MIM Notes 189 July 1 1999

GUN CONTROL AND THE LITTLETON MASSACRE

by MC5

The massacre of students at a Littleton, Colorado high school has 
the National Rifle Association on the defensive. Some disgruntled 
students in the Columbine High School carried out a massacre which 
resulted in 14 student deaths and one teacher death.(1)

"Left"-leaning reformists and police have proved that the 
legalization of guns is statistically linked to deaths and 
violence. Travelling in the wake of the Democratic Party, the 
"Communist Party"-USA and other liberals have sought to make the 
Republican Party pay the price for the Columbine massacre.

Scott Marshall of the CP-USA says: "A mighty campaign to rid our 
country of all handguns and assault weapons is a critical reform 
for the health and safety of the working class."(2) Two weeks 
later the CPUSA called for more federal money for school 
psychologists, quoted the House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt 
favorably and also quoted a high school senior who said, "There is 
no reason a young person should have a gun, period."(3) Many 
bourgeois revolutionaries who founded the United $tates were more 
radical than the CPUSA of today, because those bourgeois 
revolutionaries had more trust in arming the people and less trust 
in arming governments.

Relatively staid founders such as Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and 
James Madison criticized the idea of standing armies or arming the 
government throughout The Federalist Papers. They envied the 
situation of England where external enemies were kept away by the 
natural barrier of the ocean, because they believed that having a 
regular army threatened the liberty of the people. In the ideal 
situation, "the smallness of the army renders the natural strength 
of the community an overmatch for it; and the citizens, not 
habituated to look up to the military power for protection, or to 
submit to its oppressions, neither love nor fear the soldiery; 
they view them with a spirit of jealous acquiescence in a 
necessary evil and stand ready to resist a power which they 
suppose may be exerted to the prejudice of their rights.

"The army under such circumstances may usefully aid the magistrate 
to suppress a small faction, or an occasional mob, or 
insurrection; but it will be unable to enforce encroachments 
against the united efforts of the great body of the people."(4)

The conservatives and so-called patriots of the right-wing have 
the U.S. Constitution on their side. We agree with the NRA that if 
the U.S. Constitution is not taken hypocritically or in any manner 
justifying the overthrow of the government according to the 
Constitution and Declaration of Independence themselves, then the 
"left"-leaning reformists and cops should amend the Constitution 
to take out the "right to bear arms." One of the reasons militias 
are forming is that the ruling class does not play by its own 
supposed rules. As in any class dictatorship like the capitalist 
one, the constitution is only a piece of paper.

Both sides of the dispute are correct in their own ways, but MIM 
only cares about "gun control" as it affects the balance of 
forces. Some would say revolutionaries should oppose gun control. 
Indeed, the founders of the United $tates did believe that an 
armed citizenry is a counterweight to tyranny by the government. 
In general too, communists have faith in arming the people while 
there is still class oppression.

On the other hand, the United $tates is the largest population of 
reactionary people in the world, so MIM has mixed feelings about 
arming it. The country is predominantly petty-bourgeoisie and the 
majority is allied with imperialism while the organized forces 
such as the NRA have a history of being allied with the most 
reactionary elements of society. Then again, if the whole country 
is not armed, only police and troops will have arms. Many 
oppressed nation neighborhoods would be less safe if they were not 
armed. 

Ultimately, gun control or opposition to gun control do not solve 
anything in the society the way it is set up now. The tragedy at 
Columbine High School is the proof of the masses' saying that 
"what goes around comes around." The European settlers who killed 
the Indians and started a way of life revolving around guns and 
stealing land may have thought they had it made, but every year 
innocent children continue to pay the price. Until the communists 
come to power because the people have come to grips with the 
vicious history of U.$. imperialism, there will be no way to 
understand why people have become accustomed to shooting each 
other at the drop of a hat. 

Notes:
1. USA Today 26 May 1999, pp. 1-2a.
2. People's Weekly World 15 May 1999, p. 13.
3. People's Weekly World 29 May 1999, pp. 10-11.
4. Alexander Hamilton, "No. 8," The Federalist Papers, (NY: The 
New American Library of World Literature Inc., 1961), p. 69.