The Star-Spangled Banner says the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” What does it really mean to be “free”? There are so many issues out there that challenge this notion. A hot topic right now is gun rights. Argument A says that we aren’t free unless we have the right to bear arms. A counter-argument, Argument B, says that we aren’t free unless we have the ability to go to school, a grocery store, a church, a cemetery, a concert, a movie…without fear of being the victim of a mass shooting. What does the Constitution say? The Second Amendment says, “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.” The debate rages on about what that means. As someone who believes the Constitution was meant to be malleable and changeable with the times (otherwise, we wouldn’t have the ability to amend it), I believe that this amendment must be taken in context of the times it was written, with the framers understanding that it could be updated. Pro-gun reformers focus on the “well-regulated” portion of that sentence while anti-gun reformers focus on the “shall not be infringed” portion of the amendment. I tend to look at facts. The fact remains that the United States is the only country with a mass-shooting problem and it has the most lax gun laws of any nation, not to mention the most number of guns in civilian hands than any other country…by FAR. We have almost 400 million guns in circulation whereas the next country coming in second behind the U.S. only has 71 million in civilian hands. 

The Right likes to blame anything from mental health, a popular argument, to ridiculous ones like too many entrances to buildings, as the cause of mass shootings. Although mental health is likely a contributing factor in some cases, other countries deal with the same mental health issues and don’t have a similar mass shooting problem. Evidence has shown that a common factor in these types of shooting is a male with a grievance and a history of domestic violence. Domestic violence is directly tied to misogyny, toxic masculinity and, indirectly, white supremacy. I won’t go into this issue in depth here, but to go back to the question of “What is freedom?,” we need to get real about what freedoms are more important or take precedence.

When I taught fifth grade, I gave a lesson in U.S. History about Rights vs. Responsibility. We have rights as laid out in the Constitution and through subsequent amendments, but what are our responsibilities as citizens of a country and in a society in being given those rights? If we have the right to bear arms as the Second Amendment states, then what responsibilities go with that? In my view, yes, we have a right to a gun, but that comes with gun-ownership responsibilities. In my view, that is where the “well-regulated militia” comes into play. Framers of the Constitution likely never considered a weapon like the AR-15 that can blow a child into unidentifiable pieces, a weapon created for the sole purpose of destroying a human being. The National Rifle Association (NRA) in its origins wasn’t even about preserving the right to own a gun. They supported the sport of guns and marksmanship, preserving the skill of shooting to not only be able to hunt and put food on the table but to ensure the skill of shooting is not a lost art as manufacturing and industry began to take over food production in this country. The reality is…if the fear is being defenseless against a government turned authoritarian (whether communist or fascist), I guarantee even with guns, we are utterly defenseless against the weapons the military likely has at their disposal. That is why it is more important that we tackle the threat of authoritarianism through politics and the law, keeping people in power who respect the Constitution and the separation of powers as opposed to celebrating strongman leaders like Donald Trump who, when in office, dismantled the State Dept and politicized the Justice Department, putting in power loyalists as opposed to public officials who not only would have experience but remain loyal to the Constitution rather than a president. General Milley back in 2020, when the military used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear peaceful protesters in order to carry out a photo op of Trump in front of a church with the Bible in his hand, apologized immediately for the stunt, realizing the military must be cognizant of their role in this country, and he reaffirmed his commitment to serving and defending the Constitution, not a president. He also recognized Trump’s willingness to use the military on our own citizens, having threatened it multiple times during the protests of 2020. 

The branches of government are meant to check each other. If one branch gets too powerful, the other two branches are supposed to find ways to re-balance it. The executive branch grabbed a lot of power in the wake of 9-11 through such laws as the Patriot Act and a myriad of executive orders carried out by Bush, only increasing in pace among subsequent presidents. Now we have another issue, a politicized Supreme Court, bought and paid for by the Right Wing group, the Federalist Society, an extremely influential network within and among lawyers with a lot of money and power in the halls of Washington D.C. With the help of the Federalist Society and Mitch McConnell, then Majority Leader in the Senate from 2015-2021, who manipulated Supreme Court nominations by withholding the ability to vote on Merrick Garland in 2016 under President Obama and then hypocritically pushing through Amy Coney-Barrett at the last hour in October of 2020 after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg under President Trump. 

