Lessons from history

Gun enthusiasts are a diverse group, only some of whom are members of the NRA. Membership in the NRA itself is diverse, but one component consists of disgruntled war veterans, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and their sympathizers who have morphed into a united front that advocates armed resistance to enemies home and abroad. It’s particularly vocal in protection of right of access to military-style weapons.

Militarization of the country began in the 1960s and grew thereafter with racial reorientation in the civil rights movement, global resistance to communism in the Cold War and subsequent war on terrorism, national humiliation in the Vietnam War and the indecisive wars thereafter, class inequalities that grew with Reagan’s New Right policies and the triumph of neoliberalism, economic dislocations with the advent of globalism, and the national elite’s indifference to the ensuing dystopia. The current administration rode into office on that dystopia and appears—rather mindlessly—supportive of those arming themselves to address it.

As the right and left militarized for violent confrontation in 19th century Russia, the poet Nikolai Dobrolyubov lamented: “Eternal is the cruel way of life in which generations of mankind live and perish without trace, leaving no lessons for their sons.” In fact, history leaves many lessons, but they’re often ignored. It may already be too late to resolve the underlying causes of militarization of this country, but it’s certainly worth concerted national effort at all levels to try.

DAVID SIXBEY

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