Unions were needed and necessary in the Robber Baron days. The Barons had the power and wherewithal to treat workers pretty much any way they wanted and they certainly did. The history of Pittsburgh is full of the fight for reasonable working hours, safety in the workplace, a living wage, meaningful benefits to ensure entire families didn’t go under if a worker was injured. 

It seemed necessary for the potency of each side to be pretty much equipotent so “bargaining” would not favor either side. In, I think, the 70s, Unions developed a lot of power they used to bully.  I recall the airline pilots demanding three pilots per aircraft. When I was at NYU in the 70s, it was the Teamsters beating up anyone trying to deliver heart valves to University Hospital. Gunshots and flat tires were heard at night. None of this was about salary or benefits; it was all about who was in charge.

Union membership in the USA is slowly but progressively decreasing. The share of U.S. workers who belong to a union has fallen since 1983, when 20.1% of American workers were union members. In 2022, 10.1% of U.S. workers were in a union, the lowest in history. So, it would seem that if and when they decide to use their strike bully pulpit, it would be a decision carefully calculated to generate a better deal than continuing bargaining. This is turning out to be a long shot.

The WGA & AMPTP (writers and actors) have been striking for almost four months now with disastrous quandaries for those in the background depending on TV and Movies for their livelihoods. The point of the strike would be to stop production of TV and movies until public outcry forced the producers to accept their demands. This is exactly what happened for a while, but there are cracks appearing in that wall.

Bill Maher has announced he’s had enough and his show is coming back.  Colbert, Fallon, Kimmell, Myers and Oliver have joined in a podcast, but they’re clearly frustrated and they’re all getting close to doing what it takes if for no other reason than to save the peripheral industries that depend on them. Jeopardy hostess Mayim Bailik famously walked off the set in May to support the writers’ strike, vowing not to return till the bargaining was settled. Last night, Thursday, 9/15/2023, she was there hosting the show without explanation. More importantly, the media producers have figured out that the fifth grader mentality of those watching network TV are more than happy to watch “reality shows” that don’t require writers or actors. So, the WGA & AMPTP are pushing a big heavy ball uphill, not a good strategy to support a strike.

Now, as of last night, we have auto workers striking the big three domestic car makers for what appear to be very high stakes: a 46% pay increases, shorter working hours and several other potential disasters for auto makers. There was never any real chance the auto makers would buy anything like this, so who was in the best position to fight a war of attrition in the auto industry?  Well-heeled auto executives that could last for many months or years or salaried workers who would get $500 a week until the fund ran out? In an industry where any Ford, Chevrolet or Chrysler is matched my hundreds of Teslas, Toyotas, Hondas, Hyundais, Subarus, Kias, Mazdas, Nissons and Volkswagens? 

The DNA of auto workers is similar to Teamsters. When they’ve done this in the past, the issue has turned from staking a meaningful worker position to virulent hatred for each other, both sides doing anything to win regardless of the unintended consequences. GM CEO Mary Barra came on CNN last night and declared that if the autoworkers get what they want, it’ll bury GM. This seemed pretty convincing to me. I’ll just bet that this has well past the point of “bargaining”. It’s now a virulent fight for what each side says is survival. The most potent side (automakers) could last long enough to literally starve the auto workers out, and the peripheral industries that depend on auto making be damned. The workers might last long enough to hand domestic car production to Japan, Korea and Germany. 

Both of these strikes have the makings of disaster for the US economy, and we haven’t seen where the possible unionization of the University of Pittsburgh is going.

DC

I received a note from a friend reminding me that simply trashing Trump will not necessarily win an election. This is a very good point that deserves some exploration.

There’s a LOT more Republican candidates appearing, too many to eviscerate in this missive, but the truly scary reality is that Trump is likely to be nominated for a lot of scary reasons. In a binary election, there must be a better deal on the table than just pointing out how bad the other side is. An alternative must be a better deal and in 2024.  So initially, before I get to Biden, it’s necessary to briefly run through a few of the likely Democratic alternatives.