This has had consequences of losing other freedoms, likely the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the right to an abortion, and potentially other freedoms such as the LGBTQIA community losing the right to marriage and could even go as far as the right to interracial marriage, all a product of the 14th Amendment. Without going into the ins and outs of that potential Supreme Court decision (yet to be handed down but came out of a leaked opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito), the point here is…unless we have branches of government acting in good faith regarding what the framers intended and in what the Constitution means regarding freedom, equality, and the like, what freedom actually is becomes meaningless. 

Take abortion or religion…both intertwined as religion is what speaks to the issue of abortion. Is it moral or not? It isn’t up to the State to determine what is moral or not. It is the State’s job to determine what will provide the most abject freedoms to its citizens. A federal government’s job isn’t to determine whether or not abortion is moral; it is there to ensure that a citizen (of which a fetus isn’t until birth) has choices that ensure they have the ability to dictate the trajectory of their own lives, bodily autonomy being one of them. And that leads us to the determination that any one human should be trusted to make those decisions for themselves. Abortion itself, I recognize as a complicated issue, but that is why we must look at facts rather than doctrine or emotional stances based in religious morality. The fact is that during a time when abortion was illegal, the number of abortions not only didn’t go down but they became more dangerous as women took matters into their own hands when doctors weren’t readily available to perform the procedure. It became a public health issue, which is why in Roe v. Wade it was ruled that the procedure should be private and determined in consultation with a medical doctor. It became a privacy issue. There are many cases where abortions must be performed for the safety of the mother when birthing a child puts the mother’s life at risk. There are so many situations where an abortion is necessary, and it shouldn’t be determined by a bunch of legislators who most certainly don’t know what is in the best interest of any given person. The same goes for cases where poverty is the issue and a mother would rather abort a fetus than put herself in a situation where her family could be put in a position of food scarcity/insecurity or economic hardship by taking on another pregnancy/child. But even in cases where a woman simply wants the freedom to determine her own life and, in a moment of passion accidentally became pregnant, she shouldn’t be forced down a life-changing path she didn’t intend just because she became pregnant. 

Freedom is about choice, the choice to determine the trajectory of our own lives. We should have the choice to have a baby or not, we should have a choice to marry the man or woman we love or not, we should have the choice to go out in public without fear of being gunned down or not, we should have the choice to get an education or not with economic viability (in the case of public education and/or free college) since we should all be invested in an educated public for the sake of democracy and the ability to discern good policy from bad, good journalism versus fake news, etc. 

And that brings me to religion. There is a movement growing towards having a State-sponsored religion through Christianity, and we should call that what it is, a theocracy…precisely what the first pilgrims to America were running from…religious tyranny in England. Again, choice is the key word here. We all have different experiences and we are all indoctrinated through different lenses, whether it is through Christianity, Islam, a specific news channel, media in general, music, an author, etc. Those indoctrinations inform our perspectives, view points, and actions. This is exactly why education is so important, giving us many perspectives with which to frame issues and ways of looking at our world. No one religion, book, news source, or theory has a monopoly on reality. We can choose to continue defunding education and making us vulnerable to one world view, or we can put a greater emphasis on education, exposing our children to many viewpoints and theories so that they can use their own knowledge and experience to form what makes sense for them. Part of that education teaches kids to use logic, facts, and methods to understand not only how we are influenced but how to combat propaganda and disinformation in order to form better, well-informed opinions. Without a base of knowledge that is grounded in truth and facts, we can’t be free…because democracy can’t exist in that environment. There will always be a form of push and pull about what is true, especially when we get to more abstract ideologies such as the spiritual realm, but we can still strive to reach a world where we are drawing such conclusions through honest means. That starts with a foundation of education as opposed to indoctrination.

Debate should include different perspectives and views that respect where everyone is coming from but is still rooted in facts and good faith arguments. Freedom is not only having the choice of our own view of reality but also being able to speak those views publicly and openly. It is my hope that I give you something to think about and ponder…that gets you thinking critically about these issues.