Daily Archives: March 25, 2021

BOULDER, CO - MARCH 22: Tactical police units respond to the scene of a King Soopers grocery store ... [+] after a shooting on March 22, 2021 in Boulder, Colorado. Dozens of police responded to the afternoon shooting in which at least one witness described three people who appeared to be wounded, according to published reports. (Photo by Chet Strange/Getty Images)

On Tuesday morning the hashtags #EnoughIsEnough and #SecondAmendment were trending and each had more than 30,000 tweets while there were an equal number of posts related to the topic of "Well Regulated" another reference to the wording of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.

All of this was of course in response to the most recent mass shooting on Monday inside a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado. Ten people were killed, including a veteran police officer. As of Tuesday morning the motives remain unclear.

Across social media, especially Twitter, many users made their opinion quite clear.

"We aren't numb - over 90% of Americans support stronger gun laws. It's a handful of US Senators beholden to the gun lobby who have refused to act. The Second Amendment wasn't meant to be a suicide pact," posted Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts), founder of @MomsDemand action.

On the other side of the issue, the NRA (@NRA) responded by sharing the wording of the Second Amendment, "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."

Anti-social Response

The responses that followed on Monday evening and Tuesday morning were anything but social. Many users called for greater gun control, casting blame at Republican lawmakers, while supporters of the Second Amendment blamed mental illness.

As with so many issues, both sides dug in and offered sharp and concise opinions. The issue of "Well Regulated" as in the well regulated militia, wasn't so much debated but rather a read through shows that it was an echo chamber. Many who see that the wording is to mean a government-regulated military force, akin to the National Guard, repeated that argument.

Across social media the opinions of the Founding Fathers was debated; and those who are opposed to firearms and the Second Amendment clearly see this as an opportunity to push for greater gun control, while supporters of the Second Amendment seemed as determined to make their counter arguments.

But the question must be asked whether any of this is remotely productive?

"Social media discussions are primarily about reaffirming your identity in a group," explained Dr. Matthew J. Schmidt, PhD, associate professor of national security and political science at the University of New Haven.

While today the discussion is about the Second Amendment, similarly hostile discourse has been seen for any hot button issue and people seem unwilling to even listen. The posts on social media don't seem to be aimed at changing opinions, but rather reaffirming one's point of view.

"Everyone has been cooped up for months, and we're living through the most tumultuous time in history, so for some people they just want their voices heard even if no one is actually listening," said technology futurist and brand strategist Scott Steinberg.

"Social media is a great platform to do just that right now," Steinberg added. "People aren't actually going to social media to have productive casual conversations. They tune into more to be part of crowd in fiery debates and hear from those that have similar opinions."

This is absolutely true of any issue and isn't limited to gun control or support for the Second Amendment.

"I doubt the issue of gun control will find resolution on social media, and it's now a well-established fact that social media tend to have a polarizing effect on most topics," said Mike Lawlor, associate professor of criminal justice at the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences at University of New Haven.

"That being said, social media does present the most user-friendly platform for grass roots organizing," said Lawlor. "You saw that in the post-Parkland 'March for Our Lives' event and organization."

Different Topic Same Responses

In many ways social media has allowed people to feel like they are part of a group or movement, even if the debate isn't all that social.

"Think of it as shouting into the void there is something cathartic about that," said Steinberg. "People need a forum right now. The downside is that because there are two sides of every issue it becomes very polarizing."

Steinberg added that we'd have to get back to a baseline where we agree to listen to one another before we can have any chance of having a meaningful debate, and that is unlikely to happen given the tone and open hostility.

"People use language that signals their strong belief in the ideas of their own group and some people attack the other side by way of reaffirming their own position as fighters in the culture war," added Schmidt. "This kind of speech starts to look like sectarian warfare. It's not reasoned debate designed to reconcile differences or find spaces of compromise. And conducting these arguments on platforms other than social media is unlikely to resolve any differences. People have picked their sides and very, very few will change."

Given that fact there is little chance that social media will result in any social change.

"There are, of course, two extremes in this debate," said Lawlor. "But there is also a soft, persuadable middle.Those without critical thinking skills will fall victim to conspiracy theories and paranoia.Those will critical thinking skills will focus on the events surrounding yesterday's shooting and consider whether reasonable steps could have been taken to prevent it or at least make it less likely. Each one of these tragedies is a teachable moment.Our challenge is to present the facts and analysis and hope people are willing to listen."