1.  Kamala Harris- Possibly the worse potential POTUS in several generations. Listening to her give speeches is an exercise in forced cognizance. She generally has only a passing knowledge of what she’s talking about. It’s well known in California that shall we say, she made good use of feminine wiles to the to the top. That won’t fly in 2024.

2.  Gavin Newsome has seemingly good street cred, but Californians loathe him. As Mayor of San Francisco, then Lt .Gov., then a 2-term governor, He has avoided any responsibility for most of his failed policies. Homelessness in California has staggered the imagination and nothing credible is being done about it. Over 800,000 people left California last year, not including major corporations. 

3.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr, is a nightmare that has his father spinning like a lathe in his grave. Full of BS conspiracy theories, he’s disavowed by members of his own family. He sounds more like a red hat Republican than a democrat.

The rest of the Democratic candidates don’t really appear on the screen. The mind boggles.

Now for Biden. Yes, Biden has a bit of a soft brain from old age and previous brain injury. But is simply age-related cognitive dysfunction all there is? Pure and simple age-related brain dysfunction is not necessarily a debilitating disease. It mainly just slows down the process and the affected individual learns to get around it. There are a LOT of persons in their 80s that learn to get around short term memory deficits and word searching, (including the author of this missive) preserving their ability to reason adequately. 

Biden has not pulled any seriously bone headed maneuvers.  Yes, the Afghanistan debacle was a highly publicized mess, but the reality is that pulling out of that endless nightmare would never yield anything but a train wreck no matter who oversaw it. It was really time to finally do whatever it took to get out. A hard bullet to bite on but a needed and necessary chomp, no matter what CNN opined. The immigration and border control mess? A nightmare that’s been going on for decades and all the Presidents from 1950 on refused to grapple with, because there is no practical way to resolve it and virtually any maneuver was guaranteed to produce bad press. Biden didn’t separate thousands of kids from their parents and put them in cages. Sending migrants unannounced to Martha’s VInyard?

So, in a binary election where the only two choices are between a sociopathic narcissist bent on destroying our democratic process and a bumbling nabob that must work his way around the “normal” age related attributes of a shrinking brain, which is the “better” choice if there are only two? Third party?  Maybe find a party that makes a big production of… helping the homeless. Offer an alternative to voters that don’t care much about either of the major candidates. They can vote for the party that will support the homeless and feel better about it. That party won’t win the election but can throw a win to someone no one likes. Remember Ross Perot in 1992?

A binary election! Only two choices! Does everyone understand that such a situation guarantees most voters will vote for the least dangerous candidate? Sooner or later, many of the faithful will hold their noses and vote for Trump because they’re Republicans and voting for any Democrat is a sin punishable by entry into one of the inner Circles of Hell. But look around you. Is the current Republican Party your fathers party? My father’s party? Republicans are going to have to deal with a BINARY ELECTION and it isn’t going to be an easy decision. 

We’re going to have to talk about whether Republicans should vote at all. If they refuse to vote so as to avoid any culpability for putting a monster into office and witnessing our society go over the cliff shortly thereafter, they can say “can’t blame me”. But absence of blame doesn’t necessarily mean absence of liability. 

Sadly, more to come.

DC

Good news travels fast. Trump’s fourth indictment on criminal charges. Unlike what came before, the Georgia indictment is a very, very big deal. 

First of all, it’s a state, not a federal inditement, which means anyone in a Trump federal government has no jurisdiction over it, so Trump and his co-defendants couldn’t be pardoned or otherwise pampered into Trump-friendly areas outside Fulton County. Georgia law is more focused than federal statues, which is why Fulton County DA Fani Willis has spent months bringing every molecule of evidence into bedrock, making it extremely difficult if not impossible for defense lawyers to poke holes in any of it.

