The Second Amendment, Who Exactly Are We Hunting?

What kind of militia did the founding fathers have in mind?

I never knew why Americans were crazy about guns. I held one once, I tried to shoot it, it just didn't seem like fun to me. The other people who were shooting them were trying to hit bottles and cans, practicing their aim, for the day they would shoot something or someone, I'm not sure. None of them were hunters. It just seemed like a big waste of time.

Some people like to waste time like that. Shooting at cans and animals. There is this strange, romantic idea about guns and America. The rugged individual, living a life of isolation, the heroic struggle of carving out an existence on land they stole from Native Americans. Those were the days when you really had to watch your back, or you'd get an arrow in it.

What's worse about this conversation we are having about guns in the U.S., is in the Truthout article about the Second Amendment and why it specifically say's "state" in order to "preserve slave patrol militias in the southern states" so Virginia would ratify it. Pretty disgusting.

"slavery can only exist in the context of a police state, and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias."

Amazing, right? One of the main defenses, I listen to, ad nauseum, is the whole idea that people and their Second Amendment rights will be able to fight back against some future "police state" when actually, we live in one now. How these people think they could rise against the government in some fictional battle, a government that has tanks, drones and nuclear weapons, but hey, I guess that's why we need assault weapons.

I live in an area where hunting is BIG. In my town, we have this party, called "The Decoy And Gunning Show". This is about expert craftsman and their decoys. People come from all over the country to dress up in camoflage and pay lots of money for these ducks made of wood. They also have a stage made of swamp reeds, where talented individuals vie for prizes by using duck calls, the person who's call is the best wins. It is very serious to these people. When I first saw this I started giggling, it looked so funny until I was hushed up by some people who thought I was being disrespectful to people who lie down in a swamp to wait for ducks. But I digress.

Guess what? I have never seen a person of color at this show. EVER. So it doesn't surprise me that the hallowed Second Amendment is steeped in racism. The people who frequent the 'Decoy And Gunning Show" think President Obama is a Muslim and a communist. I am not kidding. I have talked to them. They actually think these things AND they have guns. So one thing I think needs to happen is not only for a mental health check for gun buyers, but also a basic intelligence test. You don't have to be smart to get a gun, but you should be. 

There is this weird idea that "guns don't kill people, people do", this disconnect between guns and death. Well, maybe guns don't kill people, but bullets sure do. People are dying right now because some idiot used a gun to solve his problem. It's scary to think about how many guns we have in this country. We still have this "Wild West" mentality. I get that people like to shoot deer and ducks and eat them. If you have the stomach for that, so be it. Deer are a big problem on our roads, causing all kinds of accidents. So go ahead, have fun. Most hunters are careful with their guns, I hope. So I really don't understand. Why do we need assault weapons? If the Second Amendment is so great, then it seems to me, it helped keep hundreds of thousands of people in chains, for far too long. That is really crazy. What's even crazier are the thousands of people who die every year due to gun violence. 

This country seems to be going through a kind of tectonic political shift. We are living in 2013, the founding fathers could never have conceived of the weaponry and society we have now. Patrick Henry, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, these people weren't saints, some of them were slave owners. They made imperfect laws and legislation. These laws must change. Any of us could be dropping our kids off at school or sitting at the movies and be gunned down. It HAS to stop. Go ahead and hunt if you want, but it looks to me like the Second Amendment was created so that we could hunt each other.