A friend is currently representing a city council in its attempt not to be pre-empted by a Second Amendment-extremist-inspired state law in terms of firearms regulations. Interestingly, the case hinges on the right of the city to its political autonomy vis-à-vis the state in terms of gun regulation. Gun rights advocates are always screaming about states’ rights in this matter. This case turns that relation on its head within a state.
In any case, it's a tough fight. The second amendment does more than guarantee the "right to bear arms"...it guarantees the "right to fear", the "right to be afraid", the "right to perceive the world and one's society in a Hobbesian light"...
You can take away Americans' jobs, their homes, their health, a presidential election, their life savings, their pensions, their chances for upward mobility...and they will remain docile enough for those behind those heists to remain in power (indeed, to put and keep them in power)...but threaten to take away their "right to fear"...compel them to show some valor, some courage...and they'll be all over your case....
Damn if the Grand Inquisitor wasn't right about the need for miracle, mystery and authority. The holy trinity indeed.
Has it, alas, always been this way - in the sense that whenever one concludes that things couldn't get any more absurd, new absurdities make the earlier ones seem tame? I am thinking now of the great neo-liberal (in the European sense of the word - meaning "free market" fundamentalism) heist, and the vociferousness with which everyone from Tea Party types to "respectable" pundits are screaming for more more more free market, and less less less public sector power. This after the repeal of Glass-Steagall oh so surprisingly led to the almost complete destruction of international financial stability and viability, thanks to the thoroughly-to-be-expected greed and ineptitude of the private sector...financial stability that was only partially saved (for how long??) through the wholesale purging of present and future public funds in the US and much of Western Europe...with the consequence that public treasuries were hit by the double-punch of suddenly monstrous deficits and drastically reduced tax revenue due to the crisis...alas!, what a great time for right wingers to argue for deficit reduction! Which I would expect from them, being blind ideologues far more radical and anarchistic and certainly anti-American than any Weatherman from the 60's (and infinitely more destructive)...yet it's not just those right wing ideologues, it's also the corporate media in general...the NY Times never misses a chance to feature another bit of drivel about the terminal problems afflicting the European welfare state (which was doing just fine, thank you, in terms of fiscal stability (far better than the US) before the latest implosion).
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