The easiest way to think about the Georgia inditements is that it’s an examination of lies.  Donald Trump has been lying continuously for over eight years and until January 6, 2022, he’s pretty much gotten away with it. The Georgia case is now come to a head about lying, conspiring to lie, and attempting to coerce others into lying.  Special counsel Jack Smith has brought a rather limited indictment on Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Fani Willis is bringing a case about the entire Trump conspiracy from A to Z and targeting all the co-conspirators. 

The breadth of the Georgia indictment is now centered on the very scary issue of RICO (racketeering). In addition to other criminal charges, Georgia’s racketeering statute allows prosecutors to charge conspirators with lying to government officials.  Rather than marking each discrete lie on its own, those lies can also be collected into a larger whole: a racketeering enterprise designed to alter the results of the Georgia presidential election. A very, very big deal and plenty scary for those accused. If I were facing Fani Willis in a court of law, I’d be quaking in my boots.

As I have mentioned before, I don’t believe prospective voters care much about Trump hoarding “secret” documents, although technically it is a felony. Voters, especially Trump’s true believers, care even less that he paid off a busty female to keep her mouth shut about an extramarital tryst before the election. If every such guilty politician was identified, Washington DC, would be a ghost town. The Georgia allegations are a different universe. Anyone can lie to the public in Georgia or even lie to public officials on matters outside the scope of their official duties. However, if you lie to state officials relating to their official actions, you risk prosecution and that’s exactly what Trump and his confederates allegedly did, over and over, throughout the election.

When you peruse the list of Trump’s lies, they’re incredible. His declarations aren’t merely false; they’re incandescently boneheaded. This was not a sophisticated effort to overturn the election. It was a blast of simpleminded stupidity with a ridiculously simple trail to follow. To meet federal law requirements, Jack Smith’s charges must connect Trump to a larger criminal scheme. In Georgia, Willis has only to prove that Trump willfully lied to a government official about a matter in that official’s jurisdiction. Once you prove that simpler case, you’ve laid the foundation for the larger racketeering claims that SERIOUSLY ratchets up Trump’s legal jeopardy. 

And yet these issues will ultimately be resolved not by the courts but by the electorate. Republican primary voters will be presented with an opportunity to consider the real value of his leadership and the further damage he could do if rewarded with another four years in power.

Some of you have probably noticed that network TV spots are quickly filling up with “reality series” because that don’t require writing or even actors. Most are so bad they aren’t watchable, even if there weren’t ten commercials every ten minutes. If you’re a network TV watcher, you already suspect the powers-that-be are in this war to kill the writers and actors- decimate them so when they do come back, and they eventually will, they will have  lost enough to never try it again. The “late night” shows are probably stone dead in their hoary crypts for the foreseeable future, as, unfortunately are all the jobs and livelihoods surrounding them.

So, if you’re a TV watcher, that leaves the exploding programming on cable, especially You Tube which offers a wide variety of interesting stuff. Personally, I peruse “You Tube” for opinion and documentaries. Accordingly, I stumbled onto a guy offering his opinion that turned out to be incredibly interesting and prescient. I highly recommend you look this guy up. He is Dr. Victor Davis Hanson with tons of academic associations including Stanford. You can easily look him up:

https://www.hoover.org/profiles/victor-davis-hanson

He did what amounts to a “video podcast” you can also easily find it here

A bit more about Dr. Hanson directly, but for now, in this lecture, he outlines what’s happening politically and culturally using California as a microcosm for where the rest of American cities are headed and it’s plenty scary. Interestingly, what he’s saying is virtually word for word for what a close friend in Los Angeles has been telling me for years. I’ll spare you a word-for-word. You can hear it for yourselves when you have a few moments.

So I dug a little deeper to find out that Dr. Hanson’s politics are mostly diametrically opposed to mine, even though much of what he says on some subjects makes clear sense. When you start looking into him, and especially his associations, you find most of his diatribe wails against the “Hard Left”. In itself, that’s OK. The “hard anything” is deserving of its share of criticism. 

