Another Mass Murder

Another mass murder episode strikes us, this time in Oregon, my state. This time at a college. I teach at a university in Oregon and this gun problem is way past outrageous. Time to repeal the stupid Second Amendment and start fixing this.

No! Umpqua Community College in Roseburg was declared a gun-free zone! Obviously that failed and we need more guns to stop an active shooter, not a completely ineffective “ban” on guns.

Of course this is like saying pollution laws should be struck down because a state with stronger air pollution laws will still get pollution from places with lousy pollution controls. No. The fix is to make more and more pollution laws more and more strict. Gun laws should be far stricter, and that can only happen when America finally comes to grips with reality and strikes down the Second Amendment.

No! That’s in the US Constitution! That is unchangeable!

Um…clearly it is revocable. That’s why it’s called an amendment. We can correct it and, if we love our children, we must.

Gun lovers, gun manufacturers, gun dealers, and their biggest political machine—the NRA—are nearly unstoppable as long as we fail to abolish the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has interpreted that amendment to the satisfaction of the NRA and to the endless detriment of school children and shoppers, college students and innocent bystanders, distraught teens and crime victims. The general failure to control guns, as evidenced by the massive annual mortalities in the US, is a function of the Second Amendment and the dispositive US Supreme Court rulings that interpret it to forbid most states and most local governments from being able to actually reduce and ultimately eliminate guns where they are.

No! If you try to take my guns that will be war!

It’s already war. Those who count wars classify any conflict more than 1,000 conflict deaths in any year as a war. In the US, people with guns kill others and themselves enough to qualify as 30 wars. Seriously. Guns are used to kill approximately 30,000 of us year in and year out—more than 33,000 in 2013, plus more than 84,000 wounds from guns.

So, NRA and all those who love their guns more than they love to protect children, this is war. We get it. Guns v people.

So far, guns are winning. The National Rifle Association makes certain of that. Children are losing.

Step one: sign this petition to repeal the Second Amendment. The entire process is long, tough, drawn out and complex. Time to start.

Tom H. Hastings is core faculty in the Conflict Resolution Department at Portland State University and founding director of PeaceVoice