We continue to kill others, and ourselves

This Memorial Day I am thinking of one American citizen in particular: Bob Nixon. Nixon was 67 when he died in March. He lived in Anacortes, was retired, a lawyer, married, white and middle class. He was also probably depressed. And he was a gun owner. He is now a suicide victim.

Nixon was from a prominent family. He was class president at Vanderbilt University. His father and brother are doctors. His wife had no idea that he was stockpiling a small arsenal. He owned six guns.

In 2016, 38,551 Americans died from guns. Almost 60 percent were from suicide. When the Gun Violence Archive daily increases their verified count of shootings and deaths, it footnotes that “22,000 Annual Suicides [are] not included on Daily Summary Ledger.” That’s the sad, constant statistic.

The death count on May 27, those killed by others, was 5,733.

The flag at the roundabout on Memorial Day was at half staff, again. That’s for another ten dead at a school, this month’s ten dead, this time in Texas. Go to the Gun Violence Archive website. They verify 106 mass shootings,

The number of teens, age 12 to 17, killed or injured this year is now 1,045.

That great union organizer, Mother Jones, said “Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.” This paper’s part: another anti-gun editorial.

First, let’s repeal the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”

No argument that that is an anachronism.

The Third Amendment is not needed. By abolishing it, we clean up and move the Constitution into the 21st century.

Second, let’s repeal the Second Amendment. It has the double whammy of being equally outdated and being misconstrued by five guys on the U.S. Supreme Court who are more enthralled with corporations pushing their agenda of profits at all costs than they are with any rights for gun owners.

Privileging weapons manufacturers has cost us, in one community after another. There have been suicides in Skagit County in 2018.

The Second Amendment: “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.”

English teachers will tell you that the dependent clause’s meaning is determined by the independent clause.

You don’t need to be an English teacher or a constitutional scholar to figure out, as Donald Barford did in an earlier guest column in the Weekly News, that the right of people to bear arms is to hold those arms while on duty in their militias, well regulated by the government. Bear arms? Those in militias have a right to weapons.

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is on the repeal band wagon. I am brave enough and stubborn enough to climb on board. I take up the reigns right next to him.

Who else is on board?