But it comes out that Hansen is definitely an apologist for Trump, having written a book “The Case for Donald Trump” in 2019. This was written before Trump and most of his minions lost their respective elections in 2020, and the “Big Lie”, the power grab in Georgia and the Coup attempt in January 6, 2021. Now when he’s asked about his 2019 book, he deftly changes the subject from “an extremely successful president” to not so much the president himself but the reasoning behind those who elected him. Dr. Hanson conveniently neglects a lot of embarrassing facts concerning Donald Trump, but be that as it may, he’s a great read and I highly recommend him.

I did pick up on some on a couple of his very interesting opinions I’ll outline for you:

1.  Hanson predicted the demise of affirmative action. It’s hard to argue there is a cohort of non-white victims.  If there were, it’s necessary to create the premise of white privilege, supremacy, and rage that would be integral to race-based reverse discrimination. More than a dozen ethnicities earn more per capita than do whites. Asians have been subject to coerced internment, immigration restrictions and zoning exclusions. Yet on average they do better than whites economically and enjoy lower suicide rates and longer life expectancies. The arguments for affirmative action never explained why Asians and other minorities who faced discrimination outperformed the majority white population. As a result, affirmative action ended up discriminating against Asians on the premise they were too successful!

2. “Diversity” is an illusion created by those using the concept to create “equity (or equality). The groundswell for “diversity” began abruptly at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in 2016 when it was noted that Since 1929, only 6.2 percent of minority actors and directors received Oscar nods. No black actors nominated in 2016.

But diversity can be interpreted many ways by many interpreters. In a perfect world, diversity might mean including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds. However, some define diversity in it’s more exclusive sense, more like “equity”, providing the same to all, managing circumstances to allocate the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. 

A perfect example- Blacks make up about 12 percent of the general population. Diversity might be accurately defined as then about 12% of all TV commercials should contain black actors. Next time you choose to watch network TV, keep a pen and paper nearby and note any of the hundreds of commercials that DON’T contain a person of color. It’s somewhere between 5 and 0%. That isn’t diversity. It’s enforced congruence. 

One could easily argue that populations of African-Americans are already diverse. Blacks make up about 12 percent of the general population. In many southern cities, blacks make up 50 to 70% of their population.  In 2020 nearly 10,000 blacks, mostly young males, were murdered, the vast majority by other blacks. Recently an unarmed 29-year-old African American, Tyre Nichols, was brutally beaten to death by five Black Memphis police officers. They were charged with murder. Both the victimizers and victim were Black. The Memphis police chief is Black. The assistant police chief is Black. Nearly 60 percent of the police force is Black. The white population of Memphis is about 25 percent.

3.  In a very recent interview, Hanson hit on a very painful note. He happened, as did I, to be watching President Biden giving an ad hoc speech at the edge of the Maui fire disaster a couple of days ago. It was plainly obvious to both of us that Biden STRUGGLED to make himself understood, stumbling over simple sentences, repeating himself and halting over the reading. It was embarrassing and frightening as we wonder where these lapses might lead over the next five years. 

At any rate, although Dr. Hanson and I differ greatly on some things and you may or may not, he has some very topical and interesting opinions and I highly recommend him as a read (or watch).

The first Republican debate Wednesday evening was a jaw dropping experience. The hopelessly disorganized Fox hosts let the combatants argue, interrupt and scream at each other off the grid, ignore the established time constraints and shamelessly pontificate their not-so-humble personal opinions as established facts. They also masterfully changed the subject when asked a question they didn’t want to answer.

Trump didn’t want to be raked over the coals and so opted to have a few words with impeccably disgraced ex-commentator Tucker Carlson, a caught red-handed liar and false witness, but still seemingly embraced by the faithful. Trump had nothing new to say other than the usual fare. 

Those candidates that made their careers on Trumps coat tails deftly avoided directly criticizing him, except for Chris Christie, who, BTW had some of the most intelligent comments of the evening, including the following:

“Whether or not you believe that the criminal 

charges are right or wrong, the conduct is 

beneath the office of president of the United States,” 

Surprisingly, candidate Nikki Haley also came out with a few relatively perceptive quips, but then landed this whopper:

“If you want something said, ask a man,’” 

quipped Ms. Haley, “If you want something done, 

ask a woman.”

