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| "Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?" |
Editorial / Non-Fiction
I’ve been
reflecting on my life. I see society
failing to fix itself and depending too much on authoritarian forces (i.e. the
government) to fix it.
The only problem
with that logic is that the government is more fragmented than shattered china
after an earthquake.
When my life, as
insignificant as it is, and government intersect, I find myself reliving in
vivid recall, my childhood. It was all
too overwhelming.
I was
constantly steadied by the presence and example of strong men who didn’t duck
or dodge, men who didn’t whine or run, but took the problem to its inevitable
forum…direct confrontation. I know, your
asking what the fuck is he talking about.
I’m talking about when the law forces you to be a liar, a social outcast
and a criminal, I’m talking about NY
Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act of 2013.
After
reading the bill myself I found nothing in it that speaks to securing firearms
but much to making your healthcare providers de-facto law enforcement officers,
turning adversarial family members into government informants and making
patriotic citizens into criminals if they don’t ‘register’ their weapons.
Anyone can
read the Bill NYS S.2230. It’s clear to
me from reading the bill it was designed to disarm citizens, all of us. Problem is good citizens would have no
weapons and criminals would have a field day, this being the determination of
Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia in District
of Columbia v. Heller.
To quote
Scalia, “We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to
respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable
at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core
lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”
But now,
before the appeals, before the trials, before the law is tested out on some
poor soul who has little or no resources to protect themselves I am propelled
back to my childhood, when a rogue police chief shoved a gun in my Dad’s face
and told him to move his ‘nigger hide’ out of town or he would kill him and us,
his family. The only reason that hate
filled police force did not act because our house was full of armed men.
That this
could happen in a small town in Nassau County in the early sixties is not what
upsets me. It’s that it can happen in
any New York County in 2013. Now the
police don’t need the excuse that one is being black in public, now all they
need is someone to file an order of protection against you and say, “he’s got
guns” and the cops can kick down your door, disarm and arrest you.
I remember
when a small hick town police department ripped up my application to join that
force in front of my face. I remember
coming home as a Marine from Paris Island triumphant and resolved that no small
town, hate filled with various evils, were going to keep me from my goals. I came home again as a Military Policeman and
a Law Enforcement Officer, proving again that the Constitution works for
faithful citizens.
Now, the
marginalization that went with racism, classism, ethnocentrism and all the
other ‘ism’s” that defined the mid 20th century have come to revisit
us in the Pandora’s Box that is a law created from anger, contempt and
fear. The problem is just having rifles
described in the law even if ‘registered’ invites probable cause for
search. Now you live every day wondering
when someone will come, kick down your door, take you and your arms away
without seeing a judge.
Now, I have
to decide to do as my Daddy did, stand in front of authority with an open
threat on my life or fight this with the resolve I used to serve my country and
enforce its laws when I was a younger man; or succumb to the delusive phantom
of hope and be less than a citizen in the nation I took an oath to protect.
My Dad lived
and died making life better for himself, his family and his neighbors. Dad worked harder than any man I know for
what little we had and have now. Dad and
his generation bought the promise of our rights and its freedoms with sweat and
blood. Dad and his generation are in God’s
Heaven or on their way.
Daddy stares
at me knowing exactly what I have to do.
RJ
