Chapter 8 eighth letter

Brother Lu: Hello! Letter received.I am very glad that you have continued to take an interest in these letters of mine.Today I would like to introduce to you some situations involving the second article of the American Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment to the Constitution.You must remember that when I introduced the Oklahoma bombing, I mentioned the militia organization of the American right.At that time, in order to cooperate with the report in Oklahoma, the news media, unwilling to be lonely, immediately investigated and collected evidence, and focused on reporting on the situation of a large number of right-wing militias.Accompanied by large-scale photos of militiamen in camouflage uniforms and fully armed with live ammunition, people's attention to domestic terrorist organizations was first drawn to right-wing militia groups.According to various reports, these militias are mostly composed of disgruntled white men who hate the federal government, believe in God, oppose arms control, abortion, taxation, and crime.They stand on guard, waiting for the day when they should save the country.Experts believe that they often promote hate speech against African Americans, Jews, and other ethnic groups.Take the case of the Michigan militia, which is said to have ties to Oklahoma bombing suspect McVeigh and is active in nine states.Experts point out that there is another national paramilitary organization, possibly operating in twenty-four states...and so on.So are they all illegal underground militias?no.It is the legitimate right of the American people to form a militia.

You wrote to me and asked me, what is going on with the American militia?I also feel compelled to explain.There are also militias in China, and I have served in such a militia.I remember that at that time, as long as people of a certain age group had no "problems", they were naturally "militiamen" or "basic militiamen" in their work units, and they were subject to the dual leadership of the government's armed forces and the regular army.See "Cynic School" for details. ②Diogenes Laertius (DioF, sometimes assisted by the army in training. "All the people are soldiers" means that the militia is a kind of backup supplement to the regular army. But, don't get confused, the American militia is completely Totally different.

The American militia is a legitimate civilian armed force and has nothing to do with the government.They are formed spontaneously by ordinary people, possessing weapons and equipment permitted by law, with the purpose of safeguarding their own rights.Anyone can get together and form a militia.Therefore, based on the composition of the members, their purposes and viewpoints are also different.The existence of the American-style militia is based on the second article of the Bill of Rights: "A well-organized militia is necessary to the security of a free country, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is inviolable." This short sentence The words have guaranteed the people's freedom to own guns and their ability to defend freedom.While choosing this freedom, everyone sees that it doesn't feel easy.

Of course, they are not all the "rightist militias" mentioned above.They hold their own general assembly every year and conduct regular military training.In the past two years, due to the federal government's attempt to formulate a series of laws to control firearms in order to prevent crimes, many people believe that the government has violated the founding spirit of the United States and the right of the people to hold guns. Therefore, in the past two years, the so-called The "militia movement" spread very quickly. I have already mentioned to you earlier that the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of the American people, and its purpose is to limit and balance the power of the U.S. government.The aforementioned Second Amendment to the Constitution is also a defense established by the founders of the United States against the possible alienation of the government. Ibn Lucid was the first to believe that the same truth can be used in philosophical speculation and theology. To a certain extent, it has prevented the situation that often happens in many countries in the world: that is, unarmed people are helpless in the face of suppression by government troops, and it has also greatly increased the confidence of individual Americans in protecting their private property and land.However, reports of right-wing militia groups in the United States did cause widespread unease over the Oklahoma bombing.

In the past, Americans really believed that such explosions could only be carried out by terrorists in the Middle East, but now they have to face up to the fact that terrorists are not only likely to be cultivated on the soil of the United States itself, but also These people are not new immigrants with all kinds of problems, but just ordinary home-grown right-wing activists.In other words, this is not a special case, not an extraordinary situation.This happens in the normal workings of the mechanism - the constitution gives the people the right to form a militia and bear arms, and people know they have to pay for those who abuse their arms and abuse their freedom, but they don't expect that this abuse of freedom With the development of history, the situation is also developing, so that it will reach the point where terrorist activities occur.The raising of the militia issue raised the level of individual abuse of guns to the level of group abuse of arms.Although so far there has been no evidence to accuse a militia group of being behind the bombings, one possibility is seen.What's more, no one can be sure what the extremists who solemnly declare that they are fighting for various truths will plan to do next.