She neglected to follow this up with a Madeline Albrights classic:

“If you want to see a world run by women, 

watch how they treat each other in high school.”

Other candidates ranged from the overbearing ecumenical bully (Pence), the sad, question-dodging demagogue (DeSantis) to the quiet, refuge seeking also-rans.  

Very notable, however, is the slick Trump clone Ramaswamy, who obviously spent a lot of time rehearsing the moves that made Trump what he is. Ramaswamy went out of his way to hit ‘em all, guaranteed to get cheers from the crowd: Cutting funding for Ukraine’s war effort (in full view of Taiwan and South Korea), promising to pardon Trump, accusing Christie of auditioning for an MSNBC contract, Haley of fishing for lucrative private-sector jobs and the big one, “climate change is a myth”. 

But enough of this muddle I could spend hours on. 

Let’s have a brief look at Trump’s surrender, arrest and booking in Atlanta.  Curiously, the Trump caravan from New Jersey to Atlanta included enough vehicles to stock several big GM dealerships, including enough police motorcycles to put a scare in the Hells Angels. All this for a FORMER US President that was voted out of office?  Then the famous “Mug Shot” portraying Trump in fighting mode. I’ve never seen a true police mug shot like this. Most portray the subject bolt upright with lights everywhere, obviating shadows and a lateral shot as well. Trump’s mug looks like a mafioso don. 

But it is what it is, a blink in American History. A former US President arrested for criminal activity. Not just any criminal history, Racketeering! As a purely practical matter, even though Trump enjoys a fairly wide popularity, most if not all of that is among Republicans. The same species of Republicans that joyfully applauded crafted Trump clone Ramaswamy, who’s not qualified for anything. These accolades are not necessarily shared by most of those that will be voting in 2024.

Trump is old history and it’s highly unlikely any candidate with four criminal trials hanging over his head will be elected president. He’s 77 years old. He’ll spend the rest of his life in and out of court, paying lawyers millions and shouting loudly to no one in particular that he’s a victim of political witch hunting. He’ll sink in that mire. 

That leaves possibly one of the eight we saw perform Wednesday evening. Some of those eight are simply clown acts, loud and strident but really going nowhere. Others now fighting previously good reviews now sagging on the basis of poor performance in front of an audience. Others simply standing and watching.  

To my mind, only two of the eight stood out much. Chris Christie has come out several times with reasonable comments about the presidency and he isn’t afraid to call Trump out. Although she’s said some pretty stupid things to Fox commentators in the past, Nikki Haley managed to assign blame for much of what’s happening in American politics to Republicans as well as Democrats and she has the most reasonable thoughts on the abortion issue. She’s not there yet, but she’s closer than the rest. 

We’ll see how the polls react now. 

DWC

Predictably, House Republicans have started to make “impeachment” noise but there at least a couple differences between Trump versus Biden as it pertains to the substantiation of any convincing charges. McCarthy is only “directing” the House to open an inquiry. In fact, assorted committees of the House have been “inquiring” the same issues for many months and have come up with nothing. Sins of the son do not impact sins of the father. The “evidence” for Trumps malefacting is rock solid and there is a mountain of it. 

Not that it matters because the Cult of Trump doesn’t care the least. Trump figured out long ago that lies and empty conspiracies work just fine for his collection of social media true believers. So the meticulously collected and timed criminal charges will just blow out into space for a third of the 2024 voters. We can only hope that these charges mean plenty to emerging new voters, but the push to impeach Biden may invoke the Principle of Unintended Consequences for McCarthy.

