Midlife Meditation

II. 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. --U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights As controversial documents go, this one is short. It's also convoluted. Like much of the foundational legislation of the United States of America, the second amendment to the Constitution suffers from dependent clauses and the passive voice. With that said, it's telling what the first half of the amendment states, quite plainly: "a well regulated militia..." The entire reason for a "right to bear arms" is maintaining a well regulated  militia. Set aside for a moment the reality that the role of maintaining security has become the province of an immense military-industrial complex with highly regulated armed forces and police forces at every level of American society, that said military and police forces are under constant scrutiny from elected civilians from city hall ...

Did that get your attention? I was born in 1961. That put me in diapers during the Cuban missile crisis, in grade school through most of the Vietnam War, and in junior high during the "Your Chance to Live" emergency preparedness campaign. This seemingly endless series of film strips and short films presented arresting stories of survival in a variety of natural disasters, as well as, with the help of stock footage and dramatizations, of how to survive a nuclear attack. These lessons were powerful, terrifying, and largely pointless for the geographic region in which I was living at the time: Idaho, a state rarely experiencing any weather-related disasters or earthquakes, and probably toward the bottom of likely American targets for a missile attack. Regardless, we all sat and watched in shocked silence as one force of nature or war after another destroyed homes and lives. We never had a "duck and cover" drill, but we all knew which buildings in town were certifie...