The massacre of children in Newtown, US, is so hurtful that every heart in the world felt the burn. Five years old children found death with three impacts of rifle bullets in their bodies, bullets that are twice the size of their fingers. Many voices in America and in the world have raised their voice. The statistics on that issue are impacting and surprising. Impacting because fifty percent of the massacres occurred in the world in the last fifty years happened in America. Around 300 millions of the inhabitants of a country that have not an indoors war have a fire gun. The surprising fact is that the whole scenario of guns possession there, holds from two lines of their Constitution, Second Amendment- which says: 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. Two lines that were written in 1791.
It is surprising because laws have always meant to serve peoples. Those that relate to what is essencial to human life - right to live, to work, to express, to worship, to education, etc - have been kept in time by every liberal community in the world and in history. The roots of freedom. But those that relate to human social organization and ways of life have develop according to the evolution of times. Plagues in Europe in the past obliged a set of laws that ceased from existence once the disease was controlled. Many laws written against piracy at sea no longer exist since the motive for their existence disappear. Racial laws in many countries became history when the rights of all peoples were seen under a different light. As societies become more complex and bigger, necessarily, the laws that rule them turn with their growing.
At the time of their Independence the inhabitants of North America were fewer, spread all around, dealing with a huge wild land. They had just fought the indians, the British, the French and one another. The union was just forming under the leadership of brilliant minds that managed to put together the variety of fifty different regions in one single vision. However, the organizational structures that would build a nation were just taking their first steps. At that time, agression from all fronts were still possible. The need for self-defense was deeply felt. But since then, not just some other amendments to the Constitution have taken place, but two hundred and eleven years have passed. It is, certainly, a different nation that it was in 1791. Even fears have changed.
The Americans built a democratic nation with three power in charge, they developed technologies that lead the world, they have sophisticated armed forces, and a quite unique police sense of solidarity, they even have special organized forces to protect animals. Their laws serve them to keep building community. So, the rights of peoples are maintained in time when human essence is concerned, and change in time as social organization develops. "Militias" where needed back in time and faded as organized, unified defense forces developed. Keeping every citizen armed is no longer needed and, on the contrary, it implies the concept of "justice by own hand" which contradicts the very essence of a civilization, and that in the hands of confused minds playing the pathetic role of their film and television heroes, produce the astonishing stats, the avoidable hurt. Those new lives blew up in Newtown and so many other places did not even have the time to see a bullet they did not understand and that was not needed. Peoples right for those children was life, fourteen amendment.
Once it is clear that the Second Amendment in the American Constitution is today an unnecessary "history pearl", what remains is the use of it by some Americans to put guns in the hands of other Americans who kill some other Americans. A very strange and bloody vicious circle. Piers Morgan's CNN programe is conducting these days a debate on gun possession which, in fact, is interesting to every country in the world with a similar problem. Also, president Obama, while announcing the study of measures to deal with an intricate difficult situation and to prevent future tragedies gave this data: "Since Friday morning, a police officer was gunned down in Memphis, leaving four children without their mother. Two officers were killed outside a grocery store in Topeka. A woman was shot and killed inside a Las Vegas casino. Three people were shot inside an Alabama hospital. A four-year-old was caught in a drive-by in Missouri, and taken off life support just yesterday. Each one of these Americans was a victim of the everyday gun violence that takes the lives of more than 10,000 Americans every year -- violence that we cannot accept as routine."
It is surprising because laws have always meant to serve peoples. Those that relate to what is essencial to human life - right to live, to work, to express, to worship, to education, etc - have been kept in time by every liberal community in the world and in history. The roots of freedom. But those that relate to human social organization and ways of life have develop according to the evolution of times. Plagues in Europe in the past obliged a set of laws that ceased from existence once the disease was controlled. Many laws written against piracy at sea no longer exist since the motive for their existence disappear. Racial laws in many countries became history when the rights of all peoples were seen under a different light. As societies become more complex and bigger, necessarily, the laws that rule them turn with their growing.
At the time of their Independence the inhabitants of North America were fewer, spread all around, dealing with a huge wild land. They had just fought the indians, the British, the French and one another. The union was just forming under the leadership of brilliant minds that managed to put together the variety of fifty different regions in one single vision. However, the organizational structures that would build a nation were just taking their first steps. At that time, agression from all fronts were still possible. The need for self-defense was deeply felt. But since then, not just some other amendments to the Constitution have taken place, but two hundred and eleven years have passed. It is, certainly, a different nation that it was in 1791. Even fears have changed.
The Americans built a democratic nation with three power in charge, they developed technologies that lead the world, they have sophisticated armed forces, and a quite unique police sense of solidarity, they even have special organized forces to protect animals. Their laws serve them to keep building community. So, the rights of peoples are maintained in time when human essence is concerned, and change in time as social organization develops. "Militias" where needed back in time and faded as organized, unified defense forces developed. Keeping every citizen armed is no longer needed and, on the contrary, it implies the concept of "justice by own hand" which contradicts the very essence of a civilization, and that in the hands of confused minds playing the pathetic role of their film and television heroes, produce the astonishing stats, the avoidable hurt. Those new lives blew up in Newtown and so many other places did not even have the time to see a bullet they did not understand and that was not needed. Peoples right for those children was life, fourteen amendment.
Once it is clear that the Second Amendment in the American Constitution is today an unnecessary "history pearl", what remains is the use of it by some Americans to put guns in the hands of other Americans who kill some other Americans. A very strange and bloody vicious circle. Piers Morgan's CNN programe is conducting these days a debate on gun possession which, in fact, is interesting to every country in the world with a similar problem. Also, president Obama, while announcing the study of measures to deal with an intricate difficult situation and to prevent future tragedies gave this data: "Since Friday morning, a police officer was gunned down in Memphis, leaving four children without their mother. Two officers were killed outside a grocery store in Topeka. A woman was shot and killed inside a Las Vegas casino. Three people were shot inside an Alabama hospital. A four-year-old was caught in a drive-by in Missouri, and taken off life support just yesterday. Each one of these Americans was a victim of the everyday gun violence that takes the lives of more than 10,000 Americans every year -- violence that we cannot accept as routine."
Watching the debate and reading the data, the whole issue in America reduces to a quite unbelievable closed circle reasoning: giving the fact that they are not at war and they do not have agressive neighbors, people claim their right to bear weapons in order to defend themselves from people who bear weapons. In other words, they claim the right to defend themselves from the very same right.
December 16/2012- Sylvia Davila Morales M (c)
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