Pandora’s Ammo Box

Pandora’s Ammo Box

In Greek mythology, Pandora was given a box from the gods that contained special gifts, but was told not to open it.  Curiosity won out.  Pandora opened the box that unleashed sickness and hardship on the world.

Today, ‘opening Pandora’s Box’ connotes the law of unintended consequences when an innocent and perceived beneficial act unleashes an unanticipated curse or hardship.  Once opened, the escaped contents cannot be recovered.  

Coincidentally or not, the Supreme Court’s pronouncement on the right to bear arms in the Heller case in 2008, prefaced an increasing number of mass shootings.  Curiously, the Court waited over 200 years to review the extent of the Second Amendment’s protection when it determined that the right to bear arms applied not only to a well-armed militia, but to all individuals’ right of self-defense.

Some suggest that our Supreme Court left Pandora’s Box ajar.  Perhaps that decision would not have been so charged if decided a hundred years earlier before the advent of AK-47’s and bushmasters that super-charge crazed trigger fingers.  Indeed, mankind’s technological advances in firearms—so celebrated in times of war in defense of our country—bedevil the innocent in times of ‘peace’.   Temporarily, only the pandemic stopped what seems to be a tri-annual carnage in this country.  Yet, when we loosened Covid restrictions, mass shooters reemerged as if the crazies awaited an all-safe signal to return to action.

The unintended consequences of the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment decision relates not to the Constitutional protection to bear arms for self-defense per se, but rather the perceived extent of that Amendment’s protections, and the further polarization of the issue of ‘gun control’.   One side brands the other as NRA right wing gun nuts; the other side as left wing Pollyannas who fail to appreciate that felons will obtain guns no matter the law.

Any legislative proposal to regulate firearms—longer waiting periods to purchase; elimination of unlicensed gun dealers; restrictions on automatic weapons—leads to howls of protests that ‘Liberals want to take our guns away.’   The opposition girds themselves in what they perceive as the Constitution’s bullet-proof vest when they oppose any limitations on the right to bear arms. Our own Missouri state legislators propose bills negating any federal law that ‘infringes’ on gun rights as a violation of the Second Amendment.  Except that the Supreme Court left open unresolved issues regarding the extent of permissible gun restrictions. Meanwhile, proponents of gun restrictions–not abolition–continue to fire blanks.

For now, we can only seek solace that the odds of being killed or maimed in a mass shooting align with the odds of winning a typical state lottery (opposed to the mega lottery with odds more in line with being struck by a meteor).  Call it the Reverse Lottery, where one loses by winning if the power ball that bears one’s number suddenly appears as hot ammo headed his or her way.  

However, unlike a state lottery where we can choose to purchase a chance ticket or not, the Reverse Lottery assigns shooting gallery numbers to all—whether we want a chance ticket or not.  We can only hope that a gun-toting Grim Reaper misses his capricious mark aimed in our direction if he pulls a luckless number from the murder hopper.

The tale of Pandora’s Box tells us that the ill-fated attempt to belatedly close the Box came too late as evil and hardship escaped and wreaked havoc on the world.   Only Hope remained in the Box, stuck under the lid.  For now, all we have is Hope that we can find common ground to try to stop the senseless carnage, and that the next bullet spray misses the mark if it comes our way.