♬ Gone forever in a trigger slip
Well, it could have been
It could have been your brother (Shoot)
Shoot straight (Shoot)
Shoot to kill, yeah
Blame each other, well, blame yourself
You know, God is a bullet
Have mercy on us everyone ♬
— Concrete Blonde, “God Is a Bullet”

Three middle schoolers and an adult in Los Angeles, Calif., suffered injuries when a handgun concealed in a 12-year-old girl’s backpack fell on the ground and discharged. All victims will survive, including a boy shot in the head. The bullet somehow missed all vital structures in the 15-year-old’s head.

Stiffle your “no way to say ‘hello’ kitty” and “teen boys have no brains to damage” snipes for now to consider the deeper philosophical implications of this regrettably not-shocking incident.

No, not the meaning of more than a dozen school shootings since the start of 2018 in the only country where school shootings ever happen. Nor the societal failures that lead a tween to think she must lock and load to make it through Algebra I. And certainly never the need to redesign handguns to minimize risks for unintentional or unauthorized use.

The question we all must ask in the wake of yet one more accidental firearm assault consists only in the following: “Should guns receive Second Amendment rights?”

Arguments for the extension of constitutional protections proceed by analogy, so work with your humble WPT host on this.

• A habeas corpus petition freed a chimpanzee from a zoo in Argentina.
• A macaque* holds partial copyright to one of the most reproduced selfies in history.
• Probate courts regularly recognize cats, dogs, and other pets as beneficiaries of their deceased owner’s estate.
• Indigenous peoples revere natural objects from mountains to recurring tidal eddies as living beings.

Uvular himself would not choose to die on this particular slippery slope of investing not-people with the privileges of personhood. But what could stop a motivated gun rights activist from arguing that guns possess the innate and undeniable right to use themselves?** Surely the gun does no more than self-actualize its gun nature when, for any reason, it expels a projectile.

With no other thing of importance happening anywhere else in the world of politics and policy, now seems the perfect time to debate hammer-and-tongs, red-in-tooth-and-claw whether firearms deserve to keep and bear themselves. Feel free, of course, to discuss items of lesser importance below.

++++

n.b., OF COCKED
* OF MACAQUE
** Only a good guy with an amicus curiae.