On the Occasion of Number “17”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [human beings] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” (Declaration of Independence)
Regardless of whether so-called “pro-life” factions can agree on whether life begins at conception or in the mind of a divinity, or whether the moral standing of institutional Christians has been undermined by pederasty or whether the peccadilloes of their chosen politicians undermines both faith-based morals and secular ethics, so a majority of Americans, surely still believe in the reasons for protecting their children and grandchildren, regardless of color, creed, or political persuasion, children who should be able to pursue their lives, liberty, and happiness, while attending classes in school or services at churches.
Surely the protection of children against armed killers with military-grade weapons i.e. domestic terrorists and serial killers should be prohibited. Surely, gun buyers should be required to pass background tests, similar to the way an applicant for a driver’s license must past an exam that requires the applicant to operate a safe vehicle in a safe manner, requirements in the interests of health, safety, and the public welfare.
Surely, factions and sects, who have elevated the right to allow “gun violence” in the interests of possessing military arms or made metaphysical claims about the ambiguous claims of the divine above the rights of the living have abnegated their moral and ethical rights as citizens and human beings.
Though nobody can know or predict how the mind of a terrorist or killer will prompt an action with devastating results aimed at children among school desks and parishioners in their pews, we do know that policies, which restrict the sale of military weapons to civilians reduce the chances of horror, results confirmed by studies in several American states and in a number of foreign countries.
When political factions and religious sects transform and pervert the rights of human beings to enjoy the pursuit of life, according to the Declaration of Independence, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Surely, the time has arrived for Americans to take back their country from the NRA, the Republican party, their financial supporters and the judiciary, the sects and factions, who conspire to make military weapons available to “terrorists” and “serial killers, which system takes away the lives of innocent children. Whether you are a faithful believer or a secular humanist, surely the right to life of a child trumps the politics of money and the fanaticism of the faithful, who “have been deaf to the voice of justice” and have transformed the message of love and human happiness into the arms dealer’s Message of Death.