(20 February 2018) Another senseless mass shooting, another call for change to America’s gun laws. The tragic story runs for a few days as the requisite "thoughts and prayers" are extended the grieving friends and family and then the national conversation moves on to something else. How many times have we seen this movie before? I’ve lost count. But this time feels different. Since the shooting at the Parkland, Florida high school on February 14th that killed 17 people, we have seen a growing sense of outrage against US gun laws and the GOP politicians who are financially beholden to their NRA paymasters.
National protests are now being organized primarily by high school kids for the month of March to bring about change. The largest march will be the March 24th "March For Our Lives" in Washington, DC. The question is whether this protest movement will have any success or will the sense of outrage fade away without changing much of anything like so many times in the past. Some are calling for an assault weapons ban and mandatory nation-wide mental health checks for prospective gun owners, while others are now wondering if the 2nd Amendment should be repealed.
America’s fixation on firearms was first enshrined in the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment (ratified December 15, 1791, no time) which grants the right to bear arms. The resulting horoscope suggests a strong and resilient determination to defend gun rights. The Sun-Mars square is very close and highlights why the 2nd Amendment is so resistant to reform. There is a sense of assertiveness (Sun) and even aggression (Mars) in the fiery nature of this powerful square alignment. The NRA’s melodramatic motto "from my cold, dead hands", comes to mind as the embodiment of this kind of tenacious defense of the US right to bear arms.
We can see what the transit picture will be in March when the protests are in full swing. A quick glance at the chart shows that the protests will likely have a significant impact. The 2nd Amendment chart comes under considerable stress during this time as Saturn is approaching its station exactly conjunct the natal Mercury (15 Sagittarius) on April 17th. It will be only one degrees short of Mercury during the March protests.
Significantly, Mercury will turn retrograde while conjunct the natal Saturn just two days before the March 24th protest. The conjunction will be exact within one degree. This is not a good pattern for the 2nd Amendment as it suggests "bad news" among other things. Saturn symbolizes traditions and structures and the Mercury Rx conjunction would seem to undermine the traditional appeal of the 2nd Amendment. The US Constitution is held in very held high esteem, not unlike a religious document, and this pattern would seem to indicate that the late March period will be a time when the 2nd Amendment comes under intense scrutiny from an angry citizenry.
The Saturn-Mars conjunction takes place shortly after on April 2nd and will hit the natal Mercury more or less exactly. This is another difficult pattern for the chart that will likely indicate that the 2nd Amendment will come under increased criticism. Interestingly, I had noted the potential importance of this Mars-Saturn conjunction in April when I discussed the Las Vegas mass shooting in October. My previous post focused on the Mars-Saturn conjunction in the chart of the NRA (National Rifle Association). As it happens, the charts of the 2nd Amendment and the NRA have a strong synastric connection: the 2nd Amendment Mercury is exactly conjunct the Mars-Saturn conjunction in the NRA chart. (N.B. There is some uncertainty about the date of the NRA’s founding. I used previously Nov. 17, 1871 but the one-day difference is not significant in the current discussion.) No doubt, this is one reason why the NRA has been so successful in advocating for gun rights. The charts have similarly-placed planets so their energies resonate together.
But while the Mars-Saturn conjunction in April looks bad for constitutional rights of gun ownership, it looks much worse for the NRA which has two planets in that 15-16th degree of Sagittarius, Mars and Saturn. Previously, I had suggested that the NRA would come under great stress in April from this double dose of Mars and Saturn. And now with the protests likely achieving greater momentum in March, it seems very likely that the NRA will suffer some kind of defeat on gun control.
This looks more significant that banning bump stocks or wider background checks, both of which President Trump has voiced support for in recent days. It may be a new ban on assault weapons or something along those lines. Washington moves slowly so any kind of new measure would likely take months (or years!) to pass so perhaps the transits could represent the introduction of a gun control bill into Congress. The Brady Bill which mandated background checks on gun buyers was introduced by Senator Schumer on Feb 22 1993 just a few days after Mars had stationed opposite that 2nd Amendment Mercury at 15 Sagittarius. That’s a bad alignment. Obviously, that Mars station would have impacted the NRA horoscope in the same way. We could well see a similar legislative initiative take place in April.
And I should also point out that Trump’s chart will be strongly afflicted by that Mars-Saturn conjunction in early April. Trump’s Mercury is at 15 Gemini is directly opposite the Mercury of the 2nd Amendment. Whatever ends up taking place in Washington, it looks likely to deal Trump with a major political setback. Trump’s chart looks pretty bad here so I would be surprised if he only suffered a political defeat from a gun control bill which he opposed. It looks bigger than that, although I am reluctant to make a more specific prediction. We shall see how it all unfolds.
