A Dangerous Message

My wife and I were watching the local weather report the other morning when the commercial popped up on the screen. The product being offered was not too surprising---your very own AR-15 rifle. The message was unnerving.

The company making the offer boasts a name that sounds as though it might be an official government-based entity. According to the off-screen narrator, one purpose of making AR-15s available is to guarantee ‘‘freedom.” To guard against “tyranny” is another goal.

On the company’s website, I found the following mission statement (capitalization included):

OUR MISSION IS TO MAXIMIZE FREEDOM, NOT OUR PROFITS. WE WANT TO SELL AS MANY AR-15 AND AK-47 RIFLES AS WE CAN AND PUT THEM INTO COMMON USE IN AMERICA TODAY. OUR FOCUS ISN'T TO MAKE MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY BUT TO SPREAD FREEDOM AS FAR AND WIDE AS POSSIBLE. OUR LEGACY WILL NOT BE ABOUT MONEY; WE WANT OUR LEGACY TO BE ABOUT MAXIMIZING AMERICAN FREEDOM. AND WE WORK EVERY DAY TO DO JUST THAT. WE MAKE HIGH-QUALITY FIREARMS AT AFFORDABLE PRICES FOR EVERYONE! THEN WE BACK THEM WITH A FULL LIFETIME WARRANTY.

A more detailed explanation of the company’s objective indicates the desire to take advantage of a US Supreme Court reference to the “in common use” standard relative to firearms covered by the Second Amendment. According to that criteria, originally stated in United States v. Miller (1939), the Second Amendment right to bear arms extents to any firearm found to be “in common use.” By aggressively expanding the availability of A-15s, a semi-automatic rifle that easily can be converted to automatic operation, the company intends to cement legal access to this deadly weapon.   

This arms manufacturer is turning the First Amendment on its head. Giving to our citizens the right to freedom of speech was considered by the Founding Fathers to be a means of protecting, even promoting, democracy which requires open debate combined with fair elections. Cynically offering AR-15s to protect “freedom” begs the question: freedom from what? The annoying opinions and wishes of people who disagree with us?

Such a strategy is not only at odds with democracy, but it is especially disturbing, even dangerous, in today’s America.

In the past year, anger over the deaths of some African Americans at the hands of police has led to widespread protests in several American cities. One reliable source has identified more than 7,000 Black Lives Matter protests across the US between May and August of this year. Those protests have been met with counter protests, frequently involving armed white supremacists.

Donald J. Trump has inflamed the situation further by labelling BMU protesters “anarchists” and “terrorists” and by praising would-be vigilantes like 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse. Last August, the teenager killed two men during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Armed with an AR-15, Rittenhouse showed up in Kenosha without authorization from local law enforcement officers. He is not even a resident of Wisconsin.

Trump also deployed federal agents during the protests in Portland, Oregon, against the wishes of Oregon authorities. He threatened to use federal forces in other cities where protests occur, but apparently ran into opposition within his own administration to such a step.

During the presidential campaign Trump made endless unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and accused election officials and other unknown parties of rigging the voting process to his disadvantage. He is now engaged in an effort to persuade Republican state legislators to replace popularly elected presidential electors with those committed to him, an undemocratic act if not an unconstitutional one.

Only a few GOP members of the US Congress have distanced themselves from Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and electoral machinations, abetting Trump in his refusal to cooperate with President-Elect Joe Biden. Trump’s intransigence is obviously at attempt to thwart the will of the American people and de-legitimize our election process. It also puts at risk effective implementation of the rollout of coronavirus vaccines in the midst of a pandemic that has already taken nearly 275,000 American lives.

In many parts of America, the country is a tinder box. Paramilitary groups encouraged by Trump’s endorsement have blatantly sought to intimidate critics of the president. When armed opponents of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order invaded the Michigan legislature in May, Trump praised them and tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN.” Later in October, the FBI uncovered a plot to kidnap the Michigan chief executive and revealed there was a similar plan to seize the governor of Virginia.   

Mankind has wrestled for many centuries with the almost universal problem of how to regulate the use of weapons. Whether for purposes of defense or to conquer and subdue an enemy, weapons have been viewed as necessary. Maintaining order and security, domestically or internationally, requires weapons of various types and levels of destructive capability.

Generally speaking, the destructive capability needed domestically is assumed to be considerably less than that required in the international arena. In neither setting is it viewed as wise to allow unfettered availability or use of any and all weapons. At some point, restraint is essential.

