Here we are again. Another mass shooting, coming just a week after yet another mass shooting in Buffalo, New York targeting black people. This most recent one was targeting kids, 19 of them. A teacher got in the way and made the 20th fatality. It's time to try something different, radically different.

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The Second Amendment to the Constitution:

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.

Here we are again. Another mass shooting, coming just a week after yet another mass shooting in Buffalo, New York targeting black people. This most recent one was targeting kids, 19 of them. A teacher got in the way and made the 20^th fatality. The shooter's Grandmother was the first victim of the 18-year old's killing spree.

The details hardly matter anymore: there's always a history of violence, anger and bullying, then retribution, etc. ad nauseum. You can read more about this particular kid's circumstances here if you choose to. He was a victim before he was a victimizer. The first part could be said of a thousand kids like him. Good luck trying to figure out which one of the thousand would finally act out by shooting his imagined tormentors.

We've run the guns-don't-kill-people, people-kill-people experiment dozens of times now. It's as clear as it can be that countries, or states within our country, that have lax gun laws, or which make them more lax, have more shootings, including suicide, which for some reason is not even considered worth mentioning though it is where the majority of shootings end up.

The former New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof had an excellent editorial on gun violence published today. It was first published in 2017 and has been regularly repeated with minor updates every time there is a mass shooting, which is too often for me to remember now. You can read it here and maybe refer back to this as you read the rest of this article.

Two things are indisputably true: First, America has more privately owned guns per capita than any other country and it has more shootings of every kind than any other country, with the possible exception of nearly lawless Yemen, which is also in a Civil War. Second, Republicans are slaves to the NRA and terrified that voting for any kind of gun control will cost them the next election (whether they should be more concerned over losing an election vs. saving lives is a discussion for another time, but no one ever lost money betting against the morality or spine of a politician).

Without Senator Joe Manchin's (D(ino) - W.V.) the 60-vote requirement to pass gun control laws cannot be overcome with any realistic electoral outcome of the Constitutionally rural and red-state-favoring electoral college. It doesn't matter that 93% of the country, including most Republicans, favor background checks - which the Uvalde, Texas shooter passed anyway. Gunman Salvador Ramos bought his mass murder arsenal legally, under both national and Texas laws. There are a host of laws that could have made that harder. See the Kristoff article, or the repeated Onion articles that have run for the last 10 years of mass shootings:

If all the old attempts to control gun violence fail, it's time to try something new. To do otherwise, and expect different results is the definition of insanity.

I tweeted this today:

@Potus should form a militia of young gun-owning men & make sure they are well regulated, knowing friend from foe or lose their guns. Precedent: G. Washington led a militia against Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 & no @SCOTUS decision prevents Biden from forming a new militia.

Twitter forces one to be succinct. I like that since it helps me reach Americans who have a notoriously short attention span.

But let me expand on the idea just a bit more.

First, does the President have the right to form a militia?

I asked a professor and scholar on the second amendment about my idea in 2019.

Here is David F. Forte's bio.

Education:

B.A., Harvard College
M.A., University of Manchester
Ph.D., University of Toronto
J.D., Columbia University

Bio:

David F. Forte is Professor of Law at Cleveland State University, where he was the inaugural holder of the Charles R. Emrick, Jr. - Calfee Halter & Griswold Endowed Chair. He holds degrees from Harvard College, Manchester University, England, the University of Toronto and Columbia University.

And here is what Professor Forte wrote:

Dear Scott,

First, the President does not draft into a militia. The states' national guard is the militia. Second, in Heller, the Supreme Court said that there was a pre-existing right to own arms sufficient for self-defense, and the second amendment protected that right for an additional purpose of having a militia available for defense of the state and the country. But then Congress passed legislation regulating the states' militias, which still leaves the bare right of arms for self defense.

Your theory is interesting, but I'm afraid there are two many legal and historical hurdles before it could be an effective alternative.

Sorry to be a wet blanket.

David Forte

But this, to my mind, does not preclude the president, or a Governor, from forming a militia, in addition to the individual right to bear arms. Would the courts not only ignore the "well-regulated militia" part of the Second Amendment as they have been doing increasingly for decades, but also make a positive assertion that the words no longer represent an enumerated right, first demonstrated by president Washington? I'd like to see them try that, these so-called originalists in the Supreme Court.