Under the complex social situation caused by its special immigration background, the United States allows its people to enjoy such freedom. This is tantamount to turning this country into a laboratory of world freedom with huge risks. It is indeed a long time to go in and make some observations. experience.But it doesn't make much sense to appreciate its success from one angle, or to laugh at its failure from another. You may ask whether it is possible to eliminate this situation of freedom demanding a price, at least, whether it is possible to alleviate it. Is it possible that freedom cannot be called the essence of the general, which is the original meaning of the word dialectics in the history of European philosophy. When you dream and sing about her, is that the holy goddess whose dress is white and not stained with blood?Unfortunately, the answer is no.One of the important reasons is that in this complex world, some people will always abuse their freedom.Society as a whole has to bear the consequences of this abuse of freedom.Once guns and weapons are misused, it is very thrilling.

Speaking of the price Americans have paid for the Second Amendment to the Constitution, I think not only you are familiar with it, but all Chinese people are probably familiar with it.There are a lot of reports in this country.However, it seems too simplistic to understand the problem of gun crime only at the level of social unrest. First off, guns are really common here.However, I hope you can understand that the concept of guns is different in the United States than in a country where guns are banned.Our American friends told us that there used to be such a habit in many places in this country. The sign of a boy's adulthood was to receive a gun from his father on his birthday.Conceptually, guns here are roughly equivalent to hunting knives in China's ethnic minority hunting areas.As for its prevalence, let me give you an example: when the gun control law was passed, one of the offensive weapons prohibited by the law was the Soviet-style semi-automatic rifle AK-47. There were already one million branches in the United States at that time.When we talked about this kind of gun with Americans, people who like guns are very disapproving of this ban.

Another extreme example.It was this year that the U.S. Department of Energy discovered that eight armored personnel carriers that originally belonged to them had been sold to private individuals in a muddle-headed manner.One of them paid $14,500 and drove home a fully functional armored vehicle.Fortunately, these people are so-called folk collectors, that is, they bought them for fun and pretended to be Marxists. This is the dialectic of history. ", similar to the meaning of buying a rare postage stamp. Afterwards, I once thought that if my neighbor Jamie, the old man, bought back the armored vehicle, my reaction would definitely be curiosity, and I wouldn't think it was anything special.

When we first came, looking out from where we worked, we could always see a pistol drawn in neon on top of a tall pole.As soon as it gets dark, you can see the muzzle of the gun flashing like a shot.It was only later that I found out that there was a gun shop under the pole.When Clinton came to power, he threatened to legislate strict gun control to curb crime. As a result, he was strongly opposed by the American Long Gun Association and civil rights organizations.The gun control law that was finally passed was greatly weakened and had extremely limited effects.On this issue, the government headed by Clinton should be said to have suffered a serious setback.After the final result of the law came out, right at the door of this gun store, we saw a huge banner: "Clinton lost, America won".

Gun owners have their own associations, the largest of which is the National Long Gun Association. The votes of many members make no politician dare to take it lightly.When former President George Bush was elected, votes from NLA members helped a lot, and President Bush also became a member of the LRA.However, after Bush became president, he also wanted to control guns, and the Long Gun Association was not happy about it. It is said that it will not help in the second election.The Lancet Association sent a fundraising letter to the former president in which he bluntly called federal officials "boots-wearing thugs."After all, Bush was president, and he couldn't bear to scold federal officials like this in front of him, so he announced his withdrawal from the Long Gun Association.