It must be remembered that McCarthy sold his soul many, many times over to many, many congressional members, all of whom will eventually arrive for payback. There is only a 5 seat Republican House majority and there are 18 House Republicans who represent districts won by Biden in 2020. Protecting those seats are essential to Republican control of the House. There are some Republicans in the house who publicly opine they want to see hard evidence of Biden wrongdoing before they get on board for impeachment. So far there is none remotely convincing. Hardline Republicans already calling for McCarthy’s head won’t be satisfied with an inquiry that goes nowhere. They’ll want to see charges. There’s a good chance that spells doom for some of their colleagues in 2024 when none is forthcoming.

Since the Cult of Trump is of an unknown size and polls are famously unreliable, it remains only hopeful that a sizeable enough number of voters will have no interest in electing a president hog-tied by a mountain of criminal and even civil charges. It isn’t just a matter of Trump’s incompetence anymore. It’s also the addition of his lack of character which for any other candidate would be the kiss of political death. But is there another avenue leading to Trump’s political demise?

Maybe invoking the 14th Amendment to the Constitution? Voters in Colorado filed a lawsuit testing the theory that Trump is ineligible to run for office because of the following language in the 14th (truncated by me for brevity):

“No person shall be a ***** elector of President *****, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, ******** who, having previously taken an oath, ********as an officer of the United States, ********to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

This wording was to prevent secessionists of the Civil War from walking back into power in the states where they’d just been defeated. Several respected senior jurists have opined that this section of the 14th effectively renders Trump ineligible to run for the President of the United States. Technically, this wording was specifically designed to cull out any candidate who betrays their oaths to the Constitution, by, among other specifications, “waging war on our government by attempting to overturn a presidential election through a bloodless coup.” Sounds cut & dried.

But David Frum in this month’s Atlantic, says not so fast. The wording was specifically pointed toward Civil War issues which cloud current issues. Interpretation of the events of January 6 mean different things to different people and the ensuing arguments about it could go on to eternal litigation about what those words mean. Likewise, it would be unclear how Trump could be removed from all the State ballots. There is no single national ballot. 

Frum says:  “If Section 3 can be reactivated in this way ****, Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify, and not only for president, but for any race where Democrats present someone who said or did something that can be represented as ‘aid and comfort’ to enemies of the United States.”

Reluctantly, I’m afraid I’ll have to agree with David From. The spirit of the 14th is clear but invoking it in 2024 would open a legal Pandora’s Box that would guarantee rage and chaos for decades. The only sure way to stop Trump is with a resounding and undeniable defeat at the ballot box.  We can only hope (and vote).

DWC

There are a lot of things about the Floyd killing that lie under the surface of the loud jubilation of those in the immediate area. Gene Robinson and Lester Holt gingerly danced around them in brief editorials on tonight’s NBC News. More will probably follow soon.

The guilty verdict (“overkill?”- Three different offences) for Derek Chauvin was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not one of those jurors had any interest in voting for any verdict that would burn Minneapolis to the ground. Van Jones on CNN clearly predicted that outcome of anything less than the three verdicts were brought forth. That said, there was plenty of damning evidence and Chauvin was clearly guilty. But the evidence damning Chauvin was much more damning than much of the evidence involving white folk killing black folk ever since reconstruction. That matters. 

There’s a lot more black folk in big cities (really no longer “minorities”) and they all carry “smart phones” capable of high-resolution movie capability. Any assault of any black person is mist assuredly going to be extensively caught on movies as effective as Cinemascope directed by Spielberg. In the case of Chauvin, from multiple vantages and containing street side editorials from onlookers. The Floyd murder was an easy trial; there was no effective defense for high-resolution film. The majority of atrocities involving assault on black men are not caught nearly as vividly, making it harder to effectively adjudicate. 

The loud jubilation involving one black guy and one cop may not necessarily be shared by another population with a deeply built-in hatred of black folk and be assured there are a lot of them out there whose opinions are not shared by the outcry tonight. So Floyd is the short game, a quick and limited short subject. Yes there are a lot of photos of Floyd in cities all over the world accompanied by appropriate slogans. But this is all put up by populations with an interest in the short game- “justice” for Floyd’s family and friends, and be assured justice was done. Chauvin will spend the rest of his life in prison.

