But why do Americans need guns? Conservatives say it is to protect themselves and their families from bad people with guns. Liberals reply: then take the guns away from the baddies as well as the goodies so no one can shoot. It is a policy that has worked in Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other developed countries.

By Tom Arms

Chiselled on the wall of the entrance lobby of the National Rifle Association are the words: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

This, claims the gun lobby is the Second Amendment of the US constitution. It is not. The oft-quoted right to bear arms clause is preceded by the words “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right….”

Should the amendment be read in its entirety with the second half contingent on the first? Or has the need for a citizens’ militia become redundant in the modern age and therefore only the second half remains relevant?

The NRA is in no doubt. It only every quotes the second half. All references to militias are conspicuous by their absence.

But why do Americans need guns? Conservatives say it is to protect themselves and their families from bad people with guns. Liberals reply: then take the guns away from the baddies as well as the goodies so no one can shoot. It is a policy that has worked in Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other developed countries.

American conservatives retort with what may be the real reason for hanging onto their firearms: Individual gun ownership is the ultimate defence against tyranny—the tranny of anarchy and the tyranny of overbearing government.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz—one of the most prominent supporters of the NRA and a major beneficiary of the gun lobby’s largesse–was crystal clear on the tyranny issue when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. He wrote in his campaign literature:

“The Second Amendment isn’t just for protecting hunting rights, and it’s not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It’s a constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny—for the protection of liberty.”

But from whence does this need for weapons as protection against tyranny come? The answer is Britain.

For centuries, successive British monarchs required a well-armed citizens’ army to fight their wars. The weapon of choice was the English (or, if you prefer, Welsh) longbow. Every able-bodied male was forced to participate in regular archery sessions to ensure top notch fighting skills were kept on tap. It was not until the 17th century that Britain had anything resembling the standing armies of today. And the efforts of King James II to create a Catholic-officered standing army was one of the main reasons for his forced abdication.

A year later, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, forbade the “raising and keeping of a standing army… without the consent of parliament.” The Bill of Rights also included a passage (clause 7) which is claimed to be a herald of America’s Second Amendment: “Protestants may have arms for their defence” with the clear implication that the weapons were for defence against monarchical-inspired Catholic tyranny.

By the middle of the 18th century a standing army had become a fact of British life but in America they still relied on a citizens’ militia to fight the constant wars against Native Americans and the dreaded French. That changed with the 1756-63 Seven Years’ War (the French and Indian Wars in America).

To protect the Thirteen Colonies from French attacks, the British sent a large standing army across the Atlantic. This cost money which the British government tried to recoup by imposing taxes on the colonists and ordering them to house the troops that remained. Both were major issues which led to the American War of Independence.

It was those combined factors—the fear of government tyranny and a standing army to enforce that tyranny—that led American Founding Father James Madison to write the Second Amendment. He was not, as Senator Cruz, would say, concerned about hunting rights or target practice.

Clause Seven of the 1689 English Bill of Rights has an additional—and important line. After protecting Protestants right to bear arms it adds three important words “according to law.”

This short phrase has enabled successive British governments to pass a series of gun control laws as responsibility for protection from violence passed from the weapons-bearing individual to a police force controlled by a directly elected government. In 1903, Parliament passed the first gun control law of modern times. The Pistol Act was followed by a series of increasingly restrictive laws on gun ownership passed in 1920, 1930, 1933, 1937 and 1968. Then came the Dunblane Massacre of 1996 when 16 children and one teacher were shot dead in Dunblane, Scotland. The following year pistols were banned.

The NRA is adamant that Americans need protection from the tyranny of their government. Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the NRA, wrote in an attack on pro-gun control legislators: “It doesn’t matter to them that the semi-auto ban gives jack-booted government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property and even injure or kill us.”

The tyranny argument held water when the tyrant was an unelected dictator or a monarch driven by religious and political beliefs contrary to the wider public good, or a government intent on taxing a populace without offering them parliamentary representation. A democratically elected government cannot—by its very nature—be a tyrannical one. If it is, then that democratic system is seriously flawed.