We just came out of a country that bans guns. When we walked into gun shops and military supply stores for the first time, we felt a little "shocking". The partisanship of philosophy.How to answer the origin of the world, military equipment, camouflage uniforms, etc., are all commodities that can be taken home with money, which always feels incredible.The price of the gun is not expensive, and everyone can afford it.I even found a nicely printed catalog of guns and ammunition this year from among the plethora of mail-order merchandise guides. I have been here for a long time, and I have gradually discovered that for people who grew up in different backgrounds, the feelings and concepts are different.For the Americans around us, visiting such stores is no different than visiting a department store.There is no big difference between a man's love for a gun store and a woman's love for a clothing store.There is usually a shooting range at the back of the gun shop, both for those who buy guns to test guns, and for those who do not buy guns to play.Gun shops like this are everywhere.Every year, large and small firearms exhibitions are held in various places. It was at the firearms exhibition that McVeigh, the principal culprit of the bombing, met a group of his radical friends. In fact, many women also visit gun shops.We have a good friend named Selina, a college graduate in her twenties.She heard that Chinese people are not allowed to carry weapons, so she showed us her pistol with a mahogany handle, small and delicate, really beautiful.It was the first gun we saw when we got to America.His husband also has two guns.Since then, we have seen more and more guns in the homes of American friends, and we have learned more about the concept of American guns. Guns have fundamentally changed people's self-defense capabilities, and have also brought serious consequences due to the misuse of guns by various irresponsible people.In China, we, like you, have seen a large number of reports of such cases, and a large number of people's accusations of insecurity caused by the prevalence of guns.After coming to the United States, they will be combined with each other.Illuminating the essential features of the British Industrial Revolution and its social consequences, it, we believe all of these reports are true.Of course, this is not to say that living in the United States feels significantly less safe than living in other countries.In most parts of the United States, it is quiet and serene.But in some big cities, such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, certain areas are relatively unsafe at night.Therefore, different people live in different places and earn a living in different ways, so they have different experiences of American security.If these different people are allowed to talk about the United States, the listeners will definitely be at a loss. According to the law, after you buy a gun, you can only put it in your own home and cannot take it out of your own territory.If you want to take it out, you must apply for a permit.Permits are not difficult to obtain for ordinary people, but it is another matter for those with criminal records.Therefore, the more problematic people are, the easier it is to illegally hold guns.If you carry a gun by your side without a license, or put a gun in your car, it is within the scope of illegal gun possession, and you can be arrested if you encounter it with the police.As a result, many more people were locked up in the detention center.For example, McVeigh in the Oklahoma bombing case, when the FBI released the portrait of the suspect, they received tens of thousands of reporting calls. When they checked these reports one by one, they found from the computer that McVeigh had been locked up. In the detention center.In fact, he had been detained in the hours after the explosion, and the reason for his detention was illegal possession of a gun. From this incident, you can also see that the management in the United States is actually very strict.McVeigh was pulled over by police on the highway for speeding and lacking a license plate.It was later discovered that he was illegally carrying a gun without a license, and he was immediately detained.I also had an experience of driving without a license plate because I just bought a car and had to use it in another state, so I decided to drive there to buy a license plate. According to the laws of the state where I bought the car, the new car can also Driving without a license for a few days.But driving without a license this time did cause me a lot of trouble, and I was stopped almost every policeman I encountered. For us, after arriving in the United States, the problems caused by the guns here are much more profound than reading reports in China because of the fact that we are personally on the scene. We sit at home and we can hear gunshots a lot, especially on weekends.The people around here own a large area of ​​land, and there are many people who like hunting and guns, and they practice and play within their own territory if they have nothing to do.Every fall, deer hunting is allowed for a period of time, because in many states, the deer are multiplying at an alarming rate, which has reached the point where it affects the safety of highway driving.In the deer hunting season, the gunshots continued.Where we live, there