I've written to David Forte for clarification and also to see if this latest shooting has changed his mind. There was no response at press time.

Second, what would a militia offer that could stem mass and non-mass (the vast majority) of shootings? Well, interestingly, the National Rifle Association used to be primarily a Gun Club, teaching responsible care of guns and shooting practice. It was only in the latter half of the 20^th century that is morphed into an industry-promoting guns-everywhere-for-everyone organization. Although many organizations offer training in the care and responsible use of guns, guns remain less regulated than cars - as Nicholas Kristof points out - and there is no compulsory group doing this. Meanwhile, the most at-risk young people are probably the least likely to sign up for an organized course of training and evaluation (especially of the psychological kind). A militia would be compulsory, for any young person with a gun (any state that allows someone to just buy a gun, without a license, is just screaming for this kind of federal intervention). This kind of program presents several opportunities for intervention, as needed.

Healthy young people who have guns might be steered towards a career in law enforcement or the military (sadly, these organizations are not going to become unneeded anytime soon).

Some young people might decide, before or after joining the militia, that maybe owning a gun is not "the blast" they thought it was going to be. If they give up their guns, they don't have to join or remain in the militia. This is not a universal draft. It is a selective service. If someone "selects" to own a gun, the government can "select" them to serve in a militia.

Finally, and critically, the small but dangerous number of young people who show a tendency towards anti-social behavior, dangerous thoughts to themselves or others, could be identified, by trainers with some additional training in psychology, professional psychologists and other mental health professionals as part of the modern militia support team.

How long should training in a militia take? I'm not an expert but I would assume something similar to army boot camp, which is currently 10 weeks.

There are now an estimated 400 million guns in 44% of American households, obviously with many having several. 1/3 of all the civilian guns in the world are in the hands of Americans.

Nearly all of these are not in police or other professional hands.

That's a pretty big militia. What would the "well-regulated" militia do?

Well, how about guarding the courts? After all, it's the courts, especially the Supreme Court, that has given us the series of decisions that has landed the country in the gun-awash place it is today. Surely, they wouldn't mind a little extra protection, right? Right?

Authors Website: http://newthinking.blogspot.com/

Authors Bio:

Scott Baker is a Managing Editor & The Economics Editor at Opednews, and a former blogger for Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Global Economic Intersection.

His anthology of updated Opednews articles "America is Not Broke" was published by Tayen Lane Publishing (March, 2015) and may be found here:

http://www.americaisnotbroke.net/

Scott is a former and current President of Common Ground-NY (http://commongroundnyc.org/), a Geoist/Georgist activist group. He has written dozens of articles for Common Ground's national publication, GroundSwell, and has advocated for the Georgist Land Value Tax to public and political audiences.

A complete list of his publications can be found here:

Click Here

He is also New York State Coordinator,Senior Advisor, Director and AI Chair for the Public Banking Institute

Click Here, which seeks to promote Public Banking. The PBI is chaired by another OEN blogger, Ellen Brown.
Scott has appeared on TV/Radio and in in-person Presentations to explain the principles of Georgism, Greenbacking, and State Banking. These may also be found on his personal blog: http://newthinking.blogspot.com/

Scott has a dozen progressive petitions on Change.org which may be found here:

http://chn.ge/10nUAmJ

Scott was an I.T. Manager for a major New York university for over two decades where he earned a Certificate for Frontline Leadership.

He had a video game published in Compute! Magazine: Click Here

Scott is a graduate and adjunct faculty of the Henry George School of Social Science in New York City.

Scott is a modern-day Renaissance Man with interests in economics, science and all future-forward topics.

He has been called an "adept syncretist" by Kirkus Discoveries for his novel, NeitherWorld - a two-volume opus blending Native American myth, archaeological detail, government conspiracy, with a sci-fi flair http://amzn.to/10nUoDV

Scott grew up in New York City and Pennsylvania. He graduated with honors and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University and was a member of the Psychology honor society PSI CHI.

Today he is an avid bicyclist and ride co-leader in a prominent bike advocacy organization.

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