World Review

• The 27 EU heads of government are meeting in Brussels next week to supposedly confirm plans to stop imports of Russian oil and gas. It may not happen. Decisions have to be unanimous. Hungary’s Viktor Orban has signalled that he will block the move. Hungary is dependent on Russian fossil fuels for 100 percent of its energy needs. These can only be delivered by pipelines because Hungary is landlocked. All the pipelines run from Russia. The other EU countries have offered to give Hungary a two-year grace period to find alternative sources. But Orban maintains that he has no alternatives and that stopping imports of Russian gas would destroy the Hungarian economy. At the same time, the newly re-elected Hungarian leader has used the war in Ukraine to declare a state of emergency which allows him to effectively rule by decree. Orban claims that the Ukraine war “represents a constant threat to Hungary.” He has already used his new powers to impose fresh taxes to finance an increase in defence spending. Many fear that Orban will abuse the state of emergency to bypass parliament and suppress critics. He is already under attack from Brussels for damaging Hungary’s democratic institutions and the EU is threatening to withhold development funds because of that and allegations of corruption. Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt tweeted: “Hungary was already no longer free, now it is no longer a democracy”.
• With all this talk about Taiwan and ambiguous or clear US policies on the issue of whether or not to defend the island, one thing has been slightly overlooked– chips. To be precise advanced semi-conductor computer chips. Taiwan produces 92 percent of the world’s advanced semi-conductor computer chips. The remaining eight percent come from South Korea. These tiny electrical conductors are to technology what oil and gas are to industry and transport. Without them our computer-dependent world would come to a sudden halt. China, in particular, relies heavily on imports of Taiwanese semi-conductors.  The chips are produced by one company, the aptly-named Taiwan Semi- Conductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) and provides the island with what has been termed a “Silicon Shield.” The shield protects Taiwan from Chinese attack because of Beijing’s fear that vital factories will be damaged and ensures US protection for the same reason. Even if the factories – which are situated near potential battle zones—survive unscathed, a Chinese invasion would disrupt the delicate supply chain involving over 50 countries. Both the US and China are trying to develop their own advanced semi-conductor industries. The Biden Administration is attempting to persuade TSMC to set up a manufacturing plant in America. Beijing would love to have the same facility but there is no way that the Taiwanese would allow that and at the moment, the Chinese are believed to be at least a decade behind in developing an independent advanced semi-conductor industry.
• When Russia watchers talk about possible successors to Vladimir Putin the name of Nikolai Patrushev crops up more and more. That is not good news for those seeking an end to the Ukraine War. The 70-year-old Patrushev is head of Russia’s powerful Security Council and has been described as “the most hawkish of hawks.” He is the main contributor to Putin’s tough line on Ukraine and the two men have been close since their early days in the KGB in the 1970s. The pair also worked together in St Petersburg following the collapse of the Soviet Union and both have headed the FSB, successor agency to the KGB. In a recent interview, the Russian security chief said that “all the goals set by the President (Putin) will be fulfilled. It cannot be otherwise, because truth, including historic truth, is on our side.” Patrushev—along with Putin—believes that Russia has a rightful historic mission to be a major world power. This view is an echo of a 19th century Russian-based political philosophy called slavophilia which dismissed Western rationalism, promoted Russian mysticism and argued that Slavs in general and Slavic Russia in particular, had a special world mission.
• It looks as if Turkey’s President Erdogan may be planning a bit of territorial bartering over the issue of Swedish and Finnish membership of NATO. He has angered fellow NATO members by threatening to block the Nordic countries’ entry into the military alliance. His excuse? Sweden and Finland provide asylum to Kurds opposed to his regime. No sooner did Erdogan issue his threat then he also announced that he would be sending more Turkish troops to a 20-mile strip of Northern Syria to suppress US-backed Kurdish forces fighting Islamic militants. The asylum seeking Kurds in Scandinavia are from the PKK which is branded a terrorist organisation by the US and EU. Those in Syria are from a sister-group called the YPG and they are recognised as legitimate by the US. So far, Washington’s response to Erdogan’s renewed attack on Syrian-based Kurds has been a deafening silence, but the bones of a diplomatic agreement appear to be materializing: Turkey can have its slice of Syria if Sweden and Finland are allowed into NATO. The Kurds, as usual, are collateral damage.

_______________

Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. The above article is abridged from his recently published book “America Made in Britain.”

The post Observations of an Expat: Gun Control v. Tyranny first appeared on Sindh Courier.

May we build a world of love…?  

Till the sounds of weapons cease,

Till our young can grow in peace.

CAROLYN WINFREY GILLETTE

Do More Than Sing And Pray

God, Our Nation Feels the Loss

God, our nation feels the loss

As our children pay the cost

For the violence we accept,

For the silence we have kept.

Rachel weeps for children gone;

God of love, this can’t go on!

Jesus, Lord, we hear you say,

“Don’t turn little ones away!”

May we build a kinder land…?

Where our children understand:

Every child here matters more

Than the guns we clamor for.