are empty iron barrels full of gun holes beside the big trees in the forest. It seems that the previous owner often practiced marksmanship here. Safe and unsafe are sometimes hard to tell.We only have one key in our house, and we don’t lock the door when we have to go out and we are not sure who will come back first.Locking the door always requires one more procedure than not locking the door, and people's habits are always simplified. As time goes by, the days of locking the door are getting less and less.But the door glass of our house was literally pierced by a guy who drove by with a BB bullet (very small diameter).Do you think our house is safe or not?Feeling the bullet hole in my own house is different from reading reports on gun crimes in the United States when I was in China. Of course, I have a different understanding of the problem of gun abuse. Although we still do not lock the door, it does not mean that this place is not safe. There are many cases of death due to accidental injury alone.We watched the entire trial process of a case on TV.A pair of irresponsible parents stuffed a loaded pistol under the cushion of the bed. They underestimated the child's ability. As a result, a three-year-old son pulled it out and pointed it at his two-year-old sister. Pulled the trigger.He thought it was a joke, and the little girl was beaten to death just like that.The little boy cried out in fright, and he didn't understand how it happened. He just repeated while crying: I am a bad boy.The mother was washing the dishes, and the tragedy was fixed when she heard the gunshots.Of course, the couple were charged in court despite their grief.Prosecutors pointed out that they had eight real guns (none of which were loaded) and many toy guns. For a child of two or three years old, how could he understand that a toy gun that had been pulled countless times was harmless, but this time there was Essentially different?Since there are young children in the home, loaded pistols should be kept out of the children's reach.The lawyer's defense mainly pointed out that they had hidden the gun and could not be considered negligent.But the judge finally found him guilty on the grounds that since the child still got the gun in the end, it meant that it was not a proper collection.Of course, such a situation is a misdemeanor, but for the parents who lost their child due to their own fault, and the boy who did kill his sister without responsibility, it will be difficult for them to get rid of this crime for the rest of their lives. The pain and shadow caused by the matter.You must have also heard about the incident in which a Japanese student studying abroad was shot and killed in the United States a few years ago.It was a night when a Japanese student and an American friend went to a party together.They went wrong and couldn't find the place.Just enter a private residence and ask for directions.There are no very detailed descriptions in the news reports, and I don't know what the root cause of all this is.I don't know what made the host couple feel so nervous.Is it the night, is it because they have encountered danger, is it because the two people have poor mental control ability, or are there other factors?In short, things that shouldn't have happened did happen.For reasons unknown to me, the hostess thought that there might be a danger of cars outside entering the confines of their land in the dark.She told her husband, who went out to check, to bring a gun.Perhaps, such a reminder also made his husband more nervous.As soon as he went out, he raised his gun and yelled at the people who came from the darkness: Don't move!It's a standard warning you'll hear in any police-related movie or TV show.No American would move on under these conditions.Because when an American encounters this kind of thing, even if he doesn't see the gun in the man's hand clearly, he still knows that the other party has a gun when he hears such a warning, and he knows that he broke into the man at night without prior notice. In private territory, misunderstandings are possible.The law guarantees people's right to use guns to defend their land, but in order to avoid misunderstandings, it is stipulated that a warning must be issued before shooting. If you continue to move forward after hearing the warning, the other party has the right to shoot.Perhaps, this is also the reason why the American friend of the foreign student did not have an accident.No one expected that there was an international student who had just come to the United States from Japan.Not only did he not understand the warnings in English, but he came from a country that bans guns with a completely different cultural background, and he didn't have any normal reactions that Americans would have.He continued walking towards the owner with the gun.I think that the owner must have never dreamed that such a situation would happen-he issued a warning, but the people in the dark still approached him.He just fired and killed the opponent. This matter should be said to be a special case.Because in the United States, no matter it is day or night, it is still a very common thing to get lost while driving and turn into someone's house to ask for directions.We ourselves have had many times asking for directions and having others come to our home to ask for directions and never felt anything to be nervous