Every time a high profile incidence of gun violence makes national headlines, there is a renewed call to revisit our gun control laws. And just as predictably, there are those who raise their voices in protest, loudly proclaiming their right to bear arms. To that second group, borrowing a line from Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride: you keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I’m not going to focus today on how woefully inadequate our gun control laws are; plenty of other people have already done that, and the statistics are easy enough to locate. Before I address the meaning of the Second Amendment however, I’d like to cover some of the other common arguments I’ve been hearing by those who are wary of any restrictions on gun rights.
1. Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.
Guns are simply a tool, so the argument goes. People are the ones to blame.
Yes, it is true; people kill people. So this one deserves at least half credit. But if people are to blame, then we are to blame collectively at least as much as we are to blame individually. We, as a society, failed those children who were killed last Friday. We failed those children, we failed their families, we failed that community, we failed those teachers, we failed all the other people who have been victims of gun violence in the past, and yes, we even failed the killers. We failed to put adequate measures in place to prevent these things from happening.
Of course guns are only part of the problem, and as much as we need to have a serious conversation about gun control, we also need to have a serious conversation about how we treat mental health in this country, but guns are most certainly part of the problem. Guns kill more than 30,000 people each year in the U.S., with more than 17,000 suicides, 12,500 homicides and 500 accidental firearm related deaths. Not to mention more than 52,000 deliberate and 23,000 accidentally gun-related injuries. This rate of gun violence is unparalleled among first world countries. So yes, people do kill people, but it’s no surprise they use guns in more than 66% of all homicides. Because guns sure do make killing people a fucking hell of a lot easier.
2. Stricter Gun Control Laws Won’t Prevent Criminals from Getting Guns.
If the first argument got half credit, this one hardly gets any at all. Even the idea that it will only make it harder for responsible citizens who merely want to defend themselves seems flawed; first, if done properly, these laws should not pose unreasonable barriers to responsible gun owners, and second, this is a tired generalization that applies mostly to professional criminals—members of gangs, drug cartels, and other crime syndicates. It may also apply to serial killers, and some mass murderers, but not the majority of them. And not the majority of the people who commit suicide, or many of the people who commit homicide either, so lumping all these groups into the same category doesn’t really make much sense.
Purchasing guns with the intent to shoot someone or commit some other crime is the exception, not the rule. In far too many cases, we are talking about incidents that occur in the heat of the moment that might otherwise be relatively minor altercations, but are quickly elevated to a situation causing serious injury or death because a gun just happened to be readily available. These are crimes committed by people who, by and large, are otherwise law-abiding citizens, and wouldn’t be going out looking to purchase illegal weapons.
So, while it’s true that stricter gun control laws won’t prevent all criminals from getting guns, that doesn’t seem like a very good reason not to at least try to make it more difficult. And it is also true that stricter gun control laws are correlated with fewer incidences of gun violence.
3. But what about my right to protect myself?
At the extreme, we hear people worried that the government is going to take away their guns; that this right was bestowed upon them to ensure our freedom from tyranny, and that any infringement on the right to bear arms jeopardizes this freedom, particularly if violent insurrection should become necessary.
To most of us, the problems with this argument should be readily apparent. Even if every person who thinks this way had a cache of several hundred assault weapons, it would still be no match for the firepower our armed forces have at their disposal, but it is virtually impossible to imagine that after nearly 250 years of democratic rule, the members of our armed forces would turn against their fellow citizens, and that any disputes about how we should govern ourselves can’t be settled at the ballot box, and in the halls of Congress.
Those who would oppose reasonable firearm regulations aimed at lowering the rate of gun violence also seem to forget that we already have regulations in place that say random citizens do not have the right to keep and bear, for example, nuclear arms. No one in their right mind would agree that this is a good idea, and indeed there are plenty of regulations already in place that ban fully automatic assault weapons, armor-piercing bullets, guns that are undetectable by standard metal detection units, and other weapons designed not for self-defense but for war. And once we have established that we are willing to put restrictions on some types of arms, then the premise that the right to bear arms is subject to reasonable restrictions and regulations has already been conceded, and we are really just arguing over a matter of degrees.
Further, the reality is that there is no individual right to bear arms in the U.S. Constitution. Now I know this may come to a shock to some people, but let’s take a look at what the Second Amendment actually says:
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
There are two very important phrases here. The first is “a well-regulated militia.” The right to bear arms isn’t guaranteed to any random citizen who wants to own a gun; it is predicated on being a part of a well-regulated militia, like say the National Guard for instance. The second phrase, which reinforces this point, is that all-important constituency of “the people.” The people is a collective body, distinguishable from individual persons. Other amendments refer directly or indirectly to individual persons (Amendments 5 and 6, respectively), or refer to the collective rights of the people, but do not contain qualifiers (Amendments 1 and 4). If the founders had meant to bestow the right to bear arms on just anyone, there would have been no reason to preface it with that phrase about a well-regulated militia, and they probably would have used the term “persons”, as they did in other amendments.
This argument, however, as simple and straightforward as it is, seems to be lost on a lot of people, even at the highest levels. In a 5-4 majority opinion in the 1994 D.C. vs. Heller case overturning the ban on handguns passed and signed into law by the elected officials of the District of Columbia, the supposedly Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia takes a liberal view of the Second Amendment, reading something into the law that simply isn’t there in stating the following:
“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense at home. “
The problems with this are numerous; not only is the Second Amendment a collective right bestowed upon “the people” and predicated upon service in a “well-regulated militia”, the Second Amendment deals with “the security of a free State,” not the security of individuals or their homes. This is not to say that individuals should not have the right to be reasonably secure in their homes, or should not be able to keep and bear some form of arms for their personal protection—only that this right is not accorded to individuals, or for this purpose, by the Second Amendment.
In the wake of such an incomprehensible tragedy, which is indeed just the latest in what should be considered an epidemic of gun violence, we are obligated not just to reexamine our gun control laws in this country, because that conversation is one that is too oft repeated with too little action, but to take reasonable steps to prevent these things from happening In the future. And indeed there are many reasonable proposals being put forth that are supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans. Now we have to see them through. We owe it to the kids and teachers that were killed last Friday, and to all the victims of gun violence. And we owe it to ourselves and our kids as well, for this is not the sort of thing we should be forced to live in fear of, and not something anyone should have to suffer.
My name is Frank Lee Speaking. Our kids deserve better. Reasonable gun control measures will prevent the loss of more innocent lives.
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