Friday, October 9, 2015

And yet again were are here, again.... again..... again.... damn it

2nd week, 2nd school shooting. How in 2015 is this still acceptable in the USA? History, self narratives, libertarian ideal, and rapid technological change. We as a country have not kept pace with many of the root causes. This makes dealing with any of them progressively harder.


hey I wrote about something relevant 3 years ago.




anyhoo


History.

    The 2nd amendment doesn't mean what you probably think it means. Or at least it didn't at the time of it's writing. The founding fathers didn't think of themselves as "Americans." They thought of themselves as Englishmen in America. The Bill of Rights was mostly meant to codify rights they thought they had traditionally under English common law. As such land owning males (aka voters aka writers of the laws) had kept firearms since the fall of knights. For various reasons.

    How do we know this? Well they were very clear about it in the Federalist Papers. The letters and pamphlets used to sell the Bill of Rights. These discussions included why they were written and what they meant to the authors.

   Something proponents of gun control point out is that there was a need for well organized and trained militias. This was for a few reasons. 1) The newly formed collection of states was afraid of England returning in force to reclaim their territory. 2) The founders of the federal government were afraid of a national military becoming a tool of oppression by those in power. As had just happened against them. Sort of. This is also why the 3rd amendment exists. To prevent the same actions the British had taken from being used in the future by an oppressive American government. 3) At the time of founding the federal government had no mechanism or desire to raise the funds to pay for a standing army.

   As the revolution had been won on the backs of average people with hunting and sporting equipment like the Kentucky Rifle (not mentioning the mercenaries and outside nations wanting to stick it to the English Empire and expand their influence in the Western Hemisphere.) The American Revolutionary War was one of the first documented cases of practical sniping of high value targets, as riflemen would aim for commanders and cannoneers. This was unheard of at the time, and we would 200 years later come to resent other groups doing the same to us.

   The idea of keeping these same men trained, and ready to be called upon to defend the State, or Nation was one of the main thrusts of the original 2nd Amendment. Don't need to pay them, they aren't a standing army, and they would self arm. Win, win, and win.

   This would change after more states entered the union, the push to expand ever westward, the War of 1812, and of course the idea that a nation might not be taken seriously until a standing army was available to respond to incidents. Fun (awkward fact) until after the American Civil War, internationally the USA was seen as a very minor power, and considered not a military threat. Only the logistics of trans-Atlantic supply lines really kept people from seriously considering an invasion. Well that and the lucrative trade fighting between states. Huh trade fighting between states? That happens today. Other rant, other time.


Technology:

    Want to know the main technological difference as far as this debate goes between an old muzzle loader like the muskets and rifles (ignoring the whole percussion cap/flint lock issue) used during the revolution and the breech loading weapons that replaced them? Ease of use and rate of fire. A skilled, top tier shooter with the Kentucky Rifle hope to get 2 rounds a minute, perhaps more with some tricks of the trade, and with out careful aiming. The M1819 Hall Rifle which became America's first breech loading rifle and saw use during the American Civil War using a cartridge could fire 8-9 times a minute with much less training, and less need to stand up to load powder. That is a massive difference. It would take four highly trained Kentucky Riflemen to place as much lead in the air as one averagely trained soldier with an M1819 Hall Rifle.

    Not to mention now we are not talking musket balls, we are talking more aerodynamic slugs, that have ridges to grab the rifling. These slugs are also designed to be expanded into the chamber by the explosive force; allowing for a better seal in the rifle for a higher velocity. 1 soldier, 4 times the fire rate, effective range increasing from 200 yards to 1000 yards. How do you foresee that? A weapon system evolving so much in such a short time, that the context of it's use becomes so different between people a single generation later? The difference between a B17 Flying Fortress and a B2 Spirit? Faster, larger payload, harder to hit?

    Now single shot weapons are not the only player on the field. Dr Richard Gatling developed a practical repeating rifle, and one of the first deployed machine guns as we define them today. While not a perfect design (plagued with misfires, feed jams, and poor maintenance leading to gear issues) the same basic design would 115 years later scare the crap out of the USSR when electrified and put into the air. The Gatling Gun was capable of 200 rounds a minute. While taking a crew of 4 to operate, that would out pace almost any marching formation. Gatling designed it hoping to shrink the size of standing armies, and to make war futile by making storming a Gatling Gun defended position impossible. Something Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim would think again when he designs and sells the Maxim Machine Gun to multiple world armies. As does Alfred Nobel think when he give the world dynamite. Alfred Nobel was so scarred about what his invention did to Europe in WWI that he started the Nobel Prize to help reward attempts at peace and science for sciences sake.

    In a pattern that is to be repeat time and time again, the new weapons simply cause high casualties at first under the old tactics and strategies. Then as battlefields adapt, usage and counter usage advances, casualty rates drop, but remain higher than before the new technology. By WWII we have as a species developed automatic handguns, rifles, sub-machine guns, and battle field flame throwers.

   Again, with no way to foresee any of these in the time of the writing of the 2nd Amendment. Not quite convinced that the technology has far surpassed the original use of the text? Let us mention ammunition. We have already touched upon the difference between a musket ball and a civil war slug. Now let us talk about current options.

   How cruel/task specific do you want to get? Hunting, hollow point, or soft lead gotcha covered. Need to penetrate cover, or armor? Metal jacketed, or metal cored Armor Piercing rounds will punch through quite a bit. Add some Teflon coating on top and those weaved protections are now less viable. Short range? Replace a shotgun slug or shot with a flechette charge. Now you have a high velocity hard to remove shrapnel. Want to wound without killing, or maybe start a fire? Magnesium and Phosphorus rounds have you covered there. Oh, some of these not legal in your area? Do you have access to an ammunition press, a 3D printer, and or some power tools you can get at the local hardware store? Whelp so much for that.

Also yes, we now live in a world were you can 3D print a gun.


Here I was going to go on about gun culture, how it has evolved from, novelty of inventors, and monks. It later becomes a hunting weapon and status symbol of the rich. Later becoming the survival and imperial tool of explorers and conquerors. Then slowly becoming the answer to all conflicts, to have the better gun, to use the gun better, quicker, and smarter.


I then realized I am at 1400 words already. Then I wanted to talk about America's love of Libertarian ideals in the sense that the right to swing my fist stops at your nose. As long as it doesn't affect you what I do is my business (mostly, except bedrooms, doctors, and perhaps, childcare.) Then again 1400 words. I was really gonna go into the data of other countries and cultures. How America used to blatantly steal the best ideas around (what I call the post Commodore Perry Japan.)


You get the point.


I was gonna make a pretty bibliography, and insert proper citations everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE.


I am tired. Tired of writing this again. Tired of talking about this again. Tired of feeling like a reasonable person, willing to listen, learn, and approach an obvious problem pragmatically in hopes of finding a better day tomorrow than today.


And that is why things don't change. This conversation is not easy, it takes buy in. It takes time, energy and the willingness to listen to all concerns. That is a finite resource in a human. Literally a finite resource. There is only so much energy someone can output before wearing out.


At this point I wanted to go into my growing up post Kip Kinkle, in Oregon. Being the weird white kid, that some people labeled “dangerous.” And how I have no way of putting myself in the shoes of a kid who isn't white today, who may be labeled a terrorist, and knows they are more in danger of someone else shooting the school then a terrorist bombing the school. Also, white people who shoot schools are terrorists. By definition.


See again I am tired.


So once again I post my impotent rage, into the void, safe knowing no one will read this far. Knowing as much as I want this conversation I cannot maintain the energy required. And that part of the fault for the continued culture of gun violence in my country is my laziness and failure to be proactive.


/end rant

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