Holy Spirit, wind and flame,

Send us out in Jesus’ name.

May we shout and say, “Enough!”

May we build a world of love…?   

Till the sounds of weapons cease,

Till our young can grow in peace.

________________

Author’s Note: See the reference to the Slaughter of the Innocents: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more” (Matthew 2:18). This hymn was written in remembrance of the beloved children of God who died in the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Many of us, as individuals, do not accept violence, keep silence, or clamor for guns. Yet, as a nation, we do these things, and as a nation, we need to repent; we need to turn around and live a different way. All of us are called to do more than sing and pray; please work for gun safety laws in your community and state.

Carolyn Winfrey Gillette is the author of over 400 hymns that have been sung by thousands of congregations around the world, and are found in 20 books and several websites.

Courtesy: Sojourners

The post PEOPLE CALLED TO DO MORE THAN SING AND PRAY first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Tom Arms

The US Supreme Court has started one of its most difficult and important sessions in history. It will deal with two of America’s biggest issues—abortion and gun laws. Their decisions will have repercussions on the future of the court, the American justice system and the nation’s social divisions.

First the cases: Abortion is one of the most divisive—if not the most divisive issue—in modern American history. The anti-abortion lobby has worked tirelessly to overturn Roe v. Wade since the moment it became law in 1973. The pro-life lobby has fought just as hard to retain it.

Donald Trump’s appointment of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanagh and Amy Comey Barrett, has given the court a 6-3 conservative bias and the anti-abortion lobby its best chance ever of overturning Roe v. Wade. For the pro-abortion lobby, a decision to uphold Roe v. Wade with the current make-up of the court could, in theory, put the issue to rest for ever.

The case before the court involves the state of Mississippi’s law that bans abortions after 15 weeks. This is not the first time the anti-abortion lobby has attempted a legal challenge. With each previous case the lower courts have rejected the issue because of the primacy of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling. The Supreme Court has previously refused to consider any appeals.

The same has happened in the lower courts with the Mississippi law. The big difference is that the Supreme Court Justices have agreed to hear Mississippi’s appeal. On the surface, this does not augur well for the pro-abortion lobby. And if a decision goes against them 22 Republican states have anti-abortion laws all ready to be enacted in a matter of days.

The disputed gun law involves a New York state move to ban citizens from carrying concealed weapons unless they can provide an iron clad reason for doing so. This, of course, runs counter to the views of gun-toting Second Amendment supporters, the National Rifle Association, its 5 million members and the scores of Congressmen who rely on gun enthusiasts for financial and political support.

This issue is complicated by New York State’s move to demand the dissolution of the NRA as part of its charges that the gun organization is guilty of fraud, financial misconduct and misuse of charitable funds. The organization is also bankrupt. But that won’t deter states such as Texas which actively encourages their citizens to carry concealed weapons.

In both cases the Justices have basically three courses of action. The first is to leave existing laws alone. The third is to radically change the law. That is ban abortion and concealed weapons. The second option is the middle course -tweak the existing law in both or either case. Whichever course they adopt the Supreme Court Justices will anger and alienate large segments of an already seriously divided America and cast doubt over the Supreme Court’s role as the nation’s arbiter.

The founding fathers meant for the Justices to be apolitical Olympian-like beings who deliver judgements based on legal precedent, their interpretation of the constitution and careful consideration and debate. The Justices are nominated by the President but the political element is checked by Senate confirmation. And when they are confirmed, the Justices have a job for life, which, in theory lifts them head and shoulders above the political fray.

The 2000 Bush-Gore election changed that. The debate over Florida’s “pregnant chads” went all the way to the Supreme Court which voted in favor of George W. Bush along strict party political lines. This division has continued ever since—with a few notable exceptions. This is why the anti-abortion and pro-gun lobbies are hopeful that the Trump appointees will swing events their way. Their opponents are girding themselves for a bitter battle before, during and after the hearings.

But strange things happen to Supreme Court Justices when they don their black robes for life. They often become more concerned with upholding the majesty of the law then personal partisan beliefs. All of the current justices—including the three Trump appointees– have used the recent adjournment to tour the country and repeatedly stress the non-partisan role of the court. Chief Justice John Roberts said: “There are no Bush Justices, Obama Justices or Trump Justices. There are only Supreme Court Justices.”

The Supreme Court cannot make laws. That is the job of Congress and the President. They can only accept, tweak or reject on the basis of their interpretation of the constitution and legal precedent. The success of their decisions depends entirely on the general public accepting the wisdom of their judgements. If the public believes that the judgements are politically motivated then there are serious problems.  The Supreme Court and the entire American legal system is undermined.

