The Alliance

Weapons of Peace, Army of Alliance

What if nations acted on the Promise? What if the idea behind our government was the idea of helping, the best we could? And we looked at Iraq, and saw people suppressed by a brutal dictator...and children lacking adequate food and medicine. Instead of explosives, what if we bombarded them with...help?

Go back in time. Stop a year before the war with Iraq was begun. Then do this:

Pour resources into making sure the U.N. inspectors are getting the job done.

Let Saddam stew in his own poverty for a little while.

Recruit and train a new kind of army:

• Platoons of nurse practitioners
• Squads of doctors
• Companies of teachers and educators
• Brigades of engineers, agronomists, and problem solvers

Then use the billions that have been poured into the Iraq war to invade trouble countries with missions of aid: health care, education, better farms and towns. Cure and feed sick babies, teach children, gain respect for our deeds, make friends...

Weapons of peace

Instead of bullets, bombs, and soldiers, we throw at the world...

• Medicine.
• Human care.
• Books.
• Clean water.
• Reliable electricity.
• Schools.
• Computers.
• Medical supplies.

Don't you think an American army of allies with weapons of peace would have won hearts and minds all over the world?

This isn't a pipe dream. It's entirely possible. Imagine a recruiting campaign designed to give young people an opportunity to serve by helping people. The current generation of youths would flock to such a call.

Our next president can create such an army, and arm them with such weapons. The cost will be far lower than a military that guzzles dollars. Worldwide benefits would be incalculable.

And we'd still have the dollars to fix our crumbling infrastructure, create a healthy populace, and restore our educational system. Let's create an army to do that work, too. Retire an equal number of soldiers, or retrain them. Attack problems.

Why don't our leaders think this way?

Why don't our leaders do this way?

Maybe if we talked to them, and kept talking, and kept talking...

The right to bear arms

Here's what the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights 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 amendment refers the security of a free State. I think that includes the security of its individual citizens. That’s the purpose for which militia/arms are approved by the constitution.

Clearly the right is intended to allow militia, and perhaps individuals, to use arms in defense of their security.

It does not grant a right to use lethal firearms to murder innocent people. Quite the contrary.

Nor does it specify that the arms must be lethal.

Why do we need lethal firearms?

The only reason for feeling that ordinary citizens need lethal firearms is that others have lethal firearms. It's clear that buying an assault rifle, in today's America, is for the sole purpose of killing other people.

Handguns are designed for the same purpose--to kill. Most shooters can't count on "safely" wounding a person, and any gunshot can be fatal.

If there were no lethal firearms we wouldn't need lethal firearms. But there are lethal firearms out there, millions of them.

We still need to defend ourselves

Ours has become a dangerous society, primarily because the criminal and the insane can easily buy weapons of death, and murder crime victims and slaughter innocent students or bystanders. Until we find a way to get people to give up those weapons, we need to defend ourselves, especially women and other people who are the targets of hate or discrimination. We can't arm them all.

Or can we?

The ideas in the novel, We the Enemy, are there to provoke thought about what to do about gun violence in a country where the foes and proponents of gun control are stymied. As things are, nothing will happen.

Politicians fail to give this deadly issue the debate and consideration that we the people should demand because they fear political repercussions and the influence of the National Rifle Association.

And much of that is fear and influence is driven by the free market forces of gun and ammunition manufacturers.

We will NEVER pass laws that universally ban guns in this country, at least not in the foreseeable future.

So change the status quo

However, here’s the real-world possibility for change; if you put market forces behind a move to get rid of lethal firearms in order to replace them with a whole new kind of defensive weapon that will bring the gun and ammo makers billions in profit, who knows what might happen?

Wouldn’t the guns and ammo lobby give up on lethal weapons if they had a viable and hugely profitable alternative?

How could the National Rifle Association continue it's pressure if there was a way for any citizen to arm themselves defensively, and there was a way for hunters to still hunt without lethal firearms?

Let's create the alternative

Why not arm citizens with non-lethal defensive weapons? I think a lot of people would feel a lot safer if they could carry one of the "stoppers" described in the novel. Hunters could have similar non-lethal weapons. These weapons could easily be made with current technology.

The law needs to recognize the nature of lethal weapons--that they are made for killing. By definition, then, someone who owns a lethal firearm intends, at some time, to kill another human being. Let's make that an automatic felony conviction. There simply is no other purpose for owning a lethal firearm. Oh, you can say that there's target shooting, but you don't need a lethal firearm to shoot at targets.

Think about it.

Thoughts about The Alliance

It takes more than one person to create an alliance, a partnership of people in a common endeavor. This is a beginning. I'll share my thoughts and ideas, and hope you'll add to them.

Let's get together.

Make the Promise.