But it bears remembering that the long game has been played since before reconstruction in the 1800s. The long game is the fact that there is another population here that does not recognize black folk in the same “humanity” terms that they do each other. This is why Chauvin kept his foot on the neck for nearly five minutes after Floyd lost his pulse, ignoring pleas from onlookers. Floyd was less than human and therefore fair game to treat that way. Very much similar to the way Vietnamese were depicted as less than human in 1967, rendering them more unceremonious to torture and kill. 

Cops have been torturing and killing black males and the occasional female for a very, very long time. Read Bryan Stevenson’s history on black lynching (written by Jeff Toobin):

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/22/bryan-stevenson-and-the-legacy-of-lynching

They were still killing them after Floyd’s death and they will probably continue to kill them at every opportunity, then express wonder at what the big deal was when caught up in the short game. So keep your eye on the Washington Post and the Grey Lady. Editorials coming there will be much stronger than Gene Robinson’s gentle assessment on the NBC News tonight. Gene danced around it but didn’t call it like he probably sees it. National TV Networks exist at the mercy of their advertisers biases. The newsprint is much more brutal as they demonstrated vividly in their dealings with Trump.

Yes, “justice” was done for Floyd et al but there is no convincing evidence that the longer game has been altered much. We’ll see in time.

David Crippen, MD, FCCM

Professor Emeritus (ret)

Departments of Critical Care, Emergency Medicine and Neurologic Surgery

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Folks, the day is coming if it isn’t already here when we’re all going to have to start thinking about how we’ll deal with two impending cultural disasters capable of ripping the fabric of our society asunder.  Civilian weapon control (the second Amendment) and women’s reproduction rights under Roe v. Wade.

I can give you an opinion on these subjects because I’m old enough to have seen all of it in real action. I’ve been involved close up in firefights in which “assault rifles” resulted in the death of young men.  So you can take my opinions for what you think they might be worth, or not. We’ll start with the impending battle for gun control.

Those citizens who cling to the second Amendment as a guarantee they can possess and operate any kind of military weapon ad lib are spoiling for a fight and it’s been coming for a long time. Opponents of gun control believe the meat & potatoes of the Amendment to be taken literally: “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”.  Gun control advocates interpret the Amendment more figuratively.  The Amendment’s primary justification is to prevent the United States from needing a standing army. Preventing the United States from starting a professional army attacking the standing government in a coup, in fact, was the single most important goal of the Second Amendment. 

The authors of the Bill of Rights were not concerned with an “individual” or “personal” right to bear arms. The founders had no more conception of an AR-15 rapid-fire military weapon than they did a Boeing 747. However, the landmark 2008 Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, held that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess firearms independent of service in a state militia and to use firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense within the home. This set the stage for a political defense of the 2^nd rather than a practical one.

But there is a very practical reason why possession and operation of firearms should be controlled, especially rapid-fire military weapons specifically constructed to kill humans, individually and in groups. It’s reasonable for individuals to give up some “rights” constructed in antiquity in order to promote a much greater good. Much like forgoing the right of some free speech to avoid the catastrophe of yelling fire in a crowded theater. The founders with sluggish muskets propped against their door had no conception of the possible damage to the citizenry from modern rapid-fire weapons turned on them. Defense of the 2^nd Amendment has now become a politically “conservative” ideal which means defenders are “all in” against any form of regulation no matter how commonsensical, a stand-alone paragon no matter what risk/benefit might exist.

The year 2020 was the deadliest gun violence year in two decades, nearly 20,000 souls massacred by various iterations of firearms, two thirds of who were suicides. There were 611 mass shootings in 2020. Compared to 22 other high-income nations, the U.S. gun-related homicide rate is 25 times higher. The standard refrain of gun control opponents is “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”, but statistics modify this cliché greatly. According to figures from the National Crime Victimization Survey, people defended themselves with a gun in only 0.9% of crimes from 2007 to 2011. This data show that people use guns for self-defense very rarely and argues that the risks of owning a gun outweigh the benefits of having one in the extremely rare case where you might need to defend yourself. 

