I find it bewildering that the two Black lawmakers expelled in Nashville last week are being labelled 'insurrectionists'.
If advocating for more rational regulation of deadly weapons that are regularly being used to kill children in our country constitutes an act of insurrection, then what should we label the incessant violence that persists through our nation's ongoing lax gun regulation?
Is our nation's failure to protect its citizenry from a real, constant, and undeniable threat synonymous with Insurrectionary insanity?
The primary mission of the United States' Constitution is to defend the well-being, i.e., lives, of its citizens.
None of our American founders could have envisioned an automatic weapon entering schoolhouses in the 1700's.
But given the Founders' penchant for deliberate, reasoned debate and discussion, it is more than likely that they would have unanimously proclaimed the appalling lack of care inherent in extending the individual liberty to bear arms to such an extent that a lethal pattern of death develops, shattering the well-being of American children in schools.
How far will we go as a nation in order to defy all reason, in our enshrining of the White man's right to tote his gun, without censure or even the appearance of pragmatic decision-making?
Words do have significance and the facts as reported by the Tennessee police present at the Nashville State House last week do matter:
"More than a 1,000 peaceful protestors rallied around Tennessee’s state Capitol on March 30 calling for more restrictive gun laws. Many made their way into the Capitol in a demonstration top Republican lawmakers have likened to “an insurrection.
Tennessee Highway Patrol has confirmed that the March 30 protests were peaceful, that no protestors were arrested, and no injuries or property damage were reported as a result." https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2023/04/04/tennessee-capitol-protest-heres-what-did-and-did-not-happen/70075823007/
There was no violence on the floor of the legislature in Nashville, in the galleries, nor outside the House Chamber doors where state police stood in the great public hall area.
These citizens asserted their Constitutional rights to peaceful dissent through use of the English language, not by carrying guns.
Food for thought...