about.But, it just happens.If the man didn't have a gun in his hand, things certainly wouldn't have ended like this, which can't but be said to be a painful price for the freedom to hold a gun.You can imagine how sad the parents of this Japanese student were.They rushed to the United States immediately, and a lawsuit soon began.This lawsuit caused a sensation throughout Japan. I would like to save this and introduce it to you later. The above gun accidental injury cases are just the epitome of thousands of accidental injury incidents.Relatively speaking, accidental injury is still limited. We often see in the newspapers that teenagers and even young children secretly take guns to school.Some parents are lax about collecting guns, and sometimes three-year-old and five-year-old children are disarmed by their teachers when they show off their guns.The most troublesome ones are half-educated teenagers. Although they are not yet legally allowed to own guns, if they want them, there is always a way to get them.According to a report released by the U.S. government this year, one-quarter of people arrested in the United States for violating firearms laws, including illegal possession, use, smuggling, manufacturing and other related crimes, are minors. Boys like to play with guns and have a rebellious mentality. At this age, they are prone to impulsiveness and do not care about the consequences.A few fights that could happen anywhere could turn into real bloodshed in America.As for those teenage gangs, as long as they are connected with guns, things will be qualitatively different.This has made the school authorities in the United States be overwhelmed, hard to guard against, and even make many jokes.For example, a school bought the equipment used by the airport to detect metal objects and placed it at the school gate to check whether students were carrying weapons.I also heard from a friend that one day his child came home wearing his clothes backwards. It turned out that there was a small pistol pattern on the front chest of his coat. The teacher thought he was wearing this clothes in violation of school rules and asked him to wear it backwards on the spot. , and told him not to wear it to school in the future. Most serious, of course, is that guns fuel real crime.With real guns at the bottom, anyone who wants to rob with a toy gun will greatly improve efficiency.In addition to loitering, there is also so-called "organized crime". In order to maintain this freedom, even the president cannot avoid paying the price.You know, the famous President Lincoln was killed by a gun, and President Kennedy in the 1960s.In addition, the murderer who was accused of murdering Kennedy also died of flying bullets shortly after his arrest, so that there is no evidence of his death. As a result, some people still think that the assassination of Kennedy is still a mystery.If the above two examples, the former involves political murder and the latter is also speculated to be political murder, is not enough to show that it is a by-product of civilian gun ownership, then President Reagan was assassinated a few years ago and President Clinton encountered it after he came to power. Several shootings at the White House were undoubtedly the result of some paranoid people who misused guns.For example, the guy who assassinated President Reagan later claimed that he did it just to attract the attention of the movie star he was obsessed with, and was finally identified by experts as a mental problem without being convicted.There is no reason to think that the recent shootings at the White House are related to any political conspiracy, but just individual actions with various problems.But the president feels genuinely insecure because of it. After the Oklahoma bombing, the White House Security Committee, composed of the two major parties in the United States, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, believed that since international terrorism was on the rise, it would be a matter of time before a truckload of explosives was driven in front of the White House. .It is better to take measures now than to endanger the lives of pedestrians and the occupant of the White House.As a result, the President ordered that starting from May 20 this year, traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House will finally be closed.This is a road with very heavy traffic, and its closure certainly affects the convenience of driving for thousands of people, which is indeed a helpless price.However, its significance to the United States is far from that. As far back as the founding of the People's Republic of China, Jefferson, then Secretary of State of the United States, raised objections to the planning and design of the capital.At one end of the original plan street is the majestic Capitol Building, and at the other end is the Presidential Palace with a deep courtyard like a palace.Jefferson believed that based on the idea of ​​democratic founding in the United States, the presidential palace should be the same as the common people's homes, just a simple house built by the side of the road.His program became a symbol of American democratic ideals for more than two centuries.I remember a friend of ours visited the United States, and after visiting the capital, he was very surprised and told us several times that he really didn't expect the