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Second Amendment And Gun Control Debated On Twitter Is Social The Place To Have This Discussion? - Forbes

Selectman Glenn Bear Zaidman wants to bring his resolution to make Bridgton a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary back before the board and questioned why he was told he couldnt.

I believe that our Constitution and our Bill of Rights are under attack in more ways than one, Zaidman reiterated at Tuesdays meeting, two weeks after his resolution failed on a tie vote.

Selectboard members Paul Tworog and Carmen Lone voted March 9 against Zaidmans resolution to create the sanctuary to oppose unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms for its citizens, and Zaidman and Fred Packard voted in favor. Chairperson Liston Lee Eastman, who would have cast the tiebreaking vote, was absent, but said later he would have voted for it.

Declaring the town a 2nd Amendment Sanctuary would have no effect on the law, according to Geoff Bickford, an attorney and director of the Maine Gun Safety Coalition.

Some folks have said that some of the Amendments are not under attack, that is their opinion. It might not be under attack in their minds, Zaidman said.

He did not provide details on what the attacks are, nor did any members of the board mention the shootings in the Atlanta area that killed eight people and another mass shooting in Boulder, Colo., that killed 10 one week and one day earlier.

Zaidman said it was not his intention Tuesday to get another vote on the resolution at that meeting, but he questioned Town Manager Bob Peabodys apparent rejection that the resolution could not be renewed.

According to Roberts Rules of Order, the parliamentary procedures the Selectboard follows, renewing a motion is the only method by which to put a motion back on the table after it has been defeated.

Zaidman said that when he approached Peabody following the March 9 vote about renewing his motion to adopt the resolution, Peabody told him that he would be challenged.

Peabody said defeated motions cannot be brought up again until after the next board is sworn in so that things dont come up meeting after meeting after meeting.

Zaidman said he will not renew this motion at least for the next couple of weeks and would seek clarification.

Tworog, who voted against the resolution, said that resolutions are not typically of a controversial nature.

The usual intent is to do it on an item that the town is basically in agreement on because as soon as this type of resolution passes, it brands the town as a whole with that, he said.

Tworog said he reviewed all of the letters for public comment sent to the board and of those, 30 residents wrote in favor of the resolution and 55 wrote on the record that they were against it.

In this case, those put in writing overwhelmingly rejected the idea of doing this resolution, he said.

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Bridgton selectman wants reconsideration of Second Amendment Sanctuary resolution - pressherald.com

Another mass gun murder just happened in America, the seventh in 7 days, and already "Second Amendment legislators" are offering the 2021 version of thoughts and prayers. Lauren Boebert just tweeted, "May God be with them." Standing in front of her wall of assault weapons, most likely.

And, of course, today on rightwing talk radio and Fox News they've already begun lengthy bloviation about the Second Amendment. So, let's just clear a few things up.

The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the differencesee the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, an action necessary to get Virginia's vote to ratify the Constitution.

It had nothing whatsoever to do with making sure mass murderers could shoot up public venues and schools. Founders including Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that, and we all should be too.

In today's America, you have the "right" to a gun, but no "right" to healthcare or education. In every other developed country in the world, the reality is the exact opposite.

In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South they were called "slave patrols," and were regulated by the states.

In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state. The law defined which counties had which armed militias and required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings.

As Dr. Carl T. Bogus wrote for the University of CaliforniaLaw Reviewin 1998, "The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search 'all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition' and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds."

It's the answer to the question raised by thecharacter played byLeonardo DiCaprio inDjango Unchainedwhen he asks, "Why don't they just rise up and kill the whites?" It was a largely rhetorical question, because every southerner of the era knew the answer: Well-regulated militias kept enslaved people in chains.

Sally E. Haden, in her brilliant and essentialbookSlave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas, notes that, "Although eligibility for the Militia seemed all-encompassing, not every middle-aged white male Virginian or Carolinian became a slave patroller." There were exemptions so "men in critical professions" like judges, legislators and students could stay at their work. Generally, though, she documents how most southern men between ages 18 and 45including physicians and ministershad to serve on slave patrol in the militia at one time or another in their lives.

And slave rebellions were keeping the slave patrols busy.

By the time the Constitution was ratified, hundreds of substantial slave uprisings had occurred across the South. Blacks outnumbered whites in large areas, and the state militias were used to both prevent and to put down uprisings by enslaved men and women. As I detail in my book The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment, slavery can only exist in a police state, which the South had become by the early 1700s, and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias.

