Viewpoint: In simpler times, people understood what the Second Amendment is — and isn't

"Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow." — Albert Einstein

We live in an era where labels rule. There are no colors assigned to these labels, nor our viewpoints, only black and white. In the wake of the mass shootings like those in Buffalo and Uvalde, you are labeled either pro-gun or anti-gun. Not much perspective, reason or even history is allowed in your label assignment.

Well OK then. However, as a TV generation child growing up in the 1960s, I can tell you that the pro-gun folks were generally the bad guys. Guys like Al Capone and Ike Clanton, terrorizing the citizens with their toys of death.

The anti-gun folks were generally the good guys — both real and fictional — like George Washington putting down the well-armed Whiskey Rebellion, Gov. Ronald Reagan signing handgun control legislation in California, or both Wyatt Earp and Matt Dillon keeping the peace by collecting all the guns in Tombstone and Dodge City, or Elliot Ness urging politicians to get the "Tommy" machine guns off the streets.

The Second Amendment was around in those days too. But it was never seen as a lawful license for every thug to carry. Or kill. Or at least, not according to the good guys.

In those days, it was all pretty clear. Of course, those were simpler times when teachers were allowed to teach strange sounding classes called "history" or "civics" or "social studies" or "humanities" in public schools.

In those classes, the individual rights and responsibilities of American citizens were taught through the lens of reason, wisdom and history — not the ravings of some crazed social media addict or some timid politician, looking for the next contribution from a megadonor.

We were taught that the American Constitution guaranteed certain rights, but also came with certain responsibilities. You had a right to freedom of religion, but you couldn't kill your neighbor because your God instructed you to do so. You had a right to free speech, but you couldn't yell fire in a crowded auditorium. You had a right to peacefully assemble, but not in the middle of an interstate highway. And you had a right to own a firearm, but not necessarily a machine gun.

One of my first lessons in this concept of rights and responsibilities came from my father. My dad was an old school Republican conservative, not anything like the progressive his son would soon become. And he was a resident of the state of Wisconsin, where participating in seasonal deer hunting with the possession of multiple hunting rifles was almost a right of passage.

But he was also a devout Christian, with a deep understanding about what was right, and what was wrong. One night, we were watching an episode of the "Untouchables," where Eliot Ness and his G-men were dodging the spray of bullets coming from Al Capone and his gangsters' machine guns.

My dad turned to me and said, "Son, can you imagine what the country would be like if Congress had not finally banned the sale of those 1930s Tommy guns? Thank God we live in a day where politicians care more about protecting your life, than allowing thugs like those to own machine guns."

Historians refer to people like my parents, who lived through both the Great Depression and World War II, as the "Greatest Generation."

It is a label well deserved. They were the folks who tore down much of the injustice they lived through as kids, and made the rest of the 20th century a much better place to live in.

Don't get me wrong. In the 1960s, when I was a lad, there was plenty of debate among members of the "Greatest Generation," both Republicans and Democrats, about where society should draw these lines between rights and responsibilities. But some things were nearly universally agreed upon. Nazis and fascists, for example, were bad guys. Arlington Cemetery is filled with brave Americans who fought them.

And although the courts correctly allowed Nazis to peaceably march in Skokie in the 1970s, no news commentator nor American president of the era would have said there were "good people on both sides," as when Nazis armed with automatic weapons marched in Charlottesville in 2017— and left death in their wake.

Public officials, and the citizens who elected them, used to know that protecting children from armed hooligans supersedes anyone's claim to own and carry machine guns. It springs from the common sense we all used to have, and still can have today.

Count me in with the aspirations of my late father and those of Albert Einstein. They would be shocked to learn that we now have more mass shooting events than calendar days in 2022, and more children now die of gun violence than any other cause. More than disease, more than malnutrition, more than auto accidents.

We can still learn from history. And if history has taught us anything, it is we still have room to hope for a better tomorrow.

Randy Schmidt is president of the Indiana Alliance for Retired Americans.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Second Amendment isn't a license for every thug to carry a machine gun.