ONE SMALL STEP.... AND THEN ANOTHER....

In a world where it seems the only creative legislative geniuses are the pernicious devils intent on thwarting a woman's right to choose- witness the brilliant Texas law which divorced the State entirely from stopping (then) legal abortions but farmed out the task to legal vigilantes empowered to file civil suits against any person providing any aid of any kind to a woman seeking an abortion-  it is long past time for the people on the moral high ground to start thinking outside of the box.    Which brings us to the latest massacre of school children.   Thoughts and prayers aren't going to get it.  Protests won't accomplish anything.   Pious rhetoric from top Democrats won't save a single life.

No, it's time to use the tools that we have, and to use them effectively.   First and foremost, the House of Representatives, the only chamber in our national legislature capable of creating and passing civic minded legislation designed to help all Americans, should go small.   Instead of crafting bills that include everything and the kitchen sink, a process which allows any Republican Senate demagogue or self-aggrandizing Senate Democrat (I'm looking at West Virginia and Arizona) to righteously declaim their opposition to that one small part of the bill that somehow they find so odious that they are willing to allow democracy itself to be overthrown or school children to be shot to pieces, the House must pass a number of separate bills, each addressing a single issue, each unassailable by any rational argument, each designed to put any opponent who votes against it smack dab in the middle of a campaign commercial in his or her next election from which there will be no wriggle room.

Start with things that are easy and massively popular, such as instant background checks to prevent the insane and felons from acquiring firearms.   Don't even include private sales in the first bill passed.   And include funding from an already existing source of revenue to pay for the expense that private businesses may have to bear for having to order the technical apparatus- such as a telephone- before they sell that next AR-15 with three large magazines to the hyper mentally ill 18 year old who can't wait to go to the neighborhood elementary school to wreak havoc and horror or the mother of a 17 year old excitedly planning his next field trip to a neighboring state to shoot people down in the street in the name of "protecting property."

Next, move on to a bill requiring instant background checks for all private sales.   Set up a federal hotline to make it easy to accomplish.   And include very minor penalties for violations- a misdemeanor and a $1,000 fine, the same penalty as one gets for a bar fight or driving on a suspended license- in the bill so that it's enforceable, but like Texas, also give a private right of action to any person or family member of a person injured by a firearm sold in violation of this law.

Move on up to a bill that will put some teeth into keeping firearms from small children, the insane, and criminals:    a bill that removes all civil immunity from any gun manufacturer or gun dealer who manufactures or sells any weapon which is not child proof, which can be fired by any person, and which is used- whether legally owned or not- in an accident or a crime.   We need to require all newly manufactured and sold firearms to have at least the same level of security as our smart phones do:  a fingerprint or a code which must be entered to make it operable.   And make the weapon remotely disableable by the legal owner, like the device that some car models have.  That should prevent the next five year old from accidentally shooting herself or a sibling and the next gun thief from being able to profit from his crime.

From there, the legislators should take note of the hostility of the current super majority of the Supreme Court to common sense gun laws yet their peculiar embrace of a word that was unheard of when I was in law school:  "textualism."   This is the seemingly logical  idea that judges should not "create" law but should adhere to the original text of the United States Constitution, but which in practice means that justices are free to reject any legislation from a state or Congress with which they disagree on the grounds that there was nothing said about it in the original Constitution in 1787 or the Bill of Rights in 1791.    Of course, in those days, women were virtually property and could not vote or hold office, African slaves were counted as three-fifths of a human being for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives (they were referred to as "all other persons" because the word "slave" never appeared in the Constitution- not even in the 13th Amendment which prohibited "involuntary servitude" in 1865), and senators were not elected but were selected by state legislatures.   In other words, Samuel Alito's vision of Heaven.

Creative legislators can hoist the so called conservative justices on their own "textualism" petard.  Although the Second Amendment states "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," it says nothing about what the word "Arms" means.    I propose defining "Arms" as they were originally intended in 1791 ("textualists" are also referred to as "originalists" because of their dogged devotion to whatever their judicial minds perceive the "original framers" of the Constitution intended).    Arms should include single shot muskets and rifles which load from the muzzle, not the breech.   None will have magazines (the word did not exist with regard to hand held weapons but referred to where the ammunition was stored on a ship or in an armory).   

With a stroke of a pen, every modern weapon from a 15 bullet Glock hand gun  to an AR-15 with a banana clip with 30 rounds will be outlawed.   And I'd love to be present at the oral argument at the Supreme Court when the "textualists" have to deal with their own terms being hurled back at them in a case brought by  deprived NRA enthusiasts and the gun manufacturers who enable them.

Legislation can also be crafted to limit the muzzle velocity of firearms sold to the public to decrease their lethality.   Bullets now leaving the barrel at 3900 feet per second for a high powered rifle and over 1000 feet per second for a typical handgun can be restricted- a "restrictor plate" so to speak, like the ones used to keep NASCAR drivers from exceeding absurd miles per hour limits- to something far less lethal- about 100 feet per second.   I dare any right wing Supreme Court justice to parse the Second Amendment and find in the original text any right to fire a bullet at over 1,000 feet per second- over 680 miles per hour, faster than the fastest commercial jetliner.    Which of course, also did not exist in 1791.

Finally, even if that doesn't do the trick, the House can pass a bill that outlaws or strictly controls the sale of the items that allow modern firearms to function:  everything from gun oil to cleaning brushes to the spare parts for any portion of a modern firearm, including firing pins.   Imagine that for a moment:  every gun lover will be stuck trying to figure out how to clean the barrel of a fired weapon without the tools to do so.   Eventually, the weapon will become inoperable.   But the gun enthusiast can still "bear his Arms" even if they won't actually fire and hurt somebody.