The Court Kills by Garry Wills
Why do we slaughter our own children? Because the Supreme Court condones it.
April 4, 2023, New York Review of Books
We are the disgrace of nations because we can’t stop killing our children—along, of course, with their teachers, relatives, and innocent bystanders. We don’t even seem to want to stop doing it, not effectively, at any rate. We say we should, but we don’t. We just can’t. We are worse than the drunk who says he should stop drinking but doesn’t. At least drinking is (or was) pleasant in its early stages. But how can killing be pleasant at first?
Our children can’t fight back as they watch their classmates and teachers being mowed down. Why do we let it go on, case after case? Are we just more evil than all the other countries that do not have our murder rate—not only in schools but in churches, synagogues, and mosques? Are we just killers by breeding or tradition?
Some say we kill innocent people in large numbers because we have so many guns. Well, we do have them, more than any other country. But guns do not force themselves into our hands and fire themselves. We have to use them for them to work. Why do we want to keep doing that?
There is one thing that sets us apart. No other nation has a Supreme Court that claims its Founding Fathers wanted to make it possible for any individual to get military-grade weapons and kill like a combat soldier, spewing bullets from high-capacity magazines at split-second rapidity, racking up the tiny corpses before the police can possibly arrive.
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Why do we slaughter our own children? Because, through a supposed “Second Amendment,” the Court condones it. And it is allowed to do so because, unlike the executive and legislative, it is our unaccountable branch. It does not have to report how it is wined and dined at spas or hotels, or require any justice to recuse himself or herself if wooed by a commercial lobby like the gun industry, an ideological lobby like the National Rifle Association, a legal lobby like the Federalist Society, or a moneybags lobby like that of Ginni Thomas. Guns keep killing us because the Court, and the Court alone, has made them sacred.
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/04/04/the-court-kills/
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by American adults using military grade weapons.
The Founding Father's wanted this so much they specifically put it in the US Constitution.
American judges today have the very same dream.
This one is particularly beautiful in a function-is-form sort of way.