World Review

• Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has painted himself into a lose/lose corner with his 11-month-old war against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front. If he wins the war it will be at a heavy cost in international prestige which will impact on aid and trade as well as leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of six million rebellious Tigrayans. It will also raise concerns with other constituent parts of Ethiopia’s ethnically-organized and politically shaky federation. If he loses, well he’s dead, politically, and quite possibly, literally. If the conflict drags on much longer then the almost certain danger is that it will spread first throughout the rest of Ethiopia and then beyond to other countries in the strategic Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is landlocked but unstable Eritrea and Somalia guard the southern shore of the vital Red Sea entrance to the Suez Canal, and Djibouti hosts French, Chinese and American bases. Fear of contagion is the main reason the US administration has finally decided to become involved. President Joe Biden has already imposed personal sanctions on Abiy Ahmed and his close colleagues, but this week US Trade Representative Katherine Tai warned that Washington was on the verge of slapping trade sanctions on $525 million of Ethiopian exports to the US. The EU, UK, Japan and Australia are expected to follow suit. Also at risk is $1 billion a year in aid from the World Bank. The large Ethiopian diaspora, who is making a significant contribution to financing the showcase Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, is also being isolated. Neither Russia nor China are likely to be tempted to fill the vacuum as they are equally worried about regional stability. While the major powers dither and debate millions of Tigrayans have been cut off from food aid, telephones, the internet, electricity, water supplies and banking facilities. Their escape route to Sudan has been blocked by Ahmara forces. They are facing the real possibility of an Abiy Ahmed-made famine to rival that of the 1980s.
• Pronouncements from dismissed Downing Street Svengali Dominic Cummings should be generally viewed with extreme scepticism. But his claim that PM Boris Johnson never had any intention of honoring the Northern Ireland Protocol he negotiated has—in the light of subsequent events—the force of logic behind it. Cummings timed his latest bombshell to coincide with a new round of re-negotiations between Britain’s Brexit negotiator Lord David Frost and his EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic. Under the Northern Ireland Protocol, the province remains in the EU single market for goods. This protects the Good Friday Agreement but undermines the Protestant-dominated Unionists and makes it difficult to import goods from mainland Britain. In a speech in Portugal Lord Frost took the hard line and threatened to trigger Article 16 which allows either side to introduce “safeguards” if serious problems arise. Sefcovic’s response was fairly conciliatory with offers to improve British access for medicines and most food products and other concessions. But there remains one non-negotiable sticking point: Legal oversight in Northern Ireland of the European Court of Justice. Lord Frost says it must go and Sefcovic says it must stay.
• The primacy of the European Court of Justice is also the nucleus of current EU problems with Poland. The country’s Constitutional Tribunal recently ruled that key articles of one of the EU’s primary treaties were incompatible with Polish law. This has raised the spectre of Poland following Britain out of the European Union or “Polexit”. And if Poland goes they could be followed by the other Visegrad countries Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic– and possibly others. The Polish government has said that leaving the EU is not in its future plans. But it is difficult to envisage how rejecting the primacy of EU law squares with membership of the club. Who determines the law—sets the rules—is at the legal heart of every political structure. It is one of the main reasons that Britain left the EU. It is bedevilling talks on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Even the constitutional court in rabidly pro-European Germany has problems with it. EU legal jurisdiction is a vital first step towards political union and essential for monitoring and enforcing Europe-wide regulations of the single market. But it infringes on national sovereignty. Therein lies the crux of a problem that desperately requires a solution.
• Have the Russians weaponized exports of natural gas to Europe? Maybe and then… maybe not…or maybe a bit. The Kremlin have used their natural resource for political purposes in the past. They shut down the pipeline to Ukraine and sell cheap energy to Belarus. It is also true that there has been some diversion of natural gas to China. But that may be because the Chinese are willing to pay top dollar and then some. The International Energy Agency, European Parliament and European Commission have questioned whether or not Russia is using its stranglehold on gas supplies to wrest political concessions from Europe. But against that is the fact that production by the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom is down because of Covid-19 and that trade is an interdependent two-way street. Europe needs the gas and the faltering Russian economy desperately needs the cash. Europe receives thirty percent of its natural gas from Russia via a bewildering web of pipelines, including the recently completed and controversial Nordstream two. The rest comes mainly in liquefied natural gas oil tankers from the US and Persian Gulf. However, a staggering 50-60 percent of Russia’s natural gas goes to Europe. The exports represent five percent of Russia’s GDP. So what does Russia need, more– money or political concessions?
• Lebanon took another giant step towards failed state status this week when terrorists killed seven and seriously wounded dozens of others outside the country’s main court. The most likely culprits are a breakaway Maronite Christian group trying to influence the inquiry into the Beirut port explosion that left 219 dead. The spectre of renewed sectarian violence is being added to the collapse of the economy, raging inflation, absence of any government control and a destructive controversy over alleged bias by presiding judge Tarek Bitar into the port explosion inquiry. The good news—if it is good news—is that the Lebanese are being left alone to decide their own fate. The Israelis do not want a repeat of the disaster of their intervention in the 1980s. The Turks are uninterested but watching, and the Syrians are self-absorbed with their civil war. Iran is the only outside power sticking in its oar and is making a substantial impact through support of Hezbollah, but it does not appear willing or able to go beyond that to direct intervention.

