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The entire question of "gun control" is artificially misplaced into the an assumed context of "tradition" and constitutional rights going back to when the British were thrown out. (And the most American of American settings, the towns of the Old West required cowboys to check their guns at the city limits because of Cuban subversion?) None of it is so. Remember, the entire idea of the Second Amendment was about a well-regulated militia. That is, it wasn't about the individual's right to bear arms, but society's need to have those individuals armed. The militia was the institution intended to supplant the need for a large standing army. While they may have kept the term for new kinds of institutions, the ruling class did away with the kinds of popular militias envisioned under the Second Amendment after those bodies proved politically unreliable after the Civil War. (Think about the 1877 strike, for example.) Perhaps the entire discussion of the right to bear arms should be recouched in social terms...as a vehicle for universal military training and service...in opposition to the standing army. Even taking it on the surface, the arguments about the right of the people to defend themselves against arbitrariness by the government makes no sense if we're talking about individual people with their own guns and no collective experience in their use, as opposed to a government with drones, etc. Properly formulated, there probably are important points radicals could make on this subject.... We just have such limited means for getting our views out to anyone who's not already listening.... To that wider public, "the Left" is Joe Biden.... ML ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