A Washington Post article stated that the percentage of people who told The NRA they used a gun in self-defense is similar to the percentage of Americans who said they were abducted by aliens. Even if someone wanted to use a gun in self-defense, they probably wouldn’t be very successful. Many people who carry a gun aren’t properly trained to use it, especially in panic situations. The argument that as many gun deaths occur in States having the strictest gun regulation laws smoothly fails to mention that weapons are imported into these areas in car trunks from States with much more lax gun laws. Gun regulation laws are only effective when spread out uniformly over the entire country.

Gun related massacres would seem to prompt effective action from reasonable people to stop them. Conservative Republicans and the NRA have shown themselves not to be entirely reasonable. On October 27, 2018, Robert D. Bowers, armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and multiple handguns, killed 11 worshippers in the Tree of Life Congregation in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. He also wounded four police officers, one seriously and two other individuals. Following this atrocious act of hatred, the citizens of Pittsburgh came together to demand political action, prompting the City Council to propose three gun control ordinances in December 2018. One prohibits the use of specified “assault weapons” within the city area, the second prohibits large capacity magazines (holding more than ten rounds) and most importantly, a “Red Flag law. On October 29, 2019, Judge Joseph M. James of Allegheny County, buoyed by the NRA and conservative Republicans struck down all three ordinances for violating state constitution. Members of the City Council hope to take this case to the Supreme Court to expand Pittsburgh’s and other municipalities’ ability to pass gun regulation specific to their needs. 

One can only hope that the SCOTUS will invoke the rule of common sense, ruling if not to completely protect the citizenry from firearm massacre, at least make it harder for killers to ply their deadly vocation. The “red Flag” law (Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) is a reasonable start to protect innocents from gun violence.  The ERPO is a legal tool to remove firearms from people who are deemed to be at high risk of committing violence. Law enforcement or family members may petition a court to temporarily suspend an individual’s right to possess or purchase a firearm after submission of evidence that the person is a danger to themselves or others. In extreme cases in which an individual presents a clear and immediate danger, courts may grant ex parte orders to confiscate weapons, administered immediately without notice to the recipient. Ex parte orders are designed as an emergency measure to stop the threat of imminent violence. They require legally acceptable evidence and signing off by a judge, not much if any different than many other emergency measures affecting the citizenry. But the “conservative” political advocates consider “any” regulation to be a violation of the 2^nd. Sorry if 20 children are wiped out at Sandy Hook by a rapid fire Bushmaster. Acceptable collateral damage. 

Critics of ERPOs question due process: Do ERPOs provide police and petitioners a means to conduct illegal searches or intimidate enemies? Again, this brings up the much larger issue of risk/benefit. The potential for all kinds of abuse greatly exceeds the exceptionally minuscule benefit and regulation does not mean wrenching firearms out of the hands of authentic sportsmen. The potential for such weapons to spread catastrophe quickly and efficiently so greatly exceeds the common bolt-action hunting rifle that they simply should not be allowed except under critical regulation for those with some convincing reason to have one. There is no practical use of rapid-fire military weapons with large capacity magazines (easily converted to automatic fire) other than for trophies on ones wall, and those are easily converted to non-functionality. 

So effective regulation of firearms in civilian hands seems to be a reasonable thing for society to adopt. It’s not a legal issue; it’s simply a public health issue and should be treated as such. Whether we will see any of this come to fruit depends greatly on how much saturation of “conservative” politicians there will be in the halls of congress for the 2022 mid-term and 2024 Presidential elections. The National Rifle Association, long time opponent of any form of effective gun regulation, may not be a player as they are currently embroiled in massive fraud lawsuits. We’ll see in time.

Coming soon:  Will the SCOTUS, packed with “conservatives” be all-in to repeal Roe v. Wade.