Because someone left a 1997 issue of the New England Quarterly lying on a table in the Newberry lounge, I’ve just read a commentary on the Indian rebellion of 1675 to 1678, which are remembered as King Philip’s War. As ships continued to arrive from Europe, natives who’d lived at peace with Puritan settlers were no longer willing to tolerate the unrelenting encroachment on their lands. They rose up.
We’re looking at a serious difference of opinion. The National Rifle Association insists it is serving the nation well, because the Second Amendment guarantees “that all free people have the right to defend themselves, their families, communities and nation.” Other people believe the NRA is enabling paranoiacs to amass weapons against the day America becomes so incomprehensible and frightening to them they decide it’s time to declare war on it—as Timothy McVeigh did in Oklahoma City in 1995.
