Guns, Death, and Rights

For most people in the United States, the issue of guns used to commit acts of violence presents a problem not easily resolved. On the one hand, the Second Amendment to the Constitution means that individuals have a right to own firearms. (McDonald v. Chicago, US Supreme Court, 2010). On the other hand, during the last decade over 315,000 Americans have been killed by firearms. Compare that to the slightly more than 300 Americans killed by foreign terrorists at home and abroad during the same time period and we can see that deaths from firearms is a greater threat to Americans by a factor of 1000.

The question at hand is: How can we lessen the number killed by firearms without infringing on the constitutional right to bear arms?

For reasoned discourse to take place, all parties to such discourse have to agree that: 1) There is a constitutional right to bear arms. Although the wording of the Second Amendment leaves it open to various interpretations, the Constitution means what a majority of the Supreme Court says it means. By a 5-4 ruling in 2010, the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment to grant the individual right to bear arms. Until there is either a constitutional amendment that states the opposite, or a later Supreme Court ruling that reverses McDonald v. Chicago, that is the meaning of the Second Amendment; and 2) Gun violence in the United States is a public health issue. Whether one is for more restrictions on gun ownership, which the Supreme Court said would be constitutional if they are "reasonable", or whether one believes in other solutions for making our society less violent, we have to be willing to admit that using firearms makes violence easier than using other weapons available to individuals and that over 31,000 Americans dying each year due to gun violence makes it a public health issue.

Let me take you back to when you learned the philosophy of the founding of our country. We believe that all people have equal unalienable rights, "that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" (Jefferson) or life, liberty and property (Locke). We believe that the purpose of government is "to secure these rights." This issue presents a conflict between our unalienable rights to life and liberty and the government must protect both. Hence the conflict that reasonable people have with this issue.

I would love to see a civil discussion between reasonable people on each side of this issue. I imagine, and hope, that there are some points of policy that both sides could agree on, while agreeing to disagree on others. Some that I would throw out for discussion include the following:
1). Law-abiding, well-trained individuals should have the right to own handguns and hunting rifles.
2). There is no legitimate reason for an individual to own an assault weapon. (Definition of assault weapon).
3). The NRA has some of the best safety training available for firearms. For an individual to own a firearm, they need to pass either an NRA course on basic safety or an equivalent course.
4). It is reasonable to restrict an individual to one firearm purchase per month. This restriction would be to prevent someone from having a business supplying those who cannot pass a background check with weapons.
5). It is reasonable to require people who own firearms to demonstrate periodically that they a) still possess their weapon, b) still know how to use it safely, and c) do not have any apparent intention of using the weapon to harm themselves or others.
6). It is reasonable to require gun sellers to be trained (by video or otherwise) about how to make an educated guess whether a purchaser is planning to use the firearm to harm themselves or others. Along with this obligation there needs to be immunity from lawsuits and criminal prosecution if the firearm seller follows such procedures. This immunity would apply if they were wrong and they sold the firearm to someone who did intend to do harm, and also if they were wrong and refused to sell the firearm to someone they thought was going to use it to do harm.

These six public policy proposals are what I have come up with as a start to helping to lessen the number of deaths from firearms. I would love to hear whether you agree with these, disagree with these, or have others you would like to suggest. Please comment with your suggestions.

Chronic Illness with a Stock Market/Economic Analysis

I have been suffering with a chronic illness at least since 2009. I say "at least" because my wife and I can look back and see the beginnings of symptoms which we both ignored years before 2009.

Anyway, in the fall of 2009, I received a clinical diagnosis of myasthenia gravis (MG). It was clinical because I tested negative on all the specific tests for illnesses and the diagnosis was based on my symptoms instead of any particular test result. For about four years I somewhat controlled the symptoms through a combination of oral medication, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatments each month, and having a cane and/or scooter available for the times I was really weak.

Beginning in the fall of 2013, symptoms got worse and more symptoms appeared that seem immune to the IVIG. Because of these new symptoms, I had to leave (on disability) a job I loved. Since then, hundreds of tests have been performed. I test positive on many of the symptom-related tests but still test negative on the specific illness tests. At this point, the doctors' best guess is that I have some combination of auto-immune and mitochondrial diseases, possibly, but not necessarily, including MG. One doctor has said that she doesn't think there's been a test invented to say exactly what I have and so she is concentrating on ways to try to control my symptoms.

The problem many of us with chronic illness have is to get across what we are experiencing, especially for those of us who often "don't look sick", as the well-meaning unknowing friends comment. Not too long ago, I came across one way to explain that. It is called "The Spoon Theory" by Christine Miserandino. You can read about it here: http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

I started using that explanation, which, in short, says that each day we are given a certain number of spoons and have to expend them on our activities until we are out of spoons. It exceeds any explanation I was able to come up with until that time, but I have found it still had a couple of holes in it. Such as, why do I seem to have x number of spoons on one day and y on the next? Or why can I spend more spoons than I thought I had when something takes more spoons than I expected?

Probably because part of my previous perfect job involved teaching economics to high school seniors, and partially because I've been (unsuccessfully) trying to grow my IRA by playing around in the stock market, I've come up with a new way to explain it that I hope is as clear as "The Spoon Theory" and can plug the holes I found in it. I call it my "Stock Market/Economic Analysis" theory.

(Image courtesy of bluebay at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Let's assume that there is a stock market in personal energy that we all have accounts in. This market is not very volatile, which means that usually it is close to the total it was the day before. Let's also assume that each day we are permitted to spend a certain percentage of our accounts in "personal energy vouchers."

Similar to "The Spoon Theory", we have those vouchers to spend in energy-costing activities each day. Some activities cost more vouchers and some cost less.

However, unlike "The Spoon Theory", we can buy extra vouchers on margin, the way one can in a non-retirement investment account. So if we are at our child's wedding and want to dance, or at a former student's last college debate and we aren't getting home until 1 a.m., we can, in essence, borrow vouchers from the future to spend today. Of course, those margin purchases have to be paid back and so for the next day or more, we need to conserve our spending of energy vouchers to pay back the market for the ones we borrowed.

There are unexpected variables, and I envision them as I do unexpected swings in the stock market. Sometimes the energy market goes down, so our account has fewer energy vouchers in it. We still have the same percentage we can spend on average in a day, so we have less energy to spend that day even though we didn't borrow any in the recent past. And, pleasantly unexpectedly, sometimes the energy market goes up so that, for no discernible reason, we have more energy vouchers in a given day. Those are my favorite days.

Of course, on any of the days, those of us with invisible chronic illnesses often look the same, which leads well-meaning people to make hurtful comments like, "you don't look sick" or "you look good". (By the way, when I explain that to some people they ask me for advice on what they should say. The best advice I can give is to say something like "great to see you.")

I'd like to hear comments from people on my "Stock Market/Economic Analysis Theory" of chronic illness.