Guns, guns, guns—Okay, let’s start with our Constitution. Our country is our Constitution—it is what Presidents and Pfc’s swear to protect and defend, it is the framework of our freedom. We can never take our Constitution for granted or discuss any changes to it without a lot of sober consideration, debate, and referenda.

However, our Constitution once guaranteed that no citizen would ever have to pay a tax on his or her revenue—that no longer applies. Our Constitution once made us free to say anything—over the years, the Supreme Court has allowed exceptions to be made in the interest of public safety (i.e. shouting ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater) and fairness (no false advertising).

There are several points on which the original Constitution can be seen to be modified, over time, in the interest of common sense. Most striking are Amendments 18 (Prohibition) and 21 (Repeal)—in that instance the Constitution was not only altered to infringe on our right to alcoholic beverages, but altered again to reverse that decision when Prohibition’s ramifications were made manifest by the organized gangsters who made Prohibition a ‘profit center’ (and a cancer on our communities that threatened to overpower civil authority).

So we see that our Constitution, while unquestionable in its immediate authority, can be modified with long, careful consideration upon the changing nature of our society—and, of course, the will of the majority and ratification by states.

Let us turn to another aspect of the possession of firearms—we citizens have many ways in which to kill each other. After the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a decision was made to put ‘tagging’ compounds into nitrate-based fertilizer—thus allowing the FBI to track down the purchaser of this well-known ingredient of large IEDs. After 9/11, we saw good reason to severely increase security in airports. Decades earlier, the annual mortalities due to drunk driving climbed so high (and activist groups like MADD became so numerous) that the laws were changed to increase the ability of police to set roadblock checkpoints—and to change the penalties for DUI from a ‘slap on the wrist’ to actual jail time, for charges that could even include manslaughter.

So the question in my mind is, what are the ‘arms’ we are constitutionally entitled to? Rocks? Bows and arrows? Manure? Nuclear waste? Box-cutters? We have the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" as per the Second Amendment—but we have no definition of “arms”. Everyone knows what “arms” meant in 1791—the choices were few, compared to the present—but we can assume they meant muskets, rifles, pistols, and cannon. Asides from hand-to-hand combat, the Revolutionary War was fought on both sides using only those four choices. A purist might insist that the Constitution only protects our right to those 18th-century ‘arms’—not the revolvers, Gatling guns, Tommy guns, or the modern ‘assault rifles’ that, in time, would come to be. Contrary-wise, an ‘inclusionist’ might insist it refers to everything up to and including a shoulder-mounted missile.

Both of these possibilities have important ramifications. If the original framers intended to grant citizens the right to nothing more efficient than a flintlock, then we have dangerously (and tragically) exceeded their intent. But, if their intent were to make us capable of overturning our government (which would seem to be their wish) then we have had our rights grievously abridged by being denied access to tanks, artillery, fighter jets, and nuclear subs.

This, to me, seems the true crux of the question. If the 2nd Amendment was intended to give us recourse against a government that someday turns against its citizens, then what we have is a double-fail. People are entitled to walk around with dangerous weaponry (a safety hazard) but have no serious defense against a government that becomes un-representative of the will of its people (our liberties at risk).

Perhaps more importantly, the 2nd Amendment doesn’t say anything about hunting, skeet, target practice, or even home- and/or self- defense. It clearly states that we have the right to bear arms against the day when we need them to engage in a second ‘revolutionary war’ against a corrupted government. It does not say anything to imply that gun-ownership is a basic human right—it only says that the government can’t keep all the guns for themselves. And this, as mentioned above, is a moot point—our government, no matter how many gun enthusiasts this country has, faces no threat from its citizens that matches its own ability to prosecute war and persecution against us.

We’re all very proud of America. We all assume that the USA is the strongest force on earth—and we’re probably right in thinking so. But how does that square against the founder fathers’ wishes that the people should hold the government’s leash? Those first Americans were concerned with being imposed upon by government under royalty or despot or tyrant—they wanted to be sure we could fight back against such threats—that we could shoot back.