White House to look so inconspicuous.Many people recognize the United States from the photos, and invisibly regard the Capitol as the famous White House in their minds.In fact, the White House is not only very simple in shape, but it is indeed beside the busy street.And only the thin and thin iron fences are separated from the pedestrians.For more than two hundred years, thousands of people have driven past the president's home at random every day. Regarding the closure of Pennsylvania Avenue to vehicular traffic, President Clinton also expressed his helplessness when he announced: "In the history of our country, Pennsylvania Avenue has always been open to outside traffic, even though four presidents have been assassinated and killed. , and there were eight failed attempts to assassinate the president; although the United States has experienced a civil war, two world wars, and the Persian Gulf War, this avenue is still open. Now, under the pressure of reality, I have to announce the closure of this extremely rich A path of historical significance." The American news media pointed out, "Such a change highlights the dilemma and helplessness that democratic societies often face when fighting against human disorder." Safety or freedom, the United States is facing new choices every day . In a square in Washington, the capital of the United States, someone once launched such an event.Let all relatives in the country who have been shot down for whatever reason put a pair of shoes left by their dead relatives on this square.The boundless shoes look so shocking.Some are rough and strong, some are gorgeous and delicate, and some are immature and soft, telling the stories of lives that were suddenly interrupted.The American people stand in front of these pairs of shoes, and all other people's accusations, curiosity, ridicule and attacks on the gun crimes that have occurred in this land become very far and light, and only the one pair of shoes contains A soul is real and heavy.Because the pain is their own, the price they pay for the freedom they have chosen.For more than two hundred years, they have never stopped asking themselves: Is it worth it? In the assassination of Reagan, a senior official was shot in the neck at the same time, causing high paraplegia.He has since devoted himself to calling for gun control.The proposed gun control law passed during the Clinton administration bears his name, even though it was heavily discounted when it passed.He's a senior government official, but no one would think he's doing this on the government's side.At this time, he was just an ordinary victim.Many victims of gun abuse and their families instinctively respond by calling for a ban on guns.Of course, even if it is not a direct victim, the heart is heavy, and this is a security issue that everyone involved may encounter.The public attention aroused by the Oklahoma bombing has gone beyond the simple issue of individual guns, but has focused on the issue of armed groups such as militias, where extremists may turn to terrorist activities. A Jewish friend of ours told us something that is perhaps typical of the reasonable gun owner here.Their family immigrated to the United States from Russia, and their immigration history is quite long.His father served as a U.S. soldier in World War II, and after being injured, he has been relying on the disabled soldier's allowance to support the whole family.He used government subsidies to go to college.So he doesn't have the heritage that most Jewish families have and is an average hard working American.However, he has the general characteristics of the Jewish nation, and he likes to read and think.He was born in the United States, and he feels completely American.But he is very concerned about the history of his own nation, and has even been to Israel.There he was very surprised to find that Israel is using huge financial and human resources to establish detailed files of all the Jews who were persecuted to death in the world.Facing the tragic history of the almost extermination of the Jewish nation during World War II, as a Jewish-American, he naturally wondered: How could they be powerless to resist? He later discovered that the German people also legally owned weapons before World War II.But after Hitler came to power, he first started registering guns, and then tried to gradually confiscate guns.Then, facing the armed SS, the Jews had nothing to do but wait to die.Based on his life experience in the United States, he firmly believed that the loss of self-defense weapons was one of the reasons for the tragedy of the Jewish nation.We saw several types of guns, big and small, in his house, and he said to us: "I hope I never use these guns. But, you should know that a gun is not a tool, a gun is a right. "It was only after we arrived in the United States that we noticed that the Second Amendment to the Constitution is very particular about guns. It does not mean that the Constitution gives the people the right to own arms, but that the people have the right to own and bear arms. inviolable.These two ways of speaking are different.In other words, the founders of the United States believed that this right is not a gift given to the people by anyone, but a natural human right.All the Constitution has done is to provide that no one has the right to violate this right. The freedom of the