Another day in the United States. Seventeen more dead people in a school, the victims of senseless gun violence. I tire of the endless slaughter. I tire of American’s looking the other way.
I don’t know what to write, what to say, or even what to think. So I’ll share some previously written comments. You may have seen them on Facebook, or here. I have compiled them here for a big re-share. It’s all I can do right now. Maybe in a few days, when this all sinks in, that yet again, we have allowed children to die at our own hands, and are collectively deciding to do nothing.
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On Regulation
My wife found this report just a while back. http://www.vpc.org/studies/gunsvscars16.pdf Firearms are one of the last unregulated products in the U.S. Don’t jump up and down and stomp your Second Amendment feet, kids. I mean unregulated from a health and safety perspective.
Guns are treated like a consumer product in this nation. Yet there are no regulations that manage health and safety problems arising from use of this product. Deaths from firearms incidents, many of them accidental, unintended, or self-inflicted, rise year over year at alarming levels. Meanwhile, the automotive industry sees increased regulation every time a major recall is issued. Seat belts. Antilock breaks. That third brake light. Roads and infrastructure has also been regulated — decreased curves, better protection against cars drifting across the median and causing head to head collisions. There are numerous rules and technological innovations to prevent the automobile from killing it’s occupants and others around it.
And yet cars don’t kill people, their drivers do, right?
We force people to test before they get behind the wheel. And how about insurance? The car is a deadly weapon that can cause massive destruction, injury, or death if abused, and thus we require people to carry insurance on their vehicles and themselves, so that covering the expenses of an accident or willful misuse of the car is easier to do. Why not firearms? If you own a weapon of mass destruction, should you not be forced to carry a policy on it that will provide for financial compensation to the victims?
We can’t even STUDY the health and safety impact of firearms in this nation. We refuse to impose safety devices that have already been invented and could be deployed in weeks.
If a Chevy manufacturing issue caused 59 deaths on the roads, there would be lawsuits, protests, massive boycotts and possibly laws passed to prevent it from happening again.
Yet with guns…yet with guns…an invention designed for one reason, to kill other humans, we refuse to approach the problem with any sort of logic at all.
We have the technology to make firearms safer. As one gunshop owner was quoted on NPR recently, accessories like “bump stocks” are not firearms, and therefore not protected by the misinterpreted Second Amendment.
There are things we can and should do. Let’s at least try.
On Original Intent
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”
–James Madison, the original text of the Second Amendment.
My argument that the Second was drafted for the exclusive reason to provide a guarantee that States would have access to a state-managed militia free of Federal interference is backed up by Madison’s original draft. This draft included provisions to satisfy religious exemptions also backs it up — why exempt anyone from military service if the right is designed to protect an individual’s access to arms?
Another key is “to bear arms” in the final draft. In historical context, it was widely accepted that “bearing arms” was to use a weapon in military service. It included knives, swords, bows, firearms, etc. If you grabbed your gun to go hunting, you were hunting, not bearing arms.
Another thought occurred to me while debating over several threads tonight: Is the Second even needed anymore? If we were to honor the intent as originally meant, we could simply do away with the Second. After all, it would have no impact on state’s rights to maintain a militia anymore. States no longer have 100% control over their National Guard units. In fact, based on the wording of the Second, one might wonder if the National Guard Mobilization Act of 1933 is in fact constitutional — does it deny states the right to a well-regulated militia? No such militia exists anymore under exclusive control of any state government, as Federal requirements of the Guard trump state needs. There have been times when natural disasters have struck and states have been desperately short handed due to out of country deployments. Where does this discussion lead? Have we twisted our own rule or law so much on this issue that a branch of the military that we can barely function without is no longer legal?
“Other sections add to the constitutional underpinnings of our national defense structure. Article I, Section 10 provides that no State, without the consent of the Congress, shall keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, or engage in war unless actually invaded. This section was qualified, however, by the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which was intended to prevent the Federal government from disarming the militia. Part of the Bill of Rights that the Anti-Federalists insisted on, states: ‘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.'”
