“The Second Amendment is a bedrock principle of our Constitution…”
Kellyanne Conway

Dear Kellyanne,

Thanks so much for standing in
for the apparently unavailable
and dull, predictable Constitutional lawyers,
and the U.S. historians,
and also the legal philosophers
of social justice and moral ethics
with your own fresh minority opinion
of one NRA wanna-be lobbyist.

Before I saw your latest entry
in the OutRageous JunkNews competition,
which has become more hotly contested
as of post-Trumpian patriotic late,
I had actually,
you know,
read, once or twice, what the Constitution itself
has to say
about what are its own bedrock principles.

Here are our bottom-line goals
as stated in the Preamble itself:

1. “to form a more perfect Union”
which would probably leave out most forms of investment in domestically competing violence,
fear-mongering,
and even anti-feminist anger-mongering.

2. “justice”
which does not seem to be later defined as
private and public sector arms racing
to see who can first acquire the most
or biggest
or fattest
or fastest
or longest ballistic toys.

3. “Tranquility”
with a capital T
not a capitol Trump Business As Competitively Usual
as you might spell that word,
a synonym, here, for Peace,
with a capital and capitol P,
for Please could you get over your unprincipled verbal garbage
for just one contemplative retreat,
it would do you,
and possibly those around you,
so much ecotherapeutic good.

4. “common defence”
Not spelled UnCommon Offense
amongst our otherwise Unioning selves,
so specifically,
explicitly,
clearly,
transparently excluding domestic rights to bear or bare ballistic arms,
not even talking about knives,
or sling shots,
or those really big rubber bands
that my brother used to snap me with
on the back of my own redneck patriarchal ass.

Which is why we had to have a Second Amendment
because the bedrock principles of the Constitution
explicitly exclude
what we had to include
in the Second Amendment,
because, unlike the First Amendment,
which actually is, arguably, redundant with remaining bedrock principles,
the Second Amendment most extravagantly and democratically and transparently clearly is NOT:
“promote general Welfare”
“Liberty” to the signers and us, and our “Posterity” kids too
which are the real original health care giving and receiving framework
or bedrock
for the standard democratic justice terminology of that time,
as well as our own post-millennial time
and mental space
and nation growing regenerative place,
and not so much over-investment in degenerative ballistics.

So,
if by “bedrock principle”
you mean seminal values
of the Signers’ Historically Manifest Intent,
on one side of recorded history
you have the Preamble
then the Body of the Constitution
then the First Amendment.

Then you have the
“Oops, British rights of citizens to self-defensive armaments
within domestic borders,
which,
by the way,
did not necessarily include the right to bear arms across state lines,
or even county lines,
or even outside one’s own village,
or even outside one’s own property,
but, regardless,
is hopelessly outweighed in the competition for
“Most Bedrocked Constitutional Principle
for Preserving this More Perfect Domestic Union”
by most anything on the Preambling list above.

Which,
actually, I think is good news for you.
Because if the right to shoot at each other
were a bedrock principle
rather than the responsibility to play nice,
and talk non-violently correctly as compassionately,
and cooperate with as much good-humor as bicamerally possible,
then your own enfranchised health,
happiness,
and matriotic prosperity
would be in some serious LeftBrain-RightWing fascist shit,
counter-historically speaking.

By the way,
did you happen to notice
the Constitution’s summary remarks?
just before the last Article on Ratification,
“…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

What is not defined is the difference,
if any,
between a religion
and idol or icon worship.

When I read bedrock justice and peace principles,
and think about them,
and grow passion about them
as explicitly documented Constitutional original historical intent,
and then I read your statement
that the Second Amendment
isn’t really an amendment at all,
it’s more of a gun-toting religious faith
in Up Yours! Better Government Through Ballistics!
it makes me have second thoughts about how far we can reasonably stretch the First Amendment,
to protect non-violent and co-responsible and informed speech
to also cover
religious allegiance to violence
and irresponsible blabber.