On December 14, 11 days before Christmas in the year 2012 one
of the most hateful and viscous partisan political years in my personal memory,
“Adam Lanza, age 20, fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members and wounded two at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in the town of Newtown, Connecticut. Before driving to the school, Lanza had shot and killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their Newtown home. After killing students and staff members, Lanza committed suicide by shooting himself in the head as first responders arrived.” From Wikipedia
Since that date a tremendous amount of public outrage has
been vented against guns, gun ownership, gun laws, gun rights from both the
general public and the radical extremist on both ends of the political spectrum.
That we should see such an outpouring of
concern and emotion is good and healthy, especially after such a painful
confrontation with our own failings as a human beings and as a society. It is
venting the sick and misguided venom of a partisanship that is blinding us to
the common interest we share for the safety of one another and our future, our
children.
Here in Rhode Island there has been concern for our
neighbors to the west and reflections that there but for an act of God that could
be us. Over the past week (since January 1.) there have appeared Op-Ed pieces
in the Providence Journal from the Jewish and Catholic community, a personal
observation by Congressman Langivan (a survivor of a gun accident), and today
by Allen Hassenfeld focusing on
priorities. Letters and comments also appear in the local letter to the editor
and the web-based versions. Many good points are being made, many simplistic
solutions proposed, and many self serving offers or promotions served up. All
of this, points to complexity of our motives and feelings toward the GUN as
physical objects and their use generates.
The central issue, I feel, is how does a civilized society
based on the principle of individuality, freedom of choice and self expression
survive when the power of life and death is granted to every citizen without
any control or constraint from the community in which the individual lives?
What happens when the social controls we, as citizens, agree to live under
through our system of laws and collective decision making are surrendered to super-rich plutocrats with private armies and the mentally deranged psycho- and sociopathic, isolated,
and alienated individual with an assault rifle? What is the proper role of government and the
citizenry?
Roger Williams founded Rhode Island based on the principle
that the answer to question the rights of diversity and the majority was not
civil war of the majority against the minority. The answer he proposed is a
civil debate based on the “tolerance” of the other’s views and interests.
Over the years I have heard many complaints about the word “tolerance.”
It is too weak, too insincere, too “liberal,” too “conservative.” What I
believe I am hearing when people reject or question the word, is a demand for
ideological purity of principle, rather than a pragmatic acceptance that there
will always be different points of view. Each of these has legitimate
perspectives and claims. These are claims that arise as much from experience
and they do from any “purity” the adherent might claim.
Tolerance is a term used in physics and engineering to
describe just how much room there is between the ideal stress that can be
applied to a material and the amount of actual stress that can be applied to
the material before it fails.
Rhode Island’s lively experiment, envisioned by Roger
Williams, has been and is a social experiment in the tolerance of something
called civil society. Since civil society is made up of imperfect material,
humans and their self interests, the question is when it comes to the GUN, what
are we willing to tolerate? Sandy Hook is a test of our resolve.
Can we tolerate
the murder of 22 children as price we are willing to pay for the right of some
people to own a GUN with minimum supervision and regulation by the community
into which they bring their GUN? Or do we insist that to own a GUN, because of
its power to kill and maim, carries with it a higher standard responsibility and a lower tolerance than
applies to other objects in our society. What is our tolerance for GUN
ownership and GUN rights?
Here in Rhode Island we are beginning the debate. Here in
Rhode Island we must exercise our rights under the 1st Amendment to determine our own course within the
very broad and vague provisions of the 2nd Amendment.
There are consequences for every action. There will be
consequences from whatever we decide. Let us take seriously the potential costs
of unintended consequence. Let us learn from Sandy Hook and tighten up our legal standards to the right GUN ownership and lower our personal tolerance for personal misuse of GUNS here in Rhode Island.
Also check out: Americans for Responsible Solutions Gabby Gifford initiative
Also check out: Americans for Responsible Solutions Gabby Gifford initiative
