Hello everyone!
I know it’s been a long time since I posted my last blog post. I’ll write more regularly this summer.
As many of you know from my Instagram posts, I went to see Hamilton, and have taken several tours focused on Alexander Hamilton and the founding fathers (and mothers, such as Eliza Hamilton). I love the Hamilton musical and have learned a lot about the history on which one of my heroes, Lin-Manuel Miranda, based it. This post discusses the controversial issue of gun control and the role of gun violence in Hamilton.
Founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were the only two founders of America that I knew even a few facts about before I saw Hamilton. I didn’t know anything about any of the other founding fathers or mothers. One reason I didn’t acknowledge and wasn’t interested in who the founding fathers were because I assumed that they all had old (not modern), racist, sexist, and overall highly judgmental views that I didn’t agree with at all.
In planning our trip to New York, my parents researched Hamilton, and as soon as we got on the plane leaving Seattle, I listened to the entire Hamilton playlist on a loop and got to know it by heart.
After seeing the play and going on tours about Hamilton, I found myself rapping along to all the songs and loving a man who lived in a time where equality between race, gender, religion (etc.) wasn’t that important to society. Yet the more I reflected on the musical, the more I appreciated that Lin Manuel-Miranda called our attention to social justice topics throughout the musical. Issues of race, gender equity, and power permeate the musical.
Another issue the musical raises is gun violence. There are guns throughout the musical because it centers around the Revolutionary War and eventually the final result that every event has slowly led up to is the fateful Hamilton vs. Burr duel of 1804. Although gunfire is part of the soundtrack various times throughout the musical and no character expressly criticizes guns, I believe Lin Manuel-Miranda wanted us to reflect on the consequences of gun violence in history and present day. After all, our country was forever changed because Hamilton and John Laurens died (by being shot) before they could abolish slavery. When their time was up, they had not and were unable to have done enough–slavery persisted for decades, and racism remains as a constant reminder and is at the root of our toxic political environment.
As I reflect on Hamilton, I have thought a lot about gun violence and the place of the Second Amendment in our society. In their time, the founding fathers and colonists needed guns to protect themselves against British soldiers. Although the Second Amendment may have made sense in that context, today it is overly vague and should at the very least be modernized. I think the founding fathers, and most certainly Hamilton, would agree. I think this is true for a few reasons. Modern-day guns are immensely more dangerous than the guns the founding fathers used. With today’s guns, a duel would almost always be lethal–the participants would be too nervous to risk aiming at the sky because their opponent’s gun would be more accurate and harmful. Individual citizens do not need to fight against their government. We have a professional military to fight against other governments. Furthermore, guns would be of little use against the insanely powerful weapons the government has. Individual use of guns have led to a horrible cost: mass shootings, that vastly outweighs their benefit.
The founding fathers weren’t perfect, Hamilton wasn’t perfect, and I probably wouldn’t agree with most of the founding fathers’ views — perhaps with the exception of Hamilton, who seems to have had by far the most progressive views of all of them (more on that in future posts). However, when it comes to the Second Amendment, I think we would all agree that there is a significant difference between protection of a person’s honor and their life and needless massacres of thousands of people every year.