The US Supreme Court has wrestled with how to interpret the Second Amendment for many years. Thus far, it has not denied government at any level the authority to place reasonable limits on access to certain types of firearms, especially those frequently used to the detriment of public safety. Specious advertising seeking to manipulate court decisions for personal profit is not healthy for the future of our democracy.

Is It Over?

Ordinarily, the approach of Election Day would be greeted with excitement and anticipation, perhaps moderated to some degree by a dose of realism about your candidate’s prospects for winning. In 2020, it’s different.

In this election the focus has been too much on fear. Fear of the coronavirus, fear of foreign interference in our electoral process, fear of voter fraud or counting irregularities, and fear of not being able to making our government work again.

Fear is the primary tool of Donald Trump in trying to make a convincing case for re-election. And it is reinforced by his propensity to lie or exaggerate at every opportunity. Sadly, the core of his supporters seems oblivious to his cavalier disregard for truth or accuracy in talking about the public’s business.

Not only does Trump inflate the accomplishments of his own administration, but he denigrates his opponent Joe Biden, trying to paint the former vice president as corrupt and inept. He has encouraged Attorney General Barr and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to find something criminal in Biden’s history.

Trump does not limit his verbal assaults to opponents. He castigates members of his own administration when they do not provide unquestioning support for his outrageous rhetoric. He attacks Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, because the doctor refuses to endorse the White House laissez-faire attitude towards the coronavirus.

Even as health workers labor mightily to care for the more than 9,000,000 Americans infected by the coronavirus Trump scorns them. He accuses doctors and hospitals of manipulating the pandemic’s spread in order to generate more income for themselves, telling his rallies, "Our doctors get more money if someone dies from COVID. You know that, right?”

Trump uses the Black Lives Matter movement to stoke fear and to signal not so subtle racism. Demonstrators against suspected police abuse are assailed as anarchists and mayors and governors trying to maintain order are denounced for not cracking down harshly on the generally peaceable protesters. Social media and television have been awash with campaign ads that magnify the limited violence.

Trump and Republican candidates for Congress are attempting to make law and order an issue, claiming Democrats want to “de-fund” the police. The claim is blatantly false. Some law enforcement officers have been cajoled into participating in campaign appeals for Republican candidates. This is inappropriate. Law enforcement must be applied in a nonpartisan manner.

The response of Trump and the Senate Republicans to the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is another blow to the idea of an independent judiciary in today’s America. Senate Judiciary Committee Chair, Lindsey Graham pledged support for Trump’s nominee to replace Ginsburg before the candidate was announced. It was obvious that Graham viewed the proceedings as a platform for his re-election campaign. He even begged for campaign contributions when discussing hearings with the news media in the Hart Senate Office Building, a violation of Congressional ethics.

Amy Coney Barratt may prove to be an impartial jurist in the future, but neither the appointment process nor the subsequent hearings provided any meaningful evidence of what we can expect. Before 1925, the Senate Judiciary Committee did not invite court nominees to appear in a public hearing. Maybe it is time to stop wasting the public’s time and return to that practice.

Another disturbing aspect of this year’s election is the obscene amount of money being spent--- more than $14 billion dollars by the two parties, about half in the presidential campaigns. Some of the money has made its way to the two US senate battles in the Carolinas. Both senate races have received over $250 million.

The unfortunate thing is small donors ($200 and under) are providing less than 25 percent of the money. Campaign finance laws are a sieve thanks to Mitch McConnell and the US Supreme Court. Whenever there is talk about activist judges, think Citizens’ United, the 2010 decision that opened the floodgates for corporate political contributions and declared there is no evidence that money necessarily corrupts politics.

Thanks to the Super PACs encouraged by Citizens’ United, big donors have acquired outsized influence. Sheldon Adelson has given Trump’s re-election effort $180 million while Michael Bloomberg has pledged at least $100 million to support Joe Biden. I find little comfort in the fact that Democrats are winning the money race this election cycle. Money seldom develops any long term loyalty.

Finally, Election Day may turn out to be just the beginning of a long nightmare. Both parties are lawyered up. Even as state officials sought to develop voting rules, there has been constant litigation with the parties maneuvering for advantage at the ballot box and after.

How will absentee ballots be treated? How long for early voting and where are voting sites going to be? When must absentee ballot be postmarked and when can voting officials start counting them?

Politicians in a democracy should be able to work our election processes to protect everyone’s right to vote.  Everyone, regardless of party, should be able to find agreement on process. Haggling for weeks after the election over whether an absentee ballot can be count if received three days or six days after Election Day is ludicrous in a democracy.

If you can’t win with the voters, seek to control the count of the ballots---a disastrous policy for a democracy.  It is as if we fear our fellow American more than any external enemy.