Bang, bang, you’re dead/Fifty bullets in your head: what a beautiful poetic couplet./Image: Licensed Adobe stock, larryhw.
Greetings, Alt-reading lovers!
My name is Melvil Dewey, XIV. I’m named after the man who invented the Dewey Decimal System, which gives school librarians our collective reason to get up in the morning and has been the bane of grade-school students’ existence since the late 19th-century. Dewey and I were named after Melville Dewey, but our parents insisted, for whatever reason, on spelling our name this wonky way, so there you have it. The men in my family have been library scientists for fourteen generations, as you may have guessed from my name. Being intelligent, well-read, thoughtful, even cerebral people all my ancestors were card-carrying liberals. But not me! I saw the Alt-light. Or the Alt-darkness, should I say. And I happily came over to the dark side. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here with all you Right Wing Nut Jobs (RWNJs) and Spread Your Right Wings (SYRW) readers, talking ’bout book learnin’, dumbed-down for our purposes, because let’s face it–we’re not the sharpest tools in the shed!
Anywho, today, I wanted to introduce you to a book by Patrick J. Charles, a Second Amendment scholar: The Second Amendment: It’s Intent and Interpretation as Interpreted by the States the Supreme Court. Charles has spent his life studying the history, writers, framers, intents, and interpretations related to the Constitutional Amendment we on the right are so fixated on, we’re literally willing to sacrifice the lives of others–but never our own–to ensure that it’s untouchable. Why–so we can have and keep our firearms, for all the BS reasons we put forth for doing so, hunting for food (apparently, we’ve never been introduced to a little thing called a “supermarket” or a “Whole Foods”), hunting for sport (tennis might be an easier-for-everyone choice, but we’re sticking with hunting apparently), and the most foolish of all: “protecting ourselves from the government.” That last one comes from an incorrect, ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment and a misunderstanding of, well, everything in life. But we’re sticking by it, right? Meanwhile, teenagers are being shot left and right, but we don’t care. We want our guns. Let’s see what Charles, who knows the Second Amendment better than you and I ever could, has to say.
Constitutional Conditions
“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.”
I needed to include that here, and in future columns of mine on this topic, for writerly propriety’s sake, even though I know all you Alt-SYRW fans and readers know it by heart.
“First, prior to examining the text of the Second Amendment, it is important to put it in its context within the Bill of Rights…Firearms advocates have generally contended the Second Amendment’s placement within the Bill of Rights shows that it was meant to bestow an individual right to ‘keep and bear’ arms to every citizen,” writes Charles. Many of my fellow Alt-righters would say, “OK, end of story. What’re we shooting for dinner?” at this point. But there’s more.
“Their argument [the aforementioned firearms advocates], however, distorts both the historical and Congressional records,” continues Charles.
I promise, as a learned fellow who is on your Alt-right side, to devote many of my Readings columns on upcoming Monday’s to this topic and scholarship on it particular. This book alone is fecund to the point of stinking up my office in how much fodder for discussion on gun rights it does and will give us. But lemme tell ya’, Alt-ies, it doesn’t look good for us. It seems pretty clear that we and are champions on the Supreme Court have done some serious mental gymnastics, used some loose readings of the Constitution, and employed some generally sketchy rhetorical tactics to ensure we can have our guns, guns, guns above all else.
But between us, where in that 27-word sentence did we get, “Oh, that means we can have guns for personal use?” I suppose we just really, really want them, don’t we?
And: The five gadgets members of Team Trump had custom-made!
Aren’t You Forgetting a Little Something?
“The courts that have analyzed the meaning of the Second Amendment have often done so without mentioning the three conditions upon which the right is based,” writes Charles. I’ll get into those three conditions in my next Readings column. But it’s clear that to interpret the Second Amendment as giving individuals the right to own firearms is a suprious, dubious reading of this section of the Constitution my activist judges. And “judicial activism” is something we’re always accusing the left of, maybe because we’re still angry about Roe v. Wade. But we on the right have had and now have on our side some pretty activist Supreme Court judges who have an agenda they’re aggressively trying to make the law of the land. Their disregard for the three conditions upon which the Second Amendment right is based is just one example of their activism and agenda.
When We Come Back
After a few days during which I, Melvil Dewey, XIV implore to think about what I’ve written here, we’ll reconvenem and discuss more about this book and others on the Second Amendment. Maybe even go out and get yourself a copy of this brilliant tome, so we can be on the same page, pun both intended and unintended–ha!
I know you right-wingers–and I promise I’m one of you–probably don’t trust me. In the Trump Era, we’re all just used to hearing what we want, having Fox News confirm our biases and take it a step further by advancing ridiculous conspiracy theories, and have our glorious Alt-reader say Neo-Nazis are very fine people. So now, it’s an “anything goes” situation. The Parkland Teens are attacked viciously and baselessly just because we can see their activism-their tireless, admirable activism–might effect some change in the ubiquity and legality of guns, which would make us sad, mad, and not vewwy gwad, wouldn’t it? Come here to Mr. Dewey to give you a hug and a pat on the ass, maybe a grope of your boob, if you’re a dame. Go get some rest, and we’ll talk more about this next week.
Also: Learn how to shake and shimmy like an RWNJ who actually has rhythm!
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© 2018 Akbar Khan