Tom Arms

Tom Arms is foreign affair of Liberal Democrat Voice. His book “America Made in Britain” is published this week.

The post Observations of an Expat: Crunch Time for Justices first appeared on Sindh Courier.

When a country with less than five percent of the world’s population has nearly half of the world’s privately owned guns and makes up nearly a third of the world’s mass shootings, it’s time to stop saying guns make us safer. If guns don’t kill people, why do mass killers arm themselves with guns?

Firearms can’t ensure safety in the society, only open arms can. And that is the absolute truth!!!

By Nazarul Islam

Our love affair with guns has nothing to do with tyranny, or militias, or self-preservation. Just ask any NRA member the following: If Jesus Christ himself were to come down off the cross and grant you one wish, would you opt for a world without guns—or the one we live in now?

If every gun owner truly feared for their life and liberty, the answer would be obvious. But it’s not about life and liberty. It’s all about the sheer hard-on of owning a gun.

Two incidents of mass shootings in less than a week in the US underscore yet again the constant threat of gun violence in American society. Last week, a gunman shot dead eight people, six of them women of Asian-American descent, at three spas in Atlanta.

Then, on Monday, a shooting at a supermarket in Colorado left 10 people dead. Monday’s was the seventh mass killing in the US just this year. As with previous incidents, the recent killings have evoked grief, horror, anger and terror. It has also triggered a heated debate on what prompted these killers to go on shooting sprees. Some are describing the Atlanta killings as a hate crime that was driven by anti-Asian racist feelings.

Others are drawing attention to the killer’s frame of mind; the assailant was reportedly a sex addict. Still others maintain that even if the underlying reason was a mental health problem, racist stereotypes that associate Asian women with hyper-sexuality resulted in the perpetrator venting his anger against women of Asian origin. No matter what the motivations were, what enables these mass shooting sprees is the easy availability of automatic weapons to the general populace.

We lose at least eight children and teenagers to gun violence every day. When a mysterious virus suddenly started killing eight of our children every day, America had mobilized teams of doctors and public health officials. We had moved heaven and earth until we found a way to protect our children – But not so with gun violence (?) Why??

The right of citizens to bear arms is granted by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, arising from a conception of how to secure the right to personal security, liberty and private property from another age – 1791. Many Americans believe even today that the right to bear arms is the ultimate protection of their individual rights, even of democracy. Over time, it has transformed into a deadly ‘gun culture,’ going from pistols and rifles for self-defence to many now owning military-grade automatic assault weapons.

While the Second Amendment forbids federal and state governments from impinging on citizens’ right to bear arms, gun ownership laws are badly in need of reform. It must start with banning automatic weapons and strictly prohibiting individuals with criminal records or the mentally ill from owning any guns at all. Some measures – such as background checks and restricting sale of automatic weapons—have been put in place in recent years, but these have not been hard to bypass.

The powerful National Rifle Association and the Republican Party have prevented much positive reform. But Democrats now control both the House and the Senate, and President Joe Biden has called for stricter controls on assault weapons and background checks. The President and the US Congress must determinedly move America from 1791 to the 21st century in this respect.

When a country with less than five percent of the world’s population has nearly half of the world’s privately owned guns and makes up nearly a third of the world’s mass shootings, it’s time to stop saying guns make us safer. If guns don’t kill people, why do mass killers arm themselves with guns?

Firearms can’t ensure safety in the society, only open arms can. And that is the absolute truth!!!

_____________________

About the Author

The Bengal-born writer is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America.

The post The future mourns our children…. first appeared on Sindh Courier.