By: David Conde
I am the President of the Board of Directors of East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, an organization with almost 50 educational campuses across 10 states in the East Coast and Midwest. We are designed to serve and educate children and families of migrant farm workers from the age of 6 weeks to the time they enter Kindergarten.
Over 90 percent of the farm worker families are Latinos. The migrant streams we serve is from Florida up the East Coast and South Texas into the Midwest.
The images of children killed by guns in Uvalde, Texas brings home the pain and violent reality that took away what could have been older brothers, sisters, cousins and family of the children whose parents have to work from farm to farm and crop to crop across the United States.
The tragic sadness is compounded by the fact that the Uvalde children died as pawns in a political game being played by those willing to sacrifice “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in order to maintain the ability to rebel against the national government and society if they do not get their way.
The first ten Amendments to the Constitution, better known as the Bill of Rights, describe the rights of the people especially in individual settings. Among them is the Second Amendment that guarantees the ability of the individual to bear arms.
Specifically, the wording of the Amendment says that, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of the State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It is true that the early history of the United States, especially the American Revolution and Civil Wars, included a heavy reliance on militias recruited by states and regions.
They, of course, have since been replaced by the state based National Guard and state and local law enforcement agencies.
However, this does not account for state oppression of the people that resulted in the American Revolution. It is this issue that allows for the people to rise and take up arms against a tyrannical and undemocratic government. The principle proponents of arming themselves with the latest weapons are those that argue that they feel that they are being effectively replaced as leaders of America’s power structure and interpret that as oppression.
Their answer is to abolish democracy and do what the Nazis did in Germany and the Communist in Russia. These people appear to feel that if they can not rule through free elections and democratic processes, they have the right to rule by some kind of apartheid structure perhaps similar to how minority Whites in South Africa ruled.
To advocate for the arming of the American public in this way is an increasingly dangerous view of the Second Amendment because there will be many more Americans willing to take up arms and even pay the ultimate price to defend democracy and our way of life. Dying for our freedom has always been a hero’s calling.
In the mean time, our communities are suffering the bloody wrath caused by easy access to weapons and making our gathering places convenient killing fields for those with dark urges. Killing children crosses another line where forgiveness is no longer possible.
I grieve for the beautiful babies and young people in every region of the country that have left their images for us to honor and remember. Their deaths deserve better answers than more guns and more politics. I think of our campuses and wonder who is next.