Southerners worried that if the anti-slavery folks in the North could figure out a way to disbandor even move out of the statethose southern militias, the police state of the South would collapse. And, similarly, if the North were to invite into military service enslaved men from the South, then they could be emancipated, which would collapse the institution of slavery, along with the southern economic and social "ways of life."

These two possibilities worried southerners like slaveholder James Monroe, George Mason (who owned over 300 enslaved humans) and the southern Christian evangelical, Patrick "Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death" Henry (Virginia's largest slaveholder).

Their main concern was that Article 1, Section 8 of the newly-proposed Constitution, which gave the federal government the power to raise and supervise an army, could also allow that federal army to subsume their state militias and change them from slavery-enforcing institutions into something that could even, one day, free their enslaved men, women and children.

This was not an imagined threat. Famously, 12 years earlier, during the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, Lord Dunsmore offered freedom to slaves who could escape and join his forces. "Liberty to Slaves" was stitched onto their jacket pocket flaps. During the War, British General Henry Clinton extended the practice in 1779. And numerous freed slaves served in General Washington's army.

Thus, southern legislators and plantation owners lived not just in fear of their own slaves rebelling, but also in fear that their slaves could be emancipated through the newly-forming United States offering them military service.

At the ratifying convention in Virginia in 1788, Henry laid it out:

"Let me here call your attention to that part [Article 1, Section 8 of the proposed Constitution] which gives the Congress power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States. . . .

"By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither this power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory."

George Mason expressed a similar fear:

"The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practised in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless, by disarming them. Under various pretences, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia; and the state governments cannot do it, for Congress has an exclusive right to arm them [under this proposed Constitution]"

Henry then bluntly laid it out:

"If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections [under this new Constitution]. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress . . . . Congress, and Congress only [under this new Constitution], can call forth the militia."

And why was that such a concern forPatrick Henry?

"In this state," he said, "there are 236,000 Blacks, and there are many in several other states. But there are few or none in the Northern States. May Congress not say, that every Black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free."

Patrick Henry was also convinced that the power over the various state militias given the federal government in the new Constitution could be used to strip the slave states of their slave-patrol militias. He knew the majority attitude in the North opposed slavery, and he worried they'd use the new Constitution they were then debating ratifying to free the South's slaves (a process then called "Manumission").

The abolitionists would, he was certain, use that power (and, ironically, this is pretty much what Abraham Lincoln ended up doing):

"[T]hey will search that paper [the Constitution], and see if they have power of manumission," said Henry."And have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the 'general defence and welfare'? May they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power?

"This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper [the Constitution] speaks to the point: they have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."

He added: "This is a local [Southern] matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to Congress."

James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" and a slaveholder himself, basically called Patrick Henry paranoid.

"I was struck with surprise,"Madison said, "when I heard him express himself alarmed with respect to the emancipation of slaves. . . . There is no power to warrant it, in that paper [the Constitution]. If there be, I know it not."

But the southern slavemasters' fears wouldn't go away.

Patrick Henry even argued that southerner's "property" (enslaved humans) would be lost under the new Constitution, and the resulting slave uprising would be less than peaceful or tranquil:

"In this situation," Henry said to Madison, "I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone."

So Madison, who had (at Jefferson's insistence) already begun to prepare proposed amendments to the Constitution, changed his first draft of one that addressed the militia issue to make sure it was unambiguous that the southern states could maintain their slave patrol militias.

His first draft for what became the Second Amendment had said: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a freecountry[emphasis mine]: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person."

But Henry, Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government. So Madison changed the word "country" to the word "state," and redrafted the Second Amendment into today's form:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a freeState[emphasis mine], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporationswould use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their "right" to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder people in schools, theaters and stores, and use the profits to own their own political party.

In today's America, you have the "right" to a gun, but no "right" to healthcare or education. In every other developed country in the world, the reality is the exact opposite.

Pointing out how ludicrous this has become, David Sirota (and colleagues) writes in his Daily Poster newsletter today: "Last week, the National Rifle Association publicly celebrated its success in striking down an assault weapons ban in Boulder, Colorado. Five days later, Boulder was the scene of a mass shooting, reportedly with the same kind of weapon that the city tried to ban."

