coyotes. They are threats to life and the pursuit of happiness. The cities are divided between very wealthy, middle-class, and the economically impoverished neighborhoods where gunshots are heard while putting children to bed. Residents who can afford to leave for the suburbs to pursue happiness sometimes do.
Suburban populations are a blend of former rural and urban dwellers with native suburbanites. Some grew up on the farm or in small towns where there was little or no tension among the three unalienable rights. Some left the city in pursuit of happiness or in search of a safe place to live. Some, born and raised in the suburbs, can imagine neither the farm, the small town, nor the city as a preferred place to live. In the suburbs, it is a matter of some confusion and debate whether liberty, as in gun rights, supports or conflicts with life and the pursuit of happiness.
The National Sheriffs’ Association, serving rural and small-town America, takes a conservative position on gun rights and gun control, while the National Association of Chiefs of Police and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, serving urban, small cities, and large suburban communities, call for improved gun-control legislation.
Looking for a productive conversation
Although informed debate about the origins and intent of the Second Amendment is good and necessary, a preoccupation with the Second Amendment all but ensures the demise of a productive national conversation. We would do better to look earlier in our history to the Declaration of Independence, which defined the goals of a soon-to-be-born American republic. To this writer’s knowledge, there has been little if any discussion of gun rights and regulation in the context of the three unalienable rights explicitly lifted up in the document we all celebrate on July 4.
Those who declared American independence from Great Britain in 1776 could not have imagined that one of the three named unalienable rights—liberty—would stand as the sole right without reference to life and the pursuit of happiness.
Few venues lend themselves to a mature discussion among rural, small town, urban, and suburban American experiences. In theory, the fifty state legislatures and the US Congress provide the forums for thoughtful discussion and the search for solutions by representatives of rural, urban, and suburban constituents. But in today’s America, where representative government itself is often viewed with distrust and even fear, the likelihood of success is far less than the founders might have hoped.
Time to explore the creative tension among rights
Where and how, then, do we, the people—rural and small town, urban and suburban—citizens of the diverse country we all love, come together to discuss our life in light of the creative tension of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in 2016?
In 2016 one could hardly say we in America are happy. In the light of current gun violence tragedies and our socio-political history, we might do well to remember the wisdom of Aristotle (384–322 BCE) to help guide citizens of a constitutional republic: “Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
The Execution of Troy Davis
It is fairly obvious that those who are in favor of the death penalty have more affinity with assassins than those who do not.
—Rémy de Gourmont22
Tonight, September 21, 2011, at seven o’clock eastern standard time, the state of Georgia is scheduled to execute Troy Davis. Mr. Davis was convicted of shooting an off-duty police officer on the testimony of nine state witnesses, seven of whom have since recanted their testimonies.23
The United States, by all accounts the most religious nation of Western culture, is the only remaining Western nation that practices capital punishment.
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