Editor’s note: This commentary is by Ron Pulcer of Rutland Town, who is a software developer, skier, guitar player and occasional blogger at SkiTheMiddleVT.wordpress.com.
[I] look forward to attending the March For Our Lives rally in Main Street Park in Rutland, on Saturday, March 24. I will attend to support our local students and their peers in Parkland, Florida, and around our nation.
In addition to speaking out to end gun violence in schools, these students may be asking themselves if we adults actually “care” about them and their future, more than our right to own, collect or stockpile not only hunting rifles, but weapons of war. Does Congress care about these young people more than their campaign contributions and re-election?
Although I am part of the baby boom generation, I am from the second half of that cohort. I was only 8 years old on the day of the Detroit riot in 1967, and age 9 when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
I am the oldest of three siblings. If I had an older brother, he would either have been drafted to Vietnam or protested on a college campus. The older ones of my generation were put into a divisive situation by the generation in power at that time. The continuation of the war in Vietnam was based on lies and mismanagement by those in charge of our government in both political parties. We are divided today as we were then.
When I was in high school, I questioned in my own mind whether our nation really cared for its young people. If so, why did they send them into war under false pretenses? Later, some from my generation did the same thing with the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The war in Iraq further divided our nation.
Despite our country’s name, the United States of America, we have been divided on various issues over the centuries. I do respect the responsible hunters in Vermont and that tradition. Where I grew up, metropolitan Detroit, with its segregation and racial divide, many people owned guns for protection, including my father. He is a Korean War veteran, but not a hunter. He wanted to protect his family, which is understandable and appreciated.
But why was that necessary? Fear of crime, but mainly fear of our African-American brothers and sisters who we did not really know. They lived south of Eight Mile Road, the northern border of Detroit. Eight Mile Road is also a “virtual wall,” akin to the Berlin Wall, or a wall dividing our country and Mexico.
The division in our country on the issues of gun violence and gun rights are tied to the Second Amendment of our Constitution. That same Constitution also gave us the Three-Fifths Clause (Compromise), despite the fact that our Declaration of Independence states, “all men are created equal.” Equal. Not three-fifths. Our Founders also gave us the Amendments process to the Constitution, as they knew it was based on “compromise.”
The so-called “well-regulated militia” from the Second Amendment is a reference to the armed Southern Slave Patrols which “escorted” slaves from the auction block to their new plantation. Those slaves were forced to “March for Their Lives” for many, many miles. The least I can do is listen to our local young people and march the block around Main Street Park.
Notwithstanding our Second Amendment, if we can overcome our fear of the “other” and truly be “united,” then someday the need to arm ourselves could be minimized. One can only hope. The students in Parkland, Forida, have given our nation some hope. They are using their First Amendment right, as they well should.