people to hold guns and organize armed groups is just a right.This is a precautionary measure used to prevent the unlimited expansion of government power.In life, people rarely need to use this right.Therefore, in normal social operation, its significance is only latent, but its cost may be very prominent.In this case, people naturally question the necessity of its existence.Such questioning will continue to be raised time and time again no matter in the past, present or future. Then, this kind of freedom and rights, which are expensive and only have potential significance, have not been given up so far after paying a heavy price that is obvious to all.After discussing these issues with Americans, we feel that this is because they always firmly believe in the theory of the founders of the country more than two hundred years ago: the "government", a "monster" created by human beings, must always be prevented from getting out of control. Almost from the first day of the founding of the United States, the people and the government have been a contradiction.This is a pair of contradictions that can never be reconciled.In the United States, the government must never be involved in any so-called industry.Its only slightly industrial institution is the post office, because the post office has a bit of the shipping business.In fact, the post office is also in charge of many other things. People who want to travel abroad need passports, and they apply for them from the post office.Every cent that the government is going to keep running has to come from taxes.Most people have to pay about 30% of their normal income as taxes.This is a very clear and eye-catching way of collecting money.So, at the tax deadline every April, everyone is a little bit out of balance.Some muttered in their hearts: The government didn't know what to do with the money; others were angrily.Therefore, Americans have never been timid towards all government personnel, from the president to the clerk. "You took the taxpayer's money..." This is a phrase that Americans often say. For Americans, while handing over a considerable portion of their hard-earned money every year, of course he has the right to ask questions: the people support the government, is the government serving the people well?Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and this is nothing new in many countries.In the United States, the supervision of the people should be said to be much stronger than in some other countries.For example, when we first arrived we found an unusual TV station that broadcasts hearings from Congress and government agencies from morning till night.That is to say, the government's budget, the establishment or cancellation of a project, the increase or decrease of foreign aid, a specific policy of foreign and domestic affairs, ... and other issues before making a decision, both positive and negative opinions are broadcast to the public through television. He argued fiercely under his nose.In other words, as long as you want to participate, you can attend all congressional meetings.Every congressman who expresses his opinion is also aware of the most basic truth: if his opinion repeatedly violates public opinion, under the direct election system, his political future will be in doubt. Even so, the question of whether the government is acting on behalf of the people is not superfluous.The government is a gigantic entity. If one is not careful, problems such as corruption and waste may arise from time to time.The further question is naturally: Is there a certain dangerous person who consciously uses the government to try to control the people and harm the interests of the people?This possibility should be said to always exist.Especially after seeing the tyranny of Nazi Germany and some other authoritarian countries, it is difficult to simply blame Americans for this choice between security and freedom.This is one of the reasons why Americans always have doubts about their own government, and it is also one of the reasons why they value freedom and the supervision and restriction of the government. For example, the government has repeatedly called for legislation to control guns to reduce crime.Although, in our opinion, this is still a very limited limitation.For example, the model of a certain gun is restricted; another example is that the gun buyer must wait for a few days so that the gun seller can check the computer to confirm whether the other party has a criminal record, and so on.As for completely banning guns, due to the existence of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the government will never be able to do it.But with even a very limited restriction on people's rights, even a slight loss of people's liberty, Americans have the right to ask the question: Is the government acting in good faith for the people, or is it the people who control the government? Making excuses and plotting to gradually deprive the people of their freedom?Of course, right now there are people who hold both opinions, and no one has sufficient evidence to convince the other.而且，任何一个问题的出现，都不是单纯和简单的。比如，后者可能找到证据，说某一个政府观点的支持者是政府利益的受益者；而前者也可以说，一些反对枪枝管理的人是卖枪的！ 美国人早已习惯了这种舆论的对立，他们对任何一件事情都要听一听各种不同的观点，因为只有这样，他们才不至于轻易就被人耍了。即使所有的人都相信克林顿的禁枪是完全善意的，他们仍然不会同意放弃该项自由。因为，迄今为止，美国人还是有这样的基本共识：作为个人，每个人可以根据自己的好恶决定是否拥有武器，但是对于整体人民，拥有武器拥有武装是一个不可剥夺的天赋权利。 下次再写。 wish it is good! Linda