–Quoted from the Army National Guard Home Page, “Constitutional Charter of the Guard”
This paragraph, taken from the Army itself, appears to support the view that the Second Amendment was written for the express purpose of making sure that STATES had the right to maintain an armed and well-regulated militia, which later became the Guard. Also this:
“Militia Act of 1792. Federal policy subsequently expanded and clarified the role of the militia. The Militia Act of 1792 required all able bodied men aged 18-45 to serve, to be armed, to be equipped at their own expense, and to participate in annual musters. The 1792 act established an idea of organizing these militia forces into standard divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies, as directed by the State legislatures.”
Written in the same language that the Second Amendment had been composed in just several years prior, the Militia Act clarified what had been already assumed for decades — that you were REQUIRED to serve in your state militia, and that you were REQUIRED to own a gun in order to participate in your drills and annual musters. Combine this with what most linguists and historians of that period state on the meaning of “bearing arms” as a reference to military service, and we have as serious problem to confront with our modern interpretation of the Second Amendment.
When we fully uncoupled the requirement to serve in your state militia, later the National Guard, we uncoupled the requirement to own a firearm. The Second Amendment was rendered null and void. And we never replaced it with a legal right to carry weapons in any other constitutionally protected amendment.
Where do we go from here, just hours after another “worst mass shooting in U.S. history?” True, Australia-style gun bans would be hard to implement here, to say the least. Might even lead to a new Civil War, if you are one of those who believe the last one ever really ended. Yet something needs to be done. Citizens United? Reverse it. Change the way fundraising occurs. Force them to cease hounding the same 1% for funds, which in turn causes them to ignore the rest of us and grants the rich all the power. End gerrymandering. Cease allowing a form of voting that is discriminatory (not just in the racial sense) by walling off around 90 million voters from even having a say in their electoral process. Those people live in districts rendered “safe” by partisan gerrymandering, their voices thus ignored. Adopt ranked choice or multi-representative districts, but make it actually fair, equal and democratic.
And yes, figure out the outdated, no longer in sync with our world Second Amendment. I am not opposed to private ownership of guns. I don’t think you need dozens of them. I don’t think you need thousands of rounds of ammo. But if a individual right to not “bear arms” but to own and carry arms is desired by a majority of the states and ratified into law? Then so be it.
The Second Amendment as it stands, however, does not provide this.
I am not an Originalist in the least. I view the Constitution as a fluid document. One whose core principles we should hold true, but whose broader context we should ensure meets the standards of the age we live in. Ironically, many of the folks who believe the Constitution is equivalent to the word of God have also subscribed to a misinterpretation of the text of the 2nd Amendment. Perhaps I should defer to the Originalist platform in regards to the 2nd, much as the courts did for well over 200 years.
“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.”
Some of the most controversial words in all of law here in the USA. Ambiguous enough to spin heads to modern readers. But NOT ambiguous at all to the people who wrote it. Pick it apart using the english used in the late 18th century, as Michael Waldman and his sources have done in “The Second Amendment: A Biography” and you quickly see the truth of it.
“free State” does NOT, for example, mean free country. It means states, like New Jersey, Virginia, etc. Actual states, who had justifiable fears of a strong central government, conflicts with Native tribes and other European parties on the frontiers, and wanted the right to maintain their own Militias. Nowhere does it mention individuals. “bear arms” is another one. Three different searches through government records of the day, historical letters and other documentation finds HUNDREDS of cases of “bear arms” referring to military use. Barely a single (eight, in fact) referring to other uses such as hunting. It is clear that the language referred to a military application.
As Waldman points out, the 2nd was the only Amendment that looked backwards; all others were progressive for their day. The 2nd was all about Civic Duty, not personal rights. You owned a gun for the single and express purpose of being required to use it during your time with the Militia.
Also consider at this time the sometimes insane misuse of quotes and partial quotes from our founding generation. The famous Patrick Henry quote, for example: “the great object is, that every man be armed.” If read in it’s entirety and in context, The “object” was not the intention, it was an actual objection. Henry was protesting against both the federal and state purchasing weapons for the militia at the same time. He was an early fiscal hawk in this matter, protesting government waste, not stating that every man should actually be armed.
We are clueless about our own history.
References:
“Appendix B: Constitutional Charter of the Guard”, US Army National Guard, 2017, http://arng.ng.mil/…/Do…/Posture-Statements/2000/AppendB.htm
The Second Amendment: A Biography, Michael Waldman. Simon & Schuster, 2014