality and availability combined with a seeming dearth of empathy among some of those who were inclined to use guns for criminal purposes. As Elvis Costello sings it, "It only took my little finger to blow you away...".

I won't rehash the history and intent of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Those dusty old arguments remind me of the quaint "debate" held in Congress last month over habeas corpus, before the motherfuckers took it away from us. John McCain, I'm looking at you. You and John Warner and Lindsey Graham caved in to President Bush on habeas and on torture too, in a despicable game of chicken with the Democrats, and you should resign for voting for that bill. You and your creation will forever live in infamy, as we cannot depend on even the Supreme Court to check your legislative cowardice. To you and every single congressman who voted for this travesty, I say, Go fuck yourself.

So it is up to us to fight to regain our liberties. As it ever was. A fight to reclaim a government instituted among men, created "in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity". Even the Framers of the Constitution inherently knew that self-defense and liberty and justice are NOT mutually exclusive. It's all in how you write the laws. And the legal balance has now tipped precariously against a voting public, in favor of an authoritarian and increasingly fascistic executive branch of our own government. Better watch out if you were thinking of disclosing any more illegal government activities to a "free" press. They will come for the leaker and the reporter, too.

This is serious shit, people. Under color of this law and the inevitable presidential signing statement, as I quote from the New York Times, an enemy combatant is defined as "anyone determined to be an enemy combatant under criteria defined by the president or secretary of defense". In other words, YOU. ME. ANYONE. And as an enemy combatant, you can be hauled away in the dead of night and thrown in a cell to rot, with no legal recourse and with only the sound of your own tortured screams for company.

Fortunately, if one believes the polls and (God willing) if the Republicans continue to circle up and shoot at each other over their leadership's complete abdication of responsibility in the Foley mess, in November Democrats may be able to wrest control of at least one house of Congress from the criminals currently in charge. That is, if all the hackable Diebold voting machines can't overcome the tide of disgust sweeping the nation. Because if they steal one more election, so help me God...

I'm 48 years old. I was born in Wyoming, a state in the United States of America. I'm a lifelong liberal and am proud to be a patriotic American. And for the first time in my life, I am seriously considering becoming a gun owner.