Convocation

I decided not to publish this article written last Spring because the collective pain of the Blacksburg massacre was too raw.  But with the Supreme Court weighing in on the issue of the Second Amendment, I now feel compelled to speak. 

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Dobbs Ferry, New York 10522.

The massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia has little to do with the Village of Dobbs Ferry. But it brought home to this writer the paralysis that currently grips the political landscape in America. Nobody electable dares to challenge the status quo. Gun control is considered the issue of lunatics and losers. Challenging the Second Amendment is the purview of the radical fringe. Questioning the gun-toting, military tradition of America makes one “a liberal’. Calling the Europeans on the fact that the guns were manufactured in civilized places like Duesseldorf and Vienna makes one downright annoying. Finally, Virginia is a tragic place full of people who bring calamity on themselves because they can’t transcend their reactionary past. 

 Convocation

The only consolation prize from the Virginia Tech massacre was the gift a new buzz word, convocation. The media used this word to conjure up a sense remorse and serious contemplation. We were collectively called to assemble and ponder the meaning of this mindless violence.

con·vo·ca·tion
Pronunciation: "kän-v&-‘kA-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French, from Latin convocation-, convocatio, from convocare

1 a : an assembly of persons convoked b (1) : an assembly of bishops and representative clergy of the Church of England (2) : a consultative assembly of clergy and lay delegates from one part of an Episcopal diocese; also : a territorial division of an Episcopal diocese c : a ceremonial assembly of members of a college or university.

2 : the act or process of convoking  

As evidenced by the meaning ascribed to convocation by Merriam-Webster Online, it has profound meaning to members of the Church of England and its American spin-off, the Episcopalian Church. The Church of England landed in America in 1607 in Jamestown, Virginia so it has been an integral part of Virginian identity ever since. The connection between America and the Episcopalian Church cannot be overlooked. Half our Presidents have been Episcopalian so the culture of the red-doored church has had a profound impact on America. 

In many ways, Virginia is the birthplace of the “red” or the current Republican strain in American politics. It is the state that produced the Jeffersonian contraction – the great democratic slave owner who would not acknowledge his “high yellow’ lover and the children of that liaison, even in death. It is the birthplace of the Second Amendment which guarantees a madman the right to bear arms. It invented manifest destiny and tried to extend its borders to the Mississippi River. It was the capital of the Confederacy. It has provided and continues to provide much of the leadership of the American military.   It is the logical home of the Pentagon and CIA.

So it is strangely fitting that the nation and its Christian President assembled in convocation to mourn the righteous dead of Virginia by a foreign-born madman. That Virginia had brought the tragedy on itself by its adoption of ridiculously lax gun control laws that are ardently supported by a ‘duck hunting’ Administration seems to have been overlooked by all in the media and political elite.   Sometimes I think that if we could just figure out a way to change the people of Virginia and get them to repeal the Second Amendment, apologize for introducing slavery to the North American continent, stop glorifying their military tradition and Robert E. Lee, renounce their imperialist tendencies and ban its long tradition of imported European weapons, then America would have a chance to live up to its gentle, enlightened, Quaker side, the side that yearns for the simple life, plain living and the “pursuit of happiness”.

 Virginia is culpable.

 Our Military Tradition

For those of you reading this article overseas, for half of us, it is an enormous burden to be an American. We did not choose this honor. It is an accident of biology.    Many of us understand that America was born out of the barrel of a gun. We are the creation of a brutal and violent revolution. Out of this revolution emerged our most important institution, the American military. 33 of our 42 Presidents (Bush is 43 because Cleveland served twice) have served in the military. 28 in active duty. 10 reached the rank of General. 3 were General of the Army: Washington, Grant and Eisenhower.  

Today, our military budget is $440 billion and that does not include the $120 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq and Afghanistan. So let’s say $560 billion. That compares to the world’s largest company, Exxon Mobil, at $339 billion.   So the US military is the largest, most powerful organization on the planet.   With 1.4 million active duty members and 1.3 million in reserve, the US military is even bigger than WalMart with its 1.8 million employees.  

The US military is reported to have 730 military installations in 50 countries, so it is an empire on a scale unparallel in history.

The whole world is very lucky that this incredibly powerful organization is very professional. The US military is well run. Its leaders are well educated and groomed to wield ultimate power.   

But if you believe that US military controls the United States government more than the US government controls the US military, then it follows that we need to convince the US military to support gun control to prevent another Virginia Tech massacre. Only if the US military decides that domestic gun control is necessary, will the politicians find the political will to deal with the Second Amendment. 

Right now, the US military is not taking leadership on this issue, perhaps because they can’t figure out how to disarm 26.4 million veterans. 

The American military is culpable.

Constitutional Quibbling

Unless you believe that people in 1787 were wiser than people in 2007, it doesn’t really matter what the Second Amendment says, means or was supposed to mean; arguing over the meaning of the Second Amendment is a smoke screen designed to distract the gullible. I don’t like the Second Amendment and want it repealed.

 “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.” 

A modern reading of the Second Amendment would lead to the impression that it clearly states that the right to bear arms is only in the context of a well-regulated militia. It does not guarantee the right to carry a handgun for self-protection against lunatics and criminals.   This position is supported even by those scholars who can point to historical evidence that the Second Amendment was included in the Constitution to protect the American people from the military establishment that created the country.   Some guy on the Internet named Daniel J. Schultz (no idea who he is and what he stands for) says it well, “The overriding purpose of the Framers in guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms was as a check on the standing army, which the Constitution gave the Congress the power to raise and support.” So the Second Amendment is an attempt to counter balance the power of the military establishment, the ‘standing army’. 

Factly, not a very smart idea and one that is likely to lead to lots of armed rebellions, like the Whiskey Rebellion and the Civil War.

And even if militias are needed to counterbalance the power of the central government, the problem with this logic is that we don’t have a ‘standing army’ in the Village of Dobbs Ferry and in most places in America, only lunatics, criminals and cops who carry handguns, so the Second Amendment does not protect us, it puts us in harm’s way. 

The American political leadership is culpable. 

Imported European Guns 

The European press was horrified by the Blacksburg massacre. It was cited as an example of the irrationality of the America body politic. How could America allow lunatics to buy German and Austrian handguns whose only purpose is to kill people. Have the Americans completely lost their minds?

The hypocrisy of these statements was not lost on the trustworthy Financial Times that was careful to refer to the make of the guns used in the murder. How can the European Union allow the export of handguns to America if it simultaneously condemns American gun control laws?. The hypocrisy is too rich. It is what the European have been doing since the beginning of the Republic – selling weapons to whoever would buy them. This type of behavior undermines the European claim to moral superiority. Shame on the Walther and Glock companies, their employees, their owners and their regulators?

Europe is culpable.

The Lack of Moral Courage

Which brings us back to Dobbs Ferry. Dobbs Ferry is not separate from the larger world. We are intertwined in the currents of County, State, Federal and international politics.   If we had moral courage, which few of us do, we would declare Dobbs Ferry a gun-free community and challenge the Federal Government and the Supreme Court’s warped reading of the Second Amendment. We would be carted away in handcuffs. We would lie across the tracks. We would stand in front of the tanks. We would stand up for common sense and protect our children and wives from madmen. 

On the other hand, is this not a job for our courageous Congressional representatives, Elliot Engels and Nina Lowey.   For too long, Dobbs Ferry has had the privilege of being taken for granted by these two perrenial incumbents. Do they have the courage to stand up for what is right and strike down the Second Amendment?

Dobbs Ferry is culpable. 

We need a convocation to assuage our guilt.