Times have changed—the modern world has iron claws and nuclear bullets—a simple handgun is of no use, other than to threaten or kill each other. So, I feel the whole 2nd Amendment aspect of the gun-control debate is not the bedrock that many gun enthusiasts seem to think it is.

However, that still leaves the issue of practical gun control. If we pass the wrong legislation, we’ll only be pushing firearms into the same black-market underworld that circulates drugs around the globe. A ‘background check’ seems like a sensible step when selling any kind of firearm—the Internet being what it is, it shouldn't be too difficult to pull that together. Mental health treatment, too, should be able to offer support for the insane—there are too many mental incompetents wandering about the streets, homeless—the least we can do is keep them from acquiring firearms. Instituting both these ‘reforms’ seems like a sensible precaution. Yet, neither of those precautions would have prevented most of the killing ‘sprees’ that have so upset society these last few years.

The sad truth is that most such tragedies involve young men with no history of mental illness, who obtain firearms either from their homes or that of relatives or acquaintances, and virtually ‘announce’ their mental illness by gun violence in schools or neighborhood venues. Some of these mass-shooters have been driven to their state of mind by bullying or ostracization among their schoolmates. Bullying or ridicule amongst teenagers is no easy thing to eradicate—in spite of the recent policies against such behavior, there will always be school-kids that persecute their more vulnerable peers. And even so, some of these mass shootings have no such trigger involved in the berserk actions these unbalanced young people take suddenly and without warning—schools’ social dynamics are not the only pressures faced by our young.

Thus, considerations like clip-size, auto vs. semi-auto, assault-weapon bans, and mandatory background checks prior to purchase of firearms can only ameliorate the damage from young men who ‘snap’—not prevent it. Even ending the 2nd Amendment completely would still leave us a nation of gun enthusiasts, with millions of firearms already in circulation and, in large part, in the hands of criminals. The fact that some of these community incidents took place in foreign countries belies the notion that our attacks on crowded venues are a direct result of our gun policies.

In my opinion, the legitimization of firearms by armed forces, wars, and multinational peace-keeping is the greatest influence on the minds of our young—our government (and all others’) makes killing by firearms an institutional norm. While I can concede that video-games and movies that glory in gore do have an influence on our culture, they and the shooting incidents themselves are both symptomatic of our acceptance of shooting each other, whether as soldiers, peace-officers, or as security guards, as normal behavior.

Community gang-violence is but the logical extension of techniques used by our government to impose control on outsiders. Individuals who become mass-shooters are, likewise, simply making the most obvious and conventional choice our society presents—and the easiest. In all of human history, there has never been a more easy and convenient method of killing someone than by shooting them with a gun or rifle.

So I suggest that gun violence goes much deeper than gun-control legislation, or the 2nd Amendment—it is the simple existence of firearms that pose the problem so hotly debated since the Newtown, CT school-shootings. Even if all the guns in the world were under lock and key there would still be our knowledge of guns—which would, inevitably, lead to home-made firearms. In addition, Violence itself is not dependent solely on guns and IEDs. Humans will kill each other—Cain’s famous fratricide is the oldest recorded social interaction. And it is no accident that we record that murder so early in the Old Testament that it predates all the history that follows. Humans kill each other. And humans always respond to violence with disgust and condemnation.

While modern firearms make possible higher body counts than, say, single-shot guns, they are nevertheless only one way to act out, psychotically speaking. Also, our treatment of the mentally ill, so tragically neglected amidst economic hard times, will do nothing to change the fact that we are all of us sane only until we go crazy. Neither will it affect our presumed ‘sanity’ in using firearms to kill each other under ‘legal’ circumstances.

Perhaps such tragedies get us all worked up because, in our hearts, we know that the cause of so much violence is in the nature of our civilization, not in the details of our law or the treatment of our insane. We are upset by the suspicion that we are all as much a part of the problem as the confused man-child that pulls the trigger so many times, and then commits suicide the same way.

The suicides, for my money, are the key aspect of these mass attacks—if the shooter killed a bunch of victims and ran for his life, we could presume that the evil is in the individual. But when they finish by shooting themselves, sending themselves to whatever fate they sent their targets, we must face the strong likelihood that the evil is in our society.