The Second Amendment was never meant to make it easier for mass shooters to get assault weapons, and America needs rational gun policy to join the other civilized nations of this planet who aren't the victims of daily mass killings.

It's long past time to overturn Heller, which Ruth Bader Ginsberg repeatedly argued the Court should do, and abolish today's bizarre interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.

This post originally appeared at hartmannreport.com, but is published here with permission of the author.

See more here:
Boulder: Is it Time to End the Second Amendment? - Common Dreams

Caribou City Council narrowly voted in favor of becoming a Second Amendment sanctuary city on March 22. The resolution sends the message that the city is opposed to any unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms for its residents.

CARIBOU, Maine Caribou City Council narrowly voted in favor of becoming a Second Amendment sanctuary city on March 22. The resolution sends the message that the city is opposed to any unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms for its residents.

Caribou is now the third municipality in Aroostook County and the fourth in Maine to become a Second Amendment sanctuary city. Fort Fairfield was the first in The County, making the declaration on Jan. 20, and Van Buren did the same on March 2. Paris passed its resolution in 2019. And while the other two Aroostook towns passed the resolution unanimously, Caribous city council was split on the matter.

The topic was first brought to the council on March 8. Mayor Jody Smith said Deputy Mayor Thomas Ayer suggested putting the item on the agenda for councils consideration, and that he supported the resolution.

Four of the seven councilors expressed support for the resolution during the first read. Ayer and councilor Doug Morrell in particular explained their position during this meeting.

What were saying is, when it comes to the grand scheme of things, coming in and taking our firearms, any sort of magazine restriction were saying you cant do it, Ayer said in early March.

Morrell, during this meeting, said he was 150 percent behind the resolution, adding that stopping gun crimes is just as futile as the war on drugs.

Its not going to stop the criminals, he said, never has and never was. And what would I put up against that as proof? Look at the drug battle. We spent billions with a B and havent made a dent in it. The road to Hells paved in good intentions, but taking away somebodys right? I cant see that happening. I think thats one of the catalysts for the whole country to go in a very rough spot if they attempt to do that.

The remaining three councilors Joan Therieault, Lou Willey and Courtney Boma asked for more time to look into the matter before making a formal vote.

And when the matter was taken up again on March 22, Theriault, Willey, and Boma expressed opposition while the other councilors voted in favor but did not make any additional comments on the matter.

Theriault said that while she has no problem with the Second Amendment, she opposed the resolution.

This is a big declaration, and for seven people to make that decision for 7,000-plus in the community, I dont think we should be doing this, she said.

Theriault said the decision should be made by the will of the people, one way or the other.

I think its sending the wrong message, perhaps, that if you dont like a specific law that mightve been passed or whatever, that youre going to deem it unconstitutional and youre not going to obey those laws, Theriault said. And actually its the [U.S.] Supreme Court that can decide whats unconstitutional.

Councilor Doug Morrell, who voted in favor of the motion, suggested that the council at a future meeting make Caribou a sanctuary city for the whole constitution.

Willey agreed with Morrells sentiment, but said it may be a superfluous gesture as councilors already swear to uphold the constitution. She added that she was opposed to the Second Amendment sanctuary resolution as it would likely not have any real impact.

Its probably not worth the paper youre signing it on, she said. When the government and state decide to change laws, theyre not going to say Oh, everyone but Caribou. Theyre going to change the laws and were going to have to abide by them like everyone else.

Willey said shes discussed this resolution with residents and that it has left many feeling angry, frightened and disappointed.

One person told her that the city might as well advertise bringing guns into Caribou on their welcome sign, and another woman in her 90s told Willey the resolution scared her.

I know you guys wont agree, but I just feel this degrades our city, she said. Caribou has always been, I cant say polished, but weve always been a proud community, and this is like bringing us down a level.

Boma said she has also received several messages and emails from community members who are opposed to the resolution.

I think Doug might have a good point if we look at this as more of a constitutional declaration, that might be one thing, but I think really honing in on this as a gun sanctuary is just not a good idea for our community, Boma said. I think this does send the wrong message to people who might be considering coming to this community, not just to the people who already live here, so I dont support it either.

Councilors Theriault, Willey, and Boma were opposed to the motion while Thomas Ayer, Morrell, and Mark Goughan voted in favor. Mayor Jody Smith broke the tie by voting in favor of the resolution.

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Caribou narrowly becomes Aroostook's third Second Amendment sanctuary city - The County